still harbored living villagers, or at least villagers able to sweep in front of their door once a week. There were several sorts of buildings there, one or two small apartments with one or two stories, wood houses surrounded by fences, wobbly shacks, and, right in the center of the Levanidovo, an impressive structure with a façade weighed down with four concrete columns, all of them Ionic and absurd. It had once housed the Soviet. On the pediment was mounted a flagstaff that held bits and pieces of the red flag. The main road continued toward a hill overlooked by a vast hangar. Surrounded by foliage, fields, and forests, the Levanidovo had every appearance of a tranquil and self-sufficient hamlet, isolated from the capital’s directives, from imperialistic offensives, and from the revivals of civil war.
Kronauer panted, exhausted, and as he fought not to pass out, he tried to face the kolkhoz president, whose hostility was evident. Solovyei was firmly planted in front of him, not saying anything, he seemed uninterested in his daughter and he still hadn’t put away his knife. Kronauer wasn’t able to meet his gaze for more than a second, and he felt ashamed. As he paused, he turned toward the relatively pleasant image of the village, then he summoned his strength again and looked up at Solovyei. Keep your chin up, Kronauer, this one looks sort of like a kulak, he’s got hypnotic eyes, so what? He’s nothing but an ungracious giant. He has no reason to pick a fight over his daughter. You did what you had to do, you carried her, you brought her to the Levanidovo. Whether you seem nice or not, he’s the local authority, and he can’t abandon travelers in distress. That’s what matters. That’s the real question for him.
Kronauer had a vision of his comrades lying in the grasses close to the Red Star sovkhoz, and, dispensing with the usual formalities, and without taking the trouble to greet his interlocutor or wait for him to welcome him, he got right to the point.
—I left behind a man and a woman. Not far from the railroad tracks, by a sovkhoz. They haven’t had anything to drink or eat for days. We need your help. They need water, food. It’s urgent.
Without a word to her father or him, Samiya Schmidt picked that moment to leave. Kronauer immediately felt resentful. She could have helped, told Solovyei about their difficult trek, mentioned Kronauer’s devotion, and eased the relationship between the two men. But she was already leaving. She was already walking unsteadily toward the center of the village. From behind, with her badly woven braids, her paramilitary clothes, and her lazy pace, she resembled a young woman of letters from the Chinese cultural revolution, going back to her farm unit and still somewhat out of shape after five or six years of contact with harsh rural life.
Solovyei frowned. He sheathed his knife behind his back.
—I haven’t, either, I haven’t eaten anything for a week, Kronauer said.
—Tell me, soldier, Solovyei suddenly asked, are you alive?
—Of course, said Kronauer.
—Then what are you complaining about? Solovyei asked. Being alive isn’t something everyone in the world gets.
They were now talking without looking at each other, like two people who hate each other but who, in waiting for darkness to come and witnesses to go, had decided not to tear each other apart yet.
• Solovyei looked at his daughter who was turning onto the main road. She wasn’t going straight, her pace was slow. She looked groggy.
—Samiya Schmidt looks groggy, Solovyei said.
—She’s sick, Kronauer said.
—Oh, you’re a doctor? Solovyei said sharply, furrowing his brow. I didn’t know that.
Kronauer shrugged and took a step back to keep his balance. This conversation was draining the last of his strength. Behind his eyes, the earth’s rotation seemed to be more and more perceptible. Glimmering stars whirled in his head. He knew he was going to lose consciousness.
—If you’ve hurt Samiya Schmidt in any way, Solovyei warned, I wouldn’t keep up any hopes for your bones.
Kronauer wanted to object. He looked up toward the president of the kolkhoz. Solovyei towered, backed by the sky; he seemed surrounded by blinding light. Stars of exhaustion burst like bubbles around Kronauer’s consciousness; they spattered against the images his retinas received, they flew around Solovyei’s hair. Without stopping on any particular spot, Kronauer saw Solovyei’s silhouette tilt forward, come closer, stretch out, sway. Solovyei was enormous and now he took up most of the visible universe. He seemed to be floating colossally on clouds and meteors. From time to time, he set his hand on his ax, as if he was trying to decide exactly when to take it out of his belt to split the skull of the soldier still in front of him. And every so often he opened his mouth to say words that Kronauer couldn’t hear anymore. His teeth could be seen and, instead of a tongue, there seemed to be flames.
Then the image resolved. The flames swallowed him up, diminished, they began to come back together in his center. Quickly, everything that had been outside them turned black and shadowy.
Only this deep vermilion smudge was still visible, and emptiness gaped all around.
That remained for five or six seconds.
Then the black increased, the red diminished, and there was nothing else.
• Later, hours later, Kronauer comes out of his blackout. First he sees a ceiling that has recently been whitewashed, a perfect ceiling, without any cracks or spiderwebs. The room he finds himself in is painted white. The door, the walls, the frame of the double window, all are bright snow or ivory. Under such an onslaught of whiteness, Kronauer has trouble opening his eyes. His retinas hurt as they try to adapt to daylight.
He has been set on a mattress with his clothes still on. As he gets up on his elbow to look around, he is suddenly hit with the full stench of the rags stuck to his skin. The smell of lost wars, of nights spent on damp earth, and atop all that the acridity of grime diluted a hundredfold by sweat and thickened again a hundredfold. His muddy boots haven’t been taken off and he is there, ridiculous and fetid in this monastic room.
He turns, sets his feet on the ground, and stands while holding onto the head of the bed. The room quickly tilts to one side, and then the other. Beneath his legs, the pinewood floor shifts. He sits back down heavily, then he curses his weakness.
You’re already reeking like a boar, how long are you going to sit around acting like a weakling? Don’t tell me you’ve having another one of your girly faints! Go up to the window and open it, Kronauer! So at least a little of your stench gets out of the room!
He gets back up and he walks toward the double window. Through the glass he can see the Soviet’s colonnade, several wood façades, the gray-blue sky above the main road of the Levanidovo. The ground slides beneath him, the floor splits. He moves his hand toward the handle of the window latch. He begins fighting with the mechanism without any success. Something is holding it in place. He hunches over the latch, he sees that he needs a square key to unlock it. The outer window doesn’t have a handle, and what he had originally thought was a tulle veil is actually a mesh screen. Did they put me in a prison or what? he wonders.
The room swims. Aside from the bed and a chair, it is empty.
He stumbles and catches himself on the wall. His mind floods with unanswered questions.
What is this, a cell? How long have I been here? What’re they accusing me of? Is this a kolkhoz or a penal colony?
• —Ah, he’s awake now, a feminine voice said in the next room.
A
