From that day on, probably embracing us as his “twin souls”, Ickie came to see us almost daily, as if it were a fixed rendezvous. Entirely confused and disordered, he had consistently held areas that were established and limited from the very first day. Apologizing every time, he gave us a bottle of vodka, then went to the opposite wall and watched us, now one, now the other, moving his pupils like pendulums. Eventually, despite his intolerable smell and deep-rooted untidiness, I started kind of liking him and gradually getting used to his presence like some people get used to an offensive nickname.
As soon as our working day was over, we hurried home, to our old abandoned house, passionately wishing to get drunk. It just so happened that we didn’t have any glasses and had to drink straight from the bottle, taking turns. We had yesterday’s sprats and processed cheese; allow me to put this directly: not the most appropriate combination, but at that moment it was just right and surprisingly delicious! First we began by drinking with disgust, but then, sip by sip, the detestable taste seemed to disappear.
“To your health,” I said, sipping from the bottle.
“To our health!” you exclaimed emotionally. “Have you already noticed? You are drinking but I’m the one who’s got the hiccups?”
“Look, I can’t drink anymore,” I begged after half an hour.
“Then give me the bottle,” you commanded. “I’m gonna drink for both of us, and we’ll be getting drunk together, like communicating vessels.”
Unexpectedly, we found this thought very amusing and burst out laughing in unison. The evening turned out to be an unprecedented one. I perceived you not only as my sister, my other half I am attached to, but primarily as a friend and a drinking companion. I was talking incessantly, about hilarious things, I guess, which I can hardly remember now, and you were smiling contentedly to yourself without any sense to your expression of bliss. Then one of us started singing, and gradually our howl developed into drunken crying. Each of us plunged into her own, seemingly very deep, sorrow, although we had no obvious reason to cry. After finishing the bottle, we went to bed, but stumbled and fell half way. It made us laugh anew, after which we fell asleep right there on the floor.
That night I had a dream of us dancing together in the circus arena. There were only two spectators: the pug supervisor and the armless tsar. They shouted something special and tried to applaud, but couldn’t. One of them had no arms and the other was dead. And while we were spinning around in the spotlights, I saw an unspeakable envy on their faces. The whole world made a low bow to us because we were beautiful and unique.
14. TOMORROW WAS THE COUNTRY_
What do I remember about summer? The smell of hot, freshly-laid asphalt, lonely passersby exhausted with heat, dashing sparrows in puddles, and a new supervisor – haughty, practical, convinced of his importance. Beggars nicknamed him Compass Legs without deliberating, which suited him pretty well. With his very long legs, always astride, his hands behind his back, narrow, sloping shoulders and oblong head, he really resembled a huge compass. His first philosophical remark and the following typical question puzzled us alclass="underline"
“One always leads another, as if the devil himself has tied a rope around the pair of you. How did you get used to it?”
He had a somber but lively expression on his face while speaking; a compassionate voice completed the whole look.
Well, actually we didn’t get used to it; we were born that way. Leading each other is the norm for us.
“Neither of us decides which foot to step on, where to go, when to stop – it just comes without prior arrangement,” I explained, choosing my words carefully.
“Only our brains work independently,” you added scornfully.
Compass Legs put his legs apart, as thin as matches, even more widely apart, and bewilderment, natural in every unfamiliar situation, revealed itself on his lanky face. It was the way a three-armed person might appear surprised witnessing how someone can do everything perfectly well with just two arms.
“We are always inseparable. We walk together and we sleep together, and it is impossible for one of us to sit at a table while the other is lying on a bed,” I tried to joke.
“Yes, I can’t remember that happening,” you quipped again. “Though I wish I could.”
“And, of course, you pee together, don’t you?” Quite contented with his sagacity, he waved his hands and laughed.
I just shrugged my shoulders: laughter is much better than disgust. And Compass Legs, having sussed a special spirit, started rattling off like a machine gun, shooting questions:
“How fast can you run? Have you ever ridden a bicycle? Have you ever shared one man? Do you feel your body as a whole?”
“And does he feel his pathetic legs separately from his body?” I had this question on the tip of my tongue but didn’t dare to ask. We tried to answer him in detail with a certain amount of imagination and humor. And he was rejoicing and laughing like a little boy who has been gifted with an unusual toy for his birthday. “I can only hope that, while playing, he won’t tear off our limbs to see what’s inside,” I thought in dismay. Anyway, he behaved quite friendly and welcomed us, but I still kept waiting for the catch. Here, underground, nobody believes in nice, kind-hearted people, same as above ground!
I still remember the day we dropped into a nearby store. It used to be a grocery store, but now it sold everything but groceries, and with the money we had earned by unlawful begging, we bought a little dream – a china statuette of a ballerina. We saw it for the first time in winter, and every time we passed by, we envied the fragile, dancing swan – her beautiful body frozen in a graceful pose, her expressive arms resembling the wings of a rising bird, and her nice-shaped legs. True perfection! Ever after, the china doll lit up my spirit and captured my souclass="underline" yes, yes, it was not a usual figurine anymore but a symbol of unattainability. The very first thought when I took her in my hands was to take a proper swing and smash her on the tiled floor in order to eliminate the source of intolerable pain and destructive sentiments – the difference. We are different. But despite the initial impulse of self-preservation, I passionately pressed the ballerina to my chest, so tightly that not even a thousand malicious supervisors would have been able to tear it out of my hands, white from the strain. I imagined that the doll and I were one harmonious whole and that all my lameness flowed into her faultless, dancing body.
She is still spinning around, then breaking down, falling, coiling in agony, and transforms herself into clumsy, unfree, imperfect me. As for you, somehow you didn’t even touch her!
Having set the ballerina down in front of other things, I felt so tired as if I hadn’t slept all night long. The following day, spent in the tunnel, feeling restless and antsy, made it seem as if the desired purchase and my own identity were merged. I didn’t like it. In the evening I felt even worse, and you had to drag both of us… into nowhere. We found out that our nest didn’t exist anymore – the house was totally destroyed. Instead we saw heaps of bricks, twisted beams and a crane with a huge weight on a chain towering nearby in stately eminence. Our household for years suddenly collapsed, as always, aided by people.