U )   S E P T E M B E R , 1 9 4 4   -   A   V I S I O N ,   I N D I G I R K A   R I V E R   D E T L A

The footnotes for the following entries represent an attempt to recreate Peter’s journey into the marshes. Because of the dense, non-linear nature of his notebook entries from this period (much of it is gibberish), heavy editing is necessary, sometimes even wholesale reconstruction of episodes. These are presented with commentary, in an attempt to depict Peter’s mental transformation while alone in the wilderness. From his notebook: “Alone. Overrheadd tthhee cclloouuddss aarree fluonwn ealnidn og paanqdu ec oTnhien wga tienr mae abdloawcsk sstwriertlcihn gt om iansfsi.n iAttyh oiuns aenvde rfye edti rbeecltoiwo,n tIh es twaantde ramleoandeo wisn atrhee cvoamsptlneetsesl yf asciilnegn tr oawnidn ge mtphtey ,u msitarke;” [continues in this vein for several pages] When untangled it reads as two separate paragraphs:
“Alone. Overhead the clouds are funneling and coning in a black swirling mass. A thousand feet below, the watermeadows are completely silent and empty, stretching to infinity in every direction; I stand alone in the vastness, facing the western horizon, walking towards a band of light where the clouds are broken. Raking reflections, black silhouettes, pollarded willows, deserted fields, windless cold. Others who have come to grief stare up through the water at me, half obscured by the reflected clouds in the twilight. White-gold horizon, the flight of a spoonbill, a black sea of grass. Then a waterfall of sparks starts to fall from the sky, intensifying until it becomes a pillar of fire, filling the dikes until they become flaming rivers of gold, winged men glide underwater, burning bogmen spontaneously resurrect themselves and run in slow motion across the fields.”
“Alone. Overhead the clouds are low and opaque. The watermeadows stretch to infinity in every direction; I stand alone in the vastness, facing the western horizon, rowing the umiak towards a soft whiteness where the clouds are lifting. Murky water, shrieking birds, groves of birch, muddy clumps, warm hazy greyness. Wading through the water, I remember the pleasure of sitting around the yurt recounting the mundane events of the day. Mending boots, churning butter, counting the kulags in the late afternoon. How I long for the moment of return! Soon I shall walk out of the delta, feel the sand beneath my feet again as I hand over a brace of marsh birds to Jötung, and enter the yurt, where warm faces are waiting to greet me with stale gossip and tired stories, heard many times, but always received as precious gifts.”
The Buryat believe that every man lives two separate, but utterly entwined mythical lives that flow in opposite directions, and exist in complete antithesis to each other. Needless to say, these two rivers cannot meet; a man may feel in the eddies and currents of one the gravitational pull of the other, but his awareness of himself as a human can surely not exist simultaneously in both, even as the slightest twitch of memory.