flowed, still repeated, and that very monotony concealed the meaning of life …
She was probably falling asleep. Never before had she had thoughts like that, not in a conscious state.
A long time ago, when Sasha was little, she wanted to get herself a daddy. Not the one who left and now lived someplace else, without a care in the world, but a real one, one who would live with them, in the same apartment. Audaciously, Sasha tried to convince her mother to date any one of the more or less suitable men they encountered; to her, life “with a mommy and daddy” symbolized true happiness.
That was years ago. Now Sasha’s heart ached when she thought of her mother and Valentin. He’d lied to her once, he would probably do it again. Mom realized it, but she still spoke softly to him in the kitchen over a cup of cool tea; they sat, heads almost touching, and talked, even though it was already past midnight …
Nocturnal frost made the puddles sparkle. Through her woolen socks and the soles of her sneakers, Sasha could feel how cold the ground had become overnight. Her daily training made running easy. A lone streetlight burned near the park entrance. The old man with the dog lingered, and Sasha nodded to him, as if greeting an old acquaintance. He nodded back.
Somebody was in the park. That somebody stood on the path, shifting from foot to foot, wearing a jogging suit, a windbreaker, and sneakers, like Sasha herself. She had to come almost face-to-face with him before she recognized him.
It was Ivan Konev—Kon—a classmate.
“Hey. Shall we run?”
Sasha did not reply. Kon fell into step with her, almost touching her sleeve with his own. When their jacket sleeves did touch, the fabric made a harsh swishing sound—shhikh-shhikh.
Sasha ran, skillfully skirting the familiar puddles. Ivan slipped a couple of times; once he broke through the thin ice and stepped into the water, but kept up.
“Do you run every day?” he asked, panting. “My grandpa, he’s got insomnia, he walks the dog early, and he said, ‘A girl from your class runs every day like crazy, at five in the morning.’”
“Oh!”
He stumbled on a tree root and almost fell. She didn’t slow down, and he rushed to catch up.
“Are you into sports now? I’ve never thought that about you. Or are you training your willpower?”
“Training willpower.” It was the first time she acknowledged him.
“That’s what I thought …” They had completed only two laps, but he already seemed out of breath.
“And you?” Sasha deigned to ask. “What are you working on?”
“Willpower,” Kon said seriously. “I could be in my nice warm bed right now, sleeping soundly.”
He slowed down.
“Think it’s enough?”
Sasha stopped.
The sky was peppered with stars, bright like crystals illuminated by spotlights. Red-cheeked and out of breath, Ivan looked at her with unabashed humor.
“You’re a strange creature, Samokhina. A transcendental object. A closed book. Now you’re running. My grandpa says, every day, five in the morning. Are you some kind of a coded princess?”
He babbled nervously, smirking a little, afraid of appearing ridiculous. She wanted to tell him it was too late. He himself was a closed book, and yet one she’d peeked into. A boy geared toward success. A winner of competitions and a glutton for science fiction, with high cheekbones and dark curls, dressed in shirts always neatly ironed by his mom or sister, a dandy who at sixteen knew three different tie knots.
Sasha watched him and thought of one thing: she had to go into the bushes. Immediately. Otherwise the ritual would be broken; plus, to be honest, she wasn’t going to make it home anyway.
“Kon, wait for me at the entrance.”
He did not understand. He kept talking, smiling coyly in the half-light, kept sputtering nonsense about an encrypted princess, and how she must be deciphered.
“Kon, go and wait for me! I’ll be right there!”
He did not get it. Idiot. Conceited chatterbox. Time was running out, the run was completed, but the ritual was not.
“I have to pee!” Sasha snapped. “Do you get it?”
When she left the park, the entrance was deserted. No old man with a dog, no Ivan Konev. Only a chain of footsteps stretched over frosted grass.
Valentin left. Sasha hoped for good, but it was not to be. The three of them celebrated the New Year together—like a family, with champagne and a little fir tree that Mom decorated herself, rejecting Sasha’s help.
All night fireworks rumbled outside. At half past four, when Mom and Valentin were still watching The Irony of Fate on one of the local channels, Sasha pulled on her boots (she did not dare run over the snow in sneakers) and wound a scarf around her neck.
“Are you actually going for a run?” Valentin asked. “That’s some willpower you have, Alexandra. I envy you …”
Sasha left without replying. The snow in front of the building was covered with confetti; here and there the stubs of sparklers poked out of the melting piles. Sasha started jogging.
The windows were lit. Groups of happy drunks lingered on street corners. Empty champagne bottles lay on the snow. Sasha ran, listening to the crunch of the snow, feeling the bite of the frost on her moist nostrils, watching the cloud of her breath dissolve in the air. “That’s some willpower you have, Alexandra. I envy you …” Anybody would toughen up under these circumstances. Because although the connection between Sasha’s twilight nightmare and a precoronary condition in a stranger was not obvious and could never be proven …
But no, not really a stranger at that point. Something had happened to Mom, something had changed; she was still young, but she wouldn’t always be …
So that was it. While the connection could not be proven, it existed. Sasha knew that for sure, and she knew she had no room for mistakes. That’s how the first circle locked onto itself.
Sasha ran over her own footsteps. She aimed carefully, placing a foot into each footstep, first subconsciously, then with interest. Circle after circle, step after step. She hadn’t seen Ivan’s grandfather with his mutt in a long time. Was he cured of his insomnia? Or sick, and not allowed outside? Since their romantic morning rendezvous ended in such a cringingly vulgar manner, Sasha and Kon almost never spoke. They were civil to each other, reserved, indifferent. As if nothing had ever happened. The princess remained undeciphered.
Sasha came to. Which lap was it, eighth, tenth? Her footsteps, repeated endlessly in the white powder, became large and deep, as if the Abominable Snowman had run by planting his enormous feet in the snow.
The dark sky released a multitude of snowflakes. An ambulance drove by, sirens wailing. Not for us, Sasha thought with gloomy satisfaction. No need. Nothing can happen to us.
Relieving oneself in the freezing cold is a dubious pleasure. Sasha crept out of the bushes, buttoning her clothes, patting off the snow that had fallen from the branches. It would be so nice if no one else ever saw the goddamn coins. But it couldn’t be helped. The day before yesterday Mom saw that day’s “income” and asked what it was. Sasha had lied, said it was brass, tokens for a game. No, of course it’s not a casino, what are you talking about! It’s a game like checkers, everyone plays it at school. A fad.
Mom had believed her. Sasha had never lied to her before. Well, almost never.
She arrived back home. The door to Mom’s room was shut. Heavy silence hung in the apartment, and only snow swished outside, hitting the tin awnings.
Sasha went to the bathroom; she turned on the hot water and took a long time watching the running stream.