ONE
Evening descended with unnerving abruptness, like a curtain hurriedly lowered on an amateur theatrical gone horribly awry. And then the man noticed that the darkness was not the result of the sun setting but of the train entering a dense forest, leaving behind the open fields of snow it had traversed all afternoon. The fir trees, tall and thick, crowded closely along the tracks, like children pressing themselves up against a classroom window to get a better view of some gruesome accident in the street.
His wife sat on the seat across from him; they were the only two people in the small, wood-paneled carriage of the old-fashioned train. For a long time she had been staring absently out the window, mesmerized, it seemed, by the endless expanse of tundra, but she suddenly recoiled when the train entered the dark woods as if the trees brushing the sides of the carriage might reach in and scratch her. She touched the tender place on her cheek where the skin had been nastily scraped the night before.
They had visited the market of the city where they were staying, for although they were not tourists, they were strangers, and eager to feel a part of some place, any place, if only for a night. And so the woman had been trying to find some charm in the market, for she was at a place in her life where it was necessary to discern and appreciate any charm or beauty she encountered, but this market was singularly without charm, for it contained nothing but fish and meat and root vegetables, and the fish did not look fresh and the meat was not muscle but organs and brains and feet and lips and hearts, and the vegetables were all winter vegetables, roots and tubers and other colorless things that had been savagely yanked from their cold earthen beds. No bright pyramids of tomatoes and peaches, no bouquets of basil and nasturtium, no glistening jeweled eyes of fish, no marbled slabs of beef. And then she had seen, in the distance, one stall that sold spectacular hothouse flowers, and had run toward it, desperate to find something that did not entirely turn one away from life. Her husband had noticed their artifice before she did, and had tried to steer her down another aisle, but she pulled free of him and ran toward the colored brightness of the flowers, wanting to bury her face in their fragrant petal softness, buy an armful of them and carry it around with her, like a bride, like a diva in the footlights, but in front of a fishmonger’s stall she had slipped in a puddle of frigid water and fell to the floor, scraping her cheek and palms on the wet, fishy concrete.
It was not until her husband had caught up with her and helped her to her feet that she realized that the flowers were plastic. Not even silk! She could have at least touched them if they were silk.
After a moment the woman returned her attention to the book that lay open upon her lap. She had found this old book, The Dark Forest by Hugh Walpole, in the waiting room of a train station that they had passed through, obviously abandoned by a fellow traveler. For some time after the darkness fell—or was entered—she continued to read, but suddenly she looked up from her book at the dark rushing windows of the carriage and asked, Is there a light?
There was just enough light remaining in the carriage to see that there was no light.
I don’t see one, her husband said.
You’d think there’d be a light, she said.
Yes, he said, you’d think.
She sighed disappointedly, whether at the lack of a light or at his response to such a lack, he knew not. Probably both, and more.
They had been traveling for days, first by plane, and then by train and ferry, and now once again by train, for their destination was a place at the edge of the world, in the far north of a northern country, and not easily gained. Their journey was like a journey from a prior century, a matter of days rather than hours, the earth serious and real beneath them, constantly insisting on its vastness.
An authentic evening was now occurring, the darkness a product of the sun’s absence rather than its obscurity. They both watched it through the window. The woman touched her reflection, which the darkness outside had just revealed. Look at me, she said, so gaunt. My God, gaunt: how I hate that word. Gaunt and jackal and hubris. Seepage and—what are the other words I hate?
She had begun to do this recently: familiarly allude to odd, supposedly long-held predilections or positions that had never previously been mentioned. Or existed, as far as the man knew. So he ignored her nonsensical question by asking her what the book was about.
For a moment she said nothing, just watched her reflection hurtling along the dark scrim of pines. About? she finally said. In what sense do you mean?
He did not answer, because he did not like to indulge her contrariness.
After a moment she said, It’s about the war.
Which war?
One of the World Wars, she said. The first, I think. They’re in trenches.
And?
And? War is awful. It’s bad enough I’m stuck reading it; don’t make me talk about it too.
Okay, he said. I’m sorry.
She looked at him, her audacity suddenly collapsed. No, she said. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m sorry. I’m just on edge, you know—about everything.
I understand, he said. I’m on edge too.
About everything?
No, he said. Not everything. Just, you know—how this all will go.
Or not go, she said.
They had both fallen asleep and were simultaneously awoken by a peculiar sensation: stillness. The train had stopped. Outside the carriage window they could see, through the veil of fog that their breaths had condensed upon the glass, a platform and a building. There was no one about and no sound but the tickling sifts of snow gusting against the window. The man thought of the warm molecules of their breath, trapped against the cold glass of the windows, a union outside of, independent of, them.
This must be it, she said. Wasn’t it the first stop?
Yes, he said.
Then this is it, she said.
I don’t see any sign, he said.
No. She rubbed a messy circle on the window, but nothing helpful was revealed, just more of the wooden platform, on which a single lamp separated a conical swath of snow from the huge surrounding darkness.
This must be it, he said. He stood up and opened the carriage door.
Don’t go, she said.
But this must be it, he said.
It can’t be, she said. It’s not a real station. There’s no town, nothing. It must be a way station.
A way station?
Yes, she said. A pause, not a stop.
He stepped out onto the platform, disturbing the perfect blanket of snow. He felt like a barbarian. But once its perfection had been defiled he knew he must continue, for a hairline crack on a beautiful piece of china is more upsetting than the same piece of china shattered on the floor. So he ran about in ever-widening circles, kicking up the snow about him as messily as he could, and drew near enough to the building at the platform’s edge to see, in a sort of echo of faded paint, the name of the town that was their destination.
He suddenly felt foolish and stopped his cavorting, and in the ensuing stillness he became aware of some frightening engagement in the darkness behind him. The train. He turned to see it slowly moving, so slowly that for a moment he thought it must be the darkness moving behind it, but then he knew it was the train, for he could see his wife leaning forward, looking out of the still-opened door, her white face silently surprised, and for a second it felt like death to him, like how one must let one’s beloved depart this world, gliding silently slack-faced into the snow-dark.