chapter fifteen
WINTER returns to Souma-Soula, and a rumor circulates from shed to shed that a curse has fallen over the dwellers of the lake area. It seems that several women have given birth to monstrous children.
“The first one didn’t have a head!” Suki tells me.
“The second one had two of them!” Maya says with a grimace.
“Who told you that?” I ask.
“Chief! He saw them!” they both say.
After further investigation it turns out that Chief didn’t see anything, but that he knows an older Russian man whose sister-in-law gave birth to a child with three arms.
“Ugh!” the girls cry out. “Three arms!”
The grown-ups refuse to believe us until Gloria meets a special convoy on the road to the factory.
“Men in armored cars,” she tells me. “They were wearing coveralls, glasses, and masks over their mouths.”
“Like astronauts?”
“Exactly! And they were going straight to the lake. It must be serious!”
Shortly after that we learn that fishing is forbidden and that all access to the lake has been cordoned off. The men in coveralls have set up tents. According to Mr. Betov, they are scientists sent by the government to analyze the water, the soil, and even the innards of the fish. It seems likely that the lake has been spoiled by toxic waste coming from the former lightbulb factory. This would explain the birth of monstrous children. But how, exactly? Nobody knows! Everyone is fearful. Several families have already left the area, and others are beginning to pack up.
As a result, Mr. Betov gives me sideways glances, as if I were headless or had a third arm growing out of my back. Suddenly I feel ill at ease.
“Sorry, Koumaïl, but you fell in the lake’s poisoned water,” he tells me. “One has to be careful. As long as we don’t know what’s going on, Suki and Maya can’t visit you anymore. And I have to ask you to work at a distance from us. I hope you understand?”
His words strike me like a blow. To be kept away is the worst thing that has ever happened to me. I cry a long time in Gloria’s arms, shouting that it’s unfair, that I’m not sick, and that if I hadn’t fallen in the lake, we would have eaten fish and would all be contaminated.
But it’s too late.
Suki and Maya avoid me. They keep their heads down and walk faster when they see me. As for Stambek, he looks very sad but he obeys his father.
* * *
I no longer have a sense of belonging on the mountain of glass. I’m like a wounded soul, alone with my grapnel and my sorrow. To cheer myself up, I dig through the trash and look for strings for Oleg’s violin and batteries for Fotia’s radio. I manage to find what I need; now instead of playing cards at night, I fix the precious things. When I’m done, the violin squeaks a sinister sound and the radio crackles.
“Better than nothing!” Gloria says encouragingly.
But I can see that she’s forcing herself to smile.
More and more families are leaving, and army recruiters fall on us like locusts on the harvest. They come to recruit volunteers for the front. One day I see Chief in a military truck with other men. He makes a V sign to me as they take off, and I remain alone in the gusts of autumn wind.
I wander the streets, which feel chilled with an atmosphere of doom, as Gloria struggles to keep driving the now half-filled truck. She will drive as long as possible because each coin earned is a step toward the future.
“What future?” I ask with a sigh.
“Come on, Koumaïl, cheer up! You’re much too young to say such things!”
But one morning I discover that the Betovs’ shed is empty. Nothing left. No pots or pans, no blanket. They left without even saying goodbye.
I stand in the deserted room, my throat so knotted that I cannot breathe.
When I turn around, I see one of my playing cards pinned on the door. I remove it. It’s the ace of hearts: the only message of love that Suki and Maya had time to leave me.