—that’s what she writes now, what good-for-nothing shit—the function of a sick organism, no more, but then—then, through her insomnious stupor she could see the bluish, starchy, light snow sparkle finely, frost glittered on the windowpanes; it was quiet, a great, almost universal silence, only leaves caught up in the fresh snow would rustle from time to time underfoot, there were streaks of pale sunlight across the hardwood floor when she walked into the hall where he crouched before the hearth setting the fire, edging the prepared logs to the center, he spoke up without turning his head: “Can you hear that?”—a capricious, splashing sound carried down from the attic—“the pipes have burst, we’ll have to call for a plumber”—she gently passed her hand over the back of his head, from the shoulders up, against the grain as if expecting to set off some sparks, what is she to do with this unease inside her, “what am I to do with you?” when suddenly—she barely had time to step out of the way—Lesyk flew into the room, coat askew, the film zoomed in for a close-up—the lens twirled like a ballerina: hysterically jubilant horror in his eyes, the mouth gashed in a scream: “Everybody get out! Fire!”—who’s on fire, what’s on fire, but they were already outside standing dumbly, heads upturned: the whole mansard rumbled, cloaked in a thick smoke underlit by a yellowish glow, it was blustering up to the sky, and it was already guffawing boisterously, something inside was building into a roar of laughter, extending itself to full height, its head crashing through the roof out to freedom, ho-ho-ho, at last!—and again she for a split second was surprised that she felt no fear, detached, as though none of this was happening to her—a young woman was awkwardly running over from the neighbors’, for some reason wrapping a black kerchief around her head as she ran, someone ran off to make a phone call, faces and figures leaped about in the corner of her eye, commotion picked up all around, and yet all she saw was his strange, somehow otherworldly calm, his profile raised up to the low silvery sky, hands in pockets, she remembered the lines from a letter she received from him recently: “
I’m getting used to my present condition, but I need medicine. I’ll accept hospital, prison, lobotomy”—something was not right, and when after several hours, after the fire was put out, after all the screaming was finished, when the fire trucks were done with flashing their blue emergency lights over the snow but the police investigator had not yet arrived, and the group of friends, still in the throes of excited laughter, coughing, blowing of noses—the first shock was over, they had to unwind, didn’t they—began polishing off the rescued bottle of cognac, the one that was to go with the shish kebabs, in the annex, which seemed all the more cozy after all that had transpired—they almost felt like family, well, folks, that was really something, wasn’t it, pour me a little more, who wants some lemon, ah, heaven, that hit the spot, somebody get me a cigarette—and he suddenly went rummaging through the bag and pulled out a bunch of fireworks: bought them at the market that morning, he confessed, wanted to put on a little show—an explosion of nervous laughter shook the annex, even the panes rattled: well, well, well, you certainly did that—how did you pull it off? just don’t think of showing those to the inspector, you hear?—he folded his wrinkles into a smile and turned to her, raising baggy eyelids with a quick dagger flash: “Maybe now you’ll have something to remember me by”—earlier that morning, before the fire, she told him she was leaving for the States. The investigation found nothing, absolutely nothing—the fire had burst into the building out of nowhere, who? what let it in?—it burst in and proceeded to chase her for the next nine months, even all over the American expanses, in the kitchen, especially when she would come out to smoke late at night, she would pick up a distinct sulfuric scent every once in a while—was that gas leaking? skillets, with a cobra’s hiss, would spit boiling oil at her legs, the burns healed slowly, and after he arrived they simply opened up like stigmata, God forgive me—he personally sealed up the blisters on her calves with a thin coat of ground eggshells: “Sit still for a while until it dries”—and she did sit still in front of the television set, humbly laying out on the “coffee table” her unevenly seared raw sausages, now completely devoid of any erotic charm—and finally, the last night before they were to, thank God, move out of that apartment which had been transformed during the time of their habitation into a furious box of thickly condensed, almost visible dark-brown cloud of torpor—where they were going it wasn’t clear, into a motel for now, as long as there’s some kind of a change—that time, as if to say good-bye, the fire returned in its original form: she was alone preparing dinner in the kitchen with the usual squeeze of anxiety growing into nausea as she waited for his return from the studio, scrubbing something with her back to the stove, and suddenly she turned around as if someone pushed her—the electric burner under her skillet was ablaze, fire almost up to the ceiling, and that same malicious laughter was coming alive within it, but this time she was facing it alone: the “fire alarm” was silent for some reason, like it was paralyzed, but she thought about that only later, in the first moments she automatically, without opening up her clenched fists—in the left one she later discovered some clutched onion peels—set to beating down the fire with the towel she had grabbed from somewhere—the hungry fire bounced with joy as though that’s what it had been waiting for, the smoldering towel in her hand seemed to be melting like molten metal, curling swiftly, embers flickering along its blackened edges, until she remembered to start throwing water—one quart, another, a third—and it hissed, spreading in all directions with an acrid stench, she stood in the middle of the kitchen with the charred rag in her lowered hands: no, God, I can’t take this, I can’t take this anymore!—and so her prophetic dream came true—an old dream from a year ago, visited upon her long before they met: a sapling at the crossroads, trembling and rustling, someone invisible is setting a bonfire below, the strike of a match, and oh—in a flash!—the sapling is consumed by fire which goes out as soon as it starts, as if it only meant to strip its crown of leaves, and so in the place where a moment earlier the sapling glittered with shades of light green against the blue sky there now protrudes a bitter, blackened skeleton. On the occasion of which, girlfriend, allow me to congratulate you.
It was all—iniquity and dirt:
The washing of underground ores
From ancient resistant poisons,
After which there remained—a corpse.
Washed and without a scent,
Both arms thrown back,
Like the limb bones of wings,
He lay there, silent, and smoked.
I, too, remained awkwardly still,
As into me entered—hell