“Eat,” he said in Trsk.
Magin took the meat, unwillingly, and ate it, though it sickened him. He wiped his fingers on the snow and dried them on his pants. The other men swallowed their meat as quickly as the dogs, stood up sleepily, and began to cut the deer into pieces.
The pain continued to grow in Magin’s chest. When it gave him a moment of respite, he asked the old man beside him, “What do you think I should do?”
The old man chewed steadily, looking away. When he answered, the pain had attacked Magin again and he could not hear him. When it stopped, he put his hand on the old man’s arm. The old man pushed his meat into his cheek and said, “Wait, wait. Later will be news.” He shifted the bolus of meat around with his tongue. “One month, two months.”
Magin sat still in disappointment. The old man beside him swallowed his meat and fell into a doze. Magin then lit the stub of cigar which had gone out as he held it. With his first lungfull of smoke, the pain became severe and he started coughing. The mucus in his handkerchief was pink. He became aware that he was quite sick. It did not occur to him that he might not leave with his brother, or that he might not leave at all. He had always been able to leave a place, and his brother had always been alive and in a place known to Magin. Only Magin’s wife was gone when he expected her to remain.
When, later, the sound of a shotgun from deep in the woods roused him from his thoughts, there was a wide plate of shadow across the clearing. He had not noticed the old man leave. He was cold, but did not know it until he saw that his hands were as blue as the shadows on the snow. The air was sharp in his throat and he had very little strength left in his legs as he went up the path. He stopped now and then to rest. When he was nearly to the hut, he heard a thrashing in the brush nearby. Looking through the trees, he saw a doe on the ground. Her body was steaming in the air. In the snow under her heaving side, a large hole was opening where the blood from her wound melted it. Her eyes were moist. Curious, Magin left the path and pushed through the snow and branches to where she lay.
She was still. Only her eyelids moved. But when Magin came near her, she thrashed again, digging her hind legs into the brush and lunging forward with her head. The blood spurted from her side. Then she lay still again, panting, and Magin leaned over her, pitying her. Without warning, her hind leg drew back, trembling, and shot out, striking him in the ribs.
Magin fell backward into the snow, and was only half conscious of what had happened to him. The snow seeped through his hair.
After a long time, dim forms drew near him, circling around him. Hot breath washed over his ear and cheek, and the harsh stink of malnourished animals filled his nostrils. Then there were voices of men, and snarling and yelping. Someone moved him and the pain sharpened until he lost consciousness.
He woke late at night in his bed, remembering nothing. His body, sheathed in blankets, struggled against fever. Pain sat like a rock in his chest. The pillow was hard under his head and his bones ached. When he shivered in the heat, his skin prickled and stung under his damp clothes. His swollen eyes were dry in their sockets, and his chest labored for air. He fought against this weariness, afraid that if he slept, he would stop breathing. But his weariness overcame him little by little. The fever spread. His limbs shook until the bedframe itself trembled, and sweat ran from him until the mattress under him was damp.
A white snowfield blinded him. A cold north wind crossed it, opening small holes in the ground and leaving banks of steam in its wake. Out of the holes crawled many deer, no larger than mice. Blinking feebly in the light, they tapped the snow with their hooves. As one of them drew its body up out of a hole, a dog leaped on it and devoured it with a convulsive jerking motion. Magin ran at the dog to beat it off, and caught his foot in a hole. He fell forward, his sight clouded by the steam. The cold crept into his bones, and he shivered uncontrollably. In the gloaming that filled the room he groped for some covering. The blanket burned under his hand. He barely had the strength to grasp it and draw it up over his body.
His eyes rested on the pale window. A late rising moon shone over the sill, casting a gray light on the floor. The rotten floorboards softened and began to cave in. As the wood crumbled, Magin saw, down in the darkness under the house, the face of a light-haired man. Magin saw that his skin was steely gray and mottled, as though he had been there a long time. Magin watched, and the dead man moved restlessly, then opened his eyes.
Magin woke, his heart thumping. He saw the large circle of the sun outside his window. Turning his face, looking for darkness, he saw, without recognizing her, the woman standing in the doorway. She backed away from him. Shadows moved in the hut. He smelled fear.
“Don’t go,” he said. From beyond the wall, whispered echoes of his words came back to confuse him.
“I’m here,” he said.
The echoes died. White faces with hollow eyes passed his doorway, curious. Slender hands pointed to the pit in the floor and the stiff, ivory face of the man. The sun grew hotter, singeing the wool of the blankets and suffocating him. Trying to free himself of the tangled blankets, he ripped his clothes and meshed his fingers in the tattered cloth. Groaning, he scratched at his own skin, trying to find a way out of his fevered body. The sun dimmed, leaving him exhausted. He slept deeply without dreaming.
When he opened his eyes, the room was again black. He heard the sound of the woman snoring. He was thirsty. “Wake up,” he said. His voice was too feeble. He drew a shallow breath and as the pain increased, spoke again. He coughed and choked on his mucus. The woman only shifted in her bed. He lay back to wait for dawn to draw her from her sleep. Slowly he worked the blankets off his burning legs. A cool breeze blew over his skin.
In the morning, the pain had climbed into his throat, so that he could not swallow without tears coming to his eyes. As though mocking his own darkness, the sun shone over the bed where his limbs gleamed through the rents in this clothes. He looked at his body and saw that it was wasted: the veins stood out over his arms where the flesh had shrunk, and his skin was like parchment. His lungs drew little air into his body; his chest rose and fell almost imperceptibly.
He listened to the early air, searching for some sound to root him in the world. Bird songs circled away through the woods and back again. A dog barked once. A man called out and another, nearby, answered. A footstep brushed the dirt close to Magin, and looking up he saw the woman’s face in the doorway.
“Ning,” she said, smiling.
Magin tried to raise himself from the bed, but had no strength in his arms.
“Oh no. No, no, no,” the woman cried in English with a look of horror on her face, throwing back her head.
“Listen to me,” said Magin.
The woman took a breath and rushed on.
“No: tk. Uurk, uursh.”
Magin turned away from her. His pain deafened him.
The woman hobbled quickly to the door and called out: “Ruckuck. Tk! No, no!” Magin heard the sound of people coming: a soft rustling and then the ground shaking outside his door.
The people crowded into the hut, filling it with the smell of burning wood and tobacco.
“Tk. Pshsht uuril,” said one man, softly.
Magin shrank from the crowd above him.
“Ning,” said the woman.
“No, tk, no pshtu tori,” said another man, bending over Magin and breathing on his face.
As each minute passed, Magin felt the need for silence more desperately, and his fear grew. He wanted to be alone, to think of Mary, to breathe, and to sleep.
There was almost no air left in the room. Magin’s eyesight grew dim. With difficulty, he searched the faces above him for the white-haired old man and did not find him. The woman was smiling in a friendly way. He tried to lift his arm. It was too heavy. Fixing her with his eyes, he said in Trsk, “Bring me water.”