The Doll Maker

My great grandfather was always a quiet man. For a fellow who'd spent the first half of his life in the USSR, you'd expect him to have some stories, and maybe he did. He just never told any of them---except for one.

Once, in the 1980s, when I was laid off (thanks, Regan), I picked up the side hobby of repairing antique dolls. My great grandfather absolutely hated this, which made things incredibly difficult as I was caring for him at the time.

One day, I had finally had enough of his complaining. "Why?" I demanded. "What is your issue with dolls, Praded?"

He took a deep breath and looked me in the eye. "You want to know why I hate those things so much?"

"Yes," I pleaded. "Please tell me. I want to understand."

He took another breath. "I have kept silent for so long. But you want to know.  So you shall." He then raised his hand and wagged his finger at me. "But I warn you, dorogoy, you will wish you had not asked."

The story my great grandfather told me is as follows.

When my great grandfather was young, he served in the militia of a tiny village. From what I can gather, it was a relatively peaceful place. The occasional theft was all the militia really had to deal with. That is, until the incident with the doll maker.

On the outskirts of the village lived a man who made dolls and other toys for a living. My great grandfather described him as a friendly but odd man with a wife and six young daughters. He was, I guess, an eccentric who was always trying to invent new kinds of toys and games for the village children. It sounds like he could never get it quite right, and some of his "creations" wound up being the stuff of nightmares. He would take parts from a doll and use them to make trains. He would take out dolls' eyes and fill their heads with brightly colored scarves that children could, in theory, pull out and play with. But none of his ideas really took off, as you might imagine.

The doll maker became depressed. He grew increasingly despondent. Eventually, he started wandering around the village, demanding that children take his toys and play with them. He would scream and cry if they didn't. The militia almost had to run him out of town.

One day, as my great grandfather was making his rounds through the village, he was approached by the dollmaker’s wife.

“Sir,” she said, “you must help me. I don’t know what to do about my husband. He frightens me.”

My great grandfather couldn’t help but smirk. “He seems to frighten a great many people,” he said. “Most of them children.”

“You don’t understand,” said the woman, who apparently did not appreciate his attempt at humor. “Something is very wrong with him. He doesn’t eat. He doesn’t sleep. I have to force him to wash. And he goes about with a strange look in his eyes. He keeps muttering to himself, saying, ‘Big and new! The children must have something big and new!’ And the way he looks at me, and at the children…. I fear he may do something terrible!”

My great grandfather now took her very seriously. According to him, she was nearly in tears now, and trembling. “Is he violent toward you?” he asked.

“No,” she said. “But I fear he may become so.”

“Well,” he said, “you go straight home and tell him that if he does not come to his senses and stop behaving in such a strange manner, the village watch will have to come and pay him a visit.”

As the story goes, the doll maker’s wife looked skeptical, but thanked my great grandfather none-the-less and hurried back home.

It was at this point in the telling of the story that my great grandfather paused. I watched in awe as a tear formed in his eye and rolled halfway down his cheek before he wiped it away. Never before had I seen the man cry. It was quite some time before he resumed his tale.

The doll maker was almost never seen after that. He didn't come out to the village square like he normally did. It was clear that he hadn't left town, because the lights would be on in his home at night, but his shop never opened again after that. His wife and six daughters could still be seen in the village, running their daily errands, but even they disappeared after a while. Everyone assumed the doll maker's wife had left him and taken the children.

Other rumors began to swirl. Some people said the doll maker went completely crazy. Others said he was praying to Satan for the return of his wife. No one knew for sure, of course, and any attempt to make contact with him was met with a curt "Go away, I'm busy!"

The villagers' curiosity about the doll maker was just starting to die down, when suddenly one day, he threw open his front door and ran from his home. He looked absolutely terrible. His skin was pale and stretched thin over his bones. Heavy bags could be seen under his sunken eyes. He looked like a walking corpse, and yet the smile on his face could not have been bigger. With wide eyes and a croaking, hoarse voice, he ran through the streets and shouted, "Matryoshka! Matryoshka!"

He reach the village square where a crowd had gathered. There, he shouted to anyone within earshot, "Matryoshka! At last!" And then, according to my great grandfather, the doll maker fell to the ground and never moved again. It was confirmed soon afterwards that the man had died.

The task fell, of course, to the village militia to enter the man's home to determine exactly what had happened. My great grandfather said the first thing that hit them before they even went in was the smell. He knew then that, whatever they were in for, it wasn't good. Still, nothing could have prepared them for what they found.

Upon entering his workshop, several questions were answered at once. In case you didn't already know, "Matryoshka" is the name for those Russian nesting dolls. The militia learned at once why this had been the doll maker's last word---and they also knew what happened to the man's wife and daughters.