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‘Wait, I’ll do it myself. Romanticism, right?’ he gave her a poisonous frowned look, buttoning his shirt. ‘We’re studying what romanticism means. I remember, dear, I really do.’
Kharon got up from the bed and added lighter, adjusting his hair and collar. Victoria closed her eyes and fell on the bed.
‘I’m so stupid…’ she said quiet.
‘I don’t think so.’
‘No, Kharon. There’s something wrong with me. If I’m not insane then I’m stupid.’
‘Your tea got cold, dear. Let me do a new one for you and you’ll say me your thoughts and sufferings as regards what exactly deprived you from saying “yes” to me. You did really want to say it. I heard you begging your stubbornness and it repeated about romanticism. You’ll say me in detail what I should be ready for while I’m advance studying the XXI century romanticism.’
Victoria hardly didn’t laugh when she was on the bed. She couldn’t still get over and understand that with no difficulty the demon penetrated her mind and absorbed all her thoughts and after it he threw them like lances into the girl hinting at “Look what your naughty mind was thinking of while your body was so irreproachable”.
‘You’re insufferable. Stop getting into my mind.’
‘Alas, dear, it’s impossible. I can hear your thoughts as clear as your voice.’
‘How can you distinguish them?’
‘Like linguists… by the con-text.’ Kharon smiled. ‘Moreover, if I took everything that you think, like a sign to act, we’d have already had something that could be described in more than a book. And some of your thoughts, I’m certainly sure, you’d never ask to release. Unfortunately…’
Vic sat on the edge of the bed, trying to understand how she felt. She seemed to have come to herself, but the memories of that man didn’t live her alone. Through the laughing and enjoyment, she was sending away the bad vision. Her all efforts were futile.
As soon as they came back to the kitchen, Victoria understood the man go nowhere.
‘Kharon’ Vic whispered, grabbed his hand.
He stared at the girl: she was pale, her eyes scared, her hands were shaking. Kharon unwittingly thought that the girl was about to faint with fear. To be on the safe side he embraced her.
Victoria was staring at a point not moving and breathing. Her fingers squeezed the man’s hand seeking for defence and support. Her fingers were so cold and tenacious. Her heart was beating in a crazy way, her chest heaved pushing out the air. The girl was looking at him whom Kharon didn’t see.
‘Is he here?’ the demon asked the girl in a low voice.
She nodded silently, being unable to tear herself away from the spirit.
‘What’s he doing?’
‘Looking. Pointing at his neck…’ Vic held back tears.
‘What does it mean?’ Kharon glanced at the girl carefully.
‘What the hell do I know!’ she sobbed. ‘It hurts so much inside me. My heart hurts. It’s empty and broken. I’ve been betrayed by someone. It’s exquisite pain, suffocative and pressing. I’m at the end of my teether. I can’t bear to live…’ Victoria closed her eyes. ‘A girl. She is very beautiful. Big light-blue eyes… like a doll’s ones. She’s happy and loves her life. Love. My heart’s full of love for this girl. My heart beats only because her heart does. I can breathe only because she does. How gentle and tender she is…’
‘Vic…’ the demon whispered, understanding nothing.
The girl hanged in his hands like a deflated balloon. Her eyes were closed, her lips were dry and a silent mask of desperation and sufferable pain on her face.
‘Victoria,’ Kharon called louder. ‘Stay with me… Hey…’
‘That morning, I’m coming into the flat. She’s with him. She is with him. In my bed. Pain. It hurts. Emptiness. Sufferings… She left me for him. A loop on my neck…I don’t feel pain anymore. There’s no desperation. There’s still emptiness… and peregrinations.’
Victoria opened her eyes. Tears were running down her cheeks like hails, her eyes were washy and lifeless.
‘Hey, dear…What’s wrong?’ Kharon touched her forehead.
‘I don’t know, Kharon…’ the girl looked up at him, weary.
He took her up at his arms and sat down on the wide windowsill, being worried that she would faint.
‘I’m sick. I have no strength to move, breathe. I’ve got such a feeling as if I went through an awful lot.’
‘I’ve lived with you all your emotions you got through. With you I’ve got through and felt it… But I don’t understand what it was. I feel almost the same every time when I see past of a person. But I don’t know what it was with you.’
‘I saw his past. By his eyes. He hanged himself because of her. Can you believe?’ Vic looked at the demon. ‘Kharon, can you believe how much he loved her and what she did? Poor guy. How much it hurt him… Why can’t you see him? You’re…very powerful.’
‘I work with people. With women. I don’t need to see the dead, stuck between two worlds. Lucifer can see all of them, but he doesn’t pay attention. He absolutely knows who of them are alive and who aren’t.’
‘Why can I see them? Is it because of the deal?’
‘I don’t think so. Honestly, I don’t know. I don’t understand how it works and what benefits people can have while they contact to the dead. What’s he doing now?’
‘He’s gone. He showed that he hanged himself in your bathroom and disappeared… Jesus I can’t live here knowing what happened here.’
The demon frowned, got gloomy like a thundercloud, pursed his mouth and shook his head.
‘Why are you looking at me like this?’
‘Don’t speak his name in my presence.’
‘Whose name?’ the girl was surprised.
‘His one.’
Victoria was looking at her beloved man with her blank eyes, trying to understand him a bit. Maybe he went crazy? Could demons be crazy?
‘Sorry, but I don’t understand what you’re speaking about.’ Victoria embraced him, pressed her forehead against his chest.
Kharon took a sigh and glanced at the street.
‘Stay with me.’ He asked quietly.
‘Here?’ Victoria doubtingly exclaimed in surprise.
‘Yes…’
‘There’s a dead man with the loop on his neck here…’
‘You’re with me, remember?’ he kissed her cheek. ‘He’s not a threat to you while you’re with me. I’ll be with you everywhere. Stay with me today.’
The lifted her eyes at him and realized that no matter how scared she was in that flat, she was unable to decline his ask. Her tongue didn’t obey her. It couldn’t say “no” anymore.
‘I know and hear you making yourself decline my ask. But you can’t. You can’t. Don’t tease yourself nor me. Here’s the phone, call your mum, tell a story that Vasilisa and you’re at her place… Tell her…’
Victoria did everything that Kharon told and under the weight of his kisses she didn’t make neither head nor tail of what was going on. The demon didn’t leave her alone for a single moment.
‘What’s that?’ Victoria jumped down from the windowsill, after she had noticed something bright and shining under the table.
‘Where?’ Kharon followed her with his eyes.
‘There…’
Vic pulled the long feather from under the table and occultly looked at it with the finding. The eyes hurt so much, the feather reflected bright-blinding light. Victoria screwed up her eyes, wiped them, but continued looking at the piece of unheard pureness.
‘Don’t look…’ the demon stopped speaking seeing Victoria carefully and pretentiously examining Lucifer’s part.
The girl pressed the feather to herself, closed her eyes and sat down on the floor. That’s all. All hell broke loose. Close-ups were flickering before her eyes. Time was running, pictures were flying, memories were going…
Beauty. Light. Tenderness. The soul is happy. Respect. Charming love. Obedience. Taste of rivalry, bitterness and insult. He’s not been understood. By no one. Falling. Long, heavy, insufferable falling. Everything is falling down quickly. An unheard speed. The light swoops down. Collision. Pain. Ground opened wide because of the collision, letting the light inside. It didn’t fade away but flared up, getting into the depths, lightening them. Stop. No awareness. Insult. Despair. Betray. Hatred. Exaltation. Subordinates and army. Admission of lordliness. Overall love. Respect. Pedestal. Equality… Indifference.
Kharon was listening with no moving. Victoria was sitting on the floor with half-closed eyes, firmly pressed the feather to herself.
‘This is the part of Lucifer…’ she whispered when she opened her eyes. ‘He lost it in the people world. He had to take it but forgot.’
‘You saw the history in pictures. You saw those things that even I didn’t see… Thank to you I’ve done it now… But no people can see it.’
Kharon stopped speaking. He didn’t want to tell that no one could live in a usual way having such knowledges. You would need to pretend a mentally deficient to get rid of other or to keep your mouth closed. To be silent all your life.
The demons weren’t a great expert of human lives but even he clearly understood that no good would go if Olga Vladimirovna heard Lucifer’s story which had passed through her daughter’s mind.
‘I wanna keep it.’ Victoria ordered, getting up from her knees. ‘Lucifer was here. When?’
‘Victoria. No…’
The girl smiled and reproachfully shook her head. She was fun with uncovered lie of the man.
‘I didn’t know that such thing could happen.’ The girl said, touching the feather, trying to look through her screwed up eyes. ‘I’ll keep it, Kharon. And…I’m not asking any permission. It’s out of the question.’
The demon was at his loss: he had never seen the same. Certainly, for all his centuries-long existence he had deals with witches. They called him into their beds. They knew what to wait and never objected to him. Some of them tried to do magic on him but they died. Their graceful self-confidence destroyed their lives.
But Victoria was different. The demon liked the girl. He liked her embarrassed inapproachability, her filthy mind, easy acts and golden smile, her hard temper and childish naivetе.
Kharon waited for Victoria to find out what abilities she had. He was interested in what the girl would do and think, if she would try to do another stupid thing.
Her fingers, soft and gently were touching Lucifer’s feather, transporting all the feelings and painful memories into her soul. They hid. They didn’t want to be discovered. They fussed and swarmed around like gnat-warms. But it was enough for Victoria as well as for Kharon.
The girl completely forgot about the spirit with the loop on its neck, recalling Lucifer’s pictures, his burgundy eyes and fir scent. Because of understating his life, a pity and sorrow woke up for the Lord of hell. What a man with a loop?
That night Kharon and Victoria slept together. On the big bed. It was their first night.
She dreamt about a thick stand of fir trees and a huge eagle-owl which hooted so loud, looking at the world with its big yellow eyes. Half asleep Victoria felt unbelievable peacefulness and calmness. Her beloved man’s warm hands were touching her relaxed body all the night. It was the first time for the long time when Victoria was really relaxed.
That night Kharon covered her body with light kisses. Every inch was enveloped with miracle caress. It was the first time when he felt everything in a different way because his life wasn’t in a dream. He liked so much that new, improved feeling. The girl’s answer was not tricked by a dessert of dream but deliberated.
That night they had nothing between them. Victoria kept on insisting on romanticism and flourished time of court. Kharon was amazed. All what he could do with this woman of the Planet Earth, was to be amazed.
26
September 2013 (Thursday)
The month passed since Lucifer and Victoria had concluded the deal.
September was stealing up to the end. It was getting colder. But wagtails and starlings were still trampling with their little legs the merciless causeways and railway station forecourts seeking for food. They were waiting for people to give them some crumbs as blackflies had hidden already. Fortunately, not all people were mean and in a hurry. They feed plump birds and their fledgy nestlings before they flew away.
Leaves were slowly getting yellow and falling. In the silent park leaves were heard to come off the sleepy treetops and whispering, falling slowly down, dancing in light vorticity. Anyone would be amazed by their marvellous colour. There were so many colours and tinctures on trees, leaves and grass. Were there so many names for all those colours of autumn palette?
Of course, it rained. It rained in a soft, monotonous way but not torrential. Water whispered and whispered about something from the sky. Nobody listened to it. All the world had music in its ears, its neck is enveloped with the wires, devastating its mind with suffering hypoxia of artificial and non-existed sounds. The rain still whispered and whispered, the ground exhaled fragrance before to fall asleep.
For a month Victoria had job that she had got with Kharon’s help. She like her job and Olga Vladimirovna kept on mumbling that her daughter had to be a doctor not a street painter. There were quarrels and scandals. The mother and the daughter understood each other less and less.
Olga Vladimirovna didn’t want to admit the fact that her daughter was already an adult. She could be let to a life sea, sometimes giving a piece of advice if she asked for, but her mum shouldn’t trust down throat.
For the month after work Victoria met her mysterious friend. She was going deeper and deeper into unheard love for him. She wanted always to see him. She wanted his voice to sound in her head and ears for her entire life. Victoria was filled with her desires for the demon. She always touched his hands, examined his long, beautiful fingers, neatly trimmed fingernails, soft skin. His hands didn’t face with household use not orally neither in dictionary.
Sometimes when she stayed with the demon at nights, Victoria liked looking at his fabulous trunk. She liked seeing his fingers move awkwardly, hardly being able to button his shirt and how quickly they unbuttoned it. She liked seeing them tear off cloth when he didn’t succeed in undoing just one button.
His rarely laughed. Kharon nearly always frowned or was suspicious. He studied to live with people. It didn’t amuse him. Besides after the demon had noticed that Moscow wasn’t too much smiley, especially when it was about mornings, Kharon stopped smiling at streets at all, accepting it as ill-mannered and idiotism sign.
Victoria tried to explain that people in Moscow had an original opinion about laughing. Russian people didn’t use to smile just for nothing: it was a bad behaviour, an imbecility wave. But it didn’t mean that in Moscow laughing was tabooed. You just needed to find a good reason to smile and laugh and also convince others that you were mentally healthy, here was your reason to laugh. Kharon was difficult to understand it. He was easier to say good-bye to his smile than to adapt to changeable social mood.
Victoria liked walking with Kharon. The demon sometimes examined with pleasure and admire one or another historically significant building, being amused with human abilities: it turned out that people were capable not only of destroying but also of creating.
Vic often argued with Kharon about this theme. She wasn’t fascinated by the modern buildings; most likely she was irritated with them. She was perplexed with obscure tendency to create phallic forms and structures. Where had all worthy architectures gone who had had perfect imagination and abilities to realize all of those into life? Why were there similar skyscrapers, spread all over the world? It was ok with the world, but did they try to fill Moscow with lean, tasteless and simple buildings everywhere?
Certainly, Kharon enjoyed both modern buildings and past centuries architecture. It was simpler for him as he had had no chance to examine carefully none of them before Victoria appeared.
They walked over the whole capital of Russia on foot in the evenings, speaking about everything what they thought of. The demon confessed that he hellishly liked Moscow, its buildings, structure and movement, frowned people who, despite their gloominess, were ready to help and smile at any time. He liked movement most of all. It was everywhere in Moscow: on the roads, under the ground, in the sky, in buildings and basements, on roofs and railways. There was nothing static in this city. The tartar representatives were fascinated with crazy Russian chaotic conditions.
No Victoria’s arguments worked that to live constantly in turmoil was very difficult, it sucked out of you your energy… life in the long run. Moscow absorbed everything. It was like a black hole, swallowed up you. Few people could notice them be in the centre of the vile city abyss. That was because no one wanted to run away from it.
Moscow made most part of its population exist but not live. It managed to keep millions of people with its beauty and massiveness. Perhaps it was tired of us but due to its habit it kept on absorbing and sucking surrounding materials.
Victoria told about miracles of underground life in the capital, about true architecture that was covered under the strata of the ground.
The demon visited every metro station in the underground, having looked over great mosaics, statues, patterns, frescos… It would be nothing to say that he was shocked. He didn’t suppose people to have done those. People weren’t supposed to have definitions of beauty and ability to give life to beauty.
Certainly, Kharon couldn’t help seeing female part of Moscow. He happened to be with people, but it hadn’t been for so long and as a rule it’d been in Europe and its buttoned-up ladies. He had one-day relations and none of those women did even try to have a walk with Kharon. None of them gave him a possibility to see also beautiful medieval London, pretentious Paris and laid down base of the Elfie Tower. He saw nothing but respectable ladies who were preoccupied with their own desires when they, hiding from their husbands, enjoyed sins of the flesh not only with people but with incubi. Before Kharon had seen nothing bad of it. The demon was had been created to satisfy the fair sex, what did he have to complaint of?
Kharon read like a neon signs, women’s minds, their desire no one knew about. He liked their minds. Women didn’t always think of sex: they had a lot of things to do and feel, which their minds were full of. They tried to keep everything in mind. They were in a hurry.
