Suddenly a figure came hurtling straight at Maria out of the smoke so that she shrieked in fright. In front of her she saw a man in blotchy camouflage fatigues, carrying an automatic rifle. He looked up at Maria and opened his mouth to speak, but then Schwarzenegger took his hand from Maria’s shoulder, grabbed hold of the man’s head, twisted it gently to one side and tossed the limp body away beyond the bounds of their vision. His hand returned to Maria’s shoulder, and Maria pressed herself against his monumental torso.
‘Ah, men, men,’ she cooed softly.
Gradually the smoke began to disperse until once again Maria could see Schwarzenegger’s face, and then the entire massive body, concealed beneath the light grey shroud of the raincoat like a monument waiting to be unveiled. ‘Arnold,’ she asked, ‘where are we going?’
‘Don’t you know?’ said Schwarzenegger. Maria blushed and lowered her eyes.
What is an alchemical wedlock, though? she thought. And will it hurt me, I wonder? Afterwards, I mean? I’ve been hurt so many times before.
Looking up at him she saw the famous dimples in his cheeks -Schwarzenegger was smiling. Maria closed her eyes and walked on, hardly daring to believe in her own happiness, guided by the hand that lay on her shoulder.
When Schwarzenegger stopped, she opened her eyes and saw that the smoke had almost completely disappeared. They were standing on a street she didn’t recognize, between rows of old houses faced with granite. The street was deserted except for a few stooped figures with automatic rifles darting about aimlessly in the distance, nearer the embankment which was still hidden behind a pall of smoke. Schwarzenegger seemed to loiter in an odd, indecisive fashion, giving Maria the impression that he was tormented by some strange kind of doubt, and she was frightened at the thought that the doubt might concern her.
I have to say something romantic quickly, she thought. But what exactly? I suppose it doesn’t really matter.
‘You know, Arnold,’ she said, squeezing herself against his side, ‘I suddenly… I don’t know, perhaps you’ll think it’s silly… I can be honest with you, can’t I?’
‘Of course,’ said Schwarzenegger, turning his black lenses towards her.
‘When I’m with you, I want so much to soar up into the sky! I feel as though the sky is so very close!’
Schwarzenegger raised his head and looked upwards. There actually were glimpses of bright blue sky between the streams of smoke. It didn’t seem particularly close, but then neither was it that far away.
Ah, thought Maria, what nonsense I do talk.
But it was too late to stop now.
‘What about you, Arnold, wouldn’t you like to soar up into the sky?’
Schwarzenegger thought for a second.
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘And will you take me with you? You know, I… - Maria smiled shyly - ‘I’m so very earthbound.’
Schwarzenegger thought for another second.
‘Okay,’ he said. ‘I’ll take you up into the sky.’
He looked around, as though he were trying to locate landmarks that only he knew, and then he seemed to have found them, because he grabbed Maria decisively by the arm and dragged her onwards. Maria was startled by this sudden transition from poetic abstraction to concrete action, but then she realized that this was the way real men were supposed to behave.
Schwarzenegger dragged her along the facade of a long Stalin-era apartment block. After a few steps she managed to adjust to his rapid stride and began trotting along beside him, holding on to the sleeve of his raincoat. She sensed that if she slowed her pace at all, Schwarzenegger’s arm would change from a gallantly proffered fulcrum into a steel lever that would drag her implacably along the pavement, and for some reason the thought filled her with a feeling of boundless happiness that sprang from the very depths of her belly and spread in warm waves throughout her body.
On reaching the end of the building, Schwarzenegger turned through an arch. Once in the courtyard of the building, Maria felt as though they had been transported to a different city. Here the peace of the morning was still unbroken; there was no smoke to be seen, and it was hard to believe that somewhere close at hand there were crazy people dashing about shooting off their automatic rifles.
Schwarzenegger definitely knew where he was taking Maria. They made their way round a small children’s playground with swings and dived into a labyrinth of narrow alleys between rusting garages. Maria was thinking with sweet terror in her heart that somewhere here, quickly and rather awkwardly, their alchemical wedlock would probably be consummated, when suddenly the passageway led out into an empty space surrounded on all sides by sheet-iron walls of various colours and heights.
The space wasn’t entirely empty, though. Beneath their feet lay the usual collection of bottles, and there were a couple of old car tyres, a crumpled door from a Lada and other assorted quasi-mechanical garbage of the kind that always accumulates beside garages.
And, next to them, there was a jet fighter.
Although it took up almost all of the space, it was the very last thing that Maria noticed, probably because for several seconds her brain filtered out the signals it was receiving from her eyes as a hallucination. Maria felt afraid.
How could a plane get in here? she thought. On the other hand, how could Schwarzenegger have got here? But even so, this is really strange.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
‘A model A-4 «Harrier» jump-jet vertical take-off and landing pursuit craft,’ said Schwarzenegger.
Maria saw the famous dimples in his cheeks again -Schwarzenegger was smiling. She frowned slightly, drawing her frizzy eyebrows together, and the fear in her heart was replaced by a feeling of jealousy for this immense insect of glass and metal, which clearly occupied quite as important a place in Schwarzenegger’s heart as she did herself.
He approached the plane. Sunk in thought, Maria remained standing on the spot until she was jerked forward in turn - rather as if Schwarzenegger were a tractor and she were some piece of agricultural machinery casually hooked on to it.
‘But there’s only room for one,’ she said when she caught sight of the back of the seat through the glass canopy.
‘Don’t worry,’ said Schwarzenegger, and in a single light movement he lifted her up and sat her on the wing.
Maria drew in her legs and stood up on the angled aluminium surface. A gust of wind fluttered through her clothes, and she thought how well romantic roles had always suited her.
‘What about you?’ she asked.
But Schwarzenegger was already in the cockpit. He had clambered in with amazing speed and agility, and Maria realized it must have been a montage sequence or a piece of slick editing. He stuck his head out of the cabin and smiled, gesturing to her with his thumb and forefinger joined to form a ring; Maria decided she could think of it as her wedding ring.
‘Sit on the fuselage,’ said Schwarzenegger, ‘at the base of the wings. Don’t be afraid. Imagine it’s a carousel. Imagine you’re sitting on one of the horses.’
‘You mean, you’re going to…’
Schwarzenegger nodded.
His dark glasses gazed straight into the depths of Maria’s soul and she realized her fate was being decided right here and now. She was being tested, there was no doubt about it: the woman worthy of standing beside Schwarzenegger could not be some feeble coward good for nothing more than multi-episode domestic and sexual intrigue. She had to be able to meet mortal danger face to face without betraying her feelings with anything more than a smile. Maria tried adjusting her expression accordingly, but felt that the smile turned out a little contrived.