the most final
concluding work

Each person certainly has their own story and if you keep quiet and don't interrupt them by attempts at narrating some of your own, they will eventually tell theirs to you.

Not necessarily about themselves, maybe about a relative or a neighbor. For example, about a German soldier from an infantry squad occupying a village khutta. Each morning he yelled something to which his comrades responded with their laughter. One of them had a little Russian and explained to the landlady the content of his yells, "Gimme those two bitches – Hitler and Stalin, I'll give them short shrift with my Schmeisser!"

The story was told me by an old woman preparing to retire from the Construction Shop Floor, who, as a small girl, saw Germans living in her mom's khutta.

Or about a mujik who made friends with a stranger at a beer bar. They went out together and strolled along the street until the new acquaintance had to loosen his bowels. He dropped in a nearby yard with a promise to be back in a moment. On taking a leak, he tried to nick a carpet from the linen rope and was arrested…

As for the mujik waiting for his gossip on the sidewalk, he got four years of prison as the accomplice. Yes, there still occurred some happenstance mistakes even under the most human judicial system in the world…

And the executioner was simply proud to tell his story because he considered himself a hero, not an executioner.

He served at the front Smersh battalion mopping up the areas taken control of, and whenever they happened to capture an RLA soldier, he personally and heroically took the traitor to a nearby wood. Although at the headquarters there was a special platoon with sub-machine guns for the purpose.

Now, they two would walk there arm in arm, only the hands of one in the pair were tied behind his back. And on the way, the hero began a casual talk about the family and kids, so that some of the captives even started to hope for something.

And then he said, "Why do you, bitch, betrayed our Motherland?" And he shot his TT pistol, not to kill though, but make a hole in the liver with his bullet so that the bastard wriggled for 10 minutes before dying of the lethal wound.

After the war, he wanted to become a diplomat, but they explained to him that a Soviet diplomat, being an embodiment of our Homeland abroad, should be flawless. Unfortunately, his body was missing three fingers cut off by a bomb fragment when already in Germany. How would he waltz another country ambassador's wife at a diplomatic rout with such a claw? He saw the point and entered an institute for economics to get the diploma of a middle-rank manager…

I slightly knew his son who was always ready with slogans like "we'll not allow the bitches to trample our native land!", because he flawlessly memorized and kept to his dad's ideology…

In Konotop, the ideology was hardly ever viewed with much of reverence. When in the heat of an argument, folks did not choose some high-flown words. Thus, for example, to upbraid a female, they would say, "You are a Newsya Kamenetskaya!"

Newsya was a city idiot. She silently walked the sidewalks, no one addressed her and she addressed no one because she was a quiet case. But a single look at her hat was enough to see that she was nuts, sort of a red bonnet with a bouquet of artificial flowers. By that bonnet, she was recognized from afar, and small kids in the street would run after her and shout, " Newsya Kamenetskaya!"

But she did not reply and walked silently on. A casual city idiot. The executioner's son murdered her. Late at night, in the Loony park. He did not want his Homeland to be trampled by quiet idiots. Lyalka had to see the purist off in the grated stolypin car from the railway station.

And so as to make sure that the likes of Newsya would never dare anymore infest the sacred sidewalks of Homeland, that son of the Smersh hero…

I don't know why, but some of the stories are darker than all the thousand and one night put together…

Yet, even in the tragic layouts, you could always find nooks for optimism!

In that winter the frost was reaching absolutes and if walking streets you turned your head too sharply, no matter left or right, some tiny sounds came from inside – they were your thoughts turned to ice and tinkling against the frozen convolution walls within the gray matter.

And smack in the middle of that pole of cold, you came across a broadsheet on the wall in the plant check-entrance, "Those who wish to partake in a ski trip to the Seim, please, apply at the Tourism Group."

Haven't I told it was a very modern and advanced plant? In the basement of one of the five-story apartment blocks in Plant Neighborhood, I was once making the screed for the rubber covering of a mini football stadium…

I found the Tourism Group's room. They told me: on Saturday, at the check-entrance, with own skis. I brought my skis, the ones I was running in the forest at the Object.

A small PAZ bus at the check-entrance waited for those who did not feel like skiing that morning. Nonetheless, there were 3 volunteers to ski all the 12 kilometers; some girl with a guy courting her, and I. The ski-track in the deep snow was being made in turn.

But what a beauty! Especially when we entered the forest. Because of the frost, the snow became as fine as flour and the sun was setting ablaze each and every of those tiny crystals…

The other two skiers knew the location of the plant recreation camp, but I saw it for the first time. The houses made of timber had steep gable roofs, like in the Swiss Alps. The whole forest around drowned in the snow and only the roofs stuck out because of their steepness. Classy view! My room was just under the roof and from inside I could once more admire how steep it was.

The roommate turned out one of the veteran tourists, not a rookie like me. As I understood, their group was sort of a closed shop at the plant, and the advertisement was just to show to the Management that they were active in attracting the working masses. They did not ever expect there would turn up a curious yokel of me…

On the other hand, the bozo got a fresh listener for his stories about their hiking in the Urals where all week long they walked in the rain. From morning till night. Yet afterward, at every outing that he was taking part in, there was not even a drizzle. That's why in the Tourism Group they nicknamed him "dry talisman". Whenever they ventured without him, they got drenched by the rain and quite the opposite with his participation.

Then he left and returned with a bottle of the medicine alcohol of which he poured me a full cup before measuring out twenty drops for himself. We drank and had a snack sharing the sandwich brought by him. Soon he left again and did not return, and from the first floor there came the sounds of music.

Fully aware that free medicine alcohol was a means to switch me off so that I did not mess around with the group's cultural program, I lay down on the bed. However, I noticed that the steep roof was in the state of too active swaying, and for that reason, I got up and went downstairs.

They were having a quick dance in the hall with the lights turned off and only colored lamps were blinking rhythmically. I also hopped for a while in their wide circle. Then I moved to the next room. It was lit brightly and along the walls there sat ladies of non-skiing age, probably, the tourists' mothers from the bus.

In the center, there stood a six-pocket billiards table. Dry Talisman was fooling around with rolling the smooth balls before the mothers. He was surprised to see me up but submitted the cue to me when I asked.

Believe it or not, but with just 3 biting strikes, I send 3 different balls into the pockets. Even I myself got stunned because I never was anything but a flounder at billiards. I stopped at that, returned the cue and went out into the yard.

The darkness outside was as dark as in the middle of the forest mingled with the light from the windows and high fire in the barbecue box to make coals for the meat processing. And not a single alive soul was around…

I went up to the fire, looked at the flames and felt blues – everyone was like everyone else and only I was such a slice, forlorn and clearly cut-off. And those blues drove my intoxication away, I went up into the room and fell asleep because of grief…

~ ~ ~