Читать книгу Stories from Lyubavino. Chronicle of an extraordinary Incident - - Страница 7

And so… Nikolay Vladimirovich and glass! Day One… Friday…

Having cut his elbow and acquired a magnificent bump on his forehead, and after scolding his daughter for her innocent, yet fateful initiative, Nikolai Vladimirovich made the astonishing discovery that behind this entire provocation (as, indeed, one might have expected) stood his indefatigable, mischief-making wife! After giving her a thorough telling-off, he ate a hearty breakfast and set off for the glazier’s workshop.

There, a note on the door awaited him:

“Workshop closed today due to a power outage.”

But Nikolai Vladimirovich was in a determined mood. In a small town like theirs, as is customary, everyone knows where everyone lives – and so he headed straight for the glazier’s home.

To his immense good fortune, he found the master at home. Launching into a brief but emotionally charged speech about the importance of both the integrity of glazed doors and one’s own peace of mind, Nikolai Vladimirovich desperately pleaded for the man to see things from his perspective. In the end, he managed to persuade the glazier to go to the workshop to cut the required piece of glass.

The fact of the matter was that, at that particular moment, our hero was more troubled by the absence of glass in his bedroom door than by the lack of electricity and other civilized comforts. What can you do – he was a perfectionist! He demanded completeness and order in all things. And a phenomenon such as a door with a yawning, blatant hole was, to put it mildly, somewhat irritating to him.

The glazier, having listened with sympathy and heeded Nikolai Vladimirovich’s impassioned appeals, readily agreed to help. They went together to the workshop, where the master carefully cut a piece of glass to the required size based on the provided measurements. Then, having kindly supplied Nikolai Vladimirovich with some useful installation tips, he sent him on his way.

Armed with this sacred knowledge, Nikolai Vladimirovich carried the fragile cargo home, picturing in his mind the perfectly installed glass in his bedroom door. It seemed the coveted goal was now within close reach…

But the path to a fervently desired outcome, as we know, is often thorny. Deciding to save time, Nikolai Vladimirovich cut through the labyrinth of the garage cooperative, hoping to avoid any unwanted (or indeed, any) encounters. However, Fate, as if on purpose, thrust Vasilich right under his nose – his stairwell neighbor, who was proudly soaping down his sparkling “swallow,” a brand-new Lada.

“Hey there, Vladimych! Check out the babe I managed to snag for myself!” bellowed Vasilich, beaming like a polished nickel. “Spacious – it’s like a cosmos inside! And fuel-efficient – words fail me, especially after my old rickety jalopy… Just look at this interior, will you!”

With an ardent enthusiasm bordering on obsession, he flung open the driver’s door as if inviting him aboard a spaceship.

Nikolai Vladimirovich, possessing decent reflexes for a man of his age, miraculously dodged this grand gesture, saving the brand-new glass from certain doom.

“Whoa there, Vasilich! Take it easy! Don’t shatter my glass! I barely managed to talk the glazier into cutting it now…”

“What, he’s working today?” Vasilich asked in surprise, vigorously wringing out his car-wash towel.

“Well, that’s just the thing, he isn’t,” sighed Nikolai Vladimirovich. After a moment’s thought, he added with almost genuine enthusiasm: “Yeeeah… that’s a classy ride you’ve got, no argument there.” He decided to praise his neighbor’s acquisition, if only to get to his bedroom door faster and seal that unpleasantly gaping breach. “Alright, Vasilich, I’ve got to run, and this glass, as you see, is no feather.”

He turned, took a couple of steps, and… stepped (without looking, of course, as always) right onto a cat lazily sunbathing.

The cat, as if deeply offended (which, to be fair, was the absolute truth), let out a shriek like a wounded groundhog and shot into the air like a rocket-propelled grenade. In the course of its epic flight, it collided with the off-balance Nikolai Vladimirovich, knocking the precious glass from his hands!

The glass, as if giving a final salute with its smooth surface, slipped from Nikolai Vladimirovich’s grasp. Hitting the asphalt with a deafening crash, it shattered into hundreds of fragments, glittering in the sun like a scattering of diamonds…

No words exist to describe the grief of Nikolai Vladimirovich. His eyes reflected a catastrophe of planetary proportions…

The angry and offended cat, having landed at a safe distance from this Armageddon, was drilling him with a gaze full of reproach and a thirst for vengeance. One could almost read in its eyes: “All sorts of people wandering about here, stepping on decent cats, the scoundrels…”

But Nikolai Vladimirovich had no time for the cat or its wounded feline pride. All that was left for him now was to rush back to the workshop at a waltz tempo – or rather, at the rhythm of a panicked gallop – praying that the glazier had not yet managed to vanish in an unknown direction. To his indescribable joy, the man was still there, fiddling with some mysterious tools.

Just five minutes ago, a client had happily scurried off with a sheet of glass under his arm. Now he was back on the workshop’s threshold. His face no longer expressed joy, but the despair of a man in urgent need of a new piece of glass – preferably as of yesterday. The master’s surprise was genuine. Without asking unnecessary questions, he cut another rectangle of the fragile material.

After lunch, with an air of importance and a clever expression on his face, Nikolai Vladimirovich attempted to install it. But, to his utmost astonishment, the glass pane, as if smirking with malicious glee, turned out to be slightly smaller than required.

Noticing this mishap, Anna Vasilievna, with her customary mocking look, proceeded to poke fun at her husband’s ability to measure anything with a tape measure. True to form, she couldn’t resist a biting jibe in his direction:

“Do tell me, my dear husband, don’t your golden little hands sometimes get in your own way?!”

He, in turn, let out a loud chuckle and was not to be outdone:

“Well, at least my hands, my joy, aren’t attached right where your slender legs begin when it comes to ironing trousers!”

In response, she wrinkled her neat little nose and uttered her signature:

“Pfft…”

And on that note, each chuckling contentedly at their own little jab, they went their separate ways…

I must inform you, ladies and gentlemen, that Nikolai Vladimirovich was distinguished in life by a unique – one might even say, extraordinary – “dexterity.” If the matter at hand was apartment repairs, he would invariably hit his fingers with the hammer. If he was tightening something, he would do so until the threads stripped.

Once, Anna Vasilievna asked him to pack down some cabbage for fermenting into glass jars. Nikolai Vladimirovich, armed with a wooden pounder, set to the task with inspiration. But, as was often the case with him, he set about pounding the unfortunate cabbage with such zeal that the jar simply shattered into smithereens.

Whereupon Anna Vasilievna, barely containing her laughter, remarked:

“Brawn you’ve got, but brains you need not! A regular Popovich!” – thus comparing him to the hero of a famous cartoon.

From that day forth, this nickname stuck to Nikolai Vladimirovich for good.

But his “gracefulness” was not confined to domestic life. Since childhood, he had been plagued by spectacular tumbles, occurring in the most inappropriate places and always with a special comedic flair.

Take, for instance, that incident at the cinema. Tripping on a perfectly flat surface, he went flying into the aisle. His mortal frame, like a ping-pong ball, ricocheted from one row to another until the poor wretch, utterly vanquished by gravity, landed face-down on the floor. His friends and the other spectators who witnessed this ballet of chaos collapsed right beside him – though from hysterical laughter.

But that, as they say, was just the warm-up.

When our hero rose to his feet with the look of a man who had just encountered a train and cast a triumphant gaze over the people writhing with laughter, he even felt somewhat offended. Not only were they guffawing like a herd of horses, but they were also pointing fingers!

With a bewildered and slightly offended air, he left the auditorium and found himself in the lobby, where he attracted new puzzled stares. It turned out that as a result of his epic fall, the top part of his hat had torn off and was now dangling picturesquely to one side. Much like a loose manhole cover, it wobbled in time with his steps.

To this day, his friends still bring up that incident whenever they meet.

And as for the spectacular manner in which he managed to tumble down numerous staircases – that was his favorite pastime! It seemed that for him, gravity existed only as a pesky misunderstanding.

Instead of a mundane descent on his own two feet, he “preferred” a dizzying slalom on his fifth point, striking the most impressive poses along the way. And if he got a chance to ride a zip-line – well, you’d better watch out!

To fall off it with unimaginable somersaults and an expression of cosmic sorrow on his face – that was a matter of personal honor for him. His relationship with vehicles of any kind was, to put it mildly, downright karmic.

All in all, life was never dull for him. And for those close to him – it was especially eventful

His wife, Anna Vasilyevna, was a perfect match for him – a jokester of the highest order and a born humorist. Allow us to recount one significant incident from the very beginning of their life together, so that you may fully appreciate the caliber of this woman who stood by his side all these years…

And so, it happened during their wedding…

Whether from nerves and anxiety, or simply because that was her inherent nature, something unimaginable occurred at the registry office, right in the middle of the marriage ceremony. At the most solemn moment, when she was supposed to slip the ring onto the finger of her blissful groom, Anna Vasilyevna could bear it no longer. She was utterly undone by the impossibly serious expression on her fiancé’s face – and she burst into loud, pealing laughter. She laughed so uproariously that her mirth proved infectious, spreading to everyone present.

First, the groom himself began to chuckle restrainedly. Then, like an epidemic, the laughter leaped to the guests. Soon, even the photographer and the videographer, who until then had been valiantly striving to capture the solemn moment, lost their composure – they, too, were shaking with uncontrollable laughter.

As for Anna Vasilyevna, she was powerless to stop. She was stamping her little heels, clutching her stomach, alternating between squealing and completely uncontrolled, snorting guffaws. It seemed she was about to collapse on the floor, which finished off everyone present – they were now laughing to the point of utter delirium.

Only the registrar, a woman with a face as if carved from granite, stood motionless, like a monument. She observed this madness with the expression of a person whose internal gears had seized up completely. Only occasionally would she snort with displeasure, casting murderous glances at the howling bride.

Anna Vasilyevna began to calm down little by little. The laughter subsided, the guests caught their breath – everyone thought that now, at last, the ceremony would continue. But then a new, mischievous idea suddenly popped into her head. Instead of placing the hapless ring on her husband’s finger, she, before the eyes of the astonished audience… demonstratively popped it into her own mouth!

Seeing her husband’s eyes widen sharply and his jaw drop with precipitous speed, her brain received such a powerful surge of emotion that she snorted with laughter with renewed vigor… But then something unforeseen happened, and it was her own eyes that became wide and oval…

The ring, which she had intended to hold under her tongue for a moment as a prank, accidentally slipped down her throat on an inhale and blocked her airway. She convulsively grabbed her throat, tried to cough, but to no avail. Anna Vasilyevna was inevitably beginning to choke. Panic was mounting in her eyes.

Fortunately for the newlyweds, one of the guests was well-versed in such matters and, swiftly positioning himself behind her, expertly performed the life-saving Heimlich maneuver. The bride gave a cough, and the ring flew out of her throat, landing squarely and neatly… right on the groom’s forehead! The poor fellow stood frozen, with a golden “adornment” on his brow and an expression of cosmic horror in his eyes.

And so began their tumultuous family life. And we must duly note, our kind reader, that Anna Vasilyevna would sometimes feel profoundly ashamed of the stunts she occasionally pulled. But, after suffering only briefly from pangs of conscience, she would admit to herself, deep down: she wanted to shut her eyes tight and… go and do something like that all over again…

And so now you, dear reader, have at least a small, but more or less clear, idea of his dear wife, Anna Vasilyevna.

As for Nikolai Vladimirovich, he decided not to bother the glazier any further today. He was counting on a new, beautiful tomorrow and sincerely hoped that he would definitely resolve this matter with the glass then. Or so he naively assumed…

But let us not get ahead of ourselves for now. We shall temporarily set aside the tale of the unfortunate Nikolai Vladimirovich and his wayward pane of glass – and move on to the next story. So that everything is in order. In the chronological sense, of course…