Chapter 11

 

 

 

After sleep, Vera's face was fresh, velvety-smooth, her brown eyes, lined with light blue mascara, and sparkled mysteriously, hiding some secret. She was dressed in a green men's shirt, tucked into blue jeans, belted with a wide leather belt with a buckle in the shape of a buffalo's head. The only thing missing was a hat with a wide crown and a holster with a Colt on her hip, so that she would become a living embodiment of the cinematic image of a cowgirl from some American western.

Admiring her beauty, I felt hungry. And I thought: "Now we'll have breakfast, and then we'll go with this dark-haired beauty for a walk around Krakow, see its sights, take pictures..."

In addition to the city market with its enfilades of cloth stalls, I wanted to visit the local flea market to compare it with ours, Odessa's "Starokonny”. And at the same time buy a tail spinner for my collection, cast from antique Polish silver, if, of course, they make such things here.

I was already imagining Vera and me taking a photo at the Adam Mickiewicz monument on Old Square when I heard her demanding voice:

“Let’s, Leonid, pack your things; we have to go!”

I couldn’t believe my ears and asked the following:

“And breakfast?”

“We’ll have breakfast on the road,” she answered.

After these words, I looked at Vera with different eyes and saw in her not the living embodiment of a cowgirl, but the embodiment of an African witch practicing Voodoo. And, meeting her gaze, I submitted...

After driving along, the A-4 for about an hour, we stopped at a roadside snack bar, "U Zosy," not far from Katowice, the capital of the Silesian Voivodeship.

They set the table for us under an old elm tree. And on the advice of the waitress, we ordered pies (varenyky in Ukrainian) with stewed cabbage and mushrooms, mazurkas with apple jam, black coffee, and cream for breakfast.

The young lady serving us looked at me with condemnation bordering on contempt, and it seemed to me that she was ready to incinerate Vera with her blue, like the Silesian sky, eyes. And every time she walked away from our table, she nervously crossed herself, whispering, "Matka boska Chenstokhovskaya...", "Matka boska Chenstokhovskaya..."

However, the simple Polish food was, to my taste, excellent. What I liked most was the cream, fresh, smelling like childhood memories of meadow grass and a cleanly washed cow's udder.

After breakfast, we set off further to Berlin, via Wroclaw, Zielona Gora, and Frankfurt an der Oder. The weather was fine and sunny, just right for traveling. A flotilla of cumulus clouds drifted in the sky, driven by a north wind, and the heat was gone.

When the traffic was lighter, I greedily soaked up the views of the Kraków-Czestochowa Upland. Yes, this was southeastern Poland, the country that advocates for Ukraine in European affairs, and I was pleased and inspired by it.

 “Have you ever wondered, Leo, why the Poles have such a selfless love for Ukraine?” Brain intruded uninvited into my thoughts and experiences.

“But you, Brain, do know why?”

"I think that the Poles were pushed to this by the aggressive actions of their northern neighbor. After the Moscow moth laid its imperial eggs in Ukrainian Crimea and in the East of Ukraine, their anxiety increased a hundredfold. And we must give them credit: they were the first of the Europeans to realize who was next in line..." he said.

"You are right, Brain, the Poles have something to fear," I said. And thought sadly about the bitter fate of the Poles. At one time, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth missed the opportunity to unite the neighboring principalities around itself and become the first Slavic empire in history. To do this, the Poles had only one reasonable step left to take - to recognize the Ukrainian Cossack Republic, or Hetmanate, as a full-fledged member of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.

However, some of the most aggressively minded gentries were against this, and some of them openly threw themselves into the arms of St. Petersburg, seeing in Empress Catherine a loyal friend and protector. And she, in response, slipped them her former lover Stanislav Poniatowski as king. For this stupidity, Poland paid with five partitions. And in each of them, the leading role was played first by the Russian Empire and then by its successor, the Soviet Union. Therefore, the Poles rightly believe that their nation may not survive the sixth partition.

“Then Poland needs to hold on to Ukraine as tightly as possible,” Brain responded vividly to this information.

“If only it were that simple,” I said.

"Enough, Leonya, about sad things! Better, remember something good, life-affirming!" Brain begged!

Good poetry has helped me in difficult moments of my life, and, upon reflection, I remembered the humorous verses of Julian Tuwim:

"One day in July,

On a wonderful day,

Suddenly fell out

Orange Snow

           To the meadow…»

“Leo, what are you whispering under your breath?” Vera asked, hearing my muttering.

“Well, I’m just reciting the verses of the Apostle Julian,” I answered.

“Apostle? Julian? She was surprised.

“Yes, Julian Tuwim, the apostle of Polish poetry. And, imagine, he also had Jewish blood in him,” I said.

“Then read something to me, too,” she asked.

And I read aloud:

“People have never seen such a sky before. "

From such a sky, the flame of future faith flows.

The people are in turmoil, scourging the body, shouting about a miracle,

And this moment is then experienced for centuries…”

"A beautiful psalm," Vera said. And, laying her head on my shoulder, she took my hand in hers. Our palms met, our fingers interlocked, and our hearts began to beat in the same rhythm. And such warmth spread throughout my entire body as I had not felt since leaving my mother's womb.

It was a joy to realize that everything had worked out so well. Like in a good lyric poem: a beautiful black girl, watercolor Polish landscapes, silver clouds drifting across the blue sky, and good quality of the road…

 The engine worked easily, without strain, and the Cadillac smoothly covered kilo-meter after kilometer. The only thing that was depressing and forced me to be on guard was the multi-ton trucks. Therefore, in order not to drag myself along behind the heavy truck and not breathe diesel exhaust, I overtook it, showing what the 409-horsepower hidden under the hood of our car is capable of.

Carried away, I didn't notice how we passed Wroclaw and found ourselves on the border with Germany. When I saw people in customs uniform, I couldn't help but blurt out: "Germany!"

“Oh, Leon! You already speak Romanian,” Vera said, either ironically or surprised.

I kept silent, observing the behavior of the Boches: one of them was a blond man of Aryan appearance, the other was dark, with a curly head and the cunning eyes of an Odessa gypsy. Most likely, he was a naturalized Palestinian or a native of the Maghreb countries.

I don't know why, but when I saw them, I panicked and started groping around my waist for a grenade.

"Don't be nervous, everything that is happening to you is a consequence of your Soviet upbringing and frequent viewing of Russian war films. Each of them has one main idea: "Kill a fritz!"

Although, if instead of "Fritz" we put a character of another nationality, the meaning of this expression will not change, because the main word in it is "kill". However, these two adherents of the European International will not do anything bad to us," Brain reassured me.

Pulling myself together, I began to watch as Vera, with a royal movement of her hand, handed two passports to the customs officers. The officers, having casually leafed through the documents, asked Vera, and not me - as if I wasn't there! - to get out of the car and open the trunk.

I immediately guessed their intentions. These two sexually preoccupied guys just decided to admire the girl's seductive forms when she, bending over, would open the trunk and suitcase with things for inspection.

"Idiots!" I muttered through my teeth.

 "She shouldn't put on such tight pants!" Brian commented on what was happening.

And I again regretted that the grenades remained in my apartment on Kolontayevskaya Street.

 Having driven about two kilometers from the border checkpoint, I stopped in a special “road pocket” and got out of the Cadillac.

“Vera!” I said, quite determined. “What are you doing to me? I can be detained as an illegal in any country in the European Union. But as you know, I have a good business in Ukraine, and I don’t want to lose it…”

“What happened, Leo? What are you unhappy about?” Vera asked, turning to me. 

“What kind of passports did you show at the border?”

“This is my passport, and this is yours, look!” she said, handing me two little books.

I took the passports and unfolded each one in turn. One was Liberian, Verin. On the main page of the second, Romanian, my photograph was pasted. But the surname, typed in Latin, was not mine but another: “Leon Lu-po…”

“Vera, where is this passport from, and why is it Romanian? And who is Leon Lupo?!”

“Why are you so worried? Get in the car! Turn on the ignition, step on the gas! I'll tell you everything now, she said, not showing any dissatisfaction with my behavior.

 And I did as Vera said again. And when the Cadillac picked up cruising speed, she put her pink palm on the back of my head, then with the thumb and forefinger of her left hand she tugged at the lobe of my left ear - this was how she put me into a trance every time.

However, this time, gathering all my will into a fist, I decided to resist her African tricks.

“Vera, come on, let’s tell it all, honestly!”

“Dafai, dafai!” She mimicked me.

 "I am only pulling your leg!" She confirmed my guess. “You see, Leo, the whole thing is...”

Thus, Vera Mason told me that she is a member of the Congress of African Women (CAW), a non-governmental organization that aims to free the continent from “Colonial System 2.0.”

The first point of their program is the neutralization of tribal leaders and presidents who, in exchange for generous handouts from states and transnational corporations, betray the interests of their own peoples.

“So, women want to take power into their own hands?” I asked.

“Yes, and we have the best role model, a woman of amazing destiny. This is Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the first black woman to become president of Liberia,” Vera said excitedly.

“Well! Excellent idea! And we in Ukraine should elect a woman president,” I said. “Maybe she could become a real Mother of the Nation and take care of Ukrainians as if they were her own children...”

As it turned out, Vera, on assignment from KAJ, not only participated in the Ukrainian grain forum and established business contacts with grain raiders. She also had another, no less important mission: to monitor the living conditions of migrants in Ukraine. Because Brussels continues to negotiate with Kyiv on the placement of refugees from Western Asia and Africa in Ukraine, thus trying to alleviate the situation in European countries, where the influx of refugees is already making itself felt, exacerbating such social problems as overpopulation, shortages of food, fresh drinking water, and other essentials.

“And what, Vera, are your impressions of visiting Ukraine?”

“You have problems, but you also have positive results.”

“And what do they consist of? That hundreds of thousands of foreign refugees will be added to their millions ours?

"It's not my headache. Brussels and Kyiv know what they are doing and will do in the future," Vera replied, probably not understanding what I was talking about.

And I imagined how refugees from Asia and Africa would integrate into Ukrainian society. How they would begin to play an important role not only in the economy but also in politics. And in about fifty years, some descendant of the "bloody" Bokassa would run for president of Ukraine, as a candidate from the international "Refugee Party."

Fine, it’s not my headache,” I said, trying to sound conciliatory. “But please explain how on earth you managed to get a Romanian passport with my face and someone else’s name on it.”

“Where from? Where from? Out of thin air, Leo!” Vera laughed her smile disarmingly childish.

“Let’s just say a Romanian passport was the easiest one to pull off on short notice. Consider it my welcome gift to the West. Use it in good health!”

“So, goodbye, Leonid Petrovich Petrenko, and hello, Leo Lupo,” I muttered, adjusting to my new reality.

"Consider that you have been mobilized by KAZH — the great African womb!" Vera said.

The most fertile queen in the world!” I quipped.

“Yes,” she continued. “Seven to ten children per womb. And that’s not the limit!”

"The stupidest situation! You, my friend, are not mobilized; you are just taken hostage. And by whom? An African woman! You have never gotten yourself into such shit before!" So specific, my Brain gave its frank opinion on what is happening.

“Where were you before!?” I almost shouted, exploding.

“What are you talking about, Leo?” Vera asked.

“I said this to myself,” I answered.

“Well, well,” she said ironically.

I must give credit to my brain's insight. Having put all the facts together, he concluded that, due to Vera Mason's fault, or rather, thanks to her, we periodically found ourselves in some other space-time continuum, where time and processes behaved differently than in the coordinates in which humanity on Earth exists.

For example, for the same Germans, the world around them - the sky above their heads, the familiar bourgeois landscape, the beautiful autobahn, and prim towns and villages with orchards and vegetable patches—remained as they really were. At the same time, our world, created with the participation of Vera Mason, seemed to us as if reflected in a self-propelled concave mirror. And the problem was not with our vision but with the duration, or rather, the transience, of our existence in time and space.

Therefore, I took for granted the fact that we covered the distance from Krakow to Berlin in an hour and a half, if we take as a starting point the time of the end of our breakfast at the restaurant “U Zosia” in Katowice.

But the most astonishing thing was that while I was fooling around as usual, my modest Brain, had established, regardless of my desire, contact with Vera's brain. And now, thanks to this circumstance, Vera and I began to understand each other at half a word, or, more accurately, at half a thought. This non-verbal way of communicating, without speech or language, was something new to me. But it was more important than my status as a "hostage." Because I wanted to know more about Vera Mason than she knew about herself and what mission she was entrusted to carry out in Europe.

The capital of the united Germany greeted us with a cloudy sky and a drizzle. However, this was a trifle compared to the fact that not one of the Berlin hotels wanted to provide Vera and me with a double or single room, or any room at all. Administrators all cited the "hotel boom" associated with summer holidays and migrants taking up hotel rooms with their families, but what did they care? The German taxpayer was paying for them.

And we had no choice but to rent an apartment on Hochstraße r, in the Mitte district. It is not far from the Humboldt People's Park. Vera found this apartment on the Internet. It was located on the third floor of a five-story building whose strict architecture resembled the "Odesa Stalinian," a small series of houses that were built in the USSR in the second half of the 50s. The cost of living there was not cheap —265 euros per day. However, a hotel room would have cost Vera and me at least one and a half to two times more.

After taking a shower and calling someone on her mobile phone, Vera hurried. As she explained, she needed to go somewhere and meet someone. "On urgent matters," she specified.

“Don’t worry, have fun,” Vera said as she left, putting a Visa credit card on the table.

“As someone mobilized by the Congress of African Women, you can spend as much money as you want. But, of course, within reason.”

“I’ve been waiting for this, and it’s happened,” Brain responded, interpreting the Visa card incident in his own way.

I froze, not understanding what he meant. And waited for him to explain further.

“Yes, Lenya, you’ve turned into a gigolo,” Brain stated categorically.

“Not a gigolo, but a hired worker!” I spoke. And without thinking, "However, if it comes down to it, it is not me but you who is the gigolo, since it is you who is supported by me."

"It's me, your kept woman?!" Brain exploded like a steam boiler. And passed out...

Around two o'clock in the afternoon, after lying around for a while on a bed the size of four ping-pong tables, I reluctantly got up and went into the bathroom to freshen up. I looked in the mirror and met the gaze of an unpleasant guy. Looking closely, I saw that it was indeed my face, only overgrown with a three-day stubble, and not a dog's muzzle, as I had initially expected.

 “Well, how do you like this mug?” Brain sneered once again.

“It’s asking for a brick,” I answered in the same tone.

“Of a brick, or don't of a brick, but a razor for sure!” he replied, wrinkling his convolutions, thus depicting his disdain for my appearance.

On this optimistic wave, I left the house. About twenty meters from our entrance, a man with an "arafatka" on his head was sitting on the sidewalk.

"Palestinian," I thought. And, approaching him, I asked: “Can you tell me where there is a store nearby where I could buy a razor?”

“It’s Sunday today; the shops are closed,” the “Palestinian” answered in pure Russian, with almost no accent.

“Where did you learn the language?” I asked.

“In Saratov city. I studied there, at the military school,” he answered indifferently.

“Are you collecting alms here?”

“Not alms, but donations for the war against the infidels,” he said and shook his head.

“So, you’re an Arab terrorist?” I asked, looking around warily.

“No, I’m just a volunteer,” he replied without batting an eye.

Leaving the Palestinian, who, judging by his characteristic speech, was a native of the Russian Upper Volga region and not Gaza, I walked further along a Hochstraße…