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