The Light and the Dark by Mikhail Shishkin Read Free Book Online

me, I climb up on her, shuffling my chilly knickers across her hot back. Mummy squeals, flings meoff and gets ready to go for a swim – in the same painstaking way she does everything. She fastens her bra without hurrying, twisting her arms behind her back. She straightens her straps, puts on her white rubber cap, takes a long time tucking her hair under it. She walks down to the water slowly, as if she’s checking every step of the way. I skip round her, showering her with spray, she squeals and shouts for me to stop, tries to slap me on the bottom. In the bathing cap her head is suddenly very small.
    I remember her once squatting down in the water, raking it towards her with her boneless hands – under the water arms and legs looked boneless – and suddenly in the transparent water I saw that she was peeing. That seemed very strange to me then, but I was too frightened to say anything.
    She used to swim very far out and her rubber cap bobbed up and down on the waves like a ping-pong ball.
    Daddy and I sat in the breaking waves and watched Mummy. Everything was so wonderful! I sit there, stirring the water around with my toes, the waves move my legs apart. All around me there’s nothing but happy people, happy voices shouting, happy waves, happy legs.
    It was only later I realised that my father couldn’t swim at all. Mummy used to go for long swims, and every time I started worrying about her, but Daddy only laughed.
    ‘What could happen to our swimming bunny? Nothing will ever sink her!’
    There’s Mummy getting out and drying herself off – and that man with the footballer’s thighs watches her again as she dabs with the towel, blotting the swimsuit over her breasts, on her stomach, under her arms, between her legs.
    Mummy lies down on her stomach, slips off her bra straps again and reads a book. I sit down beside her and start plaiting her hair.
    As the sea water dries out, it leaves little crystals of salt on her skin.
    Seagulls scud by above us and for me they’re plaiting the wind’s hair.
    Then I lie down at Mummy’s side and close my eyes. The rustling of the waves is like someone endlessly turning pages.
    And I fall asleep happy.
    I’m woken by thunder. Darkness all around and sharp, cold gusts of wind. The deluge is about to start at any moment. Everybody runs off the beach. The first drops strike my bare body as if someone’s throwing pebbles.
    We grab our things and run. The wind is so strong, it tips the deckchairs over. Semi-naked people dash along the beach, trying to catch their parasols, towels and skirts that have gone flying away. The sea is already grey, restless, driving in tumultuous waves. We just manage to run to our house before the deluge begins. I get into the shower with Mummy – she unravels my plaits to wash the salt out of my hair. I snuggle against her cold skin, it’s puckered up into little goose pimples.
    Afterwards I sit on the sofa, wrapped up in a blanket, and wait for Daddy, who has promised to read me a book, and he’s getting washed in the shower and singing some aria or other.
    Papa was an orchestra conductor then.
    I didn’t think that was anything so very special.
    He told me how his father, my grandfather the violinist, used to rehearse at home, and when he was a boy Daddy used to take two sticks and repeat the movements while his father played the violin.
    I remember when I was still very little and loved to spin round on the adjustable stool, Daddy used to play the piano with me: clusters of bass notes sustained by the pedal represented dark stormclouds. Abrupt high sounds, clipped short by the pedal, melted in the air like scattered snowflakes. And summer rain was made with just the index fingers – one hand on the black keys, one on the white – skipping as fast as could be from one sound to the next. He had a broad hand – it spanned one and a half octaves.
    Another thing I remember is how he once opened the lid, showed me the instrument inside and