Orsinian Tales

by Ursula K. Le Guin

  She went to him.

  “Wanted to apologise for last night,” he brought out all in one piece.

  “It’s all right.”

  He was bareheaded and the wind blew his light, dusty-looking hair across his eyes; he winced and tried to smooth it back. “I was drunk,” he said.

  “I know.”

  They set off together.

  “I was worried about you,” Ekata said.

  “What for? I wasn’t that drunk.”

  “I don’t know.”

  They crossed the street in silence.

  “Kostant likes talking with you. Told me so.” His tone was unpleasant. Ekata said drily, “I like talking with him.”

  “Everybody does. It’s a great favor he does them.”

  She did not reply.

  “I mean that.”

  She knew what he meant, but still did not say anything. They were near the hotel. He stopped. “I won’t finish ruining your reputation.”

  “You don’t have to grin about it.”

  “I’m not. I mean I won’t go on to the hotel with you, in case it embarrassed you.”

  “I have nothing to be embarrassed about.”

  “I do, and I am. I am sorry, Ekata.”

  “I didn’t mean you had to apologise again.” Her voice turned husky so that he thought again of mist, dusk, the forests.

  “I won’t.” He laughed. “Are you leaving right away?”

  “I have to. It gets dark so early now.”

  They both hesitated.

  “You could do me a favor,” she said.

  “I’d do that.”

  “If you’d see to having my horse put in, last time I had to stop after a mile and tighten everything. If you did that I could be getting ready.”

  When she came out of the hotel the wagon was out front and he was in the seat. “I’ll drive you a mile or two, all right?” She nodded, he gave her a hand up; they drove down Ardure Street westward to the plain.

  “That damned hotel manager,” Ekata said. “Grinning and scraping this morning…”

  Stefan laughed, but said nothing. He was cautious, absorbed; the cold wind blew, the old roan clopped along; he explained presently, “I’ve never driven before.”

  “I’ve never driven any horse but this one. He’s never any trouble.”

  The wind whistled in miles of dead grass, tugged at her black kerchief, whipped Stefan’s hair across his eyes.

  “Look at it,” he said softly. “A couple of inches of dirt, and under it rock. Drive all day, any direction, and you’ll find rock, with a couple of inches of dirt on it. You know how many trees there are in Kampe? Fifty-four. I counted ’em. And not another, not one, all the way to the mountains.” His voice as he talked as if to himself was dry and musical. “When I went to Brailava on the train I looked out for the first new tree. The fifty-fifth tree. It was a big oak by a farmhouse in the hills. Then all of a sudden there were trees everywhere, in all the valleys in the hills. You could never count ’em. But I’d like to try.”

  “You’re sick of it here.”

  “I don’t know. Sick of something. I feel like I was an ant, something smaller, so small you can hardly see it, crawling along on this huge floor. Getting nowhere because where is there to get. Look at us now, crawling across the floor, there’s the ceiling…Looks like snow, there in the north.”

  “Not before dark, I hope.”

  “What’s it like on the farm?”

  She considered some while before answering, and then said softly, “Closed in.”

  “Your father happy with it?”

  “He never did feel easy in Kampe, I think.”

  “There’s people made out of dirt, earth,” he said in his voice that slurred away so easily into unheard monologue, “and then there’s some made out of stone. The fellows who get on in Kampe are made out of stone.” “Like my brother,” he did not say, and she heard it.

  “Why don’t you leave?”

  “That’s what Kostant said. It sounds so easy. But see, if he left, he’d be taking himself with him. I’d be taking myself…Does it matter where you go? All you have is what you are. Or what you meet.”

  He checked the horse. “I’d better hop off, we must have come a couple of miles. Look, there’s the ant-heap.” From the high wagon seat looking back they saw a darkness on the pale plain, a pinpoint spire, a glitter where the winter sun struck windows or roof-slates; and far behind the town, distinct under high, heavy, dark-grey clouds, the mountains.

  He handed the traces to her. “Thanks for the lift,” he said, and swung down from the seat.

  “Thanks for the company, Stefan.”

  He raised his hand; she drove on. It seemed a cruel thing to do, to leave him on foot there on the plain. When she looked back she saw him far behind already, walking away from her between the narrowing wheel-ruts under the enormous sky.

  Before she reached the farm that evening there was a dry flurry of snow, the first of an early winter. From the kitchen window all that month she looked up at hills blurred with rain. In December from her bedroom, on days of sun after snow, she saw eastward across the plain a glittering pallor: the mountains. There were no more trips to Sfaroy Kampe. When they needed market goods her uncle drove to Verre or Lotima, bleak villages foundering like cardboard in the rain. It was too easy to stray off the wheel-ruts crossing the karst in snow or heavy rain, he said, “and then where are ye?”

  “Where are ye in the first place?” Ekata answered in Stefan’s soft dry voice. The uncle paid no heed.

  Martin rode out on a livery-stable horse for Christmas day. After a few hours he got sullen and stuck to Ekata. “What’s that thing Aunt’s got hanging round her neck?”

  “A nail through an onion. To keep off rheumatism.”

  “Christ Almighty!”

  Ekata laughed.

  “The whole place stinks of onion and flannel, can’t you air it out?”

  “No. Cold days they even close the chimney flues. Rather have the smoke than the cold.”

  “You ought to come back to town with me, Ekata.”

  “Ma’s not well.”

  “You can’t help that.”

  “No. But I’d feel mean to leave her without good reason. First things first.” Ekata had lost weight; her cheekbones stood out and her eyes looked darker. “How’s it going with you?” she asked presently.

  “All right. We’ve been laid off a good bit, the snow.”

  “You’ve been growing up,” Ekata said.

  “I know.”

  He sat on the stiff farm-parlour sofa with a man’s weight, a man’s quietness.

  “You walking out with anybody?”

  “No.” They both laughed. “Listen, I saw Fabbre, and he said to wish you joy of the season. He’s better. Gets outside now, with a cane.”

  Their cousin came through the room. She wore a man’s old boots stuffed with straw for warmth getting about in the ice and mud of the farmyard. Martin looked after her with disgust. “I had a talk with him. Couple of weeks ago. I hope he’s back in the pits by Easter like they say. He’s my foreman, you know.” Looking at him, Ekata saw who it was he was in love with.

  “I’m glad you like him.”

  “There isn’t a man in Kampe comes up to his shoulder. You liked him, didn’t you?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “See, when he asked about you, I thought—”

  “You thought wrong,” Ekata said. “Will you quit meddling, Martin?”

  “I didn’t say anything,” he defended himself feebly; his sister could still overawe him. He also recalled that Rosana Fabbre had laughed at him when he had said something to her about Kostant and Ekata. She had been hanging out sheets in the back yard on a whipping-bright winter morning a few days ago, he had hung over the back fence talking to her. “Oh Lord, are you crazy?” she had jeered, while the damp sheets on the line billowed at her face and the wind tangled her hair. “Those two? Not on your life!” He had tried to
argue; she would not listen. “He’s not going to marry anybody from here. There’s going to be some woman from far off, from Krasnoy maybe, a manager’s wife, a queen, a beauty, with servants and all. And one day she’ll be coming down Ardure Street with her nose in the air and she’ll see Kostant coming with his nose in the air, and crack! that’s it.”

  “That’s what?” said he, fascinated by her fortuneteller’s conviction.

  “I don’t know!” she said, and hoisted up another sheet. “Maybe they’ll run off together. Maybe something else. All I know is Kostant knows what’s coming to him, and he’s going to wait for it.”

  “All right, if you know so much, what’s coming your way?”

  She opened her mouth wide in a big grin, her dark eyes under long dark brows flashed at him. “Men,” she said like a cat hissing, and the sheets and shirts snapped and billowed around her, white in the flashing sunlight.

  January passed, covering the surly plain with snow, February with a grey sky moving slowly over the plain from north to south day after day: a hard winter and a long one. Kostant Fabbre got a lift sometimes on a cart to the Chorin quarries north of town, and would stand watching the work, the teams of men and lines of wagons, the shunting boxcars, the white of snow and the dull white of new-cut limestone. Men would come up to the tall man leaning on his cane to ask him how he did, when he was coming back to work. “A few weeks yet,” he would say. The company was keeping him laid off till April as their insurers requested. He felt fit, he could walk back to town without using his cane, it fretted him bitterly to be idle. He would go back, to the White Lion, and sit there in the smoky dark and warmth till the quarrymen came in, off work at four because of snow and darkness, big heavy men making the place steam with the heat of their bodies and buzz with the mutter of their voices. At five Stefan would come in, slight, with white shirt and light shoes, a queer figure among the quarriers. He usually came to Kostant’s table, but they were not on good terms. Each was waiting and impatient.

  “Evening,” Martin Sachik said passing the table, a tired burly lad, smiling. “Evening, Stefan.”

  “I’m Fabbre and Mr to you, laddie,” Stefan said in his soft voice that yet stood out against the comfortable hive-mutter. Martin, already past, chose to pay no attention.

  “Why are you down on that one?”

  “Because I don’t choose to be on first names with every man’s brat that goes down in the pits. Nor every man either. D’you take me for the town idiot?”

  “You act like it, times,” Kostant said, draining his beermug.

  “I’ve had enough of your advice.”

  “I’ve had enough of your conceit. Go to the Bell if the company here don’t suit you.”

  Stefan got up, slapped money on the table, and went out.

  It was the first of March; the north half of the sky over the streets was heavy, without light; its edge was silvery blue, and from it south to the horizon the air was blue and empty except for a fingernail moon over the western hills and, near it, the evening star. Stefan went silent through the streets, a silent wind at his back. Indoors, the walls of the house enclosed his rage; it became a square, dark, musty thing full of the angles of tables and chairs, and flared up yellow with the kerosene lamp. The chimney of the lamp slithered out of his hand like a live animal, smashed itself shrilly against the corner of the table. He was on all fours picking up bits of glass when his brother came in.

  “What did you follow me for?”

  “I came to my own house.”

  “Do I have to go back to the Lion then?”

  “Go where you damned well like.” Kostant sat down and picked up yesterday’s newspaper. Stefan, kneeling, broken glass on the palm of his hand, spoke: “Listen. I know why you want me patting young Sachik on the head. For one thing he thinks you’re God Almighty, and that’s agreeable. For another thing he’s got a sister. And you want ’em all eating out of your hand, don’t you? Like they all do? Well by God here’s one that won’t, and you might find your game spoiled, too.” He got up and went to the kitchen, to the trash basket that stood by the week’s heap of dirty clothes, and dropped the glass of the broken lamp into the basket. He stood looking at his hand: a sliver of glass bristled from the inner joint of his second finger. He had clenched his hand on the glass as he spoke to Kostant. He pulled out the sliver and put the bleeding finger to his mouth. Kostant came in. “What game, Stefan?” he said.

  “You know what I mean.”

  “Say what you mean.”

  “I mean her. Ekata. What do you want her for anyhow? You don’t need her. You don’t need anything. You’re the big tin god.”

  “You shut your mouth.”

  “Don’t give me orders! By God I can give orders too. You just stay away from her. I’ll get her and you won’t, I’ll get her under your nose, under your eyes—” Kostant’s big hands took hold of his shoulders and shook him till his head snapped back and forth on his neck. He broke free and drove his fist straight at Kostant’s face, but as he did so he felt a jolt as when a train-car is coupled to the train. He fell down backwards across the heap of dirty clothes. His head hit the floor with a dead sound like a dropped melon.

  Kostant stood with his back against the stove. He looked at his right-hand knuckles, then at Stefan’s face, which was dead white and curiously serene. Kostant took a pillowcase from the pile of clothes, wet it at the sink, and knelt down by Stefan. It was hard for him to kneel, the right leg was still stiff. He mopped away the thin dark line of blood that had run from Stefan’s mouth. Stefan’s face twitched, he sighed and blinked, and looked up at Kostant, gazing with vague, sliding recognition, like a young infant.

  “That’s better,” Kostant said. His own face was white.

  Stefan propped himself up on one arm. “I fell down,” he said in a faint, surprised voice. Then he looked at Kostant again and his face began to change and tighten.

  “Stefan—”

  Stefan got up on all fours, then onto his feet; Kostant tried to take his arm, but he stumbled to the door, struggled with the catch, and plunged out. At the door, Kostant watched him vault the fence, cut across the Katalny yard, and run down Gulhelm Street with long, jolting strides. For several minutes the elder brother stood in the doorway, his face rigid and sorrowful. Then he turned, went to the front door and out, and made off down Gulhelm Street as fast as he could. The black cloud-front had covered all the sky but a thin band of blue-green to the south; the moon and stars were gone. Kostant followed the track over the plain to the West Pit. No one was ahead of him. He reached the lip of the quarry and saw the water quiet, dim, reflecting snow that had yet to fall. He called out once, “Stefan!” His lungs were raw and his throat dry from the effort he had made to run. There was no answer. It was not his brother’s name that need be called there at the lip of the ruined quarry. It was the wrong name, and the wrong time. Kostant turned and started back towards Gulhelm Street, walking slowly and a little lame.

  “I’ve got to ride to Kolle,” Stefan said. The livery-stable keeper stared at his blood-smeared chin.

  “It’s dark. There’s ice on the roads.”

  “You must have a sharp-shod horse. I’ll pay double.”

  “Well…”

  Stefan rode out of the stable yard, and turned right down Ardure Street towards Verre instead of left towards Kolle. The keeper shouted after him. Stefan kicked the horse, which fell into a trot and then, where the pavement ceased, into a heavy run. The band of blue-green light in the southwest veered and slid away, Stefan thought he was falling sideways, he clung to the pommel but did not pull the reins. When the horse ran itself out and slowed to a walk it was full night, earth and sky all dark. The horse snorted, the saddle creaked, the wind hissed in frozen grass. Stefan dismounted and searched the ground as best he could. The horse had kept to the wagon road and stood not four feet from the ruts. They went on, horse and man; mounted, the man could not see the ruts; he let the horse follow the track across the plain, himse
lf following no road.

  After a long time in the rocking dark something touched his face once, lightly.

  He felt his cheek. The right side of his jaw was swollen and stiff, and his right hand holding the reins was locked by the cold, so that when he tried to change his grip he did not know if his fingers moved or not. He had no gloves, though he wore the winter coat he had never taken off when he came into the house, when the lamp broke, a long time ago. He got the reins in his left hand and put the right inside his coat to warm it. The horse jogged on patiently, head low. Again something touched Stefan’s face very lightly, brushing his cheek, his hot sore lip. He could not see the flakes. They were soft and did not feel cold. He waited for the gentle, random touch of the snow. He changed hands on the reins again, and put the left hand under the horse’s coarse, damp mane, on the warm hide. They both took comfort in the touch. Trying to see ahead, Stefan knew where sky and horizon met, or thought he did, but the plain was gone. The ceiling of sky was gone. The horse walked on darkness, under darkness, through darkness.

  Once the word “lost” lit itself like a match in the darkness, and Stefan tried to stop the horse so he could get off and search for the wheel-ruts, but the horse kept walking on. Stefan let his numb hand holding the reins rest on the pommel, let himself be borne.

  The horse’s head came up, its gait changed for a few steps. Stefan clutched at the wet mane, raised his own head dizzily, blinked at a spiderweb of light tangled in his eyes. Through the splintery blur of ice on his lashes the light grew square and yellowish: a window. What house stood out alone here on the endless plain? Dim blocks of pallor rose up on both sides of him—storefronts, a street. He had come to Verre. The horse stopped and sighed so that the girths creaked loudly. Stefan did not remember leaving Sfaroy Kampe. He sat astride a sweating horse in a dark street somewhere. One window was alight in a second storey. Snow fell in sparse clumps, as if hurled down in handfuls. There was little on the ground, it melted as it touched, a spring snow. He rode to the house with the lighted window and called aloud, “Where’s the road to Lotima?”