Summer in the Country

Vladimir hated his parents for dragging him here. He hated his grandmother’s creaky wooden house and he hated the dirty smelly locals. He missed their apartment in downtown Moscow. Most of all, though, he hated his mother because she didn’t speak to him anymore. His grandmother, her mother, had died one month ago and now his mother was a ghost. It was as if her mind was off, wandering lost somewhere. Vladimir understood that this trip was for her, but that didn’t make it any less painful.
 
To have a break, Vladimir’s father had told him, to get away from the city.
 
But I like the city…
 
You’re fifteen, Vlad. One summer at your grandmother’s old summerhouse won’t kill you. Do it for your mother.
 
Will there be a computer?
 
No.
 
A TV?
 
No.
 
A telephone??
 
Yes, in the town center. Just bring some books. You’ll be fine. With those words Vladimir’s father ended the conversation. He was a big man with a thick beard.
 
Vladimir couldn’t remember a time when there hadn’t been computer games or TV readily available to him. He even had a girlfriend back home. She wore shorter skirts than any other girl and bright red paint on her lips. He sighed, now here he was, in the middle of nowhere. Vladimir’s father was reading last week’s newspaper and his mother was looking out the window. The sky was getting dark. Vladimir stood up and walked out into the blue evening. He turned right and walked to the little store up the road. As he walked into the store the shriveled old woman behind the counter woke with a start. Her lower lip hung down and revealed three, brown teeth.
 
Um, Where are the candies? Asked Vladimir.
 
Candies? Repeated the old woman.
 
You know, can-dies? Vladimir waited, … sweets?
 
Ahh, you want sweet! The old women reached below the counter and pulled out a cup of deep, red, wild strawberries and arranged her drooping lips into a smile.
 
No, no. Vladimir sighed. He left the store and headed toward the old summerhouse. Moon glowed silver off the tired tops of dried-out weeds that grew thick along the edges of the dirt road. Vladimir heard a hushed rustling in the roadside weeds, like whispers in the dark. He stopped dead and spotted a dash of moonlit white before everything was still again and too silent. Vladimir stood frozen on the road. Wide-eyed, he craned his neck to see through the plants. Nothing. Vladimir walked back to the house accompanied by the sound of his own footsteps, distant piano and a chorus of crickets.
 
In the morning Vladimir couldn’t sleep in with the sun blaring through his window and sweat dripping down his face. He groaned irritatedly several times before finally going to the kitchen. His parents weren’t there. The house was so hushed. He looked through the back doorway into their overgrown yard. The early sun lit up floating dust and pollen like speckles of gold drifting idly from the sky. Vladimir watched the sunlit air with sleepy eyes. Far off someone was playing piano again. Then there it was—that mutter of disturbed weeds and a little glimpse of white. The rustling began scurrying away. Vladimir took a few steps after it, but his father’s huge frame appeared in the doorway, his mother close behind. Vladimir pushed past them and stood with one hand on the doorframe, squinting in the sunlight, but the plants were quiet and still. Only bugs hummed and children faintly giggled in the distance.
 
As afternoon approached, Vladimir found himself sitting in the dust in his yard. His clothing was dusty. There were smears of dirt left where he had wiped sweat from his brow. He waved bugs out of his face and grimaced in the sun as he repeatedly hit one stone against another. His mother was picking flowers and his father was reading the paper. Vladimir thought of home. With a start, he noticed his mother was at his side. Vladimir shielded the sunlight from his eyes and looked up at her sullen face. She was holding out her hand and in the palm rested one, tiny, dusty, wild strawberry.
 
Eat it, Vlad. She said, good for the soul. Vladimir took the strawberry with his filthy fingers and put it in his mouth. It was so small that he swallowed it in a second. He didn’t take his eyes off his mother’s.
 
Yum, he said. She smiled vaguely and ambled away. Vladimir looked after her; she is so lost and gone, he thought.
 
Vladimir spent the rest of his day outside thrashing the parched plant stalks with a stick and squashing any helpless bee, beetle, or fly he could find. He waited eagerly for that familiar rustle, and squinted to catch just a peek of that white. But there was nothing. As the sky grew darker and the crickets grew louder, Vladimir abandoned the back yard and joined his parents at the dinner table.
 
That night Vladimir watched dust float through a beam of moonlight from his window, flecks of silver dancing in the air. In the yard the weeds swayed gently in the breeze and the crickets were silent for once. Vladimir looked at the clock on his wall, but it was broken. Lying awake in the hazy night, Vladimir waited for sleep to come. The instant he heard a disturbance in the weeds below his window, he shot out of bed and into the yard. The overrun weeds shook wildly as the cause of the disturbance ran off. Vladimir chased it through increasingly knotted weeds, then through tall reeds growing in marshy earth. He burst through the last of the reeds and stopped sharp. All was still.
 
In front of Vladimir stretched wild grass all the way to the edge of a pond. Moonlight glowed all around him and there was not a house in sight. At the edge of the water stood a very young girl in a white dress. Vladimir couldn’t tell how long they looked each other in the eye. Soon the girl turned away from him and sat down on the soggy pond bank, her feet stretched into the water. Vladimir approached her slowly, silently. As he got closer he saw dirt stains on her dress and dust smears on her arms. Her dark blond hair was badly in need of a wash. He sat down beside her and looked at her eyes. She only stared straight ahead. After time had gone by, Vladimir turned his own face to the glowing expanse before him. Water lapped around his earthy feet. The girl put her hand softly on his dirty knuckles. Everything was still and silent. Vladimir thought of his mother.
 
Interview With the Author, Rachel Sipser:
 
Q: What was the inspiration for this story?
 
A: Well, I wanted to write a story that tackled some of the themes we looked at in my Travel Fictions class this semester, but from a different angle. Since none of the travel stories were from a child’s perspective I thought it would be interesting to examine how some of these very adult themes might apply to someone younger. Also, most of my experiences traveling have been with my parents so writing about a family felt familiar. Another familiar aspect was that of Russian culture: My grandmother grew up in rural Lithuania (in a town called Daugai) and my grandfather grew up in Russia. I spent lots of time with them when I was younger. None of this story is true, but the character of the little girl is based on a little girl I met one night on a playground in Vladimir, Russia two summers ago.
 
Q: What are the themes you feel you “tackled?”
 
A: After reading Sputnik Sweetheart, I was interested in the theme of dealing with trauma. As a result I made Vladimir’s mother, having recently suffered the death of her own mother, somewhat lost in her own world. This also tied in with the broader theme of being lost in general, except I wanted to apply this theme mentally instead of geographically. The main theme in my story is that of going from an urban setting to a rural one. In The Sun Also Rises, Jake’s transition into a pastoral environment purifies him and I wanted the Russian countryside to have a similar effect on Vladimir. It seems in today’s culture, kids are growing up and losing their innocence so quickly. In my story I wanted Vladimir to regain some of his lost innocence (represented by the girl in white). Some other smaller themes were descriptions of places, interaction with locals, miscommunication, and familial love.
 
Q: Is there a message you are trying to send with this story?
 
A: I have always been fascinated by the honest beauty of nature. I feel that this honest beauty also stems from innocence. It saddens me to see children these days enthralled by computer games and television where people are just shooting one another, so I guess I was just trying to say, don’t grow up too fast, or appreciate nature more, or something like that.

Q: Why did you choose to include the details about wild strawberries?

A: I feel that wild strawberries are more natural and and beautiful than the large, processed strawberries that most americans (including myself) buy in super markets. In most small Russian towns, young children and/or old women sell cups of wild strawberries on the streets. When I was in Russia, the group I was traveling with thought I was really weird because I would obsessively buy these little, deformed strawberries wherever we went. They actually taste much sweeter and more earthy than the super-market-straberries I mentioned earlier. In my story, I used the wild strawberries to represent the pastoral countryside as opposed to the superficial/artificial city. 
 
Q: Okay, last question, what did you find to be the greatest challenge in writing this story?
 
A: I definitely had a lot of difficulty telling an effective story (with beginning, middle and end) in around 1,000 words. I have always admired short stories, but writing this story gave me a whole new appreciation of their genius. It was actually a lot of work for me to come up with a way to examine such complex themes in such limited space. I didn’t dislike this challenge however, I felt it quite added to my understanding of the themes I chose to explore.