It was like someone was studying me under a microscope, just like me recently, trying to read the return address on an envelope with a magnifying glass. Someone knew more about me and my addictions than I knew… And now, he was gloating!
Unless…
Unless he was trying to say something, but carefully dosed the information. I was completely confused. I turned off the light and cried. And when I fell asleep, I persuaded myself in a dream that all this was an absurd, a stupid dream. The next morning, waking up, I would not find any letter.
Such a naive.
The letter did not go away in the morning. It lay on a windowsill on top of an open novel. I defiantly pushed back the curtains, warmed the kettle and had my breakfast.
I tuned in on Monday, dressed, fed a starving flock behind the aquarium glass as it chatted about the weather, and rushed outside.
Indeed, it was drizzling in the morning, adding colors, or rather, depths to the surrounding landscape. Trees and flowers, washed and elegant, could be depicted on a canvas… I was again agitated by the thoughts of my abandoned painting and saved from other thoughts of an unknown author.
Opening the laboratory doors, I finally calmed down. Strangely enough, I didn't remember about the damn letter until the evening…
Eva's diary:
August 23, 1998.
Sunday.
It can be very difficult to start a conversation, even with the closest.
It seems like the words are stuck in the tongue, clinging to its papillae, and the only thing left is to swallow them.
Mom, I hope you never read these lines.
I write all these words, because otherwise I will suffocate or burst under the pressure.
They are so prickly.
I hate myself because I allow these thoughts appear.
«The world is full of surprises!» you reassured me when I was bored. You made me believe in the most incredible stories in order to cheer me up.
You gave me new books, believing that they could distract me from sad thoughts…
Chapter 4
Something That Remains
August pampered with warm weather. I lived in anticipation of a wonderful trip. I Googled and chose the most interesting tours. A tour to Croatia was my most tremulous and crystal dream.
Actually, I like traveling. All the money I save thanks to my Spartan lifestyle I spend on this particular type of human activity. I also make small sketches and photograph monuments or landscapes from an unusual angle. I collect impressions, writing down the very first thoughts that come to mind, as soon as I set foot in a new country.
Nothing overshadowed my preparations for departure. Nothing extraordinary or even a little unusual. No letters or calls.
Silence.
I decided to drop by Doremi the next day to say goodbye, and arrive to Moscow in two days. I would spend a night in Izmailovo, and get on my next plane in the morning. This time straight to Dubrovnik!
Long live the sea, relaxation, new experiences, meetings and again…
Long live the sea!!!
In the most joyful and carefree mood, I opened the doors of the university dormitory without even paying attention to some kind of a dull blow behind me. Behind the doors leading to my abode…
He was still alive when I came in. The man was lying on the floor. His eyes turned to the sky were open. In fact, the sky was replaced by the high ceiling of our five-story dormitory.
Perhaps this was some last impulse… He extended his hand to me and said:
«Now the thread is broken!»
His hand trembled, and he somehow immediately changed his face, as if petrified.
I stood at the door, unable to move. This stranger was the first dead man I've ever seen…
The spiral staircase is not the most successful invention of mankind. It rushes up, steep and narrow.
Oddly enough, I was not sick, and there were no unpleasant sensations. I looked at him like an empty vessel. Like a body that life just slipped out of…
Eva's diary:
January 23, 1999.
Saturday.
Alone. Alone. Alone…
If you ever burned to blisters, and then the skin came off, leaving moist red circles, then you can understand how painful it is! Taska probably cannot accept this decision completely.
But our parents are adamant.
Mom has her new love, father has his insult.
I really wanted to hug Taska goodbye, but she froze like a mummy… No. I literally felt her spines grow. I was afraid to approach her.
I just brushed away the tears, got into the car and no longer looked in her direction. When the car started, I looked around. It seemed to me that my sister, not believing in everything that was happening, extended her neck, looking at the trail of the departing car…
Chapter 5
Doremi
I met Doremi in September two thousand and eight. We were twenty-three, and we came to the first composition lesson of the first year of evening art school.
Doremi was a very handsome young man dressed in a white embodied sweater, which emphasized his natural attractiveness extremely. I was sitting to his right, behind the others by the window, examining the crowd, but from time to time I turned to admire the big brown curls of the stranger.
He felt my tenacious gaze with his back, stood up and, moving his chair, sat next to me. This is how our friendship began.
I believe it was friendship.
Our tastes and habits coincided. All but one… Doremi was a complete romantic and monogamous. His first love, a girl with a rare name Kira, long ago left their native Khabarovsk when Doremi was sixteen, not even suspecting his feelings.
For some time, he tried to find her on the network and did not lose hope, but so far this has not brought any results.
The girl seemed to evaporate… Perhaps, of course, she just got married and changed her name, or even used some strange nickname. Besides, she knew Doremi under a different name…
When his parents, young surgeons who worked at the Oncology Clinical Center, were expecting their first child, they asked God for one thing:
«Lord! Send us a girl. We've come up with a name for her. We'll call her Sophia! God, you will not allow our hopes collapse. And we don't have any suitable name for the boy! Unless it's Dormidont!»
God must not have heard their prayers.
Or he had completely different plans…
Or perhaps he took the appeal of future parents as a challenge or a joke, and thus he made a joke himself. Of course, we can assume that he simply liked this name…
But in due time a strong and healthy baby was born. It was a boy. A beautiful dark-haired boy!
Doremi's parents had no choice but to nod three times in agreement, when an elderly registry office employee who had seen a lot in her life repeated her question three times, wrapping it in various words:
«A very unusual name… Greek. Ancient. So shall I write: D-O-R-M-I-D-O-N-T?»
«Exactly,» the young parents answered, not at all embarrassed.
«Is this someone's honor?» The employee inquired, losing any enthusiasm in her voice.
«It means a condition of the Agreement,» young people uttered simultaneously.
«Agreement?