Ninth Division, first as a mechanic and then as a member of the tank crew and now, as the commune of the Orbise had given up the ghost, he was in old rags and depressed, thereby resembling everyone else in that part of the world and even elsewhere.
—Give me the binoculars, Kronauer demanded and held out his hand.
The binoculars had been taken from the commander after the discomfiting firing-squad episode. He’d had to scrub the glass to get rid of the organic debris—a yellowish chunk, some dried blood.
Now Kronauer looked through the lenses and he felt on his nose the thing bringing back so many memories of wounded bodies and military insanity. In the foreground, the convoy had taken on troubling colors: camouflage green, dusty brown, dark rust. The focus knob had been damaged and he couldn’t zoom in on any faces—besides, there weren’t any faces visible right then. Once again, no bodies were visible. The ones who were lying or sitting amid the great ogronts and kvoinas hadn’t gotten up. The others didn’t even lift their heads in the doorframes. He could make out a pair of legs in the shadow of a car, but that was it.
—If they don’t have diesel fuel, I wonder where they’re going to find more, Ilyushenko said, kneeling next to Kronauer. I’d be surprised if there was any left in the sovkhoz.
By Kronauer’s right leg, the dying woman moaned.
Around the train the plants rippled once again, the degenerate rye, and then became calm. A clump of whitish plumes was still moving around by itself, as if it had a life of its own. Some Jeanne-of-the-Communists.
—Eh, Kronauer said. Who knows what’s going on in their heads.
Ilyushenko motioned uncomprehendingly. He shook his head, sat on the ground, and didn’t pay any more attention to what was happening down below.
• They didn’t move for a while, invisible within their hideaway of long leaves and stalks, which had started turning yellow and even black in the wake of the first night frosts. About fifteen meters off, a mass of plants spiced the air. Vornies-cinq-misères, Kronauer thought. Mixed with bouralayans, caincers. A bit closer there were mint-scented sarviettes.
The dying woman was reinvigorated by these scents, got up on her elbow, and touched Kronauer’s calf.
—Did they get out of the train? she asked.
Vassilissa Marachvili was a brave girl and although her friends had taken turns carrying her on their backs for more than a week, they had never felt like they were weighed down by a weakling. She was impervious to pain and she accepted adversity gracefully. When they had to eliminate their crazy commander, for example, she didn’t bat an eye as she joined the firing squad. And when they’d entered the world that nuclear accidents had made unlivable for ten millennia to come, she had put on a brave face despite the bleak prospect. Nobody had heard her prophesying any horrors that might await them. And later on, when radiation’s earliest ravages had started to do her in, she hadn’t complained. On the contrary, she had laughed with them, with Kronauer and Ilyushenko, once it was clear that all three of them were coming apart, physically and mentally, and that they were headed toward their ends. Her two comrades admired her refusal to consider everything a tragedy, even the defeat, even their impending doom, and they felt a mute but great tenderness for her. She was naturally happy; she had lived that way for thirty years—obstinate but also wryly detached—no matter the circumstances. After high school, she had worked at a brasserie in the capital, and then joined a gang of robbers, then enlisted in a She-Wolves regiment battling for the Orbise’s survival. And now she was sick; she was vomiting blood and didn’t have any more strength.
Kronauer set aside the binoculars and rubbed her hand, her wrist.
—Every so often one of them comes out, he said. They’ll make their way through the plants to do their business. Sometimes I’ll see one come back. Sometimes they stay in the plants. I can’t really tell what they’re doing.
—Who are they? Vassilissa Marachvili asked.
—I’m not sure, said Kronauer.
—There’s a locomotive and four cars, Ilyushenko said. They’re deportees or soldiers. Or a few of both. For now, there’s almost nobody to be seen. They’re waiting.
The dying woman slumped back down. She hadn’t opened her eyes.
—Why? she asked.
—Why are they still waiting? Kronauer asked.
—Yes, said Vassilissa. Why are they waiting to go out, if they’ve opened the doors?
—I don’t know, Kronauer said. It’s odd.
—Maybe I’m sleeping and I’m dreaming, the dying woman mused.
—Yes, said Kronauer wearily.
He had already heard her babbling deliriously, and he suspected she was headed in that direction again, toward this delirium, these words coming out of her fever or out of nowhere.
—Yes, Vassilissa Marachvili whispered. Or maybe they’re the ones sleeping and we’re seeing their dream.
A new brume of aromatic herbs wafted through.
—That might explain it, said Ilyushenko sympathetically.
—Eh, Kronauer said.
—Maybe what we’re seeing is their dream, Vassilissa Marachvili insisted.
—You think so? Ilyushenko said.
—Yes, said Vassilissa Marachvili. Maybe we’re already dead, all three of us, and what we’re seeing is their dream.
Then she was quiet, and so were they.
• Sky. Silence. Rippling plants. Whispering plants. Rustling plants. Murmuring mauvegarde, chugda, marche-sept-lieues, epernielle, old-captives, saquebrille, lucemingot, quick-bleeds, Saint-Valiyans, Valiyan-harelips, sottefraise, iglitsa. Rasping odilie-des-foins, grand-odilie, chauvegrille, or calvegrillette. Uniformly sighing prance-the-ruins. The plants were of many colors, and each one even had its own way of bending under the wind or twisting around. Some resisted. Others slumped gracefully and waited a good while after the gust before returning to their original position. Plants whispering in their passive movements, in their resistance.
Time flowed.
Time took its time flowing, but it flowed.
• Vassilissa Marachvili’s state worsened around four in the afternoon. Her hands convulsed, her ruined face was covered with droplets, the skin on her protruding cheekbones had turned pale. She couldn’t muster the energy to open her eyes anymore. On her chin were flakes of dried blood. Fetid breath came from her half-open mouth. She was no longer speaking intelligibly.
Kroner flicked away a fly that had landed close to the dying woman’s lips. He was watching over Vassilissa Marachvili, with his sleeve he dabbed at Vassilissa Marachvili’s forehead to get rid of this deathly dew that was seeping out, with his fingertips he wiped under Vassilissa Marachvili’s eyes, at the roots of her hair, around her huge and downy ears. He remembered what had bound them together these last few weeks, an intense friendship murky enough to turn almost immediately into a romantic adventure or, rather, a strong and discreet alliance among the three of them, augmented by bravery, self-sacrifice, and tenderness. On a physical or sexual level,
