2017 by Olga Slavnikova

Author:Olga Slavnikova [Slavnikova, Olga]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781468302905
Publisher: The Overlook Press
Published: 2012-04-21T04:00:00+00:00

Especially because everything had been going as usual since morning. Kolyan had dug around among his greased blades and gone off like an automaton to pump out the underground water. His tottering figure subsequently appeared between the boulders as if were being born, like a torn banner, on a shaft of wood. Anfilogov was about to start cooking, but he spat and climbed into his still-warm sleeping bag, pulling the tight zipper right up to his nose. He woke up from the unusual, spacious silence. There were some sounds: a small bird was tinkling at the very top of a sunny birch tree, sounding like a spoon on a crystal glass, and the river was evenly noisy. But the space, to his perception, felt as if not a single radio or television station remained on air, as if the satellite network and the satellites themselves had vanished. The air was utterly empty, and the professor realized instantly that he was now alone.

Kolyan lay at the bottom of the corundum mine, face down in the remains of the groundwater, which the pump was still trying to suck out as it jammed with sand. Anfilogov gave something a jerk and the equipment stalled. Up top, Kolyan, in his crushed and rusty canvas overalls, looked like the remains of a mangled mechanism, and his darkened hair swirled around his head as if machine oil were dripping out. At first Anfilogov couldn’t believe it. Lowering himself in three jumps, the professor tried to lift the heavy Kolyan up, but the body seemed to be glued to the puddle. Finally, Anfilogov pulled it away and dumped it on his knee. But no matter how much he struck Kolyan on the back, no matter how much he pressed, after turning the long-armed body over, on his recalcitrant ribs, he did not hear the saving cough or the cock’s crow of life return. His attempts at artificial respiration into the stuck-together mustached mouth ended with tight red circles in Anfilogov’s eyes. Finally, when his rib cage cracked like plywood, which made it look as if Kolyan were smiling, it became clear that there was no hope. Anfilogov sat there a little while, squeezing his pounding head in his hands to make it stay in one place. Then, leaning over and getting a better grip, he dragged his workmate up on the grass.

In the very center of the silence and emptiness the professor acted automatically. He undressed Kolyan on a sheet of canvas and washed him from a pot of heated water. The emaciated body with the sunken ribs reminded him of a squeezed-out tube of toothpaste. When the professor splashed Kolyan on the face, cautiously, holding his damp hair aside, he saw that his workmate had died with that apologetic smile, which had petrified quickly: first the dead man’s violet mouth was covered with a gloss and started melting away inside, like a springtime icicle, then the transparent became solid—and soon under his mustache a mayflower bell

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