I took a torch as slim as a pen out of my purse and switched it on.
‘It’s nothing. Do you want me to put a plaster on it?’
‘No, don’t. It will be okay like that.’
‘Up to you.’ I stood up and shone the torch around. Yes, it would have been difficult trying to find my way to that lighted window in the distance … ‘What now, Makar? Are you going to run away? Or are you going to show me the way after all?’
He got up without saying anything and set off, and I followed him. When we reached the building, which turned out not to be small at all – it was a two-storey mansion house with columns – Makar asked:
‘Are you going to tell the duty teacher?’
‘About what?’ I laughed. ‘Nothing happened, did it? We just had a quiet stroll along the path …’
He stood there sniffing loudly for a second, then repeated his apology, only this time far more sincerely:
‘I’m sorry That was a stupid trick I tried to pull.’
‘Take care of that knee,’ I advised him. ‘Don’t forget to wash it and dab it with iodine.’
CHAPTER 4
I COULD hear water splashing on the other side of the wall – the duty camp leader had excused himself and gone out to wash after I woke him up. He’d been dozing peacefully to the hissing of a trashy Chinese tape recorder. I don’t understand how anyone can possibly sleep to the sound of Vysotsky’s songs, but I suppose that heap of junk wasn’t fit for playing anything else.
‘I’m done, sorry about that,’ the duty leader said as he came out of the tiny shower room, still wiping his face with a standard-issue cotton waffle-cloth towel. ‘I was exhausted.’
I nodded understandingly. The tape recorder carried on playing, obligingly making Vysotsky’s voice even hoarser than ever:
The duty leader frowned and turned the volume down so low I couldn’t make out the words any longer. He held out his hand:
‘Pyotr.’
‘Alisa.’
His grip was as firm as if he was shaking hands with a man; it immediately gave me a sense of distance: ‘A strictly professional relationship …’
Well, that was fine. I didn’t feel particularly inspired by this short, skinny man who looked like an adolescent himself. Naturally, I was intending to take a lover over my holiday, but someone a bit younger and better-looking would suit me more. Pyotr must have been at least thirty-five, and even without any Other abilities I could read him like an open book. An exemplary family man – in the sense that he was almost never unfaithful to his wife, and didn’t drink or smoke much and devoted the appropriate amount of time to his children, or rather, his only child. A responsible man who loved his work, he could be trusted with a crowd of snot-nosed kids or teenage hooligans without any worries: he would wipe away the kids’ snot, have a heart-to-heart talk with the hooligans, take away their bottle of vodka, lecture them on the harmfulness of smoking and pile on the work, the play and the morality.
In other words, the perfect embodiment of the Light Ones’ dream, not a living human being at all.
‘I’m very pleased to meet you,’ I said. ‘I’ve dreamed about working at Artek for so long. It’s a shame it has to be under these circumstances.’
Pyotr sighed.
‘Yes, it’s a sad business. We’re all very upset for poor Nastenka … Are you a friend of hers?’
‘No,’ I said and shook my head. ‘I was two years below her at college, to be honest I can’t really remember her face.’
Pyotr nodded and began looking through my papers. I wasn’t worried about meeting Nastya, she would probably remember my face – Zabulon is always very thorough about details. If there wasn’t a single Other anywhere in Artek, then someone would have come from Yalta or Simferopol, stood close to Nastya for a moment or two … and now she would remember me.
‘Have you worked as a pioneer leader before?’
‘Yes, but … not in Artek, of course.’
‘That’s doesn’t matter,’ Pyotr said with a shrug. ‘There’s a staff of 2,300 here, that’s the only difference.’
The tone in which he pronounced these words seemed almost to contradict their meaning. He was proud of Artek, as proud as if he’d founded the camp himself; as if he’d personally fought off the fascists with a machine gun in his hands, built all the buildings and planted the trees.
I smiled in a way that said: ‘I don’t believe that, but I won’t say anything out of politeness.’
‘Nastya works in the Azure section,’ Pyotr said. ‘I’ll take you there, it’s already time for Nastya to get up anyway. Our bus goes to Simferopol at five … How did you get here, Alisa?’
‘There were no problems,’ I said. ‘I came by car.’
Pyotr frowned.
‘They ripped you off, I suppose?’
‘No, it was okay,’ I lied.
‘In any case it’s a bit risky,’ Pyotr added. ‘A beautiful young woman alone in a car at night with a stranger.’
‘There were two of them,’ I said, ‘and they were absorbed in each other.’
Pyotr didn’t understand. He sighed and said:
‘It’s not for me to tell you how to behave, Alisa, you’re an adult with a mind of your own. But never forget that anything can happen! Artek is a kingdom of childhood, a realm of love, friendship and justice. It’s the one small thing that we have managed to preserve! But outside the camp … there are all sorts of people.’
‘Yes, of course there are,’ I said repentantly. It was amazing how sincerely he pronounced those words, full of inspired pathos! And how genuinely he believed in them.
‘Well, all right.’ Pyotr stood up and picked up my bag with an easy movement. ‘Let’s go, Alisa.’
‘I can manage on my own, just show me the way.’
‘Alisa!’ he said with a reproachful shake of his head. ‘You’ll lose your way. The grounds here cover two hundred and fifty-eight hectares! Come on, let’s go.’
‘Yes, even Makar got a bit lost,’ I agreed.
Pyotr was already in the doorway, but he swung round sharply:
‘Makar? The fifteen-year-old boy? Was he at the gate again?’
I nodded, slightly confused.
‘I see,’ Pyotr said dryly.
We walked out into the warm summer night. It was already getting light. Pyotr took a torch out of his pocket, but he didn’t switch it on. We set off along a path that led down, towards the seashore.