Sixth Watch (34 page)

“You're insane!” I exclaimed. “She's only fifteen!”

“Is it really a matter of age?” Ernesta asked in surprise. “Arina is not the oldest among us.”

“My daughter is a Light One,” I reminded her, though I knew I had already lost.

“Almost fifteen percent of witches are Light Ones,” Ernesta told me obligingly.

“She'll age rapidly and become . . . become ugly,” I said in a quiet voice.

“Like us,” Ernesta said with a nod. “She will have to live behind a mask, and if the men she loves are Others, they will know that they
are not kissing a young woman, but an old, withered one. All that is true. This is the price. But I thought we wanted to save the world.”

I looked at my daughter.

“Dad, of course I agree,” Nadya said.

She was very calm, her face set in an expression of imperturbable benevolence.

“Nadya, the process is irreversible,” I said. “And very rapid. You'll grow old in just a few years. Well, ten or twenty at the most. Right now that seems like an eternity to you, but it isn't. You'll see that ten years fly past in an instant. I don't know of course, maybe Kesha or someone else . . . but after all it's easier for Others to live with Others . . . and only witches live with ordinary people, because they don't know who they're really kissing . . .”

The hall was silent. And the silence was deafening.

My daughter looked at me as if she was waiting for me to finish.

“You won't even be able to have a child,” I said. “No, that's not right, you will be able to, but only in the first few years after you become a witch . . . Dammit, you're still only a child yourself!”

“Dad, I realized immediately why the witches had invited us to the Conclave,” Nadya told me in a soothing voice, as if she were the grown-up and I were a frightened little child. “I called Innokentii and we discussed everything. We'll get married as soon as the Two-in-One has been dealt with. Of course, I'll have to have a child as soon as I can. We might even have time to have two children. I know we're not mature enough, especially in the psychological sense, but I discussed everything with Mum too, and she said you two would raise your grandchildren, so that we could continue with our education . . .”

I stood there with my mouth wide open, gulping in air, looking so pitiful that not even the witches could gloat.

“Everything will be all right, Dad,” Nadya said, getting up. She stood on tiptoe and kissed me on the cheek, then walked out from behind the table and stood in front of Ernesta. “I'm ready,” she said. “What do I have to do?”

My daughter was going to become a witch.

My daughter, an Absolute Enchantress, a clever, beautiful young girl, was going to become a twisted old crone.

Before she even reached thirty, she would be a repulsive old woman, constantly hiding behind spells of disguise.

And there was nothing I could do about it. Ernesta was right and Nadya was right—the fate of the entire world was at stake . . .

“Sisters, are we willing to accept Nadya Gorodetsky as one of us?” Ernesta asked.

The witches replied with a drone of approval.

“Do we agree to the Absolute Enchantress Nadya Gorodetsky becoming the Grandmother of Grandmothers, our leader and commander?” she continued.

“This is out of order,” Mary suddenly declared. Despite the enchanting appearance she had assumed, her voice was still squeaky and senile. “Arina was Russian and Nadya is Russian. It's not correct to appoint a leader from the same region twice in succession!”

“There has only ever been one Great Grandmother from Africa!” shouted a dark-skinned woman at the back of the hall.

“As if we get treated any better . . .” another indignant voice called out.

“Belgium has never . . .”

“Quiet!” Ernesta exclaimed, raising her voice. “There are many of us and we all have ambitions, grievances, and aspirations. But understand this—if Nadya Gorodetsky does not become the Great Grandmother now, then Arina will remain the Great Grandmother forever. Until the end of time. And the entire world will perish!”

The witches fell silent.

“Arina has hung on too long as it is,” Mary croaked.

“And so I propose as an exception, that Nadya Gorodetsky be elected Great Grandmother,” Ernesta declared solemnly. “Do you support this proposal?”

This time there were no protests.

There was something surprisingly simpleminded, almost primi
tive about this procedure. Like the election of an ataman by the Cossacks, when they used to ask everyone to shout if they liked the ataman or if they didn't.

“Nadya, hold out your hand and place it on the Shoot,” Ernesta said.

I watched this obscene and insane spectacle—my daughter setting her hand on an ancient wooden dildo. And I said nothing.

“Hold it tight . . .” Ernesta said in a surprisingly hesitant voice.

She closed her hand around the wooden Shoot.

Nothing happened.

“In the old days they didn't bother with half measures,” Mary muttered, but stopped when she caught Nadya's eye. Nadya snatched her hand away from the Shoot and wiped it on her dress.

“You did hold it, didn't you?” Ernesta asked, as if she hadn't witnessed the entire process with her own eyes. “But then . . .”

She turned toward me.

“I understand,” I said. “There's nothing you can do.”

Ernesta shook her head.

“I'm sorry, señor. Very sorry. We wanted to help. We . . . we love life.”

I looked at the gathering. At two hundred witches, cloaked in magical disguises, concealed behind veils of enchantment, pretending to be the beautiful women they once were, or perhaps had never been.

But kind or malicious, they really did love life. In all its manifestations.

This love of life drove them to commit monstrous atrocities. They indulged in depraved, lewd debauchery; they dissected infants and copulated with animals; they poisoned cattle and sucked out mothers' milk; they pounced on solitary travelers at night and forced them to gallop across the fields and run wildly along the roads. They were only slightly less mad than March hares. They were the very essence of Mother Nature, of the planet Earth itself—nature is also pitiless and remorseless, capricious and derisive, guileful and bloodthirsty.

They were witches. Naive and cruel children, trapped in old women's bodies. There is no male equivalent of the witch; the warlock of old folk tales is quite different. To be a witch, you have to be able to give life. Without that you can never learn how to take life away so lightly.

“I'm really sorry too,” I said. “But don't distress yourselves, ladies. We'll think of something.”

Nadya came back to me and I hugged her.

“Sorry, Dad,” she whispered. “I looked pretty stupid, right?”

“Not stupid, but funny,” I replied.

“You used that word instead of ‘absurd,'” Nadya said. “I can tell.”

Ernesta clinked a spoon against a wineglass—in the silence the sound was as alarming as a phone call in the middle of the night.

“Is there anything else we can do for you, Señor Gorodetsky?” she asked. “We could partially lower our defenses, so that you can open a portal from here.”

“Are you throwing us out already?” I asked, holding out my hand and imagining its shadow on the table. It had to be there, didn't it, the shadow cast by the crystal chandeliers? And it didn't matter if I couldn't see it. It existed. The shadow of my fingers, reaching down into the Twilight . . .

“No, but . . .” Ernesta replied, sounding rather bewildered and looking at my hand.

I shuffled my fingers, feeling the chill of the Twilight at their tips.

“Dad, what are you doing?” Nadya asked in a whisper.

“Hitting switches, fixing glitches,” I said, tapping my fingers on the table. “Never mind the baffled witches.”

“I don't understand.”

“That's okay,” I said, tapping out the rhythm with my fingers. Three short beats, three long ones and another three short ones. Impulses of Power surging into space, into the Twilight.

“Who are you?” Ernesta suddenly asked, frowning and looking past me. “This is a private event.”

Her voice gradually became quieter and quieter, as if someone was
turning down the volume on a music player, and her eyes opened wider and wider. She was obviously staring at someone standing behind me.

I looked around and nodded to the Tiger.

“Sorry for bothering you. We didn't agree on the signal, but I thought you'd understand.”

“Witches,” the Tiger said in a low voice, running a thoughtful glance over the geriatric gathering. As the witches recovered their wits (ah, what a shame I hadn't seen how he appeared) the atmosphere in the restaurant turned . . . well, not to panic, but more to tense anticipation. “I've never liked witches.”

“Why not?” I asked in surprise.

“They . . .” The Tiger pondered for a moment, as if trying to find the words for something he had always known, but had never needed to express. “They harass. Badger. Pester. Hassle.”

“I admire your range of vocabulary,” I said. “What exactly do they harass?”

“The Twilight,” the Tiger replied simply. “Ordinary Others ask. Witches demand.”

He frowned and gestured with his hand, as if he regretted what he had just blurted out.

“I need your help,” I said.

“Yes,” said the Tiger, nodding. “I'm very surprised that you didn't ask sooner.”

“You didn't suggest it so I decided it must be too difficult. Or impossible.”

Perhaps I imagined it, but I thought I saw an expression of entirely human anguish cross the Tiger's face.

“Not impossible. Difficult.”

“They can't choose a leader,” I said. “They can't even elect Nadya, as long as Arina is alive in the Sarcophagus of Time.”

“There are two things I can do,” the Tiger declared, looking me in the eye. “I can destroy the Sarcophagus. Dissolve it in eternity. That probably means Arina will be killed.”

“And the second thing?” I asked.

“We can try to get her out,” said the Tiger. “Only it will be up to you to talk to her. I can only bring someone out of the Sarcophagus if they wish to come out. But in this case . . . in this case there may be unforeseen consequences.”

“Such as?” I asked.

“I'm not sure,” the Tiger said with a frown. “I . . . I can't see the future clearly. Both situations are vague, but the one in which we bring Arina back is extremely hazy.”

“Anton, if I understand the position correctly,” Ernesta added quickly, “we are quite happy with the first option. Arina will be handled peacefully and we can choose a Grandmother of Grandmothers, who will not be your daughter. It all works out perfectly!”

“Dad!” Nadya exclaimed, looking at me indignantly. “Will you . . . will you agree to that?”

I sighed, and stepped toward the Tiger.

“Just as I thought,” he remarked sadly. “Gorodetsky, why don't you like simple solutions?”

“They usually have complicated consequences,” I replied.

Traveling in the grip of the Tiger was no fun.

Only a moment ago we were in an Alpine restaurant with two hundred witches, whose combined ages probably amounted to about a hundred thousand years.

But the Tiger had simply grabbed me by the collar, and suddenly here we were, surrounded by swirling gray glop. It looked like foam made of little soap bubbles, illuminated weakly by a dim white light from some indefinite source. The bubbles parted as we moved through them, yielded springily underfoot, and retreated when I reached my hand out toward them.

“What is this?” I asked. The Tiger was still grasping my collar, holding me out at arm's length. “And would you kindly let go of me, please?”

“This is the space between the levels of the Twilight,” the Tiger
replied. “These are the reverberations of emotions and echoes of feelings. This is everything that has ever existed in the world. The squeak of the first mouse as it was caught by the first cat. The purring of a cat, curled up on a woman's knees. The shriek of a new mother who has sensed that her child will be an evil man. The weeping of a criminal on the night before he mounts the scaffold. All the sounds of the world. All the colors of the world. All the feelings of the world.”

“Thank you,” I said, “very poetic. But . . .”

“If I let go of you, you'll disintegrate into . . .” the Tiger thought for a moment. “Into tiny bubbles.”

“But Zabulon told me he hid between the levels of the Twilight.”

“Your Zabulon can do many things, Gorodetsky. Be patient. We need to talk. I don't get any pleasure out of holding you up by the scruff of your neck.”

“By the scruff of my neck,” I laughed. “You really have got a grip on the language! Okay, let's talk.”

“At this very moment we are passing the point of no return, Gorodetsky,” said the Tiger. In the feeble, grayish light his face looked like a plaster mask. His lips barely even moved, and his eyes were blank gaps, openings into nothingness. “Are you sure you want to get Arina out of there? Perhaps we should just lay her to rest?”

“What's wrong, Tiger?” I asked. “Do you think the old witch will confound me once and for all?”

“No, Anton. That's not it at all.”

I caught on. I was getting smarter every day—it was frightening to think how shrewd I would be when I reached Gesar's age.

“So, on the contrary, she'll explain everything?”

“Yes, Anton, Arina knows everything. About the Sixth Watch, about the Two-in-One. She even knows a lot more about the Twilight than she lets on. Perhaps more than I know myself.”

“What makes you think that?”

“I can foresee it. If you talk to her, everything will change. Everything will be absolutely different, Anton.”