Part One – There
(Eastern Hemisphere)
CHAPTER FORTY. – GPI. PARANORMAL ABILITIES
I won’t fantasize – a vacation at sea had nothing to do with the new job. But rested, cheerful and tanned people, apparently, have a better chance of finding a job than tired, pale and sluggish – I was accepted. A pleasant factor was my comrades from the physics department who were already working here in different laboratories, but in the same department and in the same contractual topic. This topic united us with common tasks, a common room and a common immediate superior.
In contrast to the panopticon of the systems-technique laboratory at the Institute of Traumatology, at the Polytechnic Institute we had an excellent boss, we were good, albeit young, physicists, and in addition to our professional community we had common hobbies – we were all private teachers of physics and mathematics and avid gamers of preference – bridge type card game.
I don’t know if I can write about each of my friends in the department; or about the world of our laboratory and our boss, whom we called Petrovich behind his back – the kindest man and a good physicist; about the golden hands of our laboratory assistant Pasha; about cheerful employees and beautiful laboratory assistants… I can only note, that never in my life had I worked in such a wonderful environment of friends and like-minded people. And the memories of them served as material for a short story, which I will now tell you.
PARANORMAL ABILITIES
Pasha and I were calibrating the spectrometer, and Vova, a junior researcher, shuffled a deck of cards alternately with his right and his left hand, in preparation for the evening poker. Mark Petrovich, our boss, called,
“I’ll be there now. I found medicine for Kolya’s dog. If a guy comes, asking me, start introducing him to our laboratory, and don’t offend him, he is our new laboratory assistant, the dean’s protégé.
The door just opened,
“My name is Margosh,” the newcomer introduced himself, embarrassed.
“What can you do?” Vova asked.
“I can read thoughts…” the guy boasted of his paranormal abilities, “Not always, but… sometimes.”
“Really? And what about reading thoughts of members of the Academic Council?” chuckled Vova, who was expecting the presentation of his dissertation and was only interested in it and poker.
“And sometimes I can guess desires in the eyes of my beloved,” said senior laboratory assistant Pasha and straightened his shoulders.
“Even I could do this,” Petrovich added, entering the laboratory, “Why is your name Margosh?” he turned to the young guy, “It’s a woman’s name.”
“True,” confirmed the laboratory assistant, “I was named after my grandfather, my mother’s father.”
“Why repeat the same mistake twice in the family?” the chief noted, “Okay, I’m going to give a lecture, and then we’ll go to lunch at two PM.”
“Everything is because my mother is a hereditary fortune teller,” the newcomer continued to share family secrets, “She predicts everything very correctly.”
“Like the grandpa?” Vova teased.
“No, grandfather was an accountant, but he always guessed when to expect an audit.”
“How?”
“They had portraits of the classics of Marxism hanging, and he read in their eyes…”
“That’s great,” I said, “maybe you can demonstrate something, we also have a lot of portraits on the walls,” and I pointed to the famous physicists portraits, hung by the authorities in the laboratory.
“I’ll go out, and you mark who you want,” and Margosh went out into the corridor.
Pasha silently pointed to Carnot, who was gathering dust in the corner above the spectrometer and shouted loudly,
“Come on, in!”
Margosh slipped inside the laboratory. His eyes glowed like Wolf Messing’s during a telepathy session. He slowly looked around at the thirteen portraits hanging on the perimeter of the room and settled on Lomonosov.
“He!” Margosh exhaled.
Vova applauded, and Pasha and I joined him.
“It’s too preliminary,” said Margosh and ran out into the corridor again.
“Come back!” I shouted as soon as the door closed behind him. There was no point in wasting time on making a wish.
“Newton!” – “Hooray!”
“Maxwell!” – “Cool!”
“Bohr!” – “Wow!”
Finally, it dawned on the out-of-breath Margosh that a prank was possible, and he demanded that the experiments be made more complicated.
“You should write their names on pieces of paper so that I can see that I’m guessing correctly,” he said.
“There is nothing simpler,” Vova agreed, “Look,” he took out a brand new deck of playing cards from the briefcase, opened it and set aside the cards of the spades suit. “Each card has a number,” he said, “Like a portrait on the wall: from one to thirteen. The card number corresponding to the portrait wanted will be at the top of the deck.”
The poor telepath would went out, came in and, with a wild look, named the next great physicist, and then on a thin stack of spades from the deck there would be a card with the same number as the portrait – Vova had had extraordinary sleight of hand since childhood. Shocked by his paranormal abilities, Margosh called home and in a quiet voice, broken with excitement, said to his mother,
“I guessed with no mistake seventeen times in a row! No, not at roulette, but portraits in the laboratory at the physics department … No, there is no boss … a researcher, an engineer and a senior laboratory assistant … – and he handed the phone to the surprised Vova.
“Hello Vladimir,” the receiver said in a whisper, “defending your dissertation will be successful and will bring you much more benefit than playing poker.”
I saw Vova’s jaw drop. He pressed the receiver harder to his ear, and then obediently handed it to the engineer, as ordered.
“Nikolai, hello,” I heard a pleasant female voice, “I want to ask you not to offend my boy. Your dog will soon recover and receive a prize at the exhibition.” Now it was my turn to look stunned into the eyes of the portraits and pass the phone receiver to the senior laboratory assistant.
Pasha blushed and straightened his chest: this meant that he was talking or thinking about his bride.
The conversation had its effect for a long time. For almost a whole year we taught Margosh not only instruments, but also mathematics and physics, training him for the entrance exams to the Polytechnic Institute, and he, like a teenager among his older brothers, absorbed new knowledge. During this time, Vova successfully defended his dissertation, I cured my dog, which won prizes in two exhibitions, and Pasha began to prepare for the wedding. But everything cannot proceed well. Our Petrovich collapsed with a massive heart attack, which ultimately finished him off.
At the cemetery, where the entire physics department had come, we noticed an elderly, but still pretty woman, black hair with graying, wearing a black silk shawl and silver. Margosh held her arm.
“Will you go to Petrovich’s house for the wake?” I asked them, “I have space in the car.”
“Thank you, Nikolai. No. Let Margosh go with you, but I don’t need it, even though the vow has lost its power.”
I looked at her blankly.
“I left town because of Mark. When he, who dropped out of university in 1944 to join the front, was wounded in the heart, I swore – I would not be in his house – I would give my love for his life.”
She moved far away, forgot him, and never started a family, only a son… later, when her father died.
“And when Margosh finished school, I remembered Mark: he would have helped the boy get on the right path. I came and met him… He loved you, like his own boys… He told everything about you, not about himself.”
“We’re all a little paranormal,” Vova sighed.
And Pasha, Margosh and I, without saying a word, nodded in response…
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