Maybe it’ll still work out? People have all sorts of issues in their relationships. Of course, his divorce is not a good thing. And it is even worse that he’s writing to Mom about it.
The phone rang. Trying to think about the ancient Slavic tribes, Sasha picked up the receiver.
“Hello?”
“Good evening, Sasha. It’s me.”
The desk lamp was on. It was raining outside. A textbook lay open. Everything was so normal, so real. And—that voice on the phone.
“No,” said Sasha softly. “You…”
She almost let “You don’t exist” slide off her tongue, but she stopped just in time.
“How many coins?”
“Thirty-seven.”
“And how many were there?”
“Thirty-seven, honestly.”
“I’m waiting downstairs near the entrance. Come down for a minute.”
She heard the short beeps in the receiver.
She kept the coins in an old wallet, in the depths of her desk, behind a stack of books and notepads. Sasha unzipped the wallet and poured the contents onto her desk. She counted them again—still thirty-seven.
She put the wallet into the pocket of her raincoat and slid her feet into a pair of old rain boots. She put the raincoat right over her bathrobe. She grabbed an umbrella, still wet, and picked up her keys.
The door to her mother’s room remained closed.
“I’ll be right back,” Sasha said to no one in particular. “I’m… I’m going to get the mail.”
She walked down the steps without waiting for the elevator. The neighbor from the fifth floor was entering the hall, all wet, with a huge wet dog on a leash.
“Hi,” said Sasha.
The neighbor nodded. The dog shook its mane, drenching everything with rainwater.
Sasha went outside in the rain. It was dark already, the windows in the neighboring houses were lit, and maple leaves lay on the black asphalt like colored patches.
A man in a dark blue raincoat, similar to Sasha’s and shiny with rain, sat on a wet bench. The lenses in his glasses were smoky rather than dark, but the dusk of an autumn evening made them completely impenetrable.
“Hello, Sasha. Are you frightened?”
She did not expect this friendly, joking inflection. She swallowed. Cold wind crawled underneath her clothes, licked her naked knees.
“Give me the coins.”
She handed him the wallet with the coins. He weighed the wallet in his hand and nodded, putting the wallet away.
“Good. I have a task for you to perform.”
Sasha opened her mouth.
“It’s a simple task. Very simple. Every morning, at five o’clock, you will go to the park for a jog. Run as much as you can—two circles in the alleys, three circles. When you’ve jogged enough, find thick bushes and urinate on the ground. It’s better if you drink enough water beforehand to avoid any sort of issues. Every morning at five o’clock.”
“Why?” Sasha whispered. “Why do you need this?”
Rain slid down her cheeks, mixing with tears. The dark man did not answer. Drops of rain hung on his glasses, reflecting the distant streetlights, which made his eyes seem multi-faceted.
“Once a month you can have some time off during your period. Four days… is four days enough?”
Sasha was silent.
“Watch the alarm clock. Missing a day or being late at least once is a tremendously bad idea. The sequence of actions cannot be altered: plan ahead, drink enough water.”
“For the rest of my life?” Sasha burst out suddenly.
“What?”
“Do I have to run… for the rest of my life?”
“No.” The man seemed surprised. “I’ll tell you when to stop. Well, now go home, you’re freezing.”
Sasha was shaking.
“Come on,” her companion said softly. “Everything will be just fine… Of course, as long as you demonstrate enough discipline.”
A lone streetlight burned near the park entrance. Under the iron pole where a long time ago hung a town clock, an old man with a dog lingered, the first and only passersby at this time of day. His eyes slid indifferently over Sasha.
She ran through the pouring water. Jogging paths curled around the central flowerbed in the middle of the park. Sasha chose the shortest path. Not watching her feet, she flew right into the puddles; cold water splashed from under her sneakers and washed over her sweatpants, right up to the knees. Sasha gritted her teeth and kept running. Water under her feet gurgled just like the contents of her stomach: she drank over a quart of water before leaving the house. The feeling was unbearable. One more circle. One more.
She slowed down and stopped. The park was completely deserted. A lone streetlight shimmered through the half-naked branches. Stepping over wet leaves, Sasha crawled into the bushes that drenched her with raindrops and, cursing everything under the moon, fulfilled the last obligation of the ritual. She bitterly thought of herself as a dog being taken for a walk.
The short crawl into the bushes brought relief, a quite legitimate one, considering the amount of liquid she poured into herself. She felt a bit less miserable and even managed to stop crying. At half past five she unlocked the door of her apartment with her own key, crept into the bathroom leaving wet footsteps, hid her jogging suit and squishy sneakers under the sink, and turned on the hot shower.
A minute later she threw up. The coins flew onto the bottom of the bath, yellow disks on white enamel. Sasha washed her face, took control of her breathing, and collected the coins in her hand. Four coins, with a round symbol on one side and a zero on the reverse. They looked very old, as if for many years they were kept in locked chests, an unidentified treasure…
Fifteen minutes later Sasha fell asleep in her bed, a deep dreamless sleep, the kind she hasn’t experienced in a long time. When Mom came to wake her up an hour later, she claimed to be sick and stayed in bed.
…And why would she bother with school?
Her tutor called in the afternoon, and Sasha lied about being sick. The tutor, displeased, asked to warn her in advance should that happen again.
At night she was supposed to attend prep courses at the university. Sasha did not go. She lay on her bed, textbooks thrown aside, and thought.
What’s the purpose?
The world did not work the way she imagined before. The visible connection between different events—objective laws, consistent patterns, accidents, and regular days—all this simply served as a Chinese screen for another existence, invisible and incomprehensible.
If the man in the dark glasses exists, really, truly exists, if his hands hold dreams, reality, accidents… What is the purpose, then, of going to school? Entering a university? When at any moment everything could disappear, be destroyed, simply because Sasha’s alarm clock did not go off on time?
Mom returned from the office; she asked worried questions, took Sasha’s temperature, shook her head in despair.
“Did you overexert yourself already? It’s a bit early, it’s only October, and the school year is just starting. I told you to go for a walk on Sunday! Go to the movies, call your classmates, you do have friends, don’t you?”
“Don’t worry,” Sasha’s answers came as if taped previously, “It’ll be fine.”
She added to herself, “Of course, as long as I demonstrate enough discipline.”
Before bed, she set up three alarm clocks: her own, mom’s electronic one, and one more, an old one, her grandmother’s. Throughout the night she fell into chunks of sleep, woke up in cold sweat, and glanced at their faces: one in the morning, quarter to two, half past two…
At half past four she was almost glad she could get up.