To Valery Sharonov
Sergey fineshed drink a glass
wine cabernet with a pleasant bitterness
and got up from-from the table.
Coming up the marble steps of the staircase to the exit from the bar, he noticed
a poster with the verses: “The skill to drink is not given to all, / The skill
to drink is art, / that is not smart who
drinks wine / Without thought and without feeling... ”Verses stait in his
mechanical memory, but did not warm his the Slavic heart. The passing day was marred
by an unsuccessful meeting with Eugenia, a pretty worker of one of the Odessa
garment factories.
Sargay came to the City Garden
to the place of the appointed meeting ahead of time and has become made plans
for the upcoming evening. He didn’t want to go to the cinema, and he decided to
offer the girl a ship trip along the sea coast.
Eugeniy appeared unexpectedly
from a side alley, and tell smiling
guiltily:
- Hi, I'm not late?
She was wearing a white wool
sweater, a green skirt and bright red high-heeled shoes. Their color, it seemed
to him, was not in harmony with the color of the rest of her clothes. He dont
would need focus on this attention,
nothing do not speek, but his provincial ignorance so climbing out of
him.
- This is very such a bad
taste! - He said, pointing to the red shoes.
Eugeniy's face covering with a
blush, she took a quick and confused looked at her fashionable shoes, for which
she laid out almost half of her salary, then at Sergey.
- Why are you so Seryozha? She
asked. And, without receiving a sensible answer, she abruptly turned around and
left, accelerating her step towards the street of Havanay.
Only after that it dawned on
Sergey that he had offended the girl. He wanted
to rush after her, but he did not budge. He having guessed that his
belated repentance would only increase her dislike for him. Feeling annoyed and
angry with himself for his tactlessness, he passed the rotunda, the fountain,
in which has not be water, the of monumen
bronze lions, green from the patina, which proudly, royally, holded theirs
selfe heads, went out into Deribasovskaya Street. And, not inventing anything
better, he go to "Oksamit of Ukraine".
When he went down to the
tasting room, where only Ukrainian-made wines were served, it was still
light. Now already purple dusk is
hanging over the city. The yellowish light of electric lampions barely
penetrating through the thick leaves of chestnuts. On the opposite side of the
street, a glass case of the Lakomka confectionary was burning gold, to resembling an illuminated aquarium. And
there, behind the glass, silently moving his lips, like fish, lovers of sweets
crowded.
Watching the life of the
evening city, the young man smoked a cigarette, and him do not very wanted go
to the port hostel, where he was registered and lived. He never do not a
hurried return in this shelter of Soviet lumpens, which not much differented
from others such like him. And when after the shift somebody of his colleagues
asked: “Where are you going?” He always answered:
- In the nigh bad hostel..
He leisurely went into
Pushkinskay street. Huge plane trees swayed in the wind, and crackling, freeding
from last year’s dry bark. He liked to walk alone in the evening streets,
listening to the mysterious rustling of autumn foliage over his head. But today
was not the case. The current spat with Zhenya did not give him rest. He
thought about how he would better justify himself in front of a girl for this
his truly wild deed, but would she accept his apologies?
"Needed to be to him these shoes!" - thinked Sergey.
And suddenly, tired of this
Samoyed, he exclaimed:
- And what is my fault? Red
with green - isn't this vulgar?! - He said it so loudly that rare passersby looked
around at him.
He walked along the evening
street, stooping pulling shoulders and bowined his head, remembering verses
Ivan Bunin’s verse complete big yearning:
The beast has a hole, the bird
has a nest,
As the heart beats, woefully
and loudly,
When I enter, being baptized,
in a stranger, rented house
With my old travel bag
“In fact,” he thought, “is it
possible to call a hostel a home in the usual sense of the word? No, this is,
indeed, a doss-house, a place to rest the body, worn out by overwork in the
port, than for the soul. ”
Even the life in the hostel
was arranged accordingly. Three to four people lived in the rooms, each had a metall
bed, a bedside table, and a wardrobe that was common to all. The washbasin and
the public toilet were in a long “P” -shaped corridor, and the shower was
downstairs on the first floor. The only place for rest was the library and a
small reading room where you could read a book, look through magazines and
newspapers.
All this fit perfectly, as it
seemed to him, into the social doctrine of the state, which failed to provide
its citizens with normal housing, but was in dire need of cheap labor. As a
result, several “generations of the homeless” have grown up in the country,
nestling in barracks, communal apartments, bachelor and family dormitories. “My
address is not a house or a street, my address is the Soviet Union!” - this
simple song, which the central radio stations constantly played, could become
an anthem of these people.
So Sergey, who served two
years in the army and went to work at the port, was provided with a bed in a
dormitory. That was the name of what was officially considered his housing. In
his youth, he perceived such a lifestyle as a given of a temporary nature. For
the present, he still did not perceive as life itself, but only as its
vestibule. The young man hoped that the "curve" of his fate somewhere
yes will take out. Although he did not have a definite goal, he did not know
what he would do in the near future. Chaos reigned in his head, which had to be
somehow streamlined, systematized. But he was not ready for this yet.
In the summer he spent his
free time from work at sea. In the evenings I went to the “Lights of the
Lighthouse” dance floor in Shevchenko Park, nicknamed by young people “Maidan”,
in the winter he visited the Palace of Sailors or other places where young
people of a certain future gathered at dance parties like him.
At one of them, he met Eugene.
The girl stood alone, with a sad expression on her face, already losing or
losing hope that someone would invite her to dance. And Sergey approached her.
Dancing a slow tango, he felt
her narrow, almost childish palm sweat in his hand. But he did not show that he
noticed this clear sign of excitement. After the dance he gallantly took the
girl by the elbow, led her to the place where she stood before. Then they
danced together again and again. And so by itself it turned out that Sergei
went to escort Zhenya home ...
Turning onto Zhukovsky Street
and crossing Novikov Bridge, he found himself at the house where his friend
Sharik, a librarian of the port dormitory, lived. And he remembered how they
met. It happened on one of the ugly slushy days either at the end of autumn or
at the beginning of winter. With nothing to do, Sergei went to the library.
Sharik, officially Valery Pavlovich, having seen him for the first time in his
“possessions”, looked at him with undisguised interest — it was not often the
case of young movers who looked into the library. Then, asking what he would
like to read, filled out the form, and then gently invited to a lecture on
modern painting.
“An interesting person will
read the lecture, artist Oleg Sokolov,” he continued, trying to captivate the
young man with at least something. - It will be about color music, I think you
will like it.
Sharik was a slender young man
of eastern appearance with dark eyes and a carelessly ironic smile on his thin
lips. However, everything he had was thin and fragile - both his face and his
hands with elegant almost female fingers, which did not know hard physical
labor. And he thought and spoke not like the inhabitants of the hostel. By the
definition of a young man, Sharik was a typical flimsy intellectual, who by
chance came to the port movers on Wednesday.
Later, when they became
friends, Valery pleasantly surprised Sergey with his erudition and a wide range
of interests. He knew modern foreign literature well, understood the fine arts,
could easily reason about existentialism or the “stream of consciousness” of
Joyce and Marcel Proust, quote Jean-Paul Sartre, Camus and Kafka.
Everything he talked about was
new to Sergei. The evening school, which he graduated about three years ago,
then military service, and now the work of a porter in the port did not giving
have intellectual development. And the young man unwittingly reached out to his
new acquaintance - not only as a one
towards an older age, but as less educated towards a more well-read and
knowledgeable one. From Sharik, he learned about the work of the Impressionists
and post-expressionists - during the Khrushchev "thaw" and after it
they captured the minds of young people interested in art. And “Absinthe
lovers” by Pablo Picasso became even the heroine of one of his poems, just as
naive as he was.
Prior to serving in the army
and during his service, Sergey to write a poem like an avid graphomaniac,
little understanding of the subtleties of poetics and language. Therefore,
naturally, he was thinking about further study. And now it did not seem to him
as unrealizable as before. Valery, as a part-time student of the philological
faculty, served him as the best example.
- Why don't we publish a
magazine? - Sharik asked Sergey somehow. - I came up with the name
"Word". - And looked at the young man with his cautious and at the
same time inquisitive eyes. His deep-set eyes were dull and glowing like two
coffee beans. - We be have will publish the literary experiences of port
workers. - he continued after a short pause.
Sergey, who naverе did not see
his poems published in a press, accepted this idea with enthusiasm. The idea
was supported by almost all the youth from their small company. Especially
since editing the manuscripts, filling out a journal by hand, Sharik taken on
, and Vovka Khabarovsky, who worked as a loader on the second port are,
take on himself took the his illustrate .
To discuss the content of the
next issue of the magazin was going to the library. Special disagreements never
occurred. And the last verdict was always handed down by the “chief editor”, in
the role of which Sharik acted.
From time to time, to him goin
Genka Petrov, a man of strong stature with a broad, round face of a Vladimir
muzhik, always looked down at the "light" at times. He woreing a
denim suit, and with a short hairstyle “a la Kennedy”, for which he received
from of the guys the nickname “Russian American”. Genka loved to play table
tennis and do weightlifting, aggressively and with enviable tenacity rocked his
muscles.
- Yours are well, but Verka is
better! - repeatedly repeating Petrov, and suddenly left the company, going to
a meeting with his passion. And this his aphorism “about Verka” was presented
in one of the numbers of the Lay, as an example of port folklore.
I live that way. I that can
shoulder
For a short period of time,
several books of the magazine in a blue calico cover saw the light, in which In
one way or another, the work of the inhabitants of the hostel was reflected.
There was and Sergey's verses: I so
live. Verses will come -
I will to learn words.
I believe the hardness of the
hand!
Look: on the whiteness of the
leaf,
Like a bird's footprint, are
the words.
And how much
labor was worth,
You will guess hardly, -
he argued arrogantly.
However, few of the authors of
the magazine guessed that this innocent samizdat was nothing more than a
personal protest of an intellectual and an intellectual, like Valery, against
the oppressive officialdom that permeated all aspects of life.
Sergey sometimes came to
Valery’s home on Zhukovskaya strit. The young man was
pleased even to be home for a while. The owner showed enough hospitality, gave
him a look at rare art albums and magazines, treated him with strong liqueurs,
read his essays and stories.
Tired of
"intellectual" classes, they played with tin soldiers to play with
the son of Valery, Stas. The game quickly bored the boy, and he went into
another room. And adults continued to build toy troops, allowed cavalry to
gallop, sent armored vehicles to the enemy’s flanks. Inspired by children's
play and meaningless conversations, they didn’t imagine that, just like they
and the soldiers, Providence comes with them, moving life along the checkered
black and white board, without asking their consent.
Drinking was one of the
entertainments of their friendly company, which included the Cat, Shchults,
Kosoy and he, Maly - that was the name of Sergey for his small stature and
young age. When he had free time, Sharik joined them. Having gathered together,
they made trips to wine cellars - there were then in Odessa the so-called “big
circle” and “small circle” of pubs, where dry and fortified wines were sold on
tap. This has become a tradition that has been faithfully followed by more than
one generation of southerners - connoisseurs of the sunny drink.
The route was familiar. It
began with the "New Market" and ended with "Privoz" or vice
versa. During such “voyages”, young people alternately looked into “Aist”, then
“Oksamit of Ukraine”, then “Two Karla”, and other wine cellars. There, slowly,
savoring, drank aligote, Riesling or cabernet. Sometimes, for a change, mixed
dry wine with port wine. So behind empty, but cheerful conversations, they
whiled away the time, not knowing the price and not feeling his transience.
The relations of the hostel
inhabitants with women were peculiar. Inside the building as a monastery they
were allowed rarely. Therefore, they waited for their beloved men either at the
entrance to the hostel or on the opposite side of the street. And then the
lovers went to the park, on the seaside slopes. There, in the open air, to the
rhythm of the sea surf, they conceived the offspring, which, most likely,
awaited the unenviable fate of their parents.
Many of the crew of this
five-deck "ark of losers" married the city dwellers. But not everyone
was able to settle down in a strange family. Divorces happened no less than
weddings. The most "wise" of the port workers came very prudently:
having married, shared shelter, bed and table with women, but did not check out
from the hostel and did not refuse their bed. That is, they left a path for
departure just in case. Independence, individual freedom valued above all!
Sergei did not like it when
the girls met him at the port entrance or waited at the entrance to the hostel.
He considered it humiliating for himself and for them. Therefore, I dated in
the neutral territory - either in the same City Garden, or at the cinema, if I
was to go to the cinema. Even having entered into an intimate relationship with
Zhenya, he did not allow her to follow him.
Sergei did not like it when
the girls met him at the in port entrance or waited at the entrance to the
hostel. He considered it humiliating for himself and for them. Therefore, I
dated in the neutral territory - either in the same City Garden, or at the
cinema, if I was to go to the cinema. Even having entered into an intimate
relationship with Zhenya, he did not allow her to follow him. It happened on the lawn of one
of the maple groves on the beach. The girl, yielding to the persistence of a
young man, did not respond to his caresses. She looking with some strange
absent glance at the whitish summer sky, probably regretting that she gave
herself to him so quickly, in the wrong place and not in the way she imagined
it ...
Here he was already at the
"sverdlovka", urban mental hospital. And he remembered the veteran of
the port who survived the mind and the patriarch of the Zhdanov hostel. The
lonely, crazy old man wandered through the corridors for days, and, getting
lost, repeated aloud: “Where am I going? Where am I going?"And, resting in
the pier, he returned. And again I walked, it is not known where. When meeting
with him, Sergei always spoiled his mood, and a banal idea about the frailty of
human existence appeared.
Sergey passied the former
Sobansky barracks, went out onto Marazlievskaya Street, deserted at that hour.
On the left a dark park with a dynamic monument to Taras Shevchenko was
stretching. Looking at him powerful figure, the young man startled: it seemed
to him that the metal Kobzar, as if revived, made to a stap lunge forward, as
if trying to step off the pedestal on which he had been raised. "Why not? - thought the
young man.
"Why not? - thought the young man. “Maybe
the and monuments elso are not always satisfied with their lot ...” This
strange vision acted on his as a cold shower, dispelling a long and heavy nap.
And in his head began to ripen a plan for further action Climbing the stairs to his room, Sergey
already knew that he would leave the port and leave this strange house forever,
within the walls of which perished many
dreams.
