Она не волновалась, не спешила и не думала, заставляла себя не думать, что будет… с тех пор как поняла, что всё равно без него жить не сможет, главное было уже сделано: она нашла профессора, который согласился её оперировать… это оказалось очень трудно. Очень. Один шанс из десяти… зато три сантиметра вверх… она посмотрела на солнце – тучка миновала, и не было в голове больше никаких пошлых слов вроде «всё будет хорошо».
«Удачное время, – только подумала она, – его неделю не будет… маме записку написала… вот и все дела…
Мама, мама… она мне всегда говорила: «Ирка, гляди: влюбишься и пропадёшь совсем. Ты вся в меня, вполовину жить не умеешь…". Мамочка, мама…».
Она подсунула пальцы под широкий ремень на груди, тряхнула плечом, поправляя сумку на спине, и это вернуло её назад – отбросило… и ступени впереди стали просто мокрыми, недаром люди так спокойно шли по ним, ничего не замечая. Она знала, с того момента, как поняла, что любит его, что сделает этот шаг – сделает. Сделает этот шаг – будь он верным или неверным – для неё единственно возможным.
Она на мгновение опустила веки, занесла ногу и наступила на небо… голубизна нарушилась. Отпечатались её мокрые следы – раз, два, три ступеньки… талая вода снова натекла, и небо отразилось в ней – всё стало как было… не всё ли равно ступеням, воде, небу, кто и зачем их потревожил…
Stepping into the blue
[Golubye stupeni]
She stopped suddenly, surprised to see that the top three steps looked a pale blue. She even threw a backward glance at the broad concrete staircase leading to the heavy oak doors of the old building – the steps behind her were the usual gray color, even darker today because they were wet. But now these – she turned forward again… Water was flowing over them from the plaza in front of the main entrance, covering the stairway like a carpet from the top down, and in this smooth streaming surface could be seen the reflection of the sky – a pale blue March sky, as if it too was flowing down from on high and turning everything pale blue.
Through the transparent surface could be seen potholes brimming with water, where the reflection was a little darker, and one could see the outlines of pebbles and grains of sand strewn by the concierge earlier that morning, as it had been quite slippery. But now the sun was melting the last deposits of snow on the roof, and the drops struck angrily against the plaza surface, muddying the lower part of the doors with their spray, and then the whole lot – the drops, the spray – ran down the steps, bringing the sky with them. A pale blue sky.
She stood there, her small tote-bag slung over her left shoulder, so that the hump-like deformity on the right side of her back was barely noticeable. She couldn’t bring herself to set foot on this shimmering pale blue surface. Feeling her heart thumping mightily, she was amazed to find herself still rooted to the spot, held against her will by this pale blue flood, as though drenched by it, brimming over with it, rejoicing in it and dumbfounded by it all at the same time. The people walking by were oblivious to the sky under their feet and trampled on it, shattering the image. But the sky behaved as it usually did after any kind of storm or clouds – it once again recovered its happy and pale blue self.
And all at once she became acutely aware that she might never see it again. Never see this sky! – she could not admit to herself that she would not be seeing it, or the one for whose sake she had come here. All at once nothing seemed to make sense to her – but she would not be seeing the sky.
She had lived on hope for so many years that neither she nor anyone else could destroy this hope in a flash. The thought «I shan’t be seeing this sky» was so much vaster and colder that somehow it didn’t seem to disturb her. While it was indeed a real possibility – that she wouldn’t see the sky, or walk beneath it, or fly through it, or breathe it in – all this was abstract. On the other hand, not to see him – this completely defied utterance, defied even formulation. Everything else she could take but that. Even the professor whose clinic she was now going to for the operation had not been able to change her mind. And here were these pale blue steps, this sky beneath her feet…
She realised, of course, that this image hadn’t presented itself to her sight simply by chance, and now she knew perfectly well that the professor was right, but this could no longer make any difference – even to the sky which had thrown itself at her feet across her path, which she now could not bring herself to set foot on. «All right, all right, just another moment, just a wee bit – and I’ll go on up, I’ll go through that door – nobody’s looking – I’m coming!»
One in ten – a slim chance, indeed – slim, yes, but for her that had long ceased to be significant, for without this operation she wouldn’t have any chance at all, not even one. Ever since she realized that she couldn’t – and wouldn’t – live without him, she hadn’t had any chances, not even one in ten.
When they were little they had gone to school together, right from the first grade, from day one. He was short too, even shorter than her by a wee bit, and the hump on her back wasn’t so noticeable back then. The doctors somehow tricked her Mama into believing that in time her back could become straight. After she had grown older and the hump had swelled into all its ugliness, she and Mama eventually realized that they had been lied to, and after delving into all the specialized literature on the subject, they were