‘They were buried in separate graves,’ said Zoya, finishing her sorrowful story. ‘And Taras was left all by himself. He’s still living in our apartment.’
The watermelon rinds stretched into a short but even wedge on the bench. Solovyov neatly collected them and carried them to a nearby trash bin (a pack of tissues, so he could wipe his hands, immediately appeared out of Zoya’s purse). Exactly half the watermelon, that which had been placed on the plastic bag, remained.
They left the park and headed toward the sea. In the evening’s duskiness, signals from a lighthouse took on the ever-more distinct form of a broadening beam of light. The rhythm of its blinking attracted attention, forcing one to wait for another flash and involuntarily count out the seconds until it appeared. In the slight twilight breeze, it was finally obvious how very hot the day had been.
‘I have the day off tomorrow,’ said Zoya. ‘Want to go to the beach?’
‘I don’t know how to swim.’
Solovyov uttered that almost as if he were doomed. Just as men announce their lack of experience when in bed with a lady who has seen everything.
‘I’ll teach you,’ Zoya promised after a pause. ‘It’s not complicated at all.’
It was completely dark when they approached Zoya’s building on Botkinskaya Street: it was a two-story building with high gothic windows. So, it occurred to Solovyov, this is where the general lived. A figure that had initially gone unnoticed moved away from the building’s walls, which were overgrown with grapevines.
‘Good evening, Zoya Ivanovna. I was walking by and saw there wasn’t any light in the windows so decided to wait.’
Solovyov examined the unknown man in the light of the streetlamp. Before him stood a man of more than sixty, wearing a light-colored shirt in a quasi-military style. His appearance—from the carefully ironed trousers to the combed-back hair—was an example of a special old-fashioned luster as it appeared in the polished Studebakers and Hispano-Suizas that surfaced now and again in Yalta’s flow of automobiles.
‘Everything’s fine,’ said Zoya, unsurprised.
She took a few steps toward the front door and added, without looking at anyone, ‘Good night.’
6
The beach was already packed with people when Solovyov and Zoya arrived at around ten in the morning. They stepped carefully over extended arms, glued-on paper nose protectors, and jelly-like rear ends glistening with lotion. It was body parts that drew the eye in this crowded festival of flesh. Forcing himself to regain his focus, Solovyov noticed an empty spot by a stand with a life ring. There was just enough space for two towels. Solovyov considered it an undeniable stroke of luck that this spot was located by a ring. The means of rescue was right at hand if he found himself in a critical situation.
The life ring turned out to be unnecessary. Solovyov was surprised to discover that Zoya was a born swimming instructor. As she walked into the water with him, she ordered him to lie, stomach-down, on the sea’s surface. When Solovyov’s body—which was unaccustomed to water—slowly began sinking, Zoya lightly but confidently supported him with both arms. He felt a bit shy about being in such a strange, baby-like position in a young woman’s arms, though he could not help but admit that the training turned out to be a pleasant business.
They carefully made their way to their towels after coming out of the water. Zoya lay on her back, extending one arm along her body, and using the other to shade her eyes from the sun. Solovyov sat with his chin resting on his knees. This embryonic pose seemed ideal for an observer. The morning beach was something unprecedented for Solovyov and it evoked his curiosity.
Solovyov was very taken with the Tatar women peddling baklava and strings of nut candies on trays. They crouched next to buyers, pulling a plastic bag out from under a sash and putting a hand inside as if it were a glove, then taking their Eastern goods from a tray. Large beads of sweat glistened on their faces. The Tatar women settled up with baklava lovers, stood easily with no signs of tiredness, and continued their journey over the scorching pebbles. Their shouts, slightly muted by the tide, sounded along the entire expanse of the beach, mingling with the shouts of sellers of kvass, cola, beer, dried bream, and kebabs made of smoked whelks.
Solovyov examined the human bodies. Liberated from their clothing, almost nothing bound them and they felt no boundaries with anyone. He saw muscular types whose skin had been tanned by the sun, a result of a constant presence at the beach. Even tattoos that had been applied long, long ago, before they began to frequent the beach, were lost. These men moved toward the water with a special gait. This was the gait of the kings of the beach: torso swaying, holding their arms slightly away from their sides. When they came back onto dry land, their swimsuits clung to their bodies, clearly outlining their genitalia. Aware of this effect, the kings of the beach pulled at the waistbands of their swimsuits with two fingers, releasing them with a businesslike snap. The swim trunks immediately lost their excessive anatomism. With their merits obvious to everyone, the kings of the beach needed no additional advertising.
Alongside them—and herein lay the great equality of the beach—there hovered the possessors of flabby breasts that had been bravely liberated from swimsuits, one-size-fits-all bellies, and old women’s shapeless, ropy legs stitched with the violet threads of veins. Everything that would have given rise to protest in any other situation turned out to be permissible at the beach and, for the most part, evoked no indignation.
Solovyov leaned back and rested on his elbows. He began watching Zoya when he was certain her arm was firmly covering her eyes. His gaze slid from Zoya’s shaved armpits to her thighs, above which ran the thin line of her bikini. Solovyov lost himself admiring the barely perceptible and somehow placid movement of her belly. When he raised his eyes, he met Zoya’s gaze and smiled from the unexpectedness.
When they went back into the water, Zoya ordered Solovyov to turn on his stomach and try to make the froglike motions that she had demonstrated first. Zoya’s strong hands supported Solovyov in his froglike motion and slid along the trainee’s neck, chest, and belly, touching—anything is possible deep under water—his body’s most sensitive points from time to time. When Solovyov’s motion seemed insufficiently froglike to Zoya, she swam under him and synchronized the rhythm of their two bodies to show him how this actually looked. People standing on shore followed the lesson with undisguised interest.
Zoya’s nontraditional and perhaps even somewhat eccentric methods could not help but yield fruit. The result of their mutual efforts was that Solovyov swam several meters, experiencing the fabulous sensation of the first time.
He had experienced this sensation only twice in his life. The first incident occurred at about the age of seven, when he suddenly rode away after an exhausting lesson in riding a two-wheel bicycle: his grandmother let go of the seat by accident when she grew tired of running after him. Solovyov registered, forever, his abrupt acquisition of balance. The smooth motion while coasting, akin to soaring; the crunch of pine cones under the wheels.