Текст песни Zorge - Эпизод 4. Бухта спокойствия

It was far from always clear who had started this game first. Everyone had their own rules—and, truth be told, by now there were no rules left at all. After the third explosion, no one gave another thought to the one before it—with its orange clouds—let alone the first one, which had filled the river with slowly drifting furniture, car tires, bright children’s toys, and television sets. And the bodies of their former owners. Their eyes—they were always open. “Facing the horror and the night.” Then again, soldiers tell stories of far worse things. Next to vanish were the dark crowds of refugees from the north, along with their feral—once pedigreed—dogs, which howled ceaselessly while their masters lost the gift of speech forever. They simply went mute—just like that—and that was how they were identified. And taken away somewhere. Rumors circulated that the coast guard had shipped them all off to distant, smoke-shrouded islands. Then those islands vanished from the navigation charts, just as most of the cities upstream had. Downstream, there was nothing but the ocean. The third explosion brought silence and a strange sort of order. Sleepy, sparsely populated streets. Swift, fleeting shadows. The hurried sound of doors opening to let someone in. It was as if every living thing were being squeezed out toward the sea by a long, dusty, scorching wind. Sometimes it seemed as though the cranes in the harbor were moving of their own accord—creaking and conversing with one another. Just as people used to do, back before the first explosion. He would come here—though reluctantly, and never for long—and almost always, trouble followed. A couple of cups of bitter coffee, thick with grounds. The hoarse laughter of fishermen killing time while waiting for the right tide. An envelope containing a fee. An inconspicuous alleyway. A familiar junk shop. An eternal search for *something*. An eternal search for a miracle. Once, he returned from this place carrying a long, heavy bundle—one that the indifferent evening patrol had, by some miracle, completely overlooked. Since then, on every cloudless night, he would recall names that felt so familiar from childhood, yet so distant: the Ocean of Storms, the Lake of Autumn, the Sea of ​​Tranquility, the Sea of ​​Moscow... But one restless spring evening, he turned his telescope downward—toward the islands.

He wakes to a strange silence. There is neither the deep rumble of an engine nor the crash of waves against the iron hull. Out of habit—and without a shred of hope—he pushes against the metal door. It opens smoothly, yielding with a faint creak. Pausing for a moment to think, he makes his way down the narrow passageway. A ladder; then another. A hatch stands wide open, framing stars as bright as gemstones, shimmering in the warm, fibrous air. The deck is deserted. Unexpectedly, the small vessel lies sleeping—nestled among others of its kind—in the middle of a vast, shimmering bay. At the foot of the gangway, which has been lowered to the water, an orange rubber dinghy bobs gently. In the gradually brightening east, what had once appeared to be a colossal factory now begins to assume its true, familiar contours. It is neither a plant nor a cluster of smokestacks. It is an ancient city—and its thousands of towers. And they, too, are beginning to come to life.