Islanders. Наталья Андреева

in the balcony or smoke in the corridor or whatever.”

      “I can make coffee.” Zhanna suggested.

      “Perfect!” Arthur said with enthusiasm. “Zhanna, you are the best!”

      “And I want coffee too.” Vera signed.

      “Coffee and cigarettes.” Lida condemned them. “At night!”

      “What’s wrong, darling?” Angelica asked. “If you don’t want, don’t drink! And I do with pleasure! And by the way you are alone again!”

      “Does anybody else want coffee?” Ivan looked at them. They all kept silence. “It means seven cups of coffee. Zhanna, can I help you?”

      “No, I shall try.” and the girl rose from the armchair.

      “So, let’s have the break.”

      Ivan also rose and said.

      “I will go out for ten minutes to the cabinet as you are not against.”

      And he went out the same time as Zhanna who moved to the kitchen. Angelica followed them then Vera and Lida, Sergey was with Arthur. Seva stayed alone.

      Alone at the coast: Sergey

      In his childhood he needed love greatly. He was small, proud and lonely. He wanted to be hugged but he jumped aside from everybody who tried to do it. It seemed to him that all these people faked. So he grew up thinking that nobody loved him. And when he became an adult he began to feel absence of love in himself. Still proud and lonely, he avoided hugs as well as kisses and any open emothins. In childhood he had learned to laugh at everybody who kissed in public. He was shy about the aunt, she seemed old and very ugly and mum had been almost always busy, worked a lot with her private lessons and got tired much earlier than there came time of love. He was lack of the fairy tales at night, a parent kiss in a cheek and tender words “good night, dear". He was dreaming about it lying in bed with the open eyes waiting for his mother. He was thinking.

      And finally he had had an idea that the most sensitive people were idlers. They had no problems at all. He understood that himself when he started to work all night long. In the underground watching people passing by with the indifferent faces he thought that people had blamed the century of cruelty in vain and soon it would be worse. People were stressful from unemployment. No free time and no will to earn money. They used the feelings of the others. The TV, show business, the Internet … All these were developing so quickly and at the same time the feelings were gone. They had no time for growing. His own feelings were as green as the wild apples. They had grown on a tree which was not taken cared of well and that’s why their taste was bitter.

      In the childhood he wanted the creature so much, small creature to take care of and love. He thought as he was not loved, he would love himself. He wanted it greatly. It would be good to have the younger brother or the little sister but he could only dream about it. He wanted a cat or a dog. He was shy to feel the desire to patronize, protect and once asked.

      “Mum, let’s have a dog.”

      Mother refused. And she was right. The dog was a problem, very noisy. You needed to feed it, to walk with. “Let’s buy you small fishes, Sergey.” she offered and put her arm on his shoulder.

      He didn’t want fishes. They were cold and silly. They looked very silly. But he agreed because they were alive. And they could somehow color his loneliness. He couldn’t like them but he felt it won’t be boring to have them. He could sit near the aquarium for hours watching fishes and trying to understand where they were swimming in the clear water. The water in the aquarium always was clear as he took care of that. And he was glad.

      Then it began to seem that he had known everything about these fishes. Where they were swimming in pair seconds as well as they quickly rushed in and in some time fell asleep caught by his attentive sight. He liked himself to be the small Lord of the World who had created an inhabitancy of these creatures and supported their lives comfortable. Only on him they depended when they would be fed in the water and how they would be warmed by the light. Finally he could fry all of them. And stop their stupid fish existence.

      Once mum was worried by his motionless sitting at the aquarium and asked.

      “Sergey, is everything all right with you?”

      “Yes, absolutely.”

      “Is it really interested you to sit always close? Watching?”

      “Yes. ”

      “You are a strange child.”

      “What is strange that I study fishes?”

      “To study means to read about them. I have not seen on your table any books about them. Do you know what exactly they are from? What kind are they? Why have they got such color?”

      “I know what they think. It does not depend on color and where they are from. They think about food.”

      “Sergey! These are only fishes! They can’t think! They only swim!”

      “All of them are swimming to that part where there can be food. Look at that little one. I bought him as he was the smallest. The rest I do not want to know. That is a pretty fish, Mum! Look, Mum! He is waiting when I shall throw food in water! Because his food is over! And he is still hungry! How beautiful he is but he is not quick. It seems he could not survive.”

      “You will help him, won’t you? “

      “Shall I put him in a separate aquarium? May be … But it is boring. I will think whether it’s worth or not.” he said it absolutely as an adult.

      “You are a strange child.” repeated his Mum. “But you study well and I haven’t got any problems with you. Teachers praise you, they do not complain about. I think you are all right. What do you think?”

      She looked at him attentively. He nodded.

      “Yes. I feel well. I am healthy.”

      “Okay.” Mum smiled. “Very soon you will become an adult and you will be excited by something else. Girls, for example. And you will forget about your fishes.”

      She was not right. He of course was excited about girls. But they were not so much different from fishes. He almost always guessed their thoughts. They were attractive. He got them as the best fishes, the girl-friends and the rest he didn’t want to know. The one who feeds and changes water in an aquarium was special. Finally he could just fry them all. If he boiled the water all of them would be dead. Or he can block oxygen there and to watch them dying. It was amusing.

      “Oh, Mum, Mum! You would better to buy me a dog!” he thought looking at people sitting in armchairs. All of them were fishes. They were floating where he wanted. They did not guess at all what will happen to them. And they believed in his "confession".”

      If you wanted people believe you it would be better to tell the truth. But truth was like an iceberg the most dangerous part of which always stayed under water as well as your secret dreams. On a surface there stayed only one part. THEY were guilty. Their truth was hidden under water. He didn’t want to risk, to sympathize, to give an advice. In fact you couldn’t realize the sizes of the iceberg under the water.

      They thought he was truthful. They knew nothing about the iceberg …

      Storm

      Angelica was waiting for Sergey and Arthur in the dark corridor.

      “Don’t you mind to join my company?” she asked looking straight to Arthur. “Let’s go to the balcony.”

      “But you know I do not smoke.” he smiled.

      “Will you breathe fresh air with me?”

      “I want to look at the wall-papers in the next apartment and the ceiling. I began to repair my own flat I had from the grandmother in an old house but I had some problems. There is such a big choice of the wall-papers I can’t imagine what to choose. It’s expensive. And the owner boasted that he had found wonderful wall-papers. The ceiling the masters had made excellent. It was cheap because everything they brought from work. I have to look at.