Daughter from the Dark

by Sergey

  Alyona wore a white shirt and a black skirt, bought the day before without trying it on and without any fuss. She came out and squinted at the audience. Aspirin broke out in a cold sweat; he thought the girl managed to switch the strings and, instead of “Melodie,” she would now play a song that raised the dead.

  But that didn’t happen. Alyona was simply looking for him, Aspirin, and when she saw him in the audience, she relaxed, lifted her violin and played. It wasn’t pure emotion, in the way she talked about playing in the underground passage. But it was pure—pure music, and perhaps it was even more powerful.

  The concert hall froze.

  Alyona played the way people talked about beautiful memories. She spoke with the audience, without a trace of smugness or a hint of arrogance, restraint, or inhibition. At that moment everyone in the concert hall realized that if truly happy and free people existed, they looked exactly like that girl in a slightly wrinkled white shirt and a skirt that was a tad too long. And when she finished, the audience remained in shock for a minute, and then it exploded in a barrage of voices and applause. One of the children in the audience even whistled, but was quickly called to order.

  Alyona took a bow, accepting the crowd without showing off or shying away, then left the stage without looking back.

  The concert got off the rails a bit—the crowd simply could not settle. Someone rose from his seat, someone snapped at a neighbor, a chunky boy in a shiny shirt was sobbing for no reason. The MC had trouble announcing the next performer. A large crowd gathered backstage, their own children’s performances forgotten.

  Alyona still held on to her violin. Svetlana Nikolaevna, the teacher Aspirin had met before, stood by Alyona’s side, ready to protect her treasure from a minute threat, and the two of them had been circled by a bald man and two women, like a family of sharks surrounding potential dinner.

  “And I am telling you for the fifth time, she is not going to change teachers!”

  “Please, there’s no need for drama—I just want to talk.”

  “What is all this talk about being a first year—whom are you trying to trick? How long have you been studying violin, dear?”

  “. . . must discuss with the parents . . .”

  “Quiet, please! A child is onstage!”

  And it was true—onstage some hapless child had been trying to overcome the noise in the audience.

  Svetlana Nikolaevna noticed Aspirin, and her eyes took on an impression of a goalie facing a penalty shot.

  “Alexey Igorevich! Let me congratulate you—as you know, I gave Alyona extra lessons in the last few weeks . . .”

  “Let’s go,” Alyona said quietly; Aspirin had no sooner understood her than he heard the actual words.

  “Thank you very much to all,” he said politely but firmly. “The child is not well. We have to go to the clinic—I’m sure you understand.”

  With one hand he grabbed Alyona’s case, lying nearby on a rickety stool, took Alyona’s elbow with the other, and cutting through the crowd, moved toward the wooden steps leading off the stage.

  He felt their greedy stares on his back. At that moment every one of them had decided that Alyona could not go far—the school’s address was listed, her phone number was recorded; to locate the young genius would be a piece of cake. What would they promise her? A competition in Vienna? A tour in France? Golden rivers, diamond shores?

  Skidding in the dirty snow, Aspirin drove away from the Center for the Arts. Alyona stretched out on the backseat, a reflection of distant warm light on her face.

  “Alyona,” Aspirin said. “What if you take their advice? They have a point. It would be a shame to waste a talent like yours.”

  She did not respond. He misinterpreted her silence and continued enthusiastically:

  “But seriously, you have quite a future ahead of you. Huge concert halls. Posters all over the world with your face and your name. ‘Alyona Grimalsky everywhere . . .’”

  “And Radio Sweetheart will have a new theme,” she said. “Grimalsky Grimly.”

  Aspirin stopped short.

  “Don’t be offended.” She sat up on the backseat. “If someone offered it to you—all these concert halls, posters, throngs of fans—would you have agreed?”

  “When I was eleven—sure I would have.”

  “Have you ever been offered something like that?”

  He put the brakes on in front of a set of lights. Wet snow squelched under his tires; the street crawled with the speed of a few miles per hour.

  “I have never been a true wunderkind,” Aspirin admitted.

  “That’s not the point.” Alyona picked her nose, lost in thought. “Do you believe that the whole point of creativity is to get someone to applaud?”

  “I said absolutely nothing on the subject of creativity,” Aspirin said coldly.

  Both were silent for a few minutes. Windshield wipers slid back and forth, whisking wet dirt away from the glass.

  “I don’t think I need to go back to music school,” Alyona said suddenly. “It causes too many problems. I already know what I need to do.”

  Aspirin caught her eye in the rearview mirror and nearly collided with a passing Mercedes.

  “Congratulations,” Whiskas said. “How’s your prodigy doing?”

  “How do you know?” Aspirin mumbled.

  “You seem to forget I am a man of the people,” Whiskas said. He leaned back on his chair. “The whole city is talking about it.”

  Aspirin winced.

  “I am not lying,” Whiskas said. “Get this—my wife has a friend whose sister’s daughter took violin lessons with Svetlana Nikolaevna. She graduated a couple of years ago, and they are still very close. That’s how small our world is.”

  Aspirin said nothing.

  “How are things going with her?” Whiskas asked in a very different, very businesslike tone. “How is she with you? Are you friends?”

  “Bosom buddies,” Aspirin said grimly.

  “That’s good. Try not to annoy her. Say yes to everything. Spoil her, keep her happy. I worry about you, Alexey.”

  “You worry about me? For what bloody reason?”

  “For the sole reason that you are in her power. That bear of hers, and now the violin. Does she ever sleep? The girl, I mean?”

  “I can only assure you the bear never sleeps. Ever. Trust me on that.”

  Whiskas bared his teeth. “Very funny. So why hasn’t she been at the music school lately? She’s missed two lessons already.”

  “So you’ve been staking out the school.”

  Whiskas shrugged. “Well?”

  “She’s done.”

  Whiskas frowned. “What do you mean?”

  “She dropped it,” Aspirin snapped. “Quit cold turkey. I am afraid she may never leave the house now.”

  Whiskas gazed at Aspirin as a chess player gazes at the board. Swirls of tobacco smoke floated between them like a dozen weary gray worms.

  “Take care of yourself,” Whiskas said finally. Aspirin caught a glimpse of nearly genuine compassion in his eyes.

  Nearly.

  “Alyona!”

  He had just come back from his shift. The snow on his shoes melted like candle wax.

  “Alyona! Can you get me a rag?”

  Leaving the shoes by the threshold, he glanced into the kitchen. A single plate was left in the sink, a lonely petal of boiled onion stuck to its bottom. Lights were off in the bathroom; in the living room Mishutka sat on the sofa, staring at Aspirin with his plastic peepers.

  Aspirin’s knees buckled. How did they get her to come out? What promises had been made? How?

  He collapsed in the chair. His apartment was empty, it had been de-Alyonaed. Hadn’t he been dreaming about it for so long?

  But hadn’t those dreams turned into nightmares the last few weeks?

  Stumbling, he went into the kitchen and took a sip of brandy. He opened his laptop and started a game of Miner. The simple game proved to be as effective as a drug. Aspi
rin managed to perish on the cartoon minefield before the brandy kicked in, and an outline of an article appeared through the fog in his leaden head.

  It was about intelligence agencies abducting people. About an extremely talented girl violinist who becomes famous after a single performance at a single recital. Rushing through the first five thousand characters, he took a deep breath. The article was rather insipid, and he was too professional not to notice it. So a child was abducted. Big deal.

  He fought the impulse of slamming his fist into the keys and pulled himself together. He should make the girl a genius of extrasensory perception and telekinesis, and her abductors should be not just any intelligence agency, but a worldwide web of deeply secretive experts on astral projection. Or aliens? No—aliens were so last year.

  Mulling over the details, he slid closer and closer to the edge of his swivel chair, and when a key turned in the lock, the chair slid from under Aspirin and rolled backward, seemingly in jest.

  Luckily, there had been no witnesses to the fall, and his tailbone—if not his dignity—remained intact.

  Standing in the puddle provided by Aspirin’s wet shoes, Alyona pulled off her snow-covered boots, a gigantic bruise under her right eye.

  “Did they hit you?”

  “Who?”

  Alyona’s voice was tired and perfectly calm. With an enormous effort, Aspirin pulled himself together again.

  “Where have you been?”

  “I fell.” She could barely move her lips. “I slammed my face into that goddamn machine.”

  “What machine?”

  “The automatic coffee machine.” She smiled with one corner of her mouth. “What did you think I would say?”

  This time she nearly succeeded—she played for fifty-three minutes with very few mistakes. However, Alyona admitted, the tempo was slower than it was supposed to be. Aspirin imagined Alyona standing at the intersection of two human streams, playing, playing, playing . . .

  “And how did people react?”

  “Differently. Because of my tempo being too slow, the melody became kind of vague. Some people swore. Some passed by without looking. An old woman screamed for half an hour, then got tired and left. And then . . .”

  Alyona unlocked the case. Aspirin froze: a pile of wood chips lay where the violin was supposed to be.

  “It’s fine,” Alyona said. “It’s nothing. The strings are intact.”

  She pulled out the remains of the neck and began taking off the strings.

  “How did it happen?” Aspirin asked.

  “This old cop showed up,” Alyona explained. “He couldn’t handle it, and—”

  “Did he hit you?”

  “I told you already, no one hit me. We simply fought over the violin, I stumbled a little and went face-first into that stupid thing, the coffee machine.”

  “You fought a cop over your violin,” Aspirin repeated.

  “There was this other guy, in plainclothes. He protected me from the cop. But the cop still took my violin and then he threw it against the wall. At first I . . . well, there was a moment when I got really scared. But when I saw that the strings were still intact, I felt better. Everything was fine.”

  “A guy in plainclothes?”

  She was indifferent to that detail. “Then I picked up all that was left, put it into the case, and came home.” Alyona wiped her nose with the back of her hand. “I was afraid Mishutka would worry.”

  She plopped on the sofa, hugging Mishutka and gently stroking his ear. “Did you miss me, sweetheart? I told you I’d be back soon.”

  “They could have taken you! Without the bear, and without your violin, they could have stuffed you in the car, and that would be it!”

  “You are obsessed with abduction.” She allowed herself a dry smile and pressed Mishutka to her chest. “Don’t worry, Alexey, it’s not that easy to stuff me into a car. Did you buy any honey?”

  “Honey?”

  “I asked you to buy more honey for Mishutka! What is he supposed to eat tonight?”

  Her voice was so full of accusatory scorn that the dejected Aspirin shuffled into the kitchen in search of options.

  “My child is no longer involved at your music school.”

  Svetlana Nikolaevna stood on top of the staircase facing Aspirin. It was extremely rude of him not to invite her in, but wasn’t she being incredibly rude herself showing up unannounced at a stranger’s house, especially when he’d made it clear he had no interest in seeing her?

  “Alexey Igorevich, you are wrong. We are talking about your child’s future . . .”

  “Svetlana Nikolaevna, one more word, and I will throw you down the stairs.”

  She took a step back. At that moment he looked like someone capable of going through with his threat.

  “I insist you stop bothering me about this issue,” he said, just to make sure she really got the message.

  She turned and ran down the stairs, barely containing her tears. Aspirin remained standing; a second later he heard two women’s voices scream in unison.

  “Oh!”

  “What are you . . .”

  He leaned over the railing.

  Irina stood on the staircase. The music teacher’s steps resonated through the building as she ran down the stairs. Irina watched her, a horrified expression on her face. They’d run into each other, Aspirin realized. It was lucky the impulsive Svetlana Nikolaevna didn’t knock his neighbor down.

  Irina looked up and saw him.

  A single second passed, a cold draft wafting through the building.

  They went into their apartments without exchanging a single word.

  The time before New Year’s always brought significant extra income. Office parties began in the middle of December, and Aspirin brought holiday cheer to office workers, businessmen, particularly mature high school kids, then office workers again, and so on without a break. He was utterly exhausted, but the family budget grew healthy and almost fat.

  Aspirin bought a new violin to replace the murdered instrument. This new violin was far superior to the old one—the difference in sound was discernible even to an untrained ear. Alyona was pleased.

  Catholic Christmas was fast approaching. Driving by a tree bazaar, Aspirin slowed down. It had been years since he’d bothered with a tree; he celebrated New Year’s Eve anywhere but at home. He saw an enormous dark green tree leaning over the fence (it must have been used as an advertisement). Aspirin didn’t bother asking where it came from; the seller charged him an arm and a leg—the tree was his pride and joy, there were still a few days remaining before the holidays, and Aspirin did not look destitute. Despite this, Aspirin pulled out his wallet and asked for the tree to be packaged and tied to the top of his car.

  Dragging the tree into the elevator, he cursed his ridiculous impulse. He was about to come out and pull the tree up the stairs when the green top finally squeezed into the elevator. With a sigh of relief, Aspirin pressed 5; at that very moment a woman jumped into the space left empty by the tree.

  Aspirin saw Irina’s expression change from calm to panicky and from panicky to decisive. The elevator crawled up. Irina fixed her bangs; the vertical lines on her forehead became more pronounced.

  “I thought we should talk.”

  The elevator stopped on the fifth floor. Before Aspirin had a chance to move, Irina pressed 9.

  “I thought we should talk. I thought it’s normal for people to speak.”

  Aspirin thought he was mistaken about her. In his relationships with women, more than anything he appreciated the absence of complications. He and Irina had a bit of fun together, and then they parted ways. By mutual consent, or so he thought. Was she going to make a scene?

  The elevator arrived on the ninth floor. Hesitating for a second, Irina pressed 2. The elevator went down. Aspirin held on to the tree with both arms; his palms were sticky with sap, needles poked his cheek.

  “I understand that in your circles this is how it’s done. When people are like t
omcats, when they don’t care if they are together or . . .”

  Her face was very red. Embarrassed by every word, she could no longer hold back. Locked within a tiny space, in the company of a gigantic prickly tree, they traveled up and down like the crew of a small, forgotten, doomed spaceship.

  “I despise you, Alexey. I just wanted you to know that.”

  The elevator arrived on the second floor. Irina sniffled, pressed 9, then caught herself and put her arm between the doors to stop them from closing. Irina slipped out and ran up the stairs. Without thinking, Aspirin pressed 9 again.

  A minute later, dragging the tree out of the elevator, he heard Sveta the concierge swear downstairs: “Who’s playing with the elevator?”

  “What is that for?” Alyona asked.

  Aspirin placed the tree on the floor, immediately stumbled on it, and wanted to kick it in frustration, but held back at the last second.

  “Has something happened again?”

  “No, nothing happened.”

  “Oh come on, I can see something did. Why did you bring the tree?”

  “If you don’t like it, feel free to toss it out of the window,” Aspirin said and shut himself in his bedroom.

  For five minutes the apartment was quiet, then Alyona began playing again.

  He lay down in his street clothes and closed his eyes. A few minutes later he fell into a parallel reality: he dreamed that he was lying in the bedroom with green curtains, and an old dusty lamp stood sentinel on the windowsill. Irina slept by his side.

  He reached for her, happy that things had been resolved, and that those days when they considered each other strangers had never even happened. His hand fell into nothing, but Aspirin refused to wake up. Keeping his eyes closed, he tried to reach for her once again . . .