The 14th Day (2 page)

Vaniok brushes past the declaration. “What did you do back there?” he asks.

Jory answers that he worked in a library and Vaniok is seized by an unaccountable anger. He wants to tell him, “That's all over, we're here now, you and I are going to be moving boxes and crates, we'll work with rakes and shovels.” Instead, he says once more, “I think you'll like this place.”

Jory glances dismissively at the scene that brought so much emotion to Vaniok moments ago. “In exile,” he says, “every place looks the same.”

Edward, another of the native workers, comes by and Vaniok introduces him to Jory, who nods curtly and shakes the man's hand. As Edward is leaving he asks Vaniok if he saw the basketball game last night. “Sure thing,” Vaniok says. “Great game. That Johnson was something.”

Edward laughs. “That Johnson was something,” he repeats. The words sound different when he says them. After he's gone Jory looks at Vaniok. “He thinks it's funny the way you speak their language,” he says.

Vaniok shrugs, a man shaking snow from his shoulders.

“Games,” Jory says. “All they're interested in is games.” He frowns. “What do these people understand?”

Vaniok turns away and looks again at the rectangle of green outside the building: the trees, the grass and earth seem to be illuminated from the inside. Time slows like melting wax, the sweet moment thickens. “I don't know,” he says. “Don't you wish sometimes that you could come home after a day's work looking forward to nothing more than a hearty meal, a drink or two, a wife and a good night's sleep, with nothing to remember?”

Jory's smile is sad and reproachful. “We can't let these things distract us. We've lost our country, after all.” He stands there in his work clothes that look so stiff and clean, as if he isn't even willing to surrender wrinkles to the surroundings he regards as temporary. Vaniok feels accused. He remembers the jokes people from the Deep Lakes used to tell about visitors from the capital, dressed for fishing in evening wear.

Still, he won't let himself feel bad. “Wait,” he says mildly, knowing that this man, like himself, has suffered losses. “Things will get better. Everything heals with time.”

Jory's brow wrinkles. “Are you saying we should forget, then? Where we came from? What happened?”

“No,” Vaniok says, “How can any of us forget the Thirteen Days?” He feels the familiar knot in his stomach, he remembers the early days of his exile. It seems an age ago.

Vaniok's heart is suddenly full. How have the two of them come to this spot so far from where they once lived, a place where the nights are warm and full of the smells of growing things, where the roofs outlined against the evening sky are less steep than they are back home and where even the red earth crumbles differently between the fingers than the rich black soil of their country? All at once he feels the full weight of his displacement. “Their language,” he confesses, “it's dry in my throat. I speak three sentences and I'm thirsty.” Even the few trivial words about basketball were an effort.

Jory nods, his eyes soften, icy skies hazed by the smoke of wood fires. When he begins speaking again it's in an entirely different tone of voice and Vaniok is transported to another place:

Blue snow on black limbs,

Icy brook whispering secrets:

The smell of mushrooms hidden in the earth.

The words from another century transform Jory's face, he looks older. After he's recited the lines of poetry he says nothing, but Vaniok is still seeing that wintry scene. Then Jory turns his head toward the sunny area beyond the loading dock where the raised door frames a stalky, large-leaved tree on a patch of grassless red earth. “Clay,” he says. “It can't absorb water. Can you imagine yourself being buried in it?” He stands there a moment silently, then resumes, as if speaking to himself. “Before I left I was given a jar of soil from the homeland. In everything that's happened since, that jar has been with me. One day when I'm back there I'm going to empty that jar and return the soil to our country.”

Vaniok shakes his head; he doesn't know what to say. “Yes,” he answers stupidly.

“I want you to see it,” Jory says. “We'll have a drink after work, we'll toast the homeland.”

“Yes,” Vaniok nods. “That would be good.” All he wants to do is to get back to work.

After Royall returns to take Jory back to his station, though, Vaniok finds it hard to concentrate on the job. He can sympathize with the stranger, he isn't cold-hearted, after all; but this man hangs onto his memories so fiercely, his brow creased and his eyes narrowed, as if he's trying to make himself blind to what he sees here, a soft landscape where trees and bushes flower overnight, filling the air with a rich perfume. “Are you saying we should forget?” he asked. No, Vaniok should have answered, remember forever for all I care. But keep it to yourself. And how was he supposed to respond to that question about being buried in the red earth? What he should have said was that the important thing is how a person lives on it. But once again he realizes what he should have said only after the opportunity's passed. Why did he admit his trouble speaking the language of the host country? Especially to someone from the capital: sometimes back there it was hard to keep from feeling that all the inhabitants of the capital were slick talkers who couldn't be bothered to take Lakers seriously. The desolation of the morning's dream has returned.

In that dream he was back there, at some kind of celebration—was it Constitution Day? He was in a room with a shiny wooden floor, the tables piled with hard-crusted bread, smoked fish, sausages, and a half-dozen kinds of cheese. Everybody was speaking the old language, shouting toasts; a circle had formed around a pair of white-haired ladies dancing with each other, their arms held out stiffly as the violin sighed over the wheezing accordion. There was even a baby-faced priest whose name Vaniok can't remember, standing by himself in a corner, energetically singing a patriotic song. But what made the dream terrible was that only Vaniok could see, just outside the window, a huge gray cloud, massive as an iceberg, bearing down on the revelers, an avalanche in the sky. “Stop!” he wanted to shout. “Look!” But the revelry just got more frantic and Vaniok's cries were buried in his throat.

His first emotion on awakening was gratitude that he was here and not back there. He even went to the window to assure himself that what lay behind the early morning darkness outside his apartment was this landscape he's come to know, dipping and swelling gently, with clusters of thin, resilient pines growing out of red soil; and not the ghostly birches that ringed the lakes in the region where he grew up, those lakes whose deep blue waters mirrored exactly the color of the late autumn sky—the most fleeting memories of that place could bring a heavy sense of dread. Yet at the same time that his eyes confirmed his being here, a huge sorrow welled up inside as he recognized again that he might have to live out the rest of his life in a place where few people have even heard of his country, where they spell its name differently when they spell it at all.
I'll die among strangers
. The unspoken words lay like stones in his throat. And still his heart was pounding with terror at the thought of how easily he'd been transported back there. Looking into the darkness of early morning, Vaniok fervently prayed for the daylight, when it would be easier to believe in the truth he's taught himself since leaving: that the past is dead, that the people he left three years ago no longer exist, his country no longer exists. He has no choice but to look forward, not backward.

Vaniok takes a deep breath. He looks around: gradually, his world is returned to him. He can even smile at the thought that Jory's coming here caused his dream. Though you could just as easily turn it around and say the dream was a harbinger of the man who was coming. A man with creased pants who ignores the sunlight and talks about where you're going to be buried! Vaniok bends down to lift a box, grateful for its satisfying heft. He settles it on a dolly. He's glad to be by himself again; it's time to get to work. Pushing the dolly, he already feels better. He gives a cheerful wave to one of the native workers as he passes him. He's survived worse things than this; he can put up with Jory. Though one meeting a day is plenty for now. He wishes he hadn't agreed to have a drink with him after work.

When the time comes, he encounters Jory in the street in front of the warehouse as they'd arranged it. “How did the first day go?” he asks. Though the man has obviously been working, his pants are still unwrinkled.

Jory shrugs. “Unremarkable,” he says and offers Vaniok a cigarette. He lights one for himself, his head bent toward his cupped hand as if he doesn't want the fire to be seen, though the day is sunny and the tiny spurt of flame would be lost in the brightness. He exhales and begins walking away from the building, refusing to acknowledge the site of his first day of work here by looking back.

Vaniok falls into step. The sun is warm on his arms. “I can only stay a short while,” he says.

“It's good of you to come,” Jory says. “I appreciate it.” As they move along the streets of this university town where Vaniok has lived for more than a year, he tries to remember what it looked like to him when it was still as strange and unknown to him as it is to Jory; but the other man walks briskly toward his apartment, apparently uninterested in the sights around him.

“Let me know if I can help in any way,” Vaniok offers. “Do you have everything you need?”

“Yes, the refugee organization took care of those things.” There's a tone of finality to the statement. He isn't encouraging further discussion of this subject.

The shrubs and bushes are already green though it wouldn't be spring yet where the two of them come from. “This must be a change for you,” Vaniok says. “After the last place.” After all, they're now more than a thousand miles south of where Jory came from.

“Yes,” Jory answers simply.

“I've never been there,” Vaniok says, thinking of snow, of winter sports. “Some people I know went there. I've heard some good things about it.”

“It's no better or worse than any other place,” Jory says and continues walking. Once again Vaniok is at a loss for something to talk about. They've now come to a neighborhood of old houses where students live. Vaniok, who prefers more modern accommodations, feels a heaviness setting in though he isn't sure it's caused by the surroundings as much as it is by Jory's lack of communication. “Did you ever visit the Deep Lakes?” he asks at last. Only after he's said it does he realize he's doing the one thing he was determined not to do: talking about the other place.

“Yes,” Jory says. “I have some very pleasant memories of that region.” He mentions the names of several towns, places Vaniok knows well, names that sound strange on this quiet street in another country. He thinks of screened porches, rowboats bumping against the pilings of a dock, mayflies gathered thickly around streetlamps, the fishy smell of the air in the evening. He has only himself to blame for the pang he feels.

For some time neither of them says anything and Vaniok looks intently at the street, the houses around them, trying to re-establish the authority of this place. An old brown station wagon goes by slowly, a nearby tree rustles in the breeze, a sweet smell rises from the hedges: they're not in the Deep Lakes. All at once Jory declares, “The situation in the homeland won't go on forever, you know. We'll all be back some day soon.” Vaniok nods noncommittally and they walk on. At last Jory stops. “Here we are,” he says.

It's a big dark house no different from a dozen others in the neighborhood and when Jory points it out, they stop for a moment and look at it. Vaniok is glad he doesn't live here. He hopes the other man's rooms aren't on the top floor, where the window set into the angle of the roof looks like a peephole. They cross the weedy sidewalk and climb to the porch. “Please,” Jory holds open the door and Vaniok enters, then follows Jory up a flight of stairs. The air inside is stale and musty; it's even more so on the second floor. Vaniok is relieved when he sees they're not going all the way to the top. Nevertheless, the apartment into which Jory leads him is dim and cramped. Vaniok wishes he were back in his own place with its large windows. He could be drinking a cold beer by himself, watching TV without paying attention—the fantasy sharpens his sense of discomfort. There's something oppressive about this place, it makes him uneasy: he's on his guard, he feels the need for vigilance, as if he's in the presence of danger. The room smells dry, there's a hint of something herbal. His nostrils twitch with recognition and he realizes that if he closed his eyes he could convince himself he was a boy again, in his grandmother's house.

When Jory leads him further into the apartment that's filled with dark wood and heavy furniture, Vaniok can make out pictures of notable people from the old country, a map with the nation's territory colored purple. On a desk against the wall he can pick out magazines and books that even from this distance he recognizes to be written in the language he learned as a child.

“This is my little corner of our country,” Jory laughs softly. “Wherever I travel, I take it with me.” Vaniok's heart is suddenly beating faster, his breath comes quickly; the sense of danger he felt earlier has accelerated. He feels like a criminal who's been brought back to the scene of the crime. But I'm not guilty of anything, he protests. Trying to recover his composure, he coughs loudly into his hand, then clears his throat. “There's something in the air,” he says. “I may have caught a cold.”

Jory smiles. “It looks like you need that drink.” He goes into the small kitchen and Vaniok hears the sound of running water in the sink. Alone in the room, he studies some of the pictures on the wall: the last prime minister as a younger man, with a full black mustache and a chest full of medals; the crafty cardinal, hiding his thoughts even from the camera; a husky-voiced cafe singer from the capital, her large, shadowed eyes foretelling her early death. Everywhere Vaniok looks is some memento of the lost place.