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

Even under socialism, wise people were still there. Thank you, unknown Captain!.)

That evening a young teacher from the Philological Department came to the girls' room. Probably, to make sure that she didn't skip her duty and checked what was going on there at all. Because apart from me, one more lover started his visits to the room – Czech Jan.

A natural Czech, middle-aged geezer, who arrived within the framework of socialist integration of the fraternal states to drive it home to Bolshevik (which was not just the village but also the name of the state farm for hops-production) the subtle art of drying hops so as to get the right beer. (Czechs and beer for centuries were and remain twin brothers.)

Jan's wife stayed to keep their children in the Czech-Slovakia Socialist Republic. He missed her and, to relieve the longing, fell in love with Olya. That was the reason for his late evening visits and long talks with her about something, I was not sure what namely, because he talked in Czech. And if it were not for the language barrier, I would not miss interviewing him about the year of '68…

Once the girls arranged a party in the room, so he came even in a necktie, that's a civilized man for you. For the occasion, he brought a bottle of Champagne and canned food, but not from the village store because the canned food turned out more delicious than even the cod liver, after which you had to go to Moscow or Leningrad. And he flatly refused to drink any vodka. Showing at the filled glass he wrinkled his face and patted himself on the heart to emphasize his fear of that swill charged with health problems…

But when the teacher came on her control visit, Jan was not present in the room. She could see for herself that though Eera and I were sitting on the same bed, yet in a quite appropriate attitude – each one at the opposite side rails. All moral prescriptions respected, so, get seated, please, let's have a cup of tea.

The moment she sat at the table, there surged a hell of an uproar in the corridor: You!. Who!. Mother-blother!. The door of the room burst open. And in the dark corridor, five to six guys were looming in two-rank formation.

The teacher turned around from her cup, "What's happening?"

"And who are you here at all?"

She decided to crush them by her authority, "Girls! Tell them who I am!"

And all the 4 girls, in unison, as if in the collective recital which they had been preparing from their kindergarten times, "She-Is-a-Teacher!!."

To which, kinda antiphon, "Then fuck her!"

(…well, yes, not all in our younger generations are brought up in the proper way, and non-rural areas, regretfully, are not exceptions to the rule…)

During that matinee dialogue, I, of course, realized that they had come after my soul. The night before, a girl from the next hostel came running to the club dormitory and raised the alarm about local guys misbehaving in her room. You bet, I ran there and saw a scene of confusion on the first floor. Some girl was crying, 3 local guys were confronted by 3 student counterparts stuck in a futile discussion on the subject of "and who are you?" In short, a stalemate position.

To solve the etude, I chose the bigger guy among the locals and asked the crying girl, "This one offended you?" "Yes!"

I punched the guy. The locals vanished without a trace and the common agitation subsided. Later that guy and 2 more with him waited for me at the entrance to the club. "It was not me," he said.

"I'm sorry," said I. "I had no choice." How could I explain to him that so I was trained by Chief of Staff: a fact of violation should be followed but the fact of punishment? Only Chief of Staff—which is characteristic—did not ask me for forgiveness…

It seemed that my apology was not accepted, and the uninvited guests to the tea-party arrived to demonstrate a Bolshevik-styled vendetta. From under the bed, I fished out the empty champagne bottle and stood up close to the doorway. They kept barking outside but abstained from stepping in – the bottle had rather weighty looks. How could they know that my martial art level was less than a fig and minus?

Some footsteps sounded in the corridor and, behind the guys, I made out Stepan. He grasped at once what’s what, and attacked from the rear. I also jumped out into the corridor with the warcry, "Come fucking here!" It worked no worse than on Shoorik – the guys flinched and fled. Stepan and I were adding stimulation to their stampede, but I already hadn't the bottle in my hands, I didn't remember where it got lost. The memory retained only their unanimous clattering down the stairs with Stepan racing in their wake.

I was left one to one with the guy who in the mutual commotion failed to pass the bottleneck of the stair-flight and stuck upstairs. His spirit though blasted without a fight. Giving in to his fate, he limply drooped onto the railing and was sagging there like a wet mat, considering from above the steps down there on which he was to plop.

And I grabbed him—noblesse oblige!—but then I heard a cry; very distant, hardly audible, like the one that called me on the snowy road nearby the nine-story building in Stavropol. I observed the submissive jelly of a guy. What for?. So, I turned around and went down the corridor back to the room.

(…I agree all that sounds more than oddly, but at times strange things do happen. Some people hear voices, but I heard cries, distant, from afar…)

And once again she did not come to midday meal. I went to their room. Eera was sitting alone and did not want to talk. I sat on the bed by her side, took her hand… I liked that hand and those fingers, long