– Thank you, – he said, – I don’t seem to have been to this country.
– And what countries have you been to, dear Vasilyi Ivanovich? – the plant management enquired politely.
– You, dear, know yourself that I’ve been to none.
– But you probably travelled on your account.
– My account, dear, is only enough for a trip to Pskov and not always for a return trip.
Alevtina tackled the task of packing her husband’s suits for his overseas travel with all responsibility.
– This is to be used exclusively for medicinal purposes, – Alevtina said, knitting her brows and shaking her fist at Vasjka, and put a bottle of “Putinka” vodka carefully wrapped in a couple of newspapers in the suitcase. – For an extreme emergency!
An “emergency” occurred already during the third evening of his stay. The guest sitting next to him at the table drew Vasjka’s attention to a tall and muscular African standing near the exit from the hotel restaurant, with his eyes glued on their table. Vasjka reassured him and offered his own explanation saying that the guy was seeking an object of sexual pleasures and, therefore, was looking at the woman at their table. The next evening, the new friend accepted Vasjka’s assumption but with one reservation: that it was Vasjka himself who was the object of the guy’s attention. Vasjka took a more careful look at the African guy. The guy grinned, baring his teeth and rolling his eyes, and winked at him. Vasjka panicked. He had already heard a lot about all kind of perverts, and began to be seriously concerned about his honour. Vasjka’s new friends considered his fears to be pretty well-founded: you never know what to expect from these foreigners. Look at the way they live: they don’t know when they are well off. Therefore, they decided to ensure that he was never alone, and to arm themselves, just to be on the safe side. They bought a long knife at an exorbitant price (with Vasjka’s money, of course, – all he had left) and advised that he put it under his pillow at night. But there were no solicitations from the African guy. And on the last evening before Vasjka’s departure, he, as usual, was staring fixedly at the “object” who became slightly hysterical. Vasjka, escorted by his new-found friends, ran to his room to fetch the bottle of “Putinka”, exclusively for medicinal purposes, as instructed by Alevtina. To remove the stress. Vasjka was pouring out vodka himself and, being highly agitated, failed to notice that one more, the fifth, glass appeared on the table.
– With your permission, – a voice, speaking in Russian with a slight accent, came from above. And the fifth glass disappeared in the cupped palm of a huge black hand. Out of fear, Vasjka downed his vodka in one gulp.
– Vasja, friend, don’t you recognize me? I’m Dzhamil.
– Which, fuck, Dzhamil? – asked Vasjka, growing somewhat bolder.
– In the wild steppes, be-yond the Lake of Bai-kal, where gold-diggers toil in the mountains, in the hope of incre-dible luck, * – the guy started singing at the top of his voice. – Remember?
– I remember the song, but I don’t remember you.
– Well, then let’s drink some more.
– Sorry, buddy, I have nothing left at all. I’m flying back tomorrow.
– Don’t piss your pants, Vasja. I’m the owner of this hotel.
Dzhamil put up his hand, and two bottles of Tunisian vodka “Buha” ** appeared on the table.
– I don’t drink, – Vasjka said remembering Alevtina.
– And what is there to drink?! – Dzhamil asked and roared with laughter. – Back then, we drank a lot.
– Well, come straight to the point, will you? – Vasjka knocked back a second drink in one go and went on, – what do you mean by “then”? When was it, and where?
And Dzhamil briefly recounted his experiences in Russia. In the early 90-s, he, along with other students of Peoples’ Friendship University (Moscow), was on vacation in a summer camp at the Baikal Lake shore. One day, they came to Irkutsk by bus to make the tour of the city. During the tour, he got carried away by the sights of the city and by talking to his fellow countryman. In short, both of them dropped behind the excursion party and got lost. They were cold, without money, and at a loss what to do and where to go. They only remembered the name of their camp and that it took over an hour to get there. It was getting dark. They were feeling a little scared. They couldn’t think of a way out of the situation, so they were just standing and feeling sad. And then they saw a frail white chap with three mugs of beer in his hands heading towards them from a beer stand near the railway station.
– Well, “peoples’ friendship”, shall we drink? – he asked smiling happily. Then he took a bottle of vodka out of his pocket and pored some into the beer mugs.
– They say in our parts that drinking vodka without beer is wasting your money.
They became warm and cheerful straight away. They got into a conversation.
– Don’t panic, “peoples’ friendship”, we’ll make it! Russians never abandon friends. Vasja ran to the stationmaster, and within a couple of hours a military GAZ car (off-road vehicle manufactured by GAZ motor works) drove up to them.
But prior to that he ran someplace to fetch a few bottles of vodka more:
– These are for you – to warm yourselves.
While saying goodbye to one another, they were standing for a long time on the square near the station hugging one another and singing at the top of their voices: “In the wild steppes, be-yond the Lake of Bai-kal,…”
– Vasja, – completed his narrative (in broken Russian) Dzhamil, – you made us laugh a lot then, telling us about …, how do you call him? Gardian angel? How is he?
– Guardian angel, – corrected him Vasjka. – She is all right. At home, waiting for me, my “carrot”.
And glancing at vodka, added:
– Most likely, with a whip.
Dzhamil, Vasjka and his new friends formed a circle, hugged one another, drawing their heads together, and started to sing quietly: “In the wild steppes,
Joining them little by little, were tourists from other countries. Vasjka had difficulty identifying their nationality. There seemed to be Germans, Poles, Englishmen and some other nationalities as well.
Resounding above the flat roofs of Hammamet right until night, was not very harmonious but powerful multi-voiced singing: “In the wild steppes, be-yond the Lake of Bai-kal, where gold-diggers toil in the moun-tains, in the hope of incre-dible luck,…”
Happiness
The gentle Moldavian sun has already dried the earth a little at the newly whitewashed front of the two-storey house that was built for families of Russian officers a few years ago.
The smell of the thawing earth mixed with the smell of whitewash reminds the girl that it’s time to make preparations for the first day of spring – a holiday with a nice name Mărţişor. *** She needs to stock up on threads of different colours, to make two little brushes to be tied up together with a thick thread which is then tied in a bow. One is supposed to present the beloved ones with red-and-white mărţişors. The girl has already bought up red and white threads and is hopping home to set to work as soon as possible.
The beloved ones are many, but the work with threads doesn’t come easily to her: the threads get tangled and torn. The girl’s mother watches her torments discontentedly, then, as if having obtained confirmation to some knowledge familiar to her alone, concludes: