The upshot was that I told the teacher exactly what I thought, and we quarrelled. He expelled me from the school, so I didn’t get my diploma; instead they gave me a kind of certificate of participation which entitled me to perform some disciplines in public. A complete farce, in other words.
All this happened in the spring, when Transnistria was blooming like a bride dressed in white, full of scents and refreshing breezes.
I did nothing for a while, except think about what had happened; then I went to stay with my Grandfather Nikolay in the Tayga. We hunted together, made nets and traps for catching fish in the river, took saunas and talked a lot about life.
Grandfather Nikolay had lived alone in the woods since the age of twenty-four, and had a wisdom all of his own. It was good for me to be with him during that period.
When I returned to Transnistria I organized a big party on the river with my friends to celebrate my birthday, which was already a few months past. We took ten boats, filled them with bottles of wine, some of the bread that Mel’s grandmother made and our fishing equipment, and set off upstream for a place called ‘The Big Drip’.
The spot was renowned for its beauty and tranquillity, and was situated about fifty kilometres from the town. At this point the river widened out and here and there formed clusters of little interlinked pools, where the water was warm and still. The current hardly ever reached there, except when the river was high in March and early April, the period of the floods. Many fish, especially the wels catfish, would stop there, and we used to go and catch them. We would set out at night in our boats, turn on a big torch, and shine it down into the water: attracted by the light, the fish would come up to the surface, and then we’d kill them with a sort of long-handled wooden mallet specially made for that kind of fishing. One person would hold the torch while another stood ready to strike with the mallet; everything had to be done in silence, because the slightest noise or movement would frighten the fish, and then it would be at least another couple of hours before you could entice them back up to the surface.
I used to team up with Mel, because nobody else would fish with him, as he would never keep quiet at the crucial moment. He was also a menace with the mallet: once he had missed the wels but hit his fishing partner, our friend Besa, breaking his arm. Since then, whenever he asked anyone if he could go with them they would make excuses, claiming they’d already agreed to go with someone else. As a result he often got left on the bank, but sometimes I relented and took him along; unlike the others, I could usually get him to behave at the critical moment.
We had a pleasant trip upriver to the Big Drip; the weather was beautiful and the water seemed blessed by the Lord – it offered no resistance, even though we were going upstream. My boat’s motor worked very well that day and didn’t stall even once. In short, everything was perfect, like on a picture postcard.
When we arrived we had lunch, and I overdid the wine a bit, which made me too good-humoured – unusually so – and as a result for the umpteenth time I agreed to team up with Mel, who was delighted we weren’t going to leave him ashore.
I was feeling so relaxed I allowed him to hold the mallet. Well, ‘allowed’ isn’t really the right word; he just sat down in my boat and, without asking, picked up the mallet, with a nonchalant glance at me. I said nothing; I just showed him my fist to indicate that if he made a mistake he was in serious trouble.
We set off for our pool. Each boat entered a different one: you had to be absolutely alone, because if everyone had hunted in the same pool, at the noise of the first blow the fish would have hidden on the bottom and the other boats wouldn’t have caught anything.
The night was beautiful; there were lots of stars in the sky and in the middle a faint tinge of white which gleamed and shimmered – it seemed like magic. In the distance you could hear the sound of the wind blowing over the fields, and sometimes its long, thin whistle came close, as though passing between us. The scent of the fields mingled with that of the woods and was constantly changing – you seemed to catch the smell of acacia and lime leaves, separately, and then that of the moss on the river bank. The frogs sang their serenades in chorus; now and then a fish would come up to the surface and make a pleasant sound, a kind of plash, in the water. At one point three roe deer came out of the wood to quench their thirst: they made a lapping noise with their tongues and afterwards sneezed, as horses do.
I was carried away by the enchantment of it. If someone had asked me what heaven was I might well have said it was this moment prolonged for all eternity.
The only thing that stopped me rising towards heaven was the presence of Meclass="underline" as soon as I looked at him I was filled with a heavy sense of reality, and I realized that as long as that person – like a penance which I was destined to endure – continued to be at my side, I would never be able to free myself completely from my coarse human frame.
‘Keep your mouth shut, Mel, or I’ll crown you with that mallet,’ I said, starting to row slowly, so as not to make too much noise.
Mel was in a state of absolute concentration. He sat in the middle of the boat, gripping the mallet with both hands, as if he were afraid it would try to get away.
When we got to the middle of the pool I took out an old underwater torch. I turned it on and gradually lowered it, leaning out over the edge of the boat. The light under the water created a beautiful effect – it shone down to a depth of ten metres, where you could see lots of little details – tiny fish circling round the torch in a kind of lap of honour.
Mel stood over me, ready with the mallet, awaiting my signal.
Usually the arrival of the catfish was marked by a large black shadow rising up from the bottom and advancing towards the light. As soon as you saw the shadow it was essential to move the torch at once: to bring it up slowly, without making a noise, so that the fish would follow it, but without ever quite reaching it. When the lamp reached the surface and came out of the water it was the climactic moment: the person with the mallet had to bring it down with all his strength on the spot where an instant before the lamp had been, and hit the fish. If you hesitated a moment and the fish managed to touch the lamp, it would immediately dive down again, because catfish are very cowardly creatures and are frightened of any contact with objects they don’t know. So to catch the fish with this technique it was important to move in perfect harmony.
I peered into the water, and suddenly I saw a shadow rise from the bottom, so I started to lift the torch by slowly pulling the string. Mel, behind me, raised the mallet, ready to strike.
I had no doubts: it was clearly a catfish and it was coming up very quickly. I just had to recover the torch in time.
When I had nearly pulled it right up and only a small part of it remained in the water, Mel brought down the mallet with such violence I heard it whistle through the air, as if a bullet had passed close to my ears.
‘Christ!’ I shouted, and just managed to take my hands off the torch before Mel’s mallet struck it with brutal force. The torch smashed and the light went out instantly. In the darkness I heard a faint sigh from Meclass="underline"
‘Shit! What a stupid fish, I thought it was coming up faster…’
He was still standing over me, mallet in hand. I got to my feet, picked up an oar and without a word hit him on the back.
‘Why?’ he asked me, alarmed, retreating towards the bow of the boat.
‘For Christ’s sake, Mel, you’re a fool! What the hell did you hit the torch for?’