May, 1943
The Pripet Marsh
Stephen had gained such familiarity with the marsh that he could find his way back to his hammock from any point. Through the winter he had ranged far and wide, always on foot. Now he wore boots cut from rabbit skin and a loose tunic and pants of deerskin.
He had built a shelter on the hammock out of deerskin stretched over a wooden frame tied together with rabbit gut. The winter cold and snow killed off the mosquitoes, but he had no fire. All his matches had been ruined during the first storm, an irony that he both savored and agonized over. He was forced by circumstances to eat only raw fish, and when the snow fell he slept under three feet of deer and rabbit hide, dreaming of a blaze hot enough to burn away the intractable dampness that penetrated the hides and licked at his skin like the blue and yellow flames that curled about his imaginary logs.
That winter he suffered his first attacks of malarial fever. Soaked in sweat, he lay for days, all of his strength wrung from him. During his seizures his thoughts lost any focus; they whirled about like dervishes set loose inside his head. He could no longer distinguish between dream and reality.
He was floating, surrounded by swans. They glided across a pond, aglow in the bright sunlight, then disappeared into the shade of overhanging trees, reappearing again within seconds. He listened to their conversation and found their voices soft and soothing. But the peaceful scene was suddenly disrupted when one of the swans burst into flames and was consumed. The other swans rushed away but quickly resumed their placid motion.
Not so, Stephen. The swan’s incineration struck at his heart. He sunk beneath the surface, his body wracked by a paroxysm of grief. It was as painful to him as the death of his father and mother. He sobbed, taking in mouthfuls of water, yet he didn’t drown. He was pulled by some force back to the air and light.
He floated on his back, and the swans, eyes vacant, made placid circles around him. They had no memory of the one who had been taken. Stephen was alone in his grief. He tensed, anticipating another death. When he tried to leave the pond, it grew larger so that no matter how fast or far he swam, he couldn’t reach shore. Yet he didn’t tire, for the water had magical properties.
The day passed and as the sun went down a second swan was ignited. The others scattered. Stephen again felt the dagger of grief rip at his heart. This loss was no less intense than the first. He sunk into the clear depths and wept. Water filled his lungs, but he continued to breathe; to no avail he fought against the upward pull.
Breaking the surface, he saw the swans still locked in their imperturbable motion and he hated them. The weight of his grief was too much for him to bear alone.
“Go away!” he screamed, beating the water with his hands, splashing the swans. “Get away from me!”
The swans eyed him cautiously but continued their rounds.
“No more!” Stephen cried. “Kill me,” he begged. “Set me on fire.”
His plea was met by the gentle lapping of the ripples created by the swans’ motion against the shore. He lay back in the water and stared up at the vapid sky. One by one, he knew, the swans would die, while alone in his agony, he would go on.
That dream, like all the rest, faded with the end of his malarial siege. The day came when he regained sufficient strength to cross the frozen marshland to the spring, to crack the sheet of ice covering it with the handle of his knife and drink. As he watched the water flow over the ice he remembered his swan dream and recoiled at the stolid indifference of nature to his mental world.
Yet, now, as the winter faded into spring, the memories and reflections that he held now seemed more precious than ever. Elizabeth. Her voice and love could never be taken from him. He was alone, yet not as the swans had been, separated from any past, locked in the immediate present. His past was indelible, part of a shared experience. Elizabeth lived on in him. That was their triumph over the blank stare of nature.