March-April, 1944
The Pripet Marsh
Stephen hadn’t seen another person in over two years. He had long since stopped noting the days and months. It was late March or early April, he knew, from the quality of light and the arrival of birds from the south. Soon would come the quickening heat of summer.
He stood on his hammock and watched a storm grow in the east. The grasses were already rippling dark brown and yellowish green waves. The wind was rising, its soft whistle steadily increased in volume to a roar. He chuckled, remembering the first storm. What a pitiful spectacle he had made of himself! His favorite time now was just before a storm, watching and listening to the gradual crescendo of sound and fury.
Black clouds blossomed over the grass, billowing out and rolling forward with astounding speed. Rain drops pelted him and he raised his face, enjoying the taste and the beading of the drops in his tangled beard. The first streaks of lightning sent him to the safety of his shelter. He would rather have stayed outside, but he couldn’t risk being struck. Through a narrow opening he watched, soothed by the patter of rain on the deerskin stretched above his head.
With the summer would come the worst attacks of malaria. The disease was cyclical and he always recovered; yet, it had taught him that death could come at any time. He understood now the fragility of life, had seen it pass from an animal’s eyes, a change from light to shadow, nothing more. So it would be when his time came. He often thought of Kozlov, and wished that he could have one last talk with him. He would tell the Colonel that he truly did know, at last, what it meant to be ready to die. How long you lived didn’t matter. One day or sixty years, it was all the same. What mattered was that you had been born, that you lived and saw the world, the mystery.