the most final
concluding work

That summer saw the reconstruction at 13, Decemberists. As projected by my father, the door from the veranda to the attached room was sealed and the latter got connected instead to the living room. The changes allowed for the heat from the kitchen stove to reach the attached room in winter making it livable all year round. The rest of the khutta was renovated too.

After the reconstruction, I moved to the attached-joined room and a friend of Natasha came on a visit from the city of Shostka. She had been a group-mate of my sister at the Konotop Railway Technical School. Later, Natasha’s girlfriend got married and divorced but she had no regrets because of her skills at sewing jeans like "Levi's" and though the fabric in her jeans was notably not genuine the business thrived and brought a good income.

She was not too tall, but well-tanned, and she had dyed hair to emphasize her appetizing figure. Yet, moving towards righteousness, I, certainly, kept in check my glances and never asked Natasha for how long her friend was going to stay.

Coming back from work, I sat at the desk in my room and read a book in English keeping a dictionary at hand, or else Morning Star, the newspaper of British communists. Probably, they were not exactly communists but, nonetheless, their paper was sold at newsstands in the land of victorious socialism for 13 kopecks piece. After dinner, I worked at translations and had no spare time for special communication with the guest.

I did not know how Eera learned about the visitor at 13, Decemberists, but she suddenly started asking questions about Natasha's girlfriend and then announced that she herself wanted to move to Konotop, so I had to talk about it with my parents.

Returning to Konotop on outspread wings, I at once called my father and mother into the yard. They got seated, side by side, on the bench under the tree by the porch way on whose steps I kept standing and taming effervescent joy frothing within me. Then I informed them on Eera's wish to move to 13, Decemberists. And I was completely unprepared for what happened next.

My mother crossed her arms over her chest and said that she would not accept Eera because it was impossible for two of them to get along together in one place.

I heard her words but could not get it – what's that? My mother who always pulled for me was now sitting on the bench, with her arms crossed, saying she wouldn't have Eera around here.

I turned to the father for help. He shrugged, "What can I do? All documents on the khutta are issued in her name, she is the landlady."

It was already dark in the yard, but in the light of the lamp lit in the veranda, I saw my mother's unwavering, unyielding stance. Desperately, exerted I my mind to limit in search for any worthwhile arguments, appeals, for anything at all, but it was blank and void and dead sure that nothing whatsoever would mollify her.

My father went over into the house and I, overpowered by the hollow emptiness in my head, sat limply on a porch step.

The wicket latch-handle chinked, and the visiting girlfriend of Natasha's entered the yard. She was alone, without my sister. "And why are you like that?" asked she, and got seated next to my mother.

My mother immediately enlivened and started to explain that the next day the 4 of them—my parents, Natasha and Lenochka—would go to the RepBase camp for recreation by the Seim river. However, the refrigerator was full and those staying back at the khutta could cater for themselves.

The girlfriend approved and turned so that the light from the veranda would boldly delineate her large breasts under the taut clinging turtleneck.

Even dumbfounded as I was by the result of the negotiations with my parents, I realized that I was doomed, and when left eye-to-eye with such breasts, without anyone else in the whole khutta, no bridle would restrain me safely. I knew myself and got it clearly that my righteousness would not persist for a whole week, and even the fact that she was my mother's nickname would not save me because, no matter what the fridge was full of, the innocent lamb prepared for the sacrifice was I….

The next day after work, I did not go, as usual, along the railway tracks and the wall surrounding the KahPehVehRrZeh Plant to Decemberists Street, but got on the streetcar going to the Settlement and rode to School 13. From there, I moved along Nezhyn Street, entering the yards of khuttas with one invariable question, "Where can I rent an apartment?"

At number thirty-something, I was told that in the khutta under the big birch opposite the Nezhyn Store, they seemed to be renting.

The birch was found in the indicated place, and it was so old and tall that the red brick khutta under it looked very small. However, it had two rooms and a kitchen, apart from the dark hallway-veranda.

The landlady, a single pensioner Praskovya Khvost, suspiciously looked me over, but showed a room of three by two meters, with the window looking out onto the wide trunk of the birch in the neglected front garden. One-third of the room was occupied by an iron bed produced before WWII and the room itself was entered thru the doorway from the kitchen screened off with hanging curtains. To the right from the same kitchen, behind the same curtains in the doorway, there was the owner's room.

For me, it was essential to leave 13, Decemberists on that very day, and we agreed on 20 rubles a month.

Coming to Decemberists Street, I borrowed a handcart from a neighbor, put it at the wicket to number 13, and only then entered the yard.

Seated in the folding bed-armchair, Galya was watching TV. I said polite "hello" and that I was not hungry, and then went over to my room to collect the books and disassemble the bookshelves.

The self-made windows in the room did not have leaves to open, that's why I had to take the things out iterating thru the living room and the kitchen. So as not to change the shoes with slippers at each go, I paved the floor with pages from Morning Star. The young woman in surprised silence watched my manipulations from her armchair.

I took the books and bookshelves' parts to the handcart waiting in the street. All fitted in, only I had to drive slowly because the varnished shelves, stacked on top, were sliding over each other.

In the khutta by the Nezhyn Store, my landlady had a visitor. The 2 old women grew silent and watched the underground functionary shipping stacks of illegal literature to his new safe house…

Back in Decemberists Street, I returned the handcart to its owner and gathered some of my clothes—the briefcase from Odessa stood at the ready—then I said polite "goodbye" to Galya, and left her to enjoy the TV because I knew how to win with dignity.

^~~^~~^~