Читать книгу Sapphire fairy. Prose in English - Natalia Patratskaya - Страница 6

Mathematics in the first courses was quite complicated. For unknown reasons, for the first year of study at the institute, Katerina was shown on TV seven times. She was shown in sports form and in an ordinary dress. They showed at the training session and at home, where a whole team of TV people came. She was interviewed. She was shown silent. She was twice made a marriage proposal with a rowan tree covered with red berries.

Katerina looked out of the window, as if she felt that they were waiting for her: she saw Grisha’s classmate. He was handsome and looked like an agent from a movie. Cloak. Belt. Usually, young people rarely use belts.

Now Grisha stood and dutifully waited for Katerina. She put on her shoes on a layered sole, a dark blue coat, shook a shock of hair that was scattered over her shoulders, and went out to meet fate. A tall, slender young man was standing by a rowan tree on which there were not yet leaves. It was April. He waited, pulling the belt buckle, emphasizing his thin waist.

His gray eyes were carefully looking at the fourth floor windows behind which Katerina lived. He was in love with a wayward and sensual girl. In my head flashed a walk with her through the snowy streets. Normal people sat in such a winter at home, and she walked with him through a light frost, laughed and talked. The winter ended abruptly, and now it was almost warm. Spring reigned over the land when there was no snow, and the leaves had not yet dismissed.

Together they went to the institute where they studied. The road went past the house under construction. The young man pulled the girl towards the construction site, above which the crane stood. From the future house, only the first floor made its way into the world like a snowdrop.

Gregory attracted Katerina. He hugged her, frantically pressed his lips to hers. He drank the nectar of love gently and passionately. She accidentally responded to a kiss, and then clung to his belt on a raincoat, as if she pulled a bit on a horse, and pushed her away.

She did not think that it was impossible to just walk to the institute with a guy. For her, it was a lesson or a call that guys grew up and walks are not for them.

When they came to the institute, fellow students were already in the audience, and their joint appearance was not left unnoticed. Most of all such an appearance Katerina did not like fellow student Vitaly. He was shocked, noticing the excitement of the couple, the girl’s disheveled hair. And lips? They were larger than normal sizes. A red vision flashed through his head as he went to a concert with her. On Katerina then scarlet dress shone. His memory was interrupted by the appearance of a teacher.

Stands with the kinematics of machine tools appeared out of the ground next to the black board. Students forgot about love and entered the world of machine tools entirely. Chic world of mechanics, if you understand it. The following two pairs were held at these machines: milling, turning, boring.

This is where the priority of the guys was undeniable. The girls only recorded the results of laboratory work, but there were few of them, in the sense that the girls on the course were significantly less than the boys.

A surprise on the last couple was a book about love in poses, which traveled from a desk to a couple. Someone brought it, hid it in a book with a machine on the cover and let it go by the students. Trapped cheers here and there were heard in the audience. Life went on or was just beginning.

At night, the machines bristled with tools and crowded around Katerina. They danced the dance of metal monsters. The milling cutter on the milling machine twitched like a shoulder during a dance. The girl woke up and thought that the day before she had retrained the kinematics of the milling machine.

Makhina coordinate boring machine stood in a separate room. A large bed hid smart stuffing in its depths, which monitored the accuracy of moving the instrument through the program. Katerina went to the workshop and collected drawings of parts that could be machined. She had to transfer the machine to numerical control software. She received such a task from her supervisor, doctor of technical sciences. Grisha and Vitaly refused to participate in this project.

Katerina worked alone, there was nothing much to ask. Having collected all the details that could be machined, she wrote programs under the guidance of the project manager, developed the tools that had to be drawn and put into production.

Over time, it turned out that she only needed to write a program and draw something that was not in the machine, and other people could be involved in the introduction. This wonderful work determined the purpose of Katerina herself in her production life. At the last stage of her studies at the institute, she had to choose whether she would be a technologist or a designer.

Grisha worked in the next shop, so he could accompany Katerina on a pre-diploma practice. Their love has become a road character, since they did not have the time to communicate with others. Walks and kisses under the rustle of the foliage of the poplars were almost traditional.

Katerina’s graduation project was progressing, and her relationship with Grisha was somewhat stalled. Vitaly noticed that Katerina had lost interest in Grisha, approached her with a suggestion:

– Katerina, become my wife after graduation. It is possible to get a star on the epaulettes and become a guard at the factory. I don’t like to be a designer, I don’t want to be a technologist, I decided to become a security officer, because their salaries are currently higher than those of young engineers and engineers. I will give you real gold and natural turquoise, similar to your beautiful eyes!

– Vitali, do you and Grisha live in the same room in the hostel? Who have you heard enough?

– A photojournalist came to us, shot us and told tales.

– Now I understand why you started talking about one topic.

In winter, Katerina went to the region championship in cross-country skiing to a village near the lake. Air temperature – minus forty. Training and competition canceled for three days. Skiers went to the only coffee to eat coupons. The same song sounded in the cafe: “A pair of hounds, pulled by a dawn, forever tired…”

To keep fit, two days in the lobby of the room where the sportsmen were located, music sounded: all the fast dances danced for many hours. There was no sports hall in the village. On the third day, the coach bought a ram. The guys tied a ram to the radiator, then the animal was slaughtered, and in the next house they cooked food for all skiers. On the fourth day, the air temperature was minus thirty-five degrees. Competitions have decided not to postpone.

Ointment rubbed on the coldest weather. Dressed skiers for the race quite easily. At a distance of ten kilometers, the first five kilometers of the foot shrank from the cold and stiffened, then they began to depart and burn. When Katerina came to the finish line, there was a commotion there: a large male skier, at a distance of fifteen kilometers, froze her fingers, a cornfly plane was called for him to send to the city.

At the first session, Katerina arrived late, she passed the exams, but the teachers said: “Athlete” – and lowered her grades by one point. As an athlete, she was released from sports at the institute, she was automatically credited. She was asked to speak at the championship course flow. We had to run three laps of one kilometer. She outperformed the runner-up for one round. And later in her life were studying and training. Classmates and athletes skiers.

Katerina decided to go to a youth sports school after reading an advertisement in a newspaper. One autumn, she came to the youth sports school, where she wanted to choose a volleyball sports section. The school administration was in a blackened little wooden house. She opened the old door and saw a very handsome man who turned out to be a ski coach. The blue-eyed trainer with light brown hair persuaded her to become a skier, it was Theophan.

Katerina persuaded classmate Lyudmila, the backbone of the ski section was formed. Familiar guys appeared – Anton and Kirill. Training up to five times a week tied all the same goal. What did Katerina look like? Height 169. Waist 63. Hair, braided in a braid, she tucked with a tape, it turned out a pretzel.

The trainings were fabulous. At the boat station, they took boats and swam the river on them, then walked along the channels. Hands in bloody blisters. Strength training: they took decent cobblestones and threw them backwards. Swam in the river next to the boat station. We ran for speed on the steep bank of the river. On the beach in the offseason chasing football. They played rugby on the sports field.

And skis? In winter, skiing. Frost. No snow. Scrape the snow. They did ski runs and ran. The snow fell, and then the ski track became normal. Interestingly, skiers did not fall in love with their skiers…

Katerina with 15 years spent a lot of time on the river. The first day on the boat to swim across the river was difficult psychologically. Once skiers came to the training. On a warm day, rowing. In each boat sat two people. Katerina trained in a pair with Lyudmila. They rowed in turn. The closer to the fairway of the river, the stronger felt the huge mass of water under the boat. From the fairway to the other shore was much closer, and the feeling of fear from the suspense passed.

The opposite shore is covered with low shrubs, and sand and sand are everywhere. It was good to sail another five hundred meters on the boat and to see a very flat beach with small bald areas of water. The water in such places on a warm summer day was hot, it was always nice to rest here. Skiers went ashore and drove a football on the beach. There are a lot of people here on Sundays, and there were practically no people on summer evenings and on weekdays.

From the main channel of the river went in boats to the sleeve of the river, covered with grass, and rowed to the exit into the river itself. The banks in the channel are almost the same height, about half a meter, overgrown with grass and small, rare bushes. Once, it was in such a duct that Katerina broke her ditch on a boat. Skiers did not take food and water for training. She did not panic from the fact that the oarlock on the oar broke. The rest of the boats spread along the channel and did not wait for each other and did not catch up.

The girls had to return to the base across the big river, and the paddle was one. They are young, beautiful, in bathing suits and with a broken oar key in the boat. Fortunately for them, a man of indeterminate age sailed past in a motorboat. He hitched the boat to the motor boat, the boat’s nose was slightly raised, the water flooded a little across the side, but they swam to the boat station.

On Navy Day, skiers swam across the river in a narrow but deep part to participate in a parade of river modes of transport. Four people were sitting in the kayak: Katerina and three guys, one of them was completely new. The waves in this part of the river are always decent. The new guy was frightened, began to beat the oar on the water. Kayak rocked. The waves flooded her. And the kayak, like a submarine, plunged into the abyss of the river with the rowers-skiers.

Everything emerged from the water, and to the coast to sail far and towards the city even further than to the island. Experienced skiers took: one – a kayak, two oars collected, pushed next to him and float. The girl just had to swim to the shore. Narrow river in this place, but everything is relative.

This place is not for swimming, a deep place with constant waves. Katerina floated, and one thought pounded in her head: “That’s how people drown.” The girl didn’t want to sink, and she swam to the shore at the same time with the guys. Life-saving equipment was not taken in a kayak, they passed trainings without insurance.

Skiers swam even along the river channels in eight kayaks. This is already a speed regatta. Such training left a magical sense of speed. These kayaks are harder to lift from the water and carry to the hangar. The hangar was located on an island near the hills. On the shore was a small pier for boats. From this pier got up on the water ski. To be honest, there were craftsmen who were good at water skiing, and as for Katerina, she crashed into the river three times and no longer tried to get up on the water ski.

Another type of water vehicle used by skiers in training – yaly. Eight people sat and rowed, each with one huge oar. The team consisted of guys and girls. Tanned backs looked extraordinarily beautiful when the muscles moved on them from rowing. Once yaly used as intended. Skiers set sail on two yala, took backpacks with supplies for ten days and went up the river to hike. Hands knocked in solid blisters.

Sail remained only in the photo. A barge sailed nearby, clinging to it. We stopped on the shore, from which the pipes of a small town were visible. Here we lived for eight or ten days. An elderly man lived on the same bank of the river, he had a house, a cow, goats. Skiers mowed the grass, the man gave for this to yogurt. There was no rain, the tents did not save. One night they slept in the house of this man on the floor.

We swam in the river, but not from the fairway, but in the channel. The duct was treacherous, with funnels. The water in them was spinning at a decent speed. When swimming, the main thing was not to get into the funnels, but it dragged in them very much. We looked at each other and helped to swim. The journey back was simple: they hooked up two yala to a passing barge and sailed to the city.

Once again Katerina glanced at the TV screen and put sneakers in her gym bag. She had to go to the gym. She hung a blue bag with the inscription “Aeroflot” on her shoulder and left the cardboard hut. Passing by a low picket fence, I turned into the street. The road lay past the one-story buildings to the bus stop.

Half an hour the roads pass sometimes quickly, sometimes very slowly. Soon she got off the bus, walked between wooden houses and found herself on a steep bank of the river. She rolled off a steep clay bank and stopped at an upturned boat. Coach Feofan Afanasyevich walked beside the boat and pitch it on its sides. He was preparing the boat for the new season. In a row with a small wooden house lay another five overturned boats.

In the cottage, skis in cross-pieces stood by one wall, but the main place was occupied by boats, which they carried out to be tar for prevention, and the skis again stood in struts until the next winter. Spring changed sports in one breath of warm wind, leaving the smell of tar.

Kirill came with shaggy light eyebrows, from nothing to do suggested that Katerina study the main methods of fighting – sweeps. They had a little fight in front of the coach, who pitched the boat and did not trust anyone with such an important matter. Lyudmila, descending from a smooth slope, caught Cyril’s interest. Her figure is excellent, and in itself she is a beautiful girl, what can we say…

Katerina went to the coach. Coach Feofan Afanasyevich looked at her and said:

– Katerina, where is the hair doing? You were alone with long braids, and the girls are short and without you full!

The girl shook her head with two tails in reply and was silent – how to explain to the coach that she wanted to be beautiful, as leading on the TV screen? A group of skiers gradually gathered for training. Training was coming power.

Young people climbed onto a lying iron structure designed to transmit electricity to the left bank of the river. They hooked the legs to the metal crossbar, took the cobblestones in their hands and began to swing the press. From such workouts, the press remained with Catherine for the rest of her life. Why precisely cobblestones used skiers, and not dumbbells and barbells? Feofan Afanasyevich believed that natural stone has additional strength in the training process of the city’s cross-country skiing team.

The coach forced the athletes to squat on one leg, then on the other. He believed that the earth gives energy to his hands. The legs and arms were filled with muscles.

One day a group of skiers in full composition went to the opening of the football season. A zealous crowd of football fans strongly pressed Katerina to the iron gates before the opening of the stadium. After such a crowd press, she no longer went to football.

The skiers themselves played football on a rammed ground without a fence, located next to the old wooden church. I must say that we trained where it was possible, where Feofan Afanasyevich found a place. The site among the old trees, located by the church of blackened wood, was very beautiful. But even more beautiful were the young and young football players and football players.

A black-haired, curly Tamara appeared in the team. It was a girl of short stature, possessing good speed, resourcefulness, agility. The soccer ball obeyed her better than Katerina. Is it difficult to play football from the point of view of a girl? It is difficult, even though Katerina played him in those unforgettable years when she could play football, and not just decorate a football field with herself. She never allowed herself to speak badly about football players, no matter how they play. Football – Copper and difficult male sport.

In addition to football, skiers played rugby at a stadium located about five hundred meters from the church. And Tamara played rugby well. Ludmila has always been a leader in the team, but now her obvious rival has come. Tamara quickly joined the team, but Lyudmila remained an unsurpassed leader. Katerina bypassed Lyudmila in cross-country skiing once, and then at the expense of a ski ointment – silverfish. Skis glided perfectly over the granular snow.

The feeling of speed, ease of movement, great weather, beautiful ski track created a great mood that did not overshadow Ludmila’s anger!

Yes, ski cream – the great mystery of victory, which created Feofan Afanasyevich. When he drove a blowtorch over the surface of the ski, Katerina removed the old ointment with a rag from the surface of the ski.

The coach did not let out the blowtorch, he was warming up the ointment, and she crawled off the skis like snow in spring from the slopes of the hills. Sometimes skis warmed over dry alcohol or over a hot plate with a spiral. Be sure to put the resin on the new wooden skis. The best skis were always adorned on Ludmila’s feet, the best ointment was applied by the trainer on her skis, the best sports suits decorated her figure.

The speed training took place near the boat station on the high bank. Skiers ran in sneakers on the asphalt at speed several times in a row. Katerina was at a worse pace than other girls, but on the whole her diligence was successful and she ran hard. After running on the asphalt, the periosteum fell ill on her legs so that she could not walk. She came to a sports doctor. The doctor checked her lungs, they could hold three liters of air. And about the legs the doctor said:

– Lie down in the bath or sit in warm water.

Katerina replied:

– I do not have a bath at home.

The doctor looked at the beautiful girl in surprise and shrugged her shoulders:

“I can’t help you anymore, then don’t run a lot.”

Katerina lived at that time in the barrack with the convenience of a courtyard. In the morning, instead of jogging, she did exercises – was pulled up at the gate next to the house. The old picket fence fenced a small plot of land under the windows of the house where she lived with her parents. Where the gate was located in the fence, she made a right angle with her legs and pulled herself up on her arms.

She had one trick about her waist: a stern soldier’s belt remained in her house, so she walked at home, tightening the soldier’s wide belt with a buckle. The waist from the belt was remarkably preserved.

In the mountains were the next competition of skiers. “Here you are not plain, here the climate is different…” How beautiful it is in the mountains! Pines. The mountains. Lake. With great pleasure, skiers conquered hilly terrain. Competitions in the mountains with snow-covered trees are beautiful!

“Katerina’s nose glitters after a bath,” Feofan Afanasyevich told everyone on the bus.

All skiers, not spoiled by home baths, went to the bath-house. In a wooden one-story hotel there was a strange convenience: from the first floor skis were served on the street and a ski cream was applied to them under the windows before the ski race. In the bus skiers sang songs. They sang with inspiration in all their young throats! Skiers have never sung anywhere else. Katerina and Lyudmila sang well, their voices sounded beautifully in the choir of skiers through the smell of tar…

Katerina had a ski friend, a friend on the same trip, she went to the store with him, bought stockings with a very beautiful pattern (there were no pantyhose then), then they went to the movies. The film came with a short title, such as “Yes and no.” Openwork stockings and the name of the film remained in memory.

On the hills, where skiers skated, a tiny buffet fit in a wooden house, he worked on major holidays. Usually skiers did without hot drinks and buns. But at the end of the ski season, the buffet was working properly, the competitions were large, the people on the fells were crowding.

After the ski race, the girls took hot coffee in paper cups, went outside from a wooden building. The guys found a camera, and a moment after the coffee stopped. The skiers in the photo are visible white knitted headphones, covered with ski hats on top. Feofan Afanasyevich bought hats for everyone when he went on a business trip. He also gave out suits and skis, even ski boots. All their jackets, their mittens, their cheeks, red from the cold, their own, but the photos are not colored, they did not invent color photographs then. Katerina, Lyudmila, Tamara, Feofan Afanasyevich and Kirill froze in the photo.

Institutional dormitories began to enter Katerina’s life – no, she did not live in them. Long corridors, very long, surprised and alarmed. The same hostel was in the city where Katerina participated in student competitions. Student races. She studied at a technical institute and advocated for her institute and city. Skiers lived in competitions in a dormitory while local students rested on vacation. Places unusually beautiful and picturesque.

Mountains, snow and frost. The ski race was not canceled in the frost at thirty degrees, all competitions were held as it should. The ski trail passed through the beautiful mountains. Tears from the eyes flew during descents and turns, dark glasses were not worn at that time. All the hostels are the same, but the cities are different. Oh, how scary sometimes to go in the winter! Weather. Road.

Better not to risk it.

Once flew to one city, and then went by bus to the place where the competitions were held. All on the switchboard, and returned home, but by train with a transfer. The train came home at night. With skis from the station to her street Katerina walked. Fearfully? Not even cold. Night. Frost. Skis in a case. Sports bag. Coat with a red fox. The youth easily transfers much.

Still from one trip there were photos. On them, next to the sculptures were Katerina and Lyudmila. Katerina in a coat, in stockings, in suede boots, tight tight calf legs. The girls were shooting Kirill on the photo. He is also in one photo. Kirill studied at the same institute with Katerina. Snow on the track then lay coarse-grained, slid very well in March.

The sun was almost out the window. The window was reflected in big glasses. Katerina twisted the sapphire in her hand and continued to write. When she took sapphire in her hands, she always felt a desire to write, or to remember, or to invent new stories or constructions. Blue Sapphire personified a fragment of her inspiration.

Once Katerina sat on a steep bank and looked across the river, where the floodplain was located. Either from the sun’s rays, or from what else the Ghost City began to appear before her eyes. The girl wanted to shout:

– You can not build a city on the other side! There is a floodplain!

But no one heard Katerina, and the city continued to be built. Round houses with concave roofs appeared one after another.

– Who grows there at home like mushrooms? – Katerina asked aloud in the next parish to the river bank.

“These are the guys from the building faculty frolicking,” Cyril replied.

– Cyril, this is not a dream?

– Katerina, people work around the clock. I myself help them. Students of the Faculty of Civil Engineering finish, and this city is their collective graduation project.

– Interesting. But diplomas – paper! And these are real houses!

– Katerina, famous architects from the Northern capital are helping us, a joint project has been developed with them. They have designed many houses in the city. And I offered them round houses, by the way, after one conversation with you. You said it was scary to walk on the roofs. I came up with concave, round roofs, from which, if you roll, it is inside the roof. In the center of the house passes the water flow with a filter. Filter graduates do your faculty.

– I did not know.

– And who do you see besides yourself? You are always on your own. And now I approached you with caution: what if you run out?!

– Listen, Cyril, flood your city in the spring!

– Do not flood. We connected another department, the guys are developing a project for a dam that serves as an embankment. Do you love the other side of the river that I do not know?

– You’re right. On the other side of the river, there is no need to move over the clay from the shore, and it is not necessary to work for the ascent rate, and the water is warmer there, and the shore is smaller. Where did you get the money?

– You will not believe!

– Speak!

– Remember, went to the competition in the mountains? You are not the best at skiing, but one spectator fell in love with you. By the way, do you even know that the races were next to the government sanatorium?

– Someone mentioned something.

– The audience we had what is necessary! You filmed. A man approached me alone. He asked about you and told me to play along with you in your dreams.

“I recall that you and other of me were drawing ideas.” Did they build rings at home?

– Yes, as you said. Why did you not go to the Faculty of Civil Engineering?

– Better tell me how to get from one bank to another? On a ferryboat?

“Everything is under our control.” Soon will begin to put a new bridge in this place, where we are now sitting.

– I can not sit down, as soon as the bridge in my place put! Why so? Kirill, what’s the point in building a city on the other side?

– There winds less blowing.

– I take everything for a joke, but the city is really growing fast! And the city is beautiful!

Respectable men came out on a steep bank of a steep car. Katerina jumped up from her observation point. Kirill also rose. They were not allowed to leave. The men from the car stopped them.

– Hi, Kirill! – Said a tight man with gray hair. – Introduce me to the girl.

– Chef, girl name is Katerina.

– Great, I even lost my speechlessness by surprise! The city will be named Catherine in honor of this girl! Congratulations! Said the man majestically and extended his hand to Catherine.

– You break etiquette! – suddenly said Katerina.

– Here are the times! My hand refuse to embrace such a cute palm!

– I need you here? – Katerina asked sharply and, not waiting for an answer, rolled down from the steep bank to the water, where a group of skiers gathered for another training session.

Katerina approached Tamara:

– Tamara, do you see the city on the other side?

– She still asks! I see!

Cyril approached them:

– Beauties, you are invited today in a cafe for a conversation…

– Cyril, you sold us to someone? – asked Katerina.

– Katerina, I try for you.

– I do not believe, I will not come.

– Katerina, you will definitely come! The chef is asking for it.

– The meaning is, Mr., close to the financiers?

– Insult!

Katerina and Tamara came for dinner. They modestly sat down at the edge of the table.

– The new capital of the region is scheduled. I consider the start of work successful! – the chief said loudly, and noticing two girlfriends, said: – Attention, you see young people whose faces will soon be on all screens of the region! They are the faces of the new city.

The audience at the table actively raised their glasses, smiling sweetly at the chef. His hand with a glass became the center of the universe, each trying to get his glass for his glass. The girls continued to sit modestly and do not lean out.