tiny plop of a tear giggled out just a moment before… Then the seat backs begin to creak uneasily. The village council chairman cautiously steps up onto the stage with a crumpled word of gratitude for the concert. The audience disperse in mute despondency. Behind the scenes Aksyonov and Skully pinion Murashkovsky gone to pieces in a heavy fit of hysterics, no one knows how to appease him…
In record time, the instruments and costumes are shoved into the bus. All got seated in the Club Manager office for the traditional treat of gratitude to the touring actors: bread, lard, cucumbers, hooch. After the first glass, the village council chairman brings an awkward apology to Murashkovsky, "Well, here… er…in our village three khuttas were burnt down…in just a month…they still can’t find who…"
The Club Director, Pavel Mitrofanovich, blushing more and more in his plump face, keeps vigilant control over the bus driver and after the man gulps his third glass—“to smooth the road”—we are good to start into the night.
At that stage in my life the taste of hooch was still making me wince, so a couple of gulps, snacked with bread and lard, got worn away quickly. I watched the impenetrable night rushing by behind the window glass.
The driver applied his whole soul to press the gas pedal right into the floor. We flew; we shot along the soft dirt roads of the district. The headlights snatched from the dense darkness occasional trunks and branches of the roadside trees. At times a small village khuttas scudded by… A guy and a girl standing by a khutta fence… seeing her home…
They looked back at the flying bus. Perhaps they thought, "The folks manage to enjoy their lives, they live in the city". They envied me.
Strange as it was, but I envy them… seeing her home… I also want that… in the warmly dark Ukrainian night…
But I have Olga, and in the back-alley where she lives, it’s the same night, yet I still envy that guy… dreadfully odd…
~ ~ ~
Olga was superbly good at kissing and liked it too, not for nothing she had so sensual lips. The bitter taste of burnt tobacco on her breath did not distract me overly much. Besides, standing by her khutta’s wicket, the very next time I saw her home, she shared a cigarette to me. I tried with cautious apprehension, yet it brought no bummer and I began to smoke even without Olga around.
The khutta, which I escorted her to, was dwelt by Olga’s aunt by whom she stayed that summer on her visit from Theodosia in the Crimea, where also lived her mother and elder sister. As for her father, he died in an accident driving a tractor when she was twelve years old. Olga loved him so much that sometimes she went to the cemetery in the dead of night to cry by the openwork monument welded of rebar rods with the tablet "Abram Kosmenko" fixed to it. Some name, eh? But he wasn't a Jew, just so was his name.
Her mother found a stepfather for her and her sister, no ZAGS registration though. He's a musician, knocking drums. One time, Olga lay on the couch with the temperature watching TV. He got seated next to her feet and covered his lap with the end of her blanket. Her mother saw it and raised some hell of yelling…
Then she went in for athletics, one hundred meter dash. The coach said she had a good physique for that sport. And their group even went for a competition in the regional center, Simferopol City. Before the dash, the coach made everyone eat a whole lemon, not a pinch of sugar to sprinkle it. He said, "It gets straight to the blood!"
Thus, between the kisses, we were getting to know each other more closely…
After that touring concert, Skully, Vladya and I went to the Seim for an overnight stay. By the evening local train, Skully and I got there bringing with us a large vinyl bag which Father had fetched from the RepBase. Such bags came there as wrapping for certain helicopter spare parts. The big translucent bag could easily do for a three-man tent. We also brought a guitar with us and then Vladya arrived by his scooter "Riga-4" loaded with the dinner.
On a sandy spit overgrown with young supple Willows, we put the bag-tent up. It was getting dark and we built a fire to share a bottle of wine by its light and the slathers of grub brought by Vladya, which seemed too much for a snack and was lavishly scattered around, however, no one cared because in the morning Vladya had to ride to Konotop after more chow…
He began to give out guitar riffs from popular hits. Above the placid water, the guitar sounds wafted mighty great, so clear, so full and… nyshtyak, in a word, it sounded out there… One fisherman in his boat anchored in the middle of the river liked it and asked to cut more. But when we roared "Shyzgara!" another night catcher from afar—near the other bank—began to curse us for scaring off his fish.
Skully advised not to mess around with him, the geezer could go and call more mujiks from the huts. The fire burnt out and we crawled under the vinyl roof…
At dawn, I woke up from water dripping into my face. Vinyl is absolutely water- and air-tight. The night-chilled walls kept our breathing inside turning it into water droplets—the condensate, at school they did not teach us of such things. So we met the morning cold and hungry. I hardly managed to wheedle Vladya to give me his "Riga-4" for riding after some eats instead of him…
Yes, motors are the real thing, you don't have to pedal or pull anything, the only effort is twisting the throttle handle and steering… I drove into the city mapping the routes in my mind: first – home, then to the Skully's khutta and to the Vladya's to