The Trace of the Wolf

by Siegfried Wittwer

  "No!" screamed Wdowetschenko. "No!" Desperately, he tried to roll to his side. But his muscles disobeyed him. He smelled burning rubber, hot oil, burned flesh. The demon rolled on, standing threateningly above him. Wdowetschenko felt his senses fade. Suddenly hands were tearing him aside. The demon rolled by, slowed down, finaly stopped.

  He had to be supported by one of his men, and for that he hated himself. He, the strong, self-confident lieutenant colonel, was just a trembling bundle of nerves, dirty, with fear sweat on his forehead. He had smelled the breath of death, and he knew it wasn't the last time.

  ◆◆◆

  When the fireball rose above the barracks, Mischka felt a deep satisfaction, just like a few months earlier when the helicopter had gone up in flames.

  His plan had worked. He stuck a handful of cigarettes lying in the cab to the open filler neck of the tank with duct tape and put a rag soaked in petrol into the opening. The airstream should slowly drive the embers of the lit cigarettes backwards, set the cloth on fire and finally ignite the petrol. In several tests he had calculated the time during which the cigarettes would burn down. The tank was not allowed to explode too early.

  After that he had lifted the dead driver behind the wheel and weighted the accelerator pedal down with a stone, so that the fuel tank truck pushed itself over the road with even speed.

  Mischka had had to choke, because the man already smelled of decay. He untied the bicycle, filled the bags with belongings and food and fastened the rucksack to the carrier, then he was done. Mischka had steered the truck himself up to a hundred yards from the gate of the camp. Then he had jumped off and retreated behind a bush to watch the spectacle.

  Now he cycled back on the road to Surgut as fast as he could. The seventy miles were not difficult for him with the bicycle. His muscles were well trained, and as a student in Moscow he had already covered longer distances by bike. He was also inspired by the feeling of revenge. Nevertheless, he did not become careless and constantly searched the road in front of and behind him for headlights.

  Before dawn he passed the outskirts of the town, made an arc to the north, crossed the Ob and then cycled west again on a side road. When the first rays of sunshine finally pushed over the horizon, Mischka turned into a piece of forest and lay down to sleep in dense bushes. In the distance he heard the gurgling and roaring of capercaillie cocks defending their territories against rivals.

  In the evening he got back on his bike and drove further northwest. He made very quick progress over the next few weeks, although he had to patch the tires several times. Every time spotlights appeared on the horizon, he withdrew behind bushes or trees. A lonely cyclist in the forests of Tyumen would certainly raise questions. It was better that he stayed invisible.

  Beside the road numerous ponds and lakes glistened, which blocked the way for hikers through Tyumen again and again. They were breeding grounds for the annoying pests of the taiga, and Mischka had to rub himself several times with yarrow juice in order to be halfway spared by the mosquitoes. He passed the route of an oil pipeline that ate through the taiga with a width of two hundred yards. In the glow of the early morning he saw oil slicks on the adjacent lakes. In the east, a bright red glow brightened the sky, as if the forest was on fire.

  Anger rose in him. He knew that every year up to two thousand breaches were registered in the pipelines of Western Siberia, which were the result of sloppiness and negligence. Ten million tons of oil polluted this area annually. In addition, the natural gas was flared off here as if the storage facilities were inexhaustible. Forty percent of world natural gas losses were caused by this state. What a waste!

  Mischka stared at the dying landscape. What could cause a person to act responsibly? What could move him to protect nature and life? Love for his fellow men? Love for other creatures and the wonders of nature? The love of life?

  He shook his head. Love is only a delicate plant that can easily be trodden on by carelessness. Of course, as long as you love, you are willing to sacrifice, sometimes even yourself. But if love is hurt, at most you sacrifice the other, and how quickly it can turn into hate and disgust!

  Could the fear of punishment move a person to act responsibly? He doubted it. The powerful of all time have tried to rule with fear. But their subjects had become gap seekers who used every opening in the law to their advantage. Every time they felt unobserved, they followed their dark feelings.

  Does the fear of dying motivate a person to protect life and future? Mischka didn't believe it. Despite all the warnings of the doctors, people drink, eat and inject themselves to death every day. They race across the streets like kamikaze planes and dump radioactive waste right in front of their doorsteps. When it comes to comfort or the unbridled satisfaction of urges and addictions, some are even willing to risk their lives.

  And what about the certainty of a final responsibility before a higher being? He immediately rejected the idea. The political and spiritual rulers of the Middle Ages were convinced of a last justice. Nevertheless, they had been guilty, had given free rein to their desire for power and their lusts, and had trampled underfoot the commandments of humanity and love. If those who know fail, what can one expect from the people?

  So, there's no hope for this world? Will it die because man fails again and again because of man? Will the earth one day drift aimlessly through space, cold, poisoned, dismembered, a memorial to human weakness, drives and egoism? Or is someone shifting the course at the last minute? Can anybody turn things around anymore?

  Mischka suddenly realized that freedom and life on this planet had no future. Shortly before the last catastrophe, when the apocalyptic horsemen are already thundering over the earth, Mischka thought, the political and religious leaders of the world will indeed unite to prevent the downfall of mankind in a last act of desperation. The cannons will be silent, the theological debates will end. The political and religious fanatics will no longer threaten with bombs to enforce their fundamentalist demands. For the first time in human history, life will be something, more than consumption, money, religion, ideology or freedom.

  When mankind looks into the grinning face of death, it will call for a savior full of panic and hysteria. They will endow him with a power through submission and obedience that no man has ever possessed. They will blindly trust his promises of salvation and lynch anyone who does not wear the mark of obedience on his forehead and hand.

  But it won't do any good to people. No miracle will rescue them, no alien will evacuate them from earth cramped in agony. The tortured nature will strike back and tear its tormentors into the abyss. Eternal darkness will spread over the earth and suffocate all life, and the clenched fist of the last defiant will open to a gesture of despair and helplessness and freeze to death.

  Mischka shuddered at those thoughts. He could no longer stand the sight of the dying taiga. It scared him. It gnawed at his hopes and threatened to smother them. He turned and stormed away. The fire of burning natural gases shone behind his back like the omen of the Last Day.

  Shortly before Kasymkaja the frame of the bike broke as he drove through a pothole. Mischka wasn't angry about it. It had done its duty. It was only about three hundred miles to Salechard anyway. He could also manage them on foot. From there he wanted to try to go west by train as a fare dodger. He already had a plan.

  Mischka hid the bike deep in the forest, packed the essentials into his backpack and set off again. At dawn he killed a deer with a bow and arrow. He gutted it and began to dry the meat in the sun. In the evening he dried it additionally over a fire.

  For the next few days he fed on plants and dried meat again, because the truck driver's food supplies had run out. It was like at the beginning of his wandering and hard to get used to.

  At the city of Kasymkaja Mischka had to wander around on the outskirts of the city, but he used the harvest from the fields to enrich his diet. In the meantime he could no longer continue on the road because the traffic between Kasymkaja and Salechard had al
so increased at night. That's why Mischka fought his way through the taiga again.

  He knew that the Ob was not far from the road to the north and wondered if he should build another dugout canoe and paddle down the river with it. He rejected this idea because the Ob here was certainly heavily frequented. The risk of being discovered was too great.

  Three days later he entered a forest when a scream ripped him from his daydreams. Mischka stopped as if rooted to the spot and listened. There again! It was a woman's voice beyond the forest. She screamed as if she was in agony. Then Mischka heard a wild, vicious growl.

  Without paying attention to his own safety, he sprinted through the woods in the direction of the scream, his hands protected in front of his face. When he broke through the bushes at the edge of the forest, he captured the situation at a glance.

  Wolves! He wasn't expecting them in this neighborhood. They had torn two sheep and now tore up their carcasses snarling and panting. A young woman squatted on a birch tree, panicked and clung to a branch. A wolf jumped up the trunk and tried to grab her heel. She screamed and shrieked.

  Mischka had the impression that he knew the leader. He threw the backpack off and ran with big steps towards the pack. "Aljoscha! Go away with your gang! Leave the woman alone! Get lost, I tell you!"

  The male dog let go of the woman and stared at the approaching Mischka with yellow eyes. An evil growl came out of his throat. It wasn't Aljoscha! As if by order, the other wolves also lifted their heads.

  Still running Mischka pulled his batons out of the quiver and let them whirl in his hands. The pack leader started the jump. Mischka pushed the left stick into his stomach and hit him in the neck with his right. He heard the vertebrae break. With a backhand Mischka pulled the right stick over the snout of the next wolf. Groaning he sank to the ground. Then he lay still. With a wild scream Mischka rushed towards the other wolves. As if rushed by all the devils, they turned and ran back into the forest.

  "Get the hell out of here and don't ever come back" Mischka shouted at them with a threatening gesture. Then he turned to the woman who was still clinging to the trunk of the birch tree.

  "It's over." Mischka smiled broadly and stretched out his hand to the young woman. "No more danger. You can come down from the tree. The wolves are gone."

  She did not react, but stared still with big eyes down at Mischka.

  "Don't be afraid," Mischka tried to encourage her. "These two are dead as a doornail, and you have nothing more to fear from the others. They've pinched their tails and they won't come back. Come on, get out of the tree. I'll walk you home."

  Hesitantly, the young woman climbed down from the birch tree and fell into Mischka's arms. She was still trembling all over her body. He held her tight and looked her in the eyes.

  At that moment, his life changed. He was overcome by a hitherto unknown feeling. He thought he was dreaming as he looked into her narrow face with the high cheekbones. Under curved eyebrows, expressive grey eyes filled with tears of gratitude looked at him. Her nose was finely drawn and her mouth soft and full. Black-brown, curly hair fell over her shoulders and made her face mysterious and attractive.

  She might be about twenty years old, Mischka estimated. He couldn't take his eyes off her. His heart pounded up to his neck. He had met many girls in Moscow, but none could stand up to comparison with her.

  "Thank you," she said in a soft alto voice that made his innermost vibrate. Then she pressed herself against him, as if to seek refuge with him. Mischka felt his knees go soft. The smell of her skin confused him.

  She looked him in his face again. The pupils of her grey eyes were bordered with a fine black line.

  "What's your name." Her voice sounded like a melody.

  "Mischka," he replied without thinking.

  "I am Anka Jarew. I live with my father not far from here on the edge of a forest village." She hesitated for a moment, looking at him from head to toe. "You're not from around here, are you?"

  Mischka shook his head. "I've been wandering the taiga for a few weeks. I'm doing survival training and I'm trying to make it by any means I can."

  She smiled at him. One could feel how the fear left her and she became self-confident again.

  "Voluntarily?" she just asked point blankly.

  Mischka couldn't lie to her. He had to keep quiet or tell the truth.

  "Involuntarily," he said as if under confession. Everything just had to come out. "I was chased through Siberia for two years, but now I've shaken off my pursuers."

  "And why are you being hunted? Did you commit guilt?"

  "Yes, I was guilty because I couldn't keep my mouth shut and said what others wouldn't even dare to think."

  "Then you'll be with us in the best of company." She touched his arm and looked at him. Her eyes were glowing. "Come on, I want to introduce my life saver to my father. You'll get along fine."

  On the way to the Jarews' hut, Anka briefly told them why they lived here at the Ob. Her father had been a professor at the university in Leningrad and had made himself unpopular because he did not want to bow to political orders. They had been banished to Siberia without the right to come closer than a hundred kilometers to a capital. Her mother had died of pneumonia in the second winter because she was not allowed to be admitted to a clinic. For a few years now they lived here in this small village near the Ob.

  "You know, Mischka," she told him confidently, "because we have Jewish ancestors, five years ago we were allowed to apply for emigration. We've been given a little hope now. We want to go to West Germany first."

  Mischka felt his heart jump. Before his inner eye he saw his future like a mosaic. Proschin had doubted that love makes life meaningful, but since he had looked in Anka’s eyes, Mischka knew better.

  He now felt compelled to tell more about himself and his plans for the future. Anka hung fascinatedly on his words. He felt something was going on inside her too.

  Suddenly she interrupted him. "You know, Mischka," she suddenly changed the subject, "when you stormed the wolves, with your blond hair blowing, the clubs in your hand, I immediately thought: Like a Germanic hero! And at that moment, I fell in love with you."

  Her openness amazed him. Like in a dream he turned to her, gently took her head into his hands and kissed her on the lips. She returned his kiss, tender and long lasting. Her fragrance, her gentleness and yet her strength beguiled him. For a long time he looked into her eyes.

  "Come," she finally said, "let's go. It's getting late. My father will be worried. It's bad enough for him that I lost those two sheep."

  There was a simple dinner, black bread, butter and cheese, served with hot tea sweetened with honey, but for Mischka it was a feast.

  The professor had immediately welcomed Mischka warmly and, after Anka had told her story, had embraced him like a good friend. You could feel that his daughter meant everything to him.

  Simeon Jarew might have been barely fifty, but his hair was snow-white. The hard life in Siberia and the grief had caused him to age prematurely. Nevertheless he still walked upright and looked at his companion with alert eyes. Chin and mouth betrayed strength of will and determination, while in his eyes goodness shone. He was a man in whose company you could feel comfortable.

  Anka and her father avoided constantly looking at Michail Wulff so that he could behave casually at dinner. Simeon Jarew was nevertheless surprised that this adventurously dressed man had retained a certain amount of table manners.

  "How long have you lived in the wild?" he asked his guest politely.

  Mischka chewed over before answering. "This summer it will be two years."

  "Then you're already an expert in the art of survival!"

  Mischka smiled, reached into the bread basket, sparingly smeared butter on the slice and covered it with cheese.

  "You get a certain experience with time, yes. But still, I'd prefer to live in civilization. You often feel lonely, hungry and cold when you sit in your shelter on rainy days. It's not the big
adventure that some people might dream of. It is a struggle for survival that often reaches the limits of what is bearable. Of course, there were many beautiful moments that I wouldn't want to miss."

  "Have you been alone all this time," Anka asked with big eyes.

  "Most of the time, I was all on my own. However I did meet people a few times who helped me not to be lonely. Last winter I lived with illegal gold diggers, and the year before I lived with a priest in a cave."

  The professor raised his eyebrows and smiled. "With a priest? In a cave? Interesting. So, you lived in a hermitage with a hermit for half a year. Did he convert you?"

  Mischka smiled back. "No, I haven't become an Orthodox. Basically, he's not a hermit either. Alexej Proschin is as much on the run from the regime as I am. They wanted to tell him how far he could practice his faith. He resisted that. He was in a house service with unregistered Christians when the KGB stormed the dacha. Proschin escaped through the kitchen window and has been living in the wild for many years."

  Mischka took a short break, sipped his tea, and then continued: "My pursuers discovered us. One day they were standing in the cave entrance. When they knocked down Proschin, I escaped through a second exit. I was shot at when I was trying to escape in a boat. I played dead and drifted down the river. At that moment, one of the soldiers called out that the priest had disappeared. That distracted attention from me. I don't know if they got him or not. I just hope he's still alive and free."

  You could feel how excited Mischka was, although he made a calm impression on the outside. He just had to get his mind off what was bothering him. Anka and Simeon Jarew understood this with their sensitive manner.

  "We'll ask around the village carefully," said the professor. "Maybe someone knows something about the fugitive priest. In every town there are comrades who run a kind of information exchange. Maybe we'll learn something."

  "Thank you very much," Mischka replied. "It would reassure me if nothing had happened to Proschin. We discussed a lot with each other when there was nothing to do and the winter storms raged outside: about the meaning of life, about freedom and oppression, about the deplorable state of our society and the weaknesses of the communist system ..."