“Listen here,” he said in a hushed, somewhat muffled but still almost warm tone of voice: “I’m letting you go — you can be on your way right this instant.”
“You’re joking.”
“No, I’m not. Before you know it, we’ll catch something from each other. You heard it with your own ears — there are no more inoculations. It’s best if we part ways, if everyone tends to his own affairs.”
“I couldn’t take a step without you, Doc. My brother and I want to stay with you forever. If you’re afraid, then we’ll hide away for a while and promise not to come near, and we’ll wait till you get over this.”
“No, I’ve made up my mind — but I promise I won’t report anything to the gray ganders until you’ve had a good head start.”
And Doc Oleinek, to drive his point home, took a bottle out of the satchel, the one that must have been meant for Hamza Petrika, and set it on the ground in front of him. Then he turned on his heel and got back up beside me on the handcar. From there he shouted this:
“Drink as much as you can, and then get lost. Come morning, once you’re out of sight, I’ll file a report.”
Hamza Petrika must have known this side of Doc Oleinek, for he no longer tried pleading with him: he sat down on the embankment and starting swigging. Doc too flicked the sheet-metal cap off his bottle, and we got down to drinking. There were neither mushrooms nor blueberries on hand that night, so we strained the alcohol through the cuff of his jacket.
A deep, damp, sticky silence descended on the valley, broken only now and again by the hooting of an owl from somewhere near all those boards stacked up beyond the fence or by a farm dog barking; later we could hear that three-car train roll slowly back out of the station and then away down the sloping track toward Sinistra. There were the occasional blubbering sobs of Hamza Petrika: amid rapid gurgles he sniffled loudly like an offended, squeamish little dog. Albinos, I thought to myself, must be weak-nerved beings who easily go mad.
Doc Oleinek asked me obligingly: “Doesn’t my smell bother you?” He no doubt hoped to break the silence that had perhaps ensued precisely on account of that smell. “Come on, be honest. I know I stink a little.”
“Not at all.”
“Oh, come on — I know I’ve had a few crazy incidents.”
“You smell totally fine.”
“Don’t try conning me. Women have ditched me, one after another. And they’ve told me, too, that it’s because I stink. I’m not saying I was so crazy about them, either. Anyway, then the twins were stationed with me.”
“There are lots of good things about twins.”
“That’s true. Twins are dainty. The three of us brought each other lots of joy — we lived up there like a happy little family. But that’s over now. Your health, that’s what counts.” Getting up from the handcar, he sounded practically relieved as he yelled over to Hamza Petrika, “You hear me?! And you know, there’s such a thing as good manners — you might at least thank me before heading on your way.”
But where, minutes ago, Hamza Petrika’s guttural, childlike sobs could be heard, only the stones of the embankment stirred. Where the albino bear warden had been, an opaque darkness hovered, a blackness that had no one within it, that was completely empty.
Doc Oleinek now walked over, kicking his feet about the area thick with trash and clumps of weeds living and dried-out. Along the way he happened to kick up an empty bottle and, finally, returned with a pair of rubber boots.
“His,” he grumbled, repeatedly taking deep sniffs. “But what came over him? Why’d he take them off? Where the fuck could he have gone barefoot?”
He sat back on the handcar, and we went on taking gulps of the denatured alcohol after straining it through the cuff of his jacket. After a while Doc lay back comfortably enough, and I too, in a bit of a stupor, stretched out on the plank seat. Then, all at once, we simultaneously noticed a single match flare out above the pile of wood boards beyond the fence, then the embers of a cigarette glowing, fading, glowing again. Like some mysterious black hole, Hamza Petrika’s silhouette was suddenly in the sky blocking out the stars. He was camped out up high, having a smoke.
“Hid yourself, huh,” Doc Oleinek shouted over to him. “We were getting awfully worried about what became of you — my friend here was even a bit offended at your leaving without having said good-bye.” And because Hamza Petrika did not reply, he quickly added, “And why didn’t you offer us something from your secret tobacco stash?”
“Because,” came Hamza Petrika’s curt rejoinder.
That one-word response sounded like a pocket watch splashing at night into a black silent stream. Before long the cigarette fell out of his hand into the weeds, flickering there like a firefly.
“Hmm.”
Doc Oleinek got up and went to look for the butt. On finding it, he slipped it into a cigarette holder, then the two of us kept passing it calmly back and forth until we’d smoked all there was to smoke.
“Yes indeed,” grumbled Doc, “these damn twins. That’s how they are. Tear them apart from each other for a couple of hours and they get into all kinds of trouble. Who the hell knows what to make of them?”
Indeed, Doc must have been a bit mystified, for while still sitting there on the edge of the handcar, he kept calling out to Hamza Petrika. Getting no reply, he placed the rubber boots on the seat and headed over to the fence. He walked up and down before finally grabbing one of the planks and shaking it in irritation: “Hey!”
And when, after a little while, he finally let it go, his fingers parted from the wood with a sort of sticky sound, as if from glue — or fresh blood.
Getting back on the handcar, Doc Oleinek gave a furious huff and spat out a big glob and then wiped his palms on the seat. He found the bottle and, now without a bit of caution, took a swig before extending it toward me.
“Take a good fast plug yourself,” he whispered. “Then let’s get out of here. I think the boy has impaled himself.”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“What do you think? He looks for the hole in his ass, nudges the pointy end of the post inside, and — wham! — sits right down.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it or not, but come on, let’s get out of here.”
Freeing the handcar’s chain from the bumper, releasing the brakes, and grabbing the handle, Doc took off in no time. But Hamza Petrika stayed right there atop the fence, his silhouette blocking the stars while purple orbs of light glimmered below from the switches.
“It would be best if I take you along with me for a stretch,” said Doc. “We should stick together for a while.”
“Fine,” I said. “How about taking me down to my friend Colonel Jean Tomoioaga’s guard booth?
“Sure, and meanwhile we’ll guzzle down what’s left in the bottle. Or do you have a better idea?”
“Nothing comes to mind just now.”
“Same here — and let’s get as far away from here as possible.”
“But Doc, how do they get him off that fence?”
“They don’t,” Doc replied angrily. “Can’t be done. If you get hold of his feet, after all, you’d just wind up driving it in deeper.”
“I just wondered.”
“Don’t bother — it’s his business, and we don’t have the right to meddle. Don’t even think of it again. Though you can keep talking to some of them, by the way, for days afterward.”