In Year of Active Sun [Вадим Иванович Кучеренко] (fb2) читать постранично, страница - 2

was feeling his pain as her own, but tied with her promise, didn’t dare to say a word. Their eyes met. And suddenly they became spiritually close to each other not knowing how it happened.

– 

Have you been living alone so far? He asked her quietly.

She nodded affirmatively.

– Alone in the whole world, – he went on, – alone in time and distance. Alone in your dreams and wishes. And there is no one who could misunderstand you, offend you with indifference… You must be happy.

– No, – she broke silence, – I was lonely.

– Yeah, long time ago I used to think like you, – he smiled sadly, – and at one of the sleepless night I found her – a tiny star in the sky. She was the brightest of all the stars and the furthest. She was shining tenderly at me. We were looking at each other dreaming. You might ask me: about what? It doesn’t matter. The whole world was sleeping except two of us. When all stars died away at dawn, she was still staying in the sky for a long time. Parting was painful for her as for me.

The boy’s voice shook and he got silent for a while.

– 

But after each parting there was a new meeting, wasn’t there? The girl asked overcoming her shyness. She wanted to hear his whole story.

– When you love someone, each parting, even the shortest, seems to be the whole eternity, he continued. – So, I decided to go through the Universe to meet her and never depart. She couldn’t come out of her orbit, meanwhile nothing was holding me on this planet. I constructed a flying balloon in order to take a space voyage. I have said goodbye to those very few things, which were dear to me at the Earth… But suddenly, my star started flickering, as if she was saying goodbye to me. Then she flared up, making a fire arch in the dark night sky and disappeared in the depth of space. What happened to her? Where did she disappear and why? I don’t know it. But since that day, I know that one should never think of idle dreams, since they make only harm.

– How long ago was it? – The girl asked. But having noticed that he frowned, she added: – You may not answer if you don’t want to.

– I forgot when it happened and don’t want to recall, – he replied sharply. – And don’t look at me so accusingly!

– I don’t accuse you, – she said quietly.

– But I see a mute reproach in your eyes.

– You are mistaken. My eyes are mute.

– No, they are very eloquent! Your eyes… – the boy got silent, not having finished, and his pale cheeks ware flashing. Suddenly, he exclaimed surprisingly: – How could not I notice that before! Your eyes!

– What about my eyes?

– Their glistening is the same as the light of that star. Aren’t you her sister? Where did you come from?

– I don’t know, – the girl replied honestly. – I have always been here.

– Who are your mother and father?

– I don’t know.

– Who are you?

– I am myself.

– And you have never wanted to know all that?

– No. Why?

– Oh, you are right. Why should one know all that? I wanted to know – and it has brought me just sorrow and alienation from the rest of the world. We were both born by the same mysterious energy. You are the same child of nature as I am, but you are happy and I am not. Probably, nature was mother to you, and stepmother to me…

A parrot flew into the hut, saying good morning to everyone. It was followed by the first morning sunrays, penetrating into the hut through the roof. The girl patted the parrot tenderly, opened the window and got the bird out of it, saying to someone:

– 

Farewell!

Without looking back she came out of the hut. She was leaving at dawn, as she promised. The boy realized it too late, that she would never come back. He came out of the hut and hurried to the shore where he saw a raft with a waiving sail dashing through the wind and ocean. The raft was so far away by the moment, that it looked like a tiny dot on the horizon, where the ocean was touching the sky. And there was not such a voice in the whole world, which could reach her now.

The boy was standing on the shore staring, either at the ocean depth, or at the abyss of his loneliness, suddenly revealed in front of him. When he awoke from his thoughts, the horizon was clear. A lonely seagull was drawing some unknown signs on the water with its wings. The tiny footsteps on the sand leading to the ocean have disappeared, washed away by the waves.

– Haven’t you helped her to set a mast with your own hands? – the boy asked himself.

– You’ve made a sail for her out of the cover of your air balloon. And now you will never be able to fly away from this nice island. Isn’t it exactly that you wanted so much?

He kept asking himself, but didn’t answer, not being sure in anything now. He spent the whole day on the shore, persuading himself that he just likes looking at the ocean. In fact, he hopelessly believed, that she would come back. That night was the first time, when he didn’t look at the sky. The same as the following nights either.

The summer with its short nights and sunset glows was coming to an end. The days were getting shorter, while the ocean was getting wild with its steep waves. The birds were flying over the island hurrying to south, the green trees and bushes have acquired yellow shades. The autumn was coming.

The winter has come with its severe storms and hurricanes. Blasts of wind were blowing away the palm leaves from the hut’s roof and throwing some silly parrots, trying to fly, faraway at the ocean. All leaving creatures were hiding somewhere, waiting for the storms to come over.

Only the boy each day came to the shore standing there for a long time staring at the ocean. Sometimes he was lying on the sand with his eyes closed thinking about something. At nights he made a fire and kept it burning till morning. He was waiting. He was hoping and waiting that she would ever come back.

Waiting for her for the whole eternity, that was ahead of him.