Bjorn and Olga walked around the Circle carefully, avoiding the sitting and standing.
“He’s so little and defenseless — his heart beats in such a fragile, wounded chest, his breathing is so heavy...I’ve got to carry him, carry him to his place...warm him against my chest with my warmth...defend him with my breath.” The words throbbed in Olga’s head.
“Help, help everyone with anything I can...be peaceful, my tiny little brother...I will help you...my body, my heat, my will shall help you. I’ll hold you and protect you...I’m strong, I’ll be able to...my blood, my muscles, my bones will serve as a support, lean on them...lean on them...” Thoughts flared in Bjorn’s brain.
They walked and walked around the Circle.
And suddenly in front of them hands rose up: This way! They were being called. Bjorn and Olga went. Sister Tse stood near two empty spaces. Nearby in the Circle stood Ev and Aub. The three of them had kept places for Bjorn and Olga.
“Stand with us,” whispered Tse.
She trembled slightly.
Bjorn took his place on the left side of Tse, Olga on the right. The bluish light shone from below on Bjorn’s and Olga’s naked bodies. They froze in place, holding the infants.
The words “good and peaceful...right and inevitable...true and irreversible” were pounding in Olga’s temples.
“Help and defend...carry out and withstand...begin and complete” pounded in Bjorn’s temples.
The Circle was gathering. The naked, semi-illuminated crowd was dispersing, disappearing and being absorbed by the Circle. The harmonious, perfect Circle swallowed the chaotic crowd. The chaos of searching bodies was replaced by the calm of places found: the figures lit with blue stood still, becoming immobile. Fewer and fewer searchers remained.
Bjorn and Olga stood in their places, holding the smallest to their chests and staring in a trance at the bluish Circle that extended far out on the island, stretching to the night horizon in a scarcely discernable blue thread and smoothly returning, standing next to them again in the immobile figures of brothers and sisters.
Time seemed to be compressed: each moment could become the last.
There were no more searchers near them. On the right everything was smooth and clean. It was only on the left that a few lone bodies ran about, searching for their place. But then everyone on the left settled down as well, distributed themselves, and calmed down. Some people’s spines sparkled in the distance; shadows flickered on the marble. And everything grew quiet, motionless.
Bjorn and Olga stayed completely still.
Terribly long minutes passed...
Everything grew COMPLETELY quiet.
The Circle closed.
Absolute silence hung over the island. Even the tide couldn’t be heard here. The warm night breeze died down.
Bjorn and Olga were still. Their bodies seemed to have turned to stone in the bluish light. They stopped breathing. For they heard the Earth. It stopped in anticipation. The Circle had gathered. The Earth lay on all sides of the Circle. The stars shone over the Circle.
Everything was ready.
And suddenly Sister Tse’s broken whisper sounded.
“Turn them. Heart to the center...of the Circle...”
Bjorn and Olga shuddered and came to. They understood what was wanted of them. In the Circle everyone stood and sat facing the center. Only the two tiny ones slept, pressing their faces to Bjorn and Olga, turning away from the Circle. Olga and Bjorn gently turned them, holding the infants’ delicate backs to their chests.
And suddenly arms stretched out, from the left and the right. But not to hold hands with Bjorn and Olga. The hands of Tse, Ev, and Aub carefully held the tiny fingers of the infants. Bjorn’s and Olga’s hands were needed to hold the tiny ones.
The Great Last Circle was ready.
And an invisible, powerful, irreversible wave coursed along it: 23,000 hearts, which had been restraining, resigning themselves all these last days and nights, let themselves go.
And the Great Last Circle began to speak.
And 23,000 began to speak for the last time.
Bjorn and Olga froze again. A rapturous terror embraced them. They felt that the Circle had begun to speak.
The hearts of Khram and Gorn, Uf and Odo, Shua and Efep, Stam and Atrii spoke. For the last time the hearts of Ak, Dke, Bork, Rim, Mokho, Ural, Ikos, and Ar spoke. And the tiny, entirely inexperienced hearts of Khozheti and Moohn also spoke. Their little bodies quivered in the hands of Bjorn and Olga as the invisible wave passed through them.
And the Circle filled with Words of the Light.
And the secret Words flowed through the Circle.
And the Words passed their judgment.
And they corrected the Great Mistake of the Light.
And the brothers and sisters spoke in the language of the Light.
And 23 times they spoke.
And the last, 23rd Word was uttered.
And the Earth shuddered.
God
The light blinded Olga.
She squinted. And opened her eyes again: the rising sun shone on the horizon.
Olga lifted her head with great difficulty: she was lying on her back. She stirred. Each movement — hard, excruciating, as though after long years of hard labor. Her head felt heavy and empty inside...she pressed her palms against the cool stone. Squinting from the sun in her eyes, she began to rise. Suddenly she froze: on her chest lay an infant. He was dead. Olga stared at him, confused. The infant lay between her breasts. The rising sun illuminated his small, blue body. On his tiny chest was a dark spot of dried blood and a large bruise. Olga looked at the infant. He was cold. And recalled a wax doll. On the infant’s head were thin, fair hairs. The morning breeze stirred it.
Olga tore her gaze away from the dead child and looked around. She lay naked on white marble that stretched all the way to the horizon of the rising sun. And close by...lay the Brothers and Sisters of the Light. They lay flat on their backs, motionless.
Olga took the child off her chest and placed it on the marble. Moving was incredibly hard; her entire body hurt. She rose up on her knees, braced her legs, and stood up.
The entire huge Circle in which the Brotherhood had stood during the night now lay on the marble. Fair-haired men and women lay flat on their backs, their arms stretched out at their sides. The row moved smoothly along a parabola into the distance, toward the horizon of the rising sun, and, describing an enormous circle, returned again to Olga. The first in this circle of bodies was a young man and a middle-aged woman with short reddish hair. The very one who had directed them yesterday, told them where to stand and what to do...now she lay in motionless repose on the marble. The woman’s mouth was open; her face was frozen in a convulsion of suffering; her eyes were half open. Swaying, Olga leaned over and took the woman’s hand. Her hand was cold. Olga placed her fingers on the woman’s neck. Her fingers touched lifeless, cool flesh. The woman was dead. Her half-open eyes stared at the clear blue sky.
Olga turned her gaze to the right. There lay a young man. She recognized him: Michael Laird. The very one who had met them in Guangzhou, who had spoken about the Brotherhood, who had given them drugged sake to drink. The one who had met them at the elevator at the top of the skyscraper.
Now he lay naked on the marble, his arms flung out. His dark-blue eyes were half open. Olga touched Laird’s hand: it was cold, lifeless. The expression on his face was pitiful.
Olga straightened up with a moan. She took one step, then another, then a third.
Next to Laird lay a stout blond woman. Her fingers were squeezing Laird’s hand. Olga walked over, touched her next: dead. The woman’s other hand held the hand of an old man. His head was arched back, his sharp Adam’s apple stuck out under his flaccid skin, his toothless mouth was slightly open, his faded blue eyes stared tensely at the sky. The old man was also dead. And his neighbor, a teenage girl, was also dead and also looked at the blue sky.
Stepping back and swaying, Olg
a moved along the Circle.
All the brothers and sisters lay on their backs, arms spread out on both their sides, most still squeezing the hand of their neighbor.
Olga walked over and touched their bodies. Her fingers found only dead, cooling flesh. After a few dozen steps, Olga stopped. And she understood that in this enormous circle, no one was alive.
Her memory finally returned: Being shot with a tranquilizer, the ship, the brothers, the exodus, the naked crowd, the rapture and the spell, the anticipation of a great miracle, the blue circle, the infant on her chest, Bjorn.
Bjorn!
She looked around. The dead lay all around her. Olga opened her mouth, moved her dry, mute tongue. Her tongue could barely move.
“B...b...jorn,” she said with the very greatest difficulty, and went back to her place in the circle.
It was immediately recognizable — a gap in the even row of corpses, the only violation of order. Bjorn lay next to the same red-headed woman: large, naked, with long, strong legs. His left hand was raised up, his right covered the small body of the dead child who rested on his chest. Bjorn’s eyes were closed. But the blue eyes of the infant were staring up, the tiny mouth was half open in a questioning look.
“You...ou...” Olga kneeled down and crawled over to Bjorn, taking his hand in hers.
His hand was cool.
“You...ou...ou...” she said in a wheezy stutter. “You...ou...ou, you...”
He lay immobile, like a throne for the dead infant who looked questioningly at the sky.
“It-i-i-i-t-t-s,” Olga whispered. “You...ou...ou...ou...”
With a limp, unwilling hand she beat him on the shoulder.
The Swede didn’t move.
“You...”
Bjorn continued to lie there motionless.
Sniffling and shaking, she lifted his eyelid. The familiar blue eye lay under it. And that eye jerked. The eyelid slipped from under the finger and closed. Opened. Bjorn blinked.
Moaning weakly, Olga embraced him. But something cold hindered the embrace. She had a difficult time pushing the corpse of the child from under Bjorn’s arm. The hard little body fell helplessly facedown on the marble, hitting its lifeless little head.
Olga wheezed and shook on Bjorn’s awakening chest, touching his body with weak hands. He moved, moaned, and stretched his legs. Finally he saw her. His dried lips tried to open, in an attempt to say something. But all that came out from his lips was a weak hiss.
“Kh...h...h...a?” he whispered, and tried to lift himself.
But Olga shook, embracing him and pressing him to the marble.
“Whaaaat?” He turned under her.
Pulling herself away with incredible difficulty, she took his head and tried to raise it.
He sat up.
“This...” With a trembling hand she pointed to the bodies lying near them.
He turned his gaze to the circle of dead. He looked at it for a long time, trying to understand. His head shuddered and shook back and forth. Then he stood up cautiously. The rising sun illuminated his large, stooped figure. Swaying a bit, he took a step. Olga embraced him. They stood still, supporting each other. Bjorn took another step. He stopped. He took another step. And slowly walked along the circle of the dead. Olga moved behind him. Bjorn walked, swaying, looking intently at the bodies lying there. He passed by several, stopped, went over to a woman. He leaned over. Her face, distorted in a grimace of bewilderment, stared at the sky. The glassy gaze of the departed woman reproached the sky for her death and for the death of the Great Brotherhood. Bjorn stood there, swaying back and forth, without the strength to tear himself away from the gaze of those glassy light-blue eyes, and their eternal heart injured. Olga came up to him, embraced him, pressed against him. Together they looked at the dead Brothers and Sisters of the Light.
“Th...th...they...” Bjorn wheezed.
“They...” Olga whispered.
He moved to the side and lowered himself onto the marble. Olga sat down next to him. They sat in silence for a long time, their heads bowed.
The sun rose, gained strength, and blazed.
The white marble plateau of the island sparkled under its rays.
Bjorn stirred, raised his head, and kneeled.
“This...” said Bjorn, shaking and stuttering. “This...”
“What?” Olga whispered.
“Everything.”
“What?”
“I mean...all this...” He slapped the palm of his hand on the marble, on Olga’s shoulder, on his leg. “All of this here...was done. It was created. Strong. Very. And they...crashed against it. They all crashed.”
He suddenly stopped, shaking with emotion. Olga also froze, and stopped breathing.
“But this. This was all...done” — he took a deep breath — “for us.”
Olga, leaning on the marble, didn’t breathe.
“For us,” Bjorn said more resolutely.
And suddenly he smiled feebly.
“For us!” he repeated.
“For us,” Olga repeated.
Bjorn stared straight into her eyes.
“And this was all done by God,” he declared.
“By God?” Olga asked cautiously.
“By God,” he declared.
“By God,” Olga answered.
“By God!” he said with certainty.
“By God.” Olga exhaled, shaking.
“By God!” he said in a loud voice.
“By God!” Olga gave a nod.
“By God!” he said even louder.
“By God!” Olga nodded again.
“By God!” he shouted out.
“By God,” she whispered.
They stopped still, looking into each other’s eyes.
“I want to talk to God,” Bjorn said.
“So do I,” Olga declared.
“I need...need to tell God. A lot of things. I have to talk to Him.” Bjorn thought hard. “But how do I do it?”
Olga said nothing.
“How to do it?” Bjorn asked.
“We have to return to people. And ask them.”
“What?”
“How to speak with God. Then you can tell Him everything. And I can too.”
They grew silent.
A weak sea breeze slipped over their naked bodies.
Bjorn rose from his knees, glanced at the wide bridge piled with clothes and at the enormous light-blue ship, rising above the pier like an iceberg. A flaming crimson heart adorned its deckhouse. But it reminded Bjorn not of the Brotherhood of the Light but of the World of People. Bjorn held out his hand to Olga.
“Let us go!”
Olga stood up and gave him her hand. And they went off, their bare feet stepping across the sun-warmed marble.
This is a New York Review Book
published by The New York Review of Books
435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
www.nyrb.com
Copyright © 2008 by Vladimir Sorokin
Translation copyright © 2007, 2011 by Jamey Gambrell
All rights reserved.
Originally published in Russian as Put΄ Bro, Led, and 23,000
Cover image: Chris Bucklow, from the series Guest; courtesy Danziger Projects, New York
Cover design: Katy Homans
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sorokin, Vladimir, 1955–
[Novels. English. Selections.]
Ice trilogy / by Vladimir Sorokin ; translated by Jamey Gambrell.
p. cm. — (New York Review Books classics)
ISBN 978-1-59017-386-2 (alk. paper)
1. Brotherhoods — Fiction. 2. Extremists — Fiction. 3. Sorokin, Vladimir, 1955– — Translations into English. I. Gambrell, Jamey. II. Sorokin, Vladimir, 1955– Lëd. English. III. Sorokin, Vladimir, 1955– Put΄ Bro. English. IV. Sorokin, Vladimir, 1955– 23 000. English. V. Title.
PG3488.O66A2 2011
891.73 — dc22
ISBN 978-1-59017-512-
5
v1.0
For a complete list of books in the NYRB Classics series, visit www.nyrb.com or write to:
Catalog Requests, NYRB, 435 Hudson Street, New York, NY 10014
Ice Trilogy Page 76
