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Sergei Lebedev
hitting nails; long streams
of reddish sparks caused by
the uneven blade edge on
the whetstone flew in the
air, illuminating nothing but
merely sewing through the
dark; the wheels turned and
the dried belts creaked.
The old man, the sharpening
wheel—rougher than needed
for fine sharpening—and the
axe; I went farther along, not
ready to call out to the man,
when I saw a second one.
He was on the porch steps,
bent over a fishing net on his
knees, and the same kind of
thick, unkempt hair covered
his face. The old man was
mending the net, unwinding
rough thread from a spool
the size of his hand, making
loops with a curved faceted
needle and muttering to
himself—his beard stirred
as if a mouse had moved
into it. A third old man, also
on the porch, just as gray
and shaggy, was carving a
boat frame; the wooden
piece had a bend with an
inconvenient elbow, and the
old man clumsily moved his
long knife along it.
I greeted them. The three old
men turned to me, dropping
their work. I still couldn’t
make out their faces: their
hair fell over their eyes.
Their fingernails belonged to
animals or birds, and their
hair grew so thickly it could
have been moss or weeds.
The old men were silent and
uncomprehending. Telling
them apart by their clothing
was difficult: their padded
jackets and trousers had
not been washed in so long
they had taken on the same
indefinite color of grime, and
new spots vanished among
the old; the one with the axe
had a scar across his palm,
the one mending the net had