The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life)

~ ~ ~

Eera told that they had sent a letter from the Transcarpathia to the institute, reporting my absence from the appointed school. Gaina Mikhailovna was summoned to Rector, who demanded of her to disclose my current location. After Rector declared that in summer he had personally met me in Odessa, she was forced to give away my affiliation with the mine. Now she was going to have troubles at work, and my diploma would be taken away unless the Republican Ministry of Education annulled my appointment.

I had to urgently go to Kiev, as far as the metro station named after Karl Marx, and up the street starting from The October Revolution Square to a gray-stone building in a row of similar ones, yet different to them by its sign of the Republican Ministry of Education, and up the white steps of polished marble to a tall leather-lined door on the second floor…

Head of the department in charge of shirkers, surnamed Baranov, looked 5 years older than me and superbly refined with the appropriate chiseling, grinding, and polishing as required by his position. The only chink in his armor was the single blonde hair on the dark gray shoulder of his jacket, donned over a snug woolen waistcoat thru whose narrow cut glimpsed a thin-pin-striped necktie against on the Tattersall shirt of squares as fine as those in the elementary school students copybooks for Arithmetic – unpierceable coat of mail.

(…yes, because the clothes we wear are not for just airing our dress-code. Their main purpose is to protect us and not only from the weather, which is too trivial. First and foremost, they have to protect us from other humans more adequately clad for the current situation.

Remember that Yalta Conference? Stalin and Churchill in the greatcoats of higher commanders at their respective armed forces and Franklin D. Roosevelt, in between the iron-clad rhinoceroses, flashing his democratic chic? Guess whose country had to bury their leader a couple of months later? I can’t keep back the tears of condolence watching his naive necktie and defenseless fly in the pictures.

But then who knows? FDR might have been in a suicidal mood right then…)

He glibly trotted it out that our state for 4 years bore expenses to give me the higher education free of charge, and it was time to compensate the charity by honest work in the Transcarpathia or say goodbye to my diploma.

I did not waste time on useless arguing. We both knew it perfectly well that the interests of state was the ace in trump suit, there was nothing to counter it with. My defense was built on my passionate desire to work in the field of enlightenment of the younger generations, and nowhere else but on the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains, yet how about my family?

He encouraged me to take you and Eera over there.

And what about the second or, rather, first of my daughters?

The presence of Lenochka was a surprise for him. By the force of inertia, he suggested deporting her together with the rest.

I had to show my passport to prove that she was the product from my previous marriage. After a bitter pause, I admitted lack of information of her mother's current whereabouts.

That was the checkmate. Gro?meister Baranov had not been trained to parry such moves and, having got to Zugzwang, acknowledged that I had a really swirly plot. I would get the free diploma—namely, the cancellation of my obligations to return my debt to the state by honest work at the place I was appointed to—if there be presented the reference from the Head of Street Committee, that Lenochka lived at 13, Decemberists Street in the city of Konotop.

Meanwhile, the bale sent from Odessa arrived at Nezhyn. The tools did not impress my father-in-law, but he got delighted with the teapot strainer. It was his long-term dream to have such a one, only you could not find it in stores even for ready money… Eera and I started discussing at which of the construction enterprises in Nezhyn I should apply for a job to get an apartment as soon as possible when she suddenly said that I needed to be checked, as advised by her mother.

I was a little surprised because medical check was the must when you applied for a job, even without her mother's advice. As it turned out, I had to understand that there was a need for special examination, to check if I was normal at all. Some traits in my behavior were giving rise to certain fears and threatened to disrepute in the public eye the otherwise totally respectable, if not for me, family of Eera's parents.

For instance, quite recently I walked the streets in torn shoes, and I also collected every mote of dust around the baby's carriage, and any question, even of the most trivial nature, made me think for too long before answering, and when she was in the maternity hospital, I came home in the middle of night and declared that the rain was warm. Besides, Eera was shocked by the news from Konotop about my fanatical auto-da-fe of the cannabis plantation, which, though not included in the list of deviations, spoke volumes…

I had nothing to counter with, it was the King and Queen pair from trump suit, she was right on each and every point.

Yes, shortly before that talk, on a clear peaceful autumn day, I went out for a walk wearing my shoes. They were not torn, of course, but fairly worn-out along the sidewalks of Odessa and country roads in the adjacent Komintern district. The walk inspired an elegiac mood. I recollected the distant galaxies on the smooth sea under the steep cliffs near Vapnyarka, the endlessly long street of Kotovsky's Road, and the ridiculously short one of Sholem Aleichem walked by those brown leather shoes with lengthwise incut pieces the tops of toe caps. They were sort of a spaceship on the return from an interstellar expedition across the universe – still alive, but hopelessly out of vogue… When I was taking them off in the hallway, Gaina Mikhailovna remarked that it was time to use some warmer footwear. I felt really pleased with such caring attentiveness from my mother-in-law…

And I could not deny the delayed quality of my reaction to any questioning. Each inquiry that I was addressed with fired up an inaudibly rumbling computer in my mind (although I did not even know the word "computer" then) revving in a hectic round of the combinatorial analyses of all the possible responses to choose the one whose value would not lose its validity even in the most unforeseeable future.

(…an idiot! All that, in fact, was needed:

"A?. Yes,.. Hmm…"…)

As for the entrenched defense line around your carriage, I have already mentioned it. Nonetheless, even fully aware of my innocence, I never thought of debating or proving anything—especially since I had no excuse for neither the warm rain nor the annihilation of cannabis in merciless conflagration—so I just went where Eera led me…

It was a corridor on the second floor in an unfamiliar building with wide floorboards painted red. The place was rather crowded. On the whitewashed wall, there hung a sheet of Whatman paper with a picture executed with crayons in the technique of The Funny Pictures magazine where a kettle addressed a washcloth with the question, "Why did you tell the saucer I was a colander?"; most likely, a gift from some art lover patronizing the institution. A young man in the army officer pea-jacket without any insignia was happily contemplating the picture. His forage cap was tilted a sliver of a notch on a screwballish side.

Eera entered one of the offices to state complaints. Then they called me in, but no conversation followed. The doctor, addressing exclusively Eera, announced that I should be examined in Chernigov because he was not qualified for the like cases, not even competent.

(…exactly as my father used to say: "They are sitting there, getting their salary but when you turn to them – 'I am not Copenhagen!' is all they ever can give out!"…)

The Chernigov psychiatric hospital was located 4 kilometers from the city, in full correspondence to the nearby bus stop named "The 4th kilometer". The gate in the tall concrete wall of the institution was conveniently nearby the bus stop. The collection of modern huge-block buildings behind the wall would readily beautify even the city center by its architectural style, were it not located outside it.

We bypassed the huge red-tiled forms of various height; some of them were bridged with indoor galleries or connected with lower structures. Eera was obviously oppressed by that stodgy Bau Stile void of fanciful conceits, quite understandably though, not everyone appreciates that particular variety of architecture and I, personally, would sooner pull for works by Corbusier too.

I escorted silent Eera, looking glum and sullen at the moment, to the required building where we were accepted in a small one-window office by a dark-haired woman in a doctor’s smock named Tamara…er…Tamara…well, I am sorry, her patronymic escaped my mind. At the desk by the window, there sat a man of a well-trained carcass, also in white.

Tamara hospitably invited us to get seated on the soft sofa in a white cloth case alongside the wall and retired to the armchair opposite it. There followed a conversation of nothing in particular, but when she asked me about my preferences in music, the man by the window started to prompt, "Variety, of course!" which convinced me that his presence was not for just to ensure Tamara's security, if I were a violently deviated case. So I had to honestly admit having more than one preference: Ella Fitzgerald and Johann Sebastian Bach, because I do not drive a fool about the things that really matter.

Tamara told Eera that deviations of my kind were not of dangerous nature, however, if so was Eera's wish and if I did not mind, they could keep me for more close observation.

I did not mind, only warned that on Saturday it was my brother's wedding to which Eera and I had been invited and, if Tamara considered it acceptable, I would come back to the 4th kilometer on Monday. Upon my word of honor.

Tamara most kindly concurred and saw us out into the corridor. From behind the glazed door in its end, there came a muffled noise of a multitudinous assemblage…

~ ~ ~

By that time my brother Sasha had already moved from PMS to KhAZ and was working on some sophisticated milling-grinding machine… The KhAZ was not the KhAZ itself, but only a branch of the Kharkov Aviation Plant. They did not assemble any planes at the branch, but produced spare parts of most different configurations, packed them in boxes, and sent to KhAZ or to its other branches in some other cities. In Konotop, the KhAZ branch was named, for shortness, just KhAZ and everyone was eager to get a job there because of high wages. Sasha earned 200 rubles a month! The rest of the workers got a lower payment because there was just one machine tool of so superb high-precision. Another advantage of KhAZ was its location in the Settlement, you could come home for the midday break and have your havvage.

Unfortunately, there was a drawback too, KhAZ made you work longer than just 8 hours a day. No, there were no labor legislation violations. Sasha was leaving his workplace at 5 sharp, but his work overtook him when even at home. He complained to me that even watching football on TV, he contemplated his working plans for the following day: which spare parts to work on in the morning, and which after the midday break. I felt sorry for my brother, but didn't know how to help him out…

In the Settlement, earning 200 rubles a month, you could start up a family of your own without hesitation. Sasha's chosen one, Lyouda, worked at "The Optics" store in Zelenchuk Area and she also was from the Settlement. Besides, she was a really enviable bride having two khuttas or, rather, each of her estranged, though not divorced, parents had a separate one, which guaranteed the young family immediate solution to the problem of housing, one way or the other. Who would decline living in clover? Thus, my brother became an Adoptee.

Eera was going to buy bed linen as the wedding present, but all the traces of such goods since long had disappeared from the stores. The explanation of the fact provided by the planned economy we lived under deducted that particular shortage from the World Olympics which Moscow was to host the following year, and the mentioned commodity would be needed for doing beds in the Olympic Village.

(…in a flash-forward, I can assure that two years later bedding remained a sharp deficit. I just cannot imagine what those guest sportspersons were doing to it in the Olympic Village…)

So, for the wedding present Eera bought a nice jug of red transparent glass, wisely reasoning that the bedsheets would wear out very quickly but the jug—if not broken—could stand in the hutch until the golden anniversary…

Since the wedding happened to coincide with our mother's birthday, I wanted to present her flowers. Gaina Mikhailovna insisted that no flowers could be bought on November 24, yet I went to the bazaar all the same.

On the bridge over the Oster, I saw a man holding a bouquet in his hands, in a company of two ladies. They were just standing there, looking anything but traders. However, I felt their presence on the bridge was no accident, came up, and asked if he would sell me the flowers… My mother-in-law's bewilderment had no limits, but I knew that somewhere around Odessa or in the worlds parallel to it, I had done something right, which was not forgotten by the unknown yet grateful allies…

We went to Konotop by 15.15 local train. The wedding party took place in a three-room khutta on Sosnowska Street in the Settlement. The flowers caused surprise even there. The surprise grew exponentially, when I presented them not to the bride. Then Sasha remembered what day it was, and assured the guests it was okay.

The following was a traditional Settlement wedding of an Adoptee. The only difference that at the party I gave up smoking. It happened when my neighbor at the table started to convince me of the impossibility of kicking off the habit, especially at a party of any kind. I put out the lit cigarette and that was all there to it.

(…I am a non-smoker even now. That was my way of kicking it…)

The next morning at Decemberists 13, Eera announced my intended trip to the 4th kilometer by Chernigov. There followed a stormy exchange of views with my parents. They opposed the very idea of the trip and demanded it's cancellation. No matter how hard I tried, they could not understand that I had promised to be there on Monday. How to survive in a world where you could not rely even on your own word?

Eventually, Eera took sides with my parents, and they continued trying to prevail upon me in concerted efforts. Only Lenochka was sitting silent aside in the far end of the folding coach-bed.

"So what? Gave him education for your own misery?" my father reproached my mother. Then he turned to me, "We've done all that we could for you. Now it's your turn. Do as we ask. Or we're not the stuff? What are our wrongs? Tell it!"

"Okay, I’ll tell!" responded I, and slammed my fist at the table top, "Why did you stop writing poetry?"

There happened a sharp change in my father's demeanor. In obvious embarrassment, he was turning his eyes away from both his wife and daughter-in-law. Even in the deep wrinkles over his forehead, there appeared never observed marks of shyness, "Well… I was young… it was the war then…"