Los and Gusev took their bags and together with their bald companion set off across the meadow downward toward the grove.
Water vapor, jetting from the lateral valves on irrigation pipes, played with rainbow colors over the curling grasses which were sparkling with moisture. A herd of compact, shaggy animals, black and white, were grazing over the slope. It was peaceful. Running waters murmured softly. A gentle wind blew.
The shaggy animals rose lazily as the men approached and made way for them, waddling their bear-like paws and averting their flat blunt muzzles. A shepherd boy in a long red shirt sat on a stone, his chin on his hand, lazily observing them as they passed. Yellow birds came to rest on the meadow, settled their wings, and shook themselves under the iridescent sprays of water. In the distance a solitary bright green crane wandered on its long legs.
They made their way to the grove. Its luxuriant pendulous branches were azure and sky-blue. The succulent celestial leaves rustled softly and the hanging branches murmured. Between the maculated trunks of the trees played the reflected light from a distant lake. A piquant and sweet sultriness in the blue grove made them slightly dizzy.
The grove was crossed by many paths strewn with orange sand. At their intersections in circular clearings stood large old sandstone statues, carved by other hands, touched by lichens. Above the undergrowth rose shattered columns and remains of cyclopean walls.
The trace turned towards the lake. Revealed now was its dark-blue mirrored surface with the reversed summit of a distant jagged mountain. The reflections of the weeping trees scarcely moved on the water. A luxuriant sun shone brightly. On the receding shoreline flanking a mossy stairway which descended into the lake were two huge sitting statues, cracked and overgrown with creeping vegetation.
On the steps emerging from the water appeared a young woman. A yellow pointed cap covered her head. She appeared to be young and slender and her complexion was pale blue against the massive figure, draped with moss, eternally smiling his dreaming smile, of the sitting Magatsitl. Then she slipped, seized a stone projection, and lifted her head.
“Aelita,” whispered the Martian, covering his eyes with his sleeve and pulling Los and Gusev from the path into the grove.
Soon they emerged into a large clearing. In its midst in thick grass stood a gloomy gray house with inclined walls. From a star-shaped sandy courtyard which stood before its facade, direct paths ran across the meadow downwards towards the grove where among the trees could be seen a low brick structure.
The bald Martian whistled. From behind one corner of the house appeared a squat plump Martian in a striped gown. His crimson face looked as though it had been rubbed with a beet. Blinking in the sun he came closer, but when he perceived who they were he turned to dart back behind the corner of the house. The bald Martian spoke commandingly to him and the fat man, collapsing with fear, returned, showing a gold tooth in his otherwise toothless mouth, and led the guests into the house.
REST
The guests were led into brightly lighted small rooms which were nearly empty and which looked through narrow windows into the park. The walls of the dining room and bedrooms were lined with straw-colored mats. In the corner stood jars with miniature flowering trees. Gusev found their quarters suitable: “Like inside a basket, very nice.”
The fat man in the striped gown who oversaw the house bustled about, muttered, waddled from door to door, wiped his skull with a brown cloth, and from time to time rolled his sclerotic eyes at the guests—and secretly clenched his hands in a strange manner, no doubt as a kind of a charm to ward off evil.
He ran water into a basin and led Los and Gusev each to his own bath—from the basin rose heavy clouds of steam. The touch of the hot, bubbling, light water to his immeasurably tired body was so sweet that Los almost fell asleep in the marble basin. The major-domo pulled him out by the hand.
Los barely staggered to the dining room where a table was set with a multitude of dishes with baked fish, pastries, fowl, tiny eggs and preserved fruits. The crisp rolls the size of a nut melted in his mouth.
They ate with tiny spoons. The major-domo stiffened when he saw how the men from the earth devoured the dishes of delicate foods. Gusev surrendered to his appetite, abandoned his spoon and ate with his hands, praising everything. The wine was especially good—it was white with a faint blue tint with a bouquet of earth and currants. It evaporated in the mouth and sent a fiery warmth through the veins.
After escorting his guests into their bedrooms the majordomo lingered for a longtime, fussing about, straightening the blankets and arranging the pillows. But a great and heavy sleep overwhelmed the “white giants.” They breathed so heavily and snored so loudly that the windows trembled, the vegetation in the corners swayed, and the beds under their powerful bodies, so unlike those of the Martians, resounded.
Los opened his eyes. A bluish artificial light poured from the ceiling, as though from out of a cup. It was warm and pleasant in the bed. “What’s happened? Where am I?” But he made no special effort to remember. “My God, how tired I am,” he thought luxuriating, and closed his eyes again.
Some kind of radiant circles, as though water was flashing through azure leaves, floated into view. A premonition of astonishing joy, an expectation that soon from out of these radiant circles something was to emerge into his dream filled him with wondrous alarm.
In his drowsiness, smiling, he knitted his brows—struggling to penetrate that delicate curtain of shifting circles of sunlight. But a yet heavier sleep enveloped him like a cloud.
***
Los threw his legs off the bed. He sat up. For some time he sat in this position, his head down. Rising, he pulled aside a heavy blind. Beyond the narrow window burned the icy light of great stars whose unfamiliar pattern was strange and unsettling.
“Yes, yes, yes,” said Los, “I’m no longer on the earth. The earth has remained behind. Icy wastes, endless space. So far to go! I’m in a new world. Well, certainly, but I’m dead. That I know. My soul is still there.”
He sat on the bed. He dug his nails into his chest, over his heart. Then he lay face down.
“This is neither life nor death. My brain is alive, my body is alive. But I’m cast out. This is it, this is it—hell.”
He bit the pillow so he would not cry out. He himself could not understand why for a second night he was still suffering such agonies for the earth and for himself who was now living beyond the stars. It was as though the thread of life had been torn free and his soul was struggling for life in an icy black void.
“Who’s there?”
Los leaped to his feet. A ray of morning light pierced the window. The straw-lined little room was blindingly clean. Leaves murmured and birds chirped outside the window. Los rubbed his eyes and sighed. He felt alarmed but joyful.
Someone rapped once more lightly on the door. Los opened the door—in front of it stood the striped fat man holding to his stomach an armload of azure flowers sprinkled with dew:
“Aiu utara Aelita,” he piped, extending the flowers.
THE CLOUDED BALL
After breakfast Gusev said:
“Mstislav Sergeevich, this won’t do at all. We flew God knows how far, and look, we’re sitting here in idleness. Probably they won’t let us into the city—you saw how that bearded man, the dark one, frowned at us. Mstislav Sergeevich, watch out for him. His picture’s hanging in my bedroom. For the time being they’re giving us food and drink, but then what will happen? Drinking, eating, lying around in bathtubs, that isn’t what we came for.”
“Don’t be in such a hurry, Alexei Ivanovich,” said Los, looking at the azure flowers with their pungent and yet sweet odor. “Let’s wait, look around, and they’ll see that we aren’t dangerous and allow us into the city.”
“I don’t know about you, Mstislav Sergeevich, but I didn’t come here to lie around.”
“Well, what do you think we ought to do?”
“It seems strange to hear that from you, Mst
islav Sergeevich, maybe you’ve been sniffing something sweet [cocaine].”
“Do you want to quarrel with me?”
“No, I don’t. But to sit around and smell flowers: that we could have done on earth. But I think since we’re the first to get here, then Mars is ours now, Russian. We ought to make sure of that.”
“You’re a strange man, Alexei Ivanovich.”
“We’ll see which of us is strange.” Gusev straightened his belt, shrugged and his eyes turned calculating. “It would be difficult, I know—there are only two of us. First we’ve got to get a document from them that says they want to become part of the Russian Federated Republic. They won’t give it to us without a fight, of course, but you’ve already seen that everything is not right on Mars. I have a nose for that kind of thing.”
“It’s a revolution, then, that you want to make?”
“Hard to say, Mstislav Sergeevich, let’s wait and see.”
“No, please, let’s get along without a revolution, Alexei Ivanovich.”
“I don’t care about the revolution, what I need is that document, Mstislav Sergeevich. What can we take back with us to St. Petersburg? Some kind of a dried spider, maybe? No, we’ll go back and say: here’s a document that says Mars has joined us. That wouldn’t be like taking some province from Poland—it’s a whole planet. That would make them sit up and take notice in Europe. Just gold alone, there are shiploads of it. That’s the way it is, Mstislav Sergeevich.”
Los looked at him pensively: it was impossible to say whether Gusev was joking or serious—his cunning guileless eyes were smiling, but somewhere in them lurked a touch of madness. Los shook his head and touching the translucent, waxen, azure petals on the great flowers said pensively:
“I’ve never known why I came to Mars. I flew here for the sake of flying. There were times when the visionary conquistadors equipped their ship and went off in search of new lands. Beyond the sea an unknown land would appear, the ship would enter an estuary, the Captain would remove his sweeping hat and name the country for himself: it was a glorious minute. Then he would plunder the country. Yes, you’re probably right: it isn’t enough to reach land—we ought to load up the ship with booty. Soon we’ll be able to see the new world. And what treasures there are. Wisdom, Alexei Ivanovich, that’s what we ought to take away on our ship. And your hands are itching all the time—that’s not so good.”
“Well have a hard time coming to an agreement, Mstislav Sergeevich. You’re not an easy man.”
Los laughed:
“No, I’m only difficult with myself—we’ll come to an agreement, my friend.”
Someone scratched at the door. Rocking on his heels in fear and awe, the major-domo indicated with signs that they were to follow him. Los rose quickly and passed his hand over his white hair. Gusev screwed up his mustaches resolutely. Through corridors and stairways the guests walked to a distant part of the house.
The major-domo knocked at a low door. Beyond it responded a rapid, childlike voice. Los and Gusev entered a long white chamber. Sunbeams with their dancing motes fell through skylights onto a mosaic floor on which were reflected even rows of books, bronze statues standing between low cabinets, little tables on delicate pointed legs, and the clouded mirrors of screens.
Not far from the door and leaning against the bookshelves stood a young ashen-haired woman in a black dress which extended from her neck to the floor to the backs of her hands. Above her piled hair motes danced in a ray of the sun which fell like a sward into the gilded book bindings. It was the woman whom the day before the Martian had named Aelita.
Los bowed deeply to her. Aelita, without stirring, looked at him with the great pupils of her ashen eyes. Her pale blue elongated fare trembled ever so slightly. Her somewhat pert nose, her somewhat irregular mouth, were as delicate as a child’s. As though she had been climbing a hill, her breast lifted lightly under the soft black folds of her dress.
“Ellio utara geo,” she said in a voice delicate and soft, like music, almost a whisper, and inclined so low that the back of her head could be seen.
In response Los could only wring his hands until the knuckles cracked. Then, with effort, he said, for some reason in a voice full of ceremony:
“The visitors from earth salute you, Aelita.”
He said it and blushed. Gusev said with aplomb:
“May we introduce ourselves—Colonel Gusev and the engineer, Mstislav Sergeevich Los. We have come to thank you for your hospitality.”
Having heard the speech, Aelita lifted her head—her face became calmer and the pupils of her eyes contracted. She silently extended her hand with the narrow palm upwards and held it so for a brief time. It seemed to Los and Gusev that on her palm had appeared a small pale green ball. Aelita quickly reversed her palm and walked past the bookshelves into the depths of the library. Her guests followed.
Now Los could see that Aelita was as tall as his shoulder, slender and graceful like a little girl. The hem of her full dress swept over the mirrored mosaic. Turning to them, she smiled—but her eyes remained uneasy and cool.
She pointed at a leather bench which stood in a semicircular niche. Los and Gusev sat down. Then Aelita took her place near a reading table, placed her elbows on the table and began to survey her guests mildly and intently.
For a moment they all remained silent. With the passage of time Los felt tranquility and pleasure—such it was to contemplate this marvelous and strange girl. Gusev sighed and said in a whisper:
“A good lady, a very fine lady.”
Then Aelita began to speak, as though she had touched a musical instrument—so magic was her voice. In phrase after phrase she repeated some kind of words. Her upper lip trembled and rose, and her ashen lashes touched. Her face was illuminated with charm and joy.
Once more she extended her hand before her, the palm upwards. Los and Gusev immediately perceived in the depths of her palm a pale green clouded ball, the size of a large apple. Shimmering, it constantly changed appearance.
Now both the guests and Aelita attentively observed the clouded opaline apple. Suddenly, its streaming markings ceased movement and dark masses appeared. As he watched it, Los cried out: on Aelita’s palm lay the earth.
“Taltsetl,” she said, pointed at it.
The ball began to turn slowly. Into sight came the outlines of America, then Asia’s Pacific shore. Gusev became excited:
“That’s us, we’re Russians, that’s ours,” he said, poking at Siberia. The Ura1s appeared as curling shadow, then the thread of the lower Volga. The White Sea shore took shape.
“Here,” said Los and indicated the Gulf of Finland. Aelita with surprise raised her eyes to him. The spinning of the ball ceased. Los concentrated and in his mind he saw part of a map—and immediately, as though in response to his imagination, a dark blotch appeared on the surface of the clouded ball and from it the radiating lines of railroads, a sign against a green field “St. Petersburg,” and to its side the large red letter which began the word “Russia.”
Aelita looked closely and covered the ball—but then it glowed through her fingers. Glancing at Los she shook her head:
“Otseo kho sua,” she said, and he understood: “Concentrate and try to remember.”
Then he began to recall the outlines of St. Petersburg the granite embankments, the icy blue waves of the Neva, a boat plunging through them with some kind of consumptive official as a passenger, the long arches of the Nicholas Bridge suspended in the fog, the dense smoke from the factories, the mists and clouds of a subdued sunset, a wet street, the sign of a corner store—“Tea, Sugar, and Coffee,” an old cabby waiting at the corner.
Aelita, resting her chin in her hands, quietly contemplated the ball. In it passed Los’s memories, at times clearly, at times shifting and blurred. There appeared a colonnade and the faint dome of St. Isaac’s Cathedral, and then its place was taken by a granite stairway by the water’s edge, a semi-circular bench, a sad girl sitting with an umbrella, while b
ehind her were two sphinxes in tiaras. Then a column of figures came into view, a blueprint, and a glowing forge appeared with the morose Khokhlov fanning the coals.
For a long time Aelita observed the strange life passing before them in the ball’s cloudy streamers. But then the images became confused: into them persistently intruded quite dissimilar outlines and scenes—lines of smoke, red skies, galloping horses, some kind of men who were running and falling. Then, blocking everything else, swam into view a terrible bearded face dripping blood. Gusev sighed deeply. In alarm Aelita turned to him, and then reversed her palm. The ball disappeared.
Aelita sat for a few moments, leaning on her elbows, her eyes covered with her hand. She arose, took a cylinder from a shelf, removed from it yet another ivory roller which she inserted into a table equipped with a screen. Then she pulled a cord and blue drapes swathed the upper windows in the library. She brought the table to the bench and turned a switch.
The screen became light and from its top downward appeared figures of Martians, animals, buildings, trees, and domestic objects. Aelita gave each object its name. When the figures moved and acted in unison she gave a verb. Sometimes the images were bordered with colored marks as in the singing book, and one could hear a barely audible musical phrase. Aelita named the subject.
She spoke in a low voice. Without haste pages appeared in that strange primer. In the quiet blue twilight of the library her ashen eyes followed Los, and Aelita’s voice with its powerful and gentle charm penetrated his consciousness. His head spun.
Los felt that his head was clearing as though a clouded veil was lifting and new words and concepts were imprinted in his memory. This went on for a long time. Aelita ran her hand over her face, sighed and extinguished the screen. Los and Gusev sat as though in a fog.
“Go and rest,” said Aelita to her guests in the language whose sounds were still strange but whose ideas had penetrated the recesses of their consciousness.
ON THE STAIRS
Worlds Apart Page 81
