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

it easily could be I in her bed awaiting when she'd sent away that dork outside… I did not develop this theory but simply handed the book in, thanked, and left…

And since then my love belonged only to Eera, absolutely undivided, especially after the mentioned falling in love with her once again. It happened when at a chance meeting on the third floor of the Old Building in the wing occupied by the Philological Department, I persuaded Eera to skip a class and, after the bell shut up, we sneaked along the wide empty corridor to the side staircase. There, we did not go down the stairs but followed the ascending flights, although the building had no fourth floor, and the last flight was blocked by a partition with the locked door to the attic. We stopped in the middle of that flight and kissed.

(…her classic breasts under the river algae shade of green in the knitted sweater to match her mermaid-style hairdo, the silk skirt on the strong hips swelling the sketchy outlines of white abstract bunches on the black background, tailored by Maria Antonovna, Lyalka's mother, high wedge Austrian high boots, her eyes slant all too slightly, the slender white Lorraine cross of the frame in the arched tall window behind her back, with the Renaissance azure blue of the sky in its panes, the foamy white splash of dove's wings on the other side of that cross – all that and everything else merged into the picture that I will see and remember all my life…)

But having memories alone was not enough for me, I wanted to keep all that or to stay myself within that desperately inexpressible beauty. The kisses were to no avail, they couldn't stop the fleeting moment. So all that only remained there, all I could do was falling in love…

In the evening, already on the stairs in the Hosty, Eera passed me the key to the room of the Phys-Math students, so that I went first to open it and she would follow a minute later to keep the rules of secrecy… We did not turn on the light. The bed stood by the window overlooking the Oster banks invisible in the darkness.

With Eera, the burden of protection lay on me, that is, getting out in time to avoid abortion was my responsibility. But on that particular night…a tad bit more!..I'm in control!..more!..just a sec…y-u!..out of the blue!..too late…the train's left…

You were on that train, in the crowd of all-alike fellow-travelers, only you turned out to be a little bit nimbler…

Well, and then – a smooth transition to the already checked out technology: as a quality man of noble disposition, I had to marry. More so, that I would not survive another Eera's report on abortion under general anesthesia…

When Eera was still a schoolgirl, she found a ring on the bridge over the Oster; a nick-knackery ring of those that they sell at stalls among the other casual pieces of fake jewelry. Eera brought it home and her mother, Gaina Mikhailovna, got sad and distressed but she said nothing to her daughter…

Was Eera's marriage with the divorced me a misalliance? Undoubtedly and undeniably. Even a brief matching of the would-be newlyweds' parental pairs against each other would prove it to the hilt:

Spare-Parts Checker at the RepBase vs.

Teacher of German Language at the Nezhyn State Pedagogical Institute of Order of the Labor Red Banner named after Nikolai Vasilyevich Gogol;

Locksmith at the RepBase vs.

Deputy Director of the Nezhyn Bakery Plant.

However, the factor of your presence, even though not born yet, mitigated the caste prejudices which, by the way, had long since been abolished by the Soviet system. Still and all, even in the era of the developed socialism in our country, throughout our pre-wedding trip to Kiev, I had my anus impaled on the stake, a kinda admonishment for the cheeky pariah.

Kiev was needed to exchange the coupons from Nezhyn ZAGS for goods in the metropolitan bridal salons. True, the divorce-stamp in my passport nullified any discounts for a wedding ring for me, yet my sister Natasha promised to lend me the neat gold ring that she wore, for some odd reason, on her thumb. As for the stake, it was not seen from outside, but caused horrible pangs within the rectum and turned my gait into drag-and-shuffles of a semi-palsied old man or that of a young Cossack raider who was removed from the said impalement-stake after a slightly belated amnesty. "Mercy, Cossack-brothers! Finish me off!"

Poor Eera! Would any girl in her dearest girlish dreams ever dream of such a companion to a bridal salon?. Never! By no means! No and no, over again!

To me, the hellish torture suffered on that trip served the palpable reminder of the truth from Heraclitus: never enter the same river, for your ass' safety sake!.

Alas! The wisdom of the previous generations does not make us wiser until we (quoting the famous letter of Ukrainian Cossacks to the Sultan of Turkey) get seated on a hedgehog with the personal stark naked arse.

Nevertheless, in Kiev, the bride got rigged for the impending happy occasion, and I bought brown shoes made by the Dutch company "Topman". The footwear was a bit too loose, but the realities of the era of deficits taught us grabbing any chance bird at hand, and a month later the shoes become a fitting hand-me-downs to my father-in-law. That's for whose sake I was dragging that stake!.

Soon, I felt better and we started looking for a suit to dress the groom. We combed thru the department stores of major railway stations between Nezhyn and Kiev: Nosovka, Kobyzhchi, Bobrovitsa – to no avail. The suit was hunted down only in Chernigov, far from the electrified railroads, and it imparted quite a decent look to me.

A week before the wedding, I left the hostel and moved to the three-room apartment of Eera's parents… The eldest of their 4 children, Igor, was a Major of some sophisticated troops stationed in