TRAGIC BOY FOR TRAGIC TIMES: VANKA

One tragic boy cannot stand in for all tragic children, but Anton Chekhov makes it happen.

News of some kid with bad intentions gunning a classroom creates tragedy beyond believe.

Again.

Chekhov cuts to the quick with Vanka.

Vanka Zhukov, a boy of nine, who had been for three months apprenticed to Alyahin the shoemaker, was sitting up on Christmas Eve.

He wrote a letter to his Grandfather.

“Dear grandfather, Konstantin Makaritch,” he wrote, “I am writing you a letter. I wish you a happy Christmas, and all blessings from God Almighty. I have neither father nor mother, you are the only one left me.”

Vanka was orphaned with only his grandpa to look after him. Instead of being a grandpa, he farmed his grandson out got become a tragic boy.

The story is about being abandoned by an old man of sixty-five more interested in his routines than a young child’s welfare.

Vanka raised his eyes to the dark ikon on which the light of his candle was reflected, and vividly recalled his grandfather, Konstantin Makaritch, who was night watchman to a family called Zhivarev. He was a thin but extraordinarily nimble and lively little old man of sixty-five, with an everlastingly laughing face and drunken eyes. By day he slept in the servants’ kitchen, or made jokes with the cooks; at night, wrapped in an ample sheepskin, he walked round the grounds and tapped with his little mallet.

Vanka needed the old man’s help. He needed his grandfather.

At this moment grandfather was, no doubt, standing at the gate, screwing up his eyes at the red windows of the church, stamping with his high felt boots, and joking with the servants. His little mallet was hanging on his belt. He was clasping his hands, shrugging with the cold, and, with an aged chuckle, pinching first the housemaid, then the cook.

I read the story last night with the last school shooting still in the news

“And yesterday I had a wigging. The master pulled me out into the yard by my hair, and whacked me with a boot-stretcher because I accidentally fell asleep while I was rocking their brat in the cradle. And a week ago the mistress told me to clean a herring, and I began from the tail end, and she took the herring and thrust its head in my face.

The workmen laugh at me and send me to the tavern for vodka, and tell me to steal the master’s cucumbers for them, and the master beats me with anything that comes to hand. And there is nothing to eat. In the morning they give me bread, for dinner, porridge, and in the evening, bread again; but as for tea, or soup, the master and mistress gobble it all up themselves.

And I am put to sleep in the passage, and when their wretched brat cries I get no sleep at all, but have to rock the cradle. Dear grandfather, show the divine mercy, take me away from here, home to the village. It’s more than I can bear. I bow down to your feet, and will pray to God for you for ever, take me away from here or I shall die.”

Vanka’s mouth worked, he rubbed his eyes with his black fist, and gave a sob.

An old man holds the power to save young Vanka from a brutal home life

Is it too much to say fifty old men and women in Washington DC, aged wise men and women, adults who have had life experience, maybe raising their own kids, have the power to save countless school kids Vanka’s age from death at the hands of a shooter?

Parents across America are rubbing their eyes with black fists and sobbing about kids their own kids’ age.

“Do come, dear grandfather,” Vanka went on with his letter. “For Christ’s sake, I beg you, take me away. Have pity on an unhappy orphan like me; here everyone knocks me about, and I am fearfully hungry; I can’t tell you what misery it is, I am always crying. And the other day the master hit me on the head with a last, so that I fell down. My life is wretched, worse than any dog’s. . . . I send greetings to Alyona, one-eyed Yegorka, and the coachman, and don’t give my concertina to anyone. I remain, your grandson, Ivan Zhukov. Dear grandfather, do come.”

Will the grandfathers and grandmothers in Washington DC come for the children in Texas, for the shoppers in New York? Will they see the tragedy beyond their limited scope of view?

The shopmen at the butcher’s, whom he had questioned the day before, told him that letters were put in post-boxes, and from the boxes were carried about all over the earth in mailcarts with drunken drivers and ringing bells. Vanka ran to the nearest post-box, and thrust the precious letter in the slit. . . .

An hour later, lulled by sweet hopes, he was sound asleep. . . . He dreamed of the stove. On the stove was sitting his grandfather, swinging his bare legs, and reading the letter to the cooks. . . .

By the stove was Eel, wagging his tail.

Vanka took a long, long, nap

No one minding their own business and going about their own lives is ready for that nap.

It’s sad that a tragic boy orphaned by fate and a grandfather comes to a sad end, freezing to death after sending a letter of hope into the dark night.

That it takes a Russian writer to tell the tale of a tragic boy and other boys and girls living the same tragic live, and it still resonates, is a message across time.

We live in an advanced country, a First World country.

First-world countries are often characterized by prosperity, democracy, and stability—both political and economic.

And yet we are governed by grandfathers and grandmothers who turn a blind eye to the terrorists acts committed here.

Was yesterday’s killing a terrorist act? What else is there to call a gunman barricaded inside a classroom?

Was he mentally ill? More mentally ill than the fifty grandpas and grandpas in the US Senate who can’t think of a way to prevent more shootings?

Who’s next? It’s a real question for kids, parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, the community, and the state and nation.

Who’s next? It won’t be the shooter whose momma won’t drive him and his gun; it won’t be the would-be shooter who turns 18 and fails the National Instant Criminal Background Check; it won’t be a responsible gun owner with their weapons secured.

Who’s next?