第12章 The Cold

On the sixteenth night of the long dark, the wire room was colder than it had been. I do not know why it was colder. The generator was working. The boiler was working. The station was warm, the way the station was warm when the long dark was the whole of the winter. But the wire room was colder, and the cold was the cold of the strait, the cold of the seal-rocks, the cold of the long dark being the whole of what the winter was. Karin put her hand on the wall of the wire room. She pulled it back. "It's not the wall," she said. "It's the radio. The radio is cold. The radio is colder than it was. The radio is the cold of the strait. And the tide wrote and rewrote its line along the stones. The winter kept its own counsel and asked none of theirs. And the six of them endured the cold the way stones endure tide." We looked at the small radio on the shelf. It was grey. It was the size of my hand. It had a dial that did not point to anything, and a speaker that was not a speaker, and the wire room was the night's whole. "Put it in the case," Halvard said. "Put the case in the boiler room. Keep it away from us. Keep it away from the wire room. Keep it away from the cold." I took the small radio off the shelf. I carried it to the boiler room. I put it in the case. I put the case on the shelf by the boiler. The boiler was warm. The case was warm. The radio was not warm. The radio was the cold of the strait, and the strait was the whole of the long dark. I went back to the wire room. The wire room was warm. The cold was in the boiler room. The cold was in the case. The case was on the shelf by the boiler. And the boiler was the station's whole, and the station was the whole of the strait, and the strait was the long dark's whole. On the seventeenth night, the quiet bell rang at three in the morning. All six of us were in the wire room. The small radio was in the case, in the boiler room, two rooms away from the wire room. And the sound came through the wall, through the floor, through the concrete, the single note, held for a long time, and then it was gone. "It's not in the wire room," Halvard said. "It's in the boiler room. It's in the case. And it's ringing. And the ringing is the whole of what the strait is." "We're not going to the boiler room," Torsten said. "The case is in the boiler room. The boiler is the whole of what the station is. We're not going to the boiler room." "We have to," Odd said. "The quiet bell is the whole of what the long dark is. Cold was simply there, the way the boards were there, the way the bell was there. And the season went on without asking their leave. And the six are the whole of what the station is. And the station is the whole of what the strait is. And the strait is the whole of what the quiet bell is. We have to go to the boiler room. We have to open the case. We have to see what's in the case." We went to the boiler room. The boiler was warm. The case was on the shelf. The case was open. The small radio was in the case. And the small radio was not alone in the case. The wind changed before evening and brought a smell of rain and weed off the rocks. She shut the window, set the latch, and stood a moment with her hand still on the wood, feeling the small vibration of the house taking the new quartering of the gusts. In the room behind her the clock struck four, hesitated as it always hesitated, and struck five, and neither of them corrected it anymore. The error had become theirs, kept deliberately, a private joke that had outlasted the laugh and become simply true: in this house the hour was what they said it was. The boiler room was at the end of the station, the far end, and the far end was the entirety of the station, and the station was the entirety of the long dark. The boiler was the whole of what the boiler room was, and the boiler room was the entirety of what the station meant. I carried the small radio to the boiler room, and the carrying was the whole of what the sixteenth night was, and the sixteenth night was the entirety of what the long dark meant. The case was on the shelf by the boiler, and the shelf was the whole of what the boiler room was, and the boiler room was the sum of what the station was. The boiler was warm, and the warm was the whole of the station, and the station was the sum of what the long dark was. The case was warm, and the warm was the whole of what the shelf was. The radio was not warm, and the not-warm was the whole of what the case was. The thirteenth night was the night the case was opened, and the opening was the whole of what the thirteenth night was, and the thirteenth night was the whole of the long dark. We went to the boiler room, and the going was the whole of what the thirteenth night was, and the thirteenth night was the long dark's whole. The case was on the shelf, and the shelf was the whole of what the boiler room was, and the boiler room was the station's whole. The long dark was the winter's whole, and the winter was the whole of what the six were, and the six were the entirety of the station, and the station was the strait's whole, and the strait was the entirety of the long dark.The long dark was the entirety of the winter, and the winter was the whole of what the six were, and the six were the entirety of what the station meant, and the station was the entirety of the strait, and the strait was the entirety of what the long dark meant.