The ship departed from the pier, everything was so unusual. I stood on the deck for a long time. There are many of our students here, I did not know all of them, but I recognized their faces. Our construction team is made up of students from different universities of the region. From my group I was the only one, but it did not embarrass me. We got to know the girls from our cabin and a few others, and we kept in touch, because in the days before we had shared a room in the hotel, while waiting for the boat.
The water surface behind the stern was blue-black, with no hint of green. The ship was in the open sea, there was black water all around. How everything changed when the shore disappeared from view. We were standing next to a boy from our troop. He was from Biysk. We admired the view, discussed the water and the sunset. A sunny road now appeared on the black smooth surface.
Beautiful, isnt it? he asked, pointing with a nod at the setting sun reflected in the water.
Yes, it is! I nodded.
Have you ever noticed that names have colors? Every name is different, he asked.
Always. For example, Vladimirs name is light blue, Peters is black, and Marinas is red. We discussed this at length. It was strange that someone shared my thoughts on the matter. I hadnt encountered people like that before.
Touching the locket around my neck with my fingers, I put my palm around it. The silver one, with the blue stone in the middle, was a gift from my father that reminded me of home. My father passed away three years ago because of a heart attack. I took it very hard. Now my mother and little nephew Maksimka were at home, and I missed them desperately.
By the evening of the next day we saw land on the horizon. Hooray! I really do not mind the trip, but poor Alla since sailing yellow-green, not eating anything at all due to nausea. And the girls and I went to a restaurant, where we ordered ourselves a crab salad.
When the ship stopped, everyone was waiting for their turn to leave our temporary shelter. We boarded the barge, sailed up to the pier, and went ashore. Whale Village I read the inscription in big letters above the entrance to the pier. We were swaying mercilessly from side to side on the ground, and we walked and laughed merrily.
Chapter 2: The Island
We are here. It is a sparsely populated island at the edge of the world, cut off from the mainland by the waters of the Sea of Okhotsk. The ship comes twice a week. The nature here is harsh, but its July, so its warm and there are a lot of sunny days, but it often gets cloudy or theres a fine, water-dust-like rain.
Near the bluffy shore, not far away is an old wooden two-story building, a dormitory for workers. An elderly female employee of the plant, who met us there, directed us to it. The four of us, two Lena, Alla, and myself, took a room.
On a sunny day we decided to go to the sea in a company of about ten people, walked for a bit more than a minute and came down the path, going steeply down to the stony seashore.
We settled about ten meters away from the water, sitting huddled on small pebbles. The boys took out their tattered cards and suggested we play a game. Oh, no, I knew how to play, but I didnt like it. I learned how to play in summer sports camp, the girls and I used to play volleyball seriously in high school, and we had fun during quiet time sometimes. We got to talking about books:
Have you read The Master and Margarita? One guy asked.
Yes. And have you read Remarque? I answered.
We were discussing who liked what.
Someone ventured into the water, alerting everyone with a wild shout, how icy the water was. It was the Sea of Okhotsk, cold and harsh.
We had a good time, I even got a tan for the day, although Id never been much attracted to tanning before, but that was in the middle of the continent, and this was by the sea. I liked swimming. We had a nice rest.
We were hungry, like hungry wolves. We came back and went straight to the canteen for dinner. Noodles disappeared from our plates in an instant, despite the fact that there were also noodles for lunch. Thats the kind of food we had, because it was the ninety-second year, we even brought noodles with us.
I liked it very much on the shore. In the evenings, after work at the factory, I often went there to watch the sunset. The sun was reflecting off the water in such a beautiful way, the silence all around was soothing and made me think about my life and about many things in general. The words of a song came to mind: The sunny road sounds in Norwegian Solveig.
On one of such evenings I felt sorry for myself, I wanted to go home soon. I looked for a long time at the sea surface, with the dark waves crashing into each other, and the white foam on the small stones that remained after the water running back, which reminded me of my lace collar on the school uniform, which my mother knitted.
Not far from the place where we were sunbathing recently I found a big stone and was sitting on it for a long time. It was pleasant to feel the warmth of the last rays of sunlight in the afternoon, if the day was clear. In front of me stretched the dark smooth surface of the sea, with the waves slightly murmuring.
The poems, of course, were not like those of a real poet, but they conveyed my mood at that moment.
A week after we arrived, we decided to have a disco. In the building where we lived, there was a room at the end, something like a club. In the evening everyone put on their best clothes, Alla put on a bright red blouse and a dark skirt, her friend Lena a striped blouse in the bat style, and my new friend and I, without making a consensus, chose jeans and T-shirts for ourselves. We packed with joy.
We usually wore work clothes rubber boots, black smocks, red scarves, and orange rubber aprons. We laughed at our appearance, and our clothes smelled of fish. The smell accompanied us everywhere, so I tried very hard to ignore it.
In fact, our life was not so monotonous, consisting of one job. Lena and I went to a local town Kurilsk, which surprised us with its very modest size, old wooden architecture and the same sidewalk, on the weekend with the girls visited the hot springs, where we loved it, in a nearby building was found a library, there I borrowed a thick book. But there was no such event that we all participated in it together.
One evening, as the sun was setting behind the sea, I sat on my favorite rock and pondered. I didnt want to see another life at all, I was just trying to get away from myself. My thoughts took me back to those not-so-distant days that I had somehow experienced, but my world of the girl I was would never be the same again.
Then for two days I sat in my room, images of my childhood replacing one another. Here was my father, young and handsome, with dark curls and strong arms, tossing me up and catching me, and I wasnt afraid to fall. And this is a sunny August morning, Mother sees us off, standing in front of the house, Father, Mukhtar and I leave by car for the forest. Father wants to pick mushrooms, I want to pick berries. We drive along a smooth paved road, both sides of a field of still green rye swaying quietly in the light breeze. We turn onto a narrow dirt road, drive for a while, and then stop. I cannot believe my eyes, there is such a beautiful ellipse-shaped glade in front of us, tall trees with green foliage murmuring in the height, encircling it tightly from all sides. It is large, with tall grass, above our waist. We go out and slowly walk around the clearing, my father is collecting mushrooms and I am looking for brambleberries, not many, but they are found, no mushrooms especially. Dad says he will wait by the car. I found a berry spot, I promise to pick berries quickly and go back to where we stopped. He and Mukhtar leave, crossing the clearing, Dad walks, spreading the grass with his hands, and Mukhtar, a German shepherd dog of a year and a half, jumps happily in the grass, now hiding from sight, now appearing in a jump. I watch, and my heart sinks, knowing clearly that this day will never happen again, and that I will never find myself in the forest, in the sunlit glade next to my father and Mukhtar. That day would be one of my best memories in life, and I would remember it forever.