Читать книгу Libertionne - Anna Tishchenko - Страница 5

The exams came and went without incident. Since his thoughts were wandering today, somewhere far beyond the walls of the lecture hall, Tiberius was particularly sluggish and indifferent. There were no tricky, tortuously complicated questions, like the one that stumped his students last year: “Was Jesus born in B.C or A.D.?” The handful of students that came to his history class loved him. They loved him for his deep, encyclopedic knowledge, for his sincere passion for his subject and even for his rather venomous sense of humor. When Tiberius had been strolling in his mind around the cobbled streets of Berlin for the past forty minutes, gave a sigh, got up from the table, a fair-haired, round-faced boy gave a sigh, got up from his desk, and timidly walked up to him while clutching a scroll of brown paper nervously to his chest.

“Sam Becket? You want to challenge your grade?”

“No, by no means, sir,” the boy said, breaking into a broad smile. “It’s just, well… today is the last day, and maybe we’ll never see each other. I mean, as a teacher and student…” He blushed even harder. “And I’d like to present you with a parting gift.”

Tiberius took the scroll, and without even removing the paper, he understood what was inside. He shot a surprised look at his student, who was returning his gaze with even more adoring eyes.

“A book? A real paper book? Sam, you’re crazy. This must have cost you a fortune!”

“It’s not just a book! It’s Anna Karenina, by Leo Tolstoy. When you told us about it, I understood that the story was like, interesting for you, from a historical standpoint, of course.”

“And…,” Tiberius said, looking incredulously at the boy, “where did you buy it?”

“At the antique store!”

“Legally?”

“Yes, and so what?” said Sam, somewhat at a loss for words. “We live in a free empire…”

“Of course, of course,” said Tiberius, and, still not believing his luck, tore open the wrapping. At the last second a fearful suspicion crept into his mind – the book was so small and light, probably published after “42, when editors were given carte blanche to make corrections. And the result was usually a fairly drastic reduction in the text. Anything that was unnecessary, extraneous, or forbidden, anything that could tire out the reader or cause boredom was thrown out, leaving only the very essence. And if the essence, so to say, was lacking something, then that something was added, at the publisher’s discretion. So as Tiberius removed the wrapping, he was somewhat mentally prepared. But not for this. The entire sleeve, except for the gold vignettes, of course, was covered with an eye-grabbing photo illustration. He didn’t expect a hand-drawn scene, of course, but this one gave Tiberius a migraine. In an alcove, on rumpled silk sheets frolicked Bronsky and Karenin (the latter Tiberius recognized by the outrageous, crookedly pasted-on sideburns), and Anna stood over them, holding a candle, shedding light on the scene, literally. Realizing how much money Sam must have paid for this abomination, Tiberius politely flipped through the pages. The book was not very heavy. Of course, the Creation Myth was written with five hundred words, and this work focused on a subject that was much less substantive, but still, at least twenty of the sixty pages were used for illustrations. And the subject matter of these illustrations was not very different from the cover. It took an immense effort for Tiberius to summon a smile of thanks.

“Thank you. Something like this… I never expected.”

Accepting his teacher’s painful grin for an expression of joy and gratitude, Sam happily bid him farewell, and Tiberius finally gained his freedom. “Looks like I have to bring this atrocity into my house. If I throw it into the trash, he might find it.“He placed the book into his briefcase, like a Christian martyr bearing the full weight of his cross, and departed the auditorium. Passing a trash can whose opening was grinning widely in the elevator lobby, Tiberius noticed something brightly colored, with red spots. Nearly the entire volume of the trash can was occupied by a leopard-skin jacket, with a torn white handbag resting on top. Apparently Normann had tried to correct his fashion faux pas by removing the bag’s decorative leopard-skin triangle. His clumsy efforts were aggravated by his foul mood, and he ended up ruining it completely. Imagining how tough it would be for the poor guy to go around today with countless lipsticks, creams, eyeshadow and other men’s accessories stuffed into his pockets, Tiberius marched cheerfully to the parking lot.