The Monastery, page 72
Marie sat across from them and nodded at every word Galia said, as though she understood what they were talking about.
Artiom didn’t answer.
“She said that they were at sea for a week. Seven days.”
That news didn’t make him feel more energetic.
Artiom looked around — it was completely dark, and the invisible sea was loud.
Or maybe that wasn’t the sea, but the wind? And the sea, for example, had frozen over? And they could keep going on foot? On foot would be longer and more difficult. But at least you couldn’t drown. Only freeze. And that would happen very quickly…
Better say that it’s the sea making that noise.
“If we leave them here, they’ll both die. If we take them with us, the man will die on the way. He won’t survive a week.”
“Save!” begged Marie, nodding, and once again began to uncover her beloved under the rags, so that everyone would understand what she meant.
The man was truly unwell, Artiom noticed again.
But he felt absolutely no pity.
“… And our gasoline will run out more quickly, because the boat will be heavier,” Galia finished.
“Where did they come from?” asked Artiom.
“I couldn’t understand,” said Galia. “But reaching Norwegian waters is still further than going back. And the weather’s getting worse.”
“Interesting,” thought Artiom. “Are there any other such crazy people anywhere else in the world who are sitting in the middle of the sea and thinking how best to die — at sea or by going home?”
“There is hope that we’ll get there, where we’re planning to go, alone. But we’d have to leave these people here. Even though the motor doesn’t start in cold weather, and if it hits below freezing, it’ll stop working… But if we go back… If we go back, I don’t know what will happen. More than likely everything will be very bad,” Galia threw the empty can into the fire and looked at Marie. She also looked at Galia.
Galia could have said, “Well, at least we’ll save these people,” but Artiom understood that it wasn’t necessary to say it. Galia understood it well enough. Two hours ago she was planning on shooting any soldier, down to the last one, whom they might encounter on this island. So to now start talking about saving some unknown foreigners — was madness, utter madness.
“We need to go there,” said Galia to Marie. She waved towards the darkness of foreign lands.
“No, no!” answered Marie in English, crossing her hands over her face; but to show where they should actually go, she had to uncross her hands.
She pointed at Solovki, directly towards the invisible hill of Sekirka.
In the morning, Artiom, though it was impossible to consider, woke up in a good mood. Several times during the night, Marie got up to her husband, kept the fire alive, throwing the last kindling in there, then the oars as well — for some reason she had kept an oar for last.
Really, she was warming her husband, but Artiom liked to think that all this care was taken for his sake, so he slept even better.
In essence, Artiom was right.
Yesterday, Marie had found dry fur-lined boots and wool socks for him, and he changed his footwear.
No sooner had it gotten light than Marie began to prepare some kind of porridge — she had some unknown spices and unfamiliar grains left over.
The porridge quickly came to a boil, and even though the aroma was soon taken away by the wind, Artiom had a chance to smell it.
In expectation of breakfast, he, still in a morning haze, imagined himself an explorer discovering knew islands.
“… I’ll name them myself,” thought Artiom in a half-daze. “Afanasiev Isle is where we are now… The first one is Vladychka Isle… Burtsev should get his own island too.”
Artiom didn’t doubt that they would go back to Solovki.
For some reason it seemed that the road ahead was the road home.
It’s possible that’s exactly what it was.
The man, husband, friend moaned.
His moan proved that they had to return.
It also proved that Artiom was healthy, young and his lips were not covered with sores. He even felt the lightest, barely jolting sexual desire, which almost made him feel light-headed — what an idiot he was, stuck in the middle of a frozen sea, and still he was planning on continuing his useless race.
It smelled slightly of rot, either from the ground or from the sick man, but that didn’t affect or turn off the desire to eat.
“Flesh from flesh, flesh into flesh, flesh against flesh, flesh for flesh, flesh, flesh, flesh,” Artiom repeated in a whisper.
Somewhere nearby Galia began to move. Judging by her movements, she wasn’t asleep and she had slept badly the past night. Artiom also guessed that she was mad at him — not bad, they hadn’t even started their life together, and already he knew everything about Galia.
She was mad because she had to make the decision.
Though, in actual fact, there were no other possible decisions left in reserve.
“… They’ll bring me back to Sekirka,” Artiom thought calmly, because Sekirka still seemed far away. “I’ll tell them, ‘Greeting, brothers!’ Where’s my spot in the pile-up, the third from the bottom?’”
While they were eating, Artiom tried to smile at Galia a few times, but she didn’t answer and looked away with cold eyes. By a barely noticeable movement of her strict jaws, Artiom realized that she was sometimes biting her cheek. Her soup was getting cold, sitting at her feet.
The pots of the foreigners were sparkling and clean.
Marie kept looking at Artiom and Galia either with hope or with horror and was afraid of speaking today, as though yesterday she was drunk and now she was shy.
In the morning light, Marie was revealed to be ugly and with a large nose. But she did have kind eyes.
The soup was delicious. Possibly the most delicious soup in Artiom’s life… Except for the one when Troianskii’s mother came to visit him… But there he knew what he was eating, here, he had no idea.
A slippery drizzle fell on them and got into the soup, but Artiom wasn’t upset by that.
The island, in the light, was dirty, no good. He didn’t want to live here.
Marie uncovered her husband — he hadn’t died yet. Not only that but the necessity of changing his underthings had arisen, which is exactly what Marie began to do.
“In a similar situation, Galia would have just shot me,” Artiom decided darkly as he got up. He thought for a bit more and concluded the thought, “And she would have done rightly.”
Wet snow lay on the bottom of the boat. The boat was strange, cold, slippery — only yesterday it had seemed almost like home.
Seeing the snow falling into the water, it all became much viler and a shudder ran over his body, just like when he had a cold or right before throwing up.
He got warm by putting all the things back. Galia helped him. During the entire morning, they had not said a word to each other.
“They must have some kind of weapon,” Galia said when they had finished loading. “Find it; we have to confiscate it. And all the other notebooks with the maps. Do it all yourself, OK? Here she comes.”
Marie ran to them in fear and confusion, ready to fall on her knees, cry, wail, kill them, break the motor of the others’ boat…
But when she came up very close, she couldn’t speak. She only sobbed and shook.
“We’re going together,” Galia told her firmly. “Life for you, execution for us. But for now, together. Take your… whoever he is to you…”
With every one of Galia’s words, Marie, in contrast to the horrible weather, lit up more and more like a spark and her face became warmer and more grateful with every moment.
“If only my fate looked at me as Marie looks at you,” he said to Galia on the way back to the dying fire and the bed of the sick man.
He unexpectedly started and looked at the foreigners with terror, as though they weren’t people at all, but, for example, recently arrived angels, salted by the local winds.
“Maybe he was pretending?” Artiom asked Galia cheerfully.
She smiled unexpectedly.
“Look out, pirates!” said Artiom. “You’ve found a good time to sleep!”
Galia laughed.
Marie fretted around them, not knowing what to do.
You don’t need to do anything, just take your beloved by the legs and let’s carry him.
They sailed home on a light wind. The way back to the monastery seemed short. All that was left was to see the lighthouse.
On the second day, they had a fight.
The boat barely moved forward, as though a current was meeting them headlong.
The motor was angry.
The waves gathered and grew.
There was constant water on the bottom of the boat.
At first, they threw away all the things that they had considered necessary to take from the island — the others’ pots, blankets, crowbar, shovels — why was there so much stuff? You can’t take it all…
Marie sighed, started and accompanied every thrown-out thing with a sad, thin, barely audible shriek.
Those shrieks drove Galia mad, but silently.
Artiom threw away the things with pleasure, as though they wouldn’t have accepted him back at home with these things.
“Why did you throw out the axe?” Galia suddenly barked.
“You told me to,” answered Artiom.
“I did not,” she yelled.
“Should I dive for it?” asked Artiom.
Galia was greenish in color, very tired, and she was starting to get seasick. The foreigner — Marie called him Tom, so Tom, he was just as bad as before. Artiom watched life leaving him with a certain amount of interest. It was like sand flowing down an hourglass.
A few times, Tom came out of his comatose state and began to tell Marie something important, but she couldn’t make it out and put her fingers on his lips. Her fingers were long and pretty. Galia’s hands were smaller, more weathered, stronger.
Tom lay in the middle of the boat on a mound of blankets. With his feet, he pushed against Galia’s knees. His feet shook in the rocking, as though they were separate things, not alive.
Galia was nauseous from the salty air, from Artiom, from the rocking, from the foreigners in the boat and she couldn’t hold it in any more — she vomited.
“That’s for the axe,” thought Artiom, sloshing the water on the base of the boat. He felt sick too. He looked for something else to throw out.
“Soon Tom will depart and we’ll throw him out,” Artiom calmed himself, looking askance at Marie.
He felt sorry for her — it seemed she couldn’t even admit that her husband was dying.
The more Artiom looked at them, the better he understood that these were just two weirdos who had arranged some utter foolishness for themselves, something like a honeymoon. Neither Tom nor Marie were older than thirty, probably, though she looked older by about fifteen years, and he — twice as old as himself.
As he went through the things, Artiom once again bumped into the firmly tied, heavy brick that lay there — he kept on planning to ask Galia what that was, but kept forgetting.
He tried to untie it.
“Leave it!” yelled Galia, and added fierce speed to the motor.
Marie, from time to time helping to ladle out water, shook from the unexpectedness and almost fell over.
Artiom looked at Galia with a smile and began to rip the knot with his teeth.
Galia dropped the rudder and got up.
The boat went sideways, around, threatening to flip over. Galia sat, or she would have been the first to go overboard.
The motor died.
“Give it back, bastard!” Galia yelled.
Marie shrieked thinly.
“Where do they teach them to yelp like that…? It’s pretty…” thought Artiom in passing.
“You’re the bastard!” he exclaimed and threw the brick at Galia, between the half-dead Tom’s legs.
Everyone’s nerves exploded.
Galia was crying.
The motor was silent.
The snow fell again. The tips of Tom’s pretty winter shoes were in snow, whitened.
Twenty meters from the boat was a ragged darkness. In the interstices, you could see that beyond was the same darkness.
“You’re nobody!” sobbed Galia. “You could have been whomever you wanted. I chose you. But you’re an empty space. I’ve lost everything. How dare you!”
She had a knife, she cut open the knot on the brick, opened the packing. Gold coins fell onto the floor of the boat. Galia caught a few as they were falling, threw them into the water.
“So Eichmanis did find his buried treasure…” thought Artiom distantly.
He didn’t care about the gold.
Marie looked at Galia.
She couldn’t stop herself and kept getting up, extending her hands to the gold, shrieking something bird-like.
“Sit!” Artiom grabbed and pushed her down by the bottom of her coat. “Sit, don’t bother us! We’re sowing gold. We have the right.”
The fact that he didn’t care made Galia cry even more.
“I stole it!” she said, almost growling. “I stole it from Eichmanis because of you! You! Oh, you!”
“So it was for me…” thought Artiom, looking at Galia.
“You were the most insignificant!” she yelled, having taken a breath and once again beginning to throw the gold into the water. The coins sank quickly, as though they were created for that purpose. “The most! Of all of them! Only Passport is worse than you! I could have done it with Burtsev… He crawled to me, the filth. Or better yet, it should have been Vasilii Petrovich, that God-fearing torturer… I would have pulled out my tit at any moment and said, “Suck!” And all of them would have gotten in line…”
Artiom continued to slosh the water with his feet, sometimes looking up to see Galia picking up a coin then throwing it with an awkward, feminine gesture.
Marie looked to the side, disconsolate, but with every one of Galia’s gestures, she slightly started and winced.
“There was no pretense about you — you were the only worthy one,” Galia was explaining to someone. “But now I see that you have nothing to pretend with.”
Galia grabbed a handful from under the bench, between Tom’s legs and threw them across Artiom, through Marie, beyond their backs.
Artiom deftly caught one and threw it back to Galia’s feet with a gentle motion: a second attempt was necessary.
“Bastard, you bastard!” Galia swore at him, looking around as though blind. “He knew that I would be with you. He pulled you out on purpose to distract me. So that I wouldn’t bother him. Leaving him with his whores…” Artiom, at first thinking these words referred only to him, then understood that she wasn’t only talking about him.
“Do you know why he didn’t kill any gulls?” asked Galia, though not talking to Artiom at all. “Because he himself looks like a gull. Have you seen his profile? I put Trotsky’s portrait on the wall on purpose; he was sure that I slept with him. But I was just making him mad!”
“And what? You didn’t sleep with him?” Artiom wanted to ask, but didn’t.
He had no love for this stupid woman.
Nor did she have any for him.
They reached some little island only on the next evening.
It was impossible to understand whether this land was the same that they had encountered before or a different one.
Along the way, their fresh water ran out.
There should have been another flask, but it was unclear where it had gotten to. Maybe they had forgotten it on the island where they had met the foreigners.
They started a fire and hung their things up to dry — they were dripping wet. They put pots under them.
They waited, quietly, until at least half a bowl of water dripped out.
It ended up being salty. In the sea, salty snow fell and salty rain dropped.
Galia threw the metal bowl down in anger. It fell on stones, then jumped back up with a bang.
Artiom walked over the island looking for wood. Everything near the water was bare and rocky — the waves and undertow had washed away all living things. A pitiful grass could still be seen on the hills. In the troughs, he found a few unknown shrubs and small trees.
On the way back, he met Galia. It seemed she had been looking for him and found him by the sound of the axe.
She acted as though nothing had happened.
“We have to go on immediately,” said Galia. “Or he’ll die. How he hasn’t died yet…”
Artiom shrugged — he didn’t care. They could go on or not.
“To look at you, you’d think freedom and prison, water and land — it’s all the same,” she said, with only gentle mockery.
“I like land and freedom better,” Artiom answered simply.
“There’s this word: freedom-loving,” said Galia, and added after a pause, “It doesn’t describe you.”
Artiom silently carried the crooked branches, hugging them against his chest. They kept getting into his face.
“We’re not going to Solovki, but to Kemi,” Galia continued with no break. “We’ll let them out there; they’ll figure out their way on the mainland themselves. But we’ll try to find a train and go in any direction. How are you?” She stopped.
Artiom stopped too. For half a minute, they stared at each other.
“And I kissed that face…” thought Artiom. The feeling was as though it had all happened two lifetimes ago. But it wasn’t a bad life. Or not the worst.
“Of course, Galia,” said Artiom. “We’ll be together.”
They went the rest of the way arm in arm, though they didn’t touch each other.
“Artiom, I’m sorry,” Galia said quickly.
“No need. I understand.”
Tom was still lying in the boat. Marie was waiting for them to carry him off together.
“Rub him down with vodka and we’ll leave immediately.” Galia waved in the direction of Solovki.
Marie understood everything. She had started understanding everything from the first attempt.
