Ice Trilogy (21 page)

Hearing the first story about the Ice from me on the train, he remembered his grandfather and the fantastical dream. At the same time he began to have the feeling that I
had known
his grandfather. That was why he had asked me about him so obsessively.

Ig’s dream strengthened our faith in the power of the Ice. Each of
our people
had had dreams related to the Ice. And in this was the Great Wisdom of the Light.

After catching up on sleep, we got ready to travel. The Chekist Deribas was supposed to go to a sanatorium on the Crimean shore of the Black Sea in order to regain his health. We traveled with him. We were given new documents with the celebrated surname Deribas: I became Alexander Dmitrievich, Fer was Anfisa Dmitrievna. We had to stop in Krasnoyarsk and find Rubu and Ep, so as to take them with us. We were worried about them — the OGPU was looking for Rubu. Furthermore, we had to preserve the remaining six pieces of Ice. Ig hid four pieces in his attic: it was cold there, and winters in Khabarovsk were very cold. He packed two pieces in wooden chests, closed them with the lead seals of the OGPU, and ordered that they be loaded onto the train. They were placed in the unheated space between the cars.

At the end of October the train set off. Traveling in it were guards, a cook, a doctor, Deribas’s secretary, and us. It was already winter in eastern Siberia — the snow lay on the hillocks that swam past the windows and it swirled around the cars. The train with a red star on the nose of the locomotive rushed toward the west. The wheels clacked along the frozen rails of the Trans-Siberian. The three of us sat in Deribas’s compartment and talked about the future. A
very
significant endeavor awaited us. The endeavor of our lives. We stood at the beginning of the great road to the Light. It was important not to make any mistakes, not to act in haste. Neither did we have the right to move too slowly.

There were only five of us, five awakened hearts. There remained 22,995 brothers and sisters scattered about the complex world of this planet. They lived in different countries and spoke different languages, unaware of the Great Kinship, knowing nothing about their true nature. Their hearts slept, pumping blood like wordless machines in the corporeal darkness. Then they wore out, grew old, and stopped. And they were buried in the earth. But the Light, on leaving the dying heart, immediately passed to the heart of a newborn person, making him our brother. And this tiny heart began to pump blood again in the darkness of an infant body.

We had to break this vicious cycle. By means of the Ice hammer we had to separate the Divine Light from vile, short-lived flesh.

Our hearts burned with passion.

But passion alone was not much. We had to begin a long, persistent war against humankind for our brothers and sisters. This required huge resources. In order to sift through the human race, searching for the golden grain of our Brotherhood, we had to control this race.

Money provided power in the world of people. But in Soviet Russia money didn’t play the same role as in the rest of the world. In a country living under the red flag with the hammer and sickle, only the state wielded absolute power. In order to achieve success in Russia, we would have to become part of the state machine, take cover under it, and, wearing the uniforms of officialdom, go about achieving our goal. There was no other way. Any secret society existing outside of the totalitarian state was doomed. We couldn’t allow ourselves to become underground members of a secret order, hiding in the dark corners under the hierarchical ladder of power. That road led only to the torture chambers of the OGPU and the Stalinist camps. We had to clamber up this ladder and stand solidly on it. Then the difficult and painstaking process of searching for
our people
would possess the necessary protection. The fellowship had to enter the power structure. We had to make our way through its thick skin. In order to search for
our brothers and sisters
.

That was what our heads decided.

That was what our
wise
hearts prompted us to do.

So we began the search. We decided to stop in every large town. And we did. The train stopped in Chita. Ig called his secretary and right before our eyes climbed easily back into the steel armor of the Far East’s top Chekist. With others he again became Deribas, ruthless and principled, the guard dog of the Revolution. He ordered his secretary to bring the head of the local OGPU. When the boss, perplexed, climbed into the car, Deribas ordered him to provide us with a car, a driver, and a Chekist escort. Fer and I drove around the city in the car. Our heart
magnet
began to work. We were
looking
. Stopping on the streets, we went into markets and stores, into Soviet organizations and barracks. All day we moved around the cozy, two-story town of Chita, surrounded by mountains, white with snow. But our hearts were silent: there were none of
us
in Chita. Exhausted and despairing from the heart’s anticipation, I decided that we should return to the train station. On the way back I realized
just how
widely we were scattered among humans: in a town with a population of forty thousand, there wasn’t a single one of us! Fer’s heart, and mine, appreciated the miraculous and rapid acquisition of three brothers. The Light living in our hearts helped us.

Arriving at the small square in front of the station, strewn with cigarette butts and pine-nut shells, we began to get out of the car. And suddenly our hearts felt a
jolt
. Somewhere nearby a flute sounded plaintively. Fer looked around. Her heart
felt
our presence more powerfully than mine. Like a sleepwalker, she moved across the square, bumping into idlers and passengers waiting for the trains. I followed her. The Chekist, not understanding whom we had been searching for so intensely all day, stood by the car and smoked. As I walked, my heart began to tremble. The feeling got stronger and stronger. My eyes, watching Fer’s back, clouded with tears. How I
loved
my sister at such fateful moments! She led me. And our hearts
called out to each other
.

Fer stopped short. I almost ran into her.

On a wooden box, there sat an intelligent-looking, middle-aged man dressed in a once-expensive but now tattered dirty coat with a soiled Arctic-fox fur collar. He was playing the flute. A cracked pince-nez trembled on his long, hooked nose. His reddish mustache was covered in frost. His light-blue eyes looked vacantly doomed: this man no longer had anything to lose. There were holes in his old gray felt boots. He was playing something plaintive and mournful.

We stood stock-still in front of him.

Our hearts
trembled
: he was our brother!

His sleeping heart could feel the power of the Light, which flared in our hearts, for the first time. The melody stopped abruptly. Our brother raised his eyes. They met with ours. His pince-nez trembled, his eyes widened in horror. He raised his flute to fend us off, and fell from the box. He cried out hoarsely, “Nooooooo!”

We lifted him under his arms. He wailed in a raspy, congested voice and tried weakly to break loose. His terror wasn’t a sham: his delicate, emaciated face paled, and a spasm ran through the muscles of his mouth.

“Noooo! No! Noooo!” he wailed, writhing in our hands.

People looked at us with curiosity. The Chekist ran over.

“We were looking
for him
!” I informed the Chekist with a voice breaking with joy.

“I know this guy, the rat!” the Chekist grabbed the station musician by his collar. “White scum! Come on then, you, enough pretending!”

The three of us dragged the struggling musician to the platform where our red-nosed train stood. Along the way the musician lost consciousness. The flute fell from his stiff fingers. But we didn’t pick it up. What would he need a flute for now? Joy burst from our hearts. We wanted to laugh, squeal, and roar from happiness.

“This cockroach here played in the White’s orchestra,” the Chekist muttered. “They didn’t knock him off, felt sorry for the turd: after all, he’s a musicia
n...
Comrade Babich told him to stay away from Chita — ‘Don’t let me hear there’s a trace of you in town, you piece of White shit’ — but no, he had to crawl back, the scoundrel. Were you looking for him for the old stuff?”

“For
new things
!” I answered joyously.

The Chekist remained silent.

We carried the unconscious flautist into the main compartment; Deribas gave the command. And the train began to move. The local Chekists standing on the platform saluted. The city of Chita, which had presented us with a brother, swam past the window, away from us forever: there were no more of
us
there. Evening fell, in the two-story houses the windows lit up dimly. The snow-covered mountains hid the town.

The guards brought the box with the Ice into the compartment. Then they left. Ig locked the door. His hand trembled with impatience. We opened the crate. We took the Ice and placed it on the floor. And, unable to restrain ourselves, grabbed it with our hands. Our hearts
resonated
with the Ice. Moans and cries burst from our lips.

The musician moved and opened his eyes. He looked at us in terror.

It was time to awaken our brother.

“Don’t be afraid of anything,” I told him. “You are among
the people closest
to you.”

He screamed like a wounded hare. Ig covered his mouth, tied it with a handkerchief. We began to undress the wandering musician. Under his coat was a woman’s old top, torn at the elbows; under that, a dirty tunic. It teemed with lice. His body was thin and hadn’t been washed for a long time, like a truly homeless man. He writhed in our hands and moaned weakly. Ig broke off the necessary piece of Ice with the handle of a revolver. Fer pulled the laces from her boots and looked around: in the corner of Deribas’s compartment stood a red flag. On Soviet holidays it was attached to the locomotive. Fer grabbed the flag and tore the faded red cloth from it. We tied the Ice to the stick; Ig lifted the moaning musician and pressed the man’s back to his own chest. I aimed at the thin, dirty chest bone, drew back, and struck it with the Ice hammer. The blow was so powerful that the musician and Ig toppled backward, tripped on the sofa, and fell. The stick broke, pieces of the Ice skittered all around. One of them cut Fer on the forehead above her eyebrow. The musician lost consciousness. Ig rushed to him and removed the gag from his mouth. He wasn’t breathing.

“You killed him!” Ig exclaimed.

But Ig’s heart was still very
young
compared to ours. We
knew
that the brother was alive. Blood began to run from his nose. Fer pressed her ear to the flautist’s chest. His heart remained silent.

“Speak with your heart,” she whispered passionately.

“Speak with your heart.” I gave his heart a little push.

“Speak with your heart,” Ig growled.

And our brother began to speak with his heart.

“Kta, Kta, Kta.”

Our exclamations of joy were so loud that Deribas’s secretary knocked on the door.

Ig shouted out happily.

Brother Kta moved and let out a moan. He was in pain: the force of the hammer had cracked his chest bone. But his awakened heart beat and spoke, beat and spoke.

“Kta! Kta! Kta!”

We cried for joy. Kta moaned. Blood dripped from the wound and flowed down his thin ribs. Ig pressed a kerchief to the wound and, tears pouring out of his eyes, shouted so loud that his face turned purple.

“Furman, get the doctor!”

“Yes, sir!” came the answer on the other side of the door.

I rushed to collect the precious Ice. But my heart suddenly
let me know
: I should not pick up these pieces; the Ice hammer strikes ONLY one heart. There was the Wisdom of the Light in this. I froze, squatting over the pieces lying on the rug. A louse crawled across one of them. It shook me out of my stupor. Lifting the main piece, I placed it back in the crate, closed the top, and nailed it shut with the handle of a revolver. Ig grabbed the splinters of wood from the stick and pushed them and the red material under the sofa.

There was a knock at the door. Ig opened it. The doctor entered, followed by the secretary Furman.

“His sternum is broken,” said Ig, pointing to Kta. “Do what you need to, Semyonov. You are responsible for his life.”

The doctor touched the chest. Kta cried out.

“A crack,” muttered the doctor. “We need a soft splint.”

“Do i
t...
do what you have to! Or I’ll shoot you!” Ig shouted, losing control of himself.

The doctor turned pale: Deribas had never spoken to him that way.

I put my hand on his back and nudged him with my heart: “Calm down.”

Unlike Fer and me, Ig had not yet
cried
with his heart. And he had not yet discovered the Wisdom of the Light.

The doctor placed a soft bandage on Kta’s chest and gave him a shot of morphine. Kta fell into a deep sleep. We covered him with a blanket and left him on a sofa in the compartment. The guards carried the crate with the Ice back to the cold space between cars. We sat around Kta as he slept. Night fell. I turned off the light in the compartment. The car rocked. Outside stretched a black, impenetrable forest; occasionally we caught sight of the starry sky. We held hands in the dark. Our hearts beat
regularly
. They protected our
newborn’s
sleep
.

The next morning Kta came to. Fear had not yet left his emaciated body. But we did everything to make sure that he
understood
who we were.

The next day was spent along the shore of the Baikal, the huge Siberian lake. Suddenly we stopped. Deribas was informed that two trains had collided up ahead. Fixing the rails took four days. Over this time, Kta finally returned to his old self. We saw the design of the Light in this: the trains collided to allow an awakening heart some rest.

Kta told us about himself: he, Iosif Tseitlin, came from a moderately well-off Jewish family. He graduated from the Moscow Conservatory in flute, played in the Bolshoi Theater orchestra, during the Civil War escaped from the capital to the area beyond the Urals, was captured by the Whites, played the trumpet in a military band, was then imprisoned by the Reds, miraculously escaped execution, lived four years in Chita giving private music lessons, then was arrested as a “former person,” again miraculously escaped the repressions, was exiled from the town, wandered here and there, playing at stations, then
for some reason
returned to Chita, although the head of the OGPU there, Artyom Babich, had threatened him with the firing squad.