With an uneven, but so familiar gesture, she raised her raincoat: come to me, Tiom.
With his last bit of strength, he laughed.
“What is it?” she asked, not opening her eyes and confusing the syllables.
“Your helmet… I just can’t. It’s like I’m lying down to sleep with a soldier from the guard brigade…”
Galia made a move as though to turn away from him, but more to keep up the appearance of her strictness.
Artiom hugged her and didn’t let her go.
They fell asleep immediately.
Artiom slept with difficulty, as though sleep itself had become a kind of labor. Incessantly, like a bad tooth, some part of his consciousness ached: you have to get up, you have to sail further, you have to get up, they’re already on your tail, they saw us from the lighthouse on Sekirka, they noticed us and…
I
