Foreword

The fifth installment from The Rascally Romance concludes its charitable breakdown into convenient chunks for optimal digestibility (based on healthcare standards in the current historical period).

Here, the protagonist, sensing the approaching end of the plot, prepares to leap over the Caucasus Mountains, at least to hide there, disguised as a carpet-bag foreigner.

The naive fool couldn't foresee that being, like, at large does not prevent from…

However, that's another story.

_{~ ~ ~}

A lone barge hauler

My cheeky retorts to the judge presiding at the unwelcome divorce perked me up for some time, straightening my chest with a sliver of pride–the bastard got shown his place!–but only briefly.

Everything slid back into the routine of a crushed martyr’s stupor, stuck in a looped rut : Why?! I loved her so much! I tried so hard…

And as a result, I only sank deeper into the clinging, languid dreams that one day Eerah would suddenly come and everything would be okay again, well, somehow…

The fact that by filing for divorce, Eerah was logically and straightforwardly clearing the way for her future life without me didn't free me from unrealistic hopes and fruitless aspirations like, well, anyway, somehow, some other day it will be okay…

-.-

Yet suffering, like any other feeling, no matter which, be it even joy, when there are no days off or smoke breaks, turns damn oppressive in its monotony. That’s why there gradually crushed arose and grew stronger and stronger in me a health protective idea that it wouldn't hurt to somehow celebrate the divorce. But how?

No folk rituals for such an occasion came to mind, so I had to improvise. One thing was clear: a special day was needed, one that would stand out from the crowd. And so, for just such a day, I set off for the capital, Kyiv.

Indian summer had become so unchecked that fall that I set out in just a jacket, even though it was already the first week of November. Taking in account the calendar's disapproving view that such a light outfit hardly suits the depth of the current season, I wore a dark gray cloth vest (partially visible) under the jacket.

This detail had never been part of any three-piece affair; the vest hanged about me since school, the product of that same sharp-nosed seamstress in the atelier next to the bus station…

Of these dandy looks (not delving into the shirt, pants, and shoes samely appropriate), I emerged from the infernal depths of the Kyiv metro at Khreshchatyk station and took a leisurely stroll along the remarkably wide sidewalk of the street of the same name, under the arches of mighty Chestnut trees.

Having reached Red Army Street, with its cobblestones polished by traffic to a grayish sheen, I followed its slope toward the Foreign Book store. The sidewalk there was quite steep, but paved, so not interfering with the intention of giving myself a pleasant gift, a memento of the current celebration.

I'd had my eye on this souvenir for quite some time; lusting after it since my work at the reconstruction of a dairy plant or perhaps a plant.

But would it still be waiting for me?

I quelled the tides of nagging anxiety with idle contemplation of fragments in the disjointed events of sidewalk life. Just in case, since I had almost no doubt it would…

Ha! But I knew that!… The same bright red dust jacket of my beauty—'Chamber's 20th Century Dictionary'—happily beckoned at me from the same shelf in the store's spacious sales area.

The salesperson, glancing at my festive attire—(the open collar of my faded red shirt was visible beneath my vest)—politely asked if I was absolutely sure I wanted this particular book.

(… I wasn't surprised by his doubt—in that year, in what was then the current 20th century, the average person hadn't yet become accustomed to existence of oligarchs and foreign millionaires; they found it hard to believe that anyone could afford to shell out 31 rubles 60 kopecks for a book. Except, of course, bricklayers celebrating their divorces…)

-.-

I left the store with a thick volume tightly wrapped in their signature lavender-colored wrapping paper. The gift was to be dropped off in a locker at the train station, the only question was: which way? By metro again? No, that wasn't that kind of day. And I approached the bank of the motionless cobblestone stream, over which the tires of fast-moving flocks of taxis rustled past…

~ ~ ~

From the station, I also made a foray to the 'Angler-Hunter' store, at the address Grinya had given me. He had ordered some kind of super-folding fishing rod from there. Yes, it fit quite comfortably in the same compartment with the book…

-.-

After the shopping spree and the subsequent stacking of the commercial catch, the cultural part of the program began.

That evening, the House of Organ Music shimmered with vibrant chords of blazing sunshine glitter over the splashing waves of the sea expanse, as depicted in Debussy's 'Sketches.' Other works by the same Claude were also performed…

When I was little, my father told me that when listening to this kind of music (he didn't call it polyphonic, so as not to overwhelm a child), one should keep imagining some suitable images. All cultured people behave that way.

I've never been able to follow his instructions; the sounds are too insistent and jealous, too full of irresistible desire to subjugate, leaving no room for the inbred cultural norms…

In the post-concert twilight that descended upon me as I stepped out the doors of the Temple of Organ Music, the chill of deep autumn made itself felt. Besides, I felt I could kill a square meal.

Another taxi took me to the restaurant of the Golden Grain Ear Hotel.

-.-

To begin with, I tried to book a room for the night, but the receptionist, noting my unseasonable attire and lack of luggage, curbed my ambitions with the usual low-key question—about my reservation. Receptionists have long since become adept at dispensing with stray ronins wondering without forged armor. No armor? Don't drop the drawbridge for the vagrant!

-.-

In the restaurant, to get my bearings, I ordered a bottle of wine, and an older man wearing a beret immediately landed at the table.

(… if there’s a beret but no briefcase, it means fate has paired you with an electrician…)

We hadn't even finished a glass when a fair-haired young man dropped anchor at the third end of the table. It's hard to imagine why the third man, who had joined me, began arranging his fingers in the sign 'I'll gouge you out!', accompanying this calisthenics with aggressive grunts. The electrician faded into the woodwork under his beret…

The celebration program didn't include any gladiatorial entertainment, so I stood up: 'Okay, young man. I leave this feast to you. Enjoy.'

Walking to the waiters, I paid for the wine and left the restaurant. The blond man dashed after me into the lobby.

However, not each of the three glass vestibules had doors leading out unlocked. He jumped into the wrong one.

Waving goodbye to the labyrinth prisoner, I stepped down from the porch to continue the party elsewhere…

Spending the night at the train station didn't look like a particularly festive prospect.

The next taxi driver took me to the Old Prague Hotel, near the Opera House. The young receptionist there began with the familiar bagpipe overture about advance reservations, but suddenly her mood thawed changing to mercy, and I finally found a room.

However, she warned me that it would be more expensive. The reason for this became clear when I got to the room itself, which also had a hallway with a lacquered sideboard and a plate set.

Having gotten a little more comfortable, I decided not to tempt fate with my attire any longer, and ordered dinner by phone—fish and chips and wine, white, please…

After dinner, a couple of young persons showed up; the waitress must have forgotten to close the door. I still haven't figured out what the young man and woman wanted. I'd already eaten the chips, there was only one bed, and I had no desire to share it.

Ah, yes! Some drugs stayed left in the bottle; the young man killed them, and they went off in search for refuge in another room. Maybe.

And when I was already asleep, the waitress came to collect back my plate and fork, and also the payment for dinner. But before it, I did have offered to pay in advance. She rejected though. Now she took it, only I had to go out in her presence to the hallway in my underwear, to where my pants lounged in the armchair.

I paid her exactly what she said, with handfuls of kopecks filling my pocket after the taxi rides. Well, once she left, I locked the door to exclude any more disturbance.

~ ~ ~

Waking up late in the morning, I left the kind and cozy 'Old Prague' for a stroll around the city…

As I passed the Golden Gate (a recently erected monument of ancient defensive architecture, accessible from the nearby sidewalk 24 hours a day), a fair-haired young man overtook me, breathing heavily as he ran. Clearly from the monad of yesterday's crazy redneck who had stuck his nose into the wrong glass entrance/exit box of the Golden Ear Hotel.

Looks like the whole monad had to work hard to somehow survive the streak of bad karma brought on by the gifted feast. But that idiot had asked for it…

-.-

On the way down toward Bessarabsky Market, it became clear the lunchtime had arrived, so I headed to the Leningrad restaurant, which turned up on the left sidewalk.

A file of Blacks had unexpectedly gotten ahead of me and wandered into the same establishment, but having never been a racist, I didn't change my mind. True, I didn't like the overly fat scruff of the man bringing up the rear. A self-indulgent Africa.

In the silent daytime twilight of the restaurant, I didn't notice where they had dissolved to, but there was no one else in the dining room except me, and I had it all to myself, celebrating.

I ordered some kind of casserole dish—the menu actually said something like 'casserole.' But they brought a ceramic flowerpot, taller than its width, containing potatoes and meat. Yes, there was also sauce. Brown.

Eating from the pot was completely inconvenient, and way too hot. I had to resort to shoveling some of the steaming culinary extravaganza onto a plate already on the table, then adding more from the pot as it dwindled.

After paying, I visited the restaurant's deserted, quiet restroom and emerged a completely different person. Not the same one I'd been when I'd arrived at the Leningrad restaurant.

Ivan Franko's lines slowly ran through my head:

'One by one tear away all the knots

Bounding to our bygone life…'

Without delving into the other works of the famous poet and novelist, the main difference between me entering and leaving the establishment’s premises was the absence of my jacket, deliberately left hanging in the restroom.

That same wedding jacket that accompanied me at my marriage registration with Eerah at the Nezhyn Civil Registry Office. It later managed to survive my ill-timed attempt to forget it in the restroom of the restaurant 'Bratislava' in Odessa. That moment was clearly not ripe yet for our separation.

Was this item on the program?

No, it was an example of a surge of inspiration—an impromptu one. However, I liked it.

~ ~ ~

Free of the burden, I walked up Khreshchatyk, preparations for the November demonstration were underway there—a brass band played loudly, and troops from the Kyiv garrison marched.

Endless steps had already been laid along the sidewalk for spectators. Three, all in all, but they were wide enough for the citizens to stand upon them in a happy crowd and wave the balloons in their hands, en masse, to demonstrate their approval and collective joy.

(You never know, my neighbor from the landing said she once glimpsed herself in the evening news, holding a balloon. Actually, she never went there with anything but a flag. A small one. 'Peace to the world.' But the jacket was definitely hers. Pink. It used to be red. But then at the dry-cleaner’s, as she came to collect it back, they told her it looked even better this way. It suited her natural blush so perfectly…)

-.-

There were two days left until the upcoming event, and the steps were still empty. I walked along the middle one, my heels loudly clicking on the thick wooden planks—a man in his prime, in a red shirt under a gray vest—and the sun winked cheerfully at me through the branches of the mighty Kyiv chestnut trees overhead.

The path to the metro and the train station stretched before me, and I was once again ready for trenches, walls, and partitions.

People certainly need celebrations, and brass bands too, to let themselves move through life at a more joyous pace…

~ ~ ~

When Panchenko—without considering for a split second whether he might crack someone's skull—threw a four-section cast-iron radiator through a fourth-floor window, seemingly for no apparent reason, his prank actually had a pretty sound basis.

With this homespun imitation of a bolt from the blue, he clearly signaled to everyone concerned that the gangster veteran's balls were still quite hairy, and under his cap of eight-wedge converged under the central rivet (a favorite style of gangsters in the late fifties), he was still quite a wild man.

The signal was addressed primarily to the foreman who drew up his work orders, as well as to the chief mechanic, who accepted and signed those orders for subsequent payroll, so that Panchenko would have the wherewithal to start a new, honest life. From another clean slate. And it was about time, after all, the man had waded into his well over fifty.

And he couldn't care less that after my second trip to Romny, I was no longer in line for the position of the visitant to hospitalized colleagues on behalf of the CAT-615 trade union committee.

-.-

This, initially pretty chaotic position, I managed to elevate to a level of impeccable perfection. Gone were the days of ashamedly drooping of ears when one of the loaders or carpenters, returning to work after a couple of days parked at the railway hospital, would voice loud reproaches about being ignored, passed over with the due consolation, while in the masonry team there are no omitted workers.

But what does this have to do with me? The foremen of the folks outside our team don't report to me!

And a radical solution was found to the problem: after each workday, I would call the hospital reception desk from the payphone bolted to the station building: did one of ours, by any chance, come to you? The workers there, by the way, quickly got into the swing of things and, without any further clarification like 'who are your 'ours'?', were clearly passing on information about the presence of patients from CAT-615. Even about abortions, which had nothing to do with me, since the hospital sent the patients home that same day to recover.

Then came the question of carefully segmenting the three rubles allocated by the union for visiting a hospitalized employee.

How would this amount be spent so that every sufferer received an equal measure of comfort, regardless of age, gender, or other inclinations?

It took a while, but even this conundrum found a proper and—without false modesty, it should be noted—a very clear solution.

One ruble was spent on drinks—the invariable three bottles: one beer, one lemonade, one kefir. Don't like beer? Give it to your ward-mates.

Paying for pastries, marshmallows, and/or anything else you could find at the 'Confectionery' store by the Under-Overpass was covered with the second ruble.

To spend the third and final ruble, a visit to the train station was made, where the ever-popular satirical magazine 'Perets', with its colorful, cheerful pictures for adults, was always on display from the wide counter of the Union Print (to the right of the restaurant's entrance). The second essential was the Konotop city newspaper 'Soviet Banner' (in local Ukrainian, 'Bunny-munny'), or, as my father affectionately called him, 'our little liar'. The remaining change went to the central periodicals—Labor, Locomotive Hooter, and the like.