"TALES OF GHOSTS"
about Love and Death from the Land of Mists
a collection of short stories
in the “Playing Another Reality” series
"MASTER of FATES"
5. STILLBORN
“I will do it instead of her!” Tanya said, stopping me with a gesture. She turned twelve years old that day.
***
We got acquainted in the bakery across from our office, where Nastya baked amazing buns. That evening, as usual, she knocked on the door and entered my office.
“Hello!” I said automatically, continuing to leaf through the mail, and Nastya silently stood at the table with the hope that I would honor her with a look after all.
She was unusually beautiful that day. Something seemed to have changed in her.
“What’s happened, darling?”
Nastya smiled enigmatically, nodded and, coming closer to me, sat down on the edge of the table. I frantically ran through the options in my head. A new dress? No. Had she changed hairstyle? Makeup? What was the difference?
“Don’t torture me, I’m tired, give me a hint!”
Nastya took my hand and ran it over her tummy.
“We love you!”
I was breathless with joy. Finally!
***
Tanya was always a joy to us, she grew up in front of our eyes, being a beautiful, cheerful and smart, albeit wayward girl. She drew wonderful pictures, played music and figure skating, studied foreign languages. We loved her, spoiling in every possible way. My long-awaited child, she knew no refusal in anything.
***
Nastya came to the window. It was pouring rain outside.
“You know, Boris… I dreamed about my mother last night. She said that we would have a girl, and she would look like me. For some reason, my mother began to cry, then she added something, something important, but I didn’t catch it. She was called somewhere, and I woke up.”
“Darling,” I went up to Nastya and hugged her tightly, “you have no right to think about anything bad! My daughter will be the most beautiful, the smartest, the happiest, the richest! All the required of you now is to take care of yourself! My baby is supposed to be born healthy, so you have no right to worry! You have to live for her now!”
“Yes, okay,” Nastya said, turning to face me.
She loved me too much to think about our future, “It would work out by itself somehow.”
All that time I was extremely affectionate and caring with Nastya, turning the months of waiting for my daughter into a real fairy tale. Nastya dreamed of my coming to the hospital and taking Tanya in my arms, of going for walks in the park, and then… Nastya adored the sea, she wished one day I would take them to have a rest on a distant island where the three of us would be together… and happy, of course…
***
Tanya adored the sea, so we always took her with us on vacation to exotic islands. It was there, on a distant island, during celebration of another Tanya’s birthday, the 10th one, that she first had the dream, which she never told us about. I remember my daughter looked depressed. I should have paid attention and asked her about it after all…
***
I placed Nastya at an expensive maternity hospital. The doctor, a friend of mine, after numerous examinations, considered a caesarean section necessary to be performed. I held Nastya’s hand, saying goodbye.
“Everything will be fine! You’ll see! You don’t have to worry! I’ll stay by your side during the operation and after it… Don’t worry, honey! I’ll do everything to make my girl happy!”
“I dreamed about my mother again,” Nastya said thoughtfully. “She said it was already too late, everything had been decided.”
I felt uncomfortable.
“It’s time for you to go!” I said. “My daughter will never need anything! I promise, remember these words! And… thank you!”
I remember Nastya walking away from me along a long, long corridor…
***
The guests had already left, thank God! Tanya behaved ugly!
She called a ‘fat swine’ one of the oligarchs, on whom at that moment my financial stability depended as well as, in fact, Tanya’s future, and the future of her children and grandchildren! And it would have been okay, being pronounced jokingly or childlike, but no! – the intonation showed out her evident anger and hatred, not even hinted before!
With all her might, Tanya kicked the son of a famous politician with a book on his head, when he said laughing that ghosts didn’t exist!
And then, during a casual conversation by the fireplace, I don’t even remember what exactly we were talking about, since we all had already drunk pretty much, Tanya suddenly changed her face and, turning to me, stated loudly and distinctly,
“You’ve never loved my mother!”
My wife, who entered the room at that moment, heard the phrase. In order to somehow justify us to the guests for such tactless behavior of Tanya, she shook her head, squeezed out a smile and spread her hands,
“Awkward age.”
***
That evening, the phone rang in Nastya’s flat.
“Good evening, Mister…” said a steely voice on the receiver. “I have to inform you… I don’t even know how to say this. Your wife died on the operating table.”
“And the baby?”
“We did our best, but… the baby turned out to be stillborn.”
***
We lived in an elite penthouse of an expensive skyscraper. After the guests left, my wife went to the kitchen, and I came up to Tanya’s room on the second floor. The door to the balcony, or rather, ‘to the roof’, as Tanya used to say, was ajar. It was pouring rain outside. She was standing in the far corner.
“Tanya!” I called out to her.
She turned and stopped me with a gesture.
“Stay away from me, dad! I’ve dreamed about her today again!”
“Who?” I asked, still not understanding anything.
“Mom… MY mother. She told me the truth! How much did you pay your friend, the doctor, to kill her and declare me ‘dead’? And who was killed and buried then instead of me? You didn’t even show up for the funeral, daddy, while her husband, every year on my birthday, orders a prayer for the repose of my soul in Heaven as for the dead! If she had known what you would do, she would have jump out of the window. I will do it instead of her!”
I sobered up immediately and rushed to stop Tanya, but was late, having slipped and… That day she turned twelve years old forever…
February, 2000