He tried them both. The stove needed a new wick but was otherwise quite serviceable, and the generator started at once.
For the time being he left them there.
In the next three days he ran parts down to the cave. With Vassili’s agreement he picked them up at eight in the morning, using the back door of the storeroom to avoid going through the garage, and returned at lunch time for the second load. He went back to the house right away then, for Komarova had told him not to absent himself for long. The plan for getting him to the herds depended on the weather, and for this he had to be ready at short notice.
Now he knew far more about her.
She had been divorced six years and had not looked for other relationships. Had there been any? Of course — brief ones, she was human, what did he think? But just hospital people: doctors who came on two-or three-year contracts and then left, for Moscow, Petersburg, God knew where. She couldn’t leave, at least not yet. Her mother was a trial, but still her mother. Later maybe. But where else would she find such wide responsibilities and such work?
She loved the work, and she loved the country — the native people better than the Europeans. So she kept her distance, and was considered aloof; yes, she knew it. But better that than join a white elite and patronise the natives. Her father had never patronised them, and neither had Rogachev, and she had loved them for it. They were not treated equally — he must have seen it for himself. Plenty of extras for Europeans in these northern parts, but natives excluded, even in such matters as drink. She got them drink, and why not? It was a hard country. Yes, she was in some ways detached here, in some ways out of place. But she would be out of place in a town.
So what would do for her?
She didn’t know what would do. Her work would do!
She had scrupulously avoided asking him anything further about himself; so on the second night, trusting her suddenly, he told her.
She sat up in bed and looked at him.
‘An American Indian!’
‘Canadian.’
‘Not the Porter — Dr Johnny Porter?’
‘Well, that’s my name.’
She stared at him in amazement. Then she got out of bed and ran into the next room and returned with his Comparisons in a Russian translation.
‘This is yours?’
‘Yes.’
‘You mean, you’re not a — not just an agent? So what are you doing here?’
‘Well.’ He hesitated. But then he told the lot. The meeting with Rogachev in Oxford. The strangeness of his own life at the time — a widower, at twenty-three.
‘She’d only been nineteen herself — a little thing, very pretty — long black hair, pony tail down to here.’
‘An Indian girl?’
‘Oh, sure. Minnehaha, Laughing Water — doe-eyed Bride of Hiawatha. Name was Trisha, actually. She didn’t have doe eyes.’
‘What happened to her?’
‘She skipped out to catch a bus at lunch time. The bus caught her. Somebody said she probably hadn’t heard it.’
‘She hadn’t seen it?’
‘Being blind, no.’
‘Oh.’
‘She could hear a pin drop — in the next room!’
‘You mean-’
‘Ah, hell, who knows what I mean? I was seeing plots everywhere. Politics. All a long time ago … I guess she missed the kerb and slipped. Anyway, Rogachev told me to quit brooding. An amazing guy — I’d never met anyone like him. A polymath, interested in everything. In blindness too … We were discussing congenital things — turned out his wife had molecular degeneration, both eyes. He was depressed as hell really, under all the cheerfulness. But he said brooding was no good for me. There was something for me to do in this world, and he’d help me any way he could. Which he did actually.’
He was silent a moment.
‘See, earlier on I’d been trying to get to Chukotka, a security part you couldn’t get to. It was to research the Inuit there, Eskimos. And he got me permission, and I went. I didn’t use the stuff at the time, and I heard nothing from him directly. And later on I discovered why. He’d been in an accident, lost his wife, was in all sorts of trouble. Yet he’d done that for me — he’d meant what he said. So when they showed up with these messages … ’
‘But to disrupt your life in this way! To take on such dangers —’
‘I’ve disrupted it before, and lived rough before — he knew that. He knew I could do it — that I was the only one with any chance of doing it. And that I would if only I saw what he’d −’
He decided to skip what Rogachev had written.
No more sit in darkness nor like the blind stumble at …
‘Anyway,’ he said, ‘I did.’
‘Good God!’ She was still clutching the book she’d brought in. ‘Well, you’d do,’ she said. She lay on top of him. ‘My God, you’d do!’
On the Thursday he took the engine.
There were now only three days left of his week off. It meant taking the block and tackle, too, and also the lighting.
‘Lighting wire? What do you want with lighting wire? Vassili asked.
‘I might need some. Give me twenty metres. Also eight sockets and light bulbs.’
‘This is a lot of favours,’ Vassili said. He measured off the flex. ‘When are you going to do some for me?’
‘What do you want?’
‘She is talking stroganina again.’
‘Okay. I’ll get a run to Ambarchik next week.’
Vassili took a careful look out of the back door of the storeroom, and together they manhandled the engine in its harness out to the bobik. ‘You’re coming back lunch time?’
‘No. This is a lot of engine,’ he said, rubbing his back; he had carried the greater part of it.
‘I told you. See the block is secure before you lift it. Don’t skip any screws. There’ll be no other engine.’
‘I’ll be careful.’
He went back to the house and picked up the generator and set off on the river to Anyuysk. By half past ten he was at the cave and he drove straight in, with his headlights on. He had already had a trial on the roof of the bobik and the position gave him enough room. Now he knelt on it and got to work.
There were eight holes in the securing bracket. He held it against the roof and lightly bored the eight placer marks with the battery drill. Then he laid the bracket aside and drilled the full depth. He went seven centimetres into the granite, and got through three drills and two sets of batteries. Then he plugged the holes and screwed the bracket home and swung hard on the tackle. All secure.
He took a rest then, and had some coffee, while figuring out the lighting. This was a finicky job, but child’s play after the heavy overhead boring. Only shallow holes needed, and short plugs for the hooks. He spaced out two on the roof and two along each of the three walls. Then he paid out the wire and draped it loosely from the hooks. The twenty metres didn’t give anything to spare, and he still had to cut it to connect the light sockets.
His fingers were numb and he fiddled with this job in the bobik with the heater on. He spliced in the sockets, attached the terminal plugs for the generator, and got out and hung the circuit. Then he went round screwing in the bulbs, got back in the bobik and gave himself a vodka. It was after two o’clock and he was very tired. He was tiring too easily, too much running about. He lit a cigarette and read through the scrappy leaflet that came with the generator. It had worked in the house but here, only twelve volts needed, he could blow the whole damn array.