The sea was my ally, and now as I made my approach, a light breeze began blowing at my back like a friendly hand urging me on to some daring act. All of a sudden a gust of wind lifted her skirt so high that I had the feeling she would fly off before I could reach her. I hastened my steps involuntarily. But now, without even bothering to look, she clapped down her skirt with her hand—as if she were merely closing a window to keep out a draft. Or perhaps this is the way one collapses a parachute. Although I myself have never parachuted and, needless to say, never intend to, for some reason the image of a parachute, and specifically a collapsed one, persists in my mind.
But how was I actually going to strike up a conversation with her? Suddenly it came to me! I would pretend that I too was a tourist. For some reason tourists usually trust each other more than they do the local residents. And as for her being a tourist—this was apparent at a glance.
And so I walked up and stood beside her. I stood there quietly and unobtrusively, as if I just happened to be out for a stroll and had decided to stop and have a look at the Black Sea splashing here in this out-of-the-way spot where there were no tourists to appreciate it. And not wanting to give any grounds for suspicion, I didn’t even glance in her direction.
Right beneath us, gently knocking against the iron ladder of the pier, was a small skiff which belonged to the fishing boat anchored a short distance away. It was this skiff that she was looking at. In retrospect one could say that she was staring Fate straight in the eyes, but at the time I didn’t know this. I noticed only that she was gazing at the skiff somewhat pensively, as if perhaps she were thinking of using it to make a getaway from her companions. Needless to say, I would have been happy to offer my services, if only as rower.
I stood beside her, growing stiffer by the minute and realizing that the longer I waited, the harder it would be to start a conversation.
“I wonder what kind of boat that is,” I finally mumbled, turning toward her—but only halfway, at a forty-five degree angle. It would be hard to imagine a more idiotic question. The girl gave a slight shrug of her shoulders.
“How strange,” I said, pursuing the same foolish line of thought, as if the sight of a skiff tied up at a pier were something to be marveled at. “They say that the border’s very close,” I continued boldly, at the same time wanting to bang my head against the guardrail.
“Why strange? Do you think they might be smugglers?” she asked with enthusiasm.
“At the tourist home they told us that…,” I began confidently, without the slightest idea as to what I was going to say next.
Just at that moment there was a shuffling of boots, and two men began descending the iron ladder. One of them was carrying a large wooden basket covered with a towel; the other had a sack slung over his shoulder.
I broke off in midsentence and laid a finger to my lips.
“How exciting,” whispered the girl. “What are they going to do?”
I gave a slight shake of my head as if to indicate that nothing good could be expected from such men. The girl bit her lip and huddled even closer to the guardrail.
The man with the basket jumped into the bow of the swaying skiff, hopped over the front and middle seats and sat down in the stern, placing the basket between his legs. Before I could collect myself, he raised his dark, ruddy face in a smile and nodded in my direction. He was one of the fishermen with whom I had gone out on my first assignment some time before. His name was Spiro.
“Greetings to our friends from the press!” he called out, his white teeth flashing.
Blushing involuntarily, I gave a slight nod in his direction. But it was too late to shut him up.
“You sample our fish, but write about the goatibex,” he shouted and then, taking in both of us at a glance, he added: “An interesting undertaking, to say the least…”
“How’s it going?” I asked limply, realizing that it would be ridiculous to try to keep up the pretence any longer.
“I’ve just put some of our bonus money to good use, as you can see.” He pulled back the towel covering the basket; it was filled with bottles of wine.
“We’re going to overfulfill the plan, though we haven’t yet landed any golden fish,”* he added, glancing at the girl with shamelessly transparent eyes. “Kalon karitsa (a nice-looking girl)!” he shouted in Abkhazian, leaning back in his seat and bursting into laughter. Obviously he had thoroughly sampled the wine before buying it. And now, suddenly remembering something, he started off on a new tangent:
“Oh, Miss, ask him to sing you the goatibex song. He sings it very well; they’re all singing that song and every time they sing it, they raise their glasses to the goatibex.”
Finally his companion pushed off from the pier and began to row. Spiro continued to horse around, pretending at one point that he was about to drown himself before our very eyes—we being too blind and foolish to appreciate this exceptional personality who was still in our midst.
“Don’t keep your readers in suspense!” he cried from a distance as the skiff began to fade into the sea’s wavering darkness.
The girl seemed to have taken it all very well and now, seeing the friendly smile on her face, I began to relax.
“What’s this goatibex he was talking about?” she asked after the boat had disappeared from sight.
“Oh, it’s just a new animal,” I replied casually.
“That’s funny, I wonder why I’ve never heard of it before.”
“You soon will,” I said.
“And you sing a song about this new animal?”
“You might say that I hum along.”
“Are they already singing it in Moscow?”
“Not yet, I don’t think.”
“It’s time we left,” came an unexpected voice from the rear.
We turned around. The two ladies had gotten up from the bench and were eyeing me with open hostility.
“We’re on the beach every day,” she said as if finishing a sentence. Then she meekly walked over to her companions and took them by the arm.
I bid all three of them a polite farewell and quickly walked off. I crossed the shore boulevard and made my way home along a deserted side street where I was unlikely to run into any of my friends. I didn’t want anyone or anything to detract from my present state of euphoria. And as I walked along, happily reflecting on her last words, it seemed perfectly natural to interpret them as an indication of her desire to see me again.
The next day at the office I was fairly bursting with joy at the thought of our future meeting. Not wanting to be caught in any indecent display of emotion, however, I decided to dampen my joy somewhat by spending the entire day answering letters from our readers.
At five o’clock sharp I locked the door to my office, left the building and caught the first bus headed for the beach. The bus was jammed with people, and the smell of sweat lay heavy in the air.
Upon arrival at the beach I was immediately enveloped in the soft, soothing music which came from the loudspeaker. Somehow the music always made it easier to undress, forming as it did a sort of fluid transition between land and sea.
Feeling somewhat excited, I started off down the beach, peering under tents and umbrellas along the way. All around me was a profusion of multicolored bathing suits, healthy-looking tans of every possible shade, and languid, complacent poses worthy of the ancient Greeks.
Suddenly I began to feel that I was in no great hurry to find her; for as long as I continued to search for her, I still had the right to observe and admire my surroundings. It even seemed to me that yesterday’s impressions had begun to wear off, apparently dulled by this carnival of seaside color. And knowing from experience that any overflow of feeling would be self-defeating, I was happy to note that for the moment at least, my feelings remained completely under control.
Whenever I met a girl I liked, I would foolishly overwhelm her with an avalanche of my most exalted feelings. As a result the girl would usually take fright or even be offended.
Perhaps the very strength of my feeling made her wonder if she had not underestimated her own charms and somehow overlooked the wealth of resources buried within her. And if such were the case, her first priority, metaphorically speaking, was to reevaluate these resources, stake them off or, at any rate, not yield them up to the first bidder.
Whatever the reason, as soon as the avalanche came hurtling down on top of her, I would promptly be relegated to a second-string position. Eventually I would tire of this and become interested in some other girl. And even though I knew I should be more cautious and restrained, each time the process would repeat itself: the avalanche of feeling would come hurtling down of its own accord, and the girl would jump out from under it completely unscathed—or at most with a slightly rumpled hairdo.
Reflecting on all this, I could not help but rejoice at my present state of calm. By this time, however, I had walked the length of the beach, and now as it appeared that I was not going to find her, my mood began to deteriorate. I even tried walking along the water’s edge in order to have a closer look at those who were bathing, but she was not here either.
Noticing that the afternoon sun was beginning to fade, I slowly began to undress. As long as I was here on the beach, I might as well take a swim. Standing nearby was a photographer dressed in white shorts beneath which gleamed the bronze and sturdy legs of the seaside entrepreneur. At the moment, he was photographing a woman whose head had just emerged from the foam of an incoming wave.
“Just one more shot, Madame.”
And now the wave retreated, revealing the arms and torso of this sea-sprung Venus. She lay resting on her hands, which were firmly implanted in the sand.
“Okay…get set!”
He proceeded so slowly and painstakingly—in the manner of some old-time resident of St. Petersburg—that a group of young tourists sitting nearby suddenly burst out laughing.
The photographer got ready to take another picture, and once again the group got ready to laugh. The woman tried to simulate an expression of bliss, but could not seem to rid her face of its slightly preoccupied look. Apparently the enveloping foam was no more inspiring than soapsuds.
“Okay … here goes,” the photographer suddenly announced with a cautionary glance at the young people.
But they laughed all the same, and now even the photographer himself began to smile. It was a long, sunburnt smile, and one could tell that he sympathized with these young people. Yes, he understood that they were still young and foolish, but they too should understand that his profession was no more laughable than many other things in this world, and in general one should have the patience to live a little before passing judgment on such matters.
I went into the water, but instead of feeling refreshed, I felt only hunger and vexation. Suddenly I remembered that I’d forgotten to eat lunch—something which rarely happened with me.
Now even the beach was beginning to get on my nerves. All the flabby cardplayers with their thin, arthritic legs, the athletes with their tightly flexed but utterly superfluous muscles, the local Don Juans with their foolish and completely unwarranted arrogance, and finally the women with their supposedly irresistible charms displayed supposedly for the sake of a tan.
I quickly got dressed and left the beach. I took a bus into the center of town and from there made my way home on foot—hungry, tired and annoyed. But just as I was about to open the front door, I discovered that I had lost my key. I went through all my pockets, but the key was nowhere to be found. And now I realized that I was in for a streak of bad luck. It’s always that way with me. Things either go beautifully or else I can’t seem to do anything right. Apparently the key had fallen out of my pocket when I was dressing on the beach. Or at least so I hoped, since this was the only place where I could even begin to look for it.
Cursing my own bad luck and everything else under the sun, I walked to the nearest bus stop and once again set off for the beach. By now the bus was a lot less crowded; it was too late for anyone to be going swimming.
At one of the stops along the way the bus driver left the bus and returned five or ten minutes later with some hot meat pastries which could be seen gleaming faintly through a grease-soaked paper bag. Leisurely munching his pastries, he continued along for two more stops and then once again left the bus. Across from the bus stop was a beer stand, and here he ordered a chaser for his pastries. As the passengers grumbled in timid protest, I began studying the tall wooden building which stood next to the beer stand. It was a branch of the People’s Court, and it occurred to me that our driver might even take it into his head to wander inside and listen to some case. He probably would have had the gall to do so, beer mug and all, but for the time being he stood quietly sipping his beer.
I remained in my seat by the rear door and absentmindedly began kneading my ticket between my fingers. Finally, when my patience had come to an end, I flicked the ticket through the open door. But at that very moment a ticket inspector entered the bus through the forward door and began checking people’s tickets. I should have gotten off the bus at this point and started looking for my ticket, but I was too embarrassed to do so; I was sure everyone would think I was trying to get away.
Finally the inspector got to me. I tried to explain what had happened, but my story sounded ridiculous even to me. As for the inspector, he obviously was not going to let me think for a moment that he believed me.
I got down from the bus and accompanied by good-natured chuckles from the passengers seated closest to the door, I began combing the ground for my ticket. But the ticket was nowhere to be found. I refused to be easily discouraged, however, and now began calculating the probably trajectory of its flight. But in the spot where it should have landed there was nothing; undoubtedly it had been carried away by the wind. As I continued to search, the inspector stood by the door with a pained and weary look on his face—one of those looks I’ve never been able to stand. It was as much as to say: how can you expect to find what you haven’t lost?
The passengers must have decided that I had earned my deliverance for suddenly they all began to speak up in my defense, assuring the inspector that they had seen me throw the ticket away. Apparently feeling it best to yield to public opinion, he let the matter rest, merely giving me a short reprimand as he left the bus.
Our driver had finally finished his beer, and now as he slammed the forward door shut and briskly started up the motor, we all felt a wave of gratitude which, needless to say, we would not have felt, had he proceeded along his route as he was supposed to.
I sat back and tried to resign myself to my fate, knowing from experience that once I’d fallen upon a streak of bad luck, there was nothing I could do but try to get through it with as few losses as possible.
Finally we arrived at the beach. I got off the bus and made my way to the entrance booth, only to discover that I was three kopecks short of the ten kopecks admission fee. Apparently I’d forgotten to take any money with me when I left home that morning.
It has always bothered me that one has to pay to go to the beach—as if the sea were some creation of the city authorities.
“Come on through, you were already here,” said the lady ticket collector, noticing my hesitation. I looked up and saw an elderly woman with a kind, smiling face. How amazing that she had happened to remember me.
I walked onto the beach, so heartened by this bit of good luck that I felt a great burst of energy welling up inside me. Perhaps the wheel of fortune was beginning to turn. And suddenly I was sure that I would find my key, although up till now I had scarcely entertained any such hope. After all, from a strictly logical point of view my chances of finding it were almost nonexistent. For even if I had lost it on the beach, by now hundreds of people would have passed by the spot, and any one of them could have picked it up.
Be this as it may, not only did I find my key, but I actually caught sight of it from a distance. Yes, this small, almost luggage-size key lay flashing in the sand in the very spot where I ha
d undressed to go swimming. No one had picked it up or even stamped it into the sand. As I picked up the key and was putting it in my pocket, I happened to glance in the direction of the sea, and now all of a sudden I was seized by a strange, indescribable sensation. I saw before me the warm, azure expanse of the sea, radiant in the setting sun; the laughing face of a girl who kept looking around as she made her way into the water; a boy sitting in a lifeboat with his strong, suntanned arms resting on the oars; and the shore itself, dotted with hundreds of people. And this whole scene was so softly and clearly illuminated and so full of peace and goodness that I froze with happiness.
This was not the sort of happiness which can be evoked by memory, but another, higher and extremely rare form of happiness which mere words are almost powerless to convey. It was the sort of happiness one feels in one’s blood and tastes on one’s lips.
It seemed to me at this moment as if all these people had come to their own beloved sea after a lifetime’s long and difficult journey, a journey from afar which had been made since time immemorial. And now at last, the people were happily reunited with their sea, and the sea with its people.
This extraordinary state of mind lasted for several minutes and then gradually began to fade. But even after the original intensity was gone, there remained a certain aftertaste—like the heady sensation which lingers on after our first gulp of early morning air.
I don’t know what brings on this feeling, but I have experienced it often—or perhaps not so terribly often, if I consider my life up to now. Usually it has come upon me when I’m alone—in the mountains, in a forest or by the seashore. And who knows, perhaps it is a presentiment of some other, more fully realized life which could or even will exist in the future.
Still reflecting on all this, I got onto the bus and made my way home—this time, I might add, forgetting to take any ticket at all.*
The Goatibex Constellation Page 14
