Part One – There
(Eastern Hemisphere)
CHAPTER FIFTY – OUR COMPANY. ODESSA ACQUAINTANCES
The visit to Odessa was not my last one, and now I’m already walking down the plane’s stairs again in the capital of humor. At the Eliseevs, I am as their own. But now they don’t need to allocate a separate room for me, Igor’s room is already at my disposal – he moved to live with Nadezhda. It cannot be said that Ivetta Alekseevna or the grandmother are happy – Nadya is couple of years older than Igor, and she has a son from her first marriage, but she is pretty, smart, writing a dissertation and, most importantly, Igor loves her. But today Igor is at home – he is having two guests at once – me and Kalle, his new friend from Tallinn.
“Wonderful guy! Three A: actor, athlete and anti-Soviet. You will immediately find a common language with him,” says Igor, “He is the same lover of Soviet power, just like you.”
Igor and Nadya became friends with Kalle and his wife Anika on a horseback riding trip through the North Caucasus. Igor invited the Estonians to Odessa, but the appeared company was unexpected. Instead of Anika and her daughter, Kalle brought his mother and his mother’s favorite student Monica – his ex-fiancée.
It turns out that residents of northern countries, despite their reserved Nordic character, have the same hot blood as southerners, and no less family secrets…
Mom and Monika settled on the dacha in Arcadia, Kalle will join them tomorrow, and I (“Sorry, Nick!”) will live in the city with the Eliseevs, and not on the seaside. This actually makes me happy! I like it in the city (I love the city more than the countryside). There are a lot of acquaintances and friends, entertainment is easily accessible, and in the country there is only sun and sea, which I’ll get each time as soon as I’ll arrive there.
In the meantime, I teach my friends to play poker, which is not played just for fun. We need chips for betting. To do this, Kalle pours Estonian chewing gum in multi-colored wrappers onto the table. Nine PM. The theme music of the “Time” news program are heard from the TV. Kesha, Igor’s trained dog, howls deafeningly at it. I choke with laughter and swallow the gum, Kalle laughs as he lectures the “Soviet Pithecanthropus”,
“This not candy, this not eat – this for chew!”
The next morning we transport Kalle to the dacha. First, by trolleybus to the center, and from there by tram to the 16-th station of Fountain. The path is not close, but we are not bored, we tell jokes loudly, everyone around laughs, and joins in the conversation. I don’t waste time – I shoot with my eyes, looking for cute ones. And of course, I find a nice girl, strike up a conversation, and make a date for the evening.
“Igor, lo-ok!” says Kalle, “We haven’t punch ti-ickets yet, but Nick has already signe-ed up a girl for the e-evening.”
“We are just slow – while we punching the ticket, Nick will stamp the girl,” Igor sums up to the laughter of the passengers.
At the dacha I meet Kalle’s mother and Monika, we go to the beach, swim, sunbathe, and play poker. Pebbles now serve as chips for us.
“Fima,” shouts some woman from the beach to the sea, “There’s one redneck here with his pals playing cards – can you imagine, for pebbles!”
“Honey, do you want me to play for little stones (meant for precious stones) with my pals? Are you tired of me still alive?”
Before lunch, Igor shows us around. There are two attractions nearby: a theological seminary and a small market where they sell fruits and watermelons.
“How much?” I’m interested in watermelon.
“Two rubles and seventy kopeks!” the farmer answers.
“Give me for three rubles!” I suggest.
“No,” says the peasant, “It won’t work. Two seventy!”
We laugh. The day is going well. And for the evening Ivetta Alekseevna has a countermark to the operetta theater with the famous actor Vodyanoy. I take Igor aside.
“I have a date in the evening with Ira, the girl from the trolleybus.”
“It’s great!”
“But I will have to escape from the operetta.”
“No problem.”
“But what if my girlfriend doesn’t have an apartment?”
“And the whole park named after Shevchenko is not enough for you?”
“But I’ve never done this in the park. How to undress there?”
“Why undress? Just drop your pants and go ahead!”
“And the underpants?”
“Well, take your underpants down, of course, along with your trousers.”
“And the police? You know, this is their bread!”
“Most importantly, don’t lower your trousers and underpants in public. Go deep into the park, there is a slope towards the sea and there are no lanterns. It’s more convenient to have sex there, and under the Moon your bare buttocks look much more romantic. Forward!”
I remembered everything like “Our Father”:
1. To take her to the slope.
2. To pull down your jeans.
3. To pull down your swimming trunks.
4. Forward!
The romance of the buttocks was not so important after a long period of abstinence.
During the operetta I sat on pins and needles. While Vodyanoy seduced the villager to the laughter of the spectators, I had difficulty drying my wet swimming trunks through my jeans on the plush seat of the chair. I ran away after intermission so as not to offend Ivetta Alekseevna. Although, looking at my wet pants in certain places, the doctor might suspect a urological problem…
I rushed to the park just on time to meet Ira. Out of joy that she came, I hugged and kissed her.
“Right away?” she asked, not at all angry.
“Yes,” I said, “I would like to go even faster, I need to catch up.”
“You are probably a terrible womanizer, and you change women every night.”
“That may be true in another universe, but you just won’t believe when the last time I’ve been with a woman.”
“What, were you imprisoned?” Ira was surprised.
I shook my head.
“It’s just that where I come from, girls protect their virginity and…”
“I don’t envy them,” said Ira, “Our problem is not to preserve virginity, but to preserve a man!”
We talked some more about this and that. Ira liked my stories about life.
“Listen, can we go to your place?” I cast the fishing rod.
“For tea – of course, but for what you’re thinking about – nope. The house is full.”
“Mine too. But we need to come up with something, otherwise I can’t stand it anymore.”
And to prove my uncontrollability, I took Irina’s hand and put it on my jeans.
“In my opinion, you can’t stand it anyway,” said Ira, “Your pants are all wet.”
“I rushed here from the operetta!”
“Did you pee into your jeans from laughter?”
“No, we came there after the beach. I tried to dry my swimming trunks at the theater, but I didn’t succeed.”
Ira laughed,
“You’re a funny guy! I need to help you.”
“Indeed, you need!” I continued, “Let’s go and find a place…”
“Come on, you turn me on with your desire, but I must say that my period is not completely over.”
“To hell with it! But the woman’s sensitivity intensifies.”
“Really?” said Ira, “I didn’t know. That’s why I want it so much.”
And we went in a search of a place. I remembered Igor’s advice: the first point was to take her into the darkness, and, like a hunting dog, I dragged my mistress onto the dark slope leading to the shore.
Here, under the spruce trees, you really couldn’t see a damn thing, there was a smell of conifer needles and sound of cicadas.
“Oh, the place is full of needles,” Ira complained, “They’ll prick my butt all over.”
Difficulties only spurred me on.
“Here it is. Put it under…” I said and handed her my handkerchief.
Then, as if on command (points two and three), I pulled down my wet narrow jeans and tight swimming trunks. Oh horror, they had hobbled me, but it was impossible to stop and, with a mental call “Forward!” (point four), I fell like a tin soldier on my lady.
I cannot explain how I’ve got there where I wanted to get, while being in such complete darkness and disorientation. Maybe a kind firefly winked at me with his flashlight, or the Moon shone a ray of light for a moment. Ira and I both screamed, grabbed each other and, dying of hysterical laughter, moved down the needles-strewn slope on my handkerchief and her bare buttocks.
“I’ve never had such sex in my life! It is fantastic!” Ira was suffocating of laughter, “I’ll tell the girls at work tomorrow – they’ll burst out of envy!”
I returned home late, I had the key, but the grandmother was waiting for me in the kitchen with freshly brewed tea.
“Have you had enough of a walk? Probably with some kind of slut?” she asked sternly, “While you were walking, a polite girl called you.”
I wasn’t used to calls. A personal call, especially from a girl, was a surprise for me, considering that we didn’t have a phone at home at all.
“Really?!” I was amazed.
“What am I making it up? Her name was in the French style, Nataly. She invited you. Here, she left the address.”
I thanked Igor’s grandmother for the tea and for the good news and went to bed. Falling asleep after a day full of adventures, I remembered that I was the only man, including the groom, who showed up with champagne and flowers to registration to “French” Nataly. Of course, she knew that I am no longer dating Marina, her friend. But this did not seem to me a compelling reason for the invitation. How did she know about my arrival?
The next day I called Igor and collected some information. It turned out that Nataly was divorced. She lived with her daughter Lana and her mother in the same apartment where I was the toastmaster at the wedding. Dasha, her friend, also divorced. Alas, Dasha’s divorce was much more difficult; she was even treated for depression for some time. And the last link – Dasha worked together with Nadia at the same research institute.
It became clear to me that Dasha learned about my arrival from Nadia, and Nataly learned it from Dasha. The chain became clear, and the reason for the invitation was obvious: neither her husband nor Marina were any longer obstacles to getting to know me more closely. Hence the invitation. It was boldly!
I grabbed a bottle of Georgian wine, bought a bouquet of flowers, this time red roses, and went to visit.
Nataly opened the door for me.
“Nick! Welcome! What a great guy for stopping by! What roses!”
I was very pleased with her joy, but what Tbilisi resident would not respond to the invitation of an interesting woman?
We talked for a long time, then her mother, a professor of French at the university, came. We had lunch, drank tea, talked again, and I stayed up late.
“You shouldn’t come back across the city so late. Stay overnight with us,” Nataly’s mother suggested, and I agreed.
They made a bed for me in the living room on an antique sofa. I would rather call it an old-fashioned loveseat. It had an S-shaped seat, but what was worse, it was very creaky. I didn’t fall asleep for a long time. A strip of light could be seen from under the door to Nataly mother’s room – she was writing a book. And I kept thinking, “Why did a divorced woman invite me? To feed?”
And I remembered the novel by Henri Troyat, in which the prim bride and groom stay with the bride’s aunt sleeping in separate rooms upstairs, and the aunt listens for the floorboards and door handles would creak, and the rickety headboard of the bed would knock against the wall. This example from literature gave me confidence, and I decided to go to Nataly’s room where she slept with little Lana. It took me an unusually long time to get up from the couch. My every movement woke up the ghost living in the sofa, and it made a dull howling and rattling sounds. Finally I got up and crept to the door, walking silently. Damn, I knew it! The handle was old and creaked no worse than the old loveseat. I had to turn it one hundred and eighty degrees at a speed of a degree per second. All this time I was trying to recall the title of Troyat’s novel, in case Nataly’s mother came out of her room and caught me doing this. I was preparing to answer her silent question.
“What am I doing? I’m rewriting an episode from “The Egletierre Family” by Henri Troyat, remember? …”
Finally I got into the bedroom. Lana was sleeping deeply in her crib. Natalie was snuffling in her bed next to Lana’s. I sat down on the edge, stroked her face and, bending down to her ear, whispered,
“Move over.”
Natalie smiled while sleeping and moved to the right, towards the wall. And I immediately climbed under the sheet and pressed myself against her hot body. In response, she stroked me and woke up, wondering how I ended up in intimate proximity to her, but she had enough restraint not to make a single alarming sound.
“Where did you appeared from?” she asked me, bringing her lips closer.
“From there,” I whispered, kissing them and at the same time caressing her body.
“It’s not possible now!” Nataly said, “Mom doesn’t sleep until dawn, she works. She will hear everything.”
“When does mom fall asleep?” I whispered in Nataly’s ear.
“By five AM.”
“I’ll come at five,” I said, “No problem!”
“Kiss me again, braggart. You’ll oversleep, of course.”
I kissed this brave young woman with pleasure. But I couldn’t oversleep – Nataly didn’t know that there was a clock in my head that woke me up exactly at the appointed time. I carefully returned to my place, lay down and instantly fell asleep until five.
The summer holidays usually flew by so quickly that later, remembering my friends and the wonderful time spent with them, I was surprised, so many events happened to us, so much was felt and experienced.
It would seem that I just arrived to Odessa, and now it’s already time to get ready to go home. Today I spend my last day at sea, and in the evening Kalle and I are taking our hospitable host to a restaurant to celebrate the end of summer and my departure.
In the afternoon, while Igor is at work, Kalle and I are going to go boating. Here, at the state dacha, there is a boat station, but boats are given out only to city health workers, just as fifty years before beer was allotted only for trade union members. A colorful poster announces this.
Kalle and I decide to act out a scene at the boat station and get around the ban on boats for simple vacationers. He will portray a Swede, Mr. Kalle Twister, who is received by the Odessa city Health Center in connection with the signing of a contract for the supply of condoms from Sweden. Kalle looks impressive – a two-meter athlete in bright red shorts, a white Panama hat and a huge watch the size of an alarm clock on his hands. And I will be his translator, Comrade Neiman. The setting for a summer theater is most suitable – a bright sunny day, blue waves rolling onto the shore, where several strong boats are parked. In one of them sits a sun-blackened security guard in a straw hat and faded blue shorts that were once police trousers, with red piping on the sides, listening to transistor radio set “Spidola.”
Voice from the radio,
“…Milk yield in the Primorsky region increased by 15%, which was caused by both an increase in the number of cattle and an increase in the productivity of the milking complex.”
Security guard,
“There are plenty of cows, but no meat, screw you!”
Kalle,
“Good afternoon mister guard. Do you speak English? Parlez-vous français? Sprechen Sie Deutsch? (Continues further in Estonian)…”
Security guard,
“Would I Sprechen, I wouldn’t be sitting here. What do you need?”
Translator,
“Hello! Mr. Twister is here at the invitation of the Odessa city health department in connection with the signing of the contract for the supply of condoms from Sweden. He would like to pay for a boat rental for one hour.”
Security Guard,
Condoms? From Sweden! It is high time! They won’t say anything about this (points a finger at “Spidola”). Otherwise, the milk yield is growing, but there is still no meat, screw you! Rental, you say? And it turns out you don’t have a certificate from the city health department…
Kalle,
Up my ass I need this shity gore-the drav-o’dell paper to rent a boat.
Translator,
Our guest, Mr. Twister, proposes to solve this problem as a problem with condoms. Odessa pays for condoms, and he pays for boat rental.
Security guard,
Do you think that I’ll take three rubles from a guest? Take the boat, just leave your watch as a deposit!
Kalle, satisfied with the deal, leaves as the deposit his huge Japanese stamped watch – proof of his foreign sovereignty; shakes the guard’s calloused hand with his paw and gives him a souvenir – a Finnish condom. We go on a boat trip, hearing behind us the grumbling of an elderly man, “The condoms have already appeared, but there is still no meat, screw you!”
That same evening, in a big group, we go to a restaurant on the seashore. Here music is played, fish, shrimp, mussels are cooked, kebabs are fried, and at the same time there is a fresh sea breeze. Wonderful! Each of the men wants to be a gentleman and treat the others: the owner – to receive guests, the guests – to thank the owner for his reception. Knowing Igor’s tenacity and understanding that the competition on a foreign field can be lost, Kalle and I agree to a separate agreement. Taking advantage of Igor’s absence to the toilet, we chip in fifty rubles and I, as a fluent Russian speaker, secretly hand them over to our waiter, with the condition that the bill be reduced by this amount.
“Of course,” he says, “How nice it is to serve such sophisticated people, and even more so, such good friends. Come more often, I will always be glad to see you.”
At the end of the evening he brings the bill for one fifty rubles for hot dishes and wine, including tip. I see the appetizers are missing in the check and realize it’s my job. Kalle winks at me conspiratorially. The waiter winks at everyone. Igor winks too – everyone is in an excellent mood. Then we fight over who will pay the bill and, finally, we come to a gentleman’s agreement – we divide the amount between three men.
We say goodbye to our Estonian friends. I say goodbye till new meetings, since I have to fly home tomorrow and then I return to Igor.
“We had a very good time,” I say, “The food is delicious and the service is good.”
“Actually, the second is wrong,” Igor disagrees with me. They are swindlers, they always cheat – they put out a huge list of expensive appetizers, and people don’t remember how many servings of what sea food they ate. But physicists familiar with the theory of error cannot be fooled!
I understand that Igor noticed the shortened list of appetizers.
“Well, we are all familiar with counting errors,” I note.
“What do you mean?” Igor laughs, “Notice the short list of appetizers?”
Why fool around and pretend, so I am saying,
“I confess. Yes!”
“Then I’ll confess too,” says Igor, “It’s easier to pay this way – you cut off their confusing appetizers and everything is clear.”
“How do you know that we cut off the appetizers?” I’m surprised.
“Did you cut them off? I cut them off!” he is surprised.
We look at each other in bewilderment and begin to laugh, realizing that each side has gotten itself into trouble with its own secret activity.
“How much?” I ask Igor.
“A hundred,” he says, “And you?”
“Same. Fifty each.”
“Should I have Master degree in physics? Understood the theory of errors? But you can’t figure out a simple swindler!”
“Not simple, but from Odessa.”
“From now on, remember the experience – all payments in a restaurant should be done only openly!”
Since then I’ve been doing this, and if they cheat me, then it’s in some other way.
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