But to look at, Svetlana still seemed normal. Except maybe for the shadows under her eyes, but who knew what kind of a night she’d had? And the way she was dressed—a skirt, a stylish blouse, heels—as if she were expecting someone or was all set to go out.
“Good evening, Svetlana,” I said, already noticing a faint gleam of recognition in her eyes. Of course, she had a vague memory of me from the previous day. And I had to exploit that moment when she’d already realized we knew each other but still hadn’t remembered from where.
I reached out through the Twilight. Cautiously, because the vortex was hanging right there above the girl’s head as if it were tethered to her and could react at any second. Cautiously, because I didn’t really want to deceive her.
Not even if it was for her own good.
It’s only the first time that’s interesting and funny. If you still find it amusing after that, the Night Watch is the wrong place for you. It’s one thing to shift someone’s moral imperatives, especially when it’s always toward the Good. It’s quite another to interfere with their memory. It’s inevitable; it has to be done; it’s part of the Treaty; and through the very process of entering and leaving the Twilight we induce a momentary amnesia in the people around us.
But if you ever start to enjoy toying with someone else’s memory—it’s time you quit the Watch.
“Good evening, Anton.” Her voice blurred slightly when I forced her to remember things that had never happened. “What’s happened?”
I smiled sourly and slapped myself on the stomach. By now there was a hurricane raging in Svetlana’s memory. My control wasn’t so great that I could implant a fully structured false memory in her mind. Fortunately, in this case I could just give her a couple of hints, and from then on she deceived herself. She put my image together out of one old acquaintance I happened to resemble and another person she’d known and liked even earlier than that, but not for long, as well as a couple of dozen patients my age and some of her neighbors in the building. I only gave the process a gentle nudge, helping Svetlana toward an integrated image. A good man . . . a neurasthenic . . . quite often unwell . . . flirts a bit, but no more than a bit—very unsure of himself . . . lives on the next stairwell.
“You have pain?” She gathered her thoughts. She really was a good doctor, with a real vocation.
“A bit. I had a drink yesterday,” I said, trying to look repentant.
“Anton, I warned you . . . come in . . .”
I went in and closed the door—the girl hadn’t even bothered about that. While I was taking off my coat, I had a quick look around, in the ordinary world and in the Twilight.
Cheap wallpaper, a tattered rug on the floor, an old pair of boots, a light bulb in a simple glass shade on the ceiling, a radio telephone on the wall—cheap Chinese junk. Modest. Clean. Ordinary. And the important thing here wasn’t that the profession of district doctor doesn’t pay very well. It was more that she didn’t feel any need for comfort. That was bad . . . very bad.
In the Twilight world the apartment made a slightly better impression. No repulsive plant life, no trace of the Darkness. Apart from the black vortex, of course, just hanging there . . . I could see the entire thing, from the stalk, swirling around above the girl’s head, up to the broad mouth, thirty meters higher.
I followed Svetlana through into the only room. At least things were a bit more cozy in here. The couch had a warm orange glow—not all of it though, just the spot by the old-fashioned standard lamp. Two walls were covered with single-box bookshelves stacked on top of each other, seven shelves high . . . Clear enough.
I was beginning to understand her, not just as a professional target and a potential victim of a Dark Magician, not just as the unwitting cause of a catastrophe, but as a person. An introverted, bookish child, with a mass of complexes and her head full of crazy ideals and a childish faith in the beautiful prince who was searching for her and would surely find her. Work as a doctor, a few girlfriends, a few male friends, and a great deal of loneliness. Conscientious work almost in the spirit of a builder of communism, occasional visits to the café and occasional loves. And each evening like every other one, on the couch, with a book, with the phone lying beside her, with the television muttering something soapy and comforting.
How many of you there still are, girls and boys of various ages, raised by naïve parents in the sixties. How many of you there are, so unhappy, not knowing how to be happy. How I long to take pity on you, how I long to help you. To touch you through the Twilight—gently, with no force at all. To give you just a little confidence in yourself, just a tiny bit of optimism, a gram of willpower, a crumb of irony. To help you, so that you could help others.
But I can’t.
Every action taken by Good grants permission for an active response by Evil. The Treaty! The Watches! The balance of peace in the world?
I have to live with it or go crazy, break the law, walk through the crowd handing out unsolicited gifts, changing destinies, wondering which corner I’ll turn and find my old friends and eternal enemies, waiting to dispatch me into the Twilight. Forever . . .
“Anton, how’s your mother?”
Ah, yes. As Anton Gorodetsky, the patient, I had an old mother. She had osteochondrosis and a full set of old folks’ ailments. She was Svetlana’s patient too.
“Not too bad, she’s okay. I’m the one who’s . . .”
“Lie down.”
I pulled off my shirt and sweater and lay down on the couch. Svetlana squatted down beside me. She ran her warm fingers over my stomach and even palpated my liver.
“Does that hurt?”
“No . . . not now.”
“How much did you drink?”
As I replied to the girl’s questions, I looked for the answers in her mind. No need to make it look like I was dying. Yes . . . I had dull pains, not too sharp . . . After food . . . I’d just had a little twinge . . .
“So far it’s just gastritis, Anton . . . ,” said Svetlana, taking her hands away. “But that’s bad enough, you know that. I’ll write you a prescription . . .”
She got up, walked to the door, and took her purse off the hanger.
All this time I was observing the vortex. There was nothing happening; my arrival hadn’t triggered any intensification in the Inferno, but it hadn’t done anything to weaken it either . . .
“Anton . . .” I recognized the voice coming through the Twilight as Olga’s. “Anton, the vortex has lost three centimeters of height. You must have made a right move somewhere. Think, Anton.”
A right move? When? I hadn’t done anything except invent a reason to visit!
“Anton, do you have any of your ulcer medicine left?” Svetlana asked, looking across at me from the table. I nodded as I tucked in my shirt.
“Yes, a few capsules.”
“When you get home, take one. And buy some more tomorrow. Then take them for two weeks, before sleep.”
Svetlana was obviously one of those doctors who believe in pills. That didn’t bother me, I believed in them too. All of us—the Others, that is—have an irrational awe of science; even in cases when elementary magical influence would do the job, we reach out for the painkillers and the antibiotics.
“Svetlana . . . I hope you don’t mind me asking,” I said, looking away guiltily. “Have you got problems of some kind?”
“Where did you get that idea, Anton?” she asked, continuing to write and not even glancing in my direction. But she tensed up.
“Just a feeling. Has someone offended you somehow?”
The girl put down her pen and looked at me with curiosity and gentle sympathy in her eyes.
“No, Anton. There’s nothing. I expect it’s just the winter. The winter’s too long.”
She gave a forced smile and the Inferno vortex swayed above her head, shifting its stalk greedily . . .
“The sky’s gray, the world’s gray. And I don’t feel like doing anything . . . everything seems meaningless. I’m tir
ed, Anton. It’ll pass when spring comes.”
“You’re depressed, Svetlana,” I blurted out before I realized that I’d drawn the diagnosis out of her own memory. But she didn’t pay any attention.
“Probably. Never mind, when the sun peeps out . . . Thanks for feeling concerned, Anton.”
This time her smile was more genuine, but it was still pained.
I heard Olga’s voice whispering through the Twilight:
“Anton, it’s down ten centimeters! The vortex is losing height! The analysts are working on it, Anton. Keep talking to her!”
What was I doing right?
That question was more terrifying than “What am I doing wrong?” Make a mistake, and all you have to do is make a sharp change of approach. But if you’ve hit the target without knowing how you did it, then you’re in a real fix. It’s tough being a bad shot who’s hit the bull’s-eye by chance, struggling to remember how you moved your hands and screwed up your eyes, how much pressure your finger applied to the trigger . . . and not wanting to believe that the bullet was directed to the target by a random gust of wind.
I caught myself sitting and looking at Svetlana. And she was looking at me. Seriously, without speaking.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry, Svetlana, forgive me. I came barging in late in the evening, and now I’m interfering in your private life . . .”
“That’s all right, Anton. Actually, I like it. How would you like some tea?”
“Down twenty centimeters, Anton! Say yes!”
Even those few centimeters skimmed off the height of the vortex were a gift from the gods. They were human lives. Tens or even hundreds of lives snatched away from the inevitable catastrophe. I didn’t know how I was doing it, but I was increasing Svetlana’s resistance to the Inferno. And the vortex was beginning to melt away.
“Thanks, Svetlana. I’d love some.”
The girl got up and went into the kitchen. I followed her. What was going on here?
“Anton, we have a provisional analysis . . .”
I thought I glimpsed the white silhouette of a bird through the curtained window—it flitted on along the wall, following Svetlana.
“Ignat followed the usual plan. Compliments, interest, infatuation, love. She liked it, but it made the vortex grow. You’re using a different approach—sympathy. Passive sympathy.”
No recommendations followed, which meant the analysts hadn’t reached any conclusions yet. But at least now I knew what I had to do next: look at her sadly, smile sympathetically, drink tea, and say: “Your eyes look tired, Sveta . . .”
We’d be talking to each other like friends, right? Of course we would. I was certain of that.
“Anton?”
I’d been staring at her too long. Svetlana was standing by the stove, not moving, holding a kettle with its shiny surface dulled by condensation. She wasn’t exactly frightened; that feeling was already beyond her, completely drained out of her by the black vortex. It was more like she was embarrassed.
“Is something wrong?” she asked.
“Yes. It feels awkward, Svetlana. I just turned up in the middle of the night, dumped my problems on you, and now I’m hanging around, waiting for tea . . .”
“Anton, please stay. You know, I’ve had such a strange day, and being here alone . . . Let’s call it my fee for the consultation, shall we? That is . . . you staying for a while and talking to me,” she explained hastily.
I nodded. Any word might be a mistake.
“The vortex has shrunk another fifteen centimeters. You’ve chosen the right tactic, Anton!”
But I hadn’t chosen anything, why couldn’t those lousy analysts understand that! I’d used the powers of an Other to enter someone else’s home; I’d interfered with someone else’s memory so I could stay there longer . . . and now I was just going with the flow.
And hoping the current would bring me out where I needed to be.
“Would you like some jam, Anton?”
“Yes . . .”
A mad tea party! Move over, Lewis Carroll! The maddest tea parties aren’t the ones in the rabbit’s burrow, with the Mad Hatter, the Sleepy Dormouse, and the March Hare around the table. A small kitchen in a small apartment, tea left over from the morning, topped up with boiling water, raspberry jam from a three-liter jar—this is the stage on which unknown actors play out genuinely mad tea parties. This is the place, the only place where they say the words that they would never say otherwise. This is where they pull nasty little secrets out of the darkness with a conjuror’s flourish, where they take the family skeletons out of the closet, where they discover the cyanide sprinkled in the sugar bowl. And you can never find a reason to get up and leave, because every time they pour you more tea, offer you jam, and move the sugar bowl a bit closer . . .
“Anton, I’ve known you for a year already . . .”
A shadow, a brief, perplexed shadow in the girl’s eyes. Her memory obligingly fills in the blanks, her memory hands her explanations for why a man as likeable and good as me is still no more than her patient.
“Only from my work, of course, but now . . . I feel I’d like to talk to you somehow . . . as a neighbor. As a friend. Is that okay?”
“Of course, Sveta.”
A grateful smile. It’s not so easy to use the familiar form of my name. From Anton to Antoshka is too big a step.
“Thank you, Anton. You know . . . I just don’t know where I am. For the last three days now.”
Of course, it’s not so easy to know where you are when you have the sword of Nemesis hanging over you. Blind, furious Nemesis, escaped from the power of the dead gods . . .
“Today . . . never mind . . .”
She wanted to tell me about Ignat. She didn’t understand what was happening to her, why a chance encounter had almost gotten all the way to the bed. She felt like she was going insane. Everybody who comes within the Others’ sphere of activity has thoughts like that.
“Svetlana, perhaps . . . perhaps you’ve fallen out with someone?”
That was a crude move. But I was in a hurry. I didn’t even know why myself; so far the vortex was stable, it was even shrinking. But I was in a hurry.
“Why do you think that?”
Svetlana wasn’t surprised and she didn’t think the question was too personal. I shrugged and tried to explain:
“It often happens to me.”
“No, Anton. I haven’t fallen out with anyone. I’ve no one to fall out with, and no reason. It’s something inside me . . .”
That’s where you’re wrong, girl, I thought. You’ve no idea how wrong you are. Black vortices the size of the one hanging over you appear only once in every hundred years. And that means someone hates you with the kind of power rarely granted to anyone . . . even to an Other.
“You probably need a vacation,” I suggested. “To get away somewhere . . . far away to the back of beyond . . .”
When I said that, I realized there was a solution to the problem after all. Maybe not a complete solution; it would still be fatal for Svetlana. She could go away. Out into the taiga or the tundra, to the North Pole. And then it would happen there—the volcano would erupt, the asteroid would hit, or the cruise missile with the nuclear warheads would strike. The Inferno would erupt, but Svetlana would be the only one to suffer.
It’s a good thing that solutions like that are as impossible for us as the murder suggested by the Dark Magician.
“What are you thinking, Anton?”
“Sveta, what’s happened to you?”
“Too abrupt, Anton! Steer the conversation away from that, Anton!”
“Is it really that obvious?”
“Yes.”
Svetlana lowered her eyes. Any moment I was expecting Olga to shout that the black vortex had begun its final, catastrophic spurt of growth, that I’d ruined everything, and now I’d have thousands of human lives on my conscience forever . . . but Olga didn’t say a word.
“I betrayed . . .”
> “What?”
“I betrayed my mother.”
She looked at me seriously, not a trace of the disgusting posturing of someone who’s pulled some really low-down trick and is boasting about it.
“I don’t understand, Sveta . . .”
“My mother’s ill, Anton. Her kidneys. She needs regular dialysis . . . but that’s only a half-measure. Well, anyway, they suggested a transplant to me.”
“Why suggest that to you?” I still didn’t understand.
“They suggested I should give my mother one kidney. It would almost certainly be accepted; I even had all the tests done . . . and then I refused. I’m . . . I’m afraid.”
I didn’t say anything. Everything was clear now. Something about me must have clicked; something about me had made Svetlana feel she could be totally open with me. So it was her mother.
Her mother!
“Well done, Anton. The guys are already on their way.” Olga’s voice sounded triumphant. And so it should—we’d found the Black Magician! “Would you believe it, at first contact nobody felt a thing, they thought there was nothing to her . . . Well done. Calm her down, Anton, talk to her, comfort her . . .”
You can’t stop your ears in the Twilight. You have to listen when you’re spoken to.
“Svetlana, you know no one has the right to demand . . .”
“Yes, of course. I told my mother, and she told me to forget about it. She said she’d kill herself if I decided to go ahead with it. She said, what difference did it make to her, when she was going to die anyway? And it wasn’t worth crippling myself for her. I shouldn’t have told her anything. I should have just donated the kidney. She could have found out later, after the operation. You can even give birth with one kidney . . . there have been cases.”
Kidneys. What nonsense. What a petty problem. One hour’s work for a genuine White Magician. But we weren’t allowed to heal people; every genuine cure gave a Dark Magician a permit to cast a curse or put the evil eye on someone. And it was her mother . . . her own mother, who had cursed her, in a split-second emotional outburst, without realizing what she was doing, while she was telling her daughter not even to think about having the operation.