Fandango and Other Stories by Bryan Karetnyk

Author:Bryan Karetnyk
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: LCO014000, Literary Collections/Russian & Former Soviet Union, FIC019000, Fiction/Literary
Publisher: Columbia University Press
Published: 2020-01-07T00:00:00+00:00

II.

The shoreline was low, empty, and covered in tall grass, sand, and seashells. Looking downstream, I saw that the forest now extended as far as the river, now withdrew in a semicircle to reveal sandbanks, glades, and snaking pools of water. The rainy season had ended about five days prior to this, and the Adara, laden with water, lazily eddied, flowing darkly in its calm splendor, with drowning reflections of the steep bank on the opposing shore. White-headed birds fluttered their wings over the surface of the water, pecking at it, and the quicksilver of fish thrashed about in their beaks, shedding droplets of limpid water.

“If we’re to sail,” said Baranov, perching on a rock, “then we’ll need a boat. Or, as you said, a raft.”

With this in mind, I examined the shore carefully. My penknife would have been useful for building a child’s water mill, but even before I pulled it out, I knew that it would never fell a tree. I was counting on there being tree trunks carried away by the river and washed ashore, but there were none to be seen. We would have to keep looking; this was, after all, a common occurrence in wooded areas.

I wanted to keep going but couldn’t: my stomach was in knots with hunger. I dreamed of impossible things—edible sand, branches made of dough, the prospect of finding bread. Of course, all this was ridiculous. Whistling as he went, Baranov chewed on a stalk of grass.

All of a sudden, as though conforming to our foul mood, the river ceased glittering. The sun, ready to go to sleep, enswathed itself in the clouds; the great airborne chrysanthemums they formed, saturated with red and pink light, accumulated fancifully on the horizon, while the color of the water turned wan and grey.

“In half an hour,” I said, “darkness will fall. We need to think about shelter for the night.”

“What about food?” he asked wearily.

“That too. Why don’t you collect some brushwood and get a fire going, while I try my luck.”

Weakened and tortured by hunger, I saw in my mind’s eye the seven bullets of my revolver and the accidental but inescapable fate awaiting some unfortunate bird. Baranov set off in one direction picking up branches while I headed in the other.

In the fading light of the semidark, almost sleeping forest, I extracted my revolver and cocked it as I looked around. It was quiet; every now and then, the shadow of a bird would flicker against the backdrop of a deep-blue evening sky; and an invisible cockatoo would mutter away in the branches, like a monk reading vespers. Carefully, trying not to frighten my impending victims, I moved through the brush. I was not having much luck. Nothing alive caught my eyes; sometimes, mistaking a tangle of branches or oddly shaped leaves for a living creature, I would stop, with my heart pounding, raise the revolver and lower it again, realizing the illusion. Suddenly, I spotted a bird.

It was resting quite nearby,

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