Slava stood on the beach, the usually yielding sands hard and stiff beneath the soles of his boots. He gazed in wonder at the lake in front of him. He passed by it every day, yet now he wouldn’t have recognised it. Normally it was a murky pool of weed-clogged water that sullenly lapped at the grubby sand. The abnormal cold snap had transformed it into a broad sweep of smooth ice, glittering in pure tones of blue and white, gnawing at the beach and pier with jagged, broken teeth.
In summer the surprisingly large number of swimmers willing to brave the grimy waters remained obediently within the roped-off area near the edge, leaving the deeper water to the flocks of birds and the line of boats nosing through the narrow shipping channel between the edge of the lake and the polder built within it. Now skaters glided far from the shore, though always stopping short of some invisible, tacitly agreed line between safety and danger. Groups of teenagers swerved around recklessly, one even towing their own loudspeakers on a sleigh to accompany their revels with a booming soundtrack; elderly couples decorously toured back and forth, arm in arm; toddlers in snowsuits and wellies slid about near the shore, giggling hysterically when their feet slipped out from under them and they bounced down onto their well-padded bottoms; further out lone experts sped along silently in single-minded concentration.
Slava looked longingly at the cheerful scene. Snow and ice were nothing new to him. This frozen puddle surrounded by cheap restaurants and tacky shops couldn’t hold a candle to even the smallest of the lakes near his childhood home, frozen metres thick and layered with freshly fallen snow, fox tracks arrowing straight across from treeline to treeline, icefishers gazing intently at their sawn holes, all wrapped in such silence that it seemed as if the entire world had taken a deep breath and never let it out. The contrast only heightened his grief for what he had left behind. At the same time the exuberant shouts, joyous strains of music and raucous laughter touched the forlorn void inside him with a yearning so deep it was painful.
‘You will be fine, you will see’, repeated his mother constantly. ‘You will learn the language, make friends. Before long, you will have forgotten you were ever an outsider’. Slava always nodded dutifully and tried to smile, while deep inside, his stomach clenched in panic. How could he learn the language, when it sounded like someone clearing their throat? How could he make friends when he couldn’t speak with anyone, leaving aside the sniggers and sneering glances from the other kids that made it clear he wouldn’t like what they said even if he could understand it? And what was the point, anyway? His life back at home had seemed reliable, solid and unchanging, an ancient oak tree rooted deep in the landscape he had known all his life, secure among his grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, friends. The woods and lakes, each so familiar, even their seasonal changes so oft-repeated that they were as predictable as his own breathing. If that stable existence could suddenly be yanked out from under him, then what hope was there for them in this country that they didn’t know and that didn’t know them? They would blow where the wind took them, as hopeless to direct their fate as the decaying autumn leaves. Each morning when he woke from his dreams, he was briefly happy and at peace. Until the crushing weight of his memories crashed down and choked all joy out of him.
Yet now, looking at the merry tableau in front of him, Slava felt the first vague stirrings of a desire to join in, rather than creeping away to a corner to hide. But his mother had absolutely forbidden him to go out onto the ice. ‘You don’t understand, Slava’, she had said, when he had retorted that he had been going out on ice since he could walk. ‘This is not real ice, not here. This is rotten weak slurry. Back home, we have roads across the ice. Lorries, loaded full, drive hundreds of kilometres. Here, I heard some drunken fools once tried to drive across the ice to the other shore. Not even a kilometre – yet they sank through the ice and were lost forever. Stay away’. Slava had the feeling that her censure was directed at more than just the ice. For months now he had been waging a not-so-subtle campaign to shake his mother out of her act of ‘what a wonderful country this is’ and ‘how lucky we are to be here’. Faced with this surprising outburst of criticism, instead of feeling the sense of victory he had expected, he experienced a terrible sinking sensation, as if some final support had given way, and he was plunging down into endless darkness.
A sudden crackling sound made him jump. Near the shore, where the water was so shallow that the ice went right down to the ground underneath, a group of boys was setting off fireworks. After his initial startlement, Slava gazed at the fountains of sparks, mesmerised by the bright colours, until an adult shouted something harsh at the children, and they scattered.
All except for one small boy, who stayed on the edge, looking curiously at Slava. When Slava noticed, the boy said something incomprehensible, then waved him out on to the ice. Slava hesitated for a moment, then his bitter feelings tipped over into a stubborn, angry obstinance. He stepped out onto the ice, tentatively at first, then with increasing confidence as it felt just as sturdy under his feet as the ice he remembered from home. The boy grinned at him, hacking at the ice with the heel of his boot as he said something else. Seeing that Slava didn’t understand, he shrugged, then called to his friends. One kicked a football across the ice to him, and the boy caught it, then shot it across to Slava, his foot slipping awkwardly so the ball span erratically. Grinning, Slava deftly trapped it under his foot, then shot it precisely out to the group on the ice, to the sound of a few scattered handclaps, muffled by thick gloves, and a single whoop. More of the boys beckoned to him, and he ran out onto the ice after them.
Out on the frozen lake, four piles of coats quickly formed a makeshift football pitch. Dashing back and forth, his cheeks pink and his hair dampened with sweat that froze on the tips of his hair, Slava felt elated. He wasn’t much of a football player normally, but he was easily the best at handling the ball on the slippery surface, a fact tacitly acknowledged by the fact that, over time, he was passed the ball more and more often. His two goals were cheered by the whole team, and in his turn he cheered the goals made by his teammates, and groaned at the goals and near-goals of the other side. He didn’t need any language for this.
As the boys tired, the movements of the ball became more and more fitful. Slava was heading towards the goal, shouting wordlessly for the ball, when an awkward pass sent it skittering past his feet and far out over the ice. Caught up in the moment, Slava charged out after it, only hearing the warning cries too late, after instincts honed by years of experience had already warned him of the peril beneath his feet. Even as the cracking sound started, he flung himself prone onto the ice, spreading out his arms and legs as wide as he could. Lines shot through the ice on either side of him, then stopped. From a distance, he vaguely heard concerned cries and meaningless babbling shouts. But his attention was entirely focused on the small patch of ice where he lay. As the cracking stopped, it seemed to stabilise a little, but he could feel the weakness below him, the fractured layers shifting. His breath came in short puffs as, slowly, centimetre by centimetre, he shifted his body back towards the sturdier ice behind him, his every sense tuned to any change in the frozen surface beneath.
Slava didn’t dare twist his body to look around at how far he had to go. He simply kept up his slow shuffle backwards. Then, suddenly, three new cracks shot through the ice below him, and water started to well up between them. Icy cold gradually soaked his clothes as frigid water bit into the soft skin of his cheeks. He tried to calm himself. So he would fall through into the water. So what? It wouldn’t be the first time he’d fallen through ice. He was perfectly capable of staying afloat, and if he couldn’t hoist himself up on the edge of the hole then there were plenty of people nearby to pull him out. The drenching would chill him to his bones, it would be humiliating, he would get a scolding from his mother and probably end up with a cold to boot. But there wasn’t any real danger.
Then the vast ocean of black misery that had been building inside him all those months, which a half hour’s carefree play could no more eradicate than an aspirin could cure a cancer, surged up in a tidal wave that utterly overwhelmed him, and he saw another option. He could break down through the last shards of ice and dive down into the water, swimming away underneath the unbroken, thick part of the ice. They wouldn’t reach him in time. And then all the fear, the pain, the confusion, the loss and loneliness would be done with forever. He clenched his fist in determination, ready to smash open his exit, and looked down through the layers of thinning ice to the watery depths below.
The usually cloudy water had cleared as the temperature dropped, particles settling down to the bottom, and he could see the light-coloured sandy ground below – and something large resting on it. The silhouette of a familiar object made bizarre by its current location – a car. Slava stared in disbelief as another shape slowly detached itself from the car and drifted upwards, trailing ragged streamers of cloth that undulated in the water like plant fronds. Skeletal hands slimed with green reached up towards Slava like claws.
His heart seemed to stop in terror. He had chosen a clean death, suspended in the stillness below the ice, water filling his lungs as his vision went black. His whole body, his whole soul revolted at the thought of those loathsome fingers clenching around his throat, dragging him down to an eternal gruesome embrace.
The grim figure closed the final gap, and Slava gazed deep into two empty eye sockets, gaping in a grisly death’s head. He screwed his eyes shut and waited, flinching, for the bony hands to break through and clamp onto his flesh.
Instead, against the other side of the ice, Slava sensed something bump and scrape. He felt a gentle pressure under his chest, buoying him up. Then his left arm was supported in the same way, followed by his right arm, and both legs. Uncomprehending, he opened his eyes a sliver, and looked down. The spectre was mirroring his position under the ice, keeping him afloat even as the ice in between them disintegrated.
Then something struck his hand above the ice, almost making him scream out loud. He turned his head to see a life buoy, attached to a rope. He grabbed hold of it, sobbing with relief as he was hauled to safety. Through the web of cracks, Slava caught one last distorted glimpse of the figure, sinking silently back down to the bottom, before the rope pulled him into the centre of an anxious crowd, who swept him ashore to the first aid post.
Many, many years later, after he had made friends, after he had learned the language, after he had changed his nickname to Stan, then back to Slava, after he had found his chosen career, met his wife and had three children, after he had confirmed his suspicion that he would always remain an outsider but also discovered that this was the case for everyone in the small town who couldn’t trace their ancestry back to its village origins; on the increasingly rare occasions that the lake froze, Slava never went out on the ice. He lovingly dressed his children in their warmest clothes, warned them to stay close to the shore, then watched them laughing and skating with their friends, while he shared a hot drink on the beach with his own companions. He hated any reminder of the awful decision he had made that day, or of the dreadful wraith that had saved him from it before drifting back down, abandoned, to its desolate resting place. After all the time that had passed, he still wasn’t sure which one haunted him most.