Читать книгу Paper Doll - Tetiana Tikhovska - Страница 2

There used to lay a boulder there. It was a boulder at the corner of Bazarna Street and Moskovska Street. A boulder you could sit on when your sweetheart was late (to say honestly, that scenario had already become habitual).Those two even invented a saying whose secret message was comprehensible only to them. She used to say: “You will have to sit on the boulder”. That is, to wait until she spruces up.

It’s boiling hot. Katrusya[1] is walking next to me – she has been promised to be taken to the beach.

– Can I take a paper doll?

Why not? It’s not such heavy. At least the kid will be occupied when taken for a promenade…Anyway, the heat does not give you any choice.

Here we are at last. The heat is not so oppressive near the Dnipro. But the water does not refresh at all. Yet the river is magnificent! Compared to it, the notorious Seine is just a canal, a bit bigger than a brook, cemented all over as if fettered. But the Dnipro! – Wide, navigable, emerald-green! If only the weather were not so hot! What a day! There’s scarcely a trace of a cloud in the sky, the sun is a bit of a hell and the river lures you: dive in and stay forever.

The beach is overcrowded. Zn elderly lady, sunburnt as a grilled chicken, must be sunbathing here every day. Over there some kids and a puppy are being taken for a walk from the heat of a city apartment. The puppy is funny – it must be a terrier. Despite the heat it is running along the bank like crazy and fetches its masters all kinds of garbage. Look – this time it brought and put to their feet a wet half-rotten twig. You can’t manage without it, really! Then the dog proceeds further.

A young couple brought two little sons. Twins. The father looks as if he comes from Asia. Aha-a-a! That is the reason for so many sons at once. Who knows why, but easterners give birth to boys far more often than to girls.

The dog has fetched something again. What is it this time? A rotten fish. Good boy. That’s who wins bread in the family!

When observed from the ground, even a plane looks like a snail-sprinter. You will hardly be able to apprehend the slight movement of a cloud that just gives a hint of a battle between two giants: hot and cold air.

A huge mauve cloud floated reluctantly on the edge of the sun, hesitated and sailed off.

Meanwhile the unseen giants struggled for dominating over the patch of land. Nobody was going to give in.

The family with the dog went somewhere as it began scowling. Katrusya has already got that bluish – purple tint that only ardent bathers are able to acquire, and now she is sitting on a beach towel and dresses up her doll. In princess garments, presumably. Unfortunately, nowadays girls don’t play with princesses: they have a Belle, Jasmine or Ariel, all cloned from Disney’s cartoons.

The heat plays tricks on the eyes – it looks like a little dusty cloud has risen up.

The cloud was covering the disk of the Sun – the farther, the more resolutely. And the giants demonstrated their power pushing each other, catching everything with their fluffy jumbles: dust, litter, sand.

Some holiday-makers got round to collecting their things and set off. Maybe they felt the storm descending from faraway, or they just had made up their minds beforehand. But those were few. The majority remained on the beach – they still couldn’t believe that the relaxing heat was going to yield. It’s just a little cloud that will float away…

The giants stepped backwards, just to regain anger, and attacked each other violently, foreheads lowered, led by the only aim: to suppress, to annihilate, to win. The earth responded with a cloud of dust; the sand blinded people’s eyes, the trees’ branches interlaced and crashed, and in the sky, where the two ogres had encountered, there was a flash of lightning, followed by thunder.

Even the most careless understood: there would be a downpour in a minute. All things thrown into the bath-towel (we’ll fold them neatly a bit later), everyone grabbed their packages and ran to the nearest sun – shed. One of the bags let a ‘leak’ and it was immediately caught and twisted by the wind.

– Doll! My doll!

Down poured the rain.