Chapter Two
Papa Searches for a House

Papa, did you buy worms? Did you buy food for the worms? But what will they eat?

©Alex

In March, Papa Gavrilov went to the sea and began searching for a house that they could rent for a long time. The seaside town had low buildings, very picturesque, with roofs lined with red clay tiles. Leaves had not yet appeared everywhere, but many trees had already blossomed, and their soft pink flowers became blurred in the eyes, so that one could not see individual flowers. It seemed like the trees were wrapped in a luminous cloud.

Papa had a list of addresses, but, alas, it seemed that everything depicted on the Internet was not quite as in reality. What was presented as “a detached house with many rooms” turned out to be a cramped temporary shed in the owner’s yard divided by plywood partitions, and with windows looking out at a howling dog on a chain. What really looked more or less like a house cost so much that it did not suit Papa.

Wandering around town until the evening, Papa despaired. He decided to take the train and leave. However, there was still a lot of time until the train, and he sat down to rest in a confusing lane similar to the figure 8. Two entrances led into this lane, but they were very narrow and, if one did not know them, it was possible to go endlessly along the “eight” which never ended.

Papa sat on the curb near mailboxes, where there was a board and a jar with cigarette butts, and began to eat a sausage. Soon a large shaggy dog approached him, barking carefully, and calmly sat down. After a minute, a medium-sized dog of off-white colour came running, also barked at Papa, and sat down with a sense of having fulfilled its duty. Last, with a front leg drawn in, a small but very long dog with a bald back walked up, also barked, and took a seat beside the first two. It was felt that all three dogs had known each other for a long time but did not know Papa, and they were interested. Papa fed the dogs some sausage and waited for a fourth dog, because someone else was barking close by.

However, a fourth dog did not appear, but a dried-up grandpa about eighty came out of a gate instead. He stopped nearby and began to look quietly at Papa. Papa at first did not understand why the grandpa was standing there, but then surmised that it was his board and his jar with cigarette butts. Papa, apologizing, moved over, and the grandpa sat down beside him. They got into conversation and Papa told him that he was searching for a house but could find nothing and was therefore going to the station. The grandpa muttered something and then they were already chatting about something else.

Papa Gavrilov finished eating the sausage and went to the station. The station was quiet. Direct trains only came here in the summer, when resort visitors were travelling, and the rest of the time, only six cars were coupled to a longer train at the railway junction.

There was still a lot of time till the train, the car doors were not open, and Papa strolled along the platform. Suddenly he heard someone hailing him. He looked around and saw the dried-up grandpa, making his way to him, hurrying and breathless.

“I was thinking! I’ll rent my house!” the grandpa said.

“And you?” Papa asked.

“I’ve intended for a long time to go to my granddaughter. But she lives far away in Yekaterinburg. I won’t be able to come here, but I don’t want to abandon the house, because it’s indeed home and has to constantly do something with it. I need the proper person whom I could trust. Are you the proper fellow?”

Papa said that he did not know if he was the proper person.

“But you won’t sell the kitchen table? You won’t unscrew the sockets?”

Papa promised that he would not sell the table, but some of the young ones might just unscrew the sockets. Or shove clay or paper clips in them. But Papa did not mention this, and they went to see the grandpa’s house.

Papa really liked the house, although it was not detached but semi-detached. It had two floors with a large attic and its own separate plot of land in a shape resembling the letter L. The long arm was the size of three cars and the short arm of one car. There was even a tree on the plot – a huge old walnut.

On the ground floor were one large room, one small room, and the kitchen. On the second were three small rooms and one medium one. The sea was not visible from the window, but the lighthouse standing on the seashore was.

“Does it work?” Papa asked.

“Of course! The searchlight turns at night. I lived here for forty-two years with my wife and now seven years without her. I played the trumpet in a military orchestra. We bought the house here when my wife said that she had bad lungs and needed warm winters,” the grandpa said and stroked the windowsill, as if it was alive.

“Then maybe you shouldn’t…” Papa began, but the old man hastily repeated that he had decided everything a long time ago; it was dangerous for him to live alone because he had trouble with his heart from time to time, and he was very glad that everything was finally taking shape.

They agreed on how much to pay and on how to send money, and the grandpa began to show where the fuse box was, where the meters were, how to shut off the water, and what bad habits the gas boiler had.

“It’s good, this boiler, better than other new ones, but a little stubborn. Need to get a feel for it. It lights with matches, here… Only when you light it, keep your face away!”

Papa looked suspiciously sideways at the boiler. It looked like a huge cannon projectile, and tubes of different diameters were connected to it. Something was puffing and raging in the boiler.

“Any instructions for it?” Papa specified timidly.

“What instructions? It’s almost the same age as me. The main thing is just be friendly to it,” the old man said, sighing, and began to twist a big valve. “Here, I turned it off! Now I’ll light it! Careful!”

The old man held a match up to the boiler, and – PUFF!

It was the loudest “puff” in the world. Papa even squatted, saving his head just in case, but the boiler was already peacefully heating water, and an extremely satisfied old man stood beside it.

“Well, that’s all! Seems I’ve shown you everything! Now run for the train!” he hurried Papa and Papa travelled to Mama and the children.

* * *

April and May went in a terrible rush. They advertised the Moscow apartment with an agency and rented it to a family with two children, which would take possession in June. The children of this family were so quiet that Papa was certain the watchful neighbour would like them. Although, possibly she would now decide that the tenants’ children sat quietly because the parents gagged them or tied them to chairs.

“Not a sound for an hour! Just sat and drew with markers! Why can’t ours be so docile!” Mama said enviously.

“Ours can’t, but others can. It seems to me that ours are Italian spies,” Papa responded.

“You and I are Italian spies! Only the Italians don’t know about it yet,” Mama added.

She had barely slept in recent weeks. No one knew when she rested. Since the beginning of May, Mama had been packing what they would take with them and giving away what they would not take at all.

During these two months, the dried-up grandpa changed his mind three times about going to his granddaughter, and then made up his mind again. This confused Papa, but all the same, Mama persisted in continuing packing, declaring that she had already made up her mind, and once she did, it was then too late to give up. Whatever happened, they would just go and sit on the bags at the station, and then somehow everything would work out by itself.

Then the grandpa raised the price slightly and went to his granddaughter after all. This took place a few days before the end of the last school term. The children would start in a new school in a new town in the new school year. Now everyone realized that the journey was actually happening and started to pack four times faster.

Each child packed his own things in his own backpack. The younger had a smaller backpack, the older, a bigger one, with the exception of Rita, who was so little that her backpack was a frog with a zipper at the mouth.

Alex assembled a full backpack of toys, and when they did not fit into it, he started banging on the backpack with a hammer, kneading it so that it turned out to be more compact. At the same time, by way of selfless help, he also “kneaded” with the hammer the big bag in which Mama had packed the dishes, after which it turned out that all the dishes left whole could easily fit in one package.

“Well, doesn’t matter!” Mama said, consoling herself. “Indeed, we could break them on the road, and then it would be much more annoying!”

Kate filled her whole backpack with animal cages. At the bottom was the cage with a guinea pig, then a rat cage on it, and at the top of the pyramid – the red-eared slider turtle Mafia. They named the turtle Mafia because, when it was living in the aquarium, it ate newts, crayfish, and goldfish. It gobbled up absolutely everything at night without a trace, but during the day, it stayed at the bottom like a completely respectable individual, so they started to suspect it only because the newts, crayfish, and goldfish simply could not have just gotten up and gone somewhere on business. Later Kate suddenly remembered that they were not going yet and pulled out all the cages so that the animals would not suffocate. Nevertheless, having pulled out the cages, Kate again succumbed to the mood of general packing and put everything back. She again thought that they would suffocate and again pulled them out.

Alena whined and did not want to go anywhere. She had fallen in love with Vadik from the next class, who always threw a heavy medicine ball at her back during physical education, but never at the other girls. Although there were bruises from the ball on her back, it was still not worth ignoring Vadik.

Kate, the older sister, interrogated Alena, “Vadik! Ha! What was the name of the boy you fell in love with last week? Dima?”

“Cyril. He stuck gum in my hair.”

“But Dima didn’t?”

“Cyril also stuck gum in Dima’s hair.”

Kate twirled a finger at her temple. “Ugh! Such drama! Cyril and Dima stick gum in each other’s hair, and she falls in love with some unfortunate Vadik! That’s it, go pack your backpack!”

Alena took a broom, swept her broken heart away into the dustpan, and started packing.

Finally, the day of departure arrived. Papa took Mama and the kids to the station. Then he was to return, load into the minivan the things that amounted to much more than seven backpacks, and drive for a whole day. However, the train also took a day. So they should turn up in the same place around the same time.

The watchful granny from the second floor unexpectedly went to see them off at the station. Papa and Mama did not want to take her at all and made up a story about broken seatbelts in the third row of seats, but it turned out to be quite difficult to turn her down. In the car, the old woman held Rita on her lap and kissed the top of her head, and Rita turned her head, because the kiss was moist.

“Look! She’s drinking from her brain!” Peter whispered and laughed so wildly that they wanted to send him to the station by subway.

At the station, the old woman kissed all the children, not even excluding Peter, who had to bend down because he was two heads taller. Peter, after being kissed, made scary faces and tried to catch free Wi-Fi at the station.

“I remember when you were still so tiny!” the old woman said, showing with her hand the level of her knee. Then she gave the children a transistor radio with a solar charger. Rita, of course, immediately wanted the radio for herself alone and she lay down on the asphalt right on the platform so that everyone could see how indispensable it was to her.

“It will be shared! And it’s yours too!” Kate said, but Rita wanted it only for herself and kicked.

“Look here! No one is torturing her!” Papa Gavrilov could not refrain from saying.

“Work with the child’s character, work! Explain to her!” the watchful granny said, but in a rather weak voice.

The train started moving and the watchful granny waved to them. “Kate, Alex, Rita, Costa, Vicky, Alena, Peter! Goodbye! Write me! I don’t even know your address!” she shouted.

Mama was astonished. She had not even suspected that the watchful granny knew all their children by name. The train pulled away, and it was visible from the window that the neighbour was walking along the platform and wiping her eyes.

“You know, but she’s kind of good! How come we didn’t notice this before?” Mama said uncertainly.

“We can go back! It’s not too late to jump off the train!” Vicky proposed.

“No! We won’t go back!” Mama hastily replied. “But now that I know she’s good, my heart will be lighter!”

Vicky chuckled and sat down to read The Headless Horseman,^[3] in which there were often horses.