‘Having fun?’
I turned my head. Looked at Arina. Nodded.
‘Yes, kind of. It’s really such incredible nonsense, all this fantasy.’
The witch was looking enchanting again.
‘I laughed for a long time at The Blair Witch Project,’ Arina admitted. ‘But you know … for two days afterwards I slept with the light on.’
‘You did?’ I asked, astounded.
‘What are you so surprised at? When you live alone in the forest, in a little hut, and you watch horrors like that at night …’
I just shook my head. I hadn’t seen that film, but maybe there really was something horrific about it.
‘I liked The Lord of the Rings, though,’ said Arina, continuing to share her impressions. ‘Nonsense, of course, but what a wonderful fairy tale!’
I didn’t try to argue with that. In our duty office The Lord of the Rings was shown non-stop: it had become a kind of ritual, like the Russian cosmonauts watching The White Sun of the Desert, and the entire population of Russia tuning in to A Twist of Fate on New Year’s Eve. They didn’t really watch the film, it just played along in the background, but from time to time heated arguments would break out about what kind of spell you could use to set your adversary spinning like that and whirl him up to the top of a high tower … or whether it was really possible to create an amulet that would imitate the One Ring of Power – so that it would influence its wearer, and be almost impossible to destroy, and make it possible to enter the Twilight effortlessly. Strangely enough, the film had actually contributed something new to practical magic – after all, there’s always someone who’s simply too stubborn to believe that ‘it can’t be done’ and will come up with a way to do it.
‘I suppose everything seemed very strange when you woke up?’ I asked.
‘Of course,’ Arina snorted. ‘Well … television and computers – they’re just human toys. But the medicines really did surprise me, yes … They almost put witches completely out of business.’
‘They almost did?’ I asked.
‘Well, yes. Although it was even worse in the 1930s – there was so much the doctors didn’t know how to do, but hardly anyone believed in folk healers. The young people would just laugh in your face. Nowadays it’s not too bad, in fact it’s all right. The first person anyone goes running to is a psychic or a healer,’ Arina declared derisively. ‘The X-ray or the blood analysis comes after that. It all helps the young witches, they have someone to practise on and the money’s good. The charlatans have multiplied too, of course: put the crystal ball on the table, pull the curtains, and away they go, intoning in an otherworldly voice: “I, Eleonora, hereditary White Witch, healer and diviner, mistress of the Tarot, ancient Tibetan magic and sacred incantations, do hereby remove the diadem of singlehood, casting the spell of good fortune …” And the doleful music plays, and the little lamps glow in different colours. But if you look closely, it’s just that old slut, Tanya Petrova, forty-two years old but looks fifty-five, who suffers from angina pectoris, thrush and an ingrown toenail – she used to be a Young Communist activist at the railway-carriage repair shop, and now she’s gone in for being a witch …’
Arina gave a very lifelike imitation of the charlatan and I smiled and said: ‘We leave people like that alone. They distract attention from the Others.’
‘Yes, I know, I know,’ Arina sighed. ‘I leave them alone, too … more or less. I might hex them with eczema on a tender spot … sometimes, if I get angry – just to teach them a lesson. And sometimes when I can’t take any more I feel like teaching them a serious lesson. But then I think: just what am I doing? We could end up boiling in cauldrons next to each other in hell – me because I deserve it, and her for sheer stupidity and greed!’
I scratched the tip of my nose. The conversation was getting interesting.
‘Do you seriously believe in hell?’
‘How can you believe in God and not believe in the devil?’ Arina asked. And the way she said it immediately made it clear that for her ‘God’ was written with a capital letter and ‘devil’ with a small one.
‘You believe in the cauldrons and griddles?’ I continued. ‘Forgive me if that’s a personal question …’
‘Not at all, what’s personal about it?’ Arina exclaimed in surprise. ‘I don’t believe in the cauldrons, of course, that’s a figure of speech …’
‘And the griddles?’ I asked, unable to resist.
Arina smiled.
‘Those too. But the system has to have a feedback loop, there has to be a reward for a righteous life and a punishment for a sinful one.’
‘What system?’
‘The relationship between the Creator and his creatures. Humans and Others, that is. And while humans have a choice, unfortunately we don’t – we’re all guilty and doomed to the torments of hell.’
This was getting more and more interesting.
‘Okay, so you believe in God, that’s your personal business,’ I said. ‘In actual fact, that’s not so very rare for an Other – but usually their view of God is more … er … humane.’
‘What has being humane got to do with God?’ Arina asked in surprise. ‘Humane attitudes are for human beings. That’s obvious even from the name.’
‘Okay, let’s accept that, but … You know, the usual idea is that God values people’s good deeds, their behaviour! You can be a magician, an Other, but still do good deeds …’
‘That contradicts the rules,’ Arina said strictly. ‘The Bible is quite clear, no ambiguous interpretations are possible – sorcery is evil. “Regard not them that have familiar spirits, neither seek out wizards, to be defiled by them …” or, more specifically: “There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to pass through fire, or that useth divination, or an observer of times, or an enchanter or a witch, or a charmer, or a consulter with familiar spirits, or a wizard, or a necromancer. For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord and because of these abominations the Lord thy God doth drive them out from before thee …” ’
‘Have you always been so smart?’ I asked. ‘So why did you go in for being a witch?’
‘What choice does a little peasant girl have?’ Arina asked, with a shrug. ‘Master Jacob didn’t ask me – not when he pulled my skirt up, and not when he shoved me into the Twilight. And once I’d become a witch, I had to live as a witch – there’s no way that can be fixed by praying.’
‘No way?’ I protested. ‘It seems to me that you underestimate the mercy of God.’
Arina shrugged again.
‘Perhaps you’re right,’ she agreed with surprising readiness. ‘Only I’ve done more than just work magic. There have been times when I’ve tormented people to death – starting with Jacob, my teacher. And that’s really bad – to kill teachers …’
‘But he raped you!’ I cried indignantly. ‘An underage girl!’
‘Phooey,’ said Arina, with a wave of her hand. ‘Big deal. He didn’t rape me, anyway, he seduced me. He gave me a sugarplum, as it happens. He hardly beat me at all. And as for me still being a little girl – times were different then, they didn’t check your passport, just looked to see if you had any boobs or not. If it hadn’t been Jacob the sorcerer, it would have been Vanka the shepherd or Yevgraf Matveevich the master who deflowered me …’