The Fantastic Worlds of Yuri Vynnychuk

by Yuri Vynnychuk

  We pressed hard on the little guy—how did he make his way so far?

  “Unc took me.”

  “Which uncle?”

  “He came and said: Come to me, I’ll give you some really nice toys, and you give me the baby rabbit. I gave him the rabbit and we set off, and he gave me the rocks. Dad, where are the rocks? Show me.”

  I took a handful of the rocks out of my pocket and only then looked closer at them—they looked like diamonds. My wife gasped.

  “Do you understand anything?”

  “The same as you.”

  “Who could it be?”

  “Maybe that stranger who peeped in the windows.”

  “But those rocks... They’re like diamonds.”

  “They’re similar... Andriyko, what did that old fellow tell you?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Did he tell you how to get home?”

  “He showed me. He left, and I sat down and played. Will you give me the rocks you took?”

  I gave him some of the rocks and put the rest in my pocket.

  “Tomorrow I’ll be in town, so I’ll drop by at the jeweler’s.”

  “Listen,” Khrystia got scared, “better go to Slavko. Don’t just go to anyone. What will you be able to explain to a stranger if they’re really valuable—you’ll get into trouble.”

  “Could be anything... Maybe there’re some kind of mines in the valley.”

  “If not, who’s gonna believe your drivel? Some old guy gave them to you! Try to explain then which old guy.”

  Slavko was struck dumb. To be sure he surveyed the rocks under his magnifying glass.

  “Where did you get them?”

  “Khrystia’s grandmother left them to her.”

  “Keep on lying. Well, this is your business. If you’d like, want me to sell them?”

  “No, what’re you... family heirlooms.” “What the devil are they good for you? You’ll just hang onto them? Let me sell them.”

  “Ya know, I never shoot craps with the law, and don’t plan on doing it now.”

  “A dopey priest must’ve baptized you! If you change your mind—come to me. Do you know for how much! He-he... Here, my friend, for a good... ahem... twenty thousand.”

  Even though Slavko always kept the real value down in such cases, the sum stunned me. Because I didn’t show him everything.

  11

  After returning home I decided to walk to Kryva Dolyna while it was still light out. The key to the riddle was hidden there.

  The fog curled and foamed, the valley was swathed in it, it was impossible to see anything, and I stopped in desperation, without knowing what I had to do next.

  “I knew you’d come.”

  The voice emanated from beside me, from the densest part of the fog, and within a moment I could discern a familiar figure that moved to meet me.

  “A-ah, it’s you,” I nodded to Kalenyk, sensing the tension fall, because I was expecting someone else.

  “What are you looking for here again?”

  “I want to figure out who made the trade for my son’s rabbit.”

  “That’s easy to explain—I did it.”

  God, what a dope I am. Of course the little guy would have never gone with a stranger and wouldn’t have called him uncle.

  “But why you? What’s this to you? Who are you?”

  “We flew here from another planet and landed in this valley. The first living creatures we saw were rabbits. We made a mistake. We thought the inhabitants of earth all looked like this... It was so long ago... I was really little then. My parents and their companions took the form and shape of those beings you saw here. Because rabbits had died out long ago on our planet... They left me by the machine, and left the valley, moving close to your settlements. The locals started shooting at them, chasing after them with dogs... Then they understood their mistake. The ones who were shooting looked just like they did... they were the same kind of people. Nothing different about them. The frightened “rabbits” ran back to the valley, so that with the help of the machine they could return to their true appearance. Only now it was too late. Your people had beaten them to it and destroyed the machine... This was during World War I. They could have taken it for some kind of tank or something...

  “But what happened to you?”

  “They took me with them! And raised me.” “You mean those rabbits are the descendents of those who came from your planet? And the lights?”

  “The lighted dome that you observed is a receiver we constructed to finally inform our people back home about the fate of the expedition. In fact, it was I who made it, because no one else, since they were in rabbit form, could construct anything. But they knew how to make it and supervised my work. All their hope lay with me, so they never broke contact with me, never let me forget who I was... Day and night my whole waking life I worked on that transmitter. This was without having the slightest clue how it should look. I worked and the rabbits gave me signs when something was wrong. From early childhood I learned to understand their squealing... But the work pushed forward very slowly because they, knowing quite well what the transmitter is made of, didn’t know how to make most of the parts. They had seen them only in finished form. The years passed. The war began. I went to the front. It seemed all their hopes had been dashed. And I could have been killed... Can you imagine what they endured during that time? Fortunately I survived. Maybe only because I had to survive... I returned home and my house was gone. It had burned down. And the drawings had burned up, and the parts. I was forced to start from scratch again...”

  Kalenyk began to smoke, and I noticed how his fingers trembled.

  “...from scratch,” he repeated. “I thought I wouldn’t be able to finish it. Till finally it was ready two years ago, and we began to send signals. And recently they answered. They’re already flying here. Tonight they take us back to our home planet.”

  “You too?”

  “Me too.”

  “But you have a family here...”

  “But my homeland is there.”

  “One that you barely remember.”

  “I remember... I never stop dreaming of it.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?” “I couldn’t. I wasn’t sure whether our attempts to signal would succeed. I was already losing hope.”

  “But then I would have never dared hunt the rab... that is, your... eh...”

  “That’s why I tried to scare you. And not just you... I have a request. I want you to be there when they arrive for us. So you can tell my family that I... I’m very sorry to be leaving them... But I don’t have much time. I want to die where I was born. Do you understand?”

  I nodded my head. The old man’s eyes got teary.

  “They’ll take us away. They’re obliged to take us,” he said with a cracking voice while walking away and disappearing in the fog. I sensed in his voice still painful doubt, he wasn’t able to hide it in front of me. Of what was he unsure? Here I recalled that he didn’t explain everything, but maybe it wasn’t worth bugging him. He had to be with his family a bit. Tonight he will leave them forever. Only he will know that he’s parting, and they’ll act as usual. He will catch every movement with sadness, every word, trying hard to remember, in his mind he will embrace them, draw them near, and there’ll be tears on his cheeks, and they’ll ask what’s wrong, and he’ll keep silent, but this will just be his farewell.

  12

  When it grew dusk I couldn’t sit in the house any more.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m going for a walk.”

  She still didn’t know anything.

  “There again?”

  “This is the last time. Promise.”

  “Your promises! I know them!”

  I puttered around the house a bit until Khrystia took the little guy to put him to bed, then I made my way to the valley.

  Kalenyk’s receiver was already working. I looked in the sky and besides the star that was pulsing earlier, I saw
one more bright tiny dot growing before my eyes. I didn’t take my eyes from it.

  Someone touched my shoulder.

  Kalenyk stood beside me with a knapsack on his back.

  “They’ll be here soon.”

  “What kind of vehicle can it be to fit all of you?”

  “Rabbits don’t take up a lot of space,” he laughed. And there was bitterness in his smile.

  “Rabbits?”

  “Obviously they’ll turn them back into people only back there, otherwise we wouldn’t all fit.”

  “Somehow you’re not very happy.”

  “Cause I’m leaving everything I know and love, instead something I love is waiting for me, but it’s completely unknown to me... True, it’s beckoning so strongly... It’s almost terrifying.”

  We grew silent for a minute. The bright little dot grew and grew.

  “Then, be well,” Kalenyk said and extended his hand. “Remember me sometime... Tell my family to dig under the shed in the right corner... The same kind of rocks are there.”

  “What can they do with them if they don’t explain where they got them?”

  “You can say you found a treasure!”

  “Why didn’t you do that?”

  “When? When I was digging up a hiding place for the transceiver I came across the wreckage of a flying ship, and the rocks were there... Well, o.k. Gotta go. And you hide here so they don’t see you.”

  Once more we clasped hands, and he lowered himself into the depths of the valley, and I crawled into a bush and sat on a stone and began to wait. Without delay a saucer as big as a house hung over the valley. Above that saucer was another smaller one, in the middle it was lit up and completely transparent. Two people sat in it next to the point of embarkation. When the saucer touched down, one of the people descended into the lower part of it and opened the door. A stripe of light streamed out from the door. The man shouted something. Right away a bustling ensued, from every which way the rabbits rushed, knocking into one another to crawl into the doors.

  The man grew angry, and when the coil of rabbits got stuck at the entrance, he cursed and kicked it.

  Kalenyk appeared and began to explain something to the man, gesticulating hastily, but evidently the man didn’t want to listen, because he just cursed and waved his arms. All the rabbits already were inside the saucer, but Kalenyk continued to argue over something, pointing somewhere behind his back. There in the illuminated stripe that stretched from the saucer, a rabbit was bustling about as though he were looking for something. The man pushed Kalenyk away in anger and rushed to the rabbit. The rabbit ran up to him and began to squeal and wave his paws. The man grabbed him by the ears and carried him to the saucer. The rabbit no longer squealed, but screamed frantically. The man shoved him inside, returned to Kalenyk and pulled him to the door. The old man grew obstinate and said something further, pointing in pantomime. Some individual words floated to me:

  “...a child... you understand... small... it’s...”

  Here the second man appeared, the two of them forcibly dragged Kalenyk into the machine and shook the door. They raised themselves into the upper part of the saucer.

  You could feel a slight humming, the saucer began to pulse.

  Suddenly I became terrified—the upper part began to separate symmetrically from the bottom. The men on the top acted quite calmly. Maybe they didn’t notice? I bolted to my feet and wanted to throw myself at the machine to inform them of the accident somehow, and one of the men at that moment bent over and looked down, then he turned to his companion and nodded to him. His companion laughed in answer. It was clear that everything went according to plan.

  But which plan? The upper saucer gained height and when it had risen above the valley and the trees that were growing on the crest, and the noise of the engines settled down, I heard a knocking and a din that echoed from the lower saucer. There they were knocking on the door, attempting to break through. But it was in vain. Then I understood—they had been fooled! But before I could think how I could help the unfortunate ones, an explosion reverberated—the saucer left on the ground flared up in a blinding flame and instantaneously flew apart into bits. When it struck me in the bush, I just managed to cover my head with my hands...

  ...I got up—darkness reigned in the valley. And there was dead silence. High above, the star pulsed.

  13

  THE NEXT MORNING AT DAWN

  Burnt stems of bushes, blackened ferns and vast amounts of shattered scrap iron. And among all this, blood and dead rabbits. Completely mutilated tiny bloody bodies.

  Kalenyk lay crumpled, face down to the rocks. I turned him over face up and saw his glazed wide-open eyes, in which astonishment and despair were frozen. From his left upper arm to his chest a red gash darkened.

  I sat down beside him and pulled his knapsack to me. I could have expected to see just about anything at all there, even a garlic sausage sandwich. But instead it was stuffed with white packets that instantly crumbled between my fingers. Kalenyk was taking seeds to his homeland: hollyhocks, sunflowers, snowball berries... At the very bottom I felt a book. A tattered often read The Kobza Player opened up in my hands, and from it a packet of paper fell out. From the very first words it became clear what I had come across—this was a decoding of the signals that had come from space.

  Notification–1. The expedition TI-NA-TI–1918. You, as planned, took on the appearance of the local population. As a result of a mistake turned into four legged rodents. The apparatus was destroyed during an armed encounter. Awaiting confirmation.

  Notification–2. From the 1918 expedition one person is still alive. The rest were born after the accident. There is a total of 800-850 of you. All of you want to return to your homeland. Awaiting confirmation.

  Notification–3. To your request to settle in the region of Nida we answer: that city no longer exists. Designate another place.

  Notification–4. Hardia answers: “We can’t accept you.” Name another place.

  Notification–5. Pelifia answers: “We can’t accept you.” Name another place.

  Below were the names of several more cities, which rejected accepting the refugees. All of this looked like a bad joke. Obviously their countrymen just delayed while hot debates went on, whether it was worth accepting the refugees at all. What could have made them hesitate?

  Nearly seven decades had passed—during which time life on their planet could have changed substantially and, judging by everything, not for the better. Therefore the carriers of their culture were hardly desirable, for they were raised by parents who still remembered better times. Requesting them each time to name a different place, at the same time they were testing them: just how well the future repatriates knew their homeland.

  My thoughts were interrupted by a slight whimpering. I looked around—a tiny rabbit was cringing on a stone. It was trembling and looking at me the way you look at the only being near and dear to you. This look was so human and plaintive that a knot rolled in my throat, and I had to clench my teeth so as not to burst into tears. An unbelievable anger seized me, I cocked my head up into the sky, but it was clear and cold.

  That’s why the rabbit was agitated. No, it must have been a she-rabbit looking for her baby. Kalenyk explained that they couldn’t take off because a baby was missing. But they didn’t understand. Fortunately.

  The spilled packets whitened—hollyhocks, the sunflowers, snowball berries.

  I collected them and put them away in my backpack.

  That’s it.

  What else can I do?

  I go home with my backpack and the rabbit.

  The farms were already waking up, and when I got to the top of the hill, I heard the crowing of cocks, the barking of dogs and the snorting of motors.

  Eight o’clock. All was peaceful.

  This valley was so deep and distanced from the farms that no one noticed either the explosion or the blinding flash of fire. A wide black torn-up crater remained in the place where the flying sauc
er had stood, and its swept out remains had completely burned up.

  Who will believe my account?

  For everybody else Kalenyk’s notes would just be the ravings of an old man.

  The only witness to the tragedy was just a small gray ball of fur that will never be able to speak. It leans trustfully against my chest and gazes into my eyes. It thinks, perhaps, that I’m one of those who is able to stand up for the truth, or at least not walk away from it.

  But I’m not that way.

  I’m ordinary.

  “What happened?!”

  She’s startled by the way I look.

  “Kalenyk blew up on a mine there in the valley .” “What?! When?!” “At night, must have been. Go to them... tell them...”

  “My God!”

  Tired, I sit myself down on a long bench, not letting the tiny rabbit from my hands.

  “Daddy! Daddy! You brought me a baby rabbit?!” Andriyko jumps with joy; I can’t hold back and smile through my tears.

  “Oy! You brought me the same rabbit!”

  He takes him into his hands, kisses and cuddles him.

  “Daddy, can I play with him?”

  “You can.”

  “And with the rocks, too?”

  “You can.”

  “But Momma took them away and said I can’t.” “I’ll give them to you right now.” I open the dresser and throw out the rocks onto the floor.

  “Momma said they’re really-really valuable, that you can buy a car with them.”

  “Momma was kidding. You can’t buy anything for them. They’re ordinary rocks. Go ahead and play.”

  “And if I lose them?”

  “Lose ‘em. They’re ordinary rocks. You won’t even get a cup of sunflower seeds for them.”

  The Snail Chronicles

  1

  The wind blew stronger, and the wide river surface was covered with spots. Somewhere the cold glazing of trees, of the sky; in a moment they will appear again. In the cotton of clouds, in the crowns of willows tiny fish, tadpoles shimmered.

  There is my reflection in the water. What a jelly-like look I have! Eye-glasses swim on my cheek-bones. I try to put a stop to their oscillation, but instead they flow, squeezing through my fingers and—plop-plop—in the water: the circles run and run away... then it’s peaceful again. Only father extended his arm and said: