Kronauer quickly shifted the direction of his rifle, aimed at the half-suitcase occupying the top of his adversary, and shot. The other gave a sharp squeak, turned off its flashlight, and disappeared back into the Soviet. For eight or ten seconds, there came a string of groans that seemed insincere and strange. The screams echoed powerfully in the hall. Then everything went quiet.
At that moment, the wind picked up.
The snow slapped Kronauer; he suddenly realized that he had started to breathe as if after a violent effort.
The street whirled.
The wind began to whoop around the Levanidovo. Masses of ice burst around Kronauer, on all the vertical surfaces beside him and on his coat.
He was able to see less and less. By the Pioneers’ House, if the black coat was still in the same place, it couldn’t be seen any longer.
The night promised to be a long one.
• His rifle pointed straight ahead, Kronauer crossed the road and went to the Soviet. The light was meager. The wind threw screaming bursts of snow on him and pushed him violently to the side, without really knocking him over, but forcing him to weave. The chill bit into the tops of his hands. His right finger, which wavered between the trigger guard and the trigger itself, was about to lose its ability to feel. He moved it and pressed it against the wood carcass so as not to risk an accidental shot. The wood was as icy as the metal. Before going up the steps, he looked all around. The snow beat on his eyelids and, past the first few meters, he couldn’t make out anything but gray whistling. In the darkness he, too, had become an uninterpretable, half-animal, dangerous form.
He went up the steps carefully, more out of fear of slipping than out of any worry of an assault from the shadows. All sorts of attacks were possible—a gunshot, a knife stab, an ax blow, hand-to-hand combat with an adversary weighing twice as much as he did, who would immediately rip away his rifle as well as half his hand. All sorts of attacks. However, in the current confrontation, he still saw himself more as hunter than hunted. He paid attention to the ground, but he was certain that things were going well. The ice under the thin layer of snow was threatening. It was of a good thickness and wouldn’t shatter when he set his foot on it.
Without skidding and without incident, he entered the shadowy space of the hall and shut the door behind him. The blizzard’s infrequent groans could still be heard, but so much more weakly that instead of counteracting they underlined the silence that reigned on the ground floor and throughout the entire building.
On the lookout, Kronauer stayed immobile for a long while by the door. At least a full minute. His index finger was in place again to pull the trigger. He tried to catch a movement or breath nearby or far off in the building, but he couldn’t catch anything. After this bout of vigilance, he brushed the bulk of the snow he’d carried off his body and his weapon and, as he’d already done earlier, he shook his boots and kicked them against the wall. The noise reverberated in the hall’s emptiness. He didn’t take any care to be discreet. He knew that his entrance couldn’t have gone unnoticed and that his adversary, if he was still in the area and watching him from the shadows, knew his position down to the centimeter.
In order to hear what was around him better, he had untied the string that kept his shapka’s earflaps folded over his cheeks. Wherever he was hidden, his adversary didn’t make himself shown. Paradoxically, the light in the hall was better than on the street. The natural brightness of the snow, here, wasn’t thwarted by whirlwinds. It filtered weakly through the windows, but it was enough for Kronauer to get his bearings and distinguish the whitewashed walls from the black openings that faced him: the hallway leading to Solovyei’s apartments, the padded doors that opened onto offices, the entrance to the storeroom. He waited another few minutes for his fingers to warm up, for the snow on his weapon to melt, and for his eyes to acclimatize completely to the darkness. Then, although he hadn’t noticed any suspicious noise in front of him, he moved. As he walked with his rifle sometimes pointed toward the hallway, sometimes toward the various ground-floor doors, he went toward the storeroom. He hadn’t had the time, earlier, to take a third clip, and he wanted to have a good ammunition reserve. It was also a place he now knew and which, for this reason, seemed safer than elsewhere. He decided to go in, find new clips, wait a little, and think.
• When he stepped on the threshold of the storeroom, a brutal sensation of déjà vu paralyzed him. I’ve already experienced this, he thought, as anxiety mounted. He stood in the doorway, firmly planted, massive as a bear and threatening the shadow in front of him. I’ve already stood like this on this threshold, he was thinking. He paused for a second, and then he regained the use of his muscles. He got a grip on himself. Without letting go of his rifle, he reached with his left hand toward the light switch. The switch produced a familiar noise of mechanical tumbling, but the ceiling light reacted with a dry click along with a flash that blinded Kronauer and didn’t illuminate anything. The bulb had burned out. For a second, the white and then red imprint of the incandescent filament stayed on Kronauer’s retinas, and, in front of him, he only had an image of total, undifferentiated blackness. It would be difficult to find the box with the cartridges, he groused, half to himself, half whispering. It’s too messy in there to find good cartridges just by feeling, he continued. His mouth moved, a weak moaning sound escaped. Then, out of some inexplicable desire to be heard or to hear himself, he began whispering distinctly, like a drunk person or a shaman warming up before a prayer.
—What are you imagining, Kronauer? he whispered. You want cartridges? . . . And who are you thinking of fighting against, you poor idiot? . . . You want to resist a siege? . . . Have you planned a massacre? . . . Do you have a plan, Kronauer, you sham soldier? . . .
As he formulated this last question, something heavy slammed into his torso, stealing his breath and forcing him to stagger forward. An indefinite mass, come out of the depths, had fallen upon him and hit him between the sternum and the waist. The fur and leather of his coat had partially absorbed the shock. He bent down and stepped back beneath the blow. Whatever had jostled him was sizable, contorted, and soft. He immediately rejected the possibility of a bullet shot from a weapon he hadn’t heard go off. The silence in the storeroom was resounding. It was more like a sand bag or a dead animal that had flown at him at full speed. A magical projectile or a dirty trick invented by Solovyei, he thought, then, as he was losing his balance, he took a second step backward.
He went back another meter, slipping on the tiles. He had groaned in surprise and pain and, now he was quiet. The sand bag or the corpse that had been thrown at him had bounced somewhere within the shadows and was now heavy and unmoving, doubtless across the threshold. A big dog or human corpse, he thought.
In the storeroom, nobody had given any sign of life. But it came from there, he thought. He stood up slowly. He still had in his stomach a feeling of a brutal weight. A dead animal, a big dog or a wolf, he thought. That’s what was thrown at me. Or someone’s body.
But that doesn’t make sense, he thought. He tried not to picture what had happened. Fear grew in his gut and he wanted to deny it completely.
Now he was in an upright position. Under his right sole, a small lump of ice had gotten stuck and caused his boot to slip to the side when he put his weight on it. His torso and his hips were aching. What I know is that I was attacked, he thought. He aimed the SKS at the depths of the storeroom and he shot twice. The bullets flew into the scrap metal, ricocheted. Something fell, a metal box, its contents scattered quickly, maybe coins or medals, then nothing. In the hall, the echoes of the detonation bounced from angle to angle with evident joy and diminished his bad feeling. The racket was considerable. Then the gunfire unquestionably belonged to the past and now Kronauer felt his heart beating between his sides and his throat.
He was currently standing within the black doorframe of the storeroom, in the center of a swirl of hot grease and powder. And, as no sign of life or death came from the da
rkness, he didn’t know what to do in the face of the shadows, in the face of consecutive magic spells, and in the face of the fear he kept pushing away but which came back again and again.
The fear. It grew, it disappeared, he drove it away. But it was there.
• He ruled out entering the storeroom. No way to know if the two randomly released bullets had hit whoever was hiding in the room—the one who was lurking there, completely immobile and silent, doubtless neither wounded nor dead, holding his breath and waiting for the best moment to counter-attack. The president of the kolkhoz, or one of the servile creatures surrounding him in his hideous poems. In any case, someone who had enough magical powers to send flying a human or semi-human or animal corpse or maybe just a bag filled with organs and meat. Maybe, Kronauer thought, he’s planning for me to die of fear. He was ready to fire again and he focused on detecting any distant sound or movement. But he only detected absence.
He crossed the hall backward, constantly watching the black entrance of the storeroom. The light was meager but, once he felt a wall he could lean on against his back, he considered it enough to survey the theater of operations and he positioned himself in a corner. He was away from the windows. If traces of light beams came from outside, none would land directly on him. He felt like he had found a spot hard for a menacing gaze to apprehend. It was an absurd feeling, especially considering the adversary he was up against. But he had that feeling. The SKS in firing position, he moved his line of sight onto the storeroom entrance at moments, or onto the hallway entrance leading to Solovyei’s rooms, or the door leading to the street.
As he kept moving his rifle, he wasn’t discreet at all, and, having acknowledged that in any case he would be detected by the enemy, he allowed himself to move a little to warm up. He was no longer exposed to the glacial wind, and the coat Hannko Vogulian had selected for him was warm, his fur-lined boots protected him from the cold seeping out of the floor, but anxiety had weakened his body and he was still shivering. His hands didn’t warm up. He breathed on them and he shook himself a bit to get his blood flowing again. His stomach still had the sensation of having made contact with this sizable mass that had been thrown at him from the darkness and the more he thought about it, the more he was certain that something vile had hit his stomach. A corpse or a huge bundle filled with grease and meat, he repeated as he tapped his feet on the tiles, as much to increase the circulation through his legs as to make noise and distract his body from the disgust and fear infecting it.
When he pointed his rifle at the storeroom, he forced himself to scrutinize the thick shadows and glimpse this mass that, after having jostled him violently, had fallen on the threshold. It should have been just beyond the entrance or on the tiles, close to the door. But the tiles seemed bare of all presence. But I’m sure I haven’t been dreaming, he thought. It hit me sideways up here, it was heavy, it flew toward me at full speed and then I heard it fall on the ground. It has to be slumped over the threshold. Or it crawled back without my noticing. It crawled back, it moved without making any noise, it went back where it came from.
I should have shot at it right then, he scolded himself.
Who knows if it’ll throw itself at me again before I can do something to it, he thought. As fast or even faster than the first time. As fast as a bullet.
He stayed calm for several minutes. He aimed at the storeroom entrance, a black-on-black rectangle. A fatal shot could also come from there and, if it was well-aimed, he would be unable to respond. The idea of taking a bullet didn’t bother him. Death wasn’t one of his wishes, but he accepted the prospect, partly because he was a soldier and partly because it would be a quick way of leaving the Levanidovo and its deleterious atmosphere, its interregnums and its oneiric traps. And at least that would put an end to this hunting amok, this anger amok, and this fear amok, and all that went with it—total regression to primitive hunting, intelligence sidelined for instincts, and, especially, deep down, an irrepressible desire to kill, to slaughter, and to hurt, even if he couldn’t remember anymore what had brought about this nightmare.
I don’t even know anymore whether or not I’ve swerved away from Marxist principles, he thought. Then he didn’t think anymore.
Half an hour went by. Kronauer started shifting around again. Sometimes he stood, sometimes he squatted. Most of the time, he pointed his SKS at the storeroom’s opening, but nothing moved and he had no reason to fire.
• A preternatural peace reigned in the Soviet. Aside from a few gestures Kronauer made, there was no longer any movement. Only the noises from outside filled the space. The noises came from outside and from darkness.
The blizzard’s assaults in the street.
The sheets of snow scattering violently against the windows.
The gusts of wind successively filling the street.
And, within the walls, nothing to report.
Waiting. Interminable watching. Sometimes a heavy breath, a worried hiccup Kronauer couldn’t hold back.
Darkness. A dark wait. The minutes went by, each one more oppressive than the last. Am I fighting or sleeping? Kronauer thought. A dark uncertainty.
Another half an hour passed.
Unable to bear it any longer, Kronauer energetically crossed the hall, stood at the entrance to the storeroom, and shot three bullets in a row, aiming at the directions where he thought someone could be lying or standing. The bullets hit hard obstacles, walls. He heard metal things flying off and falling with a racket to the floor. Clearly no living or dead adversary made of meat and grease had received a projectile. The empty cartridge cases bounced on the tiles by Kronauer’s feet. He let the detonation’s echoes, the gunpowder smell fade away. The short seconds of the fusillade stretched out a bit and then dissipated. They hadn’t come to anything. Kronauer had hoped for a scream, a sigh, or at least the sound of steel piercing an enemy body. But nothing of the sort came. He didn’t move his rifle, he stood unmoving in front of the door, as if puzzled by the absence of any result of his offensive, or maybe also meditating before a hail of bullets came, because he knew he was overwhelmingly exposed to any return fire. He wanted to rock like a bear confronted by some danger, or like a madman confronted by himself, but he held back. In a flash, he wondered if he shouldn’t say something, as much to speak to the threats surrounding him, which were becoming less and less human, as to hear some sign of life from himself. Then the idea faded away. The rest of his thoughts were confused. He stayed there for a minute, perhaps two, frozen and indecisive. Then, since nothing had happened, he left.
• He went past the padded doors that opened onto the administrative rooms and, after a last look around the empty hall, he went into the hallway leading to Solovyei’s private domain. Now he had gone into a part of the building he didn’t know, and he went slowly. For some unknown and unclear reason, he felt that he wouldn’t encounter any traps on this floor, which didn’t prevent him from being ready to shoot at the slightest shift in the thick darkness, at the least impression of a suspicious presence. He went a meter and a half into the hallway, then two meters. The floor was parquet, the boards groaned. The noise announced his position at every moment. He suddenly hunched down and froze. What good is curling up going to do you, Kronauer? he thought. You’re making too much noise, even your coat is whispering when it rubs against the floor. You’re drawing attention to yourself. Is that what you want? . . . You want a bastard to gun you down before you’ve had time to clean out Radiant Terminus?
After several moments of thinking, he decided that the darkness put him at a disadvantage and that he had nothing to lose by trying to turn on the lights. He got back up and went back to the beginning of the hallway. The parquet creaked violently beneath him. All while aiming his weapon at the darkness, he now walked with his left hand along the wall. It didn’t take him long to feel the protruding shape of a light switch. He immediately flicked it. The president of the kolkhoz hadn’t thought to cut off the power, or he hadn’t considered it necessary. R
ight away, Kronauer found himself beneath three ceiling lights that illuminated the full length of the corridor. The corridor was empty. There wasn’t anybody to shoot at.
The décor didn’t seem particularly special, and after the action of the previous hours, and beneath this strong light, it was astonishingly banal. Everything was painted in bright colors, light yellow, administrative green. The air smelled of warm radiators and varnish. On Kronauer’s right, a set of stairs led up. Kronauer aimed his SKS at the steps and then lined it up with the hallway. He was certain that it was useless to go up higher. A certainty without any basis, but a firm one. At the far end was a set of stairs that led down. It’s that way, he thought. He had practically no reason, these scrawny and meager phrases had simply occurred to him.
Two rooms opened onto the hallway. These were soulless spots, with office furniture, mismatched or damaged chairs. Waiting rooms rather than living rooms or bedrooms. In the first one there was a couch and a low table on which a shattered carafe and glasses black with dust waited pitifully. His rifle pointed forward, Kronauer kicked the door, turned on the light, swept his eyes over the space, then he went back into the hallway. In this way he respected the theater of commando intervention in confined environments. Somehow he was still convinced that Solovyei wasn’t hiding there, that Solovyei was waiting for him somewhere, in the basement, and he was only delaying the moment when he would have to go underground to find his target. Once he had come out of the second room, he knew that he couldn’t postpone the next scene any longer. He would have to go down the stairs at the end of the hallway.
• He didn’t count the steps. There were perhaps twenty or twenty-five. When he reached the last one, he was warned by a noise from above. In the doorframe appeared a silhouette, whose head was hidden by a plastic barrel in which two holes had been punched to see. This receptacle had been cut out to be carried on its shoulders, and so it more or less resembled a monstrously proportioned cosmonaut’s helmet. In contrast, and despite being enlarged and inflated by a foxtail coat, the intruder’s body seemed to be modestly sized.
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