‘So what do I do?’
‘Do you have a truth of your own, Anton? Tell me, do you? Are you certain of it? Then believe in it, not in my truth, not in Gesar’s. Believe in it and fight for it. If you have enough courage. If the idea doesn’t make you shudder. What’s bad about Dark freedom is not just that it’s freedom from others. That’s another explanation for little children. Dark freedom is first and foremost freedom from yourself, from your own conscience and your own soul. The moment you can’t feel any pain in your chest – call for help. Only by then it’ll be too late.’
He paused to reach into the plastic bag and took out another bottle of vodka. He sighed:
‘Number two. I have a feeling we’re not going to get drunk after all. We won’t make it. And as for Olga and what she said …’
How did he always manage to hear everything?
‘She’s not envious because Svetlana might be able to do something she didn’t do. And not because Sveta still has everything ahead of her while Olga, to be frank, has it all behind her at this stage. She envies Sveta because you love her and you’re there for her and you’d like to stop her. Even though you can’t do a thing about it. Gesar could have done, but he didn’t want to. You can’t, but you want to. Maybe in the end there’s no difference, but it still gets to her. It tears at her soul, no matter how old she might be.’
‘Do you know what they’re preparing Svetlana for?’
‘Yes,’ said Semyon, splashing more vodka into the glasses.
‘What is it?’
‘I can’t answer that. I gave a written undertaking. Do you want me to take my shirt off, so you can see the sign of chastising fire on my back? If I say a word I’ll go up in flames with this chair, and the ashes will fit into a cigarette pack. So I’m sorry, Anton. Don’t try to squeeze it out of me.’
‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘Let’s drink. Maybe we’ll get drunk after all. I certainly need it.’
‘I can see that,’ Semyon agreed. ‘Let’s get on with it.’
CHAPTER 3
I WOKE UP very early. It was quiet all around, that living silence you get in the country with the rustle of the morning wind after it’s finally turned cool. Only that didn’t make me feel any better. The bed was soaking wet with sweat and my head was splitting. Semyon was snoring monotonously on the bed beside me – three of us had been put in the same room. Tolik was sleeping on the floor, wrapped up in a blanket. He’d turned down the hammock he’d been offered, saying his back was hurting – he’d injured it in some tussle in 1976 – and he’d be better off sleeping on a hard surface.
I held the back of my head in my hands to stop the sudden movement shaking it to pieces and sat up on the bed. I looked at the bedside locker and saw two aspirins and a bottle of Borzhomi mineral water. Who was this kind soul?
The evening before, we’d drunk two bottles between us. Then Tolik had turned up. Then someone else, and they’d brought some wine. But I hadn’t drunk any wine, I still had enough sense left for that.
I washed down the aspirins with half a bottle of water and sat there stupidly for a while, waiting for the medicine to take effect. The pain didn’t go away. I didn’t think I’d be able to stand it for long.
‘Semyon,’ I called in a hoarse voice. ‘Semyon!’
The magician opened one eye. He looked perfectly okay. As if he hadn’t drunk far more than I had the day before. So that was what another hundred years of experience could do for you.
‘Sort my head, will you …’
‘I don’t have an axe handy,’ he muttered.
‘Ah, you …’ I groaned. ‘Will you fix the pain?’
‘Anton, we drank of our free will, didn’t we? Nobody forced us, did they? And you enjoyed it!’
He turned over on to his other side.
I realised I couldn’t expect any help from Semyon. And anyway he was right, it was just that I couldn’t take it any more. I slipped my feet into my trainers, stepped over Tolik’s sleeping body and left the room.
There were two rooms just for guests, but the door of the other was locked. However, the door at the end of the corridor, leading into our hostess’s bedroom, was open. Remembering what Tiger Cub had said about her healing powers, I walked straight in without hesitation.
It looked like everything was against me today. She wasn’t there. And despite my suspicions, neither were Ignat and Lena. Tiger Cub had spent the night with Yulia and the young girl was sleeping like a child, with one arm and one leg dangling over the side of the bed.
I didn’t care who I asked for help any more. I tiptoed across, sat down beside the huge bed and whispered her name:
‘Yulia, Yulienka …’
The girl opened her eyes, blinked and asked sympathetically:
‘Hangover?’
‘Yes.’ I didn’t risk a nod, someone had just set a small grenade off inside my head.
‘Uhuh?’
She closed her eyes, I even thought she’d dozed off again, but she kept her arm round my neck. For a few seconds nothing happened, then the pain started receding rapidly. As if someone had opened a secret tap in the back of my head and started draining the seething poisons.
‘Thanks,’ I whispered. ‘Thanks, Yulienka.’
‘Don’t drink so much, you can’t take it,’ she mumbled and immediately started snoring softly and evenly, as if she’d simply flipped a switch from work to sleep. Only kids and computers can do that.
I stood up, delighted to see the world in colour again. Semyon had been right, of course. You have to take responsibility for your actions. But sometimes you simply don’t have enough strength for that. I looked around. The entire bedroom was decorated in beige tones, even the inclined window was slightly tinted. The music centre had a golden finish, the thick, fluffy carpet on the floor was light brown.
I really shouldn’t be doing this. No one had invited me.
I walked quietly towards the door and when I had already half left, I heard Yulia’s voice:
‘You owe me a Snickers bar, okay?’
‘Two,’ I agreed.
I could have gone back to finish my night’s sleep, but my memories of the bed weren’t very pleasant ones. It felt like all I had to do was lie down and the pain lurking in the pillow would pounce again. I just dropped back into my room to grab my jeans and shirt and put them on, standing in the doorway.
Was everybody really asleep? Tiger Cub was wandering about outside somewhere, but surely someone must have sat up until morning, talking over a bottle.
There was a little hall on the second floor. I spotted Danila and Nastya in there, sleeping peacefully on the sofa, and beat a hasty retreat. I shook my head: Danila had a very attractive wife, and Nastya had an elderly husband who was madly in love with her.
But then, they were only people.
And we were Others, the volunteers of the Light. How could it be helped if we had a different morality? It was like a frontline, with its field army romances and the young nurses comforting the officers and the men, not only in the hospital beds. In a war the appetite for life is just too strong.
I went to the library, where I found Garik and Farid. They had spent all night talking over a bottle – and not just one. And it obviously wasn’t long since they’d fallen asleep in their armchairs: Farid’s pipe was still smoking faintly on the table in front of him. There were piles of books that had been pulled off the shelves lying on the floor. They must have had a long argument about something, appealing for support to writers and poets, philosophers and historians.