A few drops of the vodka went onto a wisp of cotton wool that was wound round Natasha’s little finger. The medicine woman held the bottle out to Natasha.
‘Want some?’
Natasha suddenly had a vivid vision of herself waking up the next morning – somewhere at the far end of the city, robbed, raped and not remembering a single thing about what had happened. She shook her head.
‘Well, I’ll have a drop.’ Darya raised the ‘reanimator’ to her lips and drained the vodka in a single gulp. ‘That’s a bit easier … for working. And you, you’ve no reason to be afraid of me. I don’t make my living by robbing people.’
The last few remaining drops of vodka also went into the little brown bottle. And then, quite unperturbed by Natasha’s curious gaze, the seer added salt, sugar, hot water from the kettle and a little powder with a strong smell of vanilla.
‘What is that?’ asked Natasha.
‘Have you got a cold? It’s vanilla.’
The medicine woman held the little bottle out to her.
‘Take it.’
‘Is that all?’
‘Yes, that’s it. You get your husband to drink it. Can you manage that? You can put it in tea, or even in vodka – but that’s not the best way.’
‘But where’s the … magic?’
‘The magic?’
Natasha felt like a fool again. Her voice almost broke into a shout as she said:
‘This is a drop of my blood, a drop of vodka, sugar, salt and vanilla!’
‘And water,’ Darya added. She put her hands on her hips and looked at Natasha ironically. ‘What did you expect? Dried eye of toad? Oriole’s testicles? Or for me to blow my nose into it? What do you want – ingredients or effect?’
Natasha didn’t answer, overwhelmed. And Darya continued, no longer trying to conceal her mockery: ‘My dear girl, if I’d wanted to impress you, then I would have done. Have no doubt about it. What matters is not what’s in the bottle, but who made it. Don’t you worry, go home and give it to your husband. Will he be coming round again?’
‘Yes … in the evening, he phoned to say he’d come and collect a few things …’ she mumbled.
‘Let him collect them, only you give him some tea. Tomorrow he’ll bring the things back again. That is, if you let him in, of course.’ Darya laughed. ‘All right then … There’s one more thing we need to do. Do you take this sin on yourself?’
‘I do.’ Natasha suddenly realised that she no longer felt entirely able to laugh at what she had said. There was something here that wasn’t funny. The seer had made her promise far too seriously. And if her husband did come back tomorrow …
‘Your word, my deed …’ Darya slowly drew her hands apart and began speaking rapidly: ‘Red water, others’ grief and rotten seed and evil breed … What was is no more, what was not will not be … Return to the void, you are dissolved without trace, by my will, at my word …’
Her voice fell to an incoherent whisper. She continued to move her lips for a minute. Then she clapped her hands hard.
It must have been a trick of the imagination but Natasha thought she felt a gust of icy-cold wind blow through the kitchen. Her heart started pounding, she felt a shiver run down her spine.
Darya gave her head a shake, looked at Natasha and nodded:
‘That’s all. Go now, my dear. Go home, my daughter, and wait for your husband.’
Natasha got up. She asked:
‘But what … when do I …?’
‘When you get pregnant, you’ll remember about me yourself. I’ll wait for three months … and then if I’m still waiting – don’t blame me …’
Natasha nodded. She swallowed hard to keep down the lump that had risen in her throat. Somehow she now believed utterly in everything the seer had promised … and at the same time, it was painfully clear to her that in three months’ time, if everything really did work out, she would be reluctant to pay the woman. She would be tempted to put it all down to coincidence … why should she give this filthy charlatan five thousand dollars?
And yet she realised that she would. She might drag it out until the very last day, but she would bring her the money.
Because she would remember the clap of those unmanicured hands and that wave of cold that had suddenly spread through the kitchen.
‘Go now,’ the seer repeated with gentle insistence. ‘I still have to cook supper and clean up the apartment. Go on, go on …’
Natasha went out into the dark hall, took off the slippers with a sigh of relief and put on her shoes. Her tights seemed to have survived the ordeal … that was certainly more than she’d dared hope for …
She looked back at the seer and tried to find the right words. Should she thank her, ask her about some detail, maybe even make a joke – if she could manage to, of course …
But Darya had completely forgotten her. The seer’s eyes were wide open and she was staring at the closed door, feebly waving her hands through the air in front of her as she whispered:
‘Who … who … who?’
The next moment the door behind Natasha opened with a sudden crash and the hall was instantly full of people: two men were holding the seer firmly by the arms and another had walked quickly through into the kitchen – without looking around him first: he obviously knew the layout of the apartment very well. A young, black-haired girl had appeared beside Natasha. All the men were dressed in a simple and somehow deliberately inconspicuous manner: T-shirts and the same shorts that ninety per cent of the male population of Moscow was wearing in this incredible heat. Natasha suddenly had the frightening thought that clothes like that were something like the unobtrusive grey suits worn by agents of the special services.
‘That’s awful,’ the girl said, looking at Natasha and shaking her head. ‘How disgusting, Natalya Alexeevna.’
Unlike the men, she was dressed in dark jeans and a denim jacket. She had a sparkling pendant on a silver chain round her neck and several massive silver rings on her fingers – fancy, complicated rings with dragons’ heads and tigers’ heads, intertwined snakes and patterns that looked like the letters of a strange, mysterious alphabet.
‘What do you mean?’ Natasha asked in a dull voice.
Instead of answering, the girl unzipped Natasha’s purse and took out the little bottle. She held it up in front of Natasha’s eyes. And then she shook her head again in reproach.
‘Got it!’ shouted the young man who had gone into the kitchen. ‘It’s all here, guys.’
One of the men holding the seer by the arms sighed and said in a strangely bored tone:
‘Darya Leonidovna Romashova! In the name of the Night Watch, you are under arrest.’
‘What watch?’ There was an obvious note of puzzlement, as well as panic, in the seer’s voice. ‘Who are you?’
‘You have the right to respond to our questions,’ the young man went on. ‘Any magical action on your part will be regarded as hostile and punished without any warning. You have the right to request the settlement of your human obligations. You are accused of … Garik?’
The young man who had gone into the kitchen came back out. As if she were dreaming, Natasha noticed that he had an intellectual, thoughtful, rather sad kind of face. She had always rather liked men like that …
‘I suppose it’s the usual,’ said Garik. ‘The illegal practice of black magic. Third-or fourth-degree intervention in the consciousness of other individuals. Murder, tax evasion – but that’s not for us, that’s for the Dark Ones.’
‘You are accused of the illegal practice of black magic, intervention in the consciousness of others and murder,’ the man holding Darya repeated. ‘You will come with us.’
The seer gave a long, piercing, terrifying scream. Natasha involuntarily glanced at the open door. Of course, it would be naïve to hope that the neighbours would come running to help, but they could call the police, couldn’t they?