Sasha tightened his grip on the steering wheel and gritted his teeth. Driving normally relaxed him. The only time he didn't enjoy his job was on the late night run from Kyiv to Chernihiv on Saturdays, when his passengers tended to be drunks and loud teenagers, and the Sunday afternoon trip, when Yulia was aboard. On those occasions, when he would be subjected to a 90-minute verbal harangue from his girlfriend's mother, there was nowhere to hide.
"Sasha, I don't need to tell you that you are 27. Anya's 25. It's time you paid attention to her wishes, got married and had some children."
God, he thought. I'm not even on the highway yet, and it's started. It was bad enough when Yulia started in on this topic, but it was worse when her tongue had been loosened by vodka, or when it was raining. Today, it was both.
"All we need to know is a date. We'll take care of all the wedding plans, don't worry. Just tell Anya when you want to get married."
His mother-in-law-in-waiting was a nice enough woman, just pushy, he thought. Well meaning, but insistent. Helpful, but her voice grated on him like a badly played violin.
"She doesn't want to nag you," Yulia continued, "She doesn't want to make your life difficult. She loves you and wants to start a family."
Hell, Sasha thought, tuning out the woman's monologue, I'm giving her too much credit. She's not nice at all - she's a manipulative cow.
But he did love Anya, and marriage was something that they had discussed. They'd lived together for more than a year. Sasha didn't see marriage as a priority. Anya didn't push the issue with him. But her mother was another matter altogether.
"Stop. Please stop. ... Stop!"
Sasha had tuned Yulia out so successfully that he hadn't heard his passenger. He pulled the white Iveco minibus over to the side of the road.
"You should pay more attention," Yulia told him as the agitated woman climbed out of the van, lugging a five-year-old and a bag of apples with her. "You drove about 200 yards past her stop."
"Please don't talk to me so much while I'm driving," he said. "It makes it difficult to concentrate and hear passengers."
That offended her, and she sat sullenly for the next 20 minutes. Before she got off, he thought, he'd have to apologize and promise to think about
a wedding.
***
In Chernihiv, Sasha stretched his legs and briefly chatted with two other drivers while he waited to start his return trip to Kyiv. It was late October, and cold drizzle promised to become more intense as the night wore on. Sasha pulled his jacket tight against his neck and trotted to a kiosk near the route taxi stop, where he bought a cup of tea. Three hours, maybe less, and I'll be home, he thought.
Chanson music blared from a radio in one of the other vans. Two drivers had taken refuge there while waiting for passengers. Sasha stepped into his van, flipped on the overhead light, and opened a newspaper. He rarely socialized with the other drivers, but he didn't consider himself antisocial or a loner. He merely preferred his own company. Driving a minibus was good work for him, he thought. He could interact with people, or not. He could be content with his own thoughts as he drove between Kyiv and Chernihiv, two round trips a day, six days a week. He tried to concentrate on a silly story in Fakty about a strong little girl in Odessa who, the author said, could lift and carry both of her parents. But his mind kept returning to Anya and Yulia and weddings and children. He realized that he wasn't really certain what he wanted, after all.
It was after 10 p.m. when Sasha pulled away from the curb in Chernihiv with 11 passengers.
The drizzle had turned to rain, and he settled into his seat for the drive, eyes fixed on the two-lane highway. Traffic was light this time of night and the headlights of oncoming cars and trucks were disrupted only by the rhythmic thwap-thud, thwap-thud of his wiper blades.
"I want to get off at the next filling station."
Sasha turned his head slightly and nodded, acknowledging the request, and in so doing, he momentarily diverted his gaze from the road. The second he returned his attention to the highway, he saw - he thought - a blur of white ahead of him, and felt an almost imperceptible impact.
He braked the van, jarring his passengers and evoking some irritated comments. What did I hit? he thought. A dog? He backed the van up along the road's tenuous shoulder for 25 meters before he saw what appeared to be a bundle of white cloth in the brush.
Shaking, Sasha got out of the van. He'd never hit anything before, and the white bundle was no dog. God, he thought, did I kill someone?
He half-ran to the object, his heart pounding. Kneeling, he saw the white object was a long dress worn by a young girl. She lay still in a patch of long, wet grass.
"Oh my god," he breathed, sobbing. "Oh my god."
The body was slight - slender and delicate. He knew that she was dead. He had hit a girl, and the impact had propelled her violently off the road.
He had killed the girl, he knew it, and grief began to crush him. Sasha forced himself to reach down and pull back a fold of cloth that covered her face. He knew, he had to see: He had to look into her dead eyes to make it real.
He pulled back the cloth and saw her eyes. Large and brown, they were open, and were fixed on him.
"Don't cry." The girl spoke in a bare whisper, he voice hoarse and somehow hollow, like the voice of someone who hadn't spoken for a long while. Her face glistened in the rain. "I'm all right," she said.
She was not and could not be all right, Sasha thought. But he looked at the body and saw no blood. He put a hand to her forehead, which was cold - hardly surprising, given the night, he thought, and he wiped rainwater from her face.
He saw now that she was wearing a long, embroidered peasant dress, the type traditionally worn in years past, but now only worn on special occasions or by folk dancers. Her hair was brown, and worn in a braid, and she wore a wreath of wildflowers in it.
"I'll call an ambulance," he said, "and the police of course. Don't move. You'll be taken care of."
He kneeled in the grass beside her and wept.
"I didn't see you. I'm sorry. I'm so very sorry."
Sasha was surprised to feel her hand on his cheek, now. His victim was comforting him!
"I said it's all right," she said. "I don't need an ambulance. But I would like one thing, if I may ask."
"Anything," Sasha said. "What?"
The girl pointed to the van. "Is it warm and dry in there?"
Without knowing exactly why, Sasha picked the tiny frame up and carried her to the Iveco minibus.
"What the hell is wrong?" a male passenger said. "Why were you out there sitting in the brush?"
"He was taking a leak," another man said. "Wish he'd said it was a toilet stop. Could have used one myself."
Sasha lifted the girl into the front seat next to the driver's. "You are sure you don't want an ambulance?" he asked. She shook her head.
"Ambulance? What ambulance? I just said I wanted you to stop at the filling station," the male passenger said.
"And I want to pee," said another. He, two young men and a teenaged girl climbed out and headed toward the bushes.
"When are we leaving?" a woman asked. "I want to get going, please."
Sasha couldn't believe the insensitivity his passengers were showing. The adrenaline was still pumping, but he was beginning to feel calmer. For some odd - no, miraculous - reason, the girl really seemed unhurt. Shaken, yes. But uninjured, and certainly not dead.
He said a silent prayer, climbed into the driver's seat, and honked his horn, bringing his four errant passengers out of the darkness and back into the van. He looked at the girl and she smiled thinly and nodded her head. All right, Sasha thought, my guardian angel has been kind to me tonight. He swung the van back onto the road, headed toward Kyiv.
After a few minutes, Sasha had regained his composure and settled, more or less, into the routine of driving. He looked at the girl, and found that her gaze was fixed on him. "What's your name?" Sasha asked.
She said something in her low, hoarse voice.
"What?"
"Horpyna," she said.
"That's an unusual name," Sasha said. He'd never known anyone with the name before, though he recognized it. "It's a very old name."
"Well, I'm very old," she said.
Horpyna, my name is Sasha, and I'm very glad that you're alive," he said.
"Are you talking to me?" asked a woman passenger seated behind Sasha. "Who are you talking to?"
Sasha motioned to the seat at his side. "I'm talking to her," he said. "To Horpyna, here."
Crazy, she thought, looking at the empty seat. Her life was in the hands of a crazy man. She just had to get Viktor to fix the Volga.
When Sasha pulled the van into Kyiv's central bus station, it was after midnight. His passengers gone, he sat behind the wheel and turned to the girl.
"Where can I take you?" he asked.
"I don't know," she said. "Home?"
"Where's that?"
"You don't know where your home is?"
Sasha couldn't tell if the girl was joking with him or not. He did, however, suspect that he and Anya were about to welcome a houseguest.
Anya had gone to bed and the apartment was dark when Sasha unlocked the door. He quickly showed Horpyna the toilet and shower, then brought out a set of sheets and a pillow from a cupboard and arranged them on the divan. "Please, be comfortable," he said, hoping that she would be, though he was not certain that he was. "Sleep as long as you like."
Horpyna sat on the divan and said nothing, but nodded her head. She sat there, smiling oddly, as Sasha turned out the light and walked into the other room to bed, and Anya.
Exhausted, Sasha fell into a deep sleep. At one point, though, he stirred and he thought he saw Horpyna standing at the foot of his bed. He smelled fresh wildflowers. Then she was gone. Too much to handle, he thought as sleep found him once again.
***
"Were you going to sleep on the divan last night?"
Sasha roused and semi sat up. Anya had made tea and was sitting on the edge of the bed, holding out a cup to him.
"Yes, er - no," he said. "I don't know. Didn't you see her out there?"
"See who?" Anya asked, climbing in beside him with her own cup.
"I let someone stay here last night," he said. "Long story. Anyway, if you didn't see her, she must have gone already."
"You kind, stupid man," Anya said, half teasing. "Should I check and see what's been stolen now, or wait until you drag someone home who kills us in our sleep?"
"It wasn't like that." Sasha threw back the covers and pulled on his robe. "I ran into Horpyna on the highway last night - literally. Thought I had killed her." He looked at Anya, who was sipping tea and watching him intently. "But she seemed all right, thank god, and didn't seem to have anywhere to go. So I brought her here."
"Horpyna?"
"Her name is Horpyna. Very old name, I think. Not too stylish."
"About 600 years outdated, I'd say, " Anya replied. "It was popular with the Cossacks, but I've never known anyone who had the name."
Sasha stepped into the apartment's tiny bathroom and turned on the tap. What an odd evening it had been, he thought as he waited for the hot water. Odd, and frightening as well. And strange, too, that Horpyna had left early in the morning, without saying goodbye. Sasha switched on the shower and stepped into the tub, letting hot water cascade over him. He reached for a bar of soap on a shelf by the tub, and nearly slipped and fell in surprise to see the girl standing in front of the bathroom door.
"What are you doing in here?" he exclaimed.
The girl giggled, more at his shock, he hoped, than at his nudity.
Sasha grabbed for a bath towel, which he wrapped around himself even though the shower continued to flow. When he looked up, embarrassed, Horpyna was gone.
The door opened and Anya stuck her head in. "Did you call me?" she asked.
"Horpyna was just in here," he said, still clutching the towel. "I looked up and she was here, then she was gone."
"What are you talking about?" she asked. "There's nobody else here. I just checked the flat, and nothing's missing, either, luckily."
"Except, of course, your mind," she looked at Sasha in rebuke. "If you're going to wear clean towels in the shower, you can start doing your own laundry."
***
Horpyna stepped in and out of Sasha's life for the next two weeks, though she never spoke to him. She always wore the same long, embroidered white dress, always kept her brown hair braided and always wore fresh wildflowers in her hair. Sometimes, Sasha would see her in the rearview mirror as he drove his minibus. Once he thought he saw her in a grocery store behind the cheese counter. He saw her several times on the street near his apartment, though he could never catch up to her before she disappeared around a corner or into a doorway.
And despite the weirdness of it all, Sasha never once doubted her existence or his sanity. Not once. He believed the elusive Horpyna was no more unusual than a missed phone call or an accidentally dropped coin. And he knew his eyes weren't deceiving him, because her scent often accompanied the sightings. His eyes may have been mistaken, but nobody smells a hallucination, and the scent of wildflowers trailed Horpyna wherever she went.
Sasha found, though, that other people were less matter-of-fact about his sightings.
"I saw her again today," he would say. "She was in a taxi that passed me on Druzhby Narodiv." Or "Horpyna was in the apartment today. I saw her in the hall when I got up this morning."
He told a friend about his accident with the strange, fragile girl and of subsequently seeing her in odd places. "You were either terribly traumatized by the accident," Ivan told him, "or you need to be in a mental hospital. If you want to continue to talk this rubbish, you'll have to buy the vodka."
Anya's patience, too, was wearing thin. Over dinner, Sasha told her of an encounter with Horpyna at the post office while he was standing in line to pay the telephone bill. Anya stared at him, blankly.
"What's wrong?" Sasha asked.
"You're wrong," she said. Her lower lip began to quiver and tears welled up in her eyes. "Ever since this - accident - you've changed. You're obsessed by a girl nobody else can see."
"I wanted to get married and have a family with you," she said. "Now I don't think so. I can't share my home with a spirit, a wisp of smoke, a reflection in a mirror. You're doing this on purpose to drive me away. Or... " Anya was sobbing now. "Or you're really sick."
Sasha looked at her helplessly. He had no words.
"No, wait," Anya said. "Either way, you're sick."
Sasha sat at the table as Anya stood and went into the bedroom, closing the door firmly behind her. After a moment, just as he decided to go after her and apologize, to swear that he would never mention Horpyna again, he felt a soft, cool hand brush his cheek. And he smelled wildflowers.
***
Sasha found Anya's note after he returned home from work the next evening. She had moved back in with her mother. Call me, she wrote, when you're sane.
He tossed the note on the kitchen table, opened the refrigerator and took out a beer. He set it on the counter and was searching through the drawer for a bottle opener when his desire for the beer soured. Sasha walked into the living room, switched on the television, and sat on the divan. He had just found a movie on UT-1 when his nose twitched with a familiar scent. He turned to find Horpyna seated next to him.
"Finally," she said, smiling. "We're alone."
The game of hide-and-seek was over. Sasha and Horpyna were inseparable from that night forward. She rode with him as he drove the minibus between Kyiv and Chernihiv, accompanied him on his errands around town, and sat with him in the evenings. Sasha grew used to quizzical stares from passengers as he "talked to himself," and put up with derisive comments from drivers who chided him for losing a real girl for an imaginary one. They made ribald comments about his sex life and mental stability.
None of it bothered Sasha, who had, after all, always been his own best company. And now, as a bonus, he had Horpyna's company as well.
One afternoon as he was driving toward Chernihiv, he spoke quietly to Horpyna, who sat on the seat next to him.
"I want us to be together always," he said.
"We are, my love," she replied.
"But we are different, still. I want us to be the same - so that we can be together fully and forever."
"Oh, that," she said. "That's easy. I'm surprised that you haven't mentioned it earlier. I want the same, of course. And, as I said, it's very easy."
"Then how?" Sasha asked.
There was a long pause. Horpyna touched Sasha's bare arm and he looked at her briefly. "It only takes ten," she said with the hint of a smile.
***
The Saturday night drive back to Kyiv was going to be miserable, Sasha thought as he surveyed his load of passengers. Four noisy teens, accompanied by eight liter-bottles of beer; a young mother with an active child; a drunken laborer who had nearly already passed out in his seat and an elderly couple. Plus, it was raining a cold rain that threatened to freeze at any moment. Lovely, he thought. Horpyna was in her customary seat, upon which Sasha had placed a "Reserved" sign to discourage a fare-paying passenger from occupying it. He climbed behind the wheel and pulled into traffic.
"Wait, mister, wait!" one of the kids shouted. "We need to buy more beer!" The kids thought that was uproariously funny; a sentiment Sasha didn't share. That's the last thing you need, he thought. It was dark and warm in the van. Maybe they would eventually sleep.
"Mama, I'm one."
The young mother looked at her three year-old. "You are not, Masha," she said. "You're three."
"No. No, mama. I'm one."
"Don't be silly. Rest."
"Eight plus two is ten. And I'm one."
"What did you say?"
"Eight plus two is ten. And I'm one."
She couldn't believe it. Unless she was dreaming, she thought, her three-year-old was doing math. Eight plus two is ten, indeed. Where could she have heard that?
"Eight plus two is ten. And I'm one," the child repeated. "And you're two!"
The child pointed at her mother and giggled at her joke. Her mother thought, I'm two. Two what? Years? Or was this some counting game that Masha had learned while she was at work?
"Eight plus two is ten, and I'm one," the young woman said.
"No, mama. I'm one. You're two," Masha said.
"OK, then," she said to the child.
"Say it, mama," Masha commanded. "You gotta say it."
"Eight plus two is ten. And I'm two," the young mother said.
"I love you, mama," the little girl said. And then she slept.
The drunk got off the minibus 15 kilometers outside Chernihiv. When he opened the door, a flood of cold, heavy raindrops blew into the while Iveco van. "Close the door!" one of the teens shouted along with stream of epithets. They were down to four liter-bottles of beer already. They started to sing some discordant parody of a pop tune.
"Please, my daughter's sleeping," the woman said, looking over her shoulder to the kids seated behind her.
"Don't like the song?" one asked. "How about this one?"
He sang softly.
"Eight plus two is ten, and I am three," he sang. "Eight plus two is ten and I am three."
"Where did you learn that?" the mother asked.
"Just made it up," he replied. "Eight plus two is ten, and I am three."
His comrades joined in.
"Eight plus two is ten, and I am four," sang an acne-scarred girl. "Eight plus two is ten, and I am four."
"What's it mean?" the mother asked.
"Nothing," smirked the third teen, a heavyset lad who belched and opened another bottle of beer. "Eight plus two is ten, and I am five. Eight plus two is ten, and I am five."
The song became more of a chant, each of the kids taking turn.
"Eight plus two is ten, and I am six," chanted the fourth kid. "Eight plus two is ten, and I am six."
Little Masha stirred, then sat up and listened to the teens.
"Eight plus two is ten, and I'm one," she began again, then looked at her mother. "Your turn, mama."
The young woman supposed this must be some odd new song, sung in rounds. She didn't pretend to understand it, but felt compelled to join in.
"Eight plus two is ten, and I am two," she chanted. "Eight plus two is ten, and I am two."
The teens followed suit. When the last one finished, a new voice joined the chorus. It was the elderly woman.
"Eight plus two is ten, and I am seven," she chanted. "Eight plus two is ten, and I am seven."
She elbowed her husband, who sat upright with a start, then picked up the chant himself.
"Eight plus two is ten, and I am eight," he chanted. "Eight plus two is ten, and I am eight."
The rounds continued, each one chanting in turn.
In the front seats, Sasha and Horpyna listened to the chanting, but neither joined in. Horpyna looked at Sasha, and smiled what he thought was the most beautiful smile he had ever seen.
"Harmony," she said.
***
National Oil preferred to re-supply its filling stations at night for safety reasons. It was safer to refill the tanks at the stations in the evening, when there were fewer customers to get in the way, and it was safer for the tankers to be on the road at night, when there was less traffic. Too bad, though, that they couldn't also restrict refueling to good weather, Borys Panchuk thought as he peered through the truck's rain-spattered windshield. He hated the cold and the rain. Always had, he thought. That made Kyiv a lousy place to live in winter.
Tonight, he was driving with Ihor Vasyliyev. Ihor had a good sense of humor and had memorized what seemed like every anekdot that Krokodil had published since Khruschev wore short pants. That helped the time pass, Borys thought.
Their trip tonight would take them to six stations. From Kyiv they would drive to Chernihiv, then toward Sumy, dumping gas as they went until they returned empty to Kyiv in time for breakfast.
Ihor looked at Borys. "You know what, this just occurred to me. Damned strange, too."
"What's that?"
"Eight plus two is ten, and I am nine," Ihor chanted. "Eight plus two is ten, and I am nine."
"I don't get it," Borys said. "What's the kicker?"
"Eight plus two is ten, and I am nine," Ihor repeated. "Eight plus two is ten, and I am nine."
"I think I understand," Borys said. "Eight plus two is ten, and I am ten."
***
"Harmony," said Horpyna. Sasha turned his head and their eyes locked. He felt an overpowering sense of warmth and love at that moment. His hand moved the steering wheel to the left, just a touch.
Horpyna's beautiful face was illuminated for a millisecond by the approaching tanker's headlights. Then, none of them felt anything ever again.
***
A sleepy highway policeman had seen the glow on the horizon shortly before he heard the explosion. The night sky was intensely bright for a minute, and then subsided.
Hours later, DAI accident investigators from Kyiv took photos of the wreckage of a gasoline tanker and a minibus. There wasn't much to capture on film. The heat had been so intense that the road would need to be re-paved before it could be reopened to traffic. The vehicles were molten. There were no identifiable remains.
"Somebody fell asleep at the wheel. No skid marks in either direction," the senior investigator observed. "Maybe both drivers were sleeping, but that seems unlikely."
"Never saw anything like this before," his partner said. "It's weird, you know. I expected to smell death, burned bodies, or at least gasoline. But I don't."
"With that much heat, everything burned off," the senior man said. "That is odd."
"You know what I do smell, though?" the younger man asked. "You're going to think I'm nuts, but I could swear its wildflowers."
B. Micto is the pseudonym of a Kyiv writer.
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