Сергей Огольцов – DIY Masterpiece (страница 3)

Dmitri Ivanovich always had a good head on his shoulders, even from a young age. As soon as he'd earned his Ukrainian Language and Literature teacher's diploma. About then they offered him a year-long retraining course in English, he didn't even consider it: of course! It's like two diplomas, and two diplomas are like two ski poles.

A Ukrainian pole is especially useful among intelligentsia, oppressed by the dominance of Muscovites in key positions. A modest 'Ukrainian language teacher' is like a pass and a letter of recommendation to today's luminaries like Boris Ten, who translated 'The Odyssey' into Ukrainian, and to other important people with leverage.

Hence the position in the English department… a provincial pedagogical institute? – still not a teacher in a one-horse village school. Over the years, the pronunciation has also improved, although Roma Gurevich's damn [Ɵ] sounds more authentic. The Jews are somehow more slick at languages, and a knack for theatrics too, these fellow members of the intelligentsia, oppressed by the same bullies.

As for Shevchenko’s attitude to them, well, there are objective reasons for everything… anyone is a product of the concurrent period, and in his time, the proletarian class hadn't even had time to emerge, for playing the role of future hegemon… therefore the poet slips out anti-semitic statements reminiscent of mid-century farm idiots…

However, Roma can rest easy—98.9% of the Ukrainian-speaking population have never opened the book of Great Kobzar. Taras's heritage is known in volume of a single line, his signature one, the immortally winged:

'…I grew up among the strangers, my hair turns gray in a foreign land…'

… but no futher, thanks to the compulsory secondary education of the Ukrainian SSR. In which territory, by the way, a surname ending in '-ko' in no way guarantees that it’s not a secret agent, this here 'cholovyaga' with whom you're now chewing the fat, in turn sharing your caches of political jokes.

And how many '-ko' types have risen to the top echelons of the KGB? Socialism is good at leveling endemic features.

Slow and steady, the baggage has accumulated. A translation of Shakespeare's play from English! Ha! How do you like it?

Boris Ten at that time proclaimed the challenge: let's bring Shakespeare to the Ukrainian reader! They should be well-informed of the world literature treasures!

Dmitro Ivanovich became one of the informers… no, that is to say… this ambiguity is completely unacceptable…

Yes, of course, the KGB approached him when he was already working at the institute. Or rather, they summoned him… suggested he’d cooperate.

Well, he said neither yes nor no, he needed to think about it. Evasive dragging out followed until they left him alone.

His father had instructed him still back in his student years: 'They’ll come to recruit. Don't become a traitor!'

And, as a result, in the appropriate column on one of the sheets of paper, in a folder with the bold imprint 'Case №' in the center of white, pliable cardboard cover, a corresponding note was carefully written in a bureaucratic hand. Two white strings, glued to the middle of the cover edges, tied into a loose knot, and the folder returned to the massive, dark-steel-colored safe behind the clerk with the invisible captain’s shoulder-straps.

This is how it happened: Dmitri Ivanovich was tacitly believed to sympathize, though not openly, with the Ukrainian nationalism.

However, his public behavior offered no evidence to back the supposition, except for his pointedly constant use of the 'mova'. In his daily life, both in chatting and in teaching, he spoke exclusively in Ukrainian.

Yet, giving preference to the 'native language' won't even lead to administrative liability. Nope. There's no article for that; such a breech is not covered by the Criminal Code of the Ukrainian SSR.

So he lived peacefully, teaching one of English grammars and some other theoretical nonsense to future English teachers, despite the vague rumors that had seeped out through the steel walls of the official safe. It's a small city, after all…

. . .

Yes, he'd swear by anything that upon arriving in Kyiv (a four-hour suburban train ride), he was immediately followed, even at the capital's Suburban Station, by a team of plainclothes men who 'led' him passing from one to another. That is, throughout his travels on public transportation.

They were betrayed by the similarly excessive indifference in their faces, the too fleeting, empty glances (the operational briefing demanded no display of interest)—all these marks on top of the absolute absence of any relapse to the personal thoughts, not even occasionally, that kind of thoughtfulness people on duty cannot fake. No, they didn't indulge in private meditations—duty is duty.

The venerable Boris Ten and those 'sympathetic' to the idea of Ukrainization in the editorial offices of republican publishing houses nodded with complete understanding, when a guest from the provincial wilderness shared his observations, through his 'fresh eye', of the realities of metropolitan life on the trams and trolleybuses…

But even they, seasoned veterans, lacked sufficient awareness of all the tricks of the KGB to put forward even a remotely logical hypothesis to explain the KGB's replacement of his briefcase. While he was riding in a shared subway car. A bulky brown leatherette briefcase with sagging-in sides. He grabbed it from under his seat and got off at the station he needed. He didn't even immediately notice that the briefcase had been swapped; they were so similar.

And when Dmitro Ivanovich realized the weight was wrong and opened it to check, it contained a pair of work overalls, screwed up into a smelly ball. Go ahead and guess what to think about it at all. Blue work overalls, or rather, coveralls. Pretty stale. A peculiar sense of Chekist humor…

. . .

All in all, life, you could say, was a success, if you don't overthink it… After you subtract those annoying moments like when Antonina Vasilna forgets to buy bread.

However, it's also good for tone—the Senior Lecturer, though still quite vigorous, is far from a boy; a warm-up wouldn't hurt…

Antonina Vasilna… As the Russian classic aptly noted, 'a friend of my harsh days… ' and so on, along that line.

A friend from the college… they married almost immediately after receiving their diplomas. A week later.

Ah, Tonechka—Long Braid… the slenderest girl in the group… slim Tonechka…

She spent her entire life teaching Ukrainian language and literature at school, and at home she read Marina Tsvetaeva, in all her editions.

‘Antonina Vasilyeva, you already have a whole warehouse of Tsvetaeva’s at home. Why buying this one? They're just duplicates. Stereotyped.

‘You don't understand anything, Dmitro…’

As if there's much to understand—a new dress for an old but beloved doll.

However, the borscht she cooks is undeniably Ukrainian.

Since when did he start calling her by her first name and patronymic? Well, that was back when the children lived still by… Yes, exactly… At first, it was a joke, now it just pops out on its own—and only like that, not any other way. Automatically.

And what's so surprising about that? All that remained of the braid was a crop of wavy hair, dazzlingly white, about the dry wrinkles in her face.

Pensioner Antonina Vasilna knows the Russian poet Marina by heart, but still occasionally flips through… And from the earliest editions, at that.

Yet, she still retains her slender figure. So slim…

. . .

So, with dignity and without fuss, in style befitting a Senior Lecturer in the English Language Department of the State Order of the Red Banner of Labor, Pedagogical Institute named after (no, he'll have to catch his breath halfway through)…

Yes, with measured deliberation, without delving into any particularly lengthy topic, Dmitro Ivanovich descended to the squares of the ceramic floor tiles on the landing between his floor and the fourth.

From below, the sound of hurried footsteps approached, clearly in a hurry, and soon the sounds of drawn-out wheezing could be discerned. Heavy pants through the nose…

CPP #2: Sounding the Despair

Taking a step out, through the door stuck open forever since who knows when, she had to squint hard against the sun hanging just opposite her face above the common courtyard of a five-story building.

Each eye squinted a lil bit differently: the left one, very tightly, the right one, not so much, and because of this, her face must have seemed arrogant and brave to everyone taking a look at.

Or maybe it was just her imagination, deep inside. Especially since you hardly ever encountered anyone in their courtyard…

Inna froze for half a minute, face to face with the blazing hot midsummer sun. The summer had been going on endlessly for a while now, but there still remained as much time left until September. She crossed the asphalt path, softened by the heat, into the shade opposite the entrance, beneath the tall cherry trees, and slowly passed the wooden side of a square sandbox.

Inside, around a settled mound of fine sand, small boys crawled on their knees, pushing their toy cars along the scattered sandy terrain: