The Twilight Watch (2 page)

E
VEN IF YOU
love your job, the last day of holiday always makes
you feel depressed. Just one week earlier I'd been sunning myself
on a nice clean Spanish beach, eating paella (to be quite honest,
Uzbeki pilaff is better), drinking cold sangria in a little Chinese
restaurant (how come the Chinese make the Spanish national
drink better than the natives do?) and buying all sorts of rubbishy
resort souvenirs in the shops.

But now it was summer in Moscow again – not exactly hot,
but stifling and oppressive. And it was that final day of holiday,
when you can't get your mind to relax any more, but it flatly
refuses to function properly.

Maybe that was why I was glad when I got the call from Gesar.

'Good morning, Anton,' the boss began, without introducing
himself. 'Welcome back. Did you know it was me?'

I'd been able to sense Gesar's calls for some time already.
It was as if the ringing of the phone changed subtly, becoming more nanding
and authoritative.

But I was in no rush to let the boss know that.

'Yes, Boris Ignatievich.'

'Are you alone?'

An unnecessary question. I was certain Gesar knew perfectly
well where Svetlana was just then.

'Yes. The girls are at the dacha.'

'Good for them,' the boss sighed at the other end of the line,
and an entirely human note appeared in his voice. 'Olga flew off
on holiday this morning too . . . half the Watch staff are relaxing
in southern climes . . . Do you think you could call round to the
office straight away?'

Before I had time to answer, Gesar went on cheerily.

'Well, that's excellent! See you in forty minutes then.'

I really felt like calling Gesar a cheap poser – after I hung up,
of course. But I kept my mouth shut. In the first place, the boss
could hear what I said without any need of a telephone. And in
the second – whatever else he might be, he was no cheap poser.
He just didn't like wasting time. If I was about to say I'd be there
in forty minutes, what was the point in listening to me say it?

And anyway, I was really glad I'd got the call. The day was
already shot to hell in any case. It was still too early to tidy up
the apartment – like any self-respecting man whose family is away,
I only do that once, on the final day of bachelor life. And I definitely
didn't feel like going round to see anyone or inviting anyone
back to my place. So by far the most useful thing would be to
go back to work a day early – that way, I could ask for time off
with a clear conscience when I needed to.

Even though it wasn't the done thing for us to ask for time off.

'Thanks, boss,' I said with real feeling. I detached myself from
the armchair, put down the book I hadn't finished, and stretched.

And then the phone rang again.

Of course, it would have been just like Gesar to ring and say:
'You're welcome!' But that definitely would have been cheap
clowning.

'Hello!' I said in a very businesslike tone.

'Anton, it's me.'

'Sveta,' I said, sitting back down again. And suddenly I tensed
up – Svetlana's voice sounded uneasy. Anxious. 'Sveta, has something
happened to Nadya?'

'Everything's fine,' she replied quickly. 'Don't worry. Why don't
you tell me how you've been getting on?'

I thought for a few seconds. I hadn't had any drinking parties,
I hadn't brought any women back home, I wasn't drowning in
refuse, I'd even been washing the dishes . . .

And then I realised.

'Gesar called. Just a moment ago.'

'What does he want?' Svetlana asked quickly.

'Nothing special. He asked me to turn up for work today.'

'Anton, I sensed something. Something bad. Did you agree? Are
you going to work?'

'Why not? I've got nothing else to do.'

Svetlana was silent. Then she said reluctantly:

'You know, I felt a sort of pricking in my heart. Do you believe
I can sense trouble?'

I laughed:

'Yes, Great One.'

'Anton, be serious, will you!' Svetlana was instantly uptight, the
way she always got when I called her Great One. 'Listen to me
. . . if Gesar asks you to do something, say no.'

'Sveta, if Gesar called me in, it means he wants to ask me to
do something. It means he needs help. He says everyone's on
holiday . . .'

'He needs more cannon fodder,' Svetlana snapped. 'Anton . . .
never mind, you won't listen to me anyway. Just be careful.'

'Sveta, you don't seriously think that Gesar's going to put me
in any danger, do you?' I said cautiously. 'I understand the way
you feel about him . . .'

'Be careful,' said Svetlana. 'For our sake. All right?'

'All right,' I promised. 'I'm always very careful.'

'I'll call if I sense anything else,' said Svetlana. She seemed to
have calmed down a bit. 'And you call, all right? If anything at all
unusual happens, call. Okay?'

'Okay, I'll call.'

Svetlana paused for a few seconds, then before she hung up,
she said:

'You ought to leave the Watch, third-grade Light Magician . . .'

It all ended on a suspiciously cheerful note, with a cheap jibe
. . . Although we had agreed a long time ago not to discuss that
subject – three years earlier, when Svetlana left the Night Watch.
And we hadn't broken our promise once. Of course. I used to tell
my wife about my work . . . at least, about the jobs that I wanted
to remember. And she always listened with interest. But now she
had come right out with it.

Could she really have sensed something bad?

Anyway, I got ready to go slowly and reluctantly. I put on a
suit, then changed into jeans and a checked shirt, then thought
'to hell with it!' and got into my shorts and a black T-shirt with
an inscription that said: 'My friend was clinically dead, but all he
brought me from the next world was this T-shirt!' I might look
like a German tourist, but at least I would retain the semblance
of a holiday mood in front of Gesar.

Eventually I left the building with just twenty minutes to spare.
I had to flag down a car and feel out the probability lines – and
then tell the driver which streets to take so we wouldn't hit any
traffic jams.

The driver accepted my instructions hesitantly, he obviously had
serious doubts.

But we got there on time.

The lifts weren't working – there were guys in blue overalls
loading them with paper sacks of cement. I set off up the stairs
on foot, and discovered that the second floor of our office was
being refurbished. There were workmen lining the walls with
sheets of plasterboard, and plasterers bustling about beside them,
filling in the seams. At the same time they were installing a false
ceiling, which already covered the air-conditioning pipes.

So our office manager Vitaly Markovich had got his own way
after all. He'd managed to get the boss to shell out for a full-scale
refurbishment, and even worked out where to get the money
from.

I stopped for a moment to look at the workmen through the
Twilight. Ordinary people, not Others. Just as I ought to have
expected. There was just one plasterer, not much to look at, whose
aura seemed suspicious. But after a second I realised he was simply
in love. With his own wife! Well, would you believe it, there were
still a few good people left in the world.

The third and fourth floors had already been refurbished and
that really put me in a good mood. At long last it would be
cool in the IT department too. Not that I was in there every
day now, but even so . . . As I dashed past I greeted the security
guards who had clearly been posted here for the duration
of the refurbishment. Just as I got to Gesar's office, I ran into
Semyon. He was impressing something on Yulia in a serious,
didactic voice.

How time flew . . . Three years earlier Yulia had been just a
little girl. Now she was a beautiful young woman. And a very
promising enchantress – she had already been invited to join the
European Office of the Night Watch. They like to skim off the
young talent – to a multilingual chorus of protests about the great
common cause.

But this time they hadn't got away with it. Gesar had held on
to Yulia, and into the bargain let them know that he could recruit
young European talent if he felt like it.

I wondered what Yulia herself had wanted to happen.

'Been called back in?' Semyon enquired sympathetically, breaking
off his conversation the moment he spotted me. 'Or is your time
up already?'

'My time's up, and I've been called in,' I said. 'Has something
happened? Hi, Yulia.'

For some reason Semyon and I never bothered to say hello. As
if we'd only just seen each other. And anyway, he always looked
exactly the same – simply dressed, carelessly shaved, with the crumpled
face of a peasant who's moved to the big city.

That day, in fact, Semyon was looking more homely than ever.

'Hi, Anton,' Yulia replied. Her expression was glum. It looked
as though Semyon had been lecturing her again – he was always
doing that sort of thing.

'Nothing's happened,' Semyon said, shaking his head.
'Everything's perfectly calm. Last week we only picked up two
witches, and that was for petty offences.'

'Well, that's great,' I said, trying not to notice Yulia's imploring
glance. 'I'll go and see the boss.'

Semyon nodded and turned back towards the girl. As I walked
into the boss's reception room, I heard him saying:

'So listen, Yulia, I've been doing the same job for sixty years
now, but this kind of irresponsible behaviour . . .'

He's strict all right. But he never gives anyone a hard time
without good reason, so I wasn't about to rescue Yulia from the
conversation.

In the reception area the new air conditioner was humming
away quietly and the ceiling was dotted with tiny halogen bulbs for accent
lighting. Larissa was sitting there – evidently Gesar's secretary, Galochka,
was on holiday, and our field work coordinators really didn't have much work
of their own to do.

'Hello, Anton,' Larissa said. 'You're looking good.'

'Two weeks on the beach,' I replied proudly.

Larissa squinted at the clock:

'I was told to show you straight through. But the boss still has
visitors. Will you go in?'

'Yes,' I decided. 'Seems like I needn't have bothered hurrying.'

'Gorodetsky's here to see you, Boris Ignatievich,' Larissa said
into the intercom. She nodded to me: 'Go on in . . . oh, it's hot
in there . . .'

It really was hot in Gesar's office. There were two middle-aged
men I didn't know languishing in the armchairs in front of his
desk – I mentally christened them Thin Man and Fat Man, after
Chekhov's short story. But both of them were sweating.

'And what do we observe?' Gesar asked them reproachfully. He
cast a sideways glance at me. 'Come in, Anton. Sit down, I'll be
finished in a moment . . .'

Thin Man and Fat Man perked up a bit at that.

'Some mediocre housewife . . . distorting all the facts . . . vulgarising
and simplifying everything . . . running rings round you! On
a global scale!'

'She can do that precisely because she vulgarises and simplifies,'
Fat Man retorted morosely.

'You told us to tell everything like it is,' Thin Man said in
support. 'And this is the result, Most Lucent Gesar.'

I took a look at Gesar's visitors through the Twilight. Well, well!
More human beings! And yet they knew the boss's name and title.
And they even pronounced them with candid sarcasm. Of course,
there are always special circumstances, but for Gesar to reveal himself
to ordinary people . . .

'All right,' Gesar said with a nod. 'I'll let you have one more
try. This time work separately.'

Thin Man and Fat Man exchanged glances.

'We'll do our best,' Fat Man said with a good-natured smile.
'You understand, though – we've already had a certain degree of
success . . .'

Gesar snorted. As if they'd been given some invisible signal that
the conversation was over, the visitors rose, shook the boss's hand
in farewell and walked out. In the reception area Thin Man made
some flirtatious remark to Larissa, and she laughed.

'Ordinary people?' I asked cautiously.

Gesar nodded, gazing at the door with a hostile expression. He
sighed:

'People, people . . . All right, Gorodetsky. Sit down.'

I sat down, but Gesar still didn't say anything. He fiddled with
his papers and fingered some bright-coloured, smoothly polished
glass beads heaped up in a coarse earthenware bowl. I really wanted
to look closer and see if they were amulets or just glass beads, but
I couldn't risk taking any liberties in front of Gesar.

'How was your holiday?' Gesar asked, as if he'd exhausted all
his excuses for delaying the conversation.

'Good,' I answered. 'I missed Sveta, of course. But I couldn't
drag little Nadya out into that scorching Spanish sun. That's no
good . . .'

'No,' Gesar agreed, 'it isn't.' I didn't know if the Great Magician
had any children – even close associates weren't trusted with information
like that. He probably did. He was almost certainly capable
of experiencing something like paternal feelings. 'Anton, did you
phone Svetlana?'

'No,' I said and shook my head. 'Has she contacted you?'

Gesar nodded. Then suddenly he couldn't contain himself any
longer – he slammed his fist down on the desk and burst out:

'Just what did she think she was doing? First she deserts from
the Watch . . .'

'Gesar, every one of us has the right to resign,' I objected. But
Gesar had no intention of apologising.

'Deserts! An enchantress of her level doesn't belong to herself!
She has no right to belong to herself! If, that is, she calls herself
a Light One . . . And then – she's raising her daughter as a human
being!'