Authors: Vladimir Sorokin
Crouper clicked, clucked, and cooed; the horses began stepping backward, and the runner slid out.
“Thank God!” the doctor sighed in relief.
Crouper dropped to his knees and felt the runner:
“Ay, damnation…”
“What is it?” The doctor leaned over and, as the moonlight returned, he could clearly see the broken runner, the point of which had remained forever in the maxillary sinus of the corpse. “Damn…”
“Broke off, that’s what it did.” Panting, Crouper blew his nose loudly.
The doctor instantly felt a chill.
“And what will we do now?” he asked with growing irritation.
Crouper said nothing, he just stood there breathing hard and sniffing. Then he picked up the axe:
“Gots to cut a runner and fix it to this one.”
“What, we won’t make it?”
“Won’t make it this aways.”
“We won’t make it on the second runner?”
“No, yur ’onor.”
“Why not?”
“The other one’ll get stuck in the snow—and that’ll be the end of it.”
The doctor understood.
“It broked off on account of it was cracked already.” Crouper sighed. “If it’d been in one piece it wouldn’t of broked off. But it was gonna break for sure.”
The doctor spat angrily, reached for his cigarettes, and remembered that they were all gone. He spat again.
“Alrighty, I’ll go look fer a crooked tree branch,” said Crouper, and headed off across the snow into the fir trees.
“Don’t be long!” the doctor demanded irritably.
“Depends on how it goes…”
He disappeared into the trees.
“Idiot,” muttered the doctor after him.
He stood near the ill-starred head awhile, then climbed onto the sled seat, wrapped himself in the rug, pulled his hat down all the way to his eyes, thrust his hands deep in his pockets, and sat motionless. The doctor could still feel the effect of the liquor, but it was beginning to pass, and he felt chilled.
“How absurd!” he thought.
And he quickly dozed off.
He began dreaming of a huge feast in an enormous, brightly lit hall, something like the banquet hall at the House of Scientists in Moscow. It was filled with acquaintances and strangers who had something to do with him, his profession, and his private life; people were congratulating him. They were happy for him, lifted their glasses high for toasts, spoke solemn grandiloquent words, and he, understanding neither the reason for this feast nor the meaning of the congratulations and excitement, forced himself to nod and respond to the congratulations, attempted to carry himself grandly with an air of certainty and joy, although he recognized the problematic nature of the whole affair. Suddenly one of the guests clambered onto the table, and everyone stopped and stared at him. Platon Ilich recognized the man as Professor Amlinsky, who had lectured on suppurative surgery in medical school. Amlinsky, wearing a tuxedo and an attentively tired expression on his beardless face, stood up straight, crossed his hands on his chest theatrically, and without a word began to dance a strange dance, striking the heels of his laced boots hard on the table; there was something ceremonial, sinister, and significant in the dance, which everyone there understood, and which Platon Ilich immediately guessed. He realized that the dance was called “Rogud” and that it was a commemorative
medical
dance, dedicated personally to him, Doctor Platon Ilich Garin, and that all these people gathered at the table had come to Garin’s wake. Terror seized Platon Ilich. In a trance, he watched Amlinsky dance with abandon, marking an ominous beat on the table with such force that the dishes jumped and clinked; he danced, making strange circular movements with his rear end and head, first crouching, then straightening up, nodding and winking at everyone. The miller’s wife sat near Platon Ilich. She was beautifully dressed; a spray of diamonds shone around her plump, well-groomed face. She was Amlinsky’s wife, and had been for a long time, as it happened. The air was fragrant with perfume and the smells of her smooth, well-tended body. Her vivid face drew close to Garin’s, and she whispered to him with a lewd smile:
“A meaty, pompous hint!”
The doctor woke up.
As soon as he moved, a ferocious shudder shook his body. Trembling, he lifted the hat from his eyes. It was dark and cold all around. Crouper was chopping something in the darkness. The moon had hidden behind clouds.
The doctor moved some more, but the shivers went through him so profoundly that he bellowed, and his teeth began to chatter. He was suddenly frightened. He had never experienced such terrifying, penetrating cold in his life. He realized that he would never get out of this accursed, endless winter night.
“L-lor-d-d h-h-have m-m-mer-cy…,” he began to pray, his teeth chattering so hard and fast it was as though someone had attached them to a motor made by the Klacker company.
Crouper continued to chop in the darkness.
“Lo-lo-lor-d-d … p-pro-t-tec-t m-me and lead-d m-me…,” the doctor moaned, trembling, as though in pain.
“There now…,” he heard Crouper mutter, and the chopping stopped.
While the doctor dozed, Crouper had found a small fir tree with a bent trunk in the forest; he had cut it down, chopped off the branches, attached it to the sled, and whittled it into a semblance of a runner. It wasn’t much to look at, was even ridiculous looking, but was quite capable of getting them to Dolgoye. It had to be nailed to the broken runner. And there was even the means: when Crouper had repaired the runner at the miller’s, he’d grabbed three nails.
“Shuda taken at least four,” he thought.
But he reassured himself aloud: “Three’ll do it.”
Noticing that the doctor was agitated and mumbling, Crouper went up to him:
“Yur ’onor, help me out.”
“L-lord … Lor-d-d…” The doctor shook.
“Cold?” Crouper realized.
After working, he wasn’t cold.
“St-st-start a f-fire…,” the doctor chattered.
“A fire?” Crouper scratched under his hat and looked up at the hidden moon. “That’s right, now … Cain’t see a darn thing … Won’t hit the nail…”
“St-st-start … st-st-st-start…” The doctor kept shaking as though he were feverish.
“Just give me a minute.”
Grabbing the axe, Crouper went into the fir grove to look for a dry tree. He had to look for some time: as if to thwart him, the moon stayed behind clouds, and he had to feel about. The dry fir turned out to be larger than the others, and its hard, withered trunk wouldn’t take the axe blade. Crouper hacked for a long time. When he’d cut it down, he dragged it toward the sled but got stuck between two other fir trees and fussed about, chopping off branches in the darkness, almost whacking himself in the leg in the process.
Panting, he dragged the tree to the sled.
The doctor was still sitting on his seat, bent over, with his hands in his pockets.
“Oy, the doctor’s gone and froze plain through…,” thought Crouper. Taking a deep breath, he began to chop branches off the tree.
When he had a fair number, he gathered bunches of thin twigs, broke them in half, took out a lighter, and aimed the blue stream of gas. The fire caught quickly. Crouper dug out the snow with his boot, stuck the burning twigs in the hole, and piled on more branches.
Soon the fire was blazing.
“Doctor, come, get warm!” Crouper shouted.
The doctor pried open his eyelids: tongues of flame danced in the reflection of his pince-nez. He began the painful process of standing up. He had to move his stiff, shivering body to the fire. He shook; from sitting so long, his legs wouldn’t obey him. He moved like a zombie just arisen from the dead. Approaching the fire, he walked straight into the flames, like a drunken fireman.
“Where ye goin’? You’ll burn up!” exclaimed Crouper, pushing him away.
The doctor sat down on the snow and crawled to the fire; he thrust his gloved hands into it.
“Well, go on and burn, then, if you wanna,” Crouper muttered, breaking off a branch.
Soon the doctor cried out and jerked his hands out of the fire; his gloves were smoking.
“Open up yur coat, yur ’onor, so the heat c’n get inside,” Crouper recommended.
Squinting from the smoke, the doctor unfastened his coat with shaking hands.
“There ye go.” Crouper smiled tiredly.
His face was haggard, but his birdlike smile hadn’t dimmed.
They warmed themselves until they’d burned the whole tree. The doctor came round and had stopped shaking. But he was still frightened.
“Why am I afraid?” he thought, gazing at the scattering of small orange embers from the twigs. “It’s dark. It’s cold. So what? Dolgoye is nearby … He’s not scared. And I shouldn’t…”
“Yur ’onor, help me out with the runner?” Crouper asked, picking up the axe from the melting snow.
“What?” The doctor didn’t understand.
“I cut a tip. You hold it, and I’ll nail it. I got three nails.”
The doctor rose silently and fastened his coat. Crouper lit the last fir branch and stuck it in the snow next to the giant’s head. Fire shone in the corpse’s frozen eyes, and the doctor noticed that they were green.
“Let’s go, while it’s still burning!” Crouper ordered, falling to his knees and placing the tip under the broken runner.
The doctor also kneeled, grabbed the pieces of wood, and held them together. Crouper took the three precious nails out of his pocket, put two of them between his teeth, set one in place, and pounded it with three strikes of the axe head. He placed the second nail and knocked it in just as skillfully, but on the fourth strike the axe missed and hit his left hand hard. “Darn!” he exclaimed, and the third nail fell out of his mouth.
The branch burned out, scattering amber ashes.
“Ay…” Shaking his large hand, Crouper dropped the axe and fumbled in the snow. “Where d’ye go…”
The doctor felt about in the snow, too. But they couldn’t find the nail.
“You need light,” the doctor ordered.
“Hold on now…” Crouper felt around, collected the remaining twigs, and lit them.
But the brief flame didn’t help: the nail appeared to have melted into the snow.
“What a fix…,” Crouper said sorrowfully, crawling about the snow.
“What the … How’d you…,” the doctor mumbled, groping around.
“An idiot, that’s how come I dropped it,” Crouper explained.
They searched a bit longer in the faint, bluish light of two lighters, but didn’t find the nail.
“All my fault…” Covered in snow, Crouper kept looking around the runner.
He was very upset about losing the nail. He began to regret that he’d taken only three, out of stupidity and timidity—that he’d been afraid to take at least four nails from the tin.
“Idiot. I’m an idiot.”
He blew his nose, and then used the axe to bend the end of the two nails, which had come out the underside of the freshly hewn boards. He touched them:
“Will we make it on two nails?”
“Strap it with a bandage.” Leaning over, the doctor stared at the repaired runner.
“We c’n do that,” Crouper nodded indifferently. He stood up and opened the hood.
The horses whinnied. Crouper could feel that they were cold.
“C’mon, c’mon, talk to me…” Pulling off his mittens, he started petting and stroking them.
Faint neighs came from under the hood along with steam from the horses. Heated by the horses’ bodies, the space under the hood was the only warm place. The doctor was jealous, and it irritated him that people were freezing but horses were capable of warming themselves. He found the remainder of the bandages, and they wrapped the ill-fated runner. The doctor had hardly finished tying his traditional knot when he heard a faint noise at his back. He lifted his head: it was snowing.
“Damn it!” he exclaimed, looking at the sky.
The sky was thick with clouds. There was no longer any bright moon, nor any sparkling splatter of stars. Snow fell straight down in heaps; it was falling so thickly that everything around disappeared. As though mocking the travelers, taking revenge for an hour or so of brightness and calm, the snow fell heavy, fast, and dense.
“Just what we was waitin’ fer…” Crouper grinned wryly and covered the horses.
“How will we go on?” the doctor asked, looking around.
“We’ll just go on, like God wills,” Crouper answered. He moved the rudder to the left and shouted at the horses.
The sled jerked, and slid off the corpse. Crouper directed it onto what should have been the road, and walked alongside it. The doctor followed.
“Have a seat, yur ’onor. I’ll walk!” Crouper shouted.
The doctor climbed onto the seat.
“How much farther is it?”
“I dunno. ’Bout three versts…”
“We have to get there!”
“We’ll get there, God willing…”
“Three versts. You can walk that far?”
“Yep…”
The doctor desperately wanted to get out of this snowy eternity, out of the cold, which hadn’t abandoned him for a moment, out of the night, which was like a bad dream; he wanted to forget all of it forever, along with the snow, this ridiculous sled, this cretin Crouper, and the broken runner.
“Lord, lead me, protect and guide me…,” he prayed to himself, and counted every meter of road as it passed.
Crouper walked along, steering, raking through the snow with his felt boots, sinking into it, and getting up again. Ahead and all around them was a wall of silently falling snow. The silence and total absence of wind scared the doctor even more.
Crouper wasn’t scared. He was simply tired of it all, so tired that he was on his last legs, trying not to collapse and fall asleep. The fire had sapped his strength, he’d inhaled a lot of smoke, and now he wanted but one thing—to sleep.
“Three versts … We’ll get there if’n we don’t lose the road…,” he thought, fighting to keep his eyes open as they stuck together from the snow and exhaustion.
About half a verst on, when the fir forest ended and a clear field began, they strayed off track. Crouper wandered around and found the road. They set off but lost the road again. And, again, Crouper found the road. The doctor no longer bothered to get off the sled; he just sat, covered with snow, praying and stiffening with fear. They rode on successfully for another half a verst, but suddenly there was a crack, and the sled listed treacherously to the right: they had run off the road into a gully, and the repaired runner broke.