send out the alimony, and then the line "30 to Nezhyn, 30 to Konotop" had to wait until the required sum was scratched up and, after sending it, a crude tick popped next to the line…
At certain periods, I sent only 15 rubles each way. One such period happened after I accidentally overheard a talk between my mother and my sister Natasha. They were discussing Eera's having sold my sheepskin coat, and keeping all the money to herself. I did note the disappearance of the sheepskin coat, but I had no idea where it was gone, neither how, nor why.
Now, to restore the reputation of Caesar's wife, I had to lower the alimony rate to 15 rubles, until the sum of 90 rubles was collected… I took the money to Nezhyn and, in the post-office on Red Partisans Street, I asked an occasional visitor to fill out the money order address as I dictated. In the space reserved for a personal note, I wrote, in a clumsy left slant, "for the sheepskin coat."
Why 90 rubles? Well, the market price of a new sheepskin coat with longer skirts amounted to 120 rubles. Mine was short and way back from the Object – the rest was pure Arithmetic.
On receiving so large remittance, my mother wanted to ask me about something, but at that time I was not on speaking terms with my parents, so there was no point in asking the deaf and dumb fool of me about "for the sheepskin coat."
(…here, it is worth to note, that the wisdom of outsiders cannot make us smarter. In one of his stories, telling about a young man who stopped communicating with his parents, Maugham remarks that in this harsh and hostile world people will always find a way to make their situation even worse.
I accepted the wisdom of the maxim, but I did not use it. It took 10 years of separation—4 of which were spent in a full-scale war—so that when arrived on a visit in Konotop, I started again to talk with my parents.
And it was pleasant to pronounce the words "Mom", “Dad". It’s only that the pleasure was as if wrapped in felt sheath preventing real feel and it somehow felt as if I was addressing not my parents, or it was not exactly I talking to them. Probably, the habit was lost or, maybe, because all of us, by that time, had already changed so much…)
As expected, trade-union positions were shut off for me airtight, but no one could ever violate my right to carry out my public duty. I mean the monthly watches in the ranks of the volunteer public order squad.
By seven o'clock in the evening, the SMP-615 male employees gathered in a long room of "The stronghold of the public order squad" whose entrance was in the blind butt wall of the endless five-story block by the Under-Overpass. That same building where there was the workmen canteen number 3, at the opposite end.
First to come was usually the auto-crane operator Kot which was not his handle nor code name of any kind but a quite innocent Ukrainian last name. He took a seat at the wall-butting desk with a load of old papers, pulled his headgear of cheap yet elegant rabbit fur, and started flipping thru the news accumulated from the month past since our previous vigil.
Then, one by one, we popped up too and started our discussion, full of decent virility, of this topic or that, to which Kot, still submerged into his perusal, would blear out from under the black fur of perished animal, that were our wise talk commenced even from as high as the orbital Salyut space station it would inevitably land onto the cunt of Alla Pugacheva or some more available, local slut. And, as a rule, he never mistook because of those coming late enough to miss his arrogant but accurate prediction.
At about 10 past 7, there came a militia officer—ranking from lieutenant to captain—contributed to the mujiks' gossip before pulling a drawer in his desk and handing out the red armbands with the black inscription "public order squad".
Grouped in threes, we left the stronghold to patrol the late evening sidewalks in vigil beats – to the station, to Depot Street, to the Loony and along Peace Avenue, but no farther than the bridge in the railway embankment. The round took about 45 minutes after which stretch we returned to the stronghold—some of the threes tired and emotional—and after a more enliven yackety session, set off for the final watch, so that by 10 o'clock we would go home until our next duty turn a month later…
A couple of times, KGB officers appeared at our late-hour matinees to share their instructions. The first time it happened on the occasion of the upcoming Holiday of the Great October Revolution, and we were instructed to be especially vigilant not to allow provocative pranks. When the KGBist left, a belated militia officer appeared to scoff at his predecessor, already absent, by asking us if now we knew it well that on seeing a spy we should immediately grab him by the collar.
The second and last time, a KGB officer, already another, disseminated confidential information in order to facilitate the capture, ASAP, of a former KGB worker who had disappeared in an unknown direction. She could have changed her hairstyle and color of her hair, explained the KGB officer showing us her black-and-white portrait, yet she got a special sign simplifying identification – a contraceptive coil of Dutch production inserted in her vagina… Our mujiks did not immediately get it what all that was about, but in a moment poured so suggestive questions that the KGBist preferred to leave in an accelerated fashion. After all, he only executed his orders and was not responsible for the stupidity thereof…
In one of the vigil rounds, the men from my "trinity" gave me a slip. Walking in a group of 3 red-armband ornamented volunteers, seemed more or