“It was. It’s not now.” He climbed deftly, like a cat, onto the two-meter-high wall and immediately disappeared down the other side. Lena grabbed onto a piece of steel and pulled herself up. Even as a child she hadn’t climbed walls. Her foot looked for a hold and slipped over the concrete.
Voices and footsteps could be heard coming from the house.
“Stop!” a voice shouted from very close by. “Stop or I’ll fucking shoot!” And a few shots rang out.
Lena flew over the wall like a bird. And found herself back in the killer’s arms. The moon was shining brightly. They ran into the taiga, slogging through the deep snow, tripping on roots. It was getting harder and harder to run. Behind them, the guards were shooting at random.
Blindboy pulled a small, short-barreled submachine gun out of his jacket as he ran, looked back, and fired a round. The shots behind them stopped for a second. Then they rattled again.
“Get down!” Blindboy ordered.
Lena fell onto the snow. She couldn’t see a thing. She heard only continuous gunfire and cursing. Someone was running heavily over the deep snow. Vasya was shooting off rounds. Lena suddenly realized he was taking out one thug after another with his submachine gun. She didn’t know how long this had been going on, but it seemed like an eternity. She was cold lying in the snow. A trembling struck her. The locks of her hair that escaped the scarf turned into icicles.
Finally it was quiet. She decided to raise her head and looked around. Vasya was sitting on the snow, squeezing his right shoulder with his left hand.
“That’s it,” he said. “We’re going.”
“What happened to you? Are you okay?” she asked.
“Just grazed. I’ll be fine. Shake off the snow.” He stood up. “Let’s go. We have to get as far away from here as possible.”
They didn’t run now. You can’t run through the deep taiga, there’s no solid ground underfoot. You might step into a swamp at any moment. That’s not so bad in winter, when the ground is frozen solid, but by spring the ice is very thin. A taiga swamp will suck you down instantly.
They moved forward, stepping over the trunks of fallen trees. It started growing light. Lena could make out a dark stream of blood on Vasya’s right sleeve.
“We have to stop the blood. Let’s sit down on a trunk and I’ll look at the wound.”
“No.” He shook his head. “We have to get to the hermitage.”
“What hermitage?”
“There’s a place near here, an abandoned hermitage from the Schismatics.”
“You shot them all. Who’s going to be chasing us?”
“Not all of them. When it gets light, they’ll send a helicopter. We have to get to the hermitage, which you can’t see from above.”
“Is it far to this hermitage?”
“A couple of hours at least.”
“Does it hurt?” Lena asked. “Does your shoulder hurt?”
“Don’t talk,” he replied. “Conserve your strength.”
She barely had any strength left. Lena kept rubbing her face with fistfuls of snow. Her feet slipped over the iced trunks of trees. Her head was spinning she was so weak. They walked for three hours without halts or stops. Despite his wounded shoulder, Blindboy walked easily and swiftly over the treacherous terrain. He walked through the taiga as if he had asphalt underfoot.
They didn’t say a single word for the rest of their long, agonizing journey.
CHAPTER 39
“Regina, we have to talk,” Venya Volkov whispered as he sat in his audition hall watching a young boy leap across the stage. His sweet caramel face was red from exertion, and his weak falsetto produced the standard dreck.
Regina wasn’t there. She’d disappeared. She hadn’t spent the night at the dacha. He knew she hadn’t been at their Moscow apartment, either. Well, that’s excellent, he thought. She has enough sense to understand.
“We have to talk,” he whispered yet again, trying to get used to the sound of the cliché on his lips.
He’d wanted to say it last night, but Regina wasn’t there, and he’d heaved a sigh of relief. It was probably best to wait. He had to launch this last project. He couldn’t leave without finishing what he’d started.
A month ago he’d decided to create a young superduo. A boy and a girl, no more than eighteen, but who looked like teenagers. Not today’s teenagers, racing on rollerblades with bandanas around their empty heads. They had to have the touching love of children, outside of time, outside any crudeness or worldly cynicism. A Romeo and Juliet for the new millennium. The main thing was to figure out the precise types.
He’d already found the girl. He’d chosen a first-year drama student, skinny as a rail. She had waist-length, ash-brown hair and huge black eyes set in a slender, almost translucent little face. Without makeup, she didn’t look more than fifteen. Her name was Yulia. She moved very well and her voice wasn’t too bad.
The boy had been harder to find. Today he’d decided to pick someone. This caramel one was the seventh one he’d auditioned today. Listening to his weak falsetto, Venya suddenly clapped and said loudly, “Stop!”
The boy stopped.
“Can you recite a poem?”
“A poem?” The boy batted his long eyelashes in confusion.
“Didn’t you study Pushkin, Lermontov, and Tyutchev at school? Recite something. Whatever you remember.”
“Uh-huh.” The boy nodded, thought a second, and began:
“Oh my God.” Venya frowned. “Don’t you get it? Something about love. Well? ‘Shall I compare thee…’” he hinted.
“‘To a summer’s’… um… way?” the boy continued in confusion.
“‘Day!’” Venya raised his voice. ‘To a summer’s day.’ That’s all. You can go. Okay, who’s next?” he shouted, turning toward the door.
As soon as the next boy came in, Venya heaved a sigh of relief. Dark chestnut curls, round eyeglasses, big, bright blue eyes. Before the boy could climb onstage or open his mouth, Venya already knew he’d found his boy.
“Where’s Yulia?” He looked around.
“Here I am, Veniamin Borisovich!” came a delicate voice from the back row.
The girl had been sitting in the room the whole time. He’d totally forgotten about her.
“Go up onstage. Stand next to him.” Here it was, his final project. Romeo and Juliet. The rollout would take six months. He wouldn’t be here then. If Regina needed help, he’d help. He himself would do just the first two videos and choose what songs they would perform. And that was it.
“Regina, we have to talk,” he whispered for a third time.
“Veniamin Borisovich, did you say something?” Yulia asked from the stage.
“No. Nothing. Do you both know a good ballad?”
They whispered together. A minute later they started a duet:
The boy turned out to have a decent voice, low and deep. And he had a good ear. Closing his eyes, Venya leaned back in his seat. The words and melody didn’t arouse any fire or trembling in him. He liked a ballad performed well, only…
He decided he wouldn’t say that hard cliché to Regina tonight. He needed a little longer. He knew Regina would hear him out calmly and wouldn’t make a fuss. She would treat his decision with understanding, sympathy even.
“Oh well,” she would say. “If that’s what you want, if that’s better for you, I’m prepared…”
And then she’d kill Lena.
She’d find a way. She wouldn’t miss again. Something unexpected would happen. An accident. For instance, the plane from Tyumen to Moscow would blow up in midair.