“Vanja!” Evgen said it loudly, right behind her. She realized he’d called her name several times. “Can’t you hear me?” His voice was thin. “I can’t find the door.”
Vanja straightened reluctantly. “What do you mean?”
“I mean I can’t find the door.”
His face appeared next to hers, eyes wide between the hat and his dewy beard. Vanja took her hand off the machine and turned on her flashlight. She aimed it at the wall but couldn’t see anything at this distance. She glanced at Evgen, who looked back at her. They slowly walked over to the spot where the door should be. The wall was unbroken and black.
“Let’s follow the wall,” Vanja said. “We just missed it.”
They followed the gentle curve of the wall. After a while, Vanja spotted tracks in the dust in front of them: two pairs of footprints, starting at the wall and leading to the center of the room. Another set of footprints returned from the center. No door. She stopped short. Next to her, Evgen grabbed her hand and squeezed it so hard it hurt. The pain cleared her head.
Vanja took a deep breath. “The door is here somewhere. We’re just a little scared and confused.” She squeezed Evgen’s hand back. “Aren’t we, Evgen?”
“Yes.” Evgen’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
Vanja spoke more loudly. “The door is exactly where we last saw it. The door is still there.”
“The door is still there.”
“Do you remember what it looks like?” Vanja said. “It opens into the chamber, I remember that.”
“It’s gray. And has a plain handle.”
They continued around the room. The colossus in the middle of the chamber constituted a very insistent presence.
Evgen clutched Vanja’s hand even tighter. “How many hinges does the door have?”
“Two hinges,” Vanja said. “And it’s a matte gray. Not shiny.”
Further ahead, Vanja could see their footprints again, the ones leading toward the machine. And there, in the wall, where the footprints started: the door. She let out a long breath.
Evgen pushed the door open with a faint squeak. On the other side, the broad staircase rose up into the darkness. He rushed upstairs, two steps at a time. Vanja took one last look over her shoulder. It was as if the machine made a noise, a note so deep she could only feel it as a vibration in the pit of her stomach.
The steps felt much higher than when they had descended. Vanja’s thigh muscles burned every time she heaved herself upward. It was with relief she saw the door at the top of the stairs—both because she’d reached the top and because the door was still there. Evgen leaned on the door and pushed it open. They jogged down the tunnel, Evgen’s breath like tortured groans behind her.
Finally, a row of rungs broke the smooth wall. Vanja clambered up the ladder, almost slipping a few times. Cold, fresh air was blowing down the shaft. No light made it this far down, but she could hear the wind whistle across the opening. When she finally made it up, she heaved herself over the edge, fell down on the grass, and stayed there. Evgen collapsed on the ground next to her. They lay like that, staring up into the night sky, until they could breathe again. Eventually, Vanja stood up on unsteady legs. Evgen held out a hand, and she helped him up. Amatka’s lights gleamed on the horizon. They started walking.
“It opened away from us,” Vanja mumbled after a moment.
“What?” Evgen stopped.
“The door. When we came into the chamber with the machine. The door opened into the chamber.”
Evgen nodded.
“But when we found it again,” Vanja went on, “then it was turned the other way. It opened onto the stairs.”
They stared at each other for a long moment. Evgen abruptly leaned over and vomited.
—
Nina was still fast asleep when Vanja stole into bed. It wasn’t long until dawn. Then Ivar would get up, and she’d tell him that it was all true, that he wasn’t insane. That there really was something underneath the colony.
The tunnels they had gone through—it was either a system or the tunnels themselves shifted. That, or Ivar had seen the machine but not mentioned it. Who had built the machine? Who had dug the tunnels? What were they for? Travel, Ulla had said. Tunnels are for travel. Who was traveling to Amatka? The memory of her dream by the lake came back: feet across the ice, voices, flutes. Voices had called out to Ivar underground. Amatka wasn’t alone anymore.
SIXDAY
It was well after the breaking of the ice. Vanja had taken yesterday’s leftovers out of the fridge and was reheating them on the stove. The coffee was brewing. She could smell Nina on her clothes.
The steps coming down the stairs were slow and heavy. Nina entered the kitchen with a small note in her hand. She sat down at the kitchen table in silence. Vanja took the pan from the heat and plucked the note from between Nina’s fingers.
I know you don’t believe it but they’re going to come get me to do a procedure on me. I’m heading out on the ice. Don’t tell the children what I did. They shouldn’t have to hear it. I’m sorry.
Nina scrunched her face up. She pressed her fists against her eyes. “I can’t. I can’t go down there.”
Her body was so taut it trembled.
Vanja wrapped her arms around Nina from behind and put her cheek against hers. “I’ll go.”
—
The streets were almost empty in the gray light. It was far too early to be up on a Sixday. The only thing that moved was the shadow of the night growers on the plant-house walls. Vanja caught the sound of sprinklers as she passed, following the water-supply pipe to the lake. Stiff grass rattled against the irrigation pipeline. Vanja halted as an unfamiliar shape appeared at the edge of her vision. It stood far away on the tundra—long and thin, with a curved top end. Vanja squinted. It looked like a pipe, like the ones she had seen in a cluster the other night. Possibly. She turned in a slow circle and counted one, two, three slender silhouettes on the horizon, which until now had always been flat and featureless.
—
Vanja found Ivar’s shoes among the rocks on the beach, and his coat at the water’s edge. A ways out she could see the rounded shape of a back. Even though the waves seemed mere ripples on the surface, the body was drifting quickly toward the shore. Vanja took a couple of steps into the water, sucking in breath as her boots flooded with painful cold. She forced herself to move forward. After only a few feet, the water reached halfway up her thighs. She gasped as the cold made her legs burn, but the body was close enough now that she could grasp the pale yellow sweater. She pulled it to her and grabbed hold under the armpits. Only once the body was halfway out of the water did she turn it over.
Ivar had walked out on the ice dressed in nothing but his underclothes, and the lake had thawed underneath him, dropping him into the frigid water. The warm tone of his skin had turned pallid. His eyes were only closed halfway, revealing a glimpse of dark brown iris. Vanja crouched next to him. She took her mitten off and gently stroked his cheek. It was cold and unyielding. His unrelenting frown had been smoothed out; his lips had parted slightly, as if in sleep. But Ivar himself wasn’t in there anymore. Vanja carefully pulled him all the way out of the water. Thin as he was, his body was very heavy. She fetched his coat and draped it over him. It wasn’t long enough to cover both his head and feet, so she chose the feet. Cold feet were the worst. “I went and looked.” She tucked the edges of the coat under him. “I was going to tell you this morning. That you’re not crazy, that there’s something down there.”
Talking made her throat ache. “I wish you could have waited just a little while.” She patted his cheek. “I’m going to get some help. You won’t have to stay out here.”
Vanja walked back toward Amatka on numb legs. When she was almost there, she realized Ivar wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves. He would be cold.
No. He wouldn’t be.
—
At the clinic, two orderlies ushered her into an exam room, where they undressed h
er and swaddled her in heating blankets. They didn’t seem surprised by what she’d found in the lake. “Here we go again,” one of them said. “We’ll send someone to get him.”
“I have to tell our housemates,” Vanja said.
They noted her address. Vanja wasn’t allowed to go anywhere until they were sure she was unharmed.
—
They finally released her three hours later. Nina was still sitting at the kitchen table. She had stopped crying.
She looked up at Vanja, her eyes remote. “They were here.”
“I had to stay at the clinic. The water, I went into the water to get him, it was cold.”
Nina nodded. They were silent for a moment, Vanja by the door, Nina at the table. Finally, Nina pushed her chair back. Her voice was raspy and flat.
“Well, he finally went and did it. At least now I don’t have to wonder when it’s going to happen. That idiot. I saw it coming for years.” She went over to the stove and started making coffee.
Vanja sat down and watched Nina do the dishes and then violently clean the counter and stovetop. Nina talked while she cleaned. She talked about a quiet boy who became a melancholy but kind youth, who became the Ivar of recent years, slowly wasting away. “They tried everything,” she said. “Medication, light therapy, psychotherapy. Shocks. And at best he was…he functioned. He could get out of bed, get dressed, eat. He could go to work.”
She had given up on drying her cheeks. Fresh tears ran down her face now and then, and dripped onto her sweater. “Maybe he would have been all right in the end. But then this. Or…maybe he would never have been okay. Maybe he was incurable. Maybe he was just broken.” Her last word was accompanied by the loud bang of the scrubbed frying pan being slammed down on the counter.
Vanja topped up their cups. “I’m hungry,” Nina said.
She walked over to the fridge and took out a bowl, then fetched a fork.
Vanja rose halfway from the chair. “Let me heat that for you.”
“No need.” Nina mechanically shoveled bits of mushrooms and root vegetables into her mouth. “Talk. Talk about something. Tell me about Essre.”
Vanja told her about Essre: the square plant houses radiating out from the center; the massive commune office that housed the central administration; the circular streets; the throng of people. Nina stared into the wall, chewing and swallowing. When the bowl was empty, she pushed it aside.
“I know you’re up to something,” she said. “With the librarian, that Evgen guy.”
Before Vanja had time to reply, Nina continued: “Are you fucking him?”
Vanja started. “What? No.”
“Fine. Then what are you doing?”
“We talk.”
“About what?”
Vanja turned to the window. “For example…what happened to Ivar. What’s under the mushroom farm.” She took a deep breath. “I went out last night. I went down that pipe. To prove Ivar right. I was going to tell him this morning. But when I woke up he was already gone.”
Vanja braced herself and waited. When the silence went on unbroken, she glanced back at Nina, who had leaned back in her chair and sort of deflated. The shadows under her eyes were a bluish black. The rage had drained from her face, to be replaced by something worse. When she spoke, her words were almost inaudible. “You don’t know what you’re doing.”
“I’m trying to help. To find the truth. To make things better. Down there, there’s…”
Nina held up a hand. “No. What you don’t understand is that it only takes this much”—she pinched her thumb and forefinger together—“to destroy us all. And if things have already started happening, then you’re making it worse.”
“But how do you know? How can any of us know? How do we know it’s bad? Maybe it’s just different. Better. Nina, anything is better than this.”
Nina gave her a look that made Vanja shrink back. “No. Anything is not better than this. I’ve seen Berols’ Anna’s colony. I know what happens.”
Vanja was dumbfounded. “How? When?”
“No. No, enough of this.” Nina held up both hands. “Just…leave it alone.”
She got up from the table and went upstairs. Vanja heard one door bang shut, then another.
—
Vanja stood outside Nina’s door for a long time, listening. At length she managed to muster enough courage to knock. No reply. She knocked again.
Eventually Nina opened the door. “What?”
Vanja’s mind abruptly went blank. “I just thought, I don’t know. I’m sorry.” She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
Nina breathed in through her nose. Her words were slow and her voice flat. “You can’t help me right now. I want to be alone. You’d better leave.” She closed the door again.
Vanja lingered for a moment, staring at the door. Of course. There was nothing she could do. Nina and Ivar had been so close for so long, like brother and sister. What they had was so much bigger and more profound than what Vanja had with Nina. Anything Vanja did to comfort her would just be clumsy and clueless. At least today. She turned around and went back downstairs. Maybe Nina would want to be with her when she came back out. Or maybe not. She would grieve for a long time.
SEVENDAY
The leisure center filled up early. Instead of the usual games and organized play, a note by the entrance informed the crowd that song and poetry were on the program. The evening meal would be accompanied by a reading of Ivnas’ Öydis’s great poem “The Pioneers.” After that, communal singing. And after that, more readings—excerpts from Berols’ Anna’s Plant House series and several other poems Vanja didn’t recognize. It was remarkable that her poems were still allowed, considering what she did. Perhaps the power of her realist poetry was so strong that it outweighed her later deeds. And to the public she never did those other things, anyway. She had just died in the fire.
Vanja registered at the entrance, hung her anorak on a peg by the door, and looked around for a seat. The tables along the walls were almost full. Children who couldn’t sit still were chasing each other below the dais at the far end of the hall. Only on Sevenday were they allowed to run wild like that. Vanja found a free seat at the end of a table. She greeted the others, who nodded, smiled, and returned to their conversations. Their murmur enveloped her.
Sometime later, the cooks emerged from the kitchen carrying huge pots to rapturous applause. Vanja’s hands clapped along. Someone put a bowl in front of her. The clatter and banging of cutlery on bowl rims filled the air. After a while, Vanja became aware that someone had gently nudged her aside and now sat in her spot at the end of the table. It was Evgen. He had said something.
Vanja blinked. “What did you say?”
“I said hello.” His face looked sallow.
“Hello.”
“You look like I feel.”
“Ivar killed himself,” Vanja said.
Evgen’s eyebrows shot up, but then he merely nodded. “Was he afraid they’d do a procedure on him?”
“How did you know?”
He smiled thinly. “It was a guess. It wouldn’t be the first time.”
They ate in silence for a while. The meal was a slapdash, over-salted stew of shiny mushroom caps. Further down the table, people had started drinking and were talking loudly. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” Evgen mumbled next to her.
“What’s that?” Vanja put a spoonful of stew in her mouth and focused on chewing. The mushrooms were leathery and seemed to grow in her mouth as she chewed.
“I can’t stop thinking that the door might have led somewhere else, and that we’re not in the real Amatka anymore.” He hacked at an agaric with his fork. “I know it makes no sense, that can’t be the case. I’m not saying I want it to be true. I just can’t stop thinking about it.” He pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. “Because this fake Amatka might be even worse than my own.”
Vanja glanced out at the crowded hall. “You probably shouldn’t
say things like that in here.”
“If we’re in fake Amatka, maybe the rules don’t apply.” Evgen giggled.
One of their neighbors shot them a glance. Vanja managed a hollow laugh and elbowed Evgen in the ribs. “You’re impossible!”
Evgen laughed back. “You bet!”
Their neighbor turned his attention back to his own company. A tapping noise from the podium made them fall silent. It was time for the first reading of the night.
—
When they had sung “The Pioneer Song,” their host called the children up on the dais.
“And now it’s fun time for the children!” he shouted. “We’re going to sing ‘The Marking Song’!”
They sang several rounds of “The Marking Song.” The children took turns pointing to different objects in the room, and everyone laughed whenever it was tricky to fit the words in. After six rounds, it was time for “The Farmer Song,” and after that “When I Grow Up.” There was a quiz, too. Extra credits were awarded to citizens who answered questions about the number of houses in the colony and the number of inhabitants and streets correctly. Even more credits went to comrades who could name all the different types of buildings, their functions, and the number and names of the mushrooms grown in the chambers. Then they all sang “The Marking Song” again.
On the dais, their host’s gestures grew ever wilder and more sweeping, until he finally gave up his spot for a poetry recital. While the reader slowly chanted his way through “The Streets,” the host took a seat in a corner by the coatroom. The happy grin had vanished from his face. He looked sweaty and feverish. He’d found a bottle of liquor somewhere and was swigging straight from it. When he noticed Vanja watching him, he bared his teeth in a grimace and waved at her. It took her a moment to realize it was supposed to be a smile. She waved back.
—
Ulla was in the kitchen, putting on her boots. She looked up at Vanja with a small smile. “Going somewhere?” Vanja asked.
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