Vika doesn't reply and I go on, understanding already that I've made a mistake, I shouldn't have shown her this empty apartment, and even less – to tell her about others, she won't ever understand this weird stuff, these ravings that I was building for two years…
– There's an old woman on the third floor, she lives alone in three room apartment, her life is hard, I know… especially because she's from somewhere in Ukraine, from Kharkov, I suppose. She turns the TV on only when the soap opera is being shown, and even then she keeps the brightness down thinking that less power is being consumed this way and the tube doesn't wear off… But she fears to sublet the rooms or to change her apartment, maybe this is right… I seldom visit her, I can't help her anyway, and it's dreadful to see how she is living. Especially before the holidays, you know, the most terrible-looking poverty is the one that tries to celebrate the New Year. Her children have forgotten her, or maybe she never had them or they were killed in wars, she has a picture on the wall – a guy in the Russian military uniform…
Vika keeps silence.
– There's a couple on the second floor, they are funny. Married for just a year, from Ufa. They quarrel all the time, then make peace, sometimes one can hear them from the staircase… sometimes the cup gets shattered, sometimes they shut the door with such force that plaster falls down. But anyway it seems to me that they'll never divorce, something keeps them together, either some secret or love or both; love is a great secret too, you know… And the three room apartment there is empty… just empty. The Jewish family lived here, then they left, selling the apartment to some mediator company which still can't get rid of it… probably they've boosted the price too much, the apartment is in Moscow, in a good district…
I'll suffocate in this silence, in her not saying a word.
– The disabled old man lives on the first floor, he moves with crutches, possibly the most noisy and caustic person in whole Kursk. He brawls in shops, quarrels with neighbors, I always pass the first floor as fast as I can, fearing to run into him, but it's not right, it's not his fault that he became what he is, it's life… Life.
I can understand myself how ridiculous does this word sound here.
Life? What life – in the drawn apartments of the drawn house, in these concrete crypts where only things remember people. Only neutron bomb would appreciate this, not an alive woman.
I'm really an idiot, a clinical case. Ah well, still for good: Vika can start working on her new thesis.
– Len'ka, – says she, – My God, Len'ka, what happened to you?
Oh yeah, here comes…
– Forgive me, – she says, – All my screams… about the work with psychos… about all those assholes… if I was hit like you…
– Vika… – I can't understand a thing anymore.
– Somebody deserted you, betrayed you? You lost the ideals you wanted to believe in? And you gave up? – she asks quietly, – You don't believe that you can help somebody, to do a bit of good? And you ran away here, into the deep, into the fairy tale? You really can love but you fear your love?
– I can help – here. Here only. At least by dragging the ones who got lost out of this drawn world. But you know, one drowns not when he can't swim, one drowns when there's no more strength to stay on the shore. And the shore… it's not in my power anymore.
– You don't see any hope at all there, in reality?
– I do – now. Now Unfortunate have appeared.
– Lenia, you hide something! Do you know who is he?
– Yes I do, and it means that there's a hope. If they could became as they are, then we'll be able too.
– But who are – "they"?!
How can I explain? How to make her believe in impossible, in something for which the tabloid pages is the best place?
– Vika, he almost said that there… back in the Elvish city. Their servers don't support English, this is the purely Russian party. He called himself an Alien.
Vika shakes her head, she understood, but she doesn't want to, she can't believe.
– He's an alien, Vika. He's not from the Earth.
– He's a human…
– In some sense – yes. Much more human than we all are. Better than we are, and maybe even the one that we'll never be able to become.
– Lenia, why do you think so?
– He doesn't even have the body – here. Yes he flew, by the most usual and boring way, from one star to another. Do you remember his words about the Silence?
Vika shivers.
– It's dreadful to imagine for us but he had passed all this. Hundreds, thousands of years, the void and silence, the darkness with nothing in it. I even think that his ship is immaterial…
Vika shakes her head and freezes suddenly. I turn around – Unfortunate stands in the corridor.
– I was calling for you, – he says, – I came into the staircase and called. Then just entered, the door was opened.
We don't reply. Then Vika asks:
– You aren't human?
– No, I'm not. Let's go, coffee is ready.
11
We sit and drink coffee; I don't like the girl's from Rostov recipe. Strange that I'm able to distinguish the subtleties of taste at all.
– A choice stuff, – says Unfortunate putting the cup aside, – I think.
– Can you feel the taste? – inquires Vika.
– Yes.
– How comes? Taste in virtuality is nothing more but the memory about what we tried in the real world! If you aren't human, then…
I can feel her aggressiveness growing, but can't do anything.
– I'm trying to imagine whether so much salt should improve the coffee's taste or not. I think not.
– Did you try something like coffee before?
– Only when visited you. I… – Unfortunate looks at me and hesitates,
– I can't even say that I eat at all.
Looks like it's some threshold beyond which Vika loses patience.
– You're lying, – she says with conviction, – Look, you're just lying! You know what? Just go to the Viner Square, it's the UFOlogists' club there! They'll be so glad to meet you! They'll believe you!
– I don't ask you to believe me. – replies Unfortunate softly.
I jump up:
– That's enough, both of you! Vika, I believe him!
– Lenia, you are just convincing yourself! – Vika deliberately ignores Unfortunate. – You aren't the specialist in computer technologies, are you? You couldn't trace his signal and believed in all that? He's human, his behavior and knowledge are human! He's human! Can you prove me wrong?
Unfortunate gazes at the wall.
– I can't. He can. – I look at Unfortunate's face, – Tell her, I beg you. Prove it to her.
– I can't prove anything.
– You helped me to get away from the trap, – I whisper, – I don't know how, but you did give me a part of your strength, your abilities, remember? Please, do the same for Vika!
Unfortunate raises his look at me.
– Leonid, I gave you nothing. I don't have a right to meddle into your life.