Read an Excerpt
PART ONE
DENYS
1.
It happened at the end of August 1977… I had just
turned eighteen then. I was dreaming about fame. And
I knew it would come. It wasn’t about some kind of
temporary ascent onto a pedestal in the small space where
I lived then. It wasn’t about the applause of the audience
that forgets you the next day. No. I sensed that some
kind of mission was there for me, the mystery of which
I needed to solve. But for the time being it was being
generated somewhere deep inside me, as though beans
had germinated in a damp cheesecloth – we did that kind
of experiment in biology classes in school. All thirty-five
students grew beans on their window sills, and after a few
weeks brought the results to school. I remember well that
my sprout was larger than the other ones. It happened a
long time ago in the sixth grade. But after my experiments,
I understood what and how things develop inside me.
And I patiently waited. So patiently that I tried not to call
unnecessary attention to myself – while I couldn’t care less.
For the time being.
I finished school, quite easily got into the scriptwriting
program of the Department of Film (my exam film
script turned out to be better than the opuses of already
experienced and much older prospective students, and they
kept it for a long time in the department as a particularly
successful sample). After learning the admission test
results, I went for a small vacation to the mountains, to a
tourist hostel at the foothills of the Carpathian Mountains.
In fact, this was a cinematographer’s hostel to which all
my future classmates went – an announcement about
unused student passes hung in the hall of the Institute. We
didn’t know each other well yet. We were united by the
common spirit of the recent exams, during which we all
crowded around jovially by the doors of the classrooms,
clamorously saluting each lucky individual.
All this was behind us. We arrived at the tourist
hostel little by little, without making any arrangements
beforehand with each other, and ardently reveled at each
familiar face. They put us up in small wooden buildings,
and we immediately began to explore the territory, finding
out where the dining room, swimming pool, and movie
hall were along with the closest Silpo general store, where
you could buy the cheapest port wine.2
We felt we were grown up and experienced. We tried to
communicate with each other in a loosey-goosey way and
uttered the names of our idols like good buddies. We gave
each other a Western name, that’s why I was immediately
christened “Dan.” My roommate, accordingly, was called
Max.
Dan and Max – two cool guys, the future geniuses
quickly ran over to the Silpo general store and loaded up
on several bottles of strong “ink.” We drank like fish since
our grade school days and… like juveniles – nothing more
expensive than cheap port wine. To be truthful, a little later
I was sorry I had gone there....
The mountains turned deep blue in the distance, and it
seems they were glimmering, enveloped by the torn white
silk of an evening veil. And I was forced to sit on a hard
bed, chugging the port wine and listening to the chitchat of
my acquaintances. When we all started to get sick (no one,
of course, complained and we tried our best to maintain
our dignity), we began to take our turns going out “for a
breath of fresh air.” I finally managed to tear myself away
from the smoky room and, already no longer in a hurry, to
stroll along the grounds of the camp.
This was quite a quiet little spot. Or else it appeared
that way at the end of the summer. Behind the curtains
of the cottages a dusky light shimmered, vacationers were
sitting in spots on the verandas, from an open “green”
movie hall the sound of the music from a film echoed.
It seems like it was the movie Yesenia.3 Altogether it was
disorder and havoc. Just beyond an old-fashioned fence in
pseudo-baroque style, the shaggy black forest murmured
alluringly, and from it a powerful wave of freshness and
anxiety rolled onto me. It was already quite dark. Simple
sculptures of girls with oars and other body builders
snowily-whitely shone on both sides of the alleys like
ghosts. Almost all the benches were “toothless,” and all the
lamps “blind.” I walked up to the end of the alley, sat down
on a bench, and pulled out my cigarettes from my pocket.
And nearly right away I noticed the flash of a red glow
across from me… If I had not been drunk then, and if, like
the wine, the drunken feeling of the euphoria of an entry
into a new life had not been playing inside me – nothing
would have happened and would not have caused a chain
of events that would pursue me my entire life.
But I was drunk. That’s why I saw something… A
silhouette, etched by the light of the moon resembling an
incorporeal, empty outline in the total darkness. A woman
was smoking a cigarette in a long mouthpiece. She slowly
raised the small red glow to her invisible lips, inhaled, and
for an instant the silvery smoke filled her entire outline, as
though it were sketching her body from the inside.
And then, with the last small cloud of smoke, it, this
body, once again melted into the darkness.
Jeez!
I strained my eyes and comically waved my hand
before my nose, chasing away the apparition.
“What, you got scared?”
The voice was husky, but so sensuous that I got goose
bumps over my entire body, as though the woman had
uttered something obscene (even later I couldn’t get used to
her voice: whatever she talked about – the weather, books,
movies, food – everything sounded sweetly-obscene, like
candor).
“Well no… I’m fine…,” I mumbled.
However, the damp night and the appearance of the
mountain summits that were blackening in the distance,
and this little red light, and the wind – so saturated and
fresh – sobered me up. I tried to get a good look at the
woman who was sitting across from me. No use. Maybe
at that moment I was already completely blinded by her.
A similar thing happens, for example, with mothers who
aren’t able to honestly judge the beauty of their own child,
or with an artist, for whom the most recent canvas seems
to be a work of genius.
“Are you staying at this resort house?”
I couldn’t have thought up anything more idiotic to
say! It’s the same as if you were to ask a passenger after
the plane takes off, “Are you also flying in this plane?” But
I itched to hear that voice again.
“Do you like it here?” I continued.
The glow flashed even brighter (she took a drag) and
slid down (she lowered her hand).
“Do you know where I like it?” I heard (goose bumps!
goose bumps!) after quite a long pause. “There.”
The tiny glow of her cigarette flicked in the direction of
the forest.
“I haven’t been there yet…,” I said. “I arrived just
today….”
“Strange!” The fire in an instant flew into a bush and
went out. “Let’s go! There’s a hole here in the fence….”
By the rustle of her clothing I understood that she had
gotten up and took a step in my direction.
“Give me your hand!”
I stretched into the darkness and stumbled on a chilly
palm. I got goose bumps again. Her hand was hearty, not
soft.
“E-eh, you’re completely drunk!” She started to laugh.
I got up, trying to keep steady. We were the same height.
I was able to discern something more or less definite: an
elongated figure, a dark, possibly black shawl that covered
her shoulders… But nothing more. And I also could smell
her scent.
Back then I still didn’t know the scent of expensive
perfumes – they got them from under their skirt on the
sly, girls I knew for the most part used the overwhelming
Scheherazade or the highly concentrated Lily of the Valley
brands. And here suddenly a wave of a fragrant aroma –
bitter and dizzying – wafted in on me. Involuntarily I
clenched my teeth and pressed her hand more tightly.
Giving in to her will, I swiftly moved toward a dead end
where the fence stopped. There really was a big black hole
in it, which I didn’t notice right away. Without letting go of
her hand, walking after her, I bent my head down sharply,
and we ended up on the other side of the tourist hostel on a
wide plain that was overgrown with tall grass. We walked,
buried in it up to our knees. Again I tried to look over the
woman who had commandingly led me by the hand like a
little boy. Her long black shawl covered her from head to
toe, the length of her hair was also unclear to me – it flowed
with her shawl and in full sight was just as black and long.
Not even once did she turn back toward me. It seemed she
was completely indifferent to whomever she was dragging
behind her.
I strove not to fall and not to lag behind, so I began to
look beneath my feet more often, and the wild vegetation
reminded me of the sea that rolls powerful, fragrant
waves and just about drags you to a depth, from which
you can’t swim away.
My head was topsy-turvy. The night, a thin crescent
of the moon above clouds, mountains, goose bumps all
over my body, intoxication, this unknown woman…
Everything seemed to be phantasmagoric. I cherished
these kinds of adventures. I couldn’t imagine what would
happen further! Maybe wild sex in a clearing in the forest?
Who was this woman? Why and where was she taking me?
How old was she, what does she look like? What does she
want? We walked up to the slope of the mountain covered
in trees that rose above the clearing like columns next to the
entrance of a pagan temple. The gloom again swallowed
her, and from the forest the particular thick scent of resin
wafted. The woman led me beyond the fence of the first
stand of large pine trees, from which the forest began, and
leaned up with her back against one of the trees.
“Wonderful, isn’t it?”
I barely caught my breath and looked around. Really, it
was wonderful! It was as if we had ended up in the bowels
of some great living organism, some fairytale fish. The trees
were its twisted muscles, it breathed through the treetops,
and somewhere inside, in the depth, slowly, its heart beat.
I even could hear this rhythmic, uneasy sound.
“It’s alive. Do you sense it? During the day it’s all not
quite like this….”
She clicked her cigarette lighter and for an instant I saw
the semicircle of her cheek and the flash of her black pupil.
Then once again the red glow began to dance in front of me.
“What’s your name?” I asked, persistently thinking
how this strange adventure might end.
“What’s the difference? Especially now….”
The red glow traced an arc and disappeared. And again
I sensed that I had been taken by the hand and dragged
somewhere higher. We walked so quickly, as though we
were escaping after being chased. I heard her intermittent
breathing. At a certain moment things got uncomfortable
for me. Branches of trees that I didn’t manage to brush
aside from time to time smacked me in the face.
Finally, we made our way even higher and stopped.
Everything repeated – her merging with the tree, the red
glow.
This time with wonder I looked below: we had come out
of the maw of the beast, and in the distance the outlines of
the closest village were being painted by vague little lights,
intersected by the golden line of the river. From here, the
thick tops of trees that grew below seemed like clustered
storm clouds, along which you could walk as though on
dry land. I completely came to my senses and breathed
avariciously, enjoying the strange taste of the air, which
I was able to appreciate just now. Together with this air,
rapture filled me. How good it was that I had torn myself
away from the stifling room, stumbled upon this woman,
and she led me on such a wonderful stroll! I understood
that two weeks of my vacation would be wonderful. I
turned back, I wanted to thank her….
The glow disappeared. I walked up to the tree where
she had just been standing. I had even touched it with my
palm. No one there!
“Halloo,” I hailed quietly, “where are you?”
My voice echoed unusually in the darkness. Somewhere
not far away a night bird began to flap its wings. I walked
around each tree, each bush. A mad thought entered my
brain that somewhere she had spread out her shawl, had
lain on it and was waiting, so that I’d stumble on her body
more quickly.
