The beach was desolate. There were only footprints of somebody massive and strong, perhaps they were left by seagulls or wheel trucks, and there was also that smell of the human kind, or two people, who just surmised something genius and now lived with their conjectures, as kid lives when he is told that the grandfather with a beard is the main magician. Seems, a tiny idea came to Earlyborn and Zhenka during their frugal picnic. Well, let us call dog handlers, wait for some time, and probably the dogs will show us the path of verity.
Chapter 11
Our characters got their map. It was not the map which inveterate tourists, who lost in Norway mountains, had. This map was different. It looked as a drawing made by the carbon paper that future flat owners put the plan of their apartments on. Earlyborn and Zhenka scrupulously made their map. They started it in Earlyborn’s flat, looking at the Ursa Major and drawing its projection with a thought that this would be their route of the journey. The number of stars in this constellation was the number of stops they would make on the way to Antarctic. The first star turned Bermuda. The idea which visited the siblings, who were gazing at breaking waves, which promised them to bring a ferry, was to change the climate and settle down on the Islands of Bermuda if their parents approved of it. Yet if not on these islands, they would definitely choose other ones (the Saint Helena island or the Madeira island) as they were more happy to experience the light mood of melancholia in those places reach with yellow sand and warm sea, than here, in France, with cold white sand and a single windmill in contrast to the economic expansion of the country. Drinking mate4, which was, as Dominican coffee, sold in a shop on the corner of Earlyborn’s house, Earlyborn was dreaming so profound that was ready to sell her old and precious flat in France and change her dwelling. “Hey!” Zhenka interrupted her reflections. “Did you think about me? What will my neurons say when they realize I would never gratify them with sceneries of the Eiffel Tower from behind the window?” To which Earlyborn said, “Don’t worry, my darling friend, you will please them with views of the sea, tickle them, swim away from new (my note: how else can we translate “очередной; ещё один”) shark, or from a suddenly resurfaced plane with a wish to devour you.”
Thus, with talks and jokes, throwing some pebble stones into the depth of the world ocean, then swimming after them for a bet, or, on the contrary, discouraging each other from messing around aimed at getting money (for money is not omnipotent) they saw a ferry to Bermuda. The jetty was not right there—maybe some five kilometres from the place our characters were sitting. They started pushing the car from a sandy captivity by turn, in which it somehow managed to get, than they were answering frontier guard’s questions for quite a time, so that they almost missed the boarding on a ship. They were last, as it is usually shown in good Hollywood films, where the car gathers speed and, nearly flying, drives in the closing parking zone. Neither Earlyborn, nor Zhenka had not experience so strong and bright emotions since their childhood in Irkutsk. This problem appears in our life as a lonely palm may happen in pine forest of curious problems. Why, when we were children, did we have clear plans for the adulthood which, say, would be tomorrow: we would be astronauts, police officers or firefighters? Being kids, we could play in the playground with Kolka from the neighboring and Mashenka – a mysterious unknown girl from the park. Why do we forget about this all when we become older? Why do we let politics, disputations and quarrels in our minds? Perhaps, the truth is not that children are naive and silly, but, conversely, when we become older, we start thinking cynically and with prejudice against everything? You say that lessons of life should be blamed for that. Of course, they influence us: it is unconceivable to be happy when we buried more than ten people and changed many jobs! But the thing is in our attitude towards these issues. If a person dies, a child mourns and weeps, but soon gets back to normal and goes to build sand castles in a sandpit. He gets back to normal. Yet people for some reason suppose we must change our lives and break our habits at times when the bad occurs to us: the more misfortunes we face with, the more profound alterations we ought to bring into our lives. In fact, we ought not. ) These are just wrong made up beliefs.
Earlyborn and Zhenka sat on the deck of a ferry, sailing towards uncertainty. It is not often when we have a chance to change our place of residence. The sea of life will forever be rough, and our dream about the eternal happiness is impossible. We should cope with winds, accept that we cannot multitask with everything, and we need to take for granted that our little joys may well fade away at any minute.
***
They drank cold coffee glace, looking at waves which reflected the past that left on the land. Probably, Cro-Magnon men looked at monkeys this way before they began their evolution. Cars on a special deck got those sea features which any car gains after a fresh shower of splashes. The new Range Rover seemed beautiful standing in the sunbeams and sea spatters. Zhenka went on a panorama deck. He stood, gazing at not yet setting piece of the sun. Zhenka had a habit: in army, he did not smoke when his colleagues did—he went jogging among fascinating sightseeing of Irkutsk. For nicotine is a drug. So now Zhenka chose a place far from those who smoked. Zhenka grew up and once he stopped jogging. He started running with his eyes. He trained the sharpness of sight. He had a nickname “Hawk” and shot a rifle better than others in army. Zhenka saw the sunset going to bed and sang it a lullaby. The dusk put on the blanket, tilted from one side to another and was thankful to Zhenka. One sailor approached to our character. As appeared later, he was a captain of the ferry. He lighted a cigarette as the people around. Actually, people enjoy being in herds. I came to this idea when realized why people yawn. If someone decided to play harmonica in breaks of a workday in the day, people would not smoke now instead. The sailor lighted a cigarette.
“Nice weather, guy. Methinks, we will arrive with no adventures.”
Zhenka gazed at him with his sharp eyes, which the sailor, unlike others, was not familiar with. It was not that Zhenka did not feel like wanting to talk – he thought as the one who ponders whether to have a sleep or not has and, in the end, arrives at the decision to watch a film for two more hours.
“You have a long face, my friend, and you aren’t a good actor. What’s up?”
The captain, obviously, was not used to this straightforwardness, so he choked secretly for others (since he is a captain) on tobacco. But he was a rugged sailor in the first place and told Zhenka everything as it was.
“I recently started examining the sea. Elders are said to observe the clouds this way before the death to understand whether there was paradise or it was a myth. I’m a captain and I accustomed myself that I’ll die together with my ship. And after that I started staring the sea waves. I began to notice various sea creatures more often: dolphins, sharks and crimson octopuses. They reminded me the thing I could not think of. Some surmises told me that it was a craving for art, others that it was the senile depression if not dementia. After some considerations it dawned on me that it was the wish to leave something after myself. I realized: since the time I lived in a family, which was proud of the ancestors—famous fishermen and carpenters, and was graduating high school in Costa Rica, I had always dreamed to build the underwater city. Now I’m rough and stung by my years as a man who postponed something for the summer sees as a first June wasp stings him. There is no other way round. I’m a bear at bay. It is a few seconds that prevent the dogs and hunters from killing me. But I fought a lot before have come here. I’ve learned much, and like a bear at bay does incomprehensible things, so am I dangerous for the life. I need to learn more.”
4
A traditional South American beverage, which is similar to tea and prepared from a plant called yerba mate.