‘Sixty-eight and a half kilos. Would you like your height, too?’
‘I would,’ said Solovyov.
He stood at the height measurer and the moving part of the apparatus lowered onto his head with an unexpected knock.
‘One meter seventy-nine. You need another half kilo for full harmony.’
Solovyov tossed up his hands and paid. He felt Zoya’s cool palm under his T-shirt.
‘I’ll feed you,’ Zoya promised in a whisper. Her lips touched Solovyov’s ear. ‘For full harmony.’
Despite the bright sun, it was refreshing on the embankment. A strong wind was blowing off the sea. Splashes rose over the concrete ledge by the water and settled somewhere far away, on the second tier of the embankment. A small, neat rainbow accompanied their flight. The splashes evaporated with improbable speed after shining one final time under the pedestrians’ feet.
Zoya took off her sandals, picked them up, and began walking barefoot. Based on her glowing face, Solovyov knew she expected the same of him. Hiding his inner unwillingness, he took off his sandals and carried them in his hands, too. The asphalt turned out to be incredibly hot, so walking on it was almost torture. The squeamish Solovyov experienced no less suffering from the assumption that he was most likely walking over someone else’s gobs of spit, dried though they might be. He understood Zoya’s line of thinking, though. This was an essential shot for a romantic movie. Except that shoeless walks in the movies usually included rain. Nobody burned the soles of their feet in those situations, and besides, everything generally looked more hygienic.
It was hot for Zoya, too. She bounded all the way to the steps leading to the lower embankment, then turned. Everything was different on the lower embankment. The water had not had a chance to flow back into the sea and it quivered on the concrete in huge warm puddles. The surf sloshed over, splashing them from time to time, but that was pleasant.
Near the pier, they went back to the upper level; this was a remnant of the former embankment. The one Chekhov knew, with two-story brick houses, curlicue railings on little balconies, and palms in huge pots. From afar, a cupola of the St. John Chrysostom Church shone golden, rising over Yalta’s greenery. Zoya’s hand directed Solovyov into a gap between buildings and they found themselves by a chairlift. Seats for two swung around with a metallic growl, returning from somewhere up high. They approached the platform with jerky, paralytic motions and received passengers without stopping. After letting Zoya go first, Solovyov managed to sit at the last moment. He plopped down hard on the seat, and the whole structure began to rock. Of course Zoya noticed his agitation, but she didn’t acknowledge it.
The surface slowly slid out from under their feet. The wooden platform ended, and next came bushes and a tree with a rubber sandal on top. Roofs and yards. Flying over the yards was most interesting of alclass="underline" people were hanging out laundry, playing dominos, and punishing children. They were repairing a car, a tiny Zaporozhets that stood on wooden trestles. Carefully, finger by finger, wiping their hands with rags, walking off to the side, and pensively looking at the car. Life was showing itself in all its diversity.
Solovyov took Zoya’s hand and experienced a persistent sense of déjà vu. At one time he had loved recognizing the past in the present. He saw that almost as a historian’s destiny. Later, influenced by Prof. Nikolsky, he rid himself of that unidirectional view of things after learning to recognize the present in the past, too. ‘Contrary to popular notions,’ wrote Prof. Nikolsky, ‘time is a two-way street. It is also possible that there is no traffic at all. One should not think tha…’ Solovyov looked again at the roofs below. Chagall, well, of course. His painting reflected them.
As they floated over what was formerly Autskaya Street, Zoya swung her feet (this, it belatedly struck Solovyov, was how sandals ended up in trees). There was something childlike in the smoothness of the skin on her legs. But they were adult, purely feminine, and arousing at the same time. Trolleybus rods slid along wires right under their seat. The trolleybus roof proved to be unexpectedly large and peeling. Not resembling something intended to be streamlined. Some things are not usually seen from above.
Solovyov felt some inner nervousness when he jumped down, but he did not lose face. A view of a strange structure with columns unfolded at the spot where they touched down. It might have been considered a cult building if not for its particular resort-area monumentalism, something that is an integral part of southern Soviet cities. It is possible this was a Soviet cult: Solovyov imagined himself and his traveling companion as Komsomol members. Elder comrades were bringing two young creatures to mysterious communist spirits in sacrifice. Against the backdrop of the sea. The hair of those in attendance flopped dramatically in the wind. Solovyov wanted to have Zoya amid these columns, but made no signal. It was enough for him to acknowledge that she would have agreed, without a second thought.
The peak where they now found themselves was no longer truly Yalta. Solovyov walked along a path in the woods, lagging a little behind Zoya. He liked watching her. Zoya knew this and made no attempt to slow her pace. He repeated to himself for the hundredth time that this lithe young woman was his, and for the hundredth time this gave him a feeling of delight.
The forest grew thicker, but they were not alone there. Branches cracked here and there, multicolored T-shirts flashed, and people called out to one another. Not being alone gave Solovyov particular pleasure, too. Those accompanying them (they had gathered from throughout the area, purposely) saw Zoya’s litheness. Perhaps they sensed her spiritedness. But only he (only he!) truly knew her liana-like qualities that drove one insane. Even the first sensations he had experienced with Leeza (Solovyov compared everything that happened afterwards with those sensations) now seemed adolescent and silly to him. It felt awkward to even recall Leeza now. Awkward not because of Leeza (her chances were minimal by comparison with Zoya) but because of himself, who had drawn her into such an unfavorable comparison. He tried to push Leeza out of his consciousness, as one might gently push away a grandmother who had wandered into a party raging in the living room. A minute later, he truly had forgotten about her.
They crossed a paved road during their walk downhill. They walked past small yards overgrown with grape vines. These yards were even smaller than the one where Solovyov was housed. They were enclosed by headboards, steam heat radiators, prams, and even the doors of a microbus—a Playboy bunny blushed saucily on one of those doors. Judging from the inscription below it, the car had some connection to St. Pauli, Hamburg’s entertainment quarter. Solovyov thought about how objects’ fates are sometimes more interesting than humans’. What had that bunny seen in its previous life? A light Hamburg rain? Street musicians, asphalt glistening with lights from strip bars, pushy barkers, prostitutes in uniform orange overalls (that arouses), paupers with dogs, and English sailors waddling along the whole breadth of the street? Who had the bunny driven around St. Pauli? That, in essence, was not important. The bunny’s innocence had been returned to it here, in the quarter where the door now resided. Children were playing in a sandbox. It was just a bunny to the new family. Nobody was interested in its past.
The enclosure, which was entwined with vines, acquired an artistic unity. And the aesthetic of a poor but honest seaside existence that gratefully accepted everything, saved everything, and did not permit itself to squander headboards. Solovyov peered into one of the little yards. He saw a family lunching under an awning. A woman dishing boiled potatoes onto plates. A man with a lucid face who had already dispensed the 150 grams of vodka he was ready to swallow. A child on a tricycle. A southern bird unknown to Solovyov that was swinging on a cypress branch and singing, non-stop.