Wandering around the outskirts of night Koktebel, the correspondent of the capital newspaper Ruben finally came across the camp of archaeologists. He flew to Simferopol with the assignment to write material about the excavation of an ancient settlement on the Karadag coast, but missed the regular bus and took a taxi to Koktebel. It was late hour, it was dark around, in addition, the correspondent did not really know exactly where the excavations were being carried out. Ruben wandered around the outskirts of Koktebel for a long time, until some aborigine showed the way.
Ruben exhibited cognac bought at the Simferopol airport, and archaeologists easily accepted it into their company. Of course, there could be no question of any interview with the head of the excavation, Pavel Konstantinovich Vorotnikov, at such a late hour, Ruben hoped to talk with him tomorrow. In the meantime, the Muscovite was sitting near the fire and telling the young girls all sorts of stories.
- This story was told to me by an acquaintance, Vitaly Chebyshev, - began his story Ruben, - he comes from here, from the Eastern Crimea. Once Vitalik returned at night to his village Malinovka. First I walked across the field, then turned to the Kuchuk-Karasu river. The full moon is shining, everything around is at a glance. Beauty. Suddenly Vitalka saw: in the middle of the river something was turning white. I crept up to the shore, and there is a mermaid!
At first he did not believe it, he decided - some girl was bathing. The stranger stood completely naked in the water up to her waist - and the river Kuchuk-Karasu was not deep. The girl is beautiful, young, her long hair shone down to her thighs, while looking completely dry. I wondered: why not wet, because the mermaid came out of the water? “I stood about ten meters away,” Vitaly assured. “I don’t understand myself, but my hair was definitely dry.”
The mermaid looked at Vitaly, without saying a word, only beckoning with her hand, they say, come to me. The guy was numb. As if hypnotized, he walked to the devil in his clothes and entered the river. He walks, pushes the river drift apart, looks at the mermaid bewitched. And she still beckons: go, go.
Chebyshev approached the mermaid closer and closer and could already make out her face: pale, completely bloodless, strikingly beautiful. The mermaid smiled mysteriously. And then Vitaly painfully hit his foot on a stone at the bottom. The feeling of hypnosis disappeared immediately. Vitalik rushed back, raising spray and falling into some holes. I got to the shore, looked around and hears: the mermaid is saying something to him, and her voice is wonderful, it's hard to even convey. "Pi-i-i! Pi-i-i! " She squeaked.
A friend came running home, he was shaking all over, he could not sleep. And then he began to quietly pry the villagers - what if someone knows about the water scum in the area? And he found out that he was not the only one who saw the mermaid. One old woman, quite sane and with a good memory, said that her brother met a mermaid, but not in the river, but in the canal that used to flow into Kuchuk-Karasu. The beast also called the man to her. Once there was a mill on the bank of the canal, now it is abandoned. The brother told the old woman about this incident, and then disappeared. Soon he was found dead in the canal - either he himself drowned, or drowned, and remained unknown.
Vitaly went to that mill. The canal is gone, dried up. The mill wheel is skewed, desolation is everywhere, and in the wall of the mill, below the level where, by all indications, the water was coming up, there is a depression that looks like a cave. Vitaly approached the cave, stood, but did not dare to look inside and left there as soon as possible. Old people say that mermaids can appear anywhere and anytime. By the way, they also live in the Black Sea. They also say that they respect men for the sake of procreation.
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The remaining time before bed, Ruben sang songs with a guitar, took pictures of the company warmed up by brandy, and even started a short archaeological romance. One of the girls spent the whole evening making eyes at the capital's guest, and then retired with him away from witnesses.
… In Moscow, Ruben wrote a note, transcribed the interview, handed in photographs. I have printed some pictures for myself. He especially remembered one, where smiling girls sit by the fire, clasping their knees, and the fourth from the left is his nighttime love.
A week later, something mysterious happened. Ruben was summoned by the chief and said that an English magazine wanted to buy his article, and that the correspondent would receive a premium due in such cases. The article has already been translated, there is a mere trifle left: the British ask for the names of the archaeologists photographed. What picture? On the very one where they sit by the fire. “Okay,” nodded Ruben, “I'll contact Vorotnikov.”
He dialed the scientist's number.
- Pavel Konstantinovich, this is the case here. For publication we need the names of the guys I photographed. I sent you a photo by e-mail. Got? Fine. Then dictate, please, the names of all from left to right. I write it down.
- Daria Anisimova, Natalya Petryakova and Svetlana Krasnoyarova, - the archaeologist listed the names of the students. - All from Moscow. Moscow State University, Faculty of Archeology.
- Pavel Konstantinovich, you forgot about the fourth!
- The one that is fourth from the left? - asked Vorotnikov. - But I do not know her, she is not ours. That evening we saw her for the first time. We thought that this girl came to the fire with you. She left that night and never came back.
Vladimir GUBANOV