Ice Trilogy (15 page)

“Okh, ahhh
h..
.”

“What is it, youngster?” asked the gray-beard.

“I feel sorta sic
k..
.” The young man stood up and took a few steps to one side.

He threw up the meat.

“Oh, shit, goddamni
t..
.” He spat, walked over to the river, cupped water into his large, strong palms, and drank greedily.

“Ain’t you the one now, puking up meat!” a small, flat-faced runner laughed viciously.

“T’ain’t yur business, Skunk,” the stocky one barked at him. “He ain’t in your way. Stuff in as much as yur belly can fit.”

We
knew
that the red-bearded fellow was one of us, but we didn’t know what to do. Our hearts were tense and quiet. I was seeing this healthy young lad for the first time, but my heart
had known
him for a long time. The most surprising thing was that he moved and behaved like the others, not even suspecting
what
dozed in his chest! He spat it all out, washed his face, and muttered a few words, just like a DOLL! Yet his heart was alive. It was so strange and comic that Fer and I began to laugh. The fellow looked at us sullenly and went to the boats. Our presence obviously made him uncomfortable: his heart was uneasy.

“Real funny-bones, the two a ya,” said a runner with metal dentures, squinting at us. “Happy? A good life, is it? Them Sowvyets ain’t given ya the what for yet?”

He pulled a large tobacco pouch from his jacket, opened it, and offered it to everyone. Coarse hands reached into the pouch.

“What did you come here for?” a quiet runner with a thin, intelligent face asked us.

“We have an Arctic fox,” Fer answered.

“How many?”

“Just one.”

“You sailed all the way here for that?”

Fer shrugged her shoulders.

“She left her father,” I spoke up. “She’s my wife. We’re heading to a new place.”

The runners didn’t display any particular surprise.

“Well, give the fox here,” said the intelligent-looking runner, scratching the short beard on his cheek.

I fetched the fox pelt from the boat and handed it to the runner. He shook it, smelled it, then turned it over and examined it.

“One zolotnik,” he said quickly.

It was all the same to us. I nodded. The runner untied his purse, took out a copper scale, a weight, and a little bag with gold dust. He quickly weighed out one zolotnik, poured the gold dust into a paper funnel, folded it deftly so that the dust wouldn’t spill out, and handed it to me. He stuffed the pelt into a bag filled with skins.

The runners, having finished their meal, began to prepare the boats for departure. This was strange — the sun was already going down.

“You’re going to sail at night?” I asked.

“And why not?” the intelligent runner asked, tying up his bag. “The river is smooth here. And it’s a whole nuther thousand versts to the Yenisei. There’s no time for sleepovers, young man.”

“But when do you sleep?”

“During the day when we stop we have a snooze. That does it.”

“We’ll sleep our fill in the grave!” laughed the hook-nosed runner.

“And you’re not afraid to sail past settlements?”

“Settlements! You ain’t gonna see no settlements for two days.”

As I spoke with them, I followed the red-bearded fellow with my heart. I
felt
his every movement. In comparison to him all the other runners were merely boats on the riverbank. They were no different than Fer’s stepmother looking out from under the table. The runners settled into their boats.

A decision had to be made.

“May we sail along with you?” I asked.

“Go ahead, it don’t bother us none,” the stocky one said, pushing away from the bank with his oar.

“Godspeed,” the intelligent one said loudly, and they all crossed themselves.

Their long boats moved out. I put Fer in our boat, pushed off the sandbar, and jumped in. The seagulls sitting on the trees immediately glided down to the smoking campfire and began to peck at the vomit left by the red-bearded fellow.

Fer and I took up our oars.

The runners used their oars rarely but skillfully, helping the current. Their boats traveled in a caravan, one after the other. The red-bearded fellow sat in the last one. Our boat fell in line behind him. Steering the boat, we would glance at the blond nape of his neck. He was tense and behaved uneasily: he smoked a lot, spat in the river, and kept up an irritated mutter. The metal-toothed runner began a long, drawn-out song, which was gradually picked up by the others. They sang of abandoned childhood homes, of a mother’s grave, of the wanderer’s bitter lot. Their discordant voices carried over the smooth surface of the river.

The sun hid beyond the horizon. The first boat lit a tar torch. The river was submerged in the dim Siberian night. The song finished. And from the banks you could hear the sound of a felled tree. It seemed to urge us on. Our hearts throbbed. We still didn’t know
what to do
, but with our hearts we understood
how
. I leaned on my oar, and Fer, sitting closer to the bow, leaned on hers. Our boat pulled up beside the last of the runners’ boats. We were getting closer to the red-bearded young fellow. He looked over in our direction. I began to think what I should say to him. But Fer took the lead from me: “Will you show me how to row?”

The red-bearded guy, not realizing that she was talking to him, looked around. But Fer looked straight in his eyes. The two runners sitting in the boat with him laughed, puffing out tobacco smoke. The young fellow laughed spitefully.

“Ro
w...
What’s there t
o...
?”

It seemed that he was cursing Fer. But then, setting his oar aside, the redheaded fellow grabbed the side of our boat with his strong hands, pulled it over, and jumped in with us. The others, remaining in the boat, laughed.

“Watch out, our Kolyvanets here is on the loose.”

“Hey there, youngster, watch out for your wife.”

The red-bearded guy sat in the middle of the boat, his back to me, facing Fer. She handed him her oar. He took it, glanced back at me, lowered the oar overboard, and began to row. He was anxious and rowed with too much zeal and strength. We began to pass his partners’ boat.

“Don’t hurry,” I said.

He looked back at me again. In the twilight he seemed bewildered. And I understood — he couldn’t escape our hearts. Fer also
understood
this.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Nikola,” he answered.

“Where you rushin’ to, Nikola?” asked Fer, and
the way
she said it filled me with such ecstasy that tears came to my eyes.

I adored Fer.

“Whatcha mean, where? There! With them!” The young fellow grinned, trying to get a hold of himself.

“You don’t need to go with them,” I said.

“Why’s that?” A shiver ran through his powerful shoulders.

“You don’t need to go with them.” Fer spoke.

And our hearts began to speak. Nikola’s sleeping heart was between us. It became
agitated
. He froze stock-still with the oar in his hands. I also stopped rowing. Our boat began to fall behind the caravan of runners.

“You need to go with us,” I said.

“You need to go with us,” Fer said.

The young man fell into a stupor. We froze as well.

The current carried the boat. The caravan sailed on; the flame of the torch grew smaller, disappearing in the twilight. The river began to turn to the right. Our boat was carried to the bank. The bottom scraped against the sand, the bow knocked against the dark bank. The boat stopped.

“Niko-la-a-a-a!” came a weak cry from far off.

The fellow shuddered.

I put my hand on his shoulder. “They won’t sail against the current.”

“Come on, don’t fool around,” he muttered, but didn’t budge.

Fer took him by the wrist.

“Wh
o...
are you?” Nikola asked.

“I am your brother,” I answered.

“And I am your sister,” Fer said.

“We came for you,” I added.

For a minute he sat in a stupor. Then he let out a sob and began to cry. We embraced him. He wept, his broad shoulders shook. There was much of the child in his weeping. My heart felt that he was
tired of waiting
. And just plain tired. When he calmed down and wiped his face with his sleeve, we helped him out of the boat onto the riverbank, pulled the boat onto the shoal, started a campfire, and sat near the flames. Nikola crossed himself and began to speak incoherently. He hadn’t slept for four days, since he’d had a vision. When the runners arrived at the village of Neriunda on the Katanga, three new boats built by the locals awaited them. The runners, as always, paid for the boats with nine horses and began to prepare to sail. The only thing left to do was to tar the boats. They heated the tar in three pails. Nikola picked up one of the pails. He went over to a boat with the pail and a brush, glanced in the pail, and in the hot tar saw his own reflection. It was him, but he was six years old. He was with his father, mother, and uncles at haymaking time; they were sitting on a tablecloth in a field. And suddenly fire flew across the sky. Then there was such a thundering crash that the whole forest swayed. And all the grown-ups fell to the ground in fear. But Nikola wasn’t scared by it, just the opposite — he had a
very good feeling in his chest
. He sat and looked at the sky, where a wide trail remained from the fire. When everything quieted down, the grown-ups lifted their heads. And Nikola
didn’t recognize
them. His father, mother, and uncles forever ceased to be his family. It was as though they had been pushed aside. Six-year-old Nikola realized that he was
alone
. It scared him so badly that he stopped talking and
instantly
forgot everything that happened. He began talking again only two years later. The hot tar had reminded him of all this. He dropped the bucket. And suddenly he felt that he was once again
alone
among people. This made such an impression on him that he stopped sleeping. He could not drift off, forget himself, and fall asleep.

Neither could he with the runners, not at night while they traveled, nor during their daily stops when most of them dozed. People frightened and puzzled him: he didn’t understand
who
they were. The runners noticed that he was acting strange and started to make fun of him. But the stocky man from his village stuck up for him. With every passing day of the run, Nikola felt worse. Life among
alien
people seemed horrifying to him. He began to think about suicide. When Fer and I appeared he was shocked: he felt that we were
different
. Everything that happened seemed like a dream to him: he didn’t know what to do. But he understood it was
no mere coincidence
that we had come.

Having listened to his confused story, Fer and I held his coarse hands, roughened by his toil with the oar. We were happy.

“When were you born?” I asked.

“Three days after Easter in 1902,” Nikola answered.

“Where did you live, when you saw the fire in the sky?”

“In Ust-Kut,” he replied.

That was about seven hundred kilometers from the place where the Ice fell. I already
knew
with my heart that the Ice had flown from southeast to northwest. It had flown over Ust-Kut. With my heart I
envied
Nikola: he had seen the Ice in the sky. I had only heard it.

“What was it?” Nikola asked.

“Our joy and our salvation,” I answered.

He grew thoughtful.

“And how come they call you Kolyvanets, iffen you’re from Ust-Kut?” asked Fer.

“I did time in Kolyvan. That’s why they give me the nicknam
e..
.”

“What for?”

“Horse rustling. I got two years, but I run away from the convict transport. Joined up with the runners.”

He stared at the fire. The flames played in his blue eyes. I squeezed his hand.

“Nikola, what you saw back then — it flew here for us. It fell to the earth. And lies there now, beyond the Katanga. We need to go there.”

Nikola stared into the fire silently. He was numb. But Fer was agitated. Her heart
felt
the Ice.

“Oh my, how my heart wants i
t...
” She placed her hands on her chest. “And it ain’t far?”

“About four days’ walk,” I estimated. “But — at a fast walk.”

“And what will happen?” asked Nikola.

“
Everything
will happen,” I answered, helping with my heart.

And Nikola
understood
, even though his heart was sleeping.

The road back to the Ice was a happy one for me, joyous for Fer, and a sore trial for Nikola. Fer and I could walk the taiga day and night without tiring, as though we were being pushed along from behind. Nikola was experiencing much the same thing that I had during Kulik’s expedition. He stopped speaking, became furious, and then cried. We led him, holding him up under his arms. Nor could he eat. Fer and I fed off berries and were not troubled by hunger. After my heart began to speak, I forgot hunger forever.

Passing along the riverbed of the Chamba, we found traces of the expedition’s campgrounds and set out along the old trail. Four days and nights flew by for me like a single moment. We carried Nikola the last few kilometers: a fever had gripped his body and he mumbled, unconscious. We were
drunk
with delight: every step we took brought us closer to the Ice. The dead taiga parted, admitting us to a miracle. Our hearts
anticipated
with pleasure. Fer sang and roared with joy, her eyes shone like stars.

When we came to the swamp, the sun stood at its zenith. We laid Nikola down on the sun-warmed moss and began to tear off our clothes. Then, taking each other by the hand, we entered the swamp. The icy water seemed as warm to us as milk fresh from the cow. We laughed and cried: the Ice awaited us!

Quicksand grabbed at our feet, branches of trees rotting in the swamp waters scratched us and held on, but what could hinder us? Overcoming the swamp mire, we swam in the strip of water. And soon we touched the Ice. Fer gave a long-winded shout. I pushed her out onto the concave surface of the Ice. And climbed up there myself. The great block of Ice vibrated invisibly under us. Our hearts resounded in reply. Embracing, we collapsed upon the Ice.