Читать книгу A Man from the Future. 1856 - Евгений Платонов - Страница 35

Dmitry woke to a knock on the door. Outside the window it was barely dawning – a gray, cold October dawn.

“Dear!” came Praskovia Pavlovna’s voice. “Are you awake? I was getting worried – that nothing had happened to you.”

He got up and opened the door. The landlady stood on the threshold with a tray on which steamed a glass of tea and lay a piece of black bread with butter.

“Here, dear, I’ve brought you something to eat,” she said with a kind smile. “I can see you’re a good man, though strange. Not like the previous tenants – they always tried to cheat, not pay. But yesterday you immediately and honestly admitted you didn’t have money. That means you have a conscience, you’re decent.”

Dmitry was touched by this simple kindness.

“Thank you, Praskovia Pavlovna,” he said sincerely. “You’re very kind to me. I’ll try to find work as soon as possible and settle up with you.”

His hand mechanically reached for the nightstand – to take the phone, check the time, notifications, news. His fingers found only a wooden surface and a candlestick. He froze. For the first time in fifteen years he’d woken without burying his face in a screen. Silence pressed on his ears. There were no notification sounds, no vibrations, no glowing pixels. Strange. Empty. And – unexpectedly – peaceful.

“Oh, don’t hurry, dear,” she waved her hand. “I can see people through and through. You’re not a cheat. You’ll pay when you can. But for now, live, rest. Only tell me,” she paused, then added quietly, “are you really from America?”

Dmitry thought. He didn’t want to lie to this kind woman.

“Not exactly from America, Praskovia Pavlovna,” he answered carefully. “I’m from… a very distant place. So distant that you might not even believe it.”

“And I’m not asking where,” she said gently. “I see you don’t want to talk – so there’s a reason for it. Everyone has their secrets. The main thing is that the heart is good. And yours, dear, is a good heart – I can feel it. I can feel it.”

Good heart, Dmitry thought bitterly. If she knew what I was like in the twenty-first century – cynical, indifferent, cruel. But here, in this time, I really do feel different. As if something inside has thawed.

“Tell me, Praskovia Pavlovna,” he asked, sipping his tea, “how do I find a job? I have an education, I can read and write, I speak languages. Maybe I could become a teacher somewhere?”

“Oh, a teacher?” she thought. “That’s good work, dear, but it’s hard without recommendations. All the positions were taken long ago. And you’re a new man, nobody knows you. Maybe find something simpler first? A clerk of some kind, or an assistant in a shop?”

“And where do I look for such work?”

“Well, you need to read the announcements, dear. They’re posted in the newspapers. Or you could go up and down Nevsky Prospect – there are all kinds of offices there, maybe someone needs an assistant. Or you could go see my son-in-law – he works at a print shop, as a typesetter I think. Maybe there are openings there.”

A print shop, Dmitry thought. That’s interesting. Though I’ve never worked with nineteenth-century printing machines.

“Thank you, Praskovia Pavlovna. I’ll try looking myself first, and if I don’t find anything, I’ll ask your son-in-law.”

“Good, dear, good. I’m going now, I have things to do. I’ll come by in the evening and ask how you’re getting on.”

She left, leaving him with his tea and bread. Dmitry ate slowly, thinking over his situation.

Work. I need a job. But what kind? I’m a systems administrator – a profession that doesn’t exist here. I’m a historian – but without credentials, no one will hire me. What else can I do? Write on a computer – but there are no computers here. Search for information on the internet – there is no internet here. I’m essentially unemployed in the nineteenth century.

The thought was not encouraging. But he wasn’t about to give up.