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Ivan Bunin

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Sunstroke
Selected Stories of Ivan Bunin
By Ivan Bunin
Translated by GRAHAM HETTLINGER

Ivan R. Dee

Copyright © 2002 Ivan R. Dee, Inc..
Translation copyright © 2002 Graham Hettlinger.
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 1-56663-426-1

Chapter One

Sunstroke

They came from the hot, brightly lit dining room onto the ship's deck after dinner and stood by the handrail. She closed her eyes, pressed the back of her hand against her cheek, and laughed. Her laughter was simple and pleasant, as was everything about this small, attractive woman.

    "I think I'm drunk," she said. "Where did you come from? Three hours ago I didn't even know you existed. I don't even know where you got on this boat. Samara? Well, I guess it doesn't matter.... Is my head spinning, or are we turning?"

    Darkness and distant lights hung before them. But now the lights fell away; a strong, soft breeze rose from the darkness and blew into their faces as the steamer veered to one side?describing an expansive, slightly grandiose are, it seemed to flaunt the Volga's breadth?and then approached a small pier.

    The lieutenant brought her hand to his lips: small and tan, it smelled of the sun. He imagined that all the skin beneath her gingham dress was equally as strong and tan, for she had said that she was coming from Anapa, where she'd spent a solid month lying under the hot southern sun on the sand by the sea?and this thought made his heart go still with fear and joy.

    "Let's get off," he mumbled.

    "Where?" she asked, surprised.

    "On that pier."

    "Why?"

    He didn't answer. She lay the back of her hand against her warm cheek again.

    "Insanity...."

    "Let's get off," the lieutenant repeated stupidly. "I'm begging you."

    "Oh, all right. As you wish ...," she said, turning away.

    They almost fell over each other when the steamer bumped with a soft thud against the dimly lit pier. A mooring line flew over their heads; the water seemed to boil as the engines reversed and pushed the ship back toward the dock, and then the gangplanks dropped with a bang?the lieutenant rushed to get their bags.

    A moment later they emerged from a drowsy little office on the dock, crossed a patch of ankle-deep sand, and climbed into a dusty cab without exchanging words. Soft with dust and lit by only a few crooked lamps, the road seemed endless as they traveled its gradual slope up the mountainside. But at last they reached the top and began to rattle down a paved carriageway past little offices, the local watchtower, a public square. It was warm, and the air was heavy with all the smells of a provincial town on a summer night. The driver stopped before the lighted entrance to an inn, the open doors of which displayed a worn, steep wooden staircase. An old, unshaven porter with big, wide feet, a pink shirt, and a frock coat sullenly took their bags and lugged them up the steps. They entered a large room that was terribly stuffy and still sweltering from the day's sun; white curtains were closed over the windows and two unused candles stood on the mantelpiece. As soon as the porter left and shut the door, the lieutenant rushed to her with such ardent desire, and they both gasped with such ecstasy as they kissed, that each would remember that moment for many years to come: they had never experienced anything similar in all their separate lives.

    The next morning was cheerful, sunny, and hot, and at ten o'clock?while church bells rang, while people shopped at a market near the inn, while the warm air was filled with the smell of hay and tar and all the other complex, pungent odors of a provincial Russian town?that small, anonymous woman, who refused to say her name and jokingly referred to herself as "the beautiful stranger," went away. They had slept very little, but after washing and dressing for five minutes, she looked as fresh as a seventeen-year-old girl when she came out from behind the screen near the bed. Was she awkward or ashamed? Not very, no. Instead she was as happy and as open as she'd been the day before, and her mind was clear.

    "No, no, darling," she'd said in answer to his request that they continue traveling together. "You should stay here and wait for the next boat. If we go together, everything will be ruined. It would be very unpleasant for me. I give you my honest word that I'm nothing like the person you might imagine me to be. Nothing even remotely similar to this has ever happened to me?and it never will again. I must have lost my mind. Or we've both suffered some kind of sunstroke."

    For some reason the lieutenant easily agreed, and he rode with her to the pier in a lighthearted mood. They arrived just before the pink steamer Samolyot left the dock, and he kissed her openly on deck, despite the crowd, then jumped back onto the gangplank as it was being pulled away.

    He returned to the inn feeling equally happy and carefree. But something had changed. The room seemed completely different from the room where she had been. It was still full of her, and yet, it was completely empty. How strange! The air still smelled of her English perfume, the cup from which she'd drunk her tea still stood half empty on the tray?and already she was gone. Overwhelmed by a sudden wave of tenderness and longing, the lieutenant hurriedly lit a cigarette and began to pace the room.

    "What a strange adventure," he said out loud, laughing as he felt tears well up in his eyes. I give you my honest word that I'm nothing like the person you might imagine me to be. And then she's gone.

    The screen had been moved aside; he put it back before the unmade bed, knowing that he couldn't bare to look at those sheets and pillows now. He shut the windows in order to escape the sound of carriage wheels creaking in the street and voices rising from the market, then he closed the filmy white curtains and sat down on the couch. Yes, this is it?the end of the "traveler's adventure." She's already gone, already far away, riding in a ship's salon that's all windows and white paint, or sitting on the deck, looking at the huge, gleaming surface of the river in the sun, looking at the yellow sandbars and the rafts drifting downstream, looking at the endless open space of the Volga and a horizon where shimmering water meets the sky.... Goodbye?say goodbye and that's it, always and forever.... For where could they possibly meet again? "I could never turn up in the town where she leads a normal life, has a husband and a three-year-old daughter, all her family," he thought to himself. Indeed, that town seemed to be an utterly forbidden place, and the thought that she would live out her lonely life there, often, perhaps, remembering their fleeting, chance encounter, while he would never see her again?this thought stunned him like a sharp, sudden blow. No, it couldn't be! It was too cruel, impossible, insane. The prospect of his life?all the painful, senseless years he'd spend without her?plunged him into horror and despair. "For God's sake!" he thought, struggling to keep his eyes from the bed behind the screen as he began to pace the room again. "What's wrong with me? What is it about her? What exactly happened yesterday? It must be some kind of sunstroke! And now I'm stuck in this backwater...