Under different circumstances, Mom would argue and start asking questions. But by now, Valentin must have already reserved their lounge chairs; Mom nodded, told Sasha not to dawdle, and walked down to the shore.
The asphalt had softened under the morning sun. The tires of passing cars and trucks pressed over a puddle of spilled motor oil and left fancy tracks on the road.
“My alarm did not go off,” Sasha said, not knowing what she was apologizing for, or to whom. “It fell …”
His eyes could not be seen through the dark glasses. The lenses reflected nothing, as if they were made of velvet. The dark man was silent.
“My alarm did not go off!”
Sasha burst into tears right there, on the street, from fear, from the unknown, from the emotional strain of the past few days. The passersby turned their heads, staring at the weeping girl. Sasha felt as if she’d dived deep into the sea and was watching a school of pale fish through a thick layer of water.
“It’s very bad, but not terrible,” the man in the dark glasses said finally. “As a matter of fact, it’s even good for you—it’ll teach you some discipline. The second such blunder will cost you a lot more, and don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
He turned and departed, leaving Sasha sobbing and vigorously shaking her head to all the questions from the sympathetic passersby. Hiding in a park alley—deserted at this hour—and pulling a handkerchief out of her bag, she was finally able to clean up her tears and snot. Still, she did not manage to calm herself down.
Her own dark sunglasses, the ones she’d had for over a year, with a thin frame, hid the redness of her eyes and her swollen lids. Pushing her hat low on her forehead, Sasha walked down the street, avoiding looking at people, keeping her eyes from the pavement. In front of her, a girl of about four stomped her red sandals on the ground, holding her mother’s hand.
An ambulance stood in front of the beach entrance. Sasha stopped, and her shoes stuck to the softened asphalt.
Almost immediately, she saw her mother. Mom wobbled on the gravel, a towel thrown over her shoulders, holding on to a stretcher. The very pale man lying on the stretcher vaguely resembled a cheerful, sanguine Valentin.
Sasha sat down on the balustrade.
The stretcher was loaded into the ambulance. The medic said something to Mom; she nodded several times and asked something in return. The medic shook his head and climbed into the ambulance. The ambulance beeped at the crowd, pulled back, reversed in a small parking lot in front of the hotel, and drove up the Street That Leads to the Sea.
His words echoed in her head.
“Very bad, but not terrible.”
“What happened to him, Mom?”
Mom turned around. Panic and grief swam in her eyes.
“Hospital Number Six,” she chanted, like an incantation. “I’m just … I need to change, and then I’ll go. It’s a heart attack, Sasha. A heart attack. Oh god, oh god …”
Like a blind person, she moved through the throng of intrigued beachgoers. Sasha watched for a second, and then followed.
Mom spent the night at the local hospital. Almost all of their cash went to the doctors and nurses, and Mom had to go to the post office and call one of her coworkers, who promised to wire them some more money. Sasha spent a sleepless night alone in their room. The alarm clock was no longer reliable.
At three in the morning she left the house. Somewhere the nightclubs were still going strong, and the cafés were still lit. Sasha walked down to the dark sea and sat down on the gravel at the water’s edge.
Far away, a ship appeared on the horizon. Cicadas shrieked in the gardens behind Sasha’s back. The sea licked the beach, stole tiny rocks and brought them back, polished them, rubbing together their surfaces. The sea had time. And patience enough for two.
At quarter to four, Sasha pulled off her clothes and stepped into the water, shivering. She swam, constantly looking back as if expecting a monster in dark glasses to rear its ugly head out of the waves.
She slapped the buoy and looked up at the sky: the sun was rising. She glanced into the depth of the sea and saw the barely distinguishable metal anchor chain.
She returned to the shore and, barely managing to throw a towel over her shoulders, doubled over retching. Five coins flew out one after another, leaving a sharp pain in her throat and diminishing spasms in her stomach. The coins rolled on the gravel, hiding between the rocks.
Mom came back in the afternoon, exhausted and very focused. Valentin felt better—it was not a heart attack, the ambulance had come quickly, and the patient was in no danger.
“Everything will be fine,” Mom repeated with an air of detachment. “I am so sleepy, Sasha, I can’t tell you how sleepy I am. If you want, go to the beach by yourself, I’m going to sleep.”
“How is he, anyway?” Sasha asked. “Should we send a telegram? To his relatives or whatever?”
“The relatives are here already,” Mom informed her with the same air of detachment. “His wife flew in from Moscow. Everything will be just fine. Just go now, please?”
His wife …
Sasha took her swimsuit off the balcony and left the apartment. She did not feel like going to the beach, so she strolled aimlessly around the park, meager and dusty, but still offering a minimum of shade.
“Very bad, but not terrible.”
Fear, stress, ruined vacation …
On the other hand, who is Valentin, anyway? Only a week ago he was simply Mom’s chance acquaintance. Of course, Mom seemed so happy, but their relationship was doomed from the beginning. It was just a summer fling, a beach affair …
Sasha sat down on a bench. Black acacia pods littered the narrow alley. Bitterness and resentment on behalf of her mother ate at Sasha like acid. A summer fling, such a cliché. What was he thinking? And why would he bother with a nice respectable woman, when he could have had any of those girls—a navel ring, jeans cut off right up to the butt cheeks.
“It would be better if he were dead,” Sasha thought glumly.
“Very bad, but not terrible.”
And Sasha did believe that something awful would happen to her mother; her premonition was tangible. From the first moment she saw the man in the dark glasses, fear had gripped her and held her in its fist, just like she herself held her gold coins. It would let go for a minute—only to squeeze again. “This will teach you some discipline.” That’s for sure. From now on she would get up without any alarm clocks, and always at half past three. Or maybe she just wouldn’t sleep at all. Because at the moment when she saw the ambulance in front of the main beach entrance, she’d had a feeling that all in the world was lost forever, all of it …
She took a deep breath. Tomorrow morning she would swim out to the buoy, and the day after tomorrow, right before their departure, she would do the same. And then she would return home and forget everything. School, routine, senior year of high school, college entrance exams …
She sat on the bench, staring at the handful of coins in her hands. Twenty-nine disks, with the same round symbol, with a zero on the reverse side. Heavy and small, their diameter was the same as the old Soviet kopecks.
On the train, Sasha spilled the coins on the floor.
She was lying on the top berth staring out the window. The pocket of her denim shorts must have been unbuttoned; the coins spilled out and rolled around the entire carriage, clanking joyfully on the floor. Sasha flew off her berth in a split second.
“Wow!” said a little girl from the compartment across from Sasha’s. “Look, money!”
Kneeling, Sasha gathered