In the evenings the whole town was drowned in music streaming from the nightclubs. Clusters of guys and girls armed with cigarettes stood near the kiosks or box office windows, sat around old iron benches and participated in social engagements expected of adolescent mammals. Occasionally, Sasha caught their appraising looks. She did not like those guys with their obnoxious, overly made up girlfriends, yet she felt uneasy—it was embarrassing for a normal sixteen-year-old to be vacationing with her mother like a little girl. Sasha would have liked to stand just like this, in the center of a noisy group, leaning on a bench and laughing with everybody else, or to linger in a café, sipping gin and coke from a tin can, or to play volleyball on a square patch of asphalt, split by long cracks like an elephant hide. She walked by, pretending she had some urgent, much more fascinating business to attend, and spent her evenings strolling around with her mother in the park or along the boardwalk, gazing at the creations of the never-ending street artists, haggling over lacquered shells and clay candleholders, doing all these really nice and not-at-all-boring things—but the peals of laughter coming from the teenage clusters sometimes made her sigh heavily.
The storm subsided. The water has been freed of the mud that clung to it, the sea regained its transparency, and Sasha caught a crab, as tiny as a spider. She let it go right away. Half of their vacation had already dissolved; it seemed as if they’d just arrived, and now only eight days remained.
She met the man in a blue cap at a street market. Moving along the rows, Sasha was pricing black cherries, when, rounding the corner, she saw him in the midst of the shoppers. The man stood nearby, his dark mirrored glasses turned toward Sasha. She was sure he was watching her, and her alone.
Sasha turned and pushed toward the market exit. After all, she could buy the cherries at her street corner; it was more expensive, but not too much. Swinging her plastic bag, she entered The Street That Leads to the Sea and strode up to her apartment building, trying to stay in the shade thrown by the acacia and linden trees.
She looked back after half a block. The man in the dark denim suit was following her.
For some reason, she’d believed he had stayed at the market. Of course, there was the possibility that he needed to go in the same direction, but she was not that naïve. Staring into the black opaque lenses, she felt unutterable terror.
The street was packed with beachgoers and vacationers. Ice cream was melting down children’s fronts in the same way as before, open-air kiosks were just as busy selling bubblegum, beer and vegetables, the afternoon sun was just as scorching, but Sasha’s instant chill felt like a lining of frost in her stomach. Not really aware of why she was so afraid of the dark man, Sasha shot up the street, her sandals drumming a feverish rhythm and passersby hastily moving out of her way.
Gulping air, not daring to look back, she burst into the yard with the “peacock” trees. She leapt into the hallway and rang the doorbell. Mom took a long time to open the door; downstairs, in the entrance hall, a door opened, and Sasha heard footsteps…
Mom finally opened the door. Sasha dove into the apartment, nearly toppling her mother. She slammed the door closed and turned the key.
“Are you crazy?”
Sasha clung to the peephole. Looking distorted, as if through a funny mirror, their next-door neighbor walked up the stairs, carrying a bag of cherry plums, and went further up to the third floor.
Sasha started breathing again.
“What happened?” Mom’s voice was tense.
“Nothing, really.” Embarrassment moved in. “Somebody was following me…”
“Who was?”
Sasha began to explain. The story of the dark man, when narrated logically, did not seem frightening, only ridiculous.
“I assume you did not buy any cherries,” Mom concluded.
Sasha shrugged guiltily. The right thing to do was to pick up her bag and return to the market, but the very idea of opening the door and walking out into the yard made her knees shake.
“That’s new,” Mom sighed. She picked up the bag and money and left silently.
Next morning, on the way to the beach, Sasha saw the dark man again. He stood at the tourist booth, pretending to examine the offered tours and prices, but in reality he was watching Sasha from behind his dark mirrored lenses.
“Mom, look…”
Mom followed Sasha’s gaze. Her eyebrow lifted:
“I don’t understand. Some guy standing there. And?”
“You don’t see anything weird?”
Mom continued walking, each step bringing her closer to the dark man. Sasha slowed down.
“I’m going to cross to the other side of the street.”
“Cross if you want. I think your brain is getting too much sun lately.”
Sasha crossed the asphalt, wrinkled and covered by tire tracks. Mom passed the dark man, but he didn’t pay her any attention. He watched Sasha, and only her. His gaze followed her.
Once settled on the shore, they rented a beach chair, placed it in the usual spot, but for the first time, Sasha did not feel like swimming. She wanted to return home and lock herself up in the apartment. Although, if she thought about it, the door in the apartment was flimsy, made of plywood, a mere illusion covered with ancient faux leather. It was safer here, on the beach, crowded and noisy, with inflatable mattresses floating in the water; a little boy with a floatie around his belly stood knee deep in the water, and his floatie was shaped like a swan with a long neck, and the boy was squeezing its pliant white throat.
Mom bought some baklava from a street seller clad in a white apron. Sasha took a long time licking her sweet sticky fingers, then strolled over to the water to rinse her hands. She walked into the waves, still wearing her plastic flip-flops. The red buoy, a sigh of perfection halfway to the horizon, moved gently in the water, the sun reflected in its opaque side. Sasha smiled, shrugging off her tension. And really, such a funny story. Why should she be afraid? In a week she’ll be going home, and, seriously, what can he do to her?
She moved deeper into the water, took off her flip-flops and tossed them onto the beach, aiming far to avoid losing them to a chance wave. She dove, swam a few feet under water, resurfaced, snorted, laughed and made a beeline for the buoy, leaving behind the shore, the din, the baklava seller, her fear of the dark man…
In the afternoon they discovered that they’d forgotten to buy oil to fry their fish.
Pink blossoms swayed on the “peacock” trees. Further down, in the bushes, something else blooming and aromatic was trying to attract bees. An old woman dozed off on the bench. A boy of about four dragged colored chalk over the concrete ridge of the sidewalk. The usual throng poured down The Street That Leads to the Sea.
Sasha entered the street and took another look around. She ran to the store, to get her errand over with as quickly as possible.
“Excuse me, are you the last one in line?”
The queue moved not too fast, but not too slowly either. Sasha had only three people in front of her when she felt his gaze.
The dark man appeared in the store entrance. He took a step inside. Ignoring the queue, he moved to the counter and stopped, pretending to examine the produce. His eyes, covered by sunglasses, bore into Sasha. Bore right through her.
She did not move. First, because her feet stuck to the floor. Then because she thought it through and decided that here, in the store, she wasn’t in danger. There was no danger at all…and dropping everything, losing her place in line and running home would just be stupid. He’d catch her in the hallway.
Maybe she could yell for her mother from the yard. Make her look out the window. And then what?