The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life) - Сергей Николаевич Огольцов

all year round, replacing them on the press was a strenuous job. Late at night, the Konotop streetcars ran all too rarely, it took long waits to get from KEMZ to the Under-Overpass after the evening shift. But worse of all was pressing things of the glass wool. The fine glass dust made its way thru the protective robe giving unbearable itch all over the body and even the after-shift shower did not really help.

Yet, as a silver lining to that cloud, both in our khutta and in the yard there appeared a whole bunch of different boxes and thingamabobs made of plastic of different colors because Mother brought home the defectively pressed spare parts or those dented at pulling out from their molds. So what if that one had a chink in the corner? Look, what a classy modern ashtray it makes!. Even Zhoolka got a nice ribbed basin for drinking water… All that because “The Red Metallurgist” production was supposed for all kinds of units and safety systems in the mining industry.

“Mom,” asked I, seemingly under the impression from some of the nihilist-authors, “What’s the meaning in your life? Why do you live at all?”

“Why?” answered Mother, “To see how you grow up and become happy.”

And I shut up because at times I had brains enough not to be too clever…

~ ~ ~

The changes were taking place not only in our part of the khutta. One of the grannies-sisters from the Duzenko’s part returned to her village, and the other moved to her daughter’s, somewhere in the five-story blocks of the Zelenchuk neighborhood, so that they could rent her khutta. A single mother, Anna Sayenko, together with her daughter Valentina moved in as the lodgers.

Valentina was a year older than me but didn’t look that because of being short, red-haired, and skinny. Her nose was pretty long though. In the evenings, she came out to play cards with the 3 of us, the younger and me, on the wide bench under the window overlooking the 2 stairs of their porch way. A very comfortable bench it was, you could safely lean your back against the adobe-plastered wall of the khutta coated with ancient whitewash which left no traces.

During the game, taking advantage of the gathering twilight, I touched Valentina’s shoulder with mine. So soft it was… And everything began to swim… She mostly withdrew, but sometimes not immediately which made my pulse throb quicker, louder, and hotter. But then she stopped coming out for the game. Probably, because of my pressurizing her shoulder too tight…

From the Duzenko’s son-in-law, Father bought the smaller of the 2 sections left by the geezer in the common shed. It was the lean-to on the left, next to the Turkov's fence. Once upon a time, they kept a pig there and, to make it warmer, plastered its outside walls with cob.

Father replaced the Ruberoid roofing felt with a tin roof, though not of new tin, of course. Watching how dexterously he knocked his mallet interlocking the panels of tin, I was amazed at how many skills he had, and also tools for each particular job. Take those tin-cutting scissors, for example, nothing of the kind you could find at stores. No wonder that Skully, whenever in need of a tool, popped up in our khutta, “Uncle Kolya, gimme the hand-drill.” “Uncle Kolya, may I borrow a needle file for a while?”

In the wall opposite the entrance to the acquired section, Father inserted a hinged glazed frame like that in the veranda. The electric wiring was run from our part in the shed, which was the section next to it.

Uncle Tolik applied at his workplace for waste crates, in which chopper spare parts were brought to the RepBase. Those crates were remodeled into the flooring shields. Thus, the lean-to became Father’s workshop equipped with a workbench and vice and everything needed. And the space by the wall, where the sloped roof did not allow standing at your full height, became the stable for Uncle Tolik’s “Jawa”.

With the motorbike moved from our old section in the shed, it grew roomier, even though the remaining crate planks were stacked under its gable-roof.

As usual in summertime, the leaves of the door between the kitchen and the room were taken out of the khutta because shutting the door in hot season left there no air for breathing, and those leaves were placed upon the planks beneath the shed roof.

A heap of insignificant, unnecessary details, eh? Yet, all those moves had a tremendous effect because when giving it a proper thought, you’ll find a way for cardinal improvements… And now, with a mattress placed upon the door leaves, the shed section became my summer dacha.

The bed-upon-the-door was about at the same level as the upper sleeping bunk in a train car compartment, yet wider. On the nearby wall, Father fixed a sliding lamp with a tin shade, and I could read at night as long as I chose. Besides, I equipped my dacha with a small radio receiver “Meridian” presented to Father by a customer delighted by the resurrection of his TV. The generous gift, of course, was not working, yet in a couple of weeks, Father found the necessary spare parts and my place became the second to none. You could read whenever you wanted and, for a change, listen to the radio. And, most importantly, no one around to start carping, “When will you turn off this light already?!” or, “Enough of that hurdy-gurdy!”

So, in that elevated position, all alone, was lying I next to the cone of the light shed over the pages in an open book till midnight and past it in the serenity of summer night. The dog barking in the yards of khuttas on the nearby streets did not count because it was just part of it.

One of them would start for another to snap up, and then still another continued the chain reaction of barking that floated far and wide over the