Читать книгу Chronicles of the Coast, or Solveig’s Song. Realistic fantasy - Larisa Sugatova - Страница 4

We are here. It is a sparsely populated island at the edge of the world, cut off from the mainland by the waters of the Sea of Okhotsk. The ship comes twice a week. The nature here is harsh, but it’s July, so it’s warm and there are a lot of sunny days, but it often gets cloudy or there’s a fine, water-dust-like rain.

Near the bluffy shore, not far away is an old wooden two-story building, a dormitory for workers. An elderly female employee of the plant, who met us there, directed us to it. The four of us, two Lena, Alla, and myself, took a room.

On a sunny day we decided to go to the sea in a company of about ten people, walked for a bit more than a minute and came down the path, going steeply down to the stony seashore.

We settled about ten meters away from the water, sitting huddled on small pebbles. The boys took out their tattered cards and suggested we play a game. Oh, no, I knew how to play, but I didn’t like it. I learned how to play in summer sports camp, the girls and I used to play volleyball seriously in high school, and we had fun during quiet time sometimes. We got to talking about books:

– Have you read The Master and Margarita? – One guy asked.

– Yes. And have you read Remarque? – I answered.

We were discussing who liked what.

Someone ventured into the water, alerting everyone with a wild shout, how icy the water was. It was the Sea of Okhotsk, cold and harsh.

We had a good time, I even got a tan for the day, although I’d never been much attracted to tanning before, but that was in the middle of the continent, and this was by the sea. I liked swimming. We had a nice rest.

We were hungry, like hungry wolves. We came back and went straight to the canteen for dinner. Noodles disappeared from our plates in an instant, despite the fact that there were also noodles for lunch. That’s the kind of food we had, because it was the ninety-second year, we even brought noodles with us.

I liked it very much on the shore. In the evenings, after work at the factory, I often went there to watch the sunset. The sun was reflecting off the water in such a beautiful way, the silence all around was soothing and made me think about my life and about many things in general. The words of a song came to mind: «The sunny road sounds in Norwegian Solveig».

On one of such evenings I felt sorry for myself, I wanted to go home soon. I looked for a long time at the sea surface, with the dark waves crashing into each other, and the white foam on the small stones that remained after the water running back, which reminded me of my lace collar on the school uniform, which my mother knitted.

Not far from the place where we were sunbathing recently I found a big stone and was sitting on it for a long time. It was pleasant to feel the warmth of the last rays of sunlight in the afternoon, if the day was clear. In front of me stretched the dark smooth surface of the sea, with the waves slightly murmuring.

The poems, of course, were not like those of a real poet, but they conveyed my mood at that moment.

A week after we arrived, we decided to have a disco. In the building where we lived, there was a room at the end, something like a club. In the evening everyone put on their best clothes, Alla put on a bright red blouse and a dark skirt, her friend Lena a striped blouse in the «bat» style, and my new friend and I, without making a consensus, chose jeans and T-shirts for ourselves. We packed with joy.

We usually wore work clothes – rubber boots, black smocks, red scarves, and orange rubber aprons. We laughed at our appearance, and our clothes smelled of fish. The smell accompanied us everywhere, so I tried very hard to ignore it.

In fact, our life was not so monotonous, consisting of one job. Lena and I went to a local town Kurilsk, which surprised us with its very modest size, old wooden architecture and the same sidewalk, on the weekend with the girls visited the hot springs, where we loved it, in a nearby building was found a library, there I borrowed a thick book. But there was no such event that we all participated in it together.

One evening, as the sun was setting behind the sea, I sat on my favorite rock and pondered. I didn’t want to see another life at all, I was just trying to get away from myself. My thoughts took me back to those not-so-distant days that I had somehow experienced, but my world of the girl I was would never be the same again.

Then for two days I sat in my room, images of my childhood replacing one another. Here was my father, young and handsome, with dark curls and strong arms, tossing me up and catching me, and I wasn’t afraid to fall. And this is a sunny August morning, Mother sees us off, standing in front of the house, Father, Mukhtar and I leave by car for the forest. Father wants to pick mushrooms, I want to pick berries. We drive along a smooth paved road, both sides of a field of still green rye swaying quietly in the light breeze. We turn onto a narrow dirt road, drive for a while, and then stop. I cannot believe my eyes, there is such a beautiful ellipse-shaped glade in front of us, tall trees with green foliage murmuring in the height, encircling it tightly from all sides. It is large, with tall grass, above our waist. We go out and slowly walk around the clearing, my father is collecting mushrooms and I am looking for brambleberries, not many, but they are found, no mushrooms especially. Dad says he will wait by the car. I found a berry spot, I promise to pick berries quickly and go back to where we stopped. He and Mukhtar leave, crossing the clearing, Dad walks, spreading the grass with his hands, and Mukhtar, a German shepherd dog of a year and a half, jumps happily in the grass, now hiding from sight, now appearing in a jump. I watch, and my heart sinks, knowing clearly that this day will never happen again, and that I will never find myself in the forest, in the sunlit glade next to my father and Mukhtar. That day would be one of my best memories in life, and I would remember it forever.

And then, just over six months later, the sunny April days turned gray. I remembered the long honking of the cars as the funeral procession walked past my father’s work. He was forty-nine years old. There was no more joy; I couldn’t feel it in anything.

So here I was, trying to forget myself, to let this pain go. I tried to run away from myself. But is that possible?