Kronauer’s short hair and his skull seemed coated with a sort of grease he wasn’t able to completely get rid of. His chest and limbs were filthy. The lower part of his stomach reluctantly shed some sort of excremental suet that had become embedded. As he scrubbed energetically, he felt hair being rubbed away by his hands, by the water. Becoming bald and hairless were the same to him. He knew that this was the minimum price to pay for staying in forbidden nuclear zones and for not having avoided numerous nuclear power plants in decay, the very last ones being the one at the Red Star sovkhoz, and this one in the Levanidovo.
The animal stink still hung around him in spite of what seemed to have been a meticulous scouring. This self-loathing weighed him down retroactively. He thought of the women who had been around him after he had fainted: Myriam Umarik, Hannko Vogulian. They must have felt some revulsion when they handled him and lay him down in the cell. He also thought of those who, earlier, must have had to press their head against him: first, Vassilissa Marachvili during their wandering on the steppes, and then Samiya Schmidt while they had crossed the forest together. When she dangled on his back as if she were dying.
He soaped himself up once more and rinsed again, and, when the water flowing toward the drain looked merely frothy and not grayish, he stood under the pounding rain for a while longer. He felt revived. The water, the steam, the soap all had given him new strength. And doubtless also the iodine and plutonium that dropped above, as in the byliny about the deathly-deathly water and the lively-lively water that the enchantresses poured over the dead to bring them out of their fatal sleep.
Then he shut off the water and he went to dry himself by the bench. On the floor, his coat and his rags formed an appalling heap. He pushed them aside without touching them, using the edge of the zinc basin, and he moved away as quickly as possible. Then he got dressed. He put on the underclothes that Samiya Schmidt had taken from the wardrobe of her husband, the tractor driver Morgovian, and then he put on one of the engineer Barguzin’s shirts. The new pants and new boots had been taken from the Gramma Udgul’s dump. There was certainly enough there to set an ionizing-ray detector into a frenzy. Kronauer had no way of knowing it, but even if he had been told that he was introducing into his tissues something that would assuredly put him into a coffin straightaway, he would have retorted, no, not at all, and on the contrary, the radiation’s always been keeping me nicely in shape. He might have added that the dangers of escaped atoms were largely exaggerated by enemy propaganda, and what mattered to him at this moment was that his feet fit properly in these new shoes.
And that he felt comfortable in his new shirt. But he did feel comfortable. These women had good eyes. Everything fit him exactly.
• Three women. The only three women in the village, not counting the Gramma Udgul.
Three sisters.
Three daughters who had Solovyei as their presumed father, born as has already been said to unknown mothers.
Samiya Schmidt, the youngest daughter, married to the tractor driver Morgovian.
Myriam Umarik, the middle daughter, married to the engineer Barguzin.
Hannko Vogulian, the oldest daughter of the three, presumably widowed, married to the wandering musician Schulhoff, a runaway deportee who hadn’t spent more than a week in the Levanidovo, and then had disappeared, fortunately without impregnating her.
• Hannko Vogulian had only experienced three days of marriage, after she and Schulhoff had fallen in love at first sight and immediately united in passionate love.
Aldolay Schulhoff had appeared one Monday in the village and, that Thursday, in the marriage register dusted off for the occasion, the two young lovers signed their commitment to live together, no matter what happened, until their death. Solovyei, as president of the kolkhoz, had to affix his signature to the bottom of the page, but it was after trying for the previous forty-eight hours to dissuade his daughter and, in short, he violently disagreed. He had threatened to oppose this union in every way possible, but this one was properly sealed by an official act, and, once the register was set back in the right cabinet, he had to understand and accept that he had a new son-in-law. However, the marriage only lasted until the next Sunday, the day when the search to find Schulhoff hadn’t turned up anything. From Saturday night, in fact, Schulhoff had disappeared without leaving behind any explanation or trace. Hannko Vogulian had insisted on organizing a search as well as using the loudspeakers along the main street, so that the calls would cut through all the nearby countryside, and all the Levanidovo waited nervously through Sunday night, but Schulhoff didn’t reappear. He had somehow ceased to exist in the village, and, in Hannko Vogulian’s life, at least her unimagined life, he was no more.
Solovyei spared no pain as the brigade leader of the hunt, but he couldn’t be bothered to seem sad for his daughter’s sudden widowing. He declared that the page of Hannko Vogulian’s marriage had been turned and then, whenever there was a question about Schulhoff’s disappearance, when someone brought up this mystery again, he looked up at the sky and claimed not to have anything special to say, even though several kolkhozniks and his own daughters suspected him of having played a decisive role in the whole matter.
Despite the shortness of his stay in the Radiant Terminus kolkhoz, Schulhoff had left behind a lasting memory, and not just in Hannko Vogulian’s thoughts.
He was an itinerant singer, with a beautiful presence, dark-haired, with a splendid voice he had trained since childhood, which allowed him to slip instantaneously from the deepest sounds to the inhuman harmonics of throat singing. He had mastered several languages: Beltir, Koybal, Kyzyl, Kacha, Old American, Camp Russian, Olcha, Khalkha, and, depending on his audience, he chose one dialect or another, adapting his stories so that his listeners could find heroes familiar to their sensibility and their culture. He carried books in his bag and everything suggested that he was full of gentleness, intelligence, and sensitivity. It hadn’t taken Hannko Vogulian more than a minute to fall under his spell and decide that he would be the man of her life. She had always been a prudent girl, but in this instant she succumbed to her impulses and instincts without the least compunction and, from the first night, she went to be with him at the Pioneers’ House where he was staying and she devoted herself to him. She offered herself up to Aldolay Schulhoff. And he, who had been seduced by her and could never run out of rhapsodies or adjectives for her eyes of different colors, had happily fallen into this sudden passion. Maybe he was tired of wandering endlessly from one end of the land to the other, but he immediately saw himself settling down for good in Radiant Terminus. Among the sweet nothings they whispered those few nights, there had been promises and the immediate prospect of a proper marriage. Despite Solovyei’s ill will, they made it happen three days later in the Soviet Assembly Room with the one-armed Abazayev, Myriam Umarik, and Samiya Schmidt as witnesses.
Saturday evening, in homage to the kolkhozniks who had welcomed him into the fold, he brought out his rhapsodist’s instruments and sang the long and famous bylina that described, in poetic prose and in music, Ilya Muromets and Nightingale the Robber. In reality, he was performing a Buryat legend, but, as his audience was predominantly oriented toward the Russian collective memory, he reshaped it with great skill to emphasize the universal elements of Ilya Muromets’s heroic saga.
Everyone in the Levanidovo thought his adaptation was original and his interpretation worthy of admiration. While his voice wasn’t that of a bass singer and seemed thinner, he managed to make vibrant, sustained, and deep notes soar from his chest, notes that immediately entranced his listeners, and then he unfurled a melodic, tranquil narrative without a single pause, and his voice changed throughout the dialogues, shifting instantaneously from the metallic tones of harmonic singing to the feminine softness of the lyric text, then to the rumbling of pure song. Tears rolled down the cheeks of Solovyei’s three daughters, who were not used to emotion provoked by song and a zither’s melody, by the flowery language of the epic narrative. The demobilized
Abazayev was also overwhelmed by the music and spent his time wiping his cheeks with the empty sleeve of his jacket, stained with mole poison. The engineer Barguzin couldn’t bear the tension of this much beauty. He died once again that night. The Gramma Udgul had to administer her shock therapy with heavy-heavy water, deathly-deathly water, and lively-lively water. Solovyei, who had originally declared that he wouldn’t attend the concert, changed his mind and came into the assembly room dressed in a midnight-blue shirt and perfectly waxed boots that he only wore on special occasions. He sat solemnly across from his new son-in-law and he seemed to enjoy the performance from its start to its finish. He clapped in rhythm on his massive thigh with happiness evident on his face, even though the previous night he had been angrily lecturing his daughter about the young bridegroom’s paltry value, about his pitiable stature as a bard, forced to earn his living by selling his talent and begging in obscure places, in fisheries, in scarcely-known logging sites.
• That night, that Saturday night, Solovyei had withdrawn wordlessly after hugging Schulhoff. The witnesses recalled that he seemed rather good-natured when saying his farewells and, in any case, that he didn’t seem to be having a bad day. But after midnight sounds came from the basements of the Soviet, the whistling that always resulted when he was entering his worlds or other people’s dreams. Hannko Vogulian went back to her place after the concert to warm the bed and she waited in vain for Schulhoff to come join her. After putting his zither in its cover, Schulhoff went out in the street to smoke a cigarette in front of the Pioneers’ House, to look at the starry sky and come back down to earth after hours and hours of poetic and musical soaring. Then there was no trace of his existence on earth. In front of the Pioneers’ House there was no cigarette butt nor lighter to be found, and, when she was asked about the whole thing much later, the Gramma Udgul grumbled that in all probability Schulhoff had been swallowed up by a black hole, which nobody believed, except for herself and Solovyei.
As for Solovyei, even if most of the Levanidovo’s inhabitants believed that he had entered the Soviet’s cauldron, the core of the backup power plant that had run smoothly since the larger power plant’s failure, even if his daughters were convinced that he had gone through the flames to reach the shamanic space of non-life and non-death, to organize within this darkness Schulhoff’s abduction and liquidation, he claimed to be astonished by Hannko Vogulian’s husband’s inexplicable departure. He called on all the police powers at his disposal in the kolkhoz so that the Sunday hunt would have a happy end, then, in the days that followed, he led an energetic and thorough investigation with searches through the village’s empty huts and the underground passages that crisscrossed the Levanidovo to allow movement during the iciest and snowiest months, but his efforts came to naught, and he demonstrated his annoyance publicly. When Hannko Vogulian realized she had been widowed, he seemed to sympathize with her grief, and he promised her that her husband would come back to life one day, that she would find Schulhoff again, and that he himself would track Schulhoff down through his divinations. He never implied that he bore the least responsibility in this saga. But, in everybody’s opinion, he did.
• After the shower, Kronauer went back up the prison hallway to his cell, the room where he had lain during his blackout, then, hearing some noise, he went in that direction and found himself in the kitchen, which had barely any utensils or cupboards and more closely resembled a small refectory. The two sisters were waiting for him with tea and a plate of toasted flour. They told him that they had forgotten to put anything for shaving in the shower room, and that there was a razor and washbasin in a nook, in case he still had any hair.
—Eh, my hair doesn’t grow very fast these days, he said.
The daughters simpered, especially Myriam Umarik, who also stroked her thick and shiny jet-black hair.
—If you stay in this place, it’ll come in even slower, Hannko Vogulian said.
—I’m not staying, Kronauer said.
Hannko Vogulian shrugged. After a few seconds, she told him that, generally, he was free to come and go and that he could walk through the village, but he should go to the Gramma Udgul’s place by the end of the morning.
—She wants to see what you look like, Myriam Umarik said. She wants to make sure you’re not an enemy of the people.
—The Gramma Udgul can come later, Kronauer said as he choked on a spoonful of toasted flour. I’m sorry, but I don’t have time to meet everyone in the kolkhoz. My comrades are dying of hunger and thirst by the railroad tracks. I have to go back there. It’s urgent.
He wasn’t sure if he had the strength to go back immediately. To trek back through the forest, without a guide, with a bag of food on his back and a jerrican filled to the brim with water in his hand. But doing anything else, lounging here, was absolutely out of the question. He couldn’t imagine dawdling along the village’s one road, after having stuffed himself with tsamba, and then making conversation with an old lady, while his comrades were dying by the railroad tracks.
—I have to go back, he insisted.
—Solovyei went down there with Morgovian, Hannko Vogulian said.
—Morgovian?
—Samiya Schmidt’s husband.
—They brought all the necessities, Myriam Umarik said.
Her shoulders and breasts heaved. Kronauer tried not to pay attention, but these heaves bothered him.
—And medicine for your wife, she added.
—She’s not my wife, Kronauer said right away.
He felt unburdened of a great weight. Vassilissa Marachvili and Ilyushenko’s rescue was well under way. So Solovyei was taking care of it, then. He was a gruff giant, completely disagreeable, but he was taking care of it.
5
• Hannko Vogulian took Kronauer to the end of the village, two hundred meters past the prison they had left. She pointed out the buildings when they corresponded to something specific: the Soviet, Myriam Umarik’s house, the canteen, the communist cooperative, the public library, the Pioneers’ House. When they came to the end of the road, she stopped. The road continued into the countryside in the form of a path that climbed up the hill. She indicated with a sweep of her arms the massive warehouse run by the Gramma Udgul. Her arms were bare, and not even the finest down covered her extraordinarily pale skin. The sun played on her left ear and the light shone through with a delicious rosiness.
—I’m not going with you, she said. I have things to do.
Kronauer nodded. Since she was standing next to him, he could avoid meeting her strange eyes.
He went the rest of the way thinking about Hannko Vogulian rather than the Gramma Udgul, and when he stepped into the warehouse, he was almost surprised to see the old woman standing right in front of him. She was twisting and turning at the bottom of a mountain of scrap iron, wearily repeating the same fruitless gestures. In fact, she was putting on an act to welcome Kronauer, who she must have seen on the road since he’d left the village and whom she wanted to understand that the warehouse wasn’t a place to laze around.
The Gramma Udgul got up and put her hands on her waist, mainly to look serious and difficult in front of Kronauer, because she didn’t feel any pain in her back. Her joints had been strengthened by the salutary effects of gamma-ray radiation exposure, and weren’t arthritic now, and wouldn’t be at any point in the foreseeable future. Before she spoke, she slowly looked over Kronauer, from head to toe, suspiciously, unhappily.
—You’re wearing one of Barguzin’s shirts, she said once she was done.
Her disapproval was evident.
—It’s what Myriam Umarik gave me, Kronauer said defensively. I didn’t have anything left to wear.
—Barguzin’s not dead yet, the Gramma Udgul said. I’d be the first one to know. When he dies I pour water over him to bring him back. Thus far, he’s always come back. No need to bury him alive.
—It’s just a shirt, Kronauer said with a puzzled look.
—Myriam Umarik is very beautiful
, the Gramma Udgul said.
—Yes, Kronauer agreed. No doubt about it.
—She’s one of Solovyei’s daughters, the Gramma Udgul said warningly. Don’t even think for a second about hurting her.
—Why would I hurt her? Kronauer protested.
—She’s married, the Gramma Udgul said. Don’t expect her to cheat on Barguzin if he’s not dead.
—I’ve never expected that, Kronauer said angrily.
—If you hurt her or her sisters, Solovyei will never forgive you.
Kronauer shrugged.
—He’ll follow you for at least a thousand seven hundred and nine years, the Gramma Udgul warned. A thousand seven hundred and nine years or thereabouts, and maybe even twice that.
• A little later, after having thoroughly interrogated Kronauer about his military and political background, his beliefs, and his class membership, the Gramma Udgul gave him a tour of the warehouse. She showed him the location of the well and its purpose, describing with obvious sympathy the core simmering at its bottom, two kilometers deep, then she took him around several mountains of brand-new garbage and, at the end, she went back to sit down in her armchair, in front of the heavy curtain that marked off her strictly private space.
Kronauer inspected the imposing mass of Solovyei’s archives among which the Gramma Udgul was sitting. On a small table there was a machine for reading the recorded cylinders, and beneath the table, several crates filled with wax or Bakelite cylinders.
He hadn’t been asked to comment, so Kronauer stayed quiet.
The Gramma Udgul in turn had relented, or at least she now talked without trying to be aggressive. She had concluded from the interrogation that this nearly-fortysomething man belonged to a group of red soldiers that wasn’t suspected of apostasy or treachery. She had talked with him about the last egalitarian areas of the Orbise and their downfall, and Kronauer’s political background pleased her. She knew, of course, that really trusting him would take months of investigation and imprisonment, along with multiple autobiographies written during sleep deprivation, but, for now, she didn’t see any reason to give him trouble. He had to tell her in detail about the period of military retreat, when he and his comrades had fired at a demented officer. That was a gray area, typical behavior for an adventurer susceptible to anarchist impulses rather than Bolshevik intelligence. On the one hand, she approved that he hadn’t let himself be trapped in a suicide mission, and on the other she wondered if opening fire on a superior wasn’t, at the end of the day, an awfully leftist act.
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