that my mind was unhinged.
The Nenets reappeared a few minutes later with a piece of tarpaulin—
evidently the boat he had found on the coast of the Taimyr Peninsula
had been made of tarpaulin.
'Not for sale,' the doctor translated.
'Doctor, ask him if there were any other things in the boat? If there
were, what things and what became of them?'
'There were some things,' the doctor translated. 'He doesn't know
what became of them. It was a long time ago. Maybe as long as ten
years. He says he was out hunting, and saw a sledge standing. On the
sledge stood a boat and there were things in the boat. A gun was there, a
bad one, couldn't shoot, no cartridges. Skis were there, bad ones. A man
was there.'
'A man?'
'Wait a minute, I may have got it wrong.' The doctor hastily put his
question again to the Nenets.
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'Yes, one man,' he repeated. 'Dead, of course. Face eaten away by
bears. He was lying in the boat too. That's all.'
'Nothing else?'
'Nothing.'
'Doctor, ask him whether he searched the man, was there anything in
his pockets-papers, documents, maybe.'
'There were.'
'Where are they?'
'Where are they?' the doctor asked.
The Nenets shrugged. The question sounded rather silly to him.
'Is the boat-hook the only thing that was left? He must have been
wearing something. What happened to his clothes?'
'No clothes.'
'How's that?'
'Very simple,' the doctor said tartly. 'Or do you suppose he purposely
kept them on the off chance of your dropping down on him from the
blue some day with your aeroplane? Ten years! And probably another
ten since he died!'
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'Don't be angry. Doctor. It's all clear. The thing is to put this story
down in writing and have you certify that you heard it with your own
ears. Ask him what his name is.'
'What's your name?' the doctor asked.
'Ivan Vilka.'
'How old?'
'A hundred,' the Nenets replied.
We were silent, but Luri held his sides with laughter.
'How old?' the doctor queried.
'A hundred years,' Ivan Vilka repeated doggedly in pure Russian.
All the time while his story was being recorded in the choom he kept
repeating that he was a hundred. He was probably less, at least he did
not look a hundred. Yet the closer I studied that inscrutable wooden
face, the more was it brought home to me that he was really very old. He
was proud of his hundred years and persisted in repeating it until he
was satisfied that we had recorded in the written statement:
'Hunter Ivan Vilka, a hundred years old.'
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
VANOKAN
To this day it remains a mystery to me where the Nentsi got that
length of log from which we made the strut we needed. They went off on
skis during the night, probably to some neighbouring nomad camp, and
when, next morning, we came out of the choom, where I had spent that I
would hardly call the most restful night of my life, this piece of cedar
wood lay at the entrance.
Indeed, it had been anything but a cheerful night. The doctor slept by
the fire, the long ends of his cap, tied over his head, sticking comically
over his anorak like a pair of hare's ears. Luri tossed about and coughed.
I could not sleep. A Nenets woman sat by a cradle, and I lay a long time
listening to the monotonous tune which she was singing with a sort of
apathetic abandon. The same words were repeated every minute until it
seemed to me that the whole song consisted of just those two or three
words. The baby had long ago fallen asleep, but she kept on singing.
The feeling I had experienced during my conversation with Valya
came back to me, and with such force that I wanted to get up and leave
the choom, not to have to listen to this dolorous song. But I did not get
up. The woman's song gradually grew slower and quieter and then
stopped altogether. She was asleep. The whole world was asleep, except
me. I lay in the dark, a poignant sense of loneliness and mortification
creeping about my heart. Why did I have to make this discovery when
all was over, when there was nothing more between us and never would
be, and we could meet, if ever we did, as strangers? I tried to fight off
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this mood of melancholy, but I could not. I tried and tried until at last I
fell asleep.
By midday we had repaired the undercarriage. We whittled the log
down to the size and shape we wanted it and fixed it in place of the strut.
For greater security we tied it down with ropes. The plane now looked a
sorry sight, like a winged bird.
It was time to take our leave. The Nentsi gathered round the plane
and shook hands all round and we thanked them for their help and
wished them a lucky hunting. They laughed, looking pleased. Our
navigator, smiling shyly, got into the plane. I don't know what he had
said to his wife at parting, but she stood near the plane, looking gay in
