MAVKA

Green reeds, tall and lush, with light brown panicles making them look like spears, formed a thick wall around the lake, as if protecting it from the shore, and only at few spots grew apart creating narrow passages where turqouise waters were covered with huge rounded leaves and yellow water lilies scattered among them. The leaves and lilies looked succulent and resilient, and the spots where they did not grow indicated very deep water with whirlpools. At the nearest to the whirlpool passage there was a lopsided wooden pier. Next to it a worn out flat-boat was grounded on the sand. In the boat, on the whitish bleached seat a curled up grass snake was basking in the sun.
Suddenly a lily in the middle of the passage heaved, swayed and sank, like a fish-float when a fish swallows the bait. The huge leaves moved towards the spot where it was just a moment ago, and then slowly went back as if they understood that they couldn't save it. Then another lily disappeared under the water, and one more, and more, until there weren't any blossoming lilies left.

A nude girl with loose green hair emerged by the pier, put an armful of lilies on it and climbed up. Her face and body were unnaturally pale and seemed to belong to two different persons: her body with well formed breasts and wide hips was that of a mature maiden; her face, innocent and devoid of any emotions or thoughts, was the face of a baby. She streched herself, looked at the setting sun with her green eyes through her green eyelashes and started to squeeze her knee-long thick hair. When she threw her hair over her chest it showed that she had no back and all her innards were open to the sight: purplish lungs, like clusters of lilac, brown heart, a blue and red web of veines and arteries, bluish grey intestines that reminded of a ball of snakes. All of her inner organs were motionless, lifeless, because they didn't need any air, nor blood, nor food. Having squeezed her hair, the girl flung it back, covering her innards, and started to make a wreath from the eyelow lilies with fleshy stems. She was humming a wordless song that sounded like waves splashing. The grass snake, attracted by the sound of her voice, crawled on the pier, rubbed his head against the girl's stomach and curled up on her hips. The girl's delicate fingers were deftly weaving the stems, joining the juicy flowers in a row, and soon the last flower was tied to the first one. When she put it on, the green diadem of the stems merged with her green hair, ans it seemed that the yellow lilies grew right from it. She looked at her reflection, smiled happily and splashed her feet calling for her playmates. Nobody answered, instead she heard hooves stamping in the forest.

The girl carefully removed the sleepy grass-snake from her hips, ran up through the shallow water towards the reeds, and crouched among them. With her green hair streaming around her body she looked like a hillock where someone left a waterlily wreath. A horse without a sadle carried a young blond man, so young that he had just some delicate down on his cheeks where a beard would grow some years later. For some strange reason he held a bunch of wormwood instead of a whip. The lad jumped down, loudly spanked the horse on its rump, chasing it into the lake, then undressed, ran along the pier, dived, swam further from the shore. There was a brown weed in his hair."Ginger, come here! Come, don't be afraid!" He called his horse. Ginger hesitated, looked around with his big black eyes, then neighed, swayed his tail and followed his master.
The girl climbed on the shore, walked carefully and with disgust around the bunch of wormwood, and gently touched the young man's shirt, crumpled it and laughed. Then she lifted it to her face, smelled it, winced, smelled again and laughed. Seeing that he was coming back, she grabbed the rest of his clothes and hid in the bushes. The lad stepped on the shore, jumped on his left foot, then on his right foot, shaking water out of his ears. He was going to get dressed, but his clothes were missing. He searched for them with his eyes, but couldn't see them.
"Hey, who's playing jokes?"
No answer.
"Someone's going to get punished!" threatened the lad.
He heard a girl laughing and a branch snapping in the bushes.
He covered his lower belly with his palms and cleared his throat to conceal his embarassment.
"Well, that's enough fun, give me my clothes back!"
"I won't," the girl answered from the bushes. "You can be just as you are!"
"No way! Give them back immediately, you shameless!"
"Nope!"
"I'll take it by force and spank you!"
"Oh, how menacing we are!"
"I'll teach you to steal clothes!"
The lad dashed towards the bushes. The girl ran further,into the growth of fir trees, clutching his clothes. Her body covered with green hair was almost invisible among the trees, and only the yellow lilies were well seen. She was running fast, soundlessly, without touching prickly branches that were painfully flogging the lad and slowed him down. He was left far behind and lost the girl from his sight. He stopped on the clearing among fir trees, sat down heavily on the grass, and called out: "Hey, are you there?"
"Hey," he heard behind his back.
"We played enough, give them back."
"Nope."
"I can't come back naked to the village."
"Stay here!"

"The night is coming, and now it's Rusalkas' week, tonight is Thursday - Rusalkas' BIG day, if they catch me, they'll tickle me to death." He crossed himself and looked around with apprehension. "My mother didn't let me go to the forest until I promised her that I won't swim and won't let wormwood out of my hand." He looked at his hands and sighed:"I forgot it on the shore!"
The girl laughed.
"Aren't you a rusalka?"
"No."
"I didn't see you before. Do you live in the village across the lake?"
"Yes."
"You are lying! I know everyone there."
"And even if I am lying, so what?"
"Nothing...If you are not from that village and not a rusalka, then where are you from?"
"I'm from the lake. I'm a mavka."
"You - a mavka?! Mavkas are drowned unchristened babies, and you are this big - a girl ready to get married!"
"I was a baby once, and now I grew up."
"Well..." He scratched his nape, looking uncertainly at the darkening forest."Aren't you going to tickle me to death?"
"How?"
"That is ..." He cut himself short."If you don't know, then I shouldn't tell you."
"I want to know, tell me."
"You don't really need to know it..."
"Then you won't get your clothes back!" threatened Mavka."
"I don't really know," said the lad slyly. "Ask rusalkas, your playmates."
"Rusalkas don't play with me, they say I'm not fully grown yet. When I become a rusalka myself..."
"And when will you become?"
"They wouldn't tell me. When I ask them, they wink at each other and giggle." She sounded very offended by this.
"Well..." He scratched his nape again and smiled cunningly. "Why don't you come out on the clearing, because I can't see whom I'm talking to."
She stepped out from among the fir trees, sat near the lad and put his clothes between them.
Without any embarrassment she fung her hair back, showing her innocent baby face and her naked body. When the lad looked away, she intrepreted it differently from what he meant: "You don't like me, I'm ugly, aren't I?"
"You are beautiful..." He could hardly speak: her beauty took his breath away.
"Then why do you look away?"
"But you are naked...Why don't you cover yourself?" He moved his shirt towards her.
"Why should I?" She didn't understand. "Do you find it unpleasant to look at me?"
"Pleasant..." He lowered his eyes.
"Then look if you please!" She moved closer. "I like looking at you when you swim - you are beautiful too." She touched his shoulder and pulled her hand back. "You are so hot!"
"Really?!"
"But yes!" She took his hand and put it on her chest.
"That's because you are cold," he said still looking away.
"Then warm me up," she asked and clung to his shoulder.
The lad recoiled, and then said soothingly: "You aren't very cold."
Mavka laughed quietly, sat right next to him and with the tip of her finger touched the dark-brown wooden cross on his chest.
"Give it to me."
"I can't. It was given to me when I was baptised. If you get baptised, you will..." He interrupted himself.
"Then I want YOU to baptise me."
"A priest does it, I can't."
"Do it the way you can," she suggested. "Why do you begrudge it to me?" She added with supplication.
"But no, I don't begrudge it, just such baptisal won't be valid."
"And what if it will? Why don't you try?"
"Well, all right." agreed the lad.
He quickly mumbled "Our Father", three times made the sign of the cross over Mavka, took the wooden cross off his chest and wore it on Mavka's neck. She held down his hands on her shoulders and whispered: "Now, that I'm baptised,you can marry me, right now."
"But people get married in church..." He objected timidly. However, he didn't remove his hands.
"People get married where they fall in love," said Mavka and kissed him.
She was lying with her eyes open, looking at the dark sky where pale, hardly discernible stars appeared, and it seemed that she had more interest in them then in hasty caresses of the lad. And then her eyelashes fluttered with pain, her pupils dilated and she felt how inside her something very hot rent and spread all over her body. She felt such heat as if she plunged into boiling water, and as slowly as boiling water cools off in hot weather, the heat was leaving her taking her strength away. She opened her eyes and saw that the day was breaking, and she remembered that it was time to come back to the lake. She tried to move from under the lad, but couldn't. "Get up, please, do you hear me?"
He didn't say anything and didn't move. He was cold and heavy. With the remaining strength she crawled out from under him and got on her knees. Carefully, as if touching someone else's body, she moved her fingers along her face and neck, surprised by their warmth. Inside her chest, on the left, she felt throbbing.
"Alive..." she said and laughed. " You hear, I'm alive!" She gave him a smack on his shoulder that felt cold and hard.
Not getting any answer, she turned him over on his back. She saw the whites of his eyes staring blankly at her. She cried out in horror, covered her face with her hands and wept. Her long green hair was hanging loosely around her body, showing her back with new delicate pinkish skin.
The neighing of the horse coming from the lake made Mavka tear herself away from the lad. She sobbed for some time, smearing her tears over her pink cheeks, then closed his eyes and kissed his lips.
"We will always be together, you and I!" She ran to the lake.
At the edge of the cliff she stopped, grabbed the strap of the cross with her both hands and sobbing quietly, threw herself into the deep water. Rings spread around the spot where she fell, then a wreath of the crumpled lilies and a wooden cross with a broken strap emerged on the surface...

BACK TO INDEX

BACK TO SPIRITS OF NATURE