Once, in childhood, I first saw a living statue.

I was then eight years old. A silver girl, frozen, strangely beautiful and fragile, struck me. I could not understand how this could be. It seemed to me that it was impossible - to paint living people like this, moreover, girls, young and beautiful, right on the living, like some thing - on their delicate skin, on the face, neck, hands ...

Then some strange melancholy overwhelmed me, and I stood and looked, looked, eyes widened, at her, living and non-living at the same time ... It all seemed to me that she was bewitched. I was overwhelmed with childish horror, swelling it to my ears, and at night I had nightmares: an evil sorcerer turns a tender princess into a statue.

Her salvation became my obsession, and I painted with clumsy silhouettes a notebook behind a notebook.

***

... All this flashed through my head, when through the glass of the car I again saw the silver figure.

My leg itself pressed the brake, I parked and walked out, not believing my eyes.

Of course, it was a completely different girl. She just stood on the same boulevard, in the same place - at the stone balustrade - and around her there was the same crowd with cameras. And under the balustrade was the same silver bucket with coins and bills.

Everything coincided, and I suddenly plunged into childhood, like Monsieur Bretodo from Amelie. Only now I was different - big and bearded; and I could look at her as much as I wanted, and nobody rushed me.

The girl was very young. She depicted a Frenchwoman with an umbrella: she was wearing an old-fashioned dress with ruffles, stiff as tin, and a small lace hat inclined to her forehead in the fashion of the times of Maupassant. Her face, neck, ears, bare arms and her shoulders were painted with shiny paint, a shoe with a pompon and a piece of painted legs peeking out from under her dress, a high-haired wig heaved under a hat. Everything was thickly drenched in silver, like tar. Under the eyelashes, stuck together from paint, brown eyes, diligently stiff as live buttons, were visible. The girl changed poses, one prettier than the other, while moving like a hinged doll. She had a great body ...

There were questions around:
- Is she alive? And how to wash this paint? Isn't that bad? And how much can you stand so without moving? What is it for? And under the clothes, too, everything is painted? ..

I did not want to leave. I had a day off, and there was a spring outside, hot and desperate, as sometimes happens in May. I stared at the girl-statue, which took a pose for a pose, and waited for something. What - and he did not know.

Suddenly behind her I saw some old man.

Something in him alerted me - I did not even understand that. Old man like old man. Only the facial expression is strange: cunning, like in the old movies of Fritz.

He was approaching the girl from the back, and she did not see him. Coming closer, he suddenly began to reach out to her for some sort of thing, like a stick or a stick. It seemed that his stick was a net, and he wanted to catch them like a butterfly.

Suddenly a shadow of some memory flashed in my head ... Not having time to understand what was happening, I suddenly shouted:
- Girl! The statue! Behind Behind

The statue looked back, screamed - and flew off the pedestal. The old man rushed after her.

- Hey, dear, what de ... - I caught up with him, but then he fell down, thrown back by a sharp jolt. Other people who tried to stop him flew off and fell like me. The old man almost overtook the girl ...

Events developed rapidly, as in an action movie. It suddenly dawned on me: I sighed to my car, opened the front door ...
- Girl! Here! In the car! Blue! Here on the left! And shut down! Girl!..

Surprisingly, she heard me and ran to the car. The old man ran after her, but I contrived and put a footboard on him. He crashed on the pavement, dropping his stick, and I, not knowing what I was doing, picked it up and jumped into the car. The girl was already there.

I gave gas - and we rushed forward.For a while, the old man ran after us, shouting something, but quickly fell behind.

***

All this took no more than a minute. We raced at full speed, and I tried to realize what had happened.

- Everything. No longer catching up, - I said, to say something. The girl was silent, looking straight ahead. Her lips were trembling.

- Who is it? Your relative Just some kind of maniac. In my opinion, you were scared. Why so afraid? What about him, stun gun? Fucked specifically ... Strange grandpa!
- BUT? What? - she looked at me, laughed nervously and covered her face with her hands.
- Strange granddaddy, I say. Who is it?
- This is ... this ... How to tell you ... No, I can not tell! I can not...

The voice did not obey her, and she coughed.

- Okay. Can not. Where are we going?
- BUT?
- Where are we going, I say?
- I do not know ... Uffff! I didn't even thank you. Here is a fool! Thanks you! Here is a fool! - she touched me with her silver hand and immediately pulled her away. “I’ll blot you here ...”
- Come on. It's buulshit. It is even good. Everything will be so brilliant silver as you. Where to take you in this form - that’s the question!
- Oh ... Thank you! Do not worry, I can go right here, do not worry ... I will not strain you ... Thank you ...

Silence reigned for a few seconds. Then i said

- You can not do it this way. This is how to get out right away. It is not right.
- Why?
- Well ... I do not even know your name ...
- Maya.
- Maya? And I am an ordinary Roma. And come on you?
- Come on ... come on.
- That met. Is it hard to walk in the paint like this?
- From the habit of strange ... but nothing.
- Have you been around for a long time?
- For a long time ... that is, just like that, on the boulevard - the second time only ... I earn additionally ... Actually, I'm an actress, I play in the theater. Theater "Pygmalion", you know? It has recently opened. But the apartment is not enough, you have to earn money ...
- But you forgot all your earnings on the boulevard.
- Yes. That's funny! ..

It felt like I was in a movie - and it’s unclear what will happen in a second. I did not think about where I was going, and we drove around the city, as in a merry-go-round, rolling the third round. Drivers stared at the windows, looking for who it was sitting with me.

- ... And let's come out here? Look, what a grace! You're not in a hurry, are you? At the same time and have a snack.
- What? Right like that? - Maya laughed, pointing at herself.

And we went out to the lush green of the park.

- Do not wear paint? - I asked, watching as Maya eagerly absorbs the kebab. Damn it, what a nice thing to do to treat a girl as hungry as a tiger!

She sat across from me. She had a gentle, nervously changeable face that she wanted to look at for a long time, like water or fire. Maya seemed thin, but I saw that the paint, sparkling in the sun, visually thinned her body, making it fragile and brittle. Her dress protruded forward, revealing a painted top of a tight chest ...

They stared at us, of course, as if they were aliens. Maya looked spectacular: her skin glistened and played in the sun like real silver. People laughed and fotkali us; and then, when we walked along the avenues, an escort of onlookers dragged after us.

- Do not bother people's love? - I asked.
“Nothing, not even fun,” Maya laughed, making ceremonial bows to the onlookers. - The actress should not be shy when looking at her. This is a great training ...
- And when can I go on you?
- That's just the premiere tomorrow ... Oh! But you better not go there. Do not go, okay? And why did I tell you?
- I will come, of course, - and do not hope that I will not come.
- Yes?...