Amaury Dreher - Opalescence - The Secret of Pripyat

—Do you often receive guests like me?

—No, unfortunately. Sometimes tourists come here, but it’s very rare. Usually, they just want a picture. Some of the guides I know come by to say hello to me from time to time. I make them pancakes and we chat.

—What do you think about this treasure thing?

She laughed as she moved.

—Nonsense, kiddo, nonsense. There is no treasure. None of this ever existed. You want some more soup? I also have beans for you.

—Thank you for being so kind, but I have to go now.

—Don’t forget your bag!

I packed my things and left the house. In the garden, a pig was in a small enclosure. He waited wisely to be slaughtered and looked at me with his dull little eyes.

The Babushka handed me supplies, insisting for the umpteenth time that I stay a few more days. She’d cook me pancakes and recite Slavic songs. I politely refused while thanking her warmly for her help. I was refreshed and alive. It was time to go on a journey.

I walked away in small steps, a little disturbed by this unexpected encounter and my mind fogged up by the alcohol she had been administering to me all the time. With her axe in hand, Yaroslava shouted at me and let me turn my heels.

Undecided, I continued on my way without a precise destination. The Babushka’s statements about the treasure had alerted me, but I was not discouraged. A mad hope was still burning in me. Despite the events, I paradoxically felt more serene than at the beginning of my expedition. My belongings were finally safe and secure, the bag wasn’t even wet and the Geiger counter seemed to work. I didn’t know what could have caused this miracle. Could Babushka have extracted it from the water?

There were now many paths open to me. I picked one at random and tried to follow him indefinitely.

13th days in the Zone.

I had been walking for several hours while I became exhausted, forcing me to slow down. The nightmares of the day before had diminished me. Moreover, this part of the forest was totally unknown to me. No particular mention had been made of it on the maps I had previously examined. The observation of the sun indicated to me that I had headed north. I explored blindly, captivated by the unexpected nature of my discoveries.

The woodland ornaments followed one another in a splendid fresco of which I was the witness. The atmosphere was singular, the forest seemed lethargic, almost asleep. The calm was deafening, even my boots didn’t make the snow crunch.

A fierce cry resounded. My pulse accelerated suddenly. I barely had time to turn around when I was thrown to the ground in a burst of fury. It was him.

He made a new roar.

The blows were raining down. I lay at his feet like a wounded game that had to be shot and then displayed like a trophy. Dazed, I got up as best I could, surprised that he allowed me to do this. Maybe he was willing to talk? Were negotiations possible? No, he had other plans for me. He grabbed me violently against a tree trunk, cracking the bark by scratching my flesh. The entire ground vibrated under the impact. His dark eyes were staring at me, threatening and motionless. He didn’t say any words, just fixing me. An infinite sadness was emerging from his face. I assumed that a firm and strong hand would smash my nasal artery any second, but he just let go. I fell backwards, at his feet again. Still on his feet, he suddenly turned on his heels and walked away, his silhouette disappearing through the icy mist.

I waited a few minutes for my weakness to dissipate before going after him, following his tracks preserved by the snow.

I thought I had lost him for good when I saw a kind of hut that was similar to his habitat. I had found the Howler, and better still, I had reached his hut.

It was a legend, a myth that the Stalkers liked to tell when they shared cigarettes. Amanda had told me about it, I was almost certain. Few people had actually observed him and even fewer had met him. According to reports, a journalist from Kiev had approached him one day and convinced him to conduct an interview with him. It would have made the headlines in the tabloid press and would have been relayed around the world via the Internet. This was not the case. If the interview had been completed, it was never published, as the author categorically refused to do so without providing any explanation.

Like the Babushkas, the Howler lived on agriculture, fruits picking, hunting and fishing. However, unlike them, he had chosen isolation, the real one. Human relations no longer interested him, made no sense to him. Where the Babushkas rejoiced in every social contact and welcomed the walkers with hospitality, he was terribly misanthropic. His autarky was almost total. His life on the margins of all rationality was a mystery that I wanted to conquer.

Not resentful, I choose to visit him, determined to get to know my aggressor. He opened the door for me before I even had to indicate my presence. Our first meeting seemed not to have taken place as his initial violence contrasted with his sudden cordiality. He had arranged his shack in a fairly comfortable way. Books, many books were there. Randomly and disorderly stacked, they were a kind of warm wall decoration. The place was comforting despite its primary aspect. It was even supplied with electricity.

‘It only works for a few hours a day, but it’s more than enough,’ he asked with a faint smile. Coffee, tea?”

The Howler was stocky and endowed with a penetrating gaze. His shaggy and neglected appearance made him look like an old man. He no longer took care of his appearance. It was useless, no one was supposed to meet him, he had no one to impress. Fact that troubled me, he was almost the same age as my father. Her daughter was born in Pripyat, in the large hospital where my mother worked. The small family then moved to Kharkiv. The Howler told me his misfortunes: his only child had died of rubella, his wife had killed herself the day after the decease. According to her posthumous letter, she had attached herself to a bag full of stones and then jumped into the river. Her body had never been recovered.

After the death of his daughter and wife, the Howler had fallen into severe depression. His heart had become as hard as a stone. Every material possession, every dream of prosperity became futile and insipid. Only images of his past, of his then happy existence, haunted him. Nostalgia had poisoned him and was slowly attacking him. The abundance of happiness that was exerted around him made him anxious. He wanted to escape the peace of others. He had therefore chosen to return to find the only thing he had left, his native land.

“My anchoring in this world,” he said.

Only loneliness helped him to survive. If he hadn’t come home, he’d already be dead.

“My daily life was all about hesitating between hanging and gunshot suicide. I was laminated. ‘He explained.

As our discussion progressed, I felt that I was gaining his trust, that he didn’t hate me in particular and that he needed to talk. I made him my friend, there are too few of them in the Zone. I decided to spend several days with him, I wanted to learn, exchange, and above all understand his way of life.

The Howler’s daily life was structured by simple but essential activities. He would pick blueberries from the undergrowth, sneak into swamps or climb trees to catch the horizon and decipher the stars. His bestial appearance contrasted with his personality of a calm and curious naturalness. He knew everything about the world he lived in, listening to the radio and reading books brought back to him by the military. He knew perfectly well the company he had sought to desert. He frequently travelled through Pripyat, only at night to remain discreet and make the place his own. It was the only remedy against the voracious melancholy that consumed him. Nostalgia was still alive, it was the only emotion that kept him alive. This inexhaustible need to contemplate his past, to relive through memory the glorious hours of his family, his childhood, these happy times.