Daughter from the Dark

by Sergey

  “Wait,” Alyona said softly. Something in her voice made Aspirin sit back down immediately.

  Everyone went quiet. Luba looked at Aspirin. He choked on his tea.

  It was obvious that she remembered him well, but her memories were neither warm nor pleasant.

  “You’ve gained weight, Alexey. Clearly, you are well off.”

  Aspirin stared into kohl-lined eyes and struggled to remember anything at all. That was how people suffering from amnesia must feel.

  “Oh well.” Luba got up. “Alyona, pack your stuff, we have to make the train. Tonight we’ll stay at my friend’s, and tomorrow . . .”

  “I am not going, Mom,” Alyona said softly.

  The cop winced. Luba didn’t look surprised.

  “You are going. Because of you, my ulcer is acting up again. I can barely walk. Come on, pack everything he bought you and get ready.”

  Alyona stepped toward the window and stuck her hands deeply into the pockets of her sweatshirt.

  “I am not going. I am staying here.”

  Luba got up, and the table shook. Unhurriedly and confidently, like a rhinoceros, she moved toward Alyona and grabbed her by the shoulder.

  “You little bitch, start thinking about what you’re going to tell your father! He’s going to beat you black and blue for sure, and I will not lift a finger to defend you, you little shit. Let’s go.”

  She dragged Alyona into the hallway, just as unhurriedly and yet fiercely, like a real mother.

  Aspirin turned to Mishutka, but the bear sat on the windowsill with the look of a perfectly ordinary toy, an old one, not particularly clean, and absolutely helpless. Avoiding Aspirin’s eyes, the cop got up and pushed his untouched cup of tea away.

  “Alexey Igorevich, we need to talk—”

  “Later,” Aspirin said.

  In the hallway, Luba Kalchenko was roaring in anger.

  “You little . . .”

  “I am not going!”

  “Yes, you are!”

  The sound of a slap.

  Aspirin felt as if someone threw a pot of boiling water in his face. He threw himself into the hallway, slipping and almost falling. Alyona writhed in her mother’s arms; Luba repeatedly slapped her daughter on the cheeks, simultaneously trying to stuff her into a winter jacket.

  “You little shit, look at how spoiled you’ve gotten. Spoiled rotten! Just you wait.”

  Aspirin grabbed Luba’s hand and jerked it toward him. The woman gasped and let go of Alyona.

  “Alexey Igorevich . . . ,” the cop said warningly.

  Luba narrowed her eyes.

  “Get your hand off me. Look at you, playing the defender. Where were you when I sobbed over the baby carriage? Or when I bought stinky shoes in a secondhand store just to get her to day care? Where were you? In Paris?”

  Alyona pressed her back against the mirror, shifting her gaze from her mother to Aspirin and back. Her cheeks burned, and she struggled to contain her tears.

  “Please restrain your emotions,” the cop said. “The law decides everything. By law, you, Luba Kalchenko, have full legal rights . . .”

  “I am not going anywhere,” Alyona whispered.

  Luba took a step toward Alyona, but Aspirin was faster, jumping between them just at the moment when the woman’s hand reached for the girl’s ear.

  “This is my house. If you don’t leave, I will call the police.”

  “Really?” Luba looked at the cop standing in the hallway, who didn’t seem to be quite so interested in intervening.

  Aspirin threw the front door open.

  “Get out.”

  Luba put her hands on her hips. “Or what?”

  “Or I will throw you down the stairs,” Aspirin promised, stealing a quick glance at the cop.

  “This is quite second nature for you, isn’t it,” the cop said. “Ms. Kalchenko, may I speak with you for a minute?”

  “I am not leaving without her!”

  “Yes, you are,” Aspirin said quietly.

  She looked him up and down, and under her gaze the hardiest cactus would have withered in an instant. Aspirin was the first one to look away.

  “I wish I had never met you,” Luba from Pervomaysk said softly. “You’re not a man, you’re shit.” She turned to the cop. “Well?”

  “Well what, ma’am? The girl is old enough to make her own decision.”

  “Oh, shut up!”

  She stormed out. The cop followed, turning to look back at Aspirin for a moment, then shrugging, left.

  “Alexey?”

  Sitting in front of his laptop, he stared out of the window where wet tree branches were pushed around by the wind and storm clouds pressed down on the roofs. A change in the weather was coming. A big change.

  “Alexey, how about meatballs tonight?”

  “Tell me the truth. Is she your mother?”

  A pause.

  “Yes.”

  “So then you have been lying to me? Have you lied about everything? And you don’t have any brothers?”

  She sat down by his side at the edge of the bed.

  “Remember how I told you . . . This reality is digesting me. When I met you, I lied about being your daughter. But now it has become the truth.”

  “It has become the truth,” Aspirin repeated dully. “That is what she is like then, Luba from Pervomaysk. Unbelievable. Astonishing. And does her husband really beat you?”

  “Not yet,” Alyona said. “So far he’s only threatened me. But now that she’s said it, it would almost certainly become true as well.”

  “I am such an idiot,” Aspirin said quietly. “You are going to go back to Pervomaysk. And she will go to court to file for child support. All this was the scam I always thought it was.”

  Alyona smiled thinly. “You can always settle out of court.”

  “Obviously,” he said, not recognizing his own voice. “Just keep in mind that my official income is not that high.”

  She shook her head. “Don’t worry about all that.”

  “How can I not?”

  “Will you come with me?” Alyona asked.

  He turned his head, the question so disconnected from their current conversation he wondered if he’d missed part of it.

  “Where?”

  “It’s time.”

  They walked along the streets shiny with rain. The warm wind reminded them that spring had finally arrived. Alyona carried her backpack, the bear’s soft head sticking out of the opening. In her right hand Alyona held her violin. With her left, she clutched Aspirin’s fingers.

  It was getting darker. People walked along the sidewalk, and any one of them could have been concealing a needle filled with an opiate, or a poison, or anything else, up his sleeve. Every roof could be hiding a sniper armed with bullets made of ice. At first Aspirin kept looking over his shoulder, but eventually he stopped, telling himself it was nothing but paranoia. An obsessive, delusional fear of pursuit.

  If nothing else, Mishutka would protect them . . . and that thought almost made him laugh out loud.

  “If you see anything going wrong, or if you simply get too frightened, just drop everything and leave,” Alyona advised him in a calm, even voice,

  “Thousands of people play musical instruments in underground walkways,” Aspirin said, matching her tone. “They sing and dance, and nothing happens to them.”

  “We’re not going to the walkway,” Alyona said. “Remember, I told you—I found a better spot.”

  They took the subway, and half an hour later emerged downtown. The sky was dark, but streetlights and neon ads made it as bright as day.

  “Here.” Alyona stopped in front of a restaurant.

  Its summer terrace was empty, and inside, behind a glass door, the silhouettes of waitstaff swam in the dispersed light. Napkins were peaked in the shape of icebergs. A wide ledge with sides made of glass circled the balcony. In the middle of the balcony stood a long table set up for a banquet, waiting for guests.

  “Are we
having dinner here?” Aspirin asked inanely.

  “I have one question.” Alyona looked up. “Why did you come with me?”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Why are you here with me now, and not at home?”

  “Because I worry about you,” Aspirin admitted after a pause.

  “But why?” She jerked her chin up, challenging him. “What can possibly happen to me?”

  Aspirin looked around. There were many passersby, but no one paid any particular attention to a girl with a violin, and no one recognized the famous DJ Aspirin.

  “I don’t know,” he said tiredly. “I wouldn’t say you are . . . that nothing happens to you normally. Usually . . .”

  She stopped listening, fixed her backpack, and moved toward the restaurant entrance. Aspirin followed.

  They left their coats in the coatroom. The attendant masked his surprise behind exaggerated politeness: Alyona and Aspirin were rather a strange pair, and an even stranger trio if one counted Mishutka.

  “We have to go upstairs,” Alyona said, and Aspirin obediently turned to the staircase.

  “My apologies, but upstairs has been reserved for a private function,” the maître d’ said.

  Alyona kept walking without looking back. The usual rest pad hung around her throat.

  “I am sorry, this will only take a minute,” Aspirin said to the attendant. “Alyona! It’s reserved.”

  “I know.” She did not slow down. “Please help me open the window.”

  “What?”

  “This one,” she said when they reached the balcony. Alyona reached for the handle of a large windowpane in a plastic frame. Behind the glass, so very close, the streetlights glowed, illuminating the evening crowds. “Oh, wait, it’s easy to open.”

  The windowpane did open, letting in a blast of cool spring air. Alyona opened her case, picked up the violin and the bow, and before Aspirin could stop her, slipped through the crack.

  The backpack with Mishutka got stuck for a second. Alyona jerked her body to free herself and stepped onto the ledge.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  She turned her head.

  “Good-bye, Alexey. Now I either lead him away, or—”

  She cut herself short and began taking side steps along the ledge. The backpack hindered her movements, its clasps scratching the glass.

  “Get the child!”

  “What’s happening?”

  “Stop it immediately!”

  A group of waiters led by the maître d’ gathered around Aspirin, speaking simultaneously, but not taking any action. The balcony’s glass walls only opened at the ends, on both right and left sides; Aspirin was sure that Alyona knew about this in advance.

  She had said this place was perfect.

  Reaching the center of the balcony, Alyona stopped. The crowds were already gathered below, looking up at her, pointing fingers, unsure of whether it was a prank or a marketing ploy.

  Alyona tuned up her violin. Still stuffed into the backpack, Mishutka stared at Aspirin through the window, and Aspirin had trouble deciphering the expression in the plastic eyes.

  “. . . are you the father?”

  “Me?” he asked in surprise. “Yeah . . . Why?”

  The maître d’ let out a long and crass obscenity. Women in evening gowns coming up in a slow stream stared at him in confusion.

  “What’s going on here?”

  “Get the child back inside immediately!” a man in a black suit and a gold tie screamed. “What’s wrong with you? What if she falls?”

  Aspirin looked at them in bemusement.

  Then Alyona began to play.

  Everyone fell silent. All of them, all at once. Those who stood by the balcony, and those who looked up from the street. The melody began with a soft, clear sound that locked the audience in an instant freeze-frame. A street in dusk, a girl on the ledge—a real live girl? A circus performer? A shadow? Wrought-iron lanterns to the right and left. A violin in the girl’s hands and the street under her feet. And—just for Aspirin alone—the fuzzy face of a teddy bear with his nose pressed against the glass.

  The sound gathered force. A quick movement ran through the crowd when everyone recoiled. Aspirin recoiled too, standing only a few steps behind Alyona, separated by the glass, surrounded by the pungent aroma of cooling appetizers rising from the banquet table.

  Alyona continued playing. The violin growled in her hands like a prehistoric monster. This sound, simultaneously bewitching and terrifying, sent chills down the entire length of Aspirin’s spine.

  The girl led on with the melody—if the sounds made by the violin could be called a melody, assuming it had anything remotely in common with music as he knew it. Aspirin’s eyes watered as if from a bright light. He saw his expression in the glass, a distorted, broken reflection. He saw shifting shadows, the midnight-black hair of Luba from Pervomaysk; the drunken face of alcoholic composer Kostya, replaced by the laughing Nadya in her sailor’s outfit; Whiskas stared at something above Aspirin’s head; Irina gazed back at him with silent reproach, and Aspirin longed for the violin to stop, but it kept on playing, playing as if nothing in the world could stop the goddamn girl.

  The mass stupor exploded. The maître d’ attempted to climb onto the ledge through the open window, but he was four times bigger than Alyona, and would have had the same success trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle. The spectators below screamed and threw empty bottles; one of them shattered on an iron streetlight pole. White, thrown-back faces glowed in the dim light; black mouths gaped open.

  Alyona played.

  Aspirin found himself in the middle of unthinkable chaos.

  The man with the gold tie picked up a massive armchair (the effort made his jacket rip under his arms), swung it heavily, and made to throw it against the glass, aiming at Alyona. A split second before the chair could be tossed, Aspirin managed to throw his body at the man and push him off balance; he wasn’t thinking, he simply acted on instinct. The heavy piece of oaken furniture broke the glass and crashed on the floor of the balcony.

  But the girl maintained her pace.

  A shard of glass scratched her cheek. Two red drops swelled up and slid down the pale cheek like raindrops on the glass. Alyona played on.

  Screams came from below, some of pain, some of violent anger. Someone was being supported and led out of the crowd. Aspirin saw faces distorted by rage, faces curious and seemingly undisturbed, and faces touched by fear; a police siren howled around the corner.

  “Get her out! Take her away!”

  A man in an elegant beige sports jacket flung himself onto the ledge through the hole left by the armchair. He reached for Alyona, slipped and almost fell to the street, holding on to the ledge with his fingers. A woman shrieked and attempted to help him, but neither her screams nor the din of the crowds below could deafen the monstrous force of Alyona’s violin.

  The man opened his bloody fingers and plunged down from the second floor. Alyona kept playing, looking at no one. Aspirin recalled her saying, “If you see anything going wrong, or if you simply get too frightened . . .”

  A cold, raw draft flew in through the broken window.

  The crowd downstairs grew in size and was getting restless. It split down the middle, and a fire engine with an extending ladder made its way down the narrow passage.

  Alyona played.

  Mishutka peered at Aspirin. Behind the broken glass, the balcony was nearly empty; the evening-gown-clad women stepped back, dragging their dinner partners along with them. The maître d’ continued to struggle to free himself from the crack in the window. A portly, middle-aged fellow perched at the end of the table snacking on a piece of ham, a bottle of vodka in front of him already half empty.

  Alyona played.

  With a gnashing sound, the ladder moved up to the ledge. Aspirin saw a firefighter in a Kevlar suit; the firefighter regarded Alyona not as a child with a violin but rather as a chemical factory up in flames. Aspirin took
a step forward having no idea of what he intended to do, but at that moment Alyona finished part one on the highest note. A tiny pause followed; the firefighter seemed confused. Alyona took a deep breath (her shoulders jerked up) and placed the bow back on the strings.

  The next sound was deep and subtle; it made one’s breath catch. The firefighter hung in the air a few feet away from Alyona. Aspirin could no longer see his eyes—a neon sign was reflected in the plastic protective shield on the firefighter’s face.

  Alyona played.

  The maître d’ finally made it out of his trap, sat down on the carpeted floor, and began to weep. Aspirin himself was on the verge of tears: the melody emitted by Alyona’s violin worked on him the same way a sentimental romance works on delicate teenage girls. He pressed his hands to his cheeks and saw himself soaring above an endless, flower-filled meadow. He flew very low, level with the flowers, then ascended sharply toward the clouds, his spirit rising along in ecstasy . . .

  A cold touch of the glass brought him to his senses. He still stood behind Alyona, his face squished against the clear barrier, watching her fingers with their usual hangnails run along the neck of the violin, while the resin dust glowed blue in the neon lights. The crowd below grew again; some people swayed like sleepwalkers visiting a psychic. Others stared without blinking. Dangling his legs off the edge of the extended ladder, the firefighter watched Alyona, his head propped up on his fist.

  Alyona played standing on her tiptoes at the border of the ledge. The glass panels shook and rattled from the gently vibrating sounds of the violin. Aspirin pressed his body against the window, nearly pushing it out of the frame, longing to hear the music not only with his ears, but with his entire body, with his skin. At that moment Alyona allowed for a tiny pause, and when she started again, the melody was completely different.

  Alyona played.

  The crowds grew restless. They stomped their feet and seethed, and then suddenly everyone scattered. Almost no one was screaming, except for a few isolated strangled moans underneath the balcony. Aspirin himself felt an urge to run, like a cat before a major earthquake. The red fire engine let out a cloud of foul exhaust and, howling in terror, drove off with the firefighter still perched on top of the ladder.