Ice Trilogy Page 8

  This time Anikin and I were in the same tent. He tossed and turned and pestered me with conversation. I groaned something in reply, lying in the dark with open eyes. I wasn’t at all sleepy.

  “It’s really rather scary here, isn’t it, Snegirev? Some kind of vacuum,” Anikin muttered as he was falling asleep. “No wonder the Evenki don’t come here. Although, of course, superstitions...” He yawned. “But still, damn it, what powerful energy there is in space! That’s what man has to conquer...” He yawned again.

  He fell asleep.

  I lay there, yielding to my feeling. Something pleasantly agonizing was awakening inside me. I didn’t understand what it was, but it was connected to this place I found myself in. I felt that with certainty. Somehow my heart was beating in a new key. And it froze, stopping. And in this there was a joyous premonition of something enormous and innately and naturally new. It was growing like a heavy wave. And approaching implacably. I touched myself and tried to breathe carefully. I didn’t fall asleep at all that night. And the night passed quickly. I rose earlier than the others, made the campfire, which had gone out overnight, took our large kettle to the swamp for water, and, hanging it above the fire, sat down nearby. Gazing at the tongues of flame climbing up the dry branches, I remembered my past. It seemed spectral and unstable to me. It stood before me like a frozen picture under glass, like a herbarium in a museum. And the picture didn’t elicit any feelings. My happy childhood, the tornado of the Revolution, the loss of my family, the wanderings, studies, loneliness, and orphanhood — it had all hardened under glass forever. It all became the past. And detached itself from me. The present was only the new joy of my heart. It was more powerful than everything.

  The kettle boiled and steam escaped from the spout. It looked menacing and silly. And I began to laugh.

  “What are you laughing at, Comrade Snegirev?” came Kulik’s voice from behind me.

  I didn’t even turn around. Kulik had also become the past, as had the entire expedition. Over that night I had lost all interest in it. It had become small and helplessly menacing. Like the kettle. Laughing, I threw a branch in the fire.

  “Get a move on, wake the others,” said Kulik, handing me his whistle.

  I stood up silently, took the whistle, and blew it deafeningly. I blew the whistle for a long time. Kulik looked at me attentively.

  “Is everything all right?” he asked, when I stopped.

  I didn’t answer. I really didn’t want to talk. Every word returned me to the past. To answer Kulik with “Thank you, everything is just fine” would have meant to turn back, behind the glass. I was silent again at breakfast. They handed me a piece of dry bread and smoked fish. The food looked beggarly. I didn’t touch it, just put it on the cloth. I poured some bilberries into my palm from the elm basket, ate them, and washed them down with tea. Kulik held a short meeting, saying that “the secret is very close.” And we set off.

  Once again I walked behind. The surrounding landscape hadn’t changed. The expedition made its way through felled forest. And the farther into the forest it went, the more exalted and strong I became inside myself. I led my horse without tiring, helping it to step over the trunks lying on the ground, picking my way around obstructions, pulling my horse out of the swamp water. The swampiness of the place made itself apparent: by dinnertime everyone was dirty — the people and the horses. In contrast to me, everyone began to tire quickly and became irritable. Furthermore, the general sense of oppression grew: the dead zone put everyone on his guard. Arguments flared. Yankovsky accused Urnov from Vanavara of stealing sugar. The Vanavaran crossed himself and swore to God he hadn’t taken any. Ikhilevich, who had been quiet in recent days, suddenly burst out with a semi-hysterical lecture on the theory of stellar explosions, at the end of which he was almost screaming that “science won’t allow fools to joke around.” Kulik made fun of him maliciously. Two students continually argued until they were nearly hoarse about who would lead which horse and what to carry on it. They were nicknamed “the Gracchi brothers.” The hunters Petrenko and Molik flushed ducks from the swamps four times in one day, but only killed one. Something had broken in Chistiakov’s movie camera; he was continually repairing it and swearing up a storm. Trifonov kept criticizing him.

  Soon my unwillingness to talk was noticed. People also noticed that I had practically stopped eating. They looked at one another and whispered behind my back. Kulik and Trifonov tried to get me to talk; they asked how I was feeling. I just shrugged my shoulders and smiled. During the camp dinner, when everyone greedily devoured wheat kasha with lard and smoked fish, I ate berries and drank tea. At mealtimes a large oilcloth was usually spread out and the food placed on it; no one would sit there. Crackers, smoked fish, lard, onions, and lumps of sugar lay on the cloth. In the center, on a board, they placed the cauldron with the wheat kasha, flavored with lard and dried carrots. Everyone dug it out with wooden spoons. There were no bowls on the expedition; Kulik said that they would just make a racket on the way and washing up would take time. After the kasha, a thick tea was poured into tin cups. It was drunk holding lumps of sugar between the teeth; Kulik had forbidden drinking tea with sugar dissolved in it. Sitting in the circle, I drank tea from a cup and looked at the people eating. Their food seem abnormal to me. For the first time in my not very long life I suddenly paid attention to what people were eating. What they ate was either dead or processed, chopped up, ground, or dried. The smoked wrinkled fish and dried crackers were equally distasteful to me. Of everything that was put out on the oilcloth during dinner, only the onion and berries did not disgust me. They were normal food. Sometimes I would take an onion and eat it, washing it down with tea. Everyone looked askance at me. Anikin, with whom I slept in the tent, became terse and almost stopped talking to me. He no longer theorized about meteorites and comets. Lying in the tent one night, I heard a conversation between Kulik and Trifonov.

  “It appears that Snegirev has gone crackers. We have to do something about him.”

  “What? Isolate him from the group? And how?”

  “Hmm, you’re right. There’s nowhere. Keep an eye on him. After all, he’s our talisman.”

  “Have you become superstitious?”

  “While the expedition is going on. Do you disapprove?”

  “Not a bit. I’m a dialectician, you know.”

  “Well, old man, I’m no metaphysician, either!”

  They laughed in the darkness.

  The second night I spent in a half sleep. I was in wonderful form. Good spirits and energy filled me to the brim. And I was living only in the present: the past was forgotten. I wanted one thing alone: for the joy my body felt to go on forever. For that I was ready to do anything...

  The morning meeting was anxious. Grumbling began among the members of the expedition: they were thirty kilometers into the felled-forest zone, and there were no traces of the meteorite’s fall. Ikhilevich and Potresov tried to convince everyone that the meteorite exploded in the air. Kulik tore them apart rudely, calling them “craven renegades.” The geologists proposed going a bit farther and beginning the construction of the barracks. The drillers, who tired more easily than anyone else for some reason, advised that we begin building right in this spot. The students, mesmerized by the strange place and exhausted by the trip, were ready for anything. But Kulik and Trifonov insisted on moving ahead. I listened to the quarrels and arguments, happy that I wasn’t like the others, that I had been given something that made my body sing. In contrast to the rest of them, I was happy. And I didn’t care whether we went ahead or stopped here.

  Finally Kulik couldn’t stand it and he blew the whistle, signaling that the day’s trek was starting. It was useless to argue with him — he was the leader of the expedition. The baggage was loaded onto the horses, and the expedition set out again. The horses themselves felt pretty good: in the marshes there was enough juicy grass; they grazed there at night and during stops.

  About six kilometers along, the felled for
est changed: almost all the trunks were broken in half, there were practically no trees torn out by the roots anymore. It was as though the forest had been resurrected, but as tall tree stumps. These stumps began to grow upward with every kilometer. And after another six kilometers the old forest rose up: the trees were whole but were mortally burned. They had all dried out and died. This standing dead forest looked even more unusual than the felled forest. There was hardly any young undergrowth here.

  The expedition halted. Kulik gave the order to make camp. While we were putting up tents and preparing food, he, Trifonov, and Chistiakov went ahead on horseback. They returned toward evening. Kulik directed everyone to gather and made an important announcement: ahead lay a large swamp. Around it — burned forest. Judging by what they had seen, the meteorite had exploded high above the swamp. If it had fallen to earth, the forest around there would have been completely decimated. The forest directly under the explosion had been burned by the blast but had withstood it, since the direction of the shock wave had been strictly vertical, coming from the sky. Kulik proposed spending the night and heading for the swamp the next day, building a permanent camp there, constructing a barracks, and beginning the search for shards of the meteorite. Concluding his speech, he congratulated the expedition for arriving at the location of the descent. Everyone except me applauded and shouted joyfully. The drillers proposed drinking a toast for the occasion, but Kulik silenced them.

  “No drinking! We’ll celebrate when we find pieces of it.”

  Ikhilevich was happier than all the others: his hypothesis on the explosion of hyper-meteorites had proved valid. But Kulik didn’t appear disappointed. He was certain that there were large chunks of the meteorite scattered in the swamp. Everyone began arguing again, this time about the pieces. The argument dragged on. I wandered around the campsite in the darkness. Dead forest stood everywhere. The moon illuminated bare, charred tree trunks. I felt very good: the joy of belonging to this extraordinary place filled me. Each of my movements, each turn of my body, each breath, each time my finger touched the grass or trunks of the trees elicited an excited burst in my heart. My heart quivered and sang. My blood pounded in my temples, played rainbows in front of my eyes, and sounded in the shells of my ears. Wandering through the tree trunks, I felt that somewhere here, very close now, something was waiting for me, something enormous and dear. That’s what made my heart sing. I came here because of it. And it was waiting for me. For me and me alone!

  That night I was again unable to sleep.

  The next morning we set off earlier than usual. Kulik said that it was about eight kilometers to the swamp. This gave the expedition new life. Everyone walked joyfully and talked animatedly, breaking the dead silence. For that matter, it wasn’t entirely dead. The scorched forest harbored a real danger: for more than twenty years the trees had been rotting. When there was a strong winter gust, some of them collapsed to the ground. The sound of a falling tree carried a long distance as an echo. Everyone froze, listening to yet another giant toppling. Then they continued moving, looking over their shoulders. The weather was marvelous: it was summery, and the sun warmed.

  By about three o’clock in the afternoon we arrived at the swamp. It stretched out ahead for several kilometers. Beyond it, through a light, marshy fog, distant hillocks could be seen. Scorched forest surrounded the swamp. Chistiakov, walking off a ways to answer nature’s call, found a spring that gushed from the stony soil and ran toward the swamp in a meandering stream. The water in it was amazingly pure and delicious. Tired of boiled swamp water, everyone drank his fill of spring water for the first time in several days. The spring was immediately named Chistiakov Spring. Kulik walked over to a burned pine with its crown snapped off, pulled his homemade Celtic ax from his belt, and stuck it in the trunk.

  “Here a campsite will be founded!”

  The travelers all cried “Hurrah!,” removed their “Chinese” hats, and threw them in the air. A banquet was announced in celebration. All the victuals that the expedition possessed turned up on the oilcloth. Buckwheat groats were boiled on the fire, seasoned with lard, onion, and salted white salmon. Flasks of spirits were handed around. I sat eating berries and drinking water. No one paid me any attention. Everyone quickly got tipsy. Toasts were proposed: Kulik was praised for his sagacity and correct choice of route, they drank to the “smart and bold” guide Fyodor, to the inexhaustible Trifonov, the fanatical Ikhilevich, the unbending Chistiakov, the brave Molik and Petrenko, the courageous Yankovsky and Potresov. The students drank toasts to the drillers, the drillers drank to the geologists, the geologists to the astronomers. Okhchen’s nephew quickly became very drunk, sang Tungus songs, clicked his tongue, and giggled stupidly. The driller Gridiukh sang along with him in Ukrainian, eliciting general hilarity. In the end, two of the students felt sick. The only ones not to drink were myself, Ikhilevich (who couldn’t stand alcohol), and the prudish geologist Voronin. It all ended long after midnight.

  When the camp was finally snoring, I again began to walk around. The stars and moon were hidden behind clouds. But the northern sky was light even at night. I wandered among charred trees, touched their trunks, sat down on the mossy earth, then stood up, strolled over to the swamp, to the stream, and touched the water. The huge and intimate was somewhere close by. It was waiting for me. It banished sleep from my body, leaving only the excitement of anticipation. It made my heart thrill and tremble.

  I met the dawn among dead trees.

  In the morning Kulik announced the order of the day to everyone: he and Trifonov, Fyodor, and Chistiakov would head out in search of remnants of the meteorite and draw up a map of the area; all the rest would erect a barracks under the direction of the builder Martynov.

  The construction began after breakfast. The stocky, pockmarked, taciturn Martynov finally felt that his time had come: his face reddened from shouting. In a loud voice he ordered everyone around right up until dinnertime. Under his command, the scholars and seasoned geologists looked like pitiful apprentices. First we dug holes for the posts of the barracks, then we knocked down charred trunks, sawed them, and rolled them to the construction site. We chose the deciduous trees because almost all the pines were moldering. The larch trees had been wonderfully preserved over twenty years and sounded like iron when they fell. Only their tops had rotted and broken off. It was difficult to saw them: dried out at the root, they had become harder than the saws we used to cut them. We drove thick-bottomed logs into the pits and crowned them with the first charred crossbeams. The barracks began to grow quickly; the crowns, naturally, were not planed — no ax could manage the hard dry wood. Kulik had given Martynov the directive: build simply, not for posterity. But the meticulous Martynov forgot this admonition: he shouted and demanded the highest quality from us. Finally, the driller Mishin told Martynov that if he didn’t stop bossing them around, he would end up building the whole thing by himself. Martynov quieted down, but not for long. By dinner five rows of logs had been erected. The barracks ended up being spacious.

  After the sun went down, the happy explorers returned. Four kilometers to the southwest they had detected three large craters.

  The next day three drillers, and Anikin and I as diggers, set off to the site with Kulik. The craters were more or less identical — about twenty meters in diameter and about three meters deep. Water stood at the bottom of them from the melting ice of the permafrost. At first we bailed out pails of it from the largest crater. Then a driller began to drill the sludgy bottom of the crater with a hand drill. Less than a meter down, the bore came up against something hard. Kulik was ecstatic. Everyone grabbed shovels and pails: some dug, others bailed out the water. Kulik worked along with us. I dug, standing up to my knees in swampy ground. I did everything I was asked without thinking about it. I was indifferent: no work could distract me from my inner rapture. My heart continued to sing while, splattered with mud, I scooped out the bog. After about three hours something large and formless turned up in the black wa
ter. Kulik tapped on it with his shovel. The sound was muffled, obviously not stone and not metal. Kulik hit harder and the shovel sank into a rotten tree: an enormous larch stump turned out to be in the crater. Checking another crater with the drill, the bore also hit a tree. Kulik was depressed, but he tried to keep himself in hand.

  “Well, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again,” he said, wiping the spattered mud from his face with a handkerchief.

  The evening meeting became a kind of scientific advisory council on the tree stumps. The geologists asserted that the craters and the stumps lodged in them were the result of melting permafrost. Kulik didn’t argue with them. He was interested in the meteorite.

  Another night passed. I spent it inside the tent dozing. My heart’s ecstatic state wouldn’t let me sleep deeply. I prayed for one thing — that my ecstasy would never end. The expedition members tried not to talk about me and paid me no attention, but they took me on all the jobs. Once I heard Kulik say, “We can thank the stars that Snegirev is a peaceable madman.”

  In the morning Kulik set off with Fyodor and Molik to reconnoiter; the rest continued building the barracks.

  By the evening all ten rows of logs had been laid. The building of charred logs looked ominous. Between the rows of logs you could see large cracks. We decided to lay a shallow-pitch lean-to roof of slender trees, place the tarp we’d brought over it, and cover the whole thing with mossy turf and weigh it down with stones.

  Sitting in the evening by the campfire and looking at the flames while the others ate, I suddenly experienced an unusual feeling. It was as though I had lost my body. The only thing remaining was my heart, which was hanging in the emptiness. I felt my heart. It resembled a fetus. Life pulsed evenly in it. But it was sleeping, as yet unborn. And the most striking thing was that I felt the hearts of everyone sitting around the fire. They were exactly the same as mine. They pulsed the same way. And they were asleep as well. Our hearts had not yet been born! This discovery struck me like lightning.