Читать книгу The Third Day - Liudmila Maksimova - Страница 3

My nephew Vasjka is a good-natured guy and a jokester second to none. As far as I remember, he was a shy, taciturn and unsmiling child in his early years. He used to mumble something incoherently. We feared he’d never learn to speak. He was already in his seventh year, but he rarely addressed himself to anyone and when he did he would just murmur “granny, h’m’ and use gestures to express himself. And he did so only in case of burning need.

My sister-in-law Clavka believed her son to be a mentally retarded child and sent him to live with us in the village.

– Well, it’s a good thing that my grandson is dumb, – my mother used to say to our neighbours. – At least, he isn’t going to be conscripted. Thus, he will stay alive longer.

Zinc coffins were arriving in Pskov Oblast by the dozen from Afghanistan. Moreover, not all mothers had the possibility to see their beloved sons for the last time and lay them to the eternal rest in the native land. Our neighbour aunt Tonya, having received two “killed in battle” notices, lived for the rest of her life with a split feeling of despair and hope. She never saw the bodies of her two sons. And she was not the only one living in suspense.

We lived to see Vanjka, Vasjka’s father, alive. He returned a captain, with a black face and grey head. And he was still on the right side of thirty. As was the custom, a table was set for all comers. A huge knockdown table, the one that had been knocked together by our granddad and which was kept in parts, to be used on special occasions. We drank in memory of the fallen, then to the health of the living. Silence reigned for a few moments; just buzzing of flies. All of a sudden – a resounding bang coming from under the bottom of the table sent the dishes jumping on and glasses flying off the table. The next moment the dead silence was shattered by a bass, masculine voice not familiar to anyone:

– Fuck! It really hurts.

Women, scared to death, began to cross themselves. Men, as if on command, poked their heads under the table. And there they saw – guess who? – our Vasjka, smiling.

– Fucking hell! – he cursed again, rubbing the bump on the top of his head.

My brother, before he had time to rejoice in the fact that his son finally began to speak, suddenly grew pale and yelled:

– Stay put! Don’t move! – and he crawled towards Vasjka. – Hey, someone, give me the pliers, fuck you…

Sticking out within a hair’s breadth of Vasjka’s head was a long rusty nail. Who knows where it came from and how it got there, and what angel saved Vasjka from certain death.

– That’s one guardian angel the boy’s got! – the farm manager Egor Kuzmich remarked, deep in thought. And he added respectfully, – He (the angel) certainly knows his job.

From that day on, the boy began to speak pretty fluent Russian interspersed with foul language. Everyone in our village spoke that way. The strong language they used was not considered to be bad words or curses. The limited vocabulary typical of ordinary, undereducated people was, where strong emotions needed to be expressed, supplemented with a strong, meaningful word, and, on special occasions, – with a pretty flowery expression.

After a while, we got a letter from my brother describing another incident again involving, for sure, the guardian angel. On arriving at the next place of assignment (military men got a new assignment pretty often), Ivan’s family got temporary accommodation in a small dilapidated house that had not been lived in since the demise of the old lady-owner. Just for a couple of days, before they moved into the apartment vacated by that time by previous occupants. Early in the morning, Ivan went to report for service. Clavka went to apply for a job. Vasjka was instructed to behave himself and never leave the house. “The boy is fairly grown-up, will go to school in a month’, she reassured herself. But she locked the door, to be on the safe side.

…A couple of hours later, the roof burst into flames: old electric wiring caught fire. Firefighters arrived promptly, immediately got fire pumps ready and nozzles trained on the roof. The roof collapsed under the weight of water. Vasjka was nowhere to be seen. Clavka was already wailing and sobbing when Vasjka’s muffled voice reached her ears from beneath the earth. Mystic-minded officers’ wives and some of the recruits involved in clearing the site of fire passed out. And when they came to, they saw Vasjka, safe and sound, with an apple leftover bit in his hand. It turned out that seeing round the new dwelling, the boy discovered a cellar under the floor right in the middle of a small room the entrance to which was tightly covered with a piece of sheet iron. The cellar was well stocked with various preserves and other eatables. And it was there that Vasjka was staying, tucking away jam and apples, until he sniffed something burning and heard some noises above. He couldn’t get out of the cellar unassisted: the metal cover slammed down, became terribly hot and heavy; that’s why he was calling out to mum and dad.

We used to receive new evidence of the presence of a guardian angel in Vasjka’s life about once a month. One day, our blockhead made a bet with his friend that he would jump off the roof-top of the four-storey barracks, of the “Stalin architecture”, by the way. Has made up his mind to become an airman and to start preparing himself for the future profession accordingly, young rascal. To this end, he decided to use Clavka’s umbrella as a parachute. He made all the necessary mathematical calculations – he was about fourteen at the time – and jumped off the top of the roof. But the umbrella, which was unfamiliar with Vasjka’s laws of aerodynamics and had been produced at a Soviet plant, apparently at the end of a quarter (when the quarterly report was to be submitted and there was a drive for product quantity rather than product quality), folded in the opposite direction at the very first moment of the flight. He would have never come out if alive had it not been for the truck full of hay that appeared at the very spot where Vasjka’s helpless body was to hit the cobble-stone pavement. It was not until evening that the winner of the bet appeared in front of his friend, prepared to receive a hundred flicks on the forehead as a bet loser, and admiring crowd. Because Vasjka had to take a ride on the hay truck as far as the local state farm and then go back to the cantonment on foot. But to make up for it, he returned home safe and sound.

In the early 1990s, my brother was promoted to the rank of colonel and given an assignment to Transbaikalia as a military unit commander. Clavka, in an effort to live up to her husband’s senior position, strutted about in Chinese imitations of Versace clothes. But she failed to win the admiration of or arouse envy in anyone. Over there, like in our Pskov Oblast, valued highly were plump women. And our Clavka, although a good person, was, as my mother dubbed her on seeing her for the first time, “not much to look at, with a fist-size bum”. And Vasjka took after her: puny and anything but tall – reaching a bit above his father’s shoulder. My mother used to say about people with stature like that: “a good sneeze could knock them down”. But girls cared for him – a curly-headed and blue-eyed guy.

Vasjka never graduated from the university, he dropped out of it, having been inveigled by jolly crowds. He took to the bottle, drinking heavily and going on a drunken binge for days on end. For him – a jokester and the life and soul of the party, – there was no way he could avoid this fate. He would have become a drunkard and perished, like many of his peers, had it not been for Alevtina who suddenly appeared from nowhere – like a bolt from the blue. I believe it was the guardian angel who had a hand in it again. He either called her to his assistance, being tired of saving his ward, or appointed her as his deputy. Alevtina went to distant Irkutsk from these parts to see her boyfriend, the private Stepan – a muscular, handsome young man, – and came back with our “a good sneeze could knock him down” Vasjka. Who would have thought it possible?! Their love was all-consuming and it passed all understanding. They made love non-stop for a whole month. Vasjka even forgot about vodka. But soon, having found new friends, he took to drink again. Alevtina didn’t like it at all. She decided to employ a carrot-and-stick approach. Intended to be used as a “carrot” was her rich, sweet body which Vasjka proved to be craving for to the point of trembling; and as a “stick” – a real whip which she had inherited, along with her considerable physical strength and a comfortable house, from her granddad who had been an owner of a stud farm. Within a few months, Vasjka stopped even thinking about vodka. At this point, we could finish our story with the words “and they lived happily ever after”, but my nephew became involved in a still another amusing incident without which his portrait would be incomplete. This time, everything turned out all right without the guardian angel intervening. Although, you never know.

On the occasion of twenty-year-long record of service, the plant management rewarded Vasjka with a free holiday package to Tunisia. They themselves must have been tired of taking all-inclusive overseas holidays and getaways several times a year.

– Thank you, – he said, – I don’t seem to have been to this country.

– And what countries have you been to, dear Vasilyi Ivanovich? – the plant management enquired politely.

– You, dear, know yourself that I’ve been to none.

– But you probably travelled on your account.

– My account, dear, is only enough for a trip to Pskov and not always for a return trip.

Alevtina tackled the task of packing her husband’s suits for his overseas travel with all responsibility.

– This is to be used exclusively for medicinal purposes, – Alevtina said, knitting her brows and shaking her fist at Vasjka, and put a bottle of “Putinka” vodka carefully wrapped in a couple of newspapers in the suitcase. – For an extreme emergency!

An “emergency” occurred already during the third evening of his stay. The guest sitting next to him at the table drew Vasjka’s attention to a tall and muscular African standing near the exit from the hotel restaurant, with his eyes glued on their table. Vasjka reassured him and offered his own explanation saying that the guy was seeking an object of sexual pleasures and, therefore, was looking at the woman at their table. The next evening, the new friend accepted Vasjka’s assumption but with one reservation: that it was Vasjka himself who was the object of the guy’s attention. Vasjka took a more careful look at the African guy. The guy grinned, baring his teeth and rolling his eyes, and winked at him. Vasjka panicked. He had already heard a lot about all kind of perverts, and began to be seriously concerned about his honour. Vasjka’s new friends considered his fears to be pretty well-founded: you never know what to expect from these foreigners. Look at the way they live: they don’t know when they are well off. Therefore, they decided to ensure that he was never alone, and to arm themselves, just to be on the safe side. They bought a long knife at an exorbitant price (with Vasjka’s money, of course, – all he had left) and advised that he put it under his pillow at night. But there were no solicitations from the African guy. And on the last evening before Vasjka’s departure, he, as usual, was staring fixedly at the “object” who became slightly hysterical. Vasjka, escorted by his new-found friends, ran to his room to fetch the bottle of “Putinka”, exclusively for medicinal purposes, as instructed by Alevtina. To remove the stress. Vasjka was pouring out vodka himself and, being highly agitated, failed to notice that one more, the fifth, glass appeared on the table.

– With your permission, – a voice, speaking in Russian with a slight accent, came from above. And the fifth glass disappeared in the cupped palm of a huge black hand. Out of fear, Vasjka downed his vodka in one gulp.

– Vasja, friend, don’t you recognize me? I’m Dzhamil.

– Which, fuck, Dzhamil? – asked Vasjka, growing somewhat bolder.

– In the wild steppes, be-yond the Lake of Bai-kal, where gold-diggers toil in the mountains, in the hope of incre-dible luck, * – the guy started singing at the top of his voice. – Remember?

– I remember the song, but I don’t remember you.

– Well, then let’s drink some more.

– Sorry, buddy, I have nothing left at all. I’m flying back tomorrow.

– Don’t piss your pants, Vasja. I’m the owner of this hotel.

Dzhamil put up his hand, and two bottles of Tunisian vodka “Buha” ** appeared on the table.

– I don’t drink, – Vasjka said remembering Alevtina.

– And what is there to drink?! – Dzhamil asked and roared with laughter. – Back then, we drank a lot.

– Well, come straight to the point, will you? – Vasjka knocked back a second drink in one go and went on, – what do you mean by “then”? When was it, and where?

And Dzhamil briefly recounted his experiences in Russia. In the early 90-s, he, along with other students of Peoples’ Friendship University (Moscow), was on vacation in a summer camp at the Baikal Lake shore. One day, they came to Irkutsk by bus to make the tour of the city. During the tour, he got carried away by the sights of the city and by talking to his fellow countryman. In short, both of them dropped behind the excursion party and got lost. They were cold, without money, and at a loss what to do and where to go. They only remembered the name of their camp and that it took over an hour to get there. It was getting dark. They were feeling a little scared. They couldn’t think of a way out of the situation, so they were just standing and feeling sad. And then they saw a frail white chap with three mugs of beer in his hands heading towards them from a beer stand near the railway station.

– Well, “peoples’ friendship”, shall we drink? – he asked smiling happily. Then he took a bottle of vodka out of his pocket and pored some into the beer mugs.

– They say in our parts that drinking vodka without beer is wasting your money.

They became warm and cheerful straight away. They got into a conversation.

– Don’t panic, “peoples’ friendship”, we’ll make it! Russians never abandon friends. Vasja ran to the stationmaster, and within a couple of hours a military GAZ car (off-road vehicle manufactured by GAZ motor works) drove up to them.

But prior to that he ran someplace to fetch a few bottles of vodka more:

– These are for you – to warm yourselves.

While saying goodbye to one another, they were standing for a long time on the square near the station hugging one another and singing at the top of their voices: “In the wild steppes, be-yond the Lake of Bai-kal,…”

– Vasja, – completed his narrative (in broken Russian) Dzhamil, – you made us laugh a lot then, telling us about …, how do you call him? Gardian angel? How is he?

– Guardian angel, – corrected him Vasjka. – She is all right. At home, waiting for me, my “carrot”.

And glancing at vodka, added:

– Most likely, with a whip.

Dzhamil, Vasjka and his new friends formed a circle, hugged one another, drawing their heads together, and started to sing quietly: “In the wild steppes,

Joining them little by little, were tourists from other countries. Vasjka had difficulty identifying their nationality. There seemed to be Germans, Poles, Englishmen and some other nationalities as well.

Resounding above the flat roofs of Hammamet right until night, was not very harmonious but powerful multi-voiced singing: “In the wild steppes, be-yond the Lake of Bai-kal, where gold-diggers toil in the moun-tains, in the hope of incre-dible luck,…”