Quiet by nature, she shook Agrippina’s hand firmly, businesslike. Tikhon was waiting in the yard, and they met there. Nina walked up and stopped one step away. The two of them were silent for five seconds.
Then Nina said something softly, and Tikhon answered just as softly. Agrippina didn’t hear it and didn’t try to. It wasn’t her business. For three days they walked around the village together and sat in the yard in the evenings. Agrippina didn’t interfere. She fed them, showed Nina her room, and let them handle the rest.
On the third day, when Nina was leaving, they hugged at the gate. Briefly, a little awkwardly, the way people hug when they’re not used to it yet but already know they will be. But they hugged. Tikhon came back from the road and sat on the porch.
Agrippina came out, set a mug of tea beside him, and went back into the house. Nothing more was needed. Semyon got his answer in 1956, an envelope with an official seal. Rehabilitated.
All charges dropped for lack of any crime. Two typed pages and a certificate. Semyon brought them home and laid them on the table. Agrippina read both pages to the end and then asked, “So what now?”
Semyon said, “Now I can live like a regular person. Passport, residency papers. There’s a new section opening at the plant in Mirgorod. They’re hiring a process engineer, and I’ve got the training and experience.” Agrippina asked whether he would leave.
Semyon paused, then said, “There’s work there. But I’ll come back here. Every week, if you don’t run me off.” Agrippina said, “Who’s running you off?” And that was that.
Semyon got the job at the plant and rented a room. Every Sunday he came to Dry Hollow, in summer by bicycle, in winter by whatever ride he could catch. He arrived at eight, worked till two, ate dinner, and left. It became as regular as Sunday itself.
In 1959 he married. Tamara Petrovna, an elementary school teacher in Mirgorod. Quiet, good posture, smart eyes. Semyon brought her to meet Agrippina one Sunday without warning. Agrippina watched her over dinner—how she held her spoon, how she listened, how she looked when she was thinking.
Then she said one word: “Good.” Tamara blushed like a girl, and Semyon smiled. Grisha never left at all. Nobody announced it; it just worked out that way. He started a small apiary in 1960.
Bought two hives with money he had saved from selling carved wooden pieces. Then built four more himself out of boards. By 1965 he had twenty hives. People in three neighboring villages knew his honey.
He didn’t short anybody and didn’t water it down. He told people straight what kind of harvest it was and what flowers it came from. His reputation grew slowly but steadily. Klavdia—the same one who had stopped greeting Agrippina in 1954—came in 1961 to buy honey.
Grisha sold it to her at the regular price and didn’t remind her of anything. After that Klavdia came every year. Tikhon died in 1968. His heart gave out. The first attack came in June; he simply sat down in the yard and couldn’t get back up.
The second came in August, at night. The medic came from Zakharovka, gave him a shot, and Tikhon pulled through. By fall he was better, walking in the garden and doing the lighter work. In October, on the night of the fourth into the fifth, he simply didn’t wake up.
Agrippina went into the room at four in the morning, as always, and knew right away. He was lying there peacefully, no strain in his face. She went out into the yard and stood by the porch in the dark, looking up at the stars. Then she went back in and woke Grisha.
Semyon arrived by noon. Nina came the next day. She brought Tanya, sixteen years old, fair-haired and slight, with Tikhon’s dark eyes. Mother and daughter stood by the coffin.
Agrippina looked at them and thought only one thing: he made it in time. He wrote the letter, got the answer. Hugged his daughter at the gate in 1958. Saw his granddaughter…
