Flight Without End

I

Franz Tunda, first lieutenant in the Austrian Army, became a Russian prisoner of war in August 1916. He was taken to a camp a few versts north-east of Irkutsk. He succeeded in escaping with the help of a Siberian Pole. On the remote, isolated and dreary farm of this Pole, the officer remained until the spring of 1919.

Foresters stopped by at the Pole’s, bear-hunters and fur-traders. Tunda had no need to fear pursuit. No one knew him. He was the son of an Austrian major and a Polish Jewess, born in the small Galician town of his father’s garrison. He spoke Polish; he had served in a Galician regiment. It was easy for him to pass himself off as a younger brother of the Pole. The Pole’s name was Baranowicz. Tunda called himself likewise.

He obtained false papers in the name of Baranowicz, was henceforth born in Lodz, had been invalided from the Russian Army in 1917 on account of an incurable and infectious eye disease, and was by occupation a fur-trader resident in Verchni Udinsk.

The Pole counted his words like pearls; a black beard reinforced his reserve. Thirty years earlier he had come to Siberia as a convict. Later, he stayed on of his own free will. He collaborated with a scientific expedition exploring the taiga, roamed in the forests for five years, then married a Chinese woman, became a Buddhist, stayed in a Chinese village as doctor and herbalist, had two children, lost both of them and his wife to the plague, returned to the forests, lived by hunting and fur-trading, learned to recognize the tiger’s tracks in the thickest grass, omens of storms in the erratic flight of birds, knew how to distinguish hail- from snow-clouds and snow- from rain-clouds, studied the habits of foresters, robbers and harmless travellers, loved his two dogs like brothers, and revered snakes and tigers. He volunteered to serve in the war, but made such a sinister impression on his comrades and officers in the barracks that they sent him back to his forests as a lunatic. Every year, in March, he visited the town. He bartered horns, hides, antlers for ammunition, tea, tobacco and spirits. He also took back a few newspapers so as to keep in touch with events, but believed neither the news nor the articles; he did not even trust the advertisements. For years he visited a particular brothel to see one Ekaterina Pavlovna, a redhead. If someone else was with the girl Baranowicz would wait, a patient admirer. The girl grew elderly, dyed her grey hairs, lost first one tooth, then another, then her dentures, too. Every year Baranowicz had a shorter time to wait, until eventually he was the only one to visit Ekaterina. She began to love him, was consumed with yearning throughout the year, the late yearning of a late betrothed. Every year her tenderness grew, her passion increased; an old woman, with shrivelled flesh, she enjoyed the first love of her life. Every year Baranowicz brought her the same Chinese necklaces and the little flutes he carved himself, on which he imitated the calls of birds.

In February 1918 Baranowicz lost the thumb of his left hand when he was carelessly sawing wood. It took six weeks to heal; in April the hunters were due to arrive from Vladivostok; he was unable to visit the town that year. Ekaterina waited in vain. Baranowicz sent her a letter by a hunter and comforted her. Instead of the Chinese pearls he sent her sables and a snake-skin and a bear’s coat as a bedside rug. So it came about, in this most important of all years, that Tunda did not see a newspaper. Not until the spring of 1919 did he learn from Baranowicz on his return that the war was over.

It was a Friday. Tunda was washing the dishes in the kitchen, Baranowicz came through the door, the dogs were barking. Ice clattered on his black beard, a raven sat on the window-sill.

‘It’s peace, it’s revolution!’ said Baranowicz.

At that moment all was still in the kitchen. The clock in the next room struck three loud strokes. Franz Tunda put down the dishes gently and carefully on the bench. He did not want to disturb the silence. Probably, too, he was afraid the plates might break. His hands trembled.

‘All the way back,’ said Baranowicz, ‘I wondered whether I should tell you. I’m really sorry that you’ll be going home now. We shall probably never meet again, neither will you write to me.’

‘I shan’t forget you,’ said Tunda.

‘Don’t be too sure!’ said Baranowicz.

It was farewell.