Radiant Terminus

by Antoine Volodine

  Kronauer freezes in the warehouse doorway. He is suddenly enveloped in the waxy and sputtering recorded voice of the kolkhoz president. It isn’t as harsh as the one that whistled in the old forest, but it paralyzes him. He doesn’t cover his ears, but he stops to listen.

  The words aren’t strange at all, but the images they summon up only result in feelings of unfinished murders, vague cruelty, and unease. He can’t figure out what the speaker wanted, or even understand whoever is speaking these words. Something unstable and hostile goes directly into Kronauer’s subconscious. As in the forest, but with a less imperious violence, the strange sentences break into him and, once inside, don’t ask him whether they should burrow deep or open up.

  What’s wrong with you, Kronauer, he thinks, why are you letting these insanities attack you? They’re just bits of black prose, nothing more than a twisted declamation by a village poet. You have nothing to be concerned about, Kronauer.

  But he leans against the doorway warmed by sunlight and radiation, he looks at the drop of blood already dry on his left finger, he grimaces in pain, and he keeps listening.

  • Scorning the choir that had dissuaded him, he withdrew to the most burning wall of the room, and, having reached it, he entered a turmoil that his cellmates and his minions had rarely witnessed in him, he who most often had preached the renunciation of all gestures as well as petrifaction during carbonization or collapse. He began to discourse, then, doubting that anyone had listened to or understood him, he pressed himself all the more firmly against the lava and became a black and indefinite bird with language and powers only he knew. For a time that some less reliable witnesses said were years, and that his spouses, who were more likely to feel it in their bodies, confirmed were centuries, he constructed worlds in the shadows, worlds neither alive nor dead, then, indifferent to public disapproval, he lived in them. So that these lands would be inhabited, he threw vaguely human trash indiscriminately over everything he barely ruled over, as well as the girls who resulted from his wedding dances and the subsequent coitus. Out of respect for the libertarian ideas that had intoxicated him in his youth, he endeavored not to abuse his magical powers for the women he met, but, in short, in nearly every case he approached them, he penetrated them, and he loved them, and then almost without exception he withdrew from them and brought in others from distant parts of the taiga, or even from the tunnels beyond death, and sometimes he went to find them in the concentration hells where he had his ways in both as a master as well as a detainee. Ubiquity and polychrony had long been his fate, which he guarded from all curses, because he had decided to wander as he pleased without any concern for decay or death, and to talk lovingly or cruelly as best suited the moment. He flew high into a pitch-black sky or he trod heavily over an increasingly oily and black earth. Sometimes the prospect of living endlessly hurt him, and then he returned to the inferno, speaking unheard poetic discourses or being quiet, or bringing forth new images where everyone was dead. During one of these eternal returns, his cellmates and his minions gestured, as if perfunctorily offering help that they all knew was ridiculous, and in turn he addressed them gently with his hand, a movement that few of them understood, and then his back caught on fire and he disappeared.

  7

  • Now Kronauer was making his way down the hill upon which the building sat, that building where contaminated trash was being stored. He didn’t hurry. For one thing, he had no idea what he would do next in the village. For another, his legs were barely obeying him. A long night sleeping in the kolkhoz prison hadn’t been enough to restore his strength. His muscles kept reminding him at every moment of the ordeal that had been his walk across the steppes, not to mention the difficult last hours spent in the old forest. And doubtless his body still had some trouble adapting to the radionuclides floating or vibrating throughout the village.

  While walking, he repeated to himself the strange flights of fancy of the Radiant Terminus president. They twisted silently within his skull, subconsciously, but also deep within the very marrow of his bones. He felt them come and go through the gray areas of his body. Well, this is like a hypnosis mantra, he thought. Takes advantage of your weaknesses to numb you. Slips inside you and you can’t even fight back.

  He would have liked to banish Solovyei from his thoughts. However, when he got back onto the Levanidovo’s main road, he kept mulling over images of shadowy eternity and worlds with indecipherable rules of existence. Once again he heard the needle screeching, the phonograph’s membrane vibrating, obedient to the cruel inflections of Solovyei’s voice. He, too, irritatedly realized that he was submitting to this voice. It bothered him, but he had listened to it almost respectfully and now it had entered him and now it was burrowing deeper and deeper within, and if he wasn’t able to get it out, it was first and foremost because he had accepted its presence. Well, don’t tell me that now it’s in your marrow and your dreams, don’t tell me that, Kronauer! he moaned. But nobody answered him back and, as he kept on walking, he remained silent.

  • He paused in the empty street. He didn’t want to go back to his room, or wander around the prison, and he didn’t have anything particular to do in the Levanidovo, but at the same time he knew that if he didn’t find something to keep him busy, he’d be mistaken for a profiteer, a lawless refugee, or a loner unable to collaborate in building collective happiness. He slowed down, then to stall for time he paused in front of the communist cooperative’s locked door, then as if he’d changed his mind he started walking again. He didn’t see anyone. Not a single job presented itself. He went past the Pioneers’ House, the public library. In a row on his right were the little building where Samiya Schmidt and Morgovian lived, the Soviet, and Myriam Umarik and Barguzin’s house. He came to the Soviet and was thinking about turning around when Myriam Umarik came out of her house and went to meet him.

  She waddled gently and lithely, and, although he couldn’t tell whether she knew it or not, she very much looked a seductress. She moved her body and gave her walk an overtone of dance, an invitation to a dance that had something animal, very sensual, bridal, an invitation to physical complicity. Whether she intended it or not, she made people want to come up to her and touch her. Her hair was so dark and shiny that the sun’s reflection went from the top of her head down to her left cheek, making a little dazzling cascade that led toward her breasts. Her linen shirt wasn’t unbuttoned, but her abundant bosom was visible and bounced with every step.

  Kronauer’s eyes stopped on her and immediately, half a second later, moved on. She moved in the sunlight and its sparkle was distracting. Still, he did his best not to be attracted to her, even though, due to male nature, he was.

  He didn’t want to think that her shape was appealing; he didn’t want to think of her as a desirable, delectable object, or let scandalous images multiply in his head because of this possible appetite.

  He held back from these images. Partly because in the Orbise he had received a proletarian education that connected all sexual expression with excesses of immorality. And partly because, like Samiya Schmidt, he had read several of Maria Kwoll’s works denigrating masculine impulses and depicting them in the most odious, the most revolting way possible. And finally because he still remembered the Gramma Udgul’s warnings about Myriam Umarik’s marital status.

  A vague sensation of vertigo persisted and he did his best to pull together several thoughts about himself, about what he was going through in the Levanidovo. What’s the point, Kronauer, he thought, you didn’t come to the Levanidovo just to have an affair. It’s looking like you settled down here and forgot that Ilyushenko and Vassilissa Marachvili are waiting for you by the railroad tracks. And that’s the only thing that matters.

  He was already starting to have trouble visualizing his comrades in distress among the grasses, immobilized by exhaustion, constrained to silence, forced to stay low or hunkered down so as not to be noticed by the soldiers. He was already a long way from them. He had to struggle to call th
em back to mind, and the result was an abstracted image, with barely any emotional weight. He remembered the railroad tracks crossing the countryside, the ruins of the Red Star sovkhoz, but the memory of his two friends shimmered with difficulty, as if they belonged to a story on which he had already turned the page. This feeling was reinforced by the fact that Solovyei and Morgovian had gone there with what they needed to tend to them, in order to comfort them and care for them. Solovyei and Morgovian had taken over and soon, probably, Ilyushenko and Vassilissa Marachvili would be welcomed in turn at the Levanidovo.

  Right, he thought sadly. Just like that.

  The shooting pains in his hand, right where he had been pricked, insistently reminded him that he had slipped into a world where Myriam Umarik’s presence mattered more than Vassilissa Marachvili’s absence.

  Then something jumped within him and woke up. You know perfectly well, Kronauer, that you’re not here to flirt; tomorrow or the day after you will be gone again. If Solovyei brings Vassilissa Marachvili and Ilyushenko back to the kolkhoz, the three of you will be gone again. Radiant Terminus isn’t your place. Especially not when there’s this jealous father who’s hostile and put you under watch; you can’t even figure out his relationship with his daughters. This Myriam Umarik has nothing to do with you. Not worth the trouble of watching her make her way over here, her shoes pounding the earth like the hooves of an aroused bull.

  —I need you, Kronauer, Myriam Umarik said. Can I call you Kronauer?

  • She had a favor to ask him. Right in front of her house, there was a fire hydrant that had begun to drip. Her husband, the engineer Barguzin, had brought the necessary tools out to the road, and he was going to take care of the problem, but then he had come back inside and, after saying something indistinct, he had collapsed. His loss of consciousness wasn’t like death, and up to now, she didn’t call for the Gramma Udgul to come revive him with her three waters, heavy-heavy water, deathly-deathly water, and lively-lively water.

  —You want me to warn the Gramma Udgul? Kronauer asked.

  Myriam Umarik smiled and dismissed the idea with a wave that shook her hips and her entire torso up to her shoulders.

  There was no rush with Barguzin. It was just a minor setback. No, what she wanted him to do, and this was the favor she was asking of him, was to fix the fire hydrant. He should be able to make the repairs, even if he barely knew anything about plumbing.

  —Oh sure, Kronauer said. Just have to tighten it, this valve. Loosen two or three nuts and then tighten them again.

  He had a feeling that Myriam Umarik was testing him. Maybe the people of Radiant Terminus wanted to know if he would fit into the kolkhoz economy, perhaps as a handyman, a janitor, or a water works employee.

  He went to the post and got down to unpack the materials that the engineer Barguzin had brought out: a monkey wrench, some socket wrenches, two screwdrivers, a hammer, large black rubber gaskets, all loosely wrapped in a rag. While he handled the tools, he saw that the small wound on his finger had opened up again and that there was some blood along his finger. Under the pad, the shooting pains had increased.

  —Are you bleeding? Myriam Umarik asked as she leaned over him.

  —It’s nothing, he said. Just a prick from the phonograph.

  Myriam Umarik scowled. She was very close to Kronauer. She smelled clean, of workman’s soap, and also Barguzin’s saliva, which had dripped onto her skirt as she had dragged him to his bed.

  —Solovyei’s phonograph? she asked.

  —Yes.

  —You definitely shouldn’t have played with that, she muttered quickly. What got into you? Couldn’t you contain yourself? I thought you weren’t that stupid. You could have tried not to touch my father’s things.

  She seemed genuinely puzzled.

  —I barely touched that pathetic phonograph, Kronauer explained.

  I just touched the membrane with my hand. It pricked me like some kind of angry animal.

  —Those aren’t normal things, Myriam Umarik said. Don’t just touch them. It’s too dangerous. They’re part of Solovyei. When he figures out that you wanted to take it, he’ll be angry, and you’ll be stuck with him for a thousand years.

  —Really, a thousand years? Kronauer said sadly.

  —One thousand eight hundred and twenty-six years or more, Myriam Umarik specified.

  He made a slight gesture impatiently. Solovyei’s omnipresence annoyed him, with these constant mentions of magical threats, every one of them numbered on a massive scale. He stood up immediately; he wanted to curse the president of the kolkhoz in front of his daughter. He let go of the monkey wrench he had been holding. The sudden change in position made him feel dizzy. Starbursts circled around him. He staggered, caught his balance on the fire hydrant. The red paint on the hood flaked away under his hand. He turned toward Myriam Umarik and looked directly at her, longer this time than a minute earlier when she had approached him, but he no longer saw her clearly. He tried to fight against his shakiness, his nausea. Now, the sun lit up Myriam Umarik’s face. In the middle of a few stars he saw that she was smiling at him, he saw her large white teeth, her thick mouth, her slightly too-big incisors, and at the same moment the colors weakened and he felt the world give way under his legs.

  —Hey, Kronauer, what’s wrong? Myriam Umarik asked.

  He waved his hand in response. He had opened his mouth but couldn’t speak.

  —You’re not going to do the same thing Barguzin did, are you? Myriam Umarik said.

  —What thing? Kronauer stammered.

  Barguzin, he thought quickly. Myriam Umarik’s husband. She’s not a widow. The Gramma Udgul warned me. Especially not to hang around her. Especially not to anger Solovyei. Especially not to hurt any of his daughters at all.

  A thousand years, he thought. One thousand eight hundred and twenty-six years, or more.

  Then the shadows came and, from his point of view, he disappeared.

  8

  • Kronauer’s loss of consciousness persisted for several hours or a day or two or a little more and, essentially, it kept him from being present when Solovyei and Morgovian came back to Radiant Terminus.

  When he woke up again on his spartan bed, Kronauer had a feeling of déjà vu. He no longer gave off a filthy vagrant’s smell, but once again the daughters had carried his comatose, heavy, inert body to set him down in his more or less prison cell, and this thought made him ashamed. The door wasn’t locked, the building was empty, and he went to take a shower. Then he went out onto the street and that was when his life as a refugee in the kolkhoz began.

  It was a regular, boring life that followed a rhythm firmly established by Hannko Vogulian and Myriam Umarik, who helped him to find his footing but also tried to let him do as he wished. He often saw the two women and, less often, Samiya Schmidt. She avoided him and only talked to him in the public library, where she spent several afternoons every week, and even then it was just to make sure that he didn’t check out a book without returning the one he’d borrowed last time. Their conversations were curt. Once he had registered as a non-resident reader, she mainly suggested novels or satires written by Maria Kroll and her imitators, Rosa Wolff, Sonia Velasquez, or others lesser known but far more aggressive. Not wishing to contradict her, he always accepted her suggestions. He read these books in the solitude of his room, feeling unhappy to only have these tomes, which he wouldn’t have chosen on his own, to devour, whereas his preferences skewed toward socialist-realist, post-apocalyptic, or historical fictions, or toward silly and sentimental stories. However, because the feminist works had been foisted on him, he made the best of the situation and obediently renewed his knowledge of male brutality, the ridiculously animalistic nature of all sexual relations, the systematic practice of rape in the relationships between men and women, the impossibility of envisioning a sexual activity that was enjoyable and shared lovingly without somehow defiling the female body.

  During the day, he assisted Abazayev, or Barguzin, or Mo
rgovian, or Solovyei’s daughters when they asked for help, which wasn’t often. Work in the kolkhoz didn’t call for special knowledge and he was limited to basic cleaning or maintenance jobs. There was no agricultural production just then, and there weren’t any animals anywhere. When Kronauer mentioned his astonishment at seeing the communist cooperative stocked with flour, yak butter, and ingredients used to make pemmican, or even blocks of prepared pemmican, Morgovian turned gloomy and spouted off nonsensical explanations about merchant caravans coming by, which he claimed were connected to lunar cycles, then he lost all confidence in his words and eventually stopped talking without having said anything comprehensible. When Myriam Umarik was asked the same question, she shrugged her shoulders and jokingly wondered whether he had been sent by the Orbise to verify Radiant Terminus’s records and pore through the list of the cooperative’s suppliers. A little later, the one-armed Abazayev, whose relationship with Kronauer was crude but trusting, gestured with his working arm to talk about something else. Kronauer didn’t ask again how the kolkhoz was provided with food and natural assets. He wasn’t trying to figure out anything about the oddities in the way the kolkhoz functioned, partly because he didn’t want to look like an oversuspicious snoop, and also because he didn’t care. He just wanted to settle in the Levanidovo without any trouble, because going back to the steppes didn’t make sense anymore.

  Going back to his death, without comrades, without Vassilissa Marachvili, without Ilyushenko.

  He had learned that the expedition to the Red Star sovkhoz hadn’t produced any results. After having searched high and low through the grasses, Solovyei and Morgovian had come back to the Levanidovo empty-handed. Neither Ilyushenko nor Vassilissa Marachvili had left a message behind, and, in all likelihood, they had gotten on the train with the soldiers, since the convoy had disappeared as well. The news had torn Kronauer apart for several days. He knew he couldn’t do anything, but he was tormented by the thought that Vassilissa Marachvili might have been assaulted and that, if she hadn’t acceded, she might have been enslaved and forced to fulfill those roughnecks’ sexual fantasies. At moments he also imagined a happier adventure, an unhampered departure, and then he wasn’t upset that he had been left behind without any explanation, assuming that it had been a way for Vassilissa Marachvili and Ilyushenko to survive somehow. Which didn’t keep him from feeling a twinge in his heart when he thought of Vassilissa Marachvili.