Читать книгу Chernobyl - Ilinda Markova - Страница 12

NICOS WOKE UP SHORTLY after midnight and silently tiptoed out of the master bedroom casting a quick look at his sleeping wife. She was a strong and caring woman who had made him leave his native island of Thassos and get married in this town.

Once, in his youth, he had been a fisherman like most of the men on the island and had proudly worn his captain’s cap as it is well known, every Greek fisherman is the captain of his boat, no matter how little. The splashing of the waves used to blend with the sound of the sirtaki and deep tender women’s voices called the men to come back on shore. But the island of Thassos was at the same time a popular destination crowded with tourists and when this young Bulgarian beautiful as a siren had appeared, Nikos forgot everything else in the world. His southern blood boiled like young wine and on the tenth day of her stay, nights spent on Nikos’s boat, he simply didn’t let her go home alone. His father cursed him for leaving the land of the Olympic Gods but his sister decorated them with orange blossom wreaths.

Nikos started a new life to the north of the mountain of Olympus. In the beginning he continued his trade and was doing some good fishing in the lake for sale and to provide for his young family until a neighbour sold him his bakery at a bargain. Since then Nikos began to knead bread and sweet rolls for the town. His crown success was with the savoury chicken and mushrooms pies which quickly finished.

His wife helped him, years after, his two sons helped him too. The whole family went to bed early, with the hens, as they used to say here, and got up early, around three o’clock so as to manage with the bread for all their customers, because, as Nikos proudly said, man could do without everything but bread. This night, however, he decided to remember his youth on the island of Thassos and catch some fish, perhaps even sing some Greek songs in the middle of the lake. As he hadn’t used the boat for a while he checked the bottom, then started the engine and in no time he was unzipping the water surface.

The moon was bright and when Nikos turned the engine off, in the silence it seemed to him that he had gone back in time and the boat was an island and he was its only inhabitant but at the same time its captain because he had found his old captain’s cap.

Nicos was going to fish for two to three hours so as to comfort his heart because lately the rolls somehow resembled cleaned scaleless pieces of fish on their way to the frying pan.

Nicos unfolded a small fishing net, positioned two fishing lines and waited. He took out his Greek cigarettes, Karelia Agriniou, saved for occasions like this one. His wife was jealous of everything that was Greek, so he could smoke it here, inhaling the familiar rich smoke. Soon he began singing Ta Matia, Your Eyes, and quite frankly he was thinking of a Greek girl whose eyes years ago had given him so many promises.

Nicos waited for an hour and pulled the net. The catch was good and he tried again. Again he stood there silent, carried back to the past and to the eyes of a young girl, his first love, which he had betrayed for the beauty of his future wife now still in their warm bed.

Suddenly Nicos decided to go home.

He spat the cigarette out and bent over to pull the net in. It was then that some strange power got hold of him and abruptly pulled him down into the cold night water. Born and raised by the sea Nikos was a good diver so he wasn’t immediately scared.

Fear came later when he realised that he was never to see his wife and children again. He was still kicking but that seemed to be the game of Death.

Someone was slowly, very slowly playing at killing him. Oh, ta matia, the whole world turned into two enormous eyes, eyes of a girl but also of a woman. He fought for a gulp of air, screamed and defended himself but his gut instinct told him that all was in vein. For a moment he gave way to the game, relaxed, even smiled.

Nikos wanted to know who was playing with him the nasty game and why; tossing him around, biting pieces off his body. He got caught in his own net and felt blood spurting out from the gaping wounds as if caused by a gutting knife. The taste of the water around him was different, a taste which in sea would have attracted sharks.

Was there a shark too, in this small quiet lake?

It was late for questions. Ta matia, was singing someone in a loud deafening voice, accompanied by bouzouki, whose sound bounced and reverberated in his head that turned to be a small claustrophobic space for the thundering decibels.

At this moment Nicos saw something. Something that made his heart burst with horror. Yes, he died not because of his bleeding wounds but of the horror induced by a hideous creature that appeared before him and for which he had no name.