The Ocean of Time by David Wingrove Read Free Book Online

they simply strip off their tops and sit there in their rough hessian trousers, drinking and talking late into the night, their laughter reassuring us.
    We are up before the dawn, and once Shaposhnikov has fed his crew we make our farewells, the men queuing in a line to kiss and hug their darling Katerina goodbye. It’s all very amiable, and my hand is grasped time after time, my back slapped, and we are wished ‘good fortune and a safe journey’ a dozen times before finally they climb into the boat and depart.
    It will be an easier journey home for them, going with the current, and Shaposhnikov takes with him a letter I’ve penned to Ernst. But it will be a week or more before Ernst gets to see what I’ve written, and our concern now is that the old man has let us down. Katerina and I wait by the river, the cart with our sled on resting nearby, never out of our sight.
    The villagers keep out of our way, yet we are watched every moment with a hostility that only living in a place like this could breed.
    I am beginning to despair of our guide ever turning up when, just after noon, he walks out of the forest, his boy – a mute who can be no more than six or seven – a little way behind, leading a small, very stubborn-looking donkey.
    ‘Ah,’ he says, wiping his mouth with his hand and then pulling at his long grey beard. ‘There you are.‘
    He looks like a vagrant and I sense at once that there’s no point being angry with him. We have lunch of sorts – a meagre meal bought off the locals, mainly consisting of over-cooked vegetables – and then set off, Katerina and I, like our guides, barefoot, the donkey drawing the cart reluctantly, it seems, and only after the boy has beaten it with a stick into moving.
    Russia
, I think.
    The old man wants to talk, of course, but his words are those of an untutored imbecile, and after a while I find myself wishing he’d be silent. It’s now that Katerina proves her worth, for, sensing my irritation, she takes on herself the task of talking to him, treating him deferentially, almost as if he were her father, and after a while the two of them are laughing and joking.
    There is a path of sorts through the trees, though it would be easy to stray from it, and the old man and his boy take it without the need for thought. In places we have to clear the way to get the cart through, but otherwise our afternoon is uneventful. We walk for three, maybe four hours, then, as the sun begins to sink, the old man looks to me and raises his eyebrows expressively.
    ‘You want to stop?’ he asks, as if I were the one who was asking.
    ‘
Here
?’ I ask, looking about me.
    ‘Here’s as good as anywhere. It’s all much the same.’ And he gives a roar of laughter, as if it’s the funniest thing anyone has ever said.
    I shrug, then look to Katerina, who nods.
    ‘Okay,’ I say. ‘But let’s clear a space. We can put the cart at the centre and make up pallet beds.’
    The crude beds are packed in the sled, atop the tarpaulin, along with our food, axes and furs.
    The old man, of course, makes no attempt to help, but watches us with an air of amusement as Katerina and I – and the boy – chop down several of the nearby trees to clear a space a dozen paces in circumference.
    At the centre of it, just a little way from the cart, I clear away the leaf mould underfoot and, using an entrencher, dig a small hole and begin to lay a fire. As I do so, the old man comes closer and, leaning over the hole, studies it intently, as if it is the most interesting thing he’s ever seen. After a moment the boy too joins him there, staring down.
    ‘Strange,’ the old guide says, shaking his head and drawing his fingers repeatedly through his grizzled, unkempt beard. ‘But then, I guess you
are
a
Nemets
.’
    Katerina looks to me, to see if I’m offended, but I just shrug. Pulling out my tinderbox I strike the flint and get the fire lit. As I make to put the box away, the old man puts out his hand. I