It wasn’t easy to carry the cage through the narrow sleeping car, even though the carriage was empty. Some of the passengers were still walking around the platform or behind the station — the boldest had gone with skis along the path into the forest — while others were seated over lunch in the waiting room or Luca’s bedroom, since there wasn’t enough space in the dining car. The cage knocked against the sides of the corridor, making the bird frightened and flustered; it tried to open its wings and pecked at the bars or at the man’s thigh, which fortunately was clad in the thick blue material of his railroad uniform. The woman followed behind, and whenever he turned his head she immediately put on the enigmatic smile she had worn shortly before in the compartment; he had become awkward and tried to kiss her, but then realized that he was being ridiculous; her smile seemed automatic, as if all you had to do was push a button and a little pink light would come on behind her brow and light up her face and blue eyes. She had pointed to the cage and uttered something in that harsh language of hers: a few short words, spoken in a husky, peremptory voice. He looked at the cage, then at her, and nodded dutifully, feeling sheepish because of what he had done a moment earlier. She pulled his jacket sleeve and raised his arm toward the cage: this time he got the message, or thought he did, and so he stood on tiptoe, took the cage with gilded bars (or were they perhaps really golden?), and went out with it into the corridor. The woman smiled at him. He took the cage up to his room, watched with surprise by Luca and the old man, then went to look for some water and meat. The eagle was thirsty; it nearly broke the bowl as it plunged its curved beak inside.
It had been raining for days — fine raindrops pelting down without a break. The clouds were still closely packed, neither very high nor very low, as if there was only one, a huge grayish-white belly; it was raining, and the oak tree to the right of the shed was bloated with water, its leaves motionless and as heavy as lead. Not a single train had passed through for ages: Luca hadn’t returned; there was no way he could have. From time to time he went out onto the platform, huddled in his waterproof coat, carrying that ragged piece of flag by force of habit, no doubt, and there he would stand for a long time motionless and look absently down the rails. He was waiting. The old man had died with his eyes fixed on a corner of the room, having raised his head in a final effort, trying vainly to reach out his arm; his head had fallen onto the pillow, while one hand curled tightly around his cotton shirt. The boss had lain his other hand next to it before closing his eyelids and opening the window: the sky seemed to have brightened a little.
He went into Luca’s office and sat on his chair, in front of the desk with all that complex equipment covered in dust. He pulled a lever, flicked a switch, then gave up. When they had heard that the local train was being withdrawn, they had angrily begun to draft a memorandum many pages long and ended up arguing over it. It had been a real battle: Luca had said he was leaving, that he would hand in his resignation. He flew off the handle, didn’t know what he was saying, but he hadn’t been right, no, Manolache agreed that he hadn’t. The proof was that they didn’t send any memorandum in the end; it would have been pointless, maybe no one would even have read it, and well, even if they had, what do you think could have been done about it: once something’s decided, that’s how it remains. There’s nothing we can do, and Luca muttered too: nothing we can do, no, nothing, Manolache echoed cheerily. In the room all that could now be heard were the fine raindrops, that monotonous, irritating pitter-patter, and the panting breath of the dying man. And yet the clouds looked thinner than before, no longer so closely packed. A rosy light glowed in a patch of sky above the forest. He gripped the window ledge and waited.
It was snowing outside. At some point the rain had turned to sleet and snow, and the white flakes had soon covered everything. It snowed almost every day, as it had in the winter of the accident. It wasn’t a disaster like you read about in the papers, nor was it anyone’s fault. A train’s come off the rails at a bend: Luca had shouted it at the top of his voice, but although he heard it the first time he cupped his hand around his ear and leaned out the upstairs window. A freight train’s come off the rails, Luca shouted again, and the express will have to stop here till we get instructions. Manolache picked himself up and stuck the spade in the heap of snow. The engineer noticed the signal in time and, although he was racing like crazy to make up lost time, he managed to brake just in front of the stop, where all three of the staff members were standing in a state of great agitation. It was snowing heavily, with thick flakes, but it was so beautiful that all the passengers climbed down onto the platform. Only she preferred at first to remain in her compartment: maybe she didn’t know what had happened, maybe she didn’t understand a word anyone said; she had a way of speaking that was husky and melodious at the same time, and he shrugged his shoulders: maybe she’s hungry, then pointed to his mouth and his stomach, do you want to eat something? She bent her knees slightly and spread her long arms, flapping them several times, then leaned toward him and brought her hands close together to indicate she was referring to a snake or a bird — a baby eagle with moist round eyes that she kept in a cage with gilded bars, up there on the top bunk. He tried to kiss her, but he quickly realized that he’d misinterpreted the mysterious smile that shone on her face like a lightbulb when you flick a switch. It wasn’t easy to carry the cage through the narrow sleeping car, even though it was now empty of passengers. The cage knocked against the doors and walls: it was heavy, and the eagle tried to spread its wings and to peck at the gilded bars or the thigh of the man in blue railroad uniform. The woman had fallen behind, so he stopped and waited for her to catch up.
She was Swedish, Luca said as he dealt the cards; tall and blonde like that, with a white sweater, she couldn’t have been anything else, so she must have been used to much worse snow. That’s why she was in no hurry to get out, and when she decided to she was cool as a cucumber, not even taking much interest in her surroundings. I bet you anything you like she was Swedish. The other two said nothing. Don’t you agree? Then, looking surprised, with the rest of the cards in his hand, he sounded it out: Sweeeedish, that’s what she was. Come on, forget your theories and deal, the man with the mustache said, casting a glance at the cage, and Manolache, catching the glance, muttered that it had been a mistake to let the eagle go, we shouldn’t have done it, I’m telling you. Then he hurried to the window. He was never wrong. Come here, he said, taking Luca by the arm: just look! Above the forest the sky was turning crimson, and after a while the eagle suddenly shot out, as big as an airplane, and began to fly around in wide circles, wider and wider circles, which took it above the station building. Has it grown some more? Luca asked, and it was clear he was a little afraid: not so much of the eagle and its unnatural rate of growth (maybe it’s a giant species from Sweden!) as of the solemnity and barely concealed joy with which the other man followed the bird’s increasingly frequent flights. Afterward, Manolache could no longer get out of bed, and the other two took it in turns to keep watch over him.
He took a few steps toward the forest and stopped. The earth was steaming from all the rain. He buried Manolache there, behind the building; he dug a deep grave, for fear that wolves might sniff out the corpse and try to get to it with their claws. He spent a whole morning digging in the rain. The shrill cries of birds in the forest pierced the rustling of leaves and the even, monotonous pitter-patter of the rain; in the distance he could hear groans mixed with growling and hissing, and the sound of little wings beating fearfully. A strange panting seemed to well up from under the ground. There too, as in the forest, a whole secret industry of factories and workshops worked tirelessly around the clock. He continued his walk at a gentle pace, no longer with any obligations, free from morning to night. He took a few deep breaths and thought for a moment of walking to the sanatorium — it would take three hours if he speeded up a little — or of explaining the situation to them over the phone: the old man’s death, Luca’s disappearance, the broken telegraph; there was so much to say, too much even for one conversation. And why didn’t you report this earlier? What could he say?. . He too had been ilclass="underline" he’d probably caught a cold on the day he buried the old man, when he dug that really deep grave. . And why did no more trains come by their stop? Now it was his turn to ask the questions, speaking in a gruff voice and clearing his throat severely. They’d done away with the stop and abandoned him there, in the back of beyond, although, quite frankly, the idea didn’t terrify him — on the contrary, a joy for which he found no obvious justification rose from the depths of his being at the thought. He realized that he was happier than he’d been for a long time, perhaps more than ever before in his life. What point was there in going to the sanatorium as well? Who knows, perhaps it had been deserted for a long time and all he’d find would be some bare walls, a roof partly torn off by the wind, and birds nesting in the beams that were still intact; forest beasts would be prowling outside, even strolling undisturbed through the wards, between the beds, in the operating theater; the last patients would have given up the ghost as hot-breathed animals licked their fleshless hands and feet. And even if things were not like that, even if the sanatorium had been repaired and fitted with ultramodern equipment from abroad, even if patients were sunning themselves on the terrace in multicolored deckchairs under the watchful eyes of tall blonde nurses in white uniforms, even if the sanatorium was prospering and automobiles on the grass outside added another modern touch — even then, what was the point in his going there? He had to stay where he was, at the stop: he couldn’t leave his post, although the telegraph was broken and no more trains ever came by — or perhaps, in the days and nights when he’d lain ill or been sleeping a lot to regain his strength, many trains had passed one after another for a week or a whole month? — anyway, he had to wait there, flag at the ready, right hand raised to his cap, always standing at attention.