Radiant Terminus

by Antoine Volodine

  With Schliffko Armanadji, Julius Togböd improvised a wordless duet because Matthias Boyol, when he realized that the Jew’s harp would sound once again, had let his sentence end.

  A minute of pure musical happiness passed.

  Several detainees or soldiers gently rocked their torsos back and forth, like priors of a prehistoric religion or like contemporary madmen. They kept watching the fire, barely blinking.

  A bit of wind forced the flames to twist.

  Pedron Dardaf added a plank to the blaze.

  Ilyushenko added another.

  Sparks swirled toward the deep black sky.

  The duo stopped. The music persisted in the listeners’ heads as the fire’s roar increased.

  The fire’s irregular rumble.

  The fire’s gaze on us all.

  The wind’s cold whisper.

  A waft of excrement from the cars.

  Then Matthias Boyol reintroduced himself in his tale, in the assured and strong voice of a comedian used to a large audience.

  —In reality, he said, we almost never found any of the missing people with this method. Every so often we recaptured a latecomer, in a sad state among the shrubs and unmoving due to a supposed diarrhea which the light never indicated in any way, and who, after several seconds of humiliating illumination, slowly gestured and got dressed, but the fugitives, to my knowledge, the actual fugitives escaped our searches. So we had to wait until daybreak. We others were consigned to our cattle cars, behind the sliding doors that the soldiers took the opportunity to shut with a particular rage, or we had to get into groups at gunpoint, in a humdrum valley near the tracks, which we preferred because that way we might spend the night under the stars. We improvised a bivouac, occasionally finding enough dry grass to pile up and make a fire, with hope that the flames wouldn’t be too fleeting, then, once the embers were no longer red, which is to say right away, we curled up into balls to sleep.

  For a full minute the musical accompaniment to the text had been growing in power. Julius Togböd seemed to be caught in a frenzy. He turned toward the fire, toward the orator, toward the fire, toward the orator, and he made the iron reed vibrate continuously as it reduced his lips to pulp. Schliffko Armanadji accompanied him, took up some of his rhythmic phrases, harmonizing brilliantly with both the Jew’s harp and Matthias Boyol’s discourse.

  —When dawn came, he said, a non-commissioned officer hauled himself to the top of the central car, next to the projector that the day had rendered even more useless than the previous night, and he looked in the distance through binoculars. We were every one of us hanging onto the narration he would make, and he knew it. I think that he didn’t see anything, didn’t perceive anything, wasn’t able to obtain any image of a man running desperately, but that, for instructional purposes, he tried to instill a healthy fear in our hearts. “There he is,” he said in a strong and decisive voice, as if he was taking the floor at an anarcho-syndicalist meeting, as if he was banking on immediate clamor, on applause, cheering. “There are wolves nipping at his heels, he’s lost, he doesn’t have any chance of escape, the wolves have split up, soon the biggest one will cut off his path.” Then he continued lying, describing the attack that would happen or had already happened, describing the wolves’ pelts, the nasty looks they gave one another, their curved backs, their dirty teeth, describing the skinning. We listened to this report in silence, while we took care of our morning tasks: summary toilet, intestinal evacuations, preparation of coffee, shift change.

  Matthias Boyol cleared his throat discreetly and continued.

  —I say shift change, he said, I mention the shift change, because that happened often, not every day, but often, and, when we were all outside for one reason or another, that made things easier. By “shift change” I mean this moment when we replaced the soldiers as escorts, while the soldiers took our place as detainees. There were only a few leather belts and rifles to exchange. It was an agreement that we had made in dreams upon departure, so that none of us could benefit from overwhelming advantages while roving, and which we carried out without fail, in dreams as well as in reality.

  “Let this sad example serve as example,” the non-commissioned officer was saying all this time. “Every escapee is condemned to ruination. Fleeing our collective means throwing yourself to the wolves. It means facing terrible moments of fear and pain all alone, as if there aren’t already enough when we’re together. The escapee has no future. We can certainly say and explain, nothing can replace the camp, nothing is as necessary and healthy as the camp.”

  He always had the same triumphant intonation of a practiced orator, but we still didn’t know exactly who was talking, a non-commissioned officer who was lying about a deserter, or a representative for the prisoners who was taking advantage of his position high above us to tell stories, to moralize, or to rattle off a string of nonsense.

  • It was past midnight. Matthias Boyol’s voice faded, giving way to the last melodies; then Julius Togböd took the blood-stained Jew’s harp out of his wounded mouth, then Schliffko Armanadji stopped emitting harmonies, returned with a suddenly deep voice, continued in this way for four or five seconds, and then finished with a final sigh.

  Another hour went by. Nobody wanted to leave the fire to lie down on the dirty car floorboards or shiver on the icy ground.

  As captain, Ilyushenko felt that he had to say something, and ask the three performers for a complementary speech.

  —We have to conclude, he said, turning toward them.

  There was a quick approving movement among those who, around the still-flickering fire, hadn’t sunken completely into their meditation or into nothingness.

  • Matthias Boyol had sat back down in front of the flames, and, when his captain spoke, he got back up without a word. They had given the three performers a good spot. Schliffko Armanadji and Julius Togböd got going, ready to accompany him once again, but he waved them away. He would conclude solo, without embellishment.

  He let half a minute go by, mentally preparing for what he would say, then he started to speak. He pronounced his discourse in a weary voice.

  —Everyone knows, he said, everyone knows that the camp is the only unimaginary place where life is worth the trouble of being lived, perhaps because our awareness of being alive is enriched by our awareness of being such in the company of others, in an effort of collective survival, an effort that’s certainly useless and difficult, but with a nobility unknown on the other side of the barbed wire, and also because our awareness of being alive is fulfilled when we see how, ultimately, classes have been abolished all around us. Elsewhere, outside, everyone has to wait for periods of disaster or wars for an equivalent sentiment to arise. The camp doesn’t need successive cataclysms or bombs raining down for its inhabitants to enjoy mutual aid and fatalistic brotherhood. Everyone knows that the camp is more uncomfortable, but more fraternal than the lands that make up the rest of the world. Whether in the center or at the edge of the camp, no thinker would utter calls for collective murder or incite pogroms or political, religious, or ethnic intolerance. The camp is a place where assassins only act when absolutely necessary, or on a whim, or out of passion, or because they have a new knife to test out, but never for useless and revolting reasons like those on the outside. Whether analyzing from a global angle or rather a very detailed one, the camp only presents advantages for the population assembled there, and that’s why a large majority of unfortunates still living outside the camp try at all costs to enter, dream constantly of the camp, remain jealous of those who were able to enter before them. Few are the opponents of the camp within the camp, and incoherent are their arguments for ways of existing as those who stagnate or degenerate outside the barbed wire in unequal barbarity. Small in number are the camp theorists who call to leave the camp, who denigrate the camp or dream of abolishing the system of camps, or who recommend a larger opening to beyond the barbed wire and recommend merging the camp with exterior territories. Spoken from the windo
ws of psychiatric institutions, their discourses are heard, but do not take hold. If applause breaks out, it’s most often to recognize their humor or their comical faces. They would certainly need minds as deranged as theirs to appreciate their insane ravings. Essentially, in the camp, no person gifted with reason would question the humanist superiority of the society that blossomed within fences, and nobody would dare to deny the centuries of penal knowledge and constant improvements in the organization, in the philosophy, and in the intimate and fundamental logic of the camp. That’s how it is.

  14

  • In the middle of the following week, the locomotive whistled several times, awakening everyone or at least those who were still of this world, and the train braked, apparently sharply. It was well past noon. The sun shone without heat. Some of us groaned, wondering what was happening, and, realizing that the convoy wasn’t moving anymore, we went to the doors. They weren’t locked. Upon departure, Ilyushenko had forgotten or pretended to forget that he had to lock the cars harboring detainees. The exhausted heads taking in the daylight were bedazzled for fifteen minutes. Bodies stretched, with the yawns and moans that usually accompanied the operation, but, for a good while, nobody felt well enough to get out.

  Crows cawed above the train. The once-jumbled steppes filled again with non-human murmurs. Close to the rails were a half dozen young pines, alone in the middle of a landscape where trees were scarce. They must have served as a gathering point for all local fauna. On the branches, invisible, greenfinches were chirping, and among the trunks jerboas, themselves also invisible, were starting to squeak. A dazed cricket flew just inside the car where the captain was still lying down. He put out his hand to trap it and add it to his pemmican provisions, which were still substantial but diminishing. If Marxism-Leninism forbade eating human meat, it hadn’t said anything about eating insects, or if so in apocryphal texts that had never been debated or distributed among the masses. Ilyushenko’s movements were slow. Without much difficulty, the cricket escaped its predator.

  Then the conductor came out of his cabin and jumped into the ditch grass. His name was Noumak Ashariyev. The second engineer went down the steps, leaned on the ramp, and lit a cigarette. He went by the name of Hadzoböl Münzberg.

  Several meters from the locomotive, between two railroad ties, a beggar was sitting cross-legged. He murmured and every so often he slightly anxiously tugged back onto his shoulders a coat made of ribbons and shreds of cloth that he must have taken from the shamanic altars in the mountains. The ribbons had once been multicolored, but years of exposure to the air had faded them, which reduced the coat to two or three armfuls of brownish tongues. When this coat slipped, it uncovered the flabby skin of his torso, along with a beggar’s shirt and strips of grimy cotton that seemed to be plugging the holes of his ribcage.

  —Hey! Noumak Ashariyev said. Do you want to die, you old slob?

  The beggar looked at him hazily.

  —I’m not as old as I look, he said.

  —Well, you’re definitely not deaf, so do you want to die or what? the engineer asked.

  —If I want to die, this is what he’s asking me, this comrade, the beggar mumbled. Are they really asking me that?

  Noumak Ashariyev shrugged. He looked around and exchanged a dumbstruck glance with Hadzoböl Münzberg.

  —A train’s coming, and you’re still sitting in the middle of the tracks. You wanted to get run over?

  —Didn’t you hear it whistling? Hadzoböl Münzberg cut in from the top of the steps.

  —The whistles, I’ve had enough of them, the beggar answered while pulling his foul coat over his shoulders once again.

  Just then, a soldier came and poked the beggar’s stomach with the end of his rifle to invite him to stand up. As he observed the man’s lack of movement, he didn’t try to threaten him any further, and he said:

  —Have to refer this one to the captain. Can’t shoot him like that without a trial.

  —And this one who wants to shoot me, the beggar grumbled to himself, raising his voice to be heard. But where we’ve ended up, my word! What world we’re living in!

  • The suicidal beggar was interrogated by Ilyushenko in the middle of the afternoon. Several detainees and a handful of soldiers watched the interrogation, which happened on the rail tracks at the exact spot where the beggar was sitting. In order to increase the audience, because he didn’t want to abuse his prerogatives and carry on an investigation discreetly and arbitrarily, Ilyushenko decided to have a special distribution of pemmican. Only those present there could have some, even though it was just a flake per person. This was still enough to attract a small audience. Each one sat somewhat at random while solemnly eating his mouthful, certainly less than three grams. Before stuffing his own mouth with the miniscule portion of food, Ilyushenko offered some to the man he was about to question. The man refused.

  —No, I’ve lost the habit, he said, it makes my stomach hurt. Once the cramps start, I have them for a month.

  He had the well-controlled voice of a street actor or singer. A little hoarse, but well controlled. He didn’t have any difficulty answering the questions and, as the hours went by, he told his story.

  His name was Aldolay Schulhoff.

  • Aldolay Schulhoff was born in a region, which, two years after his arrival in the world, had watched a fuel-rod pool go up in fire. The flames had hardly been spectacular, but the teams that had tried to overcome them had seen their numbers and spinal cords melt down in a matter of days, and, as the experts had estimated that the flow of fatal radiation from the vessel would decline on its own over the decades to come, they left things as they were. A huge cortege of refugees began walking toward a mythical west, where the radiation victims thought they’d find the Orbise’s capital, and the little Aldolay Schulhoff took his place there, but the hullabaloo and panic were so great that, after the third day of the exodus, his parents lost him. After several hours wandering among thousands of strangers, he had been taken in by a butcher couple that had fattened him up rather than raised him, with the never-explicit but always-understood intent of having him on hand in case of famine. The famine never came to be, they gave up on caring for him, and, a year later, they brought him to a charitable organization, The Eleventh-Hour Brothers, with charitable aims that, like the couple’s, were very much cannibalistic instead of altruistic. At six years old, he finally managed to escape the Brothers, who hadn’t mistreated him, but still looked at him like an animal to be butchered and were overjoyed to see him growing round. Luck had been in his favor. After the battles south of Bogrovietsk, he ended up alone in a blazing neighborhood, left to his fate by the Brothers, who, seeing their eleventh hour come at last, had preferred to sacrifice a potential feast rather than their own skin. When an Orbise squad had gotten to the heart of the inferno, the soldiers had found the little boy and brought him out. After a short stay at a hospital where he was treated for minor burns, Aldolay Schulhoff was put in a Party orphanage. It offered him security, room and board, and most of all they raised him in accordance with his intellectual capacities, which were considerable. Aside from the natural sciences and the pillars of revolutionary knowledge, they had taken into account his aptitude for languages and music. At fifteen years old, he had mastered Beltir, Koybal, Kyzyl, Kacha, Old American, Camp Russian, Olcha, Khalkha, and he already played the Asiatic zither, the chatkhan, the yatga, and the guzheng perfectly, and sometimes he could also take out an igil and draw out extremely enthusiastic sounds, especially when he used it to accompany traditional or improvised throat songs. His voice went as deep or as high as he needed and, as he articulated well, it was a delight to hear him perform long shamanic ceremonies or lyrical epic poems, which were done in the style of the steppes, the taiga, or the stony desert. Soon he was old enough to leave the school and make his way through existence and, while staying in touch with the school that had shaped him and which invited him every so often to give evening performances, he decided to go out in the str
eets, travel from city to city and from village to village, and share his talents with the humble, dispersed audiences of proletarians, countrymen, and wretches. Over the years, he split his time in this way between the capital and the paths that led to the ruined regions, stricken by ecological disasters and radioactive silence. Whether the group listening to him was full or merely a group in tatters, he was always warmly applauded. In more than one backwater city he was asked to stay as an official musician, promised basic fees in kind, unlimited access to the collective canteen, and peace and quiet. The women flocked around him and he often ended up breaking his proletarian monasticism to accept their advances. Still, he didn’t settle down anywhere. He always preferred moving around, taking his songs elsewhere, and, even when that meant bringing an affair to an end, he endured the sadness of separation and didn’t hang back. Then he went deeper and deeper into old irradiated lands, into regions of impenetrable forest, and, even as he continued to give concerts, the number of humans or their like constituting audiences became scarcer and scarcer. And one day he had ended up at the Radiant Terminus kolkhoz, and there his existence had completely changed.

  —I’ve already heard of this kolkhoz, Ilyushenko cut in. I met its president.

  —Really, Schulhoff said in shock, you met its president?

  —Yes, said Ilyushenko. I didn’t like him.

  —Solovyei? An enormous muzhik with golden eyes, an ax on his belt?

  —Yes, Ilyushenko said. He came during my wife’s funeral. He messed with my head in exchange for a block of pemmican. I didn’t like him.