Hungry Times

You may ask anyone – among those who still remember – they all can recall the tiniest details of the Day of the Great Cataclysm.

30 volumes, weighing four stones, complete works, and I dragged them along on my back, across small crooked lanes, vegetable gardens, dark backyards, through holes in fences.... Why didn't I take a taxi? Because I didn't have a penny.

Well, he would understand me, Fiodor Mikhailovich Dostoyevski, and even give me his blessings for successful sale of his works, because he knew what debts, creditors and insolvency were.

I assume, under certain circumstances he himself would have traded his complete works (had he had them handy) to the book dealer, with all his manuscripts, appendices, comments, references, lists of letters lost and not found, indexes of errors, corrections and additions.

This enumeration makes it clear that I am familiar with the above mentioned edition.

More than that. I have read all 30 volumes, from the very first page, beginning with From the editor: “The present collection of works of F.M.Dosto.....” --- to the very last correction in the list of errors: “P.K.Rauchfuss” instead of “K.L.Rauchfuss”.

It may seem incredible. No one can possibly believe it. Personally, I wouldn't believe it! But I know, it is possible! In 3 days and 3 nights!

In the spring of 1991 I was unreasonable enough to sign up for a speed reading course based on the methodology of Shelekhovski-Karter. At that time this doubtful methodology was widely advertised in newspapers as “the major auxiliary instrument of metaintellectual development”; no one knew what all of it meant, but it had to be something great.

So, I answered the ad by making a personal appearance at the cultural center named after N.Krupskaya, payed 90 rubles (I had a job then and could afford it), joined a group of students and housewives, got an earful of abstruse speeches, experienced the delights of in-depth immersion into 'metaintellectual spheroid of expanding potentials', and got as big a kick out of it as my predisposition to such matters allowed. We were told it was an unclassified method formerly used by KGB and CIA; during those years something got unclassified every once in a while, just to be immediately fed to elated consumers through all kinds of paid courses.

The three-day attack on Dostoyevski was my graduation assignment; others stormed Thackeray, Serafimovich, the multi-volume “Life of Plants”, dictionaries, encyclopedias, the Mahabharata, -- generally speaking, everything they had at hand.

I passed it with flying colors, received my certificate of successful graduation, got home in semi-conscious state, and collapsed on my bed. Staring into the ceiling, I came to realize that it wouldn't be possible to take any more of it without loosing my marbles; and then I simply shut down, became a log, a block, a brick, a blimp, an oar; eventually I came to, looked in terror at the bookshelves and decided that Dostoyevski and I couldn't co-exist under the same roof. (It is amazing that my wife made an analogous deduction, only regarding me, not Dostoyevski...)

For several days I couldn't bring myself to face a printed page. And when I finally could, I was unable to process the printed lines adequately. I couldn't understand what I was reading. I couldn't even understand whether I was reading, or not reading, and when I was reading. And I was reading this way: either rapidly, or not at all, gazing dumbly at one letter.

I found comfort in booze. It had a beneficial effect: I was getting cured. In a couple of months I learned to read again, like all other people do: first – by syllables, then – quickly; the only thing was – I never the regained my taste for reading.

I don't hold a grudge against Dostoyevski, and I hope he doesn't either, against me, over there... Had it been Thackeray of Serafimovich, would have been the same story.

And I didn't sell him at once, but only after the call form my creditor. And then I had to hurry.

I can't explain. Everyone attended something: courses of applied astrology, courses of universal yoga, courses of scientific fasting.. There was a crisis in the country, people were loosing the ground under their feet, people were looking for support...

I would be glad to find a special meaning (but do not dare) in an odd conversation I had on my way back from the book dealer, on a trolley-bus, with an individual I'm going to describe below.

I often reminisce about each word of this conversation, but despite my strenuous efforts, I fail to find a hidden significance in it. A random occurrence. Absolutely incongruous. Or is it?

So, I was on the trolley-bus, sitting by the window, leafing through an antique pre-revolutionary book with the letters of the alphabet later canceled by Bolsheviks.

It had a beautiful title: “I don't Eat Anyone”, and was full of vegetarian recipes. I inherited it from one of my girlfriends who didn't need it, and I didn't need it either. I intended to sell it together with Dostoyevski, but it was rejected. So I kept it.

The trolley-bus turned into Zagorodny, and stopped by the fire tower. A man got on and sat next to me. I heard him saying: “Something interesting... By all judgment, something from Suvorin? Or not? Marx?..”

“I see.” He tried to make me understand that he appreciated my sense of humor. “'The Anti-During' translated by Vera Zasulich.” He didn't take offense and, moreover, displayed his erudition.

I took a closer look at him: middle-aged, slim, neatly shaved. His smile was unpleasant but friendly, -- unpleasantly friendly. Another detail: he was wearing a suit, in spite of hot weather. And his suit was brand new.

“No, it's the title,” I shut the book to show the cover. “See? 'I don't Eat Anyone.'”

“Zelenkova. Olga Konstantinovna Zelenkova,” said my interlocutor. “I'm familiar with it...365 vegetarian dishes... Petersburg, 1913, if I'm correct... Is it the third edition that you have?”

“Zelenkov edited it, Alexandr Petrovich, Olga Konstantinovna's spouse, a famous doctor at that period...”

“Recently... A large edition. In Tomsk too, but not as many. In 'Moscow Worker'... wait...was it 'Moscow' or 'Worker'... or maybe 'Capital City'? No, it was 'Moscow Worker', that's where they published 100,000 copies. Bestseller.”

“And it doesn't diminish the value of your copy in the least. You have the rarest edition, just the rarest.”

“It's nothing!” Disagreed energetically my fellow-traveler. “It's a cook book – you understand? -- a cook book! Have you often seen a limited edition of a cook book?”

“Not surprising! These sorts of books were read to tatters! Elena Molokhovets on the auction stands higher than life-time edition of Ahmatova, almost as high as Chekhov with an autograph! And this is because of the special edition! And that's Molokhovets, Elena! Every housewife used to have it, and where are those covers now? No, no, take care of your Zelenkova, I simply envy you... May I?”

“With your permission.... You know, there is, on the title page, a sort of a seal or stamp... Can I look?”

“What a wonder! What a wonder!” He was attentively studying the stamp.”What a wonder indeed!”

However, the stamp was the most ordinary: an oval with an inscription on its edges: 'Private council for studying massage and medical gymnastics', and in the middle of this oval: 'P.Y.Struts'.

“And whose?”
“How can I know,” he said returning the book. “Maybe you know. I thought it was your relative. Not yours, I see, not yours. In principle, all people are relatives. Including you and me.”

“Just I have a thing for stamps, for books with stamps. It's a passion of mine. I collect them, you know... I have such a variety of them... with stamps... Here..”

So, he wasn't a nut case. Apparently. Contrary to my suspicions. But everything is possible...

“Does the expression 'marginal sphragistics' ring a bell?” asked Dolmat Fomich Lunocharov.

“Sphragistics, generally speaking, is a study of seals and signets. And marginal sphragistics is what I do, -- my field, so to speak.”

“I have Pushkin, a magnificent Brockhause edition... And the seal? You won't believe:'All-Union Council of the Workers of High Precision Machine Construction. Library of Factory Committee named after OGPU.' How do you like it?”

“Your complexion is not quite right for a follower of a no-killing diet, sorry. And, I bet, today you fried something on lard.”

“And yesterday, I don't mean to be offensive, you drank Port, Moldavian. Where on Earth you got it... Everyone else drinks spirit 'Royal'.”

“Amazing,” I said, truly amazed, because he was right: yesterday I was generously treated to Port in the company of pretty graduates from the Academy of Communications (or was it the Institute of Culture?). That year all alcohol was rationed.

“I would be very obliged to you if you made it possible for me to copy the title page of this remarkable specimen – with the seal. I will definitely return it! I don't have anything in my collection about medical gymnastics, it's more about social disciplines, agriculture, art...”

Why not to? I gave him the book, let him copy. He carefully put it into his briefcase. He wrote down my phone number and even my address and promised to call me. He asked me what the best time to call me was.

“Morning,” I said. “I'm not there in the evening...” 'sober' – I should have added.

“And please, don't leave a message with the neighbors, we aren't on good terms.”

“I see... Maybe you have something on music? I mean a stamp... No? Something from a music school?”

I didn't have anything on music, nothing musical, not even a musical ear, let alone a school, -- and I confessed it to Dolmat Fomich, I don't know why.

I didn't lie. I don't feel the rhythm. I'm unable to clap my hands to the meter of a verse, even the shortest one. Sing something – God forbid! I'm unable to dance without stepping on my partner's feet, out of beat, on top of this. What's the most incredible: I dream about music, and often I hear melodies – well-known, not well-known, and totally unknown, but I hear them!... only I'm unable to reproduce them, even the simplest one, never! I can't sing even 'Chizhyk-Pyzhyk'. A total and complete absence of musical ear.

That's what I told him about. Normally I'm not an extroverted person, and my openness surprised me.

“So, music lives inside you?” Asked Dolmat Fomich, rising from his seat (it was his stop).

I didn't spend much time with my creditor. I handed the money to him – nearly everything I got for Dostoyevski. I was free from my debt.

The money I had left was enough for two bottles of vodka 'Streletskaya'. It wasn't rationed and was freely available at the free market price.

30 volumes, big and heavy. Dostoyevski cost quite a lot at that time. And the price of vodka was going up according to the devaluation of the ruble, which considerably went down every day. For some reason, vodka was not obtainable downtown, but in the suburbs there was lots of it, and everyone who could afford it, bought it.

In short, if it hadn't been for the debt, I could live on the money I got for Dostoyevski, -- complete, academic, in 30 volumes, -- for more than a month. And the month was August. Rowan trees were red with clusters of berries. I was looking through the train window and thinking how easily I sold him. In spite of all the crisis, and in addition to it myself, selling Dostoyevski, our country remained what it had always been: literature centered; most of the passengers were reading – detective stories, classical novels, romances, fairy tales... A few of them, who didn't have anything to read, or didn't feel like reading, were looking through the windows. The summer was nearing its end. Clusters of rowanberries... The summer slipped past me unnoticed...

Later on it will be believed that in those ours before the grandiose events everyone thought about nothing else but politics. And it will be very wrong.

Looking through the train window, I occupied my mind by converting the monetary value of complete works of Dostoyevski into kilograms of beef, bread, and sugar.

The highest price of Dostoyevski was expressed in matches(in world market prices). And also in locally produced condoms. And also in packets of yeast, pilfered from the factory and sold right next to its gate.

And even without matches, condoms and yeast I could have lived on this money, according to my calculations, for 2 or 3 months.

And I lived near the Victory Park, in a Stalin era building with high ceilings and spacious rooms.

Since sometime I got into a habit not to rush home, -- if it could be called a 'home'.

At about 9 in the evening my university buddy Valera paid me a visit. He had with him a can of chicken spread and a girlfriend.

Then we drank to our communal, so to speak, health. And then we drank to nothing in particular, just out of our earnest friendship.

After the third drink Valera became self-incriminatory. He begged to forgive him for not bringing along Nadia's girlfriend.

In the room behind the wall a vacuum cleaner went off, not without assistance from my semi-ex-wife. It always goes off when I have guests. My wife got to love vacuuming the carpet. I have always hated that carpet, since my earliest childhood.

“He is an amazing person,” said Valera, uncorking the second bottle. “He married a con woman. They are practically divorced, but she still lives in his apartment, together with her boyfriend, and imagine, now they are both badgering him! Oleg, remember my word, you won't live here!”

I'm not against the facts, but Valera was really exaggerating. Although there was some truth in his words. I don't like talking about housing and other practical matters, I loath these topics. They aren't my favorite genre. According to Valera, I was a blockhead, a dork.

Everything was much more complicated. About my wife, and about the dog, as well.

By the way, I didn't divorce Aglaya (that's my wife's name); formally, we are married.

“Let's drink to your health, to the men!” said Nadiezhda and rose to her feet.

Valera talked about the stockbrokers' school, where he would get a qualification, and then he would prove himself to all of us. Then we all would see. He would earn a million before the end of this year. He asked if I wanted to become a stockbroker. Why not. I answered:

“I want Oleg,” Nadia got desirous all of a sudden. “Oleg, Oleg, Oleg.” She was sitting on Valera's lap. He started droning: “Nadia, why are you like this, Nadia, I'm good too, why are you like this...”

Nadia, it will be unethical if I hurt Valera, he's my buddy and my guest, even if you keep saying 'Oleg, Oleg...'(They both were drunk, I realized it.)

“Say, do you know for what money we are drinking tonight?” started up Valera. “I'll tell you: Oleg sold Dostoyevski!”

“She lives at Sennaya square, with her aunt,” explained Valera. “Have you been at Sennaya? A flea market... Three thousand people...”

“If you have anything to sell, I'll sell it for you.” said Nadia hugging Valera. “A bust or anything else.”

And because I repeated the thought that wasn't mine I felt nauseous. Since sometime my organism couldn't digest quotations. I got up and wobbled into the kitchen.

I needed a drink of cold water, but for some reason only hot water was running from the tap, probably the tap was connected the wrong way. I didn't wish to drink hot water.

“Don't you dare to call Elvira an animal!” It was my wife who came out from her room... actually, my room... generally, the other room.

“Alcoholic!” yelled Aglaya.”You deliberately tease her so that she bites you!”

I wasn't an alcoholic. I started drinking only recently. And not because the dog teased by me was growling, but because... I don't know myself... because...do you know what it is when there is no place to go?..

“Gashen'ka, darling,” HERS ground his teeth. “Gashen'ka, darling, just tell me, I'll grind him into dust!...”

“Tell him right away, Aglaya, how did your husband have you?” I quoted Pushkin, and even though I paraphrased him slightly, it was a direct hit. And for me it was like a lungful of fresh air. Aglaya shrieked. The dog yelped. HERS hit me in the eye. I hit him in the eye. We grabbed each other. His Turkish gown ripped at the seams. The chairs toppled. The dishes fell off the table.

But the forces weren't equal. HERS weighed more. Also he was sober, let's do him justice. And my buddies were too busy making love, they couldn't hear me or anything else.

“I'll burn all of it in the oven!” yelled Aglaya about some money. What money, I'd like to know? And was it really about money? Maybe it was about letters? Whose letters? Maybe I dreamed about all this later, in the hospital?

There was a huge copper samovar at the top of the cupboard. We kept it in my grandmother's memory. When I was a teenager, I used to hide cigarettes in it. Aglaya claimed that I gave it to her on her birthday. Not true. I didn't. But let her think so.

It suddenly became dark. “You are nothing but a worn out horse ready for a glue factory”, I heard (or did I say it myself – who knows?). “Collapsed....”

You may ask anyone – among those who still remember – they all can recall the tiniest details of the Day of the Great Cataclysm.

In the hospital named after the 25^th of October I saw the dawn of the 19^th of August, and I remembered it because I felt very nauseous; on the 20^th I felt very nauseous, too; and on the 21^st I still felt nauseous, but not as badly because they kept injecting me with magnesium. The world forces joined in the decisive combat, the fates of nations were at stake, and I, indifferent to their destinies, was being injected into my butt with magnesium, -- what an appalling incongruity!

Before giving me an injection the nurse would update me on the latest news: such and such order had been issued, such and such ultimatum had been rejected, Boris Yeltsin addressed the public from the top of an armored vehicle. I felt nauseous. The victory of democracy put an end to my nausea, and my appetite came back; but the oddest thing was that when many days, months, years later I saw on the TV screen the faces of heroes, and especially that one – edematous, expressing paternal concern, it would immediately bring back the memory of the nurse's nervous uneven voice, and the nausea would return.

Those days I tried not to go into the on-going events, I tried not to think at all, or I simply didn't think about anything, independently from my willingness to think or not to think.

The echoes of the momentous historical upheavals quieted down when reached my concussed brain, and didn't convince me about anything but the fact that my nausea was well-grounded. “White House...”-- whispered nurses --- “...our White House...”

“White House. White House. White House”, -- chirped the orderlies while distributing food to the patients. “There's going to be an attack on the White House,” -- rumbled the whole hospital.

And I imagined it this way: I lie inside a building – it is white, of course – and it is going to be attacked and taken, floor after floor. This knowledge tranquilized me.

Now, after hourly chronicles of those days have been published, I am inclined to think that the samovar had fallen at the crucial moment – when the fateful decision was being taken. The rebels gathered for their last assembly. Trubetskoy said: “Yes!” And the samovar fell down. I fainted. I have no doubt that at the same very moment Valera and Nadia, happy with my absence, discharged like lightnings in their love embrace; and I asked many people about what they were doing at that time at that moment, and something extraordinary occurred to each of them. Therefore, if it was some mysterious splash of the universal energy, or some other phenomenon of the global scale, should I, a sinful mortal, revolt against it and blame Aglaya? Well, the samovar fell down, and that was it. Forgive me, Aglaya.

The hospital staff was on alert expecting the influx of casualties. There was one, he was put into the ward next to mine. He suffered from delirium tremens.

I was recuperating. From time to time some friends visited me. Once Valera came; he brought me a bottle of kefir and a packet of cookies “Welcome October”. He had the keys to my apartment. He lived in my room – together with Nadia.

“I wonder,” as usual, he was wondering at the riddle of my marriage, “how could you? How could you marry such one?”

On the night of the 20^th Valera and Nadia were at the barricades. They defended Mariinski palace, the stronghold of the legally elected local power. Fortunately, there weren't any attackers. The defense was a success.

“You can't imagine how great it was! How wonderful!” narrated Valera exultantly. “What a unity of people! All kinds of people!For the first time I felt truly happy! Such a united impulse! Such an all-enveloping delight! What a pity you haven't been with us! If it hadn't been for this,” he pointed at my head, “you would definitely have been with us.”

“Sorry,” I said as gently as possible, in order not to offend him, “you haven't been with me either.”

“With you? You compare... When we rushed in to help you, you were already on the floor.”

“That's OK, Valera.” I shook his friendly hand. He was sitting on the edge of my bed, smiling.

It is too dreadful to imagine what would have happened if real tanks had entered the square in front of Mariinski palace. Where Valera and Nadia were on the barricades. Everybody perishes in the battle but Valera. Nadia dies the last. And Valera is shell-shocked. And now we are lying in beds in the same ward in the hospital named after the 25^th of October. I, the recuperating patient, give him a drink of water. He is a hero. And I am the one who was hit by a samovar.

Once I received a small parcel. There was an exotic kiwi fruit in it – at that time kiwi was still a novelty to us – and a note:

“Dear friend! I know that you are feeling better. I sincerely wish you to get over it as soon as possible. I do not dare to burden you with my direct presence, but please accept my assurances of friendship. I have a small surprise for you. You will learn everything after you are discharged from the hospital. I shake your hand.

The enigmatic “D.F.L.” didn't evoke any associations except for 'defloration' and 'défilé'.

I was more flabbergasted than touched by this gift. I didn't know who it came from. All the evening I was going through the names and faces of all my acquaintances, and only at night, in my sleep, it suddenly dawned on me: Dolmat Fomich Lunocharov, the trolley-bus passenger! I woke up at once. Lunocharov could have found me through Aglaya, I gave him the number. I was deeply touched by such attention. And a little bit frightened. Surprise...I don't like surprises.

Autumn began. Children went to school. Adults got aggravations of their chronic diseases.

Shortly before my discharge Valera visited me once more; again he brought me a bottle of kefir and a packet of cookies 'Joys of Childhood'.

“You can't live in the same apartment with Aglaya,” he said. “They'll eat you alive.”

“Sure. You need peace. Forget about this apartment. For the time being. And then – you'll see. Let's do it this way: Nadia and I will stay at your place, look after your room...Don't worry, we'll do it just right. And you... You can stay for a while with Nadia's aunt, there is a free pantry there. Not such a luxury, of course, but it's right in the city center, the view from the window, you know.. .You'll rest, relax, and she'll be glad to have you there, she's afraid of robbers. At least it's not the living hell you have with Aglaya. Agree. So?”

“So,” I said. He was right. I didn't want to go back. I wanted to change the environment.

There have been lots of changes while I was in the hospital. In particular, Petersburg became Petersburg again, and the last time I was out it was Leningrad. Isn't it a miracle? In Petersburg I was discharged from the hospital, but I was hit in Leningrad. For me personally the metamorphosis Leningrad – Petersburg isn't just a formality. And partially because of the changes in my life: I moved from the former Leningrad Stalin era apartment building near the Victory Park into the pre-revolutionary era Petersburg building next to Sennaya square.

Ekaterina Lvovna lived at the top floor, I think the 4^th or the 5^th, I never really counted the floors in this building. Maybe there were 6...

The times were unprecedented, stormy, disturbed, and my state of mind corresponded to them – once delight, once hypochondria, -- and in addition to this I sometimes returned home drunk, so I never bothered to count the steps. Any way, to get to the space allotted to me in Ekaterina Lvovna's apartment, I had to go up the creaky wooden ladder, because her lodgings consisted of 2 stories: at the bottom – her room, at the top – mine, not a room really, more like a loft – under the gently sloping roof; I could hear the rain drops hit it, and it felt so soothing, like a lullaby.

I would often stay in my pantry, lying on the mattress and listening to the rain, and to pigeons cooing, and cats caterwauling.

The view from the window wasn't as picturesque as Valera had described it. It was a huge window divided by the floor-ceiling that formed the 2 stories of the apartment; the bigger part of this window was at the bottom, in Ekaterina Lvovna's room; the rest of it was underneath me. I say 'underneath me' because it was really underneath, didn't go above the level of the mattress, and if I wanted to see what was going on in the backyard, I had to lie on my belly with my head bent down and my forehead pressed tightly into the window frame. And all the view available was a blind wall and the roof of a crude outhouse. There was little joy in this sight. But it didn't deter me at all. I had no purpose to look out of the window. And there was nothing to look at. So I didn't look. Only once or twice, that's all.

Thus I lived without seeing the daylight. Would have been much worse without a bulb. But there was one hanging down from the crossbar. It was a lifesaver. It made some of the objects visible, not all of them but only those within the immediate range of its rays; fortunately, I didn't need and didn't want to see them all, just my favorite ones.

Lying on my mattress I could study them. Or at least see their outline. Or be aware of their presence, -- and I liked it the most; I saw them with my side sight, unintentionally, when I turned on my right side, with my back to the so called wall, even though at the same time it was, strictly speaking, a window, incomplete as it was.

“It is still better when there is something than when there is nothing at all,” said Ekaterina Lvovna on the day we met. “Whatever you find up there is all yours, take it, don't be shy.”

Among many other things, there were: a basket, a box, a hat box, and a small crocheted children's hat, small, with a pompom, hanging on a crooked nail and forgotten by the whole world. I grew fond of these things, so basic and needless; I felt tear jerking tenderness toward them. There was something about them. In reality, there was nothing. But I liked their combination. It touched my soul: a basket, a box, a hat box... Had they been living things, I could exchange a couple of words with them about the problem of, let's say, self-identification (or self-synchronization... ( or about, let's assume, understanding of the notion of self-sufficiency)). Only there was no life in them. And it was for the better: it freed me from exchanging or assuming anything. However, there was still life in me, and for this reason I felt obligated to stare at the broom whose uneven shabbiness I couldn't help noticing even in the dim light of the small 40-watt bulb. This broom made me angry exactly because it attracted my attention. As if it was teasing me: What, don't have a gut to throw me to trash?

“Do you want tea?” Ekaterina Lvovna would yell from the bottom 'floor', interrupting the train of my original thoughts. If there was anything I couldn't care less about, it were my thoughts, especially the original ones.

I would rise from my mattress and climb down the rungs – creak, creak, -- that ladder was awfully creaky.

I was on very good terms with Ekaterina Lvovna from the very beginning. She was extremely afraid of robbers. Assurance that there was somebody alive breathing nearby relieved her from uncontrollable night fears. She would respect me even more if I could snore. But I couldn't.

It looked like Nadiezhda explained to her aunt that I had to be spared any stress. Ekaterina Lvovna was ostentatiously tactful with me and never asked any nosy questions. In her understanding, I was 'run over', and she had a suspicion that there was some obscure business between me and Nadiezhda. Maybe she thought I was Nadiezhda's lover? Or that Nadiezhda owed me something?..

She said Nadiezhda was an orphan, and in me too she sensed something of an orphan. She would treat me to a nice cup of tea, and I never said 'no'. I would climb down and sit with her listening to her stories. She loved talking when there was a listener.

She subscribed 'Izvestia' ('news') because it published the weather forecast for the whole country, and, in general, because of its 'correctness'. For instance, Solzhenitsyn is planning to return, - that's good, very positive. Or she would quote Gorbachov: “Freedom has become one of the top values”...

“Too big we are, too enormous... Galina Vasilevna is right, we should split. Into forty parts, and that's it. All our trubles are because we are one state.”

She liked sharing her memories about her life. Her youth was severe, full of privation: war, siege, 12 hours a day at the factory. She made projectiles and missiles, this big, like piglets. You see, her hands are like a man's... Her husband, because of some stupid involvement, was jailed under Brezhnev's rule, and never released. She washed floors in offices. Brought up Nadiezhda who's an orphan.

I explained to her for the umpteenth time that I had seen Nadiezhda only twice in my life, -- no, she didn't believe me. Because Nadia talked about me with such affection.

“And how about splitting into forty parts? Don't you feel any doubts about it, any sorrow? So great and indivisible? You defended it in the war...”

“That was under Stalin! Everything was different under Stalin! Then we had what to defend!”

“So, let's drink to Stalin,” I would propose. “To Stalin, so to speak, according to you?”

We would clink our glasses. If clinked, have to drink to the bottom. Then – a snack, tasty sausage, – humanitarian aid from the United Germany.

Sennaya Square -- this is where Ekaterina Lvovna was in her element. When I told her that I had sold the books, she praised me enthusiastically:

“Well done! You did just the right thing! Everything should be sold. Nowadays everything is for sale.”

Last spring Ekaterina Lvovna sorted all her possessions into categories based on the calculation that all this stuff should last for 500 days, -- it was assumed that 500 days was the exact period of time required to build capitalism in Russia, -- and in accordance with her carefully planned timetable she began trading her personal belongings at the flea market. As I understood, for Ekaterina Lvovna capitalism was a variety of communism where one could enter without any possessions. I'm not sure if it was her niece (Nadia) who influenced her, or she simply couldn't part with her tea and dinner sets, but when the turn came to her china, she saw reason and instead of cups and plates began selling sandwiches. It was a much higher level of entrepreneurship. The multi-thousand flea market, being active all day in the fresh air, was constantly hungry. Entrepreneurs who lived nearby took this business into their hands: they would walk among the rows with their sandwiches and hot pancakes. By the time of my moving in Katerina Lvovna was seriously considering pancakes. However, pancakes had to be baked, and sandwiches with unsophisticated but hard to come by addition like boiled sausage could be procured at the nearby kulinaria ( a sort of delicatessen shop) at the free market price. For the pancake enterprise, besides difficult to obtain flour, Katerina Lvovna needed an assistant. I refused point-blank.

I was lying comfortably on my mattress and didn't feel like getting up and climbing down.

“On your own you'll quickly turn up your toes. You have to take an active position in life. Where is your avant-garde?”

I didn't know. Honestly. I never learned what Katerina Lvovna meant by 'avant-garde'.

In contrast to my avant-gardist landlady, I remained a traditionalist; and my own very much traditionalist nature confidently led me towards the most traditional and at the same time the simplest, the shortest, and the most natural road to Sennaya square.

Ekaterina Lvovna realized that for the production of pancakes I wasn't ready and grudgingly stuck to her sandwiches.

When I wasn't napping in the loft, I most likely was at the corner of Sennaya and Efimova. I was – and it was great to be. Sometimes I was sitting on a wooden box, or I was standing on my two feet, and if I was lucky, I could choose a more privileged spot – closer to the metro station.

Sennaya is a place full of joy; if you want to be – then be, if you don't want to be – then don't be.

The most amazing, at Sennaya I saw many of my acquaintances. Some of them wandered aimlessly, struck by the unseen before abundance; others came with a goal to buy something – a saw for metal or soap cards. Yet others were here to sell – a set of cutlery or a curtain rod.

There weren't any tough guys among my acquaintances, none of them sought to obtain heroin, or rare earth metals, or Kalashnikov gun. The only one to whom I could at a stretch apply the term 'tough' was a professor from the institute of refrigeration industry; he dragged over a weighty Greek amphora with a chipped off neck.

And the former director of studies of the English school was now dealing in buttons of all colors, sizes and shapes, and for his personal pleasure bought mother pearl buttons everywhere he could find them. “I'm crazy about them,” he shared with me.

No, of course, I do not dare to claim that there is no place like Sennaya. At least not in Petersburg...Because in Petersburg there is also Nevskiy avenue and other wonderful places of interest.

But what was remarkable about Sennaya: I never saw any beggars there, and Nevski was literally teeming with them, and every month there were more and more of them.

It was clear: if one sits at Sennaya with his hat outstretched it means he is selling this hat!

Today one comes here with his watch, tomorrow he will bring an antique barometer, the day after tomorrow – his bedroom slippers, or no, better his collection of badges, from his schoolboy days, so many years it was gathering dust, -- Gorki, Kuibyshev, Kalinin...cities, names, events...50^th anniversary of October Revolution...20^th anniversary of the Factory of High Precision Devices...

The matter of the greatest concern is not to be run over by a street-car that slowly and wearily makes its way through the crowd, letting out an ear-splitting screech on the turns, -- is any high speed traffic really possible at Sennaya? Especially when the never ending construction of a new metro station surrounded by a concrete wall regally occupies the middle of it.

When a rumor spread over Sennaya that it was about to be dismissed, that the mayor Sobchak had already issued some threatening regulation, -- the crowd reacted with a threat too: “Just let him dare!”

And it becomes more terrible when pictured by my rich imagination, or, more accurately, by my poor memory, for I can't recall where I read about, but I didn't make it up and didn't dream about it: crowds arrive at Sennaya, agitated, waving their arms. And suddenly all quieted down and made a passage for the Czar's cart. The Czar rose to his feet and lifted his hand:

And he said something else, I can't recall, but I knew it before. That we should not imitate the folly of the French or follow in the steps of the mutineering Poles. And that we forgot the faith of our forefathers. And Sennaya, all Sennaya like one man, fell on its knees and prayed with tears in the eyes, and the Czar himself prayed together with his people...

And it was the same very Sennaya that turned into a place of intensive trade in foreign currency, orders and medals, icons and microchips with gold content, and the buyers are the people of a new variety, with the imprint of distinction on their faces, -- distinction from us, from you, from me, -- although, talking about me, I haven't looked at my face in the mirror for a very long time.

I'm standing with badges, my university buddy – with a jar of French cocoa which he brought from Poland last summer.

I could ask him about cholera riots, but I'm afraid, he doesn't remember either.

Something was happening to me, something wrong. I had difficulty understanding what it was, I only could account for one thing: dreams which I saw and heard weren't just filled with music, they were also too expressive, in relief, embossed, cinematographic, with twists and turns and fancy quirks, with such unpredictable beginnings and whimsical endings that I would doubt their authorship: was I really capable of producing such sophisticated plots? Before I was a lousy dreamer, would forget my dreams immediately upon waking up. Didn't see the point to remember them: maybe they were of a certain quality, but the time spent on dreaming them I considered a waste.

But now it was different. I remembered them to the tiniest details. Sometimes I would wake up with my memory blank, as if I hadn't dreamed anything, and then, at midday, it would all play back.

All this would have been just fine if it didn't have a negative side: the dreams were brighter, stronger, more significant than my waking life which was dimmed by them and slipped out of my memory. I wasn't as far gone as to confuse dreams with reality, but still, sometimes I questioned all of it: what was real? What was a dream? It appeared that I remembered the end of September by my dreams: I traveled to Kamchatka, there were tsetse flies on the train; passengers were scared of them. Or: I bought from Valera at the Greek market a broken globe with two Australias, and the landlady winks to me and says 'good boy, it's handy to hide tea in there from Nikita Sergeich, this way we may survive'... Or: the late Potapenko from the 4^th ward (triple fracture of the skull) and I are composing poems...And one more, pro-Freudean: Ekaterina Lvovna caught cold and asks me to apply a mustard-poultice to her chest, but I'm embarrassed to do it, so I lie to her that poultice went to Crimea and instead of it we have something else to warm up with, and I see a glass of vodka on the table, and inside it – dentures...I often drank in my dreams, to the state of dizziness.

It was in the dreams. And my waking life wasn't so expressive, it wasn't expressive at all, it was humdrum and drab. Days were coalescing into a clod. The leaves outside were turning yellow. The Soviet Union was shaking at its foundations. It was believed that Russia was being reborn.

That day sandwiches appeared earlier than usual, at about 10 o'clock, -- the earliest in time hint for a snack. My buddy hadn't sold his cocoa yet, but I managed to make an extraordinary deal: I traded to a foreigner the whole series of 'Ancient Rus', all the 24 badges, including the coat of arms of the town of Narva. After this, our corner could afford to relax. We grouped in a circle and chatted. For some reason our conversation centered on my problem.

“Don't even think about a lawsuit,” was their advice. “You will only waste your energy. What is lost cannot be regained.”

“It's a lost cause,” assented to them my buddy. “Anything but a lawsuit.”

“You should have changed the locks, didn't you know? And remove the doorknobs.”

I made an effort to recall if my window latches were made of bronze. Unlikely. And I didn't like being discussed.

“She's already seized one room, and the other one you'll have to give up. Rest assured, the law is on their side. There is a new law: if a dog is a pedigree dog, with certificates and medals, it is entitled to a room of its own.”

Then I remembered the dream about Elvira I had last night. Nasty dream and disgusting, especially disgusting because I had never been known to be blood-thirsty. I dreamed that I was going to butcher Elvira. With an ax. A hiker's ax. And that it was a test: did I have the guts to do it or didn't I? And that Elvira in this dream was an embodiment of evil, devil incarnate, and I had to step over my whole personal

world view, Weltanschauung, so to speak, because I don't harbor any hatred to dogs, just the opposite, I like them. And I felt torn to pieces. Then, with my tormented soul weeping, I tried the blade of the ax with my finger and decided: yes! Yes, ready! Am I ready? Yes, yes! Yes. And suddenly a ring of a doorbell. A long one. Elvira returned from her walk. This ring woke me up. But this ring was a dream too.

I was deeply affected by this dream. There was something mocking in it, a sort of burlesque. And I think that someone induced it in me in order to play a sick joke. I'm not a blind moron, I can see.

“Son, let me smell cocoa. I can't buy it anyway, just let me smell... Please.”

“Oy. Thank you. What a smell!... As if I'm young again... We used to get it during the war...”

“You know, mother,” he says in a quivering voice, “I would give it to you, but I can't. I think I'll mail it to my father in Rostov-na-Donu...”

He turns around and leaves without saying good-by. I know he's totally broke. There are tears in his eyes. I know, I can see.

Soon I left, too. I went to wander around Sadovaya. I don't know what but something bad was starting inside me, I didn't want any of it, and to make it go away I imagined the sensation of cheerfulness of thoughts. And I heard a musical scale, so simple, being played inside me, as if I was stepping on piano keys. I was reasoning with myself about my unworthy dream, -- if it was a mockery, -- then how did I manage to overlook it, how did I miss its crude snideness and took it at face value? On the other hand, if I myself was the author of this dream, if it came from the depth of me, and wasn't induced by any outside force, then why did I indulge in all this torment?

I didn't harbor any intentions of revenge on anyone at all, and especially on an innocent dog. It was very unfair that I had this dream.

I snapped out of it and unexpectedly found myself on the quay of the Fontanka. As soon as I looked down at my feet, it became clear to me where this dream came from. Yesterday... yes, yesterday, just like today, I was walking along the Fontanka, stepping carefully, exactly as I'm stepping now, I have to watch every step: everywhere – I'm not exaggerating – literally everywhere – there is dog poop. Here is the clue to the riddle: from the soiled with excrement sidewalk my thoughts drifted to Elvira, I didn't wish her (and all dogs together with her) any good; and the dream with its details was the work and the play of my subconscious. And there was more to all this: as I was walking here I met a gaunt-looking man; judging from his gait he was preoccupied with the same thing as I did (dog poop that is). He easily figured out that I was thinking what he was thinking, and addressed me with a short speech:

“The people are silent, and the thieves are stealing. Crap is right in the streets. Dog owners don't clean after their dogs anymore. The days of the great ordeal are coming. The ruble is going down. The ruling authorities are rotting. The industry is falling apart. Most writers have no talent. Remember my words. I know. I' m a deputy myself. My name is Cattlebucherov.”

And this is how I remember him: thin and tall, forced to slouch in order to see where he was stepping, alike to a nail with a rumpled head, a nail driven into the wooden bridge on the border between two administrative districts of Petersburg – Lenin and October; a nail driven into the bridge called Gostkin Bridge, with a 'No smoking' sign.

Although a dog is not cattle, and is much more superior to cattle, and is man's friend in much greater degree than cattle, the man with a harsh name 'Cattlebutcherov' and a butcher's vigor harshly entered my memory and settled in my subconscious in order to nourish my dream with an intricate pathos of caninoclasm.

I looked at the bridge: the nail was still there. “I didn't kill her!” I said to the nail, turned around and walked away...from whom?.... from what? I was thinking without thinking about anything in particular. The sensation that 'something was wrong', just as if I was sliding down a slide when there wasn't any slide, slowly webbed away, substituted by rapt attention to the details of the outside world: drain-pipe, sewers hatch, cracks on the sidewalk. The dull satisfaction with the accuracy of my observations had a disciplinary effect. I increased the power of my concentration: here, sparrows vanished from the city – nobody feeds them any more; here, the pregnant almost vanished too – nobody wants to have kids any more. Instead, there are many 'mutters'. Really, why are there so many 'mutters'? Every third person walking towards me is muttering to himself, or to herself, for that matter. He is muttering, she is muttering, we are muttering... I feel compelled to mutter too. However, I force myself not to mutter. Suddenly I find myself by the window on the landing of the building where I'm currently staying. There are cigarette butts on the windowsill. Half a liter jar of cigarette butts costs three rubles at Sennaya square. I heard something mumbling inside my head: “...even if you go nuts you will never sell butts....” Then I saw an invisible hand sorting those butts, it was putting the bigger ones next to me. After that I noticed that I was sort of walking, sort of floating, sort of lying, -- that's right, I was lying down. -- “Isn't it a seizure?” -- asked the Czar and grabbed my foot. I cried out and woke up.

There is no phone line in her apartment; however, I was not given enough time to express my surprise on this circumstance.

“Look out, watch your step...” She tried to help me climb down the ladder. “Don't fall, if you fall there is no one to put you together again...look out....”

We went to the apartment below. I had never been there before. Foyer. Round table. The handset is off hook waiting for me. The neighbor was out sight – I think she didn't want me to see her. I heard her playing music scales on the piano. Wake up! -- I ordered myself and picked up the handset.

“How's your health? Good?”
“Good,” I answered. “Thank you, good.” (All gone, all gone!!!)

“This is Dolmat Fomich, sorry to bother you... remember, we met on the trolley-bus? You loaned me your book...”

“Your copy... Aglaya Petrovna told me where to find you. Aglaya Petrovna and Nadiezhda Yevstigneievna both helped me to find you.”

“Nadiezhda Yevstigneievna who lives in your apartment. Together with Valeri Ignatievich. They gave me the number.”

“Oleg Nikolaievich, dear, I have a good news for you. A surprise. I wrote to you when you were in the hospital, remember?”

“Yes, thank you, I was touched... and that... what's it called.... kiwi....”

“Yes, Oleg Nikolaievich! Congratulations! We held a conference and voted, not a single vote against you! All - in favor! Unanimously! It's an exceptional case! ...You don't even have to submit a formal application, my recommendation is enough. Congratulations, Oleg Nikolaievich!”

“Not at all, not at all... I have to thank you. You loaned me such a book! With a stamp... Such an extraordinary stamp! Do not have any doubts, Oleg Nikolaievich, I copied it and registered... Just as it is supposed to be done... Thank you, thank you

I felt a sudden urge to express myself coherently and babbled something about how glad I was to have been able to be of a service, -- and in the back of my mind I couldn't help wondering: why on earth do I need this society?

“Oleg Nikolaievich,” went on Dolmat Fomich, tomorrow we have our meeting. Please come. At the same time, I'll return your book. Come, you won't regret, there will be an interesting lecture. And something else.”

“But.... excuse me... I feel embarrassed somehow... I have the feeling that I'm abusing your friendly predisposition...”

“Please don't. Tomorrow at 7 P.M. In the building of the Union of Writers at Shpalernaya street. You know Sheremetiev's Palace, don't you?”

“Not in the least. We have nothing in common with writers. We only rent premises there – the Oak Hall, once a week. Remember, we are Book-lovers Society. Book-lovers Society. Repeat please,” suddenly asked Dolmat Fomich.

“Shake your hand,” I repeated with an odd sensation of really having shaken his hand.

“What's the matter?” asked Ekaterina Lvovna. “You are white as a sheet.”

The building of the Union of Writers was also called a Palace – Sheremetiev's Palace, -- although, following the strict rules, it could not be entitled to the status of a palace – no member of the royal family had ever spent a night within its walls.

Within its walls I met writers, not dead and walking at night, but very much alive, despite the fact that the book-lovers, meticulous and zealous, out of some inexplicable jealousy, refused to grant them any recognition at all.

I want to emphasize that I have nothing to do with the arson: the building burned down three years after the events I'm about to describe.

That autumn no one could possibly picture this: the magnificent mansion, with splendid spacious drawing-rooms, the library with all its wealth of books, the majestic conference hall, -- all of it, devoured by flames, turns into an awe-inspiring brick carcass that will remain boarded up for many years ahead. Not in the wildest dreams....

The temptation to enliven my narrative with the description of the grandiose fire, filled with inexpressible symbolism, is powerful and persistent (and, most important, I have much to say on this subject), but I had better stick to my main plot. And the former one, about the fire, is secondary, and not relevant.

So, the very first person I met at the building of the Union of Writers was the janitor. More precisely, the janitor met me. He met me with a firm demand:

Not being certain that he knew Dolmat Fomich, who, in the first place, wasn't a writer, but just the opposite, a reader, I began to explain that there, in the Oak Hall, there is a meeting of a society which is, if I got it right....which is.....

Should I really be talking to him? I was about to turn around and leave. Was it worthwhile to drag myself along all the way here?

“I see, I see! What is wrong with me? Shame on me!” lamented he with the note of self-incrimination. “You have been just admitted! Yes? You are the new member of the Book-lovers Society! Yes? Please come.” He emerged from behind of his counter.

His arrogance vanished without a trace. He showed me the way displaying miraculous courtesy. In the cloak-room – where he announced to me: “Cloak-room!” as if I had never seen a cloak-room before, -- he even tried to assist me in taking off my jacket, and it took me a monstrous effort to manage removing it without his unsolicited help.

As we were walking past the restroom, he recommended: “Toilet.” After that, he commented on the statue of Mayakovski: “Mayakovski.” The building was named after V.V. Mayakovski.

Mayakovski, V.V., was standing at the bottom of the stairs. He was tall and cracked. The janitor apologized for the quality of plaster: the plaster was old, porous, and that bull (I didn't inquire which one) – young and frisky,-- on the day of the putsch he took it out on the statue and tore off its head, -- for the poem about the Soviet passport, obviously. They had to glue it back – it hardly holds...

The statue was facing the main entrance, which was securely locked and latched. The janitor followed the direction of the statue's stare and found it necessary to explain to me:

“It is open only for the civil funeral... They are taken out from here. The death rate among writers is high, oh, high...”

We went up the marble stairs; here, at the same level with Mayakovski's head, was a spacious landing, the Oak Hall was with half a dozen steps, and all of a sudden the janitor barred my way:

“Would you like to solve a riddle? A good one. I ask everyone. A small living thing is sitting on a living chair pulling at living meat.”

I can't explain what happened to me, some sort of enlightenment or some hidden perspicacity manifested itself spontaneously, but I answered without delay:

Flabbergasted, the janitor fixed his gaze on me with a wry smile, then touched my elbow with the expression of deep reverence, and retreated, walking backwards.

I never really intended to walk into the Oak Hall. I meant to talk to Dolmat Fomich after the meeting, that is why I deliberately came late. I decided to wait outside, especially that there was a chair right by the door.

I had never known any writer by sight. Now I had my chance. They looked just like writers; some of them were conspicuous.

Here is one of them coming, looks prominent: hairy, with a beard, but who is he? who? Now I know exactly: a living classic, a poet.... There is a sign: meeting a poet means the change in weather...

And here are two of them at once: one is short, in a suit, wearing a necktie, neat hairdo, eyes – cold and severe, no one would suspect him to be a poet ; the other one is squat, in a gray sweater and with a beard, and his face is soft and kindly, -- who would even think that he's a critic!

...................................................................................................................................

And this one, with military bearing, a shock of gray hair combed back; I know him: I read his books in my early childhood - 'Green Little Fish', 'The Best Steamship in the World'. There was a series of books -- 'My First Books'.

“Good evening, Sviatoslav Vladimirovich, I read your books when I was a little boy...”

But I didn't say it because at that moment I didn't know yet that it was him, that it were his books I read in my childhood. And even if I did know, so what?

It looked like she was going to say something about the Oak Hall, or about me in the light of the Oak Hall, but she didn't; she just walked on.

Then I opened the door a crack. I just wanted to see if the book-lovers were there, -- and they became aware of me immediately. They all turned their heads in my direction, as if they had been expecting me, and Dolmat Fomich announced joyfully: “Here he is! Oleg Nikolaievich! Oleg Nikolaievich, welcome to our society! Please take a seat.”

I came in. (They all were looking at me.) Here was a seat. Thanks. An antique chair with carved back (everything was antique here).

One of them was standing at the head of the table, -- probably, he was reading a report. Dolmat Fomich was next to him, still rattling about me:

“As I said, this is our dear Oleg Nikolaievich, he is most welcome here, I told you about him, you know....”

“Yes, yes,” said Dolmat Fomich to the man who was reading the report, -- a youthful-looking old man with the face of an ascetic. “Excuse me. Go on please, we are listening. It is fascinating.”

“Colleagues, let's distinguish two motives and study them under a magnifying glass.

First. Domestic: trivial absence of a pencil. Second. Conspirological: conscious concealment of marginalia from the eyes of an outsider....”

The youthful old man filled the Oak Hall with his insidiously corrosive voice of a professional reviewer of complicated topics.

First, I thought it was about the science of crime detection. A problem to solve: when a word is underlined in a book with a fingernail, how to determine which finger it was – the index or the small finger? A complicated question. As it turns out, there are five methods of detection, and each of them has its own criterion.

But, the report wasn't about crime detection. It was about marginalistics, an auxiliary bibliographical discipline, the existence of which I never heard about. In general, it was about marginalia – marginal notes and bookmarks in general, all sorts of check marks, crosses, underlines made by fingernails; the latter ones are especially interesting for researchers because they are hardly noticeable. It happened to be that the speaker had many years of experience of working in this field – he systematized, described, and correlated all existent varieties of marginalia. I found out his name later. Professor Skvorlygin. And first of all, he was a paleopathologist, one of the leading specialists in the diseases of prehistorical animals and primitive men. In addition to this, he was a bibliophile, dedicated and passionate with a very specific range of interests.

All of it was explained to me later by Dolmat Fomich right after the lecture; during it, when I was listening (or rather, not listening, because it was excruciatingly boring) I didn't know anything about the versatile professor. And, I thought the lecture was for the birds. Boring, as it was. Everyone was bored, not just me. Dolmat Fomich, with all his interest, undoubtedly ostentatious, in order to repress yawning strained his facial muscles with such diligence that it seemed it was his jaw that was clicking and cracking and popping, and not the pool balls in the hall next door.

I already regretted coming, and when the speaker proceeded to Dostoyevski, to his quick notes on the margins of the 'Rebus' magazine, January, 1880, which hadn't been ever viewed by anyone due to the loss of this copy, until he, professor Skvorlygin, reconstructed them by means of using secondary data, -- I had to fight the impulse to get up and leave. But I didn't leave. I distracted myself by listening to the sound of pool balls. I was meditating on the fate of each of them. The game was leisurely, unhurried. I heard the players walking slowly around the table and aiming at balls. One of the players hit too strongly, the balls would sometimes fly off the table; the other one played more carefully, with more calculation, aiming at the pockets in the middle. And he was the winner, I didn't doubt. I liked this game. I was there, in the Billiard Hall, with the players. I wasn't here.

In the meantime, the audience livened up; something was said that started them up. In hushed voices they were exchanging remarks. Some of them spoke up. The professor's monologue had been followed by a general discussion, not too laid-back, but animated enough, friendly and thoughtful. It was about Terentiev's books. As I could guess, Terentiev was a member of the Society, known by everyone here. 'Dearest Vsevolod Ivanovich', 'our dear Ivanovich', 'Ivanych', 'Seva', 'unforgettable'... -- that's how he was referred to, sometimes with emphasized piety, sometimes with hail-fellow-well-met attitude, sometimes with the undertone of guilt as if talking about a deceased: you, friend, have already learned all the truths, forgive us our ignorance; and sometimes -- with immeasurable amazement: 'hard to believe', 'impossible to imagine', -- that was the way they all talked about Terentiev; and the professor spoke about him too, in a changed, softened voice, with a warm and kindly expression on his face: he seemed to have forgotten his academic tone and his pedantic manner of speech. He also talked about marginalia again. According to him, the personality of a reader was reflected in his notes, in all his check marks, NBs, his exclamation points and question marks, and all other marks which only he knew the meaning of, -- whether he would underline a word this way or that way, or write a note, - he was present in the tiniest hooks and flourishes of his handwriting. For example, the remark left by Alexander Block on page 160, volume 3, of Bunin's works: “Tiutchev wrote better”, or another example: Puskin's note in his letter to Viaziemski – famous, convincing, and aphoristic: “Poetry is superior to prose.” Or something to this effect – I'm not sure about the accuracy of this quotation..

Here are two books from the private library of Vsevolod Ignatovich Terentiev; one is an educational booklet on gardening, very carelessly edited; the other one is the famous 'The Art of Cooking', the monument of Soviet polygraphic art from the 50s, one of the thickest books published in the USSR in mass edition (on the day I was here at the meeting, the USSR, though on its last legs, still existed, -- it was dissolved officially three months later, in December 1991). So, on the pages of both these books one can see marks made by Terentiev. And on the margins of the booklet he wrote his corrections of the printing errors; the professor assured us that he had meticulously studied the text of the booklet and couldn't find any more errors except for the 24 corrected by its owner, i.e. V.I.Terentiev.

“Look,” said professor Skvorlygin pointing at the opened in the middle booklet (something was really corrected there), “isn't it an example of thoroughness? I should say more, isn't it an example of pedantry, in a positive meaning of this word; I should say more than that: isn't it an example of fanaticism, again in a good meaning of this word; all of these features sum up into the reverence with which Vsevolod Ivanovich read a text – any text! He practically did the editor's work. All by himself. Following his inner calling. He even went into a truble of consulting a dictionary in order to correct a Latin word ... it was... let me see. ... the name of a variety of gooseberry... Here! As far as I know, Vsevolod did not have a good command of Latin.”

And the marginalia in the cook-book happened to be of more significance than it was discussed previously. By the end of his life, Terentiev had to live on a non-acidic diet, which was unambiguously proved by his notes next to each recipe. It looked more like a diary, with a date next to each note. The book-lovers asked the speaker to read those notes aloud; I, on the other hand, was killing time by counting squares on the extravagant checkered jacket of the bibliophile sitting in front of me; and later, distracted by the pool game next door, I listened to the crackling sounds of the balls.

“Well, how was it?” asked me Dolmat Fomich when it all was finally over. He was holding a book wrapped in black paper. I didn't realize at once that it was mine, the one rejected by the book dealer. “Did you like the lecture? Wasn't it great?” And before I could answer, he cheerfully praised the speaker: “Encyclopedic brain!”

The bibliophiles divided into small groups and socialized filling the Oak Hall with even humming.

Dolmat Fomich seemed to be hurt by my indifference. He went on praising the professor.

That was when I heard about paleopathology. I learned to what extent professor Skvorlygin was fascinated by it, and that this fascination didn't stand in the way of his work in the field of marginalistics.

“Such a range of knowledge, such a range! Actually, everybody here is amazing. There aren't any mediocrities here, and cannot be. Thank you very much. I'm returning it to you with great gratitude.”

He handed the book over to me, and I put it under my arm. It made me remember why I came here.

“Very useful. Such an extraordinary stamp! ' Private Council for Studying...' Round...

With old spelling. And so distinct... I made some inquiries: there really was a Struts, Gans Fiodorovich^¹, and he really had a school for studying massage and medical gymnastics, with a private council...”

“I photographed your stamp--(it was before the wide-spread of photocopiers)--, and I registered it in a special list. You'll see... I'll show you sometimes... all my collection.”

“Dolmat Fomich, I'm afraid to disappoint you, only it seems to me that you are very much mistaken. Of course, thanks a lot for your attention, but honestly speaking, I do not fit in here...”

His face puckered as if he had bitten into a lemon or heard a revolting vulgarity.

“Oh, please, spare me your honest speeches...” he took me aside. “I seldom have wrong judgment about people. You are – our own. I assure you, you belong here.... You'll love it here. Why don't you like it?”

“The matter is,” he picked up, “that you need time to get used to it. I understand. I'll help you. I assure you. Soon you will volunteer to read your report from this tribune!”

“Dolmat Fomich, I'm past this stage. I stopped reading books long ago, if you'd care to know...”

“You aren't well, Oleg Nikolaievich, you haven't gotten over after your accident. I don't mean to scare you, but you look pale, emaciated, with a feverish gleam in your eyes... you were different when I first met you. You should consider changing your life style and your eating habits first of all... And we won't let anyone mistreat you, you should know!”

He addressed this 'you should know' to the oak door behind which the pool game was being played by (as he seemed to imply) my ill-wishers.

“You see....” said Dolmat Fomich to me, meaning that this was the confirmation of his assurances about the friendly concern I was going to find here.

“Oleg Nikolaievich is in financial truble,” suddenly announced Dolmat Fomich. “He's not employed.”

“There's an opening for a position of an archivist in my department,” said professor Skvorlygin.

“That's not a hindrance. We are going to start a newspaper... for bibliophiles.... 'Our Common Friend' it's called... Why don't you join us?”

“Oleg Nikolaievich is an out of the ordinary stylist, I can feel it at a distance,” said Dolmat Fomich.

“In this case, which attracts you the most: 'Bibliography', 'Novelty', 'Our Collection', 'Rubrics for Everyone'?”

“Konstantin Adolfovich, can I talk to you for a minute... Could you pay the advance to this young man, please, he's going to edit the culinary rubric...”

Konstantin Adolfovich, the treasurer of the society, instantly counted out two thousand rubles – a significant sum in those days – and handed it to me. Confused, with the money in my hand, I didn't know what to say; in the meantime, Dolmat Fomich kept persuading me:

“This job is uncomplicated, creative, you'll like it. You'll need to find a quotation from a classic, for instance '..... rump steak all bloody on the table stands... ' and what's next? -- 'and Strasbourg tart all fresh and gleaming' -- so first you give a quotation, and then a recipe from a cook-book how to prepare this very rump steak...”

“Roast beef, not rump steak,” corrected professor Skvorlygin. “And truffles, a luxury of younger years, the greatest glory of French cuisine...”

“With Limbourg cheese all runny and spiced, and golden pineapple freshly sliced...” hurried to make up for his mistake Dolmat Fomich. “In other words, we should consider ourselves lucky: we couldn't have possibly found anyone more erudite then our dear Oleg Nikolaievich to do this job!”

“Then I will give him the copy that belonged to the late Vsevolod Ivanovich Terentiev.”

“Nonetheless,” pronounced Dolmat Fomich, “Oleg Nikolaievich is a trustworthy person.”

“I can see it too, -- a very trustworthy person,” uttered the paleopathologist with some strikingly out of place solemnity.

“Actually, I can see it too,” hurriedly agreed Semion Semionovich, and nodded to make it more convincing.

“Look how big it is,” said professor Skvorlygin lovingly leafing through it. “State publishing house of commercial literature. Moscow, 1955. So fundamental. That is why it was called 'Stalin's edition', even though Stalin at that time had already been in the Mausoleum for two years.”

“And the pages, the pages...Almost a thousand!” cooed Semion Semionovich, spellbound.

“Let me read to you the words of the academician Pavlov. The epigraph,” professor Skvorlygin began to read showing off his elocution. “...Health-giving and wholesome eating is eating with an appetite, eating accompanied by the sensation of delight...”

“How lovely,” said Dolmat Fomich, deeply moved. “I have no words. How charming.”

I didn't have a bag to carry the book. I had to concede to the professor's imploring and take his old-fashioned portfolio with an inscription on its metal plate: 'To our dearest Skvorlygin – from colleagues.'

It was decided that one week should be enough for me. In a week time a courier would pick up the material prepared by me.

“No, no, we don't have an office yet. And the chief editor isn't easy to find. A courier is much more reliable.”

“Oh no, no, the chief editor is...” He was going to tell me something about the chief editor, but we were interrupted.

“Gentlemen!” addressed Konstantin Adolfovich those present. “I have three remaining lottery tickets! Is here anyone who hasn't received a ticket of Dante lottery?”

“I know which one,” said Konstantin Adolfovich. “Here is your ticket. Please take it.”

I expected the distribution of lottery tickets to be the logical conclusion of our meeting; however, there was a continuation to it, a very unpredictable one, something I never dreamed about even in my recent multi-plot dreams.

Dolmat Fomich and I were the last to exit the Oak Hall; most book-lovers had left by then. I was going to turn right – the same direction as everybody else – towards Mayakovski and the cloak room, but Dolmat Fomich stopped me. “Not there, not there, here, please...”

There was one more door. “Please, come in. Welcome!” he opened this door for me. I entered it.

I found myself in an elongated dark broom closet with a thick curtain on the other end, opposite the door. Dolmat Fomich lifted the curtain.

There was a room there, of an ominous beauty, stylized after Dr Faustus study. The first thing that caught my eyes was a sumptuous stained-glass window: two lions holding a shield adorned with a golden crown, --- the coat of arms of the original owners of the house.

Some inebriated bearded individuals – local men of letters, -- united in a boisterous feast, were sitting around the tables; there was nothing on the tables but bottles of vodka.

The men of letters noticed us; the volume of their rumbling turned down, and in the sudden quietness we heard an unfriendly remark: “The activists are coming...” And even more unfriendly: “Book -lovers...”

I lingered: one of those characters was coming up at me, with a monstrously undefined facial expression; his intentions were undefined as well -- either to kiss me or to hit me in the eye. “Haven't we met somewhere,” he half stated, half asked, addressing my imaginary double that he saw standing next to me.

“Gena, don't you dare! ...You are getting in our way... Step aside!” protested Dolmat Fomich, walking backwards towards one more door and dragging me along into the adjacent hall.

He explained briefly, in an agitated voice: “Living classics... we can't manage to establish a contact with them...”

I was struck by the sight that opened to my eyes. It was a laid on dinner table. And the stuff it was laid on with....

“Gentlemen!” said professor Skvorlygin. “Isn't it time we started our dinner? Please, take your seats....”

My eyes found the exit, my feet were about to carry me towards it. Adieu --- and home, away from here.

I heard voices inviting me to sit down. I kept standing up, because from this position it was more comfortable to handle the bottle of Champagne that I was entrusted to uncork. I let myself to be carried along by the flow of events.

What was being eaten I was not competent enough to describe, although someone else who had thoroughly studied the “The Art of Cooking” of Vsevolod Ignatovich Terentiev could definitely shed some light on those enigmatic preparations.

“Julienne, mushrooms with estragon, -- don't you find it delicious?” recommended professor Skvorlygin.

Everybody found it delicious. Professor Skvorlygin was in seventh heaven: he was the one who had organized this dinner party. We raised our first toast to his report, his research and his success.

From time to time Larissa, the waitress, the embodiment of sisterly concern, would materialize at the table. “How is it going, boys? Are you getting full?” --

“Larissochka,” cooed ingratiatingly a middle-aged bibliophile with big side-burns, “you remind me of Anastasia Nikolaievna, the wife of Fiodor Sologub, the writer...”

But Larissa listened with much more attention to Skvorlygin. Bending over him, not too closely however, but just enough so that he had to stretch his neck; he whispered something into her ear, -- wasn't it the right time to serve the canapé?

“Is it a rule or an exception?” I asked Zoya Konstantinovna who was sitting next to me, -- the only woman in the Society.

Everyone was to name a forgotten nowadays author, and it had to be one from the second half of the 19^th century, and then it was compared who knew more about his works.

“Wake up,” said Zoya Nikolaievna in a sing-song voice. “You are losing your chance.”

“It seems to me I'm really sleeping and dreaming all this,” I admitted honestly.

“Really? It's a symptom of alcoholism.” She thought for a while and added: “Or a trauma. You are broken-hearted.”

“Actually, I was hit in the head not so long ago, and as to my heart, it seems to be in one piece. To you, Zoya Konstantinovna.”

“Tell me please, when you are looking at me, are you imagining a melody? Admit, there is an invisible orchestra playing music inside you, isn't it?”

“But isn't it true? Which musical instrument do you usually picture – a cello?”

(I'm totally ignorant about the musical instruments and their names... Well, I know violin.... then... what it's called.....harp?.... there are drums... But 'cello'?!...)

It looked like Zoya Konstantinovna was disappointed. In order not to upset her I said:

In a way it was true: after I sold Dostoyevski I was prone to a sort of polyphony...

“It depends who,” I answered vaguely; I wasn't inclined to share with her what my wife used to call me before forcing me out of my apartment...

“Alik, Alen'ka, Alionuchka...” fantasized Zoya; she was noticeably tipsy. “Oleg...Yes! Oleg. A remarkable name. Oleg Nikolaievich, I'm going to call you Oleg. Do you mind?”

In the meantime, my turn came to name a little known writer from the second part of the 19^th century. I didn't know any little known writers, so, just for fun, I gave the name of my ex-wife, maiden name, of course:

“Our Province in Olden Days”! Remembered Dolmat Fomich by sudden inspiration. “The whole trilogy. Did you forget?”

“And now,” addressed them Zoya Konstantinovna, “tell me where this comes from: 'There were times much worse...'”

They seemed to have played enough. Dolmat Fomich began to sum up. For some reason he named me the winner of the game. Why? It beat me, -- the rules of their game were beyond me. They applauded me. However, they denied Khvoshchinskaya the status of a 'little-known' writer, -- they said she was very well-known.

“Congratulations!” cooed Zoya Konstantinovna and put her both hands on my shoulders. “Well done!”

Strolling around the hall, conversing about this and that. One of them improvised on the piano, and some other two sang stanza.

“Recognize it? Lyrics by Miatlev...” said Semion Semionovich, walking past me.

The view was really enchanting: the Neva, the cruiser 'Aurora', a hotel – either 'Petersburg', or 'Leningrad', -- it was in the process of renaming.

Then they drank coffee with cakes. Professor Skvorlygin was talking about the diseases of primitive men, about the bones he studied, about the irrefutable fact that there wasn't a science in the world more interesting than paleopathology.

October in Petersburg is the month of foul weather. Humid, rainy, dog poop everywhere... In olden days it used to be called the month of falling leaves. Or the month of the music of the trees. Nowadays the only suitable name for it can be 'the month of rotting leaves', and a different sort of music is heard in the city. A brass band is playing at the train station, accompanied by the rustling of rubles falling into an open suitcase: music to order – whatever one wishes. At Sennaya square – a much smaller and less harmonious orchestra entertains the audience: the mayor Sobchak is talking about his plans of finally finishing the construction of the new metro station and an underpass across the square. Signboards in foreign languages are everywhere at the Nevski. Near the Yeliseevski delicatessen shop music resonates off the windows, mostly of the type that kindles patriotic feelings of passing by Americans. But tourists aren't numerous -- it's out of season. And besides, we haven't recovered yet after the putsch. Tourists are simply afraid to come.

Near the department store a demented goggle-eyed dwarf with a cigar in the corner of his turned inside out lips is hitting the cords of a cracked guitar and is shrieking at the top of his voice, twitching convulsively. A crowd of gapers surrounds him; some of them are laughing, others aren't laughing at all.

There aren't any leaves at the waterfront of the Moika – the trees were cut down. With a saw. Those were lindens, I remember it very well. Once in the springtime we thought up a new recipe – a linden-tree leaves salad with sour cream, an extravagant hors d'oeuvre that was served at the birthday party of the artist B. He celebrated his 30^th birthday in the studio that he rented together with three other artists.

Not far from the studio there used to be a canal called Vedenski. It has been filled up. But the street by the same name remained. It runs along the drab-looking wall of the Medical Military academy; a beer stand is protruding from it like a huge wart. Beer is sold till midnight. After it's closed, some customers don't leave but stay to wait for it to be open in the morning. They accommodate themselves comfortably on the piles of rotting leaves. Nights are getting colder.

“Why don't you pick up the drunks, they'll freeze to death!” said with indignation Ekaterina Lvovna, addressing the invisible men in power; she wasn't fully sober herself.

Otherwise she was satisfied with the new authorities. Her sandwich business was thriving. She had found an associate, a retired major who drank; he was someone she could talk to, especially about politics. They watched the news together and then enthusiastically discussed them; luckily the sale of her possessions stopped before it reached the TV set. On top of it there was the cook book from the library of the late Vsevolod Ivanovich Terentiev; it would be too disrespectful to keep the object of such outstanding importance somewhere in the loft. On the other hand, it was risky to keep it in Ekaterina Lvovna's reach – it could end up at the flea market. However, my apprehension dissipated in the rays of her earnest reverence for this book.

I didn't believe there was any meaning left either within myself, or outside of myself, not among the total decline and decay; but this book, the fundamental work peacefully sitting on top of the TV, hinted at the existence of absolute constants that outlasted the obliteration of major human values and kept the world from falling apart, in spite of everything.

What was really odd: in those troubled days when shops were so completely empty that sugar, oil, grains and tea weren't obtainable even with food cards, the demand for cook books rapidly went up, -- just like during the period of military communism the most widely read kind of literature was poetry.

Published in fragments, the cook book by Elena Molokhovets was being sold at all newsstands; it went like hot pies; so did 'Spiritual Values of Spirits', 'Dietetic Strategy of Newlyweds' and 'Benefits of Raw-Eating'.

As a survivor of marginal bibliophily and culinary obscurantism I find this trend amusing, but back then, every time I was looking at the screen of my landlady's TV joyfully announcing the latest collapse of one more structure of the fallen empire, I was vaguely aware of the heavy weight of Stalin's 'The Art of Cooking' pending over the heads of far-sighted journalists.

Ekaterina Lvovna sensed it and didn't like it. She remarked: “You are broody. And you dislike dogs. It's not good. You have become angry.”

There were many things she didn't like about me: I lost interest to Sennaya square; I didn't become her associate; I didn't want to drink with her retired major. I didn't read 'Izvestia'. My imaginary affair with her enterprising niece staying in my apartment worried her a great deal, especially because she didn't know what to make of it, -- bound by my word I couldn't tell her anything. She suspected me to be a member of a clandestine subversive group, a 'communofascist' – such was a label for everyone who 'wasn't with us'. And all that because I didn't watch TV and wasn't bursting to go into action.

She defended from me the sacred idea of democracy personified in the edematous face of Russia's first president; the fervor of this defense grew proportionately to my intention -- pictured in her mind – to force upon her my love for oligarchy.

“What do dogs have to do with democracy?” Her voice full of indignation reached me through my sleep in the loft. “Didn't dogs poop before the putsch?”

“And he says they didn't. That it's only begun now... And when was the putsch? In the end of the summer. Most dogs were out of the city for the summer... On holiday.... That's why there wasn't much poop.... They were brought back after the putsch, and so they poop.... And he says..........”

I couldn't get it. I couldn't get why she was convinced that I hated dogs? Was it because I told her my dream about Elvira, that I was going to butcher her?... Stupid of me... I found a wrong person to tell it to... What for?

Lies! You went through my notes, silly woman! The notes were mine, but not the poetry...

The ironic remark about principles of choosing meat in the conditions of the absence of choice is followed by an unsophisticated, adapted to the circumstances recipe of a roast-beef.

I was still sleeping. The most absurd dreams are dreamed in the morning. I was walking on stilts in the Summer Garden (a park in Petersburg), sliding on slippery fallen leaves. The stilts caved in under my weight, they seemed to be made of some

flexible material, not wood. I never walked on stilts. My walking was accompanied by whistling. The whistling gradually transformed into a door bell.

Half awake, buttoning up and hoping that it wasn't for me, I stumbled towards the door.

I was confused by the fact that she was a courier. Probably from my wife. Summons to the court of law...

“Dolmat Fomich asked me to pick up the article for the newsletter. You know him, don't you?”

“Article?.... Yes. Two articles... I could deliver them myself, you shouldn't have bothered....”

“I do... And then, don't worry about me, I wasn't fatigued by coming here. You are my first...” he hesitated, “not client... but how to put it? ...Customer?”

“In a hurry, in a hurry....” echoed in my mind as I was climbing up to my loft. Up there, on my mattress, there weren't any notes. And under the mattress – neither.

I concentrated trying to recall where I could have put them and if they existed at all.

I climbed down, opened the book – here they were: between the inset with a caption 'Veal' and another inset with a caption 'Pork'. But what illegible handwriting! What scrawls! What was I thinking about when I scribbled it?

“It'll do,” said the courier, rolled the notes up and stuck them carelessly into her pocket.

Well, it wasn't a masterpiece, of course, but she could have been more careful with it...

“But you are a courier. Let me do it!” I made an attempt to take it from her.

“I don't know. They have been trying to publish it for a long time. Didn't have enough material.”

“Please tell me, Yulia, what's the time? My clock stopped...” (all gone, all gone...)

“Not true. I'm awake,” I said and shook my head to show that I wasn't sleepy.”

“The same place, the Oak Hall. By the way, Dolmat Fomich asked to tell you that you have been granted access to the writers' library. So that you could work. See you.”

Well, it was called 'so that I could work', as they put it. I didn't know if Dolmat Fomich had any idea about my situation, only I really didn't have any books – except for Terentiev's copy of 'The Art of Cooking'. Even for 'Eugene Onegin' I had to go someplace, and now I was really going, and not just 'someplace', but to the writers' library. This is how far the grasp of my patron's influence reached.

A nice-looking woman gave me my library card, it was already filled out, I only had to sign it. She didn't ask any more questions. But I did:

“No, of course not. You don't belong to the Union of Writers. Your society is entitled only to three cards.”

“Dead,” agreed the librarian. “In this case, you aren't the second, but the first. There are two more vacancies. But actually it's not our business. The Union of Writers and your Society are independent from each other. What are you going to read?”

I was sitting at the round redwood table – alone, in the quiet of the cozy palace room with antique furnishings, surrounded by Brokhause and Efron, Sytin and Suvorov, complete “All Petersburg”, absolutely complete “Picturesque Russia”, -- hundreds of special edition volumes, and among all this luxury I was leafing through the eighth grade reader! I remembered: I was being paid for it. It was alike to a marriage of convenience.

I thought about Dostoyevski: his characters don't eat much, they mostly have tea.

I remembered that the general – one of Zamiatin's characters – used to cook French fries.

Then I thought about others authors, their characters and their characters' eating habits.

“Look here,” said Dolmat Fomich, passing to professor Skvorlygin two typewritten pages.

“Let me see, let me see,” mumbled the professor fumbling impatiently for his reading glasses; with the glasses finally on his nose, he became absorbed in reading; from time time he smacked his lips.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

“Money is expensive but kalach^¹ is cheap” Well, well, well. Nowadays it's just the opposite. But still, a living soul asks for kalach. Why not to try:

Take 8 cups flour, 2.5 cups milk, 1.5 packets of margarine, 1.5 cups sugar, 5 eggs, 1 teaspoon salt, 0.5 packets yeast.

Dissolve yeast and half the amount of flour in warmed up milk. Add the rest of ingredients, knead well, and put into....................................................................................................................................

Krendel is a kind of kalach. It differs from kalach in its shape and by additions: 0.5 cups almonds, 1 cup raisins, 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon. In case you don't have food cards to obtain all this stuff, we recommend:

Take 1 cup flour, 1 cup milk, 1 cup sugar, 1 cup kefir, 1 egg, 0.5 teaspoon baking soda – neutralize with vinegar, 2-3 tablespoons cocoa .........................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

“I think it's superb,” said professor Skvorlygin. “He even found a matching proverb! And such an elegant ending – 'And enjoy it'. Such simple words and so accurate, expressive and in place!”

“I like the 'and',” said Dolmat Fomich. “Note, it's not simply 'enjoy it', but with 'and' – 'and enjoy it'. Such an elegant natural intoning! Well done, well done! The best item in the issue, no matter at what angle you look at it!”

“My friend!” professor Skvorlygin was fervently shaking my hand . “Accept my most sincere congratulations!”

It wasn't that I was nostalgic for my apartment, and not that I was bothered by my homelessness, and not that the major got on my nerve with his whimsies; simply in my present position I needed a suit; the only place where I could get it was my apartment, so I went there.

I suspected it as soon as I saw traces of chalk on the stairs. I kept ringing the doorbell -- its sound was drowned in the roaring of the vacuum-cleaner coming from the inside. Finally, I heard footsteps and the lock turning -- it was Valera who answered the door. He was wearing a newspaper hat and was all covered with chalk.

My room was all torn down; in the middle of it was a ladder – they were whitewashing the ceiling.

“Everyone has to make their house into their home,” resounded Nadiezhda's voice from the top of the ladder.

“Of course it's yours... To a certain extent yours... But not just yours. It's your wife's too. And ours.”

“I'm explaining. Firstly, since you are picking at words, I'll say, firstly, yes, strictly speaking, it isn't right to talk about this place in terms of 'yours', 'mine', 'ours' and so on. This place isn't completely yours, and isn't completely ours. And as for you, Oleg, you are only registered in here, and the institution of registration has outlived itself and soon is going to be abolished, just like all other institutions of social constraint, and soon will be obliterated from the public memory.. And only after privatization,” Valera put a special emphasis on this word, “only after privatization it will be possible to talk about this particular apartment as somebody's property. Don't interrupt.

Fourthly, if not us, then who? Can you do anything practical as a home owner, anything at all?”

“But I had simply let you stay for a while! I just loaned you the key!” I exclaimed.

“He will, he will... One more week with his wife, -- and then he'll learn. She'll eat him, she'll eat him alive...”

“I heard,” said I spitefully, “that a pedigree dog is entitled to a room of its own. That's who'll own this room.”

“I don't know about dogs, but I personally have some privileges too,” replied Valera.

“We were defending Petrosovet (the city council) – it is equated to the defense of the White House.”

“Exactly. No one attempted to attack it because we were defending it,” retorted Valera.

“On the other hand,” he continued to reason, “it is possible to get along with your multifaceted wife, -- she can be difficult, yes, but if one has enough good will... She's a practical woman, self-assertive...”

“She's sleeping in the kitchen. Wait, Oleg, there is one more scenario. Don't get excited. I'm going to marry your wife. Fictitiously.”

“You mean yourself? We weren't going to involve you. It's much simpler without you.”

“Of course. It can be done in one hour. All you need is money and a trusted person. Do you know how much is a death certificate?”

“Don't scare him,” showing some concern Nadiezhda. “You see, he turned pale.”

“Easy as pie,” continued Valera. “I have a friend at the registry office, we were together at the barricades. We register you as a deceased – fictitiously, of course. Your wife, or widow, to be accurate, fictitiously marries me. She is the tenant in charge, I am her husband. We together privatize the apartment, then rent it out or sell it. You get a share in profits. And Nadia and I get a percentage for our trouble, we don't ask for more.”

“Well, and if you think you are smart, then do something before you wife gets all the paperwork done, -- without you and me. You, smart Aleck, didn't stir a finger to legalize your divorce in time!”

“Why do you think anyone wants you dead! No one does, you can be sure. Or maybe you think I covet your wife?... Maybe you are jealous? Don't be... Do you really think I'm soliciting your wife?”

“He isn't,” said Nadiezhda hugging him. “He's mine. Aren't you, Valerochka?”

“I didn't really have to tell you anything,” said Valera, freeing himself from her arms. “You wouldn't have known anything. It's just a document, a piece of paper! What does it matter!”

“Everything! Why do you need to marry fictitiously? Why do I have to die fictitiously? It's absurd, it's preposterous!”

“No, dear friend, it's absurd not to react adequately to circumstances and possibilities, not to see a good chance in all of it! Look what's going on! Everything has become possible, you can get any paper, any document imaginable! And a month or two later you may have to knock yourself over, and for nothing, no money will be useful without a right person to give it to!”

“What do I need your paper for?!” I yelled. “And then, am I going to sleep in the loft forever?”

“That'll be great when she does it! But I won't wait for it! I'll leave before it!”

“Where will you go?” asked Valera with concern in his voice. “You don't have to do anything radical!”

I remembered why I came here. I opened the closet -- it was stuffed with dresses and blouses.

I went to the kitchen. Right, my suit was there, -- they had moved the coat rack from the foyer. Elvira snarled at me.

“Are you nuts? This is what I wear!” He pointed at his working clothes stained with chalk.

“Oleg! You'll sell it at the flea market anyway! You have given up on yourself! You were seen at Sennaya, selling cactuses!”

“Here it is, no one is going to keep it. If you want to be a salesman, you can come to us. We need some. A necktie is not obligatory. Look,” he showed me a pile of wallpaper, namely a pile and not a roll; those were rectangular sheets of wallpaper with bluish-gray design stylized as polished marble. “I put it in the foyer. And I'm going to put it here too.”

“Yes, it is. We make it ourselves. We pour petrol into a tub, then a thick layer of oil paint, then put this paper at the top so that it floats...The oil gets absorbed, then we take the paper out, dry it, air it....”

“What dissertation, Oleg Nikolayevich? You see what times we are living through!....To hell with dissertation!”

The general took a lemon and squeezed it on the potato wedges. Andrei Ivanovich mustered his courage and asked:

“Ho-o-o-w is it 'what for'?” he roared. “Without a lemon it is a travesty! First you sprinkle it, then dry, then deep fry in oil.... And it's a masterpiece, a pearl, a Rafaello! Ah, that's beyond you...”

Following the general's advice, let's take a lemon, 800 grams potatoes....................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................( from the same source -- “The Art of Cooking”)................................................................................

“Brilliant!” admired Dolmat Fomich. “Superbly expressed! It makes me salivate, that's how superb it is! You are excellent!”

“Well, you know, it was Zamiatin who wrote it, 'At the World's End'. I have nothing to do with it.”

“No, Oleg Nikolaievich, it's you who are our greatest success and not Zamiatin. Zamiatin is all in the past, and you are our present, our now. I'm very satisfied with you.”

“Why would I be kidding? I'm encouraging you, and not kidding. 'Encouragement is vital to a talent...' like what?”

“Everything. You know how to work with a text, with quotations... Such ability is in short supply nowadays, knowing how to find, enliven, correlate, how to reanimate! How to preserve the spirit of the literary work. It requires a talent, a certain talent. And you have it. Tell me please, are there many people nowadays who can work with quotations?”

We had just finished our meal of stuffed egg-plants with cream sauce and were strolling around the dinner hall. Tonight's lecture was about the specific problems of aging of book glue and paper.

“Dolmat Fomich, please do not think that I am too ambitious and can't wait for all of it to be published, but please, help me solve this riddle, satisfy my curiosity... how is it all working... Why? You have just paid me my fifth honorarium, but where is the newspaper? Not a single issue has been published yet...”

“Don't rush the events, Oleg Nikolaievich. The newspaper exists, and its existence is defined not by whether it's been or hasn't been published, but by the mere fact of its existence. 'Our Common Friend' hasn't been published yet, that's true, but it exists. It has been brought into general use in the form of an idea. Therefore, no one can claim its non-existence. It exists, and that's all.”

“One should eat thoroughly chewing on the food,” stated Semion Semionovich walking past us.

“Now I'm working on grains and flour of various grains. I'm going to tell the readers of 'Our Common Friend' about barley flour dumplings. There is a classical scene in the novelette by Nikolai Nikolaievich Gogol 'The Night Before Christmas'.”

“With dumplings....” couldn't contain himself Dolmat Fomich. “with dumplings! It is just so wonderful! With dumplings!...”

“Don't forget,” reminded professor Skvorlygin, “dumplings are especially good with sour milk.”

“They go just fine with fresh milk,” softly disagreed Dolmat Fomich. “Personally I prefer them with fresh milk.”

“And how do you like your dumplings?” dreamily asked professor Skvorlygin. “As an independent dish or as a side dish to meat?”

“Meat?” asked to repeat Dolmat Fomich and for some strange reason shook his finger at him. “No, give me a break. An independent dish, of course. And you?”

Both of them projected indescribable joy, their eyes reflected wolfish appetite; they were looking at me with such hunger as if I were a dumpling.

“And what about stuffed dumplings we were discussing before?” remembered the professor.

“In our case they will be stuffed with apples. Besides, I'm going to talk about pelmeni^¹ in omelet.”

“Do you remember Belinski's words?” asked all of a sudden Dolmat Fomich. “Sir Gogol's poetical reveries. This is where poetry is. This is truly poetical!”

“The top of all poetry!” sighed professor Skvorlygin. “Wait, Dolmat Fomich, you have, if I'm not mistaken, the life-time edition of 'The Evenings'^²!”

“No, you exaggerate,” said modestly Dolmat Fomich. “All I have is a title page. The title page from the second edition, in a good condition, though...There is a stamp on it – 'The Union of workers of starch and molasses industry and brewing'. This is the crown of my collection. The 1834 edition, revised by Gogol.”

“Yes, but censorship permission was from 1834. November. The 10^th of November.”

“And with all this, I'd like more poetry, poems, good poems... Iambus...Trochee....”

“Here, for example, in Nekrasov's 'Contemporary' is mentioned a salad. Isn't it a good reason to talk about hors-d'oeuvre? Remember this, Oleg Nikolaievich: 'I'll invent a new hot dog every day, I'll dare to create a salad...'”

“It's fantastic!” exclaimed Dolmat Fomich, and slapped himself on his chest, where his heart – or, more precisely -- the inner pocket of his jacket was: he had obviously recalled something.

“It's fantastic! You'll be surprised, my friends, but this poem... the one you've just mentioned, professor...this poem – here it is!” and like a true magician, he clicked his fingers and produced from the inner pocket of his jacket a small volume of Nekrasov:

N.A.Nekrasov, 'The Last Songs' published in Moscow, by 'Nauka' (Science) publishing house, 1974. Later, I studied this book thoroughly from cover to cover.” “What do you think?” he asked triumphantly.

“And here is a bookmark,” said Dolmat Fomich, happy to find one more coincidence, “at exactly the same page!”

“Well, it's fate, Oleg Nikolaievich, it is fate! Take it, take it now,” and he put the book into my hand. Thus I was standing there, wordless in my bewilderment.

Zoya Konstantinovna who was sitting at the piano getting ready to play, suddenly burst into laughter; she was overfilled with joy.

“I'm a specialist in bones,” addressed professor Skvorlygin everyone. “I could tell you a lot about bones. But not at the dinner table. Next time.”

The quarrelsome went on quarreling, the uncompromising kept resisting compromises. Their battlefield was public transportation, especially trolley-buses and trams, especially at the rush hour. Especially feared were instigators – or simply scandalmongers – who fed on people's negative emotions like vampires. The truth about them and the mere fact of their existence were suppressed by communists. Now it was written in newspapers. Also, there was a daring program on TV on this subject; Ekaterina Lvovna related it to me in not such a daring voice – she still suspected me to be 'one of them'. Her fear was unfounded: I wasn't. I remember an instructive advice of V. Prohvatilov, a writer: mentally bandage yourself head to toe at the very first signs of the closeness of such a vampire. And at any rate don't get into an argument with him, don't answer, let him boil.

Extremely unpleasant sight. An old woman. She was shouting swear words, like demented. Most likely she was demented – emaciated, in a faded coat. She started with cursing the State Committee of Extraordinary Events, then turned her attention to those present. The passengers, being called names – 'assholes', 'idiots' etc. -- prudently kept silence, bandaged head to toe. Everybody was getting his share, not just the passengers. President Bush, together with our comrades Yeltsin and Gorbachov, wasn't spared either. Bush-Yeltsin-Gorbachov, a three-headed monster, seemed to be with us on the trolley-bus, so vividly she was cursing it. But why was she cursing us, new country's new citizens with newly changed mentality?

I should have kept quiet, but I couldn't. Didn't want to. Even though it was clearly a clinical nut case.

And I couldn't because she was addressing not an abstract face in the emptiness of her mental space, but a very concrete face, or rather the back of that face, because she (the stranger, not the madwoman) turned her face towards the window and was looking through it while the madwoman kept cursing.

In other words, I decided to protect the stranger in a red scarf. It was against all the rules. It meant getting involved. So what. I wasn't bandaged anyway. So I said:

“Quiet, grandma, there are spies everywhere!” And that's all. I didn't mean to sound like an oracle. But every one shuddered. And that one went silent. Ominously.

The stranger in a red scarf turned around, looked at me with what I would like to interpret as gratitude, but being a realist I couldn't miss some irony and even mockery in her eyes. And she said: “Hello.” It surprised me. Strange girl, I thought, strange but good.

“It was an extremely perspicacious observation,” said the passenger standing next to me. “There are spies everywhere. In the government and everywhere. Spies and traitors. Treachery everywhere.”

He jerked as if poked in his ribs, and immediately got off (the trolley-bus had just stopped).

It was quiet while people were getting off and on, but as soon as the trolley-bus moved on, the madwoman resumed her curses. Now she was addressing me directly.

“Don't pay attention,” said the beautiful stranger in a red scarf. “It happens.”

The trolley-bus stopped. The driver announced that he wasn't going to follow the route, but would go back, following route 17, to the depot. Passengers were getting off, some were grumbling, but the majority was submissive and uncomplaining. The old woman was now reviling the driver who left his seat and stood in front of her trying to persuade her to get off. “You can kill me – I won't! Kill me, kill me!” She sat firmly and wouldn't stir. The driver started the trolley-bus and drove off, with the only passenger on board whom he was taking somewhere along route 17 – either to the depot, or to kill.

It was drizzling. We stood by the Delvig's house that was sticking out like a rotten tooth.

She wouldn't leave, and I wouldn't. It seemed to me that it had already happened to me once – maybe here, at the trolley-bus stop. I introduced myself:

“What 'really'?” This 'really' made me hesitate for a moment if I really was who I said I was, if I really was Oleg. “Don't you like the name Oleg?”

Yulia. The courier from 'Our Common Friend.' She. Herself. It was monstrous. In blood and flesh and not recognized. Not recognized by me. She.

Flabbergasted by my own forgetfulness I mumbled silly excuses about her new hairdo which wasn't really new but only covered under the hood and the scarf. But there was something new about her, and this new outshined everything I had noticed in her the first time.

I must have been totally in power of her image – the Yulia I had met only once – because I dreamed about her. Yes, I had a dream.

“I came the day before yesterday, you weren't at home,” as if trying to justify herself said Yulia (although I heard some jeering notes in her voice). “Your neighbor gave it to me.”

My neighbor gave her my drafts about mackerel fried with tomato paste and boiled crayfish. My neighbor knows better than I where I keep my stuff. The same night, as if trying to make up for our missing each other she came to my dreams. And those dreams were so daring that they might not be about the same Yulia standing here next to me. Nevertheless I said:

“Something obscene,” she concluded sarcastically, and she was almost right. Although it depends what should be considered obscene.

I felt agitated. Or maybe excited. No matter how hard I tried to tune myself up to her her placidly mocking tone, inside me was pounding with all its might the negation of this encounter as a coincidence, joined by a vague premonition of fate.

And every detail of our encounter seemed fateful: that she was sent to pick up my articles (a mission without any weight, let's admit it), and that the old madwoman on the trolleybus in such a mad way betrothed us with her mad cursing, -- I interpreted everything as a sign.

Yulia very reasonably replied to it that there are many more coincidences in life than we are capable of perceiving. In my turn, I very reasonably replied that it depends how we look at it, maybe everything is one great coincidence.

“And there was a salad, a salad made of young linden leaves!” Why did I mention the salad, it's not essential. No need to stir in all this culinary nonsense.

I was stunned. We were looking into each other's eyes, stunned. And in her dilated irises I saw everything that could be comprehended in a fraction of a moment and could exist only for a moment. And then it passed. It left without a trace. It vanished.

The traffic was as usual, and a street musician was playing an accordion, and there was a whiff of rotten potatoes coming from Kuznechnyi market.

“I should be going, I have an appointment,” said Yulia. “I hope to see you the day after tomorrow.”

“Dolmat invited you, I should have told you at once. Dolmat is inviting everyone. They want to do it at home. The meeting. Dinner and everything. You have the address, don't you?”

“Tomorrow,” said Yulia, “I'm supposed to deliver you, Oleg Nikolaievich, an official invitation to the meeting on the day after tomorrow.”

I was late, his hours were over. The nurse, a thin elderly lady with a cleft lip, wouldn't let me into the office.

I'm an obedient person, I came because I was told in the hospital to see a neurologist in a month or two. Do I really have to? Maybe I don't.

“Excuse me, I have a question. I was directed here from the hospital, I had a brain concussion. I don't have any complaints, I'm perfectly fine, do I have to come or are you discharging me completely?”

The neurologist was sitting at his desk, in front of him was a box of modeling clay: he was shaping figurines of animals.

I shut the door and went away. To hell with them. I was already on the stairs when I heard: “Wait!” -- the doctor, the same one, bald and squat, was running after me, nearly falling out of his smock.

I followed him. The nurse in the office was zipping up her boots, getting ready to leave.

“Lidia Vladislavovna, I'll have a word with the young man, you can go, only, before you leave, please, dear, could write for me, that is for him, a couple of orders for blood analysis....and urine would be good to have checked, you don't mind?” he asked me.

“I want to know everything,” said the neurologist washing his hands over the sink. He giggled. “Mornings, till 10:30, any day....the first floor, room 12...”

I did everything he asked me to: let him kick my knee with a hammer, followed the same hammer with my eyes, stood with my eyes closed and arms outstretched.

Lidia Vladislavovna left. She tiptoed past us without saying good-bye, without betraying her presence, and moreover, absence, in any way. As if she wasn't there at all. And she wasn't because she left.

“Any giddiness, dizziness?... Do you sleep well?...Well is well.... And what's bad?”

“No, not at all. But they are sort of embossed. I never had such dreams before.”

He sprawled in the chair, making himself comfortable, getting ready to listen to me.

So I told him everything he wanted to hear. Of course, I didn't share with him my dream about Yulia, I recounted another one, about Africa: my trip to Madagaskar together with 4 Chinese people.

The doctor listened attentively with his eyes closed; from time to time he would smile, or frown, or sigh heavily; he made an impression of living through all my adventures.

“Life is boring,” agreed the neurologist. “Thank you. Could you tell me a couple more?”

“It's fascinating,” he said dreamily. “And I don't have any dreams. And if I do, it's all rubbish,” he winced. “Imagine, a telegraph pole, an ironing board... What would it mean?...”

How could I know what symbolism can be hidden in an ironing board? I'm not Freud.

“And how's your liver?” asked the neurologist and assumed the usual posture of a doctor at work.

“Ah, friend, it's all wrong!...” got angry Ulteriormotivenko moving the scale slides. “How should I interpret it? You are underweighed at least 5 kilos?... They are neglecting you, our comrades gentlemen!”

The neurologist sat at the desk and started writing something energetically, but not in my medical card, - in his journal.

“OK, let's not beat around the bush,” said Ulteriormotivenko putting his pen aside. “I know a lot about you, Oleg Nikolaievich, I know so much you can't imagine. Skvorlygin talked for hours about you....”

“It's a small world, my friend. And the world of medicine is even smaller...”

“Diseases of primitive men!” mimicked me the doctor. “What do you know about diseases? Paleopathology is only one step and a half from neuropathology. But let's not get into it. Would you like some coffee?”

“Only good things. He appreciates you. It's good you don't drink coffee, there is only harm in it. Especially in instant coffee... I also know Dolmat, and Mukomolov..”

He made a vague movement with his head – not an affirmation, not a negation, but a slantwise motion:

The water tap groaned as if in confirmation of his words – the gasket obviously needed attention.

“You need some rest, my friend, you should go to the sea...Sunbathing, fresh sea air...Sea gulls cry, and you are on a ship...like an argonaut, Jason sort of...huh?...Far over there – the shore of Taurida, and the shore of Ellada, rocky islands!....Cyprus...Rhodes....the Pyrenees.... What else about it? Aha, the cradle of civilization! Yes, my friend!...And the ship is so white, and the deck is so clean, and the food so delicious...And women... such women!.....And music!...You didn't tell me about music... I mean your incomparable dreams... you do dream about music, don't you?”

“But it's not only in your dreams that you hear it, it also appears to you, doesn't it?”

“I wouldn't say it appears; these aren't hallucinations. It simply sounds inside me; that's all.”

“And this is happening to you despite your total lack of musical ear, and you are unable to carry a simplest tune.”

“Yes, you are right. I'm like Beethoven, only Beethoven was physically deaf, and I am musically deaf....”

“Perfectly put! Excellent!... Listen, my friend, I'm going to be extremely open with you: I have a chronic prostatitis, terribly neglected. Don't be surprised, if I'm a doctor, it doesn't mean that I can't be sick... I can... What am I aiming at? I have a constant itch in my crotch, unending. It itches when I have tea, and it itches when I listen to an opera, and when I'm talking to you, right now, -- it itches, itches, itches.... Tell me please, is it the same with your music? There is something in common, isn't it?”

“I do not compare. I'm not talking about aesthetics, I'm talking about the nature of perception... there is some analogy, isn't it?”

“I think yes.” Trying to convince himself said Ulteriormotivenko.”By the way, what about your urino-genital system? Is it in order?”

“But you can confide in me, I'm a doctor, I won't tell anyone... I know your marriage is rocky.... When did you last have an intercourse?”

“Thank God,” said the neurologist. “Do not drink. Do not smoke, air your room every day, make it a rule to take a stroll every evening, eat more vegetables, more vitamins, buy cranberries, they are in season now, remember – you owe me your blood and urine, come to see me whenever you feel like, I'll see you any time. And one more thing. Do not tell anyone about our conversation.”

The front door banged behind my back, and I found myself in pitch black darkness.

My hand was groping for the railing, my foot was searching for steps. In vain. Neither one found either one. I had to walk backwards in order to push the door with my back, just a bit – enough to throw some light on my surroundings. There wasn't much light anyway, but at least I could get an idea about where I was. Luckily I didn't fall into the basement.

I calculated the direction and – bang! -- started my assent. I didn't even have matches. All respectable citizens carried flashlights those days.

I got as far as the second floor when a door opened on the third. “Oleg, is it you?” asked Yulia's voice.

“Hoodlums keep stealing the bulbs...I heard you crashing down there... Look out.”

I came the last not because of her, but, in general, I came because of her. Hadn't she been here, I wouldn't have come at all. I was afraid she wouldn't be here.

“Our staircase is always dark too,” I said. “As soon as I screw a bulb in, they unscrew it.” (Honestly speaking, I never screwed them in – and never unscrewed.)

“Over there.” She carelessly waved her hand in the direction of the living room.

“Listen, Yulia, do you know how to tie a tie? I forgot how to do it. Completely.”

I took the tie out of my pocket. I truly forgot. There wasn't any ulterior motive in my request.

Not everybody was in the living-room. Two of them were in the kitchen. Cooking. Both of them were wearing aprons, and both of them stared at me curious about who I was.

“It's Oleg Nikolaievich,” introduced me Yulia, taking me along the kitchen and into a narrow corridor.

Those two and I exchanged bows. Except for them and Yulia nobody knew about my arrival.

We entered a room. Yulia turned the light on. It was a bedroom. A three-leaved mirror by the wall, a nude on another wall - pink, fleshy, and voluptuous.

The curtains weren't drawn. I looked out: a view of Zagorodny avenue in between two buildings. In the foreground – a dark backyard, in the background – traffic, passersby, luminescent shop windows.

A small discovery: “Look,” I pointed at the ventilation pane. “It's like in Moscow. Opens on the outside.”

“In Moscow it opens on the outside, and in Petersburg – on the inside. I've never seen it here to open on the outside.”

Let's begin. In the wave of her perfume I stretched out my neck; her fingers fluttered about it; they smelled with green coriander – she must have been working in the kitchen before I came.

“Now at Sennaya square they even sell burnt out bulbs,” I continued the topic 'bulbs'.

“Those who steal them. Very handy... They take out a good bulb and put a burnt out one in its place. And it appears as if it burnt out by itself... And they keep the good one for themselves.”

“Don't squirm,” said Yulia. She concentrated. Two vertical wrinkles appeared on the bridge of her nose, her lips moved as if she was going to whistle but then changed her mind.

In one of the them there wasn't anybody, in the second mirror she was tying my tie – and a mirror wasn't necessary at all for this procedure; the third one displayed the view from the back (her back) – a one-sided hug: she clings to his chest, and he, like a statue of a universal soldier, stands to attention and stretches his neck upwards.

Exactly. I put my hands on her waist, -- for the balance. The composition in the mirrors began to acquire some sense. Yulia, with her head thrown backwards, looking intently at the resilient tie, deep in thought, asked quietly:

“Like this?” There was the usual mixture of mockery and concern in her voice.

“Because there are circumstances,” she replied in a sing song voice, resisting my embrace only as much as her manipulations with my tie required. And she was noticeably losing her interest to it. She couldn't tie it anyway.

“Where to hell?” I asked barely hearing my voice in the background of the pounding of my heart.

I went to the window and threw the tie into the ventilation pane. To hell. Into the Moscow style ventilation pane of Dolmat Fomich.

“The host's wife is going to be in trouble,” said Yulia looking at the hanging tie.

“Maybe we should push that tie with something so that it falls?” I suggested.

We went out of the room. The hallway was teeming with bibliophiles. The colloquium had ended. It was time for spontaneous and natural conversations.

In the hallway I ran into Zoya Konstantinovna. It was her voice calling out: “Yulia! Yulia!”

“Yulia!...” she started and cut herself short when she saw me. “Oleg Nikolaievich, you, here?”

“We have been waiting for you, and you, all this time, here, in this room...” she couldn't come to her senses.

“Yulia was helping me...” I realized I couldn't continue. The absence of a tie would render useless the explanation referring to tying it. And, besides, did I really owe her an explanation?

“Oleg Nikolaievich, good evening!” cordially greeted me a bibliophile whom I barely knew.

“Oh, who's visiting us! Oleg Nikolaievich!” exclaimed another one gleefully.

“Oleg Nikolaievich!...Oleg Nikolaievich!...” welcomed me friendly voices from all sides.

Dolmat Fomich, hearing my name, ran out of one of the rooms; unable to conceal his joy he hugged me.

“Why are we standing here in the foyer? Come on in, come on in,” he led me into the room full of bibliophiles and books (books, books, everywhere, on the shelves....). “I was afraid you wouldn't come....Gentlemen, do you remember him?”

In no time I found myself involved in a lively conversation. The essence of Joyce's tragedy. (And where was its essence?)--- The cost of paper...(And how much did it cost?) --- Solzhenitsyn is about to return to Russia...(And really, he returned soon after that!)

I kept glancing at the table. Delicatessen... Fruit especially... and pineapple.

“Excuse me, I haven't shown you my treasures yet,” remembered suddenly Dolmat Fomich. “Look!”

Here, on the title page of 'The Island of Sakhalin', is a round stamp: Ust'-Izhorsk plywood factory 'Bolshevik'. Special life-time edition.

And here is an ellipsoid stamp of the Institute of Chronic tuberculosis and the Diseases of Bones and Joints; it adorns the title page of the first edition of the novel 'Ingots'. (A present from Skvorlygin).

And here is a square stamp of a cooperative association of producers of shoe wax; the stamp dates to 1935 – it is marked with a pencil on its left; it is stamped on the title page of the book 'The Indigence of Our Literature' by N.N.Strakhov, S.-Petersburg, 1868; what unknown quirk of events brought it into possession of the producers of shoe wax?

A triangular stamp 'Red Paper Bagger' on the book 'Hors-d'oeuvre and Snacks'; it is especially remarkable for the reason that at the moment when the book was published the paper bag factory had been closed down.

I didn't feel like guessing anything. I didn't have the slightest interest in sphragistics.

“That would be too good. It's impossible to acquire everything,” grinned Dolmat Fomich.

It was Zoya Konstantinovna. She wanted me in the kitchen for something. I excused myself.

Those two in the kitchen (the one with a beard – wasn't he Mukomolov?) made a herring vegetable salad. They stood admiring their own work. Yulia was washing a huge pot in the sink. She was unhappy with something and didn't even look at me – just the opposite: turned away. Zoya Konstantinovna, instead, was very considerate towards me. She took me by hand and led me to the table.

On the table was a wondrous gadget – guillotine-like and multi-bladed, in the state of readiness. The first in line for an execution was a pickle on a ceramic tray. Zoya Konstantinovna wanted me to be its executioner.

Behind me was Dolmat Fomich with his companions-in-books. They applauded me. I bowed jokingly.

He addressed a friendly smile to me and words – not as friendly as the smile – to Yulia; he was certain they would not be heard in the low tone murmur filling the kitchen:

She gave him an angry look. Dolmat Fomich realized that his words were heard by everyone, and tried to soften them by giving her a gentle pat on her shoulder.

“Listen, stop it....” unexpectedly loudly said Yulia, took off her not nice enough apron and left. The bibliophiles led by Dolmat Fomich followed her. I stayed there, perplexed.

“Willful, obstinate,” said Zoya Konstantinovna in dismay. She started sorting the pickle stars. Suddenly it dawned on me: They must be relatives! Definitely: father and daughter! How could I have overlooked it? Yulia is Dolmat's daughter, it is so obvious! Everything became clear. What a good discovery! I sighed with relief. Thank God!

Membership in the society, how preposterous!.... I don't owe it to him that Yulia is here, it isn't as absurd as I thought it was... Everything is better, simpler, more explicable... And my nonsensical encounter with Dolmat got suddenly lit up by a flash of meaning; it didn't seem nonsensical any more, didn't seem to be a coincidence; it combined with Yulia's presence here and made my soul resonate with joy. It was destiny at work!

It wasn't by chance that I met him, that I loaned him my book. It all came together.

Zoya Konstantinovna was smiling meaningfully, as if she could read my thoughts. Wow! She is the wife, the host's wife! There aren't other women in here. Now the pieces of the puzzle fitted together. Dolmat's wife. Yulia's mother. Although they don't look alike. Not mother – stepmother!

The bell rang inviting everyone to the table. Zoya Konstantinovna, the stepmother, confided in me:

“Sometimes they don't get along, it happens. But they are made for each other. .. so different and such a perfect match....”

“The Lunocharovs. Yulia Mikhailovna and...” her eyes widened. “How? You didn't know?”

“It's been a year since Yulia Mikhailovna and Dolmat Fomich are legally married.”

All my assumptions dissipated in a moment. I must have turned pale because she asked me with concern: “You are hungry, aren't you?”

“Ha-ha-ha,” laughed Zoya Konstantinovna coquettishly. “Young man, you are a joker! Dolmat Fomich and I are friends. We are bound by many years of friendship.”

“It is, of course, a very unassuming joke,” began her speech Zoya Konstantinovna, “it is a superficial joke, forgive me the pun, but it is the fault of the person whose name this pun refers to. And you already know who I am talking about, about Demian Biednyi, ('biednyi' means 'poor') about him, whose true name was Yefim Aliexeievich Pridvorov ('pridvorov' can be translated as 'living at the court' ) and who lived at the court and therefore wasn't poor at all. That's what is humorous about it. Because Pridvorov wasn't poor, was he?”

There was a mischievous gleam in her eyes. The bibliophiles nodded gaily, agreeing with her words.

“Let's not discuss the political production of this prolific author, almost forgotten nowadays, justly or not isn't relevant to our subject. Demian Biednyi is dear to us not because of this, he is close and dear to us because of his frenzied love for antique books, the love embodied in a unique collection of rarities, and which one of us wouldn't envy this relentless bibliophile?”

“Nobody would. We all envy him,” replied Dolmat Fomich on behalf of everyone.

“That is why I mentioned it,” said Zoya Konstantinovna. “If it hasn't been for these two factors, would I have ever gone in for bibliotraceography?”

“Of course not,” said Skvorlygin who probably knew this story very well. They all knew it. Only I didn't know anything.

I felt as if it hadn' t been I who asked these questions, but somebody else sitting across the table, and somehow it was I to whom it all had to be explained and not to him; that's why Zoya Konstantinovna turned to me and explained:

“Living at the court and not being poor. They became the talk of the town due to the fatal disparity between the real name of the poet and his pen name. Oleg Nikolaievich, is the idea of my speech clear to you now?”

“Gentlemen, when I talk about his living at the court I mean that Demian Biednyi resided in the Kremlin^¹ and was close to Stalin. And when I talk about him not being poor I mean the degree of prosperity thanks to which he could afford rarities – books, letters and documents. According to testimonies of his contemporaries, his library counted several dozens thousand of books, and note please, it was a private library! ...the hearsay was: there were a hundred thousand books, or at least

thirty thousand. A considerable part of this collection was kept in his Kremlin suite, the other one – in his dacha in the settlement of Mamontovka near Moscow, with the windows opening into the apple garden grown by him personally from the saplings bred by Michurin^². Besides, he had a small library in a train car that belonged to him, from the steps of which he often recited his poetry during his campaigns. It may be unnecessary to mention the legendary rarities... and still I'd like to name 'Dreams and sounds' by Nikolay Nekrasov. It is a known fact that the author personally destroyed the whole edition, only a few copies were spared....Also the first edition of 'Story about Igor's campain'^³, extremely rare! And 'Literary almanac' from 1848 that was never on sale!...”

“And 'The Twelve Sleeping Gendarmes – an Instructive Ballad by Yelistrat Fitiulkin', withdrawn from circulation in 1832 because it mocked the police”, picked up Dolmat Fomich.

The exchange of replies was getting too fast for me to react on time. The bibliophiles were flying into a rage.

“And the famous 'Life of Fiodor Vasilievich Ushakov' which he pilfered from Smirnov-Sokolski?!”

My eyes were searching for Yulia. She wasn't at the table. Something was wrong with me and it wasn't the wine that caused it.

I was going to get up when Dolmat Fomich stopped me with his intent look. He was addressing me:

“....necessary for a person from from a good milieu....the art of creating bow ties....the description or forty-three styles of neck tie knots...Oleg Nikolaievich, do you mind?”

“He wrote a poem about it. A satire of the old customs. However, colleagues, we digressed. Excuse me, Zoya Konstantinovna, we are listening to you attentively.”

Zoya Konstantinovna suggested a toast. We drank to Demian Biednyi's library. Then had a snack. I was cutting it with a knife. With rapt attention. With too much concentration. I knew it was wrong. It shouldn't have been. It never happens this way. I concentrated on my concentration. The knife vanished. I could concentrate only on one thing: either on the knife, or on my concentration. Or on the subject of the conversation. Demian Biednyi was a bibliotough. A bibliotough is a person who doesn't lend books.

“And you, Oleg Nikolaievich, aren't a bibliotough. Not at all. Oleg Nikolaievich will lend.”

“Oleg Nikolaievich lent his book to Dolmat Fomich. A needful book. When he was asked for it.”

Stalin used to borrow books. But Demian lent unwillingly. He didn't lend to anyone but Stalin. Stalin borrowed and read. He had greasy fingers. Once Demian said about Stalin: “He returns books with spots on pages.” He could have been shot for this. But he was spared. However, he fell in disgrace. Was thrown out of the Kremlin. Excluded from the party. Removed from 'Pravda' ^¹. His book collection was passed to the museum. The State Museum of Literature. Literature... Museum.... State Museum....

“When I first read about it, and I read about it in 'Ogoniok'....('light', 'beacon') in the beginning of glasnost and perestroika, I got so upset, so upset that I couldn't sleep two nights in a row. Stalin used to leave spots on them! Imagine, spots! I decided to find these books with the unique spots... They are the spots of Time. Spots of History. Spots of History, I'm telling you! During those sleepless nights I conceived the idea of a new discipline....”

“Bibliotraceography.....” I could hear around me, “bibliotraceography.....”

“Yes! Yes!” she said with excitement. “And now I'm telling you: bibliotraceograpy is the name of my passion!”

I was eating. Eating made me lose the thread of the conversation. I remember, there was a tomato and something about how she was leafing through....He didn't leave a list...She had to make a search. To make sure they were the same books that belonged to D.Biednyi. Thousands of books. The most fundamental work....”

“First: Stories by Oleg Orlov 'Behind the Front Line'. The imprint of the index finger of the left hand on page 32.”

“Second: a collection 'French Poetry of the XVIII century', Moscow, 1916, with a foreword by Valeriy Briusov. A peculiar spot next to the Voltaire's epigram.”

I got up. Without excusing myself I left the room. I went to look for Yulia. I couldn't find her anywhere. She wasn't in the foyer. She wasn't in the kitchen. In the bedroom where we practiced tying a tie she wasn't either. There was a window, an open ventilation pane, and a bamboo stick in the corner, the one for drawing curtains. I thought about the tie. Now I had to act. I couldn't endanger her. I picked up the stick and stuck it through the window pane. The tie was hanging on the tree. It wasn't that simple to throw it down. It was opposite the window but I couldn't reach it. Still, I kept trying. The stick was heavy. I could drop it. I finally I caught the tie on it. Pushed it down. I saw it floating into the darkness of the night.

Behind me there was an arm-chair. Yulia could be sitting in it. If she had been there she could have seen me entering the room. But she wasn't there.

If she had been there, unnoticed by me, she could have been watching me. My manipulations with the tie.

If she had been there, I would have asked: “Yulia, why didn't you tell me he was your husband?” -- “Didn't you know? I thought you did,” she would have answered.

I wasn't thinking when I was going back. But if I was, I would have thought that my absence at the table was unnoticed. It wasn't true. I was expected. Met by their silence, I took a seat.

“Third: the spot, most likely from wine, on page 16 of the Laws of the Babylonian king Hammurapi, the edition of professor Turayev, eight drawings and a map, on the map the imprint of a glass-holder.”

I saw Yulia. She was sitting there as if nothing had happened. I couldn't get it where she appeared from.

“Book spots are mementos of the material culture of an era. A book spot as an object of research is a trace. A trace that needs identification. Every researcher should know: the subconscious projects through these spots. He should comprehend: a book spot is a business card of an individuality. A key to understanding a mentality characteristic of a generation or a certain group of people. A book spot is a place where the material and the ideal come in touch with each other, in particular, nutritional gastronomical food with spiritual food, so to speak, food with non-food.”

“It's very interesting,” said Dolmat Fomich. Thank you, Zoya Konstantinovna, we appreciate it. And now let's listen to our unforgettable Vsevolod Ivanovich Terentiev.”

TERENTIEV'S VOICE. ......the diseases of gooseberries. And you from the other side...Me?... No, better from the left....(Unclear) Here?... (Pause) One, two, three..................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................................

“So, Oleg Nikolaievich, it's your turn now. I think you would like to tell us something. What is it about?”

“How is it 'about nothing'?” couldn't believe Dolmat Fomich. “There definitely should be something.”

I looked at professor Skvorlygin. His affectionate smile stood out clearly against the mist that absorbed all the others.

Then, I looked at Dolmat Fomich. “Well?” he asked encouragingly. Now he appeared in a clear outline on a misty background where all the others, including professor Skvorlygin, were hiding. As if they pretended they weren't here at all.

“Please,” said Zoya Konstantinovna. She came out of the mist as soon as I looked at her. All the others remained in hiding. “Please, tell us you know what? About how you learned to read. With blocks, yes?”

I began talking about my first books. Unbelievable. I began telling them about my first long ago forgotten books, those that I read as a child.

What happened to me then? What had they mixed into my drink that made me obey them?

And the weirdest thing: the more I spoke the more confident I became. As if it wasn't I who was talking, but someone else, and I was only listening to him with fascination, holding my breath in fear to miss a word. My story was outside of me. Listening to it I was learning about myself the facts that I had forgotten. About the series 'My First Books.' About myself as a 6-year-old reader who couldn't make out whose books they were – his or mine. And I thought then: they were his.

They were easy to read: thin books with huge letters. I read by syllables. I learned to read early. I understood everything. I only couldn't understand why those first books were 'my'? I didn't write them. Why were they called 'my'? Whose 'my'?

The mysterious writer of these books seemed to be a sorcerer, a magical fairytale entity, a shape-shifter with ever changing name on the book cover: once Chukovski, next time Marshak, then Barto. Or sometimes he didn't have a name at all, there was only a title 'Proverbs' or 'Fairy Tales'. For some reason he chose to conceal his real name. And at the same time with unyielding stubbornness he announced to me on each new book: 'my'. So what that 'his'? How many first books did he have? And all of them -- 'his'?

I was listening to myself. Attentively. My hand made a movement to adjust the non-existent neck tie, I registered it in my mind, and then I registered the fact of registering it.

That is good, I thought. Nothing escapes my attention. Now I should be able to see everyone coming out of the mist. I looked around: here they were. All of them. They appeared to me clearly. They were listening to me with genuine interest. I see, I see, you are listening to me. Especially Dolmat Fomich: a gesture with his hand – hush, quiet! I realized suddenly that he was recording me on the tape. My story. Just like he had recorded the late Terentiev.

“And when you were a little boy, did you ever read what's written on fences?”

Sure I did. I have a vivid and colorful memory about it. Only it was written not on a fence but on a pole.

It happened before I went to school. I learned to read early. We were visiting my father's aunt in the village, and there was a pole. I came closer to it and read the word that was scratched on it. Its brief mysteriousness struck me. I had heard it before but didn't know its meaning; moreover, I couldn't even distinguish it in the flow of other equally mysterious expressions. It escaped my understanding, I couldn't grasp and decipher it, in spite of its briefness.

And now I saw it written, or scratched. It made me happy. I went to aunt Dasha and innocently said the word I had read. She got scared (or rather pretended that she did).

Because no one should ever say this word, so bad it is. It is a prohibited word. And if somebody hears me saying it, it will be a disaster: they will hang me on the Board of Shame^¹.

I didn't want to be hanged on the Board of Shame. I got scared. How will they hang me? And what is 'a Board of Shame'? It's a board. Behind the village club. If they hear me saying this word, they will hang me on it. And aunt Dasha too – because of me. Because they will think she taught me this word.

And the spot behind the club was a really scary place. Big boys once threw burning matches on the ground there, and it burnt (because gas was split there, but I didn't know it then). Terrible, terrible place.

I knew there was the Board of Honor. It was scary enough. I tried not to come near it. It made me awestruck by how everyone was staring from it. Especially the mailman. And there were nettles around it. And it was rickety. And if such was the Board of Honor, then what was the Board of Shame like? Was I really so guilty?

Aunt Dasha put me to bed but I couldn't sleep. A cricket was chirring. Aunt Dasha was praying. I knew she was praying for me. I knew who she was praying to: the one who was crucified. For me.

“You talked about such interesting things. Could you tell us also about a salad?”

Laughter. Applause. Clinking of glasses. We drank to our Petersburg Gourmets Society. Then we had a snack. It was done quietly. The bibliophiles kept giving me conspiratorial looks, as if expecting something from me, some words or an action. What action? I kept quiet.

“What do you think, Oleg Nikolaievich,” asked me Zoya Konstantinovna, “Why Nekrasov, who sang of the misery of Russian peasants, was a regular visitor at the meetings of the Petersburg Gourmets Society?”

“It's all in the book. In the commentary,” prompted me Dolmat Fomich. “Remember, I gave you a book.”

A bibliophile (he was the society's treasurer) who had been silent until now came to my rescue :

“That is because, according to Mikhailovski, I quote, -- '...there, firstly, it was possible to eat tasty meals; secondly, a man of letters should know everything; and, thirdly, this is one of the ways to keep friendly relationship with needful people.' This is what Nekrasov told Mikhailovski.”

It was more than just silence that followed my words: it was total speechlessness. The bibliophiles put their knives and forks on the plates.

My words made everyone stand up. They were applauding me. I stood up too. Each one of them came up at me, hugged me and kissed me three times. Each one of them said: “Congratulations!”

“Yes,” said solemnly Dolmat Fomich. “That's exactly what we are – the Gourmets. We are the Gourmets Society. It doesn't mean that we aren't book-lovers, oh, not at all. We are bibliophiles, one and all. But first of all we are the Gourmets Society. This is our little secret, and now we are sharing it with you.”

The salad was being rolled in on a trolley from the kitchen. The same one, with Madeira, the recipe of which I had copied from Terentiev's copy of 'The Art of Cooking.'

So, it was October. The weather grew cold. By the metro exit they were selling mushrooms. The season for brown mushrooms, edible boletus, and orange-cap boletus was over. Now they were selling green mushrooms. The authorities from time to time released alarming news about radiation and the content of radioactive elements in forest vegetation; however, no measures were ever taken against mushroom dealers: it was called the encouragement of private entrepreneurship. Green mushrooms, sorted into small neat heaps on pro-reform newspapers (no other newspapers were available in kiosks), repelled the buyers with their suspicious greenishness.

People stopped smiling. People became gloomy. People were united by a uniform mood that was most acutely felt in lines, -- it became clear to everyone that something had gone wrong. It wasn't as good as some optimists expected, at the same time it wasn't as bad as when it couldn't be any worse. There was still a way to go to the worst. And there was time too. Soon. Tomorrow. The day after tomorrow. In the nearest future. The winter is going to be cold. The winter is going to be hungry. Dry your mushrooms.

There was a unanimous indignation because of food cards. The main question of the transitory period was formulated utterly aphoristically: where to find shops that matched our food card allowances?

This indignation was directed into multiple channels: why wasn't there any sugar if September cards were extended into October? Why weren't there any eggs, if ten were promised for the month? Sausage wasn't available, and there wasn't any flour.

And the most ominous event of October was the first wave of the bread boom that swept across the city bakeries.

People were too preoccupied with food. The authorities decided it would do them good to redirect their preoccupation to celebration of significant dates.

The public was getting ready to celebrate 170 anniversary of F.M.Dostoyevski's birth; the commemoration of the death of I.A.Goncharov 100 years ago already had been celebrated.

A very memorable date – 100 days of the presidentship of Boris Yeltsin was marked by a charity concert in the Congress Palace; the concert had a title: 'The contribution of the activists of art, culture, and private businesses into the rebirth of Russia.'

The 7^th of October – the USSR Constitution Day was by the force of an old habit declared a holiday, although de facto the USSR ceased to exist.

And it was decided that the 7^th of November – the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution – had to be reconsidered, at the least on the banks of the Neva, i.e. in Petersburg – the cradle of the Revolution. And in honor of the same very cradle the residents of the former Leningrad had to come to the Palace Square -- to celebrate the regaining by the city of its original name. The celebration was called 'Viva Saint-Petersburg!'

Sobchak – the mayor of the city – never ceased to surprise the public with his creativity. In October he declared his resolution to put an end to the destruction of monuments of Lenin. The first to learn about this were the French. It was to them that Sobchak confessed about his appeal to the presidents of the former Soviet republics to send all the dismounted statues to Petersburg where he was going to establish a pantheon to the leader of our Revolution. “Imagine,” he said, “a thousand statues in one place. It will be amazing.”

In October on Petrovskaya quay was installed a memorable plaque in honor of Alfred Nobel.

A young postgraduate student from Nigeria opened on 82 Nevski Avenue a casino with a promising name 'Lucky strike.' As I was walking past it it rhymed inside my head:

Strange, I never had any inclination for rhyming. Neither in French nor in any other language. I tried to add another line, but it didn't put itself together.

“Now what,” said Ekaterina Lvovna. “be a good boy. Don't open the door to anyone you don't know. If someone rings the doorbell, ask first who that is.”

It turned out that she was going on a cruise around the Mediterranean sea. For 26 days.

First she hesitated, didn't want to say where she was going. Then suddenly told me everything.

Good. Honestly, I thought it was an innocent mystification – a day before she was selling sandwiches at the flea market.

No doubt, there was an essential change in her life, something she tried to conceal from me as if being afraid that I would spoil it. Before the departure she avoided talking to me. I wasn't really interested in her private life. To me it seemed that she was going to move to major's home near Luga.

I had no reason to complain: not only was she leaving me in charge of the apartment, she was also acting towards me as if she was guilty.

Perhaps she sensed that I didn't believe her. Mostly likely she did. At the same time she couldn't guess why I didn't believe her. She wanted me to see her and her major as two lovebirds, to be moved by their fairytale love story which they had invented for my sake while in reality she was most of all concerned by the degree of my involvement in her enterprise, not fairytale-like at all, and by keeping me from asking questions she didn't want to answer. Like: Why suddenly?.... Or: How can you afford it?... Later, when relaxing out of old habit in the loft (now, when I had the apartment all to myself I could relax downstairs too) and mulling over her words, I recalled that she hinted (and not just once) at her financial independence. “Now,” she boasted, “I can afford buying a ticket everywhere, I've had a windfall...”

The major shook my hand in the doorway and unable to contain himself blurted out:

I pretended I took it at face value. They thought I was so naïve to think they were telling the truth...

If you cannot allow yourself to think about the woman who once charmed you, what fills your head?

Banning Yulia from my heart, I couldn't forget her for the same very reason that she had really vanished somewhere. Even though I was seeing Fomich almost every night – at various gourmet events – I never asked him about Julia. I simply ate. I ate like a neophyte – passionately, frenziedly, as if the memory of her was music I was trying to outcry, or rather, to outeat.

And I am not a glutton at all. Moreover, when it comes to food, I am very undemanding. So it wasn't because of love for food that I was eating so much. If I happened to be in the company of sock-knitters, I would dedicate myself entirely to this soul-saving occupation; or, turning the circumstances inside out, I would starve myself to death had I been in the circle of eccentrics who fast professionally.

Lately I had been, so to speak, following the flow. Figuratively. Although I could be doing it literally – around the Mediterranean sea.

I noticed that some of the gourmets were giving me some strange looks. As if they were trying to figure me out.

I never suffered from the lack of attention, and never thought there was a reason why others wouldn't find me interesting.

Once professor Skvorlygin took me aside and asked about what had happened to the lottery ticket: had I really lost it? I said that I had given it in present to my landlady. Skvorlygin was horrified:

The conversation had ended before I could comprehend what he meant by talking about me winning the lottery (or, to be more accurate, losing it). Somehow a Mediterranean liner with Ekaterina Lvovna on board didn't come to my mind.

On the other hand, in what way was she inferior to me? At least she could cook. And I?

But it wasn't only me. I was like others: the oddest thing was that even among the most adamant gourmets very few were practicing the art of cooking. In general, the members of the Society were connoisseurs, not chefs. And I also was recognized as a connoisseur.

Therefore, Rabelaisian excesses and over-indulgences were out question. Our elite assemblies called 'conference-dinners' were decent and of a good taste (figuratively and literally). And the places we chose to get together were also of a good taste:the building of the Union of Journalists, or the building of the Union of Architects, or private residences of respectable persons. One day, without doubt, someone will write memoirs about these gatherings. I cannot do it for two reasons. Firstly, I don't have enough time.

Secondly, bound by my word, I have no right to bring up certain very colorful details which would add lots of thrill to the story.

As a member of the Gourmets Society I was entitled to the benefit of having free dinners in the building of the Union of Writers. Daily, from 5 to 8 PM I could satisfy my physiological need for nutrition according to my individual schedule, i.e. without taking truble in socializing with my comrades in the cause of preserving gourmet approach to food. Actually, here, in this dimly lit hall with stained-glass windows and oak-wood walls, I met people I could talk to. They were writers. Not all of them could afford to have dinner here. Only most affluent of them ate the whole dinner; the rest of them mostly drank – vodka in those days was cheaper than food. Therefore, class delimitation among writers was based on how much food or vodka he could afford to pay for. I don't know what kind of relationship existed between the gourmets and the management of the Union of Writers. But as a member of the Gourmets Society I received cards stamped by the board of the writers' management, exactly the same cards as the employees of the building of the Union and especially privileged writers had.

Besides, among those who paid for their dinner with cards, there wasn't a single gourmet, at least an overt one, somebody I knew. Was it possible there was a gourmet incognito? I wouldn't know.

Later I learned that all the gourmets were distributed among prestigious institutions like the Union of Writers where each one of them had an opportunity to slake their appetite on a daily basis outside of our planned assemblies.

I remember, in the beginning I felt awfully embarrassed to eat a gratuitous dinner (most writers paid cash) -- because I am a very scrupulous man by nature (and not a writer). But the charm of this place was irresistible, and after visiting it two of three times a newcomer didn’t feel like a newcomer any more and was accepted as an habitué, their own, especially if he was inclined to self-indulgence. Dolmat Fomich, who was very jealous about my acquaintances outside the society, and for some reason didn’t like, or to say more, disdained modern writers (at least local), had obviously underestimated my ability to socialize, otherwise he would have seen to it that I was re-distributed to another buffet-containing club, like the Union of Architects or Composers. But did he have any ways of knowing that I, for example, could play pool?

So, the first author I happened to get acquainted with was the poet Gennadiy Grigoriev.

In addition to being incredibly talented, he was an impossible drunk. It was the same Gennadiy Grigoriev who scared the bibliophiles (when I was still under the illusion that they were bibliophiles) during my first visit of their assembly. Now, due to the hardships of abstinence imposed on him by the circumstances, his predisposition was much more humane and understanding.

As I was finishing a stuffed cabbage, Grigoriev joined me at the table and read an impromptu – an epigram on a man of letters whose name rhymed with the name of a Caucasian dish – I remembered it well exactly for the reason that I was ready to suspect a secret gourmet in everyone. Apart from this, his name didn’t ring a bell. Struck by my ignorance, Grigoriev felt he had to enlighten me, and he began with complaining about the lack of understanding from his ex-wives. Since I was able to foot my bills (thanks to Dolmat Fomich), I didn’t have to think twice before ordering us both a drink. We clanked our glasses and drank to the brotherhood; we became buddies. Gena related to me all the complications of the state of things at the Union of Writers. It turned out that that the local department was dissolved into five or six unions and now they were in the process of fighting over the ownership of the building and a profitable sharing of the property. And such was the fate of all unions, societies and cooperatives, for huge is the mess but we shall overcome, we have already overcome – according to Gena who was an anarchist and romantic at heart.

He wore a ragged shirt, never combed his hair and didn’t wash his face. And didn’t button up his clothes either. Later I learned that many customers were afraid to come to the restaurant because ‘Grigoriev was there!!!!'. He was a hell-raiser, and it made him popular. When he came to a poetic session wearing a gas mask, the local writers’ newsletter immediately informed the community about this remarkable event. As the rumor goes, he sat opposite the chairman insulting the members with his most inappropriate mooing and bellowing.

He wasn’t admitted into the union while it was still united -- he became a member after it split, and I’m not sure which one exactly he joined: either it was the Union of Writers of Saint-Petersburg, or it was its rival -- Saint-Petersburg Writers' Union. And the reason he wasn't admitted to the United Union was that he had glued a one-ruble note on M.S.Gorbachov's forehead -- on the portrait of course, which was hanging harmlessly in the office of the Party Committee. The democrats among the writers weren't sure at that time if it would be worthwhile to quit the Communist party, and to be on the safe side it was decided not to admit Grigoriev.

Simultaneously with all the above mentioned events was published Grigoriev's ballad about the heroic deeds of an extraordinarily active and valorous politician, held in respect and supported by many, and especially by the best part of intellectuals for whom this ballad became an anthem. And it turned out that the same very politician became Russia's first president. In the beginning of his presidentship he used to receive in his office in the Kremlin the members of the intellectual elite Grigori ev belonged to. However, he never invited Grigoriev.

The elite intellectuals got into a habit of visiting the Kremlin on a regular basis and complaining about their non-elite counterparts; after that, they would talk on the radio about specific methods of the President's rule.

The poet Grigoriev, who had once glorified the President, was excluded from all this activity. He stayed here, in the Union's restaurant. His only privilege were his free dinner cards generously granted to him by democratic and truth-loving editors of the 'Literary Newspaper' on the grounds that he was a merited author. I knew he had dinner cards, and he knew I had them too, and we didn't ask nosy questions. The waitress Larissa knew it too, and she didn't ask any questions either.

Again, I'm digressing. All of it isn't really relevant to the main plot of my story. But what remarkable people!...what outstanding characters!....

Another legend of the writer's restaurant was, of course, Yevgeniy Vasilievich Kutuzov. He was a trublemaker, just like Grigoriev was, but his advanced age didn't let him keep up with Grigoriev, -- he was getting ready for his 60^th birthday. He drank violently, and turned rowdy when drunk. Despite this, the writers who didn't consider themselves loyal to the new government, accepted him as their charismatic leader.

They say his political views almost cost him his life. It happened in August, right after the putsch. I was in the hospital, hit by the samovar and indifferent to politics, while the country was in the grip of meetingomania. The winners demanded blood, sometimes literally. And there was a meeting here, in the building of the Union of Writers, in the White Hall. The party of the winners severely condemned the members of the opposition, led by Yevgeniy Vasilievich Kutuzov – the archenemy of the democracy.

Kutuzov, who served a sentence under Brezhnev and received a certificate of unlawfully repressed under Yeltsin, listened to political accusations directed at him. I can imagine what was being said. Those writers know how to swing words around! Especially if they had known each other for dozens of years and have drunk together...

And then, I imagine, the head writer (the head in an official capacity, not in writing) and the deputy – i.e. a representative of legal authority striving for self-affirmation, -- informed the meeting about appointing a special commission for investigating the circumstances of the attempt of a coup d'étât. No one would avoid punishment. And all information should be directed to the address: '...............'

A poetess (I'm not acquainted with any poetesses, but they say it was Irina Maliarova) made a scene, took a microphone, and said something like: guys, come to your senses, it is 1937 that you are repeating.

In the meantime Kutuzov, Yevgeniy Vasilievich, went home. He had a shot, and was going to have many more. All those shots combined into a lethal dose. Then he made phone calls to all of his disciples. To say good-bye. (Thanks to one of them all this became known.) His friends were terrified. They all rushed to his rescue: Yevgeniy Vasilievich drank a bottle of vodka in one gulp and was lying on his couch ready to die. He left the front door open.

A Russian man is tough, he can endure anything. Vodka slowly and painfully assimilated into his system. The attempted suicide had failed. As to the commissions, no later than in October they choked on all the denunciations that had flooded them.

“One should live where he died!” cried out Kutuzov, this gained through suffering aphorism and hit his fist against the table. Glasses flew in the air. Everyone shuddered. But who was the one who didn't even blink his eye? His face looked fossilized, and he was sitting through this scene immobile like a statue. It was Vladimir Rekshan, the younger comrade of Yevgeniy Vasilievich in the art of prose, 'grandfather of Leningrad rock', 'former professional athlete' and future professional tea-totaller. Here again, for the sake of justice, I have to step beyond the frame of the plot. Rekshan is an extremely extroverted and open-hearted man, everything he does – he does publicly. Two years after the events I am relating he would renounce publicly drinking alcohol (not renounce publicly, drinking, but publicly renounce!..), and through the international channels of alcoholics anonymous, as a former alcoholic, would be invited to America to read lectures about the harms of drunkenness, and then upon his return home he would start broadcasting on the radio with the programs about his impressions of the USA. There would emerge a foe of his who would slander him. His name is Nikolay Koniaev. In 94, he would publish a declaration about Rekshan never being an alcoholic. An athlete -- yes, a musician -- yes, but never an alcoholic. Yes, he used to drink, but not as an alcoholic. Therefore, according to this logic, Rekshan

was not entitled to his free trip to America, and if he had gone there on those terms, it was an act of cheating. That is why I'm telling you all of this – in order to refute the lie. In the autumn of 91, I beheld with my own eyes (and not just once) Rekshan in the writers' restaurant and I'd like to testify: he was an alcoholic!

And I played billiards with Nikolay Mikhailovich Koniaev. He happened to be an extraordinary billiard player. He had his personal collapsible cue which he carried in a case and never parted with. I don't know what kind of Stradivarius made such a magnificent tool for him, no wonder he always won. We played for modest stakes – a shot of vodka, and it never ceased to surprise me how despite all his victories Koniaev gradually sobered during the game. My own victories had an opposite effect on me – they made me inebriated.

Sometimes the billiard hall was visited by the best of the men of letters. Among them were the above mentioned Yevgeniy Vasilievich and Rekshan, and also, I remember, there was one Sergei Nosov who could never hit the ball. When I first met him, he asked me not to confuse him with the other Sergei Nosov – there were two of them, and both – writers. Later I was told the whole truth about them: in reality there were four of them, and possibly five, but I never read any of them, and therefore would never know which one I had played with.

Victory Park. My old apartment. So many changes – even the button on the doorbell, so familiar, the very same since my early childhood, had been replaced by a new one. I kept pressing it – you won't fool me, I know you are at home.

The one who opened the door was broad in shoulders, lanky and black, undoubtedly born in Africa. I didn't expect this. It wasn't me. And it wasn't Valera.

I didn't know what to say. I simply turned around and walked away. To Sheremetiev's palace. To get a shot of vodka in the bar. I didn't want to think what they had done with my apartment. Tenant... so it is...

“In this case, do me a favor, do not join their union,” asked me the head of not-their union; he sighed, we drank.

And now we were going through perestroika. Or had already gone through it. It was over by now. This word made everybody sick, the whole mankind was fed up with it, but we were the most.

“I think I better join the Union of Composers,” I said and tried to hum the tune played by the recorder. The tune got distorted, then dissolved in the rumble of the bar, and faded away.

“We won't achieve anything until we squeeze Dostoyevski out of ourselves, drop after drop!”

It seemed to me this phrase was pronounced especially for me, so that I heard it.

“Personally, I squeeze ...squeeze... every day...” he dropped his glass and fell face down on the table.

Had I become too squeamish, or was my health declining, or had I simply drunk too much? I didn't know; only this 'squeezing out Dostoyevski' was the last straw that broke my back, or rather my stomach: I rushed into the bathroom and threw up.

I looked at myself in the mirror: my pale and joyless reflection stared back at me; on its forehead there was a big pink spot – the remnant of the bruise after the concussion.

A young and angelic-looking man of letters was holding his hands under the roaring fan.

“Nowadays many writers attempt to write badly,” he said, addressing me. “It is a hell of a job to write badly. It is much more complicated than writing well.”

“Very few. And their names are well-known. But all this, you see, is on the level of the style. Yes, on the level of the style there are successes... But a plot is a horse of a different color....”

“What plot? Who nowadays is bothered by a plot?” said a hollow voice from inside a cabin.

“That's what is bad – no one is bothered,” stated the man of letters. “Or we can put it in a different way: it isn't satisfactorily bad exactly because no one is bothered by the plot. We can horse around to our heart's content in the fields of plotlessness, comforting ourselves by a childish hope that we had already achieved the heights of ineloquence, and so what? It only can be really bad when the plot itself is bad...”

“Yes, but where can we get a bad plot?” inquired the cabin dweller with such an unfaked longing as if it was the matter of no less than catching the Blue Bird.

“Life, life itself dictates us the plots,” pronounced moralizingly the man of letters.

So many good events have been planned for today. Among them – the general assembly of all the members of the Gourmets Society under the roof of the former almshouse, room 212. The notice had been distributed beforehand.

I decided not to go. Didn't feel like it. I just felt like walking – walking around the city. And not staying home.

There were policemen all over the flea market at Sennaya Square – the illegal trade was punishable today. Only one babushka was exempt from the penalty and not disturbed by the police: she was selling traditional RASKIDAICHIKI????? [kitsche?] for those who wished to celebrate the 7^th of November – the anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

Pea street was still partially named after Dzierzynski. Felix Edmundovich himself, since long ago granite, and not iron, was memorially sticking two thirds of his face out of the wall of a famous building and staring blindly into the crowd surrounding a broken fountain.

There were heard voices yelling something into loudspeakers; I couldn't make out what it was until I crossed the tram line and saw an organizer of recreational activities working with the public. The public was busy leaping in sacks, like in the good old days.

Closer to the Palace Square I saw a man blowing up and selling balloons. People lined up to buy them.

Blimps were hovering over the building of the main headquarters; they were carrying slogans depicting letter Ъ. Letter Ъ had a symbolic meaning: it was an unlawfully banned letter and therefore, a reminder.

of Saint-Petersburg for coming to the celebration that he had organized for them. I looked around trying to spot the Great Prince Vladimir Kirillovich, he was supposed to be on the tribune, but there wasn't anyone on the tribune who could possibly look like the Great Prince. Sobchak promised to crack down on speculation. The audience, listening to him with ironic enthusiasm, sluggishly shouted 'Hurray!'

At the front door of the house of Arakcheev^¹ was sitting a cat. Its eyes projected anxiety.

A bored policeman paced back and forth at the gate of the General Consulate of Japan.

A procession of protesters was marching across Koniushennaya Square – they were carrying red flags and portraits of Lenin; the front row displayed a slogan that read ‘JUSTICE’. Turning into the former Zhelabova Street – or the former-former (and now present) Big Koniushennaya Sstreet, the protesters started chanting: 'Le-nin-grad! Le-nin-grad' appealing to the passersby to join their procession. They were the opponents of renaming the city into Saint Petersburg. They were marching towards the Nevski Avenue.

Two soldiers came up at me and asked if I knew where the Motherland was. I couldn’t get it at once:

I pointed to the direction where they show movies, and the soldiers went to 'Motherland', and I found myself in front of the department store. The clock on it was meaningfully still (it stopped); the minute hand was inviting to turn into Volynski lane that nobody had bothered to rename.

On the corner stood out the shop of the publishing house ‘Pravda’.. Was it still ‘Pravda’ or had it been renamed as well? At any rate it had been taken away from its former owner. But the slogan in the window was from the discarded past:

‘…We need a newspaper not only in order to assist us in out struggle, but also to be an example and torch-bearer to all….’ I didn’t find out to whom it was supposed to give an example – I was distracted by a chorus of surprised voices. There was a group of parachutists in the sky. In a picturesque composition of three-color flags and flames (they were holding torches) the parachutists were floating downwards disappearing one by one behind the roof of the majestic LENVNIIEP ? [government building?] ? So this is what a helicopter was for!

I quickened my pace and found myself on the square again. The meeting ended, but the celebration was still going on. A small advertising airplane flew slowly over the square, a banner ‘Saint-Petersburg’ attached to it was streaming in the wind .Three sports planes appeared from the side of the building of the Admiralty; passing over the Alexandria Column, they left behind an orange trail – it looked decorative despite its poisonous color.

A commentator announced in a solemn voice: “Dear residents of Saint-Petersburg! It is for the first time that we see this magnificent sight! Planes above the Palace Square! Hurray!”

In the meantime the planes turned around and were flying back. Now some fliers were thrown down, the wind carried them over the fence and towards the Winter Palace. The crowd moved following the direction of the wind and became denser: everyone was trying to catch a leaflet. Some of them managed to, but I didn’t. Those who came into possession of leaflets couldn’t contain their joy, which they hurried to share with the rest of us:

'Oh, city of Peter! In all your glory stand unshakable forever, like Russia herself!

“Save these fliers in memory of this day!” resonated a solemn advice over the square.

And planes again. Three. They separated above our heads: one flew to the right, another one – to the left, and the third – raised high, looped the loop and then, taking the crowd's breath away made a spin. The crowd said: “Ah…”

In less than a minute the trick was repeated. The third spin fatigued the crowd. “Enough, enough, fly away!” it shouted. Its wish was granted.

With the winning intonation the organizer announced a short break and after the break --- the pop music stars! And for now:

“See you again at 14:30!” roared his triumphant voice, for some reason emphasizing the last word. But the last word remained after somebody else: at the same very moment (as if it had been well-rehearsed) the procession of communists with their red flags and portraits of Lenin appeared from under the arch of the Main Headquarters. “Le-nin-grad! Le-nin-grad!” were they chanting with inspiration. Without doubt, this year’s anniversary of the revolution was their best ever.

The crowd looking for more entertainment got denser again and moved towards the opposition column that kept chanting “Le-nin-grad! Le-nin-grad!” Without mixing with the crowd, the communists marched on the right side of the square, along the front of the palace, past the bronze memorial plaque with the inscription ‘On the night of the 25^th of October ….’ – “Le-nin-grad! Le-nin-grad!”, -- and having completed their victorious march past Sobchak’s tribune turned into the former Khalturina Street (and now Millionnaya Street again) involving with themselves not only their sympathizers but also those who were simply looking for more entertainment -- what an ingenious calculation! Or those who just gave in to an instinct. Those like myself: I was given an impulse.

I was given an impulse, and a few minutes later I found myself near Mars Field. Without waiting for a tram I walked slowly towards Sennaya Square – home. There was a gathering on the steps of the Engineers’ castle; a bus from the television was waiting nearby. I remembered: it was promised that live Peter the First was going to appear to the people and say his wishes.

The mad dwarf in front of the department store leaped, yelled and hit the cords of the guitar. No one paid attention to him – he had become a familiar sight.

Some force made me turn back towards the Palace Square. Now I was in the flow of those who wished to listen to the concert.

The weather was getting worse, it was drizzling. I didn’t buy proclamations for 30 kopecks, even though I was asked to. I don’t understand: why proclamations have to be sold?

Right here, behind the arch, were Trotskyites. The number of these revolutionaries was very few – only five people, but in their background were Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, and Che Gevara, black and white and on poor quality paper, but still influential.

Nearby anarchists were stamping under their coal black flag. They were distributing some printed matter too. One of them, in a black Caucasian fur hat, was challenging

There was a little turmoil at the foot of the Alexandria column. Those who considered today's date not a celebration but a day of mourning were talking about the crimes of Bolsheviks.

Then music struck up, and the concert began. Those who preferred fun to sorrow moved closer to Pieha and Kobzon^¹, lit up by dozens of flood lights scene opposite the Winter Palace.

I was finally leaving when singers of satirical songs went up the scene. They were singing about topical subjects, hopping all over the scene. One would start the verse, then the other one would pick up, and it was endless....

I looked up: the floodlight flooded the angel's face. (na zdanii ili gde????)

A firecracker was shot in the backyard; the janitor reacted to it with cursing so incoherent that it could have been mistaken for greetings. I went upstairs and found a note in the door.

'Dear friend! Where are you? We hope you haven't forgotten about our humble celebration. Looking forward to seeing you. Your Friends.'

She was walking downstairs, towards me – dressed in a light raincoat, with a bag on her shoulder; she left her suitcase on a step.

“From Malta – 'from what'! An island in the Mediterranean sea, don't you know?”

“What have you been doing here? Why did you give her your ticket? I won a cruise on lottery, and so did you! We both won the same cruise!... Don't you have a head on your shoulders?”

“Are you ever going to open this door?... Let me go... I'm really so cold...”

While I was hastily opening the door with my French key, the neighbor downstairs also opened her door. She threw the trash out into the bin and announced loudly to someone – was there anyone at all?-- to someone non-existent -- the latest event:

“And Ulianovsk is going to be renamed too!... to Leningrad-on-Volga! Goodness gracious!”

The Leningrad mosquito-mutant popularly called 'cellar mosquito' because such a monster could originate only in perpetually flooded cellars, -- this nighttime terrorist who had spread its habitat on all the floors, from the bottom and up to the attic, sly, shrewd, cautious, with an intricate intestinal system (or what did it have inside?), long-nosed and insatiable, small in size but infinitely nasty, -- to sum up: the creature of the above description was drinking her blood.

In the purple twilight filling the room the window was a dim rectangle. Cold woke me up – she pulled the blanket off me, didn't cover herself with it, but bunched it up at the foot of the bed. She was sleeping with her back turned to me – huddled on her side; her left arm, bent in the elbow, was on her face as if protecting it from bright light. There wasn't any bright light, and wasn't going to be.

I couldn't make out if she was breathing or not. She must have been, of course, but her breath was so quiet that I involuntarily held mine. Are you dreaming about anything, my beautiful, in such a twisted position? Don't you feel that I am looking at you?

I thought she had goosebumps, but they were too big to be goosebumps, and I saw that

She almost didn't have any birthmarks on her body. Only in her armpit there was a constellation of four birthmarks... Three! One of them was a mosquito mimicking a birthmark, -- such a scum! It has already thrust its bloodthirsty nuzzle into her skin, its belly swelled, darkened and was slightly twitching. Totally immersed in this bloody delight it lost its vigilance.

I didn't want to wake her up by a rough touch of my fingers; that's why I slowly and carefully moved my hand closer to this villain and picked it up by its wings with my thumb and index finger. It didn't even stir, didn't even try to pull out its nuzzle. A drop of blood fell and rolled down her armpit. She turned on her back, looked at me and said: “Don't tickle.”

The pattern of the blanket – fine herring bone -- had also imprinted on her chest and stomach. She stretched. The herring bone came apart.

And this is what happened: the time had diverted from its regular flow and got out of its rhythm, and then stumbled into a new constant – the constant of happiness that cannot be expressed in hours and minutes. One, two and -- many … -- just the way aborigines count, only in our case it was much simpler: we had been together for 2(two) days only and had already lost count …

And the day before yesterday was a long time ago, as long as six years ago when we first met under not consciously perceived circumstances, in the artist’s B workshop, at a noisy party, in the motley company of friends and strangers. – The day before yesterday. In a different era.

And yesterday? Did it end or is it still going on today? I was afraid to come around, not to be able to keep this unique sensation of the absence of accountability, reason, logic; the feeling of merry spontaneous disconnection, the illusion that I had outsmarted the severe and merciless reality.

How did I deserve this gift? Don’t question it, I said to myself, don’t question -- just accept it; yes, I got this gift, just got it and that’s all, for no reason, without any motivation, without any prayers, -- it fell to me from the sky and now it is walking around the apartment that is not mine, wearing my old faded shirt, pottering around, making tea. Don’t question it…

And it didn’t matter that we hadn’t been together on Malta. Malta existed somewhere over there, in the Mediterranean, and it simply wasn’t supposed to become real to me, it would have been an excess, an irrational excess, and what was supposed to be was happening any way.

It was also an excess (in terms of weight and sense) to lug abroad two volumes of ‘Count Monte-Kristo'. From the library of her highly educated husband, with an extraordinary valuable stamp 'Library of the Department of Political Education, Smolny’ , the edition of 1956, Kyrgyzstan State Publishing House, Frunze.What for?

The first days (or were they hours? or minutes?) we almost didn’t speak, and surely we avoided getting into risky domains were it was impossible to make a step without stumbling into disillusioning and sobering discrepancies contradicting the laws of cause an effect. We simply made love like crazy – for a long time and a lot. And as if conquering space – meter after meter – we shamelessly established out presence in all the corners of the apartment.

The smell of this, not mine, strange apartment had been replaced by the smell of her perfume, by the smell of our love.

We didn’t go out. There were huge food supplies that Katerina Lvovna prepared in case of a hungry winter: cans of Atlantic mackerel in oil, Chinese corned beef, packets of pasta that the retired major had hauled from all over the place and stored on the shelves in between the double doors.

...................................................................................................................

............................................................................................................

“You know, I thought, it is like a dream... As if I dream about it and then forget it...”

Whether it was really Dolmat Fomich or somebody else, together with this person the reality itself rang our doorbell, and we couldn't ignore it anymore.

We noticed that we regained the ability to converse with the use of quite expanded phrases. We felt the need for conversation. I didn't feel any remorse, and still I was a little bit uncomfortable.

“Are you often unfaithful to Dolmat?” (conversation in the kitchen, with a cup of tea).

We drink tea from glasses, it's burning hot. (Ekaterina Lvovna sold all cups and saucers).

“I lived on Vasilevski island, 2^nd line, with my husband, in a one-bedroom apartment. Do you remember Lionia Krasnov? He was at Zhenka's 30^th birthday party, then, remember?”

No, I didn't remember. I didn't remember very well what was happening at that party.

“I don't remember well either,” said Yulia. “But he was there. And then we became close.”

“Lionia Krasnov. I'm telling you about my husband. A year after Zhenka's party.”

the way she was telling her story. I liked the way she was doing everything, it didn't matter what she was doing, I just liked it. I liked the way she walked, ate, sang (she sang sometimes), the way she was leafing through her dog-eared Dumas, the way she looked at me (or didn't look), the way she smiled, the way she frowned, the way she was putting her clothes on – elegantly, and the way she was taking them off – easily; and the way she was telling me something at this moment, so thoroughly, doesn't matter what, with the blanket on her shoulders (“because our place isn't heated up”) and hugging the pillow, sitting at the foot of the bed, like a naked cat – Egyptian cat ?--, and I was lying down, with my nape against the wall, and staring at her, -- enchanted.

“So that's how it was. We would have broken up anyway, sooner or later, I could feel it then. We lived together for three years.”

“First everything was fine, and then he went nuts, gave up the optics, and decided to mint money.”

“He had a buddy in Moscow, now he's in Germany, and at that time he drifted between Moscow and Cologne. Russian dolls for foreigners, lacquered wooden boxes and spoons, all kinds of souvenirs and knick-knacks; he had his shop in Arbat, first one, then two, and after that he decided to open an art gallery, one of the very first. He rented an apartment downtown, made the round of all artists, they gave him his paintings, then he began hunting down foreigners. Sold everything to them, got a pile of money.”

So, he thought it wasn't enough... He decided to become an artist himself, and he had never held a brush in his hand.”

“He hired students from the art academy, gave them paints, and he himself marked on the canvas what to depict and where, and they painted. Gorbachov, Lenin, Kremlin, cogwheels, alarm clocks, screws and nuts, mermaids on tree branches, butterflies, everything you want, flowers, spiders – especially lots of spiders... He would trace from other pictures. Or simply would project slides on the canvas, and here we go! Such an incredible super kitsch! Disgusting. I saw it. And he would retouch it later,

deliberately distort, paste over, stain, soil – I saw all those masterpieces. With sweeping signatures... And you know what he did? He managed to publish a catalog of all this rubbish, shipped it all to Germany, then went there in the capacity of a great artist of our times, accompanied by two slaves who would depict anything for him right there on the spot, on his urgent request; then he organized an exhibition and sold all those daubs. Thats how it was. Are you listening?”

No. That is yes. Yes, I'm listening. He sold it wholesale. The interest in our country was at its peak.

Art-business. At its primitive stage. Only what does the optician have to do with it?

I asked her to wait with it, summoned my last strength to get up and schlepped barefooted on the cold floor towards the table: there was an open bottle of Madeira from the major's stash.

I didn't expect anything would stir in me today – not any more. But when I was walking back to her, with the glasses of the desired drink, I wanted her again – because again I saw something new in her.

She put the glass on her knee, and now it was on the same level with her chin. According to the laws of physics this glass was supposed to fall, but by some miracle it kept its balance. She went on with her story. And I lay down, with my neck twisted, like before – not bothering if I would get a double chin, and listened.

So, he – the former optician – incited by his buddy decided to become a sculptor.

His omniscient buddy had undertaken through someone in Germany setting up a huge exhibition of bronze figures and busts. Crazy money! Too crazy money! And right there, in your reach. And of course he knew all the mechanics of the deal. All he needed were objects, in this case – bronze works. And a new name. And a man he could trust. And he convinced Lionia, the former optician, Yulia's ex-husband, to become a sculptor.

(instead of 'what for?' I asked “Do you want an apple?” She took it from me.)

“Whatever. It didn't really matter. The gaudier the better. Something conceptual. With clearly pronounced defects. Like moldings of a moron.”

She tried to talk reason into him – all in vain. He was fascinated by this insane idea. His debts were growing. He kept buying bronze from plumbers.

“And stored it all at home, imagine? Sold my fur coat, in April, for pennies. He needed money for the furnace. He was in a hurry. ..”

“You see, he was trying to convince everyone that he was a sculptor. A genius. And first of all he convinced himself about it. He didn't doubt that he could create something unseen before – as soon as he started. While he was looking for a chance to rent a furnace he made a contact with a non-governmental organization. He showed them a photo of his works (which weren't his), and, regretfully, his forgery wasn't discovered at once.

He received an order for a bronze bust – it was required to immortalize in bronze the memory of some authoritative figure. And he agreed! He was paid a huge some for it – advance payment and expenses. Then he went to Moscow to seek some advice from his experienced buddy, didn't find him at home, went -- can you imagine where? -- to the hippodrome! ... and lost everything to the last penny by betting on the wrong horse. The money that wasn't his.”

“I don't know myself. I also have that crazy streak in me, but not to this extent. But listen on..”

She put her glass on the floor, stretched over me to throw the apple butt into the ashtray, I grabbed her by the shoulder, tried to hug, but she dodged me and straightened up – she wanted to finish her story.

“And so the creditors came. To collect the money. Dolmat, the treasurer, and three bruisers with them. I learned it later of course that they were Dolmat and the treasurer. I remember it struck me that Dolmat was wearing a tailored suit and was carrying a fancy cane, and the treasurer was dressed in a shabby jumper with oversleeves, and both of them seemed unreal, like cartoon characters. Lionka chickened out, began to justify himself. The treasurer with the bruisers took him to the kitchen, 'to talk'. I was standing by the window...”

“I was standing by the window,” repeated Yulia, Yu. “Dolmat was sitting in the arm-chair, looking at me, like you -- intently.... and then he asked: 'Are you his wife?' I said: 'Yes'. He said: 'I feel compassion for you.' I thought: let him feel compassion for me, what do I care? We fell silent. Then he said: 'I'm Dolmat. Your husband hasn't introduced you to us. What's your name?' I said: 'Yulia.' He: 'Don't be afraid of us, Yulia, we are civilized people, not some savages.' and then all the five of them returned from the kitchen – the treasurer, three bruisers and Lionia, -- alive, but very upset. The treasurer said: 'To begin with, let's evaluate everything there is in here.' And pointed at the furniture. On the window sill there was a deck of cards. 'So, you are a player, my dear man?' asked Dolmat getting up. He came up to the window, took the deck and leisurely shuffled it. 'I propose a game. You pick out a card. If it's of a red suit, I will take your debt upon myself and, additionally, pay you half the amount of it; if the suit is black – Yulia will be mine.' --- 'How is it?' I asked flabbergasted. The treasurer said: 'Come to your senses, Dolmat Fomich, you lost your mind, don't do it!'

And then my Lionechka said: 'I agree, let's play!' And to me: 'Don't worry, I'll win!' I went out of the room. A minute later he followed me, all pale as a sheet. 'Forgive me, I lost everything, including you!'”

Her last words made a strong impression on me, too strong. I laughed.
“You don't believe me?” she asked in surprise.

My body was shuddering. First I was laughing into the pillow, then sat next to her, tried to hug her, and couldn't – the spasms didn't let me, I was writhing in laughter.

She also started laughing. She found it funny – that I hadn't believed her. Probably it was funny: I didn't believe her. We were laughing, once turning away from each other, then bumping our foreheads. Finally we hugged.

Me. I caressed her ear. Me. I know Dolmat. I slightly bit the lobe of her ear – soft and warm.

“You don't know Dolmat at all.... He can be different.” Her silver earring slid out of my lips.

“And you wanted me to believe that you so easily allowed them to make you a gain in a card game? To win or lose you?”

“And what's peculiar about it? All women whose husbands lost them in card games willingly went to the winners.”

Almost purring, like a cat, she talked about characters from books and historical personalities; she made it a point to mention all those women by name. In spite of my careful advances.

“The bronze bust,” I asked without any particular interest. “Whose was it? And for whom?”

We clang to each other, and didn't waste any more time on meaningless conversations.

Early in the morning I had a dream......................A rocky island..........................

I should answer the door. So, it happened early in the morning; everything that happens in the morning, resembles a dream the least. -- I have to open, Yulia. Doorbell. -- Don't open. -- No, I have to. -- What for? -- How is it what for? Shouldn't I? -- And you think you should? -- Yes, Yu. -- She climbed up the ladder to the loft and hid there. -- I'm not here. -- I opened the door, and really, it was he.

“Finally,” said Dolmat entering and taking his hat off. “Thank God, I found you.”

He hung his hat on the doorknob – before going on the cruise Ekaterina Lvovna had sold the coat rack.

“Where have you been? Why aren't you coming to our lunches? Why aren't you with us?”

“It's not good, my friend,” shamed me Dolmat Fomich. We come to you with an open heart, and you?... You ignore us. That's what it is called... ignore!...After everything that has happened between us. ('And what has actually happened?') ... you act this way? Shame on you.. You are a member of the Society, Oleg Nikolaievich!”

We were standing in the foyer. He was waiting for my reply. There wasn't going to be any.

“OK, OK, don't pay attention... I'm just grumbling, as an older comrade... Can I, as an older comrade?” he laughed, obviously certain that he can.

“All of us, Oleg Nikolaievich, we all have noted your highly spiritual way of life....”

“No, I haven't come here to reproach you. I've come here on business, as you have probably guessed. You see, our courier is temporarily away – do you remember our courier?... So, I'm here instead of her. Home delivery, person-to-person. Couldn't trust it to anyone. Decided to deliver it myself.” He produced an envelope...

“An invitation. To our meeting. And don' t tell me that you cannot come. We are expecting you.”

“I don' t want to hear any 'mmmmmm”. You should come, definitely. We need you. You have already learned a lot, and you will learn more if you stay with us. You have lost so much weight!... You don't take care of yourself!... Again you don't eat anything!”

He put his hand on my shoulder and gave it a friendly squeeze. I moved away and asked in an unwelcoming, almost hostile voice:

Why wouldn't she sneeze, or cough, or move, or drop the ashtray. He would ask: “You have mice?” -- “No, it's Yulia.” And she would show herself, and climb down, and say: “Forgive me, Dolmat, now you know.” And he would see, and he would know. And I would say: “That's enough, we don't want to pretend any more, we don't want to cheat on you.” And he would ask: “Is it love?” -- “It is life,” I would answer.

“Listen,” he said. “You can't stay in this apartment. You deserve better.”

“I hope you will favor us with your new culinary research. The Society is expecting it from you. We love you and take care of you. Rest assured, we will print your work on the first page of our next newspaper.”

“No, not yet. But it's not the newspaper that is essential, it is the idea. We all are working together for the sake of the idea. And this is your advance payment.”

He produced one more envelope, put it on the table, and made a gesture to stop my instinctive attempt to comment on it; then he began to lament over my situation:

“Why didn't I come sooner to see you ? What was I thinking about? No, no, it can't go on like this. So, my dear man, you take these keys. There is a nice apartment assigned to our Society, it is standing empty right now. You will live and work there. I should have known better...”

“Excuse me, can I....” He took them out of my hand and put in an envelope. “We have to help one another. See you.”

'Vasilevski Island, 2^nd line, 11...' and a phone number... I began adding the digits...

“I know this one very well, it's good, with furniture. Was renovated last spring.” She yawned – didn't get enough sleep. “We want, that is they want, to turn it into an office, the editors office...You didn't lock the door.” She clicked the lock closing the front door after her husband. “I'll tell you a secret, Oleshka: this newspaper is never going to be released.”

“Strange, why didn't I think about it, I also have the keys. Now we have both sets... We can live there! Great!”

I was looking at her intently. She had yellow irises. Irises, and in them something yellow. It's my t-shirt that is yellow, it reflects in her irises. I thought: this one, in the yellow t-shirt, I don't know her at all. At all. I asked:

........and for instance, a character: a prince. Prince Alexandr Golitsyn. Imagine: he lost his own beautiful wife, Maria Grigorievna, in a game of cards. And to whom? To count Lev Razumovski, a rich loafer and a fop. And you say.... What do I say? Nothing. The count, you say, beat him at a game. One marriage was dissolved, another one contracted. And with this one, Razumovski, lucky in card games, she had lived 16 happy years. OK, I agree. It's possible.

Now let's get back to cooking examples. For instance, lampreys baked in batter. I wrote down from 'The Art of Cooking':

'Cut fried lampreys in pieces 9-10 cm (without head). Then take the same steps as when preparing baked sprats.'

'....Take a look at these two fishes: one was born 50 lieu off Saint-Petersburg, the other one – 5 lieu off Napoli; isn't it amusing to join them at the same table?

--And this one, -- said Cavalcanti, -- if I'm not mistaken, is a lamprey... I never heard there were lampreys of this size any other place outside Fuzaro lake....'

And now say that it isn't a dream. And this conversation, in Ekaterina Lvovna's apartment, has never occurred. I was questioning Yulia about Dolmat Fomich, her answers put me off, even scared, and would ask her not to say anything, and then would question again.

According to her words she hadn't really had many men. And more accurately: I was 4^th or 6^th on her count. It didn't add up. Nothing added up. I remembered her very well at the birthday party of the artist B.

She was with Dolmat Fomich because only he, so noble, could agree to take her, such as she was (that's what she said).

“Don' t you see anything? Look at my nose, at my chin, it's a complete disproportion, look how my eyes are set!”

I looked. I saw. There was something about her nose, and about her eyes, and about the layout of her eyes, and about the 'disproportion' as she put it, but it was her charm, wasn't it?!!!

“It is as if a caricaturist drew me, the likes of me do not exist in nature!”

“Anyway, my head shakes,” said Yulia very quietly. “Since childhood. Syndrome of persistent movements.”

True: her head was really shaking, but very slightly, almost imperceptibly. If it was a syndrome, it wasn't strongly manifested, it seemed to be overcome. Maybe it was worse when she was a child. And now it looked like she was silently agreeing with whatever was being said to her, or, just the opposite, disagreeing, as if she wasn't listening at all, but was far away in her thoughts, or was humming a tune to herself. And all this would become noticeable only at a very close look. I kept looking closer. She didn't lie. So what? Wasn't my head shaking too?

“So that you don't think that it is a mismatch -- Dolmat and I. And he isn't old at all, he's forty-two. He just looks older.”

Depressed, confused, and stunned I walked down the stairs, the number of steps still unknown to me, -- odd or even – it didn't stick in my memory. And I went out to the backyard. And then found myself in Sadovaya street.

And there was a newspaper on the wall, and I read that many things had happened while I was there, upstairs: the president of Russia asked for additional powers, Ukraine decided to eliminate its stock of missiles, and on the territory of the co-operative society 'Beehive' a maniac bestially murdered 130 rabbits, each rabbit cost 100 rubles. Then I looked closer and saw that this newspaper wasn't fresh, and therefore there wasn't any novelty in these events, and what did it matter to me if I didn't even know what the date it was today, and if I didn't have the slightest interest in the course of modern history?

And also I saw that Sennaya square had been living its life independently of all the news – old and new – that I read in the newspaper. In the absence of the tram people were moving in a crowd along the tram tracks, flowing round the concrete fence. I walked through the flea market, and was offered to buy a Makarov handgun, or a frying pan, or felt boots, but I had a goal to buy bread, and that's what I was going to do.

In the bakery I learned that a new banknote had been issued – 200 rubles, and this banknote looked like a candy wrap.

And a toothless old man at the metro entrance, drunk as a skunk, yelled: “I sell a woman for three rubles!...I sell a woman for three rubles!..........” He was holding onto her, his girlfriend, in order not to fall, and she was also drunk and toothless, and nobody wanted to buy her.

And I thought about Yulia while walking up the stairs, -- that she was the dream I was dreaming. And I realized that no one was going to answer the door if I ring the bell. It made me sad. I took the keys out. Suddenly the door opened without any interference on my part, and there was Yulia wearing my shirt buttoned only with two buttons – young, beautiful, with her chin, and her eyes, and her nose.

“What a good fellow you are! It is ravishing, this recipe of yours! It is delightful! Who would have thought – lampreys!... baked in puff-pastry batter!... such an impeccable taste!”

“And the literary example? 'Count Monte-Cristo'!...Ah?! What an erudition!” exclaimed Dolmat Fomich.

“A master of literary serving. An acknowledged master.” agreed the professor.

“Honestly, I feared that you would bring us a recipe, how to put it delicately.... of a meat dish.”

Cookery specialist Mukomolov: “Fish – isn't meat. And it isn't poultry, either!”

Professor Skvorlygin: “Besides, lampreys aren't exactly fish. Moreover, they aren't fish at all! They are just primitive vertebrates, representatives of an ancient class...”

“In this case, I am really amazed!” Dolmat Fomich was entranced. “What is it, please help me understand... an inborn tact? An intuition? I didn't give him any guidelines, he came up with all this himself!”

Cookery specialist Alexandr Mikhailovich Reznik: “Had Oleg Nikolaievich presented us a recipe of a vegetarian dish, I mean, strictly vegetarian, in the highest degree, -- something raw, or even allowing eggs and milk, I would be suspicious. But here we see the spontaneity of transition, the observance of continuity!... It is elegant. Gentlemen!” and louder: “Gentlemen! Attention! On behalf of all the members of our Society I congratulate Oleg Nikolaievich!... you authorize me to it, don't you?”

A.M.Reznik: “Dolmat Fomich! Our congratulations! You are our true mentor!...”

Dolmat Fomich: “Thank you friends... I'm touched... only I have nothing to do with it.... Congratulate him.”

“So, dear Oleg Nikolaievich, you must have sensed by now who we are and who you are dealing with. In reality, you are with us!”

With these words professor Skvorlygin hugged me with doubled strength and passionately kissed me in my lips. Professor Skvorlygin smelled with carrots and cucumbers.

“Your heart lead you along the only right way. You have come closer to the truth. So, let it be known to you: we aren't just the Gourmets Society, we are the Society of Vegetarians!

It may seem strange, but I wasn't surprised. Nothing could surprise me any more.

“You say 'vegetarians'... OK... But how can you explain that, you know what I mean?...

“We were forced to do it. In order not to stand out among the general public. And in a broader sense -- the general public of gourmets. And even broader – the general public of culinary specialists. And broader still – the general public of bibliophiles. And the broadest – all the mortals. Did I answer your question?”

“We eat meat without betraying our vegetarian beliefs,” added Zoya Konstantinovna. “We eat it without any pleasure, with disgust.”

“You see,” Dolmat Fomich pointed at those present, “the circle of the chosen is getting narrower and narrower.”

“Pythagoras, Seneca, Socrates, Shelly, Thomson, Milton, Schopenhauer, Richard Wagner in his last years of life, -- all of them were vegetarians.”

“And where were you on the 7^th of November, or the 25^th of October Old Style^¹?”

I didn't get the question. What year? Where I was? And where? Nowhere. Wandered around the city. Then with Yulia – at home. Not a single muscle on my face betrayed my anxiety.

“On the 25^th of October 1901, Old Style, or 7^th of November New Style, the Vegetarian Society approved its Rules. It was the first vegetarian society in Petersburg. Traditionally we celebrate this day with a humble but special meal.”

“Ah, Oleg Nikolaievich, if you hadn't missed any dinner with us, we would have proceeded much faster in enlightening you!”

Music by A.K.Chertkova, lyrics by I.I.Gorbunov-Posadov. For chanting with accompaniment.

I am unable to carry a tune. I only moved my lips pretending to sing. The rest of them were singing with enthusiasm.

Yulia was swinging in a hammock on the upper deck. She was wearing sunglasses. She said to me: “Go.”

“Dolmat, we have to dot our 'i's'. I don't want to deceive you anymore. I am guilty, but....

“There is no 'but',” cut me off Dolmat; he was rotating a crystal melon-like globe resembling a rugby ball. “You aren't guilty of anything, my friend. On the contrary, Oleg, it is me who stands guilty before you. I am the one who is guilty.”

I was looking at the crystal globe, and this globe that didn't look like the Earth globe, muddled my thoughts.

“Remember,” went on Dolmat taking off a semi-transparent rubber glove, and as he was slowly pulling at each finger, the dream was slowly turning into a nightmare. “Remember, you loaned me a book with the stamp of the massage cabinet? You should know, I returned it to you with a counterfeit title page. I swapped it, it's a copy, you didn't notice, it's a photocopy. And the original title page (I feel how a scream is forming in my throat) ...and the original title page I stole!”

I opened my eyes. I wasn't screaming only because I couldn't catch my breath. The terror that had overcome me didn't have any reasonable explanation.

(Once, when I was a child, I had a dream about a rabbit, an ordinary rabbit that dashed out of my father's room and ran to the stairs, just a rabbit, -- and it was a real nightmare.)

I got up, turned the light on, and found the ill-starred book. “I Don't Eat Anyone”.

And before she woke up, and before any extravagant ideas visited her sleeping head or my waking head, I went into the spacious, renovated according to modern European standards kitchen, and tormented by insomnia began leafing through 'The Art of Cooking'.

The idea of modern European standards was just coming into everyday use; it meant – overhanging ceilings, tiled mantelpiece with marble top, oversized mirror with an inlay of colored crystals...

A round table 'for visitors' was all glass and was alike to a huge optical device – the interior of a telescope maybe. The most diverting items were arm-chairs on wheels; I could move around the apartment without getting up. But this time I didn't roll into the kitchen in an arm-chair – I walked quietly, barefooted, in order not to wake Yulia up.

The cover of Stalin's 'The Art of Cooking', made up after light-colored oak was a good match to the surface of the kitchen table bordered with genuine light-colored oak.

In the recipe 'Borsch on vegetable broth' he underlined the number of calories – 204.

What does v. stand for? Should be 'vegetarianism', I can't think of anything else. That's amusing.

“Can be served with black currant sauce. Tasty and filling. Ulteriormotivenko approved.”

It was Ulteriormotivenko and no one else who allowed to substitute sweet fruit sauce by black currant sauce. Ulteriormotivenko, the neurologist!

That is, if I get it right, Ulteriormotivenko was satisfied? Ulteriormotivenko, as I understand, treated Terentiev?...Oh yes, here it is:

The longer I was leafing through the book, the more mysterious seemed to me the image of Vsevolod Ivanovich Terentiev.

Page 6 drew my special attention. On its other side (p.5) there was an appeal 'From the Editor' to mail suggestions to the state publishing house. The first chapter, entitled 'Basics of Rational Nutrition', started on page 7. And page 6 – in between 'From the Editor' and 'Basics...' -- remained virginally pure. However, not completely pure.

Somebody once made an attempt to encroach upon its purity. I didn't have any doubts about who it was: Vsevolod Ivanovich Terentiev, it was his handwriting, as far as I could judge from the traces of a pencil carefully rubbed away with an eraser. I didn't have a magnifying glass. To help my eyes see better I brought a reading lamp from the bedroom and turned the brightness all the way up – it was almost blinding. Straining my eyes I studied the traces of the erased text. The texture of the damaged paper showed that the writings used to fill the page completely – from the top to the bottom. First I thought it had been a recipe of a vegetarian dish, or several recipes, because the text was divided into sections, but then I made out the words 'love of fellow men' and 'refinement' and they made me realize that I was wrong.

Little by little, with difficulty, I managed to read the titles of the parts of the text. The first two:

The thoroughly destroyed text wasn't readable. However, at the bottom of it, when the hand of the one who had erased it got weary, it was possible to recover a small part of it. Drudgingly, letter by letter, I managed to restore four lines.

“.... we appreciate the acceptance of sacrifice as a divine calling... we value sacrifice as passion....as the highest manifestation of submission to the idea...”

Later, in spite of my hardest efforts, I could make out only the last three words of this mysterious text:

It should have taken quite a long time to erase all of it – a really time-consuming job. I imagined Vsevolod Ivanovich Terentiev at work: pedantically manipulating the eraser and time to time sweeping the tiny pellets with his little finger (or maybe not with his finger, but with a special brush – why not?). Had I been in his place and had I decided to destroy the text, I would have simply torn this page out – it wasn't functional anyway. No one would have noticed. Who on Earth could be interested in 'From the Editor' appeal on the reverse of a page?..

But he, Terentiev, had a different approach, and the way he treated this page was the proof of his deep respect for the book.

I realized that my way of reasoning was identical to that of my colleagues-bibliophiles from the Society of Vegetarians. As a matter of fact: was it correct to relate such an extensive record to the genre of marginalia? I thought it wasn't.

My thoughts would have continued to develop in the scholastic direction if I hadn't been interrupted by Yulia who suddenly appeared in the kitchen, wrapped into a sheet because of her habit to sleep naked, and it wasn't really hot. I asked her:

“Ba-a-a-a-..” she mimicked me, “can you hear yourself? How could I have met him when he died? I saw his photos. What do you need Terentiev for?”

She glanced at Terentiev's page 6 without showing the slightest interest, and said:

“You know, it will be right if you come back.” And then added: “For a while.”

“Why suddenly? He isn't even looking for you. It seems to me he simply forgot about you.”

I was stunned by the simplicity of this thought. Really, he just forgot about her, -- why not? At any rate, it would explain many things that were going on. And would reconcile me with reality. At least a little bit.

“How can I be forgotten?” she sounded hurt. “Especially that I am his wife,” she found it necessary to remind me.

“You don't understand. I should do it myself. Tête-à-tête. Remember, we are a husband and wife.”

“Yes, I remember that. But I think it's a man-to-man talk. I think I should explain myself first.”

Nobility, when coming in bursts, gives a sensation of hot waves in the chest. This is what I felt, so deeply touched by my own nobility.

“Enough!” Yulia cut me off. “Don't argue. I know how it should be done.” Then she asked:

“There are going to be radical changes in your life, take it into consideration,” Yulia warned me.

“And in yours, too,” I said considerately (i.e. having taken her warning into consideration).

“You are right,” I said. “Don't worry, it will be just fine. We'll find a place to live, rent a room...”

“Just because it is not possible to enjoy certain benefits after everything that has happened....”

Who am I? That's a good question. If I'm not a vegetarian, then what is the opposite of it? Predator?...

Her question would have left me nonplussed if her lips didn't smell with persimmon, and if the answer hadn't been suggested by what happened after I kissed her (I will withhold the details out of modesty). My answer was:

Snow fell that night – wet, nasty, amorphous, incongruous. By 6 in the morning it all melted. I was unable to stop Yulia – she was in a hurry to have a talk with Dolmat. “Why such a haste?” I asked. -- “Just so. Just feel like it. Today. Now.”

We went out to the Big Avenue, it was still dark, streetlights were lit only each third one (saving electricity), and as far as the eye could see, there weren't any cars.

Next twenty minutes we dedicated to killing them – the minutes – slowly, cruelly and senselessly; senselessly because, first of all, life is short, secondly, because on a cold morning in the waiting mode all you can do is jumping on one leg, then on the other, then on both, -- and repeat the sequence all over. The tip of Yulia's nose turned red.

“That's fine,” she said chattering her teeth. She was nervous, I could see it. Finally I managed to hail a taxi. I wasn't sure I was doing the right thing. I was about to get in together with her, but she stopped me: no, go home and wait for my call.

How long might it take them? By 10 they should be through, unless they are going to analyze the events of their whole lives. And she should call right after that, and I, according to circumstances..... I wonder what circumstances.... I'll see what will have to be done. Perhaps I'll have to go over there and say the final words....

I swept the floor in the foyer, which isn't like me; turned the round table into oval by extending it; drew little men on the margins of an old newspaper (from the 20^th of November deliveries of flour to bread-baking plants were reduced); rolled in the arm-chair all over the apartment; scrambled an egg and ate it while solving a crossword, then scrambled one more and ate it over the crossword; studied the substitute of a window latch that corresponds to the European standards; then lay down on the sofa; then tried to remember the name of the font mentioned in the crossword; then tried to solve the riddle 'the son of the professor is fighting the father of the son of the professor, the professor himself isn't fighting, -- who is fighting who?'; then calculated the area of the room and the area of the windows; then was looking for the keys to this apartment – I couldn't remember where I put them.

I waited. I was beside myself with worry. I kept making sure that the phone was plugged in and the handset was in its proper position.

Then music began haunting me again: I heard fancy rhythm of a drum, -- it wasn't bolero, at least not Ravel's bolero – it was my own; the rhythm unraveling in a spiral, so beautiful and refined, only that I would never be able to reproduce it.....

My thoughts returned to the riddle: if the professor is a woman, then it all makes sense: her son is fighting her husband. A funny riddle.

And then, in a flash of a sudden insight, I grasped the meaning of Terentiev's mystery: he knew!

Only lunatics can make assumptions of this sort, I understand. But it all adds up... It tallies just perfectly....So this is what you are!...

I took my eyes off the book. For some time I sat staring foolishly into the window. That's how I found the keys – they were on the window sill.

“You see what he's doing,” pronounced Dolmat with surprise, addressing the invisible audience, and naturally not getting any reply spoke to me again:

“Ugh! How vulgar!... Are we really alike to the Blue Beard?.. If you, Oleg, attended our meetings regularly it would never cross your mind....”

But I wasn't listening to him any more, I swung open the door to the bedroom – there wasn't anyone in there. I dashed into the library – there was professor Skvorlygin. He was standing by the window, an easel in front of him – he was painting a portrait. He got embarrassed when he saw me.

“Well, I dabble in art sometimes....Hobby, you see....Nothing serious.... Dolmat Fomich asked.....”

He was painting from a photograph fixed to the easel. I assumed it was Zoya Konstaninovna, -- I didn't really have time to look closer at it.

“Our Oleg went amok,” Dolmat explained to him, standing in the doorway. “Do I look like the Blue Beard?”

“Such a beautiful day today,” mumbled the professor wiping his hands against the apron. “Two hundred years ago....”

“Or you think that we are going to 'suck you up' as well?” questioned me Dolmat reproachfully, piercing me with his eyes. “Say it openly, don't hold it back.”

“Had the circumstances been different I would have asked for satisfaction,” uttered Dolmat gravely. “Listen, Oleg! On the name of this saintly woman,” he pointed at Zoya Konstantinovna's portrait, “I swear you are mistaken!”

His face still carried the expression of solemnity and pathos, but his eyes roved.

“Enough. We'll talk later. I've got to go. To the philharmonic society. Hope to see you again. Explain it all to him,” he addressed Skvorlygin, “cross all t's.”

“What t's?” sighed Skvorlygin, “you simply need some sleep...that's all...Here, please...

Suddenly I felt overcome with sleepiness, my legs and feet were heavy and wouldn't obey me. I didn't realize I was already lying on the sofa.

I reached into my pocket with my heavy and weary hand and took out a piece of paper folded in four.

“Please, explain it to me, maybe you know....” I started reading, hardly being able to make out my own handwriting: -- “.... we appreciate the acceptance of sacrifice as a divine calling... we value sacrifice as passion....as the highest manifestation of submission to the idea...”

“.....as the uttermost expression of the fullness of existence, grasped by a loving heart,” picked up Skvorlygin with a friendly giggle, -- “because love alone, and not anger, and not hate, -- only love inspires a sensitive anthropofague to love, and he answers its call with heightened appetite....”

“One of our witty guys wrote it...It's just a pamphlet^²...Don't be scared....Sleep...sleep...sleep....”

I forgot to tell you (but honestly, I simply didn't tell you) how on the way to Dolmat I ran into my former landlady with her retired major.

I was almost running along Zagorodny, brushing against the passersby, when she called my name. I may not have recognized her otherwise: she was wearing a coat with a mink collar, golden-rimmed glasses, and he was next to her, -- they were walking arm-in-arm.

“What happened, Oleg Nikolaievich, you disappeared? I brought you a souvenir...

“Tell him, tell him how it was...” said the major, and I noticed suddenly that he had two stars on his shoulder straps: lieutenant-colonel, and not a major any more? -- “For serving our Motherland,” he explained following the direction of my look.

“But why to talk about me? Look at her – she wrote a travel diary, so interesting, can't put it down! A novel, that's what it is!”

“I'd like to publish it,” hastily explained Ekaterina Lvovna feeling that I wasn't inclined to listen about her Mediterranean adventures. “Rogov, the critic, praised it. And Kapitulanski did too!”

Something new: she was acquainted with critics. I never heard about Kapitulanski.

I hurried further along Zagorodny wondering about the stars, critics, and golden-rimmed glasses. And then all my thoughts returned to Yulia, and to her alone....

....................................................................................................................

“Don't you think, gentlemen, that we were mistaken about him? Please, everyone, express your opinion.” --

“No, it's an improper question. No. Educational romance, free of psychological motivation, and we shouldn't over- or underestimate the peripeteia.” --

“'Suck her up'!... He is sincerely convinced that you are capable of eating your own spouse. As if we lived in Africa...” --

“What to do, During such rapid spiritual growth paroxysms of uncertainty are unavoidable.” --

“And still, he guessed so many things correctly. His intuition is amazing.” --

“I hope he doesn't consider Vsevolod Ivanovich Terentiev to be a primitive victim of our cruelty?” --

“To be eaten is a primitive shortcut to self-realization.” --
“But there is a profoundness in it.” --

I came round on a silk-covered couch in the White rotunda of Sheremetiev's palace. It was nighttime. There was a bronze candlestick on a round table. The flame was quivering. I sat up.

“It's late, we shouldn't switch on lights, otherwise we will be discovered, and this is absolutely inadmissible. At night this building belongs to us, and to us alone. Everyone is already here and is waiting for you.”

“Who are you talking about?” -- this question quietly rolled out of my mouth like a soft ball.

“About us. Us and our Society, Oleg. Drink.” His hand brought to my lips a glass of red wine. I took a sip and drew his hand aside.

“Oleg! I was entrusted to pass an important message to you. There shouldn't be any innuendos, any omissions between you and the Society.”

“You are perspicacious. You see things hidden from everybody else's eyes. You decided that we are the Society of anthropophagi? I won't try to make you change your opinion, Oleg, even though I could easily disprove your not so incontrovertible discovery with a multitude of indisputable arguments. But I am not going to do it. On the contrary, with full responsibility I confirm my respect for your quest for truth, Oleg, and I'm telling you without beating around the bush: you have come very close to the truth, you are on the right road. We are anthropophagi. But not in the meaning of the word flaunted by ignoramuses. Listen to me, Oleg: there are anthropophagi and anthropophagi. Therefore, we are not those. You will understand, you have a clear analytical mind. We are anthropophagi bound by a certain declaration I'm not going to elaborate on right now, but you should know to what extent we are anthropophagi; so, we are anthropophagi to a greater degree than we are vegetarians, and to a far greater degree than we are gourmets.... don't be surprised, Oleg, and much much greater than we are bibliophiles. Vsevolod Ivanovich Terentiev could have become anthropophagus the same as we, hadn't it been that the path of his life and his road to self-realization definitively intersected at the preceding stage point: he remained a vegetarian, and this is what he will always be for us.

Skvorlygin went silent and immobile; he was deep in thought, and seemed to have forgotten about me; I didn't move, a minute passed, another one, somewhere a door opened, the flame flickered in the draft, Skvorlygin began to speak again:

“Oleg, I do not have a gift to predict what your life might have been. I'm not talking about the combination of stars; I'm talking about something else: sometimes an external, seemingly unimportant event, defines a choice of the life path of a man, even if this choice is made for him by others. You will ask: what kind of event?

Don't ask – I don't know. But I'm going to try and answer why you belong to us. Although it isn't that simple. But I'll try.

Oleg, you a connoisseur of elegant literature. You have good taste. Your appetite is exemplary. You aren't aggressive. Self-sacrifice is characteristic of you. Forgive me, my speech is chaotic. It's bad, bad, forget it! Forget everything I have just said. I didn't put it right....But, Oleg....They say about you: in him there is profoundness [epitomizes emulations of exemplary intellectual creative introspective servitude?] And this is true. I don't know how to explain it, Oleg... Inner music is what makes you special... It lives in you... you hear it, but can't reproduce it... How can it be? To hear divine music and not be able to express it in any way: neither by whistling, nor by singing, or a gesture of a hand, or by tapping on a table with your index finger, -- how does it feel not to have a musical ear, Oleg? I'm sure you hear it, your music, even now, at this moment, don't you?”

“No,” I said, and I lied because somewhere, on the edge of my consciousness, timidly and shyly started playing an oboe.

“She's well and sound. She just needs a good rest. Dolmat sent her to the Mediterranean, almost against her will, but I think he did the right thing.”

“Here are your shoes, put them on,” -- (and really, I was wearing only socks), -- “You understand, Oleg, I don't want to interfere into your relationship with Yulia, you just have to understand that there isn't the slightest reason for anxiety. And as for Zoya Konstantinovna.... I'm afraid, you won't see her any more...”

“No, no, I can see what you thought.... But I didn't say anything.... You are with us, you are one of us, yes, but is doesn't mean that we are going to force you...” he smacked his lips.

“Oleg, I have to admit, you crossed our plans. OK, that's fine... I told you, you aren't far from the truth... Exactly: not far!... because it isn't the truth yet, but only closeness to it... Let me try to explain it to you.... Have you ever heard of anhydrite? It's an anhydrous gypsum. Even though I am a bone specialist, I have some understanding of such things.... Come on, come on, lets go. It's time.”

He helped me get up, picked up the candle and lead me into the depth of the building.

Our route was complicated. Instead of going down the main stairs, we entered the White Hall. I had never been here at night. At night the White Hall isn't White, it's Black. The black grand piano is a black silhouette on the black scene. And the arm-chairs: soft blackness of the arm-rests.

Skvorlygin was walking ahead of me; he was holding the candle in front of him, I was looking into his back, the sinuous contour of his figure appearing as dim luminescence.

I was about to cry out: “I hear it!” But I suppressed it, and the sounds died away.

We stopped by the scene, he was looking intently into its darkness, as if expecting to see a ghost at the black piano (obviously, something appeared to him too).

“Try to understand, Oleg,” he said in a loud whisper, and it seemed to me that his shoulder was twitching, -- “the old bed of the Neva wasn't here, wasn't where it is now, remember, the Neva is one of Europe's youngest rivers.”

Now we were walking along a narrow hose-like corridor turning around the dressing room.

“Along Shpalernaya Street there are vast areas of lime; the time of their formation obviously dates back to the Ice Age....Do you hear me?”

Again we came out on the stairs. We started going down. Big photo-portraits of laureates of the State prize were on the walls. One of them had an eye put out.

I shuddered. From the darkness appeared the silhouette of the janitor clad in white. He didn't have a lantern or a flashlight, and it wasn't clear why he was hiding there.

Along the service corridor, past the office of the assistant director, past the foreign committee and other rooms we were proceeding into the depths of the Palace. This route should unavoidably lead to the pool hall. At the end of the corridor was Dolmat with a candle. He was waiting for us.

“Everyone is there,” he announced, skipping unnecessary greetings.”Did you tell him everything?”

“Almost everything,” replied Skvorlygin, letting me enter the pool hall. Then he asked:

“Nothing important,” said Dolmat. “Lech Wałęsa called Gorbachov on the phone. Tomorrow it will be a headline in all newspapers.”

“The union of cooperatives suggests we sell it all to the English. Completely. I'm just back from the philharmonic society.”

“Magnificent. Cantata 'Repenting David.' A masterpiece. The very first performance in Petersburg. The young man probably does not know that today is the anniversary of Mozart's death.”

“I'll climb down first,” said Dolmat and dove agilely under the pool table. “Give me some light.”

“Be careful with the fire! Don't burn down the building!”said the janitor standing in the doorway.

Professor Skvorlygin, crouching, was shining a light to Dolmat. I couldn't believe my eyes. There was a hatch!

“Karst regions are often characterized by deep fissures and caves,” quietly said Skvorlygin turning his face in my direction (he was still crouching). -- “There is a similar cavity in Furmanova Street, house 9. Now you, Oleg. Your turn.”

“Get down, don't be afraid,” cheered me up the janitor. “There are steps there.”

The cave was humid and not very deep. A brook was running across it. On the right side, along the wall, was wooden flooring, rotten through by humidity. Dolmat gave me a candle. He was holding a carbide lantern, and the same exactly lantern was carrying Skvorlygin who came down right after me. An icicle-like form was hanging over us in semi-transparent fringes.

After the second or the third turn the tunnel grew wider. There were people standing along the walls; some of them were holding antique candleholders with lit candles ; others had lanterns that looked like kerosene lamps.

A huge icicle was hanging down from the ceiling. Its crystal iridescent surface was sparkling with all the colors of the rainbow.

“Stalactite!” I thought. Skvorlygin seemed to have read my mind: “That's right!”

We were expected. Some faces were familiar to me: here was Ulteriormotivenko, the neurologist; and there was Cattlebutcherov, the deputy.

“To say that we are the Society of anthropophagi is to say nothing,” began Dolmat. “Once a year, on this blessed night, we look at it holding our breath; to see, to look deeper is our goal.”

“I'm going to explain,” quietly said Skvorlygin. “When carbon dioxide is eliminated from water, calcium carbonate that saturates it, is precipitated. You see: a thickening. Down there is what had been formed throughout the years of the Soviet rule. And up there,” -- he stretched his hand upwards, -- “is the era of Catherine the Second.”

Probably I was. Yes, I was. It seemed to be an oboe. An oboe was weeping. I thought so.

And they were looking at me as if trying to hear the music that only I had the gift to perceive: the weeping oboe.

Yulia, I thought, where are you, Yulia, who are you, what are you, what are you for? Yulia, everything is going to be fine, Yulia, I won't let anyone hurt you, Yulia....

1Disparity: the initials of Struts on the stamp were P.Y.

1A.Pushkin, 'Eugene Onegin', stanza XVI.

1 A kind of white wheatmeal loaf

1 a kind of ravioli with meat

2 He means 'The Evenings in the Village near Dikanka' by a classic of Russian literature Nikolai Gogol. It is a collection of stories depicting the customs, beliefs and prejudice of Ukrainian peasants which can be termed as poetry in prose.

1Georgian wine

1The residence of the Soviet government

1 the leading newspaper of the Soviet regime

1A kind of bulletin board put in a public place; there were pictures and names of people who committed disgraceful acts, and the description of what they had done.

1Famous pop singers

1i.e.Julian calender as opposed to the adopted by the Bolsheviks Gregorian calender, or New style.

2The complete text of the pamphlet “Humanistic Ideal of Anthropophagia” was published two months after the events described in this novel

HUNGRY TIMES, OR THE MEMBER OF THE SOCIETY

Written by Sergei Nosov, translated by Golda Hirsch