I arrived at nightfall and decided to leave Katerina’s letter at Vera’s house, adding a little note to it. Would it be right to return this sad text to the old woman, now that her situation was so different? In fact I was using this rescued envelope as a pretext for going into Vera’s house for the space of a minute. Doors were never locked in Mirnoe.
In the main room, nothing had moved since our last meeting. “A nun’s quarters, or an old maid’s,” was the malicious thought I had, sensing that the judgment was accurate as regards the sparseness of the place but essentially wrong. For a dense and troubling feminine presence could be felt here, despite the apparent order. Through the half-open bedroom door, I saw a high bedstead, village style, with iron posts. A blouse hung from a hanger close to the stove… No, in the end, it was not my spying on these intimate details that offered the key to Vera s secret. It was rather the memory of a woman hauling in her nets on the lakeshore by the light of an August sunset. Her body uncovered by the bunching of a wet dress. Another woman, her nakedness gleaming blue in the moonlight outside the bathhouse door one night in September. Another, the one who passed me an oar, whose wood retained the warmth of her hand. Yet another, sitting at the far end of the bench, her eyes fixed on the crossroads. And the one I had tried to hypnotize with my hesitant caresses.
All these women were there. Not in this room, but in me; they had become a part of my life without my being aware of it. Only yesterday Mirnoe had still seemed to me no more than a brief episode, soon ended.
Before leaving, I turned to make a mental note of the silent intimacy of this room. Strangely enough, this final glance reminded me of Katerinas miniature dwelling. I pictured Vera alone here in the depths of winter, trying to see out through the windows coated with ice.
Not giving myself the time to think, I took hold of the edge of the long bench and pushed it farther into the room. Then I moved the big table to match. Furniture of thick planks, colossally heavy. Now when one sat at the very end of the bench, one no longer saw the distant crossroads but the expanse of the lake, already filled with a purple sky.
On the third day, I did not go, misled by the constantly changing light. The west was overcast with low, leaden clouds, promising an onslaught of snow. Then a breeze arose from the south, bringing sunshine; the trunks of the fir trees turned red and warm, oozing resin. Out of the wind, it felt like spring, like the start of an endless day on the brink of a new life. With the carelessness of travelers who give no thought to the return journey, I hurried off along the track that led to the White Sea. An hour later, the sky darkened, the air became permeated with the acid tang of ice, and I retraced my steps. To await the next illusory spring.
Just as I was attempting to ford a watercourse, once again a luminous mirage lit up the forest. I was familiar with this narrow river, which had the transparency of strong tea. We used to cross it when heading for Mirnoe and taking a short cut through the forest. But its level had risen markedly, and the ford I had had occasion to cross in the past was currently hidden beneath a long rippling stretch of water weed. I kneeled down, drank an icy mouthful, as scalding as alcohol, then, with the bad conscience of a giant destroying the fragile beauty of the waters and the delicately ribbed sand, I began to move forward, anxious not to stir up the bottom, where a few dead leaves lay Now the sun had broken through, it was spring again and all this a carefree ramble, with flashes of dazzling bronze shimmering in the depths of the stream.
I was within a few paces of the far bank when the sound of running reached me. The spot where I set my foot down was the river’s deepest point; the water now slid very close to the top of my rubber boots. I froze in an irresolute and farcical posture, unable to advance, not daring to retreat. Then the crashing of broken branches rang out and petrified me even more. I imagined that some wild animal, hunted, hunting, or hunting me, was about to emerge onto the riverbank.
I took a halting step backward and turned toward the footfalls as they drew ever closer. In a quick spasm of fear, all those hunters’ tales flashed through my mind: a wounded elk, in the agony of death, crushes those who stand in its path; a bear disturbed at the start of its hibernation becomes a man-eater; a pack of wolves in pursuit of a stag… Should I run away, filling my boots with water, or take advantage of my terrified paralysis, which, with a bit of luck, might make me invisible? Although my glance was a frenzied one, I had time to notice an ants’ nest on the bank the noise was coming from.
The branches of the young fir trees stirred; a living form emerged, ran headlong toward the water. It was a woman. A moment later I recognized Vera. She knelt down twenty yards upstream from where I was stuck, drank jerkily, stood up, gasping for breath like an animal at bay. Her face, on fire from running, looked incredibly youthful, simultaneously reinvigorated and blinded by an unknown agitation-on the verge of a great shout of wild joy, or of bursting into tears, I could not tell which. I was about to call out to her but felt too ridiculous, grounded as I was in fifteen inches of water, and decided first of all to extricate myself, then to catch up with her on the path. I did not have much time, for as soon as she had caught her breath, she hared off once more, crossed the river at the ford I had failed to find. I saw she was wearing ankle boots with high heels, hardly designed for the forest. The water spurted up beneath her feet, then settled, carried an eddy of sand in my direction. She was already running through the forest; within a few seconds the wind hissing in the tops of the fir trees obliterated the sound of her flight.
Suddenly a trickle of icy water filtered into my left boot, sharp as a razor. I came to my senses, dragged my bogged-down feet along, headed toward the bank with no more thought of the ford. And when, calmed down by walking, I tried to understand Vera s appearance, a notion came into my mind, which showed me the degree of idiocy of which a man is capable when he thinks he is in love. Quite seriously the notion occurred to me that she had left the city for fear of not seeing me again before my departure, that she set great store by having one more meeting with me…
The sight of Mirnoe, of its izbas clustered beneath a sky once more clouded over with gray, made me less sure of my own importance. “Probably one of the old women has fallen ill. Vera heard about it on the return journey and, devoted as she is, hurried home, cutting through the forest. In any event, it wasn’t for the sake of my pretty face…”
An hour after my return, someone knocked at my door. On the front steps I saw Vera. With the light pink coat thrown over her shoulders, she wore a knee-length skirt and the elegant blouse I had seen draped over a hanger beside the stove in her house. Her hair was braided into a broad plait, interwoven with a scarlet ribbon. Her eyes, slightly enlarged by a pencil line, fixed me with a smile that struck me as both aggressive and vulnerable.
“The official celebrations are over,” she said, in rather too theatrical tones. “But maybe we could cele brate the city’s anniversary ourselves now. Come and see me. The dinner’s ready”
She turned on her heel and walked away, apparently unconcerned whether I was following her or not. Far from certain as to the reality of what was happening and, above all, of what might happen, I hurriedly changed, snatched up the great cape of tent canvas, and rushed outside. There was a risk that the figure in the overcoat might vanish at any moment in the already dark street.
5
WE WERE AFRAID of one another. Or rather, afraid/or one another. Afraid of seeing the other one make a false move that would have shown up the whole duplicity of this candlelit dinner. Afraid that the other might suddenly draw back, observe the room, the table with dishes and bottles on it, the body just embraced. Afraid of reading in the other’s now alienated look: “What on earth are we up to here, in this remote house at the end of the world, in this night battered by a wild wind? What are we laughing for? This laughter of ours is such a sham! What is this hand doing fondling the back of my neck? What games are we playing?”