No, said Christofer, lighting a splinter lamp. I need to stay so as not to arouse his suspicions. Go, O Arseny.
Arseny went outside.
He appeared in the doorway again a minute later. He flew through the door, as if he were carried by some external power. That power quickly made itself known to Christofer, too. The old man immediately recognized the figure standing behind Arseny. It was death. Death gave off the smell of an unwashed body and the inhuman gravity that causes horror to arise in the soul. The gravity that everything alive could feel. That made the trees outside the window lose their leaves before their time. And birds fall from the sky in horror. The wolf crawled under the bench, his tail between his legs.
This little bird was planning to fly a long way but he did not get far.
He said this in a hoarse, unlubricated voice. Scratching a tangled beard. After hesitating, he pushed the bar on the door. He approached Christofer, who sensed his fetid breath.
What, are you frightened, landsman?
Believe thou in Christ? Christofer asked him firmly.
We live in the woods and pray for the goods. That is our belief. And we are in need of money, too, landsman. Have a look, will you?
And how is it I am your landsman?
The intruder winked. You are a landsman because you can consider yourself as already belonging to the land. (He reached into his boot top for a knife.) I am going to send you there.
I will give you money, and you may go with God. We will not tell anyone about you.
No, you definitely will not tell anyone. (He smiled toothlessly. He turned around and struck Arseny with the knife handle. Arseny fell.) Hurry up, landsman: I will hit with the blade from now on.
He exaggeratedly brandished the knife.
The wolf jumped.
The wolf jumped and hung on the intruder’s arm. He had clamped his jaws above the elbow and was hanging there, his paws pressed into the man’s side. This was the arm without the knife. The arm with the knife plunged into the wolf’s fur several times but the wolf continued to hang there. He had clenched his jaw for the ages. And then the knife fell. The right arm reached with a lifeless, mechanical motion to help the left. It grabbed the wolf by the scruff and began tearing him away from the afflicted flesh. The wolf’s muzzle stretched as if it were a mask being pulled off. His eyes turned into two white spheres. They looked off at the ceiling and reflected the flaring splinter lamp.
Christofer picked up the knife but the visitor was not thinking about the knife. Agonized, he finally succeeded in tearing the wolf from himself. What remained in the wolf’s jaws? A piece of shirt? Of flesh? Bones? The wolf himself did not know what it was. He was lying on the floor and snarling, not unclenching his teeth. He did not have the arm, though, because the visitor seemed to be leaving with his arm. Something seemed to be hanging from his shoulder but it was now impossible to know exactly what. It hung like a whip, limp and flimsy, and Arseny thought it could even fall off. The visitor beat at the door but just could not get out. Christofer held him by his intact arm and unbolted the door. The man hit his head on the lintel as he left. He banged himself again in the entryway. His small steps rustled through the autumn leaves. He went quiet. Disappeared. Dissolved.
Glory be to You, O God Almighty, for you did not desert us. Christofer sank to his knees and made the sign of the cross over himself. He bent over Arseny. The boy was still lying on the floor; his cheek and hair were smeared with blood. Even by the light of the splinter lamp, the blood looked especially bright on Arseny’s light-colored hair.
Only his brow was cut but it was nothing terrible. Christofer helped Arseny stand. We will paste it up with plantain.
Wait a minute, Arseny stopped him. Check to see how the wolf is.
The wolf was lying in a pool of blood. He was not moving. Christofer forced open his jaw and pulled out something frightening. He carried it outside the house, not showing Arseny. The wolf’s tail quivered when Christofer returned.
He’s alive. Arseny was happy.
Alive? Christofer snuffled as he looked over the wolf. I do not see any stable life in him. Only short-term signs.
The wolf quivered slightly; his head rested on his paws.
Save him, Grandfather.
Christofer took a knife and sheared off the fur around the wounds. He warmed a mixture of medicinal oils and carefully applied it to the cut flesh. The wolf trembled but did not lift his head. Christofer sprinkled ground oak leaves on the shaved parts of the wolf’s body. He covered them with pieces of ham that he warmed after taking them from the ice pit, then began binding them with linen. Arseny lifted the wolf and Christofer slipped the fabric under him. The wolf did not resist. Never before had his body been so pliant. There was no more spring in his muscles. His eyes were open but they reflected nothing beyond agony.
Arseny lit the stove and Christofer brought some straw from the shed. They neatly piled the straw by the stove and carried the wolf there. The wolf looked at the fire without blinking. Fire no longer disquieted him.
Arseny sensed the wolf had no more strength left. He sat, pressing hard into the bench with his hands. The last thing he remembered was Christofer’s soothing touch when he laid a pillow under his head.
The wolf was not in the house when they awoke in the morning. A bloody trail stretched from the stove to the door and from there into the yard. The trail left off in the slippery, decaying leaves on the road.
We will find him, he cannot have gone far. Arseny looked at Christofer. Why are you quiet?
He went off to die, said Christofer. That is a characteristic of animals.
At Arseny’s insistence, they set off in search of the wolf. They did not know where to search and so went where they had first seen him. But the wolf was not there. They went to other places the wolf knew but did not find him. The short autumn afternoon was verging on sunset.
It was already twilight when they sighted the intruder from the previous evening. He was smiling at them with a jowl that was falling off, and his arms were opened wide as if for a welcoming embrace. There was nothing natural about those embraces. The vestiges of his death-throes had hardened in his wide-open arms. And in his hopeless striving to stand, too. Arseny tried not to look at the dreadful mess where his left arm had been, but his glance returned, relentlessly, to the very place below the shoulder where white bone flashed. The arm injured by the wolf had already been eaten at. There was no need to doubt that their arrival had interrupted someone’s supper. Arseny vomited when Christofer approached the dead man up close.
You will feel better now, said Christofer.
They did not speak until they had almost reached home. When they were already near the cemetery, Arseny said:
I do not know how the wolf left in that linen. That would, after all, be difficult.
It would be difficult, Christofer acknowledged.
Arseny nestled his head into Christofer’s chest and began sobbing. His words came out with his sobs. They moved jerkily and loudly, like jolts. Disturbing the voicelessness of the cemetery.
Why did he go off to die? Why did he not die with us, the ones who loved him?
Christofer wiped Arseny’s tears with his scratchy touch. He kissed his forehead.
It was his way of warning us that everyone remains alone with God at the final moment.
Christofer decided to take Communion for the Feast of the Protection of the Mother of God at the Kirillov monastery. He arranged for the travel with some men from the quarter who were among his visitors. A cart came to get Christofer and Arseny the night before the feast day. Four other people on their way to the monastery for the holiday were already sitting in the cart. Four plumes of vapor flowed from their lips when they greeted the new passengers. They did not utter another sound for the rest of the journey, preserving their words for the impending Confession. Hooves rang out on the frozen earth, echoing their silence. The thin crust of ice covering the snow crunched under the rims of the wheels. A frost had hit the night before and the mud had frozen into furrows and clods, turning the road into a washboard. Arseny heard his own teeth chattering. He tried clenching his jaw as firmly as he could to keep from biting his tongue. He did not even notice himself falling asleep.