Читать книгу REFLECTION - Michael Blekhman - Страница 8

Vladimir Fedorovich and Klara were going to the zoo. They walked down the gubernatorial Sumskaya Street passing by the day care building and the endless Dzerzhinsky Square, by the Military Academy that proudly towered over everybody, by the pale yellow Engineering House where Maria worked and that looked like it was trying to soar over the square as a still sleepy morning sun. They walked by the solemn Gosprom sky-scraper, by the Pioneers' Palace and by Shevchenko's monument.

Vladimir Fedorovich held on to Klara's hand really hard because if you don't hold on to her you'll have a hard time catching up with her. He was wearing a white linen suit and a canotier hat. They walked slowly while Klara was telling him about the shocking discovery she had made before going out: the last Russian tsar Nicholas (the one Vladimir Fedorovich contemptuously referred to as Nikolashka) and a King of Great Britain (Edward or George) looked like two peas in a pod. Actually, they looked like a single pea. The only difference between them was that the king could be found on a stamp while the tsar was on a coin. Vladimir Fedorovich smiled while trying to steer the conversation towards Papanin's expedition. Klara, however, was as impossible to distract from her line of reasoning as Maria.

Vladimir Fedorovich, just hear this out," she prattled on. "They even have the same beard! I mean, beards. And moustaches. Everything is completely the same! How can that be?"

"Why are you so interested in their beards?" Vladimir Fedorovich smiled, looking joyfully at passers-by, proud of his erudite and sharp-eyed daughter.

"Hallo, Volodia! Hallo, Klarochka!" were they greeted by Zinovi. "What are you discussing that's so much fun?"

"Dad, get this, our tsars – ours and the British one – are probably the same person!" announced Klara her greatest, earth-shattering piece of news.

Zinovi kissed both of her dimpled cheeks and shook Vladimir Fedorovich's hand.

"What a child, this one!" smiled Vladimir Fedorovich smiled while lighting a cigarette he took out of an unusually-looking beautiful wooden box. "Since when are they ours, these guys? Tsar Nikolashka, may the devil take him, was overthrown, so to say, a long time ago."

"They don't have a tsar in Great Britain, they have a king," Zinovi added, partaking from Vladimir Fedorovich's beautiful box. "How are you getting on, Volodia? What's new?"

"We are on our way to the zoo, Zinovi," Vladimir Fedorovich said. "Maria is at work, so I took a day off. We were planning to go yesterday but the weather was bad."

"As for me, I like any kind of weather," Zinovi said. "I don't care what weather it is, as long as it is."

"I couldn't agree more, Zinovi," nodded Vladimir Fedorovich. "Still, it's better to walk to the zoo when it's dry than to trudge through the mud."

"That's true," Zinovi either sighed or inhaled the smoke, Klara couldn't tell. "But you and I both know that one day there will be no weather at all…"

He laughed and added, "So let it be any kind of weather!"

Vladimir Fedorovich nodded again. Zonovi shook his hand and kissed Klara.

"Dad, listen," Klara kept trying to convince him either to understand or to stay. "How can he be a king if he looks just like the tsar?"

Zinovi hugged her, winked at Vladimir Fedorovich, and offered a Solomonic decision,

"Honey, deep down inside every king wants to be a tsar while every tsar considers himself a king. You, however, are better than any princess or tsarevna. Isn't that so, Volodia?"

"Of course!" Vladimir Fedorovich confirmed. "Sometimes she misbehaves a little but princesses and tsarevnas should be allowed a little leeway there."

Zinovi smiled, waved good-bye and went in the direction that was opposite from theirs. Probably, he was going back to his place on Mayakovskaya Street.