The Blizzard Page 8

  “I’ll … Damnation.” The wind knocked Crouper down, but he held on to the steering rod.

  The wind in the hollow blew so hard that the sled swayed. They lost the road right away and the sled halted in deep snow. Without a word, the doctor got down and walked on ahead through the snow. He found the road quickly; he tested it with his feet and kept going. Crouper followed in his path.

  Slowly, step by step, they moved ahead. The doctor kept walking … He stumbled, sank into the snow, and staggered in the wind—but he didn’t lose the road. The hollow went on and on. Suddenly, the doctor saw a hill coming closer, then realized that it wasn’t a hill but some sort of whirling snow cloud, racing toward them. He crouched. Over his head flew an impenetrable vortex of snow; his pince-nez was torn from his face and fluttered on its ribbon.

  “Lord Almighty, forgive me for my sins…,” the doctor muttered, falling down on all fours.

  The tornado stormed by, and to the doctor it seemed like a vast helicopter of impossible size. The horses neighed in fright under the hood. Crouper squatted, too, but didn’t let go of the steering rod.

  This frightful thing passed over them and disappeared.

  The doctor put on his pince-nez and looked at the rise ahead, the way out of the hollow. He saw the bared road.

  “There’s the road!” he shouted to Crouper.

  But Crouper had already seen it himself. Pleased, he waved his mitten at the doctor: “Yep!”

  They made it to the road, sat back down, and drove on. The sled emerged from the hollow onto a gently sloping hillock, and Crouper stopped abruptly: there was a fork in the road. He didn’t remember this fork. In good weather he wouldn’t have noticed it, he would have gone the way everyone did. But now he had to decide which way—right or left.

  “Old Market is ’bout two versts from the grove,” Crouper thought, pushing his hat back on his forehead, which was damp from sweat and snow. “That means it’s real close by, prob’ly to the left, and the road on the right, now, must lead around to the meadow. The meadow here’s a beauty, nice and smooth … So … we go left.”

  The doctor silently awaited the driver’s decision.

  “Left!” Crouper shouted, turning the steering rod to the left and giving the reins a jerk.

  The sled edged to the left.

  “Where are we?” yelled the doctor.

  “In Old Market! We c’n rest up here, and afterward the road runs straight.”

  The doctor nodded joyfully.

  Crouper had been in Old Market only twice: for Matryona Khapilova’s wedding, and with his little brother, who bought a couple of piglets from the old man Avdei Semyonich, whom everyone called Fat Ass. But that had been in the fall and spring, not in the winter in a blizzard. Crouper liked Old Market: there were only nine households, all of them well kept and prosperous. The people there made a living by carving, threshing, and making counterweights. And their meadows were fine. Crouper and his brother and the piglets rode back by way of the meadows because the high road was muddy with the spring thaw. The smoothness and expanse of the Old Market meadows had impressed Crouper. But right now they were all under the snow.

  The sled crawled across the flat land. Crouper remembered that just before Old Market there was a little grove, maybe linden, maybe oak.

  “As soon as the grove shows up—Old Market’s right there. We’ll knock on a door to warm up. We’ll sit an hour or so and move on. Not far now…,” Crouper thought.

  Sensing a village, the horses quickened to a trot even though the road was beginning to disappear under the snow and was soon entirely gone.

  “I’ll have to change my boots right away…” The doctor wiggled his toes, which were wet and already beginning to freeze.

  Crouper glanced back at the doctor. “The grove’ll be comin’ up now, and then Old Market,” he said to cheer up the doctor.

  The doctor looked spent. His nose and pince-nez stuck out comically from the snow-covered figure hunched over the seat.

  “Like a snow woman…,” Crouper chuckled to himself. “The old elephant, he’s tuckered now. Such bad luck he’s got with the weather…”

  They moved at a slow pace along the white fluffy desert, but the grove of trees didn’t appear.

  “Not a mistake here ’bouts, too?” Crouper thought, gazing into the storm with his eyelids forced wide open, though they drooped with exhaustion and threatened to stick together.

  Finally the trees could be seen up ahead.

  “Thank God…” Crouper laughed.

  They reached the grove. The trees were huge, old. Crouper remembered very young trees with the first May leaves.

  “Couldn’t have growed up so fast.” He rubbed his eyes.

  Suddenly he made out a cross under the trees. Then another, and a third. They came closer. There were more and more crosses, sticking out of the snow.

  “Lordy, it’s a cem’tery…” Crouper exhaled, pulling back on the reins.

  “A cemetery?” The doctor began furiously wiping his pince-nez.

  “A cem’tery,” Crouper repeated, dismounting.

  “Well, where’s the village?” muttered the doctor, staring at the tilted crosses around which the blizzard danced and twined as though teasing and mocking them.

  “Huh?” said Crouper, bending away from the wind.

  “I said, where’s the village?!” the doctor shouted in a voice filled with hatred, for the storm, the cemetery, and that idiot birdbrain Crouper who had led him who knows where. He was angry at his wet toes freezing in his boots; at his heavy, fur-lined, snow-covered coat; at the ridiculous painted sled with its idiotic midget horses inside that idiotic plywood hood; at the blasted epidemic, brought to Russia by some swine from far-off, godforsaken, goddamned Bolivia, which no decent Russian person had any need for at all; at that scientific, pontificating crook Zilberstein, who cared only about his own career and had left earlier on the mail horses without a thought for his colleague, Dr. Garin; at the endless road surrounded by drowsy snowdrifts; at the snakelike, snowy wind whipping ominously above them; at the hopeless gray sky, tattered like the sieve of some stupid, grinning, sunflower-seed-cracking old woman, which kept sowing, sowing, and sowing these accursed snowflakes.

  “’Round here somewheres…” Crouper turned his head this way and that, utterly bewildered.

  “Why did you drive to the cemetery?” the doctor shouted angrily.

  “Just did, yur ’onor, that’s all…” The driver frowned.

  “Haven’t you been here before, you idiot?!” shouted the doctor, and began to cough.

  “Sure enough I been here!” Crouper shouted, taking no offense. “Only it was summer.”

  “Then why the hell…” The doctor began to talk but the snow flew into his mouth.

  “I been here, yes I have.” Crouper turned his head back and forth like a magpie. “But I don’t know ’bout the cem’tery, cain’t ’member it at all.”

  “Drive, drive! Why did you stop?” the doctor shouted, and began coughing.

  “Ain’t sure which’s the right way.”

  “Cemeteries are never far from the village,” the doctor suddenly screamed, so loud that he scared himself.

  Crouper paid no attention to the shout. He thought a moment longer, turning his head from side to side, then led the sled decisively to the left of the cemetery, into the field.

  “If’n the fork was Old Market one way, and the meadows t’other, and the cem’tery’s close by Old Market, then I went true. The fork musta been here but we missed it. Now Old Market’ll be left, and then the meadows.”

  Having calmed down and recovered from his own shouting, the doctor didn’t even ask why Crouper hadn’t retraced his steps but had turned the sled left and was crossing the field.

  “It’s all right, it’ll be all right,” the doctor muttered, trying to cheer himself. “There are a lot of idiots in the world. And even more assholes.”

  Dragging himself through the deep snow, Crouper led the
sled into the field. He was so certain of the direction that he didn’t pay much heed to the gathering snowy gloom that parted reluctantly ahead of him. The sled moved along heavily and the horses pulled grudgingly, but Crouper just kept walking alongside, letting the steering rod go and lightly nudging the sled; he walked with such certainty that gradually the doctor, too, was affected.

  “We’ll be there any minute…,” Crouper mumbled to himself, still smiling.

  And indeed—the contours of a building soon appeared ahead of them in the whirling snow.

  “We made it, doctor, sir!” The driver winked at his passenger.

  Upon seeing the approaching house, the doctor was suddenly dying for a smoke. He also wanted to cast off his heavy coat and leaden hat, remove his wet boots, and sit down in front of a fire.

  Crouper desperately wanted a drink of kvass. He blew his nose into his sleeve and walked along calmly, letting the sled move ahead of him.

  “Who lives on the outskirts?” Crouper tried to remember, though there was no point in it since the only Old Marketers he knew were Matryona, her husband, Mikolai, and old Fat Ass. “Matryona’s house is the third on the right, and Fat Ass’s is next door to Matryona’s…”

  He glanced at the approaching building from under his hat, and his heart skipped a beat: this wasn’t an izba. It wasn’t even a drying barn or a hayloft. It didn’t look like a bathhouse either.

  The sled drove up to a dark-gray tent with a pointed top. On the surface of the tent was the image of a living, slowly blinking eye, an image familiar to both the driver and the passenger.

  “Mindaminters!” exclaimed Crouper.

  “Vitaminders!” said the doctor.

  The sled arrived at the tent and stopped.

  Crouper followed it. The doctor turned, stepped down, and shook off the snow. The wind carried the faint odor of exhaust. Then they heard an expensive gasoline generator at work inside the tent.

  “So where’s your Old Market?” the doctor asked, without anger this time, because he was happy that the lifeless white expanse had finally afforded him an encounter with civilization.

  “Roundabout near here somewhere…,” Crouper muttered, looking at the smooth, taut, zoogenous felt of the tent.

  He noticed a felt door, and knocked on it with his mitten. Inside, an iridescent signal floated up immediately. A felt window opened in the door and a narrow-eyed face and chewing mouth appeared:

  “Whaddya want?”

  “We got lost. We’re lookin’ fer Old Market.”

  “Who?”

  “Me, and the doctor here. We’re on our way to Dolgoye.”

  The face disappeared and the window closed.

  “Vitaminders,” said the doctor, shaking his head, with a tired chuckle. “Just our luck to meet up with them.”

  But he was pleased: the smooth, sturdy tent, standing firm in the wind, evinced the victory of humanity over the blind elements.

  A few long minutes passed and the door finally opened.

  “Please enter.”

  A thickset Kazakh gestured invitingly. It was obvious that they’d interrupted his meal, though, and that he wasn’t very happy about it.

  The doctor and Crouper entered a space that was dimly lit by electric lights and well heated. Two enormous violet Great Danes with sparkling bells on their collars immediately rose from their beds and moved toward them, growling. The dogs’ violet eyes stared at the newcomers, and white teeth sparkled in their snarling pink mouths.

  “Shoo!” the Kazakh shouted at the dogs, as he closed the door.

  With low growls, the dogs went back to their beds. Nearby were two large gasoline snowmobiles, clothes hung on hooks, and numerous pairs of shoes in neat rows. This was the entryway of the tent. The smell of expensive, precious gasoline, the two snowmobiles, and the two sleek Great Danes had a calming effect upon the doctor, but Crouper felt intimidated. “Take your coats off, make yourselves at home.” The Kazakh bowed slightly to the doctor.

  The doctor began undressing and the Kazakh set about helping him.

  “My littl’uns need to warm up a tetch.” Crouper took off his hat timidly and smoothed down his soaking-wet hair.

  “I’ll ask the bosses in a minute,” replied the Kazakh unflappably, as he continued assisting the doctor.

  He helped the doctor pull off his boots and gave him a pair of felt slippers. A Kazakh servant girl wearing a long, brightly colored dress and an embroidered skullcap entered, pulled back a thick curtain with her thin hand, and gestured for the doctor to enter:

  “Please, this way.”

  The doctor stepped through the opening. Crouper remained standing near the door, hat in hand.

  It was brighter and even warmer inside the tent. The large round space with gray walls of the same zoogenous felt gave off a feeling of nomadic comfort as well as the sharp aroma of eastern incense. In the center of the tent, right under the roof vent, three men held court at the traditional low black square table of the Vitaminders. The fourth side of the table was empty. Seven servant girls sat along the wall to one side. The eighth, who had invited the doctor into the tent, quietly took her place with them.

  The three men looked at the doctor.

  “District doctor, Garin,” said Platon Ilich, nodding at them.

  “Bedight, Lull Abai, Slumber,” the Vitaminders introduced themselves, bowing their shaved heads in turn.

  Bedight and Slumber had European faces, but Lull Abai was distinctly Asian looking.

  “You’ve appeared like an angel from heaven.” The thin, narrow-cheeked Bedight smiled.

  “In what sense?” The doctor smiled, wiping his foggy pince-nez.

  “We are in desperate need of your help,” Bedight continued.

  “Is someone ill?” asked Platon Ilich, casting his gaze about.

  “Ill.” Slumber, who had a strong, thickset body, and a simple, almost peasant face, nodded.

  “Who is it?”

  “Over there.” Bedight nodded. “Our friend Drowsy.”

  The doctor turned around. Something lay wrapped in a rug between two of the girls. The girls unfolded the rug and the doctor saw a fourth Vitaminder: he wore a gold collar inset with sparkling superconductors, and his head was shaved. Drowsy’s skull showed numerous abrasions and bruises, and his face was slightly swollen.

  The doctor approached him cautiously and looked at him without bending over:

  “What happened?”

  “He was beaten,” answered Bedight.

  “Who did it?”

  “We did.”

  The doctor looked at Bedight’s intelligent face.

  “Why?”

  “He lost some expensive things.”

  The doctor sighed disapprovingly, squatted, and took the battered Vitaminder’s wrist. There was a pulse.

  “But he’s alive,” said Lull Abai, stroking his thin beard.

  “He’s alive,” said the doctor, as he touched the Vitaminder’s face, “but he has a fever.”

  “A fever.” Slumber nodded.

  “That’s the ding-a-ling,” said Bedight, licking his thin lips. “But we don’t have any medicines.”

  “And this is a matter for the law, gentlemen.” The doctor’s lower lip pursed as he looked at the beaten man.

  “It is a matter for the law,” Bedight concurred, and the other two Vitaminders nodded their shaven heads in agreement. “But we are counting on your understanding.”

  “I’ll have to report it,” said Platon Ilich rather indecisively, realizing that in saying these words he might end up back out in the discomfort of the wailing blizzard.

  “We will thank you,” said Lull Abai, pronouncing the Russian words carefully.

  “I don’t take bribes.”

  “We won’t thank you with money,” Bedight explained. “We’ll let you try a sample.”

  The doctor looked at Bedight silently.

  “A sample of our new product.”

  Platon Ilich’s eyebrows climbed upwar
d and he took off his pince-nez to wipe it. The doctor’s nose was pink from the warmth.

  “Well…” He pushed his pince-nez up on the bridge of his nose, sighed, and slowly shook his head.

  The Vitaminders sat motionless, waiting.

  “Of course, it’s hard … to refuse.” The doctor exhaled, overcome by a rush of helplessness. He reached for his handkerchief with a sense of doom.

  “We were beginning to fear that you would refuse.” Bedight grinned.

  The Vitaminders laughed. The servant girls laughed quietly.

  The doctor blew his nose with a honk. Then he laughed as well.

  The Kazakh’s well-fed face appeared from behind the curtain:

  “Masters, the driver is asking to warm his horses.”

  “How many are there?” asked Slumber.

  “Don’t know. They’re little ones.”

  “Ah, little ones…” Slumber glanced at Bedight.

  “Build them a shed,” ordered Bedight. “And give him something to eat.”

  The Kazakh withdrew.

  “In that case … I … need my traveling bags…,” the doctor muttered, leaning over Drowsy’s beaten body again. “And I need to wash my hands with soap.”

  He was ashamed of his weakness, but couldn’t help himself: he’d sampled the Vitaminders’ products when means permitted. They made the life of a provincial doctor much easier. He allowed himself to indulge at least once every two months. But in the last year his finances had been worse, much worse: his already modest salary had been cut by eighteen percent. He’d had to refrain, and so it had been a year since Dr. Garin had shone.

  He was ashamed of his weakness, and he was also ashamed of his shame, and then ashamed of this double shame. He became indignant and cursed himself abruptly and furiously:

  “Idiot … Bastard … Damned hypocrite.”

  His hands trembled. He had to occupy them with something, so he began to unfold the rug, fully exposing the figure lying there. The Vitaminder moaned.