The perverse crone had made my bed on the floor. Oh no you don’t, I thought, slid the bolt on the door, dragged the bedding over onto the sofa, and began to undress. The somber light fell through the window; the cat was thrashing about noisily in the oak. I shook my head, to dislodge the rubbish from my hair. It was strange and unexpected rubbish: largish dry fish scales. Prickly to sleep on, I thought. I fell on the pillow and was immediately asleep.
Chapter 2
… The deserted house became the lair of foxes and badgers, and that is why weird spirits and shape-shifters can now appear here.
I woke up in the middle of the night because a conversation was going on in the room. Two voices were talking in a barely audible whisper. They were very similar, but one was a bit stifled and hoarse and the other betrayed an extreme irritation.
“Stop wheezing,” whispered the irritated one. “Can’t you do without it?”
“I can,” responded the stifled one, and began to hack.
“Be quiet!” hissed the irritated voice.
“It’s the wheezes,” explained the stifled one. “The morning cough of the smoker… ” He started hacking again.
“Get out of here,” said the irritated one.
“He is asleep, in any case…”
“Who is he? Where did he come from?”
“How should I know?”
“What a disgusting development… such phenomenal bad luck.”
Again the neighbors can’t get to sleep, I thought, half awake. I imagined I was at home. I have these neighbors there, two brother physicists, who adore working through the night. Toward two A.M. they run out of cigarettes and then they invade my room and start feeling about for them, banging the furniture and cursing at each other.
I grabbed the pillow and flung it at random. Something fell with a crash, and then silence ensued.
“You can return my pillow,” I said, “and welcome to leave. The cigarettes are on the table.”
The sound of my own voice awakened me completely. I sat up. Somewhere dogs were barking despondently; behind the wall the old woman snored menacingly. At last I remembered where I was. There was nobody in the room.
In the dim light I saw the pillow on the floor and the trash that had fallen from the wardrobe. The old crone will have my head, I thought, jumping up. The floor was icy and I stepped over on the runners. The snoring stopped. I froze. The floorboards creaked; something crackled and rustled in the corners. The crone gave a deafening whistle and continued her snoring. I picked up the pillow and threw it on the sofa. The trash smelled of dog. The hanger rod had fallen off its support on one side. I re-hung it and began picking up the old trash. No sooner had I hung up the last coat, than the pole came away again and, sliding along the wallpaper, hung by one nail again. The crone stopped snoring and I turned cold with sweat. Somewhere, nearby, a cock crowed loudly. To the soup pot with you, I thought venomously. The crone behind the wall set to turning, the bedspring snapping and creaking. I waited, standing on one foot.
Someone in the yard said softly, “Time for bed; we have sat up too long today.” The voice was youthful and female.
“So be it, it’s off to sleep,” responded the other voice. There was a protracted yawn.
“No more splashing for you today?”
“It’s too cold. Let’s go bye-bye.”
All was quiet. The old hag growled and muttered, and I returned cautiously to the sofa. I’ll get up early in the morning and fix everything up properly.
I turned on my right side, pulled the blanket over my ear, and it suddenly became crystal clear to me that I wasn’t at all sleepy—that I was hungry. Oh-oh, I thought. Severe measures had to be taken at once, and I took them.
Consider, for instance, a system of integral equations of the type commonly found in star statistics: both unknowns are functions to be integrated. Naturally the only solutions possible are by successive numerical approximations and only with computers such as the RECM. I recalled our RECM. The main control panel is painted the color of boiled cream. Gene is laying a package on the panel and is opening it unhurriedly.
“What have you got?”
“Mine is with cheese and sausage.” Polish, lightly smoked, in round slices.
“Poor you, it’s married you should be. I have cutlets, with garlic, home-made. And a dill pickle.”
No, there are two dill pickles… Four cutlets, and to make things even, four pickles. And four pieces of buttered bread.
I threw off the blanket and sat up. Maybe there was something left in the car? No—I had already cleaned out everything there was. The only remaining item was the cookbook that I had got for Valya’s mother, who lived in Liezhnev.
Let’s see, how does it go? Sauce piquant… half a glass of vinegar, two onions, and a pinch of pepper. Served with meat dishes…. I can see it now with miniature steaks. What a rotten trick, I thought, not just any old steaks, but miniature ones. I jumped up and ran to the window. The night air was distinctly laden with the odor of miniature beefsteaks. Out of some nether depths of my subconscious this floated up: “Such dishes were usually served him in the taverns as: marinated vegetable soup, brains with fresh peas, pickles (I swallowed), and the perpetual layer cake…” I must distract myself, I thought, and took the book on the windowsill. It was The Gloomy Morning by Alexis Tolstoi. I opened it at random.
“Makhno, having broken the sardine can opener, pulled out a mother-of-pearl knife with half a hundred blades, and continued to operate with it, opening tins with pineapple (Now I’ve had it, I though), French pâté, with lobsters, which filled the room with a pungent smell.”
Gingerly I put down the book and sat down on the stool by the table. At once a strong, appetizing odor permeated the room: it must have been the odor of lobsters. I began to ponder why I had never tried a lobster before, or, say, oysters. With Dickens, everybody eats oysters; working with folding knives, they cut huge slabs of bread, spread them thickly with butter…. I began to smooth the tablecloth with nervous movements. On it, latent food stains appeared clearly visible. Much and tasty eating has been done on it, I thought. Probably lobsters and brains with peas. Or miniature steaks with sauce piquant. Also large and medium-sized steaks. People must have sighed, replete with food, and sucked their teeth in huge satisfaction. There was no cause for sighing and so I took to sucking my teeth.
I must have been doing it loudly and ravenously because the old woman behind the wall creaked her bed, muttered angrily, rattled something noisily, and suddenly entered my room. She had on a long gray nightshirt, and she was carrying a plate, so that a genuine and not an imaginary odor of food spread through the room. She was smiling, and set the plate directly in front of me and rumbled sweetly, “Dig in, dear friend Alexander Petrovitch. Help yourself to what God has sent, by his unworthy messenger….
“Really now, really, Naina Kievna,” I was stammering, you shouldn’t let me disturb you so….
But my hand was already holding a fork with a horn handle, which had appeared from somewhere, and I began to eat while the old woman stood by and nodded and repeated, “Eat, my friend, eat to your health. .”
And I ate it all. The dish was baked potatoes with melted butter.
“Naina Kievna,” I said earnestly, “you have saved me from starving to death.”
“Finished?” said Naina Kievna, in a voice somehow tainted with hostility.
“Yes, and magnificently fed. A tremendous thanks to you! You can’t even imagine how—”