There were many places in Chirchik where we could race little ships. We could do it in any of the ariks, one of which was close to our building. We often did it there. But we liked the arik near October Movie Theater best of all. Running down the steep hillock, it picked up great speed.
I often remembered the arik that ran near Grandma Abigai and Grandpa Hanan’s house in Tashkent. Tashkent was a big city, and the ariks there were wider and deeper than in Chirchik. And the one in the Old Town reminded me of a turbulent river. It was no wonder: Sabir Rahimov Street, where Mama’s parents lived, ran down a steep hill. That’s where it was great to float ships. The current tossed them up, threw them at the concrete walls, wound them around, and sometimes they were swallowed by the hungry funnels. Those that reached the foot of the hillock looked as if they had suffered a shipwreck, but the unforgettable excitement was compensation for all that.
The arik near October Movie Theater also provided a lot of excitement.
“…Three, four… Go!”
Vitya’s voice could still be heard as our ships were rushing down the arik. It was not an arik any longer but a wide turbulent river. The ships leaped among the waves, collided with each other, capsized and, as we watched them, our hearts were first in our throats and then palpitating. What fear and agitation! The yelling was so loud that there was ringing in our ears. Each of us behaved as if he were on board his ship, as if he were its captain and the fate of the ship depended on his skill and timely given commands.
“Where are you going? Get to the middle! C’mon, to the middle!”
“Man the helm! Take it over! Board the enemy’s ship!”
Red, sweaty and pushing each other, we dashed along the arik. The veins on Edem’s forehead bulged, and his eyes were about to pop out of their sockets. Did any of us look any better?
It’s funny that sometimes our ships seemed to obey our commands and perform the necessary maneuvers, but, unfortunately, not always.
My plane was, perhaps, one of the most refined competitors in the race. It was sharp-nosed, its wings pressed to its sides, just like the destroyers. It had a small keel, and a mast attached to the top of it. But, alas, all those improvements didn’t allow me to win the race. At the beginning, the plane bobbed from side to side, something in its design had made it too agile. At one of the turns, it bumped into the wall of the arik and lost its mast. I got upset, but the plane leveled out and began to catch up with its rivals. It wasn’t the first to finish the race, but, in the end, the defeat didn’t turn out to be disgraceful.
Sometimes, races were held for weeks. Then, we grew tired of them. Besides, there was nothing left of our ships. Eventually, we remembered something interesting that we had forgotten about during the time of the races, like, for example, tadpoles.
It was late. An angry reproachful shout was heard from a veranda, and one of us was summoned home. We began to part company.
“Hey, guys, the zoo is coming soon. Have you heard?” Kolya remembered as he was entering the building. “They say it’ll be here, on Yubileyny.”
Kolya, a teacher’s son, learned about the town news ahead of the others.
We were happy. “On Yubileyny” meant nearby. We could go to the zoo every day, if we chose. And we knew very well that we would. This traveling menagerie had visited Chirchik before. The last time it had been here was two years ago. It had been quartered quite far away, in the center of town, in one of the parks, and my friends and I had visited it a couple of times. And every time, it had left indelible impressions.
The first thing that amazed us was the stench, the acrid blend of manure and sawdust. The floors of the cages were covered with animal fur and bird feathers. At first, those smells seemed repugnant to us, but we soon grew used to them and even came to like the smell of the menagerie; there was something exciting about it.
Cages with animals, about fifty of them, were arranged in a wide circle. A few cages in the middle of the circle formed something like an island. We heard so many unfamiliar noises: snarling, strange shrill cries, the sounds of voices and people’s laughter. That’s what we ran towards. We forced our way through the crowd and saw the apes.
There were gorillas in the cage on the left. Big, dark and looking frighteningly like humans, they sat motionless, as if they had been frozen, looking at the people. The people, for their part, examined them closely, but the gorillas watched them with indifference, or perhaps disdain.
On the right were many small monkeys with long tails. They leaped adroitly among the branches attached to the ceiling of the cage, like gymnasts. They jumped elegantly. They didn’t seem to be having fun, and they also paid no attention to the people.
But there was a real circus show in the cage with two small long-haired baboons in the center. The baboons, with their long noses and multi-colored faces – the fur on their faces was blue, white and crimson, as if someone had painted them before the show – and bare red butts without tails, looked like clowns. And they behaved accordingly.
The simple-hearted visitors, adults and children alike, laughed loudly until they were about to drop. The clowns’ tricks were, to put it mildly, somewhat rude and not quite decent. They stuck their fingers into each other’s butts, and then they sucked them. If people had done it, hardly anyone would have watched it. Everybody would have been indignant. But monkeys were not people, and it was fun to laugh at them. Perhaps, it aroused a feeling of superiority in the people. We all found it very funny. It became even funnier when a mandrill picked up the cover of a tin can and began to ride on it around the cage, howling slightly with pleasure. It was even funnier when it used it as a chamber pot. The audience wailed, squealed, roared with laughter and stamped their feet, which didn’t differentiate them from the monkeys.
I wasn’t sure, but maybe the performer grew sick of the audience’s ecstasy, because it picked up the cover and tossed it toward the crowd. The cover hit the bars of the cage, splattering its sticky stinky contents over everyone standing in the front row. A young man not far from me got a lot of it. And he was so well-dressed, with a white shirt and tie. I heard how piercingly his girlfriend screamed. She rushed away from the cage, and the dandy who had got it stood in a stupor with his arms spread. Not only his shirt, but his whole face was covered with splashes and streaks.
The spectators scattered in all directions, shouting and cursing. Only we stayed. We laughed loudly looking at the mandrill. We thought the show had been a great success. The mandrill seemed to think the same. It bared its teeth merrily, grabbing hold of the bars of the cage.
After that, we wandered around the zoo for a long time, not missing a single cage, but nowhere else was it as merry as by the baboons. Most of the animals seemed sad and indifferent, like the gorillas. The sad elephant, a giant with thick tusks, didn’t even look in our direction. Its small eyes were turned downward. Visitors, especially children, were always trying to offer it something tasty, but the elephant didn’t hold out its trunk even once. It just moved it from side to side, as if saying, “Thank you, but I don’t need anything from you.”
“Why doesn’t it run away?” Vitya whispered, poking me in the side. “Look how badly it’s tied to the peg.”
The elephant stood in the pen behind the metal fence, which didn’t look strong enough. A thin chain attached to a small peg was wound around its rear leg. All the giant needed to do was dart away, and the chain would either break or the peg would be pulled out. Now, the way the elephant stood made the chain tauten. When it moved forward a bit, it seemed that the chain might snap.