Arseny moved in with Christofer after that. The boy is unquestionably gifted, Christofer once wrote. He grasps everything right away. I have taught him about herbal healing and it will provide for him during his life. I will impart to him much other knowledge to broaden his horizons. May he learn how the world was created.
One starry October night, Christofer took the boy to a meadow and showed him where the earthly firmament and the heavenly firmament meet.
In the begynnynge God created heaven and the earth. He created them in order that people not thinke heaven and earth were without begynnynge. Then God devyded the lyghte from the darcknesse. And called the lyghte daye and the darcknesse nyghte.
Grass affectionately rubbed against their feet and meteorites flew above their heads. Arseny felt the warmth of Christofer’s hand on the back of his head.
And God created the sun to lyghte the daye and the moon and the stars to lyghte the nyghte.
Are the orbs large? asked the boy.
Yes, well, you know… Christofer wrinkled his brow. The moon’s circumference totals 120,000 stadia, and the circumference of the sun is, roughly of course, three million stadia. They only seem smalclass="underline" their real sizes are difficult to even imagine. Go upon the hill so high, and gaze down on the field below. Do not the grazing flocks seem as ants unto thine eyes? Thus are the orbs.
They spoke for the next several days about orbs and omens. Christofer told the boy about the double sun he had seen more than once in his life: its appearance to the east or to the west signifies great rain or wind. Sometimes the sun looks bloody to people, but this happens due to hazy vapors and indicates high humidity. Sometimes sunbeams look like hair, too (Christofer was stroking Arseny’s hair), and it is as if the clouds are burning, but that indicates wind and cold. And if the rays bend toward the sun and the clouds blacken at sunset, that indicates foul weather. When the sun is clear at sunset, that indicates calm, bright weather. A three-day moon that is clear and thin also indicates clear weather. If the moon is thin but also seems fiery, this indicates strong wind, and then when both the moon’s horns are even and the northern horn is clear, that indicates easing westerly winds. In the event of a full moon darkening, expect rain, and in the event of the moon tapering from both sides, expect wind, but if there is a ring around the moon, this is a sign of foul weather, and if the ring darkens, that is very foul weather.
Since this obviously interests the boy, why not tell him about it? Christofer asked himself.
One time they came to the shores of the lake and Christofer said:
The Lord ordered the waters to produce fishes to swim in its depths and birds to soar in the heavenly firmament. All of them were created to navigate their appropriate elements. The Lord also ordered the earth to produce a live soul, for four-legged animals. Animals were docile toward Adam and Eve until the Fall. One could say they loved people. But now that is only in rare cases; somehow everything went wrong.
Christofer ruffled the scruff of the wolf, who was trotting behind them.
And when it comes right down to it, the birds, fishes, and animals are similar to people in many ways. That, you see, is where our overall connection is. We teach each other. The lion cub, Arseny, is always born to the lioness dead, but the male lion comes and breathes life into it on the third day. This reminds us that human children come to life only at christening—if death occurs before that day, it lasts for all eternity, there is no heaven. And then there is the fish with many legs. No matter what color stone it swims up to, it takes on that color: if it is white, it turns white, if it is green, it turns green. Some people, child, are the same: they are Christians with Christians and infidels with infidels. There is also the phoenix bird who has neither mate nor children. It eats nothing, but flies among the Lebanese cedars, filling its wings with their aroma. When it grows old, it flies up into the sky and ignites from heavenly fire. When it descends, it sets fire to its nest and burns up itself, reappearing later in the ashes of its nest as a worm, from which a phoenix bird develops over time. And thus, O Arseny, those who take on suffering for Christ are reborn in all their glory for the Kingdom of Heaven. Finally, there is the caladrius bird, which is completely white. Yf one falls into illness, he can learne from the caladrius yf he will live or die. And yf he will die, the caladrius will turn his face away but yf he will live, the caladrius will merrily fly up into the air against the sun—and everyone will understand the caladrius took the sick person’s sore and scattered it in the air. And that is how Our Lord Jesus Christ ascended the tree of the cross and imparted to us His purest blood to heal sin.
So where can we get that bird? the boy asked.
You shall be that bird yourself, O Arseny. After all, you can fly a little.
The boy nodded pensively and his seriousness made Christofer feel ill at ease.
The last leaves were blowing from the shore onto the lake’s black waters. The leaves tumbled in disarray along the brownish grass, then quivered on the lake’s ripples. And sailed further and further off. Fishermen’s deep boot-tracks were visible at the very edge of the water. The tracks were filled with water and looked age-old: left behind, for ever and ever. Leaves floated in them, too. A fishing boat swayed not far from the shore. The fishermen pulled a net with hands reddened from cold. Their foreheads and beards were wet with sweat. The sleeves of their clothing were heavy with water. A medium-sized fish thrashed in the net. Glistening in the dim autumn sun, the fish whipped up a froth around the boat. The fishermen were satisfied with their catch and loudly shouted something to each other. Arseny could not make out their words. He could not have repeated a single word the fishermen said, though he heard them distinctly. Unhurried, the words turned into sounds and dissolved into the expanse, after shedding the shells of their meaning. The sky was colorless because it had given all its hues to summer. There was a smell of woodsmoke.
Arseny felt joy because they would also build a fire in the stove and enjoy a special autumn coziness when they came home. Like everyone else around them, they lit black fires. Once the fire got going, the house’s walls warmed, their thick logs holding the warmth for a long time. A clay stove held it even longer. The stones placed at the stove’s far wall got red hot. Smoke rose under the high ceiling and pensively went out through an open vent over the door. The smoke seemed like a living being to Arseny. Its leisureliness calmed him. The smoke lived in the upper part of the log house, which was black from soot; the lower part was tidy and bright. The upper and lower parts of the log house’s walls were divided by polavochniks, wide boards onto which the soot sprinkled. If a fire was properly stoked, the smoke did not sink below the polavochniks.
It was Arseny’s responsibility to build fires in the stove. He brought in birch logs from the woodshed and laid them in the stove like a little house. He pushed sticks of kindling between the logs. He got the fire going with smoldering coals taken from the ocheloks, special niches within the stove, where layers of ash preserved coals to use for lighting. He buried the coals in dry leaves and blew with all his might. The leaves would slowly change color. Burning now from their underside, they still appeared to be shrinking indifferently, but that grew more complicated for them with each instant: the fire seized them abruptly, from all sides at once. The fire spread from the leaves to the kindling wood, and from the kindling wood to the logs. The sides of the logs began to burn. If they were damp, they crackled, shooting out sheaves of sparks. The child saw a phoenix bird in the fiery blizzard and pointed it out to the wolf sitting next to him. The wolf squinted every now and then but it was unclear if he actually saw the bird or not. Arseny looked doubtfully at the wolf and announced to Christofer: