The Slynx (15 page)

the coals again: God forbid there should be a fire. It was a tricky thing, fire: if it went out, you might as well lie down and die; if it flared up too much, it would burn everything right down to the ground like nothing was ever there! That's fire for you. It's skittish. It needs food, it's always hungry, just like a man. Gimme, gimme, gimme! But if you overfeed it, it'll gobble you up.

If there's a fire somewhere, the Golubchiks come running from all around, from all the settlements, sometimes from the farthest reaches. A huge crowd gathers like on the October Holiday. They surround the burning house and stand there, arms folded on their chests, watching ... No one talks out loud, they just whisper: "Yikes, look at that pillar of flame ..." "Look, look, over there the corner's caught!" ... And the flames rush and tear about, not exactly like pillars, but like a tree, like the jeopard tree in spring--it dances and hums, twists and turns, but stays put. You turn to look at the Golubchiks: they stand there staring and the fire dances in their eyes too, it's reflected like in water, it splashes. The crowd has a thousand eyes, and water and fire lap in each and every one, like dawn rising on the river. It makes you feel strange and wild inside, no mistake, water and fire don't mix, but here they are together!

And if there's Oldeners nearby, they run back and forth tearing at their hair and shouting: "Put it out! Put out the fire!" But how? How can you put it out? You can put out a little flame with a bucket of water, but if the fire has showed its strength, that's it. All you can do is wait till it's over.

If the other izbas don't catch that's lucky. When the fire has eaten everything and starts to die down and settle, the Golubchiks move in with buckets, pots, whatever they've got, to collect coals to take home. Maybe their stove is warm, anyway--it doesn't matter. No point in letting good coals go to waste.

Sometimes a whole settlement burns. Well, you just have to start life all over again.

Spic and span and pleased with himself, Benedikt knocked on Varvara's door. She opened it, all decked out, and sweaty.

"Oh, it's you. How nice. What is this you've brought? Rusht? You needn't have gone to all that trouble ..."

He looked around: there weren't any other frolickers there yet. He could wait. The table was set. There were two bowls and two spoons. A pot of soup.

"Have a seat. I'll be right there." She took a griddle of mice out of the oven. "I think they're done."

"Stick them with a splinter."

"That's it. They're done. Fresh, I caught them today."

"Great."

They poured some rusht. Took a bite.

"To your health."

They poured some more. It went down smooth.

"What lovely rusht. It has such a distinctive bouquet."

"I know where to pick it."

"And where is that, if it's not a secret?"

"In the bog. Behind the Cockynork settlement."

"Near the Garden Ring?"

"That's right."

"Gracious, how far afield you range!"

"Yeah, well, but it's good rusht."

"I should do a bit of reconnoitering myself."

The women still hadn't come. Benedikt coughed politely into his hand.

"Will the guests be coming or not, then?"

"Well, I wasn't sure ..."

"But they promised?"

"I thought... you see,... I thought that I'd better reveal my secret alone first... I don't know how you'll react... I'm a bit nervous..."

"Me too, a little."

"I don't know if you'll be able to appreciate ..."

"I'm able," said Benedikt, though he wasn't sure that he was.

"Well, all right, then. But it's a secret. You won't tell, of course ..."

"No, no, no."

"Well then, close your eyes."

Benedikt closed his eyes. Something rustled. There was a bump. More rustling. Benedikt peeked with one eye. But it didn't seem like anything was ready yet--he could only see shadows

from the candles dancing on the beams--so he closed his eyes again.

"Ready or not--here I come," sang Benedikt.

"Just a moment... How impatient you are ..."

"I can't wait," Benedikt lied, letting a hint of playfulness appear in his voice. "I just can't wait."

Something fell on his lap, something not very heavy that smelled of mold.

"Here it is. Take a look..."

"What is it?"

A box--but not a box, just something shaped like it. Inside were whitish pages that looked like fresh bark, but lighter; they were very, very thin, and they seemed to be covered with dust or poppyseed.

"What is it?"

"Look closely!"

He brought it to his eyes. The dust was fine and even ... like spider webs ... He stared, amazed ... Suddenly it was as though the web fell from his eyes and it hit him: "and the candle by which Anna read a life full of alarm and deceit..." He gasped. Letters! They were letters! Written teeny tiny, but so carefully, and they weren't brown, they were black... He licked his finger and rubbed the bark: he rubbed a hole right in it. Gosh, how thin.

"Careful, you'll ruin it!"

"What is it? ..."

"It's a book ... an Oldenprint book."

"Ay!!!" Benedikt jumped from the stool and dropped the poison. "What are you doing? I'll get sick!"

"No! Wait! Just wait a minute! ..."

"The Sickness!..."

"No! ..."

"Let me out of here! . .."

"Just sit down. Sit down! I'll explain everything. I promise." Varvara Lukinishna pried Benedikt's hands away from the bolts, her cock's combs trembling. "It's completely safe . .. Nikita Ivanich confirmed it."

"What's he got to do with it?"

"He knows! He gave it to me!"

Benedikt quieted down and sat on the stool, his knees weak. He wiped his nose with his sleeve to stop the trembling. Nikita Ivanich. One of the bosses. And he didn't get sick. He touched a book--and he didn't get sick ...

"It's safe ..." whispered Varvara. "You know, he's an extraordinary old man ... so knowledgeable. He explained it to me: it's completely safe, it's just a superstition ... You see, when the Blast occurred, everything was considered dangerous, because of the radiation ... You've heard about it... That's why it was forbidden. The books were radioactive ..."

"To hear the Oldeners tell it, everything is radioactive," said Benedikt, shaking. "No, this is something else ..."

"But Nikita Ivanich knows ... he has ... If it was truly dangerous, he would have fallen ill long ago, but you can see that he's healthier than either of us ..."

"Then why do they. .. Why are people taken away and treated . .. knock on wood?"

"It's a tradition, knock on wood ..."

They both knocked on wood.

... God have mercy and protect me ... I'm not sick, I'm not sick, I'm not sick, no, no, no. I won't get sick, I won't get sick, no, no, no. Don't come, don't, don't, don't. The red hoods don't need to come, knock on wood. I don't want to be hooked.

"Nikita Ivanich explained it to me ... It was thought to be extremely dangerous because paper absorbs other substances ... You and I copy things so that they're not dangerous to the people's health ... But now it doesn't matter anymore, two hundred years have passed .. . You and I are copying old books, Benedikt..."

"What do you mean, old? Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, wrote all those booklets ..."

"No, he didn't... Different people wrote them, but everyone thinks it was Fyodor Kuzmich. I felt there was something going on... You know, after I saw him, Fyodor Kuzmich, I couldn't sleep all night... I kept thinking, thinking . .. Then I made a decision, I worked up my nerve and went to see Nikita Ivanich. We talked for a long, long time ..."

"He never told me anything ..."

"Oh, Benedikt, he's an unusual man ... We talked about you ... He wanted to tell you, but not right away ... He wanted to prepare you ... I know it's a huge blow ... but I think it's better to know the truth than to live life in darkness ..."

Benedikt sat on the stool, hunched over. His thoughts strayed here and there, his head felt heavy. Maybe he went back to work too soon? Maybe he still had fever? He had the chills. Or was it just the bath? ... Why did he have to bathe when there was no one to kiss?

"And what now?"

"Now? Nothing, simply now you know."

"What for?"

"Well, I mean, I thought..."

"Why think? I want to live."

"But what does that have ... I want to, too ... but I want to know the truth ... if it's possible ..."

"'For in much wisdom is much grief.' So you mean Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe, didn't write that either?"

"Probably not."

"Then who?"

"I don't know ... You'll have to ask the Oldeners."

Varvara Lukinishna picked the Oldenprint book up off the floor, placed it on the table, and stroked it with her hand. It was strange to see such a fearsome thing up close.

"Still... Why are you touching it? ... If we are copying old books, then just wait till we're told to copy it... Then you can hold it. .."

"But when will that be? ... Maybe not soon enough. Life is so short, and I just adore art... And it's such an interesting book!..."

"What? You're reading it?"

"Why, of course ... Benedikt, there are so many interesting books. I'll give it to you to read if you like."

"No!!!" said Benedikt, flinching.

"But why are you so afraid?"

"I have to go ... My head is sort of--"

"Wait! ..."

Benedikt tore himself away, staggered out on the porch, into the rain, into the early, raw dark. Out of sight, out of mind ... His head really was sort of...

... The March wind groaned in the treetops, rattled the bare twigs and the rabbit nests, and something else unknown--who knows what's up there moaning, what awakes in spring? A gust of wind blows--it whispers, it whines in the trees, it scatters raindrops on your head. There might be a savage cry up above, from the branches: startled, you race for the closest fence ... Maybe it's a woodsucker bird.

The bladders twinkle faintly in the windows, the Golubchiks have lighted their candles, they're slurping down soup ... They exchange glances: maybe they too have Oldenprint books hidden under their beds ... We'll lock the doors and take them out ... Read a bit... Maybe everyone has one, who knows ... In that izba ... and this one ... and in that one over there, where a pale light flickers--is it a candle smoking, or people pacing the rooms, blocking the feeble fire with their mortal bodies, trying the bolts to make sure they're firmly shut? Out from under the mattress, from under a moldy pile of rags, filthy human rags, they take a booklet... a book ... a book ... and he's the only one who's acting like a frightened fool... The only one in the whole town ... The letters are so black, so teensy ... it's scary even to think about it...

Up above everything roared and groaned. The wind flew into his sleeve, cutting straight through him. Benedikt stood at an unfamiliar fence, thinking. The baked mouse had only teased his appetite. He wanted to eat. But at home in his izba there was no fire: he'd put it out when he left to go visiting. He didn't think he'd need it. Should he go back and get some coals? She'd give them to him, she's kind ... No. Go back? The squeaking door ... the warmth ... the white, happy pancake of her face, the trembling cock's combs, the hurried whisper: this way, this way, I have some art... One minute, I'll just wipe the mold off... And the candle by which ... full of alarm and deceit! What incredible fear! "Fear, noose and ditch," Fyodor Kuzmich wrote ... No, they say, not Fyodor Kuzmich, Glorybe.... Full of alarm

... And deceit... Not Fyodor Kuzmich ... Someone else, unseen, old, with a hidden face ... Probably big, pale and white, ancient, extinct, as tall as a tree, with a beard down to his knees and horrible eyes ... Terrifying, he stands amid the trunks, motionless, just turning his face, and his eyes look straight through the March twilight, he rolls them so that he can see Benedikt in the gloom: Where is that Benedikt? Why did he hide? Why did he run for the fence?--and Benedikt's heart is pounding in his neck, floating up to his tongue, roaring in his ears--where is Benedikt? Come here now, I want to tell you something--his hand will reach out and he'll hook a gnarled finger under Benedikt's rib, and with the frightful cry of the woodsucker, scream:
Eeeeeeeeeeahhhhhhhhhhaaauuuuu!

There was a knock on the door of the strange izba. An ordinary, homey knock; plain, everyday life knocked on the door, drunken talk and laughter could be heard in the twilight. So someone has guests, it's a holiday and they went out on the porch--to take a leak or just to go out and breathe the fresh air, to live life or sing a song, or just to kick the cat!

They didn't notice Benedikt slinking along the fence, no one could see him. The frightful, ancient inhabitant, who read, or wrote, or maybe just hid a book full of deceit in rags, didn't notice him either; just as he'd appeared, he vanished, and he was gone.

Home. It was dark in his izba, it smelled of ashes, and the wedding was a long way off.

MYSLETE

Oldeners look just like us. Men, women, young, old--all kinds. Mostly old people. But they're different. They have a Consequence--they don't get any older. That's it. They live and live and they don't die from old age. They do die from other

things once in a while, though. There aren't many Oldeners left.

They sit in their izbas or go to work, and some have made it into the bosses--same as with us. Only their talk is different. If you run into a Golubchik stranger on the street, you could never say whether he's one of us or an Oldener. Until you ask him the usual: "Who are ya? How come I don't know you? What the heck you doin' in our neck of the woods?" An Oldener doesn't answer like other people do: " Whassit to ya, tired of lugging that mug around? Just wait, I'll rip it offa ya," or something like that. No, they don't answer so's you can make sense of it, so to speak: You got muscles and I got muscles so don't mess with me! No, sometimes you'll get an answer like: "Leave me be, you uncouth hooligan!" Then you know for sure the guy's an Oldener.

And when one of them does die, the others bury him. But not like we do. They don't put stones on the eyes. They don't take out the guts and stuff the insides with rusht. They don't tie the hands and feet or bend the knees. They don't put anything in the grave, not even a candle or a mouse, no dishes, no pots, no spoons, no bows and arrows, no little clay figures, nothing like that. They might tie a cross together from twigs and stick it in their corpse's hands, or draw an idol on bark and also put it in his hands like a portrait. But some of them don't even do that.