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Translator Natalie Lilienthal
© Natalie Yacobson, 2022
© Natalie Lilienthal, translation, 2022
ISBN 978-5-0056-6478-5
Created with Ridero smart publishing system
Luck
Nikita was about to disconnect from the chat room, but the photo that suddenly popped up caught him. The angelic face looked as if from a parallel world. Never mind that something sinister emanated from the photo. What mattered was that it was the girl of his dreams.
“Hello.”
How else can you begin a dialogue with a stranger? In a chat room all the phrases are simple and short to the point of absurdity.
“Hello!” Nikita typed back the same word with which the stranger had approached him. How come she had addressed him herself! Usually pretty girls didn’t like him. Was the photo on the icon have been heavily retouched or a stranger altogether? Even if it was, Nikita didn’t want to deprive himself of the illusion of contact with the dream.
“What is your name?”
The nickname popped up brightly. The question was only a formality.
“Athenais.”
“And I’m Nikita,” he sat under the nickname “stranger,” so he saw fit to introduce himself.
“How old are you?” Atenais’s question appeared in the dialog window instantly, as if she could type in a fraction of a second.
Nikita didn’t have that kind of speed. The keys slid under his fingers, skipping typos.
“I am twenty-two years old. What’s your age?”
There was a long silence. What if she is a minor? The tardy answer was a little shocking.
“I am of angelic age.”
“You mean underage?”
“I mean more ancient than the whole earth.”
Sounds like a joke! Athenais must be a couple of years older than him. That’s why she’s joking. Girls take it painfully when they’re even six months older than the guy they like. And why is it that all girls necessarily want someone who’s older? Large age is no guarantee that a man has achieved something in life.
“You look about seventeen,” Nikita typed out a reply that sounded more like a remark. “Is this photo from last year?”
“Yes, but if you took it now, it would come out the same. I don’t change with time. But the landscape around me keeps getting darker. I don’t want to add a picture of the ruins to the chat room.”
“Where do you live?”
There is a long silence in response.
“Are you on a tour of some ruined manor house right now?” Nikita remembered his experience of school excursions to noblemen’s estates and nature reserves. Sometimes they had to spend the night practically in a barracks not far from historical sites, but teachers encouraged such trips. For the sake of broadening one’s horizons one should do anything!
“More like in the pyramids.”
“So you’re in Egypt?”
“It is not exactly.”
“Then where?”
“It’s a mystery.”
“Why is it a mystery?”
There was silence again. No one typed an answer. Nikita’s mouse cursor twitched. He wanted to talk to Athenais again. Why was she frozen? Combine chatting with other guys? With her looks, she sure had a lot of admirers.
“There are no secrets in chat rooms,” Nikita diplomatically remarked, “otherwise no one would be interested in communicating with you.”
Now the silence was awfully long. The electronic clock measured five minutes, and there was no reply from Athenais. Had he scared her off?
“Are you still there?”
“I have to go see a movie,” Athenais typed. “The session is about to start.”
Did she really mean the movie theater session? So it’s daytime where she lives. How far was she from Moscow? Nikita’s heart sank. He had hoped to arrange a date, bring a red rose, go to a cafe for a cup of tea, and take a long look at Atenais across the table. Was she as beautiful as she looked in the angel photo? There seemed to be a sort of black feathery wings flickering behind her back in the tiny photo. It looks like photoshop. But He want so badly to believe that a real fairy or angel is talking to him. This is a fairy tale! Turn on the Internet, and there, on the network, lives a real elf with a golden-blond head, azure eyes, and a divine face. Except that the decorations on Athenais were more museum than fairy-tale. Indeed, it reeked of the culture of ancient Egypt.
“Are you going to the cinema? Are you going alone or with company?” Nikita hoped that the companion had not yet passed out.
“With the company,” she honestly replied.
“What kind of movie is it?”
“It is a movie about a demon.”
“It is a horror movie! And you don’t even know the title?”
“It might change over time.”
“How’s it?”
Silence again.
“Is the show in the evening or at night?” Nikita guessed to ask.
“It is at night.”
So Athenais doesn’t live far away. The clock above the computer table reads exactly three in the morning. At three o’clock at night the movies don’t go on, but at twelve o’clock they can still go on. Athenais probably lives a couple of towns away from Moscow. Then she can be reached in one night by train.
“Where do you live?” Nikita asked again, but Athenais had already passed out. He managed to add her as a friend. Would she still be chatting tomorrow?
It was long past his bedtime. He had class at the university in the morning. He would oversleep again and not be able to attend any lectures or seminars. It was all because of the chat room.”
Athenais had sent some kind of link. Thanks to her sociability, the beautiful photo was able to expand to full screen. Indeed an image of her shoulder-length was mounted with black angel wings. The wings and forearms sparkled with gold chains threaded through the feathers. Such jewelry conjured up thoughts of genies from Oriental fairy tales. What an image Athenais had! It was as if she were preparing to play the part of a demon herself.
“Shall we have a chat?” Someone called Nikita back into the chat room. Probably it was one of those ugly girls who texted him yesterday. Is it Lada or Dasha? And he was waiting for Athenais. Her name must have been made up. Probably her parents had named her after some book character. For example, Nikita’s pockmarked neighbor, a romantically inclined mother had named her Angelica, having read French novels. The intricate name Angelica did not fit in with the simple surname Ivanova at all.
What was Athenais’ last name? What is the girl’s profession? Or is she a student? Certainly she is not a lady of the night, as she did not offer to meet, and did not talk about payment. After a couple of months of chatting on dating sites, Nikita had gotten used to ignoring prostitutes, who sat online as a whole artel. They had pretty pictures, too, but always with bright makeup. Athenais in the photo looked like she had no makeup on at all, aside from the golden lashes. Do lashes and hair have a golden hue in nature? Nikita had only met platinum and natural blondes in his life, but never golden-haired ones.
“Athenais!” He typed her name involuntarily and seemed to fly into someone else’s chat room.
“Chat better with me now,” someone unfamiliar answered. The picture of the head under the red hood could have been either male or female.
Nikita instinctively answered the video call and got impaled. Someone disfigured flashed on the screen. A face with black skin looked burnt. The chains inserted in his nose and lips looked like chains, not jewelry.
Nikita tried to close the video window, but the key on the mouse wouldn’t work. And the demonic face was making faces and breathing ash.
“There was a huge fire,” was a mechanical voice from the chat. “We’re all burned, but you’re not. Unfair!”
Nikita tried to turn off the computer itself and burned his fingers, as if he had touched a bare wire. He did not understand what he could burn himself on a desk that did not even have a lighter. The computer froze and then shut itself down. This had never happened before. The screen with the disgusted face went out instantly. The desk lamp went out, too. The power must have gone out. It happens very often. His father used to get indignant and loud in such situations. Why, he said, does he pay the electric bills when there are regular outages? Fortunately, Nikita lived alone now. Unlike his father, he understood that it was useless to complain. The electricity would turn on by itself after a certain period of time, and consumers’ complaints would simply be ignored.
Sitting in the dark became eerie. Someone’s claws were scraping against the parquet. All the rats and mice in the apartment building had long since been eliminated, but it felt as if animal claws were scratching the cabinets, the table, and even the concrete walls. Could it be the claws of an angel?
It felt like Athenais was near, and her nails were scratching some kind of hieroglyph on his heart. Her fingernails were tearing at his flesh to expose his ribcage and reach his heart. And someone monstrous in a red hood silently watches.
Surprise
Nikita woke up with the idea of buying a red rose on a long stem, tying it with a purple bow, and presenting it to Athenais.
He wiped his eyes dry and remembered that he hadn’t been able to arrange a date yesterday. But he’d slept through class. Six classes had gone by without him. He was a truant. And who wouldn’t be a truant after sitting up half the night in a chat room?
You either have to study or you have to socialize. It’s not possible to do both. How often his mother used to say that boys who study poorly are bound to go to the army. And the army would be worse than prison.
His mother’s threats were more frightening than all the demons of hell, so Nikita paid no attention to the ugly scratches on the walls and furniture.
It was too late to go to the university. It was five to four on the clock. He wouldn’t even be able to make it to the last lecture, because it takes at least an hour and a half to get there by transport. He has to wait for the trolleybus first. Then he took the subway. He lives on the very outskirts of Moscow. It’s a long way from here to the center. It would be good to switch to online learning, and sometimes it seems that the journey to the libraries and classrooms takes much longer than the classes themselves.
It’s a good thing his mother was on a business trip. Otherwise he would have been in trouble. Mom loved to make a fuss and throw tantrums that made Nikita’s and the neighbors’ ears hurt. In apartment buildings, you can hear perfectly well what they do next door. Here, to keep your secrets, you should talk very quietly or not talk at all, and communicate in a chat room. No one will eavesdrop on chat.
But abusing chat can get him expelled from the university.
Nikita put the kettle on the stove to make tea and started looking for something to make sandwiches with. There were no scratches on the kitchen walls. They remained only in the room where the computer stood, as if a werewolf with claws of steel had prowled there during the night. An ordinary animal would not have been able to scratch through the concrete walls.
As the kettle heated, Nikita studied the scratches. It was as if they were folded into hieroglyphs.
The scratches were blackened around the edges, as if they had been burned.
Nikita looked away from the scratched lines. A threatening phrase came to mind:
“We’re all burned! There was a huge fire!”
It felt as if it was not an ordinary fire that had burned down some building, but a fire that had engulfed the entire planet.
The kettle was boiling. If it hadn’t come with a whistle, Nikita wouldn’t have even noticed. As he reacted to the whistle, there was almost no water left in the kettle. Nikita managed to burn his fingers. You have to be more careful when you turn on the stove, or you’ll end up with a big fire at home, too.
Before leaving for a business trip, his mother filled the refrigerator with food that she personally thought would be good for him. On the shelves were pickled jars of sauerkraut, dairy products, kefir, sour cream. Stacks of canned fish and canned stew were lined up in the kitchen cabinet. Nikita did not consider all this to be edible food. He would like pancakes or hot pelmeni now. He could find packs of dumplings in the freezer, but he would not dare cook them himself. It was his job to fix the computer or fix the furniture, but he had no culinary skills. There was a quarter of a loaf of rye bread in the breadbox, and on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator there was melted cheese. He could make a sandwich.
Nikita casually glanced at the calendar on the wall. The flip pages were torn, as if by claws. The date of his birthday had been torn off. He had lied to Athenais, writing that he had already turned twenty-two. In fact, he hadn’t turned nineteen until this September. But admitting to girls that you are too young is not a good idea. Pretty girls are more willing to meet those who are older.
There are scratches on the wallpaper in the room, too. What the hell! His mother would swear when she arrived, thinking he’d done something naughty.
It quickly became dark outside the windows. Night Moscow lit up with bright evening lights and neon signs. Nikita sat down at the computer. Athenais wasn’t in the chat room yet. But the link she had sent was gone. Nikita decided to follow the link. Maybe Athenais had her own personal website or blog. He was in for a surprise. The link was to a movie.
Could it be her favorite movie? Is it a good sign that she sent the link? If a girl wants to show you her favorite movie, it means she likes you!
Nikita racked his brains and got excited, as it turned out prematurely. The movie turned out to be creepy. It was a horror against a historical backdrop. The plot included kings, wars, extraterrestrial epidemics and a beautiful golden-blond angel, who actually turned out to be a demon. The angel was played by Athénaïs.
Charades
Athenais didn’t show up in the chat room until after twelve. Nikita’s head was already spinning from the abundance of impressions. Images of the scary movie were swirling around in his head like a black vortex. The horror movie was addictive and shocking. It was about the magic brought to earth by fallen angels and the leader of the fallen angels who ruled the world through the kings enchanted by him. Athenais had a fateful role.
“What did you think of the movie?” A chatty acquaintance began without greeting.
Should he honestly admit to her that the movie shocked him or come up with a more flattering review?
“Scary! Is this the movie you rushed to see yesterday?”
“No, it’s not. There are a lot of movies in that genre.”
“Is it in the horror genre?”
“It is in the angelic war genre.”
“I haven’t heard of that genre.”
“It’s better to see than to hear.”
The conversation was looking more and more like a game of charades. How agonizing is it to sit at your computer and not know who is communicating with you on the other side of the screen? Yes, there is a dazzling photo, but who is hiding behind it? Is a girl who has made a career in film, ready to communicate with an ordinary Moscow boy. He is penniless. It’s more like a practical joke.
“You don’t think I’m me, do you?” Athenais guessed his fears.
“Answer the video call, and I won’t doubt you.”
“It will be tomorrow.”
“Why it will be not tonight?”
“I’m in too dark a place today.”
“What’s going to change tomorrow?”
“There’s going to be a reshuffle. There will be a feast.”
“You mean a feast?”
“It is a sort of.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Have you ever attended a feast without a table? It is in the manner of eastern traditions or ancient Roman ones?”
The Romans ate on their beds, but in the East it was customary to sit on the floor among the cushions, but there had to be a table. Nikita could not understand his companion’s games.
“Are you talking about some scenery for a movie about the Ancient East, or about Ancient Rome, or even about the Stone Age?”
There was a pause.
“What is your profession?” Nikita said. “Are you an actress?”
“I am a former movie star.”
“What do you mean?” Nikita even got scared. Ambitious movie stars never call themselves exes, and she so easily admits that her career is behind her. She was probably badly injured on the set. If she was crippled or burned, that would explain why she won’t go on video chat.
The pretty picture remains, but the pretty face is gone. He is communicating with an illusion.
“Ex means dead,” Athenais dumbfounded him with the answer.
“What do you mean, dead?” She couldn’t be talking to him as a ghost, could she?
“Everyone thinks I’m dead,” Athenais confirmed. “You can read about it in the press.”
Nikita was stunned. This has got to be a practical joke! She’s either trying to scare him to death or she’s deliberately playing him for a fool.
“Are you dead?” He dared to ask her directly.
“What do you think?”
“I don’t know. I’m talking to the computer, not you. Let’s meet and I’ll decide.”
“Dating is risky.”
“Why is it risky?”
Nikita had to take his mind off the conversation for a moment. Ex-girlfriends were calling him through a dating site. He had to reject several video calls. Only then did he manage to get back to chatting with Athenais.
“They say movie stars aren’t as beautiful in person as they are in pictures,” Nikita quipped. This is a proven way to get a girl on a date. She has to show up in person and prove that she’s as beautiful as in the picture.
“Well, I’m not in life now, I’m in the realm of death,” Athenais instantly retorted. “Beauty is frozen here, like in the pyramids of the pharaohs.”
“Is there a working computer in the realm of death?” Highly doubtful!
Athenais didn’t answer for a long time. Either she was communicating with other site users, or the insolent question offended her.
“I’m a dead movie star,” she typed again. Perhaps the answer had a metaphorical meaning: ex means dead. Not literally dead! Dead people don’t sit in chat rooms.
After that, she passed out. It was already four in the morning. Nikita had sat with her in the chat room for too long. Now he would sleep through class again. How was it that Athenais was taking up more of his time than even computer games? Talking to her was addictive.
Messages from Lada, Dasha, Dusya, Valya, and Mania went ignored. Nikita also received dozens of messages at once from the “red hood,” as he had already called the scary stranger to himself. His name was Aneh. That, at any rate, was how the nickname was printed. Naturally, the name might have been made up.
Aneh was creepy-looking, and he didn’t want to talk to him at all. He was probably one of Athenais’ acquaintances. Why else would he suddenly be interested in Nikita? His last message confirmed that:
“How do you like communicating with a dead star?”
Nikita ignored Aneh’s questions and deleted all correspondence with him. However, it resurfaced again. A few more attempts to delete it did nothing either. Okay, let it stay, Nikita gave up after the tenth attempt. The main thing is not to start multiplying, like a Trojan virus.
Apparently, he accidentally clicked again and answered the video-call, because on the screen again flashed a video with a black man in a red hood. On closer inspection, though, Aneh is not a Negro. It was like he was all burned up. Gold earring rings were threaded through his large nostrils. From the earrings stretched chains. For some reason they resembled fetters.
Did Aneh want to communicate or scare the hell out of Nikita?
“Sorry, but I prefer to communicate with girls,” Nikita waved him off and left the site.
The computer screen began to crack, as if someone had punched it from the inside. Something burst from behind Nikita. Splinters flew off. The plafond of a lamp shattered. The room went dark. And something rustled in the corners, like rats crawling around.
Press clippings
All night long someone’s claws had been scraping against the couch. Nikita was used to hearing his neighbors arguing through the ceiling at night, but he was not accustomed to animal wrangling. He even checked a couple of times to see if there were any mice in the apartment. Nothing seemed to be chewed off, so it was too early to put mousetraps in.
The lamp shade did break during the night. The shards of the lamp were lying all over the room. It took a lot of effort to collect them. Now he would have to wear slippers to prevent any small splinter from sticking in his foot. Nikita was used to walking barefoot at home. Finding homemade slippers turned out to be an impossible task. His mother told him to vacuum the carpets once a week, but the vacuum cleaner was broken. One week alone has passed. At the end of the month his mother would come back and probably make a big fuss. The house had not been cleaned, everything was dusty, the walls were scratched, the new wallpaper was irreparably ruined, and the lamp plafond was broken as well. What on earth was her son doing?
Answer his mother honestly, and she would raise her son with laughter. He sat in a chat room and made contact with a dead movie star. He could be called a modern day medium. He knows how to summon the souls of dead celebrities over the Internet. Or is the pretty girl just messing with him? Let’s say she really is a celebrity who decided to trick ordinary guys. Why does a monster in red appear in a chat room at the same time as her?
There was no way to call Aneh anything other than a monster. After a short video of him, there should have been cracks on the computer screen, but there weren’t any. They couldn’t have disappeared overnight, could they? A computer isn’t a living thing; injuries don’t heal on it like they do on human skin.
Nikita ran his fingers over the smooth screen. At night he dreamed that the cracks on the computer were bleeding.
He must have thought the computer had crashed yesterday. Good thing it was working properly. The power supply and monitor came on quickly. There were no alarm warnings from the system or demands to reboot.
Nikita got on the Internet urgently. He was interested in the press. The sites of Metro, Vechernaya Moskva, and Zvezdny Boulevard flashed before his eyes. There was only yesterday’s and today’s news. Not a word about Athenais. Probably have to look at last year’s articles.
It’s a good thing he thought of it. Yes, indeed, there was such a star. He read excerpts about her in last year’s press. She had once outshone all the stars. In addition to the glamour publications, serious magazines had written about her. A year ago the star was killed in a terrorist attack. The attack took place at the Blue Lotus Cinema, where the night premiere with Athenais film was taking place. No details of the terrorist attack were available.
Nikita leafed through the Internet versions of newspapers and magazines, copying the articles he was looking for. Dozens of copied pages had accumulated in a separate folder on his computer. Nikita clicked the mouse and typed the name of the folder “Press clippings. Now he had a memo about the movie star and her demise. Athenais was not a dream or a myth. She lived. She was in the movies. She died. It’s all registered in the press. The movie star existed in reality, but now she’s dead.
So who’s chatting with him on her behalf?
Nikita should have chickened out and disconnected from chatting with a con artist or a ghost. However, he was not the cowardly type.
As soon as night fell, he logged onto the dating site and waited. Athenais was gone for a long time. From nothing to do, Nikita exchanged a few minor phrases with Dusya and Valya. He was no longer attracted to mere girls. The beautiful ghost turned out to be more attractive.
Nikita glanced from time to time at the winged photo of Athenais. She didn’t show up online until after one o’clock in the morning, and she didn’t even dignify him with a greeting. He worked up the courage and addressed her first:
“Good afternoon, are you in the middle of the night?”
The keys slid under his fingers and his fingertips were sweaty. Nikita was nervous. The beautiful photo came to life for a moment, as if it had flapped its wing.