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

(…when there is a beret, but no briefcase by the man, then you are dealing with an electrician…)

We did not have time to drink even a glass when a young blonde bozo got anchored by the third side of the table. For some unspecified reason, he began to bend his fingers into the composition "I'll take your eyes out!" The electrician grew mum under his beret… My holiday program did not foresee any gladiatorial amusements, so I got up on my feet: "All right, young man. I leave this feast to you. Enjoy!"

I went to the waiters, paid for the wine and left. The blonde rushed after me to the lobby, but of the three glazed entrance vestibules, only one was opened to the porch, seeing me thru lots of glass doors he, immersed in heated agitation, missed choosing the right one. I waved my hand for a goodbye and walked away…

Sleeping in a waiting hall at the station would hardly add festiveness for the day. Another taxi took me to the hotel Old Prague, which was the driver's choice. The young receptionist there had also picked up the muchly chewed rag of beforehand reservations, yet suddenly turned merciful and found a room for me. She warned though it was more expensive, which was understandable because on getting up there I found that, besides the room, there was also a hallway with a hatch in it.

When in the suite, I decided that it was enough for trying fate’s benevolence by my attire, and used the phone to order dinner to the room – fish with potatoes and wine, let it be white, please…

Waking up late in the morning, I checked out and went for a walk about the city… When I was bypassing the ancient Golden Gate, a blond young man ran, panting, by, apparently a part to the monad of the yesterday's boob, who got stuck in the labyrinth of glass vestibules at the Golden Wheat Shoot. Seems like their whole monad are going to have their hands full to sweat out the streak of bad karma because of the feast generously thrown to them by me. But the fool ran into it himself, look before you jump, jock…

On the descent to the Bessarabian Market, I decided it was time for a lunch, and turned into the restaurant "Leningrad". In front of me, a group of Negroes entered the same place, however, I was anything but a racist and followed them. Still, I did not like the over-fat scruff of the concluding guy in their file, some piece of obese Africa. In the afternoon gloom of the restaurant, I could not see in what woodwork they managed to blend leaving me the only guest in the room.

I ordered something "in the pot", so it was named on the menu. They brought potatoes mixed with meat and brown souse, but all that in a ceramic pot, as promised. Eating from the pot was very uncomfortable and also too hot. But I guessed to pour a part of the steaming stuff into a plate on the table, and then was gradually adding to it from the pot.

Before going out, I visited the empty quiet toilet by the restaurant and left it a completely different person to that I who had been entering "Leningrad". The lines by Ivan Franko were slowly swirling in the head:

And not only that. The main difference between me getting in and me leaving the restaurant was the absence of the jacket, which I intentionally left in the toilet hanging on a stall's door. It was the wedding jacket in which I was registered as Eera's husband in the ZAGS of Nezhyn. Besides, it was the same one that survived my premature attempt at leaving it in the toilet of the restaurant "Bratislava" in Odessa. Perhaps, the time then was not ripe yet. Was the act on the celebration program list? No, it was sooner an impromptu inspiration, but I liked it.

Eased and relieved, I lightly walked up Khreshchatyk undergoing its preparation for the demonstration on the 7th of November. The troops of the Kiev garrison were a-drilling their parade step to the gleeful marches by a brass band.

Along the sidewalk, they had put endless board stands for spectators, just 3 steps but very wide indeed, so that the happy crowd would watch the demonstration and wave their hands in the show of approbation and jubilant joy. Before the pending event, there remained 2 more days and the steps were still empty. I walked along the middle one, clapping my heels against its thick planks, a man in his prime, in a red shirt under a gray waistcoat, and the sun rays vibrated thru the branches of mighty Chestnuts.

I walked to the metro station and was ready again to face trenches, walls, and partitions. People do need holidays and brass bands so as to live on further…

~ ~ ~

When Panchenko—without even peeping out to check if it might crush someone’s unaware scull—hurled a pig-iron four-section heating radiator from a window on the fourth floor, as if just having nothing better for a pastime, his quirk, in fact, had a quite sound underlying reason. With that hand-made bolt out of the blue, he signaled to all who might be concerned, that the veteran jailbird's balls were still unshaven, and under his eight-wedge cap (the vogue sported by toughs in the fifties) he still was quite a crazy machine. The signal was addressed, first of all, to his superintendent in charge of drawing work orders that determined Panchenko's monthly payment, and to the chief mechanic in whose division he turned a fresh leaf to start a new, honest, life. And it was high time already for a mujik in his mid-fifties. Of course, it did not bother him in any way, that after the second time in Romny I had not the slimmest chance of