“Mom, what’s today’s date?”
“The twenty-fourth. Why?”
“But yesterday was the twenty-fourth!”
“Yesterday was the twenty-third. It always happens on vacation—the dates get all mixed up, days of the week slide by …”
They came down into the courtyard, into the windless and fragrant white-as-milk morning. The “peacock” trees stood still like two pink mountains covered with apricots. A happy multitude of beachgoers poured down the Street That Leads to the Sea. Sasha walked on, more or less convinced it was yet another dream. A young married couple stood by the kiosk studying the routes and prices. Their little boy—bubble-gum-filled mouth, knees painted by disinfectant—was trying on scuba-diving goggles. The dark man was nowhere in sight, but she still felt the presence of a dream.
Sasha and her mother bought a few ears of corn. Sasha held the warm corn while her mother pulled their beach chair out of the hut and placed it on the rocks. The soft yellow ear of corn tasted salty, delicate kernels melted on their tongues. Sasha placed the trash into a plastic bag and carried it to the bin near the beach entrance.
The dark man stood far away, in the midst of the crowd. Even in the distance, though, he looked only at Sasha through the impenetrable glasses.
“I want it to be a dream,” she said out loud.
She woke up in bed.
“Mom, let’s go home today.”
Shocked, her mother nearly dropped a plate.
“What? Where?”
“Home.”
“But you were so anxious to get to the beach … Don’t you like it here?”
“I just want to go home.”
Mom touched Sasha’s forehead to check for fever.
“Are you serious? Why?”
Sasha shrugged.
“Our tickets are for the second,” said Mom. “I had to reserve it a month in advance. And this place is all paid until the second. Sasha, I don’t get it, you were so happy.”
She looked so confused, so upset and helpless, that Sasha felt ashamed.
“Never mind,” she mumbled. “It’s just … nothing.”
They came down into the courtyard. The “peacock” trees spread their scent over the sandbox and benches, over somebody’s old car. Down the Street That Leads to the Sea the beachgoers marched heavily, carrying their inflatable devices. The tranquil, scorching, unhurried summer morning of the twenty-fourth of July continued.
The tourist booth was deserted. At a nearby café, under the sickly palms, a group of teenagers drank beer and argued over their next trip. All of them were tanned and long-legged, both boys and girls. All wore shorts. All carried half-full backpacks. Sasha wanted to leave with them. She wanted to throw on a backpack, lace up a pair of sneakers, and hitch rides along the dusty Crimean roads.
Sasha and her mother walked by the teenagers. They bought some pies, placed their beach chair on the rocks, and sat on it sideways. The sea was a little choppy, the red buoy jumped in the waves, and water scooters’ motors sputtered in the distance. Sasha chewed her pie, not really tasting it. Perhaps everything will turn out fine, and the dark man will never appear again, and tomorrow will finally be the twenty-fifth of July?
After lunch, Mom lay down for a nap. The room felt stuffy, the sun leaning west shot right through the closed curtains that used to be green and were now sun-bleached into something vaguely pistachio-colored. The neighbors came home; they chatted happily in the kitchen, there was a sound of poured water and tinkling dishes. Sasha held a book in her lap, stared at the gray symbols, and understood nothing.
The metal alarm clock on the bedside table ticked deafeningly, counting seconds.
“So, shall we talk, Sasha?”
Evening. Mom leaned on the balustrade, chatting with a man of about forty, fair-haired and pale, clearly a new arrival. Mom smiled, and her cheeks dimpled. It was a special smile. Sasha was used to a different one from her mother.
Sasha was waiting on the bench under the acacia tree. A second ago the dark man sat down between her and a street artist at the other end of the bench. Even the southern twilight did not force him to lose his dark glasses. Sasha sensed his stare from beneath the black lenses. Out of complete darkness.
She could probably call for her mother. She could simply cry for help. She could tell herself it was just a dream. And it would be a dream. A never-ending dream. She needed the dream to end.
“What … What do you want from me?”
“I want to give you a task to perform. It’s not hard. I never ask for the impossible.”
“How … What does it have to …?”
“Here is the task. Every day, at four in the morning, you must go to the beach. You will undress, go into the water, swim one hundred meters, and touch the buoy. At four in the morning the beach is empty, there won’t be anyone to hide from.”
Sasha felt as if someone had hit her on the head. Was he crazy? Were they both crazy?
“What if I won’t do it? Why would I …?”
The black lenses hung in front of her like two black holes leading nowhere.
“You will, Sasha. You will. Because the world around you is very fragile. Every day people fall down, break their bones, die under the wheels of a car, drown, get hepatitis or tuberculosis. I really don’t want to tell you all this. But it is in your best interest to simply do everything I ask of you. It’s not complicated.”
Near the balustrade, Mom was laughing. She turned, waved, and said something to her companion—they may have been talking about her, about Sasha.
“Are you a pervert?” asked Sasha hopefully. A pervert she could understand.
The black glasses tilted.
“No. Let’s just settle this right away before we incapacitate ourselves here: you’re healthy, and I’m not a pervert. You have a choice: dangle forever between a scary dream and a real nightmare. Or you can pull yourself together, calmly perform the task that is asked of you, and continue living normally. You can say ‘This is a dream,’ and wake up again. And then we’ll meet once more, with certain variations. But why would you want to?”
People strolled along the boardwalk. Mom exclaimed: “Look! Dolphins!” and pointed toward the sea, her companion broke into a series of excited interjections, passersby stopped and looked for something in the blue cloth of the shore, and Sasha, too, saw the distant black bodies that looked like upside-down parentheses, flying over the sea and disappearing again.
“Do we have a deal, Sasha?”
Mom chatted, watching the dolphins, and her companion listened attentively, nodding. Mom’s teeth sparkled, her eyes shone, and Sasha suddenly saw how young she still was. And how—at that moment in time—happy.
“Tomorrow is your first official takeoff.” The dark man smiled. “But remember: every day, at four in the morning. Make sure you set the alarm. It’s crucial for you not to oversleep and not to be late. Try hard. Got it?”
Sasha tossed and turned on her cot, wide awake. The curtains were pushed aside, and the songs of nightingales and sounds of a distant disco music poured into the open window. At two in the morning, the music stopped.
A noisy gang walked by. The voices died down in the distance. Three motorbikes, one after another, roared by. A car alarm went off. Mom stirred, turned over, and fell back asleep.
At three in the morning, Sasha dozed