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

(…an idiot! All that, in fact, was needed:

"A?. Yes,.. Hmm…"…)

As for the entrenched defense line around your carriage, I have already mentioned it. Nonetheless, even fully aware of my innocence, I never thought of debating or proving anything—especially since I had no excuse for neither the warm rain nor the annihilation of cannabis in merciless conflagration—so I just went where Eera led me…

It was a corridor on the second floor in an unfamiliar building with wide floorboards painted red. The place was rather crowded. On the whitewashed wall, there hung a sheet of Whatman paper with a picture executed with crayons in the technique of The Funny Pictures magazine where a kettle addressed a washcloth with the question, "Why did you tell the saucer I was a colander?"; most likely, a gift from some art lover patronizing the institution. A young man in the army officer pea-jacket without any insignia was happily contemplating the picture. His forage cap was tilted a sliver of a notch on a screwballish side.

Eera entered one of the offices to state complaints. Then they called me in, but no conversation followed. The doctor, addressing exclusively Eera, announced that I should be examined in Chernigov because he was not qualified for the like cases, not even competent.

(…exactly as my father used to say: "They are sitting there, getting their salary but when you turn to them – 'I am not Copenhagen!' is all they ever can give out!"…)

The Chernigov psychiatric hospital was located 4 kilometers from the city, in full correspondence to the nearby bus stop named "The 4th kilometer". The gate in the tall concrete wall of the institution was conveniently nearby the bus stop. The collection of modern huge-block buildings behind the wall would readily beautify even the city center by its architectural style, were it not located outside it.

We bypassed the huge red-tiled forms of various height; some of them were bridged with indoor galleries or connected with lower structures. Eera was obviously oppressed by that stodgy Bau Stile void of fanciful conceits, quite understandably though, not everyone appreciates that particular variety of architecture and I, personally, would sooner pull for works by Corbusier too.

I escorted silent Eera, looking glum and sullen at the moment, to the required building where we were accepted in a small one-window office by a dark-haired woman in a doctor’s smock named Tamara…er…Tamara…well, I am sorry, her patronymic escaped my mind. At the desk by the window, there sat a man of a well-trained carcass, also in white.

Tamara hospitably invited us to get seated on the soft sofa in a white cloth case alongside the wall and retired to the armchair opposite it. There followed a conversation of nothing in particular, but when she asked me about my preferences in music, the man by the window started to prompt, "Variety, of course!" which convinced me that his presence was not for just to ensure Tamara's security, if I were a violently deviated case. So I had to honestly admit having more than one preference: Ella Fitzgerald and Johann Sebastian Bach, because I do not drive a fool about the things that really matter.

Tamara told Eera that deviations of my kind were not of dangerous nature, however, if so was Eera's wish and if I did not mind, they could keep me for more close observation.

I did not mind, only warned that on Saturday it was my brother's wedding to which Eera and I had been invited and, if Tamara considered it acceptable, I would come back to the 4th kilometer on Monday. Upon my word of honor.

Tamara most kindly concurred and saw us out into the corridor. From behind the glazed door in its end, there came a muffled noise of a multitudinous assemblage…

~ ~ ~

By that time my brother Sasha had already moved from PMS to KhAZ and was working on some sophisticated milling-grinding machine… The KhAZ was not the KhAZ itself, but only a branch of the Kharkov Aviation Plant. They did not assemble any planes at the branch, but produced spare parts of most different configurations, packed them in boxes, and sent to KhAZ or to its other branches in some other cities. In Konotop, the KhAZ branch was named, for shortness, just KhAZ and everyone was eager to get a job there because of high wages. Sasha earned 200 rubles a month! The rest of the workers got a lower payment because there was just one machine tool of so superb high-precision. Another advantage of KhAZ was its location in the Settlement, you could come home for the midday break and have your havvage.

Unfortunately, there was a drawback too, KhAZ made you work longer than just 8 hours a day. No, there were no labor legislation violations. Sasha was leaving his workplace at 5 sharp, but his work overtook him when even at home. He complained to me that even watching football on TV, he contemplated his working plans for the following day: which spare parts to work on in the morning, and which after the midday break. I felt sorry for my brother, but didn't know how to help him out…

In the Settlement, earning 200 rubles a month, you could start up a family of your own without hesitation. Sasha's chosen one, Lyouda, worked at "The Optics" store in Zelenchuk Area and she also was from the Settlement. Besides, she was a really enviable bride having two khuttas or, rather, each of her estranged, though not divorced, parents had a separate one, which guaranteed the young family immediate solution to the problem of housing, one way or the other. Who would decline living in clover? Thus, my brother became an Adoptee.

Eera was going to buy bed linen as the wedding present, but all the traces of such goods since long had disappeared from the stores. The explanation of the fact provided by the planned economy we lived under deducted that particular shortage from