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He sighed and returned to the kitchen, the bold figures of the wall calendar catching his eye, smirking at him as Pericles twisted at his ankles. A timid X marked that first Friday in September, when he had made his move and taken fate into his own hands. A deeper slash of an X denoted the day, two weeks later, when things had gone very wrong. Now, he stood before the calendar, tugging hard on his goatee beard and, with a frown, took the pencil to mark another X four days after that. The date of the rabbit incident. The day he met Sveta.
He shuddered, despite the lamb’s wool slippers, and realised he had been ignoring both the crossword and the egg. He could not abide a dry egg. He went to remove it from the pan and stopped short, mouth dropping open. The pan was empty, boiling away merrily to itself with no sign of an egg in it at all. But he had put the egg in there just moments ago, before going into the hall. He had heard it gently boiling away! He was sure his fingertips still felt cold where they had rested on its smooth, hard surface. He looked around, feeling stupid: where could it have gone? Pericles opened an eye and observed his master probing the oven, the cabinet, the larder, the empty biscuit jar, all the cupboards: all for nothing. There was no egg. Gor’s eyes strayed up to the light fittings and down to the floor, not searching, but wandering. He stood motionless and unsure of himself, staring into the pan of boiling water as it giggled back at him, winking.
What was going on? Things did not just disappear. There must be a logical explanation. He opened the heavy fridge door: yes, there was the egg container, and there was the space left by the egg he had removed precisely six minutes before, or a little longer, come to think of it. Tuesday’s egg was definitely gone. He slammed the fridge with more force than was necessary and shut off the gas under the pan. He didn’t care for this at all.
The last thing he could afford was the loss of a nutritious egg. To hell with it: he’d just have to have tea with a piece of buttered bread. After all, he’d survived without eggs before, and much besides, although admittedly a long time ago, back in Siberia. He was about to sit down to his meagre luncheon when the telephone changed his plans with a harsh and repeated bleeping. He hesitated, buttered bread in hand, wondering who it might be. Still it bleeped. He hurried out into the hall.
‘Good day!’ he pronounced grimly, his deep voice booming off the walls.
His bass was answered by a slightly scratchy contralto. ‘Ah, Gor! It is I … Sveta.’
‘Oh, yes.’ He winced and swallowed a sigh, relaxing minutely against the wall. ‘How may I help you?’
‘We have a rehearsal shortly at your apartment, if I am not mistaken?’ She did not pause, despite the implied question. ‘However, I have to say Albina, my daughter, you remember? Well, she is really not at all well, and I have had to keep her home from school. I cannot leave her, obviously.’ Gor’s chest heaved with inaudible relief as the idea settled into his mind that Sveta was about to cancel their rehearsal. ‘But I was wondering …’ she continued, in a more intimate tone, ‘I would hate to miss the rehearsal, when we’ve just started, so do you think you could come to my apartment, and we could do it here instead? Albina will be very well behaved. She has promised.’
Gor’s black eyebrows locked for a moment and he chewed on his cheek, surprised by Sveta’s determination, and also disappointed by it, truth be told. ‘If there is no other option, Sveta, we will have to do what we can. I can come to your apartment, if it is absolutely necessary: that is, if you think I should.’ The woman did not detect his lack of enthusiasm, and thanked him for his flexibility before ringing off with a contrived tinkle of a laugh.
He had noted her address on the first piece of paper that had come to hand; the bank statement of the Rostov Regional Magic Circle. How he wished he’d never become treasurer. He chewed on his cheek as he stalked back to the kitchen to tidy, and fret.
Today, the convoluted tricks and the cabinet of magic, once his diversion of choice, held zero appeal. He felt tired, uninspired; preoccupied, perhaps. He coveted time to himself, to play the piano and ruminate on these problems of his disappearing memory, the strangeness of life, his burgeoning conscience, and the piles of doubt surrounding him, reaching to the ceiling, sometimes crowding out the daylight.
He did not sleep. The hands that combed through his hair sometimes shook. Odd events had been occurring, and it wasn’t just the stupid egg or the hideous rabbit. An afternoon at the baby-grand might give him peace to sort through his thoughts. An afternoon with Sveta surely would not.
As he came to the doorway, humming softly to himself, a movement in the window drew his glance. He looked up automatically, expecting to see a pigeon wing, or scrappy paper in the wind. Instead, to his astonishment, he glimpsed the imprint of a face, features clouded by the steam that clung to the cold glass, but definitely a human countenance – just hanging there, peering in – four floors up. He froze, dumbfounded as the face faded into the clouds, and then dashed over to the window. The hinges scraped as he pushed the frame and craned his head out and down, raking the view. There was nothing to see: no human, no bird, nothing at all except an empty wash of sky and the pitted courtyard below. Somewhere a dog barked, and a door slammed. Leaves fell to earth from a skinny silver birch. He stood, panting into the cold, damp air, watching his steam dissipate and waiting for his breath to slow to normal. When it did, he rubbed a bony hand across the cavities of his great, dark eyes, and shut the window.
Returning to his bedroom, he stood at the mirror for a long time. Was he sick? Was he losing his grip? He looked the same as before: there was no sign of dementia or confusion in his face. But then, what did they look like?
He held out his hands: they were solid, strong, ready for work. He could stand up tall and straight. He remembered everything he had done so far that day, and he absolutely knew what day it was, what year, where he stood and what he should be doing. He grimaced at his reflection. What he should be doing, he acknowledged, was packing the car with props and going over to Sveta’s.
There was nothing to be done: he must carry on as normal. He shrugged his shoulders, and pulled on his jerkin.
Once Gor’s little tea-chest car had been loaded up with his basic prop requirements, the short drive out to Sveta’s presented no problems. He switched on the radio, enjoying the heavy thunk of the solid black buttons as he progressed through the stations, searching for something mellow, wordless and reassuring. He eventually fixed on Rachmaninov, the notes bubbling in his blood like oxygen as he navigated massive pot-holes and waved with a swift, jerking movement to the newspaper seller on the corner – a man whose name he did not know, but who was a staple of his day. Later he would stop and buy a paper, and exchange nods and worldly wise shakes of the head: this he knew. He passed through the main square, bustling and full of business, and saluted the traffic policeman keeping order at the crossroads. He crossed the metal bridge over the River Don and drove on towards the newer side of town, increasing his speed as the road, if not the tarmac, broadened. He eased around a couple of rights and a left, past encampments of kiosks and packs of shaggy, mud-encrusted dogs, and set about the artful business of hunting down the correct boulevard, corpus, building and flat number for Sveta.
Despite the Rachmaninov and the wide, sweeping road, his thoughts dwelt on his new assistant. He was not sure she would do. Gor had not practised as a magician for a number of years, but his previous experience was relevant: he had the right demeanour, and a fitting temperament; he could be mysterious, and instil belief. If required, he could take the audience with him on a journey that could confound and perplex. In his own estimation, he was a master, if very rusty. СКАЧАТЬ