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226
Sergei Lebedev
is it past midnight, is it far
to sunrise—you can feel the
night flow through you, but
at night in the swamp time
seems paralyzed, frozen,
without light.
The window of the booth by
the crossing was lit, of course,
but it was the dead light of
a f luorescent bulb, and I
had walked for such a long
time in the dark that I had
come to think of myself as
a swamp monster, dragging
water grasses behind me;
I was almost afraid of the
light, afraid that I had turned
into darkness, that I had
caught it like a cold, and now
if someone turned a lamp on
me, I would dribble out the
door like dirty water; I felt
hot, I shivered, as if I had
swallowed something slimy
and disgusting along with
the swamp air and the drops
of rain.
A woman was on duty; it was
after three in the morning,
the work train came at
five. I don’t remember how
she looked: she must have
merged with her job, coming
out to the trains night and
day, checking if the brakes
were sparking, flashing in
the driver’s eye as a figure
in a raincoat or padded
jacket, existing in mutual
indifference—the train goes
so fast that you couldn’t make
out the friendly wave and
sometimes it was the horn
that reminded her that she
was visible; she let me in, sat
me near the stove and went
off to the corner of the tiny
room to the heavy, bursting
wooden barrel. There was so
much joy in her movement, a
foretaste of care for me, that
I followed her: What was in
the barrel?
She picked up the warped
and darkened lid, covered