“Right, then,” said Roman, appearing in the doorway. “The formalities are concluded.” He brandished one hand in the air, its splayed fingers stained with ink. “Our little fingers are exhausted; we’ve been writing and writing… You go to bed. We’re leaving. You just relax and go to bed. What are you doing tomorrow?”
“Waiting,” I replied listlessly.
“Where?”
“Here. And outside the post office.”
“You probably won’t be leaving tomorrow, then?”
“Probably not. Most likely the day after.”
“Then we shall meet again. Our love is yet to come.” He smiled, waved, and went out. I thought sluggishly that I ought to have seen him off and said good-bye to Volodya, then I lay down. That very moment the old woman came in. I got up. The old woman stared at me intently for a while.
“I fear, dear guest, as you might start a-sucking on your teeth,” she said anxiously.
“I’m not going to suck on my teeth,” I said wearily. “I’m going to go to sleep.”
“Lie down, then, and sleep… Pay your money and go to sleep…”
I reached into my back pocket for my wallet. “How much?”
The old woman raised her eyes to the ceiling. “Let’s say a ruble for the room… Fifty kopecks for the bedsheets—they’re mine, not state property. For two nights that makes three rubles… And whatever you want to throw in out of the kindness of your heart—for the inconvenience, that is—that’s up to you…”
I held out a five-ruble note. “For a start it’s one ruble out of the kindness of my heart,” I said. “We’ll see how things go.”
The old woman grabbed the money avidly and left the room, muttering something about change. She was gone for quite a long time, and I was on the point of giving up hope of any change or any sheets when she came back and laid out a handful of dirty coppers on the table.
“There’s your change, dear guest,” she said. “One ruble exactly—you don’t need to count it.”
“I’m not going to count it,” I said. “What about the sheets?”
“I’ll make up the bed straightaway. You go out and have a stroll in the yard, and I’ll make up the bed.”
I went out, tugging my cigarettes out of my pocket on the way. The sun had finally set and the white night had begun. Somewhere dogs were barking. I sat on a little bench sunk into the ground under the oak, lit up, and began staring at the pale, starless sky. The cat appeared soundlessly out of nowhere, glanced at me with his fluorescent eyes, scrambled rapidly up the oak, and disappeared into the dark foliage. I immediately forgot about him, and I was startled when he began rustling about above me and debris came showering down onto my head. “Why you…” I said, and started brushing myself off. I felt exceedingly sleepy. The old woman came out of the house without noticing me and wandered across to the well. I took this to mean that the bed was ready and went back into the room.
The spiteful old woman had made up my bed on the floor. Oh no, I thought, closed the door on the latch, heaved the bedding up onto the sofa, and started getting undressed. A dim twilight came in at the window; the cat rustled about noisily in the oak tree. I started shaking my head around to get the detritus out of my hair. It was strange detritus, unexpected: large, dry fish scales. That’s going to feel prickly in the night, I thought, then collapsed onto the pillow and instantly fell asleep.
2
The deserted house has been transformed into the lair of foxes and raccoon dogs, and therefore strange werewolves and phantoms may appear here.
I woke up in the middle of the night, because someone was talking in the room. There were two voices, speaking in a barely audible whisper. The voices were very similar, but one was a little muffled and hoarse, while the other betrayed extreme irritation.
“Don’t wheeze,” whispered the irritated voice. “Can you manage that, not wheezing?”
“Yes,” replied the muffled voice, and started clearing its throat.
“Keep it down,” hissed the irritated voice.
“My throat tickles,” explained the muffled voice. “It’s a smoker’s cough.” It started clearing its throat again.
“You get out of here,” said the irritated voice.
“It doesn’t matter, he’s asleep.”
“Who is he? Where did he appear from?”
“How should I know?”
“It’s annoying… It’s such incredibly bad luck.”
The neighbors can’t sleep again, I thought, only half awake. I imagined I was at home. I shared a flat with two brothers, physicists, and they just loved working at night. Round about two o’clock in the morning they ran out of cigarettes, then they crept into my room and started groping around, clattering the furniture around and squabbling with each other.
I grabbed the pillow and flung it into space. Something tumbled onto the floor with an almighty racket and everything went quiet.
“Give back the pillow,” I said, “and get out. The cigarettes are on the table.”
The sound of my own voice finally woke me completely. I sat up. The dogs were barking despondently and the old woman was snoring menacingly on the other side of the wall. I finally remembered where I was. There was no one else in the room. In the dim twilight I made out my pillow lying on the floor, with the junk that had fallen off the hooks. The old granny will have my guts for garters, I thought, and leaped out of bed. The floor felt cold and I stepped onto the mats. The old woman stopped snoring. I froze. The floorboards creaked; something crackled and rustled in the corners. The old woman gave a deafening whistle and started snoring again. I picked up the pillow and tossed it onto the sofa. The old clothes smelled of dogs. The set of hooks had slipped off one of its nails and was hanging askew. I set it straight and began picking up the junk. The moment I hung up the last shapeless old woman’s coat, the hooks came loose again and went scraping down the wallpaper to end up hanging on one nail. The old granny stopped snoring and I broke into a cold sweat. Somewhere nearby a cock started screeching. You’re for the soup, I thought vindictively. The old woman next door began tossing and turning, her bedsprings creaking and clanking. I waited, poised on one leg. Outside someone said softly, “It’s time to go to sleep, we’ve sat up late today.” It was a young voice, a woman’s.
“I suppose it is,” a different voice responded. I heard a protracted yawn.
“Aren’t you going to take another dip today?”
“It’s a bit chilly. Let’s go bye-byes.”
Everything went quiet. The old granny began snarling and muttering, and I walked carefully back to the sofa. I could get up early in the morning and fix everything properly…
I lay down on my right side, pulled the blanket up over my ear, closed my eyes, and suddenly realized I didn’t feel sleepy at all—I felt hungry. Oh, hell, I thought. Urgent measures had to be taken, and I took them.
Let’s take, for instance, a system of two integral equations, such as stellar statistics equations; both unknown functions are under the integral. Naturally, the only way to determine them is numerically—say, on a BESM. I remembered our BESM, the cream-colored control panel…
Zhenya puts down a bundle wrapped in newspaper on the panel and unwraps it without hurrying. “What have you got?”
“I’ve got cheese and sausage.” Lightly smoked Polish sausage, in round slices.
“You ought to get married! I’ve got rissoles, with garlic, homemade. And a pickle.” No, two pickles… Four rissoles and, to balance the figures, four crunchy pickles. And four pieces of bread and butter…
I threw off the blanket and sat up. Maybe there was something left in the car? No, I’d eaten everything. There was nothing left but the cookbook for Valka’s mother, who lived in Lezhnev. How did it go?… Piquant sauce. Half a glass of vinegar, two onions… and pepper. Serve with meat dishes… I can just picture it now—with small beefsteaks. The words surfaced from somewhere in the depths of my subconscious: He was served the dishes usual at inns, namely: sour cabbage soup, brains with peas, pickles… I gulped. And the ubiquitous sweet layered cake… I’ve got to distract myself, I thought, and picked up the book from the windowsill.