Return from the Stars

EIGHT

In the meantime Olaf made no sign. I was uneasy, then guilty. Afraid that he had done something crazy. Because he was still alone, and more so, even, than I had been. I did not want to involve Eri in unpredictable events, and that would happen if I began the search myself; therefore, I decided to go to Thurber first. I wasn’t sure I was going to ask him for advice — I only wanted to see him. I had got the address from Olaf; Thurber was at the university center in Malleolan. I wired him that I was coming, and parted with Eri for the first time. Over the last few days she had been reticent and nervous; I attributed this to concern for Olaf. I promised I’d be back as soon as I could, probably in two days, and that I wouldn’t do anything until I had consulted her.

Eri drove me to Houl, where I caught a nonstop ulder. The beaches of the Pacific were deserted now, on account of the approaching autumn storms; the colorful crowds of young people had vanished from the local resorts, so I was not surprised to be practically the only passenger in the silver projectile. The flight, in clouds that made everything unreal, lasted almost an hour and was over at dusk. The city rose through the gathering darkness like a many-colored fire — the tallest buildings, goblet-shaped, blazed in the midst like thin, motionless flames, their outlines, against white clouds, shaped like giant butterflies joined by arches at the highest levels; the lower levels of the streets, running into one another, made twisting, colored rivers. It might have been the mist, or an effect of the glasslike construction material, but the city looked, from above, like a cluster of concentric gems, a crystal island, jewel-studded, rising up from the ocean, whose mirror surface repeated more and more faintly the shining tiers, right to the last, now barely visible, as if beneath the city lay its incandescent ruby skeleton. It was hard to believe that this fairy tale of mingled flame and color was the home of several million people.

The university complex stood outside the city. My ulder landed in a huge park, on a concrete platform. Only the pale silver glow across the sky, above the blank wall of trees, showed the proximity of the city. A long avenue led to the main building, which was dark, as though deserted.

No sooner did I open the huge door than the interior was flooded with light. I found myself in a vaulted hall with pale blue tiles. A network of soundproof passages took me to a corridor, plain and austere — I opened one door, then another, but the rooms were all empty, as if the people had departed long ago. I went upstairs, up a flight of real stairs. There must have been an elevator somewhere, but I didn’t feel like looking for it. Besides, stairs that didn’t move were a novelty. At the top, heading in both directions, was another corridor with vacant rooms; on the door of one I saw a small piece of paper with the words “In here, Bregg.” I knocked, and heard the voice of Thurber.

I went in. He was sitting hunched in the light of a low-hanging lamp. Behind him was the darkness of a wall-to-wall window. The desk at which he worked was littered with papers and books — real books — and on another, smaller, desk nearby lay entire handfuls of those crystal “grains of corn” plus various pieces of equipment. In front of him he had a stack of paper and with a pen — a fountain pen! — he was making notes in the margins.

“Have a seat,” he said, not looking up. “I’ll be done in a minute.”

I took a low chair by the desk but immediately moved it to the side, because the light made a blur of his face and I wanted to get a good look at him.

He worked in his characteristic way, slowly, frowning into the glare of the lamp. This was one of the simplest rooms I had seen so far, with dull walls, an old door, no decoration, and none of that tiresome gold. On either side of the door was a square, blank screen, and the wall near the window was filled with metal cabinets; rolls of maps or technical drawings leaned against one of these — that was all. I considered Thurber. Bald, solidly built, heavy; he was writing, now and then would wipe his eyes with the edge of his hand. They were always watering. Gimma (who liked to reveal others’ secrets, especially those that a person tried hardest to keep hidden) once told me that Thurber was afraid of going blind. Which explained why he was always the first to turn in when we changed acceleration, and why — in later years — he let others do things for him that he had once insisted on doing himself.

He gathered the papers with both hands, tapped the desk with them to get the edges even, then put them in a briefcase, closed it, and only then, lowering his large hands with those thick fingers that looked as though they had difficulty bending, said:

“Welcome, Hal. How goes it?”

“I’m not complaining. Are you… alone?”

“You mean is Gimma here? No, he isn’t; he left yesterday. For Europe.”

“You’re working… ?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause. I didn’t know how he would take what I had to say to him — I wanted first to find out what he thought of this world that we had come to. True, knowing him, I didn’t expect a flood of words. He kept most of his opinions to himself.

“Have you been here long?”

“Bregg,” he said, without moving, “I doubt that that interests you. You’re stalling.”

“Possibly,” I said. “Then I’m to say what’s on my mind?”

I was beginning to feel again that awkwardness, something between irritation and shyness, that always came over me in his presence. I suspect the others felt the same thing. You never knew when he was joking and when he was being serious; for all his composure, the attention that he gave you, he was hard to figure out.

“No,” he said. “Perhaps later. Where did you come from?”

“Houl.”

“Directly?”

“Yes… why do you ask?”

“That is good,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard my question. He looked at me for maybe five seconds without moving, as if wanting to make sure of my presence. His expression said nothing — but I knew, now, that something had happened. But would he tell me? He was unpredictable. While I wondered how I ought to begin, he studied me carefully, as though I had appeared before him in some unfamiliar form.

“What’s Vabach doing?” I asked, when this silent scrutiny got to be too much.

“He went with Gimma.”

That was not what I meant, and he knew it, but, then, I hadn’t come to ask about Vabach. Again, a silence. I was beginning to regret my decision.

“I hear that you got married,” he said suddenly, almost carelessly.

“Yes,” I said, perhaps too dryly.

“It’s done you good.”

I searched for something else to talk about. Apart from Olaf, nothing came to mind, but I didn’t want to ask about him yet. I was afraid of Thurber’s smile — the way he used to demolish Gimma with it, and not only Gimma — but he only raised his brows a little and asked:

“What plans do you have?”

“None,” I replied, and it was the truth.

“And would you like to do something?”

“Yes. But not just anything.”

“You haven’t done anything so far?”

I was definitely blushing now. I was angry.

“Nothing. Thurber… I didn’t come here to talk about myself.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “It’s Staave, isn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“There was a certain element of risk in this,” he said, pushing himself gently away from the desk. His chair obediently turned toward me.

“Oswamm feared the worst, especially later, when Staave threw away his hypnagog… You did, too, didn’t you?”

“Oswamm?” I said. “Which Oswamm? Wait — the one from Adapt?”

“Yes. He was worried most about Staave. I pointed out to him his error.”

“What do you mean?”

“But Gimma vouched for both of you…” he concluded, as though he had not heard me.

“What?” I said, rising from the chair. “Gimma?”

“Of course, he knew nothing,” Thurber went on, “and told me so.”

“Then why the hell did he vouch for us?” I burst out, confounded.

“He felt that he had to,” Thurber explained laconically. “That the director of an expedition should know his men…”

“Nonsense.”

“I’m only repeating what he said to Oswamm.”

“Yes?” I said. “And what was Oswamm afraid of? That we would mutiny?”

“You never had the urge?” Thurber asked quietly.

I reflected.

“No,” I said finally. “Never seriously.”

“And you’ll let your children be betrizated?”

“And you?” I asked slowly.

He smiled for the first time, twitching his bloodless lips. He said nothing.

“Listen, Thurber… you remember that evening, after the last flight over Beta… when I told you…”

He nodded indifferently. Suddenly my calm vanished.

“I did not tell you everything then, you know. We were all there together, but not on an equal footing. I took orders from the two of you — you and Gimma — I wanted it that way. We all did. Venturi, Thomas, Ennesson, and Arder, who didn’t get a reserve tank because Gimma was saving it for a rainy day. Fine. Only what gives you the right now to speak to me as though you had been sitting in that chair the whole time? You were the one who sent Arder down on Kereneia in the name of science, Thurber, and I pulled him out in the name of his poor ass, and we returned, and now it turns out that the ass is the thing that counts, the other doesn’t. So maybe now I should be asking you how you feel and vouching for you, not the other way around? What do you think? I know what you think. You brought back a pile of facts and you can bury yourself in them to the end of your days, knowing that none of these polite people will ask, ‘What did this spectral analysis cost? One man, two men? Wouldn’t you say, Professor Thurber, that the price was a bit high?’ No one will say that to you because they do not keep accounts with us. But Venturi does. And Arder, and Ennesson. And Thomas. What will you use for payment, Thurber? Setting Oswamm straight about me? And Gimma — vouching for Olaf and me? The first time I saw you, you were doing the same thing you are doing today. That was in Apprenous. You sat in the midst of your papers and stared, like now: taking a break from more important matters, in the name of science…”

I got up.

“Thank Gimma for taking our side…”

Thurber stood, too. For perhaps a second we looked each other in the eye. He was shorter, but you didn’t notice it. His height didn’t matter. The calmness of his gaze was beyond words.

“Am I allowed to speak, or has sentence been passed?” he asked.

I mumbled something unintelligible.

“Then sit,” he said and, without waiting, lowered himself heavily into his chair.

I sat down.

“But you have done something,” he said in a tone that suggested we had been talking about the weather. “You read Starck, believed him, felt cheated, and now you are looking for someone to blame. If it means such a great deal to you, I can take the blame. But that is not the issue. Starck convinced you — after those ten years? Bregg, I knew you were a hothead, but I never thought you stupid.” He paused for a moment, and, strangely, I experienced something like relief — and a hope for liberation. I didn’t have time to analyze it, because he continued.

“Contact with galactic civilizations? Whoever said anything about that? None of us, not one of the scholars, not Merquier, not Simonadi, not Rag Ngamieli — no one; no expedition counted on any such contact, and therefore all that talk about fossils flying through space and the perpetually delayed galactic mail, it’s a refutation of an argument that no one ever made. What can one get from the stars? And of what use was Amundsen’s expedition? Or Andree’s? None. The only clear benefit lay in the fact that they had proved a possibility. That it could be done. Or, more precisely, that it was, for a given time, the most difficult attainable thing. I don’t know if we even did that much, Bregg. I really don’t. But we were there.”

I was silent. Thurber did not look at me now. He rested his fists on the edge of the desk.

“What did Starck prove to you — the futility of cosmodromia? As if we did not know that ourselves! And the poles! What was at the poles? Those who conquered them knew that there was nothing there. And the Moon? What did Ross’s group seek in the crater Eratosthenes? Diamonds? And why did Bant and Jegorin cross the face of Mercury — to get a tan? And Kellen and Offshagg — the only thing they knew for certain, when they flew to the cold cloud of Cerber, was that they could die there. Don’t you know what Starck is really saying? That a human being must eat, drink, and clothe himself; and the rest is madness. Every man has his Starck, Bregg. Every period in history has had one. Why did Gimma send you and Arder? To collect samples from the corona. Who sent Gimma? Science. Cut and dried, isn’t it? The study of the stars. Bregg, do you think we wouldn’t have gone if there had been no stars? I say we would have. We would have wanted to examine that emptiness, to provide an explanation for it, Geonides or someone else would have told us what valuable measurements and experiments we could carry out on the way. Do not misunderstand me. I am not saying that the stars are only an excuse. Neither was the pole; Nansen and Andree needed it… Everest meant more to Mallory and Irving than the air itself. You say that I ordered you ‘in the name of science’? You know that isn’t true. You were testing my memory. Shall I test yours? Do you remember Thomas’s planetoid?”

I started.

“You lied to us then. You flew down a second time, knowing that he was dead. True?”

I was silent.

“I guessed immediately. I never discussed it with Gimma, but I think he also guessed. Why did you do it, Bregg? That was not Arcturus or Kereneia, and there was no one to save. What purpose did you have, man?”

I was silent. Thurber gave a faint smile.

“You know what our problem is, Bregg? The fact that we made it and are sitting here. Man always comes back empty-handed…”

He stopped. His smile became an almost meaningless scowl. For a moment he breathed more loudly, gripping the desk with both hands. I looked at him, as if seeing him for the first time; it struck me that he was old, and the realization was a shock. I had never thought of him that way, as if he were ageless…

“Thurber,” I said quietly, “listen… this is, well… only a eulogy over the graves of — the insatiable. There are none like them now. And will not be again. So — after all — Starck wins…”

He showed his flat yellow teeth, but it was not a smile.

“Bregg, give me your word that you will repeat to no one what I am about to tell you.”

I hesitated.

“To no one,” he repeated, with emphasis.

“All right.”

He stood, went over to the corner, picked up a tube of paper, and returned with it to the desk.

The paper rustled as it unrolled in his hands. I saw what looked like a gutted fish, red lines, like blood.

“Thurber!”

“Yes,” he replied quietly, rolling the paper back up with both hands.

“A new expedition?”

“Yes,” he repeated. And went back to the corner and leaned the tube against the wall, like a rifle.

“When? Where?”

“Not soon. To the Center.”

“Sagittarius…” I whispered.

“Yes. The preparations will take a long time. But thanks to anabiosis…”

He continued, but only single words and expressions came through to me — “loop flight,” “nongravitational acceleration” — and the excitement I felt when I saw the drawing of the giant rocket gave way to an unexpected languor, from which, as through a descending gloom, I examined the hands resting on my knees. Thurber stopped, glanced at me, went to his desk, and began to gather papers, as if giving me time to digest the news. I should have been firing questions at him — which of us, of the old guard, would be flying; how many years the expedition would last; its objectives — but I asked nothing. Not even why the whole thing was being kept a secret. I looked at his huge, thick hands, which showed his age more distinctly than did his face, and I felt a small measure of satisfaction, as unexpected as it was base — that he, in any case, would not be flying. I would not live to see their return, not even if I broke Methuselah’s record. It didn’t matter. Was unimportant. I got up. Thurber rustled his papers.

“Bregg,” he said, without looking up, “I still have work to do. If you like, we can have dinner together. You can spend the night in the dormitory; it’s empty now.”

I mumbled, “All right,” and walked to the door. He had started to work as if I were no longer there. I stood awhile in the doorway, then left. I was not aware of exactly where I was, until the steady clap of my own footsteps reached me. I halted. I was in the middle of the long corridor, between two rows of identical doors. The echo of my steps could still be heard. An illusion? Someone following me? I turned and saw a tall figure disappear through a door at the far end. It happened so quickly that I did not get a good look at him, saw just a movement, a back, and the closing door. There was nothing for me to do here. No sense in walking farther — the corridor came to a dead end. I turned back, walked past an enormous window through which I could see the glow of the city, silver on the vast black park, and again stopped in front of the door marked “In here, Bregg,” where Thurber was working. I no longer wanted to see him. I had nothing to say to him, nor he to me. Why had I come in the first place? Suddenly, with surprise, I remembered why. I would go back inside and ask about Olaf — but not now. Not just yet. I wasn’t tired, I felt perfectly fine, but something was happening to me, something I didn’t understand. I went to the stairs. Opposite them stood the last of the doors, the one into which the unknown person had disappeared a moment ago. I recalled that I had looked into that same room at the beginning, when I entered the building; I recognized the patch of peeling paint. There had been nothing at all in that room. What could the person have been looking for?

I was certain that he had not been looking for anything, that he was only hiding from me, and I stood undecided for some time in front of the stairs, the empty white motionless stairs. Slowly, very slowly, I turned. I felt an odd uneasiness; not an uneasiness exactly, for I was not afraid of anything; it was the way one feels after an injection of an anesthetic — tense, yet collected. I took two steps and strained my ears; it seemed to me that I heard — on the other side of the door — the sound of breathing. Impossible. I decided to go, but couldn’t, I had given too much attention to that ridiculous door to walk away. I opened it and looked inside. Under a small ceiling lamp, in the middle of the empty room, stood Olaf. In the same old clothes, and with his sleeves rolled up, as if he had just put down his tools.

We looked at each other. Seeing that I wasn’t going to speak, he spoke.

“How are you, Hal?”

His voice was not altogether steady.

I didn’t want to play games, I was just surprised by this unexpected meeting, and perhaps, too, the shock of Thurber’s words had not yet left me; in any case I said nothing in reply. I went over to the window, which had the same view, the black park and the glow of the city, and turned and sat on the sill. Olaf didn’t move. He stood in the center of the room; from the book in his hand a single sheet of paper slipped and glided to the floor. We bent at the same time; I picked up the sheet and saw on it the blueprint of the rocket, the one that Thurber had shown me a moment ago. At the bottom of the sheet were comments in Olaf’s handwriting. So that was it, I thought. He hadn’t written because he would be flying, he’d wanted to spare me that knowledge. I would tell him that he was mistaken, that I didn’t care about the expedition. I’d had enough of the stars, and anyway I knew everything from Thurber, so he could talk to me with a clear conscience.

I looked carefully at the lines of the drawing in my hand, as if approving the streamlined shape of the rocket, but said nothing; I merely returned the paper, which he took from me with a certain reluctance, folded in two, and put inside the book. All this took place in total silence, not by design, I am sure, but because it was acted out in silence the scene took on a symbolic significance, as though I had learned of his participation in the expedition and, by returning the drawing, accepted this step, without enthusiasm, but also without regret. When I tried to catch his eye he looked away, only to glance at me a moment later — the picture of uncertainty and confusion. Even now, when I knew everything? The silence in the small room became unbearable. I heard him breathe a little faster. His face was haggard and his eyes not as bright as when I had seen him last, as though he had been working hard and sleeping little, but there was another expression in them, too, one I did not recognize.

“I’m fine…” I said slowly. “And you?”

The instant I said these words I realized that the time for them had passed; they would have suited when I entered, but now they sounded almost hostile, or even sarcastic.

“Did you see Thurber?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“The students have gone… There’s no one here now, they gave us the whole building…” he began awkwardly.

“So that you could work out the plan for the expedition?” I prompted him, and he answered eagerly.

“Yes, Hal. Well, but you know the kind of work it is. Right now there are only a handful of us, but we have fantastic machines, these robots, you know…”

“That’s good.”

After these words, however, there was another silence. And, oddly enough, the longer it lasted, the greater grew Olaf’s anxiety, his exaggerated stiffness, for he still stood in the center of the room, as if nailed to the floor, under the light, prepared for the worst. I decided to end this.

“Listen,” I said very softly. “What exactly did you imagine? The coward’s way doesn’t work, you know… Did you really think I wouldn’t find out if you didn’t tell me?”

I broke off, and he remained silent, with his head hung to one side. I had gone too far, no doubt, since he was not to blame — in his shoes I probably would have done the same. Nor did I hold against him his month-long silence; it was that attempt to escape, to hide from me in this deserted room, when he saw me stepping out of Thurber’s office — but I couldn’t tell him this directly, it was too stupid and ridiculous. I raised my voice, called him a damned fool, but even then he didn’t defend himself.

“So you think there’s nothing left to discuss?” I snapped.

“That depends on you…”

“How so, on me?”

“On you,” he repeated stubbornly. “It was important, who would be the one to tell you…”

“You really believe that?”

“That was how it seemed to me…”

“It makes no difference,” I muttered.

“What do you intend to do?” he asked quietly.

“Nothing.”

Olaf looked at me suspiciously.

“Hal, look, I…”

He didn’t finish. I felt I was torturing him with my presence, yet I couldn’t forgive him for running away; and to leave like that, at that moment, without a word, would have been worse than the uncertainty that had brought me there. I didn’t know what to say; everything that united us was forbidden. I looked at him in the same moment that he glanced at me — each of us, even now, was counting on the other to help.

I got up from the sill.

“Olaf… it’s late. I’m going. Don’t think that I’m angry with you; nothing of the sort. We’ll get together, anyway, perhaps you’ll drop in on us.” I said this with effort; each word was unnatural, and he knew it.

“What… you’re not staying the night?”

“I can’t, you see, I promised…”

I did not say her name. Olaf mumbled:

“As you wish. I’ll see you out.”

We left the room together and went down the stairs; outside it was completely dark. Olaf walked beside me without a word; suddenly he stopped. And I stopped.

“Stay,” he whispered, as if ashamed. I could see only the vague blur of his face.

“All right,” I agreed unexpectedly and turned around. He was not prepared for that. He stood for a while, then took me by the arm and led me to another, lower, building. In an empty room, where a few lights had been left on, we ate dinner on a counter, without even sitting down. During the entire time we exchanged perhaps ten words. Then went upstairs.

The room to which he led me was almost perfectly square, decorated in dull white, with a wide window that must have overlooked the park from a different direction, because I could see no trace of the city’s glow above the trees; there was a freshly made bed, two chairs, and a third chair, larger, by the window. Through the narrow opening of a doorway the tiles of a bathroom glistened. Olaf stood at the door with his arms hanging, as if waiting for me to speak, but I said nothing, just walked around the room and touched the pieces of furniture mechanically, as though temporarily taking possession of them; he asked quietly:

“Can I… do anything for you?”

“Yes,” I said. “Leave me alone.”

He continued to stand there, not moving. His face turned red, then pale, and suddenly he smiled — smiled to hide the insult, because it had sounded like an insult. At this helpless, pathetic smile, something within me broke; in a convulsive effort to tear away the mask of indifference I had been wearing, since I had no other, I ran to him as he turned to leave, grabbed his hand, and squeezed it, as if asking his forgiveness with this violent clasp, and he, without looking at me, replied with a similar squeeze and went out. His firm grip still tingled in my hand when he had closed the door after himself, closed it carefully and quietly, as though leaving a sickroom. I was left alone, as I had wanted.

The building was filled with an absolute silence. I did not even hear Olaf’s retreating footsteps; in the glass of the window my own heavy shape was weakly reflected; from an unknown source flowed heated air; through the outline of my reflection I saw the edge of trees submerged now in complete darkness. Again I ran my eyes around the room, then went to the large chair by the window.

An autumn night. I couldn’t even think of sleeping. I stood at the window. The darkness that lay beyond it had to be full of coolness and the whisper of leafless branches brushing against one another. Suddenly I wanted to be there, in it, wandering through the darkness, through its unpremeditated chaos. Without another thought I left the room. The corridor was deserted. I tiptoed to the stairs — an unnecessary caution, probably, for Olaf must have gone to bed some time ago, and Thurber, if he was working, was on a different floor, in a distant wing of the building. I ran downstairs, no longer muffling my footsteps, slipped outside, and began to walk quickly. I chose no particular direction, just walked, avoiding the glow of the city as much as possible. The paths of the park soon took me beyond its boundary, marked by a hedge; I found myself on the road, walked it for a while, then made a sudden stop. I didn’t want to walk down a road; roads led to houses, people, and I wanted to be alone. I remembered: Olaf had told me, back in Clavestra, about Malleolan, the new city in the mountains, built after our de-~~ parture; the few kilometers of road that I had walked certainly seemed full of bends, curves, no doubt skirting slopes, but in the darkness I couldn’t see if this was the case. The road, typically, was not illuminated, the surface itself glowed with a weak phosphorescence, too weak to light up the vegetation on the sides. So I left the road, felt my way in the dark, found myself in low, dense shrubbery that led up to a hill without trees — without trees, because the wind gusted freely here. Several times, pale, winding fragments of the road I had abandoned came into view, far below, and then that last light vanished; I stopped a second time; not so much with my helpless eyes as with my whole body, my face to the wind, I tried to get to know the land, alien to me, like another planet; I wanted to reach one of the peaks surrounding the valley where the city lay, but how to find the right direction? Suddenly, when the whole enterprise seemed hopeless, I heard a drawn-out, distant roar, like that of waves, yet different, coming from high up and to the right — the noise of wind blowing through a forest, a forest much higher than where I stood. I headed in that direction. A slope overgrown with dry grass led me to the first trees. I picked my way through these phantoms, raising my arms to protect my face from the branches. Soon the slope became less steep, the trees thinned out, and again I had to choose a direction; listening intently in the darkness, I waited patiently for the next strong gust of wind. And the wind came, from the high ground in the distance I heard its long whistle; yes, the wind of that night was my ally; I went straight, disregarding the fact that I was now losing altitude, descending sharply into a black ravine.

At the bottom of this was a steep incline; I began climbing gradually upward, a trickling rivulet showed me the way. At one point I stopped seeing it; anyway it probably was running beneath a layer of stones; the sound of the water diminished as I went higher, until it died away altogether, and once more the forest surrounded me, tall trees, pine, almost entirely devoid of undergrowth. The ground was covered by a pillow-soft layer of old pine needles, and in places it was slippery with moss. This blind wandering went on for more than three hours; the roots I tripped over were twisted more and more frequently around erratic boulders that jutted through the shallow soil. I was afraid that the summit would turn out to be covered by forest and that in that labyrinth would end my barely begun excursion into the mountains, but I was fortunate — through a small, bare pass I reached a field of rubble, which grew steeper and steeper. Finally, I could hardly stay on my feet, the stones began slipping from under me with a rattling sound; hopping from one foot to the other, not without repeated falls, I made it to the side of a narrow gully and now could climb more quickly. I stopped from time to time, to try to distinguish my surroundings, but the total darkness made that impossible. I saw neither the city nor its glow, nor any trace of the shining road that I had left. The gully led me to a bare area with patches of dry grass; that I was now high up I knew from the ever-widening starry sky, and the other mountain ridges began to draw level with the one I was climbing. A few hundred steps more and I came to the first clusters of dwarf pines.

Had someone in the darkness suddenly stopped me and asked where I was going and why, I would not have been able to answer; but there was no one, and the loneliness of that night march gave me a feeling, even if temporary, of relief. The angle of the slope increased, walking became more and more difficult, but I forged ahead, trying only to keep straight, as if I had a definite goal. My heart pounded, my lungs labored, and I fought upward in a frenzy, feeling instinctively that this exhausting effort was precisely what I needed. I pushed aside the twisted branches of the dwarf pines, sometimes became entangled, pulled free, and went on. Clusters of needles brushed my face, my chest, caught on my clothing; my fingers stuck together from the resin. In an open space a sudden wind hit me; rushing out of the dark, it rampaged, whistling high above, where I guessed was a pass. Then the next thicket of dwarf pines swallowed me up; in it were islands of warm, motionless air permeated with its strong fragrance. Indistinct obstacles rose in my path, erratic rocks, loose stones underfoot. I must have been walking for several hours now, and still I felt a reservoir of strength in me, sufficient to bring me to despair; the gully, leading to some pass, possibly to the summit, narrowed so that I could see both its edges high against the sky, blocking out the stars with their dark ridges.

The region of mist was far below me, but the cool night had no moon, and the stars gave little light. I was surprised, then, at the appearance, around me and above me, of elongated whitish shapes. They lay in the darkness without illuminating it, as though they had absorbed radiance during the day; the first loose crunch beneath my feet told me that I was on snow.

A thin layer of it covered the rest of the steep slope. I would have been frozen to the bone, lightly dressed as I was, but the wind fell unexpectedly, and now I could hear distinctly the sound of crunching snow with every step.

At the pass itself there was hardly any snow. Huge windswept rocks stood silhouetted above the scree. I stopped, my heart hammering, and looked in the direction of the city. It was hidden behind the slope; only a patch of reddish gray, from the lights, betrayed its position in the valley. Above me quivered the stars, sharply visible. I went on a few steps more and sat down on a saddle-shaped boulder. Now the glow was gone. Ahead of me, in the darkness, were the mountains, ghostlike, their peaks whitened by snow. Looking hard at the eastern edge of the horizon, I could make out the first streaks of daybreak. Against it, the outline of a ridge broken in two. And all at once, in my immobility, something began to happen; formless shadows around me — or within me? — shifted, receded, altered in proportions. I was so preoccupied with this that for a moment it was as if I had lost my vision, and when I regained it, everything was different. The skies of the east, barely gray above the invisible valley, deepened even more the blackness of the rock, yet I could have pointed out every irregularity, every indentation; I knew intimately the scene that the day would unfold to me, because it had been inscribed in me for all time, and not in vain. Here was the immutability that I had desired, that had remained untouched while my world crumbled and perished in a century-and-a-half gulf of time. It was in this valley that I had spent my boyhood years — in the old wooden hostel on the grassy slope, opposite, of the Cloud Catcher. Of that house not even the foundation stones would be left, the last boards must long since have rotted away, but the rocky ridge stood unchanged, as if it had been waiting for this meeting — could a vague unconscious memory have guided me through the night to this very spot?

The shock of recognition instantly freed me of all my weakness, so desperately concealed, concealed first with a pretense of calm, then by the intentional frenzy of my mountaineering. I reached down and, not embarrassed by the trembling of my fingers, took some snow and put it into my mouth. The cold melting on my tongue did not quench my thirst but made me more awake. I sat and ate snow, still not believing, now waiting to have my surmise confirmed by the first rays of the sun. Long before the sun appeared, from above the slowly fading stars, came a bird, which folded its wings, made itself smaller, and, alighting on a slanted sheet of rock, began to walk toward me. I froze, afraid of scaring it away. The bird went around me and moved away, and just when I thought that it hadn’t noticed me, it returned from the other side and circled the boulder where I was sitting. We regarded each other for a while, until I said quietly:

“And where did you come from?”

Seeing that it didn’t fear me, I resumed eating snow. It cocked its head, peered at me with its black beads of eyes, then suddenly, as if it had had enough of me, spread its wings and flew away. And I, resting against the rough rock, hunched over, my hands numb from the snow, waited for the dawn, and the whole night came back to me in a violent, incomplete synopsis — Thurber and his words, the silence between Olaf and me, the view of the city, the red mist and the breaks in the mist made by funnels of light, gusts of hot air, the inhaling and exhaling of a million, the hanging squares, malls, avenues, skyscrapers with wings of fire, the different levels with different colors, the uninspired conversation with the bird at the pass, and how I ate snow — and all these pictures were and were not themselves, as in dreams sometimes, they were both a reminder and an avoidance of the thing I dared not touch. Because, throughout, I had tried to find in myself an acceptance of what I could not accept. But that had been before, like a dream. Now, clearheaded and alert, awaiting the day, in air almost silver, in the presence of the slowly revealed mountain slopes, the gullies, the scree, which emerged from the night in silent confirmation of the reality of my return, for the first time I — alone but not a stranger to the Earth — now subject to her and her laws — for the first time I could, without protest, without regret, think of those setting out for the golden fleece of the stars…

The snow of the summit caught fire in gold and white, it stood above the purple shadows of the valley, stood powerful and eternal, and I, not closing my tear-filled eyes, got up slowly and began to walk across the stones, to the south, to my home.

Zakopane — Cracow, 1960