“That’s why I first looked for you over at Connie Illafeld’s, though that was in vain. And that’s also how I realized that you were in a lot worse trouble than I’d thought.”
“I don’t know what sort of trouble you’re talking about — the trouble is you looking at my diary.”
“I had to. I needed to know what might have happened to you.”
“You know full well how much I hate that sort of thing — and as you can see, nothing’s happened at all.”
“All the same I found you in the end. I’ve been looking for you for years now, and nowadays I live nearby in Dobrin. I’ll take you away from here.”
“Forget about it — right this instant! Don’t bother about me anymore. I’m fine here on my own.”
“I’ll come get you sometime in the spring or, latest, early summer. Like I said, I’ve got no one besides you.”
“Well, just don’t imagine I’ll go with you. I’m staying put, and if you don’t leave me alone, I’ll make it my business to get word out about just what you’re after here in the forbidden zone.”
It seemed that Géza Hutira had finished his work, that the aluminum pole was now planted firmly among the rocks and tied down tight by taut wires, because all at once the wind stirring its way over the ridgeline began whistling through its boreholes. Soon stones began tumbling down the slopes with his approaching steps. Then the swooshing of his hurricane lamp could be heard, but Géza Hutira knew every contour of the mountainside so well that he lit it only on getting to the bottom, near the two waiting men, and suddenly the entire slope began to glitter: the rocks underneath the thin veil of snow were glowing under the lamplight — blue, green, and copper flickerings spread in waves over the scene.
Long before the bears were brought in, ore had been mined on the slopes of Dobrin and a cableway had once operated, running from the plateau down into the valley to the loading platform of the narrow gauge railway; at the supporting columns, where the mine buckets had jolted over the pulleys, a few nuggets of ore would invariably tumble out. And so it was that now these fallen pieces of ore glistened silkily under the snow.
After the mining operations along the slopes had been closed down, it was the meteorologist Géza Hutira who’d moved into the cabin there, which had been home to the cableway’s onetime maintenance man, cobbled together out of rocks and beams. With its mossy rocks and its lichen-draped, fog-drenched beams, the cabin seemed as if it had grown there on its own; it belonged to the mountainside. As the lamplight spread out, the place filled up with scurrying shadows.
“Don’t be scared of them,” said Géza Hutira. “Weasels and mole rats are man’s best friends.”
Stretching out on a pile of rags in a corner, Béla Bundasian opened a bottle, flooding the cabin with the scent of yellow gentian roots thoroughly soaked in liquor.
“I’ll bring you a blanket,” Andrei said in an effort to kick-start a conversation. “It won’t be easy, but I’ll have one stolen from some warehouse.”
“No, I hate blankets.”
“I’m sure that next time I’ll come by with good news. I’ve got an acquaintance, a trucker. He’s a foreigner.
“What are you talking about? And anyway by now you’re one of them, after all. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here.”
“That was the only way I could get near you.”
“Well,” said Béla Bundasian “I don’t want to see you again.” He pulled a tattered coverlet and some assorted rags over his head as he turned toward the wall. “And forget all this crap, I don’t talk with foreigners, or with natives, either. And I know full well how to get rid of anyone who wants to get me involved in some screwed-up business.”
“Time to get lost,” said Géza Hutira, elbowing Andrei in the side. “You’re bothering him — I know Béla, he’s sensitive. And besides, Nikifor Tescovina is waiting for you back down at the commissary.”
Although he had a flashlight, Andrei didn’t use it in the thickening darkness lower in the valley: the stream, shimmering under the starlight, unfurled before him like a ribbon of silk and led his way to the commissary. There, Nikifor Tescovina, a hurricane lamp swinging from his hands, awaited his guest.
“I pushed two tables together for you,” he said. “The kids spread freshly cut spruce boughs over them. We eat in the morning, so you can already settle in for the night.”
The tart scent of denatured alcohol and yellow gentian roots wafted over from the wide plank bed where Nikifor Tescovina and his three children slept. They’d extinguished the lamp, and the fire in the stove had long gone out — the only sound to be heard was their thick gulps as they passed the bottle. Deep within the darkness shone Bebe Tescovina’s eyes.
Spiders and larvae hissed inside the walls; dormice, weasels, and bats began stirring in the attic; tiny nails clicked across the floor. Heavy sleeping breaths wove their webs through the entire commissary. When Nikifor Tescovina arose, barefoot, causing the floorboards to creak as he stepped across the room, day was breaking. Andrei, too, sprang up from the tables he’d been sleeping on to stand on the threshold beside the commissary manager. Heads down, they stood there side by side pissing on the steps, staring at the foaming, steaming streamlets, a web of narrow black veins winding their way over the rimy earth. The dark membranes in the valley’s nooks and crannies hardly shimmered, but high up on the ridgelines of Dobrin, the aluminum pole glittered like the star of daybreak.
No sooner did daylight come than the children crawled out from under the blankets and Nikifor Tescovina started up the fire. They roasted hazelnuts, shriveled plum, custard mushrooms, and acorns on the hot stove while blueberry tendrils soaked in a pot of water. Fragrant steam coated the cold windows in an instant. To see outside, Bebe Tescovina ran her palms over the glass.
“Is this man going to live here?” she asked.
“I don’t know yet,” replied her father.
“He could have my place if he needs it, I’ll move away. Géza Hutira promised to take me in. Maybe even today I’ll get out of here forever.”
“Go ahead, if that’s what you want. I’ll let you go.”
After breakfast, Andrei said goodbye to Nikifor Tescovina, but as he walked across the narrow, rime-frosted meadow toward the train tracks, Nikifor sidled up beside him.
“What do you think,” asked Nikifor Tescovina, “about that fellow living up there at Géza Hutira’s?”
“Nothing much.”
“But that wasn’t the first time you’ve seen him?”
“Well, you could say that.”
“Just so you know: last night he went to the village. He’s not supposed to, and in fact he never does.”
Andrei was leaning over the bumper at the end of the tracks and unfastening the chain of the handcar, when he slowly stood up straight, patted his belly, opened his mouth wide, and threw up on the handcar’s seat. Bits of wild mushrooms quivered under knots of coagulated blood in the thick, sparkling slime.
“You’ve got an upset stomach.”
“No, no — it’s just that I leaned over and it tumbled out of me.”
“Good god, looks like your gray matter.”
Andrei wiped off the seat with his palm, sat down, and released the brake using the hand crank, so the handcar would head off down the slope on its own.
“Not even I understand,” said Nikifor Tescovina, “why the kid’s eyes light up in the dark. But it only started recently, after her first period.”
“Well then, that’s what I’ll tell them.”
“Then they should also know that she’s planning to move away. It’s best if the higher ups have plenty of time to digest any change.”
“Yes, all right, I heard so, too, and I’ll report it just that way.”