Ball Lightning

He picked up a volume. “Check out the cover. The lettering is gilded, and gold dust can be washed off with acid. You can procure these books wholesale, then return them to the distributing bookstore as unsold merchandise, only you paint in the lettering with fake gilding. Later on you don’t even regild them, since they don’t notice anyway. There’s a lot of money in this. My only complaint about the author is why the hell he didn’t pick a longer title, something like New Thinking on the Establishment of a New Democratic Institution for the Soviet Socialist Union, Its Integration into a New Democratic Society, and the Possibility of Becoming an Intimate Member. But the money had only just started coming in when the red flag came off the spire, and then there wasn’t any gold on the book cover, and finally the book itself went away. These are from the last lot I bought. They sat in the basement for ten years, and now that the price of kerosene is going up, I remembered that they make pretty good fuel for the stove. Ah, when you’ve got guests, you really ought to fire up a stove…” He picked up a book, lit it with a cigarette lighter, and stared at it a while. “The paper’s good quality. A decade and it hasn’t yellowed. Who knows—maybe it’s made from Siberian birchwood.” Then he tossed the book into the stove, followed by two more. The fire kicked up, and the countless balls of lightning in the photos danced in the red light, lending a bit of warmth to the chilly room.

Without turning his gaze from the fire, Gemow asked us a few simple questions about our situation, but didn’t touch on ball lightning at all. At last he picked up an old rotary telephone. After he’d dialed, he spoke a few words into the receiver, and then stood up and said, “Let’s go.”

The three of us went downstairs, and then out into the frozen wind and snow. A jeep pulled up in front of us, and Gemow beckoned us inside. The driver was roughly his age, but burly like an old sailor. Gemow introduced him: “This is Uncle Levalenkov. He’s a fur trader. We use him for transportation.”

The jeep drove along a roadway with few cars, and before long we had driven out of the city and into a vast snowy plain. We turned onto a bumpy road, and after another hour or so, a warehouse-like building appeared in the snow and fog ahead of us. The vehicle stopped in front of the entrance. The gate rumbled as Levalenkov pushed it open, and we entered. Pungent animal skins were piled high on both sides inside the warehouse, but right in the middle was an open space where a plane was parked. It was an ancient biplane with a tattered fuselage and some tears in the aluminum skin.

Levalenkov spoke a few words in Russian, which Lin Yun translated: “This used to be used for spraying the trees. I bought it when the forest was privatized. The old fella’s a little worn on the outside, but it still works well. Let’s strip everything out of it.”

And so, from the plane’s narrow cabin, we carried out bundles of furs—what animal I couldn’t say, but they were clearly of high quality. When all the bundles were out, Levalenkov emptied a canister of oil underneath the plane and lit it, while Gemow explained that the cold had caused the engine pipes to freeze, and that they needed to be roasted a bit before starting up. While they were heating, Levalenkov took out a bottle of vodka and the four of us passed it around, taking swigs. After two sips, I had to sit on the floor and couldn’t get up, but Lin Yun continued drinking with them, and I had to admire her alcohol tolerance. When the bottle was drained, Levalenkov waved us up, and then, with an agility that belied his years, jumped nimbly into the pilot’s seat. He had not appeared so agile before, but the alcohol was evidently like lubricant for this Siberian. The three of us squeezed through the tiny door into the cabin, and Gemow picked up three heavy fur coats and passed two to us: “Put them on. You’ll freeze otherwise.”

The plane’s engine coughed to life, and the propellers began to turn. Slowly the biplane eased out of the warehouse and into the world of wind and snow. Levalenkov jumped out of the pilot’s seat, went back to lock the door, and then sat back at the controls to accelerate the plane across the snowfield. But before long, the engine quit, and then all we could hear was the sound of the snow beating against the window glass. Levalenkov cursed, then clambered around and tinkered for ages before he got the plane started again. When it resumed taxiing, I asked him from my seat in the back, “What happens if the engine stops in midair?”

After Lin Yun translated, he shrugged nonchalantly. “We drop.”