A Photograph in Which I Am Not (Astafyev)
Short summary
A Siberian village, 1930s. A photographer arrived from the city to take a school photograph. The entire village was excited about this important event.
Vitka and his friend Sanka were mischievous students who knew they would be placed in the back row.
In frustration, they went sledding down a dangerous slope. That night, Vitka's legs began to ache terribly from rheumatism. His grandmother treated him with ammonia spirits and took him to the bathhouse, but he couldn't recover in time for the photograph.
When Sanka came to fetch Vitka for the photograph, he saw his friend couldn't walk. Out of solidarity, Sanka decided not to go either. The teacher later brought the finished photograph to Vitka's home.
The teacher was deeply respected in the village for his dedication and kindness. He had transformed the school from a poor village house into a real educational institution, obtaining textbooks and supplies. Years later, the narrator reflected on his teacher's selfless devotion.
The school photograph is still alive. It has yellowed, broken at the corners. But I recognize all the children in it. Many of them fell in the war.
Detailed summary
Division into chapters is editorial.
The photographer arrives; the narrator falls ill
In the quiet depths of winter, an unprecedented event stirred the village school. A photographer arrived from the city to photograph the students. The teachers, a married couple, arranged for him to stay with the respected foreman of the rafting office.
The schoolchildren spent the evening discussing who would sit where and what they would wear. The well-behaved students would sit in front, average ones in the middle, and poor students in back. The narrator and his friend realized they would be relegated to the back row. Frustrated, they went sledding down a dangerous slope, got soaked with snow, and returned home.
A night of pain and grandmothers remedies
That night, the narrator's legs began to ache terribly from rheumatism inherited from his late mother. He tried to endure the pain silently, pressing his legs against the warm bricks of the Russian stove and rubbing his dry, crackling joints.
I endured for a long time to keep from howling, a very long time... And I howled. First quietly, like a puppy, then at full voice.
His grandmother woke up scolding him for not listening to her warnings about getting cold. She lit a lamp, searched for medicine, and rubbed his legs with ammonia spirits while simultaneously hitting him and muttering reproaches. After the treatment, she wrapped his legs in a warm shawl and covered him with a sheepskin coat.
Despite grandmother's remedies, the boy couldn't sleep and cried all night. In the morning, grandfather heated the bathhouse, and grandmother steamed and rubbed the boy's legs with birch branches and ammonia. They gave him vodka infused with monkshood and milk boiled with poppy heads, after which he finally fell asleep until noon.
Missing the photograph; Sankas solidarity
The boy woke to voices. His friend was arguing with grandmother, saying the teacher had sent him to fetch the narrator because they had set up the camera. The boy tried to get up but his weak legs gave way and he collapsed. He shouted that he would go anyway, demanding his shirt and hat.
Seeing his friend's condition, the other boy made a decisive choice. He took off his new brown quilted jacket and declared he wouldn't go to the photograph either. He tried to console his friend, saying it wasn't the last day on earth and they would take more pictures later, maybe even in the city.
Alright! If that's how it is, I won't go either! That's it! It's not the last day on earth! We'll take more pictures yet!
Grandmother praised the friend's loyalty and promised to take both boys to the city photographer Volkov, who could photograph them on a horse or even an airplane. When the friend asked if Volkov could photograph the whole school, grandmother admitted his camera was fixed to the floor. The boys argued about frames, and grandmother, exasperated, threw the narrator's clothes at him and told him to go if he wanted. The narrator crawled back onto the stove and wept from helpless frustration.
Days of convalescence and observations through the window
The narrator didn't attend school for more than a week. Grandmother treated and spoiled him with jam, lingonberries, and boiled pastries. He sat on the bench all day looking out the window, studying the village windows in detail. Grandmother's windows were arranged with taste: in the main room, cotton wool with rowan clusters between the frames; in the kitchen, moss mixed with lingonberry plants, birch coals, and rowan berries.
Grandmother explained this quirk: 'Moss absorbs moisture. The coal keeps the glass from freezing, and rowan protects from carbon monoxide poisoning.'
The neighbor's windows had nothing between the frames, with broken panes patched with plywood and rags. Another neighbor's windows displayed everything: cotton, moss, berries, paper flowers from icons, a one-legged doll, a noseless piggy bank, and a horse without tail or mane—all gifts from her wandering husband who disappeared for years at a time.
The narrator loved watching flowers revive. Grandmother kept most potted plants in the cellar during winter. When the first titmouse struck an icicle in spring, she would bring out an old pot with a hole in the bottom. Within days, pale green shoots would emerge, growing rapidly into leaves, and finally a bud would appear and bloom overnight into a bright red flower with a white center, heralding the approaching spring.
The teacher visits with the school photograph
One day the dog barked and someone knocked at the door. Grandmother rushed to answer in her church voice, realizing an important guest had arrived. The teacher entered, and grandmother took his coat to the main room. The narrator hid on the stove. The teacher asked about him, and grandmother joked that he was healthy enough to eat but too weak to work. She ordered the boy down from the stove.
The teacher brought the school photograph. It showed children and teachers in front of the village house with white shutters. The narrator searched every face but couldn't find himself or his friend. The teacher consoled him, saying the photographer might return. The narrator turned away, his lips trembling.
I'm not in this photograph. And I never will be!
Grandmother served tea with a festive tablecloth, jam, lingonberries, pastries, city gingerbread, and milk in a fancy creamer. The teacher drank two glasses of tea and praised the hospitality. When leaving, he told the narrator to recover and return to school soon. The teacher walked past their fence, turned and waved with a slightly sad but kind smile. Grandmother marveled at his cultured manners and urged the boy to study hard to become a teacher or foreman.
Spring forest lessons and the snake encounter
By spring, school supplies ran out, and the teacher began taking students into the forest to teach them about trees, flowers, grasses, rivers, and sky. He knew so much—that tree rings showed age, that pine resin made rosin, that needles treated nerves, that birch made plywood and conifers made paper, that forests preserved moisture in soil and sustained rivers. The students also taught him village knowledge about the forest.
One day on Bald Mountain, they encountered a viper coiled around spring flowers. The teacher pushed the children aside and beat the snake with a stick until it stopped moving. His hands trembled, his nostrils and eyes widened, his face turned white, his hair fell over his protruding ears. The students later learned he had never seen snakes before where he grew up. They realized they should have protected him instead.
Memories of the beloved village teachers
Years passed, many years. The narrator remembered the village teacher with his slightly guilty smile, polite and shy, but always ready to rush forward and defend his students. Working on his book, he learned the teachers were named Evgeny Nikolaevich and Evgenia Nikolaevna. Villagers said they resembled each other like brother and sister, though no one could remember their surname.
But the teacher's surname can be forgotten, what's important is that the word 'teacher' remains!
Years have passed, many, oh so many. And this is how I remember the village teacher — with a slightly guilty smile, polite, shy, but always ready to rush forward and defend his students
The houses tragic history during collectivization
The school building was built by the narrator's great-grandfather and had been his grandfather's house. The narrator was born in the bathhouse because there was no room in the house. He remembered fragments: smoke, noise, crowds, hands tossing him toward the ceiling, a rifle on the wall, his grandfather's face covered with white cloth, a piece of malachite, a porcelain powder box, his father's cologne, his mother's comb, and wonderful curved sleds.
During collectivization in deep autumn, dekulakized families were thrown out of their homes. Relatives and neighbors secretly sheltered them in bathhouses, sheds, and attics. They lived ready for eviction, sleeping fully dressed on scattered rugs under old coats. Gradually they returned to their abandoned houses or repaired old structures. The narrator's grandfather was exiled to Igarka and died there the first winter.
The house partitions were removed to create one large classroom. After serving as school and then collective farm office, the house was inhabited by various families, then abandoned. Eventually it was dismantled and rafted away to be rebuilt elsewhere, but the logs were sold for firewood and the money drunk away. The house disappeared without trace.
Reflections on village photography as peoples chronicle
The school photograph survived, yellowed and broken at the corners. Many students perished in the war. The Siberian name became world-famous. The children were poorly dressed, but they firmly held a banner reading 'Ovsyanka Primary School 1st Grade.' The narrator looked at the photograph, sometimes smiled, but could never laugh at village photographs, however absurd they might seem.
A village photograph is a unique chronicle of our people, its history on the wall