Читать книгу Manchester Diary - Ариель Давидович Абарбанель - Страница 9

Feet slowly wander along the asphalt covered with deep old wrinkles, absorbing its dust and inescapable sadness. Street Courland. The Institute of Aviation Instrumentation, from a socialist past, stands slightly above the smoked houses with communal apartments, in which there are many families, trying to share the world with one toilet, one kitchen, sometimes one stove – on a burner per family. Before reaching school 271, where Levi once and for some time studied, he decides to turn onto Derptsky Lane in order to go through it to the avenue, now called Riga. At the end of the avenue you can see the ruffled waters of the Fontanka: nearby the Gulf of Finland and its tides with the North Wind influence the mood of the river. It happens that in the fall this mood is such that the waters leave the banks and go for a walk along the promenade, spilling further and further along the adjacent streets and squares. At the turn, the legs turn left, on Riga Avenue. Once in the middle of it lay tram rails, those rails on which a boy named Yura left his five-year hand. A tram ran along the rails, tapping evenly and tinkling from five in the morning. A new government came and the head of the city ordered to remove the rails, reselling them for recycling, like old metal, and “taxis” became an alternative to moving, and their owner was some kind of relative or friend.

Levy is moving on the right side of the avenue, apparently, according to the habit of remaining from school, from school number 278, in which he studied and from there returned as a child. Walking on this side, he looks at the windows of the second floor of a pink low house, on the other side of the street. That other part has even numbers, the thirtieth numbers. Once upon a time from a number of these windows, almost a whole floor, a cozy welcoming light shone. In this apartment there lived a friendly Lyustiks family – mother, father, son and youngest daughter. Valera Lustic was born in 1963 and older than Levy, but, nevertheless, they managed to somehow get to know each other and maintain friendly relations. Levy willingly went to visit Valera. He was never refused admission, but he was indifferent, because there was no benefit from him. Valera always had a full house of various people, guests diverse and interesting. He made some deals with them, and they also with each other. This apartment was full of business life. Valera’s sister is a pretty sweet girl with full wet lips. Levy told Valera that he really liked his sister.

“You know,” with a little snobbery and adult thoroughness, Valera tightened, “our family has her own plans for her.” We want to marry her with a rich Jew from Hungary.

Well, from Hungary, so from Hungary. Levy could not offer anything to this pretty girl – neither wealth, nor position. Of course Valera is right.

It so happened that since 1983 Levi has not seen Valera for a long six years, and when he appeared again in Leningrad, he did not go to him, because he didn’t have much to tell. But time passed, Levy gradually got to his feet, began to make good money. While walking along the avenue, turned into the familiar front door, climbed to the second floor, pressed the call button.

– Who's there? – an unfamiliar voice outside the door. Levy introduced himself.

The door opened, and the one who opened the door immediately disappeared into the rooms. Levy came in. A lot of fashionably dressed up guys are important to talk, talk. Among them, Valera, who is even more plump, has a striped shirt, ruddy with a short soft beard on her face.

– Oh, Levy! Hello! How are you?

– Gd bless! All is well. How about you?

“Fine too, buddy.” You sit down here if you want, and I have to talk about business with the guys.

Valera stepped aside and spoke, spoke, spoke. And Levy was sitting. But he did not sit for long, because he realized that no one would drive him, but he would not entertain either, since no one needed him here and, rightly, was not interested.

– Thanks for the hospitality. Well, I'll go, ”Levy went to the door.

– Ah, well, be healthy, – the answer sounded half-indifferent, – come in somehow else.

“Come in” sounded like a formal invitation and Levy really did. Not immediately, not next week, maybe in six months, or maybe in a year. The door was not opened as fast as the last time, everyone was asking who and where. When they let inside, they personally took us to the living room, where several people were sitting, and among them the dull Valera. Blush disappeared from the cheeks, a deep sadness and hopelessness fell on his face.

“Ah, it's you, Levy.” Hey.

– Hi, Valera. How are you?

– You know, bad.

Valera did not hide or hide anything, but in a completely simple-minded, fallen tone, he said:

– One evening they rang the front door. Two masked men entered, armed with pistols, ordered everyone to lie on the floor and after that they took money from the table and, without saying goodbye, left. Serious guys. It's good that everyone survived, ”he added despondently.

“How much money did they take from you, Valera?” I asked, so as not to be silent and ask at least something.

– More than a hundred thousand rubles. This money is not mine. This is the money of those people who came to visit me and left them in storage. The trouble is that these people, knowing about this misfortune of mine, nevertheless demand them from me and demand very harshly.

One hundred thousand! What an incredibly colossal amount, Levy was horrified to himself. One hundred thousand, when the average salary in the country is only one hundred rubles a month! And all these people, why did they leave their money with Valera? So that later one of them could make a “tip”, bring his friends and then rob him, then to demand everything back. These are such business relations and such business partners, don’t bring Gd.

Drizzles a cold rain. Levy recalls how he also walked along this sidewalk and also drizzled with a cold rain, but he specially opened his jacket so that everyone would see him for the first time tied a red tie. Cold and proud. The ends of the tie tremble with joy, playing with the wind. Here is the one-story building of the Louis Pasteur Hospital. Seven-year-old Levy was saved here when purulent appendicitis was discovered in him. Then he really didn’t want to be put to sleep, put up a fight on the operating table and shouted everything – “fascists, fascists”.

Here is the “Baronovsky” house, opposite which stood two beer stalls and a long line of men who blew foam from the mugs, diluted beer with vodka, and then cursed, urinated, fought, wallowed. These Larkovs have long been gone, but the smell of a mixture of beer and urine seems to have settled here forever.

How much did he not see from that tragic moment to Valera? He never saw him again. Only a couple of telephone conversations he had with him. What for? Probably low. Nostalgia when people try to look in and return to their past.

“How are you, Valera?” Do you live all the same? – I ask questions on the other end of the wire from the Netherlands.

– Do not you know? I now live in Uzhgorod and try to earn money as a customs broker.

– Why?

– Yes, because! Because I was forced to sell my apartment!

“Such a nice apartment, in a good place.” Yes, you didn’t seem to need it.

– Why, why! – annoyed Valera. The memories for him, apparently, are very painful and painful, —

– They took me to the forest, hung me upside down, like Pinocchio, and forced me to sign the documents. I now do not have an apartment, I live in Uzhgorod.

Drizzle sprinkles from heaven, nailing to the earth, it seems eternal, inexorable St. Petersburg dust. Breathes fresher, lighter. Windows of the former apartment

have long been left behind, and his slightly naive full face is still looming in front of me. Does a person have constellations and a designation or not?

1981 year. Hotel "Soviet". Happy Valera Lustik is the owner of two warm jackets with hoods, which he just purchased from Finnish tourists. In a country where there are only two tailoring factories, the Volodarsky and Bolshevichka factories, you can sell these trophies with great profit. A shabby guy nicknamed Sheep comes up to Valera and takes these two bags from Valera under some pretext. He does not give him money, but sends him away with threats. Valera can not do anything and leaves robbed with impassable disappointment and bitterness, which, it turned out, will have to carry his whole life.

In addition to Valera’s face, another face pops up, not as rosy and naive as Lustik’s – the face of a certain Vitya Chingin, who also liked to sit out and stay for no reason at Valera, a healthy guy-champion in wrestling. Our world is so small and the planet is so small. Levy met him, surprisingly, in Amsterdam. Vitya's wife was Jewish, and her brothers lived in the Netherlands. All of them were granted a residence permit very quickly and without any restrictions on the grounds that their brother Boris Fastovsky was abducted in Leningrad and demanded a ransom for him. Then they released him and wrote about this story in the newspapers. With these newspapers, Boris came to Holland, drawing anti-Semitic motives to his twists and turns. He and all his relatives and friends who came to him, also took advantage of these newspapers and these motives, healed comfortably and happily. Levy later learned that a terrible tragedy had happened: he was kidnapped from one of the Amsterdam towers where Boris's office was located. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of a million guilders, but for some reason they were not given a ransom, and Boris disappeared forever. Neither the police, nor the psychics, nor the money helped his mother learn about his fate. Viktor Chingin and his wife served a short term in the pre-trial detention center on suspicion of complicity in the abduction, but were released for lack of evidence. After some time, according to rumors, they divorced, but still sued each other for a long time because of common or other people's money.