"Butterfly" by Guzel Yakhina, summary Automatic translate

This book is an early story by Guzel Yakhina, first published in 2014 in the St. Petersburg magazine Neva. It describes the grim life of a 10-year-old boy locked away on an isolated river island with his sadistic grandfather. The text is densely imbued with the oppressive atmosphere of a Soviet psychiatric hospital, hopelessly located within the high walls of ancient monasteries. The plot harmoniously intertwines harsh everyday reality and the vivid mythological consciousness of childhood, forcing the young hero to seek real salvation in the deep underground labyrinths of the historical past.

Life on the Island and a Failed Escape

A boy nicknamed Motylyok unsuccessfully attempts to escape from the Island for the sixth time. Local fishermen fish him out of the cold spring waves of the Volga and forcibly return him. The Island is located precisely at the broad confluence of two major rivers, the Volga and the Sviyaga. The water around is so vast that the opposite banks are visible only on very clear, cloudless days. A large, thriving monastic community once stood here. Now, five red brick churches house a massive state hospital for the mentally ill. Locals habitually refer to these unfortunate patients as "the whites."

Moth lives in an old house with his grandfather. The tall old man works as a senior orderly, constantly drinks strong vodka, and brutally beats his young grandson. The boy has no memory of his biological parents and suffers silently from the regular, brutal beatings. He constantly comes up with new ways to escape, building wooden rafts and stealing motorboats. The island seems to possess a magical attraction — it never lets anyone go. A loud boat docks at the dilapidated wooden shore, where the grandfather is already irritably awaiting the arrival of new patients.

The arriving fishermen hand over three people they’ve brought to a stern orderly. Two of them are ordinary patients at the hospital. One nods his shaved head incessantly, while the second, a fat man, drools copiously. The third, unknown patient, is classified under the strict "Ch" classification and carries absolutely no accompanying documents. This tall, thin man in a torn white shirt appears completely normal and sane. Motylek, from his long experience living alongside the insane, clearly understands that the newcomer is completely mentally sane. Grandfather silently takes the new arrivals and roughly leads them on a long rope to the residential village.

Clash in the house and rescue in the basement

The old man brings the political prisoner home. He ties him tightly with a thick, twisted rope to a cold cast-iron radiator. The old man plans to punish Moth severely for yet another daring escape attempt. He slowly builds up his deep-seated anger, leisurely takes out a wide leather belt, and prepares for a bloody massacre. The boy, overcome with animalistic panic, throws himself onto the dirty floor right at the feet of the bound prisoner. Suddenly, the stranger makes a sudden, sudden movement and hits the orderly hard with his forehead. The heavyset old man falls with a loud thud onto the painted wooden planks.

Taking advantage of the momentary confusion, Butterfly quickly opens the wooden lid and dives into the dark, deep cellar. The old man struggles to come to his senses, loudly swearing foully, and slams the creaking hatch shut with an overturned heavy oak table. The boy finds himself locked tight in a cold, damp hole in the earth. He is determined to end his unbearable torment once and for all and kill the drunken old man. Butterfly carefully lays out his blue clothes on the floor in the shape of a prone human body. He himself silently hides in a deep wooden box filled with sprouting potatoes.

The boy plans to quietly wait for the old man to descend into the cellar. When the old man bends low over the empty school uniform, Moth prepares to leap out of hiding. He wants to crush the tormentor with a heavy glass jar, right on the head. However, the orderly never comes down in the dark of night. Moth falls fast asleep on the hard, cold potato tubers. Early in the morning, he is surprised to discover that the wooden hatch yields easily to pressure. The old man has left for the morning shift, leaving his frightened grandson in complete peace. The child hurriedly gathers his scattered things, gets dressed, and runs as fast as he can to school.

School and history lesson

The island’s only school is attended exclusively by the children of the local hospital staff. The educational system here is highly unusual: a small number of students of all ages are forced into a single, cramped classroom. Motylek has long been in love with the red-haired 15-year-old Lyuba. Lyuba is the biological daughter of the psychiatric hospital’s chief orderly. The boy sincerely dreams of growing up and one day taking this beautiful girl far away from here forever. Lyuba carefreely flirts with the tall eighth-graders and completely ignores her younger friend.

The history lesson begins with disturbing, incomprehensible news. Instead of the beloved, wise principal, Roman Romanovich, the middle-aged teacher, Lipa Ivanovna, slowly enters the classroom. In a dry, monotone voice, she reads a boring printed text from an old school textbook. The lesson’s topic directly concerns the brutal reign of Ivan the Terrible and the construction of the defensive military fortress of Sviyazhsk. Lipa Ivanovna, in a calm voice, recounts well-known historical facts. The monarch ordered a wooden city built from logs, floated downriver, and promptly established on the Island.

The students, with undisguised, vivid amazement, learn about the glorious military past of their native place. The new wooden fortress served as a secure staging post for the successful military siege of Kazan. The children eagerly ask for the thrilling details of the final, bloody assault. Lipa Ivanovna reluctantly mentions an ancient urban legend about a secret underground passage. Supposedly, cunning Russian soldiers dug a kilometers-long tunnel directly beneath the wide Volga River. Along this secret, hidden route, they undetected, transported heavy barrels of gunpowder to the very center of the enemy citadel.

Alarm bell and raid

The school day is suddenly interrupted by the prolonged ringing of the temple’s massive main bell. This heavy, low sound signals an urgent, full-scale search for one of the hospital’s escaped patients. According to the strict, old island rules, all able-bodied locals are required to actively assist the medical staff. School is immediately cancelled by the administration. The delighted children run out into the sunlit, dusty street in a noisy, chattering crowd. Moth makes a bold internal decision: to find the escapee himself before the official armed guards. He sincerely wants to help the fugitive find safe refuge.

The boy fervently believes that the fugitive is indeed the fearless savior of yesterday, codenamed "Ch." He quickly runs toward the tall red brick buildings. Long, orderly lines of people in white medical gowns are hastily forming there. The orderlies are heavily armed with coils of thick rope and loud wooden rattles. Grown men and teenagers methodically search every village yard, dilapidated wooden shed, and damp basement. The noise raised by the people is truly primal and deafening.

Moth quickly realizes the utter futility of his search among the village’s residential buildings. It’s utterly impossible to hide in a densely populated, compact village. He heads straight for the neighboring forested hill. There, the densely overgrown sections of the old and new cemeteries are located. The search parties confidently move in close formation, carefully examining the numerous grave crosses and knocking down tall nettles with long sticks. Grandfather Moth, in a loud, raspy voice, promises a generous financial reward for his successful capture. The boy quietly skirts the dense willow grove and carefully descends to the rocky riverbank.

Secrets of the caves and a terrible discovery

Moth glides silently down a steep, loose, rocky path straight to the cold, splashing water. He carefully explores the dark, deep, damp caves, hoping to discover the prisoner hiding there. Soon, official pursuers from the hospital appear nearby. The child, like a nimble bat, climbs a tall, slippery granite boulder. He presses his narrow back tightly against a damp stone stalactite. The chief orderly carefully illuminates the dark vaults of the cave with a powerful hand-held flashlight. Left completely alone, a large, red-haired man despairingly pronounces the fugitive’s forbidden name aloud. He completely confirms Moth’s hunch: it was a political prisoner who had left the strict hospital.

The orderly hurries away from the dark cave. Moth remains frozen in its secure, high stone shelter. A giggling Lyuba and one of the hospital’s rank-and-file guards quietly emerge from the pitch darkness. The boy becomes an unwitting witness to their secret, intimate encounter on the cold, damp shore. The loud sounds of greedy adult kisses and ragged breathing forever shatter his bright, naive childhood illusions. With deep bitterness, the child realizes the cruel, irrefutable truth. Lyuba voluntarily belongs to this depraved adult island community.

Having left the uncomfortable, damp cave, the shocked boy wanders alone along the foaming, noisy surf. Suddenly, the river waves gently wash a heavily swollen human body onto the fine sand. Moth initially recognizes the motionless drowned man as the recent escapee in a light white shirt. He sincerely rejoices at the quiet death of the desperate prisoner. The boy considers this fatal outcome an absolute victory over the ominous red temples. With great effort, Moth turns the cold corpse over, its heavy, wet face up. It turns out that lying in the cold river water is not a political prisoner at all. On the wet shore lies the beloved director of the island school, Roman Romanovich, who disappeared without a trace the day before. At this most tragic moment, the alarm bell rings loudly again. The orderlies have successfully captured the real, living escapee on the surface.

The Underground Labyrinth and Ivan the Terrible’s Cavalry

Frightened to death, Moth runs as fast as he can from the terrifying discovery. He completely loses sight of the road ahead. The child accidentally finds himself in the most remote and abandoned part of an old forest cemetery. The boy stumbles painfully and tumbles head over heels into a sunken, unmarked earthen grave. The loose clay soil instantly crumbles behind him. Moth plummets into a deep underground tunnel of unknown origin. The exit is sealed tightly with heavy, damp stones and wet, sticky clay. The boy is forced to crawl forward for a long time in pitch-black, frightening underground darkness.

After an indefinite amount of time, the long earthen tunnel is half-filled with icy water. The hero, with his last remaining strength, swims forward through the flooded corridor. He chokes painfully from the acute lack of life-giving oxygen in his lungs. Moth miraculously overcomes the completely flooded area and, with great relief, emerges onto the dry stone floor. A soggy, sweet gingerbread cookie is miraculously discovered in the bottomless pocket of his wet pants. This simple, random meal gives the exhausted child’s body some physical energy. Along the way, he suddenly encounters large, aggressive basement rats. Moth desperately scares off the wild, hungry pack with a loud howl and a truly loud, natural dog bark.

An exhausted and severely frozen child crawls into a small earthen niche in the wall. He falls into a deep, restless sleep. In his dreams or in his feverish delirium, the boy clearly hears the increasing rhythmic clatter of many horses’ hooves. A ghostly, armed cavalry rushes noisily through an ancient, forgotten tunnel. The riders carry brightly burning, smoking resin torches in their calloused hands. They are dressed in ancient, rich clothing and heavily armed with sharp battle axes. Tsar Ivan Vasilyevich himself rides leisurely behind them. The Tsar stands out clearly with his pale, elongated face and black, piercing eyes. The mystical, historical procession silently dissolves into the dense underground darkness.

Ascension to the Light and Liberation

Having waited for complete, deathly silence, Moth stubbornly continues his complex, winding underground path. Soon, the wide corridor suddenly ends in a deep, black, bottomless abyss. The boy boldly runs blindly and successfully leaps across the deadly chasm. On the opposite side, the smooth stone floor begins to steeply ascend. His bare feet constantly encounter strange, round, cool stones and dry, smooth sticks. The hero struggles heavily on all fours up the steep, steep slope.

A dim, life-saving glimmer of daylight timidly filters through narrow crevices far above. Peering more closely at the stones, the fugitive realizes with chilling horror the terrifying, grim nature of his ladder. He laboriously crawls up a gigantic mountain of old human skulls. The steps of the sheer slope are composed of yellowed, hard shinbones. Overcoming a nauseating, animalistic panic, Moth desperately strives toward the breaking sun. At the very top of this ominous mountain of bones, he finds a vertical brick well. The fugitive confidently climbs up the rusty iron brackets. He knocks open the lid of a heavy metal manhole with his hard forehead.

The butterfly emerges and squints blindly in the warm spring light. He sits exhausted on the smooth, hard city pavement. Directly before him rises the snow-white brick tower of central Kazan. A dense, excited crowd of random city passersby quickly gathers around him. Adults bustle loudly, calling for the police officer on duty and doctors. The boy is constantly bombarded with anxious questions about his age and parents. The butterfly makes the only true, firm decision in life: he will stubbornly remain silent. The hero successfully pretends to be a completely mute child. This cunning move is guaranteed to land him in a distant state-run orphanage.

Afterword

The little boy’s well-thought-out, desperate plan works flawlessly and reliably. The child steadfastly maintains complete silence for three long years. He lives happily in a closed Kazan boarding school for deaf-mute children. Then begins an endless, dreary wandering through state-run orphanages and workers’ youth hostels. Fate mercilessly casts the now-adult youth to Leningrad, Surgut, Angarsk, and other remote Soviet cities.

Twenty-one years after his legendary rescue, Moth voluntarily returns to the Island. Now an adult and independent man, he hires himself out as a simple seasonal construction worker. His primary, conscious goal is to methodically restore ancient Orthodox monasteries destroyed by the merciless ravages of time. The circle of life symbolically closes. The hero returns forever to the harsh origins of his dramatic earthly journey.