Solovyov and Larionov

11

Zoya spent the night at Solovyov’s again. This time there was none of the uncertainty that had tormented them both, and so they made love without hesitation after a light dinner with wine. There was no tension at all. Unhurried and even with a certain flirtatiousness, Solovyov undressed and waited for Zoya under the sheet. She took off her clothes, standing half-facing him. Solovyov delighted in how she moved: Zoya knew how to undress.

She removed her attire calmly and elegantly, with a subtle portion of the resignation any Russian woman simply felt obliged to display for her possessor. After taking off her jeans, she glanced at them in her hand and tossed them onto a chair, with a quick jingle of the belt buckle. She extracted a pair of panties out from under a long shirt with a man’s cut and carefully, using her index finger and thumb, placed them on her jeans. She touched her shirt collar with both hands, slowing down. She undid the long row of buttons as if she were in doubt. The shirt slid from her shoulders but its edge remained in Zoya’s small fist. Set against the background of her dark skin, the bright linen of her shirt fell to the floor casually, folding into an unusual flower scented with deodorant. A bikini tan line flashed on Zoya’s supple bottom.

She was different that night. After revealing her spiritedness the night before, today Zoya demonstrated technique that was no less outstanding. To Solovyov’s surprise, the museum employee’s knowledge of this non-Chekhovian realm was boundless. The image of a boat amongst waves that had entered the researcher’s thoughts yesterday had faded. There was now something else that did not lend itself to instantaneous definition. Solovyov had no time at all for deliberation, though.

The morning was fabulous. Relaxed, quiet, and contented. There was complete calm, like after a visit to the bathhouse. The body’s absolute lack of inhibition, delight emanating from each of its cells. Or even the feeling a day after playing football. A pleasant ache in the leg and pelvic muscles, an unwillingness to get up. Combined with a feeling of deep satisfaction: Solovyov thought he was genuinely experiencing this phrase for the first time.

Zoya sat on top of him and began giving him a massage. She started with his hair. She gathered it in waves, clasping her hands together on top of his head. She kneaded his neck and back. At first she touched him, just barely, with the very tips of her fingers, as if she were injecting through them a mysterious electricity that made goosebumps cover Solovyov. Then her palms made powerful grasping movements. They turned Solovyov’s back to gelatin, to clay, removing the crystalline current it had received and instead pouring in a muscle-stretching energy. From time to time, when Zoya’s movements were particularly vigorous, Solovyov felt the touch of her intimate hair in the small of his back. Then—after Zoya resettled on his legs—she massaged the lower back itself, then his behind (what an apt name that is, anyway). That turned out to be especially pleasant; its softness was made for massages. Zoya sank her palms into the stillness of his strongest muscles. The pulsing of her palms repeated the rhythm of those very same muscles, imitating their ancient movement. She moved on to his legs. She achieved their full relaxation by rubbing them on both sides. This was how footballers going in as substitutes were handled, too. Soles of the feet. Heels, with a rubbing, circular motion. Each toe thoroughly. The apotheosis of the corporeal. A fresh morning breeze with a juniper aroma rushed through the open window and blended with the smell of their bodies.

After breakfast, they headed for the embankment. Solovyov took the opportunity to check his height and weight along the way. He thought medical scales were something one would no longer run into on Petersburg’s streets: splotchy white after having been repainted, the quiet clanging of the hanging weights. Where had they disappeared to? Where had the machines selling carbonated water gone? What about the barrels of kvass and beer? It occurred to Solovyov that not one history book had noted their departure, just as not one history book had said anything about their arrival. But they truly had existed. They had defined a way of life, making it more bearable, if only, needless to say, to the limited degree they could.

An elderly man wearing glasses weighed Solovyov. The lenses of his glasses were large and bulging. His eyes seemed to be, too, as he monitored the markings on the scale. Strictly speaking, he was not monitoring the markings. He could determine anyone’s weight from a distance. There was a rubber band instead of a right temple on his glasses.

‘Sixty-eight and a half kilos. Would you like your height, too?’

‘I would,’ said Solovyov.

He stood at the height measurer and the moving part of the apparatus lowered onto his head with an unexpected knock.

‘One meter seventy-nine. You need another half kilo for full harmony.’

Solovyov tossed up his hands and paid. He felt Zoya’s cool palm under his T-shirt.

‘I’ll feed you,’ Zoya promised in a whisper. Her lips touched Solovyov’s ear. ‘For full harmony.’

Despite the bright sun, it was refreshing on the embankment. A strong wind was blowing off the sea. Splashes rose over the concrete ledge by the water and settled somewhere far away, on the second tier of the embankment. A small, neat rainbow accompanied their flight. The splashes evaporated with improbable speed after shining one final time under the pedestrians’ feet.

Zoya took off her sandals, picked them up, and began walking barefoot. Based on her glowing face, Solovyov knew she expected the same of him. Hiding his inner unwillingness, he took off his sandals and carried them in his hands, too. The asphalt turned out to be incredibly hot, so walking on it was almost torture. The squeamish Solovyov experienced no less suffering from the assumption that he was most likely walking over someone else’s gobs of spit, dried though they might be. He understood Zoya’s line of thinking, though. This was an essential shot for a romantic movie. Except that shoeless walks in the movies usually included rain. Nobody burned the soles of their feet in those situations, and besides, everything generally looked more hygienic.

It was hot for Zoya, too. She bounded all the way to the steps leading to the lower embankment, then turned. Everything was different on the lower embankment. The water had not had a chance to flow back into the sea and it quivered on the concrete in huge warm puddles. The surf sloshed over, splashing them from time to time, but that was pleasant.

Near the pier, they went back to the upper level; this was a remnant of the former embankment. The one Chekhov knew, with two-story brick houses, curlicue railings on little balconies, and palms in huge pots. From afar, a cupola of the St. John Chrysostom Church shone golden, rising over Yalta’s greenery. Zoya’s hand directed Solovyov into a gap between buildings and they found themselves by a chairlift. Seats for two swung around with a metallic growl, returning from somewhere up high. They approached the platform with jerky, paralytic motions and received passengers without stopping. After letting Zoya go first, Solovyov managed to sit at the last moment. He plopped down hard on the seat, and the whole structure began to rock. Of course Zoya noticed his agitation, but she didn’t acknowledge it.

The surface slowly slid out from under their feet. The wooden platform ended, and next came bushes and a tree with a rubber sandal on top. Roofs and yards. Flying over the yards was most interesting of all: people were hanging out laundry, playing dominos, and punishing children. They were repairing a car, a tiny Zaporozhets that stood on wooden trestles. Carefully, finger by finger, wiping their hands with rags, walking off to the side, and pensively looking at the car. Life was showing itself in all its diversity.

Solovyov took Zoya’s hand and experienced a persistent sense of déjà vu. At one time he had loved recognizing the past in the present. He saw that almost as a historian’s destiny. Later, influenced by Prof. Nikolsky, he rid himself of that unidirectional view of things after learning to recognize the present in the past, too. ‘Contrary to popular notions,’ wrote Prof. Nikolsky, ‘time is a two-way street. It is also possible that there is no traffic at all. One should not think tha…’ Solovyov looked again at the roofs below. Chagall, well, of course. His painting reflected them.

As they floated over what was formerly Autskaya Street, Zoya swung her feet (this, it belatedly struck Solovyov, was how sandals ended up in trees). There was something childlike in the smoothness of the skin on her legs. But they were adult, purely feminine, and arousing at the same time. Trolleybus rods slid along wires right under their seat. The trolleybus roof proved to be unexpectedly large and peeling. Not resembling something intended to be streamlined. Some things are not usually seen from above.

Solovyov felt some inner nervousness when he jumped down, but he did not lose face. A view of a strange structure with columns unfolded at the spot where they touched down. It might have been considered a cult building if not for its particular resort-area monumentalism, something that is an integral part of southern Soviet cities. It is possible this was a Soviet cult: Solovyov imagined himself and his traveling companion as Komsomol members. Elder comrades were bringing two young creatures to mysterious communist spirits in sacrifice. Against the backdrop of the sea. The hair of those in attendance flopped dramatically in the wind. Solovyov wanted to have Zoya amid these columns, but made no signal. It was enough for him to acknowledge that she would have agreed, without a second thought.

The peak where they now found themselves was no longer truly Yalta. Solovyov walked along a path in the woods, lagging a little behind Zoya. He liked watching her. Zoya knew this and made no attempt to slow her pace. He repeated to himself for the hundredth time that this lithe young woman was his, and for the hundredth time this gave him a feeling of delight.

The forest grew thicker, but they were not alone there. Branches cracked here and there, multicolored T-shirts flashed, and people called out to one another. Not being alone gave Solovyov particular pleasure, too. Those accompanying them (they had gathered from throughout the area, purposely) saw Zoya’s litheness. Perhaps they sensed her spiritedness. But only he (only he!) truly knew her liana-like qualities that drove one insane. Even the first sensations he had experienced with Leeza (Solovyov compared everything that happened afterwards with those sensations) now seemed adolescent and silly to him. It felt awkward to even recall Leeza now. Awkward not because of Leeza (her chances were minimal by comparison with Zoya) but because of himself, who had drawn her into such an unfavorable comparison. He tried to push Leeza out of his consciousness, as one might gently push away a grandmother who had wandered into a party raging in the living room. A minute later, he truly had forgotten about her.

They crossed a paved road during their walk downhill. They walked past small yards overgrown with grape vines. These yards were even smaller than the one where Solovyov was housed. They were enclosed by headboards, steam heat radiators, prams, and even the doors of a microbus—a Playboy bunny blushed saucily on one of those doors. Judging from the inscription below it, the car had some connection to St. Pauli, Hamburg’s entertainment quarter. Solovyov thought about how objects’ fates are sometimes more interesting than humans’. What had that bunny seen in its previous life? A light Hamburg rain? Street musicians, asphalt glistening with lights from strip bars, pushy barkers, prostitutes in uniform orange overalls (that arouses), paupers with dogs, and English sailors waddling along the whole breadth of the street? Who had the bunny driven around St. Pauli? That, in essence, was not important. The bunny’s innocence had been returned to it here, in the quarter where the door now resided. Children were playing in a sandbox. It was just a bunny to the new family. Nobody was interested in its past.

The enclosure, which was entwined with vines, acquired an artistic unity. And the aesthetic of a poor but honest seaside existence that gratefully accepted everything, saved everything, and did not permit itself to squander headboards. Solovyov peered into one of the little yards. He saw a family lunching under an awning. A woman dishing boiled potatoes onto plates. A man with a lucid face who had already dispensed the 150 grams of vodka he was ready to swallow. A child on a tricycle. A southern bird unknown to Solovyov that was swinging on a cypress branch and singing, non-stop.

Zoya stood at a distance and waited patiently. Her friend was absorbed by the same romanticism that had become the essence of her everyday life, even as a child, something for which she had another word: poverty. Zoya was thinking she knew a seamy side of that romanticism but Solovyov did not. That was not the case. Solovyov pictured life in these small worlds very well. He himself had grown up in one of them. He was not seeking unfamiliar sensations. He saw in those small yards a reflection of his childhood.

They came home (to Solovyov’s) toward evening. At Zoya’s insistence, they stopped at the market on the way back and bought some meat and vegetables. Now Zoya was sautéing meat. Solovyov inhaled its aroma and thought about how long it had been since he had eaten home-cooked food. Pressing against Zoya from behind and resting his chin on her shoulder, he watched as neat pieces of pork browned all over, sizzling and spattering grease. Zoya had intended to fix something else after cutting vegetables for salad, but Solovyov took the tireless young woman in his arms and carried her into the other room. The young man feared he would not survive yet another of her merits.

They washed down the meat with wine diluted with cold mineral water. It tasted delicious. The wine had ceased being nectar and its thick crimson color turned a bright pink, but the wine’s flavor now felt more refined. Then Zoya made coffee. She said that they needed to be in excellent form tonight.

‘Why?’ asked Solovyov.

‘Because today we’re going to search for the end of the general’s memoirs. I know where it might be.’

Solovyov looked closely at Zoya. She knew. A wasp flew in the window and flew right back out after uncertainly circling over the table. Solovyov did not break the extended silence and did not ask where they were going. That would only have consolidated the strange hegemony that Zoya had begun to establish over him. Let her say it herself if she wanted.

Zoya washed the dishes and then began getting ready. She opened the bag she had brought over the day before; something inside clanged like it meant business.

‘Here, you carry this.’

Performing the search in the evening did not trouble her in any obvious way. Though (Solovyov cast a glance at the mysterious bag) what time could be considered ‘natural’ for this sort of search?

They left the house at around eight. They took a trolleybus to the bus station then transferred to a small shuttle van. It scrambled up a winding mountain road with a roar that was unexpected for a small vehicle, then ended up on a highway running parallel to the sea. An evening coolness was already apparent here. One of the passengers slammed shut a roof hatch. The only open window was next to Solovyov but he had no intention of closing it. He stuck his elbow out, enjoying the cooling Crimean breeze.

The vehicle stopped at settlements and guest houses. The passengers lowered their heads exaggeratedly as they got out so as not to hit them on the door frame. Nobody boarded. When the vehicle stopped in the forest, there was nobody left but Zoya and Solovyov.

‘Alupka Park,’ said the driver. ‘Last stop.’ As he watched the couple make their way along the little road and stretch their numbed legs, he added, ‘Last van’s at 10:30.’

‘Thanks,’ Zoya said, turning. ‘We’ll be leaving on the other side.’

The vehicle turned around right there, on the park’s tree-lined alley. A minute later its engine fell silent behind the trees. In the engine’s slow, dying sound there rang something of farewell and additionally, perhaps, something alarming. What Solovyov was experiencing was not fear in the usual sense. It was the uneasy feeling of one who turns out to have bought a one-way ticket. To a huge, drowsy park. With an eccentric traveling companion. With a heavy bag holding unknown contents.

‘Count Vorontsov’s Hungarian lover lived with him.’

A pause. Solovyov was already starting to get used to Zoya’s habit of omitting all manner of prefatory discussion. Zoya thought it was up to her conversation partner to connect the links of the chain that led her to make some statement or other. More accurately put, she did not think about this. She had not even contemplated it.

‘Vorontsov was old and she acquired yet another lover.

A young cornet… This Lebanese cedar.’ Zoya walked over to a sprawling tree and stroked its unembraceable trunk. ‘Everything here was planted at Vorontsov’s order.’

The Lebanese cedar tree’s bark consisted of what looked like large tiles that had just recently been glued on. Ants that were just as large ran along them. A squirrel sat about two meters from Zoya’s hand. Its reddish-brown coat blended with the tree trunk, making the squirrel almost undetectable. Its arched tail quivered now and then. The squirrel did not run away, staying in place by force of will.

‘One time Vorontsov caught them in bed together,’ said Zoya, now addressing only the squirrel. ‘When the cornet ran out of the bedroom, covered in a sheet…’

Zoya ripped her hand from the tree trunk and the squirrel jumped right off, onto the grass. It sat there for an instant, as if deliberating on what it had heard. Solovyov beckoned to it, motioning with his fingers.

‘Have you noticed that squirrels are twitchy?’

He drew a little closer but the animal hid behind the nearest cedar, following the cornet’s example.

‘The Hungarian woman thought Vorontsov would shoot her right then,’ said Zoya, her gaze taking on a rigidity. ‘She knew his temperament. But he rang the bell and told the servant, “Wash madam and change the linens.”’

Zoya walked right up to Solovyov and hissed into his lips, ‘She de-tes-ted him from that day on.’

Zoya stood so close that it was impossible not to kiss her. It was a long, exhausting kiss, filled with gratitude for the information about Vorontsov.

Walking past a pond with swans, they ended up at Big Chaos, a majestic heap of stones brought here at Vorontsov’s order. Zoya began jumping from boulder to boulder, climbing higher and higher. Solovyov reluctantly followed her. He painstakingly assessed each jump but his foot slipped several times. Stubborn, he did not ask Zoya about today’s plans. Her silence and this ridiculous moving around on the rocks was beginning to irritate him. Zoya stopped when the gently sloping ascent ended. Continuing to climb up would have been insanity. It even seemed so to Zoya.

They sat down on one of the rocks. The sun had disappeared behind the trees long ago but the rock was warm, almost hot. There was not a soul around. Sitting on the rock in such a strange place, set against the thickening dusk, Solovyov felt like he had gone astray. Having a girlfriend had not made things easier. More likely the opposite.

It was almost dark when they began climbing down. Zoya took a flashlight from the bag she had handed to Solovyov and directed its light at the closest boulders. Solovyov, whose eyes had already begun to grow accustomed to the dark, finally lost his orientation. The flashlight distorted the form of the rocks. The angle of the light made barely noticeable indentations seem to be huge hollows, but Zoya’s beam completely ignored real crevices between the rocks. Fantastical shadow play intensified all that: Zoya waved the flashlight from time to time as she showed Solovyov the way. Solovyov held on to the bag, which was swinging on his shoulder; he did not much believe they could descend safely. He was completely wet when they finally made it down.

The flashlight proved far more useful below. It revealed trees that had sprouted up suddenly (they had not been there an hour ago), roots snaking along the paths, as well as boulders the tireless Vorontsov had scattered here and there. Zoya’s flashlight accentuated a bronze plaque on one of the boulders, drawing it out of the dark. The boulder was a memorial stone for Vorontsov’s dog. A minute later they saw its ghost. An indeterminate four-legged creature stood about ten meters away, where the flashlight just barely reached. Its infernal gaze reflected the remnants of Zoya’s light. Judging from its height, the animal might even have been a cat.

Solovyov had figured out long ago where they were going. Maybe he had already figured it out when Zoya first mentioned continuing the search. In reality, there was not much need for imagination here since they had examined everything thoroughly in Taras’s room. If there was anything more to search for, to add to what they had found (where, other than at home, might this kind of person store something?), then only his workplace remained. Lighted by the moon that had risen, Taras’s workplace revealed itself in all its oriental majesty. It was the Vorontsov Palace, seen from below.

The seekers of the manuscript climbed over a fence and ascended toward the centaur-like palace. They turned a corner and found themselves in the English part of the grounds, which Solovyov particularly liked. He had never been here, ever, but even at night he found his bearings with ease on this small street leading toward the main entrance. A good half of Soviet historical films had been shot on this narrow expanse. Solovyov felt a little like d’Artagnan. As a person with a European way of thinking, he would have preferred to come into the palace from this side.

Zoya saw matters differently. After showing Solovyov the palace from all sides (as the museum employee saw things, there should be a tour even if there would be a break-in), she led him to a Moorish façade that looked out on the sea. A wire stretched along a wall to the left of a mosaic arch that gleamed in the moonlight. Zoya took a penknife from her pocket and cut it.

‘Alarm system?’ Solovyov whispered.

Zoya nodded silently. They walked several meters along the western wing and stopped by a glass door, where Zoya asked Solovyov to take off the bag. Solovyov suddenly felt completely calm; his initial fear had subsided. These goings-on had obviously stepped outside the bounds of reality. Using the flashlight, Zoya took out two objects, only one of which Solovyov recognized: a glass cutter. Zoya did not begin with that, though. She took the second object (three rubber circles, arranged in a triangle), placed it against the glass, pulled some sort of lever, and the contraption remained, hanging on the window. It had suction cups.

Then came the glass cutter’s turn. Zoya used it to trace an oval around the suction cups stuck to the glass. As Solovyov observed the Chekhov specialist’s dexterousness in wielding the glass cutter, it occurred to him that in the event of their capture, the clause about break-ins with previous concert would not apply to them: there was no previous concert between him and Zoya. She had not uttered a word about her plans. And he had not asked her anything.

Zoya used the handle of the glass cutter to knock lightly on the glass a few times. Then, grabbing the suction cups, she noiselessly removed the oval traced on the glass and handed it to Solovyov. Thrusting her hand into the opening that had formed, she flicked a latch from inside. The door opened.

Zoya took the suction cup device from Solovyov’s hands, placed it on the ground, and unstuck it from the glass oval. The suction cups were returned to the bag with a clang. Of everything that had happened, what struck Solovyov most was probably Zoya’s composure. She was first to enter Vorontsov’s kingdom.

Zoya found her bearings flawlessly in the deceased count’s palace, even with the flashlight switched off. She took Solovyov’s hand and led him through several rooms where all he could see (this was a strange tour) were several gleaming vases and the fire alarm system’s lifeless flashing. Darkness intensified the sound: the creak of a floor, the squeak of door hinges, and even—this was right by Solovyov’s ear—the bag chafing on his shoulder.

They ended up in the staff area. Solovyov figured that out from the size of the rooms and, most importantly, the windows. They stopped in one of the rooms. Zoya squeezed Solovyov’s hand and froze. The light came on suddenly. After his eyes adjusted to the light, Solovyov saw they were standing by a wall. Zoya’s free hand was lying on the switch. She was smiling.

‘This is Taras’s room.’

The space was tiny. A window covered in metal shutters. Shelf hanging on the wall, heaped with some sort of electronic odds and ends. Chair. Desk. Zoya’s photograph on the desk.

‘I’m sure he’s in love with you.’

A steamship’s whistle sounded from somewhere far away, as if from another world.

‘He loves me.’ Zoya turned the photograph upside down.

‘Is it really possible not to love me?’

She turned the chair and sat, straddling it, then pulled out the desk’s side drawers, one after another. They were all empty. They were all noisily sent back. The desk’s middle drawer turned out to be filled with papers. Zoya pulled out an armload, carelessly dumping them on the floor. Taras’s papers slid into a formless mass, surrounding a chair leg. Solovyov crouched beside it. Zoya plucked a plastic folder out of the papers before he’d managed to examine what was lying there.

‘That’s it!’

Zoya’s mother’s hand, familiar to Solovyov, was visible through the transparent folder. Zoya offered her cheek and tapped it with her finger.

‘Clever girl,’ said Solovyov, kissing Zoya.

They crammed the other papers into the drawer. At first it would not close, so Solovyov had to pull the papers back out and stack them in a compact bundle on the table. Zoya seemed to ponder something before turning out the light.

‘Want to make love in Vorontsov’s bedroom?’

The light went out. Depth and resonance had been restored to the silence. Solovyov felt Zoya’s hand on his belt.

‘Are you sure you want that?’

The hand pulled lightly at his belt. It was a gesture of disappointment. The selfless female accomplice’s terse oh, you. And Solovyov understood that. But he truly did not feel like it. A sense of danger suppressed other instincts in him. Unlike in Zoya. She was constructed the exact opposite way.

They walked through several rooms without turning on the flashlight (Solovyov thought they were not walking the same way as when they arrived), then stopped in one of the rooms. Solovyov’s knee bumped into something soft. A bed. A canopy hung over it like a formless blot.

‘Are you planning to screw me here or not?’

The echo of Zoya’s question resounded through all the palace’s chambers and returned to the bedroom, where it flung Solovyov on the bed with a quick push to the shoulder. He froze as he sank into Vorontsov’s feather bed. Zoya descended upon him the next second. Despite his light shock, Solovyov noted that she had managed to undress. She was so worked up that she had not managed to pull off his clothes (come on, why are you acting like a corpse!?) All that remained for Solovyov was to give in. His jeans were lowered. Zoya was convinced that the corpse comparison was unjustified.

Solovyov had never experienced anything like this before. Even yesterday night, which had seemed so absolutely stupendous, faded. He felt the silk of the palace bedspread with his buttocks as he saw Zoya’s profile dancing against the background of the enormous canopy. Maybe it was actually the canopy, not Zoya, that lent his senses a keenness he had not known before. Such intimate relations with the past aroused him as a researcher. At that instant, he did not feel like history’s guest. He was a small but integral part of it. His merging with Zoya seemed to him like a merging with the past. Which had become accessible and discernible and had undressed before him. This was the orgasm of a true historian.

Zoya was lying on Vorontsov’s vast bed with her arms spread wide. Her breathing was almost back to normal but her heart (Solovyov laid his head on her chest) was still pounding rapidly and resonantly. Creaking floorboards sounded in the doorway.

‘Did you hear that?’ whispered Solovyov.

She did not stir. The creak repeated and Solovyov squeezed Zoya’s hand.

‘I think it’s Vorontsov’s ghost,’ Zoya said without lowering her voice. ‘No big deal. Anyway, we did his favorite thing.’

She lurched and sat up on the bed.

‘It’s time.’

Solovyov heard the slapping of bare feet and the rustle of clothing being donned. He fastened his belt and stood, too. He was experiencing a pleasant weakness and a lack of desire to move. The task of leaving unnoticed, which is important for any burglar in his right mind, now seemed of little significance to him.

‘It’s too early to relax,’ said Zoya.

She noticed his apathy. Zoya handed him the bag and again led him through the dark rooms. How did she know this palace so well? They ended up in the same place they had entered. From here they could see the sea and the moon’s path on the water. Little lights of different colors were blinking in the corner of the room.

‘That’s strange,’ Zoya muttered, ‘I shut off the alarm system. Why is it lit here?’

‘The door’s open anyway. We can leave.’

‘We can, of course…’

Without saying a word, Zoya approached the blinking panel and tugged a long switch.

In the first seconds, Solovyov did not even realize it was a siren. The noise was deafening. It came out of nowhere, out of utter quiet. In terms of strength, this noise could only be compared with silence. This noise was the converse of quiet: like all opposites, they possessed common characteristics. Crimea’s entire southern coast was being notified of the trespassers at the palace.

Zoya grabbed him by the hand and they set off running. Solovyov turned by one of the famous Vorontsov lions. Inside the palace, lights went on one after another, almost like in the movies. There was nothing Solovyov wanted more at that moment than to turn into a stone lion and greet, calmly dignified (his paw on a sphere), the police, dogs, and volunteers who would come running. To greet everyone who would set off to defend the deceased count’s property. Following Zoya, he leaped lightly onto a metal fence. His foot caught on something as he was jumping down and he rolled below, along the incline. Stones dug at him, roots caught at him. Zoya’s bag with the break-in tools and the general’s manuscript hit his face and chest. He stopped in some kind of bushes. Which, to top things off, scratched him very painfully.

‘Still in one piece?’ asked Zoya.

Zoya’s silhouette was still spinning but the alarm was no longer sounding. Why had she turned it on? Why had they run below where there was nothing but the sea, where they would be much easier to catch? It would have been better to make their way upward, to the highway. At least they could have hailed a car there. Solovyov was jogtrotting obediently behind Zoya. She was in high spirits despite the circumstances. Pointing out, in a chipper voice, where to turn. She jumped off the parapets with a happy whoop. Why was she so elated?

They made their way to an open patch of ground over the sea. There was a strong wind blowing here that had not been noticeable in the park. Waves were rolling over huge boulders that formed something like a bay. Tatters of foam looked rather sinister in the moonlight.

‘It’s Vorontsov’s bathing area,’ Zoya said, gesturing below. ‘There should be a boat somewhere among those rocks.’

They went down some steps and began walking to the left, along the rocks. There really was a boat between two boulders. Ten meters from the boat, waves slapped heavily at the rocks from the outside of the barrier, slipping off them with an offended grunt. Back in his adolescence, Solovyov had learned from books that landing is the most dangerous thing for shipwreck survivors. Or casting off, like now. A wave tosses a lifeboat against the crags and smashes it to bits. The end.

Solovyov left the bag on shore and jumped onto the boulder nearest the boat. He still vaguely hoped there would be no oars in the boat. No, they lay on the bottom. Solovyov caught the mooring clamp and leaned over the water.

‘The boat’s on a chain,’ he said, almost festively, ‘with a lock.’

Zoya took a hammer and chisel out of the bag and silently extended them to Solovyov. His companion’s power of foresight astounded Solovyov almost more than the surf. He dragged part of the chain onto the rock, chose one of the links, and struck it with all the power of his desperation. He wound up and struck again. His strikes at the chain brought sparks from the rock but moved him no closer to his goal. The goods were solid. One time, Solovyov missed the chisel with the hammer and struck himself very painfully on the knuckle. He bit his lip and tolerated the pain in silence, but Zoya, who was sitting alongside him, apparently saw it all. It even looked to him like she was smiling. A piece of the chain finally fell from the rock with a jingle. They could (could!) set sail.

After sitting at the oars, Solovyov held out his hand to Zoya but she jumped into the boat herself. The boat swayed and floated away from the rock it had been chained to. Zoya sat at the stern. Solovyov meekly rowed toward a supposed exit from the bathing area.

‘Not there!’

Zoya showed him two small crags. There was no longer any water between them, only foam. But this was where the boat passed through. The water had no set direction in that spot. There were no dangers hiding underwater here. Solovyov was able to row out of the bathing area and get a safe distance away. Only then did he dare raise his head. The shore they had left was calm and no visible signs of pursuit could be observed. The open ground that loomed over the bathing area was empty. The Vorontsov palace stood out on the mountain like a gleaming rectangle.

Solovyov relaxed too early. He realized when he saw the boat’s stern in the air that they were on the crest of a wave.

‘Head into the wave!’ Zoya commanded ‘Row right! Right again!’

The boat handled poorly. It seemed cumbersome and unwieldy to Solovyov, and too big for one rower (why had Zoya not once offered to row with him?). On the other hand, he sensed all the boat’s fragility and insignificance in comparison with the night waves. After adapting to this, he began rowing more evenly. Solovyov’s motions were no longer spasmodic, and the oars rowed ever less frequently at the air. They went along the shore, roughly one hundred meters away. They met the waves head-first. They aligned the boat on its primary course.

About an hour and a half later, Solovyov felt like he had rowed his hands raw. Zoya gave him her handkerchief and he wrapped one hand with it. He used his own T-shirt for the other hand. Solovyov was tired, too. He had used a lot of unnecessary motion in the beginning but now that his rowing might be considered exemplary, he had very little strength left. He tried to alternate, rowing two different ways. Moving the oars with only his arms allowed him to rest his back. And, conversely, he could leave his arms motionless and push the boat forward by moving his back. This helped, but not significantly.

Solovyov rested during the intervals between large waves. He had started to feel nauseous from exhaustion and rocking. He felt like lying down in the bottom of the boat—just as cadet Larionov had once felt like lying down in the bottom of a trench—and enjoying the repose. He was so worn out that the sea’s choppiness no longer evoked his fear. Zoya’s presence was all that prevented him from lying down.

‘I have no more strength,’ Solovyov finally said.

They landed on some sort of beach. Even after the front of the boat had knocked into the pebbles, Solovyov still could not believe this was the end of their sail. He sat, bent, with his hands on the oars, and could not find the strength within to go ashore. With Zoya’s help—he was no longer shy of his condition—he jumped heavily over the side and took a few strides through the surf.

Zoya attempted to push the boat away from the shore but it came right back. She took the boat by the remnants of the chain and led it to the breakwater. The current was different there. Rocking forlornly by the concrete wall, the boat began slowly drifting toward the open sea.

There were lounge chairs visible under a beach awning. Without saying a word, Solovyov wandered to the closest chair. He was out like a light before he had a chance to collapse onto it.

The beach caretaker woke them up in the morning. He shook Solovyov by the shoulder and told someone (Zoya?) that vacationers would be coming here after breakfast at the guesthouse.

‘What guesthouse?’ Solovyov asked in a silent whisper.

He pulled his T-shirt, with brown spots from his bloody palms, out from under his head.

‘Blue Wave,’ said the caretaker.

Zoya was sitting on the next lounge chair, hugging her knees. Solovyov went to the water and rinsed off.

About fifteen minutes later, they were already on the highway, where they boarded a shuttle van to Yalta. Solovyov fell asleep right away when he got home and slept until evening. When he woke up, he could not believe what had happened during the night. On his first attempt to get out of bed, he realized it was all true. He got up on the second attempt.

His primary thought was about the text. Which had been procured with such difficulty and which he had never even glanced at. From the bag with the break-in tools he extracted a crumpled plastic folder, pierced in ten places. The papers inside were in a lamentable state.

That was not his primary source of distress, though. There were only three sheets of paper. They contained a detailed explanation of what comprised the unseemly behavior of Baroness von Kruger, who had dinner at The Bear restaurant with her four former husbands. All the baroness’s husbands turned out to be officers. The general’s relative was uncommonly consistent in her passions. Detailed descriptions were made of the husbands, down to their military ranks and places of service. In the general’s final edits to the text, there were notes in the margin with the years of death and places of interment (they were buried in various locations) for each of the participants at the infamous luncheon. In touching briefly on the menu, the general highlighted in particular that there were oysters and—naturally—oyster knives on the table. ‘Do officers of today’s army,’ the general asked rhetorically, ‘know what an oyster knife is?’ The general offered no answer in the initial text, but gave one in the margins of the final version: ‘No.’

The text they had discovered said nothing about other events. There was no need to assume a possible continuation of the memoirs. The text ended in the middle of the page, under which there was a date (13/07/74) and the laconic ‘Dictated by me. Gen. Larionov.’ What had compelled Taras to keep these three particular sheets of paper at work? Perhaps that was the most enigmatic aspect of the whole matter.