Artyom had spent the summer doing odd jobs: digging ditches for plumbing, laying pipes, helping mechanics. He did not shy away from any kind of work, equally happily ran along to fetch a wrench and a pack of “Belomor”, held down whatever he was told to, hammered at whatever he was supposed to, but did not violate his principles. From square one, he let the team know:
“I… er… don’t smoke. Yeah. Don’t even offer.”
“Our Iskra combines the distrust of a prosecutor with the shrewdness of Shelock Holmes,” Vika said loudly. “Thank you, Artyom, I will definitely come.”
Artyom was a little worried about how his brothers would act with his school friends, but both Yakov and Matvei just happened to have urgent things to do that day. They wished their little brother a happy birthday in the morning, and left an hour before the guests arrived, having first dragged all the tables, chairs, and benches into one room.
“We’ll be back by eleven. Have a good party, Shpendik!”
Artyom’s brothers left, and his mother and father stayed. They sat at the head of the table, and his mom poured sitro soda for the girls and offered them pie. The boys drank mom’s cordial, and Father drank vodka. He drank two shots and left, and only mom stayed, but she stayed in such a way that it seemed to everyone that she had also left.
“Your folks are nice,” said Valka Aleksandrov, an exceptionally sociable fellow, who disliked quarrels and had quickly gotten the hang of settling conflicts. “All you hear at my place is ‘Valka, what are you doing over there?’”
“You need an eye kept on you, Edison,” smiled Pashka Ostapchuk, the best athlete in the school. “The things you might invent otherwise…”
Valka had been nicknamed Edison for his quiet passion for improvement and optimization. He invented fountain pens, four-wheeled bicycles, and a Primus stove you could power with your foot. That last discovery caused a small domestic fire, and Valya’s father came to school to ask the administration to put a check on his son’s inventiveness.
“Edison will burn someone down!”
“Well, I believe we should not clip people’s wings,” Iskra declared. “If a person wants to invent something that is useful for the country, he ought to be helped. And laughing at him is just stupid!”
“It is stupid to make speeches given half an excuse,” Vika said, and again everyone heard her through the laughter, chatter, and noise.
“No, that is not stupid!” Iskra announced. “It is stupid to consider yourself better than everyone just because…”
Iskra wanted to lay everything out right there, about perfume, and underclothes, and fur coats, and the company car that would pick Vika up at ten o’clock that night. She wanted to, but didn’t dare, because it involved girlish secrets, and she cursed herself for her weakness.
“Because my dad is a supervisor of the highest level? What is so bad about that? I am not ashamed of my dad…”
“Artemon!” Zinochka suddenly shouted out, in desperation and pity for the fatherless Iskra. “Pour me some sitro, Artemon…”
The happy howls of laughter lasted a long time, the way laughter does only in childhood. Zinochka, having so unexpectedly called Artyom by the name of the faithful poodle from Buratino, laughed louder than anyone, and Sashka Stameskin even snorted in his delight, which gave them another reason for laughter. And when they were finished laughing, the conversation changed course. Zhorka Landys started talking about his letter to the League of Nations, while also looking at Vika in such a way that everyone smiled. And then Iskra had a whispered conversation with Lena Bokova and suggested a game of charades, and they played charades for a long time, and that was also fun. Then they sang loudly, about Kakhovka, about the Eaglet, and about the boy their age that got struck down in Irkutsk.
And while everyone was singing, Zina made her way over to Artyom and said,
“I’m sorry for calling you Artemon. I just did that all of a sudden, without thinking about it, you understand? It just came out that way.”
“It’s all right.” Artyom was afraid of looking at her, because she was very close, but he wanted to look, so his eyes kept shifting around.
“I don’t know.” Artom gathered up all his courage, desperately looked into Zinochka’s sparkling eyes, and said, “Because it’s you. It’s all right if it’s you.”
View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
