Diego Marani - The Last of the Vostyachs

‘First let’s see whether you are up to a roll in the snow. Come on, I’ll race you to the shore and back. The winner will get another glass of vodka.’ Even as he proffered the challenge, Aurtova was still clinging to the dwindling hope that her timely collapse would spare him the evening’s by now inevitable conclusion.

‘You’ve got yourself a bet!’ said Olga, heaving her massive body down from the bench.

Outside, it was pitch black. The distant lights of the city were almost lost beneath the heavy, louring sky. Out to sea, the waves were taking on the ghostly forms of a vast cavern, bristling with stalagmites, strewn with craters and crests as black as lava, concealing measureless chasms. Intending to lose this absurd race, Aurtova allowed himself to be overtaken, running clumsily out of the trees and, reaching the beach, pretending to stumble in the snow. He could just make out the mass of her gummy white body in the faint starlight as she overtook him. When he went back into the cottage, his body was aching and steaming with cold. When he caught sight of his puny white frame reflected in the glass of the veranda, he felt a sudden pang of weakness. Panting, he followed Olga’s damp footsteps into the changing room, then went into the sauna to warm up. Hunched up against the stove, he realised he had a fever: he was trembling all over, and his teeth were chattering. A stab of pain shot through his forehead. He thrashed his back and chest with the branch of firwood, hoping that would get his circulation going. The sauna was cooling down, he would have to get more wood, but was too weak to move. He felt his temples throbbing furiously. Behind them, an overburdened vein was beating wildly, sending blue flashes across his eyes. His limbs felt sluggish and he could scarcely breathe. He fell to his knees, and in the hazy distance saw the wild horde of Pecheneg horsemen coming at him again, urging on their horses with short plaited whips and dragging bloody corpses through the dust, bouncing along like so many sacks. Soon they would be upon him. He could already see their gleaming leg-guards, their spiked helmets, the whites of their glaring eyes, he could hear their animal howls, the whinnying of their terror-stricken horses. He threw himself under the bench, covering his head with his hands, hearing the dull thud of the hooves on the ground. When he recovered consciousness, the room was in darkness, except for a feeble glow coming from the changing room. He did not know how much time had gone by, whether he had slept or fainted. He had pins and needles in his legs, his feet were frozen and his head run through by a thousand needles. He sat up, gathering his strength; propping himself up against the wall, he managed with one last desperate effort to get to his feet.

Stretched out on the bed, Olga drew the sheets up around her, excited by slight wafts of aftershave. Then she discovered the warm nest they came from, the silk pyjamas Aurtova had laid out on the pillow, and sunk her nose into them, rubbing the material so that it would release its scent. Without undoing it, she pulled the jacket over her bare flesh, pressing the soft pillows against her breasts. Suddenly she felt unable to breathe, her limbs seized up in a spasm which shot through her like cramp, as draining as a fit of retching, but more lasting longer. She was panting now, digging her nails into the foam rubber, when she saw a pinkish glow passing in front of the door and heard Jarmo’s steps approaching. She kicked off the covers, pushed away the pillows, stretched out her arms and spread her still trembling thighs over the empty mattress. She waited to feel the candlelight warm upon her stomach, to have Jarmo’s weight at last upon her, the smell of the living man there in her nostrils. But now she felt a new weakness slowly creep over her body, causing the spasm to melt away. Her breasts slackened, her knees buckled, her jaw relaxed, giving her lips back their usual expression of gentle sadness. Olga realised that she was sinking into unconsciousness, but by now nothing could matter less. Jarmo had been hers. In that bed. She had possessed him. No one would be able ever to deny it.

Once he had reached the changing room, Aurtova noticed that the lamps in the living room were flickering and becoming dim. They flickered a little longer, then went out. Now the room was lit only by the almost burnt-out candles on the table. Their faint light was casting shadows on the walls, those of the empty bottles, the smeared glasses, the congealed remains of supper glistening on the plates. The professor strained his ears for some sound of the generator, but it had gone out. He went into the hall, grabbed his jumbled clothes from the coatrack and put them on, feeling his forehead constantly as he did so. Fumbling in the darkness in the kitchen, he came upon the torch, then remembered that it had no batteries. He picked up a still guttering candle and found some aspirin in the medicine chest, swallowed down four tablets, without water, and began to grope his way around the house in search of Olga.

From the corridor, he glimpsed her in the bedroom, on the double bed. She looked like some beached whale, washed up on a river bank. He went into the room, saw that shocking black chasm looming out of the semi-darkness. He sniffed disgustedly at the animal sweat, mingled with the smell of alcoholic breath. Yet some perverse attraction drew him on to scrutinise the abomination from a nearer vantage point. A sudden shudder ran through Olga’s blubbery frame. Aurtova drew back in alarm, seeking refuge in the gloom, but almost at once all movement ceased, and her body became as ominously motionless as before. Aurtova lifted the candle to peer at her face in its feeble light. She opened her eyes and smiled, as though waking up from some pleasant dream.

‘You’re so handsome, Jarmo! The older you get, the more handsome you become!’ she murmured voluptuously before sinking back into unconsciousness. The professor gave a sigh of relief; he suddenly felt distinctly less unwell. He waited for a few moments, then shook her several times in a gingerly fashion, taking her by the shoulder with the tip of his fingers, as though afraid of sullying himself. But Olga did not stir. She was breathing more and more quietly, looking more and more unappealing. Shaking with fever, Aurtova crumpled on to the bed beside her and pulled the covers up. That had been a near thing. The sleeping pill had done its work at last. He stayed put, waiting there in the warm until some semblance of strength returned, keeping an ear out for sounds of Olga’s increasingly faint breath. At last he felt strong enough to get up, fumbled around in the gloom, picked up her clothes from the chair and dressed her in them, in the light of the last candle-end, this time forcing himself to touch the spongy flesh more closely, because she had to be correctly dressed, not a hair out of place. He slipped her suit jacket over her silk blouse, zipped up her skirt, did up her belt — with difficulty — at the right hole and laced up her boots, making sure he got them on the correct foot. He didn’t attempt to put on her jewellery, there was too little light to get her ear-rings in and do up her necklace properly. He put it into his pocket, wrapped up in her silk scarf. He found her fur coat in the hall and put that on her too, doing up all the fastenings. He found her black leather bag hanging from the bed-head and rummaged through it warily, until he came upon two tapes, which he put into the inside pocket of his jacket. He picked up all the bits and pieces lying on and underneath the bed, together with the bath robes which had been left in the changing room. He put the lot into the sheets, tied them up and put them in a jute sack. At that point the candle-end drowned in a pool of melted wax, so that now the only light came from the dying embers in the hearth. But Aurtova lay down on the floor and searched every inch of it, then every piece of furniture, every drawer, every nook and cranny to ensure that the cottage would bear no trace of what had happened there that night. He put the remnants of the supper, the glasses, plates, bottles and the little jar of green pills into another sack, together with the cooking pot and candlesticks. He doused the embers with a few handfuls of snow, and raked the ashes with the fire shovel. He checked the outside lumber room. Feeling for the generator in the dark, he saw that there was a split in the tank. That was why it had failed: the petrol had leaked away, making a puddle outside on the ice, which he concealed by covering it with fresh snow. Then he dragged Olga outside and laid her on the back seat of the car, together with the sacks, started the engine and drove, without the headlights, down to the shore, where the ice was hard and he would leave no trace. Then he went back and looked around the cottage, securing all the locks. He fixed the rubber watering hose to the tap in the lumber room and directed the jet upwards, using the hand pump. The water fell back on the ground like gravel, covering the tyre marks, and Olga’s footsteps in the patches of snow along the shore. It proved time-consuming work. Finally he sprayed the doors and windows, which were instantly covered with glistening droplets. He put the hose back in the lumber room and walked in a wide circle on the ice, over the frozen sea, to go back to his car. He checked his watch: it was exactly midnight. He started up the engine and drove slowly to the quay at Koirasaari, still without turning on the headlights. He stopped near the ballast in the tourist port, where the tyre tracks of the snowploughs left their marks as they drove up from the beach. There he opened the car door and let Olga’s body tumble out. He continued along the shore, beyond the lighthouse and back again on to dry land. At the first lights of Varisluodonkari he drew up at the verge and took off the chains.