The 14th Day Read Free

their country? All at once he feels the full weight of his displacement. “Their language,” he confesses, “it’s dry in my throat. I speak three sentences and I’m thirsty.” Even the few trivial words about basketball were an effort.
    Jory nods, his eyes soften, icy skies hazed by the smoke of wood fires. When he begins speaking again it’s in an entirely different tone of voice and Vaniok is transported to another place:
    Blue snow on black limbs,
    Icy brook whispering secrets:
    The smell of mushrooms hidden in the earth.
    The words from another century transform Jory’s face, he looks older. After he’s recited the lines of poetry he says nothing, but Vaniok is still seeing that wintry scene. Then Jory turns his head toward the sunny area beyond the loading dock where the raised door frames a stalky, large-leaved tree on a patch of grassless red earth. “Clay,” he says. “It can’t absorb water. Can you imagine yourself being buried in it?” He stands there a moment silently, then resumes, as if speaking to himself. “Before I left I was given a jar of soil from the homeland. In everything that’s happened since, that jar has been with me. One day when I’m back there I’m going to empty that jar and return the soil to our country.”
    Vaniok shakes his head; he doesn’t know what to say. “Yes,” he answers stupidly.
    â€œI want you to see it,” Jory says. “We’ll have a drink after work, we’ll toast the homeland.”
    â€œYes,” Vaniok nods. “That would be good.” All he wants to do is to get back to work.
    After Royall returns to take Jory back to his station, though, Vaniok finds it hard to concentrate on the job. He can sympathize with the stranger, he isn’t cold-hearted, after all; but this man hangs onto his memories so fiercely, his brow creased and his eyes narrowed, as if he’s trying to make himself blind to what he sees here, a soft landscape where trees and bushes flower overnight, filling the air with a rich perfume. “Are you saying we should forget?” he asked. No, Vaniok should have answered, remember forever for all I care. But keep it to yourself. And how was he supposed to respond to that question about being buried in the red earth? What he should have said was that the important thing is how a person lives on it. But once again he realizes what he should have said only after the opportunity’s passed. Why did he admit his trouble speaking the language of the host country? Especially to someone from the capital: sometimes back there it was hard to keep from feeling that all the inhabitants of the capital were slick talkers who couldn’t be bothered to take Lakers seriously. The desolation of the morning’s dream has returned.
    In that dream he was back there, at some kind of celebration—was it Constitution Day? He was in a room with a shiny wooden floor, the tables piled with hard-crusted bread, smoked fish, sausages, and a half-dozen kinds of cheese. Everybody was speaking the old language, shouting toasts; a circle had formed around a pair of white-haired ladies dancing with each other, their arms held out stiffly as the violin sighed over the wheezing accordion. There was even a baby-faced priest whose name Vaniok can’t remember, standing by himself in a corner, energetically singing a patriotic song. But what made the dream terrible was that only Vaniok could see, just outside the window, a huge gray cloud, massive as an iceberg, bearing down on the revelers, an avalanche in the sky. “Stop!” he wanted to shout. “Look!” But the revelry just got more frantic and Vaniok’s cries were buried in his throat.
    His first emotion on awakening was gratitude that he was here and not back there. He even went to the window to assure himself that what lay behind the early morning darkness outside his apartment was this