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  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 minute later, two women inserted a key in the lock and came into the room, each of them causing the floor’s tiles to creak. They were both about the same height and, in the doorframe, they seemed at first like two kolkhozniks from long ago, dressed for the fall, with long brown wool skirts and, under their half-buttoned vests, high-necked blouses embroidered with patterns of birds and flowers on one, and spirals of forget-me-nots and daisies on the other. Neither of them wore jewelry. Kronauer immediately noticed their beauty, but he was so weak that his thoughts were hazy, distant, and wholly disconnected from any erotic sentiment.

  They were without a question taller than their little sister, and also more feminine. Next to them, Samiya Schmidt would have looked childish. Although they all had Solovyei as a father, since their mothers were completely different and unknown, they barely resembled each other. They still shared something owing to their father’s attraction to Siberian women, whether from central Asia or the Far East. Their mothers had given them their own grace, cheekbones, beautiful curling eyebrows, and the eyelids they had lowered the night and the moment Solovyei had seduced or raped them. Samiya Schmidt had the physiognomy of a sweet but withdrawn Chinese girl, a light complexion, fairly typical Han traits, but the fact remained that Kronauer had met her on an unfavorable day, in poor lighting, in the forest’s shadows, such that he�
��d mistaken her for a corpse at first. The second daughter, Myriam Umarik, had deeply Altaic features, fleshy cheekbones, narrow eyes, a mouth with thick lips, a large and deliciously oval face. Her skin had a leathery complexion like a Native American, nearly orange in the room’s white light. Her physiological proximity to Samiya Schmidt was practically nil, and certainly nobody would have mistaken her for someone Chinese. Just as Samiya Schmidt seemed mistrustful, timid, even inhibited, so Myriam Umarik seemed resplendent, with long flowing chestnut hair that came down to her chest, and even if she kept her back straight while walking, she had a sensual way of moving her legs, her hips. Her eyes shone. She knew that her movements could bother men, especially Kronauer, but she wasn’t embarrassed at all.

  As for Hannko Vogulian, the oldest daughter, she bore characteristics that, without being physical flaws, caused people to step back at a first glance. Her eyes had no white at all and were very dissimilar. The left one had the same red-blooded, rapacious color as her father Solovyei’s irises; the right one was a large piece of obsidian in the middle of which no pupil could be seen. This gave her the appearance of a strange mutant. That aside, the rest of her body had a great Asiatic perfection. Her face was lighter than Myriam Umarik’s, with smaller eyelids, a narrower mouth, eyes that were slightly angled toward the top of her temples. She had an elegant posture and the olive skin of a Yakut princess, and she was clearly proud and reticent, but perhaps that was because she knew the impression her strange pupils would have on Kronauer, and because she preferred to make it clear immediately that she didn’t care about his opinions. In short, if Myriam Umarik didn’t care about looking alluring, Hannko Vogulian didn’t care about looking like a fantastical creature. She had pulled her long black hair behind her shoulders and separated it to make a thin braid that went around her head like an iron diadem.

  • The two women walked toward Kronauer. He was still leaning against the wall by the window. He struggled not to completely fall apart as he wondered whether these two splendid countrywomen were jailers or not. Have they come to free me or what? he wondered. It was only to express his shame that he finally spoke.

  —Don’t come closer, he said wretchedly. I’m dirty and I don’t smell good. I’ve been traveling for weeks without washing.

  They stopped four or five steps away from him.

  —Oh, you didn’t have to bother telling us, Myriam Umarik said. We’re the ones who picked you up and dragged you over here yesterday afternoon.

  She seemed to be swaying. Under her dress, her breasts shifted. She smiled wryly.

  If Kronauer hadn’t been so weak, he would have blushed. The blood tried to fill his cheeks.

  —I’d really like to take a shower or wash myself somewhere, he said.

  —We’ll show you how to get to the shower room, Myriam Umarik said.

  —Good, Kronauer said. Because I really don’t smell good.

  —Don’t worry, soldier, Hannko Vogulian said. We’re not delicate. We’re in a kolkhoz here. The smells of cows don’t scare us. When we have to take care of animals, we just deal with it.

  She still had an expressionless gaze and she looked at Kronauer with her two different eyes that had no white, the one gold and the other black. Kronauer looked away. He wasn’t used to her gaze and he couldn’t decide if it was attractive, magnificent, or monstrous.

  —That’s right, yes, we’re not delicate, Myriam Umarik repeated.

  —They told me that after nuclear accidents the cows couldn’t reproduce anymore. So they disappeared fast. But you, you still have animals?

  —Well, we don’t have as many herds as before, Hannko Vogulian said. But when we have to take care of a cow or a sheep, we just do.

  —Or a pig, Myriam Umarik added, swaying her buttocks.

  —Don’t worry, solider, Hannko Vogulian said.

  Neither of them seemed to feel pity for him. Without giving him any time to ponder the consequences of radioactivity on the ovine, bovine, equine, porcine, avian, or human, or generally surviving populations of the area, they invited Kronauer to go wash up. As he wavered and was not able to let go of the wall he was leaning against, Myriam Umarik went over to him, grabbed him by the sleeve, and pushed him ahead of her. She didn’t help him to walk, she didn’t hold his arms or his shoulders to help him balance, but she guided him. In any case, even if she stepped aside to get out of his way when he staggered, she didn’t evince any great disgust at his smell.

  —Go on, soldier, she said a couple of times. It’s at the end of the hallway. You’re not sick. It’s nothing but a little exhaustion.

  Sometimes Kronauer held out his arms to lean against the hallway wall. His knees were weak. Hannko Vogulian was two steps ahead of him, he felt like she was too close and if he stumbled and staggered forward, he would drag her down as he fell.

  They brought him to the washroom, which was behind an iron door. They opened it and stepped aside to let him through. From where they were standing, still in the hallway, they pointed out a basket with a thick terry-cloth towel and clothes for him to change into. There was also a huge zinc basin where they told him he could wash his rags later. Finally they told him that after the shower he could sit down for a snack, a light meal, Hannko Vogulian said, nothing to give him a stomachache, Myriam Umarik clarified, so you can recuperate physically before you start eating properly.

  Kronauer could feel their unwelcoming eyes on him. He avoided looking up at them. He was afraid more than anything of fainting again, he didn’t want them to have to lean over his inert and smelly body once more. The scenery drifted around him, the iron door that resembled a boiler-room door, black and heavy, the high tiled walls, the cement floor, the strong lights all turned on. He was now by a small table and a wood bench that had a bar of soap, a brush, and the basket with perfectly folded clothes.

  He walked past the zinc basin, then took off his coat and set it on the ground. The room seemed overwhelming and large. Along the bottom, the wall was covered with green porcelain, which was the only decoration here; the rest of the room was completely white. Large mold stains covered the ceiling. Eight shower heads came out of the wall on the left, with drains painted red below. They were spaced widely enough to allow each user to wash without bothering either neighbor, but there was no divider between any of them.

  Myriam Umarik watched Kronauer’s curious eyes.

  —These were the prison showers, she explained. There were once prisoners here.

  Suddenly the girls became talkative. They wanted to talk with Kronauer before his shower, whether to update him on the kolkhoz’s business, or maybe tease him, or in any case indicate his unimportance compared to them.

  —After a rekulakization attempt, Hannko Vogulian said, long ago. We hadn’t been born yet. It was before the kolkhoz was renamed Radiant Terminus. If the Organs hadn’t gotten involved, it would definitely have been the return of capitalism and all the muck that goes with that. This was used for two or three years as a reeducation center. Then Solovyei became president and it was all shut down.

  Myriam Umarik went on.

  —During the accident, it was reopened, she said. We needed a place to pile up the irradiated things while waiting for the Gramma Udgul’s warehouse to become operational.

  —We found so much useless irradiated stuff on every corner, Hannko Vogulian added. We had to store it all somewhere.

  The two daughters’ chattering echoed through the room. They made Kronauer dizzy; he didn’t need this avalanche of words to give him trouble.

  —We keep calling this the prison, Myriam Umarik said as she swayed her hips, but nowadays we use it more as a community house. Nobody’s really living here. Sometimes Solovyei comes here to take a shower, when the one in the Soviet is clogged.

  Kronauer finally had a pause in conversation to ask something he needed to know.

  —What about me, am I a prisoner? he asked.

  —A prisoner, no, but you’re under Solovyei’s watch, Myriam Umarik said.
<
br />   —What does that mean, under his watch?

  —Oh, it doesn’t really mean much at all, Hannko Vogulian said. He just holds power of life or death over you, nothing more.

  Myriam Umarik held up an arm and leaned against the doorframe. The gesture stretched her blouse and accentuated her large bosom.

  —You’re under his watch, solider, she said. You’re not in prison.

  —The window in your room doesn’t open. The door locks.

  —Be careful, the water gets boiling hot sometimes, Hannko Vogulian said. You have to turn the cold water knob all the way. If there’s one thing we don’t need more of in this kolkhoz, it’s hot water.

  —Because of the core, Myriam Umarik explained.

  • After the women shut the door behind them, Kronauer undressed and got under the pipes. He decided to stand under the fifth shower, in the middle of the room. He took Hannko Vogulian’s advice, turning the cold-water knob all the way, and the water, although it was very warm, didn’t scald him. It smelled strongly of gravel, with an aftertaste of something that had to be iodine or cesium.