the most final
concluding work

_{~ ~ ~} The Postscripts

The decision to part with Konotop became irreversible when I saw that everything was repeating itself… Over again I walked along a tunnel cut thru the stratum of night darkness with batteries of floodlights on the pylons in the classification yard over my usual short-cut marked by the dim glitter of railheads in the dampish rows of tired tracks.

The tunnel was higher and wider than the galleries in the mine "Dophinovka" and, unlike to the scanty pair of narrow gauge rails, the mighty tracks were bifurcating, multiplying, flowing alongside each other crammed with freight cars, cisterns, platforms with all sorts piled up, covered and uncovered, overall and small, cinched and loosely poured, stuff. Clanging at the railway points, the rolling cars rolled down the hump in strings, in pairs, singly, to find their way in the bowl and, with the pitched screech of wheel chocks, come to a halt at their destinations. The classification yard has no weekend breaks. On and on sounded the round-the-clock rumbling, clanging, screeching, shouts from the loudspeakers reporting about the numbered tracks and marshaled trains. Yet, all that went on in a tunnel, in one huge tunnel. Would the roof withstand the weight of the night?

In that autumnal, like in lots of other nights, darkness I crossed the railways following the all-too-well-learned network of service paths, bypassing the maze of the stilled trains and dodging the cars rolling down the hump across my route to the ever open wide breach in the wall around PMS-119. I cringed in anticipating disgust at the mud and puddles lurking in that hole which was already at a stone throw because I now walked already alongside the meter-tall letters in the inscription on the concrete wall. Made with ever-black tar over the light gray concrete of fencing by the assured strokes of a brush in the hand of master, it advised the passengers on trains that passed by in the daylight: "Konotop – the city of nondrinkers!"

The floodlights from behind transfixed my moving shadow over the calligraphic graffiti. The closer to the hole, the smaller the size of the silhouette with swaying hat brims until all of it got swallowed by the pitch-black darkness in the breach… The time machine is a nice invention, yet if you can't afford it try traveling the time on foot. Now, following my disappeared shadow, I'll get in such medieval swamps and darkness that…

"Sophocles! Aeschylus!"

Hell! Seems like I’ve taken a too wide stride and glided by down to the antiquity, ain't I?

"Aeschylus!"

A black shadow about 20 meters from the breach roared hoarsely in the muddy darkness of the PMS backyards. Mine? No, this one shorter and plumper. And in a leather cap, the coat's also of leather. "Why pulled up? Who called you? As if you may have the slightest notion of Sophocles."

"Right you are. I never went deeper than Aristophanes."

He hiccupped and, slightly rolling but resolutely, stepped in my way. "Who are you?" demanded he with the hooch on his breath.

"A passer-by. And what brought you here?"

He seemed to miss my question. "Sophocles… Aeschylus.." he kept echoing softly. "Yes, yes… Aeschylus… Aristophanes! And who else?!"

"Well, there also is some Euripides."

"Right! Euripides!" cried he out with tears in his voice and then again devotedly groaned out, "Sopho-ocles!"

We stood to face each other like Sancho Panza and Don Quixote meeting after the separation. Sancho gave out a despondent sob and dropped his head. The peak of the leather cap pecked me in the bridge of the nose. Damn it, Sancho! Look out! My visor’s up…

"I'm an artist," he plaintively imparted, raising his head. "They gave me 2 months here…" Another nod with the pesky peak…

I see, 2 months from Narco-2 for eradication of all alcoholic inclinations. And now I also knew whose masterpiece in tar was out there. Eh, Sancho, Sancho!. Anyone would turn a drunk if there's no one to talk to of Sophocles!. Armfuls of pearls and no one to scatter them before… No, no, no! I do have to leave…

…to go there, beyond the horizon, to the faraway—as childhood—seashore by the smooth azure waters, and a mighty sacred Oak tree with its hollow for whispering into it the quotations hardly needed by anyone along with the names of sages forgotten ages ago…

The plan was perfect. But what about the details? For instance, where to? Well, firstly, it should be some warm place, enough of frostbites for me, and secondly, it has to be provided with the sea and mountains. The Crimea, whose mountains are not that tall, does not fit, besides, it's taken up by Olga, maybe…

The finger slides over to the next sea on the map… Yeah? Okay, to Baku then. What’s the difference?.

Getting my vacation from the Construction Workshop Floor at the "Motordetail" plant, I also applied for dismissal. Yet, before moving away I still had one unfinished business on my hands. It was my promise to the 3 strangers at the station restaurant to visit the city of Lvov…

The closer to Lvov the slower the train traveled along the slopes of the Carpathian Mountains with dark tall Fir trees, yet in the late evening it still arrived at its destination… In the automatic storage cell, I left my briefcase in which, besides the hygienic necessities, there also lurked a gray cap of 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. A beautiful she looked, like her mother, and only the hair she took after me.

~ ~ ~