Zoya was lying on Vorontsov’s vast bed with her arms spread wide. Her breathing was almost back to normal but her heart (Solovyov laid his head on her chest) was still pounding rapidly and resonantly. Creaking floorboards sounded in the doorway.
‘Did you hear that?’ whispered Solovyov.
She did not stir. The creak repeated and Solovyov squeezed Zoya’s hand.
‘I think it’s Vorontsov’s ghost,’ Zoya said without lowering her voice. ‘No big deal. Anyway, we did his favorite thing.’
She lurched and sat up on the bed.
‘It’s time.’
Solovyov heard the slapping of bare feet and the rustle of clothing being donned. He fastened his belt and stood, too. He was experiencing a pleasant weakness and a lack of desire to move. The task of leaving unnoticed, which is important for any burglar in his right mind, now seemed of little significance to him.
‘It’s too early to relax,’ said Zoya.
She noticed his apathy. Zoya handed him the bag and again led him through the dark rooms. How did she know this palace so well? They ended up in the same place they had entered. From here they could see the sea and the moon’s path on the water. Little lights of different colors were blinking in the corner of the room.
‘That’s strange,’ Zoya muttered, ‘I shut off the alarm system. Why is it lit here?’
‘The door’s open anyway. We can leave.’
‘We can, of course…’
Without saying a word, Zoya approached the blinking panel and tugged a long switch.
In the first seconds, Solovyov did not even realize it was a siren. The noise was deafening. It came out of nowhere, out of utter quiet. In terms of strength, this noise could only be compared with silence. This noise was the converse of quiet: like all opposites, they possessed common characteristics. Crimea’s entire southern coast was being notified of the trespassers at the palace.
Zoya grabbed him by the hand and they set off running. Solovyov turned by one of the famous Vorontsov lions. Inside the palace, lights went on one after another, almost like in the movies. There was nothing Solovyov wanted more at that moment than to turn into a stone lion and greet, calmly dignified (his paw on a sphere), the police, dogs, and volunteers who would come running. To greet everyone who would set off to defend the deceased count’s property. Following Zoya, he leaped lightly onto a metal fence. His foot caught on something as he was jumping down and he rolled below, along the incline. Stones dug at him, roots caught at him. Zoya’s bag with the break-in tools and the general’s manuscript hit his face and chest. He stopped in some kind of bushes. Which, to top things off, scratched him very painfully.
‘Still in one piece?’ asked Zoya.
Zoya’s silhouette was still spinning but the alarm was no longer sounding. Why had she turned it on? Why had they run below where there was nothing but the sea, where they would be much easier to catch? It would have been better to make their way upward, to the highway. At least they could have hailed a car there. Solovyov was jogtrotting obediently behind Zoya. She was in high spirits despite the circumstances. Pointing out, in a chipper voice, where to turn. She jumped off the parapets with a happy whoop. Why was she so elated?
They made their way to an open patch of ground over the sea. There was a strong wind blowing here that had not been noticeable in the park. Waves were rolling over huge boulders that formed something like a bay. Tatters of foam looked rather sinister in the moonlight.
‘It’s Vorontsov’s bathing area,’ Zoya said, gesturing below. ‘There should be a boat somewhere among those rocks.’
They went down some steps and began walking to the left, along the rocks. There really was a boat between two boulders. Ten meters from the boat, waves slapped heavily at the rocks from the outside of the barrier, slipping off them with an offended grunt. Back in his adolescence, Solovyov had learned from books that landing is the most dangerous thing for shipwreck survivors. Or casting off, like now. A wave tosses a lifeboat against the crags and smashes it to bits. The end.
Solovyov left the bag on shore and jumped onto the boulder nearest the boat. He still vaguely hoped there would be no oars in the boat. No, they lay on the bottom. Solovyov caught the mooring clamp and leaned over the water.
‘The boat’s on a chain,’ he said, almost festively, ‘with a lock.’
Zoya took a hammer and chisel out of the bag and silently extended them to Solovyov. His companion’s power of foresight astounded Solovyov almost more than the surf. He dragged part of the chain onto the rock, chose one of the links, and struck it with all the power of his desperation. He wound up and struck again. His strikes at the chain brought sparks from the rock but moved him no closer to his goal. The goods were solid. One time, Solovyov missed the chisel with the hammer and struck himself very painfully on the knuckle. He bit his lip and tolerated the pain in silence, but Zoya, who was sitting alongside him, apparently saw it all. It even looked to him like she was smiling. A piece of the chain finally fell from the rock with a jingle. They could (could!) set sail.
After sitting at the oars, Solovyov held out his hand to Zoya but she jumped into the boat herself. The boat swayed and floated away from the rock it had been chained to. Zoya sat at the stern. Solovyov meekly rowed toward a supposed exit from the bathing area.
‘Not there!’
Zoya showed him two small crags. There was no longer any water between them, only foam. But this was where the boat passed through. The water had no set direction in that spot. There were no dangers hiding underwater here. Solovyov was able to row out of the bathing area and get a safe distance away. Only then did he dare raise his head. The shore they had left was calm and no visible signs of pursuit could be observed. The open ground that loomed over the bathing area was empty. The Vorontsov palace stood out on the mountain like a gleaming rectangle.
Solovyov relaxed too early. He realized when he saw the boat’s stern in the air that they were on the crest of a wave.
‘Head into the wave!’ Zoya commanded ‘Row right! Right again!’
The boat handled poorly. It seemed cumbersome and unwieldy to Solovyov, and too big for one rower (why had Zoya not once offered to row with him?). On the other hand, he sensed all the boat’s fragility and insignificance in comparison with the night waves. After adapting to this, he began rowing more evenly. Solovyov’s motions were no longer spasmodic, and the oars rowed ever less frequently at the air. They went along the shore, roughly one hundred meters away. They met the waves head-first. They aligned the boat on its primary course.
About an hour and a half later, Solovyov felt like he had rowed his hands raw. Zoya gave him her handkerchief and he wrapped one hand with it. He used his own T-shirt for the other hand. Solovyov was tired, too. He had used a lot of unnecessary motion in the beginning but now that his rowing might be considered exemplary, he had very little strength left. He tried to alternate, rowing two different ways. Moving the oars with only his arms allowed him to rest his back. And, conversely, he could leave his arms motionless and push the boat forward by moving his back. This helped, but not significantly.
Solovyov rested during the intervals between large waves. He had started to feel nauseous from exhaustion and rocking. He felt like lying down in the bottom of the boat—just as cadet Larionov had once felt like lying down in the bottom of a trench—and enjoying the repose. He was so worn out that the sea’s choppiness no longer evoked his fear. Zoya’s presence was all that prevented him from lying down.