Awakening, 2nd edition (28 page)

Sometime later, listening to the whisper of the wind, which was taking its evening promenade in the tops of the trees, they drifted on to the topic of wilderness camping, lost tourists and silly superst ition s . This time it was Robert ’s turn to do most of the talking. Stella was only asking occasional questions and couldn ’t help but wonder why he had chose n not to mention any of this in his morning speech. She listened to the stories about people making tiring and pointless rounds in the woods, about mushroom and berry poisoning, about stings that kill and bites that leave nothing but bad memories, about those who lost hope and those who found themselves.

Then an exotic word, the taiga , was spoken and it turned out that once Robert himself had lost his way in this endless Russian forest in which he had ended up at the invitation of a buddy student. The buddy emerged as result of a student exchange program, and after listening for two semesters to his vivid stories about the taiga and the dark -blue waters of the bottomless Lake Baikal, Robert decided that he had to see all of this with his own eyes.

He flew halfway around the world, marched enthusiastically into the wilderness an d on the third day lost his group. Stella didn ’t catch how exactly this had happened, but felt that a clarification wasn ’t necessary. Perhaps the fact that , out of the six other people present, the only person with some English skills was that buddy had something to do with it. The fact of the matter was that Robert found himself completely alone in the midst of a dark forest.

They found him twelve days later. He subsequently learned that by that time almost no one believed that he was still alive—novices don ’t last that long alone in the taiga. But they kept looking—mostly because of that buddy of his, who kept insisting on sticking to their mission. When the rescuers came across him , his face covered in two weeks ’ worth of stubble, ragged, dirty , and hungry as a wolf, he had already lost hope of getting out of this alive. But he kept walking, just like they kept searching. It also turned out that during this time he tramped a very impressive distance, especially considering the complete lack of normal food and any sort of equipment. The only detail that cast a dark shadow on this tremendous achievement was the fact that he had walked in the wrong direction, each day getting deeper and deeper into the heart of the taiga.

As for the buddy, they traveled together to the back of beyond and even farther more than once. The buddy liked repeating a somewhat pictur esque statement : “Everyone dies, only some live, ” and , in full accord with this simple philosophy , climbed the mountains, did extreme tourism and was in general very creative when it came to looking for trouble. They met a couple of times a year, every time in a new place, along with a small team of the same sort of risk-loving adventure-hungry adrenaline junkies , and got a full scoop of these adventures. “Only some live . . .” the buddy would say after pulling off another crazy stunt. And then , one fine day somewhere in South America, he had fallen from a cliff . . .

Robert broke off.

“Were you with him?” Stella asked after a brief silence.

Robert looked up.

“Yes. But not close enough. All right, let ’s change the subject.”

Stella kept quiet. After everything she had just heard, all the high stakes of the w orkshop , with its planted notes and the broken meter , suddenly became cheap and nearly pathetic. Not only the w orkshop, but everything that had led her here : all the power struggles at work, the entire Volano story —everything that just recently had seemed so important and critical now paled and shriveled into insignificance .

“Do you want to win here?” she asked.

Robert shrugged. “I like competing.”

“So you agree with Clark that all we want is power?”

“Never cared for it. You ’ve got to be really insecure to want power.”

“Insecure?” she asked, surprised. “I don ’t think powerful people look insecure. When you have power, people depend on you. You ’re in control.”

“No,” said Robert. “You ’re not . Look, you ’re smart, but you ’ve got it all wrong. This power thing, it ’s nothing. Even the word is wrong. It ’s just people agreeing to do what you want. But the moment they decide to disagree , your power is gone. You may feel in control of some, but only because you depend on others. You depend on everyone. On people above you, on people below you, on your peers . . . You ’re just a part of a system. The more power you have , the less free you are. And I happen to value my freedom.”

“I never thought of it that way, ” Stella said.

Robert poked the fire with his stick.

“You’re not alone.”

He’s right, she thought. Power is such a misleading word. Why do we even want it in the first place? It ’s almost as if we want others to make us feel important by following our orders. And the moment they do, the moment they confirm our importance, we want more and more people to confirm it. And there ’s no end to it. But is it worth it? Is it worth anything? Is it the way to spend your life? Someone once said that the worst crime you can commit against yourself is to deprive yourself of living. Is this what we do as we choose to chase after that thing we call power?

The quiet murmur of the forest around her was whispering into her ears: “You ’ll be trying your best, you ’ll be fighting your fights, you ’ll be losing your sleep over your failures, you ’ll celebrating your victories . . . a nd meanwhile real life will pass you by.

“Someone will climb mountains, someone will bring new things into the world, someone will raise children . . . As for you, you will fight ghosts and , if you ’re lucky, score illusory victories. And despite your achievements , you will always be at the mercy of your management who in a single stroke would invalidate your past and your future should you happened to be in their way. And when you retire and look back , there will be nothing worthy behind you. And you won ’t be alone. Neither magnificent Chris, nor sly Joan, nor I-mind-my-own-business Michael will have anything worthy in their pasts.

And then she remembered . . .

“So you support what Michael did ?” she asked in an abruptly changed voice.

“Come again?”

“You have nothing against what he did to that poor woman?”

“Poor woman?”

“His wife. Come on, you know perfectly well what I ’m talking about.”

“Not really, ” Robert turned to her. “You ’ve lost me on this one.”

Stella sighed wearily. She should’ve seen this coming. The vivid image of a fearless macho on his adventures around the world was rapidly losing its luster .

“I know everything so you don ’t have to try so hard. I know that Michael shared his story with you guys on Monday and I know what that story was. I know what he did to his wife, and I know all about his whole case for , ‘Teaching them broads ’ a lesson. I also know that Chris said it was the only way , ‘To deal with those bitches.’ And I also happen to know what you said.”

“And what exactly did I say?” Robert enquir ed rather curiously. He seemed to be completely unmoved by Stella ’s tirade.

“You advised Michael to be cautious unless he wants to end up in court. But you didn ’t mind the whole thing.”

“Interesting, ” said Robert. “That explains it . . . Let me guess, your source was present at that convention of male chauvinists. And he was burning with righte ous anger, while passing this to you.”

“I’m not going to comm ent on that .”

“That won’t be necessary anyway.”

It was obvious that Robert had no intention of defend ing himself or com ing up with excuses. Stella was slowly growing gloomier and gloomier.

“However,” Robert stirred the glowing coals with his blackened branch, “I can tell you exactly how it went. Someone approached you . . . Let me think about timing . . . m ost likely yesterday night, right after the speeches. He told you that he just had to share something with you. He was not happy about doing this, but he had no choice. Right? You don ’t have to say anything —I can see that I ’m right so far. You didn ’t mind and so he went ahead and told you how Mike pulled the guys together and boasted about beating his wife. The guys, understandably, kept nodding and saying that the bitch deserved it. As for me, I even gave some semi-p ractical legal advice. Right?”

“More or less.”

“I’m sure it ’s rather more than less. And so now you have to stay overnight in the middle of nowhere with one of th o se pigs, accept his help and even listen to his endless blabber. What an unpleasant situation.”

“It is unpleasant, ” Stella confirmed dryly.

“I’m sorry to hear that, ” said Robert and turned back to the campfire.

Apparently the conversation was over. Suddenly Stella regretted recalling the incident and bringing it up. The evening , which had just been turning into the nicest she had had in a while, was now marred and ruined beyond any hope of repair. The only sound breaking the silence now was the crackling of the fire. Stella sighed involuntary and embraced her knees tightly .

The feeling of regret that was filling her made her wish for a second that Kevin had never told her about that conversation. That he had chosen a different ear to whisper into. Say Joan ’s. Come to think of it, why didn ’
t he tell Joan? They all drool over her. Yet, he chose to deprive her of that critical information and share it with someone else instead. Share may be the wrong word here —talking to him was like interrogating a criminal in denial. He came for something else. Actually, what did he come for? He left almost as soon as he ’d finished telling the story. Could it be that this was all he really wanted to talk about? Perhaps. But that, in turn, would mean that he had dropped that hint intentionally, k nowing all too well what was going to happen next.

No, this doesn’t make any sense. Kevin is such a decent man. He ’s a much, much better per son than any of them. He could hardly keep it together while describing that episode of chitchat . In fact, he was even embarrassed he’d been a part of it. And he ’d almost lost it when he ’d hinted about the accident that had wiped out his entire family. Of course, Mr. Supermen here doesn ’t like it. Mr. Superman would laugh at the idea of relating this manly story to a woman. Mr. Superman would . . .

But he has nothing against women, you have to give him that. According to his stories , he didn ’t even mind taking them with him on his dangerous adventures. By and large, had it not been for that boys ’ club evening, it would ’ve been preposterous to assume that he might have such views. It even seems—although with his poker face you can never be too sure—that he is offended by these issues . Supermen should be above these petty human emotions —but he probably isn ’t.

Could it be that Kevin mixed him up with someone else? That it was somebody else who dropped a comment about being cautious? Come to think of it, the entire word caution hardly fits Robert.

“Rob,” she asked quietly, “it was some one else who talk ed about legal problems , wasn ’t it?”

Mr. Superman replied without taking his eyes off the fire. His answer was cryptic: “Wrong question.”

“What do you—” Stella began. “Do you mean you weren ’t there at all?”

“Warmer.”

“Sorry, I don ’t understand.”

This time Mr. Superman decided to turn and face her.

“Why do you think there was anybody there at all?” he asked , looking point-blank at her.

It was too early to go to bed, and reading, for whatever reason, seemed as unattractive as finding someone for a random chitchat . Michael considered a couple of other ways to spend the time and headed for the side door.

The world outside the lodge met him with fresh chilly air and friendly darkness. Somewhere nearby an invisible forest rustled. Night sounds occasionally wafted from the lake—either muffled splashing or quiet tapping. A helicopter rumbled above his head. Michael looked up automatically and froze, facing a breathtaking picture: deep, pitch-black sky studded with large, flickering stars. Back in the city it wasn ’t anything like that. There the cold shining of stars dissolved in the glow of city lights, dimmed among st the exhaust gases that rose relentlessly towards them . In the city , the night sky was nothing but an element of the landscape, and certainly not the most prominent one.

But here the sky confidently dominated the earth. It stretched like an infinite quilt ornamented with unreal shining diamonds, and covered everything—the sleeping lake, the restless forest, the mysteriously quiet house, and the deserted beach. It covered the entire world, and the line of the horizon only emphasized its calm infinity.

And the main objects on this black quilt were the stars. Not the thin crescent of the moon . Not the random lights of the retreating helicopter. The stars. All of them—lonely or interwoven into the familiar patterns of constellations, large or hardly visible—all of them were so alluring with their bright, pale -blue, eternal shining.

It’s just like that evening, Michael thought.

It had been fifteen years, if not longer, since that night. That evening had been completely unplanned and it flew by in a single breath, but it remained engraved in his memory forever. It had everything a sixteen-year-old boy could only dream of: a girl who seemed completely irresistible, the serene tranquility of the surrounding world, the groundless confidence in guaranteed privacy, the growing desire untainted by adult practicality, the quiet laugh, the silly wrestling, and a jacket spread on the chill y ground. And stars. Bright cold stars that saw everything and gazed at what they saw with ultimate indifference. They had seen a myriad of such couples, and had they chosen to care about all of them, they would have burned out a long time ago.