Chapter 6
F – Far-away Settlement of Emar
…Recalled the happy times being students, when we went hiking along the area, sang with a guitar beside the fire, fed mosquitoes and roasted on the sun like savages on the sand of Yemar Bay, which was called Yumora, unlike Shamora or Feldgauzen Bay…
(The city on Muraviev Amursky’s peninsula
by V.K.Karinberg)
…Now, Christina lived looking forward for Valerka’s vacations. She was dreaming about summer. She dreamed how they would go for a holiday somewhere to Shamora, or to the Three Little Pigs Bay or to Yemar, simply called Humora – vibrant beaches in Shamora and Humora Bays, the legacy of the Japanese staying in Primorye…
(When you call me by V.V.Turenko)
Tonight Mira was killed.
Or not Mira. You must agree, when someone is killed next door of your hotel room, you can’t help recalling the events of the last criminal chronicles on television or the recently read detective. And I’ve heard so much over the past few days that, as Carthage must be destroyed, Mira must be killed, that I haven’t been particularly impressed with the doctors were scurrying back and forth along the corridors, people in uniform and frightened Chinese, who stuck their heads out of their rooms, attracted by noise.
To be honest, I even expected something like this. Woken up in the middle of the night, got nervous and smoked in the window, as promised in my last epistle to Marina. All the windows were wide open, staring with teary windows at the Amur Bay where the cold and otherworldly evil was coming. The ink sea proved to be infernal, promising. I smoked and waited for some small earthquake, something that would break the silence.
Time stopped. My watch does not have a second hand, so I could not see it with my own eyes, but I counted the seconds. At last I heard this damn popping sound. It broke the silence.
I was able to exhale, the forces of evil retreated, the sea boiled with waves, the mobile phone’s display blinked. Mira was killed next door from me. Or someone else. Do not ask me to describe the deafening firefight – at first it seemed as if a heavy book fell on the floor in the next room. «Walls made of cardboard,» this was my first thought, not aware of the coming chaos. I grinded out my fourth cigarette and went to bed.
With respect to the detective genre, I was awakened by a deafening cry of the maid in the morning. After half an hour several dozens of feet were stumbling along the corridor. Officers of the law also looked at me to ask if I had noticed something suspicious at night. Oh, yes, Comrade Senior Lieutenant, what about the ocean standing still for a few minutes?! I tried to convey this to the other person, demonstrating porsh pretzels in the air with my fingers and silently opening my mouth, like a fish grabbing air bubbles. «Ah, he is a deaf mute,» man in uniform waved his hand at me. Deaf mute person brought more benefits than mute in my case. You could pretend to be a dummy as much as you like, and it should work in this situation. I was stuck to the door eye for a good half an hour.
The Chinese chattered fearfully. The prosecutor’s office and police ransacked the ill-fated room 912 for evidence and other interesting things. Finally, the doctors took away the stretcher with a cold corpse from the guest house, which was my neighbor or female neighbor just yesterday. Having put on the face either the expression of madness or foolishness, worthy Yushka (hello, Platonov!), I looked out into the corridor.
For a split second, I was immediately shown two proofs of my spurious theory. First, the female arm hung down out of the cellophane film, which the doctors wrapped the body in, and helplessly waved in the air as the stretcher moved. Hence, it was just a female neighbor. Secondly, the film covered only the face of the victim, but not the entire head. Why it happened, I didn’t not know, but I could only say that I saw a strand of tangled and wrinkled red hair. I put my own life at stake that it was Mira! No one else should be there. And it was more prudent for me to return to my room and wait for a happy moment.
Getting down on the carpet, I picked up the harmonica which Mira gave to Anya a thousand years ago. Coming back to the city, I managed almost immediately to clean the instrument from rust and discover the inscription engraved on it: «Protège Anne du silence des bois»15. I fixed the harmonica next to Marina’s long-time gift to me, echoing almost synchronously: «I’ll save Ajax from Poseidon’s trident».
I am also, of course, part of the entire web of story lines. At least, for this reason I can declare that the killed one was called Mira and that this is Mira coming out of our stories. Yes, yes, ours, because I have already copied most of them from the record to the notebook. And this means that my Mira was killed last night; I had a premonition, got out of bed and smoked a few cigarettes. Even the sea held its breath, intrigued by the fact whether Mira would be finished or not. I got into someone else’s story, sorting out mess created by someone else and trying at the same time to be a know-it-all. But somehow, according to unknown mystical laws, the voice recorder turned out to be just at my place. What will I get next?
Bible. Book of books.
…I’m a foolish Yushka, with an unbuttoned and twisted collar, with my eyes clapping and saliva splashing out from blissfully smiling corners of my mouth, a harmless deaf mute jerk, who went out to the corridor again few hours later taking rubber gloves with me.
«The room is sealed.» But there’s nobody inside. And there is nobody on the floor. No newcomer pulls his belongings on wheels, no guest goes out to make his noodles in a cup. Let the surf outside the window quiten down again and let me slip away unnoticed. And if I pop out noticeable – so what, this dumb disabled person has just mixed up the numbers and got the wrong door, you see? Is it possible to blame a flawed person, whom nature dealt short, for such a misbehavior or bring him into custody?
There was nothing left in room 912. I kept looking in vain for red hair on the pillow. I vainly moved the furniture, fearing to tear gloves and leave prints for hypothetical fingerprint identification. I found nothing to go on, anything that even more grotesque theories of total involvement could be developed. Finally, I remembered about the warm winter blanket, which was stored on the top shelf of the wardrobe in every room of the hotel, and then I had finally some luck. I grabbed a heavy Bible in a strict black cover out of the depth of the wardrobe. Perhaps, the Holy Scripture was of no interest to the law enforcement bodies. Unlike me, who instantly caught the importance of the printed text and got even more frightened.
What was hidden under the blue-black leather binding with the golden cross in the middle? No, there were no letters or diaries (even though let it be considered my prerogative). So what did I discover by opening such a great book? Only letters and lines. Such as, for example: «Au commencement, Dieu cré le ciel et la terre.»16 That’s right, heaven and earth. Then the Lord was ready to create the blessed city of Vladivostok on the shore of the Sea of Japan. And how many women lived in this city during the hot June in that year? Approximately half the population. Whom of these women wear long red hair? Two-thirds are crossed out immediately. Finally, who of them speak French? Who is capable to read the Bible and make inscriptions on a harmonica? And now, let someone try to prove to me that the murdered one was not Mira!..
My speculations were interrupted by someone’s uninvited footsteps, approaching the door of the room 912. My heart began to pound. Of course, I instantly climbed under the bed and figured out from there what I would tell the sign language interpreter in the nearest