Ales Adamovich Khatyn by Ales Adamovich

Author:Ales Adamovich
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Glagoslav Publications

Finally, I felt something firm underfoot. I was already standing, although the mud was up to my chest. Glasha, was looking at me with horror when indicating that I should make for the bank. But immediately, as if summoned, she set out, moving towards me and stretching out her hand. That sometimes happened to her just as it did in the clearing when she went up to Kasach, as if sleepwalking....

I did not move, afraid that I would lose my foothold, that I might startle her or be overcome by fear at last myself. If I were to crawl out on the bank again, no force would make me go back into that stench once more. Glasha kept on raising her arms above the mud in her disgust and wariness. First her boots, then her skirt she wore on top of her trousers became submerged in the slime. The black mire swallowed up Glasha’s knees, her taut stomach, the blackness rising up the grey sweater to her frightened breasts. Glasha was squeezing them between her elbows, holding her hands in front of her face, near her mouth. I raced towards her, and just in time, for I caught hold of her hand as she was falling and dragged her out. Without giving her or myself time to come to our senses, I dragged her past the bloated carcasses, seizing dead trees and branches with my free hand mid yelling loudly and desperately: “Wonder yonder, whale-flounder! Wonder yonder, whale-flounder!...”

Not allowing myself to think about anything or to feel anything I pushed forward with senseless and dangerous haste, dragging Glasha to the “island”. Her face was screwed up with a grimace of revulsion and horror and all bespattered with mud. Several times we completely lost our foothold, then we flung ourselves sideways as if avoiding a fire, seeing the fear in each other’s eyes. We had already come to the sedge so the bank must be near. Only waist-deep in mud now, we could have walked the rest of the way calmly, but we wallowed despairingly as if saving ourselves from a sinking boat and clambered up the bank almost crawling on all fours.

We got out and stood among the sedge near the bushes and collected ourselves just as if someone had dragged us and pulled us and suddenly left us. We stood there pitiful and battered as if we had been licked and sucked by the unclean mouth of a monster. Glasha had tears in her eyes. I set about breaking off some alder branches and tearing the leaves from them to clean us up with, to squeeze the dripping brown slime from Glasha’s sweater and wipe her hands. She stood there, weeping, her arms spread wide so as not to touch herself and looking at herself with disgust. She had always seemed to me to be slender and straight like a ruler with only her high knees breaking the line sharply. But now when her clothing stuck to her shoulders,

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