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

Two narrow concrete walks aligned at right angles to the ellipse’s longitudinal axis cut it into three even chunks, the resultant rectangular in between the walks and the road ditches was further divided into three equal segments by one more couple of concrete walks parallel to the above-mentioned axis to connect the walks also mentioned already.

The intersection points formed four corners of the central segment, from which the rays of 4 additional concrete walks traversed the Courtyard diagonally, each one projected in the direction of the central entrances to the respective corner buildings, the line between adjacent ray-starting points served the chord of a concrete arc-walk described about a round lumber gazebo, 2 of them all in all, so that, on the whole, it presented the model of perfection reminiscent of the Versailles’ design, only of concrete.

(…it is impossible to come across such a purified Bau Stile in nature. No circular circles exist among natural ones, neither absolutely isosceles triangles, nor flawless squares – someplace, somehow, the accomplished evenness would be inevitably ruined by the stubborn awl spiking thru the Mother Nature’s haversack…)

Of course, there were no fancy waterworks in our Courtyard, neither trees nor bushes. Maybe, later they planted something there yet, in my memory, I can find not even a seedling but only grass cut into geometric figures by the walks of concrete and loose pigeon flocks flying from one end of the vast Courtyard to the other when there sounded “…gooil-gooil-gooil-gooil-gooil-gooil-gooil!.” call.

I liked those looking so alike, yet somehow different, birds flocking around you to bang the scattered bread crumbles away from the road on which you’d never see a vehicle except for a slow-go truck carrying, once in a blue moon, the furniture of tenants moving in or out, or a load of firewood for Titan boilers installed in the apartments’ bathrooms.

But even more, I liked feeding pigeons on the tin ledge out the kitchen window. Although it took a long wait before some of the birds would get it where your “gooil-gooil” invitation was coming from and hover with the swish of air-cutting wings in the relentless flapping above the ledge covered by the thick spill of breadcrumbs before landing on it with their raw legs to start the quick tap-tapping at the offer on the hollow-sounding tin.

The pigeons seemed to have an eye on each other or, probably, they had some kind of intercom system because the first bird was very soon followed by others flying in, in twos and threes, and whole flocks, maybe even from the other block. The window ledge submerged into the multi-layer whirlpool of feathered backs and heads ducking to pick the crumbs, pushing each other, fluttering off the edge and squeezing in back again. Then, taking advantage of that pandemonium, you could cautiously put your hand out thru the square leaf up in the kitchen window and touch from above one of their moving backs, but tenderly, so that they wouldn’t dash off with the loud flaps of the wings and flush away all at once…

~ ~ ~

Besides the pigeons, I also liked holidays, especially the New Year. The Christmas tree was set up in the parents’ room in front of the white tulle curtain screening the cold balcony door. The plywood boxes from postal parcels received long ago and presently full of fragile sparkling adoration came from the narrow storeroom: all kinds of fruits, dwarfs, bells, grandfathers frosts, baskets, drill-bit-like purple icicles, balls with inlaid snowflakes on their opposite sides and just balls but also beautiful, stars framed within thin glass tubes, fluffy rain-garlands of golden foil. In addition, we made paper garland-chains as taught by Mom. With different watercolors we painted the paper, it dried overnight and was cut into finger-wide colored strips which we glued with wheatpaste into lots of multicolored links in the growing catenas of our homemade garlands.

Lastly, after decorating the tree with toys and sweetmeat—because a candy with a thread thru its bright wrapper is both nice and eatable decoration which you can cut off and enjoy at Xmas tide—a snowdrift of white cotton wool was put under the tree over the plywood footing of one-foot-tall Grandfather Frost in his red broadcloth coat, one of his mitten-clad hands in firm clasp at his tall staff and the other clutching the mouth of the sack over his shoulder tied with a red ribbon which hid the seam too sturdy to allow actual investigation of the bumps bulging from inside through the sackcloth.

Oh! How could I forget the multicolored twinkling of tiny bulbs from their long thin wires?!. They came into the Christmas tree before anything else, and those wires were connected to the heavy electric transformer also hidden under the wool snowdrifts, Dad made it himself. And the mask of Bear for the matinée in kindergarten was also his production. Mom explained him how to do it and Dad brought some special clay from his work and then on a sheet of plywood he modeled the bear’s face with its stuck-up nose. When the clay got stone-hard, Dad and Mom covered it with layers of gauze and water-soaked shreds of newspaper. It took two days for the muzzle to dry and harden, then the clay was thrown away and—wow!—there was a mask made of papier-mâché. The mask was colored with brown watercolor, and Mom sewed the Bear costume of brown satin, it was a one-piece affair so you could get into the trousers only thru the jacket. That’s why at the matinée I did not envy the woodcutters with the cardboard axes over their shoulders.

(…and until now the watercolors smell to me of the New Year, or maybe vice verse, it’s hard to decide, I’m not too good at moot points…)

If the big bed in the parents’ room was taken apart and brought to our room, it meant that later in the evening they would haul tables from the neighboring apartments and