Bungalows, that’s what they call these shabby cabins made of timber-framed pressboard painted green, standing behind the inn, next to the forest. A coworker who’s usually away shares one of these cabins with me; the rest are empty; at the end of the summer most of the staff decamped to the city, so I’m almost always alone here. What’s there to do after dinner, when I always end up eating too much; I go outside, melancholy body heavy as stone, cigarette clamped between my lips, down the sandy path around the inn through the garden to the lake, and out on the dock to gaze into the fog and the dark. It’s dark by seven, over the water the air is brisk, but still not too chilly for me, I’m used to the cool evenings. There’s no wind, the shadow of a small boat lies rigid by the dock, the sky holds just a few stars, a hint of the moon somewhere, ahead of me I can’t see far, fog towers inert over the motionless black water.
O what a fall this is. From the lit window in the inn’s top floor, laughter drifts into the garden, the same as every evening there’s a party going on. It doesn’t bother me, I’ve got no cause to go up there. Still, I turn to look back through the garden, empty but for the mighty chestnut trees, garden chairs and tables long since stowed away; a ray of light slips out the window, lost in the crowns of the chestnuts looming in front, black with gleaming edges; there’s just a faint light in the garden, but I see the leaves falling slowly from the trees.
O what a fall, even the days in the still-warm sun grow foggier the earlier the afternoons end, cottony white vapor rises from the water; these afternoons there are hardly any guests, even now all they see is bleakness, the winter bleakness of this place, and I idle away the afternoons, waiting for the evenings when panic approaches. In the winter this will be a place of icy cold, the city far away; by then I hope to have ended my feud with the couple who run the inn and escaped back to the city. By day I go barefoot, a good feeling in the cool sand; after dark, flimsy rubber sandals protect my feet from the dry chestnut husks that lie around in masses, I hear my sandals rustle in the leaves, the yellow leaves that fall in the daytime faster and faster, in the daytime when the sun still shines but the fogs grow more dogged; in the hours of light the lake is bright blue, with flocks of black ducks floating on the water by the rushes. But now it’s dark.
Bungalows. I remember all the stories I used to read about hunters and explorers in Africa. With ink drawings. The bungalows in those drawings would be standing at the edge of the primeval forest, flat roofs jutting over open verandas, longish buildings, whitewashed, with sturdy wooden shutters, verandas propped, in the manner of stilt dwellings, on thick wooden piles, the inhabitants posing in front in their pith helmets, self-assured in their ludicrous knee-length trousers, pale thin legs in tall laced boots, cartridge belts around their waists, often brandishing firearms. But the black natives were well built, naked gleaming bodies, their bearing deferential, but secretly contemptuous, straight from the primeval forest, resembling, in their multitudes, in their bewildering, unpredictable incursions, some unknown, dangerous vegetation. But the whites knew how to defend their bungalows, with firearms, there were stories where throngs of black forms suddenly emerged at night from the forest, swinging long spears with broad spearheads, masses of black forms all around the bungalow, suddenly breaking out in shrill ululations, barely held back by the feeble rifle fire.
My bungalow here can’t be compared with those. This here is a pathless region, the passenger boats that dock a few times a day in summer are the only way to reach the inn the bungalows belong to; it lies in a lonely, picturesquely wild spot at the lake’s end, and the city is far away. Somewhere on an island in the lake archaeologists are said to have found traces of an infinitely distant era, even a carved wooden idol. The Huns, wild warrior hordes from the far reaches of Asia, are said to have reached this region on their devastating raids, murdering and looting under the legendary King Atilla. I don’t know if these stories are true. One time I saw how an illustrator drew the Huns. Shiny shaved skulls with black beards, Asiatic eyes that the artist gave a glowering, furtive look, fists clutching curved, razor-sharp weapons.
This region here is for the most part pathless. I know how the forest looks from seeing it by day; it begins just behind the bungalows, bounded toward the beach by a fence, collapsed in places, with “no trespassing” signs. At first it’s light and open, with sparse underbrush between trees that can barely stand upright on the wet ground, tall grass, no paths, huge toppled trees everywhere, dead and stripped of bark, the ground is swampy, swamp everywhere, a black morass, vast dully glinting pools all around, and soon the woods grow denser, wild and snarled, impenetrable thickets, tall dark-green water grasses, no animals, just birds, and the ground is swamp, wet, deep, black swamp. There is no path through this forest, there never was, why should there be, when past this forest comes an eternity of more forest, swamp, water, on and on for equally pathless, unknown expanses.
But what if there are secret paths. Trails only they know, and not another soul, because they were already here centuries ago. And this bungalow, this fragile cabin where I don’t have a rifle. And if I did, I’m sure it would be no use against their curved, sharp weapons. Besides, I won’t see them, paralyzed by fear, until they loom in my doorway at night. They come noiselessly, crouching, down the secret paths, single file, their ranks are endless, they come from all directions, not a twig snaps beneath their soles, they know the tracks through the swamp. And at the same time they’re sure to come across the lake, countless fires emerging from the fog, those are their slender canoes, each with a torch at its prow. They’re coming from that island somewhere in the lake, from all the wooded shores, they’ve reached the beach now, they’re dousing their torches and coming, my heavy body feels them coming. I haven’t caught a glimpse of them. They come unglimpsed and noiseless, from the woods, across the lake, from all sides. Maybe those stories are true, they exist, and they’re coming, I don’t know.