Сергей Огольцов – The Sweets At Dawn (страница 6)

However, it didn't reach the stage on any side, ending in black-headed spotlights, like the battle tripods of Martians who had invaded Earth thanks to the feverish fantasies of H. G. Wells.

Along the back wall, balconies plunged sharply from both corners toward their door, locked from the outside so as not to obstruct the projection booth's loopholes.

. .. .

In the first-floor lobby, between the door with the ticket box window and the door to the Director's office, there hung the current month's film list, painted with a brush on canvas fixed about a sturdy wooden frame.

Films changed daily, except on Mondays, when they weren't shown at all. The list helped me decide in advance which day to ask Mother for 20 kopecks for a ticket…

Summer completely eliminated the cost of cinema. Because the KeLCeaRP Park—separated from the dive into the Underpass tunnel by a long, two-story building, residential despite its dilapidation—was created for economy.

In addition to three alleys, a closed dance floor, and the sprawling, spacious gazebo of the beer pavilion, the Park also harbored an open-air summer cinema. Its high, wooden walls (especially the rear ones, on either side of the projection booth) offered holes and crevices, at a height comfortable enough for one-eye viewing…

The show began at nine, when the summer twilight lurked with a hint and a promise of thickening. The clear signal for the start of screening served the abrupt stop of the music, which had been pouring out from the powerful speakers on the cinema stage from the moment the projectionists arrived at their workplace.

However, this same signal could also mean the show cancellation if the box office failed to sell at least four tickets.

It would seem—how?! Couldn't they scrape together the minimum of two pairs of viewers? Alas, yes, when a new generation chooses to watch a film from outside the theater's screening area.

Yet, an hour and a half of shifting from foot to foot, your nose buried in splinters of boards roughened by the inexorable passage of time and ill-tempered weather… No, I dare not call that a 'comfortable pastime.'

On the other hand, a film fan who jumps over the fence will inevitably be discovered by the watchful Aunt Shura (at her very first sweep of the audience on the benches of the open-air auditorium) and escorted out, muttering her quiet but sullen lectures. That’s a cone-helmeted knight-preacher for you!

Under such circumstances, a true film fan would prefer to perch on one of the old Apple trees, whose youth passed before the open-air summer cinema was even projected.

If the fork you've squeezed your skinny butt into is a bit tight, or the branch under your ass is too gnarled, next time you'll be wiser to arrive earlier and take a more VIP seat in the trees…

The film spins, enveloped in the darkness that has already thickened around a couple of streetlights in the Park's alleys…

In the gaps between the opaque foliage in the apple tree crown, the all-knowing stars of the summer sky twinkle…

On the silver screen, Leonid Utesov's black-and-white 'Jolly Fellows' pound each other with drums and double basses, and in less humorous moments, you stretch your hand out into the intertwined apple branches to find, somewhere in the region of the constellations Andromeda and Cassiopeia, an inedible crab apple, and nibble on its rock-hard, killer-sour side. Your stare at Anyuta's dancing legs, played by Lyubov Orlova…

After a good film, like the one with Rodion Nakhapetov, where there are no fights, war, or Germans, but simply about life, death, love, and a beautiful motorcycle ride through the shallows of the sea, the audience emerged through the Park gates, onto the uneven cobblestones of Budyonny Street, without the usual bandit whistles or cat screams, but a quiet, sparse crowd of people, peaceful, as if they had become the family during the screening. And they walked through the darkness of the warm night, their numbers reducing at the crossroads and into the alleys, toward a solitary lamppost at the intersection of Bohdan Khmelnytsky and Profession Streets, opposite the Bazaar…

~ ~ ~

But what makes summer the most welcome of all seasons is, sure thing, swimming.

The start of the swimming season at Kandybino, at the end of May, signals that summer has arrived in Konotop.

Kandybino is a series of lakes used for breeding mirror carp, and it's also the waterhead of the Yezuch River.

Occasionally, a ranger rides along the dams dividing the lakes on his bicycle, keeping the boys from poaching too saucily with their fishing rods. Only one of the lakes is not stocked with carp; it's left to the mercy of beachgoers.

But to go to Kandybino, you first need to know how to get there. Mother said that even though she'd been there as a girl, she couldn't explain it. It's better to ask Uncle Tolik, who rides his Jawa to and from work, and practically everywhere else, he should know any route.

Kandybino, from the tip of him, is easy to find. Drive to the City along Peace Avenue, after the railway embankment bridge, take the first right; it's impossible to miss—it's the highway to Romny.

Go on straight ahead, to the intersection, where you turn right again, to the railway barrier, then turn left off the tracks, and there you have Kandybino…

The younger kids, of course, tagged along. We grabbed an old bedspread for something to sunbathe on, stuffed it into a mesh bag, added a bottle of water, and headed to the Under-Overpass, where Peace Avenue begins. The road up to the railway embankment was quite familiar, after the May Day demonstration.

We passed under the bridge and immediately saw it—a road to the right along the base of a steep, high embankment.

Actually, it didn't look much like a highway; there was no asphalt. However, it was quite wide, and it was the first one on the right. So we turned and trudged on. There should be an intersection further on, right?…

But the further we walked, the narrower the road became, turning into a wide path along the embankment, then just a trail, and then—it disappeared completely.

There remained nothing to do but climb the high, grass-covered embankment, shake the sand out of our sandals, and walk along the ties or upon the endlessly stretching railhead. True, walking along it for even two minutes would require a tight-rope walker skills, and the unevenly laid concrete ties forced us to take equally unbalanced steps.

But full of determination we kept going on.

Natasha was the first to notice the trains overtaking us. We stepped onto the gravel shoulder, giving way to the unison roar of the rushing cars, whipping us with tight wisps of high-speed wind.

When we reached the next bridge, there was no avenue or street below, only other railroad tracks. Our embankment took the right bend, onto a gentle slope, parallel to the other tracks, heading toward the distant Station. It became clear we were heading back, not to the beach at all.

However, we didn't have time to despair, because far below, beneath our embankment and the embankment of the tracks running under the bridge, we spotted a small field.

Two groups of tin, at such a distance, children in light summer clothes and carrying mesh bags similar to ours, were walking toward a green grove beyond the field. Besides, they had a ball with them. Where else, if not to the beach?

We climbed down two high embankments and followed the same path across the field as the previous children, who had long since disappeared from sight.

Then we passed the Aspen Grove, with its very comfortable railway line, where the wide wooden sleepers had smoothly packed earth between them instead of loose gravel.

Beyond the grove a pair of barriers stood raised on either side of the track crossed by a highway. We walked to the opposite roadside, turned onto a wide, sometimes muddy path through a thicket of bright green grass. The chest swelled with cautious glee: Aha, Kandybino! You won't escape!

Because falks of obvious beachgoers looks paced along the same path, in both directions, but more of them that way than back.

The path led to a wide channel of dark water between the shore and the low, opposite dam of the fishponds.

However, it didn't end there; it still went on along the shore. We walked among trees sporting their fresh, green foliage, in a bright contrast to the whiteness of clouds and the azure blue sky around the sun.

The orderly rows of fruit trees in a large no one’s orchard climbed the gentle slope to the right of the path. The channel on the left soon widened into a lake with white sand along the shore.

Several pine trees huddled together in a shady group on a hillock, before which the sandy shoreline gave way to grass trampled around the tall currant bushes of the abandoned orchard. We chose a free patch of grass for our bed cover, quickly undressed, and rushed across the scalding hot sand toward the lake. Its water was flying from all sides and in all directions, in sparkling sprays, splashed up into the faces of dozens of swimmers who were screaming, yelling, laughing, in their uncurbed joy kicking and slapping Kandybino into foamy white…