Читать книгу The Door - Диана Невидаль - Страница 4

On a Wednesday evening,

After the dinner,

The sleep is for tired moany adults.

We are inviting,

Young daredevils,

To the jungle and into the wild…2

Oooh no, now that song will be stuck in my head for a long time. Stop playing. Stop playing. Stop it. Don’t think about anything. Quiet.

…

Wednesday evening, after dinner…

Oh, for heck’s sake! It’s not even Wednesday. At least it’s not even Wednesday here. And somewhere, maybe it is Wednesday. Probably not in our world, though.

Somewhere…

Is life without the internet worth travelling to other worlds?

After all, if you think about it that way, what is the average Gondorian doing on a quiet Wednesday night in the Middle-earth? We’re talking about the most boring times, not when it’s time to die heroically in a war for world peace.3

Speaking of battles, even Grandpa Tolkien, with all his thoroughness, did not carve in stone the names of thousands and thousands of foot soldiers, even the oned who died more or less heroically.

And he carved more than most authors, alright.

Ok, now I’m just thinking about the Professor snowboarding. Stop! Stop!

Clio’s confused train of thought hit the rock of reality the moment the creaking tram doors opened and let the cold November air in. Admittedly, the cold itself is already pretty bad, but now it was particularly unfortunate.

This tram is an artefact from such ancient times that it was not yet known that the metal seats were uncomfortable for passengers. Plus, as it is such a relic, it wasn’t surprising that heating didn’t work. And in this nasty cold times, there is a real danger of sticking to one of these iron thrones.

It’s time for us, sitting in our warm, cosy abodes, to indignantly cluck our tongues and think patronisingly from the height of our wisdom: «Well, she who cares about her health would rather stand than freeze her fillets. She’s got babies to give birth to!»

But the foretold mothers have no interest in our most helpful advice.

Sitting on a tram is not only an honour and a great privilege, but also a simple matter of survival. Working-class life develops many helpful reflexes, and «if you see an empty seat, sit!» is one of them. The battle for a seat after a work shift is no joke.

Only happy people who are full of energy can afford to bow to ladies of indeterminate-yet-something-close-to-retirement age, cherishing a sense of satisfaction at how well their parents raised them.

People who are mentally and physically exhausted by the pressure of work are ready to get into the vehicle, plunge onto the first free seat they see without a second thought and tell the woman, who does not look old enough, an indecisive and uncertain but still a ’no’ to a demand of giving up the seat.

We, who lie on our smart mattresses that remember our shapes, should, of course, respond to such impertinent reflections with yet another clucking of the tongue. After all, they’re not made of glass, they won’t break, and in general, the youths of today have no respect for their elders!

But let’s not put our eggs in one basket of public condemnation just yet – we can’t do any better than the ladies mentioned above anyway.

All the more so because today was somehow not an ordinary day. Today the tram was as empty as a library, or so it seemed after the everyday procedure of mass intimate breathing on each other’s necks.

No one was trapped by the half-open doors, everyone could reach the handrail, no one looked with hatred at the lucky people who had taken the seats. It was a miracle. A simple rush-hour miracle. And all its witnesses enjoyed the moment instead of asking unnecessary questions.

However, this miracle did not go unnoticed. It may have given direction to the restless stream of our heroine’s thoughts. Meanwhile, the girl was shaking as she received a gift of a merciless November that crawled through the open doors.

It took longer than it should to focus, but before the doors closed and the tram moved on, the Clio could see the name of the tram station. She was still five stops away from home.

The cold had managed to stall the flow of her thoughts, but now even a February frost probably would not drive her off the icy steel seat. The risks were high, but she was willing to pay the price for the chance to sit forty extra minutes and stare unseeingly at the passing lights.

Beyond the door of the tram, cold but still bright and dry, more of the «joys» of a brutal November awaited: a mixture of mud, gravel and rotting leaves. A bonus was the treacherous knee-deep puddles in the most unexpected places on the seemingly long-explored road through the garages. The lack of street lights along the way and a light drizzle of an ice-cold rain only added to the anticipation of this daily torture by the outskirts of the city.

In the meantime, there was only coldness and an internal dialogue with an internal audience.

It’s cold. At least I have some time to wander through the wilderness of my thoughts. If a person has ever been in such a state after work, they know that at such moments the intracranial space is more like that game in which you need to reach the «Core of the Earth» article on Wikipedia in as few clicks on the links as possible from any random Wikipedia article.4 To get to the bottom of it, so to speak.

Only, unlike this game, tram thoughts have no goal, they just jump one over the other, like players in the Leap Frog game, and you never know where you find yourself in the end. Maybe yet again in the hot embrace of Mother Earth’s insides, but today I’d prefer something else. I have no energy to work out another theory about the possibility of the Lost World’s5 existence.

Wait a minute, I’m already thinking about it! Oh, man.

Clio frowned and hummed thoughtfully. She was distracted from further speculation about the structure of the Earth’s crust by a persistent and not particularly gentle poke on her shoulder. She had to collect the rest of her strength in a fist of the power of will and turn to the person behind her. This time the gaze came out being rather surprised.

– Ma’am, pass this to the conductor.

Well, this youngling who’s holding out his fist full of change is either brave, cruel or just plain stupid. Perhaps an unfortunate combination of all three, plus a dozen others misfortunes of a person. But those three are definitely present, because to call me a Madam, basically an old woman, when I’m not even in my thirties yet, must show his readiness to say goodbye to this Earth.

I’ll stop you before we all start click-clacking our tongues and rolling our eyes again, reasonably pointing out that some random teenager doesn’t have to guess the age of people he doesn’t even know. And that Clio probably doesn’t look too well right now, etc.

Take notice that these are the thoughts of a tired, hungry, frostbitten girl who is not yet ready to admit that the heavy-handed «Madam’ is about her.

Ah, the wicked irony, for now there was no more surprise in her eyes. At that moment she gave the lad the exact look those ladies of indeterminate age give the rush-hour sitters. And with that look and calling someone «youngling» came the beginning of the end.

But not all was lost yet, because instead of angrily sending the boy off on a long journey to places where the light doesn’t shine, the novice Madam awoke to remnants of some schoolgirl shyness and confusion – she silently held out her hand and accepted a damp stack of coins into it.

Well, now there is a difficult choice – what to do next? The first option is to get up and walk to the conductor, idly rummaging on the phone on his tram throne, covered in cozy knitted napkins.

Her eyebrows darted up and back down, the lips got pressed together, presenting the look of doubt.

After all, there are no people in the way, the aisle was clear. Why didn’t he just stand up and walk himself? It’s not that difficult!

Her eyes rolled back to where no one had ever come back from before. Lips got smacked into a tube in disapproval.

Oh, and if I go there myself, what a look I could give this idiot on the way back! He’d be embarrassed he hadn’t done it himself.

A malevolent smirk full of anticipation appeared on her face, this time only her left eyebrow made the pilgrimage upwards.

But oooh, on the other hand, is this gesture, aimed at shaming the younger generation, worth the effort? There is always the option of passing the curse on to the next sitter and let him deal with it. Maybe this is not a battle worth fighting at all?

Her eyebrows drew close to the bridge of the nose and froze there in a disgruntled position, a heavy sigh expressing general pensiveness was made.

And then came the realization.

Thoughts took over her facial expression at a completely inappropriate moment yet again. First of all, the other person’s money had been in the possession of the unwitting bidder for too long already.

But the best part was that the man in the cap who was sitting in front of her must have overheard the request of the young gentleman. And as a good Samaritan, he has decided not to waste time and to immediately make a pre-emptive strike by turning around to face Clio.

However, as he turned to take the baton of coins, he witnessed these strange facial gymnastics. The picture was more than impressive. The girl froze in a strange and even somewhat theatrical pose with a half-bent hand clenched in a fist. If the coins had been replaced by a skull, no one would have had any doubt that his name had previously been Yorick.

Clio herself was absent from her head at that moment. Her eyes were staring off into space, with no answers to so many questions that arose.

What is an innocent citizen left to do in such a situation? Nothing. So decided the man who had turned around to his misfortune. His dark eyes half-covered with the puffy eyebrows were scanning the face of the unexpected tram mime expectantly, like the rays of flying saucers trying to determine whether there is intelligent life forms on this planet.

Millions of years have passed in that instant. Stars were being born and were dying. The moment when he could turn away and pretend it had never happened had passed without a trace. Too late. And until now, all that remained to be done was to wait with outstretched hand for it to be over, and to silently move his bewildered grey mustache that had certainly never seen anything like it before.

It was then that Clio came to a realization. The gaze of the newly awakened girl met the stranger’s scratchy eyes. A silent scene. The spark, the storm, the madness – now time had stopped altogether. But despite all the intimacy and drama of the moment, unfortunately (?), this was not a scene from a romantic film, here we can rather name it a psychological thriller.

Not even the apocalypse could interrupt this game of staring. And even though the girl’s pupils were magnetized to those of her tram-mate, she knew that everyone was looking at her right now. No, not just everyone in this carriage.

The man behind the wheel of the car, which has just passed the tram, also got one of the best seats. A boy of about ten, watching the show from the back seat of that car, was joyfully gulping down a handful of popcorn.

And Clio also felt the indignant and incomprehensible stares of passengers from other tramcars as well. The stares of the passers-by who the ill-fated tram was passing by also followed. And let’s not say anything about the people in the houses overlooking the tram line! Everyone left what they were doing and stared reproachfully at one point.

And even, damn it, the people on the other side of the planet have witnessed this indelible shame.

No one could ever tell what was going on inside the moustache man at that moment. Even the author wouldn’t dare to pry into the soul of this amazing creature, who still has not moved a single muscle of the stone sculpture of his face. And who has not made a sound, except for the rustling of the grey moustache from his tense breathing – the only indicator that what is happening is not the everyday scene for him.

But we know exactly what was happening to our heroine. Because of the bright colour of the dye it was impossible to tell whether she got a couple of new grey hairs, but the back of her head went numb and her scalp just began to throb and buzz in unpleasant waves.

The last time Clio had felt this way was probably in her school years, at the sound of the key turning in the door after her parents returned from a teacher-parent meeting. Before that moment, she had skipped two weeks of school. Like then, a shiver ran down her spine and gathered in a cold, tickling lump somewhere around her solar plexus.

This has to stop. Somehow. Any way. To get up and run out? To break a window? To open fire? To start dancing to divert people’s attention to something else? To shout and call for help?

– Ahem, ahem, ahem-ahem.

For some reason, coughing always seems to be the perfect way out of an awkward situation. To everyone’s relief, it was accompanied by a handover of cash from one person to another. The planet exhaled. Yes, there were obviously no winners apart from the apathetic conductor, but at least now the participants in the outrage no longer had to face each other.

The lazy flow of incoherent thoughts stopped, all that was left was «AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhh!» and the desire to undo the last few minutes. But now giving vent to her facial expressions would not only be an acknowledgement of the situation that had occurred, an indication of weakness, but, worst of all, a continuation of that exact situation.

And she didn’t want to continue it. So she just had to pretend that she was a moist piece of bread at the bottom of the quietest of oceans. That it was all meant to be like that, that she was suddenly very tired. And look, there is something incredibly interesting going on outside the window!..

Or I’ll just close my eyes and rest the corner of my forehead against the glass, the freezing effect of which is not bad at all, and it’s probably good for my skin, too. I have to give in to tram rhythms, their rhythmic tgdk-tgdk-tgdk soothes and lulls. We have moved on. We’ve been over all that for a long time already.

Maybe you didn’t know it, but trams are agents of chaos. Unfortunately, their peacefulness is deceptive. They don’t bounce around on potholes, it’s true, but they have their own tricks: they sway from side to side in a way that no other mode of transport can. That’s how they catch those who are careless enough not to expect anything bad from them.

One small manoeuvre was enough for the forehead and glass to part for a moment and promptly meet again. Need I say how many stares the loud exclamations of distress have collected? This time quite real ones!

I don’t think so.

Should I highlight how much relief was in realization that it’s almost her stop now?

I probably shouldn’t.

The tram doors closed with the same long-standing creak. The tram began to move, but the light from its windows for a few seconds illuminated a short girl in a warm coat, with a large backpack on her shoulders and probably even larger and quite fascinating life story behind her as well. In the warm rectangles of light one could see her pale skin, the unnatural colour of her hair, and even the universe-wide sadness in her gaze.

But here, left in the dark, our heroine threw on her hood and began her final dash towards home. There were pizza leftovers, a new film stolen by pirates6 and some time to herself ahead of her.

At least, that’s what Clio then thought.

CHAPTER 3: Meet the Cranz family