MARKA-K-COAL, used for coking, comes from the nearby Rudniy mine. It is neither fat nor dry, not stony, not sandy, not granular. It is everything at once and nothing special and utterly despicable. True, it has a lot of anthracite, but no character. Supposedly it’s the most valuable grade of coal. Anthracite was never a friend to me, not even an annoying one. It was sneaky and difficult to unload, as if you were jabbing your shovel into a knot of rags or a tangle of roots.
The yama is like a train station, only half-covered and just as drafty. Biting wind, piercing cold, short days, electric light even at midday. Coal dust and snow dust mixed together. Or wind and rain slanting into your face, with thicker drops coming through the roof. Or singeing heat and long days with sun and coal until you drop. Marka-k-coal is as difficult to pronounce as it is to unload. The name can only be stuttered, not whispered like the name for gas coal: gazoviy.
GAS COAL is agile. It comes from Yasinovataya. The Ukrainian nachal’nik softens it into HAZOVIY. But to us it sounds like: hase-vey. And that sounds like a hare in pain. Which is why I like it. Every car contains walnuts, hazelnuts, corn kernels, and peas. The five chutes open easily, with the mere swipe of a glove, so to speak. The hazoviy rustles five times, very easy, slate-gray, clean, no waste rock. You watch and think: this hazoviy has a soft heart. Once it’s unloaded, the grate is as clean as if nothing had passed through. We stand overhead on the grate. Below, in the belly of the yama, must be whole mountain ranges and chasms of coal. The hazoviy gets deposited there as well.
My head has deposits of its own. The summer air trembles over the yama just like at home, and the sky is silky just like at home. But no one at home knows I’m still alive. At home Grandfather is eating cold cucumber salad and thinks that I am dead. Grandmother is clucking to the chickens, scattering their feed in the room-sized shade beside the shed, and thinks that I am dead. Mother and Father may be at the summerhouse in the Wench. Mother is wearing her homemade sailor suit. She’s lying in the tall grass of a mountain meadow and thinks that I’m already in heaven. And I can’t shake her and say: So, do you love me. See, I’m still alive. And Father is sitting in the kitchen, slowly filling his shells with shot, tiny balls of tempered lead for hunting hares in the waning summer. Hase-vey.
How the seconds drag
I went hunting.
Kobelian had left me alone out on the steppe, in the second waning summer, and I killed a steppe-dog with my shovel. It let out a short whistle, like a train. How the seconds drag, when a forehead has been split in two, right over the snout. Hase-vey.
I wanted to eat it.
There’s nothing here but grass. But you can’t stake things with grass, and you can’t skin things with a shovel. I didn’t have the tools, and I didn’t have the heart.
Or the time. Kobelian was back, he’d seen what I had done. I left the animal just the way it was, how the seconds drag, when a forehead has been split in two, right over the snout. Hase-vey.
Father, once you wanted to teach me how to whistle back to find someone who is lost.
On yellow sand
Sand can be any shade of yellow, from peroxide blond to canary, or even with a tinge of pink. Yellow sand is tender, it makes you sad to see it get mixed in the gray cement.
It was late in the evening, once again Kobelian was taking Karli Halmen and me out for a private delivery, this time of yellow sand. He said: We’re going to my house. I’m not building anything, but the holiday’s coming up and, after all, people aren’t animals, you have to have a little beauty, a little culture.
Karli Halmen and I understood that yellow sand meant culture. Even in the camp yard and at the factory they strewed it along the pathways after spring and fall cleaning. The ornamental spring sand was for the end of the war and the ornamental fall sand was for the October Revolution. May 9 was the first anniversary of the peace. But neither the peace nor the anniversary was of any use to us, here in our second year in camp. Then came October. The ornamental spring sand was long gone, carried off by the wind on dry days, and washed away by the torrents of rain. Now the yard was strewn with fresh yellow fall sand, like sugar crystals. Sand to beautify the great October, but by no means a sign that we’d be allowed to go home.
Not all our deliveries were made for beautification. We hauled yellow sand by the ton, the construction sites devoured it. The sand quarry was called the kar’yer. It was inexhaustible, at least three hundred meters long and twenty to thirty meters deep, nothing but sand everywhere. An arena of sand inside an open quarry of sand. Enough to serve the entire district. And the more sand that was hauled, the higher the arena grew, as the quarry ate deeper and deeper into the earth.
If you were khitriy, or clever, you steered the truck so it backed right into the slope, then you didn’t have to shovel the sand upward, but could casually load it on the same level, or even comfortably scoop it down into the bed.
The kar’yer was fascinating, like the imprint of some giant toe. Pure sand, not a crumb of earth. Layers of sand, straight and level, one on top of the other: wax-white, skin-pale, pallid-yellow, bright-yellow, ochre, and pink. Cool and moist. As you shoveled, the sand fluffed up, drying as it flew through the air. It practically shoveled itself. The truck was quickly filled. And because it was a dump truck, it unloaded itself as well. So Karli Halmen and I stayed behind in the quarry until Kobelian came back for the next load.
When he did return, he lay down in the sand and stayed that way while we loaded up. He even closed his eyes, perhaps he fell asleep. Once the truck was full, we gently nudged his shoe with the tip of a shovel. He jumped up and stomped over to the cab. The imprint of his body stayed in the sand, as if there were two Kobelians, a hollow one lying down and another standing by the cab, with damp trousers. Before he climbed inside he spat twice into the sand, grabbed the steering wheel with one hand, and rubbed his eyes with the other. Then he got in and drove off.
Now Karli and I let ourselves drop into the sand and listened to it trickling around us, felt it clinging to our bodies. The sky curved overhead, a grassy scar marked where it met the sand. Time was still and smooth, a microscopic twinkling all around. Faraway places came to mind, as if we’d escaped and belonged to any sand anywhere in the world but not here in this place of forced labor. We fled by lying still. I looked all around: I had managed to slip below the horizon without danger and without consequences. The sand cradled my back from below, and the sky drew my face upward. Soon the sky became blind, and my eyes pulled it back down and my head was filled with its motionless blue through and through. I was blanketed by the sky and no one had any idea where I was. Not even homesickness could find me. In the sand, heaven did not set the time in motion, but neither could heaven turn back the time, just as the yellow sand couldn’t make the peace mean more than it did, not after three years, and not after four. We were in the camp after the fourth peace anniversary as well.
Karli Halmen lay facedown in his own hollow. The scars left from the bread theft shimmered like wax through his short hair. The sunlight lit up his ear, revealing the red silk of tiny veins. I thought about my last rendezvous in the Alder Park and the Neptune Baths with the twice-my-age married Romanian. How long had he waited for me that first time I didn’t appear. And how often did he wait before he realized that I wasn’t coming back the next time, or the time after that, or ever again. It would be at least half an hour before Kobelian came back.
And once again something raised my hand, I wanted to caress Karli Halmen. Luckily he helped me out of my temptation. He raised his face—he had bitten into the sand. He chewed the sand, it grated in his mouth, and he swallowed. I froze, and he filled his mouth a second time. The grains spilled from his cheeks as he ate. And the sand left the imprint of a sieve on his cheeks and nose and on his forehead. And the tears on both cheeks left a pale brown string.
As a child I’d take a peach and bite into it, he said, then I’d drop it on the ground so it would land where I’d bitten. Then I’d pick it up and
eat the sandy spot and drop it again. Until all that was left was the pit. My father took me to the doctor because I wasn’t normal, because I liked the taste of sand. Now I have more than enough sand and can’t remember what a peach looks like at all.
I said: Yellow, with delicate fuzz and a little red silk around the pit.
We heard the truck coming and got up.
Karli Halmen began shoveling. Tears were running down his face as he filled his shovel. When he sent the sand flying, the tears ran left, into his mouth, and right, into his ear.
The Russians have their ways, too
Karli Halmen and I were once again riding across the steppe in the Lancia. Steppe-dogs darting off in all directions. Tire tracks everywhere, flattened bundles of grass, lacquered reddish-brown with dried blood. Everywhere swarms of flies, parading over squashed fur and spilled entrails, some with a fresh blue-white sheen like coiled strings of pearls, others bluish red and half gone to rot, and others withered, like dried flowers. Some dogs had been hurled to the side of the tire tracks, seemingly untouched by the wheels, as though asleep. Karli Halmen said: When they’re dead they look like flatirons. In no way did they look like flatirons. How did that ever occur to him, I’d already forgotten the word flatiron.
There were days when the steppe-dogs didn’t fear the wheels as much as they should. Perhaps on those days the wind whooshed like the truck, and the similarity confused their instincts. As the wheels approached they’d start to run, but in a daze, not at all as if their life depended on it. I was certain that Kobelian never took the trouble to avoid hitting a steppe-dog. And equally certain that he had never hit one, never caused one to whistle underneath his wheels. Not that you would have heard its high-pitched squeal—the Lancia was too loud.
Even so, I know how a steppe-dog whistles when it gets hit by a truck, because I hear it in my mind on every trip. A short, heartbreaking sound, three syllables in a row: ha-se-vey. Exactly like when you kill one with the shovel, because it happens just as quickly. And I also know how at that spot the earth trembles in fright and sends out ripples, like a fat stone falling into water. And I know how your lip burns right afterward, because you bite into it when you strike with all your strength and kill with one blow.
Ever since I left that one dog lying there, I’ve been telling myself that you can’t eat steppe-dogs, even if you don’t feel a trace of compassion for the living ones or the slightest disgust for the dead. If I felt either, it wouldn’t be about the steppe-dogs but about me. The disgust would be with myself, for hesitating out of compassion.
But if we have time on our next trip, if Kobelian lets Karli and me out of the truck even for a little while, just for as long as it takes him to stuff three or four sacks full of young grass for his goats. Only I don’t think Karli Halmen would do it, not with me there. I’d end up wasting several minutes trying to talk him into it, and then it would be too late, even if we did have enough time. I’d have to tell him: There’s no reason to be ashamed in front of a steppe-dog, or in front of the steppe. I think he’d be embarrassed in front of himself, at least more than I would be in front of myself. And more than I would be in front of Kobelian. I’d probably have to ask him why he was making Kobelian out to be some kind of standard, and tell him that if Kobelian were as far from home as we are, he’d undoubtedly eat steppe-dogs too.
Some days the steppe was covered with brown-lacquered crushed bundles of grass that looked as though they had appeared overnight. And overnight all the clouds had melted away. The only things left were the skinny cranes in the sky and the wild, fat blowflies on the ground. But not a single dead steppe-dog lying in the grass.
What do you think happened to them, I’d ask Karli. What are all those Russians doing, walking through the steppe and bending over and sitting down like that. Do you think they’re just resting, that they’re all tired. They have a tangled nest inside their skulls just like we do, and the same empty stomach. The Russians have their ways, too, I’d say to him. And they have all the time they need, they live here on the steppe. Believe me, I’d say to Karli, Kobelian doesn’t have anything against eating steppe-dogs. Why else would he keep a short-handled shovel in the cab next to the brake—after all, he picks his grass by hand. When we’re not with him, he doesn’t just stop to pick goat grass. I’d say all that to Karli, and I wouldn’t be lying, because I’d have no idea what the truth was. Even if I did know, it would only be one truth, and the opposite would be another. Besides, I’d say, you and I are different when we’re with Kobelian than we are without him. And I’m different without you. You’re the only one who thinks you’re never different. But when you stole bread you were different, and I was different, and all the others, too—but that I’d never say to him, because it would sound like a reproach.
Fur stinks when it burns. Hurry up and build the fire, I’d say, if Karli Halmen did decide to join in, I’ll skin the animal.
Another week had passed. Karli Halmen and I were once again riding across the steppe in the Lancia. The air was pale, the grass orange, the sun was turning the steppe into late fall. Night frost had sugared the steppe-dogs that had been run over. We drove past an old man. He was standing in a whirl of dust, waving to us with a shovel. It had a short handle. A sack was slung over his shoulder, it was only a quarter full and looked heavy. Karli said: That’s not grass he’s getting. If we have time on our next trip, if Kobelian lets us out of the truck even for a little while. I know Kobelian wouldn’t mind, but you, you’d rather be tenderhearted, you’d never join in.
They don’t call it blind hunger for no reason. Karli Halmen and I didn’t know much about each other. We were together too much. And Kobelian didn’t know anything about us and we didn’t know anything about him. We were all different than we are.
Fir trees
Shortly before Christmas I was sitting next to Kobelian in the Lancia. It was getting dark, and we were making another illegal trip, this time to his brother’s. We were hauling a load of coal.
Cobblestones and the ruins of a train station marked the beginning of a small town. We turned onto a rough, crooked street at the edge of the settlement. Behind a cast-iron fence a cluster of fir trees stood out against the last band of light in the sky, black as night, slender and pointed, rising high above everything else and very distinct. Kobelian drove past two houses and pulled up in front of the third.
When I started to unload the coal he gave a relaxed wave as if to say: Not so fast, we have time. He went into a house that was probably white but which the headlights had turned yellow.
I put my coat on the roof of the cab and shoveled as slowly as I could. But the shovel was my master, it set the time, and I had to follow. And it was proud of me. For years now, shoveling was the only thing left to be proud of. Soon the truck was empty and Kobelian was still inside the house with his brother.
Sometimes plans hatch slowly, but sometimes you make a decision so fast you start acting before you even know you can do it, and that can be electrifying. My coat was already back on. I told myself that stealing could land me in the concrete box, but my feet carried me even faster toward the fir trees. The gate—it must have been an overgrown park or a cemetery—wasn’t locked. I broke off the lower branches, then removed my coat and wrapped them inside. Leaving the gate open, I hurried back to Kobelian. His brother’s house now loomed white in the darkness, the truck’s headlights were no longer on, the tailgate was already closed. My bundle smelled strongly of sap and sharply of fear when I tossed it over my head into the back of the truck. Kobelian was sitting in the cab, stinking of vodka. At least that’s what I’d say today, but at the time I thought to myself: He smells of vodka, but he’s not a real drunk, he only drinks with heavy meals. Still, he could have shared some with me.
When it’s that late you never know what’s going to happen at the entrance to the camp. Three guard dogs barked. The guard knocked the bundle out of my arms with the barrel of his rifle. The branches fell to the ground, on top of my fanc
y coat with the velvet collar. The dogs sniffed first at the branches and then just at the coat. The strongest one, he may have been the leader, bit into the coat and dragged it like a corpse halfway across the camp to the roll-call grounds. I ran after the dog and was able to save the coat, but only because he let go.
Two days later the bread man passed me, pulling his cart. And lying on the white linen was a brand-new broom, made from a shovel handle and my fir branches. In three days it would be Christmas—a word that puts green fir trees in every room. All I had were Aunt Fini’s torn green woolen gloves stashed away in my trunk. Because Paul Gast the lawyer had been working as a machine operator for the past two weeks, I asked him for some wire. He brought me a bundle of wire snippets, all cut to the width of a hand and tied at one end like a tassel. I used his wire to make a tree, then unraveled my gloves and tied bits of green yarn onto the branches, very close together, like fir needles.