The photographer got ready to take another picture, and once again the group got ready to laugh. The woman tried to simulate an expression of bliss, but could not seem to rid her face of its slightly preoccupied look. Apparently the enveloping foam was no more inspiring than soapsuds.
“Okay … here goes,” the photographer suddenly announced with a cautionary glance at the young people.
But they laughed all the same, and now even the photographer himself began to smile. It was a long, sunburnt smile, and one could tell that he sympathized with these young people. Yes, he understood that they were still young and foolish, but they too should understand that his profession was no more laughable than many other things in this world, and in general one should have the patience to live a little before passing judgment on such matters.
I went into the water, but instead of feeling refreshed, I felt only hunger and vexation. Suddenly I remembered that I’d forgotten to eat lunch — something which rarely happened with me.
Now even the beach was beginning to get on my nerves. All the flabby cardplayers with their thin, arthritic legs, the athletes with their tightly flexed but utterly superfluous muscles, the local Don Juans with their foolish and completely unwarranted arrogance, and finally the women with their supposedly irresistible charms displayed supposedly for the sake of a tan.
I quickly got dressed and left the beach. I took a bus into the center of town and from there made my way home on foot — hungry, tired and annoyed. But just as I was about to open the front door, I discovered that I had lost my key. I went through all my pockets, but the key was nowhere to be found. And now I realized that I was in for a streak of bad luck. It’s always that way with me. Things either go beautifully or else I can’t seem to do anything right. Apparently the key had fallen out of my pocket when I was dressing on the beach. Or at least so I hoped, since this was the only place where I could even begin to look for it.
Cursing my own bad luck and everything else under the sun, I walked to the nearest bus stop and once again set off for the beach. By now the bus was a lot less crowded; it was too late for anyone to be going swimming.
At one of the stops along the way the bus driver left the bus and returned five or ten minutes later with some hot meat pastries which could be seen gleaming faintly through a grease-soaked paper bag. Leisurely munching his pastries, he continued along for two more stops and then once again left the bus. Across from the bus stop was a beer stand, and here he ordered a chaser for his pastries. As the passengers grumbled in timid protest, I began studying the tall wooden building which stood next to the beer stand. It was a branch of the People’s Court, and it occurred to me that our driver might even take it into his head to wander inside and listen to some case. He probably would have had the gall to do so, beer mug and all, but for the time being he stood quietly sipping his beer.
I remained in my seat by the rear door and absentmindedly began kneading my ticket between my fingers. Finally, when my patience had come to an end, I flicked the ticket through the open door. But at that very moment a ticket inspector entered the bus through the forward door and began checking people’s tickets. I should have gotten off the bus at this point and started looking for my ticket, but I was too embarrassed to do so; I was sure everyone would think I was trying to get away.
Finally the inspector got to me. I tried to explain what had happened, but my story sounded ridiculous even to me. As for the inspector, he obviously was not going to let me think for a moment that he believed me.
I got down from the bus and accompanied by good-natured chuckles from the passengers seated closest to the door, I began combing the ground for my ticket. But the ticket was nowhere to be found. I refused to be easily discouraged, however, and now began calculating the probably trajectory of its flight. But in the spot where it should have landed there was nothing; undoubtedly it had been carried away by the wind. As I continued to search, the inspector stood by the door with a pained and weary look on his face — one of those looks I’ve never been able to stand. It was as much as to say: how can you expect to find what you haven’t lost?
The passengers must have decided that I had earned my deliverance for suddenly they all began to speak up in my defense, assuring the inspector that they had seen me throw the ticket away. Apparently feeling it best to yield to public opinion, he let the matter rest, merely giving me a short reprimand as he left the bus.
Our driver had finally finished his beer, and now as he slammed the forward door shut and briskly started up the motor, we all felt a wave of gratitude which, needless to say, we would not have felt, had he proceeded along his route as he was supposed to.
I sat back and tried to resign myself to my fate, knowing from experience that once I’d fallen upon a streak of bad luck, there was nothing I could do but try to get through it with as few losses as possible.
Finally we arrived at the beach. I got off the bus and made my way to the entrance booth, only to discover that I was three kopecks short of the ten kopecks admission fee. Apparently I’d forgotten to take any money with me when I left home that morning.
It has always bothered me that one has to pay to go to the beach — as if the sea were some creation of the city authorities.
“Come on through, you were already here,” said the lady ticket collector, noticing my hesitation. I looked up and saw an elderly woman with a kind, smiling face. How amazing that she had happened to remember me.
I walked onto the beach, so heartened by this bit of good luck that I felt a great burst of energy welling up inside me. Perhaps the wheel of fortune was beginning to turn. And suddenly I was sure that I would find my key, although up till now I had scarcely entertained any such hope. After all, from a strictly logical point of view my chances of finding it were almost nonexistent. For even if I had lost it on the beach, by now hundreds of people would have passed by the spot, and any one of them could have picked it up.
Be this as it may, not only did I find my key, but I actually caught sight of it from a distance. Yes, this small, almost luggage-size key lay flashing in the sand in the very spot where I had undressed to go swimming. No one had picked it up or even stamped it into the sand. As I picked up the key and was putting it in my pocket, I happened to glance in the direction of the sea, and now all of a sudden I was seized by a strange, indescribable sensation. I saw before me the warm, azure expanse of the sea, radiant in the setting sun; the laughing face of a girl who kept looking around as she made her way into the water; a boy sitting in a lifeboat with his strong, suntanned arms resting on the oars; and the shore itself, dotted with hundreds of people. And this whole scene was so softly and clearly illuminated and so full of peace and goodness that I froze with happiness.
This was not the sort of happiness which can be evoked by memory, but another, higher and extremely rare form of happiness which mere words are almost powerless to convey. It was the sort of happiness one feels in one’s blood and tastes on one’s lips.
It seemed to me at this moment as if all these people had come to their own beloved sea after a lifetime’s long and difficult journey, a journey from afar which had been made since time immemorial. And now at last, the people were happily reunited with their sea, and the sea with its people.
This extraordinary state of mind lasted for several minutes and then gradually began to fade. But even after the original intensity was gone, there remained a certain aftertaste — like the heady sensation which lingers on after our first gulp of early morning air.