She is trying to relax: “There is no sense in being shriveled with eyes screwed during the last minutes of my life. Since I’m here, I should open my shoulders out and revel in the moment”. The girl opens her eyes wide and looks into the distance. An imposing white castle reveals itself through the density of leafy trees and palms as if it were a prince’s palace. The endless sea changes its colour from turquoise by the shore to deep blue in the main sea. The cutter turns back to the bay. The wind pulls the parachute. The strap nearly slips from under her bottom. Margot’s heart is wrung with fear, the fingers awkwardly clutched at the damned hooks. And there is nothing poetic in the moment. You can’t even think straight, but feel adrenalin which stones every centimeter of you body and, it seems, your soul too, if it exists. The brain is turned off: no pondering over your life. Nothing.
The Afro-Americans release the blond down and seat her to the bench. Margot senses that her body is strongly trembling almost as if she was having an epileptic seizure. Her movements are nervous and inaccurate, but she is carrying it off, smiling. Two hours in a row.
Finding herself overland, with Shtirlez’s self-control she thanks the sailors and heads to the bar. The girl comes up to the boiler, hands shivering, hot water splashing over her legs. Mint tea doesn’t help.
– How’re you doin’, beautiful lady? – sings a merry afro-American guy in a deep voice.
– Can I have a shot of tequila and a piece of lime, please…
The man smiles broader, protruding his first finger in the sign of approval. They made a lot of use of the gestural language there, especially during the beautiful animation nights at the hotel bar: reggae, multinational audience, Caribbean breeze… On seeing you, the barman gives a signal. In a few minutes the same cocktail you’ve had last time is in front of you, on his clean-shaved brown head. The wind was oddly strong that evening. The refreshing breeze from the sea in heat was like a gulp of life. On coming back to Russia a week later, she learnt tsunami on Cuba had carried away about three hundred lives that night.
She’d made a cup of gentle Jamaican coffee and continued the letter.
“Besides, I flied the plane! Some Italian from the crew came up to me with the suggestion. I thought I had lost my reason after the eleven-hour flight. But the guy was so insistent…