by Pavel Kostin
Or maybe not. Maybe someone wanted to burn down whatever is inside.
Alright, enough. We’re grown ups.
I get out the pliers. I start working the wire free.
“Maybe we shouldn’t?” Oxana suddenly asks plaintively.
I say nothing in reply and continue to silently and methodically unhook the wire. The wire isn’t giving in, it doesn’t want to come out of the hinges. I keep stubbornly bending it from side to side. At last the metal breaks. I gleefully throw away the bent pieces. I grab the door handle, feeling the cinders eat into my palm. So what. I look at Viktor and Oxana. They’re waiting in silence. Waiting for my decision.
I pull the door. It gives way with a dull screech.
It’s dark inside. The smell of burning hits my nose.
I feel strange, really strange. My head is spinning. Is there smoke in here? A lot of smoke. I’m going to suffocate, I’m going to suffocate. Calm down. You need to calm down, remember. There isn’t any smoke. Just that hideous burning smell.
I go into the darkness. There is absolutely no light in here at all. I feel for my torch and turn it on. For a moment at first the light blinds me; I screw up my eyes as if in pain. I manage to spot some benches, candelabras, tables. But it’s all strange somehow, like in a black and white movie. And there’s something else. Something strange on the walls which I can’t figure out. I need to open my eyes. Open my eyes and look.
“Max, are you alright?” Oxana asks quietly.
“Absolutely,” I reply loudly. “Why should I not be alright?”
Not alright. I know that I am not alright. I don’t want to think about it. I don’t want to. There’s something wrong.
I open my eyes.
Nothing special. Darkness. The white circle of light from my torch. . In this circle – a bench. A nice bench too, upholstered. Very strange for an abandoned building. Why had everything seemed black and white? I move the beam to one side. I shudder and take a step backwards. The edge of the bench is black, charred. And everything else, everything, is black, burned, broken, destroyed. Crumpled metal, lumps of burned wood. My head is spinning. So weird. I feel so weird.
Flash.
A lake. A calm, quiet lake, just before morning. In the summer it gets light early. A lake. On June nights, when the night has already thickened over the woods, it’s only especially light above large bodies of water – the sea or lakes. It’s so lovely standing on the jetty looking up at that clear light! And it’s not at all frightening. It’s strange even, why should anyone be afraid at night…? I’m not, that’s for sure!
I’m a little chilly. I’ve just been swimming. The water’s not cold at all! In the summer over the course of a day the water in the lakes heats up so much that it’s warm, and at night it’s intoxicating to swim on your back, looking up at the enormous sky above your head with a carefree smile, at the shimmering scatters of pinprick stars, and enjoy listening to the lazy splashing of your hands against the water being carried far above the silent mirror of the water. It’s warm in the water, but when you get out, the droplets on your goosebumped skin become unexpectedly cold and with a comic shiver you sense one of them, quick and icy, making a sudden dash down your back.
A big fluffy towel is draped over your shoulders. Warm… We’re standing on the jetty, looking at the, calm, quiet lake on a night in June. Soon it will be dawn.
“Perhaps we should get some sleep now?” she asks, yawning.
It’s dark. Darkness. What just happened to me? I get off my knees, holding my head… I’m being lifted up. By Oxana and Viktor.
“Max, how are you doing?” I hear her voice.
“Alright,” I reply automatically.
But really I’m not alright. Not at all. Something important. I can’t remember something important. Right now I’m in a club. At night, in a derelict building, with my friends. And I started feeling bad. That happened just now. I can’t understand at all. I’ve forgotten something. My head is still spinning. Where are we? This strange place. I am no longer myself.
I flash the torch around. Walls; I saw something strange. I lift the torch.
And I see it. Writing. Lots of bits of writing. Hundreds, thousands of words. Unconnected letters, numbers, names. Words, overlapping, crawling on top of each other. What is this? My head is spinning. I feel bad. They’re inside me, it’s like those words are inside me. Step back, take a step back, you mustn’t look at this. It’s dark, very dark – but I turned on the torch, I remember definitely turning the torch on. What has it turned me into, this place?
A lake. A lake in the summer. I am standing on a jetty. A fluffy towel round my shoulders. There’s someone behind me. I can’t turn round. I can’t. I try with all my might but I can’t. All I see is the shining lake in front of me. Who am I?
I open my eyes. A bright blue star burns above me. So huge it takes up half the sky. I’m lying on my back. My head really hurts.
“Who are you?” I ask quietly.
“Shhh, Max… Everything’s OK!”
Oxana is leaning over me, blocking out the star. I blink. Consciousness is gradually returning. I’m lying on the tarmac beneath a street light. The tarmac is cold. I lift my hands in front of my eyes. My hands are black, covered in soot. The left one hurts. It’s got a big graze on it.
“Where am I? What happened?” I hear my own voice.
“Everything’s OK, Max!” Oxana says.
I see Viktor next to her. He’s looking at me worriedly.
“You went out cold inside,” Oxana says. “You started babbling away… At first you started wobbling, then you fell down. You lost consciousness. We brought you outside. We’re sitting with you now. We need to get to the car. How are you doing? Can you walk?”
I try to come round. I get up. I lean against the wall. My head is spinning and I feel a bit sick. But I’m alive, more or less. What a load of nonsense. What was that about? What’s up with me? I lost consciousness. It’s like I’ve woken up after a long sleep, except I’m not rested at all. But that’s not important. That’s not what’s important. It’s something else. I know something. I became different. That place made me different. Who am I? There’s some kind of riddle, some important question.
We hobble towards the car. Oxana and Viktor hold me up on both sides. How stupid. From the outside I probably look drunk. Oh well. It’s not important, this. But what is important? I figured something out. Something important. I need to remember, I really need to remember.
I’m leaning against the black bonnet of the Torino. The lacquered bodywork calms me down, its gleams caress me.
A lake. A bright lake on a summer evening.
It happened… It really happened…
A memory.
One of the memories I don’t have. I don’t remember. I don’t remember anything, that’s what’s going on. Who I am, where I studied, where I’m from, there’s none of that.
“Why can’t I remember anything?” I ask Viktor and Oxana out loud. They look at me uncomprehendingly.
“I don’t remember anything,” I tell them. “I don’t remember anything! What happened a year ago, what happened before that. My memories… they’re not there. They just break off. Quite recently…”
“Max, shhh,” Oxana whispers, frightened. “Calm down, please.”
“Listen, maybe he should go to hospital?” Viktor says confused. “He probably banged his head.”
“Max…” Oxana begins.
“No,” I say firmly. “Everything’s OK. I just don’t remember. And I didn’t remember before today either. I just didn’t think about it.
They share a glance.
“Get in the car,” I say. “It’s late already.”
We drive through the city at night. The gleams of the reflected streetlights slide over the car like flashe
s of electricity. No one says a word.
• • •
Work. The roof of my factory. The river is empty, and the hot evening air ripples in a mirage above the flat water.
What’s happening to me?
Even before I had noticed… I had noticed that my memory simply lacks a ‘before’. It’s as if I started on a blank page in the middle of the year, and before that moment nothing happened. Nothing existed.
Stop, stop… Be logical. I am a logical person, am I not? I just need look from a different angle.
I give up. Too much strange stuff has been happening recently. Maybe it’s connected?
Let’s leave mysticism to one side for now, let’s still try and be logical. Let’s go through the options.
Option one. Yesterday night, there in FridayZZ, I banged my head. Or got gas poisoning. Basically, something bad happened, as a result of which my brain was harmed, causing amnesia. That happens. Probably. Now it seems like I’ve never remembered anything, although until yesterday evening I was absolutely fine and felt fantastic. Did I feel fantastic? Yeah, good, more or less. That’s a ‘pro’. A nice theory. Unfortunately it’s definitely wrong. I recall that I’d been running into problems with my memory long before yesterday evening. Not once, and not twice. It’s just they hadn’t worried me for some reason. But recalling problems with your memory is, however strange it may sound, still recalling something. I might have forgotten something, but I can’t have had false memories! Or could I..? OK, let’s leave it.
Option two. The mystical one. I am not me. I’ve felt strange recently. As if I’ve fallen out of my usual crowd. I’ve got new friends suddenly, new hobbies. Something strange is happening to me. What do all those signs I keep seeing mean? What is Lady F trying to tell me? Who is she?
Too many questions… That’s not even a theory, that’s a fairy tale! But there are still questions! The third option. My city. Everything around me is strange. Very strange. Could I have ended up in an unfamiliar place and not even realise it? Strange things are happening here, stuff for which there is no explanation. I’m surrounded by strange events that go way beyond the normal. What does all this mean?
It’s awful, just awful… It’s madness… Maybe I’m just losing my mind. Maybe there’s no point in looking any more. And everything will be OK. Lady F, Lady F, where are you when I need you so badly? I cover my face with my hands. The wind strokes my arms, ruffling the hairs. I feel the freshness of the river.
• • •
“I don’t want to see any of those guys again!” Oxana tells me.
Notes of capriciousness skip through her voice. We’re arguing right on the street. Our everyday romantic life.
“But they’re my friends!” I say. “I thought they were yours too!”
“What the hell do I need them for? What kind of people are they? They’re all a bit crazy… They’ve all got their own special thing wrong with them. Are you collecting them or something?”
“Don’t talk like that!”
The paths in the park are full of people. Mums with buggies keep coming at you the whole time and you need to dodge back and forth to avoid a crash.
“What should I say then? You’re with them the whole time. And God knows what you get up to. At night and all those walls and whatever. Which is illegal, by the way! And what if you get caught? Or what if you fall from up high somewhere?”
“They won’t catch me,” I say. “And I won’t fall.”
“How do you know? And what if?” She stops and looks at me as if she were challenging me. “It’s time to forget all that! It’s time to think about something else, Max! About something serious and real!”
“Like what, for instance?”
“There’s a whole range of things! Take your pick. What do you do for a living? You’re a night watchman?”
“A security guard,” I correct her jokingly, but somehow even I don’t find it funny.
“And so? Are you planning on spending your whole life like that? Wandering about by the fence and feeding the dog? What a future! A brilliant career, you must agree.”
“That didn’t particularly bother you before,” I note acidly. I didn’t expect she’d be able to offend me. I’d never have thought it. I understand all about my job and my future perfectly fine.
“Before I wasn’t particularly bothered about you either!” she parries. “No, seriously. Even Viktor works in an office. Maybe he could take you on. He could ask in the office there…”
“Oxana,” I say. “Listen, I don’t particularly like this conversation. Are you in a bad mood?”
“Are you in a good mood? What even makes you happy anyway?”
She looks at me unhappily. The sun shines through her fair hair. It’s beautiful and I admire it unwittingly, forgetting about this unpleasant conversation. A gaggle of little girls goes past, eyeing us curiously. I can see them whispering about something. They’re probably imagining how they’ll grow up and dissect their boyfriends’ lives for them.
“Hey, Max,” Oxana says with irritation. “You’ve got to understand me. I’m not asking for anything special, you know! I just want everything to be OK for us. I just want everything to be normal! Like it is for everyone else. Or at least not any worse. I’m hoping for some sort of future, I’m hoping that you take our relationship seriously, I’m hoping that everything’s going to be OK, I’m hoping, hoping, hoping…”
“Everything’s going to be OK,” I tell her.
I don’t sound too sure, to be honest. She grins bitterly.
“Oxana, sweetie,” I say, “there’s no need for all this. You take things too much to heart. Everything’s going to be OK. Everything’s going to be normal, just wait a little while. And don’t put so much pressure on, OK?” She says nothing for a long time and looks away.
“Alright,” she replies snappily. “Sorry.”
We keep going. A whole horde of schoolchildren runs at us. They almost knock us off our feet. They shouldn’t charge around like that, I’m telling you.
• • •
I could just leave it. Come on you’re not a little boy anymore. You’re a grown man now. But I just hope that things will get a bit easier for me. Like always. I just need a bit of familiar comfort. A little bit of peace in my heart. There’s nothing terrible about that. I’m standing in front of the brown, boring door. On the right is the doorbell. A small convex white button which I have to press. I press it.
Mum opens the door a minute later. Her tired face immediately changes when she sees me.
“Oh son, come in!”
She flings up her arms and kisses me, and then looks me in the eye.
“Son, are you alright? You look dreadful.”
I wave it off. I don’t know how to reply to that sort of thing. It’s probably all written on my face. Mum looks alarmed, but heads off into the kitchen to prepare something to eat. And put the kettle on probably.
I slowly take off my shoes. I don’t feel right. I can’t imagine how I’m about to tell her about all this. She’ll worry about me. Can I really treat her like this? On the other hand, she did always say so herself. I just need to talk.
“Mum, I’ve come for a chat…”
A pause and then silence. The noise in the kitchen subsides. I’m sure she’s heard me and this silence irritates me. Something’s wrong. But after a few seconds the jangling and knocking starts up again.
“Yes, dear, of course! What were you after?”
I go into the kitchen, sit on a stool.
“Mum, I’ve got a little problem.”
“What is it?” she asks.
I watch her face carefully. She’s tense. She’s worried and is trying not to show it. As if everything’s fine. But she knows. Does she know? Or do I just think that? How long have I known her? I reckon my
whole life. But my whole life – how long is that?
“Mum, there’s something I can’t remember…”
“Which is what?”
Maybe she’s not tense. Maybe I just dreamed it all. Maybe I can just ask and that’ll be it.
“Everything. I don’t remember anything… It seems like I’ve forgotten everything. What happened before this year. I… I’m not even sure that it even happened. And I feel really weird. I’m surrounded by weird things. And something strange is happening.
She throws down the knife and sits down opposite me, looking closely at me with alarm in her eyes.
“Max, son, dearest… Maybe it’s happening again...? No, of course not, no, what am I saying…? I mean, not again… Listen, do you feel OK?”
“I feel… fine, in theory. But, like I just said, I don’t remember anything. And I don’t know why. Why did you say ‘again’? What does ‘again’ mean?”
“Not again, I mean. This is what I think, Maxim. Please don’t be get stressed… I’ll always listen.”
“I’m not stressed, what does ‘again’ mean?”
“Well… you know. Wait a sec. Let’s have some tea and talk everything over, OK?”
“I don’t want tea! I just want the truth! Is it that hard?” I shout loudly, and then stop when I see her frightened face.
There you go. There you go, you’ve gone and frightened your mum. Idiot. Fool. Twenty five years old and you’re behaving like a scared child. I force myself to keep quiet. Don’t get stressed, Max. Don’t get stressed. Everything’s OK. Mum looks at me frightened.
“Sorry, mum. I lost it there for some reason.”
I feel kind of better, but I can’t calm down completely. Nothing works. The cold snake of fury lies coiled around my heart. I heard that ‘again’. Why isn’t she saying anything? What’s up with me? Why isn’t she saying anything?”
“Mum, sorry I lost it. I’ve just been feeling weird recently for some reason. It’s like there’s something up with my memory. With everything basically. And you just said right now, don’t forget, ‘maybe it’s happening again?’ Tell me, mum, honestly. What’s happening ‘again’?”