Black Wind

Beat. That is how this story began. Not with a word. Not with a cry. With a blow. Beat, beat, beat. On the old pier, where moss clung to the boards and the gulls for some reason kept silent, I found a man with a black drum. He sat by the wet ropes and laughed into the sea as if it were not one man laughing but a whole drunken band inside his throat. "Once every seven years," he whispered, "the wind holds a wedding." Beat. "And the bride does not come back from it."

Then he broke off his laughter and spoke to me directly. I was the musician in a band that called itself the free people of the wind. We roamed between the liman, the cliffs and the old Cossack pier: hauling salt, honey, tar, knives, Turkish cloth and other people's misfortune. The sea did not love us. It only waited for its payment. Hey, beat the hide. Hey, beat the night. Whoever walks out to the sea is never all his own again.

Once every seven years the elders brought out the black drum. Its hide was smooth and cold, as if it had been stretched not from an animal but from a drowned man the sea had given back. They said: the Black Wind is neither god nor devil. He is a crack in the world. When it opens, a person does not fall. Everything human is simply blown out of them: name, memory, love, voice. And the body still stands on its feet and looks out through eyes where a soul had just been.

That night the tar barrels burned blue. The wet sand under the cliff was black, as if the sea had spat its own shadow onto the shore. The boats rocked in one rhythm, though the sea kept silent. The gulls sat on the rock and waited. Then I saw Olesia. A white shirt. Red ribbons on her arms. A wreath of flowers and seaweed. Hey, lead out the bride. Hey, lead her to the water. The wind does not ask. The wind takes.

The seaweed crept along her neck like cold fingers. The band smeared their faces with soot, salt and fish blood. They kissed their knives, pounded their heels into the sand, laughed as if the laughter no longer belonged to human beings. It was not just a dance. It was the sea teaching them to walk on someone else's legs. Beat. Beat. Leave her. Beat.

They gave me the drum. The old pilot whispered: "Fall silent - and the people will take her. Keep beating - and the wind will take her in." That was the trap: any choice of mine led her to death, only through different doors. I laid my palm on the hide. It was warm. Something still lived beneath it. For a moment I felt a dull push from inside - the way a child kicks in its mother's belly. Something was waiting to be born. Hey, beat, musician. Hey, beat, don't go quiet.

The sea does not love an empty silence. I beat slowly, to win her time. Beat. Beat. One more moment. Beat. Olesia looked at me with a command in her eyes. Don't cry. Don't beg. Don't let them turn me into a thing. The band was no longer singing her name. They were calling her the bride of the wind. And with her eyes she asked only one thing: remember who I am.

The band's song rose from their throats, salty and crooked: Hey, black wind, take the young bride. Give us plunder, give us speed. Between the beats another whisper appeared: Leave her. She is no longer yours. Leave her. The first blow took her voice. The second - the smell of her hair after rain. On the third I broke the rhythm. Added an extra beat. Dropped a strong one. The band stumbled. One fell face-first into the sand. Another vomited black water.

Olesia took a step back. I already thought: I made it in time. Then my right hand struck on its own. Beat. It is not my hand holding the drum. The drum is holding me. The Black Wind entered the circle as cold. The fires leaned to one side and burned without crackling. The sea vanished into the darkness, as if someone had covered it with wet black sackcloth. I no longer knew whether I was beating the drum or the drum was beating me. Beat. Beat. Not yours. Beat.

My heart picked up that rhythm. And was the first to betray me. Every blow stole something I was still alive for. The warmth of her hand. The day she said my name. Her laughter at the table while I tapped out our song. When memory is taken away, love becomes an empty vessel. And what is empty is easy to fill with someone else's will. Hey, beat into memory. Hey, beat into blood. Whoever forgets a name has betrayed a love.

They led Olesia to the edge of the cliff. The band was no longer shouting with many voices but with a single maw. I could not defeat the rhythm. So I slipped another one inside it. Beat. Beat. Won't leave her. Beat. Beat. Beat. Olesia. Beat. Her name fell into the night like a coin into a bottomless well. And she looked back.

I threw myself toward her, but the Black Wind came in full. Not as a storm. Not as thunder. Not as a wave. As a salty taste in the air. Her lips said without a voice: "Don't leave yourself." Then she stopped belonging to the visible world. On the rock there remained a red ribbon and a wet circle of seaweed. The band sobered up and scattered. I never beat the drum again. But every night it beats in me. Beat. Beat. Don't leave yourself.