Suddenly, like a ghost, a man appeared in front of Katya. One second he wasn't there, and the next he was standing in the middle of her hallway, looking around with a confused look, as if he had just come from another dimension. Katya shuddered, but not from fear, but from surprise. The man didn't look threatening, but his appearance was completely unpredictable and shocking. She was caught off guard, his presence disrupting the usual course of things. The stranger's gaze emphasized his disorientation and surprise at his own appearance in this place.
The man was a little taller than Katya, with thick brown hair with graying that hid part of his face, falling slightly over his forehead. His gray-blue eyes were wide open, full of surprise and a kind of almost childish fright. He was dressed in a very strange costume: dark blue pants that were too wide at the hips and a pale gray shirt made of a fabric that seemed so shabby it was faded from time. Not a single button was observed on the shirt. The man had no watch, no telephone, in short, no signs of modern civilization at all. There was only a small silver chain around his neck, with a small pendant in the shape of some symbol.
Having recovered from the first shock, Katya decided not to panic. She slowly took a step back, as if assessing the situation. The man's gaze, still looking around, lingered on details: the striped wallpaper, the antique-framed mirror, the clothes hanging on the rack. His lips moved, as if he were whispering something to himself. Katya tried to recognize from his lips what he was saying, but understood nothing. Then the girl decided to speak first:
- I'm sorry," she said in a deliberately calm voice. - Is there anything I can do for you?
- Where... where am I?" the man flinched at the sound of her voice like an electric shock, turning around so abruptly that his gaze raced again, unable to focus on Katya's face.
The stranger's voice, however, was soft, but with a slight accent that Katya could not identify. The man's eyes were filled with such despair and helplessness that the girl felt a rush of compassion. Now she took a step toward the alien from nowhere.
- Are you lost? - she asked.
- That's... not exactly true," the man replied, his eyes still running. He tried to make a concentrated face, as if he were trying to remember something important. - I'm looking for..." and he stopped, biting his lip.
His face turned pale. It even seemed to Katya that the stranger was about to faint. She carefully led him to the sofa and sat him down on it. The man moved like an obedient puppet: he slowly approached and quietly lowered himself onto the soft surface. He looked utterly devastated and lost. His shoulders slumped, and he sank back into a state of deep concentration, as if he were trying to piece together his scattered memories. Katya decided to wait patiently, understanding the condition of the injured man. She became very curious about where this stranger had come from and what would happen to him next. She calmly watched, sitting down next to the man on the edge of the couch, ready to give him the necessary help at any moment. But the tension was rising like thickened air, and Katya realized that this meeting promised something much more significant than she had imagined.
In the meantime the girl had decided to examine the visitor. He was an elderly, short man in clumsy and strange clothes, with thick graying hair that fell over a broad forehead furrowed with wrinkles, as if drawn by time. He still had a very lost look about him. As Katya had not heard him enter, and saw him before her unexpectedly, it was enough to make her long remember her first fright. But her heartbeat recovered almost immediately. This man seemed so harmless and helpless that he wouldn't scare anyone if he even wanted to. Moreover, he seemed to be looking for help himself. When Katya saw that he, too, had calmed down a little, she asked him again:
- I'm sorry, are you looking for someone?
The man looked at her as if he only now realized that he was not alone, and the girl was in the room with him. He swallowed, widened his eyes a little, cleared his throat, cleared his throat with a cough, and said, suddenly, simply and politely:
- No, thank you!
The guest's answer took Katya by surprise. She wanted to ask him a dozen questions: who he was, what he was doing in her house, how he got there, why he was so surprised, but the girl from surprise could not say anything. She waited impatiently for the man to add something more, but he was silent and nothing happened! Katya looked at her watch: Daniel was only due back from work in about two hours. She looked again at the strange man, who had already moved away from the sofa and was now looking at the paintings on the walls with interest. Then he went up the stairs to the top of the staircase, came down again, and stopped, thoughtful, in front of the door leading to the basement. He was about to open it when Katya called out to him:
- Excuse me, what are you looking for?
- Do you live here? - The strange visitor turned sharply, frowning, and his bushy eyebrows drew together in a single line.
- Of course I live here! - Katya answered in surprise. - This is my home. - Then she added, as if to make it more convincing: "You are in my house.
- What city?
- My God, in Moscow, of course! - Katya made round eyes.
- Are you sure about that?
- Of course I'm sure. I was born in this house and have always lived here, as have my parents. My grandparents also lived here.
- And your great-grandparents, too," the man added with sudden confidence.
- I don't know that," Katya shrugged. - I'm not sure. How do you know that? - Katya was curious again.
- I assure you it is so! I have proof," said the old man, smiling for the first time in their conversation.
- What proof?
- Я... я... - the stranger became agitated again. - I am the proof! You've never seen me? - the man insisted.
- I don't think so," Katya became a little worried for some reason. - There's something familiar about you, but no... I don't remember ever seeing you before.
"Why is he here? What does he want? How did he get here?" - The thoughts in Katya's head began to run at breakneck speed. - "If he has bad intentions, I don't even know how to defend myself, it's good that my husband will be here soon, no matter how he is a policeman," Katya caught herself saying the last words out loud as if to encourage herself: - My husband is a policeman! - But with excitement she began to stammer.
- Calm down," the stranger assured her. - I won't hurt you. I just can't. I'm Vasily Gutkovich. Do you understand? Gutkovich! Doesn't that mean anything to you?
- Yes, that's my maiden name," Katya answered confusedly, "but I don't know your name. So tell me, who are you?
- As I said, I'm Vasily Gutkovich," the strange guest began, "I was born on July 7, 1858 in... unfortunately, in some place unknown to me. But I found out about the date of my birth only thanks to the registration registers. I am a foundling who appeared, as I do today in your house, on October 25, 1889, in Khabarovsk.
- I'm sorry," Katya said with white lips, "what do you mean 'showed up'?
- He appeared," Vasily Gutkovitch grinned, "so he appeared suddenly, like a ghost, like I appeared in your hallway a couple of hours ago. What is your name, by the way, dear child?
- Katya," the girl said.
- So, Katya," Gutkovich continued, "I don't remember how I ended up on the doorstep of that house in Khabarovsk, I was just sitting on the steps, in torn and dirty clothes, with no idea who I was or where I came from. The police found me and sent me to a shelter. There they found the records of some strange foundling, and I recognized my name and my date of birth. The date of birth was in the registry books, but the place was not. It was as if I hadn't been born, but I had been...created. Or...I'd been transported from somewhere. I was eight years old at the time, according to the papers I found.
Katya poured tea for herself and her guest and, clutching the mug in her hands, tried to remain calm, but her fingers trembled visibly. She was a student of history, accustomed to documents and facts, but Vasily's story seemed beyond reality.
- And what happened next? - She tried to keep her voice steady, but she wasn't very good at it.
- The orphanage was hard, but I survived and adapted. I learned to write and read, and later learned the carpentry trade. I tried not to bother anyone with questions, but there were moments like flashes, fragments of some scenes, sounds, faces. Like shards of a broken mirror that my memory was trying to put back together, reflecting something incomprehensible, frightening and distant. They appeared so suddenly, like migraine attacks, and disappeared just as suddenly.
Gutkovich sighed and touched his hand to his face, mottled with wrinkles that gave the impression of fatigue that was many times his apparent age.
- Over the next ten years I spent in the orphanage, these "flashes" became more frequent and vivid, while becoming more coherent. I began to realize, as I grew older, that they were memories. Not my own, but someone else's. It was as if I was the keeper of someone else's memory. One hundred and thirty years have passed since then. No, that's not my age, because during those years I had disappeared and reappeared in other places. And today those memories brought me to you. To this house.
- And when you... disappeared, where were you? - Katya asked, her eyes wide open, either from surprise or from fright.
- I don't know that," Vassily said.
He pointed to an old photograph of Katya's great-great-grandmother in a heavy frame on the mantelpiece. The photograph showed a young, beautiful woman in an elegant dress, with an unusually penetrating gaze and soft features.
- I see her often in my "memories". This woman and this house are closely connected to everything I have been trying to understand for years. I believe she is the main key to unraveling my mystery. I don't know if I'll ever know who I am. And why I appeared exactly in Khabarovsk on that distant day of October 25, 1889, like a ghost. Without a name, without a past, without understanding what had happened.
Katya was silent, looking at the familiar photograph. Katya's grandmother had kept it so carefully, but the girl was too young to remember the stories associated with the photograph. A sense of confusion and anxiety mingled in her with an unusual curiosity. Vasily Gutkovich's story touched her scientific mind. Katya felt that she was on the threshold of something incredible that would change her life and her view of the world forever.
- You will understand in time, I assure you! - Gutkovitch exclaimed, suddenly switching to "you. - Let me tell you the rest, and you'll understand. So, when I found myself in Khabarovsk, I didn't know anyone, and that's natural. I found work when I turned eighteen and left the orphanage. First I worked for a carpenter as an apprentice, then for a grocer, and I became so attached to him that the old man who owned the store believed my foundling story and helped me file papers and restore my identity. In fact, my story didn't exist, as I was not born anywhere. That is, I knew my real name, but where I was from, I would not be able to explain to anyone, because it was unknown where I had been and for how long before I arrived in Khabarovsk.
- But how is that possible? - Katya exclaimed, "This is pure madness!
- It is. I assure you," the man continued calmly. - The first time it happened, I was terrified myself. I was a child who found myself in a place I didn't know, among people speaking a strange language and wearing strange clothes. I was only eight years old, and the event left me deeply traumatized until it happened a second time. I was now about eleven years old when I suddenly found myself in a new place. There I met a man who knew my parents. But the ordeal for my childish mind did not end there. This person turned out to be, like me, a "time traveler".
- How did you realize it? - Staring at Vassily, Katya asked.
- He told me that himself. He told me how it was happening. I, an eleven-year-old boy, hardly understood what was happening to me, and it was important for me to meet someone like me who was experiencing the same thing. That man, who looked to be about forty years old and his name was Georgy Anikin, told me that it is impossible to predict when the time jump will happen. It's like a whirlpool, when everything starts spinning, you see a lot of light, then everything ends just as suddenly, and you find that you've traveled through time. It was not an easy thing for an adult to accept, let alone me, the child I was at the time.
- So you can still meet such people now, if fate has brought you together with a fellow traveler? - Katya asked with more interest than fear.
- Georgi told me that there are not so many people with such characteristics," Gutkovich replied, "but there are still many more than you think. I know it seems absurd to you, but it is true.
- A lot more than I think? - Katya's eyes widened with surprise. The notion of numerous secret communities of time travelers lurking among ordinary people stirred the girl's imagination. - But how was that possible? Wouldn't these time travelers have to change history? Or greatly influence it, at least?
Gutkovich seemed to have expected such a question. He smiled a little tiredly, but an undisguised note of pride shone in his eyes.
- Katya," Vasily began, slowly sipping his tea, "time travel obeys certain laws, not yet fully understood. Georgy told me about a kind of... balance or something. Imagine a delicate web in which the threads are our every movement and event. We time travelers cannot break these threads, but only change their direction a little. Exactly a little, that's very important. If someone tries to change something drastically," he took a deep breath, "a paradox may occur. The power that controls time travel will not allow the past to be changed to the detriment of the future. It's like trying to stop a river from flowing: the water will find a new path, but the pattern will remain the same-the river will still flow in the same direction.
Gutkovich was silent, and Katya was also silent, digesting what she had heard. The concept of "balance" seemed logical to her, but also difficult to understand at the same time.
- And then what happened to Georgi? - She finally asked.
- We met him many more times throughout our lives and our travels, but I lost contact with him about ten years ago," Vasily answered, his voice growing quieter. - Like our time jumps, these meetings were spontaneous and unpredictable. He taught me many things, especially how to survive in this unusual world. Taught me to remain stealthy and to be cautious. Told me that "travelers" exist in different eras and in different social strata. They can be doctors, teachers and even homeless vagrants. We are all connected by an invisible thread, but only a few of us are able to realize it.
Gutkovich got up and went to the window to look out at the city at night. He watched with interest as car headlights drew streaks of light on the rain-wet streets.
- The hardest thing, Katya," he continued without turning around, "is loneliness. Each of us is cut off from ordinary life, from everything that is considered normal for the rest of us. We are always strangers among our own. What's more, you remain lonely among your own. Because everyone carries his own baggage of memories from his own era, and this burden cannot be shared with others. A lot of things from our "past lives" are forgotten, it must be so, otherwise the brain would simply not be able to cope with such a load.
He turned to the girl, his eyes full of indescribable fatigue and sadness. Katya looked at her new acquaintance carefully and didn't know whether to laugh or call an ambulance. Time travel! A man who had traveled through the ages and was continuing his journey, not knowing where he was born and where, and most importantly, when he would finish it. Or maybe he is, indeed, just a madman? The girl wanted to say that she did not believe a single word he said, but she did not have the courage, and her curiosity of the historian took over. So she asked him:
- How do you know my great-great-grandmother?
Vasily looked again at the photograph in the antique frame and smiled happily.
- Now I remember! In one of my "time jumps" I found myself in Moscow. I was thirty-two years old at the time. It was the longest period of my stay in one place and one time, 27 years. One day I found myself right outside this house and saw a girl. - Vasily dreamily plunged into his memories, a slight smile froze on his lips, his eyes looked as if through time. - Her name was Anna. We met and fell in love, married on November 12, 1914, and then lived together for a long time. We had a son, then a granddaughter....
Then Vasily's voice trembled painfully, and he moved his eyebrows frantically, as if trying to recall something that had escaped his memory. Katya, holding her breath, remained silent, afraid to disturb his recollection.
- I disappeared as suddenly as I'd always disappeared," the time traveler said slowly, painfully, as if each word was difficult to say. - Anna must have died of a broken heart, because she never knew where I'd gone. Nothing had ever happened to make me realize that the time jump was about to happen, so it had always been very painful for me to leave the people I cared about so suddenly. And that time it finally broke my heart...
Suddenly one memory squeezed Katya's chest.
- Wait, now I recall... I was still young, but I remember my grandmother telling my mom that her grandmother died a few years after her husband disappeared. She was very grieving and sick for a long time.
Vasily lowered his head and covered his face with his hands.
- When your great-great-grandmother and I were married, we took some pictures. Maybe our son and then his children or grandchildren kept them. Maybe you have them? - he looked hopefully into the girl's eyes.
Katya went to the shelf in the living room and picked up her grandmother's old photo album. She opened it, on the first page was a picture of a beautiful couple with the words "Grandma and Grandpa on their wedding day" written below. Katya had seen this picture many times as a child, but how could she not recognize this handsome man as her aged guest! Of course! It was him! Her great-great-grandfather, though much younger, was undoubtedly him. The girl turned around and was about to say something, but suddenly a bright flash illuminated the room, and... it emptied. The man had disappeared. Katya was left standing in the middle of the living room of the old apartment, where several generations of her family had lived their lives, clutching her grandmother's album in her hands. It was only after a few minutes that she was able to whisper with just her lips: "Grandpa...".