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CONTENTS

Page

1. The Hole of the Bagel …………………………………………………………
2. The Child of Free Love ………………………………………………………..
3. A Connection Dealer …………………………………………………………..
4. Gilded Youth …………………………………………………………………...
5. A Restless Aesculapius …………………………………………………………
6. A Man of Genius ………………………………………………………………..
7. A Vampire ...………………………………………………………….................
8. Surprises ………………………………………………………………………
9. The Orderly of Nature …………………………………………………………..
10. The Question That Does Not Exist …………………………………………….
11. Mirrors …………………………………………………………………………
12. A Bullfight ……………………………………………………………………
13. Neurasthenia in Full Bloom ……………………………………………………
14. Soar Upwards Like Fire, O Dark-Blue Eyes! …………………………………
15. Voila! ………………………………………………………………………….
16. A Stab in the Liver ……………………………………………………………
17. Killers in the Performance ……………………………………………………
18. Nightmares ……………………………………………………………………
19. Welcome! ………………………………………………………………………
20. Don't You Need Cockroaches? ………………………………………………..

Sleep, my BABY, sleep, my dear,
Hush-a-hushaby.
In your crib, the full moon peers
Softly from the sky.
I shall tell you some good stories,
Sing a lullaby;
Close your eyes, it's time for snoring,
Hush-a-hushaby.1

THE FIRST CYCLE

Prologue

THE HOLE OF THE BAGEL

A corpse was smiling.
It felt nice.
There was hustle and bustle around it, chairs were thrown down, but that rang no bells for the corpse. The dead body was even ready to burst into laughter, but let itself do that only at morgue.
"If we were born, then we are sure to die. That's why pessimism is absolutely unfounded," somebody said, and the corpse began to laugh even louder.
I was awaken namely by that laugh. The Moon, round and impudent as a fool, was shining through my window; my wife, unbeautiful because of chronic overstrain and not getting enough sleep, was sobbing on the right of me; my doggie Chucha-God's-Gift, happy in her animal freedom and because of that pregnant God knows by whom, was snuffling and quivering on the left of me; my mother-in-law, alive and ineradicable for ever, was whistling and grunting the other side of the wall.
"Israel is a motherland for the weak. But it is only transit for the strong!" the same somebody sniggered, and I jumped out of bed.
Running into chairs and doorposts, I reached a toilet, and then turned to our kitchen. It was furnished with a round iron table for a country cottage, throughout corroded, and chairs of the same quality: some tenderhearted old-timers donated them to us. Now a fellow with an unbearably familiar mug was sitting at the table and drinking my favourite for today currant vodka.
"Hush-sh!" he said, tipsily lurched and put his finger to his lips. "I'm here only for a short while."
"Okay. Sit," I murmured and fill my glass too.
My door was locked at no time, as well as in Alma-Ata, where my flat resembled more a communicating yard than a castle. From time to time some people came in and
_____________
1 Lermontov M. A Cossack Lullaby. - Translated by A. Kaluzhsky.

went out, sometimes they ate, sometimes they drank and sang, sometimes they stayed for the night, and it turned out that they were acquaintances of my wife or my daughter; some of them frankly hinted at an acceptable variant: to stay at my place forever.
"Sorry, bro, I've mixed up 'villas'. My bam looks absolutely as right-angled and disgustingly grey as yours," he continued. "I'm drinking all night long. My mother-in-law has absolutely fucked me."
"Oh!" I felt myself happy. "It's a familiar subject. Yesterday I told mine that any absence of reciprocity is perversion, and that's why I don't love her as intensive as she doesn't love me."
"Namely like hat?"
"Well, my wife was away."
"And what?"
"Surely, she takes offense. But her hypocrisy has decreased a little."
"Psychologist!"
"Why not!"
"To try too, eh?" The guest became thoughtful and… disappeared.
I rubbed my eyes and stared at his glass, where vodka has still been swaying. There was neither astonishment, nor annoyance, nor panic in my heart. Work exhausted me up to such torpor that reality and dreams would mix with each other, and dreams used to be much more interesting and real than the substance they were formed of. At that time, I lived by my hands, having my hands full. So, I was working with both hands as a nickayoner at a supermarket. 'Nickayon' means cleaning in Hebrew, and if it really were so, it would be fairly nice. Actually, it was a different kettle of extremely smelly fish - at least at our store, and people said that almost at all the rest as well. A nickayoner was a kind of a dumb bunny at prison. His forced 'cocksucking' function revealed itself in such a way: at any moment anybody who felt like it could not to give a crap for that wretch's soul or another his part and make him work hard instead of everyone. If you don't like it - 'leh habaita', go home! There are crowds of the aged and 'black' illegal workers outside the door, and their pension pay looks as a death sentence being executed for many years.
For all that, I was happy. Firstly, because I survived and was not as ruined as some others; secondly, because, though being far from an ordinary person, I created my family at one time and have kept it up to now, and not many people like me succeed in it!
Not far to seek, about two weeks ago Miriam, a romantic, a lyric soul and generally my 'spirit sister', passed away and left for another world - or, maybe, to ours once more. Well, to pass away - okay! We all shall do it in our time, thank God. Another thing was wrong: having cooled off, she was lying at the floor and increasing in dimensions in an absolutely unaesthetic manner during three days, and only then police broke open the door. There was nobody beside her, who could give her some medicine or send for an ambulance and then - for an undertaker's office worker. Whatever way you look at it, solitude is absolutely unnatural state in this world - with the exception of creation, and its advantageousness is too doubtful.
"What's the matter?"
I rubbed my eyes.
The guest appeared again.
It was becoming interesting.
"Have you told her?"
"Yea, I have," the guest sighed. "The reaction is so intensive, that I'm here again."
"Well, bottoms up once more. Let's drink the success of our undertaking!"
"Let's!"
We clinked glasses, drank and I stared at him with undisguised curiosity. A dark-haired man, but his nose looks absolutely like mine. Two furrows above the bridge of his nose and… an 'indicator'! This spot on his nose, resembling a smouldering piece of coal - the same as…
"But it's… me?"
I pronounced the last phrase aloud, and my guest only grinned.
"Have you just noticed?" he asked. "I got it long time ago. And the 'villa' isn't accidental. Only not I am you, but you are I. Though both variants should exist simultaneously. Judging by clothes and complexion, we exist independently; judging by essence, we are the single whole. Quite possibly that our rough mortal organisms are sleeping now, each of them - at its own conjugal bed, and our subtle imperishables are drinking vodka at the neutral zone between two mirror worlds."
"Oho! Such a good dream! How have you managed to be sleeping and to go to your mother-in-law and back at the same time?"
"Ask something easier," the guest replied; and no doubt, that he was from a parallel reality, not from a mirror one.
I liked science fiction; that was why I got the how and why of things at once. His 'indicator' was blazing on the same left side of his nose, as of mine. And it's a matter of fact that different metamorphoses sometimes happen to time, space and all the rest natural phenomena and laws. However, the hypothesis about our sleeping was worth supporting - just in case, to avoid unwanted stresses and disenchantments.
"All right, we are sleeping," I said. "It may be even for the better. Or else something will disappear, and I'll think of you."
"That's true!" the guest laughed. "Give the manuscript here. What are you gazing at? Give me the novel! I've lost mine. I thought I'd kick the bucket of disorder."
"But - no!"
"What - 'no'?"
"No thing. Once I was looking for it, but then lay down on the job."
"So… Our wives!"
My heart sank. Exactly! My honey has been promising me to throw all my scrawls to a rubbish heap for a long time. And I have been saving them up during nearly forty years! But I understand and don't blame her - she is a woman, a keeper of the home. The results of my sleepless nights and crazy days had no equivalents in terms of money. More of that: all our pitiful savings were spent on the publication of my collection of autobiographical stories 'The Favourite of Israel', about me, beloved (I'm so 'beloved' that I wonder how I'm still alive). Some part of our son's annual savings, not less pitiable, went to the same purpose; and the son was a student and had to earn extra. The last straw was the recent appearance on the Moscow TV of one person who was a luminary of the Soviet literature yesterday and is a leading light of the Russian-language literary work today. He was speaking very contemptuously, scornfully and even indignantly of those that published their books by themselves, on their own money and without the highest blessing of the acknowledged, distinguished, honoured, and legitimated by bureaucracy. As if it is a whim! As if it is another, shorter way to reach any reader, if you've got neither a service record and a name nor acquaintances and a lucky chance!
Well, forget about him. Everyone has got his own account at the bank over the skies. Some people say that's the bunk, but they think so for nothing. Tear yourselves away from the carrion of things and from your fuss for the sake of that carrion; remember that you seem to be still alive and still a human being, and all those objects are for you, not you are for them; and look more attentively: the bank pays interest everywhere and not only to you or me, but to whole peoples, countries and even to all our mother Earth, or maybe to the whole Universe. And I'm happy that I wrote what I wanted and in the way I wanted, and was able to publish my writings having neither spread under anybody nor gone against God!
We stretched our hands to the bottle simultaneously without arranging things, but at that moment the ceiling cracked namely as at the story of one of the novel characters. We stared at the crack. A twitching naked hairy leg in a track shoe came in sight from there. Then the second one appeared. The show was horrible, as if someone was scrambling out from some explosion or earthquake obstruction.
We grasped chairs, climbed on them and tried to help that somebody having seized his legs. But no such luck! The wretch got stuck to death, and his jerking was looking like agony more and more.
At last, he kicked my guest's jaw and my shoulder and stopped dead. We pulled him a few times more and got off.
"Came to his close," my double said, and with those words the stuck man's body began to flow out from the crack.
"Tut-tut!"
Having just caught up the poor devil, we laid him on the floor and started back. He had neither a face nor a head; something was floating in the air at the place were the lost parts of the body had to be situated, and it was just like the disintegrated remains of a smoky ring with a dark spot in the middle.
"The hole of a bagel!" my double blurted out looking perplexed, and the body jerked.
We jumped back.
"Right! You did guess! I'm a hole, and you are the same, after one's likeness. Everything and everybody is from a hole and longs to a hole. Amen!" It sounded from the recovered ring.
"My God, what's that?" I didn't mean to say those words.
"It's Me! Me!" something creaked with a yawning intonation from the centre of the dark spot, and it start to contract and expand very dynamically in time with words, as if it were a mouth. "A virus in a programme again! Where on earth is the head? Ah, the devils take it all! After all, in the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with Me, and the Word was Me!"
The body became inflated a balloon, rose, waved from one side to another, and… burst!
We fell on the floor, and I understood everything; the same understood my double, as it became clear later. The final part of a personage's tale (a novel 'Circus! Circus! Circus!') became true, but was inversed, varied, and developed. Only a smoky circle with a spot remains flying in the air, but the new guest turned to be not Jesus, but his heavenly Father. When we came to ourselves and controlled our horror, we poured vodka out to three glasses already and drank it. The third glass overturned directly to the hole of the bagel, and we realized that if it even was a dream, then it was too unusual, bright and on a large scale. However, I had my own special dissident opinion about different scales and their relativity, and my double had it as well.
"That's what, boys," said God, at that time not gratingly; it was the normal, ordinary and even cordial voice of our fathers. "Have you written 'All rights reserved for Lord and the author'?"
"Well," we said.
"Ring no bell!" God mocked. "Consider that I as a co-author laid My hands on the manuscripts, and did that indirectly, as everything in this world, that is by a slop-pail."
"Ah," we breathed with relief.
"Allah!" mocked God again. "As if you've understood something".
We exchanged glances.
"It isn't allowed to restore anything. Such are My laws and the programmes of some worlds. And don't look at Me in such a way. God's Law is a law for God as well. Otherwise, it will be chaos and everything will begin from the very beginning again. I can't bring the manuscripts back, but they will appear in a new variant after all. And don't think that I do this only for you. If there weren't My own selfish interests, you would never see Me!"
"What rot!" words escaped my double.
"Don't you rot?" God went on mocking. "Neither an ear for music, nor a sense of rhythm, but they bash out their violins! They can't learn one hundred words in Hebrew (Hebrew dog it!), but scribble their doggerel one after another at the land of Israel! Chicken brains, and they think that they think and even try to understand something! I can but marvel at you! However, it was the thing that turned Me to you. It looks like… Ah, no matter! All the same, you won't catch the message."
"You don't say so!" we exclaimed indignantly. "Got boozed up by one glass?"
"You see! They manage already!" God shook his spot. "Slovens! Illegallers! To give you free God's will - and you'll be through with the whole Universe! Your world outlook is poor and grabbing: mine is mine and yours is mine too. You must be kept in prison for such views, but not speak to God! I do have some property, however not snatched, but My own!"
"There's no denying the truth," I sneered. "The best place and time to chatter with you is jail."
"You are wretched, and caddish because of your wretchedness," said God in the same calm and fatherly voice. "Thank Me that you're not there. When you were scribbling your masterpieces without Me, the prison was weeping bitterly, and that was aimed at you. Thank Me and programme - we came into operation in time."
"Well, thank you, bro! Oh, sorry, tycoon!" It was my double's turn to sneer. "How would it be possible not to love you after that?"
"So, love, you wicked authors. What wonders did you work there? Who permitted you to put your hands into the holy of holies?" God said, absolutely friendly and even somehow joyfully.
"You answer," taunted I again. "Let's say, when I was writing, I sometimes had no idea where all that sprang from, for what and about what. You see, the twin is nodding too."
"Yep," God chuckled. "Okay. The devil cares for you! Ugh! Certainly, I mean I care for you, though it is the same for you in general."
We exchanged glances again.
"You are far from being the mind, the perfectness, and the centre of the Universe, though you're a part of it, no doubt. Right?"
"Right," we agreed.
"So, hence it follows that if somebody, especially somebody impudent thinks that he caught Me by My beard (though actually I had, have and will ever have no one) and, being at narcotic nirvana, may have magic hairs out of it without any limits and endlessly, then it is rather sad than criminal. Do you agree with Me?"
"Of course!" we came out with a duet reply again.
"So, get it into your heads, if you agree. It isn't easy to understand another people's blood; I hate reading idlers, as one our good acquaintance said, and I guess he didn't mean those that don't like a pick and a spade. Let's recite the 'Paternoster' and here we go. And remember just in case that the prayer works as the means of transportation only after a direct contact with Me."
"Where are we going?" We were astonished.
"There - to the time of action! You yourselves will materialize new reality from your memory film to factual reality (with My participation, surely). Well, what are you looking blank, you thinkers? Every moment of your life and everything that was around you at that moment is inside you. Everything is recorded and stored. All! Certainly, you haven't learned to recall and materialize your memory objects yet, but what your age is! Time back - it's a piece of cake! The reality comes off and then flies away dispersedly, as starlight. We move along it (I mean reality!) backward and get to any point of the past space. And it's only one from many variants. Fire away! Strain your curtailed brains. Recollect the prologue. Work, work!"
"Here you are," I began resentfully. "We are not so curtailed. It was 1980th since the birth of Christ. The decline of pseudo-socialism was marked with the magnificent firework of the Moscow Olympic Games and the funerals."
"Certainly, all are equal in the face of death, but life is another pair of shoes," my double took up an idea. "What does your decease mean in comparison with the demise of This… or That… or, more of that, of Him?"
"And suddenly the death of some boozer and 'so-called' bard roused the whole country," I continued in a more cheerful manner. "All the famous official brutes firstly were surprised, afterwards indignant and only then, having gone through the paroxysm of excruciating envy, began to give themselves out to be protectors and almost benefactors of the late poet. When le was alive, none of them even furthered the official publishing of his single line, though their dads, mums, kids, second cousins twice removed, matchmakers, and acquaintances were publishing volumes of their worthless poetries. The life laughed once more, and it showed that revenge is a prerogative of God, and that large can turn out to be infinitesimal and small - to be considerable, and that chauvinism in all its forms is the most destructive evil of the humankind. Died…"
"Vladimir Vysotsky died!" my double continued.
"However, why 'died'?" I corrected the mistake almost joyfully. "Did Pushkin really die?"
"Or Lermontov!" my double joined in.
"At last you've got it! Everything that is life is continuing! The more so that, you like it or not, Vysotsky is just another reincarnation of Pushkin," God resumed and yawned. "I loved you and a trace of that love's passion within My soul, maybe, yet remain. I'm your Father which am in heaven, hallowed be My name. My kingdom comes. My will be done, as in heaven, so on earth."
"Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil," we finished.
"Exactly! Deliver you and Me from evil and a devil, which is materialized by your belief in his existence," added God, yawning again, and at once we found ourselves in the middle of the market crowd, having become one firstly with the main personage, and then with all the rest.

Chapter I

THE CHILD OF FREE LOVE

That young man wasn't a Georgian, though he possessed a cap-'airfield' with a boundless brim and a little hole for a head; was he neither one of sons or grandsons of Ostap-Suleiman-Berta-Mariya Bender-bei Zadunaisky. However, who knows… There was a little bit cosmopolitan smile at the young man's face, cosmopolitan by its geography as well; the smile served as a visiting card, which declared its loyalty and kinship to every representative of any large nation, as well as of any small one. In short, a cocktail of historically mature and characteristic descents was seething and sparkling in the cap-'airfield' owner's blood.
"All my best is in my keeping," he used to say; probably he had some reasons not to mention the whereabouts of his entire not the best.
And so, that young man wasn't a Georgian.
Neither was a Georgian a woman wearing some market clothes of a dubious sanitary condition. Hardly rising above a gigantic, well-packed sack, she was selling fried sunflower seeds, and the young man… The young man was philosophizing!
"Here I'm a free citizen, mother, because it's not you who chooses me, but it's me who chooses you! And I like that life market! Mind, mother, I've said not 'second-hand goods market', but namely 'market'! Fine legality and flexible price conjuncture! How many sunflower seeds can go in this thimble?"
"Lots of them, son, lots. Will you take?"
"Excellently, mother, excellently! Lots' - it's a symbol! It's a flag and a lighthouse! It's the final quality of people's intentions! Pour to my pocket all money's worth!" And a new crispy rouble flitted from the luxurious striped pocket of his jacket to a little secret recess between her breasts.
The unsanitary flow of sunflower seeds was rhythmically rustled to the striped container.
"You're a newcomer, lad, it's seen at a glance."
"All of us are newcomers in the land of the living, mother, all! 'All of us - we pass away, unnoticed, to another, peaceful, tranquil land. Maybe, very soon I'll pack belongings not to see my place once more again'. Do you sense, mother, those hopeless distress and anguish?"
"Ye-a. One can't be too joyful in a prison. My sonny-in-law has described jailing lately. He's got seven years of strict imprisonment. Such painting - blood freezes!"
"Stop, mother, stop! I'm reciting about the next world, and which have you thought about?"
"This one…"
The woman started puzzled blinking.
"Such a down-to-earth creature you are, mother! Without higher humanitarian education! Adieu!" The young man saluted gaily and disappeared in the hum of the crowd.
The woman started and stared at her sack stupidly.
A universe was taking shape in her brain.
"And you don't poke our nose into your education!" At last, she got worked up. "Every second bloke in an 'airfield' like yours has got a previous conviction! What a humanitarian we have found! Damned riffraff!"
The market was making an uproar and agitation.
The most considerable sound effect of the legalized free being took place in its covered part. The young man headed namely for that sector. He didn't hear the woman's last words, and that was why that our gentleman continued to look merrily and ironically. Whisper and screams, murmuring and arguments, snuffling and blowing noses, hot passions and gentle wishes were clashing and collapsing under glass arches. And an announcer's rich voice was flowing over all that jazz. The voice was giving those present fatherly directions about rules of trade and behaviour.
Nobody was listening to the announcer - everyone was listening only to him himself!
The owner of the pleasant baritone wasn't upset about that fact at all because of his absence: only a magnetic tape was rustling and glasses with 'white strong' wine were clinking at the market radio centre.
It was especially funny beside meat stalls. In spite of the last day's exorbitant prices, there was a crowd, in which one could hardly tell some likeness to a snake typical of a normal queue.
"You'll gobble as you'll tramp, and you'll tramp as you'll gobble," the owner of the airfield cap remarked sympathetically, watching the trivial scene of beating a meek hungry alcoholic by a hefty well-fed butcher; the poor drunkard had sheltered a piece of unpaid beef under his shirt.
Having seen that the sense of high morals was losing its limits and threatening to cause incurable injuries, the young man made a resolute step. An iron palm lay down to the shoulder of the diehard amateur Themis:
"That will do, buddy! Don't cast gloom over the festivities!"
The butcher jerked, and his eyes, full of holy sense of justice, stared at the cap. The headgear made favourable impression. Having let his victim go, the butcher spat and trudged to his golden hive, droning exactingly.
"It's a sin to forget classics, you, a drifter's soul!" the saver addressed to the alcoholic. "I don't insist on your energetic telling by heart pages from Lev Nickolayevich Tolstoy's self improvement diary, while walking aloofly along this temple. Neither insist I on your reading of the ten Commandments by means of cribs; but you must know that a priest had a dog and loved it, but when the pet ate a piece of meat he killed it! Have you got the idea? Must!"
The young man was regretfully examined a hounded shaking shadow of a former human being. The sight was so mournful that one more rouble appeared from the import pocket, and the victim of social progress began his uniform motion, taking short steps to exit and being not completely aware of the happiness that had fallen upon him.
"He'll drink the piece of money away, the scoundrel! Well, to hell with it!" the young man said and made for fruit stalls.
The fruit stalls smelt of vitamins.
A portly lady of indefinite age and intellectual level was pompously walking along the stalls, paying attention to every fruit heap. She was catching unwashed berries with two plump fingers covered with incredible amount of rings and sending small fruit to her brightly painted mouth. Apparently, her refined exemplary taste wasn't satisfied, and having masticated thoughtfully, the lady was going to the next place. Sellers hypnotized by such abundant jewelry glitter, were following her with their eyes respectfully and anxiously. Our young man was present there. He stopped near a trader in unusually big peaches, watching the show, merrily smiling, and cracking sunflower seeds:
"Her second go-round! Well, stand firm, the merchant guild!"
The remark hit the nail right on the head. Proudly towering above his tender goods, the trader immediately freed himself from jewelry magic and started watching the approaching gourmand more and more indignantly.
His turn came.
Charmed by golden peach shining, the lady didn't notice the Uzbek's fiery glance. The shadow of her hand had just fallen on the miracle of selection, when the bells of eagle scream jingled over the fruit paradise. It was the Uzbek, who was catching air with his hands, being not able to gulp down the lump of indignation he was choking with.
"That's a peach! You see? Peach! A special sort! And who are you? What are you clutching it for? Kilo worth seven roubles! You see? Seven! Have got money - take it! No money - go! Ate all stalls out of house and home! You'll get the dysentery, cholera on you!"
The lady turned purple. Her eyes already turned red, as ominously shining indicators, the nearest traders already strained, anticipating a splendid corrida, but… suddenly everything disappeared.
"Speculator!" the lady ground out contemptuously and calmly, and imposingly left for Northeast, to the icebergs of half-drawn chickens that were attractively showing white in some distance.
"Finita la-la comedia!" the young man sang and pointed at flower stalls, having glanced at his watch.
He bought almost all available extravagantly fragrant roses, agitating amateur florists and resident buyers with that action to a great extent, and then hurried to the exit.
"Such a lucky dog!" one of the buyers noticed and… made a mistake.
Though light as a sunray smile didn't leave the personage's face, he was in despondent mood.
"Each man has got his own sorrow," he used to say, and it was caused by the premature death of his beloved mommy.
And now the author will try to be impartial for the sake of truth, though human memory has a lucky possibility to highlight all the best in one's past and to moderate or even to make all the rest rose-coloured: the youth of the young man's mother wasn't burdened with the iron shackles of maiden moral. Her unusual attractive appearance and heuristic bringing-up made her well disposed towards such a way of behaviour. However, according to relentless nature laws, her creative amorous researches, full of keen feelings and thrilling adventures, were stopped for some time with the birth of her charming baby.
Having been born, the baby was not crying like all normal kids, but laughing. A midwife was frightened by such an unusual phenomenon and instinctively slapped his bum; the child yelled, having been too offended with that first reaction of the environment to his healthy natural laugh.
"Thank God, no asphyxia," the midwife said tiredly and showed the baby to his mother.
"Charming!" the happy mother murmured and named her son Apollo, in honour of the god of light and the patron of arts.
The rare name bound, and the fruit of free love received the most broad and varied education. Apollo could sing, dance excellently, play many musical instruments, make rhymes like 'skin - keen' freely, and break a fired brick with the edge of his palm.
And so, our personage's name was Apollo.
He would introduce himself as Pole.
No sooner had he left the market, than he got into the embrace of an imposing man, whose bold patch was edged with the white crescent of his former hair.
"Come on! To the car! Your aunt is waiting for us at the country house!" the owner of the natural tonsure said and, having took the bouquet in his other hand, led Apollo to a white 'Volga' with a driver, who was fastidiously scrutinizing a 'Zaporozhets' in front of his car.

Chapter II

A CONNECTION DEALER

Solomon was able to get on with everybody; maybe, because of that he had nothing of his own: everything was state property. Certainly, his suit belonged namely to him, as well as all his clothes in general, carpets, crystal, a huge Japanese wall TV-set and very impressive sums not only at his saving books. But all that was trifles. So-so! The system of minimal physical vital security. But his soul accepted only state possessions. Solomon held not a very high post; however, he had very strong connections. That was why he lived having set a high state standard. The main reason was the following: even those, who, according to their official status, meant everything, couldn't get everything; but Solomon could. Now, sitting at the 'Volga' beside his wife's nephew and having pulled down the blind, he was oppressed by the thought, what the young man would ask for. Training his ability to guess a client's wish in the twinkling of an eye, Solomon was going in his mind everything that could be of the greatest importance for a 29-years-old bachelor.
"I don't want anything, uncle!" Apollo said, as if he had heard Solomon's thoughts. "Especially deficit. I've got everything. Generally speaking, I came not to work, but to toil; that is to overcome difficulties and not to become their slave."
The uncle's eyebrows were going up.
"I am against slavery at all, in any form and wrapper. Even the words 'God's slave' express humiliation and abasement, but not dignity, and in no case the image and likeness of God. There was no second of my mature years when I worked; I have always toiled. The free labour of the free individuality! The weekend and the holiday of the free labour - forever!" Annoyed Apollo absorbed air with the corner of his mouth. "And at last, is it possible to open these yellow curtains and to look at the world with wide-open honest eyes?"
Not having waited for any answer, Apollo drew rag shreds aside.
"Your nephew is a joker," the driver commented sarcastically.
"I'm Apollo, the god of light! Long live light and let darkness vanish! Especially greyness!"
Apparently, the driver took the last phrase personally, and all the rest of the way he was silent and sullen…
The country cottage turned out to be a real eclectic miracle. The pretentious fantasy of an eastern customer seemed to unite all, or almost all, architecture styles, even future ones, in that simple and small (in comparison with other mansions) state house. The palace of the count Vorontsov, which is situated in blessed Crimea, would have a very dull view being situated near that country cake. The cottage was illuminated from the inside with the guilty though guiltless scattering of Ilyich's lamps that were inserted in the chandeliers, made of Venetian crystal; the house resembled a fairy frigate, which was sailing at boundless garden odour, kept away from strange inquisitive eyes with a blank concrete wall.
Night was coming on. Just washed Apollo in a terry bathrobe was sitting at the white piano at the veranda of the house. He was sluggishly playing. Both his uncle and aunt were lying in the impressed leather armchairs of a Finnish suit made of Karelian birch. Sucking pomegranate juice through plastic tubes, they were peacefully squabbling.
"You've become a narrow-minded person, Solomon!"
"Me? Narrow-minded? Hmm…"
"Yea, yea, you! You can pull the wool over all the others' eyes, and I see through you. You can't deceive me! You live in such a way and think that it is well."
"Well, it is bad."
"It is bad, Solomon, bad! You've grown stupid, overgrown with fat; you've stop seeing people, not speaking about understanding them! And you were extremely talented! I remember, when we met each other for the first time, you said that me - it's all! You were a prophet! And now you resemble all these werewolves…"
"Jack is as good as his master, honey. Jack is as good…"
"You shouldn't be Jack." The aunt protruded her little finger capriciously.
"And you shouldn't sit in Finnish armchairs!" The uncle smiled slightly, in tune to her.
"Why not me instead of those vampires? And generally - peace to huts, war to palaces!" The aunt smacked her lips, sucking the next portion of her juice.
"Right you are, o my hut!" Solomon laughed and bleated in a thin voice, "All we are men of the people; we are the children of work. Desire for freedom is keeping our will as a dirk!"
"Hark! I hear indistinct bell jingling! Should I accompany?" Apollo responded and struck a few major chords.
"You've changed very much, Pole," remarked the uncle instead of answering. "Your thoughts seem to be rather strange for me."
"And my statements!" the nephew added.
"Yes, and your statements too! And then, what a ball costume have you put on today? A cap… A crazy fancy dress… Your taste must be impeccable, no doubt!"
"That is a business uniform, my dear uncle! For travelling and business! I'm bored! Unbearably bored! Tedium corrupts me as rust! Actually, I'm sitting here because of that… in your blessed Alma-Ata! I feel some palpitations and fears in the daytime, and at night… Yesterday I split my mother's head with an ax in my nightmare: I released her from ache. She was praying me about it! Praying so eagerly! Here it is! Again!" Apollo clutched his pulse and turned pale.
"Solomon, you are a monster! The boy has got a great sorrow!" The aunt moved a glass aside.
"I see, but it's necessary to hold out! To bear up!"
"Why is it necessary? Whom for?" the nephew asked abruptly. "Who needs that cheap mask theatre? No, ladies and gentlemen, if you don't feel it yourself, you won't understand another person!"
Apollo leaned over a piano, beginning to play 'For Elise' nervously, and declaimed, "What good are the passions? In spite of trump cards their sweet sickness ends when reality croaks; and life, if surveyed with cold-blooded regard, is stupid and empty - a joke..."
"Pechorin! The image of Pechorin! Poor boy!"
The aunt sobbed.
"Yes, my dear aunt! I've got some his features, but I'm not him!" the nephew groaned and stared at his pale reflection at the piano top, breathing unevenly. "I have something in common with Bender too, but I'm not Ostap Ibraghimovich, and I'm not going to leave for other lands… Probably, I have something my own as well - but what? Give a man what he's in need of, and he'll be happy… So, what am I in need of? What?.. Will you tell me, o priest of the most proper local rules? You are as wise as your biblical ancestor!"
"I don't know, Pole, don't know…"
"And who knows in such a case? Who?"
Vigorous chords struck the crystal gewgaws of the chandelier, and Apollo came out with the whole might of his excellently trained voice:
"'The dismal chain of barren ages is passing before me…' No, ladies and gentlemen! No, and once more no! I don't sow evil - at least, with some purpose… Generally, I seem to be on the verge of loosing myself in dreams and falling into sleep… My mother didn't answer the description of a socially convenient woman, but she was both my mother and father, both my grandmother and grandfather. I'm indebted to her infinitely! Infinitely! And she melted away, as a candle… before my eyes. Sarcoma, sirs! Malignant tumour. And metastases. Metastases, damn it! She was warm when I was burying her! Why? Why! She didn't die! She did yoga! She was able to switch off! Oh, she didn't die! I buried her living! Living!.."
Apollo's shoulders began to tremble.
"My dear boy! Now, now!" The aunt ran up to him and embraced, choking up her tears.
The uncle began to blink too and brought him a glass of juice fussily:
"Well, well… Drink, it will become easier."
The sufferer made a gulp and shook his hand out of annoyance:
"What the devil! What do we live for? Why do we fuss about? What do we win? All of us lost just at the moment of our birth, because we all shall die!"
Apollo shook his hand once more, but now in a more resolute manner:
"However, our idiotic fussing is so sad that to pester in addition to it is foolishly to the extreme! Take this heartburn away, my dear uncle, and bring us some champagne and pineapples. I saw this oversea miracle there, at the kitchen. My mammy was… Ah, what's the use of speaking now? All the same, it's late to dig up now… The more so that she ordered not to cry…

Oh, champagne with pineapples! Oh, champagne on pineapples!
So tasty and shiny - the peak of a ben!
I'm in something exotic! I'm handsome and dapper!
I'm inspired with all this - and I'm taking my pen!

Chugging of airplanes! Running automobiles!
This one's kissed, but the other is deprived of his rights!
An express windy vortex! Not to kick any heels!
Oh champagne on pineapples! It's the pulse of my nights!

Oh, my dearest partners - nervous girls and smart ladies!
I'll transform the life drama into dreams, into farce!
Oh champagne on pineapples! It is so poetic!
Leave this land for another! From New-York - and to Mars!1"

Apollo clutched his pulse again and drew a sigh of relief, though still nervously:
"Here you are! It let up! We're going the right way, comrades!"
A few moments later, everybody was drinking champagne, laughing and telling good jokes and amusing, fairly plausible stories to each other. Having got tipsy a little, the uncle even let himself complain of his fate, though not puny at all:
"Money is rubbish nowadays! What can you buy with it? Connections are essential!"
"Freundschaft and 'mir-druzhba'?"
____________
1 Severyanin I. Pineapples in Champagne.

"That's it, Pole, right! I've always had a fine appreciation of conjuncture! Now all are tightly bound together."
"As in a bond-band!"
"Even more hideously, Pole, 'cause on trifles. And in general, it was not me who gave rise to that whorehouse, but it was the whorehouse that gave rise to me. My talents would allow me to be the second Plevako or the first diplomat, but all this isn't too substantial at present. There's no perspective for gifts for good deeds. We live in the sepulcher of talents, Pole. In the sepulcher! And here, as they say, demand requires supply, but them…" The uncle pointed a finger in the direction of the chandelier. "…They need namely me. A supplier! The trump six. You know, Pole, I've got almost as many so-called friends, as there are telephone subscribers according to a telephone directory, but should anything happen, everyone will turn away. Well, maybe not everyone, but only because I know too many such things…" The uncle wrinkled his nose disgustedly.
"Such master, such servant - isn't it?"
"Truth! The gospel truth! However, why am I talking you all this stuff? You yourself have got the widest experience."
"Right, my uncle, that's right. Namely, that is why I want not to work, but to toil. May it be that I want something else too? I don't know… Only one thing is clear: it's too much for me to prostrate me myself, my intellect, and my talent in front of every kind of scum.

People are serving their business,
People are serving their money,
And I follow, I follow, my honey,
Smell of mist and dreams, of roads and of trees1.

I'm the manager of the department of cultural work among the masses at one of your municipal clubs since tomorrow."
The aunt tore herself away from a fashion magazine and threw up her hands with horror:
"You don't say so! For God's sake, Apollo! With your education! With your talents! And then, they'll give you only chicken feed there!"
"Art belongs to people, my aunt! And so, I go to masses. Or, as one me acquaintance Georgik would say, to rough diamonds. And money… I've got money! Not too much, of course, but that will do for the nearest five years."
"And what, it's amusing! Come on, Pole, and I'll see and, maybe, follow you. And you shouldn't squander your tour capital. For the time you're here, I'm your Maecenas and sponsor. Hurrah to well-to-do members of the 'People's will'!" The uncle raised his goblet.
"Hurrah!" the nephew reciprocated, and their goblets met with crystal clink.
"You are crazy, aren't you? Let it pass, that money, but what people! The boy has to take a job at a philharmonic society, at an opera house, at variety; at TV, at last!"
"Everything was, everything is boring, my aunt. Only amateur activities haven't yet been. By the way, such a nice combination of words: 'amateur' is one who loves and
____________
1 Kukin Y. For Mist.

'activities' imply action. To act with love! It absolutely coincides with my divine mission. Hurrah to the first amateur troupe 'God the Saviour & Co'!"
A telephone rang at the depth of the cottage.
"It's strange! Who could it be?" Solomon muttered and went out.
"I know what you need, Apollo. You have to marry. You are absolutely, so to say…"
"A pubertal specimen, my aunt, absolutely!"
"Ugh, Apollo, ugh! I'm talking sense. Kids will appear, and everything will be put in its place."
"Keep mum about it! Get away from me! You've forgotten, haven't you? I have already tried! And in general, love is not potato; more of that - it is namely the spontaneous apple that hurt Newton's bald patch. As for my bald patch, the only thing I can say about it for the nearest future is 'I'm in sackcloth and ashes'.

By George, it's better to be hung
Than marry being so young!
Indeed, what can be good in wife?
You'll get the standard way of life,
But don't even think to dare
Begin some little love affair!
She'll feed you with some tasteless pie,
But she will ban you flying high!
Goodbye, your peace! This female saw
Will give you an unwritten law.
It may seem weak, it may seem slow,
But it will watch a word and a blow.
Say farewell to joyful youth:
It will be gnawed by that sharp tooth,
And your first-rate and lusty brain
Will fight some budget lack in vain.
You'll never go on the spree.
Her only slogan - 'disagree'!
The worst idea comes then - kids,
And you'll see nothing but her bids,
And no light will touch your eyes,
And who will hear all your cries?
You'll never stay yourself, for sure:
She will tell in details what you are.
Then you may only sigh and dream
To live without that regime.
It's better now make for hell
And not to stay such awful jell!
By God, one has his right to life
Without any lovely wife!"

"My God!" the aunt exclaimed.
"It's so, my aunt. Emancipation and feminization went too far. All forgot that a man is biologically oriented to an aim and victory, and a woman - to stabilization and harmony. One of the main divine woman's programmes is her desire for sacrifice and the protection of hearth and home; she must sacrifice much in the sake of harmony and the reproduction of the humankind. Naturally, she can kick up from time to time and slip out seemingly, not to let the excitement and the enthusiasm of the lucky hunter fade. But namely seemingly! And all the same, the main thing is to feed and to praise, to feed and to praise! That's all! Either one-eyed, or cross-eyed, or hunched, or legless, or big, or small, or thin as a lathe, or paunchy as a cask, or poor, or rich, or lucky or not - a man must always feel he's the sun and the only head at home. That's how you do that. Though you taunt Solomon, but all the time one realizes that he is the king of his family. A woman is the environment, which creates, and first of all for her herself, either a king, either a softy; either she makes him perform feats, or she drives him into the ground. You see, they firstly suppress a male and then accuse him of not being a man. But, after all, a female herself suffers without a strong masculine character! That's bad! It's unwell even at the biological level. That's boring, after all. Neither the sun must be the moon, nor must the moon be the sun! It is perversion and destruction!"
"Poor boy!" The aunt gently put straight a little bit disheveled jungle of her nephew's luxuriant head of hair.
The door of the veranda slammed.
The aunt and the nephew shuddered.
The uncle was standing at the threshold.
His eyes were absolutely rounded.

Chapter III

GILDED YOUTH

The wife of a senior official dropped a diamond to the W.C. pan, and it was the fourth day since crazy plumbers had begun to rumble everywhere in the house.
"You are looking for it in a wrong place, misters!" a pup said every morning, while his mother was accompanying him to his kindergarten. "You'd better do it out of town, in purification installations!"
"Don't teach a pike to swim!" the leader of Comanches, drunk already, replied somberly and focused his misted stereoscope on the boy's mother in a rather lascivious manner.
Apparently, 'out of the mouths of babes and sucklings' turned out to be true that time too, because the diamond vanished into thin air. But the offspring of the victim appeared from a basement, having been woken up by sewage cannonade. His view manifestly pointed to the fact that a next usual friendly spree hadn't done him good.
"This good is no good at all!" remarked a neighbour without any sympathy, after she had hardly restrained nausea.
Having shaken himself as a dog after bathing, the offspring screwed up his eyes and shot at clear blue sky with a fiery glance. Then he quivered from delight or, maybe, hangover and sang through his nose hoarsely, "And a mermaid - have you seen? - fell to all the mortal sins and bore someone in the bin with great din!" The narrow circle of his buddies respectfully conferred him a very trump nickname, Demon, and that was why he devoted all his further life to the heroic justification of such a high title.
And so, the offspring of one of the very senior Party officials was selflessly singing, having rolled his eyes and shaking unrhythmically.
Having either heard or felt with the help of the sixth sense the call of her own blood, the slightly dishevelled heir of a bandit and money-grubber, well-known and very respected in those, and these, and other definite circles appeared from round the corner then and there. Half-criminal nobility and an absolutely criminal merchantry met each other. Their mutual understanding was complete.
"The militia is searching for you! It's rumoured that you broke the Socratic forehead of some anaemic little student. Is that true?"
"He got into trouble due to his tongue! An intellectual!" Demon spat scornfully. "You see, our government is not to his taste! A dis-s-sident!"
Judging by his statements, Demon was the zealous patriot of the existing regime. He liked his life and he drove it as fast as it would go. To tell the truth, sometimes that eagle began to cry hysterically and to laugh at the same time, giving everybody, including him himself, damns, and curses, all of a sudden, but it used to be attributed to excessive drink and his strange, almost pathological passion for philosophical literature.
"The sniveler slipped his breath!" the mermaid continued.
Even a muscle didn't flinch at the crumpled pillow of his face.
"It serves him right! There should be no place for such fellows among us! They jabber, jabber - but eat Russian bread!"
Demon took that wise phrase not from the works by Tolstoy or Berdyayev. It was the favourite proverb of his ancestor, anything but Russians.
"You're a tough guy!" the child of the merchant magnate admired proudly. "But the softy really kicked off! It's a grave crime!"
"My parents will turn it into cream," the 'tough guy' reassured her confidently and sensually scratched in the pit of his stomach. "High time to live it up! What's with spinach?"
Demon tritely snapped his fingers.
"Okle-dokle," his girlfriend reacted not more originally and slapped her handbag with a puffy paw, engirdled with diamonds.
"Then to bear garden!"
Demon spat again, with pleasure now, stack his upper left manipulator to the merchant mermaid's hip, reeled to taking a hair of the dog that had bit him and to feeding.
Unlike Demon, Chamil didn't belong to a privileged estate: he was a descendant of the proletarians of the brainwork. Everything was simpler there, but with some part of the certain philosophy as well. The head of the family was a fitter at a plant, graduated from the department of law, and then held a high post at the local public prosecutor's office. And the best half of the family head graduated from a children's home. Thanks to hard work and half-starved existence, she put her dream into practice and, having graduated from the University and a post-graduate course, became a Ph.D. At the time of our narration, she was lecturing at the University and, like all good people, turned to be a scapegoat at their Party and social work. During all their life the parents, being at the limit of their emotional and physical resources and exhausted by their continuous and struggle for a prestigious place under the moon, swallowing them up more and more, were looking for the realization of all their unslaked wishes and demands in their child.
And one would be able to see a result…
At that moment, their adolescent was sitting on a blue pouffe facing a triple mirror and pulling his eyebrows with manicure tweezers. Feeling not too well, but playing the fool from sheer boredom, he, having a good ear for music, was humming through his teeth, gritted with strong will, "Who is interested in it? Nobody, really!" Marat, his schoolmate, was shifting from one foot to the other behind his back for about a minute already. Marat held a tape-recorder in his hands.
"Gimme!" Chamil tore himself away from his cosmetic ceremony for a second.
Having turned the tape-recorder on and been swaying in idolizing trance, he enthusiastically struck a spark of satisfaction with his fingers:
"Cool!"
Tedious musical hodgepodge was squeezing out of the tape-recorder with a rich stereophonic effect.
As distinct from Chamil, Marat was a sheep, carried to a different flock because of territorial circumstances. Even not a school was the beginning of it, but the fact that Marat and Chamil lived in the same house.
"What are you doing?" Marat didn't bear at last.
"Don't you see? Pulling my eyebrows…"
"What for?"
"To look like Mona Lisa!"
"Like who?"
"Like her! Or maybe he! Nobody has known for sure up to now."
"Well; and what for?"
"Such naivety you are, Maratka!" Chamil grinned, put the tape-recorder aside, took his tweezers again, and craned his neck, choosing the next object for removing. "Do you know what Michelangelo answered when they asked him how he created his masterpieces? He answered, 'I take a stone and cut unnecessary parts of it. A sculpture comes out.' A man is a stone too. We cut unnecessary parts of, and all necessary comes out. Let's say, you - what will you cut of you, if it's needed?"
"I don't know… Maybe, a foreskin…"
"Exactly!"
Having torn a few hairs out Chamil began to turn his head and squint, admiring the results of his work.
"Well, how do you like them?"
"Too thin… Not masculine somehow…"
"Not thin, but fine. And what comes off with import plates?"
"Bob promised to get in about ten days."
"Bob isn't a nabob, a nabob isn't Bob. Your Bob is a barber's cat! I haven't cared a twopence for his words since he suckered me with those jeans. I'm taking your recorder."
"You must give it back in three days!"
"Okay, okay! Don't worry!"
Chamil turned round and discouraged Marat with a wave of cold contempt:
"And why do you look like that, so grey-grey? You don't trust your buddies, wear an old-fashioned suite, and don't look after yourself properly. People can think that you're my pal!"
"Why, I ain't worthy of it?" The guy's voice trembled.
"Surely! You look at me! I wear super jeans and a Japanese shirt; even my sheepskin coat is made in France. Tell your folks to doll you up a little; otherwise you look like a plucked cock. It's disgusting to watch…"
Marat's face didn't simply blush, but became blotchy. His elderly parents worked at a symphony orchestra, and their income wasn't too large.
"You… you… you… have pulled on imported crud, scrubbed your mug - and you're a big pot, aren't you?"
Marat was experiencing a severe fit of shivering.
"Wha-at? You take your transistor shit and piss off! You see, such a tender soul! Mother's darling in sackcloth! I worry namely about your benefit, you, a crack-head!"
"It's you… You'd better worry about your 'fair' marks!"
Marat snatched his transistor and headed for the door.
"I can't stand it! Ha-ha-ha!" Chamil snorted on purpose. "An ABC- book with broken-down heels! 'Fair' is always fair, don't you dig it?"
"Fair sex, Mona Lisa!"
The entrance door banged.
Chamil turned his face to the triple mirror.
"And why did he bristle up? But the eyebrows have to be levelled off!"
The tweezers clicked vigorously, and the moan of the 100-year hit again broke through the teeth that ware clenched hard.
Having pinched his eyelid, Chamil realized that he got very tired and it was high time to shift to anything else.
He went to the drawing room and moved to his uncovered universal stereophonic instrument. The burnished shining of the imported disc was unbearable, and, having pressed a button, the creator turned its sound regulator to the utmost. The seismic stroke of magnitude six and God knows how many decibels made the house curved far and wide, in a nutshell thoroughly. It was recorded with senses, folks, not with measuring instruments!
After the first shock the following happened: out of the blue, from eternal cold and darkness, some grinding and the hysterical shrieks of just another half-choked variety ephemeral butterfly arose, nearing with a cosmic rate, and Chamil began to swing and howl, trying to imitate a singer, though it was impossible to guess either it was a man or a woman.
"Ow-ow-ow! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ow-ow-ow! Ha! Ow-ow-ow! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ow-ow-ow! Ha!.."
Someone started knocking to the right wall of the room.
"Ah! God's dandelion!"
Having reduced sound and going on with his convulsive swinging, the lover of music shouted to the right wall:
"What? Why are you knocking? May I have a rest after school or not? You yourself are hanging around all day long 'cause of your idleness! You see - he has an ill liver! A poor pensioner! I may be ill too, simply nobody knows now!"
Someone started knocking to the left wall.
"Here you are, now that fright is in work! Why is she at home? Has her puppy really caught any tonsillitis? Why are these new babies so sickly? The slightest pretext - and they begin to sniff at once!"
The right wall became calm, but the left one started to shake from kicks.
"Why are you kicking, such a fool woman?" the lover of music shouted even louder. "You'll break your shoes! Your wallpaper will come off!"
They began to thresh to the right wall again.
"And that old blockhead does his best! They make a quadraphonic effect, poor! And we'll beat them with decibels! With decibels! Ah?"
Chamil gave full 'forte' and shouted, widely jumping about the room:
"Aha! You've got it! Here you are! Complain about me to a house management!"
Knocking stopped.
"One peeled off! Okay, let's hear what we've got here…"
Chamil pressed his ear close to the wall.
"The puppy is yelling with might and main! How fine I've guessed! Squall, baby, squall - it develops your lungs!"
It was impossible to hear a phone bell in that bedlam, but Chamil heard.
"It's Bob! It should be Bob!"
"Hullo! Hullo! Speak louder! Oh, it's my maman…"
The stereophonic combine was turned off with an energetic jerk.
"Hullo! Yea, I hear now. Why was that noise? Nothing special… I was listening to some music. Bread? No, I haven't bought… It seems to me that a lot of it has remained since yesterday. No? Mom, drop in at a baker's yourself: no time at all! I haven't done my homework yet, and you know how we are overloaded at school now. The tenth form, after all… Does the music interfere? In no way! On the contrary, it promotes learning! A song helps you to build - and us to live! What? To visit my ill grandpa? But you were there yesterday! Oh, he wants to see me! Why - there are lots of my photos there! Am I callous? What are you talking about, maman? I'm easily infatuated, that's all. Okay, I'll call on him."
Chamil threw a receiver with vexation.
"Why wouldn't she ring me up another time? All my appetite came to nothing! Why can't this old man stay alone? Oh, he seems to be bedridden for three days already! It's so inopportunely! A guy comes across such disks once a year - and here we are! And those damned studies in addition… Whose answers to mathematics and physics can I crib? Nick's ones? Impossible… Vadim won't permit… Oh, I'll ask Maratka!"
Chamil began to dial up, but stopped after a few figures.
"No! That one has also taken offence. What for? Such a fool! I'd better make it up; otherwise my achievements in math will inevitably be rewarded with 'unsat' this term!"
And Chamil dialed up to the end.
"Hullo! Mara! It's Chamil. Don't you want to speak to me? Wait! Don't hang up! Wait, I say! I'm sorry! What does it mean - 'no excuses'? Are you reading Fenimore Cooper? Aren't you? Well, pop in for a minute! We'll organize a little bull session here: it's not a telephone talk! Aha… Aha… I'm sorry, sorry! That's okay. Bye-bye!"
Having hummed joyfully, Chamil delicately replaced the receiver to the telephone set.
"Let him only come, and here I'll process him in a trice! And a little later - a pub, Demon with classy quails!.. A man is weak, thank God!"
Having rubbed his hands, the lover of music hit the triggers and the blocks of his stereophonic combine and, wriggling and shaking, resumed his loud and shrill snuffling again:
"Ow-ow-ow! Ah! Ah! Ah! Ow-ow-oh! Ha! Ow-ow!"
The right and the left walls of that home discotheque renewed their vibration caused by desperate knocking, and all that led to the next exultant howl of an Indian, who came to the path of war:
"You've awaken, predators! And we'll beat you with decibels! With decibels!"
The sound regulator was turned on to the utmost.
"Go ahead! Knock! I'll teach you to love modern music!"
People unite according their interests, and there is some iron logic in it. A few minutes before restaurant closing time a few pretty girls, Bob, Chamil and Marat, who had joined them and was in the pink already, surrounded Demon with care and attention. They were vying with each other in delighting his ear with dithyrambs and panegyrics and trying so much that the soul of the underworld flew open and revealed its uncommon abilities and possibilities. Having pressed aside a wryly-smiling doorkeeper, Demon seized hold of an office telephone, conferred with his high-ranking folks in a very enthusiastic manner, and tritely snapped his fingers.
"Okle-dokle, my children! We're driving to the country! Freight two buckets, Bob!"
Bob kicked with his lacquered hooves in a very rapturous manner, screeched unclearly, and skipped out to catch a taxi, and the rest satellites uttered the general grateful cry of their greatest adoration.
If you have even minimum power of observation, then you can easily notice that there is a vast number of critical coincidences and fatal regularities. And if you have the same power of observation, deduction, and logic as Sherlock Holmes, you can make almost religious conclusions and define the world as carefully planned and self-adjusting chaos.
The incognizable regularity of a chance worked accurately that time as well. Two cars, being full of people and nervously ticking with their counters, were racing namely to the cottage were Solomon was standing, looking bewildered and indistinctly mumbling something about the necessity of the urgent accommodation of a foreign youth delegation and his own corresponding evacuation.
"Everything is clear to the people, my uncle, and there's no need to worry! All this is collective, all this is my too!" Apollo said and solemnly went to change his clothes, having thrown up his head in an affectedly proud manner and widely spread his hands.
Approximately, in ten minutes an unusual procession was walking along alleys, flooded with moonlight. At the head of it Apollo was slowly treading, with the luxurious terry present from his aunt over his shoulder and two huge bags with scarce food contents in his hands. His uncle was mincing after him, and his aunt brought up the rear. The uncle was shivering, and the aunt was tenderly pressing the nephew's bouquet to her heart and sentimentally squinting at the Moon. The procession passed a concrete bunker barrier and came to be at a highway.
"The banishment from Paradise took place! We'll vote for boiling in the thick!" Apollo announced and threw his bags down to warm asphalt.
A little river was roaring somewhere down; some curative grass smelt strong.
The nature had a rest.
Suddenly the light of headlamps appeared.
Three hands soared synchronously.
One hundred eighty hp marked with a chessboard brand were braked abruptly, and the squeal of the brake and the passengers turned into one saluting cacophonic accord. All doors flew open, and the pale shadows of Demon's retinue started their crawling out of the auto. The leader himself was the last that climbed out of it. He had already scratched a little, but didn't mind that, being under the influence. Using his habitual foul language, he grasped the manicured wing of one of the quails and, sniffing terribly, became the first to cross the bunker barrier.
"You see, the foreigner holds forth in English!" Apollo remarked merrily, erecting his bags to the back seat of the taxi.
"Gilded youth!" the driver responded with hatred, spat towards the cottage and turned the handle of the taximeter energetically.
The uncle was sitting pale and silent throughout the whole trip.

Chapter IV

A RESTLESS AESCULAPIUS

The morning was fresh and delightful!
Apollo was walking along the alley.
Details of natural leather, batiste, velvet, and suede were successfully combined in his clothes.
Everything was not flashy, but deliberately elegant.
The alley came to its close fairly quickly and simultaneously with the advertisements of films, having been demonstrated at the cinema screens of that town God knows when, and the accurate and clean facade of the House of Culture of the motor-repair association appeared in front of the personage. The building adjoined the main factory, but it had its own free entrance. Two rubbish bins in imitation of penguins stood on their hind legs on both sides of the door. Their wide-opened beaks showed that, as a matter of fact, absolute Antarctic order was there, as regards sanitation.
Having set the collar of his shirt, drawn all over with multicoloured racing cars, with a graceful gesture, Apollo touched a wooden door handle, polished with people's claims.
At the ground floor, an old woman was nodding at the blue and green coolness of the entrance hall.
At the first floor, a fairly elderly, round-shouldered man was sitting at the director's office. He had a dark complexion, an aquiline profile, and brown eyes, black eyebrows and absolutely white head. The fingers of his hands were immersed in the thickets of noble grey hair. The man, making faces of suffering, was turning the pages of the order book.
Apollo came to the room, introduced himself, put the stack of papers on the table, and remarked with surprise, that a younger worker had been sitting there just the day before. The old man nodded agreeably, looked the presented documents, and lifted his inflamed intent eyes.
"Your face, education, and service records imply definite professional and everyday skills," he said. "The department of cultural work with such data is sheer wastefulness! And so, I propose you the post of the manager of this collapsing hotbed of culture. By the way, that is a wish of your predecessor."
"But… Who are you?"
"I'm the spirit of the organization! A kind of a nonsalaried acting director."
The old man left his place at the table and extended his hands to his still warm chair in the heartiest manner:
"You are welcome! Don't be shy, my young friend! All that is nothing special - the post, the material responsibility and the salary! And if anything will be wrong, everything can be written off, you know! The country is awfully rich. Awfully! And I'm not an administrator; I'm a doctor."
"A doctor?"
It became amusing for Apollo.
He liked the old man.
"A doctor, a doctor! And my name is Nahum Arcadyevich. And, if I'm not mistaken, you are…"
"Pole - Apollo, according to my passport, diplomas, and work-record card."
"Yea. Right. Such an excellent name! One can envy your parents' courage."
"I haven't got the idea."
"Well, you know… This name demands some level. In general, our people aren't used to stating themselves in such a way - beginning from the very beginning, from their names, and root and branch. Great claims result in great expectations. Only few people like that."
"Everybody has to get his due!"
"And all want to get the best! I'm absolutely serious while proposing you the post of the manager. We'll confirm everything where necessary and write what is necessary. Such a versatile specialist, with such diverse service - that is a divine present, taking into consideration the shortage of club workers! Excuse my idiotic question maybe, you are a member of the Party, by chance?"
"Òo trace, no sign!" Apollo made a helpless, but very expressive gesture.
"Mm… Yea, you'll laugh, but it makes the situation more complicated."
Merriment was on the increase.
Nahum Arcadyevich was an outstanding personality. Speaking to a reliable interlocutor, he used to introduce himself as nothing but a non-Party swine, apparently not including the fact that Party ones may exist as well. As a matter of fact, he was not a swine, but Don Quixote according his character and life position and a doctor by profession. Patients respected him, because he restored their health, and those who were healthy respected him, because he didn't deprive them of it.
It's necessary to say that those who possess power and prosperity, but no wings, have never loved, don't love and won't love any living Don Quixotes. Those in power have always been laughing at Don Quixotes and are laughing now as well, and if that laughter doesn't help, Don Quixotes are simply pulled out, like a bothering sole nail, and thrown down to wayside life mud, being given absolute freedom for oxygenation. The biography of the doctor Don Quixote resembled the biography of his literary namesake de la Mancha: both of them were intricate, unusual, full of ordeals and troubles, downfalls and revivals. But in our case, the result wasn't tragic, at least - so far. The doctor became tempered and obtained fighting spirit; he was able to stand up for he himself and for others, and - the main! - he learned to win. Just before his retirement, he put into practice the everlasting dream of a willy-nilly wanderer: he bought a tiny adobe hut with a garden near it, built a huge arbour, hung a hammock, and cast his labour anchor at the medical room of the motor-repair factory, or the association at present. For twenty years he was holding the health of the factory workers in his experienced and kind warm palms, and, in cases of emergency, he clenched his fists and struck bureaucratic tables with the full swing of his arm, raising his voice without asking and never minding any ranks. As a result of it, a flawless preventorium and a perfect physical-therapy complex with the best home-produced and imported equipment were built ahead of schedule, and the flood of sick lists abated obviously. All the association administration, including its engineering and technical personnel and even general manager, were only the doctor's patients and took care of him, calling him 'Professor' and the main guarantor of their vital activity, and standing all his whims.
Only their Party organizer wasn't patient enough. Contrary to the doctor, he was a corpulent, somewhat rough man with a globe-round, shaven and shining head and splendid health. The Party organizer wasn't practically able to imagine how one could fall ill, and being, as a matter of fact, not a bad bloke, he didn't understand and perceive the doctor. The very first prank that the doctor played threw the organizer into absolute confusion. Having done his professional work and had time at his disposal, the doctor made up his mind to combine intellectual labour with physical, one not merely in words, but with deeds. He put overalls and started working at a machine tool. The tool was a so-called capstan lathe. It was necessary only to turn a handle in time and to do something else, and a necessary component was done. One can think that there was nothing special. But the doctor, working at the capstan lathe, actually had another professional duty; besides, he was neither the Party member, nor a repressed person, but a volunteer. That was why the Party organizer with his sixth political sense, too limited orientation, and circulars 'from above', took that action as a challenge. Simeon Vasilyevich (it was the Party organizer's name) himself was 'exempted' and, having forgotten about his main profession long time ago he was looking forward to his retirement, which was but a step from him. He didn't send for the doctor, because he had some grounds to suspect that the last wouldn't have come. Simeon Vasilyevich headed for the lathe. Out-voicing the noise of the shop, he shouted to the doctor's ear:
"You stop those your leftist ways! Don't throw them in workers' teeth! You hear me, don't you? Stop that!"
The age difference of those two wasn't very considerable, and in such a situation the Party organizer didn't consider it reasonable to speak to the doctor too polite.
"Workers?" The doctor turned a handle and something else, and a finished part cheerfully leapt out from the lathe. "Get out! Live me! Well, get out at last!"
Neither the Aesculapius considered it reasonable to answer such rudeness politely. He turned the handle and something else once more, and one more part leapt out.
It was obvious that Simeon Vasilyevich didn't get used to such treatment. He began to shake, and rather intensively.
But the doctor didn't even bat an eye.
He was continuing to work hard.
Having realized that his audience had been over and he had nothing more to do hear, Simeon Vasilyevich cast an indefinite look round the shop and, bumping into machines and components, moved right to the general manager's office.
It didn't come to anything that day.
Neither the next day did it.
But, as everybody knows, a drop hollows out a stone. And the drop was fairly weighty in that case; due to it Simeon Vasilyevich managed to distract the Aesculapius from the lathe, though it required some time and the large network of administrative and other sanctions.
But after that, his peace was absolutely broken. And when the doctor put up his mind to carry out the next experiment with the equal distribution of salary between higher (beginning with him himself, surely) and lower medical personnel, Simeon Vasilyevich settled down to examine Nahum Arcadyevich's personal records, having let him realize his inner-departmental spontaneous agitation and propaganda freely and quite successfully for some time.
The dossier was plump and perfectly intricate, as a well made up detective story. The work-record card was especially splendid; thanks to many insets, it turned from a thin booklet to a thick volume, resembling a pocket Bible.
At the end of the third day of thorough examining, about half past eleven p.m., Simeon Vasilyevich, having wildly croaked something like famous 'eureka', drank a glass of black tea brew and fell asleep like a log, beside his fairly excited wife, who understood nothing. The only valve, through which the steam of the doctor's creative indefatigability would have to fly away, was found. A few records in the volume witnessed that at one time the doctor had broken his medical practice and not only run an amateur dramatic group, but also he had acted at the scene of one of the largest capital theatres.
What talents don't people reveal being in extreme situations, as well as having some personal vested interests! In that case, for the sake of strategy, Simeon Vasilyevich was acting only by means of dummies, displaying such great activity, that it would be enough to organize a state upheaval. As a result, he buried the doctor's experiment with salary quite quickly and neatly involved him into the unfathomable quagmire of the factory workers' cultural life, appealing to their rather undermined soul and moral health, which is connected with physical one, as it is known.
And the valve worked!
Having only come into contact with the shifting soil of the polyphonically champing environment, Nahum Arcadyevich got in a rut head over heels, and Simeon Vasilyevich, feeling deep satisfaction, returned to his own affairs, that had been rhythmically planned in cycles for all the rest of his life, up to retiring.
And the factory granted its favourite Aesculapius unrestricted powers for the organization of club activity, and the doctor began with his demand to discharge almost all club staff, up to the director. The process was painful, complicated with a series of outrageous petty intrigues, but Nahum Arcadyevich didn't see any alternative way. He was absolutely sure that every work depended on personnel, and only on personnel, and that every person was unchangeable only if he was at his own place; the doctor was searching for talents, but if he saw that his discoveries were only imitations, he strove for their dismissal pitilessly and immediately, because he absolutely couldn't stand any ersatz and pretence.
At that moment, peering with his shortsighted eyes into Apollo's scarce togs, he was sadly reckoning that it might be necessary to discharge that one too in a month. But the smile of the owner of all that high-class clobber wasn't pretentious, and it reassured the doctor a little.
"Mm… Yea," Nahum Arcadyevich drawled once more and, having gone round the table, took his place in the director's armchair.
"Nothing to be upset with!" Apollo consoled him. "Any office is counter-indicative for me. I'd rather get to the thick! To masses! And generally, labour is the scene of self-cognition, but not self-advertising for me at the present stage!"
"It's wonderful!" Nahum Arcadyevich even turned pink with pleasure. "If it is even only the trend of your thoughts, then it's fine in itself! Hold the post and do what you consider essential! By the way, the post gives the best chance for that. And different papers-capers - they are nothing but odds and ends! And don't make such negative gestures: it is necessary for the cause - for our common cause. I'm just seeing stars because of all those appointed directors! They only put spokes in my wheels instead of rendering assistance. We have no need in the foreign body of a manager sent out from above!"
The cabinet door opened, and a pale thin youth got into the room, paying no attention to those present. The young man had a crumpled shirt and not more ironed trousers on. His dishevelled hair and hopelessly blazing eyes completed the first sight picture and witnessed, that not everything was quite in order inside the given head, too.
The young man neared the table and unceremoniously begun to rummage in all the papers.
"Have you lost your manuscript again?" The doctor jingled his keys, opening a safe.
"Again, again…"
"Here, take, and don't leave it anywhere." The doctor took a folder out of the safe and gave it to the young man. "By the by, meet our new manager!"
"Yet another!" The young man sighed and stretched his hand. "Genius! I'm a man of genius!"
"Me too," Apollo smiled.
"Are you speaking ironically? It's a pity. Your smile is nice," the young man said and, in his turn, smiled unexpectedly.
"Yours too", Apollo replied and didn't lie: the young man's smile was bright.
In a minute, the new manager got to know, that the visitor's name was Fedya and he held the post of the artistic director there.

Chapter V

'Genius' is a historical definition; it obtains its real material weight much later then the person dies physically. That's why we'll regard the name of this chapter as a symbolic one. So, the name is:

A MAN OF GENIUS

There is the sort of people that are afraid of everything, because their fear is inherent; it was formed approximately at the time of their individual DNA coming into being. Well in advance of their birth, even not knowing that their turn is nearing, they don't realize their fear, but every their cell is panic-stricken that they won't be born.
Those who have already been born are afraid that they won't be able to survive.
After they have survived and even begun to understand something, they, absolutely consciously, start feeling dread that they won't live to see.
After they have seen - that they won't get along.
After they have got along - that they won't outlive.
After they have outlived - that they won't die in time.
After they have died...
Here we aren't let know what those poor devils are continuing to be afraid of, though one, with the help of different religions and his imagination and intuition, can assume much.
But all the same, if you line one hundred of such natural cowards, it is possible to find among them one or even two persons, who is able to perform a feat, even due to their fear. And if you lump together one thousand of cowards, then even there the alien body of a primordially brave gaper, finding out the cause of the accumulation in one place of such large amount of shaken specimens.
And so, Fedya was a brave person: he used to write and tell truth.
Naturally, his works would be never published, and he wasn't taken seriously by anyone.
It doesn't mean at all that those who used to be published were lying. Simply Their truth neither hurt nor disturbed too much, passing over the reefs of social and natural laws. Even professional satirists didn't dare to lift their eyes to sources, against the current, upstream, and looked only downstream, pointing already existed jam, but not those places, from where rubbish would be brought. The result was that thankful toilers had not enough time to remove all obstructions, because then and there new obstacles would appear, and often - at absolutely unforeseen places.
The people's wasted labour didn't increase the country goods, and some literary fawners felt some discomfort because of that. It became awkwardly to wear the full-pressure suite of shameful contacts and humiliating begging. From time to time appeals to reason failed, and what awful words sounded there! Fortunately, it happened not often, mainly in the family circle, and with caution to the wife, who might have been a stool pigeon. (Black rumours were afloat among bohemians about tape-recorders in refrigerators and interviews in the KGB.)
And so, Fedya would always swim and look against the current, i.e. upstream, and he didn't understand why mistaken or ungifted mortals that held posts higher than ministers weren't subject to public criticism in their lifetime.
At that moment, he was walking along the Cosmonauts Street together with Apollo. The newly fledged manager was joyfully inhaling fresh, not yet polluted by automobiles oxygen of the early morning and exhaling not less fresh CO2, and the art-director, stooping noticeably, was waving his hands and passionately demonstrating something. He was moving impulsively and rashly, managing to keep beside all the time. A wonderful felt hat with an old-fashioned wide brim was reposing in all its beauty upon his reckless head.
Having passed the first clinic and the central town morgue, situated right next door to it, the colleagues firstly heard the growing roar of people's talking-shop and then got to the crowd of scurrying, standing, and sitting on dusty roadside Asian grass citizens with mugs in their hands. Heaven knows, what valiant supporter of a plan had stuck a pub right to the morgue fence. The pub was camouflaged, as if it was a pavilion with an eloquent signboard 'Soft Drinks'. Fresh beer and the stable contingent of clientele were always available there.
"Fedya, restrain your fountain for a while. There is a remarkable town sight in front of us! The dream of the dead - a public house 'At Morgue'! Let's drop in!" Apollo said unexpectedly and, not waiting for an answer, tore into the crowd.
"Where, where? In turn!" the disturbed tipsy brethren began to buzz.
"The people's control, gentlemen, the people's control! You let us pass! I speak to you, uncle, and not to the head of the trade-union committee of the local mortuary! Well! And that will do for you, old man! You don't fall, don't fall, oldie! Hold on! Your clock hasn't struck yet!" Apollo installed steadily a habitually drunken elderly father of the family with vague smile and two mugs that were tightly immured in his knotty fingers.
A boy about twelve years old was standing right near the window. He was holding an empty five-litre can in each his hand.
"My father is chopping, and I'm driving it! Is it so, sprat?"
"Wha-at?" The sprat pulled his little proletarian shoulder out aggressively.
"Well, why didn't I guess at once? You must be the result of unlimited meetings with Bacchus!"
"Wha-at?" The sprat started pouncing.
"No, it is not! The visit is over!" Apollo mildly drove the springily resisting teenager back and thrust his head into a beer vault. "Bonjour, comrade! A couple of mugs - and quickly!"
The 'comrade', an impudent young dark-haired macho with hairy hands goggled:
"Are you from the Moon? No mugs!"
"The people's control, baby, the people's control! Skimming the cream due to skins won't take place in my presence! Come on - fill mugs! Quickly! The working people have no time to wait - they've got a plan!"
The client's certitude worked, and a wish to play safe was realized: mugs appeared, and they were filled.
"The people's control, gentlemen, the people's control! A tasting show and the hypnotism of froth!"
The crowd jostled dazedly and forced Apollo out; in his stretched hands, he was holding two misted vessels, up to brims full of beer.
"Accept, Fedya, and you may continue your spouting!"
Fedya took a sip mechanically, and, since his right hand was engaged, waved his left one:
"Spouting with what? Our accountant is a chronic alcoholic. The manager of the costumier shop is an idler and a determined swindler. And the cinema operator is all that together, moreover - some sort of a pathological philanderer! By the way, in spite of the fact that he has only one leg! Apparently, he compensates it somehow… Pole, I can answer for those characteristics, but it is absolutely impossible to dismiss this personnel! Even Nahum Arcadyevich gave it up as a bad job. He has got a real hassle with People's theatres. By the by, there all people are new, and I haven't got to know them yet."
"Unattractive pictures…" Apollo sipped the next beer portion with pleasure.
"I don't pile it on, Pole. There are good people too."
"Well, it's interesting…"
"First of all, this is our porter, aunt Pasha. She is a cashier, a controller, a ticket collector and a cloakroom attendant at the same time. The next is a stage worker Pervutinsky. He is a carpenter, a prop man and a jack-of-all-trades, though an almost utter anti-Semite. And last, but not least - the master of the circle of young conjurers, a photographer, and an epileptic in one person, Nahum Mironovich Veller!"
"Nahum?"
"Ya, ya. He's Nahum Arcadyevich's namesake and his, if it can be called so, protege. Quite a remarkable personality! But a sick man."
"We live diversely, diversely! And you drink, drink, Fedya!"
Fedya changed his hands, took one sip more, and then waved his right hand:
"Ah! If only good people did as they feel... But some dregs only come from the sky. Living in such an atmosphere, I wake up every morning and say that I'm shit!"
"And does it work?"
"Surely! No illusions, no disillusionments. I feel I'm at my own place - at the crap house of life!"
"Let's go, Poet, look and sing all that grey life junk!"
Apollo put his arm around Fedya's shoulders, slightly and a little artificially.
"No, admittedly, Pole, you only think - they call me a dissident! As if I don't like socialism, you see! Okay, I do like it, I do! I like it so much that I'm ready to lay down my life. But there is no socialism! It doesn't exist, that's all! Neither a developed one, nor any other! They fool people! You see, make fools of us! We have military and bureaucratic centralism instead of socialism! It becomes profitable for somebody that the same people are at the wheel the whole time, and here we are - changes in election terms are submitted! And in general, what election is it? Who elects whom? We select them or they select us? It's bluff, Pole! A cheap show! The main is that everybody sees all, understands all - and keeps silence! They're silent, as if they're in a tank! One can hear only, 'Ah, there isn't enough meat! Ah, there's no milk!' That is not a short of meat and milk, but few fries short of a happy meal! All Lenin's norms are distorted, spoiled! Communists turned to the most disgraceful and dumb bureaucratic herd! You know, Pole, Rome fell to pieces because of its depravity; the Party machinery is affected by it too!"
Indifferently staggering and intently and drearily looking for an empty mug, a 'grey jacket' swam past Apollo and Fedya.
"A little lower, Fedya, we are not alone here!" Apollo warned gently.
"You don't interrupt me!" Fedya waved the matter aside. "It's not a sedition, but truth! Nahum Arcadyevich is right: if Lenin appeared nowadays, he would be claimed a dissident and a contra at once! It's necessary to struggle, Pole, to struggle! Otherwise, we'll keep silence until a nuclear catastrophe takes place, or socialist 'zveroskotinism' - brutalizing beastism, but beastism, all in all - is set. Until the stinkiest form of capitalism, feudalism or even fascism is restored."
Fedya didn't eat anything that day, and one mug of beer was enough for his cachectic constitution. He took the last sip, gave his empty tare to Apollo, and started waving with both hands.
"Do you really think that if there were such ready-for-all people as Yezhov and Yagoda in the past, they don't exist now? I say, our administration is full to overflowing with them! And no control! No! And can it be something more awful than the organization of economic destruction and chaos? America reduced the extraction of oil at its territory, preferring to get it from somebody else, and we boast of our extracting, because it is the largest in the world. Is it good or bad? It's bad, because oil is the blood of economics today! And what is funny - we suffer from the lack of petrol and fuel! Where on earth is all that? U-u! It is buzzing in oil pipelines. The further, the more! And cotton?.. Certainly, they can begin to sell even people, if it helps them to stay in their upholstered armchairs!"
Fedya almost shouted the last phrase, and at once, the 'grey jacket' jumped out of the peacefully humming crowd like an imp. At that moment, he wasn't staggering, and his look was extremely sober.
Having seen that, Apollo quickly put his mug down to the ground, took Fedya, who understood nothing, by the hand and made a jerk towards the morgue. They crossed the street protected by a catafalque that was very much to the point, dived to a lane and disappeared from sight.
The 'jacket' obviously didn't expect such quickness and had no time to find his feet. He threw a malicious glance at his quarry, having managed to disappear from under his very nose, picked up the mugs, smelt them and examined thoroughly by the light of the sun. Apparently, he didn't find there either cyanide of potassium or ink that showed itself in the sun, the 'jacket' went limp again and, staggering very plausibly, went back to his working place.
"Well, Fedya, maybe you are a real man of genius, but it's very likely that nobody will get to know about that!" Apollo was rocking his shirt, cooling his overheated flesh. "How have you been at large still?"
"But what has happened? I didn't tell any subversive things, did I? I was expressing my own opinion!"
Fedya became absolutely pale; he was breathing hard and fanning with his hat.
"Maybe I'm wrong! Maybe I am mistaken! Then prove it! Prove, please! Well?"
Apollo was keeping silence. Fedya's appearance was expressively reminding about daily bread, and it caused hungry spasms in Pole's stomach.

Chapter VI

A VAMPIRE

Apollo and Fedya took a quick bite at the first public catering outlet that they had come across. It offered almost restaurant prices and disgusting food without any vestiges of vitamins and calorific value. Then they, with awful heartburn and sickly look, moved to one of central town squares. Nahum Arcadyevich was waiting for them behind the Vladimir Ilyich Lenin monument, in the cafe 'Acku', translated as 'White Swan'. He pushed small dishes with ice cream towards each of them, took off his glasses, rubbed them and screwed up his eyes gaily:
"Well, my friends, let's speak about a vampire, Bahtoobekov."
Fedya choked and goggled.
Apollo slapped him on the back and shook his head.
The world has known many thieves with famous names and original natures. For instance, the 'blue pilferer' by Ilf and Petrov was blushing while stealing. There were other thieves, much less shy, though having some moral appearance. And professionalism of some of them was even delightful. 'Baghdad thief' seems to sound somehow proudly. Now, the chairman of the trade-union committee Bahtoobekov was an absolute dullness, a skunk and unlikely a human being: an ordinary figure, but as unpleasant and too quickly multiplying in evil years as a louse. He was stealing all his life, and such large service in that field generated not less experience. During fifty years of his life Bahtoobekov's experience became so all-embracing that it was practically impossible to grab him by hand.
Bahtoobekov was stealing much and without any words.
He used to smile rarely and not kindly.
Especially unfriendly he would chuckle when, putting into orbit the next run-of-the-mill trick, imagined how naive and funny people who lived on their salary and daily stood in queues, but with all their last strength continued to believe in their bright future, in the evening were turning over the pages of the stories about Dzerzhinsky and other great men with a cool mind, a hot heart and clean hands.
It is necessary to say that Bahtoobekov had not only personal, very weighty reasons for that laughter. His brother Yerbol worked at the town administration of internal affairs, at the department of the control of socialist property misappropriations, having a rank of major; Yerbol had no necessary qualities, but considered himself entitled to live under communism, i.e. he got everything he wanted. A living example to small fry, he missed not a grain of information about people of his kind, but holding much higher key positions within the republic - apparently for fuller confidence in the correctness of the chosen policy. And even that was not enough! At times, some information about great predators - the beacons of the inner administrative world of the all-union category and scale seeped through some super-secret inner channels. There, as the saying goes, the higher a post was the more possibilities and the wider sphere of activity it gave. Naturally, Bahtoobekov was in the picture of the top-level moral weather for that day, and that was why he slept without shuddering at night.
After Fedya had cleared his throat and brushed away a tear, Nahum Arcadyevich put on his spectacles and said once more:
"Let's speak about this vampire Bahtoobekov, my friends! About our trade-union committee! I wish that talk would be postponed up to some more proper case, but man proposes - God disposes. Tonight I leave for Kirghizia to my friend, a leading light in the world medicine, to get an expert opinion and patronage, and then - for Moscow, to me sister. They found that she has got a tumour."
Apollo's face distorted gloomily:
"But only a tumour…"
"Right, Pole!" Nahum Arcadyevich interrupted him. "Namely a tumour, and 'only' is doubtful. Nobody knows what your mother had at first. It might have been a sarcoma, and it might have been something more benign."
Apollo shuddered and strained himself.
"Now, now!" The doctor slapped Apollo on his knee. "I'm driving at the fact that now our health services - oh-la-la! Doctors are produced mechanically, like screw-nuts, and mind - with a quality sign on the famous soft part of the body. Thinkers and researchers aren't regarded. What to think for, when such computerization and mechanization are around? But we've diverted our attention from the main - from our enemy number one! He sucks out the blood of two out People's theatres and the blood of all the rest collectives, including all mass actions, at least by three quarters. I mean the subsidies of the areal trade-union council, the factory, and all other financial incomes."
"Well, you shouldn't have told it to me," Fedya smirked.
"It doesn't matter; you'll listen."
Unlike the Party organizer's one, Fedya's attitude to the doctor wasn't either unceremoniousness or boorishness, but the wish of the Aesculapius himself. In spite of their tremendous age difference, they were bosom friends, thick as thieves.
"Yes," the doctor continued the conversation. "Today I won't expatiate about the blood that the trade-union committee sucks out of the factory itself. Though I could…"
"Talk about the disappearance of crankshafts, accumulators, starters, radiators, carburetors, screw-nuts, screws, instruments and even bed-linen with the stamps of our factory hostel, for instance!" Fedya took up an idea.
"That's it! We won't seize two apples with one hand! Especially taking into consideration those Alma-Ata apples: they are Oporto ones, huge and blood red. In a word, be careful. And don't forget that the highest policy is the conversion of enemies to friends, good one is making enemies behave as friends, and shitty one is the conversion of friends to enemies. The last case is customary for Fedyenka."
"You know, Numa…" Fedya sulked huffily.
"Don't take offence, my friend. You - that is me in my youth. So, all your life is before you. And I made many omelets and broke above and beyond eggs at one time. Sometimes it was of vital importance, sometimes - not. But only experience is not enough to become a good politician. Such a trifle as talent is necessary, besides a pull. This spark is noticeable in you, Pole, and that's why I ask you not let Fedyenka stir a step from your side. He can make such a hash of it! Take care of him both as a manager and as an older friend!"
Apollo smiled, remembering that pub 'At Morgue'.
"He can, can. That's his…"
"You know, citizens…"
"Wait, Fedyenka, wait! I mean that I myself could get only a good mark for that. In short, I'm repeating: be careful! If it becomes absolutely unbearable, appeal to the Party organizer."
"To whom?"
Fedya started laughing.
"To the Party organizer, Fedyenka, to the Party organizer - and on behalf of myself in person! Firstly, neither he can stand Bahtoobekov, and secondly, while I'm realizing my initiatives at the club, he'll love me with the brother's love, or maybe even more!" Nahum Arcadyevich screwed up roguishly again and clicked with his tongue. "Well, the aims are clear, the tasks are set - to work, comrades! Who said so?"
"To my mind, Khrushchev…" Apollo began, but the doctor didn't let him finish telling.
"And to your mind, and to mine too! At first, they smothered him with kisses, and then - to a cesspit… Oh, we like this!" The doctor looked at his watch and got up. "It's time. Time to go. I have really heaps to do."
After the doctor's departure, Apollo and Fedya were finishing their ice cream up for some time. But venomous thirst after the recent absorption of so-called food was staying, and Apollo went to a buffet for lemonade. And there it happened…
However, one must go after another.
Not far from lonely for that moment Fedya the close circle of young dark-skinned males having white trousers and 'Olympic' jackets, white too, on. They pushed two tables together and, moving too freely, poured out the 'Wheaten' vodka.
The specimens 'refueled' their 'tanks' with that especially refined 'petrol', slackly settled back to the chair backs, took cigarettes out of the firm 'Kazakhstan' packet lying at the middle of the table and started smoking in an affected manner; a little fat 'Olympian' with a faint, as if it was inflated, sleek face and fastidiously protruding lip got up and, smoothly waving his hips and manipulating with his purposely at once extinguished cigarette, began to walk round all tables. The itch of communication desire was spreading from his stomach over the whole body.
Not having got any response to his 'wheaten' passion, the 'Olympian' flopped to a free chair beside Fedya.
"Well, my fellow countryman, you should have a lighter, shouldn't you?" he asked.
"I don't smoke," Fedya answered and turned aside, showing that the talk is over.
But the 'walker' didn't think so. Estimating something, he examined from head to foot Fedya's figure, which was too far from sportive.
"No-o? Maybe, you don't drink, either?"
There, Fedya should have kept silence, but how could he?
"Surely, no habit to guzzle in such a way, especially in the morning…"
"Oh, you're fastidious, aren't you? The devil knows who arrived at our place, either white or piebald…"
The sleek 'Olympian's' eyes, not too wide before, became even wider and filled with primitive chauvinistic fury.
"I see you are arrogant, Russian mug! Ha!" And the specimen wearing the 'Olympic' jacket bashed Fedya straight from his generous heart.
The next tables sat still, and the 'Olympic brethren' jumped to their feet as if at a command and all together rushed to the place of the action.
Fedya was beaten since his childhood. Firstly because tonsillitis worried him from the cradle; secondly because he used to butt in everything, in what he had no need to butt, and tried to restore justice, even when it would be better to remember the proverb saying that if two persons are fighting, the third may be an 'odd man out', as in love. Though he knew one hold of up-to-date karate and wasn't slow to use it. Coming back with two bottles of lemonade Apollo had time only to see with amazement a soared Fedya's arm and the 'Olympic sack' slipping down under the table.
Next moment the white gang hung over the art-director, snarling and hooting.
"Uhr! Uhr!" was heard all over the square.
Fedya was being beaten.
Having left his lemonade on some unknown table, Apollo made a few leaps and sank into white mess. Since that moment the audience at the cafe, shouting and bawling loudly, but doing nothing, as always, got gratified with the unforgettable show, as if it was a brought-to-life episode from an American action movie. Even thirty seconds didn't slip by, but Apollo was drawing Fedya be the hand, for the second time that morning already; at that moment Fedya looked befuddled due to thrashing, but he hadn't let his hat go out of his hands. The friends were diagonally crossing the square and vehemently moving away from the place where eight 'Olympic sacks' were lying and the crowd of spectators was buzzing and fussing about.
At the square exit, Apollo slowed down abruptly and exhaled hotly to the ear of his friend, who had become green:
"Get ready! Mobilize yourself! We have to melt into the crowd."
The howling of the militia siren was heard in the distance.
"Steady, Fedyenka, steady! Don't hurry, dear, don't… Cross the street… Yes, like this… We are crossing it very naturally and disappearing into the crowd at the trolleybus-stop 'Children's World', not attracting anyone's attention… Here we are - our trolleybus! Get on, Fedyenka; get on. What lucky dogs we are! No, you don't hurry, my honey, don't. Let the madam with a baby pass… Okay, we've started… Now you would breathe more rapidly, and shift your feet, otherwise you'll overstrain your heart!"
Two yellow militia 'GAZ' cars with deafening howling rushed past the trolleybus, which was gathering speed.
The friends (namely friends already, not only colleagues) decided not to go by bus far away and left it at the next stop. They crossed a subway and made themselves comfortable on one of the benches of the rather small, but very popular public garden 'At Opera'. And there, Fedya, having been ready for a reprimand, was favoured with praise:
"At a boy! The blow was professional!"
Fedya blushed pink with pleasure, and even dull pain left his body for a moment.
"Well… That happened by chance… Reflectively… I'm able to do only this…"
"That's bad! You have to be a past master at doing everything of the kind! Winners inspire, and losers disappoint. One must always have a possibility to say, 'We always shall support the heroes of sport', but not each and every show-off!"
"But they do wear brand-name jackets!"
"I see they have hurt you too hard today, Fedyenka. Simply everyone got them as keepsakes after the Olympiad!" Apollo took a comb and a mirror out of his pocket and, having put himself in order, began to do Fedya's hair.
"What are you doing? Get out!" Fedya, being embarrassed, made a negative gesture.
"Nahum Arcadyevich told me to take care of you. So, be patient!"
Laughing, Apollo gave the mirror and the comb to the fellow.
A short man was walking along the garden path, moving straight to the friends. He had a simple grey suit and a slightly faded shirt, very simple too, on.
Having seen the man, Fedya turned pale.
"Pole, it's impossible, but Bahtoobekov is going to us!"
Apollo roused himself.
"Aha… I see. Pretends to be a little grey mouse. You seem to be true - he's a real shark! No scare, Fedyenka! I'm in good form today. I only ask you, dear, not to put your fingers between the bark and the tree. The first appearance of the main character on the scene - that's all!"
"So, what should I do?"
"Comb your madcap head, comb!"
Apollo pushed himself away from the bench with both hands, smiled in the most thorough manner, and spread his hands widely:
"The hottest and sincere regards to our dear trade-union committee from the modest men of the cultural guild! Take a seat, ata; pater, you're welcome! The weather today makes us well disposed to an easy business talk as never before!"
Bahtoobekov lingered a little.
"New manager… I know; I know… I was ill. And now I'm in no mood for talks - no talks! An intensive labour working day is in full swing," he began to mumble automatically. "The Soviet people create material values…"
"That's absolutely right, ata! You, in the sweat of your brow, are creating material values, and we - spiritual ones. I hope for the closest and the most productive contact!"
"Oho!" Bahtoobekov thought, but said aloud the following, "The Party teaches us to save every earned kopeck. Not to waste precious time, sauntering in parks and gardens, but to be at one's working place and to produce, to create! In the name of…"
Apollo nodded so enthusiastically and affirmatively, that Bahtoobekov fell silent.
Knowing that no attack can stand a pause, the hero mobilized himself even more at once and finished the phrase very neatly:
"In the name of! Certainly, in the name of! As we all have done, do and will do always!"
Bahtoobekov was confused again, because he didn't know how to react. However, an automatic machine in his head clanked quickly and, gaining momentum little by little, he started his solemn hum again:
"Economical economics - that's the main thing for a present political moment. You have to be up to the mark as regards this aspect, to do everything in the Party way. In the Party way! You have to…"
"Ata!" Apollo interrupted him again. "Everything is clear. Political stands, political posters, visual agitation and propaganda - that's the thing! That is the main conductor, the contact by means of which our native Party carries out its wise leadership and secures the principle of the democratic centralism! We, with our art-director, have just been ventilating the question. But to tell the truth, our points of view to the paramount importance of the general task before us differ a little; the more so that Feodor Petrovich claims that you aren't able to apportion even a sheet of veneer, metre by metre, for such an important campaign!"
"Wha-at?" Bahtoobekov's eyes flashed angrily from under singed eyelashes to the side of Fedya, and Fedya stared at Apollo with surprise.
"But I assure Feodor Petrovich that he has just misunderstood you. Some shortage may take place, certainly. It's a natural phenomenon, taking into consideration the rate of our progress today, but for stands of results, the portraits of innovators, rationalizers and, at last, the main gallery of our executives' portraits…"
"Your name is Apollo, isn't it?" Bahtoobekov interrupted our hero in his turn.
"I'm Pole for my relatives, friends, and associates!"
"Okay, Pole, I see you're a business person, not a windbag like some others." Bahtoobekov's eyes flashed angrily to the side of Fedya again. "Appeal to me at any time, and everything in my power will be done. And in general, it seems to me that we'll find a common language. Here's my hand!"
Apollo pressed the stretched hand firmly and sang merrily, "'Joyful one is singing, he who wants will get it, he who's looking for will find!' Something!"
"An actor!" Bahtoobekov smiled with understanding.
"A professional! What you want! To everybody - his own, and according to his abilities, isn't it so? No pass a run! Party or Morta!"
"Morta, Morta…" the head of the committee repeated mechanically, trying hard to remember what it could mean. "It will be so cheerfully at our club now!"
Bahtoobekov began to lose heart a little. The two last phrases seemed to be just puns in Apollo's mouth; nevertheless, they aroused the head's apprehension somehow.
"I have to go. If anything is unclear - call in!" he said and scratched his head.
"Surely, ata! Without fail! There's a white thread on your sleeve…"
Apollo, as seriously as before, took the thread away without the slightest shadow of servility.
"That one won't let pass any occasion! He's ours!" Bahtoobekov thought respectfully, moving towards the cinema of repeated films, where his wife was waiting for him. She had got two tickets to 'The Golden Calf', that was demonstrating very much to the point.
Apollo breathed out energetically, as a sportsman, flopped down to the bench, and stretched his legs with pleasure.
"You may speak, Fedyenka, otherwise, God forbid, you'll burst with indignation. But not a word about those things that I was saying about you! It's a necessary trick. Let him think that I have little liking for you and look down on you. After all, he's a classical socialist vampire, that your… no, now our Bahtoobekov! Here they are - the roots of the Party papacy!"
"I should say so!" Fedya gave the comb and the mirror back to Apollo and started moving nervously. "Buttered butter, a main mainstream, economical economics. Nonsense!"
"Not absolute nonsense, but marasmus has become stronger, Fedyenka! It has become stronger and spread the rotten sails of self-deception with its last might!"
"You see?" Fedya continued. "Bahtoobekov is the partisan of the creation of people's values! The benefit of mankind is his sacred aim! It's simply ridiculous!"
"You say! The fatter a lamb, the more food products is inside. I was to so many places; I saw such a variety of scoundrels! I even tried to become a scoundrel myself, because it brings quick profit as a rule, but I've failed. I have no predisposition for that! And you, Fedyenka, remember the commonplace that I'm going to utter, and if, God prohibit, I forget it one day, hasten to pronounce it aloud for me. 'Force esteems only greater force; a thief respects only the thief of the larger scale!' and so on, and so forth. Let this blood-sucker think that I'm equal to him at least."
"A thief?"
"And a skunk! Otherwise we shall always be out of luck, sorry for one more banality!"

Chapter VII

SURPRISES

Fedya was going on with his indignation and gesticulation. The gentle autumn diurnal heavenly body was calmly floating in the clear sky of the tender azure. The Indian summer lassitude and laziness was weakening, and there was absolutely no liking for any feats of labour. Having thrown his chin back and closed eyes with pleasure, Apollo felt the rare and at the same time mystical bliss, when you yourself and the whole world is a single whole. The warm wave of isolation from down-to-earth fuss, its insoluble problems, and idiotic conflicts was spreading over the body. The sense of Fedya's perpetual critical eloquence was unperceivable and only lulling with its cyclic modulations.
The life was beautiful!
Only when Fedya began to shake his friend by the shoulder, demanding the confirmation of his rightness or counter-argumentation, Apollo's eyes opened unwillingly.
"Restrain your fountain, Fedyenka. The meaning of life isn't there, is it?"
"It is, certainly! Where else may it be? Only criticism promotes progress!"
"Does it? And Hindus assure that the meaning is in joining with the nature and in the contemplation of it. Look: 'The sky is so blue and clear! Such huge expanse is round you! You feel the sunrays' friendly cheer and see these hills - a magic pew! Delight is blooming in your soul! A song is streaming out of breath! Your heart is at the gladness pole! And all we hope for the best!' These are your rhyming!"
Fedya frowned tensely and waved his hand from annoyance:
"Ah! Calf youth! Believe me, if that fascination was planned by the State Planning Committee, the end of the world would come at once."
"Good Lord! Fedyenka, you've tired me! Have a break! And generally, I'm neither Jack-of-all-trades, nor even Jack of any trades today already! I'm Jack-walk-my-foot now! Otherwise I'll have an infarction - and out!"
Apollo stretched himself energetically and took Fedya be the hand with a theatrical gesture.
"Lead me, Sussanin, but only not to death! Lead through the sight maze of this sunny capital to light and feats! You've promised me!"
Fedya scratched the back of his head thoughtfully and fixed his hopelessly melancholy gaze towards the academic opera house, the troupe of which had well-deserved success among devout grannies and old maids. It even seemed to him for a moment that there were no sights of interest in the town besides that one. But only for a moment! Next second Fedya's eyes sparkled feverishly, and the gleam of the fire that broke out in the heart sparkled on his face.
"Let's go! I'll show you the sight. A real treat! It defies all description! Scheherazade! The thousand and one nights! Come on!"
Fedya jumped up, pulled his felt over his eyes, and started intense rubbing of his chin.
"But if it is something like that pub, count me out."
"Not a bit of it! That is something incredible! That is Athens and Rome! Paganism, idolatry, and monotheism at the same time! That is the materialized dream of the whole mankind and its best sons! That is the index finger and the symbol of our time! That is all!"
"Well, if it is so, then lead me!"
And the friends started.
Fedya sank into exceptional nervous agitation, anticipating the effect, which his surprise had to produce on Apollo. He was shaken with the sensual fever that is mistaken for nearing love by inexperienced youth. Incidentally, it was really nearing. Not love, certainly, but a car. According to the same law of fatal combination of events, it was as if a surprise to the surprise.
All traffic lights in the Furmanov Street were twinkling with yellow flashes, and a valiant custodian of the State Auto Inspection, having been arrayed in his full ceremonial magnificence was standing at each crossing. An hour earlier a radio instruction to ensure the go ahead there had been issued, and the faithful guards of the road order were gazing steadily at the street distance until sharp eye pain began. There were two of them at the crossing of the Furmanov Street and the Kirov Street. One was a beardless boy, and the other was a grey-haired man. The beardless one was shifting his feet impatiently, and his grey-headed colleague was leniently slapping him on the shoulder, chuckling, and sharing his 'know-how':
"I remember we were meeting that… who is the biggest cheese!"
The grey-haired looked up significantly.
"That was the reception! And now… it is simply run-of-the-mill moving from one place to another. Or else, the Iranian shah with his wife came to us… You remember, ah?"
"Nope…"
The beardless didn't remember. Those memorable days he was only interested in a boy's catapult and football.
"That's just the point! Unripe, green! I remember, we blocked the whole Communist Avenue! All the traffic flow stopped! And it was towards evening, rush hours. People were going from their work homewards. Can you imagine how many people crowded in front of the ropes? Assume, almost the whole town! The shah with his wife - vzhik - and passed. Nobody could even notice what car was theirs. But there were heaps of tittle-tattle, dog my cats!"
"Yea, we can welcome capitalists. They are honoured here, rascals!" the beardless one tried to keep up the conversation.
"Such a fool! It is wise policy! Not only oil is found in Iran…"
Red and blue flickering started sparkling in the distance.
"Here, here!"
"Where? Ah, that's it! Namely! Attention! Don't forget to salute them! And I'll move aside. To my mind, it is neither here nor there already. I retire soon. And in general, our shahess likes young and gallant ones. Come on, work!"
Apollo and Fedya were just going to cross the street, when the grey-headed custodian of the law blocked their way. He gave them a conspiratorial wink and nodded in the direction of the highway. They could already see clearly a white 'Volga' that was approaching them without any noise, with multicoloured blinking lights near its bumper, and a black governmental limousine with smoky bulletproof glasses.
And at that moment, something at least remarkable happened. Either Fedya's nerves couldn't bear, or some short circuit took place at the cortex of his cerebral hemispheres, but he gave a sudden plunge, slipped past the grey-headed custodian and jumped out on the road. There Fedya pulled his hat off and waved it a few times over his head, as if he was attracting one's attention and greeting somebody; after that cheerful prelude had been carried out, he pressed the ill-fated felt to his heart and bent in the most servile bow, peering ingratiatingly into the grey coolness of the limousine having come up to him.
The limousine even didn't slow down. Those who were sitting there should have considered the event to be the normal sincere expression of some poor devil's gratitude that had occasionally got to the planned number of the results of sympathetic approach to the working people's letters.
But that was about those who were sitting in the limousine. However, the custodians and Apollo didn't possess such naive thinking. They rushed to Fedya.
"Ha-ha-ha! How I've treated them!" the man of genius was hysterically laughing. "Ha-ha-ha-ha!"
"Just a moment, comrades!" Apollo slowed down the grey-haired guard and his beardless mate. "That is a very sick man! He's just from a lunatic asylum, after the medical session of hypnotism. The guy is absolutely under the impression and the influence of positive suggestions. Fedyenka, everything is okay, everything is normal. You've just mistaken, Fedyenka, there were not our masters, but our servants in the auto. The people's servants! Calm yourself, Fedyenka, and don't shake in such an awful manner. Sleep! Peace - of - mind - and - rest - for - body…"
An ecclesiastical intonation and tunes appeared in Apollo's voice.
"Nothing bo-thers you… Nothing wor-ries… Nothing around you is perceived as reality… All that is a dre-am, which will fly away and disappear completely in two hundred years or something like that… Sleep, Fedya, sleep!.."
Fedya was half-shocked; he had only a vague idea of the gravity of the unfavourable situation, and he was turning his head vacantly. Apollo saw that and realized that if he didn't turn everything inside out at that moment, then it would be late. He ran round his friend and zealous custodians, having seized the poor thing, like a shaman, and began to make passes. The grey-haired campaigner started blinking in amazement, and the beardless one opened his mouth. They were taken aback to such an extent that even stopped the process of twisting Fedya's arms behind his back for a while.
"Why? What does it mean?" At last, the grey-headed guy forced himself to speak.
"Everything is okay! As yet, everything is okay. These are the elements of hypnotism. Well, release your hold of his hands - you're in his way to relaxing! If he doesn't go off right now, he'll begin to kiss your gloves and boots. The guy has got an idee fixe! He believes that he had been born a century before the birth of Christ. You guess what it may mean, don't you? Ah?"
The grey-haired guard didn't guess the possible meaning, but staggered back in fright, just in case. The beardless one relinquished his hold of Fedya's hand too and lapsed into stupor unexpectedly.
"Oh!" Apollo became glad and exhaled into Fedya's ear, "And you sink into trans, loony! Now!"
The pain in his arms brought the friend back to the sinful world already, and he fulfilled everything at once. The man of genius rolled his eyes madly, craned his neck, and made absolutely idiotic face.
"You see!" Apollo became glad even more.
"And who are you for him?" the grey-haired man asked more by his own momentum than on business.
"His friend, comrade, and brother!" our hero answered hurriedly.
He noted with pleasure that Fedya's tone and reaction had made a sudden qualitative leap that day.
Apollo changed over from sharp stressing passes to gentle, stroking ones, and decided to consolidate the blood relationship that had appeared in such an unforeseen way:
"That's our family feature. It's passed from one generation to another. The birthmark of capitalism - hereditary syphilis! You understand that it means local ataxia, creeping paralysis and so on, and so forth. Sometimes one can observe such phenomena too…"
Having energetically grasp Fedya's chin with one hand and turned his eyelid inside out with the other at one stroke, the hero pointed the custodians at it:
"Do you see how his sclera is pallid? A pale spirochaete is just creeping there! Convulsion can start immediately! Do you have any more questions or we may go?"
"Go, go!" The grey-haired guard began to wave his baton hastily. "We are lacking of that infection only!"
When the 'brothers' turned a corner and left the field of vision, Apollo's volitional pressure became weaker and the grey-haired geezer began to suspect that he had simply been taken for a ride and made a fool of. The suspicion was becoming stronger with every second, and to avoid the awkwardness caused by the situation he addressed his young mate again:
"Our work is so difficult, really! Everything can happen at the road! You can meet the most unusual people!"
The mad eyes and the awfully turned inside out eyelid cut into the older campaigner's brain suddenly, like a lightning, and he shuddered squeamishly, dismissing the hallucination:
"Br-r! And you're saying!.."
And, though his beardless made was saying nothing and only blinking in bewilderment, the grey-headed added to be on the safe side:
"A-ah, unripe, green!"
At the same time, Apollo was running in a circle round the corner, having bent double and holding his belly with his hands. He was wagging his head like a prize racer and beating the metalled road with his lace-up boots because of the laughter that was bursting him open.
Fedya started worrying already, but the laughter squall stopped as unexpectedly as it had begun. Wiping away his tears with a batiste handkerchief, Apollo was looking at his friend with tender love.
"Well, my dearest bro, today you've brought me back to life. If it goes like that in future as well, it can become possible to comprehend its sense."
"Well, that will do! Okay, I haven't been able to stand it… It happens sometimes…"
"Happens? No, say what you like, but God does exist! He saves and directs the chosen ones! And the fact that you are chosen for today is the bare one! Now, show me your right hand!"
"God isn't a nurse…" Fedya murmured but did stretch his hand.
"Just as I thought! Here it is - the line of those who are burdened with the mark of fortune! Ah, bro, our doctor is more than right - we must take good care of you. We'll observe it silently; we shall… Well lead farther… to your super-real-treat-sight! Incidentally, it seems to me that whatever it would be, it couldn't be more incredible than you are!"
Apollo's mention gave Fedya's attention the necessary turn:
"Come on, go! It's nearby already. Quite near..."
The part of the Tulebayev Street situated between the Vinogradov and the Jambul streets had its own microclimate, its own paradise, both in the ordinary and figurative sense of the word. The place was situated at the centre of the town, almost always rather thick with fumes; nevertheless, it was characterized by fresh air, fresh greenery and fresh colour at the faces of its dwellers. And who dwelt there, with all the king's men? - That part of population, that wasn't large in all ages and eras and that is named by common people with one word, as sonorous as a curse, - 'the elite'! Even ordinary houses, with automobile entrances right down under a base, resembled villas, and militiamen on duty looked like doorkeepers there.
However, though the residents of those state villas were named the elite, not all of them were worth of the black envy, which is defined as class hatred sometimes, depending upon the aim. And the fresh colour of those 'not all' looked more like feverish, and sometimes it didn't present at all, having given up its place to blue and green pallor; and the percentage of inglorious heart attacks after dirty intrigues and other court attributes, not worth noble attention, was reaching tremendous heights; and one didn't wish either a merit pension, or scarce luxury, or the most unsatisfied in the world devoted female who grew similar to the old woman from the fairy tale about the fisherman and the fish so much; and joy didn't bring joy, and privileges didn't do good.
But it was 'not all', that is only a few! And the rest were actively forming and cultivating namely the environment, which promoted the most vigorous manifestation, realization and growth of brutish (i.e. not bad at all in general, but simply reflex and bestial!) feelings and needs, with all the consequences ensuing therefrom, due to discrepancy between those inhuman characteristics and the divine image and conception. Flattery and bootlicking, petty tyranny and high-handedness, the absence of any limits based on boorishness, and heaps of other qualities, having been described in fables by grandfather Krylov, were feeding that majority of minority, which lived parasitically on the people's body, and distinctly orientating accordingly selected young successors and all the descending apparatus towards required manners, ways and the position of behaviour.
Apollo and Fedya got namely to the centre of that nomenclature 'hub'.
"Here!" the man of genius claimed pathetically. "Here is the site, for the sake of which it's worth to ignore all museums, 'Cock-Tubes' and 'Meadows' put together. You see before you, Pole, the quintessence of full political degradation, and the most impudent challenge to all theorists and experts of the Marxism-Leninism. You see before you the monument of the first secretary of the Republican Central Committee next door to his luxurious house."
"Well, and what?"
"Why 'what'?"
Fedya was shocked. His surprise obviously hadn't staggered Apollo.
"But he is alive! You see - alive!"
"Well, and what?" Apollo shrugged his shoulders once more. "So many people bury themselves being alive…"
"Oh, if he would bury himself, then to hell with him! But he buried faith under that stone! You see - faith!"
Fedya said the last phrase with such pain that Apollo came nearer. The bronze face of one of the Political Bureau members was looking at him from the perfectly polished and very imposing granite pedestal.
"Well…" Apollo concluded having finished the examination of the bust. "Everything is right! Such a dolly is erected to all the Twice Heroes of the Socialist Labour at their birthplace. The law exists, Fedyenka!"
"What law? It is not a law, but a mockery! Okay, to hell with these empty heads; they could erect the monumental idol of some milkmaid or a worker, though it is the idiotism of the most extreme degree as well, but to erect the one of the biggest daddy who is seen from everywhere even without it - I'm sorry… Generally, I wonder how his own hair doesn't stand on end, when he is passing him himself in stone and bronze."
"You're admiring, aren't you, young gentlemen?"
A very-very decrepit old man, as white as snow, in an accurate costume and a starched fresh-washed shirt stood near the friends.
"I often admire the thing too. How much money they spent to this stone - it is sheer horror! And some people think that it is a must, that it is right…"
"Well, why?.." Fedya tried to enter into conversation.
"Don't argue, young gentleman, don't argue!" the old man interrupted him. "You've learnt about a must only from books and films. And I'm of the lasts… A participant and an eyewitness… We are few now, and the age is senile, you know, but when we heard that THAT would be erected, we didn't believe a word; more of that: we almost beat the informer. 'Our enemies spread rumours, and you convey them!' we were shouting to him. And here we are! Please, admire!"
The old man straightened out, his eyes flashed, and he became somehow more massive and prominent.
"What is going on here? Where are we moving? They hanged piles of decorations to each other, turned them into bijouterie, and are jingling as a new-year fir-trees. Such Bengal lights! I don't know which party they belong to, but surely not to the Communist one. They even have the cheek to call themselves 'Leninists'! But Lenin drank tea, when the country was starving, and used to send presents to children's homes. What, couldn't they get some soft caviar or balyk for him, ah? And now they've got special stores, special canteens, and special farms - everything is special! So, how can they feel, what the people breathe with, what they eat, how they live? They only read out reports about some 'not very' stable aggravation to each other, and a person should feel. Then he begins to think. Feelings correct consciousness, young gentlemen, and not on the contrary! We, old communists and war-veterans, have been attached to these stores as well. They decided to coax us, to feed up. To throw dust in out eyes! He who pays the piper calls the tune, they think… I've had them with their Vologda butter! We don't sell ourselves for a piece of meat! And the merit pension isn't a handout for us! We paid in blood for it, not in bootlicking!"
The old man's voice was becoming stringer with each phrase; it was filling with the tones of the lower register and was ringing and droning as an alarm bell towards the end. At last, having stretched his hand and pointed his finger in the direction of the bust nose, the old man addressed it as if it was a living being:
"Persons like you are the examples for all! People have to emulate you! So why the hell did you sculpture the monument for yourself, and why not a pyramid? Why?.. Now, a pyramid! And God save the tsa-ar!"
The old man started singing and, having finished with it, began to recite:

"My memorial
should quickly
be created at my lifetime.
If it
were,
I'd blow it
with dynamite.

Take my word for it -
I simply hate all dead grime,
I adore
life of every kind!1"

Apollo pushed Fedya.
However, the friends didn't get enough time to go far away.
"Aha-a, here he is!" These words thundered in their ears, and two strapping medical orderlies rushed to the old man.
"Don't touch me!" he gave a blood-curdling shriek, having seen their white smocks. "I'll go myself, myself!"
Having paid neither attention to the last request of the 'ill psyche', the 'white archangels' clenched the old man from both sides, with a bit more effort that it was necessary, raised him a little and brought to a vigorously puffing green 'UAZ' with red crosses and figure 9 on its polished sides. The motor roared, and the green mustang, having spiritedly turned round on the spot, ran joyfully to the native steps of the lunatic asylum.

_____________
1 Mayakovsky V. Jubilee.

Chapter VIII

THE ORDERLY OF NATURE

"We live so merrily," Apollo murmured thoughtfully, and suddenly slapped himself on his forehead. "I've forgotten! Absolutely! I've got an appointment with the most splendid lady! Almost all cream and scum of your town are crazy about her. And it is very much to the point: your surprise is for me, and mine - for you! Let's go!"
"It is awkward somehow… The two of us to one…" Fedya jested rudely.
"It's okay, okay! Firstly, it is possible for fucking nomenclature and underground
millionaires even ten to one, especially to some bathhouse, or rather one to ten beauties; secondly, it's a little bit another variant - she's about ninety. She is a wonderful enchantress, working wonders and giving happiness to people! An unusual foreteller, parapsychologist, and psychotherapist! A hereditary wizard! Removal of stresses, depressions, wasting diseases, the evil eye and curses! Correction of bioenergetics, fate, karma and anything you like! And the main is my uncle's protectionism! She'll give some treatment to me and adjust your nerves as well. Are your nerves out of order?"
"Yea, far out!"
Klavdiya Ivanovna was living out the reminder of her mysterious days somewhere in the 'fruit' district, quite near to the monument, between the Country and the Pear-Tree Streets, in the western part of the barrack-like house for two families with a little orchards adjoining to it. Just at the moment when the heroes knocked at her wicket, she was watering rosebushes and vegetable beds of cucumbers, tomatoes and other fresh vegetable foodstuff without any herbicides and pesticides; the vegetable beds were situated between the bushes, and watering was fulfilled by means of a cracked hose.
"Who are you, good sort?" she intoned almost in a girlish voice, not turning round. "Oh, there are two of you! Come on! Go to the house! I'm just coming…"
Having passed a microscopic kitchen, with a bath squeezed into a corner, our heroes got to a room with photos and drawings of babies and children of different age that were decorated with very picturesque and various in form and essence hand-made brooches looking like some prodigious flowers and other representatives of the most fantastic flora.
Neither the rest space was empty.
Embroideries, laces, unthinkable constructions of textile, plastic, bottle tops, little boxes, some bottles, cans, wires, lids and God knows what else seemed to be moving in some organized dance from the floor up to the ceiling and even hopping somewhere on the ceiling.
"And what?" These words were heard right from behind the heroes' backs, and they gave a start.
"Staggeringly!" Fedya said.
"Right! You said correctly, though not absolutely sincerely," the old woman became glad. "My name is Klavdiya Ivanovna, but I'll be on informal terms with you - if you have no objections, of course."
They had no objections.
"You are the nephew of Suleiman ibn Israelevich and your name is Apollo, and you are…"
"Fedya!"
"That's nice. I like guests - especially young. Oh, how I'll be racking you! Oh, yea!"
"Will you?" Apollo became astonished affectedly.
"No doubts! If your fate has led you here, so you're welcome! I'll show you even more…"
The piles of photo albums, deeds, press cuttings and even cassettes with telecasts devoted to the heroine appeared in front of the two immediately.
"It's me young… It's my exhibition… That is my first husband… That is the second… That is the third… That is… Well, never mind! Not this is the main…"
Really, the main was ahead.
"Okay, now I'm acquainted with you," the old woman said shutting the last album. "And you've thought I'm spreading my peacock tail. And don't argue, I can guess not only your thoughts. Here, right behind your backs, such a fantastic ape is looking blank for five minutes already, being astonished at my chef-d'oeuvres too. And how strapping it is! And eyes, what eyes! At a girl! Or rather at a boy! Or rather both variants… An unordinary monkey… It's a virtual one, isn't it?"
Our heroes turned back and, certainly, saw nobody.
"Well, let it pass! Oh! It has disappeared! A typical phantom! And so…" Klavdiya Ivanovna was continuing as though nothing were the matter. "Your problems, 'Unbuttered Parsnip', are ordinary, and if you continue to shoot straight, you'll get everything you dream about even during your lifetime. And you've got neurasthenia in full bloom, and it is intensified with a fixed idea."
"You might have confused something," Fedya smiled. "He's as strong as an ox, and I've…"
"You've got only trifles!" the old woman interrupted Fedya. "Your nervous system is exhausted a little - and that's all. You have to sleep more and to be at fresh air not less then for two hours a day; but your friend is searching for a meeting with his mom, buried alive ostensibly. How one could think of that! He wants to repent… and something more… But what repentances can be here? May each mother have such a son! This neurotic has even come here to find exit to the next world. As if there is such a place somewhere here… And where isn't it?"
Fedya said 'hmm' skeptically, but looked at his friend and stopped short. The hero was sitting pale and breathing rapidly and unevenly.
"And here is his favourite tachyarrhythmia! We'll be treating it now and all the rest with it…" Klavdiya Ivanovna remarked with satisfaction; she joined her hands, described a few circles over Apollo's head, and threw them aside.
The result was incredible! The hero's breath became stable at once, the eyes closed, and his head bent over his chest.
"Let him be sleeping and we'll indulge in tea," the old woman said and went to the kitchen. "I had been suspecting for a long time that something in this world is not so as it seems to us, but I got what's the matter only when computers appeared," she was continuing while putting cups on the table. "One stands there - the latest model. A patient of mine foisted it off on me almost against my will."
"A powerful invention!" Fedya noticed.
"Well, I very doubt about 'powerful', and I'm neither sure that it is an invention. Honestly speaking, it's firewood, only firewood in comparison with living nature. Well, namely it is really a computer! Everything that people think up and create is only a pitiable prosthetic appliance. Maximum what they manage to do for the present that is to get connected up to the biological computer sometimes by chance; and they themselves, the whole world, and all other worlds are its part. Now it is called the informational field, which is super matter, and all the matter is of it. The past, and the present, and the future, and the countless and permanently changing number of variants for this, and that, and the third, and the tenth are there."
"Really?" Fedya enjoyed. "Something like that has come to my mind recently. One programme starts (or we start it), and everything is fulfilled according to it; another one starts - another order and regularity exist. How it happens, who starts it - it is wrapped in mystery, but…"
"The explanation was quite simple," Klavdiya Ivanovna completed Fedya's thought aloud, and they both burst into laughter. "Birds of a feather flock together! I've seen at once at what level one can talk talks to you. It's quite probably that even we didn't existed; simply some benefactor made up some images, and the computer materialized them for incomprehensible reasons. Not in vain it is written that in the Beginning was the Word - it is the Thought!"
"And the Word was with God, and the Word was God Himself!" Fedya completed. "Our Lord is a dreamer and a joker, but…"
"But on the whole He is a contemplator and a programmer!" Klavdiya Ivanovna took up again. "Drink tea! And don't ignore this jam! Yesterday they showed on TV a young fellow who is an old man. He became absolutely decrepit in a month, and I fly like a butterfly. And somewhere a baby was born, and he began to speak three languages at once, and what's more - in verses. Though he forgot everything a little bit later and became an ordinary baby, but the fact is fixed with a TV camera! On the other hand, it may be some falsification…"
"In all cases, a computer without a virus isn't a computer," Fedya played up.
"And hackers of the same age with me aren't too rare," Klavdiya Ivanovna added, having smiled.
"Oho!"
"And what do you think? We have been hacking, are hacking, and will be hacking!" the old woman exclaimed really as a very young one and even blushed. "We're out of any framework! For instance, I love all those kids - with such perverse affection! My better judgement has no standing here." The old woman passed her hand round photos on the walls. "How do you like them?"
"Very appetizing. I really feel inclined to swallow them," Apollo interfered, yawning and stretching himself.
He was listening attentively for about a minute already.
"The thing I've done!" Klavdiya Ivanovna laughed. "You have good taste and intuition; you even wake up in time. By the way, we could cooperate. It's a little hard already to cope alone… There, that one, large-eyed, was the softest. They only look equally tasty. And what's more, it doesn't matter at all what feed to give the day before."
"Well, some people like beef, pork, lamb, and you like them. It's absolutely clear," Fedya took up the idea. "No principle difference. Any meat, any feed is the preserved energy of the Sun, the Earth and the whole boundless Universe."
"Honestly speaking, this world is bad!" Apollo resumed, standing up. "Everyone either eats each other or parasitizes on each other. Desperate situation! I don't speak about symbiosis, surely. But it is almost impossible to distinguish where it is and where elementary parasitism and 'zveroskotinism' (brutalizing beastism) are. We'll try to soften our parasitism tomorrow. My uncle said that you don't take anything for your activity on principle. That's why we'll repair your wicket. It can go to pieces in a moment. If you allow us, without saying. And, certainly, thank you for your treatment. It's unbelievable! I've had such a rest as if I was idling a month away at Crimean beaches. And, judging by Fedya's appearance, he has been energized as well."
"Smart fellows!" The old woman shed a few tears. "You can't even imagine what smart fellows you are! Mind, I choose for food only future maniac killers and rapers. It's not very easy to estimate them in such a tender age!"
"No doubts," Apollo smiled passing the kitchen. "Oh! What a splendid mincing machine!"
"A noiseless one," Klavdiya Ivanovna clarified. "I have nothing to bite with now, that's why I indulge in force-meat mainly…"
Some draught came from the ventilation pane, and the oilskin over the bath shifted, opening for show blue and pale babyish carcasses, swimming in the water.
Our heroes took off like a shot from a gun, ran about four blocks, and only then paused for breath…
"Fewt!" the old woman gave a whistle in their wake, laughed and set to dress the chicken carcasses.

Chapter IX

THE QUESTION THAT DOES NOT EXIST

Absolutely unusual and at the same time absolutely typical events that had happened to Apollo and Fedya the day before could depress anyone and make him lose his belief in the reality of everything taking place around him. Fortunately, Apollo belonged to those rare people who always get everything around them in incredible quantity, and he had developed his stable immunity to any over-information and stresses long time ago already.
Fedya didn't enjoy such immunity; that's why we, being orientated towards Apollo, shall try to take as going without saying the fact that the most unreal events and, as it was mentioned above, absolutely natural chance occurrences can take place at some little space and in relatively short time periods in the largest quantity. Sometimes our life is much stranger than the most subtle fiction, and that is no good at all to transform verity into probability or, more of that, into some little truth, not to let a reader or a listener doubt the authenticity of the narration. And they have a reason for saying, "It defies all description!" It means - like in life!
The manager raised his arm, and it became quiet in the cabinet.
"I ask for attention! As a manager, I'll try to do my best in understanding everything and satisfying everybody, as far as possible. But it will be on condition that you'll walk a walk, not only talk a talk! The meeting is over!"
Apollo with that resume stepped on the throat of the mudflow of words resulting in the dullest and absolutely hopeless clarifying of 'who is who' and 'who - what - to whom'. The impression of the collective was the most depressing. The people were talking, talking, talking for two hours, but they told nothing.
It was turbid and insipid in the head.
The traditional talking-shop in the manager's presence became a regular shop squabble long time ago, and the only thought of all was remarkable for it clarity and brilliant simplicity: everyone was in need of money, both for himself and for working groups.
"Feodor Petrovich, stay on!"
Apollo waited until everybody left and opened his safe only after that.
Some dampness wafted from its metal maw.
A dead cockroach was lying on the order book.
Apollo brushed the poor thing off to the bin and winked at his friend.
Fedya pulled a face.
For the third day already, after the very surprising visit to the monument and to the old cannibal lady, he was studying civil and criminal laws and the Constitution, displaying perseverance, which was fairly rare for him. Everything connected with the old woman was transferred to an illusory and humorous plane, but as for the old man… Neither a line was found about such cases when a person was sent to a mental hospital or another famous 'not too remote' area for bitter truth that had been told at a square. On the contrary, those juridical volumes spoke volumes about freedom of speech, press, assembly and other democratic achievements and punishment measures for attempts on a person's life and property.
The writings were so nice! They were simply a fairy tale!
But apparently, they had nothing to do with the old man who had been screwed by the mental health team in such an operative manner the other day. And Fedya had no doubt in the fact that the veteran wasn't a madman. Otherwise, it was necessary to have doubts about Fedya's own state of mind, but, according to Apollo's words, such initiatives were observed in medical practice extremely seldom.
In all cases, the acquaintance with serious literature gingered up Fedya. He become more taciturn and accurate; he even bought a pocket mirror and a comb. At that moment, the man of genius was imposing as never before and in full accordance with the held post.
"Our matter is faecal, Fedyenka, faecal!" Apollo sang joyfully, clanking with keys as if they were castanets and putting the order book back to its native abode.
"And what have I said?"
"Yea, I remember… The personnel are really somehow… somewhat quarrelsome… nervous… To the old woman with them! To our old woman for treatment! And preferably - for cardinal one!"
"And what have I said?" Fedya said again and hid his mirror.
Dead calm was wreaking its fury on his head, face, and generally on the whole useful intellectual surface.
"Yea, yea, right. However, there are no bad or good people in nature, neither anything bad nor good!"
"Isn't it?"
"Here you are, 'isn't'! There are some deeds that benefit or do harm to each other and the nature, and the nature itself has only one and all-embracing law - expediency! And since people are the children of the nature as well, in spite of their fantastically boundless arrogance and conceit, we'll base ourselves on this thing, while working out our strategy and tactics for the improvement of psychological climate in our collective!"
"What namely thing?" Fedya roused himself.
"The main, Fedyenka, my dear deaf, the expediency! And, generally, stop drying your grey substance, because it is said in the Bible, 'Don't bite off more than you can chew' and 'You can't have it both ways'!"
"What Bible?"
"Clearly, not a socialist one! Only don't you take into your head to start examining me, otherwise, God forbid, won't find anything again, but now - in the law of God. In general, remember that there's a hy-po-the-sis that as soon as a person learns everything, he will shoot himself."
"But you yourself are interested not less than in the meaning of life!"
"It's prescribed for me, I'm a manager!" Apollo parried hastily. "And generally, I've got a plan. Do you wish it be shared with you?"
"Come on, shoot!"
"Fie! Fedyenka, what rudeness! Moreover, to the address of the authorities! Where have you got that from?"
"From there. From the contacts with rights and duties…"
"And what have I said to you, silly little thing? Don't drink from this source! You'll turn into a worn out neurotic-outcast!"
"It would exist from where 'out' and to what 'to', otherwise these are only words… Shoot, citizen-the-chief!"
Fedya wheezed the last phrase imitating an inveterate recidivist, and Apollo apprehended that as the first sign of the beneficial influence of his method, aimed at bringing his friend out of stupor.
"I won't. I've changed my mind."
"Why?"
"For no particular reason. Am I a tsar or not?"
"No question about! We've got a tsar in each armchair!"
"Here! And if it is so, then set off for the factory storehouse to get veneer. Our zealous trade-union committee has already allocated something… And don't you run as a plain girl to marry, but take Pervutinsky, otherwise they can palm off any rotten stuff on you. I'll be at the agitation centre, at a rehearsal. And afterwards we'll go to our old lady. We are a little stale to her taste, but she cures splendidly - I sleep like a log now!"
Having left the room after Fedya, Apollo closed the cabinet and went downstairs, from the first floor Olympus to the ground one. Two bearded men in glasses were standing near the door, over which it was written 'AGITATION CENTRE'; it was traced out in big block bright white letters at the background of the bright red colour. Having neared and heard their special laughter, which was impossible to be compared with anything because of its liberation and some crackling merriness Apollo understood at once that the bearded ones were relating political jokes.
"Listen here," the left one rustled, hardly getting his breath back and spluttering with overflowing wish. "One skunk told it to me…"
"Mentioning a skunk is for keeping on the safe side, " Apollo guessed and intervened, "Are you waiting for our dramatic circle studies, comrades?"
"Yes, yes," the right one started nodding.
"Then come in. We are beginning!"
"I'll tell you the rest afterwards, during a break," the left one giggled, and both of them went through the invitingly wide opened door smiling pleasantly.
A fat little man was standing at the table in the agitation centre; he was proving something passionately, waving his hands about; the hands were covered with blue-black hair. Another stout man with a potato-looking blue-grey nose, an apoplectically crimson neck and big fists, clenched reflectively as if he was a boxer, was sitting opposite the first one, putting his elbows on a ballot box. That man was listening to the fat one very attentively.
Besides the bearded men, there were a few more persons in the room. A lean girl with a big nose and enormous heavy spectacles was sitting there, swinging slightly and critically looking at the fat one and the stout one in turn; three exalted burning beauties of the school-leavers' age were whispering something to one another at the corner.
Having cast a glance at the audience and sung to himself 'O my, Jews, o my, Jews - and only Jews around!' Apollo decided to take the bull by the horns at once:
"I hope that the amount available isn't the only one!"
The bearded men exchanged glances meaningfully and raised their curly adornments tensely.
"Certainly..."
"We are the first group…"
"Well, it is sure to be the first!" Apollo thought.
The environment he had got to turned out to be poignantly familiar.
"And what was your universal donor group occupied with Nahum Arcadyevich?"
At that moment, everybody became alerted already, and the fat little man began to gaze steadily at the manager's face, trying to catch chauvinistic rancour and disgust in its expression. Yet, there were neither the first nor the second, but merry reflections and the all-winning cosmopolitan smile, known to the reader, were there.
"You might have been misinformed…" the fat man began slowly. "We are the pupils of Henrietta Kim, and not of Nahum Arcadyevich. We are the theatre of poetry!"
"Are you? And I've thought simply drama… It seems not to be such a formulation in the estimate…"
"Colleagues! Our new manager apparently is out of the picture and don't know who we are and what we are!" the girl exclaimed.
"Really… Maybe, I've got to a wrong place?"
"To the right place, to the right!" the fat man roused himself. "Henrietta Kim is on tour, and we are transferred to you temporarily. So, you're welcome! We have already been informed about your professional gifts."
"If it is so, let' make acquaintance. I'm Apollo! As to my matrinymic, it is Alexandrovich!"
"Patronymic!" the fat man corrected politely.
"Oh no, it haven't been a slip of the tongue. Namely - matrinymic!"
The fat man shrugged his shoulders in perplexity.
The crimson man half-rose and introduced himself, looking straightly to the manager's eyes:
"Yakov Sheyevich!"
"Mirochka!" the girl glittered with her diopters.
"Vadim!" the bearded guy that had been standing on the left side of the agitation centre door introduced himself.
"Rodion!" the bearded guy that had been standing on the right side of the agitation centre door introduced himself.
"Nonna, Maya and Rachel!" the newly brought to light Rachel introduced her friends and her herself.
"You should have heard about me. Rosentsweig Gregory Alphonsovich!" the fat bloke named himself.
"Rosentsweig?"
"Yea, yea, namely the one! Gregory Alphonsovich! Have you heard?"
"Oh, it's somehow familiar…" Apollo calmed him. "Well, we won't waste our time; let's make more detailed acquaintance in the process of our mutual creative activity. As I haven't got too much time, we'll study according to the system 'Bekitser'! No arguing, I hope?"
"Jude!" the girl whispered pathetically.
"Ours!" the rest drew the sight of relief, somebody aloud, somebody inwardly.
There was no arguing.
But in half an hour, Apollo had to make a break already, because some hodgepodge appeared in his head. Having at once understood that it shouldn't have been easy, he had been waiting for everything but not the phenomenon he faced with. The phenomenon expressed itself in the fact that almost every his word and proposal were disputed and compared with Henrietta Kim's methods, and the comparison was not in favour of our hero. And the main was that the whole time one or another used to divert all the rest with polemics, the corner stone of which was the Jewish question. To prove the principles of his methods and to come back to the point simultaneously was too tiresomely, and, having asked for a break, Apollo moved to the foyer, which occupied fairly large space and would be used as a dancing hall or a premise for exhibitions and expositions of all kinds.
A little man, dolled up as a parrot, was bustling on a platform, also little. He was setting a microphone. Fedya was standing near the man. He was holding a huge sheet of veneer be the corner and loudly explaining something to the little bloke. Another veneer corner was being held not by Pervutinsky, but by an imposing man about fifty years old with a fiery glance.
"And here is our manager!" Fedya exclaimed having seen Apollo. "Apollo Alexandrovich, may I ask you to come up to us for a moment?"
Apollo approached them.
"Meet the art-adviser of our vocal and instrumental company Kemal Delover!" Fedya nodded in the direction of the little one. "And this is…" Fedya nodded in the direction of the imposing gentleman, "the leader of our Esperanto enthusiasts on a voluntary basis, Abraham Moiseyevich Hertzeg!"
Apollo gave a start and became pale. His glance roved in the direction of the agitation centre unwillingly. Having noticed such an unusual reaction and kept track of the manager's glance, Fedya began to blink in bewilderment and suddenly slapped himself on the forehead, after he had understood everything:
"Gee whiz! How could I have forgotten to notify you! The theatre of poetry is there today! Oh, I'll get it so hot from Numa!"
Abraham Moiseyevich put his corner of veneer down to the floor, pointed his right forefinger in the direction of the agitation centre, whistled lively, and shouted, "Beat a Sheeny, save a Jew!"
Everybody burst into laughter, and Apollo felt the soft block of nervous strain slowly slipping down of his shoulders…
We've got no Jewish question. Even Ilf and Petrov recorded that splendid fact, in a very good time and absolutely categorically. It's necessary to say that not only we are short of it. For instance, the Jewish question seems to be lacking in England too. The cause is that Englishmen don't believe themselves to be more foolish than Jews. But, apparently, namely at the time when the Jewish question became unnecessary and failed, thanks to the great nature law characterized by Apollo as expediency, questions occurred to Jews themselves. Especially to Soviet Jews!
There were many questions.
Very many!
One question, having hardly come into being, split up for two. The two, in their turn, split up for four. The four turned into sixteen - and so on, and so on. That geometrical progression could plunge whomever into horror, if it didn't facilitate development. And absolutely naturally that one could often come across useless questions, or even manifestly silly or harmful ones in the sea of such fairly useful queries as 'Why is it so, and not differently?', 'What is it for?', 'Who is interested in it?' and at last 'And what do you want to say with that if you can't get anything of it?'. Quality wants to agree with quality neither there. However, it didn't exclude the undoubtedly useful essence of a question itself. But mental use always has to be propped with physical one, and it didn't take place. Or it did take, but too seldom and more than imperceptibly. That was why Abraham Moiseyevich, who suspected that the word 'Jew' came of the word 'jewellery', was going to leave for Israel, and then - for Switzerland.
"I know what I do and what I'm going to do!" he claimed passionately to his acquaintances that talked him out of such a dubious step, and then he asked them such questions that it was too hard or rather dangerously to answer them honestly.
At one time, having been studying by correspondence at the physical and mathematical faculty of the pedagogical college, Abraham Moiseyevich took a full set of external exams for two faculties, historical and philological, simultaneously. He was continuously improving and broadening his universal humanitarian and analytical education and due to that fact he had a perfect command of Hebrew, English, German, French, Spanish, Italian, not to mention his native Yiddish and Russian; besides, he was a zealous propagandist and a champion of Esperanto.
Moreover, Abraham Moiseyevich was mad about all the seven muses since his childhood, and made significant progress in that field. He wrote and translated poetry and short novels, painted in oil in the style of Renaissance masters and had the most enormous record library of the classical and modern music, as well as literary and dramatic records.
Abraham Moiseyevich was the most interesting person! The real McCoy! That was why namely Nahum Arcadyevich would try to dissuade him from leaving for Israel and then for Switzerland more fervently than all others. He used to assure that it was necessary to struggle for happiness at the place of one's residence and not to think that cut-and-dried bliss was tormented somewhere, waiting for its chosen one.
"Stop, Numa, talking through your hat, as at kindergarten - you're not a fool, after all!" Abraham Moiseyevich used to react. "Each has his own idea of happiness! One likes to gorge himself, the second - to command, the third wants a piece of each skirt, the fourth dreams about forthcoming retirement, and so on, and so forth. And I don't want and can't live in the country where the word 'Jew' is used as a curse."
"Where? Where is it used?" Nahum Arcadyevich would shout desperately.
"Everywhere!"
"Who? Who uses?"
"Everybody! Even Jews themselves already have to."
What could reply after that Nahum Arcadyevich, if he himself, answering the question 'What is your nationality?' almost always pricked up his ears automatically and petrified?
Catching the opponent's confusion, Abraham Moiseyevich used to get overheated even more:
"You say - to struggle! Firstly, how to struggle, and secondly, with whom?"
"With all! With talents and kindness!" the doctor would answer and brighten up. "That is the most natural, effective and worth-while method."
"Talents!" Abraham Moiseyevich used to leap. "Let me be an immodest person, but God gave me enough of them. And what do I see? Envy! Black envy! They say, 'That's how fluently this Jewish skunk speaks!' It's about languages. Or, 'That's how wicked this Jewish creep writes!' It's about verses. Or… And as for kindness, the kinder you are, the weaker and more cowardly you seem to be, and even if a Jew is a hero, he is a coward all the same, and here you can knock your head against a wall. Well, of course! Why do I have to be proving during all my life that I'm kind and gifted and have equal rights of shortcomings with everybody else, and not to live peacefully?"
Abraham Moiseyevich knew what he spoke: shortcomings did exist. And the main of them was the stretch of twenty-five years, his youth and his maturity that had been spent at Stalin forest-felling from the first to the last day. Weakened by undernourishment, avitaminosis, unsanitary conditions and killing work, convicts would die through the smallest scratch there, and he survived only due to the fact that a place at the medical room was found; to his inexpressible joy, there was a fantastically rich library (anything they liked would be confiscated from whomever they chose). And Abraham Moiseyevich was convicted, because during fascist occupation, he had been collaborating with enemy newspapers that would make unwise Slavs, and non-Slavs too, understand the German order, common and always and for everyone right like the communist regime. And, surely, he jotted down texts of fliers, and German airplanes broadcasted them over militiamen (more exactly - militiawomen) digging anti-tank ditches. It was something like, "Dear, nice and fair aunties! Don't dig your little 'antis'! In jig time, we'll cross your 'antis'! You would better save your panties!"
Having been released, 'the people's enemy' learned that he had been rehabilitated eleven years ago. Some documents were discovered, and they explained his near-literary voyages in the enemy's rear. Although an award found the hero and he got a rather late decoration, maybe even the Star, for his bygone feats of scout and heard dull and indifferent apologies of a bureaucrat-colonel who resembled a robot with an enormous belly, but the questions didn't get any answers, and it only strengthen his emigrational resoluteness.
The arguments used to finish with one and the same: Abraham Moiseyevich was shouting loudly that he would leave for Israel and then for Switzerland in any case, and Nahum Arcadyevich replied in the same loud voice and obstinate manner, "Then you are a fool!"
No conflict is dreadful if it is based on good motives and respect to each other. So, no wonder that both opponents didn't quarreled, but became more and more close. Nahum Arcadyevich even did his best to promote the Esperanto circle and involved in it many members of other groups.
But there was one more factor, which drew these two together to the extreme extent. It was their marked antipathy to the theatre of poetry. Speaking more accurately, the antipathy was not to the theatre itself, surely, but to its art-master, more exactly - art-mistress; and it is necessary to go into detail here.
Henrietta Kim used to form all her lexicon around the word 'ass' in outspoken intercourse (and creative process is an outspoken phenomenon as rule). Possessing that lexical charm and being a professional actress rewarded with the rank 'Honoured Artist' at one time, she would produce an ineffaceable impression on the people of her acquaintance. Having come into the world as a vamp woman, the most obvious case of which was her pathological greed for money, Kim got accustomed to outlying and hardly ever exacting tours, where she quickly lost a part of her talent and all her not too numerous scraps of human qualities. But remembering the main thing - art must touch everybody - she changed a muse for a pocket at one stroke and used to drive there her audience with its dividends rather effectively. Appearing on the stage and stimulating all brute instincts, like a priestess of vices, Kim used to deafen, depress and destroy. Her recitation (Kim was a reciter) didn't ignore the skeleton of the long-suffering system by Stanislavsky, but on the whole, it was based on the playful experience of compere administrators and half-legal hypnotic illusionists, and gave large possibilities for such activity. As soon as the reciter opened her mouth, the audience shut its one and began to thrill. Little by little, that process turned into trembling, then - to convulsive shaking, which, depending on circumstances, were called either laughter or sobs, and all that ended with the apotheosis of absolutely wild applause. Yes, namely applause! The poor audience, having been made, as it's said, a hopeless fool of, was applauding with complete abandon, because those people didn't get even such shows from other 'masters' of outlying art. Afterwards, long after the concert, scrap-by-scrap 'picking itself up' the 'material' (so Kim called her audience) couldn't understand by any means why it had cried and laughed like that and what he had applauded. But the matter was over, money was given, the effect was produced. Some people even turned their thumbs up and, with the respect that arises to some cataclysm, exclaimed, "That is the butch! Ah?"
But the most interesting was that, together with all the above-mentioned moral and creative delights, Kim had one more, absolutely phenomenal: she was a Zionist. And not an ordinary Zionist, but, thanks to her nature, a super-Zionist-extremist! The fact that Kim herself wasn't a Jew didn't hinder at all. Zionism was her hobby, her sweet River of Forgetfulness, the sources of which lay beside three best lovers- administrators; they wriggled out of liability as regularly as they were called to account for significant financial violations. It ran into absurdity, when Kim being in extreme raptures used to call her tribesmen not Koreans, but 'Jewreans'!
Kim realized her producer ambitions, that hadn't been realized in her youth, and didn't disdain even one additional kopeck; that was why she organized the circle of reciting at the House of Culture of the motor-repair association, and it was at once named 'The Theatre of Poetry': the art-master started the square ball rolling. The reciter selected participants quickly, in accordance with her hobby, and, with the help of all her destructive creative complex, began to act tirelessly, as a volcano; she used to strew the sparks of national hostility among the people permanently and to fire them severely with the burning-hot lava of their evolutionary superiority in comparison with others. In half a year of her work, Kim made such fumes that there was no escape from them, and, naturally, Abraham Moiseyevich, because of his planned leaving for Israel, became the object of her most ardent longings. And it was even out of the question how Henrietta was excited by Abraham Moiseyevich's impressiveness and his constantly fiery glance!
However, as the phrase is, she wanted, and he didn't want - and not simply didn't want, but manifested extreme aggressiveness as regards her ideological theses; so, maybe to spite her or maybe actually following his bent, he started visiting not the theatre of poetry, but Nahum Arcadyevich's dramatic circle, the multinational complement of which caused only a contemptuous grin on Kim's face.
All the above, or almost all, was expounded to Apollo, and entering the agitation centre he was fully resolved.
"Comrades! What I want to say… We mark time!" the hero began. "Forty five minutes have already been wasted. I understand very well that if you, serious people, didn't go home after your work and studies, but came here, then not to beat about the bush. But we do beat! And not about something creative, but the Jewish question, bearded to the last degree."
The audience stood still.
"Surely. Our activity isn't an argument for any accounts department. It will give a flying fig for a million years of penal servitude and a million for downing on! But what are we doing here? It is simply boring! Ennui! People, a race, a nation - they're only throng! No real creativeness is here in the air at all! Even friendship, and more of that - love are always concrete. I mean, there are the two: this man and that one. But the friendship of peoples is a chimera! And their animosity is a chimera trice! Politicians invented all that - for their poker games! When will they begin to serve us, and not on the contrary? It is idiocy, comrades! And what permanent prestige of nations can exist? There is nothing permanent in this world! Today you've forged ahead; tomorrow they will do that; the day after tomorrow - others. Though people can be united by some business to some ranges, but everyone is an independent peak with its height, all the same. Each of us is all at one - a nation, and a race, and the mankind, and the Universe! Well, let's take assimilation! What will you do with it? Absolutely nothing! It isn't a gregarious phenomenon at all! It is a concrete and personal one! Progress! Purposefulness! So, who is in need of such excessive multitude of languages for his everyday activity? This mechanical muddle! It is like a bone in out throat!"
Yakov Sheyevich sprang to his feet and protestingly waved his hand.
"Just a moment, Yakov Sheyevich!" Apollo stopped him. "How did Lord destroy the Tower of Babel? And people, nolens-volens, have already been involved into the opposite process. It is necessary to complete! It is simply a must - and not for showing off, but to survive! I'm acquainted with Georgians that don't know Georgian. I've met Kazakhs here - and not once - that don't know Kazakh. I can show you thousands of Jews that don't know Yiddish. All of them speak Russian! And why?"
The audience tried to answer again, but Apollo forestalled it:
"Believe me, not because Russian is better, but because each language exists for people to understand each other, and not for kicks. Not for a throat tickling by any diphthong. I mean that the tickling is some purposefulness as well, but again, for the better absorption of information and experience, and not for the senseless narcotic discharge of apomorphines. The truth is that we take the language of the environment, in which we grew. And what's the difference what language to speak? Certainly, to know the language of ants and microbes is not bad at all. You can be quite sure that it has its own benefits and charm as well. But where is it possible to get so much time and forces - and what for? Only highly specialized professionals need it. And they will explain us nuances in a simple form. And in general, so many peoples solved in each other together with their languages, and there's no trouble in it. Hellenes, Sumerians, Incas, Varangians, Scythians, Polovtsians…"
"But cultures!" Vadim shouted indignantly. "They are unique! And without a language…"
"They live long both with any language and without it!" Apollo cut him short. "A vase from the Ancient Greece gladdens your eyes without any translation. And technologies and other information don't care a whoop what language they are reproduced in. Concrete persons create all that, not a nation! All those interiors, exteriors, innovations - environment! Someone created, the others liked it, and in some time and for some time all are singing and dancing 'seven forty' in waistcoats."
"And what is bad there?" Mirochka wondered.
"Nothing. Dance, you're welcome! I'm speaking not about bad or good as it is, but about the fact that everything is good in its season, and if the life demands, it is necessary to give up the place to some new. Let the past live and flourish on stages, at balls, masquerades, festivals, and generally in all places where it is naturally - for the joy of the present and the future. But when it is embodied in everyday life, more of that - by violence, more of that - with opposing, then it is idiocy! Idi-ocy! The essence is in the naturalness of all that takes place, and neither in English and Russian nor any telepathic and cosmic language. But when the present is rubbish and the future is a deadlock, then nostalgia for some museum screw breaks hearts, really. It simply cuts us with the opposition of nations, nationalities, and races to each other. And as soon as they crushed personal dignity underfoot to the end, at once they substituted it with impersonal one, seeming to be so large, nice, and stable. The national! Without saying! This way seems to be easier - as if we all in block become people again. But we become sheep! Sheep! A personality has to be risen! Each one! A concrete one! We must be proud of him! Estimate him! And I'm ready to raise Hail Columbia and to run my head against a wall namely for him! For a rational man! And to stake my talent when the deck is stacked - excuse me… A nation is culture - that's a matter of fact! That is the way, which people found to survive at some stage. But nothing more! And each language, being a part of culture, with its creative achievements, is a real good, but not tinned and shut off from all the rest. The way of its materializing is of great importance, as well as the fact that it gives something to the whole mankind, and isn't moved by itself to psychopathy. And to report these achievements to others we need some unified retransmission. And it is not necessarily Esperanto. For us it is Russian. Somewhere else, it is Spanish or English. And the process began ages ago! And its way is absolutely natural! From time immemorial, the airports of the whole world have spoken to flying personnel in English. The same is in the Navy. And no genes and blood! Neither Jewish and Russian, nor American and German! Neither blue, nor rose or grey and grayish-brown and crimson striped! It is unnecessary and impossible! Otherwise, all people will be gnawing each other for nothing for ever and ever. Amen!"
Yakov Sheyevich breathed out heavily.
It was heard something gurgle in Mirochka's stomach.
Gregory Alphonsovich was the first to break the dragged-on silence.
"Disputably, Apollo Alexandrovich, disputably… The question is very controversial..." he uttered in a slow and thoughtful manner. "Nevertheless, your frankness is pleasant for us. I hope that I express the opinion of majority?"
Gregory Alphonsovich looked round with his habitual condescension, and everybody started nodding agreeably in the same habitual way.
"Well, that's okay!" Apollo exclaimed with relief. "Then right to the point, and no one second to be wasted! Everyone, get up! Hold your breath! And, with active articulation, without shouting, clearly, pronounce the tongue twister 'Ripe white wheat reapers reap ripe white wheat right'!"
Some time later, when the enunciation tasks of that stage were more or less fulfilled, Apollo moved on to meaningful stresses and intonation; the audience revealed brilliant flexibility and ingenuity. The joyful spark of mutual understanding flared up between the teacher and the pupils, and the wheel of creativeness started and began to roll owing to it.
"Ripe white wheat reapers reap ripe white wheat right! Ripe white wheat reapers reap ripe white wheat right! Ripe white wheat reapers reap ripe white wheat right! Ripe white wheat reapers reap ripe white wheat right! Ripe white wheat reapers reap ripe white wheat right!" all of them were giving out in raptures, and the echo of their enjoyment was jumping out of the half-closed agitation centre door, and walking along the foyer, and multiplying, while striking the high vaults of the ceiling with stucco molding of the uniform ideological style.
Abraham Moiseyevich and Fedya were standing near the door.
Fedya was smiling triumphantly.
Abraham Moiseyevich was listening with a very serious look.

Chapter X

MIRRORS

The repair of the wicket proved to be rather complicated, and if far-seeing Apollo hadn't taken Pervutinsky's universal instrumental set with hinges, screws, nails and other necessary things, nothing good would have resulted of it. But everything was in their possession; and in some period of time, the hero knocked the last nail finally, and Fedya began to pack instruments, and take away building refuse.
Klavdiya Ivanovna moved her practically new wicket here and there, said 'hmm' as a sign of satisfaction and set down back to the bench, from which she was watching the heroes' activity for a little more than an hour already.
"Will you be taking a cure at the open air or go to the room?" she addressed Apollo and narrowed her eyes foxily.
"No, thank you! Suppose you eat me accidentally?" the hero replied in tune. "I'll find a place for myself there, under that cherry-tree - in the rocking chair. I've been dreaming about such a thing during all my life! And it is useful for Fedya to warm himself at the sun too."
"You're so big and so timorous. Aren't you ashamed? I regale myself only on little ones! And more and more rarely with time," the old woman said so simply and sadly that it made Fedya's flesh creep again.
And that was in spite of the fact that the day before Apollo's uncle quietly calmed them down; he said that the old woman had worked as a director at a children's home at one time and everybody had loved her so much that it had affected her overburdened mind in an unexpected and strange manner. Not less strange was the fact that the queerness existed as if she had nothing to do with it, and it influenced her therapeutic and prophetic activity in no way. It was so obvious that detectives even didn't connect the periodical disappearance of kids from the baby home, especially during the last period of about twenty years, with her hobby by detectives. Though… Well, to hell with it! Let's stop thinking about that! Those not imaginary and very laborious for fulfillment exploits were out of the rich of such a decrepit granny. Though…
"She's a natural ladybird of the first water and would not hurt a fly!" Solomon summed up his explanations and, having frowned somehow oversensitively, drank a shot of Armenian cognac in the name of the Russian old woman.
Having dipped Apollo into healing sleep, Klavdiya Ivanovna carried an apple basket out of the house and put it in front of Fedya.
"Come on, help yourself! You can't find such Oporto apples at the market nowadays. And at one time whole Alma-Ata was covered with them. What a nice town it was! A garden! An orchard in full bloom! And it was all thanks not to ethnic Kazakhs, but to Russians of different kinds. The service of Kazakhs was and will be the following: they are occupying now and at last will hold almost all, even very small leading posts and profitable positions, and then they'll rename streets, including the street named in honour of unknown for them, but for sure not a Kazakh Louis Pasteur. And the city itself will be named not Alma-Ata that is translated from their language as 'father of apples', but some gnawed bit, 'Almaty'."
"You don't say!" Fedya didn't believe and started laughing.
"You see - you're simply amused. And no amusement will be in future. Things look blue now, but they will go from bad to worse; and we won't stay here, and memory about us will be rooted out mercilessly. They'll come to their senses then, admittedly, but unfortunately, neither shall I have an occasion to live at that wonderful time, nor will you! However, we'll verify about you now. There are two big mirrors in my storeroom. Bring them here! We'll be admiring. They are not simple mirrors, but the most ancient computer!"
Actually, the mirrors proved to be not small, not easy, and more of that - with wooden props; but surely, Fedya rejected the old woman's help. Being consumed by curiosity and groaning with strain, he installed them one opposite the other and took a seat on a little bench to get his breath back.
"I show those glasses not to everyone," Klavdiya Ivanovna was going on with her intrigue, moving the mirrors. "Yet, such a lot of visitors come here - but only you have repaired the wicket by your own hands. So, let's see what's happened here… Well, I've already known that. It isn't interesting…"
"What? What's up?" Fedya asked cautiously, though he was burnt by the desire to peep into the mirrors.
"Well, my time has come, but… Aha! And this is quite amusing. It's your friend and me… And that is you with your friend, and there is me after my death… And I'm not alone! Well, how old am I? We'll still meet each other; we shall… And that is a real surprise, no doubts, a great surprise!.."
"What, we'll die too?"
"You are sure to, thank Heaven, but not soon yet!" the old woman calmed him down joyfully. "And what is it? An ape again… Some rings… I haven't caught the idea… Some ghosts… Maybe it's God?"
"Who?"
"Well, everyone! Including the ape."
"My Lord, have mercy!"
"Why? We do resemble apes. Simply that one is more clever and strong… Okay… Let's leave this file in peace… Now, there it is. Usually previous information is burnt with fire, but it is not necessary if you have these mirrors. Look at yourself and then at the mirror! For instance, you can imagine a screen inside you and then connect it with the mirror… Well, now you'll be able to see and maybe even to hear…"
At first Fedya saw nothing but the row of those mirrors that were going to infinity. Then a young charming lassie ran out of one of the mirrors, laughing joyfully. A white weightless blouse and a tennis skirt were upon her. Having seen Fedya, she screamed amazedly and rushed to him. Our hero recoiled aside, but it was late - the beauty had already run… through him!
"Sakes alive!" the man of genius screeched in fright, flicked perspiration away from his forehead, and got to the centre of some crazy and rapid succession of events.
There he returned into his childhood again and, being a strong winner, the boy was thrashing his nurse, and she was only dodging and laughing; there he became adult and saw himself in a torrid town, absolutely penniless; then he found himself having been thrown back to the past again; working as a first-aid medical orderly, he was returning from the very call 'some heart trouble', after which…
Oh, it was a ghastly morning!
At the very first call, oxygen containers proved to be empty and the driver had to go back to the station for full ones, and Fedya was trying to do his best for that suffocating patient. Then a Caucasian was deceasing, and his people and family were trying to palm off on him heaps of money, absolutely useless already; and they were doing that in a very aggressive and hysterical manner.
And at last - that!
A car stopped at the crossroads to let a tram pass, when a girl about six years old, crossing the street, made a hysterical scene, snatched her little silly hand out of her mommy's palm and rushed aside… right under the tram.
Then everything seemed to be a slow-motion shot: blood, crying, a tourniquet…
The girl died at the way to hospital. Both of her legs were cut, but Fedya, being in shock, applied the tourniquet only to one…
The miserable medical orderly was sleeping on the couch of the first-aid station for about twenty-four hours, and only the other day he remembered about the girl's mother that had stayed lying in a faint at the place of the accident. At the same time he was narrated that he had come, thrown off his bloodstained medical smock, said that if they waked him up he would retire, toppled at the couch, and grown dead.
Fedya came to his senses for a moment, but at once iridescent light spots start running in the mirrors, and the present, the past and the future began to lay over one another. More of that! The martyr seemed to split into many parts, each of which perceived its plot independently. Through an auditorium, giving an ovation to Fedya, a philharmonic soloist who had just sung the next song, a gynaecological couch drifted; it was carrying the dying, as a result of a criminal abortion, former senior Pioneer leader of the school, in which a Young Pioneer Fedya had been studying almost the day before. And what's moreover, the fifteen-year-old hero and a perfectly robust early developer of the same age Mitka Maramsin were hanging on each her leg, and she, shouting with pain during gynaecological manipulations, was lifting them to the air. The lads had just entered the medical school after their seventh form, and the first meeting with a hospital and a woman turned to be as that one. That day they were got on white robe and led to the hospital for an excursion. The lads became sick and tired of walking in a herd group and listening to doctors' explanations very soon, and they retreated cautiously and started their independent walk. And there, when they, looking affectedly tired old hands, were passing a corridor, a door without any marking opened unexpectedly and abruptly, and a tousled doctor, having heard that the boys are the students of the medical school, asked them to help her.
Then… No, it is better not to tell what happened then, inasmuch as the next stories were even more terrible, and rather far from merry.
The speed of playing and interference of those endless films with the episodes of known, and as for the future, unknown life was permanently growing, and though the poor devil had absolutely lost his momentary 'I' already, but he felt (didn't realize, but namely felt!) that he faced with the parts of some system. That was why, when everything disappeared and only a smoky bagel with a dark spot in the middle, mumbling in a senile manner remained, he wasn't surprised with any of his parts. Any system must have its own starting point, and everything shows that it was there.
"When will this tomfoolery be over?" The bagel was outraged. "Where is an anti-virus?"
"He is leaving us! He is crumbling! Break the mirrors! Don't look for a hammer! With a stone, with a stone!" Klavdiya Ivanovna's desperate voice cut into his ears at once, and Fedya heard the clink of breaking glass and began to assemble himself in one whole.
"Well, let it be so at least," the bagel sighed and, having dissolved, left the dark spot; it wrinkled suddenly, uttered, 'sun' and materialized the Sun.
Then, with the help of much the same soundtracks, the Mars, the Earth, the Venus, the Saturn, the Jupiter appeared, and so on, and so forth. The spot only pronounced the names of objects and even whole galaxies, sometimes absolutely unknown even by the sound, and they appeared as if from nowhere. Probably millions and millions of years were needed for that process in our reality, but Fedya heard only a word - and saw its result at once.
"You wouldn't call for an ambulance! Rub his temples with sal ammoniac!" the hero again heard a familiar voice, and, instead of the spot and all results of its creative work, he saw the concentrated and frightened faces of Apollo and Klavdiya Ivanovna and the ground covered with mirror splinters; the independent part of the hero's life plot, still alive, was melting in each of them.
No sooner had the traveler through his life come to his senses than the sorcerer herself felt unwell. That time he and Apollo were seating her into the rocking chair and rubbing her temples with sal ammoniac.
"Well, guys," the old woman said after she had recovered a little. "My tricks fail today. You go, and I'll come to myself little by little here."
However, when the heroes moved away the mirror splinters, the frames and the props and headed for the wicket, the old woman whistled weakly, but at the same time unexpectedly vigorously, and beckoned them.
"I've changed my mind. Take seats! Let's wag our tongues a little more," she said and rocked the rocking chair. "I don't know whether we'll see each other tomorrow. My programme seems to be over, and it's probably high time to! I'm a hereditary clairvoyant and all that. To tell truth, I see me myself rather badly, but, more or less, find my way even here. We have a family tradition: if there are no pupils, it is necessary to unburden your mind all the same, at least into a tree hollow. The Word stays alive even in such a form. Apparently, you've got an honour to be something like that hollow."
"An enviable role!" Apollo remarked.
"And what do you want? Let's say, you have just come; and at once to initiate you into the mysteries that are dark even for me! I only push buttons-interfaces, and not me, but they manage with drivers…"
"Oh boy!" Fedya sighed. "An ordinary man can't swallow that."
"Nothing of the kind!" Apollo disagreed. "A driver is a programme that drives a definite set-up in a computer at a low level. The programme knows concrete commands. For example, if we have a floppy disk driver, it knows where to turn a head for getting information."
"Oho!" Fedya was amazed even more.
"Absolutely right," the old woman confirmed. "So, I use drivers, but don't know how the system works, which they belong to. That's why I can't design anything new in any way!"
"And who knows? Nobody knows it," Apollo smiled.
"Somebody knows, but unfortunately not we," Klavdiya Ivanovna rocked the rocking chair again.
"Well, this knowledge isn't for us," Apollo sighed.
"Why not? They may be for everyone, but not everyone dare to master them. Old people are not those who are seventy or one hundred and seventy years old, but those who lose heart being thirty. Here, I'm always twenty, and that is not because I drink baby blood, but because I don't mope. Probably I shall be dying smiling. And I shall neither sorrow after my death. And you wouldn't. Moreover, there is no sorrow after death, if we don't search for it. This world is more comical than tragic. And it is delicious even not because it is possible to laugh here. Well, Christ didn't feel like laughing (though who knows?), but we can take that liberty. Especially minding that the possibility is everywhere within reach. You have to suffer and to worry, young gentlemen, when you can do something and change the situation and at least one percent of a chance exists. And it's no sense in being in torment in vain, and especially in torturing others with your torments. I'm speaking about you, my dandy! And don't you look at me in such a manner! Even without my gifts, but simply watching, comparing and analyzing, one can realize that there is neither Hell, nor Eden, nor Purgatory as a definite place. The first, the second, and the third can be everywhere and for everyone, in this world and out of it, in places either you or me even don't suspect about. And not a divine eye follows us (hardly His only occupation is to be sitting over each blade of grass with microscope round the clock), but the programme 'You'll reap what you'll sow' works. And God protect from post-dated cheques in the red, especially if those cheques aren't ours, but they are drawn in our favour and in the favour of our descendants. A programme is a programme, and automation is automation! Failures and viruses there are normal things. Certainly, everything returns to normal then, but it doesn't make life easier for those who are stricken with some paralysis already. So, we have to think about others, too. It may seem to be very nearly to heroism, but if to dig deeper, then we'll see the same egoism of our inner pragmatic - and not divine altruism, in which the selfish interest has another scale and quality. Generally, if anything comes to the extreme in this world, it changes its quality at once. Good becomes bad, and bad turns to be good. That's a specific world, where bad is bad, but too well is bad again! Yet, sometimes it happens that polarity is changed, but the essence - by no means. Egoism at once becomes thoughtless and destroying itself altruism and altruism changes to egoism that assembles isolated and senseless treasures to the single constructive whole. But a fanatical believer almost always becomes a militant atheist, and a militant atheist turns to a fanatical believer, because there is the same quality in both cases. And that quality is always destroying, because it doesn't serve a human being, but it acts against him. Measure is necessary everywhere - the measure, which is changing permanently. It depends upon a situation, upon the extent to which life is in need of it. Thank God, neither not-we nor we have yet arrived at more than taking care of the environment for our sakes. Otherwise, we would get up to every sort of stupidity... Now we have some space for moving and time for thinking… Well, what have I been speaking about?.. Ah, about egoism!"
Klavdiya Ivanovna was speaking more and more quietly, as if she was falling asleep. Sometimes her speech becomes mumbling, and the heroes had to strain their ears and attention.
"What is usual here? Even when someone dear dies, we, as a rule, mourn not for what he has lost, but for what we have lost. And that part of our feelings, kids, is not worth a penny: its sources are grubbing and bestial, and not warmhearted and spiritual! And to fight with it - not for the world! One mustn't fight with anything natural! One must cooperate… especially with egoism. Where 'I' is, there is a personality, and where a personality is, there is a PERSON, and where a PERSON is, there is God… We ought to enlarge 'I' up to the size of the universe, and then everything will be…"
Klavdiya Ivanovna became silent suddenly and looked round.
"Phantoms…" she murmured. "God - the Father… God - the Son… God - the Holy Spirit… Creative blessing… Blessing… Divine schizophrenia… Ah, you, troika, troika-bird!.."
"It looks like delirium," Fedia whispered to Apollo worriedly, and at once Klavdiya Ivanovna waved her hand and start laughing as if she had recovered consciousness.
"Yes, boys," she said fairly energetically and dried her tears. "All my life is sheer death delirium, if to regard it in a detached spirit. But, maybe, I won't kick the bucket today yet, because I've slaked my thirst with your boisterous blood to satiety. Come on, help me to get up!"
The friends rushed to the old woman, but she pushed them away suddenly, shook her head in a graceful girlish manner, and moved into the house. Having already reached the threshold, she looked back and beckoned Apollo coquettishly. He ran up to her immediately, and they passed out of sight at the house.
Certainly, all that was extraordinary. But even more extraordinary was the fact that in a few minutes Apollo took away and began to set a music centre and dynamics in the porch.
"Lay the wire to a plug!" he told Fedya in passing. "Not there! That one doesn't work! Lay it to the corridor, and I'll manage with the centre here. Aha, it has begun to work! Well, why are you staring at me, babe in the woods? Our granny has made up her mind to organize dancing. She says, 'When will Lord send such young and handsome fellows again?'"
"Is it a wind-up?"
"No kidding! 'Send for the best musicians, we'll dance and sing tonight! We celebrate the name-day of our Flying-Fly!' She'll paint her lips and let her skirt out in a moment - a woman! My mother was the same. When pain went up for a bit, she used to sing…"
Something clicked, and the divinely kind and warm voice of Vladimir Troshin spilt the balm of lyrics and peace to the heroes' hearts:

"Night is dark, but the star
Is a beacon for me in the sky.
Every time is the prime,
But I miss you - I can't say 'good-bye'.
I see you in that light.
You are fairy and bright.
You're here - you're near, beside me, my darling,
But you shine as always afar.1"
_____________
1 Gleisarov N. Night is dark, but the star… - A song from the film 'Our Neighbours'.

Contented Fedya opened his mouth and closed it only when the impromptu heroine of the day came out. That was one of his favourite singers and the best song.
And the next one wasn't worse:

A brass band is playing now in the town park.
No seat is near you - the bench is like the Arc.
'Cause the spring is fragrant sweetly, 'cause the river plays,
And your eyes are so happy - I can't go away…1

In a moment, Fedya opened his mouth again, now with astonishment. Apollo embraced Klavdiya Ivanovna, and he was dancing with her in such a soft and tender manner as if it were his dear and beloved mommy. And the enchantress's lips were painted, and her smart dress was fluttering, and looking at her back one could think that she was twenty, and looking at her face… well, a little bit more…
"How are you?" Apollo asked Fedya when they were at the other end of the town already.
"Great!"
"Here! If that unfading cannibal eats babies as well as she drinks our blood, then thrice blessed is such cannibalism! I'm as strong as a horse!"
"An allegorical granny! And what visions she evokes! How she masters hypnotism!"
"Magic, magic!"
"Well, let it be magic," Fedya agreed and stood still suddenly. "Look - it's her!"
"Where?"
"There, straight in front of us!"
"I don't see… You…"
"Wait! She is saying something…"
"I don't hear!" Apollo made a pun, being sure that it was a practical joke.
"You shut up! Neither do I hear…"
"What?"
"My God! Would you keep silence for a few seconds? She has just met your mother and asked to tell you… Nothing is heard, really! That's all… Disappeared!"
"You know what!.." Apollo started and stopped short.
It's of no use to explain why, but next moment he caught a taxi. It's even more useless to explain in what way that day and maybe the same moment all Klavdiya Ivanovna's acquaintances got to know about her death. She didn't appear in front of everyone simultaneously, did she? However, you never can tell…
When the taxi arrived to the house, there were five or six autos there already, and the number of them was increasing. An ambulance driver couldn't drive up to the house, and an absolutely unnecessary cardiologic brigade was hardly squeezing its way through the crowd of frightened patients to the body. The dumbfounded heroes didn't even try to get to the yard. Cars were arriving, people were coming, and there was something a little terrible in that sudden mournful procession, and it seemed to be organized by somebody (or something).
_____________
1 Fatyanov A. A brass band is playing now in the town park.

"Come on, youth, help to bring granny to house!" someone said, and the friends started squeezing their way to the rocking chair.
All of a sudden as though a wave passed among the people. Five 'grey jackets' of one and the same size were squeezing through the crowd a corridor, along which a dark short aborigine was moving quickly. Having neared the rocking chair, he nodded without a word to his 'Mamelukes' of the very European view, and they joined Apollo and Fedya at once. In deathly silence the old woman's body was taken into the house and put on the sofa.
"Bomm! Bomm!.." the clock axiomatically.
Apollo shuddered, looked at Klavdiya Ivanovna and 'goose pimples' raised on his skin.
The corpse was smiling.
Or maybe, it was not a corpse?..

Chapter XI

A BULLFIGHT

The table in the drawing room was laid for seven persons. It has no sense to describe stunning arrangement and fantastic, minding greyness of nowadays, variety of daily bread. Let's believe that everything that it was the usual way of doing things in such cases. And the case was, in accordance with people's standards, really prominent - the thirtieth Apollo's birthday. Though the jubilee didn't bring any essential gladness to the hero, it was the holiday for his aunt. That was why Apollo allowed her to celebrate it - as a real gentleman!
"As a rule, I don't mark my birthdays, aunt," he was saying while waving one hand holding forks and the other holding a salad-bowl. "It is no my service in my birth, that's why I have no reasons to enjoy because of that. More of that: our birth is only a chance, and our death is a law. But if we are, and we are here, then we are surely alive! What is this everyday bustle for? What joy can it bring? Ye-a, my aunt, formerly at least God existed somewhere, and everybody set hopes on him. And now there are neither candles, nor leading lights. We've lost both faith and confidence! Such a mournful, mournful picture…"
"Pole… You've promised…"
"It's over, I won't do it again!" the hero of the day collected himself and gave his aunt a smacking kiss on her cheek.

"What's in lively blossoming for a gloomy-natured man?
He is said in happiness, having cold heart.
And for me endearments autumn confers a bachelor
Seem to be brocaded carpets wishing to depart!"

"Apollo!" having blushed at once, his aunt threw up her hands with admiration, hummed a theme from 'Figaro' merrily and went out to the kitchen.
Her nephew put the salad-bowl on the table, laid the forks out, and approached his uncle, who was rummaging in a glazed antique cupboard and examining the collection of imported cognacs and vines.
"Stop, my uncle! Take any bottle! Everything is selected here! And we'll drink, on the whole, champagne and only champagne!"
"Again? Why?"
"So! Some champagne - and to girls!"
"Hooligan!"
"Absolutely! Run-of-the-mill! Oh my uncle, my dear, it's the only condition for my bearing all today's celebrations and panegyrics!"
Door banging was heard somewhere in the corridor; it was accompanied by male roar and the aunt's exclamations of 'oh'.
"They're going, my uncle, going! Our today's interlocutors are going! Mind, I've said 'interlocutors', not 'booze companions'!"
Something bright and multicoloured was emerging out of the corridor depth, slightly rocking; it turned to be the huge armful of marvelous roses.
Stupefying scent hit the drawing room. It was impossible to look over the bunch, and Fedya was looking out from the side. His face set in martyrdom.
"Here you are, this sycophant has overdone it," Apollo smiled and winked at Fedya cunningly.
The last only pulled a wry face and twirled his head to stretch his neck having gone numb.
"Good heavens! What did you bind the flowers with, I wonder?" the aunt flung up her hands.
"What with… With what… I don't know with what… with some wire," Fedya forced out.
"With wire? But it's a hawser! Entirely in fuel oil! A barbarian you are, Feodor Petrovich, a barbarian!" the aunt started bustling, trying to untwist the hawser ends with the help of a napkin.
"Just a minute!" Abraham Moiseyevich's voice was heard.
He turned from behind Fedya, caught roses, drew the roses back into the corridor and released them from the sticky hawser embrace. The aunt hurried to get some vessels at once, and Fedya was introduced to Solomon immediately.
When the roses were arranged in different vases, jugs and even ordinary glass jars and they decorated all five rooms of very special design and measurements that couldn't be compared even with 'ameliorated', Abraham Moiseyevich was introduced to Solomon too. He and Fedya had already made acquaintance with the aunt in the corridor and impressed her deeply and pleasantly. In short time, even Fedya's hawser seemed to be an original charm of an outstanding personality.
"There's a good lad, Fedyenka! Have you had enough money?" Apollo whispered to his friend's ear, having dragged him aside.
Fedya started and put his hand into his pocket.
"Enough… There's some change…"
"You've gone mad!" Apollo hissed. "The main is done: my aunt is glad."
A cork clapped.
Champagne fuzzed.
The uncle proposed Apollo's health, and everybody tossed down.
Apollo patiently bore all the delight of his aunt, who had informed the audience how kind, gifted and clever he was, and only after that he remarked that Fedya and Abraham Moiseyevich weren't modeled in dung, either.
"Certainly…" the aunt agreed, and Apollo sighed with relief. "I have heard about you so much!"
Abraham Moiseyevich raised his head with astonishment.
"About me?"
"About you too, but in general about Feodor Petrovich, naturally. Feodor Petrovich, tell us anything about you! There's much to tell, isn't it?"
"I should better not to…" Fedya became confused.
"You would, you would! Tell us, how you were living at your uncle and aunt's," Apollo took up an idea. "You've threatened me to tell that, haven't you?"
"What? Is there anything in common with our Pole?" Solomon showed an interest.
"Oh, not a bit of it! I have almost hanged myself…"
"Excellently!" Abraham Moiseyevich livened up and slapped Fedya on the hand encouragingly. "Fire away!"
"Well… I feel somehow awkward… It looks like complaining. Now, maybe, we can laugh, and then it was not a laughing matter… It has even taken the shape of the story…"
"All the more!" Apollo shouted. "Now it is a literary fact already, and you, being a writing person, simply have to impart it to us! And don't pose! You can't find any audience that is more thankful. Here you will be understood in a proper way!"
"Why do you think that I stand in a posture?" Fedya shook his head, and his sleek hairdo vanished into thin air. "The matter is that I grew up in a former Cossack village - the country, in a word. Fields, woods, mountains - they are benefits, of course, but a town is a town…"
"Lomonosov was attracted by culture!"
"Here it is."
"Apollo Alexandrovich, don't interrupt!" Abraham Moiseyevich remarked.
"Silence, silence!" Apollo waved his hands hastily.
"My aunt, having discussed my living at her place with her brother, which is with my father, beforehand, was already waiting for me…" Fedya continued.
Oral speech is oral speech, and that's why, in the interests of more complete and consistent presentation of events that took place once upon a time or, maybe, taking place with somebody somewhere now, the author acquaints you with their literary variant. Though Fedya changed his name, still we'll return it. And so…

Relatives

His aunt opened the door.
She examined Fedya from head to foot anxiously, pulled a wry face, and having forgotten to say 'How do you do' got worked up at once:
"Remember once and for all that you've got to Eden! Where have you lived before? At your countryside! You've got up and gone to bed with cocks and cows. And now you'll live in our city… You have to be proud with the fact that your relatives are not simple workers, but Masters of Sciences! Your uncle is well known to the whole town, and legends go round about your aunt. Take off your dirty boots, put on these green slippers and pass to the kitchen carefully…"
After such a beginning Fedya became much more melancholy, submissively took off his not boots, but fairly decent shoes, put on too clean slippers that he didn't like at once, and went to the kitchen where an imposing elderly man was sitting. He was eating some curds. Having seen Fedya, the man smiled rather sourly and waved his hand languidly.
"A-ah! Uncle Feodor has come! Well, well… Take a seat… Do you like cottage cheese?"
Fedya, for the sake of decency, answered "Yep!" in an artificially merry manner and set at the table. He had not the heart to say that he was sick of only the view of any curds since his childhood…
After the breakfast, his aunt, a corpulent woman with a resolute chin and massive and imperious features, led Fedya to make acquaintance with the flat.
"This is your uncle's study," she was explaining. "He works here, and you'll sleep on this sumptuous sofa. Take the carpet away before going to bed; otherwise, it will wear through! Oh, don't go out to the balcony! You'll bring dirt to the room!"
Fedya twitched backward timidly and shrugged his shoulders huffily.
His aunt was continuing:
"That is a door to the bedroom, but you have nothing to do there. And here is our drawing room. Stand still! Where have you gone? Remember once and for all, that you ought to take off your slippers before you enter the drawing room and to go farther in socks. And don't touch anything with your dirty fingers, because the furniture is Czech, it is polished and costs such a lot of money that one could buy a 'Volga' on it. Don't switch the TV on; you would better listen to the radio in the kitchen. And now let's go - I'll show you your linen shelf and the towel you will be dry yourself with."
Fedya and his aunt passed to the bathroom.
"And so," the relative continued energetically, "this little towel is yours, and this shelf is yours too; you may put your bedding, underclothes, shirts and other things on it. Oh yea, I've absolutely forgotten to say, that it is a bath, by the way. You may wash yourself as much as you like, when you like, but mind that no dirt and water must stay on the floor after that!"
The aunt got her breath, looked around, and finished her speech:
"We won't give you a key from the door - thefts used to be. So, adapt yourself to our schedule - and at ten o'clock in the evening you have to be in bed already!"
Before going to bed Fedya went to the bathroom to have a bath, and his aunt would approached the door and admonished him in a loud voice:
"Wash yourself properly! It is impossible to carry your linen to laundry daily! Soap yourself more, but be careful, don't sprinkle lather about! You'll be tiding the bathroom yourself!"
Carefully, 'not to sprinkle', Fedya bathed and appear before her vigorous relative's eyes clean and with the smell of shampoo.
His aunt moved her nose anxiously and flung up her hands:
"My shampoo! The last bottle! And he hasn't even asked! How do you like it? No, you don't think that I grudge, but it is elementary ill-breeding!"
That night Fedya couldn't fall asleep for a long time.
"I've got into a pretty mess!" he thought. "And it is awkward to argue - they are my relatives for all that. On the other hand, what to argue about? It may not look like anything special. If that is all, I'll try to adapt myself to it…"
There he was wrong.
Three days later, at the dinnertime, his aunt announced that all good boys and girls either were preparing for entering a higher educational establishment, or were studying already, and she wouldn't stand the fact that an uneducated and ill-bred youth live in such an outstanding family, in such an outstanding flat.
"You'll be studying for examinations to our medical college!" she said. "And don't think that I give you instructions. Simply from my point of view you've had no bright talents since your childhood, but everyone can become a doctor even without them. Great intellect isn't necessary for that: the main things are perseverance and cramming."
His uncle didn't say anything, He was only nodding for confirmation, and Fedya suspected at once that it was his idea. As it became clear later, his uncle's role wasn't the last in all measures in the wrapper of benevolence and the most frank family love. And, though Fedya's opinion about his gifts was different and he dreamt about another higher educational establishment, the lad didn't begin to argue, feeling that would receive no support.
In two days, the aunt showed Fedya a sheet of paper with some hand-written text and asked:
"What is it? Verses? Yours?"
"Mine. Why?"
"Nothing. So, have you made up your mind to become a poet? Well!" The notes of the uncle's intonations were heard in the aunt's voice. "I advise you to stop that at once and not to imagine that it can become a profession. In general, everybody of your age scribbles rhymes. Here lives professor Basin's son in the neighbourhood, and he writes poetry, and plays piano, and goes in for sports, but all this is hobby, and the main is the medical college: the boy is in the third year of his studying there. Such a nice child! A future gynaecologist! To see him is always a pleasure!.."
Fedya at once, in that wonderful professor boy's absence, began to hate him somehow and clenched his teeth silently. For the third day he, as if having got damned, was sitting over physics and chemistry that became hateful for him, and it was so hard to move forward that he started thinking from time to time that he really had no even such a doubtful gift as butt cramming to nosebleed. The more he was studying the less he remembered, and the things that were hardly being dinned into his head could go right out of it surprisingly easily and quickly; only intolerable tiredness was left.
Three weeks passed in that way.
Fedya had got nightmares at night. Chemical and physical formulae were maliciously showing their teeth, aggressively attacking him from the space chasm, and shouting in the aunt's voice:
"The bath is dirty again!"
Then the authoritative uncle's figure was appearing out of the same icy blackness. The figure was thrusting curds with two spoons into its mouth in a hurry, choking, spilling crumbs and hissing in fright:
"I'm out of it! I remain in the background!"
Having chewed the next portion, the figure was adding in the same laryngitic wheeze, as if defending itself:
"Excuse me, but how can you write poetry, if you don't know the bases of grammar and make mistakes almost in each word? And, generally speaking, Pushkin wrote 'Ruslan and Lyudmila' already, being your age!"
A culmination was not far off.
And it broke out!
Once at night Fedya jumped out of bed, turned on his desk lamp and, casting furtive glances at the door, started feverish fixing of not seeking any publication, but absolutely sincere in their roughness lines at the piece of paper:

"But why do you think it's my home?
'A jail' is more proper for it!
Neither rest and nor life, only loam!
And here I dwell in bullshit."

Fedya looked with unseeing eyes at his environment and clung close to the paper:

"'You haven't been here! Well; why?
You stop that, we tell you again!
Your friends are suspicious guys!'
They pester me now and then.
'You have to sit still all day long!
You always would know your place!'
Am I their game? That is wrong!
And when will they stop their press?"

Fedya raised his head and stared at the round frosted eye of the mirror for shaving - the only thing that he was allowed to keep in sight. In spite of the prevalence of farinaceous meal in ration proposed by his aunt, a haggard mug with furious eyes looked at him out of the mirror.
"Br-r…" Fedya winced with loathing.
He felt pity about himself, but at once, the wave of grievance flung up its foamy crest and threw down the poor devil to its black depths. Lines were dashed out from under his pen as bursts of machine-gun fire:

"And daily they kick up a row:
'You're grey, low-grade, you're a dupe!
What's luxury, never you've known!
You never have smelt turtle soup!
You may get away! What are you?
We bear you thanks to your dad.
We wish you left us with 'adieu'.
We'd be so happy and glad!
But it would be better!' they whoop,
We love you, a simple-hearted youth!'
I'm almost strangled with that loop.
Let 'love' stay with them; mine is truth!"

The last exclamation mark was put down, and, having sighed with relief, as a person who had his tooth firstly cured with no results and at last extracted, Fedya went to sleep peacefully for the first time in that house.
In the morning, he awoke as usually, because his aunt shouted about five times from the kitchen that his favourite macaroni was ready. Factually, Fedya had liked macaroni some time ago; but it reminded him of earthworms for a long time already, and it was real anguish to eat them. Yet, it was obligatory to eat them; so, to avoid undesirable consequences, each time before and after a meal Fedya used to play awful imaginary scenes with people dying with hunger and grating bark with their enfeebled jaws, keeping a crazy smile. That trick did Fedya credit, and that day it was a success, without a hitch: his macaroni was eaten and digested safely.
Two days later Fedya left his relatives and moved into the flat of a modest old woman; there were neither carpets or a bath, nor any furniture to a total value of an automobile or even a TV. For a long time after that his aunt was shaking her head mournfully and, with the uncle's voice intonations, informing her highly educated neighbours how she had received her nephew 'as if he was her own son', how she had hardly registered him, surrounded with cordiality, care and attention, created all conditions for his entering the medical college, and how his black ingratitude and insulting leaving the family had followed all that.

"If I hadn't left them, I would have hanged myself for sure. There were such thoughts in my head, actually were…" Fedya finished his narration, filled his goblet with champagne, and emptied it at a gulp.
"Yea-a…" Solomon drawled. "The story is really…"
The aunt (Apollo's one, naturally) was shocked. Having been absolutely stunned by the narration, she was instinctively looking for detente in action and surrendered herself holly to eating. Speaking more exactly, it was not eating, but devouring! Salads, smoked sausages, caviar (not of aubergines!), mushrooms and much more, without any sequence, were running up and disappearing…
"It's nice when a flat is found… especially without any bars… But there are some people who prefer to go abroad at once…" Abraham Moiseyevich murmured gloomily and clung to his goblet too.
Fedya shrugged his shoulders in bewilderment.
"Don't shrug your shoulders, Feodor Petrovich, don't shrug!" Abraham Moiseyevich continued, skinning an orange. "All of us, being at home or not, live at the same enormous nursery. We all, from our birth and to death, are been leading by the hand and feeding with cooked semolina. And you only try to show your atrophied teeth or, God forbid, to go out of the formation - they will give you such heat that you'll become a stutterer forever. I hope that there are no stool pigeons among us…"
"It doesn't look like that for the present," Apollo started laughing.
"Either theory coincides with practice, and then it is public property and sense, or it doesn't coincide, and then different rascals use it to satisfy their brute needs, as if it is a freebee that was a beauty," Abraham Moiseyevich continued. "I hope you all understand what I mean, don't you?"
"Yes, they do… All are of ours here…" Solomon replied mechanically. He was watching the aunt's manipulations with great amazement.
"But, Nahum Arcadyevich, it is…" Fedya began with astonishment, but he was interrupted.
"I'm quoting - quoting Numa's words! Well; why? If he's right - he's right! But I have to add that I can't tell the mankind anything consoling!"
"And this is…"
"Sigmund Freud! And he wrote it God knows when! And the main cause is that our, and not only our, dystrophic politicians and state impotent males think that they may tell their cock-and-bull stories to all the people, not only to poor marines. Well, it doesn't matter! Everything will be back again!"
"And you'll help it, won't you?" Fedya's eyes blazed up.
"Me? By no means! I'm awa-a-ay!.."
"So, we've got a result: you, Abraham Moiseyevich, are a shirker and a blabbermouth. Instead of being struggle you escape."
"Fedya…" Apollo tried to step in.
"Never mind, Apollo Alexandrovich!" Abraham Moiseyevich restrained him. "We've got used to it. Once more, these words are not his, but Numa's. Those people are typical victims of that pseudo-socialist 'zveroskotinism' (brutalizing beastism). They are poisoned with its bait. You see, the old man has found a page for himself…"
Fedya raised himself a little.
Suddenly the aunt hiccupped, said she was sorry, and left the battlefield in a hurry. Disturbed Solomon followed her.
"So, I'm a shirker and a blabbermouth, ain't I?" Abraham Moiseyevich went on.
Neither he, nor Fedya noticed anything around them already.
"And what about you? What do you do, how do you struggle?"
"Me?.. I write a book!"
"Nice! Very nice! A book that will be published never and nowhere! And when you begin to distribute it in manuscripts poured with your own sweat and blood, you'll be hidden - once and for all. And no one abroad will be able to get to know about that. I know for sure how they do it! What are you? Nobody knows you! You aren't even a journalist! You are a simple naive boy, absolutely unknown! And in the whole world there wasn't, isn't and won't ever be such censorship as ours. It's absolute monopoly! Total party monarchism! Stalin himself kept Bulgakov under observation and banned any publication of his works, And Zoschenko was hounded as a hare… as a cub!.. And do you think that now it is better? I can imagine what deposit you've prepared… Minding your frontal character… Well, you'll be left to rot in goal! You'll rot - or get into an accident. Or some brick will be dropped onto your head by chance. Though it is very troublesome. Most likely, you'll be stuffing your stomach with some unsanitary food, and they will pour a drop into your glass, and you'll die in a week, as if of salmonellosis or some other fairly probable infection…"
Solomon entered the drawing room.
His hands were trembling.
His eyes were shifting uneasily and disorderly.
"Pole," he mumbled. "Something is wrong with your aunt. It's necessary to call for an ambulance…"
Apollo jumped up.
Fedya sat.
"Don't worry, guys, don't worry," said Abraham Moiseyevich unexpectedly softly and quietly, and everybody stared at him. "What's wrong with her? But distinctly, please!"
"She seems to… have overeaten…" Solomon began hesitantly and lapsed into silence.
"Yea, right… There were mushrooms… Salad…" Abraham Moiseyevich was examining their appreciably ravaged table quickly. "Fedya, follow me!"
Fedya nodded, started up, and ran after his opponent.
Solomon smiled pitifully and squeezed out:
"Where?.."
Apollo breathed out heavily and sat.
"Nothing dangerous. Maybe, we'll manage without an ambulance. Fedya has recently been working as a first-aid medical orderly, and Abraham Moiseyevich… Is there anything that Abraham Moiseyevich can't do?"
The aunt's desperate howls and the authoritative orders of Abraham Moiseyevich and Fedya were heard out of the flat depth.
The uncle became even more pail.
Shouting turned to crying and such moans that it was enough to give the creeps even to Apollo.
"Never mind. Never mind," he murmured. "An ordinary lavage of the stomach…"
In half an hour everybody but the aunt was sitting at the table, and Abraham Moiseyevich and Fedya were vying with each other in telling such merry stories that Solomon and Apollo couldn't but marvel. The person, whom that entire psycho-therapeutical squall was addressed to, was looking at them amorously from the sofa and smiling. Colouring that was coming back to her face gradually, showed that the medical assistance had been rendered in time and at a very high professional level.
"You've impressed my aunt, really!.." in some time Apollo was saying, while accompanying Fedya and Abraham Moiseyevich home.
"Really…" Fedya grinned. "But how dark it is there!"
Certainly, it was pitch darkness.
The matter was that street lamps were in good working order, but not on. Economical economy had got its bony paws on them too. The gleam of the normal city glow was seen somewhere afar, over vaguely appearing roof contours. It was the illumination of the city centre small island with a few squares, ministries, and main public institutions. But not at the very centre was dark.
"And where are you leading us to? It's real pitch dark!" Abraham Moiseyevich supported Fedya.
"To truth and light!" Apollo replied.
Fedya stumbled.
"A bootlace got untied again…"
He squatted and began to set his boot in order by touch.
Abraham Moiseyevich and Apollo slowed their pace and stopped.
"Uh-huh… Your flat is excellent, no doubts. Namely an exhibition sample from the bright future of working people." Maybe, Abraham Moiseyevich even didn't mean to use those words.
Probably, it was the main thing occupying his mind at that moment.
"Your uncle seems to be an official of the Central Committee?"
"Not at all!" Apollo waved his hand.
"Then of the Council of Ministers!"
"Wide of the mark! Wide again!"
"Then I don't know…"
Apollo was waiting for such a question. Abraham Moiseyevich's amazement was absolutely natural. Each normal Soviet citizen would be amazed.
"Who if not you, Abraham Moiseyevich, knows our third social privileged category?"
"Tricksters, you mean?"
"That's the point! Tricksters and spivs!"
"Well… I don't know… He doesn't look like…"
"Surely! Neither a gangster mug, nor a dagger, right?"
"Well, you know, even if it is truth, I don't understand you…"
"As if! Would it be more natural to run along streets and around all militia branch offices and to shout that it's high time to imprison my dear uncle?"
"All the same, I don't understand…"
"Oh my Lord, Jesus Christ!" Apollo shouted. "You saved a highwayman on his cross. You saved Apostle Peter in the sea. God save the country where a thief is upon a thief! My uncle is a trickster and a spiv under state, surely secret, compulsion! He is a connection and speculation dealer, but those deeds are out of the framework of legal proceedings! And if his attempts to get something with the help of somebody for somebody else turn out well (and they always turn out well!), then everybody stays as sound as a bell! That is the same theft, but its level is inaccessible for our criminal code. There are thousands of variants! To say truth, this process is called 'business' somewhere, but under our circumstances it is the most obvious stealing of the first water!"
"A-ah…" Abraham Moiseyevich sighed with relief. "And I've begun to think…"
"Isn't he the tycoon of shashlik-makers and brewers? Isn't he the manager of a restaurant or a market? Isn't he a secret shop owner? Isn't he an ordinary bastard? Haven't you thought so?"
"Well, a sort of…"
"Here we are… Fedya, what are you doing - fastening your sole or what?"
"The lace has broken here…" the man of genius responded from the darkness.
The street became lighted.
A car came round the corner, roaring with its engine in a heart-rending manner.
The events of the next moment were clear only for Apollo. Its high beam rushed about and concentrated on raising Fedya, having staggered due to that sudden light abundance. The door of the car driver's cab banged, and the tramp of soldier boots was added to the noise of the engine that had been turned to idling. A strapping fellow ran from the darkness straight to Apollo and Abraham Moiseyevich. His tin eyes were motionless, and movements seemed to be economical and automatized in a sportive manner. But for his uniform that was shot with black under the artificial lighting, one could take him for a Marathon runner somewhere at the middle of the race.
There was a puff of hoarse sweat from the runner; the man rattled past Apollo and Abraham Moiseyevich that started back from him; like a tidal wave, he was approaching Fedya, who was walking towards him credulously.
"Mistake! Back!" somebody growled huskily from the darkness, and the fellow made a zigzag, without slowing his pace. Having described a distinct semicircle, he was running backward already.
The car door banged again, the engine let out a roar, beam glided aside, and the black monster (at that moment it became seen already that it was a monster) rocking like a tank proceeded farther, into the depth of unlighted city jungle.
"Oh black raven, don't circle over my head, and fly away!" Those words sounded in the darkness that became even blacker.
Abraham Moiseyevich, screwing up his eyes because of his shortsightedness, was unkindly watching the car moving away.
Fedya went up to them.
"Why are you standing here? I'm ready!"
"Not absolutely ready yet, but you could be," sounded from the same darkness. "Some more, a little bit - and, oh, God forbid!"
"It looks like slaughter," Abraham Moiseyevich uttered at last.
"Not a bit of it! What slaughter! Special medical aid, o noble gentlemen taxpayers!" Apollo reassured them and his silhouette tool shape in the darkness. "The last help to workers that are extremely intoxicated - and not only with success! You can freeze, or some wild competitor will clean out your pockets - Heaven protect! And there, in mugginess, they will do it in an organized fashion, and moreover - they will massage with tarpaulin boots a little… for better warming! And God save from any protests, i.e. from proclaiming of your rights! In such a case everything will be raised to the highest power, they will write at the piece of paper, 'alcoholic intoxication with fatal outcome', and onward to total equality and buzz! How much champagne have you drunk tonight, Fedyenka?"
"Maybe, three goblets… or four…"
"That will do, my dear! It happened that a post mortem examination didn't show even a single gram of alcohol - and everybody got away with it. A lucky dog! Simply a lucky dog! Everyone should have seen him quietly and friendly going towards his guardian angel… Your naivety has saved you tonight, but it can't always happen! Am I right, Abraham Moiseyevich?"
"As if it is so at present!" the dissident sneered.
"Oh, don't dissemble, Abraham Moiseyevich! Maybe, it is not so, but it is scarcely probable. Unfortunately, alas! I would get to those almshouses, and everything was as I've said. And nowadays, judging by information given by victims, it is going from bad to worse. Generally, I don't understand your irony. What are the motives of your leaving for abroad?"
"Well, not these ones, of course…"
"As if!.. You're an aristocrat, Abraham Moiseyevich. A hopeless idealist, though it is rather difficult to be believed in. Haven't even you got convinced yet that there is nothing more unpleasant than physical pain? I mean our normal being, of course. Namely it bore mental suffering, not on the contrary! Okay! What has passed, that has passed, and thank goodness - passed by. Come on, my friends! Let's go - forward!"

Chapter XII

NEURASTHENIA IN FULL BLOOM

"Don't snatch at a pulse! Release your hand! Release! Why have you grabbed it? And what are you counting? You wouldn't count!"
"One, two, three, four, five, six… I never get time to do it! I am not able!.. Something about two hundred… And high pressure must be… Arrhythmia!.. Tachycardia!.. Oh! No pulse! It's dark!.. Oh my Lord!.. Hear it is! It has thumped again… Horror!.. Horror!.."
"Well, you don't rush about! Nothing awful! Only an empty heart beats evenly. I'm telling you about it as a medical orderly, and not as a poet, a great writer, and simply a man of genius."
"You're mocking me! If you would have the same…"
"Well, I've had! I know it like the palm of my own hand. Breathe in and hold your breath as long as you can, but without suffering…"
"You're kidding… I'm suffocating…"
"It is normal, minding your pulse. Some people generally slip their wind… Well, let me count!"
"Allayed… Here!.. O! O-oh!.."
"What's the matter?"
"It has gone off! Gone off again! My God, how nice! What rest! Stop! Don't give up! Don't give up keeping my hand, you've been told!"
"Well, be my guest! But let me count, for all that… One, two, three, four, five…"
"Sixty! Now it is sixty - or maybe seventy. You may not count. I know without watch. I've become an old hand at it! How do you manage? Thanks to you, it has vanished as if by magic for the third time already! Keep my hand, keep!"
"If I knew how, I would teach you."
"That is due to the mirrors. Namely they have advanced you."
"Well, thank God!"
"Right you are! Our Father which art in heaven, hallowed be thy name! Thy kingdom come…"
"You've believed at last."
"If it drives you into a corner, you'll believe as well!"
"But I have been using 'Paternoster' for a long time already. It helps! And Moslems and Jews are helped by their prayers. And savages - by theirs. I think a man may pray to a piece of wood, and a stone, and whatever else, and it will help as well, if the person is persistent. Some door opens, one and the same: in all times, for everybody and to the same place."
"A programme! A programme!"
"Namely that. Thy will be done, as in heaven, so on earth!.."
The predicted and at the same time very unexpected death of Klavdiya Ivanovna not only reduced to naught her medicinal efforts, but aggravated the clinical picture of the hero's illness too. Heart palpitations and phobias that were seldom and transient before have rushed like… Well, let's say, like the famous rain - cats and dogs, especially after the birthday. And that wasn't all! If it may have been a calm night in the preceding time, then at that time the vacancy has been held by the enchantress herself. Each time she firstly used to shake her finger and, like his mommy, to lament that she had been buried alive, and then would lick her lips and murder babies in the most delicate and subtle ways. Having put a stop to a criminal life (and you are sure to remember that the granny, according to her words, used to eat only future killers and maniacs), she firstly drank their blood, savouring every drink and not being in a hurry, and only then set to flesh. No, she didn't eat any raw meat! She used to open the whole set of cookery volumes, to cook something amazing and only then to lay a table. And she was sitting and eating, eating and sitting at table, and keeping on saying in an axiomatic fairy-tale manner, "I'll roll over, I'll roll about having eaten Ivashka's meat!"
Certainly, it's funny! But everything that is too much almost always seems to be funny. But it's so for those who take a detached view, and not for that one who was 'too' smiled upon by his fortune and whose jaw was dislocated because of that. And if a person is sparkling with youth all the time, it doesn't always correspond to his real state. Moreover, neurotic tortures are inner torments, often they are hardly seen outwardly, and sometimes, due to the kindness of their owner, they are purposely hidden under such a marvelous mask that doesn't disturb another people.
You'll ask, "And what about Nahum Arcadyevich?" And what's about Nahum Arcadyevich! He would say that the best doctor for such diseases is time, but the disease exists at present, and it is necessary to survive until tomorrow comes. That was why he became an initiator of Apollo's visit to Klavdiya Ivanovna, and Solomon had only to call for appointment, the more so that the hero flatly refused to consult psychiatrists. Like all the Soviet citizens, he was afraid of them, as well as of the Particular State Political Board, that later became the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs, that now is the Committee of the State Security, that then will be… In general, he was always afraid. And he was right! Visiting a psychiatrist in the USSR is worse than any judgement. It is a non-expiated by any means and non-expunged with anything stigma forever!
And here you are: while I was speaking, the bells of the Nickolsky church tolled very musically and curatively, and people poured out of the wide-screen cinema 'Of Virgin Lands'; they had seen an ordinary blockbuster - a fantastic and mystical Hollywood hit, seeing which one couldn't be sorry for anybody, though blood was streaming as water and hair was standing on end. An absolutely real, and for that really awful and dirty hobo, having no permanent residence and being caught by the people flow at the moment, sat down on a bench, unfolded a shred of a former tablecloth and began to feel a piece of a long loaf all over with his lips.
The loaf resisted.
The hobo knocked at the bench with it, listened to the sound, then put it on grass accurately and, having covered his swollen and festering feet with the tablecloth shred, started snoring.

"I saw a beggar. Like a ghost,
He was in wandering engrossed.
And, mumbling something like a psalm,
He was imp-lo-ring throng for alms.
But everything he got from them
He used to give to poor men -
The ill, the blind, and outcasts.
It was his life. The die was cast1,"

- resounded behind our heroes' backs, and Nahum Arcadyevich set down on the bench opposite the hobo's one, and the heroes, being surprised pleasantly, made themselves comfortable beside him.
"I've just seen a foreign nightmare; but this one seems to be racier," the doctor nodded in the direction of the hobo.
"And I've thought that you went away!" Apollo replied involuntary.
"That's right! I haven't come yet. I'm here only for an hour. And cinema - that is a tradition of mine, something like spacemen's one: always to see a film before the next flight. Not 'The White Sun of a Desert', of course, but the thing they give."
"And what is with your Kirghiz friend?" Fedya asked.
"He got in touch by phone with all necessary people, and my sister has already been moved to the Kremlin hospital for an additional check-up."
"Oho!" Apollo exclaimed respectfully. "And why do you see such rubbish? There's a fairly passable film on at 'Ala-Tow'".
"Well, why rubbish? Splendid colour, costumes, make-up, special effects. God embodies everywhere, where there's a creative talent, and if there's happy God, I have such a pleasure as if I meet me myself, but in another personification aspect! Neither the size of the screen is unnecessary. And, to my mind, you're coming to yourselves after being at church. Have I guessed?"
"You've hit the mark!" Fedya smiled. "It has been the third divine residence for today. We've visited a mosque, a synagogue too, we have been here, and the chief has got fiendish palpitation."
"As soon as we enter a shrine, some abnormal high spirits arises, and then it begins to thump so powerfully that all blood vessels are endangered to burst," Apollo confirmed. "If our Saint Feodor weren't beside me, my end would approach. A gift of him has revealed, and it is priceless. He copes with an attack manually. Maybe, he can do something else… You should check on arrival. It looks as if Klavdiya Ivanovna has transferred something of hers to him. I can't move anywhere without him now!"
"It's demons! Demons are playing inside you, my saints!" the doctor smiled roguishly. "You would be drowned and roasted at the fire!

'A fiend is gaily rocking
My vulnerable swing
Under a spreading fir-tree
Above a noisy stream.
_____________
1 Polonsky Y. A Beggar.

His shaggy hand is restless:
There and back, there and back!
The swing is squeaking shrilly,
And it's a sheer dilly -
Its rope is still intact…'1"

"You're in a rather poetical mood. And we have got no inclination at all to lyrics now," Apollo noticed.
"And I'm always inclined to lyrics; especially to classics. I'm longing for living humanitarian lyrics after any technocratic chef d'oeuvre. To Shakespeare, to Pushkin…

'The crystal shining of the twilight…
The air is still and purified.
The eyes are fixed upon some highlight
With passion that is sanctified.'"

"But this isn't Pushkin!" Apollo became astonished.
"Surely! And even not Shakespeare!" the doctor exclaimed cheerfully. "But it's a divine spark as well, and not kitsch.

'All stars fell drawn to God in Heaven,
All stars fell drawn to any heart.
Let their dreams and their leaven
Be never from my life apart.'"

"Top level!" Fedya exclaimed.
"I should say so!" the doctor agreed. "And how do you like this one? The decoration is the same, but the author is absolutely different:

'The moonlight backcloth: treetops are stretching.
I hear the whisper of river birth.
My air hammock is so fetching,
And so far is the sky, the earth!

All plays are upward; troubles are down.
Both pain and gladness are hard for me.
All kids and clouds have curly crown…
All men live beastly: they kill for fee.

My pity, people! My sorrow, kiddies!
You don't trust me; you don't feel…
I up - all hurts me, below grief is;
I'm nowhere - shall I be healed?
_____________
1 Sologub F. The Devil Swing.

God save all children! Long live all people!
And I am rocking with one word - 'not'.
But, staying snared, shall I be keeping
All earthly daybreaks and life, and dots?

The heat of daybreak, alive and tender,
Is seen below, it's raising up…
Shall I meet rocking that sunny splendor?
The sun will burn me in one hot sup.'1"

The hobo stopped his snoring.
"Hmm… Yea-a…" Apollo pronounced slowly. "Americans wouldn't like that. They'd slip 'will save' instead of 'will drink' quickly. A happy end is as natural for them as a desperate yell is natural for one who is driven into a corner with the prospect of death."
"It is really so! A sated and healthy one doesn't want to die terribly - to the point of a pig's squeal!" the doctor agreed. But only the classics is really optimistic, though it has been created, as a rule, by not very sated and healthy people, and almost never - by perfectly well-to-do ones. And why? Because that sphere is spiritual - even if to speak about the funeral march by Chopin or the wedding march by Mendelssohn. I think that only the classics can be the pass to somewhere - to something more intelligent. By the way, I'm a physiotherapist, i.e. a professional admirer of the sun; that's why 'will save' is closer to me than 'will burn', too. But try to change the word - and you'll get an absolutely different author at once. And some people, for instance, consider without any professional orientation that the Sun is the most real God…"
"The faith is one, and there are as many religions as there are stars in the sky! And every one believes that namely it is truthful, and all the rest are rubbish. And all of them seems to be rubbish for me," Apollo sighed.
"You don't say so!" the doctor disagreed. "Being the restriction of limitless aggression on a creative level, each of them is good. Nevertheless, all they are games, in reality. But useful games! Each one has something concretely useful. It is, for example, fairly therapeutic fasts for Christians, the main physiotherapeutic pose for Moslems, a ban on the combination of meaty and milk food for Jews, meditations for Buddhists. And all together, they have psychotherapeutic function, undoubtedly. But, let's say, I haven't crossed the threshold of any synagogue ever in my long life; although it seems that I've had to do that at least due to the nationality registered in my passport, or because pure curiosity. And do you know why?"
"Really, why?" Fedya asked that time, being amazed too.
"Here you are! Even he doesn't know. The reason is as slight for somebody as it is of principle for me, and it has nothing to do with faith to God. Maybe, you don't know it, but fundamentally and radically religious Jews consider that they are the
chosen ones, and all the rest are goys. I think it is not a pure chance that the synonym of the word is 'a pagan', that is an outcast for all believers. Thus, that tendency hasn't passed over all the rest religions. Mind, I'm speaking about the fundamentally religious,
_____________
1 Gippius Z. Between.

not about those who believe normally. These are absolutely different qualities, and it's very simple to understand who is who: faith in God can't exist with malice and aggressive chauvinism; it is nonsense! If a person is a real believer, he can't be either malicious or intolerant; because where God is, there Love is, first of all. And different rituals and rules are games invented by people, as I have already said, to steady definite reflexes. These games are similar to football, volleyball, poker and all of that kind. A believer is that one who always tries to correspond to the divine image and likeness. That is, he is a Human being, and not a beast! That is, each time he must decide himself how to act: to kill or not to kill, to steal or not to steal, to spit or not to spit. And there are no once and for all right rules: everything is according to circumstances. But the constant base is love, benevolence, and maximally possible 'Don't hurt' - forever and for everywhere! Even in cases of murdering as self-defence and stealing as the extreme measure for surviving. And as for adultery - I keep absolute silence! Now, a cool religious Jew mustn't hobnob, and especially marry non-Jews. And if a contact is unwilling or forced, he must spit in the direction of a goy (a non-Jew!), showing the goy's low lineage and, correspondingly, his own nobility. Such pair of shoes we have! And all that had been invented long before Goebbels and Hitler. To tell the truth, they used to spit with bullets and gas chambers, and not with saliva and phlegm. Why? Because the life always hits with the same end it is hit with - but much stronger. Now, the next 'elite' has shown us its ugly bloody mug. And it struck mainly those who had squeezed it to their religion. It returned, let's say, with its thousand-year rated increase. So, can't a religious one be a human being! He is either a ram or a turkey! If God really declared that those, for instance, would be the chosen ones by birth, and all the rest wouldn't, he would degrade himself to a devil at once. And the fact that this mere political trumped-up story has nothing in common with God is proved by Jews themselves with their giur. They couldn't count on too high birth rate and survival, so once upon a time they invented the initiation into Judaism, i.e. giur, for more effective and quick replenishment of their ranks. After you've accepted giur, passed the exam, you are almost a Jew or a Jewish woman; and the last is better because Jews determine the nationality of any person in accordance with his mother's one. The reasons are the same. But practical Jews found that purposefulness afterwards, and the main and really divine one, which, as well as God himself, is observed by only a few, is the inoculation of chauvinism. I mean, God has said plainly that the concept of nation doesn't come to the concept of blood! But it isn't profitable for some people. It is impossible to make fast buck and political dividends not knocking somebody's heads together. So, they manipulate divine laws that are all biological in reality, and God himself - only to have their income. And the concept of nation is in the first place among manipulated phenomena. As if one who becomes a Jew at once turns to a more qualitative person, and you are not simply a 'homo sapiens', but the chosen one, and mind and a heart aren't obligatory at all. Yes, my dear, there isn't more destructive temptation for the mankind than primordial and life superiority for these and non-superiority for those. And that is the reason, for which I have never set foot, and I will never set it in future, in any place where 'the chosen' of any kind scratch their anti-divine primacy and rejoice in this idiotical connection. I'm not for equality, no! Predispositions to something are acquired by our ancestors, and by us, and by mutations, and they do exist. But if they are not trained from time to time, they vanish into thin air, after all. It doesn't matter when it will happen - in seven generations, let's say, or in two. When somebody is born, this is always raw human material predisposed to everything and at the same time to nothing - not speaking about pathologies, of course. I'm telling you that as an old hand in medicine - belonging to that school, pre-revolutionary! Surely, there were some people before who sang:

'Long live until you are well off.
Snatch all you can from any trough.
Sing songs and don't cry,
And always mind your style!'

Equality doesn't exist; but conscience does exist! I rhymed being young, and I often repeat it today:

'Hey, I want to tell you, buddies:
There are no equal things!
We are unique, everybody,
I explain you what I mean:
Kindred spirits are the essence.
We can have the same life aims.
Only conscience is quintessence
That can make all us the same!
If there's conscience - there's freedom!
There love defeats one's death.
So, conscience - that is wisdom!
That is point of the day!'

Conscience is necessary! Conscience! And believe me, it is an absolutely biological safety device from self-destruction as well. And it is always secondary as a psychological category, too. And everybody can become a chosen one and even become one with God and at the same time be a proper part and save his unique 'I'. But mind: can become and be, not 'be born'! And everybody can become nobody, having been born with the genetic predisposition to God."
"Well, almost all my thoughts! It's astonishing! But you are a real believer!" Apollo exclaimed. "And I've got an impression firstly that you're a furious militant atheist."
"Me? Never!" the doctor shouted in tune with Apollo and sang the refrain of the song about Lenin, having changed the word 'Lenin' with the word 'God':

"God is your only due!
God is with me, with you!
God is with us in both grief and joy.
God is in every spring.
God is a common dream.
God is the whole world's wing!"

The hobo opened his eyes and stared at the Holy Trinity.
"Many people share a wretched idea of God. And generally - why wouldn't He be! Throw a glance anywhere - and everywhere sense and wisdom superhuman is present.

'When, in the cornfield, yellow waves are rising,
The wood is rustling at the sound of soft wind,
And, in the garden, crimson plums are hiding
In pleasant shade of leaves, so shining ones and green;

When, spilled with fragrant dew in calmness of the alley,
In morning of a gold or evening of a red,
Under the bush, the lily of a valley,
Is gladly nodding me with silver of her head;

When the icy brook in the ravine is playing,
And, sinking thoughts in somewhat misty dreams,
In bubbling tones secretly tale telling
Of those peaceful lands, from which it gaily streams -

Then wrinkles are smoothing on my knitted brow,
My heart is losing troubles and distress -
And I can apprehend the happiness on earth,
And see Almighty in the heavens now...'1

But I'll tell you: neither a man is a mere trifle, if he a Human being, surely, but not simply a biped. Here, listen!

'Downhill, among some gloomy canyons
Where autumn hurricanes would bang,
A poor crowd, homeless companions
Were going from afar to Ganges.

Their haggard bodies under tatters
Were frozen; it didn't mend the matters.
And they only saw for two long days
Neither hut, nor fire, but the rain.

All at once somewhere in dark twilight -
Something vague stood like precious cup.
Oh, a shrine! They came to find divine light,
With the wish to cover themselves up.

_____________
1 Lermontov M. When, in the Cornfield... - Translated by Y. Bonver.

Then they saw before them, on a throne,
Sakhyamoony - he's the greatest god:
A mighty giant, it was made of stone,
And it had a regal diamond.

Then a beggar said, 'My dear brothers!
We aren't seen. The night is very dark.
We'll be given many goods by others
For that magic, splendid crown spark.

What is it for Buddha? There're brighter
Piles of diamonds in his heaps of suns.
He can use all heaven stars as lighters,
Easier than you can make a run!

Let us act!' And look - without a sigh
Thieves are quietly moving in the night.

But, before they touched a sacred figure,
Whirlwinds, fire, and a thunder rumble,
Being eager all men be disfigured,
Threw them back and made them rather humble.

All of them went numb with mighty fear.
Only one, who stately was and strong,
Moved ahead without any veer,
And he said to Buddha, 'You are wrong!

Maybe, all your priests have always slandered
Saying - you are merciful and good,
That you don't know double standards,
That like light you crush eternal gloom.

No - you avenge a filthy stone!
We are victims, wallowing in dust!
But, like you, we have immortal hearts!

Shame on you, the ruler of the heavens!
You're aroused, formidable, strong,
Only to make destitute us, beggars!
You, the brightest, can delete this throng,
You can burn me with your sacred fire -
I'm here, equal to your ire!
I'm here, going along.
And I pledge my word, oh saint and dire, -
I am telling you, that you are wrong!'

He fell silent. And a marvel happened!
To present them gift, the god was leant.
So, Buddha made himself misshapen,
And his crowned head was low bent.
On his knees, before the poor devils,
On the lowest of existing levels,
The divinity was lying to repent!'1"

"Wow!" the hobo shouted and rolled down from his bench.
"Classics!" Nahum Arcadyevich threw up his hands and… disappeared.
The friends stared stupidly at the place where he had just been.
Apollo began to turn pale.
Fedya caught his hand at once and nodded in the direction of the left alley:
"There he is!"
Something resembling the doctor showed up at the end of the path, but… It started throbbing in Apollo's throat, in spite of Fedya's handshake, and the horror of the attack rushed about and pressed the world to the point again.

Chapter XIII

SOAR UPWARDS LIKE FIRE, O DARK-BLUE EYES!

"Storms, you're welcome, get together,
Start, I pray, your round dance!
Make the most wintry weather,
Strike the heavens at a glance!
Let winds make a wailing sound,
Let you bend trees in the wind.
Let all lightnings go round,
Let the world be colour blind!
Let a whirlwind be whirling
My thin unseaworthy bark,
Let them play with it and swirl it
Like a helpless lone spark!
In that dancing world disorder
I would find my only lot,
I would dance at my last border,
That would be my fatal plot!"

Fedya shed a few tears. His childhood was standing in front of him. A boy, in a washed-off shirt and with a thoroughly ironed pioneer tie, was pale. It seemed that the
_____________
1 Merezhkovsky D. Sakhyamoony.

last shout of his heart had just begun. But his youth and the nature told. Flush appeared on the sprout's face, his breath became stable, huge violent eyes turned to be charming blue lights - in a word, everything went back to its place.
"Who else will recite his own verses?" wiping his eyes Fedya asked.
The audience was keeping silence.
"Yea-a, Pole is right. God doesn't throw talents about," Fedya thought looking over kids that had become quiet, being flabbergasted.
Talk of Apollo - and he is sure to appear. Shortly before that boy recited the verse very expressively, he had entered the hall quietly and sat down on one of the last armchairs in the very back semi-darkened row. While Fedya was conducting something like an improvised competition of reciters, he was sitting still, but when such definitions as 'Adonic verse', 'acromonogramme', 'eurhythmia' and 'epitaph' the manager's soul couldn't stand it.
"Feodor Petrovich, make a break! The Ministry of Health doesn't recommend study more than forty five minutes!" sounded from the gallery gloom.
"Is it more already?"
"Much more! Children, you may go to the foyer and fly into a rage moderately!"
"Hur-ra-ah!" broke out in the hall.
Knocking each other down, young talents dashed to the foyer.
The rush was so violent that some muddle appeared at the doors during a few seconds. Yelling and whooping joyfully, the wards of the children's section were climbing one another. The muddle jam was growing, distending, and forming the quaintest clusters and pyramids. At last, with the sound of a bursting gas balloon, the widely shouting tribe escaped to creative running expanse, and Apollo, smiling, closed the door lightly and went towards his friend who was coming down the stage.
"Look, you, a philosopher, to what you've driven our future! A little bit more - and 'alles kaputt'! They aren't the gnarled roots of writing oaks - they are flowers! They can wither!"
"Stop that! Am I in need of that more than all the rest? Now I have to fuss over extremists-Zionists, now the children's section is in maternity leave…"
"Well, let's say, now it's me who has a hard time with the theatre of poetry, and it would be useful for you to communicate with kids. Childish apprehension would not come amiss for men of genius. And then, there are stubborn rumours that creep from one century to another. I mean that children and fools cannot lie. So, they tell the truth, and it isn't a newspaper leading article! Do you remember the naked emperor by Andersen? Suppose kids blab about one more; ah? They're of that kind! Everything is possible for them!"
"Pole, well, I…"
"Though you're my friend, but the dearest still is truth! The truth is the banner of youth! Temporally I release you from all other duties and place only that one on you. Higher raise the banner of the pioneer enthusiasm and ardour! Well, why have you faded?" Apollo nodded in the direction of the foyer.
The noise that was heard from there could easily be represented as sound setting for the revived masterpiece by Karl Brullov 'The Last Day of Pompeii'.
"Whose gay laughter is heard there? Whose eyes are ablaze with light? Well, you lift up your head! I send you not to the collective farm for potatoes, but to the very thick of creative boiling. Children - they are not progressively degenerating overagers - I mind us. They haven't yet been flattened with the sack of programme documents and erupting copied officialese. Go, Fedya, go towards you yourself!"
"But I've got no experience!"
"You are welcome to get it! Come on, to Palaces, Houses of Young Pioneers, children's sectors and so on. Take a look, listen, and ask the advice - of course if it is of whom. Et cetera, et cetera. And now! Right now! 'Pioneer, don't waste time in hallways! Try to be truthful, useful, and cute! Meet the sun of your Motherland always with your pioneer salute! To the sun of your Motherland always - your pioneer salute!' Let those kids go - and go ahead!"
"But I…"
"Let them go, let them, otherwise they'll run away, in any case. They're talented kids. I'm pained to lose them."
"Okay… Dictator…"
"Not a dictator, but a director! The best forces - to the weakest points! Shoot, Fedya, shoot!"
And Fedya started…
And the situation in the world was the following. The Soviet House of Young Pioneers was being shaken, the Lenin House was shaking, the Kalinin one was being torn to pieces, the Ala-Tau one had just hived off and for that moment was nothing but the list of stuff, the Auezov House and the Frunze one were vegetating, and the municipal Palace of Young Pioneers was sleeping like a log, having been lulled by protectionism and its directress's private contacts with those in power. So, Fedya began his voyage from the assembly hall of one of that 'children's homes', namely that one which was shaking.
Little ones were gamboling in the hall.
"Children, and where is your leader?" the directress of studies cooed gently; she was a charming young lady, with all her might giving her smile a shade of severeness. She was accompanying Fedya, and the shade was at variance with her appearance and had nothing to do with her inward ecology. The cause was absolutely outward - a broken chair.
"Peter Simeonovich said that let a priest read about the food programme - and went away!" a thin little girl in a blue dress squealed.
"Where did he go?"
"To the church, must be…" a well-built tot said in a deep voice, while chewing his margarine sandwich, "It is so beautiful there! As in a fairy tale!"
"O-oh!" the directress of studies moaned.
The door banged.
A very respectable man with a too clever face came in.
"You… you… you…" the directress of studies began, trying to find an annihilating term of the proper power.
"What about me?" the man intercepted the initiative at once. "I'm in charge of the children's choir, but not of any subsidiary holding. I can sing about wide fields, potatoes and other vegetables. I can even present a three-part song a green grasshopper, but I won't plant wheat in pots. I will not - that's all!"
"Who makes you plant wheat in pots?" the directress of studies tried to bring the man to reason, but he stated that he had a rehearsal, and turned to the children in a pointed manner.
"I shan't tell you anything in front of children, but we'll have a talk in a proper place!" the fascinating fairy plaintively tried to put a good face on the matter.
The man faced the chief very energetically and smiled in the most attractive manner.
"Oh! Personally with you - wherever you wish, but, surely, it will be better in the back of beyond and without any witnesses!"
The directress's cheeks blushed.
"I've heard about your wonderful circle of soft toys," Fedya attracted attention to another subject at once.
"Yea, yea!" the directress of studies took up his idea thankfully and retreated hastily out of the hall, following him.
The circle met Fedya and the directress with a motherly kind smile. Comfort and peace were coming not only from its portly mistress, but from everything she ruled.
"We've just responded to the appeal. You see, we're making sheep," a girl in an apron almost sang.
"And me - a cow," a little boy squealed confidently.
"Why is it a cow? It's a hen," his mate disagreed.
"Not a hen, but a cock," the girl in the apron corrected him.
"No, it's a hen!" the mate stood up for his point of view. "And cocks aren't necessary for us. They don't lay eggs!"
That incontrovertible argument satisfied everybody at once, for some reasons. The dispute came suddenly to an end. It was clear even for a blind deaf-mute that the most close and qualified contact with the food programme was set up there.
But there was not such a glowing picture in that respect in the circle of aircraft modelling. Neither the model of a cucumber-shaped airplane, nor a dirigible 'A Crust of Bread' nor a ballistic rocket 'An Empty Stomach' having a form of a gnawed collar-bone were expected there. The only model of an agricultural helicopter, with falling-off tanks for chemicals and dolefully sagging blades, was thrust to the most distant corner, because it couldn't fly and wasn't ready to participate in competitions. It was made 'for decoration' and displayed prominently on occasion; however, the model used to strike the imagination of countless inspectors, observers and punitive executives so much that all the rest things were apprehended as a mere appendix.
"One of our technical circles is there," having held her nose, the directress of studies mumbled, as if having adenoids.
The smell of acetone and God knows what other necessary reagents was really unbearable.
"Zzzzz…" a circular saw was squealing.
"Shruck! Shruck!" a plane was gliding.
"Ff-a-ah!" glue was bubbling in a tin.
An electric cooker where it was standing had departed from life long time ago; but having been reanimated with the help of some wire and other simple devices it was keeping running its cookery with might and main. Seagull 'the Teetotaller' was sleeping on a studio couch; the couch was assembled of different parts having been fished out of the municipal dump, and the man was sleeping the sleep of death, like a chronic alcoholic. 'Seagull' was not a nickname, but his real surname, which perfectly corresponded to the wideness of its owner's flights, and 'the Teetotaller' meant his hobby of the absolutely opposite character.
And so, while you are reading all that, the sleeper screamed unexpectedly and widely, having beaten rather loud technical noises, and, gnashing his teeth and not awaking, very energetically began to snake off him something invisible, but small and alive. Teenagers burst into laughter in the distant corner, near the circular saw, and a well-known ditty with a little-known ending pealed out in unison:

"You may sing, may not sing -
It's the only zing and ding!
You've filled up your poor plane
Not with fuel, but with bane!"

Contented smacking was heard from the couch. The atmosphere of mutual understanding and absolute creative freedom was obvious.
The smacking died down.
Fedya started.
The right Seagull's eye was looking at him without blinking.
The eye was yellow and very attentive.
"A-ah," Fedya drawled for no purpose and became silent.
The right eye opened, having given up the place to the left one, yellow and motionless to the same degree.
"Kum togezer rite now! Vzhik-vzhik!" That almost English expression flew out through his gritted teeth, and three teenagers hurled themselves to the agriculture wonder, reacting to the pivot signal…
"One of the best circles…" the directress of studies twittered in an apologetic tone, when the acquaintance with the helicopter was made. "It takes only prize-winning places in all competitions… And the main thing is the absolute independence of the children! They're experts! If not vodka, he would be invaluable…"
That whom the last phrase concerned was standing at the door, picking his teeth with a chip thoughtfully, and watching the interlocutors go. The man had only one the most ancient demerit, and he was forced to compensate it with many modern merits. There were reasons to believe that he could be just now called to fit a lock or plaster some rift in perpetually leaking ceiling; so, Seagull 'the Teetotaller' was solving the famous 'To drink or not to drink?' only heaven knew for what time. He understood that he was able not to drink, but at the same time, he understood that a very important state mechanism might be broken without him and many other old hands in drinking-bouts, and the present level of people's well-being would be impossible without the mechanism. Rebellions and demonstrations, oppositions and opinion polls, heated elections with hot discussions and many democratical horrors and nightmares of the kind used to seem to him. "Proletariat isn't in need of intoxication, but…" he would murmur at the end of his sick prophetic fantasies and rush to his 'emergency reserve', which was splashing in his salvific bottle like ink.
The directress of studies and Fedya were carrying on with their rounds.
"Pts-tsu-u!" sucking sounds came from under stairs leading to the first floor.
"Smack! Smack!" the answer snapped.
Apparently knowing perfectly well, what those sounds meant, the directress quickened her paces and began to speak louder:
"Music is clear to all! Each and every delegation is delighted. By the way, there are no ensembles like this in the Kalinin district…"
Two flushed chaps darted from below in fright and raced upstairs, outrunning Fedya and the directress.
"That notorious Kalinin district…" she chattered even louder.
Amazed, Fedya was following the chaps with his eyes. Only in the class of the vocal and instrumental group, he found out with relief that one of them was a girl, after all. Her bob, trousers, green 'military' shirt, and very moderate thighs masked her perfectly.
Before entering the classroom, the directress raised her finger proudly and solemnly, "Do you hear? What sound, ah? Imported apparatus!"
Fedya listened attentively.
The sound was really nice.
And suddenly a text broke out.
And what text!
And what was more - it was for a four-part singing!

"A crocodile was striding
Along highways for riding.
And it! And it! Was so green and fit!
It saw a John Q. Public
And ate him in its one lick!
And then it sighed! A hungry troglodyte!"

Neither the directress, nor Fedya especially expected such anachronism. However, having seen that the fairy turned badly pale, Fedya who had already felt absolutely disposed to the local wave clicked his heels cheerfully, saluted like a young pioneer and shouted, "Our contribution to the food programme - mass medicinal starvation!"
"Oh, Feodor Petrovich!" the fairy babbled plaintively, but now absolutely frankly. "It is not a food programme, but a real drama! The other day my nephew came home from his kindergarten and declared that now, they will provide them with parsley and dill by themselves! He said namely that word - 'provide'!"
Semiofficial manner of behaviour flew away from Vera Ivanovna (that was the directress's name) like down from a dandelion.
The fairy lady appeared to be really fairy.
Some time later Fedya, being very pleased with uncommonness of his observations, was heading for the Palace of Young Pioneers.
There was everything there but personnel.
Talented one!
The list of staff was full to capacity, but it gave such trifling efficiency that it was not worth being spoken about. The ensemble of folk instruments… it seemed to be all that deserved all sorts of praises and high marks.
Fedya walked along quiet light corridors that were hung and crammed with exhibits and expositions that had become almost rare objects because of their antiquity, went through the pages of methodic textbooks with the most trivial contents, and then went downstairs to the ground floor. Irritated hysterical shouts were heard from the other side of the director's cabinet.
"How long will it be lasting?" a woman was appealing desperately. "People that work to the point of exhaustion do exist! Those who are really devoted to their business! And Humpties-Dumpties exist as well! Those who even don't come to work! Don't appear at work!.." The woman choked with indignation.
Entirely indifferent and sleepy sniffing revealed the presence of great many bored people in the cabinet. The 'people that did work to the point of exhaustion' frowned discontentedly and blushed. Surely, that was the art-deviser of the ensemble of folk instruments. 'Humpties-Dumpties' were all the rest, and they didn't even turn a hair.
Fedya became unimaginably bored. He closed the door lightly and wended his way quickly out of that wonderful form of glass and concrete with such scanty human content.
He had to experience a serious of extraordinarily fruitless ordeals at the rest sources of children's culture that day, and only then, he took a trolleybus of the ninth route and went towards mountains - to the House of Young Pioneers of the Kalinin district. That House was buzzing as a high voltage transformer unit. Unlike the Palace, its content had outgrown its form long ago, and only the miracle of hopelessness made everything and everyone that were there squeeze themselves into a little two-storeyed house. Native talents - specialists in educational methods were put on and off with endless municipal activities, of which the Palace would get rid in the guise of the chronical absence of quality; however, the specialists, like convicts, towed their district card too and managed to be the first at all reviews. Both the House director and director of studies came from the same environment and didn't feel an aversion to any rough work, including washing of the floor in a charwoman's absence; they represented all the best that was in that organization and, maybe, in the whole town. There really was what to envy, and if the fairy from the House of Pioneers that Fedya attended first used to mention that cultural centre adding the epithet 'notorious', it was good envy, i.e. without any malevolence.
Hmm-yea-a…
The man of genius was enveloped in the smell of public WC when he crossed the doorstep of the abovementioned House, or more exactly - the little house. It was so unexpectedly and so powerfully, that one even couldn't describe it properly. The queue of children wasn't very long, but it divided a narrow little corridor with a partition effortlessly; having squeezed his way through it with difficulty, our hero squinted, saw a microscopic stairwell and run upstairs - out for a breath of air. The young talents stayed downstairs, impatiently shifting their feet. The bad smell stayed downstairs too; it was a result both of sanitary equipment troubles and of incredible number of those who wished and those who suffered. But Fedya heard about it some time ago. And at the described moment, the staircase turned, and he got to something resembling a box-room where Buratino had been completing his dramatic term at Malvina's place. However, no! Pitch darkness made such illusion. Having looked closer, Fedya saw that most likely he got to a wardrobe. However, no again! Like weeds, some conglomerations of boxes, packing cases, iron dowels, tins with colours, buckets and another household hardware of that kind were sprouting vigorously through suits that were on clothes hangers. A very burly specialist in educational methods was sitting among all these goods, having huddled herself up. God knows what namely educational methods she was an expert in according to their list of staff, but factually, she worked as a supply manager. She was paying the employees their paltry wages by the poor light of a fifteen-watt lamp.
"Whom are you going to?" she asked gruffly, not lifting up her head, but having recognized a stranger with her side managerial sight.
"To the director!" Fedya blurted out the first that had appeared in his head, humming due to his sprint.
"In the wind-class. It's just opposite to the water-closet…"
Even Lord of hosts wouldn't have been able to give more precise reference point! Having inhaled as much air as he could, Fedya rolled back downstairs. But one inhaling proved to be not enough. Namely there were the concentration of 'odours' was especially strong he was compelled to fresh his lungs with a new portion.
The result told on him immediately. Having burst into the wind-class like a sack, Fedya was not too bright already, and he hardly saw.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha!" sounded from the classroom.
Eight teenagers of a very bandit appearance were amusing themselves, looking at the baked apple of Fedya's face.
"Well, dude, what a mug you have!" the least of them declared, wiping his flamed nose with a dirty paw, which was decorated with the complete set of Old Chinese pride articles. "Why are you eyeballing? Don't you like our thunder-box?" the little macho continued and sniffed efficiently.
"Cut the crap, you nit! Don't piss on my chips!" slightly more strapping bloke cut him short; a little moustache strewed his map prematurely.
That little man was tucking in a huge piece of bread.
"Ya-a, we've got a totally solid john!" a still bigger lad expressed himself.
Nobody tried to restrain that one.
"Who are you to, a zit?"
At last, Fedya got it: the talk taking place in his presence was about him!
"Well, why?.. Well, who?.. Well, I'll!.."
The level of that boorishness was too high for comprehension, the more so that the oldest pig was almost half-younger than Fedya.
"Piss off, you prat!" having felt something yucky, the most full-grown nipper with square-cluster bristles warned him.
Fedya's foolish shifting his feet evoked one more phrase, the first part of which consisted of a foul tirade as long as a goods train and the second one contained an advice 'to hurry up, if he has got a turtle's head!'
That bad language brought Fedya back to reality. He strained himself, backed away a little, and automatically began to recollect new karate holds: Apollo used to give him the lessons of wrestling regularly now. Fortunately, there was no need in any defense - the form master entered the class. He seemed to be a native of the pre-revolutionary family of hereditary intellectuals.
It produced the effect of a broom having swept the classroom. The action men grabbed their brass wind scraps and blared out the funeral march by Chopin. The geezers were playing in the most heart-rending manner. Apparently, there premature advanced age showed all its merits in it.
Having heard from the master about the new place of the director's seat, Fedya minced hastily to another wing of that celebrated house. The best children's brass band, three quarters of which difficult adolescents formed, was used with the most peaceful and noble purposes. The apotheosis of the 'brown bread', i.e. of the dead, turned cheerfully to 'The Farewell of a Slavic Woman' and at last - to something corresponding to the place of stay, to 'The Artek March'. The lads' repertoire resources were as wide and boundless as their lexical ones.
But Fedya didn't hear anything of that yet. Being surrounded with volcanic thunder, he was catching flies staring at the closely pressed mass of children jumping up and down in step. Neither white tutus nor young rapturous faces could destroy some oppressive impression, which was produced by such a large concentration. The impression became even deeper due to the sweaty appearances of two strapping lads with white basts of 'folk' moustache. The lads were tearing the bellows of five-row accordions with all their might, and jerking their heads in time like paralytics. It was the best in the town ensemble too - the children's 'Little Spark', and it had not the best living conditions. Fedya understood, why foreign and not foreign delegations weren't directed there, and it was the object of the 'black', not 'white' envy of the Palace and the fairy.
Fedya didn't decide to ask about the director there. The art-adviser of the ensemble, which was shouldered her way through the rows of her pupils, had such a ferocious view that he wasn't waiting for their meeting. Along a wall, along a wall the man of genius crossed the hall quickly, penetrated some room crammed with many desks, and flopped onto a chair.
"Glory! Glory! Glory!" resounded above him.
Fedya jumped up.
"To the Soviet people - glory! To our Motherland - glory! To our beloved Party - glory! Glory! Glory!" resounded once more, and Fedya flopped again.
Good heaven! The next standing greeting was being stamped there.
"Hur-ra-ay!" the man of genius bleated playfully and started his detour around the tables in the opposite direction to those who were yelling with their best efforts. He was ready to drop.
He was escaping.
"You boy! Boy! Where are you?.."
Fedya didn't even turn his head to look at that impudent one, though not he was appealed to that time. Having slipped out of the room, he found himself near the supply manager's cell again.
The circle was closed.
And for all that, God exists! Maybe, he exists not in such a standard form as we imagine, or don't want to imagine, but He does exist! At the last moment of Fedya's desperation God (who else could?) sent him relief and even joy. It was again the directress of studies, and again a fairy. Charming! Fascinating! Astounding! Humane! And it was not the complete list of merits that were concentrated in Sokolova Tatyana Anatolyevna, who met him. And if the first three features didn't ever harm any woman, then the last one brought glory even to men that added it to their armoury; the glory of Napoleon, Alexander the Great of Macedonia, Chingis Khan and thousands of other the most sprightly conquerors is nothing compared with it.
Less then in fifteen minutes Fedya thawed, came to reality, got imbued, and began to smile. And when the directress herself appeared before him, everything clarified finally. The directress was Gumenyuk Nina Pavlovna, and she was shining like the sun. The psychological climate of confidence and insistence, being emitted and cultivated by those leaders, was similar to the climate of orbital complexes. The productivity was correspondingly powerful, and gifted specialists didn't go away even when the lifeless hand of a blind and indifferent to any essence financial body cut meagre as it was rouble payment by the hour. However - no! Sometimes somebody left the House (a family is a family!), but couldn't stand the lack of favourable (psychological!) conditions and came back almost always. They came back because time is not money, as a matter of fact, but life; and it can be filled with money and everything that is bought for it - or with such a trifle as the joy of creative communication. Having fluttering and quivering, early or late the people made certain of the amazing advantage and the prospects of the former minimum and shrugged off the present maximum with great pleasure and relief. And they were right! Money will start to roll in given time, but life… Well, we've had enough commentaries; let's round them off.
Nothing is distributed evenly in the nature, but everything is counterbalanced, after all; that's why Fedya got there with interest the things he lacked in another centres of children's culture. The interest (what a puzzling word!) expressed itself in the voluntary taking some measures under his patronage; it was included to the work plan at once. You may believe or not, but that plan used to be formed and reformed as required. Surely, the drug of the habit to be the first always and everywhere sowed its all-destructing chauvinistic kernels to the utmost there already; the broth that was made at the headquarters of the Pioneer and Komsomol activists proved to be not quite edible, and sometimes even obviously poisonous; nevertheless, meanwhile everything looked so as it is described above.

Chapter XIV

VOILA!

When the day reached its finish at last, Fedya, being saturated and tired at most, went out into the street.
"Feodor Petro-ovich!"
Apollo was standing at the gates of the House of Young Pioneers. He was narrowing his eyes merrily and inhaling the heavenly fragrance of the autumn freshness with pleasure; the coolness was penetrated with the light smoke threads of leafage, which had been set on fire by kiddies.
Fedya was struck dumb.
"Pole? How have you found?.."
"Simply! Intuition! I washed my brains in the channel of the theory of probability, phoned and got on your track at once. I've decided to meet you. Palpitation! I feel somehow uneasy. Some kind of misgiving. To tell you the truth, so far everything is… let's knock on wood, but God takes care of the one who takes care of himself! And the weather is uncommonly nice today. The sunset, ah? And the air! Oxygen! But I've begun to notice recently that if something too good appears, then we have to be ready for something bad."
"Br-r!.." Fedya shrank.
"Well, never mind my neurasthenia! Now everything is well - and thank goodness! The more so that I was born in autumn and like its cold breath because of that. The most pleasant thing is to dive to memories and start a new reset!.."
"Where to dive?"
"To memories, to the past! Why, is anybody against it?"
"You may… Please…"
"Thank heaven, you've allowed! And what if together?"
"It's high time to…"
"What's with you? To rhyme, not to dive!"
"Why not? Massage is the means of atrophy control! Well, and so…" Fedya snapped his fingers and continued easily, without any efforts, "The passed is always sounds mightier than the things we're waiting for or reaping now. Let boughs cry… Mmm… I'm laughing as I can and breathing - with the autumn bow!"
"Cool!"
"You wait… I'm laughing 'cause this world is not the worst, the life is finite, none of us is holy… Not holy… Isn't holy…"
"To help?"
"Come on!"
"For every step, for every burst and thirst - for everything we'll pay - for sure, though slowly! I'm laughing. Autumn…"
"That will do! Enough! Stop melancholy!"
"Really?"
"Bind the sack before it be full! I'm fed up with those absolute Russian depression, gloom, and lamentations! I'm laughing. Autumn… What's with the autumn? What? Ah, here: I'm laughing. Autumn is again with us; it is embracing gently all the lovers. My voice is ringing in that happy fuss!.."
"…Its fire's taking hearts from their covers!"
"Well, not bad!" Fedya approved. "What a pity that we'll forget it in ten minutes. And in all cases, it isn't for publication."
"Right! It is for us, and not for the Party press! Oh, Fedyenka, what is their press, kept in blinkers, for us? Both of us are like the complete set of the most popular and useful works, really!"
"But of what works?"
"Of all sorts of odds and ends that are so essential for people!"
"Your today's mood is so…"
"I've told you - so cheerful! I'm a leader, you remember! People have to follow me! They have to look at me hopefully! Citizens! I won't let you down! By George!"
"He has gone absolutely mad!" A casual old woman clinked with her glassware nervously.
"Pardon me, granny, pardon!" Apollo bowed to her immediately.
"Why am I your granny? I'm on the right side of fifty!" the old lady lisped maliciously, and the yellow-eyed glance of the 'green Serpent' cut friends diagonally…
Fedya knocked carefully with his head in the suede shoulder.
"What?" Apollo started. "Mmm, yea… That's a sketch… Let's go too, won't we? We'll eat and drink at world's grey trash! What about eating?"
"Where? All gluttony places are closed now already!"
"What places? Such an evening! Such a mood! Such types are missing! And - knock-knock on wood! - the heart throbs like clock-work! Only a restaurant! More of that - the best one!"
"I've got no…"
"And I've got! And my case dough will be enough - to drink and to eat for four!" Apollo gave a very clear wink and tapped on his pocket. "I'm indebted to you as greatly as to my Motherland, and the debt is unpayable!"
"Well, you and girls?.."
"Why not? Another men's wives and me - no, but girls - very nice and more than that! But maybe you?.."
"You know, me - somehow…"
"In such a case it will be more than enough. But generally - don't vow. The normal physical need for a woman, if it isn't realized for a long time, can transform to such a pathological necessity that simply - tut-tut! The world becomes gloomy, vague, everything gets forgotten, and you only want, want, want…"
"It will be over!" Fedya muttered automatically and… became thoughtful.
"Oh!" Apollo exclaimed delightfully. "The real image of a wench! Feodora! Feklushenka! We both live not in a torture-chamber, but in the socialist camp - that is, as if at liberty. By the by, among all of those you've met today there are so many infinitely lonely persons… The Soviet pedagogy is fraught with it…"
"Well, you've got worked up… Okay… Let's go!"
It was light and gaily near the restaurant 'Alma-Ata'. Large and small companies were crowding, shouting, yelling and anticipating… Having discussed terms and clubbed… it doesn't matter what sum together, they jumbled with timidly sneaking couples and business-like individuals, and were swallowed up by the maw of the enormous glass thing, which resembled an ocean liner, cruising freely in accordance with the nostalgic caprice of a surfeited magnate. Intimate lighting, arrogant waiters, paralyzing and pressing interiors, the promising logs of stamped bills of fare attracted and bewitched inexperienced and weren't apprehended by the experienced ones. And if Apollo belonged to the second group, then Fedya, Naturally, to the first. Having got inside, he stared in bewilderment at the 'lords - the custodians of trays' lazily drifting by, and recoiled in fright, when they ground out that neither these tables nor those ones were waited on…
Having chosen the variant that fit him Apollo blended with a pseudo-luxurious armchair in an absolutely professional manner and pulled one more from under the table. Moving back and looking about, Fedya sit down tensely.
"Not waited on!" the next 'lord' hushed drifting by.
Fedya jumped up.
Apollo frowned from annoyance.
"The paradoxes of socialist gains are great!" he uttered through his set teeth. "It's more than likely that they make us go by head, say 'thanks' for that and bow in God knows what way. Don't twitch! You aren't at the divine church, but at the public house!"
"Really…" Fedya agreed.
Apollo rummaged his pockets and the unique, due to its artistic fulfillment, platinum ring with a large diamond came to light out of it. Fedya hiccoughed. He saw diamonds in the jeweller's show-windows many times, but for some reason they more resembled broken glass than any jewelry. And that time something impossible happened. The sharp stings of red, blue, green, and yellow splashes were sinking into years and knocking out a tear.
Having put the ring on the forefinger of his left hand, Apollo began to rap carelessly on the bill of fare with it. Impudent sparks started running round about. The 'lords' that had been sauntering in the distant corners of the restaurant, and not reacting to the desperate appeals of clients a second ago, became anxious - not too much, but fairly thoroughly. Being not able to tear themselves away from the source of multicoloured sunbeams, and hardly keeping their aristocratism, they were sharing that suddenly disclosed diamond victim with each other. One of them was just on the point of parting from his colleagues, but at that moment a little bald 'cutthroat' jumped out of the restaurant platform, smiling with all his enormous mouth. Having caught the yearning glances of the slow 'lords', he rolled to the glaring finger with the speed of a billiard ball. The 'lords'' mugs turned pale and sagged immediately like bulldog ones.
"What can I do for you?" the 'cutthroat' murmured, devouring the diamond with his eyes.
"Two cups of tea with lemon, my dear! Sugar apart!" Apollo murmured in his turn, in the same polite style of the beginning of the 20th century.
"Just a little second!" the 'cutthroat' bleated obsequiously, that time absolutely in a servile manner; then he vanished into thin air, and materialized with the order almost at once.
Brilliant service, a fairy tale for workers, and an everyday occurrence for 'elite', showed itself in all its splendour.
"Pole, I'm hungry," Fedya grumbled cautiously, not to let the watchfully looming nearby 'cutthroat' hear him.
"Patience, Fedyenka, patience! The main thing for obtaining the very thing is endurance. Our waiter isn't ripe yet!"
"But I am ripe! All day long on my feet…"
"Okay! We'll overtake events… You dear!"
"I'm here!"
"Some red caviar, balyk, mushrooms, 'shuzhuk', smoked sausage, and 'lagman'. I hope 'langman' is the specialty of the house, isn't it?"
"Doubtfully it is! Only with red caviar… Maybe, black?"
"What? Haven't got? Why?"
"We have! Surely, we've got it! Though in private reserves…"
"That's good. Look alive, dear! We are businessmen! No spare time!"
"Just a little moment! Wouldn't you like some cognac? Armenian!"
"You don't say so, my friend! Alcohol is an enemy of business!"
"I've got it straight… I understand very well… I respect… I welcome… I myself don't use it, you see…"
The 'cutthroat' vanished into thin air again, and materialized with the order right away.
A little hitch occurred during payment. Without any ulterior motive, the 'cutthroat' overcharged the friends by only six roubles with a few kopecks; much to his great bewilderment, it was noticed.
"I've said already, my friend, that we are businessmen!" Apollo grinned. "It isn't customary for us to throw our money about."
The 'cutthroat' turned pale and… overcharged them by two roubles.
Fedya, being full up and pleased, nudged Apollo inconspicuously, hinting that such trifles aren't worth his attention, but Pole didn't stir.
"Tut-tut! What's with our maths!" he ground out venomously. "It's not a firm! No quality!"
The 'cutthroat' started, said he was sorry, counted one rouble and fifty seven out with his shaking hands, and declared hastily that he had no more change.
"Hm-yea…" Apollo murmured as if to apologize. "If not principles…"
He extracted a metallic rouble and a one-kopeck coin out of his pocket, put one rouble to the bill of fare, poked the diamond into the kopeck, and began to move it around the rouble.
"What's it, my dear, ah?"
The 'cutthroat' backed away.
"S-sputnik…" he muttered rather stupidly, and realized at the moment that he hadn't guessed.
"Take care of the kopeck, the roubles will take care of themselves!" Apollo announced very seriously, made two rounds more, and poured the symbol of economy into his pocket intentionally accurately.
Nobody and never will be able to explain what happened next moment. Maybe, the old joke had its effect, maybe the diamond, but the 'cutthroat', with the sleight of hand that was worthy of the famous conjurer-manipulator Akopyan Sen., waved his hand, unclenched his fist, and rolled a sweaty fifty-kopeck piece out to the bill of fare.
"Aha!" Apollo uttered in even more serious manner, counted seven kopecks of change out and pressed them into the 'cutthroat's' palm, which had no time to get clenched yet.
"Devil may care about your trade-union, neither we nor, honestly speaking, you, my friend; so, we won't waste paper with messages of thanks. Good memory will do!" Having put the ring of his finger and glared with the diamond for the last time, Apollo threw it carelessly into one of his magnificent imported pockets.
"What sharks!.." the 'cutthroat' mumbled delightfully, intoned it like 'oho-ho!', to the 'lords' that surrounded him in some time, and added didactically, "With i-deo-lo-gy!!!"
The mugs of lords, who were fidgeting impatiently, sagged even more. The value of supposed tips that their chief had got was beyond their understanding…

Chapter XV

A STAB IN THE LIVER

If one listens attentively to his body, he always can find some defect in it. Sometimes (medical men say so) it is simply necessary (to listen - not to find!), but best of all is to be well, and Apollo and Fedya were, while going downstairs along the inlaid ladders of the restaurant liner to street land. The hot waves of health were overflowing their stomachs, and, as health and attitude to the world are much-interconnected things, the evening was splendid! Nervously scurrying everywhere automobiles, trolleybuses, and yellow like wasps motorcycles with sidecars; mistresses of the house running past in a foolishly joyful manner, with string-bags full of bones (70 kopecks - one kilo) that were 'thrown' on sail by chance in the food store 'Metropolitan'; full of malicious will and enthusiasm eyes of alcoholics who were not half-paralyzed yet, but always were short of ten-kopeck bits and used to coax them - all that was apprehended in the light of touchiness and charm. Everything was native almost painfully, very close, and so dear that even the heart was oppressed a little. It was a kind of intoxication, and we'll forgive our heroes their momentary weakness, because in twenty (or maybe twenty-five) seconds of extraordinary enjoyment Apollo got a deafening box on his ear, and Fedya was knocked down and thrown into a roadside aryk (that is an irrigation ditch).
Let my reader settle down - the author isn't going to spoil him with a detective story (though our life itself - isn't it detective?). And it had nothing to do with the diamond! But the law of the event concentration around Apollo was mentioned already; in accordance with it, the friends got in the thick of one of the next group fights near the restaurant, where it became unclear in a moment who and for what was beating whom.
Everybody was being beaten!
Some passers-by were trying to defend themselves, and making the effect of mass character only stronger with that; those who were more experienced preferred to run helter-skelter.
Militia was waiting.
The cars of the patrol and point duty militia (PPM) didn't show any signs of life.
Kicking and waving away almost mechanically, due to what a few attackers (or maybe self-defenders) had calmed down for some time and buried their noses in lawns, Apollo jumped to the aryk, extracted Fedya out of it, and dragged him aside. The man of genius was unconscious. Like a just slaughtered cock, he was dangling his head flabbily, and leaving dirty aryk spots on a metalled road.
Somebody stroke Apollo's leg with the foot. He staggered, and kicked something soft without turning back. He was struck again. And again… The obstinate fighters didn't want to notice the hero's merciful functions.
That impudent infringement of war rules made the maestro stop his friend dragging for a while and cut a passage. As though to respond his vigorous measures, nightingale militia trills warble resounded on the air. The PPM revived! Brave men simply ran out of them, as if they were commando aircrafts.
That time everybody took off in different directions. Apollo did the same. He seized Fedya under his arms, pulled him into the first porch that had met his eyes, and began to bring the lad round. And so, Fedya opened his eyes… Then he started twitching, coming back to life… And then Apollo noticed that they were not by themselves. HE was kissing HER near the radiator of central heating, and SHE was responding HIM with the same. Judging by the stir it was being done with, one could understand that if the house fell down, none of them would shudder.
"Long live love here and there, everywhere and forever!" the hero uttered pathetically and began to feel a new phrenologic hillock, which had swollen on Fedya's head.
"They - what?.. Kiss… Are kissing?" the wounded fellow babbled at last, being much amazed.
"Both kissing and scratching… Eh, it may be a seizure here!"
Apollo jumped on his feet and struck all door bell pushes at once. Later, in an ambulance, he burst out laughing, having recollected the faces of the couple that had been pushed with the stretcher of a half-sleeping driver…
While they were carrying Fedya to the first municipal hospital, while they were looking for a place, while this and that, rather much time passed. The place turned to be situated in a corridor, more of that - near Fedya's especially 'favourite' for that day WC. For those reasons, having got a medical dressing and accompanied his friend to his place, Apollo had only to make the best of a bad job:
"Well, Fedyenka, be a man! Everything is wonderful, because it may have been much worse! Sleep well, my dear friend, and tomorrow…"
"One rouble from each and Karabas-Barabas's band from the Kalinin House of Young Pioneers."
"Okay, okay, no depression! Here you are! Take it! Amuse yourself!" And Apollo thrust the ring into Fedya's hand.
"You don't do it! I'll lose the thing!"
"Lose, you are welcome! I have got eight more!"
"Eight?"
"Eight! And all are false! Oh, you've started smiling already! Come on - sleep! An hour in the morning is worth two in the evening…"
Apollo returned the hospital dressing and went to the street. Blessed quietness, cool freshness, the moon, making its way through wavy fog in a classical manner - everything was splendid still, but didn't enjoy very much at that time. His injured places began to ache; his stomach began to ache; everything that was able to ache began to ache, including his soul.
Oh that soul! Ages pass, and discussions about it don't stop. One says it does exist, another - that it doesn't exist, the third tries to reconcile these two points of view with the help of different sciences, but there is no getting away from the facts: it whines being both tender and coarsened, cries and laughs, and generally sometimes plays such tricks in spite of unbridled atheism that if you don't mind it - you'll come down with a crash in a moment!..
"Hel…" a very female feverish exhalation sounded from the direction of a laid-up building project and faded.
Apollo pricked up his years.
"Uh, a bitch!.." a male voice muttered with husky breath, and two muffled sounds of blows and groans were heard absolutely distinctly now.
The hero's blood went to his head. He made sharp energetic exhalation and hurled himself into the gap of the crooked fence. Being a really professional sportsman, Apollo had never been the first cause of physical conflicts; but he had different natural gifts that had been trained and perfected, and for that reason, he could not and had no right not to use them for their proper purpose. More over, a woman was in need of help that time, and even Fedya wouldn't hesitate in such a case, though he had all chances for full defeat and no of them for a victory, let it be an illusory one.
Having run about thirty metres across that ground, rather broken with decaying building materials, the hero stopped suddenly and pulled a militia whistle. Efficiently controlling and normalizing his breath, without any hurry, he went into the doorway of something that had to be a porch in the very distant future. Some dark mass was pottering about and puffing in its depth. One could make out nothing and nobody practically.
"Legs! Grasp her legs!" These words were exhaled hotly from the mess.
"You don't… You don't… Oh mom-my-y…" the female voice pulsated desperately, drearily, and monotonously.
Apollo gritted his teeth and plunged them into the whistle. Shrill trill hit as a whip. The mass distended and disintegrated. Wall-eyed human slag was rolling to Apollo; it reeked of alcohol, and farted resonantly. The hero stepped aside, and after tramp and all the rest sounds had moved away, took in his arms the girl who was in a disheveled state and tried to resist, and ran back to the gap.
"Don't go, my good beauties, for a walk in dark thick woods! You can be some longed-for booties, can become one's worldly goods!" he spat out through his gritted teeth, trying not to look at the girl's bloodstained face.
Having come across the first little 'Moscwich' turning round the corner, Apollo threw himself under its wheels, jerked its back door, and tossed the girl to the seat.
"To the first aid! Quickly!" he roared, flinging his fist forward, because the sleek and filthy mug of the driver didn't seem to be trustworthy.
The motor rumbled… and there something unexpected happened (however, what was there expected in general?). Strong claws were dug into Apollo's back, and he was twitched back.
The moon jumped, became grey and disappeared…
Having smashed up a couple of rotten bricks on the hero's head, three rapers (it was them) pulled him back into the gap, threw to a concrete panel reminding about archaeological excavations, and started their scouring the territory looking for something that they were in dire need of.
"You stinky fuzz… A whistler…" the fleshiest gorilla-like raper was croaking.
He particularly could not stand the shame of that practical joke, and was longing for immediate compensation.
"I've found!" a gaunt round-shouldered shape hardly wheezed, and something rumbled in a muffled manner under its bony clutches.
Just at that moment, something began to ring in Apollo's ears, and the grey spot of the moon appeared again; having trembled, it became lighter. Apollo didn't give himself away with a single movement; he let his imaginary controller go around his body, ascertained that everything but his head was okay and he wasn't bound, and squinted. The sight shown to his eyes wasn't too merry. Three bustards having put their upper tentacles a concrete rubbish bin, were lifting it above his head.
Time stopped. As it often happens in such situation, it set a freeze-frame in his mind - a phenomenon that hasn't been explained by science yet. Through the hero's memory some article flashed, which described a similar accident: some bandits, maybe the same, were cracking the skull of a casual passer-by, too, in the same way. Then the views of gutted disfigured bodies on the forensic medicine experts' tables showed up colourfully; his mother's image appeared clearly; he saw the brightest episodes from his childhood and youth, and many-many other things that needed lots of time to be even realized under ordinary conditions.
The rubbish bin fell with a bang. Some dull noise and crunch were heard… But the concrete was victimized, ladies and gentlemen, the concrete! Our hero dodged, thank heaven! Well, irony is good sometimes; but imagine - if you had been him, not everybody would have managed… And we do not have to look far for an example: the author of the story wouldn't have been able. No doubts!
The proper regeneration of the trained body let the hero not only roll away from under the rubbish bin, but also mobilize himself, jump up and start attack. Three of them! What is it for Apollo? Trifle! And they felt that. Two copped it at once, but the third… Apollo had to bother with him a little; the more so that after the very first strike he whipped out a sheath knife, and began to jump and play such tricks that many Trans-Caucasian dance male ensembles could envy. All that was accompanied with such yelling and whooping, that it seemed as though two 'Wild Divisions' were howling there.
At last, he settled down as well, and the sheath knife flew away, reflecting sunbeams.
Apollo got away from the ill-fated gap again, and started to shake dust off his trousers.
"Here he is," a nervous and exultant voice sounded, and a sharp stab in the liver threw the hero down to pavement.
Having crooked with shocking pain and obeying the instinct of self-preservation, the hero somersaulted over his shoulder and rolled down to a ditch. A ditch was Fedya's unpleasant start-point that evening; a ditch was completing Apollo's evening, also unpleasantly. However, it wasn't finished yet, unfortunately. The wanderer was strong, and he stood up. And for that he got some more: firstly a stab in his chest and in the liver again (to take him aback), and then in his ears, with two stone clutches simultaneously. A clap - and… The effect was deafening in the true sense of the word. Apollo got to be a lucky dog - his eardrums weren't broken. But he learned it later. And at that moment, while crawling down to the ditch again and feeling the ground slipping away from under his feet, the hero was only surprised with such special professionalism of the scoundrels who had just been cut off easily.
"Well, come on, get out, you stinky junkie!" was said from above with threat.
Apollo opened his eyes and sighed with relief. There were boots, a uniform, and all the rest vestments of law custodians above him. Having lifted his head up a little, he saw two more arms of the law who were chuckling (or maybe, it only seemed to him), and shaking hands thankfully with that sleek-and-filthy one. And the last was stretching his puppet mug out of his little 'Moscwich' strenuously, and peering into aryk with ferocious hatred. He had to pay for the spoiled dust cover on the back seat of his 'Cadillac', and he would kick Apollo with his feet with pleasure and appetite, if it would be possible, i.e. under the condition that Apollo would be kept by his arms, by his legs and preferably by his head as well.
Having remembered that the girl was half-unconscious, Apollo realized that the fortune presented him probably the lesser of two evils, although only a little bit lesser one. But there was nothing better to do, the more so that when he tried to scramble out of the ditch, he felt such a pain in his left leg and in the right part of his stomach that nearly returned to that trench again. But he simply wasn't allowed to do that. They twisted the hero's arms with crunch, broke him in two with the hit in his solar plexus, caught by his hair, and kicked in his backside with such force that tore him away from the ground and tossed to the open back door of a yellow 'Bobic'.

Chapter XVI

KILLERS IN THE PERFORMANCE…

"My militia takes care of me," the poet said not so long ago, if to measure with historical measures, of course. And right he was - especially minding his time, when the horrors and fears of police and gendarme terror were seen to citizens very clearly still.
And now militia takes care too. Undoubtedly! Otherwise, it would be impossible to take a step without a sawn-off rifle or some more modern weapon (for defence in that case, of course, and not for attack). Besides, in spite of some not too profound statements, the state doesn't spend money like water. Another question - who and how uses that money, but to throw it round about like Vorobyaninov did with bagels - we've got no such phenomena, we have never had them, and I will never believe that we shall (well, except this case… or that…). So, my militia takes care of me today also, but… God protect from such a chance! And if you get there, especially on any suspicion, then, as people say when they have nothing to say, it will begin with the letter 'f' (you don't think that 'fine').
Surely, it is difficult to keep a human face, meeting rabble, dregs of society, degenerates, maniacs, and other scum like those daily, but it is necessary! It's so necessary! Otherwise even such a far-from-saintly person like Catherine II who said once (or repeated somebody's words) that it would be better to acquit three criminals than to punish three innocents, will easily be able to have pretensions to the rank of Saint in about five hundred years. But our advocate who is tormented with the axiom 'Who keeps company with the wolf, will learn to howl' in… it doesn't matter in how many years will seem to descendants a monster and a sadist that doesn't know neither pity nor compassion, not speaking about regulations. A man is weak, but if his weakness manifests itself in the form of absolutely unjustified violation, and moreover, casts suspicion on absolutely not privy to the cause persons, sometimes even heroes, then it really begins with 'f', as people say (certainly, not 'fine' again ).
In such a way, the author is driving at not even tormented people, but at the very bummer. Certainly, you have already noticed that the author of the narration has generally to dig it… Well, you know what namely 'it'! In what manner it affects his health and how pleasant it is, you can be guessing until the grass grow under your feet, but all the same will not be able to guess for the world! But what to do? Nothing but clean out instead of those, who still stick to the opinion that it's better not to carry rubbish out of their huts. That cave philosophy may be right concerning a hut or a flat (though it's unlikely even in such a case!), but when miasmas and contradictions take a state scale and don't let breathe even to those who have created them - excuse me!..
However, let our descendants not think that everything was so black and dismal. One can see incessant 'hurrah!' in each line of newspaper files and even some (oh, if only some!) literary works. And it is not a lie. Truly speaking, 'hurrah!' was not incessant, but it was, though it was more often reflex than deliberate, unfortunately. And what you think! After all, even in the gloomiest times of humankind people lived, who used to laugh with happiness, love and enjoy, sincerely eulogize a leader, a king, a queen, a Fuhrer, a president, a prime minister, a chairman, a secretary, a priest and God knows whom else, and treat all troubles, including plague, cholera and wars as temporary. And those people were bad or blind not always. Simply the instinct of self-preservation, the greatest of all others, without which nothing living exists, possessed them undividedly. And one never can tell, maybe many rebels, men of genius and heroes are their direct descendants, and are indebted with their existence to the instinct that is so despised by them now. The life is intricate, simple and right both when it ignores self-destruction, and when it sacrifice itself, but again for itself in others.
And so, in spite of all, the author is still for 'hurrah' - but not for reflex one. Otherwise, what to make a song and dance about? Is it any sense to reproach a legless man with his lameness? So, stick to the point, i.e. to the filth, and not to the absence of arms, legs and moreover, heads!
In some circles, of not too high culture, the word, I mean 'filth', is a nickname for all custodians of the law indiscriminately. Of course, it is not justly. But where actually did you meet any justice, if we speak about valuing pell-mell, and, moreover, about labeling? Unfortunately, those ones who 'invited' Apollo to the strategic passenger two-wheel-drive car didn't deserve even that disgusting alias. There were three of them. Three killers and violators who used their official position for unpunished satisfaction of their needs. Those needs were indicated in psychiatry with such terms that having got into the case history they doom a patient to isolation from society for life. And if those custodians wouldn't use force as the quickest and most effective means for reaching any aims, they would be locked up their, or most likely they would be sentenced to the death penalty. Namely, that flourishing thoughtless physical suppression wiped, softened, and dissolved their actions like a smoke screen. And here, as it is said, a word dropped from a song makes it all wrong! Usually they would kick their victims root and branch or splinter sacra (people also call them 'tailbones') on any first corner together, but each of them had his own hobby.
The lieutenant liked to pull half-corked intellectuals by their ties and get off on the death rattles of his game, which was informing him desperately that it had been a member of the Party for fifteen (or twenty) years, and wouldn't bear it.
The senior sergeant was specialized more in the sexual sphere. Even the view of a keyhole made his mouth and all the rest water, and it is better not to describe what his victims turned to when he fell greedily.
The junior sergeant was relatively young still, and his hobby was right shooting out. But it was the most refined! He possessed a very good ear for music and began to notice since some time that the crunch of broken bones, groans, and involuntary passing winds sometimes made amazingly euphonious combinations and affected him in the best way.
Not every day those 'three giants' supplied a morgue with the products of their hobbies, but when it happens, dissection detected some criminal activity rarely, and if it did, then juridical store would have the set of such hardly verified conclusions as 'fell out of the car', 'beaten by unknown persons', and so on, and so far.
In which field people work, in that field they make progress!
Roaring wildly with its motor, the 'Bobic' was jumping furiously up and down the pits and potholes of the autumn metalled road. Filthy abuses and horselaugh were heard from the iron-barred window, which separated the cabin of those guardians from the two-place reception area, where they used to cram up to five and sometimes even more persons of both sexes. Apollo could not know the individual features of enjoying men, but he was acquainted well with the 'sanatorium' routine of the establishment. Our hero uttered neither the moan of complaint, nor the sound of objection, when he came round for who-knows-what time that unblessed evening (or night, what would be more exact).
"A cop on duty is standing on a bridge…" the 'watering' beef was turning the wheel with his hand, squeezing gas and narrating the next anecdote simultaneously. "And so, he is standing on the bridge, while shit is swimming along the river and addressing him, 'Hi, colleague!'"
"Who is shouting?" the 'refined' youth didn't understand.
"Shit, shit! Well, ca-ca!"
"Ah!"
"Now you see… The cop proved to be polite… probably, of intelligentsia… Or maybe, of the Komsomol appeal… A sucker, in a word. This, how's it?.. A romantic, fuck his mother… And so… 'Hi!' he replied, 'And why 'colleague'?"
"Really, why?" that time the lieutenant - the old hand at intellectuals asked.
"'Well, because,' the shit answered, 'both of us are of interior organs!'"
"Ha-ha-ha-ha!.."
Apollo moved and realized that he was not alone in that operative iron box on wheels, and it was quite predictable.
"G-gesta-po! Fa-scists! SS!" somebody whistling was splitting through his hit lips.
It was possible to guess easily that his lips - and apparently, not only them - had been hit, due to difficulties, with which the sounds were articulated, and especially due to their phonetic originality.
"Only t-to reach th-e te-le-phone!" the stranger added tensely, and suddenly he started beating the iron hurdle with unexpected force and shouted, "I'm the Party organizer! You bastards! I'll let rot! Let all rot!"
Apollo realized that his neighbour was off his tree hopelessly, and relaxed.
The 'Bobic' yelled with its brakes, and its back door swung open.
"Who is the Party organizer?" sounded from darkness sweetly.
"Me! Me! Bandits! Mons…"
Apollo didn't hear '-ters'. The lieutenant and the senior sergeant caught the crying man by the legs, and pulled him out by a jerk. The Party organizer's head clicked against asphalt like a billiard ball. Something pounded amok in Apollo's throat, then he felt sick, and… the world disappeared again.
When in some - we don't know what namely, but seemingly, rather short - time the hero came to himself again, he was alone in the box, and the Party organizer… Where the Party organizer was, you might guess and suppose by yourself…
The nearest militia department was but a step from the place where Apollo had been caught, but the 'Bobic' (in competent circles it is called in another way - 'Bobon') was rushing in absolute another and obviously peripheral side. It was explained by the fact that the Trinity - too far from Holy, was ascribed not to the central nest, and it had no habit too share its quarry with someone else. Apollo had dead luck still; moreover - from the most unforeseen side. Two corpses for one time, especially taken from different places (it was a trifle, however!), were more than suspicious; the more so that he had a witness, though sleek-and-filthy, of the fact that he had been thrown to the car not as carrion (namely it was important!). More of that, our hero behaved in the most quiet manner, and he had been taken on the basis of alleged rape, and it caused though little, but all in all collegiate sympathy. The 'giants' had mercy on real, especially double dyed criminals, and if even would strike them slightly, then more in a friendly manner than due to hate. And it wasn't difficult to recognize one of theirs. They studied the 'workshop', almost unknown to the wide mass of workpeople, to the smallest detail, and behaved absolutely definitely, that is in a proper way. One of those 'proper' variants consisted in playing 'klutz' - something like 'it doesn't concern me; I have nothing to do with it!' Or another detail: 'one of theirs' never took place too close to an interrogator's table, knowing that the official was quite able to embed something almost not leaving imprints into his forehead; well, for instance - a paper weight that has the most innocent view (where and by whom is it used for the purpose specified nowadays?). Then, 'one of theirs' always turns sideways to a postern warden standing behind the back, to notice in time his thump, and his arms are hooked somehow woefully and pressed with the elbows to his sides. That half-Buddhist prayerful pose means humility in no case - it simply preserves a liver and kidneys. And the liver is the best dish for the gourmand being described by the author. That's why it is beaten off both with regard to case and just for the hell of it, with boredom, walking along the corridor (suddenly and sneakily!). And small ragtag fry knows it perfectly well, not to speak of a larger buzz-wig.
Some of you can think that the author lays the colours on too thickly to make the thriller cooler (say, 'we do know those pencraft little games!'). Unfortunately, he doesn't draw it strong at all; more of that, he only chalks out some strokes… contours… pale phantoms of a nether world existing not as an exception. Surely, it is absolutely out of character of the socialist idea and generally of any proper society (my lips are sealed concerning 'chelovism' - humanitism - in that case, as a matter of course!), but that is another cup of tea. And if you are being killed, then what's the matter with what, where and under what social structure! Violent death by boots and a bullet, either by tortures or simply by fists is unpleasant everywhere and everywhen; neither non-violent - almost always, honestly speaking. Sooth to say, in that case we take a tender interest in namely violent death as the most offensive. And so, whether it takes place under putrescible capitalism, feudalism, imperialism, or full-fledged socialism, it doesn't matter at all; at least for those who are being killed. Death is death. Wordage is nothing but mere sound for it. Undoubtedly, it is a tormentor; though, sometimes it is a rescuer also, to its credit. So, long live Death under such life!
Certainly, it is insulting; but what can we say in this particular case else?
Apollo survived. Actually, it happened due to pure coincidence, but it is not as important as the fact itself. During a regular prowl (it means that when one is drawn to a lock-up ward, they take away his belt, watch, money and generally everything), while underwriting the list of seized property he, rather because of the pain shooting up his leg than consciously, noticed the obvious difference between the sum that had been in his wallet and the one on the record; he caught an amiable jab on his liver in consideration of that. And it was good! The jab revived him at once, and the verity turned off its fatuous and rather fraught water for a long time. The more so, because the snoot (not a face, but namely the sno-ot!) of the senior lieutenant that was filling in Apollo's personnel forms had no facial expression. The room had the appearance of a beaten client; it was lightened with a lamp, dim and all in muck due to flies and God knows what else. The lamp hardly masked all that, and by its light Apollo distinguished at last the mugs of the 'giants' who had got his goat. They were cardboard dead too…
"Where did they dig them up?" Apollo thought, trying to pour the oil of his breath delay and self-suggestion on heavy waters of his heartbeat, but in vain.
He felt himself so badly for the first time that day, and was staring blankly at those who were kept behind bolt and bar in the 'monkey house', i.e. in the remand cell. Motley prisoners of both sexes were wailing loudly about their innocence, and after the first slow thought, the second one was creeping, stating that those yelling most loudly were spivs for certain, and the dolefully crooked silent man probably suffered from some kidney trouble. The next thought about his bad-shit situation was creeping muddily after the second one, but at that moment some movement took place in the rank of those who were polish the board seat, and a few persons united their voices.
"To the loo! To the loo! To - the - loo!" they were chanting in chorus.
The guardian only pulled a face.
"Torturers!" the one with kidney trouble bawled suddenly, and bent even more.
Silence hung over those present.
The keeper put his pen down, stood up calmly, dragged the kidney man out of the bar slowly, and placed him right opposite Apollo.
"Ah, you frown! On what?" he asked cajolingly.
"I am noway to blame! I ain't drunken! I've got a renal colic!" the man tried to explain in a wailing and desperate manner, but didn't finish, groaned and jackknifed.
"I've guessed," Apollo thought joylessly.
The guardian smirked. The first movement on his face looked like a smile of the Jolly Roger.
"All of you say so, my darling," he calmed the sufferer, laid him down to the floor, and called his helper. Together they pulled the man to the right, to a room with a small glancing window in the door. Dull and sluggish kicks of boots on a body and insensible grunting respiration were heard in absolute silence, and it was so horrible that even the spivs could not stand it; the more so, as Apollo lost consciousness again and convulsively stretched near the table, adding one more inducement.
"One can't implore to swamp! To drink!" single outcries sounded. "Outside one can feel him a kind of a person, and here - we are the worst treated…"
Somebody started thrumming with a can on an empty container. The can was fastened to the container with an iron chain, for the avoidance of its usage as an instrument of aggression by clients. An unimaginable row was kicked up in the room. The door with the little window swung open, and the 'three giants' rushed in from the street…

Chapter XVII

NIGHTMARES

If Mark Twain said that one might tell the truth only out of his grave, then I guess that many people would do much to throw a spade of ground to my side today and not to hear the things I'm talking about tomorrow. All honour to Mark Twain who dared to fling in his contemporaries and descendants' teeth the glove of the truth about truth! And all honour to an unknown schizophrenic, who started everyday whitewashing of one and the same wall in one of his creative springs! No gimcrackery of his high-voltage wife could overcome his perseverance, and the repair activity wasn't spread farther than that wall. And may thrice be praised the psychiatrist who empathized the patient, not the complainant.
"Let him whitewash!" he said, being exhausted with the endless repair intrigue of his ball-and-chain, normal up to abnormality.
So, let's carry on with our whitewashing!
Namely at that moment when the door with the little window swung open in the belly of one of circumferential militia stations, and the 'three giants' rushed in from the street, 'IL-62' cruising from Moscow to Alma-Ata, landed safely in the port of arrival and let out of his belly, among others, the restless Aesculapius whom you haven't forgotten yet, I hope.
Nahum Arcadyevich was pleased: everything was okay in Moscow. I mind his sister's health, of course, and not something else that coupled with weather conditions left much to be desired.
Having got to his airbrick castle, the noble elder didn't begin to fire up his furnace and make coffee. He hooked on his favourite hammock in the arbour, and threw there a sleeping bag over a mattress. Then Nahum Arcadyevich piled into the centre of that health-improving construction, produced 'snip-snap' with his zip fasteners, cast a heavenward glance of satisfaction to bright autumn stars, and flew to the arms of glorious Morpheus at once.
It was a fresh and charming morning!
The author repeats himself, but the nature doesn't diversify right along.
And let it!
Especially concerning 'ah!'
Being confirmed that all gymnastics and physical jerks lose heavily if they exclude the element of concrete up-to-the-minute use out of their systems, Nahum Arcadyevic would sing in the morning. He would sing at the top of his voice; for the common good he lived not in a panel hive, but in his own… well, not in an imported cottage with all up-to-date improvements, but nevertheless in a one-storeyed house that didn't hinder his neighbours too much. And it was fairly important, because our Aesculapius had such a voice - o-ho-ho! At least if the doctor exploited it on the professional scene without a microphone, he would not be overcome by hunger. Due to the proper distance, the sound became softer, more obtuse, and irritated marginally. And the repertoire sometimes was so unexpectedly ace-deuce (from romances and arias to the most frivolous songs, that his neighbours strained their ears more often than chuckled. The only regularity being in evidence in the Aesculapius's repertoire lay in the fact that when his tongue became wadded because of Asian heat, and no one wanted even to move, the doctor used to sing necessarily either 'Oh, severe frost, don't freeze me hard!' or something of the kind, refrigerant.
That morning he represented a few warming-up legato and staccato vocalises, joyfully and freely, in the manner of George Ots (Nahum Arcadyevich believed him to be the paragon of the chant, i.e. the most healthy, breath and execution culture); and only after that tune-up our doctor allowed himself to pass to the main part.
"Exhausted by the torrid weather, he met her on the sunny beach. He put and flung some shells together, afflicted her and made her screech!" he brought to grass, and started quivering, without leaving his sleeping bag.
"She looked at him a little harshly, as if it had not been a prank; but it was reconsidered partially, she laughed and said, 'What a cool bloke!'" Nahum Arcadyevich went on, and inhaled the next portion of burning air through his nose noisily.
You can imagine what shocking bad cold was shaking him heavily; the more so, as snow pellets had fallen onto the ground just before dawn.
The wicket banged, and approaching hub-hub was heard.
"At last!" the Aesculapius thought with relief and shut his eyes tight. "I wandered, parched in mind and heart, across the desert, gloomy, grim… And where the roadways meet and part, I faced the six-winged seraphim! 1" he spouted the poetry vociferously to nearing Fedya, as he supposed.
The matter was as follows: the man of genius was lodging at Nahum Arcadyevich's place for many years, and used to pay for the wear and tear of the living space with the coal of endless scandalous disputes and with housekeeping, which was called by the doctor himself just 'a botch job'. And it was true! His croft was spotted with the botches of different orchard and allotment crops, and the largest one was a horseradish patch.
"Come on, come out, a prophet!" sounded in reply, and the noble elder upheaved his eyelids wonderingly, because it was not Fedya's voice.
Abraham Moiseyevich was standing in front of him.
"A-a, immigrant flower at a witching hour!" Nahum Arcadyevich sang sarcastically. "What's about the Land of the Covenant? It looms, doesn't it? Buzz off! To Israel! Come on! 'And I will stay here forever, my native, my favourite land. I won't leave you, however, for African or Turkish strand!' 2"
Much to the doctor's astonishment, Abraham Moiseyevich didn't bridle at his remarks as usually, but only sighed tiredly, and then brush snow from the bench situated at the corner of the arbour, stretched a newspaper on it, and sat down.
"Aha! You altered your mind about the departure - you said it! Well, bro, I've always expected such a thing of you. Glad for your sake! As well as for mine! Here they are - the true colours of a perennially restless-soul Russian intellectual! And it doesn't matter that he is of Jewish origin! Here it is - the pride of the nation, I mean the whole country, and not some underpopulated beaky cluster! Here it is - our socialist triumph! Now Jews don't forsake the sinking ship like rats. They struggle!"
"Finished?"
"Well, why?"
"Well, so! Beet Heebs - save Jews! Moreover - of all times and nations!"
"Now, now! Go on, you double Black-Hundreder! You with your slogans are waited for there!"
"I'm just going… Fedya is in the first clinic, and Apollo is in the remand cell on suspicion of rape and plundering. He has got such heart attacks there that flatties have called in an ambulance twice already."
"Wha-at?" Nahum Arcadyevich bobbed, and the boards to which the hammock was attached squeaked plaintively.
"Your man of genius lies with the concussion of the brain, and as to Apollo, it is necessary to phone Solomon Israelevich, otherwise things look dreck. I'm right from the
_____________
1 Pushkin A.S. The Prophet. - Translated by J. Coutts.
2 Isakovsky M. Birds of Passage.

militia station, and they say that when they took him from the place of crime he had already been maimed hardly."
"Ay-ay! Some special forces group is necessary for that!"
"Probably, they managed without it."
"Oh-oh, my poor brailed falcons…" Nahum Arcadyevich started wailing, giving disordered twitches at his zippers.
"Don't jigger! I've jiggered for both you and me. One of us should keep fit. Here is Apollo uncle's phone number. I can't get through anyhow. It looks as if we have to pop in for a visit immediately."
"When did they get into scrapes?"
"Last night."
"That is when I… And whom have you managed to hear from?"
"A nurse phoned from Fedya, and then I came across Apollo by pure chance. One bloke gave me a lift to the hospital, and was cursing and damning; so, I asked him, 'What's the matter?', and he talked turkey. So and so, 'met a bandit at night and delivered him up to justice'. Well, something supernatural does exist! Some details make my blood run cold due to the thought, 'Isn't it Apollo?' I began to ask point by point - it was him! I've hardly found our director. They clapped him in such a hellhole, such a hellhole…"
Ten minutes later Nahum Arcadyevich was dressed up fit to kill. But when he, being encased in his brightest armour of consumer goods, entered the arbour, Abraham Moiseyevich was nodding. Having dragged his opponent out of the hay, the doctor shoved him a bunch of keys resolutely.
"I say, emigrant vulgaris, piled to my place and sleep. And I'm away… Well, don't oppose! When I come back, you would look greenly. Maybe, it will be necessary to change me. Hospital and militia - they are very special institutions…"
"Ra-a-ther special…" Abraham Moiseyevich added yawning.
That time he didn't start any dispute. Abraham Moiseyevich merely put on the doctor's woolen 'bed' 'Olympic' jacket, piled with the doctor's help into his sleeping bag, and produced 'snip-snap' with the zip fasteners.
"Why didn't you call before leaving for Moscow? I would hand something over to you."
"But you did hand! Haven' you forgotten?"
"It was when you left for Frunze. And then I remembered about one remedy…"
"That's a fine how-d'ye-do! How would I take it, if I left for Moscow right from Frunze?"
"Did you? And the fellows said they had met you in Moscow!"
"Nonsense! How is it possible if there was the direct flight Frunze - Moscow? They mix up something. Damned neurasthenia!"
"Okay… Have you got some coffee?"
"What coffee? Sleep is your coffee! Sleep!" Nahum Arcadyevich replied and stepped out to the fence.
Abraham Moiseyevich twitched droopingly, and, having realized that it was better not to meddle in the hammock overturning moment, closed his eyes.
His first dream was - SOCIALIST!
The second one - CAPITALIST!
The third - EMIGRATIONAL!
The fourth - REVOLUTIONARY!

Dream One
(Socialist)

Firstly, there was a meeting, where all including a speaker were tying themselves hand and foot and falling asleep. A tremendous green fly was sitting on the speaker's report folder. It was twisting with its villous chelae and yelling as a disc saw. Even the dead would not bear it, but the sleepers were only smacking their lips beatifically, and voted affirmatively in concert from time to time.
Calm, rest, and God's grace!
Then there was a plant, where the same citizens continued to sack out, but that time everybody was at his workplace, in the most baroque poses. An electronic display was soaring above the sleepers' heads, and appeals flashed there like soundless wildfire. Each flashing was accompanied with the ring of oracular bells; by that reason, the sleepers gave a squirm, and after the next choreographic stunt, they fall asleep again.
And at last, a parade was, and Abraham Moiseyevich himself took part in it. At first, he saw himself among demonstrators. It was very strange, but they were the same citizens; they didn't sleep that time, but were blind drunk. Instead of streamers, flags and balloons, each of them was raising a half-emptied bottle with vodka, high and proudly like a paranoiac, and sustaining endless rolling 'Hur-r-a-a-ah!' in a beastly voice. 'Extra', 'Wheaten', 'Capital', 'Hunting', 'Moscow', 'Anise', 'Siberian', 'Ambassadorial', and all the others were potbellily swimming above the crowd. Unknown names occurred along with well-known ones. 'Stakhanovka', 'Essential', 'Patriotic', 'Appetizing', and so forth were seen around.
Suddenly Abraham Moiseyevich noticed something absolutely unusual. One business bloke, probably not completely cock-eyed yet, and maybe for that reason fierce ne plus ultra, embedded into the file and started jabbing the massive veneer portrait of Karl Marx into the demonstrators. Wow-whoops! But only the bottles shot higher up, and only an unknown maypole, having taken the portrait for snack, froze to it with his teeth and tore a fair piece away from its upper left corner. Sawdust showered hard… And the maypole threw his head back, produced some deep-chested cooing, and tapped the bloke on the shoulder. The man got ropeable even more. Having bucked sparkly, he galloped straight to Abraham Moiseyevich who gave under the portrait weight without a single wink of the eyelid. A drum thundered, a trumpet sang - the file started moving. The back crowded, soldiers stood from both sides - there was no backing space. Staggering under the burden that became more and more heavy every second, Abraham Moiseyevich slapped along. And the bloke mopped his brow, extracted half a litre out of his bosom, half-emptied it, threw ot up high above his head, and melted into the crowd. Abraham Moiseyevich looked out of the portrait staff, and her mouth formed 'O'. A banner blushed on the bottle, and it was cut diagonally with a poster type, 'Partie'. Abraham Moiseyevich knew that some sort of plonk, the cheapest port wine, is called 'Partie' by alkies, but that such a thing had passed the censor, and, moreover, was shining on the super-popular commodity - it seemed to be unreal! However, all the rest seemed to be the same: the portrait of Karl Marx chafed the hands and the shoulders up to bloody hideousness, and was pressing so, as if it was cast of the red gold one-piece bar.
Using a hitch, due to which the file stopped for a moment, Abraham Moiseyevich took the bit between his teeth, and shouting, "To take a whiz! To take a whiz!" he broke the army block and ran out to pavement. He leaned the portrait carefully against some withered on the vine nursling of the Society of Nature Conservation, and suddenly found out that he had mounted the rostrum.
From there, from above, everything was seen through rose-coloured glasses. Red bunting blushed. The volumetric masterpieces of visual agitation and propaganda piled up here and there in red mirage. Flat lounge suits with clerical faces and one, two ore more 'stars' on their prominent full-blooded chests were passing proudly above jubilant masses. Everything was okay!
Abraham Moiseyevich looked around. Good heavens! The same mugs, though not full-blooded, but senile, belonging to bald creakers in starchy standard suits-coffins surrounded him. All of them seemed to be standing, but factually, they were sitting on high cocktail chairs-hillocks. An ice-woman with a tray was worming belly crawling along the walkway. There were… syringes on the tray! As soon as the next creaker started drooping from his hillock, the ice-woman gave him an injection to one well-known body area, and he, having straightened at once, right off the bat began to waggle with his finger - complimentarily… or maybe, reproachfully… or maybe, warningly - toward the people that started reeling and singing about 'circle drag' and 'our red flag' right away.
Abraham Moiseyevich began to worm too, due to his ever-increasing astonishment, and for that, he also received an injection, which made him jumped up into the clouds.
The clouds in the skies above received him with open arms. From that altitude, everything that took place beneath seemed to be perfect. Abraham Moiseyevich even was touched, but he remembered about high-level oxygen deficit pretty damn quick, and forced himself to knit the brows a little. A result didn't keep him waiting.
"Wham! Wham! Wham!" multicolored balloons, tiny bubbles and huge gas-bags were bursting, and bannerettes and stickers that were attached to them were sweeping down.
Abraham Moiseyevich tried to knit his brows a little more, imagining those odds and ends dabbing somebody on their tops, but nothing of the kind. Absolutely idiotic merriment was tearing each his cell. At that moment, even the balloons didn't cast a pall over an unfocused, and because of that ideal festivity. Everything was dancing and singing, both on earth and in the sky. The balloons were bursting more and more furiously. At last, the thickest and coolest, red one tapped the nose of Abraham Moiseyevich, who was hopping and singing full-blast already too; having flown into flinders, it precipitated him through time vacuum to another dream.

Dream Two
(Capitalist)

The action of the second dream began with the same, with which it stopped in the first one: with heavens; moreover - with sunset heavens! The splendour would have been full, if there had not been a neon Latin inscription, ugly in its inanimate constancy; it, like a scar, crossed a living kaleidoscope west-to east and north-to-south, from one side of the Earth up to another, crosswise:

HOMO HOMINI - NEMO EST!
(A MAN IS NOBODY TO A MAN!)

Abraham Moiseyevich read it and… began to fall in. The lower he was falling, the darker became overhead and the lighter beneath. Having sighed with relief, Abraham Moiseyevich looked under his feet and… ran cold. He was flying just to the crater of the monstrous incandescent mincing machine, which was roaring like the Niagara Falls.
"A-a!.." he attempted to run away, but his body parts didn't comply with him.
And what for should they comply in free fall? Take heed - it was the breath of heat… Next moment the technical roar was overlapped with the crackle of the bone grinding, and the bones belonged to the citizens, who resembled Abraham Moiseyevich himself, and who were flying to the light… Next moment…
Abraham Moiseyevich recovered consciousness in a ward-press, compressing from all sides simultaneously, slowly, and because of that especially terribly. It was not the best pleasure, but as it became clear later, neither the worst one. When the press extruded the lucky dog out, he was squeezed as an orange and almost atomized, but… he was still moving. He stopped his move only after he had undergone an operation similar to the 'tight spot', or 'the fifth corner'. The crowd of faceless people in the most virtuous masks received him, and began to bandy full-circle, without touching the ground.
"A man is nobody to a man! Let me be!" Abraham Moiseyevich started shrieking desperately, dabbing to the sky with the remainders of his finger, but in vain.
It turned even for the worse! That time they began to tear off some piece of his clothing after each yerk. Wham - his coat! Wham - his waistcoat! Wham!.. The last kick was the most strong, and what was the main - to the taboo, unmentionable place. Underpants (the last garment) made a cracking sound and… slit. The lucky devil didn't feel pang (how could he feel anything?), but passed out. He realized it with his mind, because somehow was continuing to see himself from outside for some time more. Like a white swan, he was hovering over the furious crowd of the nicest masks and rocking slightly and disdainfully… it doesn't matter with what!
At last, that apparition also dissolved in darkness, approaching and wreathing, like smoke…
Abraham Moiseyevich saw himself in a luxurious multicell closet. Judging by the sacrificers of business that were sitting 'enthroned' on golden lavatory pans inlaid with precious stones, the closet was for elite. The whites of the eyes of those sitting were shown with pleasure, and they showed that, at long last, they reached the bliss they had been straining after from generation to generation. Abraham Moiseyevich, as well as all the rest, had a smoking and a bowler on; and what was more, he found the ability to self-contained movement again. But that was the only signs of quasi-improvement. A pinching wish did not take long time to pierce the lucky rascal from below. He rushed to a precious unoccupied vessel - and… was stopped by a charming lady.
"Money, money, money!" she sang, and rubbed with her fingers in front of the lucky beggar's eyes.
Abraham Moiseyevich thrust his hand feverishly into the first his pocket he had come across and extracted the handful of Soviet coins out of it; the lady pulled a wry face only. In the other pocket, only the money of socialist countries turned out to be. The lady didn't reacted even. Being burst open with the most natural wish, Abraham Moiseyevich thrust his hands into his pockets for the third time, and they got filled up with Soviet badges. Despair rushed to his head, but suddenly the lady smiled, took the badges, and went away. In less than no time, our hero flew up the roost. But no sooner had he done all awfully urgent than…
"I am sorry!" sounded near his ear, and the same lady (God knew from where she had appeared) threw the hero out of the pan with the professional hit of a special agent.
"What? What else?" the lucky bargee cried blue murder.
"Money, money, money! For washing-down!" she sang again, and popped with her fingers.
"Blasted capitalism!" Abraham Moiseyevich roared, whereat all the trouble-free sitters opened their fiery with delight eyes wide and dabbed at him with their digits covered with diamonds.
"May all your teeth fall out and one stay to pain!" they gave him damns and curses in chorus, and Abraham Moiseyevich spitted out all his teeth immediately, and yelled with pain in the last one.
And that was not enough! The poor dog's neck turned to be belt with the massive gold chain with a diamond, as tremendous as a hen egg (rouble twenty for a dozen!). The chain twisted to a tyburn tippet, and the diamond took the form of an electric drill and bit into his Adam's apple. His tortures seemed to draw to a head. But no! They didn't! Where was darkness? The heaven-sent darkness was not sent. Everything outside and inside was becoming even lighter and brighter, by some perverted logic. Due to unbearable shining and heat, tears seemed to gush from his eyes, but dried up at once, and his eyelids blistered with scalds.
"Yipe-yipe! Let me go, my Lord! Let me!" Abraham Moiseyevich cried out blankly and desperately, and… in who-knows-what-time of saving nihility he got to the next dream.

Dream Three
(Emigrational)
The first thing that the hero saw there was a trunk - a huge leather trunk without a handle (and where to get a handle in nightmares from?). But the main trouble was not the absence of any handle, but the fact that the trunk used to be lost all the time. And there was - everything! Being in a cold sweat and heat every second, Abraham Moiseyevich was hurrying and scurrying about different railroad stations, ports and airdromes, found the trunk at last, every time in the most noticeable place, and lost it right there, only to find again and to lose again.
Finally, the traveller had a hunch. He glaumed a rope from a random (or, maybe, not random) nodding alpinist, and embraced the wandering container and he himself with it a few times. And then merely a cartoon began. The trunk got on hind legs (it was necessary to heave off goodly because of that) and… assailed his owner. A stroke! One stroke more!..
"If your friend turned to be at once neither your bosom friend nor a foe, if you can't analyse at once, whether he is okay…," station loudspeakers were whooping hoarsely after the runaway.
Behold, it became absolutely impossible to bear blunt object traumas; next moment the runaway fell down and tried to protect his head with his arms; next moment… A gulf yawned, and, lugging away his obstinate partner, Abraham Moiseyevich started falling.
Who used to fall in his dreams rather often, he knows that the pleasure is more philosophical then physical. The hero was falling exactly as long as it was necessary to calm down absolutely, make up his mind, and not to let a devil care of anything and anybody. One should think - what could be better? But no sooner had he been over the hump than flopped into a huge ice-hole. The trunk disengaged, dapped for his master, and then resurfaced after him, too. From the left side (or maybe, from the right one) right on the ice edge, was written with tremendous red letters - 'USSR'. From the right side (or maybe, from the left one) was written with the same tremendous and red letters - 'NOT-USSR'. Breathing heavily and pushing the trunk in front of him, Abraham Moiseyevich swam from left to right (or maybe, from right to left). In spite of an obviously winter decoration, it was unbearably hot. Having reached the right side of the ice-hole (or maybe, the left one) and smelt the ice, which rose to an unattainable height, the traveller flounced there, flounced here, and… swam again, i.e. backward. The trunk didn't stand it and went to the bottom. It dinged and clacked with bursting bubbles in the swimmer's ears, "Don't hang loose, like a chip in an ice-hole! Choose where better is!"
"An inner voice connected. The otherworldly one!" Abraham Moiseyevich stated unexpectedly easy, and answered mentally on the word, easy as well, "Here is all shit, and there is all shit!"
"Choose!" the voice repeated emphatically and maliciously. "Choose, or…"
Pain! Unbearable pain pushed off from his ears and pelted inside, like a blast wave. Abraham Moiseyevich opened his eyes wide, got a sniff of air, and shouted full-blast suddenly, "But what a transfer in Paris!"
"Bool-bool-bool!" boiled around, and water swelled.
On the spout of the hissing boiling water, Abraham Moiseyevich rushed towards, and… in who-knows-what-time of nihility he got to the last and the shortest dream.

Dream Four
(Revolutionary)

The world appeared after the pleasant touch of cool iron to his red-hot flesh. Paris! Certainly, it was Paris, with its unchangeable Eiffel Tower. It was one of its bearing that Abraham Moiseyevich was rubbing against with his beaten and burnt forehead (not all details of the previous dream had disappeared).
O Paris, the cradle of revolutions and fashions, of the most refined forms of love and its amazing combinations; the sacrificer of delicacy, frivolity, and the triumphant flight of unshackled intellect! O Paris!.. People crowds were shouting, dancing, singing, swearing like troopers, fighting, and generally behaving extremely noisily and in a harum-scarum manner. And it could have caused only an indulgent smile, like a childish frolic, if it hadn't been blood there. The real oily dark and scarlet human blood was rilling under the crowd feet and bedaubing soles and clothes.
It was dripping from the Tower, too. Firstly, Abraham Moiseyevich didn't guess what namely it was, but when he wiped the next drop out of his forehead and looked at his hand, he was struck. Blood! Blood was everywhere!
"If only not in vain! If only not in vain!" he started sniveling in horror.
Having clutched their mouths in fear, all made room for a path, to which the procession of sacrificers in red KKK loose overalls and with bathing basins in their hands stepped holily. Cherubic babies were merrily splashing in the basins. Having reached the Tower and surrounded it, the sacrificers sang 'Id! I-dea! Idi-ot!' coldly and with an air of detachment, and simultaneously splashed out the content of the basins. The children's bodies, yelling desperately, convulsing, and disintegrating in a manner of corpses, fastened upon Abraham Moiseyevich.
The sun flared up.
"A-a-ah!" the crowd roared wildly.
The sun popped out.
"U-u-uh!" those who still could groan - groaned.
The sun flared up again.
"A-a-ah!" ran down the lines once more.
The sun popped out.
There was nobody to groan…

Abraham Moiseyevich opened his eyes. He was lying under the hammock. Plashes of sunlight were joyfully jumping through the net, which was shuddering still. It was noon - it was hot.
"Blew in!" the lucky devil noticed to himself with satisfaction, and added audibly, "It serves you right!"
"How do you do!" sounded near him, timidly and as if in fear.
"How do you do!" Abraham Moiseyevich replied automatically and, having looked aside carefully, saw an angel.
"Jeezy-peezy!" the traveller snarled, and pushed the sleeping bag zipper with his chin.
His nightmares obviously didn't want to leave him: the angel didn't disappear.
"Are you Nahum Arcadyevich?" the angel soughed even softer, and began to walk backward.
"And why? Do we seem to be twins?" the lying man bellowed rather rudely, and answer himself ready at hand, "Oh, yea, all Jews are relatives!"
"What is that to Jews?" the angel sang more bravely that time. "I'm right from a loony-bin."
"That's the right place for you! And, as you see, I'm from my hammock!" Abraham Moiseyevich croaked, and having knocked over all zippers finally, produced 'snip-snap' with them.
"I'm Sveta. Fedya's girlfriend. I'm from Fedya!" the angel pronounced angrily and loudly at last, and broke from its sacral aura aureole and wings.
Here the author again gives the man of genius a possibility to glare with his talents in front of the mankind, and at the same time acquaints you with Sveta. And so, Fedya's story:

The Ghost of Ataman Dutov

What human beings can, with their poor five senses, life minimum, and weaknesses? Somebody will say 'much', some - 'a little', and Sveta ascertained that - nothing! They could nothing, because all their activity is ticking over producing the outward show of moving.
That philosophy, pretty matured, came to Svetlana in a pretty matured age - when she was eighteen; more of that - in the place that seemed to be the most improper for such things: in the 'Olympian', the camp of the Pioneer and Komsomol body of active functionaries. Generally, it was a health camp, and that was why it had such a name; but the last shift was allowed to the activists, and it was resulted in new content, naturally. Bugles started blaring, drums started rataplan, pioneer marches started pulsating in loudspeakers, instead of 'You are born under the sign of Scorpio', cooks got a fright and used all the products for the purpose specified, for the first time during the summer.
The season started!
Svetlana's plans were grandiose. As a new educationalist of the House of Young Pioneers, she had to prove at once that she had put foot at that uneasy path according to her avocation.
Happy and excited, she was posting the camp banner group, when a man about thirty, with a weight-lifter figure, stylishly vested in a fancy product of a custom tailor, stood beside her.
"What are you?" he asked, ignoring standard-bearers who were marching in step.
"What does it mean - 'what'?" Sveta felt abashed.
She was somehow immediately hit by his mannequin hairstyle, his wraparound amber, and his oily black fuzziness, which was thrusting through the lapels of his sport-styled shirt.
"Well, a pioneer or a pioneer leader?"
"A l-leader… And what are you?"
"Schwartz!" the athlete mouthed meaningly, gave her a gamesome wink, and raised his admonitory finger.
"Svetka, take it easy! I'm sick of that scumbag!" Galina Alexandrovna explained Schwartz's essence with disgust in the evening. (She was a senior pioneer leader, an educationalist of the same House of Young Pioneers, but very, very experienced.) "A male beast! An outstanding sire and a busker!"
"A musician!" Sveta translated for herself, and looked askew at an accordion 'Weltmeister', matted with dust, that hulked up at one of the bedside tables of the pioneer room.
It was a top-level camp opening. The order, having been planned by Galina Alexandrovna, was broken only at the end, when only the pile of magically glowing dying embers remained instead of the fire, and all the children were snuggling up to one another, shivering chilly. Jokes, improvisations, and songs to the guitars of seniors rolled in.
"Ah, it we've got another scenario!" Galina Alexandrovna started worrying. "Ah, if it were an accordion!.."
But more experienced, i.e. wise, Nina Ivanovna Shabanova was sitting there. She was the master of the shift, the person of the kindest and gentlest heart, and certainly due to that the best director of the Houses of Young Pioneers in the Lenin district. So, Nina Ivanovna edged Galina out, and in a few minutes, the tantara 'sleep, sleep, all the ridders, pioneers and their leaders!' was hovering over the camp.
The 'Olympian' was situated at the bottom of two mountain flexures with a tiny spring-fed river, which had raised around itself almost subtropical jungles. They began straight upon public conveniences, it meant - just out of invisible borders that separated a domesticate paradise and wild rainforest. And quite peculiar stars, the August ones, were shining above all these. They were so peculiar because, firstly, there is too immense amount of them in that month, and, maybe owing to that, they are falling all the time; and secondly, these celestial bodies have nothing to do with astronomy in August, because they are piled into the sky solely for lyrics and poetry.
And so, that night nobody was sleeping in the camp, with the exception of the master of the shift, the senior pioneer leader and two or three married mentors. Right after two had been struck, everyone got up, put his clothes on, rolled himself up with a woolen blanket that got free of a blanket cover, and deepened into the comb. It was a strange procession, noiseless and organized very well.
"Activists!" Svetlana's heart was thumping out proudly and delightfully.
Like all the leaders, she was heading her band and thought, "What a remarkable tradition it is - to continue the camp opening in such a manner, all together, somewhere almost in jungles, near some mysterious 'Black stone'!"
Branches were whipping, planks that connected the riverbanks were slipping out, and the path was invisible and sometimes dangerously crooked on the way up the mountain; everything had an aura of romanticism and adventures about it. And to the fore, near a huge basaltic rock, a fire had been made long time ago and a few children were shaking potato out of their rucksacks…
Everything was nice there - until some night bird started its screeching.
"The ghost of ataman Dutov," the camp physical training instructor joked, having made the Gorgon eyes.
"What ghost? What Dutov?" He was assailed with questions immediately.
"Namely the one! He who skipped off to mountains, being pursued by ours. The Red Army men made an ambush there, where an arch is now, and at that time, he was near the stone. From here, he went off… People say that the pine-tree near our dining room was planted by him, with his own hands."
"Uh! Uh!" the bird screeched again, and Sveta moved up closer to the fire.
"Wonderful things!" she thought. "Both the ataman and the ambush disappeared a long time ago, and the pine-tree is still growing. And its bark isn't white, but dark red, as it must be. And the stone was black, and it is still black…"
Towards morning already, after all the 'night-birds' had come back to the camp, to their chambers, and fallen asleep at once, Sveta, weightless due to new impressions and unusual elation, ran away out of the camp territory once more and looked at the sky. The whole bunch of stars rolled down without delay, as if had just been waiting for that moment.
"What should I wish, what should I wish?" Svetlana thought belatedly, traced the flight of fiery spatters and got struck.
From the rainforest, the ataman Dutov's yellow eyes were staring at her.
"Yow!" the ataman said and, having turned to Schwartz, added, "Puss-puss-puss!"
The bushes started crackling, and one more sacrificer of the bohemia and all its taint came out of them, following the leader. The sacrificer was, in contrast to Schwartz, fragile and almost transparent owing to his thinness, and his hands were keeping a tight grip on a branded jazz trumpet with golden glints.
"Sasha, sound the march!" Schwartz ordered.
Having hardly caught a prancing mouthpiece, the sacrificer began to play mightily. His conservatory education manifested itself…
"Uh!" the bird screeched.
"It's time to wench! It's time to wench!" the leader rapped out, picked the blower up, and marched past Sveta back to the rainforest.
"Splosh! Splosh!" was heard from the riverside.
"Ouch!" Sveta screamed.
"Salam alcoholeicum, folks!" sounded out of the opposite bushes, and Dulat, the third sacrificer, round and shining like the fool moon, stretched his hands to the drowning men.
"J-jehoshaphat!" called names Schwartz, spitting dirt out.
The blower, standing knee-deep in water like a sentry at his post, was pressing a huge bone to his lips. Judging by sounds produced with its help, rather indecent but very recognizable by their rhythm, he was attempting to play 'Neapolitan Song' by Tchaikovsky.
Venice! Surely, it was Venice around him!
Next day young pathfinders found the ill-fated trumpet in the dump of the archeological view, which had grown among the riverside brushwood. Following in wet and still very fresh footsteps, they brought it to the three-place tent that seemed to be shaken by the divers' polyphonic snore…
A few days later the triumvirate bodily was appointed as night watchmen. Some citizens of the service age started incursions on the camp territory, and a proper job was presented to the tough guys. It stands to reasons that Dutov was in it. The ataman's ghost was an experienced strategist, and knew what would have to happen; the sacrificer began to act immediately, not departing by a hairbreadth from their main mission. At night, the aroma of shashlik and some especially teasing spices greeted the camp. Maybe, that was the reason, maybe, something else, but Nina Ivanovna got the most severe allergy, and Galina Alexandrovna used to lacerate her throat to such an extent daily that slept like a log at night.
And the aroma was spreading… The supplementary sounds of glasses clanging together, dashing songs to the accordion (a sort of 'Lovely, buddies, lovely, it's so nice to live! Our ataman will never let somebody grieve!'), and stories about gallant deeds of a wild youth crowned the picture. Only horse neigh was wanted, and nobody could resist it. It was useful to oppose such a trial, especially alfresco. Soon all 'new Gypsies' sat near the fire at night, and in the daytime all of them slept in turn and moved trancedly, in a noctambulant manner, recovering only toward evening, at the thought of the coming merriment.
What children with their pioneer affairs was it possible to think about?
The only person who did not take part in those campaigns was one intellectual, Kesha. Self-contained, with his eyes glancing smartly through 'socialist-revolutionary' glasses, he was a diversionist by birth and a cook by profession: not a simple cook, but the camp chef. Kesha was the first to perceive the change of weather, and his analytical mind was occupied with exact calculations. To gorge and to sing near the fire were childish sports for him. Kesha was busy with much more serious affair: he was stealing!
And near the fire, everything moved in a groove. The main hinge of the conversation was a menu, and the person who called the tune was Sasha the Blower, alias San Von. A Korean by his origin, he would pour forth the names of rare and exotic dishes that he cooked himself. The acme and the highest kaif was the dish, the name of which was pronounced with the energetic exhalation of the Tibetan karate - 'h-he!'. Some herb 'jusa-ai' (one would pronounce it largo, showing the whites of his eyes), hot pepper, pounded garlic, radish, vinegar, and some neutralizing and all-softening soybean were Alpha and Omega of his cookery, which excited God knows what. It was clear that the blower was a dab hand at all that, and not only at hot-dogs.
Apropos, about dogs. When Sasha narrated about them, everybody began to leer at a huge fat bandog Larrick, laden with outguard, as well as them. The bandog was the property of Galina Alexandrovna, and it might be the only reason wherefore it lived to see the end of the season safely. But San Von had cooked it in his mind long time ago, and each night he word-painted all the delights of dog meat to everybody.
"What have you eaten in your life? You haven't eaten anything but semolina!" he whooped indignantly while smacking his lips, and added amorously to the dog's side, "You are my ragout!"
Dulat was much occupied, too. All the daytime free of sleep, he was running with a list, where he entered the names if those who had chipped in 'according to individual abilities'. After the financial barrel had been scraped, Dulat would wake Schwartz, and both of them disappeared from the camp. The sacrificers came back being tired, bad-tempered, but with full bags. One could not but do everything, bring everything for his caboodle, could he?
Sveta was still wandering from one cottage to another and chattering about different tournaments, 'KVN' - competitions of humorous amateur show groups, but nobody cared a rap. The content rushed violently from one form to another, and that was why everything fell to pieces and flew to complete smashup. Any stump oratory about staged songs and other actions, not less interesting, were broken to shivers against everlasting hunger burning in bellies and libidinous appetence in hearts.
"Drop in!" whispered invitingly the lips of the rag-tag lambs, heavy with sleep, and Sveta shrank.
At last, after even family men had changed their quiet sleep for the altar of gluttony and revelry, she could not persist, either. Having come to the fire, Svetlana drank a 'penalty stiffener' and saw shining August stars again. Schwartz's smiling face and the most aromatic eastern refection appeared from some mist that was blearing her eyes.
"Ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ah!" ataman Dutov burst out laughing like a bird, and… the next ANCIENT ROME fell...

Chapter XVIII

WELCOME!

Abraham Moiseyevich apologized and began to jump out of his bag. If he had done it a little slower, one jump would have done. But great embarrassment made the lucky devil act wrong; the bag ballooned, crinkled, rolled, knocked the girl down, and struck against the only rotten leg of the solid garden table. The leg crackled, and about fifteen kilogramme of dampened wood plummeted to their heads.
The nature foresaw everything. Having reached its peak, 'too bad' usually transforms to 'good', and sometimes it can be even death itself (the author has already mentioned it, which waits for all of us). In such cases, a genius folk guess 'the worse - the better'. And that's right! If a return path is debarred, then one has to move only forward, even with his head against a wall or something like that. Fortunately, in that case, the heads, or more accurately, head backs, thudded only against the garden table; or more accurately, they were thudded by the table. And when, some time later, both of them were laughing joyfully and drinking coffee at the same table, which had been repaired wham-bam, who was able to imagine all impossibility of the events? And if to add to it that the owner of the 'rancho' joined them soon, then we've got though a short-term, but happy end.
"Ace!" the doctor announced from the threshold. "They have already taken Apollo to a hospital. Well, not to the elite one, of course, but it isn't a hoosegow at least. Excuse me… If I'm not mistaken, your name is…"
"Svetlana."
"Right. I've heard about you, I have. So, you're right from the man of genius. Very well. And how's the light of our eyes there?"
"Your light is in the rat-house! In war paint, so moony and loony!" Abraham Moiseyevich was well in advance of Sveta.
"Already?" Nahum Arcadyevich even moved back in surprise.
"Well, no fear! I'm just from there," Svetlana affirmed and gave the Aesculapius a cup with steaming coffee. "He is pleased with the place very much."
"Hm… Yea…" the restless Aesculapius uttered perplexedly, in a plangent manner, and put the cup down.
Ah 'loony-bin', 'loony-bin'! It was heard about you so much; it will be heard even more; it… By the way, if you haven't been there yet - surely as a patient, not a visitor, - welcome, we'll be glad to see you! Oh, sorry! No doubts, you considered yourself to be an absolutely normal citizen, and it is really so, because everything that is normal here, is not normal there, and absolutely unbearable somewhere and somewhen else…
Fedya didn't know that somebody had taken revenge upon him. He was glad as a child, and even admired the possibility to make acquaintance with that sphere, which was always interesting for intellectuals, from within. Well-known and merciless itchiness that makes a person get firsthand knowledge about everything, touch everything with his own hand and have his personal opinion on all points, had obviously influenced him, and his mind was in its grip. So, somehow, Fedya got to his destination.
And now about the avenger. It was a certain Funkov - the doctor of the already known urgent mental health team; he came round to the hospital by chance, and rejoiced very much at seeing Fedya there. And if Apollo was kidding, while saying that the loony-bin is the most appropriate place for all men of genius, then Funkov was sleeplessly dreaming about the day, when all of them would get there and stop being an eyesore to normal citizens and making the last ones go haywire. Funkov hardly could realize that the source of his hatred to the especially gifted was his hopelessly broken zealous belief in his personal exceptionalness; but factually, it turned to be a soap bubble, which had been inflated by his parents for their own pleasure. And again, if Fedya himself used only to banter his pretensions, then Funkov thought sometimes that they were not far from truth.
The matter was that Fedya had already dealt with that healer of unsound minds once upon a time; true, not as a patient, but as a junior colleague. The results of communication between one frustrated and one not burned didn't keep them waiting; the more so that non-typical and sometimes simply thwart behaviour of the man of genius had always made rather strange impression. In a nutshell, at that, not too distant time, Funkov managed to influence his colleagues fairly easily; he formed a definite opinion about Fedya's 'unbalance' ('not too unbearable' for that moment) and the proper diagnosis of everything that was produced by that unbalance. Having left medicine, Fedya even didn't suspect that had avoided the second stage of Funkov's game: provocations and mental commitment, with an unfavorable prognosis for the disease. And as the case stood, Funkov found Fedya in rather helpless conditions, used his official state and the hustle and bustle that are common for all extra-departmental infirmaries, and relocated him fairly easily to the 'bedlam', as if for a consultation.
"Kuprin simply didn't get out of nuthouses and other 'green pastures,'" the psychotherapeutist reasoned, preparing the patient for victimizing.
"Yea, yea," Fedya was nodding and smiling blissfully.
"You read your verses about suicide in the receiving-room! Do you remember? 'To commit a suicide is my dream! That will do to abase and to stoop! I will fly to the land of the beam, to get rid of that greediness loop!'"
"Yea, yea," Fedya started. "'Be they cursed - love, and tortures, and joy! Be they cursed - the attractions of life! Let my treacherous flesh be destroyed! That will do! Where's a merciful knife?' Look, you remember!"
"Well, my dear, I have the memory of a secret-service agent! There's something else, what's that?.. Ah! 'I see leaden heavens, a leaden highway. To get under wheels is my heavenly way!' We'll drag in suicidal intentions, and you'll be flown in such a miraculous padded cell - beyond description! And when it becomes boring - tell me, that's all! I'll happen along daily, you know…"
Fedya was recognized in the receiving-room, too.
"Fedyenka, by what chance?" one of the nurses on duty shouted; she had changed a first-aid station to that place for extra payment for insalubrity.
Amicable, home-like atmosphere that had set up at once, relaxed the man of genius absolutely. Actually, he gave a nurse the telephone numbers of Abraham Moiseyevich and his girl friend and asked to inform them about his new location, but it was only for the sake of his friends and colleagues' appeasement. And Funkov, who saw that his measures could fail and be misdirect, stated that he had taken Fedya to Professor Rusakov's consultation, and if the aforementioned person wasn't available, he could carry the patient back.
"Oh no! You don't say so!" the man of genius exclaimed. "I have a suicidal mania, don't you forget? And I want to commit a suicide!"
And he blew everything they had made their agreement about.
And Fedya was taken.
And to prevent him from being afraid or from - who knows? - personal attacks, they gave him a tablet of aminazin, and it dipped the too emotional man of genius to such nirvana of indifference that is experienced only by yogis and folklore gods.
Two 'archangels' with bullish necks and armour muzzles changed the experimenter's clothes to the infirmary ones, picked him up and lifted up to the first floor, the third ward.
The door of the ward was closed.
Having unlocked it with a weighty rusty iron resembling an old lorry door handle, the 'archangels' brought Fedya in and bed him… well, not to a brocaded bed, but at a bunk, nevertheless.
"A cave…" Fedya stated indifferently.
His mind, having been struck with the medicine, was working still; as a matter of fact, that narrow padded cell without windows looked if not like a cave, but like a grotto, for sure. The exit from that grotto called 'the monitoring room' was blocked with a table, at which awful clatter didn't stop daily and nightly. It was the sound of dominos: hefty male nurses and 'healthy invalids' were playing it. All the first half of the first day Fedya passed at the interesting observing of that guffawing fraternity. And when he was called to Sveta who had been the first to learn about his new residence, he expressed all his delights about that unusual foreshortening to her.
Generally, the finger of God was seen at Sveta and Fedya's relations. And though the man of genius told everybody that she was neither his lover nor, moreover, his bride, but simply his friend and the copy of an angel out of the looking glass, but the girl herself didn't share that opinion.
"I love him… almost as his mother!" she explained archly to her puzzled friends. "He is so defenceless! So gifted!.."
The first night in a new place is always adaptive; and the second one, too. But it seems to be impossible to get used to dominoes din in one's ears. And that was not all! Fedya hardly steeped in half-delusional slumber past midnight; but about four in the morning he awoke in a cold sweat, because a man lying before him was bawling in a heart-rending voice, 'I see the target!' and beating with his head against his bed back. Thirty percent of the adult male contingent of the mental asylum situated on the Seifullin and Abay corner was presented by bats or simulating servicemen, and that was one of them.
In the morning of the second day, Fedya was conducted to a…
Scrutiny!
The scrutiny might have been the final stage of his staying in a 'loony' hospital, if it had not been for drugs. Before the scrutiny, Fedya was led to the entrance where a dopey woman with a spatula in her hand was sitting at a little table. According to the list of prescriptions in front of her, the 'auntie' winkled proper pills out of a multicellular feeder and shoved them in the mouth of a person to whom they were prescribed. The lucky dog made a swallow - and got searched at once. The 'auntie' was an artist with her spatula; at one stroke, she tilled all the corners of a bottomless, habitually swung open gorge, and, having found no pills, fed another one in the same manner.
Near Fedya's surname, with the red pencil of temporary prescriptions, it was shown… exactly what he had got. A few pills disappeared in his depths - and began their merciless activity without any delay. The man of genius felt an invisible janitor beginning sweeping out of his head everything available, one after another. Soon Fedya's attic was almost absolutely emptied, and his tongue became heavy and logy.
And there they took him and led - and brought properly!
Eight fairly well knit madams-psychiatrists were sitting at a long table and staring pitifully at a new dumbo. No medical dressing gown was upon them, and due to that, the madams looked just like the members of the civil tribunal. Fedya guessed (what a perfectly talented person he was, nevertheless!) that any mutual understanding under the circumstances of such quantitative and qualitative inequality was rather doubtful, and he, hardly moving his tongue, asked only to cancel the pills until Rusakov examined him, and to move him to another ward, a lighter one.
To the honour of the fair sex, both requests were complied. May women be praised! However, some more springs worked out there, besides purely female kindness and intuition. Firstly, to interfere into the professor's business for such a trifle as Fedya was at least unreasonably, and secondly, namely by that moment all of the eight had got their hair standing on end and their skulls cracking because of the previous psychiatric examination of one of a motor vehicle stealing partakers.
"I don't steal anything, really!" he stated, chuckling continuously. "I only do moulds for keys! And who does steal - that is our government!"
And a journalist on foreign affairs, who had been taken just at his repast in the hotel the day before, according to the call 'from above', was resenting too much, and promised to expose all of them. A kook! Whom was he saying that to? What for? He had been taken just not to let him blurt out anything unwanted - especially at an international symposium…
It was so nice in a new ward! Curtains! Flowers in flowerpots! Naturally, windows. Naturally, behind bars… But the main was that there were only four bunks in it and only two patients-suicides seeming to be very cultured. The ward was specialized for elite!
When the action of medicaments was over and his poor head began to savvy a little, Fedya start looking around. And there was what to look at! Fedya even got enormously glad, when recognized a vice-director of the House of Culture of the motor-repair association in the third self-killer who had been back from the lavatory. His story and factors that used to lead him regularly to that tenement of grief had been embodied in an art form very truthfully and accurately in its time. So, the meeting of the writer and one of his characters was more than opportunely.
Well… The world is so cramped! And if the ball comes to the player, then there, at that human deadlock, the man of genius was really swamped with the sea of the most interesting and confidential information. And it happens owing to the fact that suicides, thanks to their intellectual might, were borrowing a special position among common lunatic; but the main reason was that they would listen very attentively, and their associates did appreciate that ability. The people's path to that place had never been overgrown, like the one leading to Mecca (or to the Wailing Wall, or to God's Tomb, or to something else, not of less importance for some people), and confessions were heard there, each of them perfectly astonishing. Fedya heard there more than everything, found more than enough personages! Not to tell you about at least some of them would be a misdemeanor with respect to descendants - and to the author's conscience too.
Surely, the brightest impression was made by Jeremey Gregoryevich Estrin (in common parlance - Jewmay Greenovich Extra) - namely his leading post was occupied by Apollo at that time. Besides a suicidal mania, the main of all manias - megalomania was observed literally in full bloom on his absolutely level and shining forehead. Maybe, he called himself 'the last of the Mohicans' namely because of that, though there was more than enough 'good' like that, old as well as new. So, let's read Fedya's narration and meet with pleasure -

The Last

Jeremey Gregoryevich Estrin could everything.
Once upon a time.
And at present, he only has thought that he can, but factually - alas!
For many years already, Estrin has been going all over his native country in the search for a spider-woman or, at least a bearded mermaid, but all in vain. It was obvious that they didn't understand him, and, winking ambiguously, used to propose horses of quite another colour…
"But it was! It has been! Only just!" Estrin has sighed, looking back through the golden vistas of the NEP - New Economic Policy, when he, an absolutely wild and immature compere and administrator, without any criminal records, was shaking the wide spread of country's variety platforms with his jocose single-entendres and phenomenal buck-and-wing.
It means not simply phenomenal, but absolutely phenomenal.
The buck-and-wing - it was over the top!
Jerema rolled out onstage like a shining dime and started, carelessly picking at the sleeves of his glaringly fancy shirt with two fingers, plumpy even at that time…
Oh, in what manner he started!
The audience stayed put. The master hand (or foot?), as it's said, moved deeply at once. One minute - and the whole truth broke upon everybody: if it even was in their cards to be done out of money, they would clean up a fortune with that gambling. The tempo and the rhythm of the steps, growing and changing impetuously, came to unthinkable. It even seemed from time to time that in a little while, legs and arms wouldn't do, and no hair would be left unturned. But it only seemed. The hair knew its place, as well as the head itself. Every shoe tap against the platform clicked off bills and coins in its depth. The bills and coins were summarized - the next adrenaline portion was thrown out to blood - the shoes became even more zephyrian, and the audience - more crazy. And at the final part Jerema like a cine diversionist, which had fallen prisoner, caught feverishly the end of his shirt collar with his teeth and tore it; that was the last straw to get the audience struck dumb with amazement.
A youth-firework, a man-Vesuvius - those were his aliases.
But it was once upon a time. And at the time of narration, Jerema has already become bald, and (what is the worst!) hopelessly old. He'd better wet-nurse with his grand- and grand-grandchildren and write memoirs; but he hasn't had any legitimate children, and he hasn't existed for his illegitimate ones. And to deal with memoirs has been not only unprofitably, but also dangerously. Jerema has lived an unprintable life. Unprintable!
But why 'has lived'? Richard, that is to say Jerema, is himself again! Not the same, it's true, but after all… He has been a director just recently - of the House of Culture!
"It isn't a Philharmonic Society, clearly, but a profitable business, too, if to cast about," Jerema thought, looking through the financial income of People's theatres. "O-oh, people's grief!" he continued to think, puckering. "To shoo you away, and to take only one, the very long unsold mermaid - and people would come in flocks. No! No proper orbit! No money williwaw! And mermaids disappeared. Nevertheless, they write in newspapers that a mighty band comes up to take their place. Either extra-sensors, or extra-sexes are they hight. And it is right! The holy place is never empty. What a pity that the healthcare is pocketing them, otherwise it would be possible to run up our population…"
The old dog was obviously at low-water mark, but he was ruffling, yet. His head was working, and ideas were spawning. The ideas were old, but well tried. And he fixed upon a concert. Concert-the-shock! Concert-the-hit!
Large art - large investments. If it concerns art, then they are investments mainly into promotion. In two weeks, the webs of multicoloured ads, having been patterned after the best foreign posters, were compacted in a not-generally-known small room under the stage. Money for the advertisement was taken… well, it doesn't matter - from what place; the matter is that not from his own pocket. 'Financial dislocation' - so Jerema would call that method of obtaining primary capital from nothing, and not out of his own resources, but for their replenishment.
The advertisement objects were the following: 'Young fakir - sword-swallower and fire-eater', 'Dance on knives, or A girl - the dove of peace', 'Super vocal virtuoso - the absolute vocal copy of Enrico Caruso, Mattia Battistini, Fyodor Shalyapin, Ivan Kozlovsky, Leonid Utyosov, Georg Ots, and Muslim Magomaev', and, at last, 'Stand-up comic with his couplets'.
Performers weren't a hitch. All unadmitted provincial men of genius, whose artistry could be seen a mile off, constantly were in contact with Jeremey - on an all-Union scale. As soon as he began to operate with his financial brazier, barnstormers started their flight heaven knows from where: they could smell it at the other end of the world. They flew together that time as well. That was why, such personages were hanging around the corridors, the lobby and the hall of the House of Culture, instead of dancing children and singing grannies, that all the comers' jaws got obviously dropped; the more so, as the last one having come flying was a monstrous fat bloke resembling an ogre from a frightful fairy tale. He was holding by the hand of a pale baby silently clamant for food; the child was crowned with an enormous turban with an emerald of bottle glass.
The visitants knew chalk from cheese. In the depth of the country, in distant state farms and reserves, at an uncultivated with metropolitan culture grazing, they were burning with the sacred flame of the art… of knocking money out of their fellow creatures.
Before conquering any hinterland, Jeremey decided to go through the dress rehearsal at the 'Promised Land'. Expensive fit-up tickets, not fixed at any financial document, but with a sophisticated violet facsimile, were sold at an unimaginable rate. At a proper hour, the swarm of people started its pleasant humming, the light in the concert hall faded, and the curtain was slowly drawn.
Jeremey was standing onstage. The blaze of searchlights focused on his bald spot in some unthinkable manner and, having reflected repeatedly, somehow enhaloed it.
The audience gasped.
The people, having been thrilled with all those ads, perceived that optical effect, which is so rare even for nature, as the first planned surprise.
It brought down the house.
It seemed that Jeremey was dabbed with an awl.
Before the audience could say Jack Robinson, he brought to grass a few blow-off anecdotes of his evergreen stock.
The audience laughed.
The anecdotes of Methuselah's age and the performer's biblical view relaxed ne plus ultra; the more so, because, after naming the next turn, Jeremey pushed off from the stage with a spring power and, like a premier dancer, covered the distance to the backstage. That flight of God the Father (and nobody in the concert hall had any doubts that it was the line of business of the old man of worth) carried the audience off its feet. The effect was so strong that when Jeremey appeared for the second time, he was met like a brother german.
"'An Anatomical Department' - a humorous story," he announced, and the audience burst applauding.
"What a hair-trigger temper!" Jeremey thought and started:
"In olden days, an anatomical department was attached to any travelling freak show. Admission - twenty kopecks, ladies were admitted only on Friday, and children were excluded at all. When five or six men gathered, an expositor would give a little lecture on anatomy. He was speaking broad Malorossian, as Ukrainian was called in former times."
The audience was listening attentively.
The humorous 'terra incognita' continued to show its amenities.
"That is the wax ehvigy of an absolutely hvormed woman. The veriest hvool knows that it stands here not hvor the sake of your ghighlin' while starin' at its Eve's togh. It stands here speciyally hvor the sake of anatomy studyin', hvor you to hvollow the lead."
The audience burst out laughing joyfully.
But all eyes were bent on him, and not on any imaginary statue.
It gave Jeremey a little shiver…
"The hvirst thin' of its, is a head!" he went on. "You are welcome to look at its cross section. I say - 'head', and where are you ghapin' on? Were she alive, she would ghive you what hvor!"
The audience was set in a roar again - that time it seemed as if to the point.
Jeremey kept on.
"As one, even you, can see from the cross section, the woman's head isn't empty. There is a kinda brains, and with their help, the woman thinks sometimes."
That phrase pleased everybody.
One man even fnarrr-fnared like a courser, and it singled him out of the mass.
And Jeremey was pounding away on the same line as before:
"On the other hand women have eyes - an optical orghan. She is supplied with those eyes especiyally for watchin' at passers-by of male sex."
The man fnarrr-fnared again - so loudly that was shushed.
"And then lunghs gho," Jeremey was pontificating, having chalked the bloke up.
It was the rare specimen, whose sense of humour was always up-and-doing, and used to step in on any occasion and generally without it. Knowing what it can result in, Jeremey began to address only him.
"The lunghs serve women hvor dihverent light purposes, as hvor example, inflammation of the lunghs, light walk, light life of light ladies, and so on… And now, under the letter 'B', we see a heart - a very important orghan, 'cause no one of those women can't live without it. The heart serves women hvor dihverent heart needs, which are heart beatin', heart deseases, heart dehvects, seekin' hvor stout hearts, and so hvorth… The last detections of very learned medics tell us - and you too, that some hvemales bite - in the sense that are caught - who are heartless. Those hvemales have instead of it a figh - I mean the bird, not a hruit!"
The man was about to piss himself laughing.
The laugh was so openhearted and infectious that they didn't hush him already, but revoiced reflectory, more and more intensively, second by second. When Jeremey finished reciting, all the audience split their sides. They went on laughing even when 'a girl - the dove of peace' was stepping in her tipsy dance on knives. The 'girl' had got to the thither side even of a late-milk stage long ago. 'Oh my dear, my dove!' - a violin was overstraining itself very apropos, while a somber horsehair Gypsy with a green eye was pulling guts out of it.
Things went swimmingly.
A scandal broke suddenly.
No, the sales register wasn't sealed by any people's controllers or, more of that, official accountants. Nothing of the kind had happened to Jeremey for a long time yet. Official accountants were shaking the teachers of secondary schools for many years, and the local People's control headquarters was ambushing steadily near the meat section of the next food store. But the parent of the sword-swallowing baby came, and Jeremey planned to dish the infant for the last bit. The parent was shouting, tromping foot, frightening with a trial, and behaved obscenely in general.
"Granny let the child come here! His granny! She swore that it was the dream of her life!" Jeremey tried to explain.
"I don't know about any Granny!" the parent was shouting, almost not listening, and flying at Jeremey. "While I'm alive, my mother-in-law has got no legal rights for the child!"
Such terrible words as 'profanation!', 'exploitation!', 'swindlers!' flagged in the air.
"So many times I did abjure to deal with Pioneers," Jeremey murmured through his clenched teeth, and his mind shrank from the first symptoms of the painful presentiment.
Edging out the parent with his shoulder, he was turning his head feverishly, searching for the husky fellow with the sprout. The next turn was over, and it came high time for him to appear onstage; he had to work - a hypnotist-'ploughboy', who had revealed his great gift at the very first 'rendezvous' with a crime investigator.
Seeing such callous disregard of his personality, the parent even choked in for a moment. Having taking the opportunity, Jeremey tipped the Gypsy a wink.
"C'mon!" he shouted and ran like hell to the light of the stage.
Jeremey had a great self-possession, as every gentleman of fortune!
The somber Gypsy, without a word, put his violin into its case at one stroke and extracted a harmonica from another one with the same speed. Having given its bellows a yank and yelled barbarously Russian 'He-eh!' he started embroidering the unelaborate monogram of ditty melodies and moved to Jeremey.
"Cou-uplets!" Jeremey announced, and their satirical wagon got under way.
The first round of those couplets was not bad - not too old. The audience was harrumphing joyfully, but nothing more. Yet, such a dead response to the 'modern' didn't make Jeremey sad, but only caused a sarcastic grin on his face. Blunting of the modern satirical pen was an absolutely evident fact for him.
And he made up his mind to show bezazz!
He gave such second round, that the audience shivered again. The proverb about Jerema wasn't going to leave the driver's seat.

"You're out of your money
'Cause of your shopping wife
And feel you're a dumb bunny -
It's called your storm and strife,"

he was belting out, keeping on scowling backstage.

"If you are not a giant,
And are deprived of rights,
You don't train with Judy,
But listen - that is right:
Let out your old woman -
And no bulldog's fights!"

God knows how long that Niagara of couplets was cascading on the people, but the 'ogre' didn't appear.
At last, he came into view.
The parent's heart-rending shriek stated that.
"Well, at last!" Jeremey heaved a sigh of relief; but the Gypsy's mobility and, correspondingly, his eyeshot were much wider. He bent to Jerema's ear and, overcoming everlasting howling of his harmonica, shouted something; his chief went down like a punctured tyre.
"Wha-at?" he gasped, keeping smiling to the audience and jigging up and down.
"Flopped! Our drawing cards have flopped!" the Gypsy yelled once more, goggling like a corsair.
An evil chance came.
The parent's shriek, the fry's shriek, and the husky's roar were fading away quickly. It became quiet backstage. A clock was ticking - money was slipping. It was necessary to work off all that. Jerema's right hand gave an involuntary jolt. Once… Twice… He got a gut feeling of sudden fright. It happened to him for the first time, but there was no backing room.
"We are going on!" do-or-die Jerema darted forward, and the wagon got under way again.
If somebody gives you one tickle, you'll giggle. If two - you'll laugh. If three - you'll burst laughing. If ten - you'll be sobbing. The same thing happened to the audience: they were sobbing. A jumble of ideas formed in Jerema's head, and each and all was being thrown down to the hall:

"And a whitebeard changed his crone
To a young and pretty Joan.
It's his drive to quality,
Not kinda frivolity!"

The audience was crying.
Now, for starting a new ditty, it was necessary to wait until people revived after laughter. More of that: the laughter began to break the ditty itself:

"A saleswoman at the butcher's
Called me 'fat' and called me 'pig'!.."

The audiences were splitting their tits.
People were collapsing to each other, thrusting off weakly and groaning.

"All the buyers held their baskets,
And at once queued up for me."

There was nobody to sing for.
Not laughing, but only squawking was heard in the hall, and a few people, having given way, their hands on their paunches, were making short runs for the exit. The Gypsy proceeded with tearing of his harmonica, but Jeremey fell silent already. He was struck with an awful suspicion that they were laughing not at repertoire, but at him. Suddenly, he saw himself from outside - old, impudent, pitiful…
At that moment, a crack was heard from somewhere above.
A bulb of a projector burst.
Jerema's halo went out.
"One, two - smack-smack! One, two - smack-smack!"
Murmuring for himself, Jeremey was hoofing.
Unimaginable ululation was heard in the hall…

The second Fedya's neighbour was the most typical second-rater; maybe, namely that is the reason to say a few words about him. But Fedya hasn't yet got time to write anything brilliant about him and somebody else; that's why the author will allow himself to make a few drawings in his manner.

A District Committee Kicks It.

It was late at night.
The telephone became red-hot.
The wife took off the receiver.
"Aunt Madina? Hello! It's me, Goghi!"
"Hi Goghi! Hi my dear! Where are you calling from?"
"From Tbilisi, Aunt Madina. What should I bring you as a present?"
"What present, Goghi? And what's about your sanatorium?"
"I'm on vacation, Aunt Madina!.."
"Oh… I see…" Aunt Madina's eyes got sparkled.
Being closely confined for eight years for Goghi, as well as for many others, who hadn't been deprived of their material and nomenclatural due share, would have been too burdensome without vacations and other very pleasant and not superfluous trifles.
"When back to feats of labour, Goghi?"
"Soon, Aunt Madina! I process documents. As soon as I'm back from the vacation, I'll get freeside. And is Uncle Ablay in?"
"He isn't, Goghi! He's a banqueter tonight."
"Well, my best regards to him. And remind him about testimonials, please."
"Okay, Goghi! I'll tell and remind him everything, without fail."
Uncle Ablay took regards from Georgia joyfully, too. Having come home singing, "Oh, megabucks! I love you so much, my dough bread!" he extracted already prepared testimonials out of his briefcase and started composing a letter - to Georgia, naturally. Yet, if somebody thinks that only there, and probably in a few more places, they say 'papers' and mean dollars, or they say 'dollars' and mean all, then we can only envy such a person. His felicity borders on absolute happiness; and the whole mankind seek to attain the goal, doesn't it? Long ago, that saying became again the talk of the town: "It is possible to buy everybody, and everything - only the sum is a problem!" So, it is difficult to hide your head in sand not to see the fact, like an African ostrich, or to cover yourself with a utopia, broken after its collision with life. In spite of any intrigues, 'all things that are from the earth turn back to the earth, and what is from the waters returns to the sea'. For today, according to the dialectic spiral, doubtless.
And so, Uncle Ablay was a secretary of the district Party Committee. The first secretary! It was the post of the wide scope, and for that reason, it was necessary to work his arse off. And he did! And the others worked their ones off too, looking at him. And how else? A lighthouse is a lighthouse. It's seen from afar - especially its light. So, shame upon some parents if they blame their children for these or those sins: they would exclaim 'Ah' looking at themselves. It was a practise to hang out a poster at Communist 'Subbotniks' - Sabbaths, when people gave their labour to the State on days off. On one of the pictures, the leader of the world proletariat was depicted: he was putting his revolutionary shoulder under a log. Normal people perceived that propaganda as unpleasantness, in the best case, and in the worst - as mockery concerning the man of genius, in respectful memory. And how else could they perceive it, if for many decades in succession, nobody of much less giants neither put their shoulders under anything, nor even considered it necessary to condescend to a not-edited contact. And the press was overloaded with cliches, panegyric as a rule, and all that made an absolute chaos in the minds of those who wanted to believe. Something was there, but it was impossible for a human being to distinguish what namely. The most hopeless and devil-may-care ones simply used to look through the first type pages of any central newspaper, because all of them were the clones of an initial cliche, and to pass to the last, amusing page. As for district committees, executive committees and other state institutions, the evident discrepancy between desirable and real resulted in perpetual squabbles and 'schools of scandal' there, and they, in turn, led to stresses. And, as it is known, stresses must be taken off; otherwise - you know, don't you? And the majority of executives would take them off - each one in his original manner. Uncle Ablay - he loved. Naturally, he loved money, and the good things of life, too. But the main was women. He loved them right on the table covered with red cloth. He loved them just at working hours, but especially often - at lunch breaks. The door was locked, and the selector was cut off.
That evening, just at the moment when he started composing the letter to Georgia, he had to deviate a little from his conspiratorial daytime rules. The phone rang again - not from that splendid never-never, but from another one; maybe, it was not so splendid, but very close: from the district Party Committee. No, a dam hadn't been broken through! No tornado was threatening the town! Simply one of common service nymphs got married, and that was why she was going to give a farewell love performance.
And everything would have been passably, as always, if, next morning, they hadn't submitted him some material concerning the chick, who had thrown up the game in such an honest manner. Being a little bit perplexed, Uncle Ablay started making acquaintance with it - and in five minutes, he thanked God for existing orders. Some information was sent to the Central Committee; the material was arranged and sent 'down', from the CC to the regional Committee; there it was registered and sent 'down' to the city Committee, which, as you see, was almost vitally interested in the most biased analysis, because namely that Committee had recommended the chick to the number of the swiftly rising trade posts. Thanks to that order, very convenient and not too troublesome (and to something else, naturally), an uncountable number of existing and, in accordance with Darwin's law, perpetually appearing mafias and other closest collaborations - mainly party and commercial, acquired the state scales quickly and could all but dispatch missiles to outer space (though who knows?). And people, as well as three hundred or a thousand years ago, had to listen to harping on the same string the tune of vigilance, honesty, diligence, conscience and other stocks, unsaleable even among the 'musicians' themselves.
"Apparently, my chick has put much salt on somebody's tail," Uncle Ablay murmured, turned the next page, and started pouring cherry juice into his belly.
The chick looked as if she was not more than thirty-five, though she will never see forty again in reality. Always blue-rinse, dressed to kill, always trim-figured, healthy and strong more than enough, she also represent her time and, what was the main, social circle typically. Her morality, honour, and dignity consisted in the absence of anything of a kind; such an attitude opened all doors and gates to the possibilities of limitless paying her attention and obtaining her compound interests from that capital investment. Naturally, the chick chose to obtain only something high qualitative; and what voiding she could offer for payment you may guess yourselves…
Safe sexual strategy helped, too.
Having quickly risen above the crowd and getting the post of the district food retailing manager, the flower of fragrant prairies blossomed at once and began to emit an odour. It followed from the documents that the chick pushed experienced hagglers with different-calibre, but obligatory criminal probation to the shop director positions, and levied monthly multi-thousand tributes on them.
Another emporium was drawn by her husband, a certain Andriasyan; his onlooking ladylove concocted some degree certificate to him in a month, and put him with that paper to a soft job. Uncle Ablay knew only that her husband had been tearing, like shit off a shovel, about profit-and-loss centres (i.e. shops) until quite recently, and speculating in bras. And at the reporting period, judging by the occupied post, which was concretized in the material as well, the husband possess an automobile with a driver and, naturally, a Party card.
But Uncle Ablay was scandalized not at those facts. His blood rushed into his head, when he found out suddenly that the chick had organized a real shagging wagon, where, besides him, sixteen more the powers that be were given one - and not one, actually - by her. It was unbearable… and in half an hour, the new-made Andriasyan appeared before his storm-warning eyes.
"You w… (woman of the street) did what? You f… (fornicated) with all f… (first comers)!.." Uncle Ablay began his speech. (The author will try to change bad words for not bad ones hereinafter as well, whenever possible.)
"Who is a w… (woman of the street)? Me?" The chick rapped his knuckles at once, and staged a counterattack on the fly, "Well, I shall have you h… (hot man) committed! I'll reach the CC! I'll tell them that you've lain with me! That you raped me in your office because I had become the manager of food retailing! And after that, I was forced to get it on! And now I've got married and chucked in, because of my baby!"
"Your baby?"
"And how do you think?"
"From where?"
"From there!"
"From there?"
"Not namely from there, but from a maternity home. I've adopted it to make that stinky prosecutors stay put. And you p… (placed near female genitals), d… (dishonoured), do you know what will I do with you?.."
So obedient the day before, that day the chick was furious and wild; she was swearing like a trooper, and even the secretary got sick and tired of the jolt, which was heard through double oaken doors.
Oh great, rich and mighty Russian language! Even your obscene language had such a believable effect that many and many peoples prefer to use it, to the detriment of their own, less damning stocks.
Uncle Ablay was nonplussed, prostrated, and downtrodden. And it was small wonder! What is an ordinary district committee over against a super-ordinary chick? Pshaw! And the thing that had taken off stresses overstepped them and begot something much more significant. The secretary of the district Committee was sitting motionlessly for about twenty minutes after his ladylove of the previous day had left; he was scrolling the film of his very hard and intricate existence in his mind's eye. Instinctively, he tried to recollect anything pleasant; but even 'the happy moments of love' appeared unexpectedly in their rude realistic livestock aspect.
At last, the film seized at one of the last frames from the serial 'From a city to a village!' He imagined an undoubted social achievement as though in reality.
In shot, the sun was burning pitiless. Scientific workers, without straightening themselves up, had a difficulty in breathing with agricultural air. A full pie-faced aborigine was making a wry face studiously. The productivity of the scientists' unqualified enthusiasm didn't satisfy him, obviously, and even angered.
"C'mon, c'mon!" he was saying louder and louder, and when he saw that someone was straightening himself up rubbing his loins, he added, "It's too early to have a rest! Too early!"
It was going in such a way until the patience of one of those who had a prominent bald spot and a tummy, got exhausted. Having straightened himself, he answered with a snarl something about sweatshop practice.
And now the trouble began!
"Shut up, you bald!" the pie-faced shouted in such a manner that everybody screwed their heads round. "I've bought you for the whole day!"
"Whom from?" the 'bald' cooed, unexpectedly softly and humbly.
"From Ablay himself…" the abo started and clammed up.
But it was late. In a minute, everybody got to know that they were jetting up 'not for a flying fig' for the sake of the light Communist future at a private plantation.
'Bing!' 'Phut!' came from the air, and it seemed to Uncle Ablay that the ceiling was crashing down upon him.
A fairly large cobblestone plunked down to the table corner and devolved to the floor.
"What? Who?" Uncle Ablay bawled out and sprang to the broken window.
Two representatives of the hegemonic class in oily boiler suits were looking at him calmly and soberly from below, from pavement. Uncle Ablay recognized with horror that one of them was a deputy of the local Council.
It was some mysticism, really.
The first secretary's bilateral cortical representation, materialistic to the roots of his hair, wasn't able to stand it.
He went to hang himself…

The third ward mate, an ordinary Soviet worker, got into hot water. He was undertaking the treatments for the third time already; at last, he began to hear some voices and communicate with the other world, little by little. And so:

Cherchez la femme!

That time the sun was burning too; however, not pitifully, but gently.
And the birds were singing.
And in general, the life was felt!
A bicycle racer was trolling along the very centre of the asphalt road. Something like a huge knapsack hulked up on his back; upon further acquaintance, it appeared to be a woman. Probably, the madam was an old hand at throwing the hammer, discus and putting the shot, because her body covered entirely her friend's back, neither too feeble at all. Her finest, the most immense loin was floating before passers-by in the most marvellous aspect. And that was not all! That amazing virago of the 20th century carried a gum bag, which was cram-full, on her back. Wonders of male dedication, that's all!
Such an omen had to stop Yura, but he didn't believe in signs, and that was why he bought a bunch of flowers and the 'Gift' layer cake.
"Women are mild creatures," he thought. "It is necessary to give surprises to them."
Full of happiness, Yura opened his flat door noiselessly, tiptoed to the room, and, all at once, ran across his wife's panties and an unknown singlet that were lying around the floor.
What would you do if you were him? Ah? The author is asking only men, because women are more restrained in such cases. Nevertheless, we can meet some among them, as well…
"I'll kill… kill…" white-lipped Yura whispered, and cried blue murder at once, "I'll ki-ill! You bug-gers!"
A vase plunked absolutely banally.
A chair went all to smash.
Yura went berserk!
It was what to crush after ten years of cohabitation, and there was proper noise. And the 'fete' object decided not to wait for her turn. She clothed expeditiously her benchwarmer that was frightened out of senses, and pushed him out to the landing, having previously managed to stuff the singlet that Yura didn't like so much, in his bosom.
And Yura was proceeding with his activity, paying no attention to them.
"I'll kill! Kill!" he was shouting, but apparently not going to kill anybody.
It was a workday, and not a lot of onlookers crowded. But they were, nevertheless. Namely the onlookers were narrating later, how the notorious 'nine' had driven to the house entry, and two keepers, a doctor and an auntie, amiable like a nested doll, had ran out of it. As soon as Yura had rushed to the keepers - might be only to have a good weep on theirs white and mighty like the Himalayas, shoulders, the nested doll, keeping smiling, had slipped a garrotte on his neck…
When, in forty days (a classical term for the Christian commemoration) Yura came back to his wife, who had lavish solicitude on his health, she welcomed him motherly.
"You little potty, you have come!" his wife cooed (you can guess with what intonation) and, turning with her impressive honey pot traitorously, the very next day she stage a new adultery, that time purposely.
"I'll ki-ill!.." the poor devil started again, and again, but with larger speed, he was transported - you guess again to what place.
Ivan-the-Fool jumped to his princess thrice. Apparently, some panhuman regularity exists here. After the third time, Yura began to speak to some persons that had gone to Maker in the year dot, and his yearning to be home again became a little weaker.
One could see one more sign of progress. At the moments of the highest emotional drive, he began to shout not 'I'll kill them', but 'they'll kill me', and it only strengthened the diagnosis, which became an absolutely textbook example.

Well… Something has been said about the ward inhabitants. Now - about those who used to come 'to speak'. The brightest of them was a newcomer - a warrant officer, Parashkin by the name, who was nickname 'See-the-Target' at once. Fedya made acquaintance with him in the 'monitoring room', and we shall allow ourselves to get a nearer view of him just now - the more so, as See-the-Target cracked his brain absolutely neither because of the breathless expectation of the nuclear warfare, nor because of his sadomasochistic heart-searching. And so:

A Trap

Okay, it's a mere penny gaff in the Civy Street; but then everything is in apple pie order in the Army - especially taking into consideration modern techniques and awful button-fighter abilities. Naturally, sometimes one can meet such facts that his hair stands on end, but they are not boomed, so as if don't exist. And it would be possible to autopsy something essentially, but meanwhile we'll confine ourselves to two slight scratches - the more so that Yaroslav Gashek ploughed that field thoroughly and for a long time.
Heigh-ho!
A tractor 'Byelarus', transformed into a small emplacement traxcavator, was driving along the collective farmstead, firing like an antiaircraft gun. Warrant officer Parashkin personally was sitting in its shovel bucket and brandishing with a blouse famously.
"I ain't like some new officers," he used to claim, being as full as a fiddle. "Fat asses. Wiredrawn legs. Heads aren't seen under caps. Phew! And those soldiers? Green ropes of snot! Belts hang… Phew! No-ope! The Army needs muscles! Like mine!" And the warrant officer would balloon his entire beefy carcass.
You do realize that there was what to balloon.
The 'Byelarus' slewed round dashingly in front of a tea-house, slammed its shovel on the steps and shook the warrant officer out of it; he, having kicked up his legs, found himself right at the doorway. Then Parashkin came back with four bottles of 'Talas'. Having brandished with that pig sweat at the tractor driver, he loaded himself to the shovel again, more carefully that time, and bumped along. The other day a power package and a radio tube had been successfully flogged, and it became possible to start the main operation under the code name 'Trap'.
Parashkin foisted the package off on a shepherd.
"Well, you gaffer amaze me!" the doughty warrior was disgusted with the avarice and the ignorance of the dingy 'steppe millionaire'. "It's a strategic device, actually! Put it into water - and you can use a colour TV-set for a year!"
The situation with the tube was simpler. A buyer - a cunning dog with the Chinese slits of his eyes - only glanced at its branding, and forked out a mint of money without any delay. The whole broadcasting centre could work with the help of that tube, and apparently, it was a perfect fit for the bloke.
"Maybe, you want 'poop-poop'? Piecemeal, of course! Ah? For hunting…" Parashkin offered, having nosed an expert buyer.
"Nope," the last answered, having pulled a foolish face. "I like animals… I'm a vegetarian…"
"Like Hitler, you mean?" the warrior poked fun with ha-ha.
"Why Hitler? Hitler kaput!"
"Well, get a load of this. If you choose - you know whereabouts to look for me."
"I know, know. Thanks!" the bloke assured receding and bowing hastily.
"Mao chzhu ce van tsuy!" Parashkin called after him and guffawed, when the man started and disappeared.
Having taken the share of the 'Talas' drug, which was wanted for entire happiness, with his friends, Parashkin set to work. And the case was absurdly simple and absolutely sure-fire.
Ah, barchans! Ah, saigas! Ah, Gasella subgutturosa! Only in the past, they used to walk along by-paths stuck with camel's thorn while hunting for you. Now hinting paths have got two terrestrial tracks and incalculable quantity of air ones. Parashkin took namely to one of those paths. Two hours of working the night shift - and one barchan was moved a little left, the other - a little right, and the road became a little straighter.
Results became obvious in no time. The very first car joyfully jumped up on a new pit and turned to be bonnet-deep in sand immediately. Screaming loudly with fear, hunters started creeping out of it.
"Anybody! Help!" they were voicing.
And the Army came to the rescue. There was heard a pleasant rumbling noise, and the kangaroo carrier of still unknown model appeared before the victims' amazed eyes. Parashkin was sitting on its top; he had trunks and officer boots on, and his chest was decorated with a binocular.
Having shrouded the creeping sufferers with the jet of soot, the kangaroo carrier stopped in tracks, and two more wreckers in spats and trunks got out of it. Following them, a boy in a complete 'adult' kit climbed out. All the four were passing the Asian horizons in review with triumph.
"Help!" the victims repeat hoarsely.
"We shall. No doubts!" the wreckers assured. "For a three!"
The hunters - and there were namely three of them - chipped in a rouble apiece at once, not losing contacts between their bellies and candent sand, and the underage trooper hid into the depth of the technique advanced guard to get a hawser. The quicksand trap extended for one hundred metres exactly, and if anybody tried to work out his own salvation, then the situation became even worse.
The rescue peaked about the noon. No sooner had the gallant soldiers managed to wheel out one car to the tract than two more started beeping anxiously.
"See the target!" the generalissimo of deserts commanded, and the kangaroo carrier turned bravely.
We don't know for sure what the reason was: either the absence of a headdress and the presence of excessive alcohol and sun heat, or green and yellow money stream, but namely that day Parashkin's mind got unhinged. Blazoning the surroundings with the most thunderous 'See the target', he grabbed the sack with the Soviet currency and ran to bury it in the desert.
"I see the target… See the target…" the warrant officer Parashkin was ingeminating - and saw nothing more.

The author will only skate over the rest 'comers'. Certainly, the entire Fedya's neighbourhood were ill in their own way (or simulated proficiently), and each of them spoke about his own, sometimes illogical and abstruse. But there was one common sign that united them all; that was the thing Yura spoke about. And he, whatever he talked, would lead to females. And no wonder that the subject, always palpitating for real machos, involve into discussion every last. Even 'Phantomas' - a hefty skin-head fellow - would come to listen. He had been slept on Fedya's place formerly, and was very aggrieved because of his shifting to another, twelve-bedded ward.
However, the ticklish talks and the 'rank and fashion' turned to be higher than any insults. More of that! Phantomas started taking along 'Rubik's Cube'. Both of them, no matter how many times a day they came, role-played at the entry absolutely seriously each time.
"Attention! Attention! Phantomas will visit you just now!" the hefty fellow used to begin the first. "A black 'Volga' is skimming along the Communist Avenue, the former Stalin Avenue, and the former Graveyard Street. A man in black rushed to intercept it…" he was going on, and, having been commenting in the same vein for some time more, without taking breath, started his vocal accompaniment to tapping with his heels, horrible in its non-natural rightness of heavy slow tempo and rhythm. "Pam papapam papapam papapam…"
"I'm Cube-the-Arbiter! Cube-the-Eye! Reactively thinking!" the bloke with the face of Lomonosov would tackle the baton. "How could you not know about me? The whole hospital knows me! The whole department! The whole planet! They respect me! Idolize me! And you!.. You all are little cubes! White-and-green-and-blue-and-red-and-orange-and-yellow!"
Having expressed with the last phrase his deepest contempt to the world, Cube took his seat beside Estrin.
What is it possible to say about women? 'The wondrous moment of our meeting...
I well remember you appear'1 is possible. 'Your Delphic eyes are like two smokes, they are like jumps from dark to light!'2 is possible. And some other things are possible too… The aforementioned heroes were speaking about other things. The genius was trying to bring the discussion round to the wondrous moment, but factually, it was no-go.
"I'd catch you and we'd fly away forever, to marvelous Nowhere Land! I'd wish to make the only one endeavour - to build with you a castle on the sand!" he used to begin after Yura's pessimistic introduction, but couldn't move farther.
"Stop it!" Uncle Ablay would tap on the knee with his hand. "A woman - it is zool!"
"That's right!" Yura took up the initiative. "Not to let a woman do 'left dress!', one has always to remove her dress!"
"Badly!" Estrin screwed his face into wrinkles. "Truly, but badly! The rhyme is dead. And nuts instead of poetry."
"One must make to all her body press!" See-the-Target guessed.
"Something absolutely chewing," Rubik's Cube interjected disdainfully, looking from time to time at Estrin respectfully.
"You all are fools!" Phantomas was grinning sadistically, but learnedly. "Your ace must be in the hole of any Cleoputa or Meaner Liza. Spade! That's all!"
"You foul-mouths!" Estrin resumed very quietly and tactfully. "A poet's dream is a
_____________
1 Pushkin A.S. To ***. - Translated by G. Gurarie.
2 Derbenyov L. Magic. - A song from the film 'Russian Field'.

girl with a spice. Especially if it is inside. You have to be looking and searching for it so long sometimes! De-e-ep delight!"
"Oh folks!" Fedya was bewailing. "You are really ass-headed!"
"You're a greenhorn still!" Uncle Ablay melted with Fedya's naivety, jumped up and shouted angrily, "If I don't make this vulgar action called 'love' - I am jiggered!"
"Where's he going?" Fedya asked in fright each time.
"To the bathroom," Rubik's Cube mumbled darkly, each time too, and, being a former worker of the CC department of propaganda and agitation, shot with his best and lightest phrase, "Bourgeois hand-job and wank are destroying men with bonk; only our Soviet wank can give men a useful bonk!"
"God save the dean!" Estrin used to laugh hoarsely, and the company would disperse for some time…
Everything would recur so mystically identically, that, after the next time, Fedya sank into a reverie… and recollected suddenly that, since his admitting to hospital, he did not attend the place where a tsar had gone on Shanks's pony, to beat the serious matter out. He wouldn't have made account of that under usual conditions, the more so that he would have guessed that the matter was in the inhibitory effect of medicines, but there the fact seemed to be too abnormal.
After a number of fruitless efforts, when much time passed after down-lying, the genius, being harassed for real, asked a nurse on duty for a piece of advice. She glanced absently, sighed, and poured ten purge tablets on his stretched palm.
"Isn't it too much?" Fedya quailed.
"Sometimes, neither that is enough," the nurse calmed him in a sleepy tone.
"And if it works - then when?" Fedya asked, being perplexed.
"You'll feel!" the woman in white murmured indifferently and showed him the door.
And Fedya did feel. At four a.m., the man of genius ejected himself from his bed very hastily, and he was almost exenterated in the definite place. Joyful and as light as a feather, the genius set a course for his ward, but being about halfway, made a wry face, and ran back. Something like medicated cholera happened to him, and in an hour, he was carried to the lavatory in arms - not of attendants, nurses, or doctors, but of patients; particularly, in Yura's and Phantomas's arms. And Fedya began to name the last of the two 'Valera'.
In an hour and a half, more the pressed-home organism turned its jet engine and presented Fedya collapse. The genius felt that he was dying. In addition, the surroundings started their negative influence. The same things that had caused passionate interest began to irritate and depress. 'Nuts! Only nuts are around!' hit the mind, and black melancholy covered the weakened body with its thick cloud.
"Nurse!" Fedya called.
Nobody answered.
"Nurse!" he called again, that time louder.
Silence.
"Oh, Fedya, Fedya!" Estrin sighed. "Mind, it isn't an ordinary clinic. Yura, call!"
"Killing!" Yura brayed.
Silence.
"Kil-li-ing!" Yura roared even more heartrending, having set his feet against the back of the bed and picked his nose.
Silence.
"Let's in chorus!" having changed his fingers and nostril, Yura proposed.
"Ki-il-li-i-ing!" It seemed that 'hurrah!' ran down the third unit, and a furious nurse boy rushed into the ward.
"Have you shouted?" he threw between teeth to Fedya and doubled his ruffian fists.
"No. Us!" Yura answered and showed his palms defiantly; they were enormous and doubled as well, corny and proletarian.
"It goes hard with the lad, and it is no another way to get an answer from you, si-ir!" added Estrin in an absolutely normal voice.
Having felt the pulse and assured himself that Fedya, factually, was about to pass away, the nurse boy call a duty doctor - the only one for the whole largest mental hospital. The sleepy and shirty 'auntie' felt the pulse also, measured the blood pressure, and Fedya was transfused. It became better a little, but the heart kept too slow beating. With every new cardiac impulse, Fedya stayed put together with his heart, and he was waiting for the next beat doubtfully…
Then the pace of developments began to grow vivace, allegro assai. That Monday morning was troublesome, as usually, and a bout of cleaning shook out all the patients to corridors. The invalids ranged themselves along walls: the ghosts of criminal 'democracy' soared there too, and the people kept in with their diagnostic subordination habitually obediently and strictly. Their faces… Well, what can be said? Some of them were even smiling in a drug-induced manner; a few absolute idiots were blowing bubbles with all their might, being sincerely happy, and their saliva flow seemed to be endless…
Yura and Valera took Fedya out and put to a corridor couch. Rubik's Cube noticed Fedya's cheeks had sunk in, brought a piece of pastry, and landed it to the genius's chest.
The initiative was taken up.
And to what extent!..
The line along the corridor walls was broken! As if to spite the obduracy and the callous indifference of the medical staff, the patients expressed their silent sympathy for his mate with unpretentious gifts. Soon, the imposing mound of sweetmeats, biscuits and other confectionery was rustling and crumbling in the poor long-suffering chest. And when Valera, yesterday's Phantomas, brought slippers and, having forgotten to step his awful dance, put them accurately near Fedya's bed of sickness, the man of genius got completely upset. Two tears rolled out of his dull hollow eyes.
He was not in the humour for death.
And Fedya, having crushed his depression, started praying. Bur, since he didn't know any prayers, he addressed God very definitely and essentially.
"Oh my Lord!" Fedya whispered. "Should you exist, punish those helpers of death in white coats, my former colleagues! Or what is still better - punish those who invented this criminal world! And let me out of here, my God, and I shall not be overjoyed out of mind, but I shall describe the entire yellow 'Paradise' on both sides of the bar…"
The chief medical attendant passed the corridor headily; he was a super-crud, in an ironed black suit and a cravat.
"Rusakov! Rusakov has come!" he announced, and the staff began to run doubly quickly.
"Wouldn't you mind your discharge from here?" the super-crud asked Fedya unexpectedly and beyond the shadow of any feelings.
"Me?" Fedya even raised himself a little, whereupon the delicacy mound fell to pieces. "No-pe, I don't mind…"
"Okay," the super-crud articulated in the same lifeless manner and went away.
The door of the third unit burst open.
Nahum Arcadyevich and Sveta appeared in the doorway.
The nuts, having seen a real girl from the free world, were struck dumb firstly, and then ganged…
"Shoo, palefaces, shoo!" Nahum Arcadyevich banished them blandly, and, keeping hold of the girl's elbow went to sitting already and shining Fedya.

Chapter XIX

DON'T YOU NEED COCKROACHES?

Nobody likes ill people.
Especially their relatives.
Those invalids are on their back!
Some exceptions exist, certainly, but they count for nothing, as usually in such cases. And who needs him, if he is ill? Even he himself doesn't need him. So, keep well, ladies and gentlemen! And if you feel anything wrong - hold your horses: don't run to medics! Nature gets seriously out of order rather seldom, and mostly, it cripples it itself - and cure it itself. People don't talk at random that all diseases result from tizzy, and only clap result from pleasure. You would regale on carrot-and-beet-and-celery-and-cucumber juice, and rose grape-fruit juice too, for a month, and go hungry at least one day a week, and also keep a fast for about a month and a half, and fool reasonably with the middle portion of morning urine and with evening clyster, and then you would jog or simply walk - to breathe air, and you wouldn't go to work for some time - and here you are, you are well again!
But if you have already been involved, then hold out! You'll get… your dose! You'll be sent… to master hands at particular specialities, out of harm's way! And what do you want? Not everything is in order in the organisms of medics themselves, and some of them, maybe, have a relative, who is lying without movement for the eighth year already, let him be… blessed, God - and here you appear!
Well, it may be good luck, no doubts. You may become a queue jumper by chance, you may be not palmed off, and they may prescribe you not harmful medicines, and you may recover, but it is the same as to hit the jackpot, or to be married for fifty years - and to be fully happy.
There are absolutely rare phenomena in this context. Hey-ho - and some Aesculapius's grandson will cancel all the newest, most super-effective, super-massive and super-scarce prescriptions; and he will prescribe, to spite a colleague of his, some poor and innocuous mixture - something like valerian or motherwort tincture. Lo - your thankful organism has got round. It has organized itself! It has started working in a proper way! And what do you think - the lucky dog bows low or lights up candles to honour all saints? Nothing of the kind! Next day after recovering, he will pass by without 'hello'! Oh yeah! He has been given some water! Well, if they would have hacked him, cut him, surrounded with different systems, and put through a synchrophasotron - then it would have been another pair of shoes, doubtfully! Then - our kowtow! And in such a way - he would have been able to do it himself…
That is why medics emphasize preventive measures so much. Doctors are sick and tired of all those groaning and ungrateful. Besides, the Hippocratic Oath degenerated into a tale long ago, and it became absolutely obvious somehow to everybody that it is impossible to make one's bread with it, needless to say about butter and meat, even under condition of being off the store ration. On the other hand, certainly, one can meet some holy men of idea who work from morning till night, for nix, leather away on the job, and get a charge out of it.
But, as a rule, there are normal people round about. And all normal people behave normally. It means, they behave so as they are allowed or made do that. So, today, and, probably, in the womb of time, if blue flame or yellow fire does not make a clean sweep of us all and it is nobody to cure, a great man's many-years-old words will be true: the world shouts about successes of medicine, and its ill successes are buried in the ground.
On the day of Apollo's admission to the twelfth clinic, they speak only about successes there, of course. And there was not only speaking, but recording as well, not to let grassroots stay in the dark. Monstrous mobile boxes of the Republic TV overshadowed the ground-floor windows and the large part of the first floor, where, naturally, the department of surgery was situated. Why naturally? Because surgery is very demonstrative; and, what is the most important, - it is effective!
Thick rubber cords made difficulties for those shuffling (and not because living in clover). Cameras, taking sight, were gliding noiselessly hither and thither. All the medical personnel made saintly faces and embodied mercy itself. On that festive and so necessary for the head doctor occasion, some belly-bounds were even clysterized, that was extremely humane and unexpected. Besides, one scandalous and two hopeless patients were quickly discharged the previous day - by the way, from the ward were Apollo was placed. Then a surgeon - Naisabek, an alcoholic and an addict - was given a compensatory leave, and… reportage atmosphere settled over the department.
But that day was unlucky for the television crowd.
It was a cockroach at first. Huge, black, and brilliant, it was sitting at the foreground - on the signal lamp of the TV camera. As soon as the light flared up, the cockroach started and petrified like a sculpture. It resulted in absolute unnecessary panic. 'You're my dear bugs! You're my dear mugs! My cockroaches, my flies, to you - my hottest hugs!' - the remarkable juvenile author said, but the operator didn't recollect those lines featly somehow, and bounced. As a result, an almost empty bedpan and slippers appeared in shot, and hardly writable characteristics of the operator's personality rattled in his headphones.
Only the chief nurse didn't lose her courage. Having been accustomed to everything, she hooked the bug very calmly, and raised it above her head proudly.
"An alien!" the chief nurse said with dignity, and, having noticed the department chief's malicious antics, explained, "The aborigines will be less and gingerer. We forgot about them long ago…"
That's true! It was the honest truth! Abandoned and unheeded ginger orphans moved their horns sharply and peeped restless out of a slipper and the slop-pail that was given at the monitor, close-up.
The second hitch appeared in the full pride of reportage. Instead of going to the third bed on the right of the door, the anchorman went to the third bed on the left. The patient, in whose abdominal cavity a surgical needle and aural forceps had been left, wasn't ready for any talks, obviously. When he was asked what the advantages of our free-of-charge health protection are, in comparison with foreign fee-paying one, he proclaimed at once that all modern medics are scamps and prostitutes, and, all the same, he would reclaim the thousand his relatives had spent on his rescue.
Oh thankless! It was the most difficult operation, and, if not those unfortunate pieces of iron, he would have been running already. Well, for such an operation his last pants would be pulled off, if he were not at our place! By the by, the instrument was extracted on the second day, and if some little fistulas have still stayed there and something, pardon my French, falls out of them… okay, everything will somehow skin over, and for money - all the more. After all, what is more important - your purse or your life?
The third hitch was a technical one and had nothing to do with healthcare, if not to speak about transformer empyreuma, which made everybody be sneezing and coughing for about fifteen minutes.
At last, when weariness and exertion led all of them to the stage 'devil-may-care', the record was whomped up somehow.
Apollo couldn't know all the facts that you've already learned, but he was sneezing and coughing also. He was rehabilitated - thanks to Nahum Arcadyevich's impetuous and effective activity (he had found the sleek-and-filthy one, who bore his malicious, but all the same truthful witness), and - the main! - to Solomon's calls to the right shop and to the right… shop-assistants, sorry for the pun. There was no a guard sergeant, with a white coat on his shoulders, near his bed; and a crime investigator - a brave young saucebox - even called him a hero. True to say, he did it at the end of the interrogation, during which he had been provoking, blackmailing, frightening, bluffing, and so on, and so forth.
Naturally, everything that had happened left its mark on the hero. The author means not injuries, bruises, internal hemorrhages and other important, but, after all, only initial stimulants (there are some people who can be beaten to death, but not stimulated!). A real emotional chute-the-chute was brought into action, and it caused the chain of still subconscious, but already fairly concrete goals. Firstly, it was vexation; then it was malice; then - hatred; and at last - rage. Namely the exalted rage that popples like a wave! One can say that tsunami rushed up out of volcanic depths and, in spite of all natural laws, stayed stable.
"Well, what can a man do?" the hero asked quietly, squashing the next cockroach with his slipper. "We'll fight!"
"To fight? But they are inextirpable…" his right leg-bandaged neighbour uttered senselessly.
"What? Cockroaches?" The slipper nailed one ginger more. "Cockroaches are trifles! That is concrete. And no resistance…"
The second slipper flew up - and… hit a coming nurse.
"Patient! Don't break the regimen!" the nurse said. "We've got a rest-hour!"
"I'm sorry! I'm deferring!" Apollo answered immediately, and, after the hostess departure, nailed one more jackanapes, running along the bed back towards the neighbour's ear. "And so, shall we muster up our strength?"
"I'm sleeping already!" the neighbour answered and, as a matter of fact, started snoring at once.
Next morning began with the department chief's round. It looked as follows: a ward door opened a little, and his talking head appeared.
"Who has got temperature thirty eight and five?" the head roared dreadfully, and everybody stopped in tracks.
They were afraid of the department chief more then very much. Everyone was in his clutch, and everything was in his power.
"Who has got thirty eight and five?" the head repeated irritably, realizing the dynamic tone 'crescendo', and his black hatred was beating the poor bed patients almost physically.
"Don't you know who has got thirty eight and five?" the head bellowed to the hero's ward - and stopped short, banged against the shining of Apollo's multi-grade eyes.
The hero's neighbour was lying immovably, like a mummy.
"How can we know, doctor?" Apollo began gently. "Well come in entirely, we don't object! Or isn't your second half worth the first?"
The head came in, having shown all the rest system of its life support.
"You've puzzled us so much, doctor…" Apollo continued pitifully, killing a cockroach. "I've simply got frightened that I have to know something. I'm a Simple Simon, doctor, how could I know? And then, I've got a goose egg on my head. Here you are, touch! They rubbed it with hooligan bricks and militia boots. It's a very presentable and conditioned bump. May we chive it, ah? Snip-snap - and together with the head!"
The chief stepped back.
"It's bad that you don't know!" he murmured and shut the door hurriedly.
"See what a real chief is!" Apollo exclaimed after him triumphantly. "What a good round he has made!"
"Now you'll be discharged soon," the resurgent mummy said compassionately. "You've caught him for nothing. He's such a blooming cad!"
"Not-at-a-all!" Apollo sang very joyfully and vigorously. "Death is one of the rules of the life game, but I'll keep the bank now. Do you wish to join me? I guarantee excellent curing and wonderful attitude! Honestly speaking, the main part of it will be in future, but is it the point?"
"Nope… I'd better somehow… today…"
"Now, now! Winners inspire, losers disappoint, don't they?"
"I'm sleeping," the mummy said and fell asleep again, to the hero's surprise.
His neighbour made no mistake: the chief ran to make acquaintance with the hero's case-record.
"Patie-ents! To breakfast!" an intense contralto hollered in the corridor, and something started shuffling and tromping on all sides.
The mummy neighbour woke immediately, sat himself unexpectedly cheerily, then stood up, took a spoon and a cup, and went away; actually, he didn't forget to make an offer of his services to Apollo, but the last only shook his head. The matter was that Apollo had to stay abed, but, naturally, they… didn't bring him to eat.
"You'd better make use of my services," licking his spoon, the neighbour began his preachment after the breakfast. "They will bring you your meal only in the CC or ministry hospital, or in some other not-for-common-people clinic. And not simply meal, but hot!"
"It doesn't matter… I'll become angrier!"
"But what for? It is useless, in all cases!"
The neighbour didn't want to sleep after breakfast - he wanted to speak.
"If you and me don't wash the floor, we'll be gasping with dust and dirt," he was elucidating. "If I don't get away your bad-pan, and you don't do this with mine, when I take to my bed, then no one will get it away. If, after your operation, I don't sit at your bedside, and if you don't sit at my bedside after mine, then no one will take even a dead cockroach for our lives."
"There are rules…" Apollo began, but the mummy neighbour let himself go to such an extent that only harrumphed:
"Those rules not for all fools! Don't take care of rules; take care of your family jewels! Well, I see, you are acquainted with hospitals only through newspapers! Haven't you ever been there?"
"Maybe, in childhood…"
"O-o! While reading - such successes! Such successes! I want even to gather the newspapers and make a report on the subject," the neighbour rejoiced. "And I'm keeping my mind on that: what has happened to him? Everybody keep silence, and he has flown off the handle. Leave it alone! Such things are going on!.. Hah-ha! They have given a ball in the basement recently. And, apparently, the money that was given for medicaments has been mobilized for another purpose. So, we've got only aspirin. I see - everybody in the ward is treated with the same tablets. And I have been chewing too… It's a cracking drug, I should say! I've come across a paper about Kampuchea recently. The ward has been overcrowded then, and only with cot cases. They ask me - read anything! Well, I've read. Such a sad story! Patients are taken to hospitals, but all the medical centres are plundered. And the patients - you only imagine such horror! - are placed onto the ground. Ah? I'm saying - what horror! What horror! They are placed onto the ground!.. And don't you know - I'm asking my ward-mates, - whether the ground was clean? And as for me, I'd gladly be lying on clean ground! Especially if there is some grass. Why not? It's better than lying on those sheets - I'd spell it with 'I' - that we are lying on. On clean ground - it is not so tragic, after all. And why should I be pitiful to those Kampucheans in such a case? Why should we be pitiful to them? Who is pitiful to us? America? It'll see us damned first!.. Okay!" the mummy neighbour finished his speech suddenly. "I'm sleeping!"
And, as a matter of fact, he relaxed…
It would be strange to suppose that Apollo was out of touch with everything he had faced. Practically, he had never been hospitalized before, but he had suffered a great deal before his mother was buried. But that time the hero didn't want to suffer - the more so that only his life was at stake. When a nurse came and thrust a fistful of tablets and pills into his hands, he called for the department chief. The last set his teeth, but appeared. It was noticed in the case-record that the hero had been hospitalized according to the personal order of the head doctor, and that little remark made him be tolerant.
"You know, doctor, my dear, now it is ten o'clock already," Apollo began.
The chief was keeping silence.
The nurse, not being able to get the point, was batting her eyelashes wonderingly.
"But I'm a bed patient," Apollo continued. "Our breakfast was at nine. And now it is ten already. I'm hungry, doctor! Why haven't they brought my breakfast to me? Let it be boiled semolina! Let it be a scrap of bread, but let it!"
The mummy neighbour, staying motionless like a log, opened his eyes and stared at the wall.
"Why haven't they brought?" the chief said, not getting the drift.
"That's that! They haven't - that's all. And rumours are about that if they had brought it, then it would have certainly been cooled down. Why? For instance, me, doctor, - it doesn't agree with me: I've got an ulcer."
The mummy neighbour's eyes snapped shut, having felt the chief's burning look with his back.
"And then, you know, doctor, there is something more here that I like not very much."
"W-what else do you like not very much?" the chief asked politely, working his jaws furiously.
The nurse hiccupped, and the mummy neighbour's vision grew again, keen as an eagle.
"Well, first of all, excuse me, but the number of bugs obviously oversize all permissible land densities," Apollo answered, squeezing a cockroach defiantly. "And then, it seems to me that when a matron is walking along corridors and shouting like a lance-corporal 'Patients! To breakfast, forward, march!' it is not good. It seems to me that it isn't a barrack, yet. Isn't it possible for her to speak a little bit gentler? Otherwise, you know, she barks - and I'm simply tossed every time! And they say that some fresh thrombus has formed in my leg. Heaven forbid, it will come off - and that was the last you ever saw of me…"
"Br-r-ring!" the chief said between his teeth towards the nurse. "R-r-red-hot! And the indoor cockr-r-roaches control is car-r-ried out up to schedule."
"Aha…" Apollo marked thoughtfully. "So, not demand processing, but, let's say, regularly. Well, thank you, doctor! But I'd wish the nurse stay here. I've got some more claims."
"Some mo-o-ore?" The chief's astonishment knew no limit. "Let you take this tablet firstly, and then - 'some more'!" And the chief thrust one white pill more into the hero's top-full hand - just like the nurse had done it before.
Apollo unclenched his palm and smiled.
"You said it! And I was going to remark namely upon the thing."
"You take it, take it!"
"Oh no, my dear doctor! I'd like to know - what I take. What are you giving to me?"
"Pur-r-rge."
"Oh! And why has the idea about the good of pur-r-rge for me entered your head?"
"Listen, patient, why are you asking me?" the chief gave way at last. "I'm giving what I'm giving!"
"But can I know?" Apollo said pitifully. "Look here, I've got eight tables in this hand already. Yours one is among them. How should I take them - before meal or after it? I don't know even that!"
"Listen, patient, the cure is given to you - you must take it!" the chief shot off, hardly controlling himself.
"I shall take it, no doubts…" Apollo assured the medical staff and killed one cockroach more. "But I simply don't know which tablet is before meal and which is after."
"You know… You speak too much, generally!" the chief interrupted him. "If you got the remedy - you have to swallow it all!"
"All at once? To swallow all at once?"
"All! Dir-r-rectly!"
"You see, my dear doctor… It's no good, all the same. For example, when other doctors are asked by their patients what medicine it is, they answer. And then, somewhere it is accepted to cover tablets somehow. Well, this yellow drop is a vitamin. I'll take it. And all the rest - that way, I beg your pardon!" And Apollo threw the entire handful to the opened casement - in the most marvellous manner.
"Yipe!" the nurse said.
The department chief said nothing.
He got frightened.
For the first time in all his practice.
"Who will be nominated instead of me?" he was conjecturing feverishly, going back to the staffroom. "Naisabek? Very likely. He is taken under the widest wing in the CC… And in the Ministry of Health… And in…"
The next portion of drugs was distributed in paper wrappers, and bed patients got their dinner hot, and keeping their beds.
The mummy neighbour was so shocked that, after the meal, he found out that he wasn't able to sleep.
"I don't understand!" he ingeminated, harrumphing. "I don't understand anything!"
And along toward evening, attendants let themselves go and filled a patient after enterostomy with buckwheat porridge. The patient was about to burst, and Apollo noticed sarcastically, "Fancy that! Why haven't they feed her with bo-o-orsch?"
Two days later, our hero was examined by Nahum Arcadyevich and an acquaintance of his, a specialist in vascular surgery, and they found that the ominous diagnosis was wrong. The patient had nothing but bruises and traumas of different severity. That time, medical mistake was in the patient's favour, but a few more days of hospital stay were desirable.
"How's your heart?" the doctor asked when the check-up was over.
"No one attack after militia."
"Well, let's hope… It's necessary to take the air! Fresh air!" the restless Aesculapius said deliberately severely, and smiled gladly. "Did your uncle visit you?"
"Yes, he did. They, my aunt and he, left so many eatables…"
"Okey-dokey! Share food with your friends, and as for air - you may enjoy it in any quantity!"
The advice of the doctor-generalist belonging to the light past of medicine did not vanish into thin air of bureaucratic and washed-up records. Immediately after the conversation, Apollo got up, shoved his feet into slippers, and went outside.
It was nice outside.
Breezy, but nice.
And immediately, as if it had learned that the hero was able to do without any healthcare, the fate turned on its afterburner. Hardly had the hero enough time to sop himself with oxygen, when he had to share that pleasure with another inhabitant of the hospital base. It was a baby - piteous, not shouting already, but not reacting yet. Apollo got the baby out of the fanlight of the children's contagious isolation ward and passed to the baby's mother, whose all-out view called to action, and only to action. The mother was crying; she didn't know how to bless the rescuer, and the baby, with his head injected to the last degree, started smacking his lips, and fell asleep at once, having got outside.
Having thrown the receipt, written a dancing-with-joy hand, to the same hapless fanlight, and accompanying the happy Holy Mother, Apollo was listening her fiery outpourings concerning amenities, equities and high professionalism of modern infant pediatrics. The mother knew what she was speaking about. She had already lost one child, and namely at the first stage of his acquaintance with voluntary medicine.
The matter is that all children like to cry, to shout, to cough, to pee, and to get the trots and high temperature. What can a man do? Every age has its own hobby. For instance, adults like… Well, we know what we like, and the quality of those goods is unlikely more pleasant, and, moreover, sometimes they are more… okay, you've got the point.
The medical staff of the first children's clinic, situated on the same geographical meridian and territory as the twelfth adults' one, liked to state that all lax babies had dysentery bacilli. The laboratory sources of supply were a professional secret, but judging by the stableness of the 'optimistic' diagnosis, the resources were inexhaustible, and they were stored successfully. Poor neonates, including prematurely born, used to be sent to the contagious isolation ward - with their case records and bacilli, but without delay; and there was not enough room to breathe out, needless to say about swinging any cat. Mothers, sleeping in the position of a coiled ascarid on the floor of the same ward, contributed to the enlargement of the living space not to a large extent; but if they hadn't been there, the mortality would have been hundred-per-cent, for sure. And with them, babies would die much more seldom, but fairly good, still. The dysentery bacillus not always gave an effective and (what was the main) necessary for writing-off idea, because usually it was the most banal overfeeding and dyspepsia, aggravated with radical treatment. In those cases, they discovered that all the dead patients had suffered with fatal and cancerous pneumonia.
That pneumonia diagnosis - it can upset any apple cart! How many of such (and not only such!) cases are there on the conscience of pathologists that cover up tracks of their thankful colleagues, dishing carcass meat? And if our hero had been distracted with some doubts before the talk with the woman, then he became calm and balanced after it.
"Perhaps, he'll recover at home, but here…" the Soviet Madonna finished her rapid story desperately and set heavily to a taxi hailed by Apollo.
The same evening a new patient was placed to the next-door ward; the woman was shouting and ululating. Nobody knew her diagnosis, but she was asking the thing that was useless to be asked for: a bed pan!
The poor soul was shouting for three hours. No reaction! At last, patients lost their patience and called for Apollo. Yes, namely for him! It was an open fact for everybody that Apollo was a doctor - and, probably, even having a not-pseudo-science-degree, because the department chief himself obeyed him.
And the hero decided not to disillusion the patients with the truth. Having flown off all the possible handles, he jumped the nurse on duty, found a clyster and everything necessary in the same vein in the crying woman's treatment sheet, and got simply ropeable.
"Do you see my fist?" he answered in Torquemada's voice.
"I se-e-e…" the nurse chirred in fright.
"Well, if you don't give an enema to the patient at once, then I'll tell you what I shall do out of you," the hero continued. "I won't speak to you in an intelligent manner. I'll speak to you with this fist. The patient will die now, and you know why. And so, if you don't give her an enema and catheterize, then…"
Immediately, a bed pan was given and all the rest was done, but Apollo didn't quieten. When somebody, from another women's ward, start groaning full out concerning the same pan ('if ifs and ans…' - that was the same case), he pressed the nurse so that she yawped.
"What on earth do you mean, my dear?" the hero said. "If there are no aid-women, then can't you bring a bed pan? Can't you do that? Do you think that I have never brought a bed pan?"
The handsome and strong man was waiting for and demanding absolutely not the things he has to, taking into consideration his data. And what was the main - he was demanding not for himself! And there were no excuses. Next morning, the nurse threw such a terrible fit that the department chief ran to the head doctor without any delay. Having cleared that Apollo wasn't so cool to bear all the rough stuff from him, he discharged him at once.
But the baton was taken up at once.
Patients got rid of fright suddenly.
And, as soon as they got rid of fright, the chief and his retinue began to.
But the most interesting thing was that the mummy neighbour demanded their rights more than all the rest. On the other hand, it wasn't so strangely. He was nearer to Apollo than anyone else, and hence, he stored the necessary charge. And he did not merely store it, but changed the charge, let's say. He didn't sleep any more. He… was exterminating cockroaches! By the by, he attained the same highest perfection at that kind of activity, as the legendary folk personage Ilya Muromets, destroying his enemies…

The End of the First Cycle