The 14th Day (35 page)

Vaniok, who's been coming to these parties for as long as he can remember, has believed all the stories at one time or another; he's also believed none of them. He and his family are among the dozens of guests who arrive at all hours to partake of the heroic supply of food and drink provided for this event that will last well into the night, when the host will put on a show of fireworks. By tradition some people dress for the occasion, others come ready for an informal good time. Rumpled men with fishing tackle and dripping pails of minnows hurriedly pay their respects, then spend solitary hours watching their lines on the dock or in one of Ferik's boats. Loud clusters of partygoers with cigars and drinks stand on the thick grass laughing at stories they've heard before while the clank of horseshoes fills the air. In shady corners people play cards and board games, distracted by the sudden smell of fried mushrooms. Coming as it does near the beginning of the season, the party sets the carefree tone for a summer of play and relaxation and to Vaniok it always means the best part of the year has arrived. This year especially, he's sure that people appreciate the relief Ferik's celebration provides from certain subjects everybody would be talking about
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Still, for Vaniok the carefree time doesn't begin until certain ceremonial gestures have been performed. Once more he stands before his seated host, bent over his guitar, struggling to keep up with his two more accomplished older brothers, who play the mandolin and violin, the eldest, Rikor, singing as well. When the performance is over at last the musicians look toward Old Ferik. His great white-shirted bulk enthroned in a wooden chair, the man nods like an awakening polar bear, his small eyes blink under his shaggy white brows. Dreamily, he turns up his hands in mock wonder at the performance, then brings them together with great force, and everyone else follows. Drinks are handed round. “Good, good,” Vaniok's father exclaims, no doubt relieved that the songs were sufficiently traditional without having any political implications. “Good, good,” he says to Vaniok, already moving toward his older sons
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Vaniok puts down his instrument, wipes his brow and toasts his host, impatient for the liquor's sting. His father has moved toward Old Ferik, taking the other sons. Vaniok is glad: there will be no opportunity for a lecture on passing time and lost opportunities. You're twenty-two already, his father would say to him. Did you know that when I was twenty-two, and so forth. Vaniok wanders off. No more music today; he's free. He takes a cold bottle of beer and steps onto the grass
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Men are playing horseshoes near a pair of willows. There's a ring of metal. Dust rises. “Did you know horseshoes were played by members of the Roman legions?” Professor Mirel asks nobody in particular. In a white shirt, his tie tucked between two buttons, he caresses the curve of the silver arc he's holding, perhaps imagining himself on the borders of Gaul
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It's warm already, the heat still building; the day ahead looms promisingly but when a breeze carries the smell of fishy water to him, Vaniok's mind jumps ahead to the evening, when the snow of fish flies will descend on the area. These few days when the pale, short-lived creatures appear in such profusion have always been a mysterious time of the year for him: summer is approaching and his blood quickens with its promise; and yet at the same time he's haunted by a sadness he can't account for. As the insects beat the night air with their translucent wings, their slim bodies curved gracefully, their numbers beyond calculation, something seems to lie just beyond his reach, almost close enough to touch; but he doesn't know if he'll have the strength or wit to grasp it. The future, the future—it's there in the soft, thick fall of the fish flies. The future is a mystery. He looks at the people around him, apparently so happy, expecting only more food and drink, good cheer followed by fireworks that light up the sky. There's a school of thought in the country, Vaniok knows, that suggests it's fruitless to try to imagine a future
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The nearby willow sways in the breeze and Vaniok smiles. The liquor has created a haze around him that gives a distance to the people he encounters but the bottle of beer in his hand is real and immediate, its cool condensation tickles his palm, finds its way into the creases of his fingers. Four men are playing a board game—two are thin and two are heavy. A heavy man raises his voice. “This is too much,” he says. “I never get a good roll of the dice.” “Olli, calm down,” a thin one says. “Olli, it's only a game,” another says. “Your luck will change.” Vaniok walks away from them. There are too many raised voices these days
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Under a shady tent there are metal tubs filled with chunks of clear ice. The long shapes of frosty beer bottles are distorted beneath the smooth transparent surface. A flat piece of wood laid across a pair of sawhorses has been turned into a counter lined with bottles of whiskey whose labels bear images of animals and warriors, aristocratic crests. Dark liquids and clear, their colors are muted in the shade. There's an arrangement of shiny glasses on a table covered in gingham. Vaniok has entered at a quiet moment. The place is nearly deserted. A few feet away an old man in a military uniform is drinking by himself. Keeping his distance, Vaniok greets him warily. The man nods, coming stiffly to attention for a few seconds. His eyes are sad. When the man returns to his drink Vaniok is grateful. A breeze makes the canvas flutter and sends up the rich sweet scent of grass. The gust subsides and the smell of warm canvas fills the area. Only he and the old man are in the tent until one of young women in aprons walks in, carrying snacks on a tray. Vaniok is happy to see her. Wearing a pale green dress under her apron, she's tall and very thin with prominent teeth and a weak chin but her eyes are very large and compelling. When she flicks her head absently her long brown hair moves. She's not at all attractive but Vaniok is drawn to her. He raises his hand and she approaches. He takes a pickled herring on a cracker and thanks her. She says nothing and moves off
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He climbs the path toward the house and suddenly encounters his host, who's surprisingly alone. Squint-eyed, ancient as a turtle, Old Ferik brings an arm around and pats Vaniok on the shoulder. After a few seconds during which he might be trying to remember who Vaniok is, he intones hoarsely, “Beautiful music, boy, beautiful music.” He turns up his hands as if to say more but can only manage to shake his head. “Thank you,” Vaniok says quietly. As his host shuffles off Vaniok realizes that these parties won't last much longer
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All at once he feels lonely. He wishes Ranush were here but Ranush's family has had a quarrel with Ferik and were not among those invited. Vaniok returns to the horseshoe players a while. Clang. Clang. “That one we have to measure.” He's watching under a willow, the drooping leaves brushing his back languidly, when he hears music coming from the screened porch and he walks over to take a look. The stiffened bodies of a few of last night's fish flies cling to the black screen; inside a red-haired man is playing the accordion and Vaniok's brother Rikor draws the bow soulfully across his violin, his tall, spidery frame moving in a slow sinuous motion as he wrests heartfelt sounds out of the instrument. A long table is piled with hard-crusted bread and smoked fish, sausages, a half dozen kinds of cheese. Some people are shouting toasts, a circle has formed around a pair of white-haired women dancing with each other, their arms held out stiffly. Vaniok watches for a few moments, the fine wire net dissolving the scene into a hundred parts. He closes his eyes to concentrate on the music and smells the screen. I should remember this, he tells himself, though he realizes that even as he's experiencing it, it seems like something remembered
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“Are you still working at the sporting goods shop?” a friend of his father's asks. He's a dark, wiry man named Rudi with a short black mustache and a high-pitched voice. No, Vaniok explains, that was only part-time. “But you were working on an ambulance too, weren't you? Or do I have you confused with someone else?” No, he says, that was him as well. When he sees a group of men his age kicking a ball, he excuses himself to watch them but he isn't tempted to join
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He exchanges a few words with the sleek monsignor, a tall, bald man attired for the occasion in dark pants, a sport shirt and a commodore's cap—the priest, whose family is rich, came to Ferik's in his own boat. “God has blessed us with fine weather,” he says, as if taking some of the credit for the party. “It could be midsummer.” “Yes, Father,” Vaniok answers, “that's certainly true.” He hasn't been to church much lately but he's heard that the monsignor's sermons have become increasingly political. “But you don't want to be talking to an old man on a fine day like this,” the priest says with a wave of his hand. “You must have things to do.”

Vaniok walks to the end of Ferik's dock, where a burly man in a red shirt is fishing from a bench. The man nods when Vaniok approaches but says nothing. There are boats on the lake, which is calm, its surface sparkling in the sun. Vaniok can smell the worms in the silver can in the shade of the bench, he sees the shine of the minnow bucket bobbing in the cool water, its reflection gliding across the side of the dock like the sun's wavery footprint. The two men are in each other's company for some time without speaking. Vaniok looks down the lake, which is an unusual body of water. Named after a mythical figure who cut down whole forests in a morning, the lake bears some resemblance to his famous axe. This part, known as the Blade, runs east to west; it's shallower and protected from the wind. But not far from here the lake bends into a very long leg known as the Handle, a deep north-south trough bounded by hills and resembling a river in its long, narrow configuration. Vaniok watches a white boat moving toward the point where the lake bends. As he leaves the dock he wishes the fisherman luck. The man grunts something that's either a response or a clearing of his throat
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There's a large meal in the late afternoon. People come and go to outdoor picnic tables filled with food. Toasts are made; people rap the tables with their glasses. Vaniok finds himself beside a salesman who's just returned from the Borderlands. Short-armed, red-faced, prematurely bald, he punches at the air violently as he talks. “Do you know Bostra?” he asks. Vaniok shakes his head. “Bostra,” the man says. “Never saw a duller town. I ask this old coot in the hotel if there's anything interesting to do at night. Know what he says? There's a bowling alley a couple of blocks away. A bowling alley.” He finishes his drink in a swallow and blinks back the tears, then sits there with a musing expression, as if contemplating with wonder a town that regards bowling as interesting. When he speaks again, though, it's quietly. “One advantage I can think of: it's on the border.” Then he falls silent. The tall woman with the large eyes comes by, replacing a bowl of mashed potatoes. “May he live another eighty years,” someone declares enthusiastically from one of the tables. The chant is taken up by all the diners, the salesman lifting his empty glass. Vaniok watches the woman wipe her face with her sleeve. A droplet of sweat clings to her nose. He smiles at her and she looks back at him expressionlessly, her large eyes alert
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He's walking along the grounds again, stepping from sun to shade, then back into the sun. Around him is a blur of noise. Once again he's at the horseshoe pit; the game seems to have been going on forever. He looks for Professor Mirel but can't find him among the players. As he passes the screened porch distinct sounds emerge from the noise and Vaniok glances in: there in a corner a young priest is singing a patriotic song that Vaniok used to hear as a child. The priest is chubby, baby-faced, his singing is passionate and Vaniok guesses that the man's eyes are wet. A few guests with plates of food stand nearby, watching carefully. Vaniok hears a cough. Professor Mirel, a short distance away, is looking at the priest, a frown on his face
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Vaniok walks from the porch, suddenly sad. It's a feeling that can come on him lately, at once and for no apparent reason. He feels estranged from everybody else who's here. His father is still waiting for him to settle down, he knows, to join him in the boat rental business. His brothers are accustomed to disregarding him. Old Ferik, who put his arm on his shoulder, looked like a blind man groping in the dark, he probably confused him with one of his brothers. Professor Mirel, he's certain, has little regard for him. At twenty-two his life seems a hopeless muddle
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“Excuse me, I didn't realize you were here.” Vaniok has wandered into a stand of shade-dappled birches behind one of the outbuildings. All he wanted was to be alone and here, to his surprise, is the woman who was serving him at the table. She's smoking; she's not wearing her apron. “Are you on break?” he asks with a smile. His sadness has mysteriously evaporated
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“I was only hired through the big meal,” she says. “I'm going to leave soon.” Her voice is flat, she's not encouraging further conversation
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“Don't go,” he says, surprising himself. “Really, there's no one here for me to talk to.” A cloud of smoke from her cigarette drifts by and he inhales it. “Please,” he says. She makes a comic face of disbelief and he persists. “Really. Why not enjoy some of this party as my guest? Oh, I should introduce myself.”

When he tells her his name she gives him hers, which is Lora, and they exchange trivial information. All the while they talk Vaniok can't keep his eyes off her. She's much too thin and she's tall in a way that makes her angular. The lack of strength in her jaw undercuts her long face, making it seem as if it's sagging. And yet the large brown eyes are full of spirit; they convey something almost predatory. “Please,” he insists. “It would make me happy.”