Aurora on the Sad Island.
By Marcos Waldemar Windman
(*) Translated by Bruce Marshall
Aurora,
On a Sad Island.
Of
all the corners created on this earth, the island that is at the
northeast of the mouth of the River Obi,
Novoya Zemblya, was as magical and beautiful as any other. There
the hand of the supreme creator had
painted in shades of gray. A thick mantle of fog covered every
part of the island like a smooth cotton
overcoat, even though it was summer. There wasn’t much to
look at for humans who wanted to buy real
estate at this latitude. But there was for the birds that
pillaged the island. The fish returned to the Arenques
fishing grounds to spawn, thanks to the ocean currents, and
because if them, the ice wasn’t a permanent
resident along its coasts. Everything repeated itself each year,
like a beautiful symphonic piece of music, all
the instruments awaited the grand finale that was spring and
summer. The island transformed itself in the
great symphony created from the whistles of seagulls and petrels.
This is the story of Aurora, a petrel, who lived on the island
six months of the year. But in her first migration
things were not following their normal course. Many things were
changing. As the days passed, a great
number of cargo containers was being brought on shore.
The great community of birds asked themselves, "What are
these humans doing with all these instruments?"
They were encased in wooden crates deposited along a wharf.
Transport helicopters also came, with a handful
of scientists in white labcoats under thick black winter coats.
One of them, quite young, looked in wonder at
the marvels before him, and the marvels that lived in the air the
birds.
Misha Ikenov was the son of a fisherman and had studied
meteorology at the University of St. Petersburg,
before spending four years in his country’s navy. He had now
returned to the sea on board a scientific vessel,
and because of his seniority, he was stationed at the Pechora
River Delta Meteoroligic Substation. Here he
would stay for two tours, on the island of Novoya Zemblya.
Although it had originally appeared that it would be the
experience of his life, he quickly discovered that these
two tours would become a nightmare for his spirit. This was due
to the fact that, unbeknownst to him, during
his brief six-week period of R&R between the two tours, a
tactical nuclear warhead would be detonated there.
The young Aurora passed in front of Misha, and he quickly
discovered that these were her first moments of
flight. And as she passed, Misha could distinguish her beautiful
Prussian blue plumage, with two small ash-
colored streaks, something that he would never forget. Aurora
responded with a soft but shrill cry, and she
flew off toward the heights along the coast. There she lived with
her parents, who, because of their advanced
age, had resigned themselves to making a shorter trip than that
of Aurora, in their annual migratory round-trip.
"Aurora, where have you been?" asked her mother.
"By the port. There were a lot of open containers and a lot
of soldiers working there. What can they be doing
with all that equipment?"
"I don’t know", answered her father, "but I
don’t think you will see what it’s for. Winter is
approaching, and
you know that you will be flying south. Yes, daughter, it is the
law of nature, and you know what that is the
law that governs the planet."
"But Father, how will I get back?"
"Dear, the art of flying was given to our guardianship a
long time ago. Man will never know our instincts, our
dominion over the thermal currents, those that tell us when to
stop, and when a storm is approaching."
"Yes, we’ve spoken about that, but if I have to stop
somewhere, I won’t know who to talk to."
"You will never do that if it isn’t absolutely
necessary. Remember the first lesson of your parents. And you
will survive any obstacle that may present itself, no matter how
difficult."
With her response of "Yes, Father. Yes Mother.", Aurora
huddled up in her hollow in the rock, like all the
other petrels at sunset.
Misha was completely occupied with his scientific duties, but he
made the time to sketch some of the animal
life, and to make a few drawings of the birds, which circled over
his bungalow. His friend, Victor Yeyenko, a
native of the city of Odessa, had been promoted alongside him and
was stationed there with him.
They shared the same love for animals, and together had spent
their days this way, in the service in the Navy
of their "Rodina", the name they used to refer to their
motherland, just as they had in the halls of the
University of St. Petersburg.
"Misha, look out the window. The migration of the birds has
begun." And an astonished Misha saw
thousands of petrels, seagulls, and arctic pigeons circling above
the scientific station and around the island.
"Victor, it’s magnificent." He took an old super-8
movie camera and panned across as much as the view as
the window and the lens would allow him to see, and when he left
the bungalow he encountered Our Lady of
the Air, Aurora.
Uncertain of how long the visit would last, and guessing that
this was the finest specimen, he took a band and
attached it to the right leg of the bird, which gently perched
searching for morsels of bread.
"Fly", Misha told her. "In six weeks we will be
back again." And the young Aurora flew off, circling between
the red roofs and the heavens above the settlement.
"Misha, hurry up or we’ll spend Christmas in
Murmansk."
"OK, Victor. I’m just afraid that if this cold and wind
continue, most of our instruments will be gone by the
time we get back."
Through all of this, Aurora was on her flight south, and it was
with great surprise that she found herself along
with many others on the Turkish coast of the Sea of Marmara. The
place fascinated her, and there was
sufficient food for everything that lived there. But governed by
instinct and devotion to the lessons of her two
parents, she was able to distinguish which things to eat, and
where, since not every place was clean and
suitable for the survival of animals. She saw anchovy fishing
grounds completely contaminated along the
Turkish beaches.
She knew to look for the rainbows of oil on the water, washed
from the bilges of enormous passing freighters
without the slightest consideration for the environment. And each
day she was learning more and more, as
much about life as about the art of flying. And she came to stop
her excursions when the thermal currents
were saturated with a product that she didn’t understand,
but knew to avoid.
And the days passed, and Christmas finally arrived for the
families of Victor and Misha. The whole house
was filled with happiness, lots of traditional foods, cakes, and,
of course, to alleviate a bit of the cold, the
vintage vodka they kept in the freezer. As midnight approached,
they repeated the customary New Year’s
toast "To the Rodina!" With a clink of their cups, they
drank their vodka with gusto.
The days passed, and one morning both scientists awoke with the
same indefinable image in their heads.
"Victor, I had a very odd feeling when I woke up."
"Misha, would you believe me if I told you that I had it,
too? And as the hours passed they realized that this
feeling had become reality. Or at least, it took form. They heard
it on the radio, and read it in Pravda, and it
was confirmed by an official dispatch delivered to their homes by
a high naval official from the Nuclear Test
Center of the Barents Sea Fleet
"You are hereby ordered to report to this center to conduct
radioactive and meteorological tests in the
coastal zone south of the island of Novoya Zemblya."
"Victor, this is the biggest shock of my life. I feel sick
to my stomach, and I think I’m going refuse to go."
"Misha, I know that it is horrible for you, and it is for me
also, but I know that one of these days these tests
will stop. I feel it. And I know that they are going to end, just
as this regime will end. It already shows signs
of suffocating."
"Victor Victor these guys in the central government that are
too young to shave have not yet taken into
account that this beautiful country will not be the same if they
don’t stop experimenting with the weather, the
course of rivers, deforestation, chemical and biological weapons,
and if they don’t stop creating the factories
that produce them and the nuclear test sites where the level of
ground contamination remains very high many
centimeters under the surface a year later."
"Yes, we both know that. But, what can we do if we don’t
do these studies?" And so it was that they both
reported to the office at Naval Central and received the orders
they were to follow from this moment, along
with new gear from CBN, which supplies chemical, biological and
nuclear equipment.
"Misha, this gear is a new design."
"Yes, Victor, it looks like they’ve made it a little
lighter, but I don’t trust it any more than I trusted the
old
stuff."
"The redesign is not surprising after seeing the
consequences of the Chernobyl accident."
"And it has to be at least as effective as the earlier
version."
And so the two friends promised each other that this was going to
be their last assignment for the Nuclear Test
Center of the Barents Sea Fleet. They had worked at various
arctic stations and substations, but they swore
that this would be the last.
They journeyed to the island on board the same scientific vessel
that had carried them to Murmansk. The
meteorological reports on board were not very inspiring, and to
add to everything else, there was a strong
electrical storm. The atmosphere smelled different and wasn’t
the same as they had noticed and admired on
their first trip.
To all this, the return of Aurora to the arctic regions was
difficult and painful. Something told her that things
were not the same as they were. She saw many other petrels on a
beautiful field covered with low wooden
houses. On one side of the road was a large house that quickly
became more noticeable to Aurora’s eyes.
This house was also of wood, with large stained-glass windows and
well-worn wooden shutters. On the peak
of the roof were Orthodox crosses, and below, the classic
onion-dome.
"What happened here? We’ve been flying for days. What
awaits us further ahead?
"A storm front is whipping the north coast of the Gulf of
Botnia", answered one, "and I’m afraid that the
first
group got lost because of poor visibility."
"Some say electrical storm, I say it is a very unusual black
rain." At this moment, Aurora remembered the
lessons of her parents. Stop when there was poor visibility. With
that, she left the roof of the church and
headed for the barn of a nearby farm.
In Lapland, this unique and marvelous community that survived in
northern lands, she met trees with four legs
and skin that she had seen from the air, but had never been able
to chat with before.
"Hi, what’s your name?"
"They call me Kiev, and I have been here for many winters.
Humans call me a reindeer and use me as a
means of transportation, and they know that without us they would
be indefensible here. What’s your
name?"
"Aurora, and I am going north, to an island in the
sea."
"Aurora? I thought I saw one of those in the sky a while
back, but it only lasted a few seconds. Then the air
quickly turned hot and black. And many of your fellow birds lost
their way on their return to their homes."
And that very evening, a miracle happened. In her thoughts, in
her dreams, she saw her father and mother.
"Daughter, you must know that you will not see us when you
return to the island. But remember that until
now, along with the Archangel Gabriel, we had a refuge that was
respected by humans. You must know that a
great and serious fire happened there. Many of us have been
reduced to ashes. And from now on, we ask that
the colonies and the future generations move to more suitable
areas. Like the islands that are farther north,
that the humans call Franz-Josef Land. Or perhaps return to the
south-southwest following the current of the
gulf, and meet up with many friends and relatives on the Lofoten
Islands."
And so, between the murmuring of the rest of the animals of the
farm, she awoke and took the initiative for
the most important event of her life-to take the rest of the
community to a more suitable place, for survival.
Two weeks after the nuclear explosion, the team of scientists
arrived, and among them Misha and Victor.
There they started the difficult task that they would never
forget. The island that that they expected to see, that
earlier was full of life, today was inhabited only by silence.
It was very oppressive. The explosion had been a test coordinated
from a Typhoon-class submarine. And the
nuclear warhead had been placed overhead by an SSN-20 missile,
which had exploded within 5 meters of its
programmed location. A complete success for man, a complete
disaster for the bird inhabitants on the wall
along the coast. They never would have been able to imagine the
extreme heat that reduced them to nothing.
The lichens and algae never would have known the reason for the
black rain days afterwards. The residues of
radioactive dust, mixed with water, formed little lagoons of an
indescribable color.
From the air there appeared immense and amorphous stains like a
giant Rorschach test, where inks of different
colors are placed on a white paper which is folded and opened to
see what shape the stains take. The immense
heat and power of the shock wave had destroyed the majority of
the existing structures that were not semi
buried in the ground. In the few places that had served as
bunkers to simulate targets, and in the few buildings
that remained standing were thirty people working with trails of
hoses behind them, trying to clean using a
molasses-like blue mixture.
"What is that, Misha?"
"Borax and fluorine mixed with seawater." It was being
used as a decontaminating agent, but it was effective
if, and only if, it rained enough to dampen the top layer of the
earth. The relief for the cleanup teams and their
attendants came, and they and Misha and Victor went to rest in
their bunks on board the ship.
They left the island two days later after making new
meteorological measurements and activating various
automatic equipment. That morning seemed different, and Misha and
Victor could see in the distance that the
flocks of birds had not returned to the island, but had continued
their journey northward avoiding all contact
with it. As our friends returned to Murmansk, they watched the
island of Novoya Zemblya as it disappeared
behind the horizon. This was how their second tour ended, with
the two of them promising to return, with
fists clenched and eyes filled with tears from the experience
they had just endured.
And the winds of change touched the lives of Misha and Victor. In
their homes with the blinds drawn, the two
of them celebrated the news of the fall of the regime with their
families. They also received the best news of
all, that all further nuclear tests had been suspended on the
island of Novoya Zemblya.
They returned voluntarily to report for duty at the naval center
in order to return to the island. They didn’t just
sign on for their regular duties either. They also eagerly
solicited the complete removal of all the material and
installations that belonged to the Center for Nuclear Tests of
the Barents Sea Fleet. And this was how they
embarked upon their return to the island for their third
half-tour to complete this work.
And winter came again, and again Aurora set out on her second
migratory journey to the south, instructing the
youngest to stay together.
This whole winter had been difficult for the young soldiers who
had stayed on and were completing their tours
on the island, but many shared the sane idea that nuclear
experiments must be stopped in the arctic for all
time. They were all happy as the first thaws began. The level of
radioactivity in Curies had fallen notably, and
the area was ready for Mother Nature to do the rest.
They had conscientiously cleaned every space, trying and thinking
that there the animals would have a new
chance. This was a new opportunity to return that which the
militaristic and destructive eagerness of man had
taken away from them in a tangible form each year and with each
detonation of chemical, biological, or
tactical nuclear weapons.
The container traffic that carried new material was even more
continuous now. New bungalows were
assembled and installed near the port and more equipment was
deposited there. It was with great surprise that
Misha and Victor received their orders to establish a
meteorological center there, and their happiness was
boundless when specialists in zoology arrived from Novorosik, to
study the migration of species. And from
St. Petersburg, graduates in ichthyology (the study of fish),
cartographers and photointerpreters advanced with
the spring. The weather became more mild for all, the air seemed
healthier, and the aromas of the sea invited
the various species of birds to reenter the ecosystem, slowly
reflecting on the island. Aurora, already an expert
in the sciences of aeronavigation among her species, came to a
stop in a village inhabited by Lapps. She went
looking for her friend the reindeer.
"Hello, Kiev, how are you?"
"I am very happy because there was little activity during
the long nights, and only the very oldest utilized our
services. The youngest used snowmobiles. But it doesn’t
matter. The traditions among the Lapps remain
alive inside each one who survives the great difficulties of the
Northern Nights."
"On your trip north, have you seen anyone?"
"Yes, four seagulls that I am sure were headed for the
island that you left the first time."
"I miss what used to be my first home very much, and the
truth is that it is my dream to be able to find a
corner as sweet, as comfortable, and as cordial as the home of my
parents was, there on the island."
And once again, the northern nights gave way to the long days,
when the resurgence of everything said that
everything, humans and animals, deserved a new opportunity on the
Sad Island. And this chance was in the
heart and instinct of Aurora. She made her decision. "We
must return to the land of our parents."
And that dawn, so long awaited by all the diverse animals on the
Sad Island, gave them the invitation to live,
and of course, to give thanks for being alive. This happiness,
this boisterousness, snaked through the air with
the return of the birds.
And the earth also came alive, to the astonished eyes of each
member of the group stationed there. They were
at the end of their tours, both Misha and Aurora. And this
juxtaposition of the wild bird with a man of
goodwill stirred the heart of Misha, who recognized her whistle,
and the plastic band that he knew that he had
placed on her left leg. Along with the thin streaks of ash-gray
and the Prussian blue of his friend Aurora, as
she recognized the place where he had found her the first time
and as she approached her new nest.
And with great surprise he saw her chick how quickly she had
learned to fly and to listen to the stories of her
mother, the two of them united under the protection of her
husband. And much, much more. There arose
from beyond the sky and the arctic aurora two souls. The souls of
her mother and father.
From Bahia Blanca - Argentina. My city and my country .
Spanish Banner: Intercambio de Enlaces.
Eternal Gratefully at Mr Bruce Marshal to translated this tale.
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