“You know, Lilldolly, she was on her way to Mervas, this woman, so I told her it was lucky she had come to Deep Tarn instead.”
Arnold broke the silence as if it had never existed. As always when he was speaking, the words rang out. It was beautiful, Marta thought. She saw the landscape and the heavens when she heard his voice, it belonged out there in the sea of air, it moved easily through the vast and the spacious.
Lilldolly’s voice was low and quiet.
“Was there something you needed to do in Mervas?” she asked softly, and Marta squirmed under her gaze for a while before she figured out what to say.
“No, nothing in particular. I just wanted to see it.”
“I see. Well, everything’s gone up there,” Lilldolly said, without taking her eyes off Marta. “But in the old days it was like going to town when we went to Mervas, there were lots of people, an open-air dance floor and a movie theater and everything. And barracks full of bachelors!”
She laughed her funny little giggle and shot Arnold a playful glance.
“But now there’s not a house left up there. Not a single one. That’s right. And it’s quiet.” Lilldolly bent down to get a stick of firewood and put it in the stove.
“All that’s left up there is blueberries,” Arnold added. “I told her already, nothing but blueberries and bears.”
What about Kosti? Marta wondered. Is Kosti still there?
“They just dismantled the houses and took them away on big trucks. They left the cellars behind, of course, couldn’t remove the cellars, so you can see where everything used to be, where the houses were placed along the streets. The cast concrete stairs and the foundations, those’re still there.”
“There’s the little kiosk over by the dance floor,” Arnold interjected. “It’s still there.”
“True, it’s still there. The little kiosk by the dance floor is there because the mining company didn’t build it. I think it was the young people who put that up, I guess they got permission to do it. Otherwise, no one was allowed to build in Mervas except for the company, that’s how it was, people couldn’t build anything because nothing was allowed to remain. That was the plan for Mervas. That nothing would be allowed to remain.”
Lilldolly was quiet. They all looked out the window at the evening sky. It was growing darker at last; the shadows were long. Marta felt worried. They probably wanted to go to bed soon, as it was already past eleven.
“Well, look at that,” Arnold said. “It’s night already.”
“Yes,” Lilldolly said, “there’s still a little darkness left for the night.” She yawned before she continued: “But what shall we do with our guest? Where shall our guest sleep tonight?”
“Marta!” Arnold called out so the whole kitchen resounded. “Her name is Marta!”
“I’ll sleep in the car,” Marta said quickly. “That’s what I do every night.”
“No, no, no,” Arnold said.
“Out of the question,” Lilldolly agreed.
“But. .”
“No.”
“She’ll sleep in the lavvu with me.”
“She won’t sleep in the lavvu with you when we’ve got a whole house full of beds!”
“Well, she shouldn’t have to sleep alone in the house with an unknown man, that’s for sure! She’ll sleep in the lavvu.”
“This woman is so goddamned difficult you almost have to scream for her to understand,” Arnold roared, banging his fist against the table so the cups rattled.
Marta stiffened and stared straight into the opposite wall without a thought. Now, was all she thought. Now.
“Watch it, you’re scaring her,” Lilldolly whispered. “Now she’s afraid.”
Arnold instantly turned to Marta, pinched her arm lightly, and looked at her with those eyes that were still luminous in the dim evening light.
“You don’t actually think I’m scary, do you?” he asked, smiling sweetly, as if at a child. “I’ve got to,” he said in dialect. “I’ve got to rile her up a bit, this one here, so she knows she was once married to a real man. Right, Lilldolly?”
“Very true. Exactly.”
She’d been sitting on her stool by the stove the whole time while they were drinking coffee, but now she got up and went over to the table.
“Good night, Arnold,” she said, and stroked his hand. “We’re going down to sleep in the lavvu now, Marta and I.”
~ ~ ~
Long before the arrival of morning, while it was still supposed to be night, the birds began singing. It was the end of May, the time of light. For a few months, the world was coming out of its dark hiding place, radiant and prominent. It was also the time of birds. Everything breathed hot and fast, had light rapid heartbeats, and pulses as quick as moving wings. It was the time of light, of birds, of water; everything was released and rinsed clean and each morning was supposed to be like the very first one, new and translucent blue under thin skin.
There was a smell of water in the air. All of Deep Tarn and the land around it smelled of fresh water. Marta smelled it inside the lavvu — the smell of melted and dissolved ice, of soil that water had flowed through. She’d been awake for a while. Inside her sleeping bag on top of the reindeer hide, she was watching the light through the opening in the roof. A good distance away from her, on the other side of the fireplace and kitchen area, Lilldolly was still sleeping deeply, wrapped in her sheets and blankets.
But none of the things outside, the birdsong, the smells, the sound of the wind through the trees that filtered into the lavvu, could help Marta get away from herself. She lay listening to her heart beating in her chest like a small, evil, sharp hammer. Arnold and Lilldolly’s faces danced in front of her, grotesquely enlarged, sometimes bobbing and floating around as in an aquarium, other times in pulsing flashes. They actually didn’t appear threatening; there was nothing angry or dangerous about the faces, but they came so close that they filled her entire field of vision and there was no way she could get rid of them. She could see them, but she couldn’t see herself, couldn’t see that she had a face just like them. She was nothing but a growing field of darkness. Now, when for the first time in years she was among other people, she found that she had no idea who she was. She lost herself in the company of these people. It was as if she had been blinded by their attention. She stumbled over everything in her way, had to feel the walls to orient herself. It was almost impossible for her to move naturally, or be herself, as we say, because she couldn’t see clearly or relate to anything around her.
Over the years, being watched or spoken to had come to feel invasive, like a violation. She’d wrapped layer upon layer of solitude around herself to protect her from a gaze, yet she wasn’t exactly sure whose. If she was really honest with herself, she knew it was her own eyes watching her, but she nevertheless kept wrapping that solitude around her; there was nothing else to do.