I really knew about my mum already, even at the age of ten. Only I tried not to think about her and uncle Vitya. I was really hurt for my dad. But when I heard about Vika, I got really furious. And I realised that I wanted to get even with her. It seems funny to me now, but when I was ten, to learn that my friend had told our classmate Romka my most terrible secret – that I used to wet the bed until the second year … that was really horrible! I’d been wondering why he smirked in that disgusting way when I gave him a card and some coloured pens for Army Day on the twenty-third of February.
Irina helped me to enter the Twilight for the first time. She said while I was there I would decide for myself who I would be. The Twilight would see straight through my soul and make the most appropriate choice.
After that my friend Vika started getting bad marks all the time and swearing at all the teachers, even the head, then they took her out of our school. I heard she spent a long time in a children’s psychiatric hospital being treated for a rare condition, Gilles de la Tourette syndrome. The handsome Romka pissed his pants in the middle of the end-of-term Russian dictation and had to live with the nickname ‘Pisser’ for two years afterwards, until he and his parents moved to a different area.
Uncle Vitya drowned while he was swimming in the shallow pond at our dacha, but that wasn’t until three years later. That’s quite difficult for a child, after all. And it still makes me feel sick to remember the way I managed to get hold of a lock of his hair.
I didn’t regret my choice in the least.
There are some who think that we Dark Ones are evil. But that’s not true at all. We’re simply just. Proud, independent and just.
And we decide things for ourselves.
The beach at night is filled with wistful enchantment. Like a park in autumn, or a concert hall after a première. The tired crowd goes away for a while to gather its strength for new insanities: the sea licks its wounds and throws the melon rinds, sodden chocolate wrappers, corn cobs and other human rubbish up onto the beach; the cool, wet sand covers over the tracks of the seagulls and the crows.
I heard Igor when I was still approaching the beach. First his guitar and then his voice.
As he sang, I suddenly realised with piercing clarity that nothing was going to happen. There was a group of people sitting over there on the sand, enjoying themselves with a bottle or two and some bread rolls stolen from the supper table. And the most that I could hope for, stupid fool that I was, was an invitation to spend the rest of the night in his room.
But even so I walked towards the sound. Just to make sure.
I never liked that song. I don’t like Nautilus Pompilius in general, their songs sound almost as if they were ours, but there’s something subtly different about them. No wonder the Light Ones are so fond of them.
But I particularly disliked that song.
I was only two or three steps away from Igor when I realised that he was there on the beach alone. Igor noticed me too – he raised his head and smiled, still singing:
I sat down beside him on a large fluffy towel spread out on the sand and waited patiently for the song to end. When Igor finally put down his guitar, I asked him:
‘Playing for the waves and the sand?’
‘For the stars and the wind,’ he corrected me. ‘I thought it would be hard for you to find me in the dark. And I didn’t like the idea of bringing a cassette player.’
‘Why not?’
He shrugged.
‘Surely you can feel it? This is a time for live sound.’
Igor was right. Maybe I didn’t like his choice of song, but I was all for the idea of live sound …
I looked him over without saying anything – or rather, I tried to look him over in the darkness. He was barefoot, dressed in nothing but his shorts. His hair had a wet gleam to it – he must have been in the sea already. He reminded me of someone at that moment … someone from one of the old fairy tales, either a jolly troubadour or a prince dressed up as a troubadour.
‘The water’s warm,’ Igor said. ‘Shall we go in?’
That was when I realised I’d been in too much of a hurry to get to the beach.
‘Igor … you’ll laugh at me … I can’t go swimming. I forgot my costume.’
He thought for a moment and then asked very calmly:
‘Are you shy? Or are you afraid I’ll think you did it deliberately?’
‘I’m not afraid, but I don’t want you to think that.’
‘I don’t think that at all,’ Igor said and stood up. ‘I’ll go into the water and you come and join me.’
He took off his shorts right at the water’s edge, started to run and dived almost immediately. I didn’t hesitate for long. I hadn’t even thought about seducing Igor in such a primitive way, I really had forgotten my costume and left it in my room. But there was no way I was going to feel shy, especially of an ordinary human being.
The water was warm and the waves caressed me like a lover’s hands. I swam after Igor and the shoreline receded and blurred until only the lighted lamps marked Artek out in the night. We swam far beyond the buoy probably a kilometre from the shore. I caught up with Igor, and then we were swimming beside each other in silence, not saying a word. Not competing with each other, moving in the same rhythm.
Finally he stopped, looked at me and said.
‘That’s enough.’
‘Are you tired?’ I asked, a little surprised. It had seemed to me that he could go on swimming for ever … and I – well, I could have swum across the Black Sea and landed in Turkey.
‘No, I’m not tired. But the night is deceptive, Alisa. This is the maximum distance I could pull you to the shore if anything happened.’
I remembered what Natasha had said about him being ‘reliable’. Looking into his face I realised it wasn’t bravado and he wasn’t joking. He really was in control of the situation at every moment. And he was ready to save me.