Ice Trilogy (16 page)

We awoke at night. We lay on the Ice in a hollow that had melted under us, in a form shaped like the contour of our bodies. Warm water filled the hollow. We broke our embrace and climbed out onto the top of the iceberg. The moon, obscured by thin clouds, faintly illuminated the watery mirror of the swamp. We stood on the Ice up to our ankles in water. I walked around the lens and discovered my indentation, which recalled the letter Φ. It had been completely preserved, as though I had left it only a minute ago. The spur of Ice still stuck out, slightly melted. The other one I had broken off and taken with me, to people. Fer walked over to me. I took her hand and put it on the place where I’d broken off the icy spur. She
understood
that it was this very Ice that had awakened her heart. Crying and laughing, she began to touch the Ice.

But we had to think about Nikola. His heart was waiting on the bank. I kicked the other spur. It didn’t budge. I kicked it again, with all my might. It cracked and broke off. I picked up the piece of Ice and headed back. Fer followed me. My heart remembered the short path to the shore. Climbing out, we went over to Nikola. He lay on his back, his arms outstretched. His eyes were closed, his lips whispered, and his pale face stood out in the darkness. I knelt, lifted the piece of Ice in my hands, and swung back. And froze. And once again, my heart told me: I wasn’t doing it right. Not with the hands! For awakening a heart a
hammer
was needed. AN ICE HAMMER!

This is what would help to waken the heart in the name of the Light! This was what we needed! Searching around me, I saw a dried pine branch not far off. Grabbing it, I found my work boots nearby as well, and pulled out the leather laces. Together we tied the Ice to the stick. Fer’s small but strong hands tore the shirt covering Nikola’s chest. I swung back and with all my strength hit him in the chest with the hammer. The Ice flew apart, smashed to smithereens by the crushing blow, and the stick broke. Nikola’s breast missed a beat and jerked. We pressed ourselves to it. Inside his chest a twitching could be heard; his body trembled and he ground his teeth. Our ears and hearts listened to the voice of his awakening heart.

“Ep, Ep, E
p...
”

The body of our red-bearded brother shook, as though in a seizure. Blood spurted from his nose.

“Ep! Ep! Ep!” his heart pulsated.

His heart was large. And
strong
.

We embraced brother Ep.

We came
to in the morning.

Ep was weak, his injured chest hurt. But his heart was already speaking timidly with our hearts. Exhaustion and shock had immobilized his strong body: he barely moved. Tears constantly rose to his eyes. Fer and I constructed a hut from the branches of bushes and young trees and placed brother Ep inside it. When he fell asleep again, Fer and I kneeled and spoke heart to heart for a long time. In the green, rough hut our hearts learned from each other and from the great Ice lying so close by. The huge block of Ice resonated with our tiny hearts. It was as though they were created for each other. Our hearts were drawn to each other like the opposite poles of magnets. Separately, everything was harder for them. But together they were capable of a great deal. Sensing the awakening power of our hearts, we trembled. Resonating with the Ice, our hearts suggested a solution to us. When we came to and had eaten some berries, our lips gave sound to the Wisdom of the Light. We spoke in the miserly language of the mind, aided by the language of the heart.

We had to go and search for our brothers and sisters. But the Ice should always be with us. It would be more convenient that way, easier. It shouldn’t lie here and wait for us to bring a newly acquired brother or sister to it. It should always be with us, among people. We would fashion icy hammers from the Ice. Dozens, hundreds of Ice hammers. They would strike the chests of brothers and sisters. And their hearts would begin to speak.

It took three days for Ep to get back on his feet. His awakening heart helped his body. From a depressed, mortally exhausted being, Ep was transformed into an inexhaustible and bold brother. He kissed our feet from joy, and we taught his inexperienced heart the first words.

Now there were three of us. We were young, strong, and ready to do anything for the Light. In the hut we decided what our plan of action would be: While waiting for the cold autumn, we had to carve out several large pieces of the Ice, haul them on a sleigh to the Khushma, prepare and load the Ice, and sail first along the Khushma, then along the Chamba to the Katanga. There, on the shore, we would dig a hole, place the Ice in the permanently frozen earth, and cover it. From this store we would take a few large pieces of Ice with us and set off on our search.

That was what we did.

Fer, Ep, and I spent two months in the dead taiga near the Ice. We lived in the hut all that time. And we were
absolutely
happy. The Ice was with us; our hearts matured and grew wiser; our bodies filled with a
new
strength. This strength wasn’t
only
physical, although our muscles became stronger than before. The new
strength
had forever conquered fear, hunger, and illness in us. The three great enemies had been vanquished, never to be resurrected in our bodies. We fed on berries and the roots of swamp grasses. We slept on the moss, embracing each other, unafraid of the permafrost cold that rose every night from the Tungus earth. Wolves howled and bears roared in the dark, but it didn’t scare us: we fell sweetly asleep to the howling of the wolves. Animals avoided our hut. Nor did people bother us: after the fire I started, the expedition left the area. The Evenki continued to be wary of the “accursed” place. Speaking in our new language to our hearts’ content, we would light a campfire. Embracing, we stared silently at the fire. It was of this planet, ephemeral, a weak reflection of the Heavenly Fire — the blinding, imperishable fire that had given birth to the worlds of Harmony.

The Siberian summer ended in the middle of August. The leaves of the bushes and the gnarled birches surrounding the swamp turned yellow. A cold northern wind began to blow. And one morning occasional snowflakes spun over our hut — harbingers of the long Siberian winter. The first snow was a sign: the time had come to act. During those two months we not only had spoken with our hearts but had found the shortest passage to the Ice and laid eighteen fallen logs across the swamp. The bog engulfed the logs, but one could lean against them. Undressing, taking an ax and knives, we traversed this log road to the Ice. We cut out eight huge pieces of the Ice and carried them to shore. Each piece weighed about as much as a man. On the shore we built a drag of young trees, and in three trips we hauled the Ice to the Khushma, which ran about a kilometer from the swamp. This river was about twice as narrow as the Katanga and its shores were not so high. We quickly put together a raft as well, and tied the logs with bast fiber torn from young trees. Loading the Ice onto the raft, we attached it to the raft logs with wet bast, took the long oars that Ep had carved, and pushed off from the shore.

The journey by water took three days. Our raft sailed successfully along two rivers and reached the Katanga. We tried very hard to keep the Ice intact. And during the trip we didn’t allow ourselves to speak with the heart. The cold water brought us to the place where we had sat that night with Ep by the fire, listening to his incoherent story. Upon landing, we untied the Ice and carried it to the shore. Pieces had melted slightly during the voyage. We dug a hole not far from the shore. It didn’t take long to dig it — one and a half meters down the ax struck the icy soil of the permafrost. Gouging out a cavity in it, we put several pieces of the Ice in it, wrapped in moss and leaves; then we covered it all with earth. Ep and I pushed a heavy stone on top of the store of Ice. We dug a hole for the eighth piece of Ice right on the shore. Having hidden the precious Ice, we embraced. Night fell, the stars came out. We built a fire and gave our hearts their will. They spoke all night.

In the morning we dragged the raft, which had been hidden in the bushes, back into the water, and dug up the eighth piece of Ice. We wrapped it in moss, placed it on the raft, and started off. Our hearts told us we had to sail west. That was where the waters of the Katanga carried our boat. None of us knew just
where
we would meet our brothers and sisters, but our hearts helped us to search. Having sailed along the river for two days, we saw a large settlement.

“It’s Lakura,” Fer told us. “Baptized Tungus live there.”

Mooring the boat, we quickly buried the Ice in the sand near the shore and headed to the village. Our hearts were calm. We were met by Evenki, and Fer spoke with them. They told us the latest news: the Russians had gone to the “accursed” place to look for the gold that fell from the sky, but the god of fire, Agdy, burned their dwelling, and they turned back. All of the Evenki in the area already knew this. Despite their Russian Orthodox faith and the old wooden church in the middle of the village, the Evenki remained pagans. They also informed us that the runners who had visited their village not long ago had lost one fellow along the way — he had been kidnapped by the Maiden of the Water. At first it was far from simple for us to socialize with people: I could barely restrain laughter, Ep looked at
ordinary
people with bewilderment, and Fer struggled to utter forgotten words. But here, too, our hearts helped us; they didn’t let us down for a second. We had become
wise of heart
. And we knew how to behave with people. Our hearts and the Ice taught us to foresee much.

The local priest, Father Bartholomew, was happy to meet with us. Every Russian who passed through Lakura became a family member for him. First off he had the bathhouse fired up. We washed and steamed our bodies with great pleasure. Then the priest’s Evenka wife laid the table for us. Here something unexpected awaited us: the food people normally ate had become for us, brothers of the Light, inedible. We looked at the fish pies, pelmeni with venison, eggs cooked in lard, freshly baked bread, and marinated mushrooms with disgust. In all of this we felt the monstrosity of human life, its lack of freedom. Humans had to
do something
to food before they ate it: fry, boil, chop, marinate, grind, or cure it. For that matter, they always overate tremendously, disfiguring their bodies and willpower. But the most horrendous thing was — that humans devoured living creatures with great pleasure, taking their lives from them only in order to stuff their stomachs with their meat. Meat was digested in their stomachs and fell out of humans in disgusting-smelling excrement. Man’s will transformed a living bird into a pile of excrement — and this was completely normal for
Homo sapiens
. Sharing this planet with other living creatures, people gobbled them up. And this great monstrosity was called the law of life.

We could eat only fresh fruits and berries. This was the only food that did not repulse us. In general, after our hearts awoke, we ate
much
less. A handful of fresh berries sufficed for several days. Moreover, we didn’t tire, didn’t lose our strength like ordinary fasters. Our hearts gave us
tremendous
energy. With such energy we were not afraid of any hunger. Sitting down at the table, I apologized to the hosts and told them that yesterday we had been taken very ill from some fish we ate, and consequently, today we could only keep down raw vegetables and berries. With sighs and groans, the priest’s wife brought us turnips and lingonberries. We refused vodka as well. The priest and his wife didn’t deny themselves the “pleasure” of drinking to the health of the travelers. Seeing how they poured pure spirits diluted with water into their mouths in order to lose control over their bodies and feelings for a time, we were filled with disgust. The amazing popularity of vodka among humans, and their dependence on it, proved once again that man was incapable of being happy. People drank vodka and wine to “forget,” “have a good time,” “relax” — that is, to forget themselves and their lives for at least a moment. Drinking until they were drunk, they felt they were happy.

“Where are you going, young folks? Winter is just around the corner!” asked the increasingly drunk Father Bartholomew.

We answered that we were looking for a large construction site where we could make some money.

“Stay with me to build a new church. Weasels have taken over the old one! I’ll pay you more than the Soviets,” he cajoled.

But we didn’t want to stay in the village: our heart
saw none
of our own there. We had to travel farther. We spent the night with Father Bartholomew, bought some carrots and turnips from him, dug up the Ice, loaded it, and sailed off. The Stony Tungus River coursed west toward the Yenisei. We floated past three villages, stopping in each one. And found none of our own. Fortunately, it grew colder, the nights were frosty, and our Ice melted very little. We tried not to touch it, which was
hard
, traveling with it in one boat. Touching the Ice reminded us
acutely
of the Primordial Light. Our hearts felt very
good
at those times.

The taiga grew yellow and red, preparing itself for the long winter. The first snow fell and covered everything. Then came the first cold snap. The river began to freeze at the edges; we traveled down the middle where the water had not yet frozen. Steam hovered above the Tunguska. Two more days passed and the river merged into another — wide and powerful. This was the Yenisei. It carried its lead-colored waters to the north, toward the Arctic Ocean. Its current was so turbulent that ice didn’t have time to cover the river — it was carried away. It became harder to navigate — the boat was buffeted, whirlpools spun it around. Our hands never let go of the oars. But our hearts
guided
us. They told us that there were 23,000 of us — a small drop in the ocean of people, but that the Ice, lying here in Siberia these twenty years, was
drawing
many of ours to it. They were intuitively moving toward it, they saw tormenting, sweet dreams about it, they were looking for it. Their sleeping hearts yearned for the blow of the Ice hammer. And so we sailed patiently, fighting the strong Yenisei, warming one another’s hands, grown cold in the wind.