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Vic lowered her eyes and noticed Philippych’s lips silently moving and then a clear whisper went on: “…political capitalism economy, historical materialism, scientific communism. The philosophy centre is a conception of a human subtraction from own labour products…”
Vic was watching the professor’s lips and understood nothing. The whisper, he was speaking, was a whisper but loud. It was so loud so the person sitting next to Philippych, would have absolutely heard what was going on near.
‘Have you told anything, Professor?’ Victoria asked unexpectedly.
‘I’ve asked you to give Marxism conception. Philipp Philippych is silently waiting for the answer.’
The moderator was speaking, and Victoria saw Marxism conception coming out of his mouth. It was just in tune with his announcements! Simultaneously!
‘What’s the hell?’ Vic asked herself under her breath, touching her hair.
‘I beg your pardon? Are you ok, Drache? You don’t look like yourself.’ Philippych asked quiet. ‘You’re pale, sweated… Shall I let you go to the nurse?’
‘No,’ she whispered in replay kept on looking at the moderator’s lips muttering about Marxism conception. ‘I’ll go on.’
In a trembling voice, Victoria re-told everything that the moderator said and got good mark, and looking round, she left the auditorium.
‘So? How was it?’ group-mates came up to her.
Vic came along the hall, speaking and listening to nobody. She washed her face with cold water, trying to wash off madness that had attacked her. She couldn’t still believe what she had seen was true. How was it possible to believe in such things? And on the other hand, how was it possible not to believe? Knowing nothing Vic passed the final philosophy exam because the moderator himself had told her the examination card! What a nonsense!
Cold water streamed. Refreshing. Victoria refused to believe in what had happened. It was too much. There was no such a thing.
In fifteen minutes, she left the WC room, forced herself to smile. She had to speak a lot about how the exam was, how she was lucky, that she remembered the correct answer, that professors weren’t mean. Vic tried to calm her course mates down, infused hope into them, saying that everything would be okay, and everyone would pass.
‘Vic, have you passed?’ Olga Vladimirovna spoke in a voice touched with emotions on the cell.
‘I have, I got a good mark. Don’t worry.’
‘Oh, thanks god. When are you going home?’
‘In the evening. Maybe at night. We’re gonna to a cafе with mates.’
‘Okay, try to be at home earlier, will you?’
‘Mum!’ a reproachful note appeared in Vic’s voice. ‘I’m not a baby!’
‘Yes, you aren’t, of course. You’re a child. So be careful. Are you listening to me, Vic?’
Victoria looked angrily at the ceiling, holding the cell away from her ear not to listen to the talk.
‘Okay, mum, okay. I got it. See you.’
‘Vic, I’ve not…’
Her mum was speaking something when the girl hanged up the cell. She didn’t want to listen to any moralizing. After Vic had seen the professor saying her the examination card and nobody but Vic could hear him, she wanted to relax a little bit. It didn’t matter what people it would be around. The main point was not to be alone, especially at home.
After the exam all students went to a cafе at Sokolniky. They chattered bragging of their achievements and call luck bad names, telling how they had passed.
The moderators turned to be very severe. The Ministry Chairman was almost physio. He failed every student, having fun. If Philippych hadn’t been there, not everyone would have passed. Philippych got it hot and strong – the Chairman made fun of him and of his badly educated students. And if Victoria thought that Philippych answered the question himself, then the moderator wouldn’t have done the same.
She remembered those terrible whispering lips, the blank, whitish look, getting pale skin. She couldn’t get the face disfigured by indifference out of her memory.
Everyone was celebrating the successful examination while Victoria was meditating, making herself sure that her subconsciousness projected recollections in the shape of the whispering professor.
After she drunk two or three glasses the girl started relaxing and losing herself in dreams. If it was madness then damn with it, she could do nothing anyway. If mind got ill, then it was the end. When you were drunk, you better recognized and got over your own hopelessness than when you were sober. It was easier for the girl when her course mate embraced her, laughing in unison with her. It was easier to see his face imagining no Kharon’s face. And, of course, it was easier to kiss him back because there was nothing similar in comparison with the demon’s kisses.
As soon as Victoria felt the miserable embracing with a perishable human body of male sex, being very annoying, pleasureless, she left the cafе when no one saw her.
There was metro ahead and having gone a little distance towards the underground kingdom of marble and granite, Vic stopped. The big park behind her offensively looked at her. There were fresh young leaves, embracing students and loving couples on benches, drunkards, were going to sleep hat in hand to the strains of tree crown murmurs on the warmed ground. The lanterns were fabulously lightning, along the carefully done paths, giving the atmosphere of Peter Pan fairy tale.
Without a second thought Victoria went back to the park, understanding nothing, why she was doing it. The only thing she understood the unreal smell of adventure. She walked on the smell…until she stumbled and fell into the bushes.
Then there was darkness. There was nothing before her eyes. She didn’t understand if her eyes were open or not. There was just coldness gently touched her body. The dream wasn’t a dream and reality wasn’t a reality. Nothing was understandable. She had a cramped consciousness, dancing in alcoholic delirium. It was busy. It had no time to look after reality. It was still rushing having forgotten the mind. Time was happy: nobody watched it! A rustle… Another one. The mind was tired. It wanted to back to reality, but all the attempts were in vain. An abrupt movement. A blaze was before her eyes… Pain. Violent pain. She wanted to cry. Her mind had been still apprehending existence out of the bounds of subconsciousness, remembering the sly consciousness.
Someone’s hands. Warm. Strong. Zero gravity. That was what meant to hover over the ground. The breeze… The beginning of the way.
Vitoria opened her eyes. The darkness. She couldn’t understand who she was. The girl tried to move her hands and legs: they worked. Pain! Here was it! On the upper eyelid of the left eye. Vic blinked and the pain was gone nowhere but got stronger.
‘You landed on a sharp knot…in the bushes.’ A sudden quiet voice brought Vic to life a bit.
In her fright she jumped up and fell on the floor… that wasn’t her one. The darkness still covered the truth and with vigour, Victoria was still feeling for little pile on the floor.
‘Where am I?’ she asked under her breath, sat on her knees, with no result looking into the night dark.
The silence was in response. Vic was turned her head like an eagle-owl, peering into forward. She carefully got up and faltered ahead like a year-old baby.
‘Hey!’ she shouted, going like a zombie, stretched out her hand. ‘Who’s here?’
Consciousness was coming back slowly into reality, then dragging fear, which always said no. It was exhausted already to come every day to that girl.
‘Have you forgotten yet?’
The hands were the same, strong and warm, gently touched her palms, holding the girl not to let darkness make her fall.
‘Kharon.’
Victoria didn’t know what to feel: fear? Blissfulness? A scare? Enjoyment? She was losing in her feelings.
‘Is that really you?’ she asked with fear, stepping back from his hands. ‘Where am I?’
‘Well what if I say that you are at my place? Would you be glad?’
‘At your place? Your home? What time is it? Jesus…mum’s gonna kill me!’ Victoria stared round.
Despite her eyes were used to the darkness, all the same she saw nothing but the dark silhouette. No furniture was seen there, nor street lamps light through the curtains. The windows seemed not to exist at all.
‘I called her and said that you would come in the morning or afternoon…’
‘You…What did you do? Perfect!’ Victoria came up to Kharon, trying to give a sever look at his face. ‘How should I explain a man who called her? How to introduce you? The demon?! Kharon the Demon? Just Kharon? Incubus? Or just to say that Victoria is a crackpot?’
‘Are you blowing up me?’ Kharon was surprised.
He had a velvet and silky voice, but his intonation scared the girl.
He snapped his fingers and wall luminaries, awkwardly spread over the wall, lit with a languishing pale light, filling the room with a weak glowing. Vic stepped back. Kharon wasn’t supposed to appear like that: an unbuttoned white shirt, let out of his trousers, blinding the eyes, the shoes, combed hair, barely visible bristle and the black eyes full of outrage and true wonder.
‘No.’ The girl said quickly and folded the jacket about herself. ‘No. I just wonder what I’m supposed to do next… And what did you say my mum?’
Vic stopped speaking, starring at the unbuttoned shirt. A slight smiled played across his lips and he started buttoning the shirt. The girl’s burning in red cheeks made him cheer up.
‘That’s all?’ he asked as he did the button over his stomach.
‘What?’
‘That’s all what you want to know?’
‘No.’ Victoria became severe unexpectedly. ‘I want to know what you’re doing here? Or what am I doing here if you forbid me to summon you?’
‘You answered your question: I forbid you! But no one forbid me to appear according to my will and of my own free choice. By chance, I saw your body in the night wilds and as I am sure that sooner or later, I will get from you what I want, I decided to save your body. I did it. As for your mother,’ Kharon started speaking in as the same voice as Victoria did, ‘mum, don’t worry, I’m staying at Vasilisa, I’ll come tomorrow.’
Vitoria hanged on his words, looked at him and she didn’t understand how he was capable of doing what he was doing. His voice sounded identically like hers.
‘Did she believe you? My mum, I mean.’ Vic amazingly blinked.
‘She doubtlessly did… Besides why do you report when you are going to come home? What time and with whom.’ Kharon asked, finally finished buttoning his shirt. ‘What an uneasy thing…’
‘What do you mean why? She’s my mum, she worries what if something bad happens to me…’ Vic tried to explain.
‘So what?’ Kharon gave her a predatory look behind his shoulder. ‘Ah? What? What will she do? What can you, people, do for those you love? If you were pressed with a large-tonnage slab, could she pull it off in a second to give you a possibility to breathe? Could she get you out of a sinking ship in the Indian Ocean if she were on the other end of the spectrum? What could she do if the Death came into the game?’
‘Kharon… Mother love. It is… It’s difficult to explain, I have no children, but I love my mum and if a large-tonnage slab pressed her I would turn inside-out to try to get her out of that… And I can imagine how much a mother loves her child and for what she is ready to do for him or her…’
‘I am sometimes glad that I communicate with living people. You are so funny! Especially your philosophy! None of you could do anything, but the grief is a good start to shed tears over. You have a bad headache, Victoria! What can you do with this?’
‘How do you know…? Jesus, I’m asking this again. I can’t get over the thought that you know everything. To live like this seems to be dull.’
‘No, it isn’t. I told you, people amuse me. So, what are you capable of doing to your headache?’
‘Take a medicine.’
‘Then take it.’
‘I don’t have any.’ Vic got what he was driving at. ‘But you can help me, can’t you?’
The demon smiled. The girl was staring at him, remembering each line, trait and dimple of his. His face was beyond compare, she couldn’t help but look at him.
‘Help me,’ Vic whispered tenaciously, feeling her temples become clenched more and more.
‘Take away your pain?’ he was near the girl, stroked her hair. ‘Make you free from this feeling?’
‘Yes,’ Vic closed her eyes and like a kitten, almost began to purr because of his gently touches.
In a second pain drew off, the warmth spread over the head vessels, enriching the brain with new power.
‘What else, my little mistress?’ the demon cynically asked, holding the girl in his arms.
There were his lips again. His lips were on her neck. The small lightning jumped through her body in reply to his kisses, hotness of his hands, his palms. Passion burnt an insane fire and Vic didn’t have even a drop of water to put out it. Just to agree the deal and her body would get what it was yearning for. But neither her heart nor her soul would get the love, which was described in books, discussed by multimillion budget actors on the world TV. Her soul wanted more than just the lust of the flesh. Vic didn’t want to think for a moment that the demon… Did he know what love was? Was there a germ of the truth in that sharp word for him?
‘Shall I go on?’
His whisper cut through the night, made it scream, growing faint from pain. Victoria opened her eyes.
‘No. I gotta go…’
The girl grasped her head and with horror she remembered her doing. Kharon didn’t control her. He was silent, folded his arms and watched the girl. He didn’t understand her. But what? If there was a great desire, then why didn’t she want to satisfy it? Why didn’t she want to pay and then to get what had been driving her crazy every night?
‘Where’s my shoe?’ the girl asked in a big hallway.
Kharon appeared in the doorway and smiled, languidly gazing at Vic.
‘Shoe?’
‘Yes!’
‘The one that you’ve lost in the bushes?’
‘In the bushes?’ Vic looked in the demon’s eyes in surprise. ‘You couldn’t have taken it with you, could you? How am I supposed to go now?’
An unexpected complaint struck down Kharon. He gave the slightest twitch of one eyebrow, astonishingly looked at her olive coloured eyes.
‘What am I supposed to do, Kharon?’
The empathic voice cut into the head. The demon was silent, with no stopping burning the girl with his amber eyes.
‘You aren’t supposed to leave today…’ he said finally.
‘It’s perfect and wonderful but you didn’t answer my question. How am I supposed to go in on shoe? How couldn’t you have guessed that I’d need both of them? People usually use both. Simultaneously! On both feet! Moreover, you saw it in the bushes! I don’t understand was it really so hard to take it with you?’
Kharon was black as sin and there was a reason for. Women had never ever talked to him in such a way. Dream always obfuscated the reality that all of them were ready and said the only word “yes”. That’s all. They didn’t need to talk further. Then the body language and mind-blowing games came into reality at the forefront of catharsis. But to blow up Kharon for the lost shoe…It was a nonsense!
‘Fine.’ Vic took a sigh, being in a shoe. ‘You have to bring me home. I don’t know how you do this, but I have to be at home.’
‘Are you sure about “I have”?’ the demon boiled over when his mind was slowly coming back.
‘Absolutely. I can’t go barefooted. And I’m barefooted by the merit of you.’
‘Okay!’ the demon snapped his fingers before the girl’s nose and between one breath and another they both turned to be at Vic’s small room. ‘You’re at home.’ Kharon confirmed the obvious fact.
