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

thick woolen fabric, so that to travel thru the city lightly and in my inseparable secret agent's hat.

Lvov always was a beautiful city with lots of monuments and landmarks of ancient architecture on streets with cobblestone pavement. No wonder that the 4-sequel Soviet adaptation of "The Three Musketeers" was shot in that city. They only needed to keep the camera away from the streetcar rails in the road.

I did not use any kind of transportation in Lvov but walked. Where to? To the Opera House, of course. My promise was fulfilled, I did come to Lvov, but I had no intention to run about its streets demanding of the passers-by, "Were you, by any chance, in Konotop 2 years ago, after you served your time in Zone?" No, I am from a different category, and I strolled in a well-bred manner to have a good time because the train to Kiev was leaving exactly at midnight…

The Opera House in Lvov was a magnificent sight, simply a palace; well done the Poles who built it. However, as for having a good time my guess was premature. There was an opera on, a creation by a local classical composer about the peasant unrest in the 16th century. A piece of trash in the style of "they'll lap it up!" Anyway, if a job is once begun, never leave it till it's done, and I sat tight thru all of it to the final bell which set me free…

By midnight, I was back to the station, unlocked the automatic storage cell and opened my briefcase. I doffed my hat and put it inside the cell, then clapped the gray cap from the briefcase onto my head. After those manipulations, I gently closed the door and even chortled softly imagining the goggled eyes of the next user of the same cell. You open the door and see a solitary hat sitting there without a head inside. Go and think of what to think…

On return to Konotop, I started the farewell visits. To my brother Sasha on Sosnowska Street. To my sister Natasha in the 9-story block in At-Seven-Winds… I did not go to Decemberists 13 though, I was a stupid jackass.

Natasha gave me a rich present of a winter coat of gray cloth with karakul fur collar. Apparently, the size did not fit her husband Guena, I was the coat size.

And I also went to ZAGS to get the stamp in my passport on divorce with Eera. Yet, they sent me to Nezhyn ZAGS, the place of marriage registration. However, at Nezhyn ZAGS they demanded a reference from Konotop People's Court that our marriage was terminated.

“Look," said I, "you made the record of our divorce when she was getting her stamp, give me my stamp on that ground and that's it."

"There is no such record. She never came to us."

That how they stroke me dumb. I had to go to Konotop, to get the reference at the People's Court and take it back to Nezhyn. Shuttling in local trains hither-thither, I thought whether the mileage I had ridden on trains would equal the Equator. And I also thought: why did Eera, in so many years, not get her passport stamped to certify our divorce? Probably, to sprinkle a pinch of spice to her lays, sort of adding fresh twigs to the antler of her absent husband, the cuckold of a geologist.

And then I realized why I always liked the scene of D'Artagnan farewell to Rochefort in the Dumas novel Twenty Years Later.

"Go your way, old devil," D'Artagnan said with a sad smile, still looking after the departed Rochefort. "Go. Makes no difference. No Constance is there anymore…"

I realized, that Constance was Eera and me, only not separately, but together. Constance was us in those silly times when we were still tormenting each other with our love…

Then I went to the city of Sumy. There I took Lenochka to the cinema. The "Fanfan the Tulip" movie it was, yet already with Alain Delon starring in it.

After the cinema we fed the swans in the park, dropping from the arched bridge crumbs of cabbage piroshki, and then we went to a restaurant. Everything there was a discovery for her…

She saw me off at the station and burst into tears for a farewell. She looked beautiful, like her mother, and only the hair she took after me.

~ ~ ~

Next day I went to 25, Gogol Street and left by Sasha Plaksin my black dembel "diplomat" case loaded with dictionaries and a couple of books. We arranged he would send it to me when I settle down somewhere and let him know my address… Konotop saw me off with angry cold and wind, but the coat from Natasha kept me warm, and I went to Nezhyn to return the book of stories by Salinger borrowed from Zhomnir. I locked the sports-bag with clothes and other things into an automatic storage cell at the station and with just my briefcase went to Shevchenko Street.

When the bell rang, the door did not open, probably, Zhomnir and Maria Antonovna walked out somewhere to visit. I went to the city center, to the new "Kosmos" cinema opposite the department store. There was some garbage produced by "Uzbek-film" about Sindbad the Seaman, but I just needed to kill the time.

I sat down and planted the briefcase under the seat. The place on the left was taken by a woman of my age. In the tilted passage on the right, a girl about four was running up and down. Her mother, sitting in the front rows, called for her to come back, but the kid did not listen. She kept capering there, and at each of male spectators entering the hall she yelled, "Daddy!" But he was not among them… A couple of rows higher, to seven o'clock, there were seated 2 military pilots in officer jackets. One of then began to greet my neighbor on the left, but somehow with the owner's air