The sunlight streamed through the knotholes of the wall planks and the hay smelt like burnt milk and I felt that everything good that could ever happen was being grafted into me. And next week, we were eating the fruit, weren’t we? If only you could have taken more! He gave us very little, dear God. Yet perhaps not. Sometimes when I tell myself the story of the two bears I say: perhaps the one thing he doesn’t understand is time! How long did we lie behind the grey wood with the sunbeams? You never seemed so small as then, Stepanuschka. I was going to be your wife and the mother of your children, and the ocean which I’ll never see of your ferry boat. The days were nearly at their longest. When we left, it was dark and there was a moon, we could see the path. On the way down I undid your belt. What I saw, dear God, is where? Where?
They started to build. I don’t know with what words Stepan persuaded or inspired them. They started to build a room. Each shed of the Barracks was designated with a letter. I think that when they were first built the letters of the sheds went regularly from A to H. Then some man lodging there had an idea to make a joke which consisted of changing the letters. From the time I could first read as a child the eight sheds were marked IN EUROPA. I could see where the original letters had been painted over. As for the joke, the man who thought it funny had long since left and nobody now could ask him to explain. The letters remained as he had painted them. The N of the IN was written the wrong way round, 
. The Company scarcely ever intruded into the Barracks area. There was only one law in the factory that counted: that the ten furnaces be tapped the required number of times every twenty-four hours, and that the castings conform to standard when chemically analysed.
Stepan lived in shed A, which was the last one, on the edge of the factory grounds. Beyond was a plantation of pine trees. The men in shed A were building a room for Stepan. It took them a week of their free time. A partition of planks, a hole in the roof for a chimney and a new door. This room was to be separate from the rest of the dormitory, it was to be private. Stepan was making a bed, a large bed with a headboard made of oak and a carved rose at each corner. It was the first bed he’d made and it took much more time than the room. You want us to be married? he asked me. I would like to be your wife. I will marry you, he said, it’s a promise.
Shed A is still there, the furthest from the bridge. People said he took advantage of me. They knew nothing, those people. They didn’t see him carving the roses. If he didn’t marry me immediately it was because he couldn’t — perhaps because his papers weren’t in order. Because he was already married, people said. Perhaps, long before, he did have another wife in another country, in another century. All I know is that he didn’t deceive me.
One day you and I, when our grandchildren are off our hands, one day, he said, you and I will go and visit the Ukraine.
From the window of the little makeshift room at the end of shed A, I watched the swallows flying between the Barracks and the lines of spruce. It was ridiculous now for a woman living my life to still be at school, and so I left without taking any exams. As I walked away from the school for the last time through the tall wrought-iron gates, made for horsemen carrying flags, I felt Father very close. It was as if he came with me to ask for a job at the Components Factory, it was as if because of his presence they gave me a job straightaway.
My first was pressing holes in a tiny plate to fit in the back of radios. One thousand seven hundred plates a day. I wasn’t badly paid and the place had the advantage of being on the riverbank. When I was ahead of my quota I could go out, smoke a cigarette, and watch the river — we were seven in the factory, seven with the boss and his son. Listening to the water, I decided how I was going to show Stepan where he could catch trout without being interfered with.
The only bad thing was the oil, it splattered my hands and wrists, I couldn’t wear gloves for they slowed me down too much, and my skin was allergic to the oil. Little spots came up which itched. Stepan said that if the spots didn’t go away within a week, by July 17th — I remember the date of each day of that month of summer skies, endless days, swallows, and the unimaginable — he would categorically forbid me to work there!
I kept my room at the widow’s house and I spent every night IN EUROPA. On two Sundays when Stepan was working the day shift, I watched the swallows: on two Sundays when he wasn’t working we stayed in bed till nightfall. He talked a lot now. In his sleep he talked in Russian. We’ll stick it out another year, he said, then we’ll leave and I’ll find a job. You ought to make beds like this one! I told him. We’ll find a house by the sea, he said. Why not by a lake? I suggested.
Sometimes he talked of the factory. I asked him if he’d heard about Michel’s accident. I’d just arrived, he said, it was my first week and I was in his team. It was Peter we were tapping, and the wall broke. When that happens it’s like hell let loose. Hell itself, my little one. To pierce the wall you have a probe — do you know how long the tip lasts? Less than eight minutes. Vossiem. He was still conscious. May God help him. We got him clear and put the fireproof gown on him. He’s still in hospital, I commented. With two legs gone, said Stepan.
Towards evening he shaved. I liked watching him shave. We had a jug and basin on the table by the door and he went to fetch some hot water from the bathhouse, a stone building next to the shop. Naturally I never set foot inside there. Stepan would fetch water for me to wash, and for the calls of nature I went into the plantation. This time the water was for his shaving. How much I liked to watch him shave! Perhaps any man shaving? If I’d gone into the bathhouse I’d know. It’s the only moment men show their coquetry. The way they pull their skin and focus with their eyes, the noise of the blade against the stubble, the white soap on the rosy skin. After shaving, Stepan’s face was softer than mine, soft as a baby’s.
He was killed on July 31st. He didn’t take the leather-covered flask with him. He left it on the table beside his shaving brush. He was killed at four-thirty in the morning. Régis telephoned the news to the widow Besson’s house just before I was leaving for work. I spoke to him myself. Is it certain he’s dead? Certain? Certain? I asked six times. I went to work. The pieces I was pressing, tiny as earrings, were for electric irons. After work I went to the Barracks and into our room. There was a knock on the door. I opened it. Giuliano stood there. It was he who obtained the oak for our bed.
Where is he? I asked, I want to see him. Niente, Giuliano said. I want to see him, I said again very quietly. Niente! he shouted at the top of his voice. Over his shoulder I could see other men from shed A and sheds P, O, R, U, E, N standing at a discreet distance, looking towards me, caps in hand, shoulders hunched. Where is he? Giuliano’s eyes filled with tears as he shook his head. Not for a moment did he take his eyes off me. And suddenly I understood. He had disappeared. There was no body. Like it happens in an avalanche.
I did not cry, Holy Mary Mother of God, I did not cry. I said to Giuliano: Who’s got a motorbike in our shed? None of us. Who then? Jan in U has a motorbike. Ask him if he can take me to work tomorrow morning, I’m going to stay here.