The Boy Who Walked on One Foot

The road through Vyshenka had stood ankle-deep in mud for days, and through that mud stretched a single string of a child's footprints. Right foot, right foot, right. Straight down the middle. The sky beyond the thatched roofs still held two red streaks, grey smoke trailed from the chimneys and settled over the gardens. Somewhere beyond the pond someone was chopping wood - and stopped. Just stopped, without finishing.

A moment later, on the horizon of the road, the boy came into view. Thin, in a linen shirt too light for the cold, barefoot. He walked looking down at his feet, trying not to betray his fear of tripping. His left foot did not touch the ground. Beside that foot rolled a black round stone, the size of an apple. Between the heel and the stone there stayed a gap a finger wide, as if someone were holding a palm there. The mud squelched under his right foot. The stone was dry.

And the water in the wheel rut behind it was filming over with thin ice. The village was living out its day. A bucket clanked by the well, a gate creaked, the hens were already settling on their roost. At the house on the village edge the boy knocked softly, with his knuckles. - Let me in to the stove. I'll only sit by the fire, till the first cock crows. The mistress of the house opened the door a crack, looked at his feet, and shut it. - All right... People...

They often don't let me in. He stood a while under the window and went on. Inside the house, for another minute, everything was ordinary. A splinter of kindling crackled. The younger girl was asking her mother something. Then from behind the stove, from inside the wall, came a knock. Quiet. Once. The mistress froze and didn't know herself whether she had heard it. A long nothing. Then a second time.

More silence. And a third time - so loud now that everyone looked at the stove at once. It knocked no more. But until morning no one turned their back to that wall. He never reached the second house - there they already knew: over the fences, rumour runs faster than a child. The master shouted through the door for him to clear off, and scattered a handful of poppy seed across the threshold. The boy looked at the seeds. - And if I walked on both feet, would you let me in?

Behind the door, silence. He went on. That night, in that house, knocking came from the chest. Unhurried. With pauses for breath. And in the morning every poppy seed lay split cleanly in two down the middle. Vyshenka was shutting itself up. The shutters came down one after another. Light remained only in the cracks. The dogs pressed themselves into their kennels and watched from there without blinking. The bucket by the well fell silent. The gates fell silent.

Even the wind lay down along the thatch. One sound was left on the whole street: the squelch of the right foot and the dull round rolling beside it. The boy walked down the middle. And his foot now rested on the stone with half its sole. At one house he stopped under the window. Inside they were having supper: the children around the bowl, the mother brushing the hair off the youngest one's forehead, the fire from the stove laying one ruddy colour over them all.

The boy stood in the cold mud on his bare right foot and watched. For a long time. Steam came from his mouth and melted away. Warm light floated in the windowpane. Then he said quietly, to himself: - I'm somebody's too. And went on. In the house no one heard it. After one more closed door he said, already with his back turned: - You think if you shut the door, then I'm not there.

A little later, from the empty storeroom, the voice of their son called: - Mama, let him in. He's frozen. But the son was sitting beside his mother, white, and never opened his mouth. The father asked into the dark storeroom: - For good or for ill? No one answered. In the middle of the night it knocked once more. From under the child's bed. At first nobody thought about the stone. But by the last yards the boy was already standing on it with his whole foot.

The round print beside the child's one was as wide as a loaf of bread. When the apple had become a loaf - that, nobody had noticed. As if he had come that way from the start. The right footprint in the mud grew deeper and deeper. The last house was a widow's. The old woman came out onto the threshold with a burning splinter. - Whose boy are you? - I don't know. Nobody ever told me. But I'm somebody's. The old woman looked at his feet. Then at his face.

And took hold of the doorpost, to open it wider. Then from behind the fences came shouting: - Don't you dare! The earth won't take him! The hand stopped. The door swung to. The bolt slid into its groove. After that, along the whole street not one door creaked, no one coughed, not a single bowl clinked. The boy looked at the door for a long time. - A pity. I was already thinking you'd let me in. And went. The stone rolled heavily.

He came out to the middle of the village and stopped. No one saw how it happened, but from the windows they were now looking up at him. To see his face you had to tip your head back. The boy stood higher than the windowpanes, small and thin against the sky. And what was under his feet could no longer be seen from the windows. From the houses - from the stoves, from the chests, from under the beds - a knock came all at once. Once. Silence. - You pretended I wasn't there.

A long silence. - And all evening I was counting how many of you there are. In the morning neither boy nor stone was found. Between the yards, where yesterday there had been a passage, stood an old house. The thatch had gone grey, as if it had stood there for decades. Half the village remembered a passage there. The other half remembered the house. The door is locked to this day.

Every morning a single string of footprints stretches from the threshold to the well. A child's right foot. There is no round print beside it. Not long ago, from behind that door, there came three knocks. Quiet. With a pause for breath. Should have been sooner.