Orsinian tales o-1

by Ursula Kroeber Le Guin

  "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 – " Ko-stant'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 Ka-talny 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, himself 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?"

  The door opened, snow flickered whirling in the shaft of light. "Are ye the doctor?"

  "No. How do I get on to Lotima?"

  "Next turn right. If ye meet the doctor tell him hurry on!"

  The horse left the village unwillingly, lame on one leg and then the other. Stefan kept his head raised looking for the dawn, which surely must be near. He rode north now, the snow blowing in his face, blinding him even to the darkness. The road climbed, went down, climbed again. The horse stopped, and when Stefan did nothing, turned left, made a couple of stumbling steps, stopped again shuddering and neighed. Stefan dismounted, falling to hands and knees because his legs were too stiff at first to hold him. There was a cattle-guard of poles laid across a side-road. He let the horse stand and felt his way up the side-road to a sudden house lifting a dark wall and snowy roof above him. He found the door, knocked, waited, knocked; a window rattled, a woman said frightened to death over his head, "Who's that?"

  "Is this the Sachik farm?"

  "No! Who's that?"

  "Have I passed the Sachiks'?"

  "Are ye the doctor?"

  "Yes."

  "It's the next but one on the left side. Want a lantern, doctor?"

  She came downstairs and gave him a lantern and matches; she held a candle, which dazzled his eyes so that he never saw her face.

  He went at the horse's head now, the lantern in his left hand and the reins in his right, held close to the bridle. The horse's docile, patient, stumbling walk, the liquid darkness of its eye in the gleam of the lantern, grieved Stefan sorely. They walked ahead very slowly and he looked for the dawn.

  A farmhouse flickered to his left when he was almost past it; snow, wind-plastered on its north wall, caught the light of the lantern. He led the horse back. The hinges of the gate squealed. Dark outbuildings crowded round. He knocked, waited, knocked. A light moved inside the house, the door opened, again a candle held at eye-level dazzled him.

  "Who is that?"

  "That's you, Ekata," he said.

  "Who is that? Stefan?"

  "I must have missed the other farm, the one in between."

  "Come in – "

  "The horse. Is that the stable?"

  "There, to the left – "

  He was all right while he found a stall for the horse, robbed the Sachiks' roan of some hay and water, found a sack and rubbed the horse down a bit; he did all that very well, he thought, but when he got back to the house his knees went weak and he could scarcely see the room or Ekata who took his hand to bring him in. She had on a coat over something white, a nightgown. "Oh lad," she said, "you rode from Kampe tonight?"

  "Poor old horse," he said, and smiled. His voice said the words some while after he thought he had said them. He sat down on the sofa.

  "Wait there," she said. It seemed she left the room for a while, then she was putting a cup of something in his hands. He drank; it was hot; the sting of brandy woke him long enough to watch her stir up the buried coals and put wood on the fire. "I wanted to talk to you, see," he said, and then he fell asleep.

  She took off his shoes, put his legs up on the sofa, got a blanket and put it over him, tended the reluctant fire. He never stirred. She turned out the lamp and slipped back upstairs in the dark. Her bed was by the window of her attic room, and she could see or feel that it was now snowing soft and thick in the dark outside.

  She roused to a knock and sat up seeing the even light of snow on walls and ceiling. Her uncle peered in. He was wearing yellowish-white woollen underwear and his hair stuck up like fine wire around his bald spot. The whites of his eyes were the same color as his underwear. "Who's that downstairs?"

  Ekata explained to Stefan, somewhat later in the morning, that he was on his way to Lotima on business for the Chorin Company, that he had started from Kampe at noon and been held up by a stone in his horse's shoe and then by the snow.

  "Why?" he said, evidently confused, his face looking rather childish with fatigue and sleep.

  "I had to tell them something."

  He scratched his head. "What time did I get here?"

  "About two in the morning."

  He remembered how he had looked for the dawn, hours away.

  "What did you come for?" Ekata said. She was clearing the breakfast table; her face was stern, though she spoke softly.

  "I had a fight," Stefan said. "With Kostant."

  She stopped, holding two plates, and looked at him.

  "You don't think I hurt him?" He laughed. He was lightheaded, tired out, serene. "He knocked me cold. You don't think I could have beat him?"

  "I don't know," Ekata said with distress.

  "I always lose fights," Stefan said. "And run away."

  The deaf man came through, dressed to go outside in heavy boots, an old coat made of blanketing; it was still snowing. "Ye'll not get on to Lotima today, Mr Stefan," he said in his loud even voice, with satisfaction. "Tomas says the nag's lame on four legs." This had been discussed at breakfast, but the deaf man had not heard. He had not asked how Kostant was getting on, and when he did so later in the day it was with the same satisfied malice: "And your brother, he's down in the pits again, no doubt?" He did not try to hear the answer.

  Stefan spent most of the day by the fire sleeping. Only Ekata's cousin was curious about him. She said to Ekata as they were cooking supper, "They say his brother is a handsome man."

  "Kostant? The handsomest man I ever saw." Ekata smiled, chopping onions.

  "I don't know as I'd call this one handsome," the cousin said tentatively.

  The onions were making Ekata cry; she laughed, blew her nose, shook her head. "Oh no," she said.

  After supper Stefan met Ekata as she came into the kitchen from dumping out peelings and swill for the pigs. She wore her father's coat, clogs on her shoes, her black kerchief. The freezing wind swept in with her till she wrestled the door shut. "It's clearing," she said, "the wind's from the south."

  "Ekata, do you know what I came here for – "

  "Do you know yourself?" she said, looking up at him as she set the bucket down.

  "Yes, I do."

  "Then I do, I suppose."

  "There isn't anywhere," he said in rage as the uncle's clumping boots approached the kitchen.

  "There's my room," she said impatiently. But the walls were thin, and the cousin slept in the next attic and her parents across the stairwell; she frowned angrily and said, "No. Wait t
ill the morning."

  In the morning, early, the cousin went off alone down the road. She was back in half an hour, her straw-stuffed boots smacking in the thawing snow and mud. The neighbor's wife at the next house but one had said, "He said he was the doctor, I asked who it was was sick with you. I gave him the lantern, it was so dark I didn't see his face, I thought it was the doctor, he said so." The cousin was munching the words sweetly, deciding whether to accost Stefan with them, or Ekata, or both before witnesses, when around a bend and down the snow-clotted, sun-bright grade of the road two horses came at a long trot: the livery-stable horse and the farm's old roan. Stefan and Ekata rode; they were both laughing. "Where ye going?" the cousin shouted, trembling. "Running away," the young man called back, and they went past her, splashing the puddles into diamond-slivers in the sunlight of March, and were gone.

  1910

  A Week in the Country

  ON a sunny morning of 1962 in Cleveland, Ohio, it was raining in Krasnoy and the streets between grey walls were full of men. "It's raining down my neck in here," Kasimir complained, but his friend in the adjoining stall of the streetcorner W.C. did not hear him because he was also talking: "Historical necessity is a solecism, what is history except what had to happen? But you can't extend that. What happens next? God knows!" Kasimir followed him out, still buttoning his trousers, and looked at the small boy looking at the nine-foot-long black coffin leaning against the W.C. "What's in it?" the boy asked. "My great-aunt's body," Kasimir explained. He picked up the coffin, hurried on with Stefan Fab-bre through the rain. "A farce, determinism's a farce. Anything to avoid awe. Show me a seed," Stefan Fabbre said stopping and pointing at Kasimir, "yes, I can tell you what it is, it's an apple seed. But can I tell you that an apple tree will grow from it? No! Because there's no freedom, we think there's a law. But there is no law. There's growth and death, delight and terror, an abyss, the rest we invent. We're going to miss the train." They jostled on up Tiypontiy Street, the rain fell harder. Stefan Fabbre strode swinging his briefcase, his mouth firmly closed, his white face shining wet. "Why didn't you take up the piccolo? Give me that awhile," he said as Kasimir tangled with an office-worker running for a bus. "Science bearing the burden of Art," Kasimir said, "heavy, isn't it?" as his friend hoisted the case and lugged it on, frowning and by the time they reached West Station gasping. On the platform in rain and steam they ran as others ran, heard whistles shriek and urgent Sanskrit blare from loudspeakers, and lurched exhausted into the first car. The compartments were all empty. It was the other train that was pulling out, jammed, a suburban train. Theirs sat still for ten minutes. "Nobody on this train but us?" Stefan Fabbre asked, morose, standing at the window. Then with one high peep the walls slid away. Raindrops shook and merged on the pane, tracks interwove on a viaduct, the two young men stared into bedroom windows and at brick walls painted with enormous letters. Abruptly nothing was left in the rain-dark evening sliding backwards to the east but a line of hills, black against a colorless clearing sky.