An Open Window

Based on true events

With every pore of her sweaty face, Nastya catches the waves of a light evening breeze that breaks through the room via the ajar window. Several minutes ago it was through this very window that she had made her way into the house. With her right palm Nastya unconsciously squeezes the elbow of her left arm, which she had just struck against the windowsill. Nastya is twenty-one years old. She is in no mood for mischief. Ten years ago, in her parents' house, such pranks were a joy to the girl: she easily jumped over the ajar window and hid under the bed, playing hide-and-seek with her younger sister. Now there is no time for games. Childhood has passed so quickly, and the warmth of her parents' home is now so far away… The space of the open window before the eyes of this exhausted woman was a silent witness to her despair.

Raised by loving parents, Nastya could not have imagined how cold a family nest could be. At not quite seventeen, the girl enrolled in university. Her parents took care to provide her with an apartment rather than a dorm. A pretty girl caught the eye of a neighbor boy. He introduced himself, began to wait for Nastya on a bench when she returned from studies. Young people fell in love and married, as is proper among decent folk. Very soon Nastya discovered that Yurko loved not only her. His broad soul had room for many friends. A merry company would gather, and Yurko would treat everyone. They would hum around the table under the apple tree until late at night. The man would come home barely dragging his feet. He would fall into bed without undressing. And Nastya had no one to talk to. In the neighboring room lived Yurko's grandmother, but Nastya was terrified of her as if of fire—a very wicked old woman. It was because of her sharp tongue that Nastya made her way into her room through the window. The grandmother's room was a passageway, and to pass through it would be to harm herself. Nastya had heard such things that even a terrible nightmare would not show…

Nastya sits by the ajar window and, as into an abyss, gazes into the dark night. She would have long since fled to her parents, but a tiny daughter sleeps in her crib—the only solace in her life. Yurko snores and moans heavily in his drunken terrible sleep. Sirko barks beneath the open window, and the man's grandmother yells back. Nastya tried not to hear her words, but the last ones still reached her ears: "Everything! Everything will pass to the Shundites! Nothing will remain!" The grandmother often repeated these words when she quarreled, and Nastya never suspected that the very next day she would see with her own eyes these terrible people—the Shundites—to whom, for unknown reasons, all their property was supposed to pass.

Across the road the neighbors were having a wedding: a strange sort of wedding—no loud music could be heard, no dancing was visible, everyone was sober, but they walked about the yard with a peculiar sort of joy. Nastya stands on the road and remembers herself as a bride. Then she overhears a conversation between neighbors: "Poor newlyweds. Look how young they both are, and they've gone to the Shundites. They've ruined their whole lives for themselves. And why would they need that? It's nothing but that they were drawn there."

Grey days pass one after another, and the circumstances of the young woman's life only worsen. In Nastya's thoughts, a decision matures: for her child's sake—off to her parents. She can no longer bear such a life. Yurko won't come out of his drinking binges. The grandmother grows more frenzied each day. The man's parents, who live in the same yard with them, quarrel and fight with each other. The young woman has no peace, neither day nor night. She has grown thin, exhausted, frayed…

And then, when just one last hair seemed about to snap regarding the decision to divorce, a miracle happens. On Saturday the man lies down in bed almost sober. "Tomorrow we'll go to church," he says and falls asleep instantly…

Through the open window of sad Nastya's life burst a powerful beam of light. Those joyful shining faces. Those gentle, bright songs. Those sincere words of truth that give hope. Yuri and Nastya repented, were baptized. The grandmother died. Soon Yuri's father also passed. His mother, too, turned to the Lord. Only later did they learn that they had become Shundites. Today their family has eight children. So, as the grandmother said, it came to pass: everything, everything passed to the Shundites. Children, when they play games, do not jump through ajar windows—this is not the way in this family.