Around midsummer, the fiancé of one of the girls paid her a visit from across the border. He arrived at the little cottage on the edge of the village. He knocked many times. Finally, he kicked the door down with his Nikes. He was received by silence. He sat on the couch and waited, holding a present for his sweetheart: a first-rate deodorant.

While he waited, he looked around and didn’t like what he saw: the tables and the floor were covered with dust and there was a pile of dirty clothes on the armchair. The wallpaper was peeling off. Flies were feasting on the dining table. It smelled of rotten meat. Annoyance made his heart beat rapidly.

When he opened his eyes and saw the girl standing in front of him, he realised he had fallen asleep. She had a towel in a bundle under her arm and her red trainers were full of sand. The man thought that her face looked somehow distorted, until he realised it was smudged with makeup. Her hair was wet.

Have you started working in the circus? he snorted.

No. I swim now.

He laughed, but in a way that betrayed his irritation, and called his future wife a fucking duck.

She shrugged. To his shock, she started to hum. She took out a pack of cigarettes, shook it with a tiny hand gesture, and gave him a calculating look, as if deciding whether to tell him something. She lifted a cigarette to her lips but didn’t light it. She hung the towel on the back of a chair and straightened it carefully. The gesture said: If only you knew. But the man didn’t know. He took a lighter from his pocket, flicked it alight, passed the flame towards the girl, and said softly: Come here. His arm did not drop as the flame flickered between them.

In the evenings, once they were done practising, the girls roamed the streets of the village. Their tracksuits made whooshing sounds as one leg brushed the other. They didn’t speak to anyone. One of the girls carried her towel over her back like a cape, holding her face high, the piercing at her nose gleaming proudly. Another one wrapped her towel around her neck, capturing her black fluttering hair, and stroked it the way she would a mink fur. Sometimes they opened their jackets to stretch the shoulder straps of their swimming suits, making them slap arrogantly against their skin.

They stormed inside the tavern and ordered large portions of meat and French fries. They gorged quickly, faces glinting with grease, expressions focused yet blasé, and left as soon as they were done.

At the cigarette factory, too, their behaviour had changed. They made a lot of mistakes which they didn’t apologise for. More Cheap Whites disappeared during their shifts than at other times. They stretched their lunch breaks. They sang. One of them got yet another tattoo — a shamelessly visible stain above her shoulder blades.

All this raised suspicion of course, and the girls began to be watched. But they were always at the river, always together, and the only thing that seemed to interest them was the impact of water on the movements of their bodies. They were seen sitting on the muddy shore, content like piglets, shaving their legs while soap flew merrily around them. The locals viewed them as harmless, if somewhat unbalanced, so they were left alone.

Meanwhile the sky grew cold, the chimneys spat smoke, and the river wrinkled.

Water polished the girls’ skin the way the sea washes shells clean in its tides year after year, smooth and hardened. Off came everything redundant and hindering, breasts included. Still, the girls struggled to get rid of their weaknesses: their small lungs, their hasty need for oxygen, and their fear of the dark bottom water.

One morning they succeeded: they sank to the riverbed and remained there. Their bodies curled. It was quiet and dark. They watched the shadows and lights oscillating above. They forgot the need to breathe and talk. There were no pearls in these shells. They remained there, without moving, until even the river forgot them.