The 14th Day Page 2

  His first emotion on awakening was gratitude that he was here and not back there. He even went to the window to assure himself that what lay behind the early morning darkness outside his apartment was this landscape he’s come to know, dipping and swelling gently, with clusters of thin, resilient pines growing out of red soil; and not the ghostly birches that ringed the lakes in the region where he grew up, those lakes whose deep blue waters mirrored exactly the color of the late autumn sky—the most fleeting memories of that place could bring a heavy sense of dread. Yet at the same time that his eyes confirmed his being here, a huge sorrow welled up inside as he recognized again that he might have to live out the rest of his life in a place where few people have even heard of his country, where they spell its name differently when they spell it at all. I’ll die among strangers. The unspoken words lay like stones in his throat. And still his heart was pounding with terror at the thought of how easily he’d been transported back there. Looking into the darkness of early morning, Vaniok fervently prayed for the daylight, when it would be easier to believe in the truth he’s taught himself since leaving: that the past is dead, that the people he left three years ago no longer exist, his country no longer exists. He has no choice but to look forward, not backward.

  Vaniok takes a deep breath. He looks around: gradually, his world is returned to him. He can even smile at the thought that Jory’s coming here caused his dream. Though you could just as easily turn it around and say the dream was a harbinger of the man who was coming. A man with creased pants who ignores the sunlight and talks about where you’re going to be buried! Vaniok bends down to lift a box, grateful for its satisfying heft. He settles it on a dolly. He’s glad to be by himself again; it’s time to get to work. Pushing the dolly, he already feels better. He gives a cheerful wave to one of the native workers as he passes him. He’s survived worse things than this; he can put up with Jory. Though one meeting a day is plenty for now. He wishes he hadn’t agreed to have a drink with him after work.

  When the time comes, he encounters Jory in the street in front of the warehouse as they’d arranged it. “How did the first day go?” he asks. Though the man has obviously been working, his pants are still unwrinkled.

  Jory shrugs. “Unremarkable,” he says and offers Vaniok a cigarette. He lights one for himself, his head bent toward his cupped hand as if he doesn’t want the fire to be seen, though the day is sunny and the tiny spurt of flame would be lost in the brightness. He exhales and begins walking away from the building, refusing to acknowledge the site of his first day of work here by looking back.

  Vaniok falls into step. The sun is warm on his arms. “I can only stay a short while,” he says.

  “It’s good of you to come,” Jory says. “I appreciate it.” As they move along the streets of this university town where Vaniok has lived for more than a year, he tries to remember what it looked like to him when it was still as strange and unknown to him as it is to Jory; but the other man walks briskly toward his apartment, apparently uninterested in the sights around him.

  “Let me know if I can help in any way,” Vaniok offers. “Do you have everything you need?”

  “Yes, the refugee organization took care of those things.” There’s a tone of finality to the statement. He isn’t encouraging further discussion of this subject.

  The shrubs and bushes are already green though it wouldn’t be spring yet where the two of them come from. “This must be a change for you,” Vaniok says. “After the last place.” After all, they’re now more than a thousand miles south of where Jory came from.

  “Yes,” Jory answers simply.

  “I’ve never been there,” Vaniok says, thinking of snow, of winter sports. “Some people I know went there. I’ve heard some good things about it.”

  “It’s no better or worse than any other place,” Jory says and continues walking. Once again Vaniok is at a loss for something to talk about. They’ve now come to a neighborhood of old houses where students live. Vaniok, who prefers more modern accommodations, feels a heaviness setting in though he isn’t sure it’s caused by the surroundings as much as it is by Jory’s lack of communication. “Did you ever visit the Deep Lakes?” he asks at last. Only after he’s said it does he realize he’s doing the one thing he was determined not to do: talking about the other place.

  “Yes,” Jory says. “I have some very pleasant memories of that region.” He mentions the names of several towns, places Vaniok knows well, names that sound strange on this quiet street in another country. He thinks of screened porches, rowboats bumping against the pilings of a dock, mayflies gathered thickly around streetlamps, the fishy smell of the air in the evening. He has only himself to blame for the pang he feels.

  For some time neither of them says anything and Vaniok looks intently at the street, the houses around them, trying to re-establish the authority of this place. An old brown station wagon goes by slowly, a nearby tree rustles in the breeze, a sweet smell rises from the hedges: they’re not in the Deep Lakes. All at once Jory declares, “The situation in the homeland won’t go on forever, you know. We’ll all be back some day soon.” Vaniok nods noncommittally and they walk on. At last Jory stops. “Here we are,” he says.

  It’s a big dark house no different from a dozen others in the neighborhood and when Jory points it out, they stop for a moment and look at it. Vaniok is glad he doesn’t live here. He hopes the other man’s rooms aren’t on the top floor, where the window set into the angle of the roof looks like a peephole. They cross the weedy sidewalk and climb to the porch. “Please,” Jory holds open the door and Vaniok enters, then follows Jory up a flight of stairs. The air inside is stale and musty; it’s even more so on the second floor. Vaniok is relieved when he sees they’re not going all the way to the top. Nevertheless, the apartment into which Jory leads him is dim and cramped. Vaniok wishes he were back in his own place with its large windows. He could be drinking a cold beer by himself, watching TV without paying attention—the fantasy sharpens his sense of discomfort. There’s something oppressive about this place, it makes him uneasy: he’s on his guard, he feels the need for vigilance, as if he’s in the presence of danger. The room smells dry, there’s a hint of something herbal. His nostrils twitch with recognition and he realizes that if he closed his eyes he could convince himself he was a boy again, in his grandmother’s house.

  When Jory leads him further into the apartment that’s filled with dark wood and heavy furniture, Vaniok can make out pictures of notable people from the old country, a map with the nation’s territory colored purple. On a desk against the wall he can pick out magazines and books that even from this distance he recognizes to be written in the language he learned as a child.

  “This is my little corner of our country,” Jory laughs softly. “Wherever I travel, I take it with me.” Vaniok’s heart is suddenly beating faster, his breath comes quickly; the sense of danger he felt earlier has accelerated. He feels like a criminal who’s been brought back to the scene of the crime. But I’m not guilty of anything, he protests. Trying to recover his composure, he coughs loudly into his hand, then clears his throat. “There’s something in the air,” he says. “I may have caught a cold.”

  Jory smiles. “It looks like you need that drink.” He goes into the small kitchen and Vaniok hears the sound of running water in the sink. Alone in the room, he studies some of the pictures on the wall: the last prime minister as a younger man, with a full black mustache and a chest full of medals; the crafty cardinal, hiding his thoughts even from the camera; a husky-voiced cafe singer from the capital, her large, shadowed eyes foretelling her early death. Everywhere Vaniok looks is some memento of the lost place.

  “Here we are,” Jory says brightly when he returns with a bottle and two small glasses, still beaded with water. In the bottle is the famous amber-colored liquor so beloved in the homeland. “This is good for coughs and sniffles,” Jory says. “Insomnia, indigestion—and if you’re in good health this will preserve it.” His sp
eech is accompanied by sudden, emphatic gestures, unlike his reserve of this morning—it’s clear he’s at home here. But Vaniok is still trying to get control of his own reactions to this room. Maybe he actually has caught a cold: his hands are trembling and to keep Jory from noticing it, he nods heartily. Bringing his hands together, then apart, he takes a step forward, then retreats, his own movements as animated as his host’s.

  He accepts the tiny glass gratefully and holds it between his thumb and forefinger, lifting it so that the light turns its contents into liquid fire. “Ah,” he sighs in anticipation. The fumes of the powerful liquor send forth a flood of sensations—sounds, sights from somewhere else. He doesn’t try to sort them out; he allows them to wash over him. Still he waits for Jory to make a toast before drinking the liquor down in a swallow. He shivers with pleasure, his body instantly calmer now, even though his uneasiness hasn’t left him. Jory has rolled up his sleeves and for the first time Vaniok notices a long scar on the top of his right forearm. He’s determined not to remark on it; he knows there are many scars after the Thirteen Days and people don’t always want to talk about them. “I hope you’ll like it here,” he says. Though he’s said it before, the occasion seems to make it appropriate.

  Jory indicates that he’ll pour another drink and Vaniok nods in agreement. Jory pours carefully and hands the glass to Vaniok. “Thanks,” Jory says, “but I hope it’s a very short stay.”

  “Yes,” Vaniok is suddenly elated. “Yes. May your stay be very short and very delightful.”

  Jory drinks and brings down the glass. “May my stay be delightfully short.”

  Vaniok is feeling better now, the liquor has begun to take its effect and talk comes more easily. “My father owned a boat livery in the Deep Lakes,” he says, as if Jory has asked about his family. “My older brothers were happy to follow in his footsteps. I wasn’t so sure.” For a moment he can see the family gathered for his father’s last birthday in the twilight on the screened porch, the blaze of candles on the cake in the next room. “I think I would have probably joined them in the long run.” Once again he remembers the pleasure of rowing slowly and steadily across one of the lakes, the lily pads bobbing in the wake of the boat. “At least,” he sighs, “I get some outdoor work on this job.” The weight of the memory has already caused his spirits to sink.

  Jory has fallen silent and as Vaniok lifts himself out of the past, he wonders at how easily he got back there—he hadn’t been thinking, he’d just started talking and now he’s managed to make himself sad. Has he done the same to Jory?

  When Jory looks at him his eyes are unreadable. “Yes, what to do with ourselves,” he says deliberately. “The men in gray certainly complicated that problem for us, didn’t they?”

  At the mention of the colonels who seized power, they solemnly declared, in order to save the nation, an impersonal gloom settles over everything in the room. Vaniok listens to the distant sounds coming from the street, sounds of people who don’t have to think about these kinds of things. How lucky they are. Jory, meanwhile, is caught up in his own thoughts. After a moment he pulls himself up. “But I told you about my jar of soil,” he says, “and I haven’t shown it to you. Here, come to the desk.” Vaniok, who’d actually forgotten about it, follows Jory across the room. He slowly opens one of the drawers and extracts a glass jar like the kind used to hold preserves back home. Vaniok can see the dark earth inside; the earlier excitement returns. Jory brings the jar to Vaniok and slowly undoes the lid. When he pulls it away, the sharp smell of the homeland’s soil rushes from its container and Vaniok’s eyes sting.

  “Put your hand into the jar,” Jory urges softly and Vaniok does so. The yielding earth is surprisingly cool, Vaniok’s fingers disappear in the blackness. For long seconds neither of the men speaks. Oddly, no sounds from the outside penetrate the walls of the room. At last Vaniok withdraws his hand, carefully brushing the last grains of soil back into the jar. The silence lengthens, Vaniok waits while Jory closes the cover and turns to put away his container of earth. But even as he does so Jory stops, frozen for a moment, as if he’s forgotten what he set out to do. Bent over the jar, his back to Vaniok, he asks, “Will we ever go back there?” The words are barely audible, it’s not clear whom he’s talking to and Vaniok is surprised by the despair he hears in this voice that until now has been so insistent on their return. In the angle of Jory’s back Vaniok senses the man’s vulnerability and he’s suddenly embarrassed, as if he’s glimpsed some secret Jory hasn’t wanted him to see—it’s as though in this instant he’s looking at the real Jory. The hair on Vaniok’s arms bristles.

  In a moment, though, the other man has put away the jar, closed the drawer of the desk, and he’s facing Vaniok again, apparently his old self once more. “Another drink, maybe?” he asks.

  Vaniok shakes his head. “I really have to be going now,” he says. “But thanks for inviting me. Thanks for the drinks. I know you’ll like it here.”

  Jory walks him to the door. He’s not as cheerful as he was earlier but his cordiality seems genuine. “Thank you for coming,” he says. When he closes the door Vaniok makes his way quickly down the stairs and is glad when he’s finally outside.

  “Jory is very quiet, very reserved,” Ila says. “A man of mystery.” Vaniok and she are having coffee at an outdoor restaurant and he watches the students passing by. They wear shorts and light shirts in the unseasonably mild weather, and walk with loose limbs, smiles on their faces as if they expect to meet only people who like them. Vaniok tries to imagine he’s one of these students, bright futures dancing in his head, visions of parties on the beach where people who will be your friends for life gather around the fire and sing.

  “He’s like the farmer in the sea shell,” Ila says. The two of them are speaking in the old language.

  Vaniok is brought back to the present. He remembers: Ila has been talking about Jory, who’s been here little more than a week. “Farmer?” Vaniok asks. “What farmer?”

  “In the story, silly. The farmer in the sea shell.”

  “Ah, that one.” His grandmother used to tell him the folktale about the young man who’d gone looking for the ocean in a sea shell and had lost himself in its cavernous whorls.

  “I can imagine many women might think they’re the maiden whose whisper calls him out.”

  Vaniok laughs. “He goes around like a man with indigestion.”

  She laughs too but only to be polite, he can see. It’s clear she’s fascinated by this new arrival, and that bothers Vaniok. She probably thinks his remark was crude.

  “You and I aren’t that way,” he says now, trying to be more careful in his choice of words. “Jory is so …” He brings his hands together, pushing them against each other with all the force he can muster.

  “Exactly,” she says. “That’s what makes him so interesting.” The trill of her silvery laughter runs up the back of Vaniok’s neck. He and Ila are distant cousins who only discovered this fact here in the host country. In the months since she’s been in the university town they’ve become good friends, which was easy at first when Vaniok thought of her as a relative and felt protective toward her. But Ila is a strong, independent person who doesn’t need anybody’s protection and gradually Vaniok has come to think of her less as someone who’s distantly connected by blood and more as simply a woman he’s happy to be with. Nobody would call her beautiful but there’s something about her that makes men look at her and keep looking, something more than her expressive face, her clear, fair skin or her compact figure. Vaniok has been with her enough to know that at any moment something can come into her eyes, a sudden darkening, like a cloud-shadow, that makes her seem older and wiser than her years. There’s something else he glimpses at times like this: that she’s determined to reach for what she wants and take it, whatever the obstacles. Catching sight of this look, Vaniok wishes he could feel that way. Now, the sunlight behind her traces a halo of blonde hair around her head and coats her white arm with a fringe o
f golden down. Vaniok wants very much to touch it.

  “But weren’t we all like that at one time,” he insists, leaning forward, “didn’t we all think we were going back there tomorrow?”

  “No,” she says, her almost oriental eyes narrowing. “Once I left there I knew I was never going back.”

  He’s pleased that she seems to be siding with him. “Give our friend time,” he says. “He’ll change.”

  Ila says nothing. Vaniok wonders what she’s thinking.

  “You’re happy here?” he asks. On the plate before him is a torn, hard-crusted roll. “You don’t mind it that people are still asking us to repeat what we say?”

  She smiles. “I intend to be happy wherever I am.” She’s told him of her escape, when she had to lie under the hay in a farmer’s barn, breathless as a corpse, while men with bayonets prodded and poked nearby; and he can imagine her first making that promise to herself as she lay beneath the hay, the sharp bristles prickling her face, the smell filling her nose and making her want to sneeze while the soldiers with bayonets moved by, near enough to touch.

  A well-dressed passerby smiles at Ila. “The men here don’t seem to mind it when you misuse their precious language,” Vaniok says with a frown.

  She tosses her head. “Words aren’t the only way of speaking.”

  He feels a gust of sadness; she doesn’t have much trouble becoming friendly with the people here, she doesn’t have to cultivate a knowledge of basketball. Vaniok falls silent. Countless frustrations throng the moment like hurrying, anonymous crowds. Then he remembers Jory and quotes the lines the newcomer declaimed when they first met: “Blue snow on black limbs … smell of mushrooms hidden in the earth.”

  She looks at him blankly. “I was never fond of poetry.”