Ethan Rutherford - The Peripatetic Coffin and Other Stories

“Hope’s where you find it,” Albanov says. “Death’s a pale horse. That’s why you can’t see it coming over the ice.”

“What is this, the witching hour?” Yevgeni says from across the hold. Albanov snorts.

Gradually a line is drawn. In the main cabin sleep those who have decided to leave; those of us who are staying sleep in the galley, where we take warmth from the stove. The two groups interact as little as possible, and we have stopped helping Albanov with his preparations. Each group is conscious of what abandonment means: they are leaving us to our death, and we are letting them walk to theirs.

Brusilov is unconcerned. On April first, with the Saint Anna still firm in the pack, he feigns surprise to find Albanov still aboard. “I thought you were taking half my crew and leaving to waltz across the ice,” he says.

Albanov spits. “Your insouciance is high comedy,” he says.

“As is your surprise at finding ice in the Arctic,” Brusilov says, before returning to his cabin.

Ten days later, two sledges are loaded with 1,200 pounds of supplies. They take rifles and a shotgun, sleep-sacks, four tents, canned meat and biscuits. Brusilov has kept a log of everything loaned to his former navigator and has made clear that it’s to be returned upon their rescue from Cape Flora. Albanov makes no indication he’s heard.

There is a small gathering on the ice to see them off. Brusilov remains in his cabin. We help them check the sledges and then they take up the harnesses, seven men per sledge, and begin their journey. We help push for the first thirty feet and then wish them well. After ten paces or so, Albanov turns and drops his harness. The speech he’s clearly rehearsed begins like this—“To those of you remaining aboard the Saint Anna ”—and ends like this: “Never before have I seen such a lazy acceptance of one’s own demise. Russia mourns her sons and how they conduct themselves.”

We’re taken aback. Yevgeni tells him to enjoy being frozen while searching for his islands. Dmitri reminds them to use salt and to think of rabbit when they finally resort to eating each other. We part ways.

Vlad and I stand on deck, watching the fourteen of them make incremental progress to the south. The latest estimation places Franz Josef Land at 235 miles away. The floes stretch like negative space continents on the map. The first night, we can see their tents on the ice from where we stand at the rail, but after three days we see no trace of them. “Lunatics,” Vlad says. “Think of those tents.”

“Think of this tent,” Yevgeni says. But we’ve made our choice. We are here, now, aboard the ship, and we will see what comes.

What does come: in May, readings place us farther north than expected. We express our anxiety by burrowing in our sleep-sacks. If there’s nothing to do, we stay put. If there is something to do, we are petty in remembering past work, and refuse to do more than our share. We turn on each other for imagined slights. If asked to move, we grumble about it, or pretend to sleep.

“What’s the matter with you people?” Brusilov says. He’s come into the main cabin, and is holding a stay that’s snapped in the wind. “You going for the If-I-Don’t-See-It-It-Doesn’t-Exist approach?”

“Does anybody else hear something?” Yevgeni says. “I swear I’m hearing something.”

On a certain day a little later, Yerminia Zhdanko ventures into the galley to boil water and Pavel is up like a flash, asking why she can’t wait for tea like everyone else. She looks shocked and suddenly ashamed. Dmitri chimes in by telling her to drink as much as possible because who cares. Pavel turns and asks if the tea has Dmitri written on it, at which point Dmitri stands and Yerminia Zhdanko juts her arms between them. “Stop,” she says. “Stop. It’s not for me. It’s for Eugene. He’s sick.”

Pavel stammers a response that gets caught in his throat.

“Pavel, you see what kind of person you are?” Dmitri says, suddenly proud of himself.

Yerminia Zhdanko makes the tea. Those of us near the galley watch for a glimpse of unexpected skin and are once again disappointed. “I’m trying to help,” she says. “He’s sick,” she says again as she carries the tea from the galley, like there is nothing in this world that could make her understand us.

A month passes with no change. We’ve augered in. The days wash over us, we care without caring, but then: leads are spotted, breaks in the ice, some distance to the east. It’s Vlad who sees them, and sends word below. We are up in a hurry. Dmitri jogs the gangway, his eyes on the horizon. Yevgeni hogs the telescope. We jostle for the best view.

“Are they anywhere else?” someone says.

We crane around. “No, just to the east,” Dmitri says. “But there they are.”

Relief is palpable. “Are you wetting yourself yet?” Vlad asks Pavel.

“It’s within the realm of possibility,” Pavel says.

Ignore a problem long enough and it solves itself. Hole up in the wind and the storm will blow over you. I think of Yuri, somewhere out there, on foot in the frigid expanse, hulking his sledge up one ridge and then down another, his goggles frozen, fingers black and dying. We were right to stay. In all likelihood, everyone who left the ship has perished. It is early for hunting—the polar bear are still in hibernation—but it’s agreed that, if there are seals, it would do everyone well to have some fresh meat. Dmitri and I elect to go, along with Vlad, Pavel, Batyir, and Yevgeni; it will be a hunting party of six, half the remaining crew.

We set off the next morning on skis, rifles slung over our backs, empty sledge in tow. I am, unsurprisingly, the slowest. Dmitri, at first, waits for me but soon tires of it and moves ahead to join the others.

The leads are farther away than they appeared, and we cannot see them from the ice. At noon there is still no sight of them and there is talk of returning, but we press on, due east, following the compass. The Saint Anna recedes until only her two masts are visible, dark against the sky. Then they disappear from sight. Eventually we find a lead and track it east. After two miles it opens into a polynya, a wide hole in the ice through which we can spot the sea. We keep going until the solid ice gives way to grease ice, which won’t support our weight, and stop.

After a year it is overwhelming to see water, and there is the sudden realization that it is everywhere under us. “I had, I think, forgotten,” Dmitri says. No one responds. The polynya is roughly half-a-mile around. The water is black against the ice, and calm. We stand still long enough to notice a small swell, the seawater lapping gently against the surface ice around the perimeter. It sounds like sand being raked. We had come to understand the ice as an immovable fact of our lives—something that could not be negotiated with, whose endlessness would prove our undoing. But in fact here we were, at its end.

We take off our skis. There are no seals anywhere in sight. “But who cares for seals?” Batyir says. “Look at this miracle.” We look at the miracle. The polynya will open wider and wider, fattening the leads until the floes drift apart and we’re released to drift in the current, catch the wind, and return home. We remain at the edge of the polynya for an hour without talking until Vlad checks the sun and it’s decided we should return to the ship. And it’s when we’re restrapping our skis that the surface of the water suddenly churns in disarray. We swivel in time to see seals beating it out of the water onto the grease ice. There must be hundreds of them; the sound of their emergence is deafening. A number of them are pups. “Miracle number two,” Dmitri says.