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

"Hello, Twoic."

"Hi, Hooey-Pricker."

~ ~ ~

He arrived from the nearby Bakhmuch town in the neighboring Chernigov region by 17.15 local train and had to go back by the last one going in the Kiev direction. Before the departure, there remained not too much time, yet not too little either, and we strolled to the station in no hurry. On the way, we remembered the old golden times, and our mutual friends: Petyunya and Slavic. Twoic outlined, in general terms, their cases for the past period. With a sigh of consolation, he admitted knowing that all had gone wrong for me. Well, meanwhile, he graduated and, in agreement with his appointment, became the teacher of Chemistry in the Varvarovka village, 6 kilometers from his home.

Such fortunate appointment of my friend did not surprise me because in the era of deficits the Goods Manager at a district trading base (so his mother's position) had more influential leverage than that by the Secretary of District Party Committee.

At his workplace in the neighboring village of Varvarovka, everything was drowned in the hooch and only a remarkable specimen with genetic stamina in regard to homemade alcohol (thanks to Cossack ancestors) would have survived the constant submersion. The periods between educating the school kids were spent in friendly bouts with the local toughs of the district capital, the Bakhmuch town, and trips to Nezhyn to have sex with one or another of eager sluts at the student hostel.

Village teachers were exempt from the army draft, as well as persons over the twenty-seven-year-old limit. On reaching the specified age, Twoic realized that it was time for him to grow. A professor at the Nezhyn institute, fed tame with deficit goods from Twoic's mother's trading base, made protection at some research institute in Kiev.

“PhD student“! Each letter glittered with its individual halo. To get into the graduate school by the research institute, Twoic was prepared to pray whatever gods it gave there. Even after the Nezhyn professor brought his mother to the right person from the research institute and she held the necessary negotiations, Twoic still went to the Vladimir Cathedral where he said a prayer and did not stint for a twenty-kilo candle, and now, just in case, he came to Konotop to use me as well. After all, I was Hooey-Pricker, the Hosty elite, the rising star of the English Department, the bearer of the blessing, like Jacob, like Joseph…

(…the devil only knows what blessedness is, but since Thomas Mann said it is around then, after all, it is…)

It looked like Hooey-Pricker had a nasty nosedive and spilled his blessedness, yet you never know, a drop or 2 could still remain. Why not to sprinkle the remnants on a friend like Twoic?

(…he did not say a word about any drops though, and everything else after the point on the giant candle was cultivated in the hotbed of my feverish unhealthy fantasy…)

In the conclusion, Twoic went over to his projects for the nearest future and, without excessive hesitation, laid out the business plan, according to which I did not have anything to lose while he had a scientific career ahead of him, it only remained to get thru the graduate school. But, if in luck, there peeped a decent jackpot ahead… In short, one, like, a wise guy from Kiev wanted to buy a sack or 2 of cannabis. Reluctant to invite to his native village the visitor who might turn out an undercover operative, you never can tell, Twoic suggested me to sell it, at any other place convenient for the transaction.

The friendly offer made me feel somewhat melancholic, sort of. For political transgressions they gave forty-five-day vacation in Romny, but for how long would you be shut on the account of dope? And they could make you sleepy forever too… Yet, Twoic's general assessment of the current situation was to the point, I did not have anything to lose after the accomplishment of my Maugham plan. And I agreed.

On the second platform, we exchanged a farewell handshake: be it of help to you, my whilom friend, the aspersion with my drops, if any accidentally still tarried there. Do your graduate school the whole nine yards…

~ ~ ~

A telegram from Kiev awaited me on the table, "Saturday 12:30 metro by Railway Station guys also." It was not signed, which meant I was addressed by my friend, my reunited friend Twoic.

Any mail for me went to the shelves, but a telegram was received for the first time, and the text looked somewhat conspiratorial. That's why they put it under the desk lamp on the table, for me to see when I got back from work.

Since I kept as mute as fish to any questions from my parents, Lenochka was entrusted with the clarification. As usual, I kept to the evasively elusive style of Delphi Oracle in my responses, fully aware of the aggravated tension thickening in the silent kitchen and adjoining room.

"You have a telegram."

"Very interesting."

"Read it already?"

"What else do they do with telegrams?"

"From Kiev? Yes?"

"So it's printed here."

"And from whom?"

"It's not printed here."

"Are you going?"

"Going is not the only option if you have a hang glider."

Why was I showing off and making so much of mist atop the fog? Because I knew no other way to instill a taste for philosophical dialogues and play on words. How else could I reveal to her, a motherless girl, the eternal feminine secret: so that they wouldn't stop courting you – give, yet without giving? Usually, those meandering conversations were cut short by a busting blast of indignation from the kitchen, "Not tired of this nonsense? Get away from him!."

She was growing up a clever girl. And she knew how to maneuver, albeit still in a childish, naive, way. No wonder though, with the good training she underwent, especially from 3 to 5 when her mother disappeared suddenly, and her father was popping up only on weekends to say "hi!" before starting off to his friends.

On the weekday nights, drunk grandpa was snoring behind the wall and grandma, pissed off that he still managed to give her the slip, although at the end of working day they got to the RepBase check entrance together, and she had to go alone in crammed streetcars, and trudge the bags all by herself along the darkness and snowdrifts in the outskirt streets, would scream at the small girl wild threats of giving her away, the disgusting wretch, into an orphanage.

And it seemed to the frightened kid, it was not her granny, but Baba-Yaga, the crooked witch and mistress of the black blizzard, which scratched into the dark, ice-clad, windows, and all of them were against her, defenseless, five-year-old, wretch. Complains? To who? To hope for help? Where from?

So Lenochka learned to get along with her grandmother. She knew when to hug and how to kiss on the wrinkled cheek. And granny brought her cakes with custard filling from the "Cooking" store by the Under-Overpass. Yes, and she sewed for her everything with the Singer sewing machine.

And what good things did she see from her dad? Coming from work, he knew only to rustle pages in his book and even bought a desk lamp. Well, there were also those 30 rubles a month, yet they were just 30 rubles to the granny, while Granny insured her with the insurance and when she is 18 – here you are, Lenochka, get 2 000 rubles!

And whatever you asked, Granny could cook. She also knew all the gossip about her classmates, so that they always had something to talk about. However, when you asked what's happiness, or, say, beauty, then daddy explained more interesting. And he knew how to praise a new haircut so that it felt ticklish all over with joy. But all the same, Granny's better…

My friend Twoic did correct calculations suggesting to meet at 12.30. By that time the first local train from Konotop arrived in Kiev. He did not consider one thing though, which was my disgust to be put in frames worked out not by me. So I came to Mother of Russian Cities two hours earlier, by an express train…

Leaving the railway station, I crossed its square full of traffic bustle, car-honking, clangs of streetcars, and leisurely strolled along the inclined plane of the wide empty sidewalk, towards a busy intersection in the distance…

Half a dozen gypsy women followed me into the first canteen after the crossing. Removing my raincoat and hat on the hanger in the corner, I almost regretted the coincidence because of which I had to wait before they selected their havvage and pull the trays to the checkout, echoing to each other in their dark language.

…calm down, there’s still a whale of a time…

However, the gypsies took a wait-and-see attitude and, glancing in turn at me, clearly refrained from going first. And that's a wise move too – to check which items on the menu were safe to eat that day.

"You're missing bread," grumbled the cashier after a look-see at my tray.

"No need."

With a shrug, she threw back a couple of beads on her abacus and accepted a well-chafed ruble-note.

Seated alone, I modestly kept my eyes down, at the cabbage salad in combination with a snack of custard cake and tried hard not to follow the news announcer in his coat and cap, broadcasting from a nearby table to feed his chewing companion the latest news of his world, where the day before someone swallowed way too much of noxiron and kicked the bucket. Some first-rate dinner gossip, yes, indeed.

Yet, the most stunning thing about this metropolitan newsmonger was that he repeated, word for word, the piece which already was no news in the provincial wild. Tower crane operator Vitalya shared it a week ago. Coincidence, or plagiarism?.

Intercepting my pensive glance, the announcer swelled in vanity, the owner of breathtaking sensation…

In the barbershop on the same street, there was no queue and, when I returned to the station, it remained half-hour before the appointment. The shoe shiner in a satin blue smock polished my shoes, flicking the ponderous anchors tattooed on the backs of his hands.

Instead of eyeing up the ladies that scurried past his booth to the women's toilet and back, I steadily looked at the gray of his head bowed to my knees. The mujik got fed up with that crying anomaly. "What are you gazing at?" he asked, putting off his brush and taking a plush cloth instead.

"I seem to like you."

"Bullshit!" he grumbled grimly. "Even I myself don't like me."