“Hello,” Alyona said, stepping closer. “Hi.”
“Could you help me?” he asked. “I’ve hurt my ankle.”
She squinted at his pant legs as if she could see through cloth to the bone. Their green knees showed smudges from the ground. Funny to see a grown man sitting as scuffed up as a boy who fell too hard in the school yard.
Sophia caught up to them, and her hand came to rest on the base of Alyona’s spine. Alyona shivered her away. “Can you walk?” Alyona asked.
“Yes. Maybe.” The man stared down at his sneakers.
“Did you sprain it?”
“I must have. These damn rocks.”
Sophia made a pleased noise at the curse. “We can go get someone,” Alyona offered. They were only a couple minutes from the city center; she could practically smell the vendors’ cooking oil.
“I’m all right. My car is close.” He reached up one arm, and she grabbed his hand and pulled. Her weight didn’t make such a difference but it was enough to get him on his feet. “I can get there.”
“Are you sure?”
He was wobbling a little. Stepping tenderly with pain. “If you girls would just stay with me and make sure I don’t fall.”
“Here, you go ahead, Soph,” Alyona said. Her sister went first, then the man, carefully. Alyona walked after and watched. His shoulders were curved. Over the low wash of the waves, she could hear his breath come with slow effort.
The path opened up to the center: the stone-covered beach, families on the benches, gray birds flapping their wings over hot-dog buns, and ship-to-shore cranes extending their long bare necks. Sophia had stopped to wait for them. The bulk of the hill was behind. “Are you okay?” Alyona asked the man.
He pointed to their right. “We’re almost there.”
“To the parking lot?” Nodding, he limped along behind the food stands, generators chugging exhaust around his knees. The sisters followed. An older boy in a fitted cap skateboarded past the fronts of the stands, and Alyona looked forward in shame—to be saddled with her little sister, to be trailing behind a weak stranger. She wanted to get home already. Taking Sophia’s hand, she caught up with the man.
“What’s your name?” he asked her.
“Alyona.”
“Alyonka, would you take my keys”—he shook them out of his pants pocket—“and unlock the car door?”
“I can do it,” said Sophia. They were already at the crescent-shaped lot on the other side of the hill.
He gave the key ring to the smaller girl. “It’s the black one there. The Surf.”
Sophia skipped forward and opened the driver’s side. He got in, exhaling as he sat. She held on to the door handle. The side panel’s flawless paint reflected her body, dressed in purple cotton and rolled khaki. “How does it feel?” she asked.
He shook his head. “You girls really helped me.”
“Can you drive?” Alyona asked.
“Yes,” he said. “You’re going where now?”
“Home.”
“Where’s that?”
“Gorizont.”
“I’ll take you,” he said. “Get in.” Sophia let go of the door. Alyona looked across the street at the bus stop. A bus would take them more than half an hour, while in a car they’d be home in ten minutes.
The man had started his engine. He waited for their answer. Sophia was already peering into his backseat. Alyona, as the older sister, took her time: she spent a few seconds weighing the city bus (its starting and stopping, its heaving noises, the smell of other people’s sweat) against this offer. His softness, his bad ankle, and his boyish face. How easy it would be to be driven. The car would get them home quickly enough for a snack before their evening meal. Like feeding zoo animals or telling scary stories, this would be another daytime thrill, a summer-break disobedience to be kept between her and Sophia.
“Thank you,” Alyona said. She went around the front and climbed into the passenger seat, warm from the sun. Its leather was soft as a lap underneath her. A cross-shaped icon was fixed to the face of the glove compartment. If only the skateboarder could see her now—sitting in the front seat of a big car. Sophia slid into the row behind. A few parking spots away, a woman let a white dog out of the back of a van for a walk.
“Where to?” he asked.
“Akademika Koroleva, thirty-one.”
He signaled and rolled out of the lot. A pack of cigarettes slid across the top of the dashboard. His car smelled of soap, tobacco, faint gasoline. The woman and her dog were crossing the line of food stands. “Does it hurt?” Sophia said.
“I’m better already, thanks to you.” He merged into traffic. The sidewalks were clotted by local teenagers wearing neon and Asian cruise-ship tourists posing for pictures. A short-haired woman held up a sign with the name of some adventure agency. As the center of the only city on the peninsula, this was the first stop for Kamchatka’s summer visitors; they were rushed from their boat or plane to see the bay, then rushed away, beyond city limits, to hike or raft or hunt in the empty wilderness. A truck honked. People kept stepping out into the crosswalk. The light changed and then their car was free.
From the passenger seat, Alyona took the man’s features apart. A wide nose and a mouth underneath that matched. Short brown eyelashes. Round chin. His body looked carved out of fresh butter. He was too heavy, probably. That must be why he had stepped clumsily on the shore.
“Do you have a girlfriend?” asked Sophia.
He laughed and shifted gears, accelerating up a hill. The car hummed underneath them. The bay drew away behind. “No, I don’t.”
“And you’re not married.”
“Nope.” He lifted his hand, fingers spread, to show.
Sophia said, “I saw already.”
“Clever thing,” he said. “How old are you?”
“Eight.”
He glanced at her in the rearview mirror. “And you’re also not married, am I right?”
Sophia giggled. Alyona turned to watch the road. His car was taller than their mother’s sedan. She could look down on roof racks and along the pink lines of drivers’ arms. People were sunburned after this one day of good weather. “Can I put the window down?” she asked.
“I prefer the air-conditioning. Straight through this intersection?”
“Yes, please.” The trees along the sidewalks were fat and green from this rainy summer. They passed ragged billboards on their left and concrete-paneled apartment buildings on their right. “Here,” Alyona said. “Here. Oh.” She twisted in her seat. “You missed the turn.”