Daughter from the Dark

by Sergey

  Aspirin shook violently, nearly bouncing in his seat. Glancing in the rearview mirror, he met Alyona’s bright eyes; a second later a velvety face stared back with plastic buttons.

  Wind and rain blew into the hole in the window. The steering wheel grew sticky with blood from his injured hands. Still shaking and glancing in the mirror—were they followed, was the plush monster contemplating killing anyone else—Aspirin made it to the garage and even found enough energy to greet the guard and make small talk about his bad luck with the trunk and the broken window . . .

  He unlocked the garage. The familiar action calmed him down, but to get back into his normal mental state would require unlocking a hundred garages.

  “Is he alive? That man who . . .”

  “I don’t know,” Alyona admitted.

  Aspirin drove the car into the garage, aiming the lights at the opposite wall, where he left an old vacuum cleaner and an ancient suitcase with brass caps, stuffed with papers of the sort that take up too much space but cannot be thrown away.

  The engine rumbled.

  “Does it hurt?” Alyona asked softly.

  Aspirin realized the right side of his face was significantly larger than the left.

  “He . . . that one. Did he kill him? Did he break his neck?”

  Alyona scowled. “Why, would you rather he kissed him? Would you rather we were thrown out of the car, beaten, robbed, the car hijacked? Would that be better?”

  “No, of course not. But there is no better—everything is worse! What are we supposed to do now? Do you have any idea?”

  “Nothing,” Alyona said carelessly. “And don’t worry, your hands are clean. It’s just a few cuts—you should put some hydrogen peroxide on them, but you’ll be fine.”

  Aspirin found her eyes in the mirror. “And my soul? How fine is that?”

  “You need to have a soul to care about one.”

  He sat, fuming. Finally, “Listen. You don’t like our world, do you? It’s dirty, isn’t it? And you—you came from there, you brought that thing . . . And now you get to decide who lives and who lies there with his neck broken?”

  “Well, I’m very sorry,” Alyona said after a pause. “I spent so long hunting down that two-hundred-and-fifty-pound carjacker. I followed him. I cut off his car, and broke his window, and started beating up his friend. Then I attacked him, and things just got out of hand. So so so sorry.”

  “Your sarcasm is noted. But what if it was your brother?” Aspirin asked darkly. “That precious sibling of yours? The one you’re looking for? Hmm?”

  Her eyes changed. They looked almost plastic, just like Mishutka’s.

  “Yes. Maybe. Maybe it was my brother. Then it’s all been a waste.”

  She hunched over, hiding her face in Mishutka’s fur.

  Aspirin took a deep breath. He had to get up, lock the garage, and walk home, and home was about ten minutes away through dark streets. He had to do something with his battered face and his injured hands, as well—he was still in too much shock to feel pain, but what would tomorrow be like? And yet he didn’t move.

  “Don’t you remember your brother?” he asked. “Could he possibly be . . . like this?”

  “He could be anyone,” she said from behind her velvety barricade. “Young, old. He crossed the border between . . . Anyway, he could change his appearance entirely. He could change his skin. And he could forget everything. He is likely to forget himself.”

  “Could he turn into a thug?”

  “Yes.” She finally moved the bear away from her face. Her eyes, despite Aspirin’s fears, were dry. “It would be quite easy. Natural. Because when you—come here—from there—and the first shock passes . . . you want to become even worse than this world. It’s like revenge. You want to overcome it. To make it even more horrible than before, to become the worst of the worst. It’s like a form of protest.”

  “It’s a child’s protest,” Aspirin murmured. “The world’s shit, and we’ve got to make it even shittier than before.”

  “Perhaps,” Alyona agreed. “And yet . . . it also happens against one’s will. Or maybe it’s the other way around—maybe it’s this world that wants revenge. It turns white into black, black as night, the blackest in the world.”

  “And you?” Aspirin asked tensely. “Are you going to start following pedestrians down dark streets? Your bear at your hip and revenge in your heart?”

  “No. I am not going to fight or compete with this world. I have a goal. I need to get my brother out of here. And he . . .”

  She fell silent.

  “He what? What about him? And by the way, could you please tell me what your brother is even doing here? Why did he leave?”

  “He came . . .” She struggled to find words. “He wants . . . He is actually a composer, if you can understand that. In the general sense of the word. He is a creator, a maker. Something like that.”

  “A ‘maker’ is quite a word.”

  “Don’t pick on words.”

  “I’m not. I know the importance of words.” It bothered him more than he wanted to admit, the fact that she didn’t respect what he did as a writer or as a DJ. It wasn’t easy, his extemporaneous explosions, yet she clearly didn’t care. But he was too tired to fight. “I just want to understand.”

  “A maker in the sense of someone who does creative stuff. He simply writes . . . he composes.”

  “Composes music?”

  “Yes, music too. Or more like first music, and then . . .”

  “Then what?”

  “You won’t understand.”

  “Uh-huh.” Aspirin was exhausted, both from the events tonight and his entire relationship with Alyona. “How could I. And what does he need here? In our imperfect world?”

  Suddenly he saw Alyona smiling at him in the rearview mirror.

  “Imperfect world. That’s right. Creativity is only possible in an imperfect world. In a perfect, complete world it is not possible at all.”

  She hadn’t answered his question.

  They sat in silence for a while, the stinging in Aspirin’s hand almost a beat that he could keep time to as he counted the seconds. After a few minutes, Alyona spoke.

  Apparently, her brother had run away from paradise.

  Alyona argued against such wording. When Aspirin mentioned “paradise,” she yelled and scolded him, insisting he just didn’t get it. Aspirin did not fight back; it was more important to him to get at least a general idea of what had brought Alyona and her bear into his house and she was finally talking.

  Alyona and her brother (and a bunch of other people) lived in a wonderful place where they were happy and free, where there was no death and no evil. Her brother knew all the melodies by heart (Aspirin never quite understood what Alyona meant by “melodies”—the way she said the word made the concept seem quite abstract). However, her brother wanted more—he longed for new songs.

  He ran away into an imperfect world, the only place where, according to Alyona, creativity was an option.

  But the underage idiot (Aspirin assumed Alyona’s brother was her age, maybe a couple of years older) did not consider one thing: an imperfect world was impossibly different from a green valley where one could play a pipe under the delicate rays of the gentle sun. In other words, wanting to learn how to swim, the boy jumped overboard during a violent storm.

  And, of course, he immediately drowned.

  The adults (and Alyona’s world did have adults) decided that the boy’s freedom and self-actualization was more important than their micromanagement, and so they left everything as it was. And her brother continued to drown and drown.

  Alyona was the only one who had not agreed. So she ran away, following in her brother’s footsteps. She also had no idea what to expect.

  At the last moment she decided she’d be lonely without Mishutka.

  “And who busted up your face this time?” Whiskas asked.

  “I ran into a wall.” Aspirin adjusted his sunglasses.

  W
hiskas did not bother to smile.

  Listening to the beat, watching shadows bouncing in the violet, blue, and yellow lights, Aspirin felt like a snake charmer.

  The people on the dance floor, they were in his power. In just a moment, he would boost them up, speed up their pulse, make every one of them feel like the winner of a world race: like thousands of sperm that die on the way, and only one makes it to the end—that’s what each one of them would feel, like a winner. The chosen one! Me! And when they got tired, Aspirin would add a hint of eroticism: let them soften and flow in each other’s arms, let them long for pleasure, and then Aspirin would boost them up again, and finally—for once—“there will be happiness, for everyone, and let no one be forgotten.”

  They would never get an Oscar, never stand on top of Mount Elbrus; in all likelihood, they would never even go skydiving. But thanks to Aspirin, they experienced emotions that were not that far from the ecstasy of an artist drowning in a standing ovation. Right at this moment, he created—constructed—a new reality for them, not just entertainment, not just an evening, but another, wondrous, and extraordinary, existence.

  He felt like the shaman of a large tribe. He had this honorable position. He sacralized nighttime dances. And he was a creator, because goddamnit, the world was imperfect, and that meant change was possible!

  Courage swept over him—not the common, professional kind actors experienced every time they stepped on the stage. No; what he felt was akin to the feeling gladiators must have felt when the door of the cage slid to the side and the first lion sauntered out onto the white sand of the arena, squinting in the bright sun.

  Sweat dried on his temples, making his skin taut and itchy. The bruise he had covered with makeup throbbed. People on the dance floor screeched and embraced and danced and lived.

  And from a far corner, Whiskas stared at Aspirin, alert and focused like a cobra.

  The next day, around noon, when Aspirin was still lounging in bed and Alyona tortured her violin, his phone rang.

  “Hey,” Whiskas said. “Mind if I stop by?”

  “Umm,” Aspirin did not like this turn of events. “I am not quite dressed yet. I am still sleeping.”

  “And what about your daughter?”

  “She’s practicing. Why do you want to know about her?”

  “Listen,” Whiskas said, “we need to meet up. Are you out tonight?”

  “I am in tonight. I cannot be out with my face.”

  “Then I will swing by.”

  “Sorry, man,” Aspirin said. “But seriously. I am not exactly in a welcoming mood today.”

  “Not at all?” Aspirin detected a harsh, unpleasant note in Whiskas’s voice.

  “Umm,” Aspirin was rattled. “Why?”

  Whiskas leaned forward to make his point.

  “Listen, man, I am on your side here. At first you had those thugs chopped up into pieces in your apartment. Those guys are now in a crazy house. Now . . . how are your car windows?”

  “Victor, I am not sure I understand. What does it have to do with my car windows?”

  Whiskas winced and scratched behind his ear, like a dog. “You can tell me. You know I like you. You are a good guy. And you’re talented to boot. And if I see that you’re having trouble . . . I can’t just sit back and watch it happen.”

  “Why do you think I am having trouble?”

  “Because it already happened twice. Once—all right, could be a coincidence, two guys losing their marbles simultaneously. But the second time? Fine, a few idiots wanted your car. They were wrong, that’s for sure. But one of them was thrown in the air like a basketball, and his neck was broken. How? Who did it? No one seems to know. There is talk of shadows, monsters . . . demons. It’s a good thing I read this just in time.” Whiskas slapped a month-and-a-half-old issue of Forbidden Truth on the table in front of Aspirin.

  “‘Dear editors, my name is Alexey G. I know no one will believe me. You will probably think I am insane, and that’s why I am not telling you my last name . . .’”

  Aspirin’s head swam.

  “Wait a moment, Victor,” he said slowly. “How do you know about the idiots who wanted my car? Who was thrown up in the air like a basketball? Who told you?”

  Whiskas shook his head as if to say: here you go again, paying attention to little things and ignoring the important issues.

  “Listen, I am trying to protect your interests here. I’ve almost convinced someone up there not to hold it against you personally, that you have nothing to do with this. You don’t, do you?”

  Aspirin glanced at the paper. There was an illustration right above the letter to the editors—a frame from a third-rate horror film.

  “Victor. That’s how I earn money,” Aspirin said softly. “The next letter is about cloned monkeys who raped an old lady. It’s a story, and we just pretend it’s a real letter. You don’t believe all this, do you?”

  Whiskas sighed. Sounds of harsh, measured scales came from the slightly ajar door to the living room.

  “Is she still living with you? Why didn’t you send her back to Pervomaysk?”

  “I have my reasons.”

  “One could imagine that suddenly you got all super tough and took up ripping people into shreds with your bare hands. But it’s not you.”

  Aspirin picked up his story and pretended to be reading it. “Then is it the teddy bear?” he said, tapping the magazine.

  “This isn’t funny, Aspirin. You should listen to someone who actually cares about you,” Whiskas said sadly. “If I’m the one asking you, you can always make a joke. But what happens when serious people start questioning you? Who is this girl, they may wonder, and what is all this stuff happening around her?”

  Aspirin felt a combination of fear and anger.

  “Victor,” he said in a low whisper, trying not to look toward the living room. “A teddy bear that transforms into a man killer? That’s a topic for a psychiatrist. Your ‘serious people’ are going to send you to one right away if you keep thinking this way. And if someone else tries to hustle me—sorry, but you will need to think through your own defense.”

  Whiskas frowned. “Excuse me?”

  “You heard me.” Aspirin looked away, already regretting his words, but not backing down. “If those idiots punched me and took my car, I guess I would be in the clear. But when . . . in any case, if anyone else hustles me or Alyona—I am not responsible for the outcome.”

  The scale in the living room ended abruptly.

  “You’re an idiot, Alexey,” Whiskas said coldly. “How is your girl going to protect you? From whom? Street thugs, maybe? What if the revenue services become interested? What if the cops find dope in your bag? What if you are arrested? Then what?”

  Aspirin forced himself to look Whiskas in the eye.

  “You should see who’s behind this girl,” he said in a whisper. “Revenue services . . . planted drugs . . . these things do not concern me. What concerns me is your well-being.

  “I’d be careful if I were you.”

  Whiskas blinked, and something changed in his impenetrable eyes.

  “Can he actually cause you harm?”

  Whiskas had left. Aspirin stayed in the kitchen, twirling an empty glass in his hands and listening to Alyona’s exercises. An outsider would never have believed a girl who picked up a violin only two months ago could manage such complex passages so skillfully.

  Eventually Alyona stopped playing. She came into the kitchen, sat down across the table, and took the initiative of speaking to Aspirin—a previously unheard of occurrence.

  Recovering from the shock of this new experience, he replied, “A while ago he offered me protection services. Personal safety, things like that. But now he thinks I know something important and am hiding it from him. And people like him don’t like even a hint of disloyalty.”

  “Can he cause you harm?” she asked. “Serious harm?”

  “I don’t know,” Aspirin said after a pause. “But it’s a possibility.
No, not a possibility. Yes, he can hurt me. Why do you care?”

  “Are you afraid of him?” she pressed.

  “I suppose I am,” Aspirin said unwillingly and thought that some things in his life—some recent things—were much scarier than Victor “Whiskas” Somov.

  “Is it because of Mishutka and me?”

  Aspirin glanced at her in surprise. Alyona was not kidding.

  “What can he do?” she asked again. “Attack you, try to kill you? Mishutka will protect you.”

  “Me?” Aspirin snorted.

  “You,” Alyona said softly. “You are not a very nice person, obviously. But if we are causing you some distress, we owe you that much . . .”

  “You don’t need to worry about me. I am leaving,” Aspirin said wearily, going back to his room. “You can have the apartment. You can do whatever you want.”

  On Thursday he submitted his documents to the embassy. He was told to come back for his visa on Monday.

  He had lunch at a café. He felt more comfortable in open, crowded, public spaces. His cell phone made him nervous; Aspirin now jumped at every call, which made him angry, but he couldn’t help it.

  Zhenya called and tried to ask him on a date, but Aspirin gently discouraged her. His mother called—she now called daily, ignoring the outrageous international rates. As if some relief could be found in the series of tense questions: “How are you? What are you doing? What’s going on with you?”

  Aspirin ended up turning off his phone.

  Do I even have time to get away to England, or were they going to get me before I escape?

  And if I do get away, what will I do in London? My savings will not last long. And as strong as my English is, it isn’t going to translate into radio work.

  What would Whiskas do? What about his “serious people”? With me gone, would that allow them to pay serious attention to Alyona without my interference?

  And then would Mishutka step in . . .

  In frustration, Aspirin pushed away an overflowing ashtray. The waitress pretended not to see it; she continued fluttering amidst the tables, imitating busy service, clearly avoiding his bruised and scowling face.