The Burning Edge

by Chichester, Arthur

  The narrow road meandered for an hour through native woodland until as the sun passed overhead I finally reached the end of the track at the pretty village of Klyapinskaya Buda. Beyond the village there would be nothing but trackless forest for mile after mile.

  I knocked on the door of a ramshackle cottage to ask directions through the woods, disturbing a shirtless man who stumbled out into the bright afternoon light with bloodshot eyes. Not understanding what it was I was asking, either due to my accent or his intoxication, he waved me away obviously annoyed by my disturbing him, slamming the wooden door of his house shut with a bang. I continued along the path towards the centre of the hamlet where I found an elderly man unloading cut grass from a cart outside his cottage with a huge pitchfork. He invited me into his garden to drink fruit juice he’d made with forest berries. Was there a path through the woods to the village of Marinopol I asked as we slaked our thirst in the afternoon heat. Despite there being nothing marked on the map, there had to be some contact between the villages on either side of the forest, if not now then at least in the past.

  Speaking a provincial mixture of Russian and Belarusian that I found hard to follow he explained that there was indeed once a track that mushroom pickers had used in the past but which ended at the swamp. Beyond that he don’t know. It was the first I had heard of the swamp.

  ‘I was born here but I’ve never been to Marinopol and nobody has come here from the other side of the forest for as long as I can remember. Why would they, we don’t have anything here that they need.’

  I’d noticed that a lot in the countryside, people were often unaware of life beyond the boundaries of their village. There was always chores to do, gardens to tend, vegetables and juices to prepare for the long winter months. Lazy strolls through the woods were not something people had the time for. Those were the preserve of people who had aimless lives with nothing important to do. People like me.

  The old man went into his house, returning soon after clutching a large bottle of fruit juice in his hands which he insisted on handing me before leading me to the edge of the fields that ran along the back of the village and pointing me in the direction of a small path that headed into the forest. I shook his bony hand and set off, following the sandy track through the stubby wheat field until I came to the point where the trees began. I turned, looking back for a final glimpse of civilisation like a mariner not knowing when he would see land again. The old man, satisfied that I was heading in the right direction, waved and turned back towards his cottage. I was alone.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  The track that led into the woods was well trodden and easy to follow at first, compacted as it was by the feet of the few local foragers reckless enough to seek their meals from the contaminated forest floor. I followed the meandering path deeper and deeper into the twilight keen to make steady progress. With about twenty miles of walking in front of me I would have to get a move on in order to get through and reach the little hamlet of Marinopol before nightfall.

  I continued on with confidence and excitement, however after an hour the path I’d been following suddenly disappeared beneath my feet, forcing me to search for it among the trees before eventually finding it again somewhere further on in the distance where it rose out of a bed of pine needles. Occasionally I’d see animal tracks criss-crossing the compacted mud of the path and I crossed my fingers that they belonged to nothing larger than a hedgehog or a squirrel. A violent squirrel was something I felt I could kick the shit out of without too much trouble should one attack me. But the further I walked, the denser the woods and undergrowth became forcing me at times to scramble through dense bushes and climb over fallen tree trunks which lay across the path where they had fallen some years before.

  These were forests untouched by the saws and axes of men ever since the disaster, covered as they were by deadly radioactive particles, but I didn’t want to think about that, instead I continued chalking off the miles, the path steadily becoming harder to follow, the mud beneath my feet less compacted, people no doubt rarely came this far into the depths. However just when the path would melt into the debris and I wasn’t sure in which direction to head I’d see an old discarded vodka bottle on the forest floor and I knew I must be heading in a direction once taken by others. This was the first time in my life that I could remember ever being truly alone in nature, miles from anywhere or anyone. At first every unfamiliar noise, every snap of a branch or squawk of a bird in the forest caused my adrenalin levels to spike as I scanned the woods for a wolf or maniac, but soon I relaxed, no longer even bothering to turn and look when I heard an unfamiliar sound.

  Throughout history Belarusians have sought shelter in the forests when invaders came to their land, hiding there until the threat had passed. It was in these very forests that partisan units resisted the invading fascist troops. From the woods they would appear, striking suddenly at railway lines and infrastructure before melting back into the darkness from where they came. Ghosts of the forests. Across the country partisans would appear to harass and kill the occupiers and their collaborators. Jews, Communists, Christians, all hiding together, waiting to avenge what had been done to their families and land.

  On I walked in an easterly direction through the dappled light of the forest canopy for a couple more hours lost in my thoughts as with time the forest floor changed consistency, becoming spongy and damper under foot, the path often turning completely to mud, huge puddles of it in which I would at times sink ankle deep forcing me to search for a dry route around the bogs. The sun’s rays were now no longer lighting the forest floor from above, the dusk of early evening slowly filling the wood making it hard for me to be certain I was following any kind of path at all at times as my eyes adjusted to the failing light, however as long as I continued east it would be impossible to get truly lost, eventually I would hit a road, even if it took a couple of days. I continued on until quite suddenly, deep inside the radiated forest and far from anywhere, I took a step and sank calf deep into squelching mud. I had reached the swamp.

  I explored along the edge in each direction, searching for a dry way around the water but eventually gave up. Stretching for what seemed like miles, it was simply too big to avoid. I weighed up my options. It was already getting dark in the forest, meaning I could make it out into the middle of the swamp but then be enveloped in the blackness of the night not knowing which way to continue, an unappealing prospect. And so with little choice I spread my sleeping sheet on the ground and decided to wait for the morning.

  It wasn’t something I had wanted to do. So far I had not been too concerned by the radiation doses I had been taking on my trip. I’d spent my journey amongst local people who had spent decades surrounded by the invisible danger, allowing me to console myself, perhaps naively, that there was in reality little to fear from a few weeks spent in the contaminated region. But here, deep in the forest and all alone, I felt vulnerable for the first time. Every step I took, every branch I touched, I imagined was disturbing particles of radiation that would seep into my skin. Every time I took a breath I imagined the radiation my lungs and blood stream were consuming and the mutations within that were slowly beginning to form. But there was no point dwelling on it after all I was here by my own choice. Instead, I laid out my plastic sheet and drank the last of the fruit juice the old man had given me, and despite the insects that crawled on me and the thoughts of wolves and radiation, I eventually fell asleep in the eerie silence of the world’s most radiated forest.

  TWENTY-SIX

  The sound of birdsong filled the woods at dawn as dappled light filtered through the tops of the trees, lighting my mud covered legs and feet. There was a refreshing chill in the morning air and marsh-haze rose ghost-like over the water on the swamp. I’d had a night of vivid dreams, which was becoming the norm on my trip, in which I had been chased by a pack of wolves with glowing eyes through a forest. After stretching the aches from a night on the hard floor from my body I waited for the sun to rise and
warm the water a little before stripping, wrapping my backpack in my groundsheet and entering the opaqueness of the swamp.

  Slowly I waded into the thick soupy water, my legs sinking into the mud, parting bullrushes and prickly reeds that clung to my exposed body as I passed through them, forging a way slowly onwards. My feet followed the muddy bottom down until the water reached my waist forcing me to lift my belongings above my head and wade on as the occasional bird, startled by my unexpected presence, took flight from the reeds, squawking as it frantically flapped its wings into the air. I used the rotting branches of dead trees to pull me along through the liquid that was becoming thicker and increasingly choked with plant life with every laboured step. Sometimes a leg would sink deep into the muddy depths, and I was unable to free it without using my hand to leverage it out meaning that after an hour I had travelled no more than fifty metres. I lay my bag on a dry patch of plants and rested, the sweat of exertion mixing with the swamp mud on my face and running into my eyes, blinding me. But I continued slowly ploughing forwards, not sure how much further there was to go, cringing every time something brushed against my legs in the depths of the swamp until just when I started to wonder if I’d ever get across to dry land, the bullrushes parted and a thick line of trees appeared across the water about a hundred metres in the distance giving me renewed strength to continue.

  I waded on slowly until out of the water I saw an old fence post rising like Excalibur, and then another and another, no doubt the rotting boundary of what had once upon a time been a farm. My legs carried me forwards for another couple of hours in slow heaving steps that made sucking noises as I lifted my legs from the muddy bottom until with time the water gradually became shallower and the bulrushes sparser. Soon it was below my waist and then below my knees and eventually I could see my muddied feet beneath me, cut and bleeding from the sharp reeds I had trampled beneath me.

  Exhausted and thirsty from the endeavour, I lay on the first piece of dry land I came to amongst the line of trees, eating the last of my chocolate supplies before following the rotting fence posts that stood lopsided in a ramshackle line through the forest. I kept them in sight, confident that they must lead to a settlement of some kind and after some time shapes appeared in the trees ahead. I walked on finding old wooden crosses that stood leaning at fallen angles where they had been placed perhaps a hundred years before. I passed through the old graveyard before finding the remnants of a path that led past wooden cottages that had long been abandoned and were now being devoured by the forest, floorboards and earth becoming one again. Trees grew through living rooms and kitchens floors, slowly tearing the empty houses apart.

  I left the abandoned village following a path that ran along the edge of the woods and out into the open, shadowing overgrown fields that had not been turned by the farmer’s plough in decades. On top of an old telegraph pole rested a huge crane’s nest long abandoned by its builders, without the farmers to scythe the fields the cranes would not return. And then at midday with the bright sun above me I rounded a corner on the path and suddenly found myself standing in front of three pretty wooden cottages. The hamlet of Marinopol. I had made it through the forest.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  I knocked on the doors of the cottages in search of something to quench my thirst having not drunk since finishing the fruit juice the previous evening but there was no response at any of the houses. Instead, I filled a bucket at the village well and doused myself in the cool water, washing the mud and smell of the swamp from my body, but I thought better than to drink it. The radiation particles that settled over the region thirty years ago had long penetrated the soil, contaminating the region’s ground water. With no response at the houses I left the village following a narrow dusty road through fields of wild flowers that were dotted with farm buildings which had been stripped of anything of value and abandoned long ago. Ravens watched me pass by slowly, perched on wooden telegraph poles that had long since lost their wires. I must have walked for an hour in the heat of the summer’s day until passing a rusting sign which pointed me on to the village of Gorky. With the sun burning from above my pace became steadily slower, my feet hurting more with every step taken on the stony road until eventually after passing more broken cattle sheds I entered the old logging village.

  In search of some inhabitants I walked the rutted main street of the village but it was as abandoned as the broken farms buildings that had shadowed my journey from Marinopol. The only house still standing upright had its doors and windows boarded up with planks. A handwritten sign had been nailed to the fence: ‘Please do not break in, we have nothing inside worth taking’ it read. The old bus stop stood on the main road through the village half hidden by weeds and nettles, waiting for services that had long stopped running to this forgotten corner of the country. Everything else had been bulldozed and buried.

  I rested in the shade of willow trees on a small concrete bridge that spanned a small tributary of the river Pokats, removing my shoes to let my feet recover from the walk, but with my thirst unquenched and desperate for water I had no choice but to continue.

  In the silence of the evacuated Belarusian countryside I trudged on, slowly heading towards the village of Soboli that my map indicated was located a few miles further down the road, the thought of a cold drink keeping me going despite my exhaustion. The journey had destroyed my running shoes with gaping holes having been worn into the rubber bottoms meaning that the only thing standing between the soles of my feet and the sharp stones of the road were my socks. Dust and grit entered the cuts on my blistered soles adding to my discomfort, however, exhausted and thirsty, I arrived at the entrance to the village of Soboli after an hour.

  The outskirts consisted of the usual collection of rotting barns and the demolished brick sheds of the old collective farm and I walked on searching for signs of life not wanting to entertain the thought that Soboli might be just another abandoned outpost of the Zone. But then as I passed along the back of the village, passing empty cottages and slowly losing hope and not wanting to contemplate having to walk even further in search of water, I saw crisp white bed linen hanging out to dry on a line in a well tended garden. Turning down a grassy path that ran alongside the house I continued, and there, on a bench next to an abandoned concrete shop in the middle of the wooden village, sat two elderly men dressed in their Sunday best.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  One of the men went to the well and lowered the bucket into the water below, the refreshing echo of its splash rose up and echoed around the silent settlement. Too thirsty to care about the possible contamination any more I gulped down the clear cool water, finally slaking my thirst.

  More elderly men appeared from their wooden cottages no doubt having heard the unexpected bubble of conversation that punctured the silence of village life, gathering around and asking where I’d come from. And when I told them they looked at me confused. Nobody ever came from the other side, not since the disaster they said. How did I manage to cross the swamp one asked. And when I told them they asked how life was over there on the other side, if the farms had been closed down there as they had in their village. One elderly man dressed in the smart threadbare clothes of the proud but poor went to his cottage, returning soon after clutching a hunk of black bread and a large slice of greasy pig fat. I answered their questions between bites and then took my muddied backpack and placed it on the wooden table around which the villagers sat, and pulled out one of the bottles of vodka I had carried with me through the forest from Korma. The old men all said ooh in unison. And then I pulled out the other bottle and they all said aah, rubbing their hands as expectant smiles spread across their weather beaten faces. One villager went and opened a blue postbox nailed to the wooden fence of what had once been the post office, it contained two chipped glasses yellowed with age. I opened the bottles and poured the liquid into the glasses, and we took it in turns to drink the clear liquid down. Finally, my feet stopped hurting.

  We continued to si
t on the bench next to the abandoned shop in Soboli making toasts and answering as best I could the villagers questions about the outside world: Would there be war between Russia and America? Did pensioners have enough to eat in England? And when the vodka was finished one of the men went to his cottage and returned with an old plastic bottle containing a murky liquid. The villagers smiled and rubbed their hands as he poured moonshine into my glass, asking me to try his home-made brew. And the eldest man in the group, a man who lived in a pretty cottage with a red star nailed above the door which indicated a war hero lived there said, ‘We shall remember this day until we die.’

  ‘That won’t be long Nikolai Nikolaevich,’ someone replied.

  And we drank the moonshine until my head span and my eyelids became heavy. And Nikolai Nikolaevich noticing my tiredness patted me on the shoulder and invited me to go with him. And I followed him to his cottage which was shaded by a huge oak tree that in its long life had witnessed the sad history of Belarus, the famines and invasions, the radiation and evacuations. We entered a back door that led to an unexpectedly bright tidy kitchen where his wife, a pretty grey haired babushka with a warm smile stood preparing soup on the stove.

  ‘My English friend is tired,’ he said to her, ‘Let him lie down for a while Luda.’

  ‘Of course, of course, come with me young man,’ she said, leading me through a living room decorated with black and white photos of village life from past times when the shop was not abandoned and there was work to be had for all. Luda pulled aside a lace curtain that led onto a bright bedroom containing a metal bedstead painted in Belarusian-blue like everything else in the provinces.