Ice Trilogy (90 page)

Wolf fell silent and slowly, smacking his lips, drank the rest of his cold tea.

Olga sat quietly, struck by what she had heard. The crying boy with the red-hot poker stood right before her eyes. The old man rose from the chair, and stretched out his yellow hand.

“Dear Miss Drobot, I wish you good luck.”

Olga realized that he was saying goodbye. After such a long, intimate story, this was rather sudden. She reached her hand out to Wolf, meaning to say that he shouldn’t hurry to say goodbye, but she suddenly felt something in the old man’s hand. He put a piece of paper in her palm.

“Mister Wolf — ” Olga said, but he interrupted her.

“The very best to you, Miss Drobot.”

The old man turned and walked into the Garage. But he hadn’t yet entered the hall leading to the male half when the white door marked
SECURITY
opened and two Chinese in uniforms stood in front of him. One pointed at the door with his club. The old man walked obediently toward the bright opening. He stopped. Looked back. His eyes found Olga. He looked at her. He wasn’t smiling as usual, he didn’t wink. His face was calm and serious. Olga jumped up, raised her hand, and waved to him.

The guards grabbed the old man under the arms and dragged him inside. The white door closed.

Tears welled up in Olga’s eyes. Squeezing the piece of paper in her hand, she went to the Ham, laid down on her bed, and sobbed into her pillow. People tried to console her but she waved them away. Crying her fill, she fell asleep quickly. And awoke from a gentle touch: Liz was cautiously kissing her on the neck. Olga opened her eyes. It was dark in the Ham. The electronic clock showed 23:12.

“What’s wrong?” Liz asked. “You’re sleeping in your clothes. Are you tired?”

“Yes,” Olga muttered as she sat up on the bed.

“Do you want some water?”

“I do.” Olga wanted to run her palm down her face, but she felt the piece of paper in her fist.

She remembered Wolf, his story, the white doo
r...
She squeezed the paper in her fist more tightly. Liz returned with a plastic cup and handed it to her. Olga drank. The ice-cold water was pleasantly refreshing.

“Want to come to my bed?” Liz proposed in a whisper. “Rosemary went to her Scottish girl, and now you and I have a spacious be
d..
.”

“You know, Liz, I’m kind of tired,” Olga answered, placing the cup on the shelf and sliding off the bed.

“Well, I’ll give you some energy, sweetie pie.” Liz gently held Olga’s breasts from behind. “You hurt your little finger? Sweetie pie’s finger hurts? Let me kiss that little finger.”

“Liz, not today, all right?”

“What, do you have your period?”

“No, I’m just really tired and want to sleep.”

“You sure?” Liz embraced Olga’s waist.

“Absolutely!” Olga grinned and yawned.

“Well, all right then. Go ahead and sleep, honey.” Liz kissed Olga on the cheek, turned, and went back to her bed.

As she undressed, Olga watched Liz go. There was nothing between Liz and Olga but gentleness. It happened somehow naturally, though Liz had taken the initiative. She’d had women before Olga. Before Liz, Olga had been deeply in love with Leonora, her contemporary-history teacher, a tall, portly, kind, very calm woman. Olga fell in love quickly and deeply. Before that there had been the guy who made a woman of her; the affair lasted almost a year and then they drifted apart without hard feelings. Then there was another guy, for a very short time. But Olga had fallen hard for Leonora. It ended in disaster — Leonora didn’t understand or accept it. Olga stopped going to her lectures, but passed history just the sam
e...
Olga didn’t meet anyone else while she was in college. Then over six years she’d had two affairs. The last had been with a man whom she liked a great deal, but he was married and decided to stick with his family. And after tha
t...
after that there was only the ice hammer.

Waiting for Liz to settle down, Olga went to the bathroom. After the lights-out bell it was the only place that remained illuminated. She entered, washed her face, and glanced at the observation cameras: one in the left corner, another in the right. Six stalls open at the top so that everything could be seen. Which should she choose? Where could she hide from the cameras? Rinsing out her mouth, she realized — in the fourth stall from the entrance. The bottom of the stall couldn’t possibly be see
n...

Olga entered the fourth stall, pulled down her underpants, and sat on the toilet. She exerted herself and squeezed out a stream of urine. And slowly opened her fist. On her palm lay a thin, almost transparent piece of tracing paper, covered with minute handwriting. Olga unfolded it carefully and began to decode Wolf’s microscopic handwriting.

I won’t address you by name for safety reasons.

From our lengthy conversations, you, as a sincere and impulsive person, have most likely already come to a premature conclusion about my misanthropic cynicism and apostasy. I assure you, my child, that it is not so. Happily, even after everything that has occurred, I have not become a misanthrope. Even now, at the edge of death, I still feel that I am that very same boy with the red-hot poker in his hand, trying in vain to revive half-people. But they cannot be revived, for they are the enemies of everything living. I have hated my father and his Brotherhood my entire life. And I continue to hate them now, as I await a forced death at the hands of the Brothers of the Light. Alas, my child, they won’t let me die of cancer! I am a patient man and I look on death stoically. But I do not at all desire that you should die by the will of 23,000 living dead. And with you, the entire Earth and her inhabitants. I confess that I am fond of you — as a thinking reed, and a woman. For that reason I am giving you the opportunity to defend your life and that of five billion
Homo sapiens
. The chance is extremely small, but theoretically possible. It was no accident that I told you the story about the poker. As an observant person, you should understand my idea. The end of the Earth will be the Prime Circle, in which the entire Brotherhood, all 23,000, will gather. I don’t know where the preparations for this event are being made, in what corner of our planet the launchpad for the Children of the Light is situated, but I am certain of one thing — no simple mortals will be there when it takes off. There will only be brothers and sisters of my now departed father, who never gave my sister and me any paternal warmth. When the last Circle gathers, when they grasp one another’s hands, begin talking in their language in anticipation of the beginning, they will cease hearing or feeling anything, just as those in the parlor of our house did back then. At this time you will be free to do with them whatever you like. The main thing is to find the launchpad. This is strategy. Now about tactics. I am certain that you are reading my farewell missive in the toilet. I am more than certain that you, a person with a quick Jewish mind, easily found the only safe stall for reading — the fourth from the entrance. If you will now lower your right hand and feel the edge of the toilet, you will find a key there. This is the key to the door in the hallway between the Ham and the Garage, from which, as you recall, the cleaning man and woman emerge once a week, in order to clean up our — forgive me, now it’s your — temporary dwelling. Behind that door are auxiliary premises, more simply put, the altar of the underground guards of cleanliness. This space, as far as I know, is connected with the guards’ room, where two guards are constantly on duty. At night, as far as I know, these two are the only guards in the bunker. Four others, on duty during the day upstairs in the workshop, leave the bunker at nighttime.

I wish you luck!

I am not signing this for the same reasons of safety.

P.S. Forgive me that for the possible salvation of the Earth it was necessary to sit on your toilet. By the way, do not forget to flush this letter down.

Olga folded the note and lowered her right hand, feeling around the edge of the toilet. The key had been stuck there with chewing gum. She took the key and clutched it in her fist. Her heart thumped: Aha! With the letter in her left hand and the key in her right, Olga froze. The possibility of escaping overwhelmed her.

“It’s possible! So — it’s possible. It’s possible to try!” thudded in her head.

“I must,” she whispered.

Life had acquired meaning again. Instantly her body filled with energy.

Everything must be thought through. But whom should I escape with? It would be impossible alon
e...
With whom? Who can be trusted? Think, think, my orphan!

She shuddered. She carefully opened her hand and looked at the key. It was homemade, cut out of a narrow steel plate.

It was time to return to the Ham. The only thing left was to flush Wolf’s letter down the toilet. She really didn’t want to. She remembered the old man, pretending until the very last to be a cheerful cynic, remembered his story about the boy with the poker, trying in vain to return his father to life, and tears filled her eyes. Old man Wolf had been a
terribly
lonely man. Since childhood.

“A father’
s...
warmth,” she said, and sobbed.

Crumpling up the letter, she dropped it in the toilet. She stood and pushed the button to flush it down.

We arrived
that evening in a large bulletproof car at a building where prominent meat machines of the main city of the Country of Ice were gathered. Brother Obu sat behind the wheel of our car. I sat next to him. Brother Uf sat in the back. Another bulletproof car with the guards stopped behind our car. Brothers Merog, Tryv, Dor, and Bork sat in it with weapons in their pockets. I got out of the car and opened the back door. Brother Uf got out of the car. Brothers Merog, Tryv, Dor, and Bork quickly got out of their car and surrounded brother Uf. Brother Uf entered the building. Merog and I followed him. The other brothers remained outside. In the entryway of the building there were guards; pictures valued by the meat machines hung on the walls: a furry animal who liked to sleep in the winter depicted against the outline of the Country of Ice; a bald meat machine with a mustache and a beard, who carried out a coup in the Country of Ice eighty-eight years ago; an iron hammer crossed with an iron instrument for cutting ripe ears of grain; ripe fruits against the flag of the Country of Ice; a bird of prey with two heads. We passed the guards and walked up the staircase. Meat machines with devices allowing them to capture and multiply images of faces stood on the side of the staircase. They immediately pointed these devices at Uf’s face and furiously began to capture and multiply his image. Several other meat machines began to ask Uf various question connected to the gathering of meat machines and the future of the Country of Ice. Uf shook his head no, and Merog and I pushed away the loud, clamoring meat machines. When he reached the top of the staircase, Uf entered a large room filled with meat machines. At the opposite end of the hall stood a raised wooden platform for meat machines to talk from, and over the raised platform on the wall hung the large word
RECONCILIATION
and under it, in slightly smaller words,
WE’LL SING TOGETHER
!

When we entered the hall, a small, middle-aged, but wide and powerful meat machine stood on the platform saying that it was long overdue for all meat machines living in the main city of the Country of Ice to reconcile with one another and not be enemies, since hostility only damaged the Country of Ice, which had so many difficulties anyway. This meat machine reminded them that meat machines with different desires and interests had gathered here, but today was a day of reconciliation, and this reconciliation should occur through songs that the meat machines of the Country of Ice like to sing. According to the meat machine speaking, these songs helped the meat machines of the Country of Ice to live; the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of those standing here were helped by these songs in the difficult years when the meat machines of the Country of Ice fought against the meat machines of the Country of Order and were victorious. To conclude the talk, the stocky meat machine began to sing about the main city of the Country of Ice, about the light in the windows of buildings, about the domestic comfort of meat machines, about the ringing of metal objects that the meat machines have hung in tall buildings in all ages, in order to ring them when everyone needed to gather and pray. Uf walked around the room. Merog and I followed him. Meat machines turned and looked at Uf. Some said hello, but some turned away angrily. Uf found brother Efep in the crowd. He was standing with seventeen of our brothers and sisters, who had been working all the time with Efep in meetings of meat machines responsible for the laws by which the meat machines live. Efep and the rest of the brothers were prepared to abandon today’s meeting of meat machines on Uf’s command. We walked over to him. Uf was restrained. He could not allow himself to
show his joy
. Walking over to Efep, he made the sign: It’s time! Efep’s heart
flared
. But he
understood
that all of them could not leave at one time. He gave the command to the brothers. And they began to leave the hall gradually. Others stood and pretended that they were singing or listening to the speakers. A strapping meat machine with an angry, decisive face climbed the raised platform and began to talk about how it was time for reconciliation, that they had to do away with the internal enemies of the meat machines who are keeping the meat machines of this country from becoming happy. Then this meat machine sang a song from the time of the war between the Country of Ice and the Country of Order; about how the meat machines of the Country of Ice were at war with the Country of Order, and how the meat machines of the Country of Ice wouldn’t waver in the struggle for their country. Most of the meat machines standing in the hall sang along; a few whistled as a sign of protest. Our brothers quietly left the hall. Uf stood and chatted with various meat machines that approached him. When the song was over, the meat machine with the mustache said that today the song should reconcile them all, and in a delicate voice sang about a fuzzy insect flying to a flower, and about the daughter of meat machines who do not have a permanent home, and about the daughter hurrying at nighttime to another meat machine so that they can do pleasant things to each other in the dark. Most of the meat machines in the hall began to sing along with the mustachioed meat machine; a few even began to dance around, but the mustachioed meat machine sang and cried. As soon as the song finished, a large, well-fed meat machine got up on the elevated platform and said loudly that it would be a crime to bury the skin of the bald meat machine in the ground, that for decades the meat machines of the Country of Ice had loved this bald meat machine, who carried out a coup and did so many good things for the Country of Ice; that the skin of the bald meat machine should lie on the main square of the Country of Ice for eternity, so that little meat machines could come to the building and decorate it with flowers. Then this well-fed meat machine began to sing about the meat machine who once traveled far from its home on a four-legged animal, couldn’t find the road back, and slowly froze to death. At this moment Uf gave the sign to leave. And all of us, including brother Efep, headed for the exit. When we walked through the crowd of singing meat machines, some of them spoke angrily to brother Uf, saying that they did not like the songs of the Country of Ice. But Uf walked silently through the crowd. And his heart
rejoiced
. And I realized that we would
never
see these meat machines again, that we would never hear their strange songs again. We went outside and got into our iron machines. Brother Efep and other brothers and sisters got into their iron machines. Our iron machines traveled away from the center of the main city of the Country of Ice. A while later we arrived at the place where iron machines capable of flying land and take off. A large white flying machine was waiting for us. This was the last, eleventh flying machine exporting the remaining brothers from the Country of Ice. Ten such machines had already flown off, filled with our brothers and sisters. We entered this machine by a staircase, and Uf was the last to go up. He decided to be the last to leave the Country of Ice. His powerful heart
completed
everything that had happened to the Brothers and Sisters of the Light in this country. He stopped at the door, and his heart
flared
. Everyone sitting in the flying machine
felt
the reason that Uf’s heart flared. His mighty heart
was rejoicing and saying farewell
. It was rejoicing because all the Brothers and Sisters of the Light down to the very last one had left the Country of Ice, that he, Uf, had lived to see this moment, that the Great Transformation was close at hand. But Uf’s heart was also saying
farewell
to the Ice that had been destined to fall in this particular large country, farewell to the Ice that had allowed the dispersed Brotherhood to gather again, to the Ice that no longer was. Tens of thousands of Ice hammers had been shattered against the chests of meat machines in this country, many brothers and sisters had died trying to gather the Brotherhood, many of them reincarnated as those now sitting in this white flying machine. Uf’s heart
rejoiced and said farewell
. And our hearts
rejoiced and said farewell
along with his. Casting a last glance at the earth of the Country of Ice, Uf turned away from it and entered the machine. We closed the door after him. Inside the flying machine were the brothers and sisters with the most powerful hearts in the Country of Ice. Their assistants were with them, like myself and Merog, like Tryv and Bork. The hearts of everyone sitting in the flying machine were glad, greeting Uf’s mighty heart. We all knew how much Uf had done for the Brotherhood; we
felt
his shield,
preserved and cared
for his mighty heart. The coagulating meat tried constantly to destroy Uf, swallow him, crush and demolish him. But Uf was
wise
of heart — he slipped away from bullets and from the fury of the meat, deftly going head to head with influential meat machines, deflecting their blind rage so they would direct it against each other to the advantage of the Brotherhood. Uf helped the Brotherhood to acquire colossal wealth in the Country of Ice, arranged things so that millions of meat machines continually and for practically nothing worked for the Brotherhood, bringing the hour of the Great Transformation closer. The flying machine roared and began to take off. It was flown by our brothers as well, there were no meat machines here. Dozens of hands stretched out toward Uf, dozens of hearts
shone
for him. He walked past and touched everyone, touched us with his hand and his strong heart. The flying machine tore away from the earth. Our hearts
flared
. Everyone understood that the Great Exodus from the Country of Ice was completed. Everyone
knew
that dozens of such flying machines would carry the Brothers and Sisters of the Light from dozens of other countries. So that everyone WOULD meet in the Great Last Circle.