The Inhabited Island Read online

  “So that’s how it is?” said Dad, giving him an intent look. “And you’re inclined the same way?”

  “I’m sorry, Dad,” Egghead passionately exclaimed. “But in my view now is an expedient moment for an invasion: the reequipping of the army is being concluded.”

  “All right, all right,” Dad good-naturedly said. “I’ll have a talk with you about that later.”

  “There’s no need to have a talk with him later,” Father-in-Law objected. “We’re all on the same team here, and a specialist is obliged to express his opinion. That’s what we keep him for.”

  “By the way, on the subject of specialists,” said Dad, “why don’t I see Twitcher here?”

  “Twitcher is inspecting the mountain defensive belt,” said Brother-in-Law. “But we know his opinion anyway. He worries about the army, as if it were his own army . . .”

  “Yes,” said Dad. “The mountains are serious business. Stepbrother, was it you who told me they’d found a Highlander spy in the Guards? Yes, dear gentlemen, the North is all well and good, but there are mountains looming in the east, and beyond the mountains is the ocean . . . We’ll cope with the North one way or another . . . You want to fight a war, well, we can fight one. Although . . . How long can we last, Wanderer?”

  “About ten days,” said Wanderer.

  “Well then, we can fight for five or six . . .”

  “The plan of deep invasion,” said Brother-in-Law, “envisages the rout of Hontia in eight days.”

  “A good plan,” Dad approvingly remarked. “All right, then that’s what we’ll decide on . . . You seem to be opposed, Wanderer?”

  “It’s none of my business,” said Wanderer.

  “All right,” said Dad, “so be against it . . . Well then, Stepfather, shall we join the majority?”

  “Ah,” Stepfather said in disgust. “Do what you want . . . He’s frightened of a revolution . . .”

  “Dad!” Father-in-Law triumphantly exclaimed. “I knew you’d be with us!”

  “But of course!” said Dad. “Where would I be without you? I recall, I used to have some mines in the Governorate General of Hontia . . . copper mines . . . I wonder how they’re doing now? . . . Yes, Egghead! And we’ll probably have to organize public opinion too, won’t we? You’ve probably already come up with something, haven’t you? You are our egghead after all.”

  “Of course, Dad,” said Egghead. “Everything’s ready.”

  “Some kind of assassination attempt? Or an attack on the towers? You go off right now and prepare the materials for me before nightfall, and we’ll discuss the time frame here . . .”

  When the door closed behind Egghead, Dad said, “Was there something you wanted to tell us about Blister, Wanderer?”

  9

  His guide quietly said “Wait here” and walked away, disappearing among the bushes behind the trees. Maxim sat down on a tree stump in the center of the clearing, thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his canvas trousers, and started waiting. The forest was old and untended, stifled by dense underbrush, and the ancient, wizened tree trunks exuded an odor of dead, decaying wood. The air was damp. Maxim shivered; he was feeling nauseous and wanted to sit in the sunshine for a while to warm up his shoulder. There was someone in the bushes nearby, but Maxim took no notice—he had been followed all the way from the village, and he had nothing against that. It would have been strange if they immediately trusted him.

  Off to one side a little girl came out into the clearing, wearing a huge, patched blouse and carrying a basket in one hand. She fixed Maxim with an intent stare and kept her eyes on him as she walked past, stumbling and getting her feet tangled in the grass. Some kind of small animal like a squirrel streaked through the bushes, flew up a tree, glanced down, took fright, and disappeared. It was quiet here, with only the irregular throbbing of an engine somewhere in the distance—a machine was cutting reeds at a lake.

  The man in the bushes didn’t go away—Maxim could feel his baleful stare boring into his back. It was unpleasant, but Maxim had to get used to it. Things would always be like this now. The inhabited island had ganged up on him; first it had shot at him, and now it was trailing him, and it didn’t trust him. Maxim fell into a doze. Recently he had started frequently dozing off at the most inappropriate moments—falling asleep, waking up, and falling asleep again. He didn’t try to resist this; it was what his body wanted, and his body knew best. It would pass; all he needed to do was not fight against it.

  He heard the rustling of footsteps, and the guide said “Follow me.” Maxim got up without taking his hands out of his pockets and set off after the guide, looking down at his feet in their soft, wet boots. They went deeper into the forest and started walking in circles and complicated loops, gradually moving closer to a dwelling of some kind, which was actually very close to the clearing in a straight line. Then the guide, deciding that he had confused Maxim enough, set off directly toward their goal through the scrub and wind-fallen trees. Being a town man, he made such a loud racket, with so much rustling, that Maxim couldn’t even hear the footsteps of the man creeping along behind them any longer.

  When the wind-fallen trees came to an end, beyond them Maxim saw a small clearing and a lopsided log house with boarded-up windows. The clearing was overgrown with tall grass, but Maxim could see that people had walked here—both very recently and a long time ago. They had walked cautiously, trying to approach the house by a different route every time. The guide opened a squeaky door, and they walked into a dark, musty vestibule. The man who was following them remained outside. The guide heaved open the trapdoor of the cellar and said, “Go down there, and be careful.” He couldn’t see very well in the dark. Maxim walked down the wooden stairs.

  The cellar was warm and dry, and there were people it, sitting around a wooden table and goggling with amusing expressions as they tried to scrutinize Maxim. The fumes of a newly extinguished candle hung in the air. They obviously didn’t want Maxim to see their faces. He only recognized two of them: the woman Ordi, old Illy Tader’s daughter, and fat Memo Gramenu, sitting right beside the stairs with a machine gun across his knees. The trapdoor crashed shut above them and someone said, “Who are you? Tell us about yourself.”

  “Can I sit down?” Maxim asked.

  “Yes, of course. Come this way, toward my voice. You’ll run up against a bench.”

  Maxim sat down at the table and ran his glance over the people there. Apart from him, there were four people at the table. In the darkness they looked gray and flat, like an old-fashioned photograph. Ordi was sitting on Maxim’s right, but all the talking was done by a thickset, broad-shouldered man sitting opposite Maxim. He looked unpleasantly like Cornet Chachu.

  “Tell us,” he repeated.

  Maxim sighed. He really didn’t want to begin this introduction to new acquaintances by lying, but there was nothing to be done about it. “I don’t know my past,” he said. “They say that I’m a Highlander. Maybe so. I don’t remember . . . My name is Maxim, and my surname is Kammerer. In the Guards they called me Mak Sim. My memory of myself begins from the moment when I was arrested in the forest near the Blue Serpent . . .”

  That was the end of the lying, and after that things went more easily. He told his story, trying to be brief and at the same time not to omit anything that seemed important to him.

  “ . . . I led them as far as I could into the quarry, told them to run for it, and walked back without hurrying. Then the cornet shot me. That night I came around, clambered out of the quarry, and soon I came across a pasture. During the day I hid in the bushes, and at night I snuck up to the cows and drank their milk. After a few days I started feeling better. I got some old rags from the cowherds, made my way to Utki Village, and found Illy Tader there. You know all the rest.”

  Nobody said anything for a while. Then a rustic-looking man, with long hair down to his shoulders, said, “I don’t understand how it is that he doesn’t remember his past life. I don’t think that happens.
Let’s hear what Doc thinks.”

  “It does happen,” Doc tersely said. He was a thin, exhausted-looking man, twirling a pipe in his hands. He obviously wanted very badly to smoke.

  “Why didn’t you run off with the condemned prisoners?” the broad-shouldered man asked.

  “I’d left Gai there,” Maxim said. “I was hoping Gai would go with me.” He fell silent, recalling Gai’s pale face and confused expression, and the cornet’s terrible eyes, and the searing jolts in his chest and belly, and the sensation of helplessness and resentment. “It was stupid, of course,” he said. “But I didn’t understand that then.”

  “Did you take part in operations?” corpulent Memo asked behind Maxim’s back.

  “I’ve already told you.”

  “Tell us again!”

  “I took part in only one operation, when Ketshef, Ordi, you, and two others, who didn’t give their names, were arrested. One of them had an artificial hand—he was a professional revolutionary.”

  “How do you explain your cornet’s haste? After all, before a candidate is allowed to take the test of blood, he is supposed to take part in at least three operations.”

  “I don’t know. All I do know is that he didn’t trust me. But I don’t understand why he sent me to execute—”

  “And exactly why did he shoot you?”

  “I think he was frightened. I wanted to take his pistol from him.”

  “I don’t understand,” said the man with long hair. “All right, so he didn’t trust you. All right, so he sent you to execute the prisoners as a check—”

  “Wait, Forester,” said Memo. “This is all just talk, empty words. Doc, if I were you, I’d examine him. Somehow I don’t believe all this business about the cornet.”

  “I can’t examine him in the dark,” Doc irritably snapped.

  “Then let’s have some light,” Maxim advised him. “I can see you anyway.”

  A sudden silence fell.

  “What do you mean, you can see us?” the broad-shouldered man asked.

  Maxim shrugged. “I just can,” he said.

  “What rubbish,” said Memo. “OK, so what am I doing now, if you can see?”

  Maxim looked around. “You’re pointing your submachine gun at me—that is, you think you are, but actually it’s pointing at Doc. You’re Memo Gramenu, I know you. You have a scratch on your right cheek that wasn’t there before.”

  “Nyctalopia,” Doc growled. “So yes, let’s have some light. It’s stupid. He can see us, but we can’t see him.” He groped about in front of himself for a box of matches and started striking one match after another. They kept breaking.

  “Allow me . . .” Maxim reached out his hand, took the matches from Doc, and lit the candle.

  They all squeezed their eyes shut and put their hands over them. Doc immediately lit up his pipe. “Get undressed,” he said through the pipe’s crackling.

  Maxim pulled his canvas shirt off over his head. They all stared at his chest. Doc clambered out from behind the table, walked up to Maxim, and started turning him this way and that, palpitating him with firm, cold fingers.

  The room was quiet. Then the long-haired man said with a regretful air, “A good-looking boy. My son was . . . good-looking too . . .”

  When no one replied, he cumbersomely got up and rummaged in the corner of the room, pulling out a large bottle bound in woven straw and putting it on the table. Then he set out three mugs. “We can take turns,” he explained. “If anybody wants a bite to eat, there’s cheese to be had. And onions—”

  “Wait, Forester,” the broad-shouldered man said in annoyance. “Move the bottle out of the way, I can’t see anything . . . Well then, Doc?”

  Doc ran his cold fingers over Maxim’s body one more time, wreathed himself in smoke, and sat back down in his place. “Pour me one, Forester,” he said. “Cases like this deserve a toast . . . Get dressed,” he said to Maxim. “And stop smiling like a fresh rose in spring. I shall have to ask you a few questions.”

  Maxim got dressed.

  Doc took a sip from his mug, made a wry face, and asked, “When did you say you were shot?”

  “Forty-seven days ago.”

  “And what did you say you were shot with?”

  “A pistol. An army pistol.”

  Doc took another sip, made a wry face again, then turned to the broad-shouldered man and said, “I’d stake my life on the fact that this young fellow really was shot with an army pistol, and at very close range, only not forty-seven days ago, but at least a hundred and forty-seven . . . Where are the bullets?” he abruptly asked Maxim.

  “They came out, and I threw them away.”

  “Listen, whatever your name is . . . Mak! You’re lying. Confess now—who did this for you?”

  Maxim bit on his lip. “I’m telling the truth. You simply don’t know how quickly our wounds heal. I’m not lying.” He paused for a moment. “Anyway, you can easily check what I say. Cut my arm. If it’s not a deep cut, I’ll heal it up in ten or fifteen minutes.”

  “That’s true,” said Ordi, only now speaking for the first time. “I’ve seen it myself. He was peeling potatoes and cut his finger. Half an hour later there was only a white scar left, and the next day there was nothing at all. I think he really is a Highlander. Gel told me about the ancient Highland medicine—they know how to charm away their wounds.”

  “Ah, Highland medicine,” said Doc, wreathing himself in smoke again. “Well now, let’s suppose so. Of course, a cut finger is one thing and seven bullets at point-blank range is a different matter, but let’s suppose so. The fact that the wounds healed so successfully isn’t the most surprising thing. What I would like an explanation for is something different. This young man has seven holes in him. And if those holes really were made by genuine pistol bullets, then at least four of them—and each one individually, note!—were fatal.”

  Forester gasped and prayerfully folded his hands together.

  “What the hell?” exclaimed the broad-shouldered man.

  “Oh, no, you must believe me,” said Doc. “A bullet in the heart, a bullet in the spine, and two bullets in the liver. And on top of that, the general loss of blood. And on top of that, the inevitable sepsis. And on top of that, the absence of any traces at all of qualified medical intervention. Massaraksh, the bullet in the heart would have been enough.”

  “What do you have to say to that?” the broad-shouldered man asked Maxim.

  “He’s mistaken,” Maxim said. “He described everything quite correctly, but he’s mistaken. For us these wounds are not fatal. Now, if the cornet had shot me in the head . . . but he didn’t . . . You see, Doc, you can’t even imagine how resilient these organs are—the heart, the liver—they’re simply brimming over with blood . . .”

  “Well now . . .” said Doc.

  “One thing is clear to me,” said the broad-shouldered man said. “They wouldn’t be likely to send us a botched job like this. They know that we have doctors among us.”

  There was a long silence. Maxim patiently waited. Would I believe it? he thought. I probably would. But I seem to be altogether too gullible for this world. Although not as gullible as I used to be. For instance, I don’t like Memo. He’s afraid of something all the time. Sitting here among his own people with a machine gun, he’s still afraid of something. It’s strange. But then, he’s probably afraid of me. He’s probably afraid I’ll take his machine gun from him and dislocate his fingers again. Well, maybe he’s right there. I won’t let anybody shoot me again. It’s too hideous when somebody shoots you . . . He recalled the freezing cold night in the quarry, the dead, phosphorescent sky, the cold, sticky pool that he was lying in. No, no more. I’ve had enough. I’d rather do the shooting myself now . . .

  “I trust him,” Ordi suddenly said. “What he says doesn’t add up, but that’s simply because he’s a strange kind of man. It’s not possible to make up a story like this, it would be too absurd. If I didn’t trust him and I heard a story like this
, I’d just shoot him straightaway, but he just piles up one absurdity on top of another. Provocateurs are never like that, comrades . . . Perhaps he’s insane. That’s possible . . . But he’s not a provocateur . . . I vote for him,” she added after a brief pause.

  “All right, Bird,” said the broad-shouldered man. “Now keep quiet for a while . . . Did you go through the medical examination at the Department of Public Health?” he asked Maxim.

  “Yes.”

  “And you were passed as able-bodied?”

  “Of course.”

  “With no qualifications?”

  “All it said on the card was simply ‘Able-bodied.’”

  “What do you think about the Battle Guards?”

  “Now I think that they are a mindless weapon in somebody else’s hands. Most likely in the hands of these celebrated Unknown Fathers. But there’s still a lot that I don’t understand.”

  “And what do you think about the Unknown Fathers?”

  “I think they’re the top brass of a military dictatorship. What I do know about them is very contradictory. Maybe their goals are honorable enough, but the means . . .” Maxim shook his head.

  “What do you think about degenerates?”

  “I think the term is inappropriate. I think you are conspirators. I only have a rather vague idea of your goals. But I like the people that I’ve seen for myself. They all seemed to be sincere and . . . how can I put it? . . . not anybody’s dupes, acting with their eyes open.”

  “Right,” said the broad-shouldered man. “Do you get pains?”

  “In my head? No, I don’t.”

  “Why ask him about that?” said Forester. “If he had the pains, he wouldn’t be sitting here.”

  “That’s what I’m trying to understand: Why is he sitting here?” said the broad-shouldered man. “Why did you come to us? Do you want to join in our struggle?”

  Maxim shook his head. “I wouldn’t put it like that. It wouldn’t be true. I want to make sense of things. Right now I’m with you rather than with them, but after all, I know too little about you too.”