The Nightwatch

by Sergei Lukyanenko

  "Number one," said Semyon, taking a bottle of Smirnovskaya vodka out of a plastic bag with an advertisement for "Dannon kids'" yogurt.

  "Do you recommend that?" I asked doubtfully. I didn't regard myself as a great specialist on vodka.

  "I've been drinking it for more than a hundred years. And it used to be far worse than it is now, believe me."

  He took two plain glasses out of the bag, a two-liter jar with little pickles floating in brine under its flat tin lid, and a large container of sauerkraut.

  "What about something to drink with it?" I asked.

  "You don't drink anything else with vodka, my boy," said Semyon, shaking his head. "Only with the fake stuff."

  "There's always something new to learn."

  "You'll learn this lesson soon enough. And there's no need to worry about the vodka, Chernogolovka village is in the territory I patrol. I know this wizard who works in the distillery there, small-fry, not particularly nasty. He gets me the right stuff."

  "An exchange of petty favors," I commented.

  "No exchange. I pay him money, all honest and above board. It's our private business, nothing to do with the Watches."

  Semyon deftly twisted the cap off the bottle and poured us half a glass each. His bag had been standing on the veranda all day, but the vodka was still cold.

  "To good health?" I suggested.

  "Too soon for that. To us."

  When he'd sobered me up, he must have done a thorough job and not just removed the alcohol from my bloodstream, but all the metabolic by-products as well. I drank the half-glass without even shuddering and was amazed to discover that vodka could taste good after the heat of a summer day, not only after a winter frost.

  "Well, now," said Semyon with a grunt of satisfaction, settling down more comfortably. "We should drop a hint to Tiger Cub that a pair of rocking chairs would be good up here."

  He took out his appalling Yavas and lit up. When he spotted the expression of annoyance on my face he said:

  "I'm going to continue smoking them anyway. I'm a patriot, I love my country."

  "I'm a patriot too, I love my health," I retorted.

  Semyon chuckled.

  "There was one time this foreigner I knew invited me to go around to his place," he began.

  "A long time ago?" I asked, playing along.

  "Not really, last year. He invited me around so I could teach him how to drink Russian-style. He was staying in the Penta hotel. So I picked up a casual girlfriend of mine and her brother—he was just back from prison camp, with nowhere to go—and off we went."

  I imagined what the group must have looked like and shook my head.

  "And they let you in?"

  "Yes."

  "You used magic?"

  "No, my foreign friend used money. He'd laid in plenty of vodka and snacks; we started drinking on April thirtieth and finished on May second. We didn't let the maids in and we never turned the television off."

  Looking at Semyon in his crumpled, Russian-made check shirt, scruffy Turkish jeans, and battered Czech sandals, I could easily imagine him drinking beer poured out of a three-liter metal keg. But it was hard to imagine him in the Penta.

  "You monsters," I said in horror.

  "Why? My friend was very pleased. He said now he understood what real Russian drunkenness was all about."

  "What is it about?"

  "It's about waking up in the morning with everything around you looking gray. Gray sky, gray sun, gray city, gray people, gray thoughts. And the only way out is to have another drink. Then you feel better. Then the colors come back."

  "That was an interesting foreigner you found yourself."

  "Sure was!"

  Semyon poured the vodka again—this time filling the glasses a bit less full. Then he thought about it and filled them right up to the top.

  "Let's drink, my man. Here's to not having to drink in order to see the blue sky, the yellow sun, and all the colors of the city. Let's drink to that. We go in and out of the Twilight, and we see that the other side of the world isn't what everyone else thinks it is. But then, there's probably more than one other side. Here's to bright colors!"

  I downed half my glass, totally dumbfounded.

  "Don't blow it, kid," Semyon said without changing his tone of voice.

  I drained my glass and followed the vodka with a handful of sweet-and-sour cabbage.

  I asked him:

  "Semyon, why do you act like this? Why do you need to shock people with this image of yours?"

  "Those are very clever words; I don't understand them."

  "But really?"

  "It's easier this way, Antoshka. Everyone looks after himself the best way he can. This is my way."

  "What should I do, Semyon?" I asked, without explaining what I meant.

  "Do what you ought to do."

  "And what if I don't want to do what I ought to do? If our bright, radiant truth and our watchman's oath and our wonderful good intentions stick in my throat?"

  "There's one thing you've got to understand, Anton," said the magician, crunching on a pickle. "You should have realized it ages ago, but you've been tucked away with those machines of yours. Our Light truth may be big and bright, but it's made up of lots and lots of little truths. And Gesar may have a forehead a meter wide and the kind of experience you could never even dream of. But he also has hemorrhoids that were healed by magic, an Oedipus complex, and a habit of reconfiguring old schemes that worked in the past to make them look new. Those are just some examples; I don't really know what his oddities are; he's the boss, after all."

  He took out another cigarette, and this time I didn't object.

  "Anton, I'll tell you what the problem is. You're a young guy, you join the Watch, and you're delighted with yourself. At last the whole world is divided up into black and white! Your dream for humanity has come true; now you can tell who's good and who's bad. So get this. That's not the way it is. Not at all. Once we all used to be together. The Dark Ones and the Light Ones. We used to sit around our campfire in the cave and look through the Twilight to see where the nearest pasture was with a woolly mammoth grazing on it, sing and dance, shoot sparks out of our fingers, zap the other tribes with fireballs. And let's say there were two brothers, both Others. Maybe when the first one went into the Twilight he was feeling well-fed; maybe he'd just made love for the first time. But for the other one it was different. Some green bamboo had given him a bellyache; his woman had turned him down because she claimed she had a headache and was tired from scraping animal skins. And that's how it started. One leads everyone to the mammoth and he's satisfied. The other demands a piece of the trunk and the chief's daughter into the bargain. That's how we got divided up into Dark Ones and Light Ones, into good and evil. Pretty basic stuff, isn't it? It's what we teach all the little Other children. But who ever told you it had all stopped?"

  Semyon leaned toward me so abruptly that his chair cracked.

  "That's the way it was, it still is, and it always will be. Forever, Antoshka. There isn't any end to it. Today if anyone runs riots and sets off through a crowd, doing good without permission, we dematerialize him. Into the Twilight with him; he's a hysterical psychopath; he's disturbing the balance—into the Twilight. But what's going to happen tomorrow? In a hundred years? In a thousand? Who can see that far? You, me, Gesar?"

  "So what do I do?"

  "Do you have a truth of your own, Anton? Tell me, do you? Are you certain of it? Then believe in it, not in my truth, not in Gesar's. Believe in it and fight for it. If you have enough courage. If the idea doesn't make you shudder. What's bad about Dark freedom is not just that it's freedom from others. That's another explanation for little children. Dark freedom is first and foremost freedom from yourself, from your own conscience and your own soul. The moment you can't feel any pain in your chest—call for help. Only by then it'll be too late."

  He paused to reach into the plastic bag and took out another bottle of vodka. He sighed:
>
  "Number two. I have a feeling we're not going to get drunk after all. We won't make it. And as for Olga and what she said…"

  How did he always manage to hear everything?

  "She's not envious because Svetlana might be able to do something she didn't do. And not because Svetka still has everything ahead of her while Olga, frankly speaking, has it all behind her at this stage. She envies Sveta because you love her and you're there for her and you'd like to stop her. Even though you can't do a thing about it. Gesar could have, but he didn't want to. You can't, but you want to. Maybe in the end there's no difference, but it still gets to her. It tears at her soul, no matter how old she might be."

  "Do you know what they're preparing Svetlana for?"

  "Yes," said Semyon, splashing more vodka into the glasses.

  "What is it?"

  "I can't answer that. I gave a written pledge. Do you want me to take my shirt off, so you can see the sign of chastising fire on my back? If I say a word I'll go up in flames with this chair, and the ashes will fit in a cigarette pack. So I'm sorry, Anton. Don't try to squeeze it out of me."

  "Thanks," I said. "Let's drink. Maybe we will get smashed after all? I certainly need it."

  "I can see that," Semyon agreed. "Let's get to it."

  Chapter 3

  I woke up very early. It was quiet all around, that living silence you get in the country, with the rustling of the morning wind after it's finally turned cool. Only that didn't make me feel any better. The bed was soaking wet with sweat and my head was splitting. Semyon was snoring monotonously on the bed beside me—three of us had been put in the same room. Tolik was sleeping on the floor, wrapped up in a blanket. He'd turned down the hammock he'd been offered, saying his back was hurting—he'd injured it in some ruckus in 1976—and he'd be better off sleeping on a hard surface.

  I held the back of my head in my hands to stop the sudden movement shaking it to pieces and sat up on the bed. I looked at the bedside locker and saw two aspirins and a bottle of Borzhomi mineral water. Who could this kind soul be?

  The evening before, we'd drunk two bottles between us. Then Tolik had turned up. Then someone else, and they'd brought some wine. But I hadn't drunk any wine; I still had enough sense left for that.

  I washed the aspirins down with half a bottle of mineral water and sat there stupidly for a while, waiting for the medicine to take effect. The pain didn't go away. I didn't think I'd be able to stand it for long.

  "Semyon," I called in a hoarse voice. "Semyon!"

  The magician opened one eye. He looked perfectly okay. As if he hadn't drunk far more than me the day before. So that was what an extra hundred years of experience could do for you.

  "Fix my head, will you…"

  "I don't have an axe handy," the magician muttered.

  "Ah, you…" I groaned. "Will you fix the pain?"

  "Anton, we drank of our free will, didn't we? Nobody forced us, did they? And you enjoyed it!"

  He turned over onto his other side.

  I realized I couldn't expect any help from Semyon. And anyway he was right; it was just that I couldn't take it anymore. I slipped my feet into my sneakers, stepped over Tolik's sleeping body, and went out of the room.

  There were two rooms just for guests, but the door of the other one was locked. On the other hand, the door at the end of the corridor, leading into our hostess's bedroom, was open. Remembering what Tiger Cub had said about her healing powers, I walked straight in without any hesitation.

  It looked like everything was ganging up on me today. She wasn't there. And despite my suspicions, neither were Ignat and Lena. Tiger Cub had spent the night with Yulia, and the young girl was sleeping like a child, with one arm and one leg dangling over the side of the bed.

  I didn't care anymore who I asked for help. I tiptoed up, sat down beside the massive bed, and whispered her name:

  "Yulia, Yulienka…"

  The girl opened her eyes, blinked, and asked sympathetically:

  "Hangover?"

  "Yes." I didn't risk a nod, someone had just set a small grenade off inside my head.

  "Uh-huh?"

  She closed her eyes, I even thought she'd dozed off again, but she kept her arm around my neck. For a few seconds nothing happened, then the pain started receding rapidly. As if someone had opened a secret faucet in the back of my head and started draining out the seething, poisonous swill.

  "Thanks," I whispered. "Thanks, Yulienka."

  "Don't drink so much; you can't take it," the young girl mumbled and immediately started snoring softly and evenly, as if she'd simply flipped a switch from work to sleep. Only kids and computers can do that.

  I stood up, delighted to see the world in color again. Semyon had been right, of course. You have to take responsibility for your actions. But sometimes you simply don't have enough strength for that. I looked around. The entire bedroom was decorated in beige tones; even the inclined window was slightly tinted. The music center had a golden finish; the thick, fluffy carpet on the floor was light-brown.

  I really shouldn't be doing this. No one had invited me.

  I walked quietly toward the door, and when I was already halfway out, I heard Yulia's voice:

  "You owe me a Snickers bar, right?"

  "Two," I agreed.

  I could have gone back to finish my night's sleep, but my memories of the bed weren't very pleasant ones. It felt like all I had to do was lie down and the pain lurking in the pillow would pounce again. I just dropped back into my room to grab my jeans and shirt and put them on, standing in the doorway.

  Was everybody really asleep? Tiger Cub was wandering about outside somewhere, but surely someone must have sat up until morning, talking over a bottle.

  There was a little hall on the second floor. I spotted Danila and Nastya in there, sleeping peacefully on the couch, and beat a hasty retreat. I shook my head: Danila had a very pretty and attractive wife, and Nastya had an elderly husband who was madly in love with her.

  But then, they were only people.

  And we were Others, the volunteers of the Light. How could it be helped if we had a different morality? It was like a battle-front, with its field-army romances and the young nurses comforting the officers and the men, and not only in the hospital beds. In a war the appetite for life is just too strong.

  There was a library there too. I found Garik and Farid in it. They'd spent all night talking over a bottle—and not just one. And it obviously wasn't long since they'd fallen asleep in their armchairs: Farid's pipe was still smoking faintly on the table in front of him. There were piles of books that had been pulled off the shelves lying on the floor. They must have had a long argument about something, appealing for support to writers and poets, philosophers, and historians.

  I went down the long, wooden spiral staircase. Surely I could find someone to share this peaceful, quiet morning with me?

  Everybody was still asleep in the living room too. I glanced into the kitchen, but there was no one there except for a dog, cowering in the corner.

  "Moving again?" I asked.

  The terrier bared his fangs and gave a pitiful whine.

  "Well, who asked you to play soldier yesterday?" I squatted down in front of the dog and took a piece of sausage off the table. The well-trained animal hadn't dared steal it. "Here, take it."

  The jaws clicked shut above my open palm, licking it clean.

  "You be kind and people will be kind to you!" I explained. "And stop cowering in corners."

  Surely I could find someone around here who was awake?

  I took a piece of sausage for myself and chewed it as I walked through the living room into the study.

  They were asleep in there too.

  Even when it was opened out, the couch in the corner was narrow, so they were lying very close. Ignat was in the middle with his muscular arms flung out wide and a sweet smile on his face. Lena was pressed up against his left side, with one hand clutching his thick shock of blond hair and he
r other arm thrown across his chest, with her hand on our Don Juan's other partner. Svetlana had her face buried in Ignat's armpit, with her arms reaching in under the blanket that had slipped halfway off their bodies.

  I closed the door very quietly and carefully.

  It was a cozy little restaurant. As its name suggested, the Sea Dog was famous for its fish dishes and its shipboard interior. And what's more, it was right next to the metro station. And for a puny middle class that was sometimes prepared to have a fling in a restaurant but liked to save money on taxis, that was a factor of some importance.

  This customer had arrived by car, in an old but perfectly serviceable model 6 Zhiguli. To the well-trained eyes of the waiters the man looked a lot more prosperous than his automobile suggested. The calm way he consumed his expensive Danish vodka without inquiring about the price or thinking about any possible problems with the highway patrol only served to reinforce this opinion.

  When the waiter brought the sturgeon he'd ordered, the man glanced up at him briefly. Before that he'd been sitting there, tracing lines on the tablecloth with a toothpick, occasionally stopping and gazing at the flame of the glass-bodied oil lamp, but now he suddenly looked up.

  The waiter didn't tell anyone what he thought he saw in that instant. It was as if he were gazing into two blinding well shafts. Blinding in the way the Light blinds when it sears and becomes indistinguishable from the Darkness.

  "Thank you," said the customer.

  The waiter walked away, righting against the urge he felt to walk faster. Repeating to himself: It was just the reflection of the lamplight in the cozy gloom of the restaurant. Just the way the glitter of the lamp happened to catch his eyes.

  Boris Ignatievich continued sitting there, breaking toothpicks. The sturgeon went cold, the vodka in the crystal carafe got warm. On the other side of the partition made out of thick cables, fake ships' wheels, and fake sailcloth, a large gathering was celebrating someone's birthday, there were speeches of congratulation and complaints about the heat, taxes, and some gangsters who weren't doing things "the right way."

  Gesar, the head of the Moscow office of the Night Watch, waited.