222 292
222
Sergei Lebedev
somewhere into the grass;
the official was insulted, he
had believed with childlike
sincerity that he was in a
polar paradise where trees
bear fruit twelve months a
year, and while he was used
to human trickery, and an
expert on faking reports
himself, he was unpleasantly
surprised to see that even
nature can be involved in
deceit. He walked around a
few more trees, muttering
“I didn’t expect this,” “I
didn’t expect this,” as if the
trees had pinned the fruit on
themselves like false medals
in order to greet him; one
of the exiles assigned to the
garden later picked up the
apple the guest had tossed.
They wanted to eat the
apple, it was the first fruit
the exiles had held in their
hands in many years; they
were not trusted to hang the
fruits on the trees. The very
shape of it—the rounded
ripeness—sated their hungry
palms that had forgotten
everything but tools; the
exiles passed around the
apple, as if it had just been
born in the straw, passed
it around and consumed it
with their eyes—a case when
a metaphor becomes the
literal description of what
happens: the apple was
spiritual nourishment, food
for the eyes, and there was
enough for all of them.
One of the peasants, who was
considered a sage, though
this word is imprecise, was
a reader and interpreter of
the Scriptures, the kind of
man who becomes a leader
of a small peasant sect of
somewhat twisted fanatics.
If any of the educated
prisoners talked to him
about paleontological finds,
about animals from other
eras whose remains allow