Голубые ступени / Stepping into the blue

But, even more than by this physical weakness, they were united by something else. They felt themselves ’chosen’, even among their own kind – not by birth but by their ability to hear what their friends and schoolmates were saying. They were both endowed with an acute sense of hearing – maybe not an absolute pitch, but still a kind of hearing that was very rare, capable of distinguishing dozens if not hundreds of overtones. They especially liked listening to the ring of church bells, but of course that kind of opportunity didn’t come along very often.

She imagined what it would be like after the operation, and even stood on tip-toe. Three centimetres. She shut her eyes tight and just stood there. Three centimetres meant she would be able to reach his face, his lips – so sweet, so sweet! And she could not bring herself to even think that this might not happen, since «impossible» was simply out of the question! Then why should she picture it to herself, and fantasize?

She opened her eyes again.

A gentleman passer-by looked at her – after all, she was pretty and she knew it. She had a perfectly formed nose – a rarity, just like the way Pushkin[3 - Alexander Pushkin – a celebrated Russian poet of the early 19th century, considered by many to be the father of Russian literature.] called «two pairs of slender legs» a rarity. Her hair, too, could be called luxuriant, as it did not hang down straight but fell around her face in ever-so-soft waves of lush dark brown.

The man averted his eyes and walked on. Would he look back or not? He did, and she smiled: everything would turn out all right. She had guessed he would, and he did – and that meant everything would turn out all right!

The springtimes, as indeed the years, had rolled by virtually unnoticed – perhaps because they were always together. The world for her always began with him, and everything that happened in the world was connected with him – study, leisure, mutual friends.

As for girl-friends of her own – she didn’t have any.

After graduating from a special school for the musically gifted they had both gone on to post-secondary studies, even ending up in the same classes with the same professors. Once again, nothing had changed externally – they just had a whole lot of new friends.

And the leisure-time activities available to them were by no means a source of division – quite to the contrary.