One – the one in which he has one family, one woman, one son in the village, one country that watches the forests.
The other – the one in which there is a woman who has escaped beyond the border, and a son who bears his gait, but not the name.
“A life you haven’t lived,” Gina wrote.
He could have done a lot of things.
To close the box, to take it to the police station, to say: “I found this.” Let the services decide what to do – search for Gina, record, investigate “deserters”, write reports.
He could have taken her home, put her on the table in front of his wife, the legal one, and said, “I have another woman. And I have a son somewhere.”
He could have burned her. To throw the pictures into the first fire he found, to watch the faces disappear into the flame and to tell himself that this “victim” would give him peace.
He could have brought her back. To close the furnace, to bury everything, to pretend that he has not seen.
You didn’t do any of those things.
Instead, put the box in your bag.
Close the furnace, putting the stones back almost as he had found them.
He stood up, took one last look at the black throat, then continued on his route, recording traces of illegal logging, as if his hands had not just held the most illegal truth of his life.
In the evening, when he came home, his wife greeted him with the usual questions:
Did you see anyone cutting?
Did they take the trucks without a ticket again?
Has anyone disappeared?
He responded with the usual grumblings.
His voice trembled slightly, but she put it down to fatigue.
The bag put in the closet.
Later, when he was alone, he opened it, took out the box, went down to the basement, where they kept the jars and old tools, and stuck it in the back of a cupboard, behind boxes of old nails.
“You’ll stand there,” he whispered, not knowing exactly who he was talking to – on the box, on Gina, on himself.
