Diego Marani - The Last of the Vostyachs

Ivan was walking cautiously, breaking the crust of the snow with his heels so as not to slip. He did not know where he was going, but some deep instinct seemed to be guiding him. A strip of blackness was approaching from among the clouds which were flying off towards the open sea, making a sound like timber shattering. Soon he found himself among the marble trunks of a birch wood. Above him, the branches cracked like whips at every gust of wind; then they would wave around without touching one another, crackling in the air as though they were about to catch fire. Ivan came to a stretch of coast lit up by faint lights which trembled against the sky. Trapped in the ice, a landing-stage ran from the water’s edge, only to disappear into the snow-covered dunes. Inside the wood, beyond the black posts of an enclosure, he could hear something moving. He bent down, sniffed the air and moved into the lee of the wind, to find that the posts had wire netting attached to them. He went around it, without touching it, until he came to the trunk of a big broken pine. He climbed up it, sat down on the thickest branch and observed the landscape below him. It had stopped snowing, but the wind was now blowing harder, dislodging lumps of snow from the pine branches. The thuds they made as they landed sounded like the footsteps of some huge, mysterious creature crashing around in the dark wood. To the west, the cowl of smoke obscuring the sky was lifting, revealing gritty-looking clouds. Then suddenly a red gash rent the horizon, sending out a glancing light which broke against the trunks of the birches. In the enclosure, the wolves’ eyes glinted briefly in the sunlight. Then the snow was once more engulfed in sooty shadow, and the wood sank back into darkness. It had all happened very quickly, but Ivan had had time to glimpse the white breath thickening beneath his tree, to hear the wolves whining, then curling up below him. He put his drum on his knee, picked up the bone drumstick and began to play. Quietly at first, brushing the bone against the still cold skin, bound tightly to the fir-wood frame. Then more loudly, allowing his whole body to be taken over by the powerful rhythm which seemed to issue from the earth itself, locked beneath its crust of snow. The animals in Korkeasaari Zoo had never heard the men of the tundra playing the drum. They had been born behind bars, had fed on lumps of frozen meat tossed into their enclosures by the zookeepers; yet that compelling, full-throated beat drew them all from their lairs. They peered around them, nostrils aquiver to catch the scent of the being who was calling them. Then the bear turned in its sleep and let out a roar, the wolves began to howl, scratching at the bark of the viburnum bushes, the reindeer cantered nervously around their pen, sending their manger flying; there on their perches, the arctic falcons spread their wings, the lynxes gnashed their teeth and dug their claws into the stakes of the fencing and the owls, their feathers ruffled with alarm, peered with blind eyes into the gathering darkness.

Hearing life rustling around him, Ivan played more and more loudly. He was sweating now, his whole body was shaking and he heard a deep sound of song welling up from within his body, becoming louder still as it floated clear of the trees. Still as statues, the animals listened to its ancient words. They were in awe of the being which knew all their names, whose drum could mimic the mysterious beat which came from the depths of the earth. After a time, his arms aching unbearably, drunk with exhaustion, his head swimming, Ivan climbed down from his tree and stretched out in the snow. The only sound now was the wind as it soughed through the wood. Then, in the gathering darkness, Ivan saw the child again. It was a long time since he had paid him a visit. How had he managed to follow him all that way? Ivan would have liked to ask him. But he knew that spirits cannot speak. You have to look at them for a long time in silence in order to understand what they have to say. Ivan thought of his distant forest, of the stony track above the mountain stream, of his own people, imprisoned in another world. He should never have abandoned them. They needed him. Olga had promised him that she would take him home. But where was Olga? Why had she left him in that evil city? And where was that great and ancient tribe which was his own? Ivan felt that the path leading up from the woods, beyond the lake, into the tundra, was lost to him forever; as were the stumpy shapes of the Byrranga Mountains, which reminded him of a deer’s head, and those two pointed rocks like a hare’s ears. That land where, for a little time, he had been happy, where the shade of his father was always at his side, taking the form of a tree or a silent bear, whose voice spoke straight to his own heart. New gusts of stronger wind were now blowing in from the open sea; it was one vast wilderness, but on occasions the glassy crests of the waves would give out a liquid light. The child had disappeared. Now Ivan knew what he had come to tell him. He must go back: before it was too late, before the voice of his people vanished forever and became one with the howling of the wolves.

Squatting against the trunk of the pine, Ivan waited till total darkness fell. Perhaps he slept, perhaps he had fainted from exhaustion. He was awakened by the sound of icy fragments being swept along the ground. The blizzard had died down. The north wind had driven away the clouds and now the air was clear. In the distance, beyond the dark strip of sea, the city lights were causing the shadows to dissolve into a mass of green. Out in the open sea, the solid ice would catch the light and glint like quartz, then be swallowed up in even greater darkness. An abyss of fragile stars had opened up in the sky, and it was as though the icy breath which was keeping everything motionless came straight from them. Ivan followed the fencing round the enclosure and found himself by some hothouses. He rubbed at the glass, hoping to see inside, but it was pitch black. Further on was a restaurant. Blue lights on the walls lit up the chairs which had been piled on to the tables, and on the pile of sunshades and deckchairs heaped up against the veranda. Ivan followed the row of street lamps and saw a lighted window in the distance.

One hand in a packet of potato crisps, the watchman was sitting in an armchair and drinking a can of beer, waiting for the hockey match to start on television. He had taken off his shoes and was stretching out his feet in front of the stove, enjoying the sensation of rubbing one big toe against the other. Ivan crept past the window, avoiding the lamplight that fell around the entrance to the watchman’s lodge, and vanished into the shadow of a block of low buildings. He opened a door at random and found himself in a tool-shed. He selected an axe, a knife and some rope, put them into his sack and, on leaving the shed, also picked up the pair of cross-country skis which the watchman had put for safe keeping behind the door. Thus equipped, he went back to the enclosures, each of whose entrances was lit by a small lamp. The first he freed were the wolves. On hearing someone approach the netting, they all began to howl. But when they heard the bolt being drawn, they stopped howling and rushed towards the gate, stopping short in front of Ivan in some alarm, sniffing the air cautiously, as though they feared a trap. Lowering their ears, they trooped out almost furtively. They didn’t move off straight away, but paused for a moment to observe the Vostyach warily, snarling as they did so. Then their white breath disappeared into the darkness. The wild llamas moved in a pack, one serving as a lookout for them all. They did not discover that the gate was open until Ivan had reached the enclosure with the pandas. Then they ran out, stretching their necks in glee, ambling past the watchman’s lodge and hesitating in puzzlement before galloping off into the open. When Ivan broke the glass of their neon-lit monkey-house, the baboons started to chatter in unison, then rushed en masse to the top of the mangy tree growing in the centre of the enclosure. The little ones took advantage of the situation to leap on to the tractor tyre which hung from the tree on a chain, and stayed there, swinging to and fro, heedless of their mothers’ impatient cries as they came down to haul their infants unceremoniously upwards. Ivan watched in delight as those tiny, hairy, man-like creatures clung to the branches, sticking out their tongues at him and gesticulating, uttering uncouth squeals as they did so. His entrance into their warm, evil-smelling cage was met with a shower of excrement and rind. Ivan beat a hasty retreat and went to open the next gate. He had never seen black and white striped horses before. With a wave of his arm, he gestured to them to leave their pen, but they slithered hopelessly over the icy ground, lashing out randomly with their hooves and breathing nervously through quivering nostrils. The lynxes on the other hand shot out in a flash, following the arctic foxes and the chamois, which had sniffed danger in the nick of time. The Siberian tiger let out a fearful roar as it leapt down from the artificial rock into which its cave was set. Then it stood there motionless, jaws agape, staring at the expanse of sea before slipping silently into the darkness. The walrus, the mountain goats, the rabbits, the owls and the wolverines did not notice that their cage doors were open, some because they were in a state of hibernation, others because they had no idea that they could simply walk away. But, on what was recorded as the coldest night in Helsinki for fifty years, all the creatures in Helsinki Zoo had the opportunity of a lifetime.