Читать книгу Stories from Lyubavino. Chronicle of an extraordinary Incident - - Страница 8

In a local electrical goods store, nestled in the very heart of a cozy urban-type settlement with the alluring name of Lyubavino, at the beginning of June, as was the custom there year after year, some young lads were hired for temporary work to assist the more experienced staff. Among them was one particularly special young man named Vasily. And it is about him that our story today will be told…

To put it plainly, Vasily was a rather extraordinary individual. It seemed that Nature had decided to take a break while crafting his appearance, and was apparently in a deep faint altogether while working on the neural connections inside his cranium. But later, it appears, she magnanimously compensated for her oversights by endowing Vasily with a generous portion of sheer nonchalance. Lanky, of not very robust health, and devoid of any interests common to almost all young men his age, he was somewhat of an enigma to those around him.

Since childhood, he had disliked his own name and had protested for a long time, demanding that his parents immediately replace it with something more attractive, in his opinion – like Arnold, Harry, Legolas, or something along those lines.

To which he was told, in a polite manner, to stop engaging in such nonsense. After all, he already bore a wonderful name, and one with deep meaning at that – named after his marvelous grandfather! And that in itself was a great honor. So he ought to be fully proud of it! And that was that; the name issue was conclusively closed.

Among his few acquaintances, he had only one true and tested friend – Vitya. The two had been thick as thieves since kindergarten. Since childhood, Vitya had been seriously passionate about weightlifting. He was solidly built, muscular, broad-shouldered, short, and stocky.

Outwardly, they were an impossibly absolute contrast to one another. Vasily was a brown-haired young man with dark eyes, tall, scrawny, and pale to the point of bluishness. Vitya, however, was a fair-haired lad with gray eyes, stout, with rosy cheeks, and radiating health. Vasily and Vitya – two completely opposite poles, yet by some mysterious laws of the universe, they had in time become the closest of friends, so inseparable that they couldn’t imagine life without each other. Can you, dear reader, imagine a more comical pair than these two?!

Their behavior was at times utterly unpredictable, and on occasion, as is often the case in youth, even verging on the reckless. But the most peculiar and eccentric of the two, as you have no doubt gathered, was the main hero of this story – Vasily.

His father had barely managed to persuade his old friend, Yevgeny Vladimirovich, the director of the electrical goods store, to take his son on. He had done everything possible to get the boy a job, at least for the summer.

As we have already mentioned, Vasily was a peculiar fellow – quirky, but interesting. His appearance, to be honest, slightly resembled that of a vampire – pale skin, sharp facial features. However, far more important was his ability to find a common language with people. At eighteen years old, he was perfectly capable of handling simple tasks, and that was enough.

Ah, youth! Reckless acts, eccentric self-expression through unusual clothing (and not only that), incredible dreams and desires, an indomitable belief in a beautiful future! And, of course, the tremulous anticipation of first true love…

Although, it seems we have digressed slightly…

So then, in recent days, a local artist, Serafim Nikiforovich, had passed on to the next world – a grandfather of very advanced years, a man of complex and heroic destiny, highly respected throughout the district.

The lavish funeral, scheduled for Friday, was not going to be canceled, despite a major power outage having occurred. The director of the electrical goods store, being a man who deeply respected Serafim Nikiforovich, decided to contribute his modest share to the expenses of the upcoming event.

The expenses were managed by a certain responsible official, who, on his own initiative, had organized a collection of funds in his office at the local administration. Vasily was entrusted with carefully delivering this very contribution – neatly placed in a sealed envelope – to the aforementioned official.

There was little use from Vasily at work anyway, and Yevgeny Vladimirovich himself couldn’t possibly get away today. He had decided to use the suddenly available day off to maximum benefit: to arrange a minor rearrangement in the store, combined with a long-overdue thorough cleaning. And he intended to personally supervise this important process, without stepping away for a moment.

“You know where our administration building is?” he inquired of Vasily, who was enthusiastically chewing gum while simultaneously listening to some clanging music through a single wireless earbud protruding from his ear.

“Nope…” Vasily shook his head in negation, continuing to chew.

“Then listen up and remember… And spit out that gum already when your superior is talking to you…”

“Just a sec…” Vasily nodded quickly, transforming his demeanor into one of pure attentiveness and obedience, and spat the gum into a trash bin.

“You’ll exit the store, turn right, then walk straight along the sidewalk to the intersection, cross the road, bear left, and in about two hundred meters you’ll come upon a two-story, light-colored building – well, that will be our administration. Go up to the second floor, right in front of you will be a door. You’ll enter, hand over the envelope, and say it’s for the funeral. Got all that?”

“Uh-huh…” Vasily nodded briskly, taking the envelope from Evgeny Vladimirovich’s hands.

With a carefree, springy gait, he set off to carry out his assignment, swaying his head to the beat of the clanging music in one ear.

And so, about twenty minutes later, an angry phone call came through on the landline in the director’s office. Evgeny Vladimirovich had once prudently kept the wired telephone – just in case. And would you believe it, it came in handy…

Just a few minutes after that call, Evgeny Vladimirovich burst out of his office, crimson and huffing like a boiling samovar, the pathetic remnants of his hair standing on end.

“Can you imagine! Do you know who just called me?!” – and without waiting for an answer from his stunned subordinates, who were lazily polishing the shelves, he suddenly wailed:

“The prosecutor herself!.. Yes, yes, the one from our district! Furious as a witch on a diet, and she asks me: ‘Why would you do this to me?! What did I ever do to you?!’”

He made a dramatic pause, his eyes wide open:

“I’m standing there, listening, not understanding a thing! And she says to me: ‘Why are you wishing me dead?! Why did you send me money for my own funeral?! What is the meaning of this outrage, Evgeny Vladimirovich?!’”

And suddenly, his face contorted with a horrifying realization:

“And that’s when it hit me! That blockhead Vasily managed to mix up the administration building with the prosecutor’s office! I ask you, where is our administration and where is the prosecutor’s office?!”

Evgeny Vladimirovich scanned his employees with a look that conveyed a silent question and utter indignation. Satisfied to see the required mixture of bewilderment and righteous anger on their faces, he continued with renewed vigor:

“When he gets back – I’ll kill him on the spot! Although, no…” he suddenly thought better of it, “first, let him explain what on earth he said to that prosecutor. And then I’ll kill him!”

He delivered this last phrase with particular inspiration:

“And then I’ll hand over the money for his funeral! Personally! Into the grateful hands of his overjoyed father! Who will probably kiss me for it!”

Evgeny Vladimirovich took a greedy gulp of water from a half-liter plastic bottle – indignation had left his throat parched. Then, with unquenchable fervor, he continued to depict for his team the nightmarish situation that had caused everyone to drop their work in a hurry.

“So there I was, explaining myself to the prosecutor like an idiot, telling her that the money wasn’t for her funeral, but for our Serafim Nikiforovich, that Vasily, that good-for-nothing, mixed up both the buildings, and the floors, and the offices. Now I have to go around explaining to her why the hell I sent her money for her funeral, and while she’s still alive! Should I send her flowers now, or what?”

The team let out a unified, disapproving murmur and waved their hands in horror.

“Oh, right, of course, now, in this context, she’d take that as a downright mockery!”

The team nodded in agreement, humming and mumbling their assent.

Frustrated, the boss took a powerful breath, retreated into his office, and threw over his shoulder:

“As soon as that cutthroat appears – send him straight to me!”

The entire staff nodded in servile unison and immediately abandoned all their ‘frantic’ activities. They were now eagerly awaiting the continuation of this unprecedented incident. Whispering and animatedly discussing the event, they all instantly forgot what they had actually come to work for today.

Vasily, however, evidently decided not to keep anyone in agonizing suspense. Still nodding his head in time with the insane music blasting in his ear, he walked into the hushed store.

The staff immediately perked up and, with a single impulse, stared at him with wide eyes, anticipating something thrilling. With an air of importance, he marched silently past them into the director’s office, on the way studying his colleagues’ frozen faces with mild bewilderment.

The door had barely slammed shut behind him when, with remarkable unity, they tiptoed over to the director’s office door. Pressing against it with whatever body part was most convenient and holding their breath, they began eavesdropping on what was happening inside.

“Vasily,” began Yevgeny Vladimirovich, barely containing his emotions, “which building did I ask you to find?”

“The Administration building…” the subordinate replied, perplexed.

“Then what the hell were you doing in the Prosecutor’s Office??!”

“???” Vasily stared at his boss with a look full of silent question.

“How did you even get in there? The place is swarming with security! Ah, to hell with it…” the director waved his hand dismissively. “Better tell me… my dear Vasily, what exactly did you say to our highly respected prosecutor?”

“Well… I – I—I…” Vasily hesitated.

“Well?!” the boss snapped.

“Well, I saw a two-story building, went up to the second floor, like you said, and walked into an office… There was a woman sitting in a chair, reading some papers. I walked up, put the envelope on her desk, and said: ‘This is for the funeral, from Yevgeny Vladimirovich.’ And that’s it… I left…”

Yevgeny Vladimirovich instantly pictured this vivid scene and shuddered in horror at the position he was now in! Vasily’s appearance, his behavior, and his slightly strange manner of speaking – in this context, it would have provoked one unambiguous reaction in anyone: a direct death threat! Nothing more, nothing less!

“Do you have any idea what kind of position you’ve put me in?! You blockhead!.. I’ll be having a word with your father today. Some way to help out a friend! Getting his precious son a job! Now he can help me mend fences with our dear prosecutor!”

He ran a hand nervously over his face before continuing with renewed vigor.

“Who, I might add, thanks to you, just called me and lodged a serious complaint! About how I’m apparently wishing her dead and sending her funeral money via some thug of questionable appearance! Now this is your father’s problem, too!”

Yevgeny Vladimirovich measured Vasily with a gaze full of utter bewilderment:

“Well, I’ll be damned… such an intelligent, responsible man, and he has a son… like you! You’ve landed on my head like a ton of bricks! Get out of my sight! I don’t want to see a trace of you here. And I’ll be paying a visit to your father today…”

Vasily listened to this thunderous tirade from his superior, and the understanding was slowly beginning to dawn on him that he had done something wrong – something very, very wrong, in fact. He slowly backed toward the door, wanting to slip away quickly, to vanish through the doorway, to dissolve into thin air, but then he unexpectedly stumbled upon the cluster of colleagues who had been impudently eavesdropping by the door.

“So, what’s the word, ‘Killer’?! ” one from the group addressed him.

“Ha, that’s right, ‘Killer’! ” others chimed in cheerfully and with a sort of wild glee.

As if on cue, Vasily tripped over someone’s feet and, flailing his arms helplessly, crashed to the floor in the middle of the aisle. In an instant, he scrambled up and, without brushing himself off, dashed out of the store, which had suddenly become unbearably cramped.

For the first time in his life, he felt an immense, crushing frustration for having failed at the most elementary of tasks – mixing up two completely different buildings. And now, he was most likely facing a shameful dismissal, even though he had barely even started working.

But the worst part was the impending explanations: the just reproaches of a disappointed father and the sad eyes of his mother. And that cursed nickname – “Killer” – now hanging over him like a storm cloud in a clear sky!

He had never had a nickname or a moniker; somehow, this particular circumstance had luckily passed him by in his childhood and youth. And it must be said that he was quite content with this state of affairs. His own name, which he considered uninteresting and unmelodious, was perfectly sufficient for him.

But then suddenly, in his nineteenth year of life – it happened! He understood perfectly well that this strange, sinister nickname would now be attached to him forever. Against its backdrop, even the name “Vasily” suddenly sounded noble, almost regal – exactly as his mother had always tried to explain to him. And he somehow suddenly saw everything in a new light. And to his greatest surprise, he made an unusual discovery: he was starting to like his name very much indeed.

Anything but “Killer”!

That evening, at home, after receiving the scolding he deserved from his father, and utterly dejected by the hopelessness of his affairs, he got ready to go to his faithful pal, Vitya. The electricity was still out, and he was languishing from boredom, so he decided to stay overnight at his friend’s place, which he duly informed his parents about.

His father and mother thought highly of Victor and believed, between themselves, that he was a good influence on Vasily. Moreover, the boys were bound by a strong friendship dating back to the days when they used to dig around together in the sandbox. Therefore, despite the dressing-down that had just taken place, they let their son go with light hearts and the firm conviction that at Vitya’s he would at least not get into any new mischief.

Dusk was falling. Vasily’s mood was rotten, absolutely rotten! In such a state, he didn’t want to arrive at his friend’s place and decided to distract himself a little.

But there was particularly nothing to do. No internet, couldn’t lose himself in video games, couldn’t watch TV – no power! A profound melancholy seized the hapless head of our fine young lad, Vasily; he sat down on a bench and sank into despondency.

And right there in front of him was a little beer store. He bought himself some strong beer – one and a half liters – and for the first time in his life decided to drown his sorrows in this manner. To ponder a little over recent events, to be alone with his thoughts, and only then to visit his faithful friend – to pour out his troubled soul to him, to talk about the injustices of life. His friend, after all, was an athlete and didn’t drink.

Vasily sat down on a bench in a shady spot where no one could see him, and until the sun had completely set, he drowned his grief and anguish in beer. It grew dark. His mood improved slightly, and the desire to pour out his soul to his faithful friend Vitya became even stronger than before.

So off he went, the poor wretch, through the dark alleys and streets. He walked and walked, thinking all sorts of unpleasant thoughts about his boss, about that nasty female prosecutor, about his unkind colleagues who had thought up such a vile nickname for him, about his own good-for-nothing self…

“So what if I gave the envelope to the wrong person. And I said what I said. What else was I supposed to say in a situation like that?”

In short, he walked and walked, and all around was just a dark abyss! The sky was covered with clouds – no moon, not a single star, not even the faintest glimmer of a streetlamp. Utter, pitch-black darkness! And then suddenly, from out of this gloom – WHAM! – someone swung and hit him right under his right eye! Out of the blue and for absolutely no reason!!!

Stunned by such an unexpected turn and literally knocked off his feet by the powerful blow, Vasily let out a loud “Oof!” and fell flat on his back.

Instantly realizing that his assailant would certainly try to hit him again, Vasily quickly rolled across the ground and, shielding himself with his hands, shouted into the darkness:

“Who’s there?.. What do you want?..”

In response – a strange silence.

Vasily strained his hearing and the remnants of his vision (in the form of his left eye) and, swaying, got back onto his shaky legs, trying unsuccessfully to make out anything at all around him. But it was dark as pitch. He assumed a fighting stance and, with his fists tightly clenched, lunged forward at the invisible enemy:

“Who are you?.. What do you want?”

WHAM! Taking a hard blow now right to the nose, Vasily mumbled something, sank down, and grabbed his face with his hands. Such insolent behavior from the invisible attacker infuriated him, and in his frustration, he began throwing punches while jumping, spinning like a top, attacking now with his feet, now with his hands.

These absurd combat gyrations were performed in pitch darkness, at random. Vasily hoped to land a blow on the bastard – to the head, the groin, the solar plexus – anywhere would do! But to his great astonishment (and horror), he didn’t manage to hit anyone at all. In the impenetrable gloom, he could hear only his own ragged breath and the scuffing of his own footsteps. Vasily fell still…

The sudden, crushing fear born of the dead silence and the unbroken murk made him take to his heels. He ran wherever his eyes led him – or, more precisely, wherever his one surviving left eye was looking.

He dashed to Vitya’s house practically blind. He only avoided getting lost because he knew the area like the back of his hand. Even in the absolute darkness, he unerringly found his way to the right street with its five-story apartment blocks. In the dark windows, candles flickered dimly here and there.

Guided by memory, Vasily walked briskly towards the right entrance. As he went, he wiped the blood, which stubbornly streamed from his broken nose, with his shirt sleeve…

Vitya opened the door immediately and, after briefly hearing out his buddy’s story about the attack, decided without a moment’s hesitation to go and punish that brazen foe before he could make his escape.

“But listen, Vitya, the guy’s some kind of lunatic with fists of steel, a real hefty one,” Vasily shared his impressions.

“Don’t sweat it, Vasily! The main thing isn’t that nutjob’s height or weight. The main thing is not to chicken out! We’ll break through!..” he replied, hurriedly pulling on his shoes.

Vitya, unlike Vasily, was of sturdy, athletic build and possessed powerful, sinewy arms with hefty fists resembling two sledgehammers; he was, as people jokingly say, big-boned.

Without a second thought, the friends set off to confront the unknown malefactor – a vile character who attacked innocent people, treacherously using the pitch darkness to his advantage.

Vasily walked almost on tiptoe, speaking in a whisper and pointing the way with a flashlight “borrowed” from Vitya. The flashlight was small, weak, and kept cutting out. Its yellow beam timidly illuminated the road at their feet, and soon they were almost at the scene of the recent assault…

When suddenly – WHAM! – this time, it was Vitya who received a powerful blow to the nose. He was knocked out cold on the spot, his powerful body collapsing to the ground. The flashlight went out along with him.

Stunned by the sudden attack on his friend, Vasily, out of sheer fright, began jumping and hopping on the spot, waving his modest, Vitya-incomparable fists in the dark, slicing through the air at random.

“Ah, you scum, you bastards! I’ll show you now!” he howled, hurling several sharp, what he believed to be lethal, punches into the darkness: “Where are you, you lowlifes?! Attacking people in the dark, from behind! Vermin!”

At that moment, he stumbled headlong over Vitya, who was lying there unconscious. Vitya, jerking upright, received a solid blow to the head, causing him to collapse once more, senseless, to the ground.

Coming to his senses a couple of minutes later, Vitya made another, more successful attempt to get up. Immediately switching into combat mode and adopting a fighting stance, he began pummeling the presumed opponent with his sledgehammer fists, but the foe deftly and silently kept evading his knockout blows. In the end, he landed a punch right on the jaw of Vasily, who was hopping about nearby like a little goat. Vasily let out a furious howl and returned blow for blow, hitting his comrade with all his might under the right eye. This time, it was Vitya who swore loudly and profanely.

“Hold on, Vasily, seems like we’re beating the crap out of each other!”

“Yeah, right, looks like it…” the other agreed after a moment’s thought.

“Hey, where are you, you fucking assholes?!” Vitya prepared to attack, but in response – only a ringing silence. “This is some seriously messed-up crap… They’re trolling us!”

“I hit you the same way just now. I kept asking, asking, and in response – silence…” whispered a perplexed Vasily.

“Let’s get the hell out of here!” proposed the freaked-out Vitya.

“Yeah, let’s go to your place…”

Edging away sideways, at first unhurriedly, then picking up speed, they bolted back to Vitya’s house.

Waking up early in the morning and seeing each other’s faces painted with bruises and their noses swollen, the young men were at first somewhat stunned. But, recalling the misadventures of the previous day, they quickly drank a cup of tea with sushki and hurried to that ill-fated spot where they had been so generously thrashed the day before.

The night before, as they were going to bed, they had racked their brains for a long time: who could it have been? The assailant had moved without a sound, struck with hard, precise blows, without uttering a single sound, and had navigated in the pitch darkness as if he were at home!

They had even sinfully thought of aliens – the circumstances seemed far too suspicious…

And so, as they approached the place where they presumed they had been attacked the day before, they saw on the ground the extinguished flashlight they had forgotten, and next to it – a pile of debarked logs. A few of these logs jutted out from the main pile in a brazen and disorderly fashion.

Vitya walked over, sized it up – and was dumbfounded: a couple of the logs were positioned right at head-level! Carefully bumping one of them with his swollen nose, he suddenly saw the light. So this was who had so brazenly “attacked” them yesterday! It was not an ambush, nor was it treacherous aliens, but merely a harmless pile of timber, carelessly dumped on the vacant lot.

They began to circle the logs with a suspicious air, constantly measuring them up, first with a black eye, then with a broken nose. And then it hit them: first a quiet chuckle, then laughter until they cried, and Vitya even got the hiccups – he was shaking so hard from laughter.

And so it was that one fine day, Vasily gained notoriety throughout the entire settlement for threatening to bury the local prosecutor – a woman who was, and still is, alive and well. For this, he was mercilessly fired before he could even properly start his job, and thanks to the same incident, he earned the fearsome and first nickname of his life: “Killer.” And as a final touch, much like the glorious Don Quixote, he had entered into an unequal battle with a pile of logs serenely resting on a vacant lot, alongside his faithful friend Vitya.