Ариель Давидович Абарбанель
Manchester Diary
Misha Burov
Everything is painfully familiar, everything is dusty, mothballed, as if you are in some kind of antique junk shop on the outskirts of a big city: dusty houses with crumbling plaster, dusty streets with asphalt in wide deep cracks, dusty trees through which dust glimpses a dull summer for a short summer emerald frosted leaves. Leninsky district, now Admiralty, and in antiquity in general a Finnish village, province. Levy moves toward the house along Riga, then deviates from the course, wanting to deviate from the noise of passing cars, from the hustle and bustle, looking for silence, turning onto one of the Krasnoarmeysky streets. Legs are floating on the asphalt, and eyes are on the walls, roofs of old houses. Everything is familiar, nostalgic, sad. The symphony is in stone, a requiem of human life, like a flower that managed to break through the thickness of the asphalt, but never managed to bloom, blossom, turned gray and finally withered.
On his left hand, towards Levi's house, his eyes meet familiar windows. There is dim light in the windows. The windows are large, but unwashed, the curtains behind the glasses are burnt out, wrinkled. Whose windows are these?
Memories of stormy fun festivities pop up in my head. Misha Burov! Yes, Misha Burov lived there with his wife Irina. They seemed to have
daughter, but both of them or from the previous relationship of Irina herself, is unknown. Irina is Jewish by birth, business, thrifty and patient. She has thick hair, a typical Jewish nose according to others, sensual puffy lips. A pretty, charming woman. It seems that, as in most such marriages, what Misha had, he should have been grateful to his wife. She was a real smart girl.
1981 year. Snowy Peter. Snow knee-deep and chest. At that time, when only Zhiguli or an old Moskvich stood in the yard for twenty Soviet families, Misha had a minibus from Japan, brilliant, with a right-hand drive. Misha, how a child was happy with his typewriter.
“Let's go to the restaurant,” he suggested to Levy.
Misha managed to spend almost every evening in restaurants, despite the fact that the cost of one lunch there was equal to the cost of the average monthly salary. It was forbidden by law to have connections with foreign citizens outside the state, but those who dared to deal with them, bought and sold, made good profits, could afford a daily lunch in a restaurant and a brilliant bus of non-domestic production.
The restaurant, where they went the whole campaign, was not far from the city. His huge hall was almost completely filled with idle people. It was unbearably noisy and stuffy. It was remembered that gypsies performed on stage all evening. They sang, danced. The visitors drank, ate and drank again. Misha raised his hand with a protruding elbow and the little finger laid aside, and poured, stack after stack, a clear liquid into his fireproof innards.
– Too late. Maybe let's go back home?
Misha did not argue, and at about two or three in the morning they, fortunately, left this country restaurant.
Misha is not tall, with a dark bushy beard, constantly jokes and talks a lot. Cute joker. He speaks with his mouth and all ten fingers. He justifies his name very well because he really looks like a brown bear.
The patience of Misha’s wife is angelic. She not only endured endless drinking of the missus, but also his weakness for the female sex, of which, of course, she could not know. Misha, using his charm, speaks with a woman he likes on the street, showers her with compliments, promises all sorts of benefits. Unspoiled by men's attention and gallantry, Russian women draw various fantasies for themselves about the possible development of “serious relations”, they believe Misha, peck at his promises and go on a visit. These “guests” occur at his home, if, of course, the spouse is absent, but more often in a cheap hotel where you can rent a room without presenting documents and just for an “hour”. The first impromptu date takes place with a simple snack and a drink. Apparently, due to the frequent change of partners and constant alcoholization, Misha
cannot be satisfied, like an ordinary man, and forces a woman to pervert. A woman hesitates, does not want, a little resistance, she is hurt and she screams. Misha insists. Levy involuntarily witnessed such scenes when he went to Misha, as to his neighbor and on some minor commercial matters. Misha either had no embarrassment or lost him with impunity over time. Not wanting to continue to be a spectator of these inappropriate scenes, Levy said: “Misha, I need to go” and simply slammed the door behind him.
Once, a certain friend of Levi with a funny nickname Raccoon, a hefty good-natured bastard and the same guy as Misha, answered his question if he had heard anything about our mutual acquaintance:
– You know. Now Misha has a little freaked out. Before that, in general, I went on a gurney, and Ira fed him from a spoon.
– What happened to him?!
“Yes, you know Misha,” the acquaintance calmly continued his story, “he picked up some heifers, sat with them in a cafe, they drank there and poured a glass of clafelin into him. Praise Gd that he woke up altogether. True with a broken head and empty pockets. And the money at that time, according to rumors, was considerable. Until now, Irina leads him by the handle as a grandfather, and he – "I remember there, I don’t remember there."
Levy walks past this old gray smoked house with crumbling plaster, due to the dull glass that breaks through the dim light and, as if he hears the cry of seduced, invited guests and girls and women:
Misha, don’t! Painfully! I do not want! Please don’t!
February 8, 2005. Manchester
In front of the left nose there was an alarm clock with large, glowing, red numbers. Inside Levi himself was also an alarm clock, which allowed to distinguish day from night and helping to get up at the planned time. The alarm clock is incomprehensible in its simplicity and wisdom.
Through a torn dream, Levy looked at the alarm clock with red eyes, numbers, and he was at it. And when the transformation of the numbers 3,4,5 were replaced by six, Levi got up. Having performed his entire ritual quickly from washing his hands to charging his body and ice shower, Levi went downstairs to the living room and was already waiting for the master of the house to go with him to the House of Exercise for Gratitude and Tephillin imposition, such preserved boxes on his head and hand magic words. There was a note under the door of the room, where it was not very intelligible, but still partially readable, it was notified that Mr. Lightner had left the house earlier than usual and that Levi would spend the morning with his son Rafael, who had come to visit Israel.
This morning, the synagogue of the Beltsky Hasidim was on the agenda for participating in the morning prayer of Shahrit. A huge building filled with peysat and bearded Jews in white golf. Everything went smoothly, quickly and dynamically. After the prayer house everyone returned home and after a short lunch, everyone went about his business. Levi was given a note with addresses and a letter of introduction so that he could go and look for a job and a place to live right now, since there are plenty of dependents of his own. Instructions are issued and Levi, without delay, headed for the first item on the Lightner list. Mr. Salzman, Halperns Shop. But before that, it was imperative to visit Mr. Vilkin in the Aguda office, and simply in the Security Office. Streets, streets. Houses and houses. The houses are luxurious and dilapidated, most with mezuzahs on the doors. There is the right room – Aguda office. The door is closed. Communication through the intercom – “who-where-where”. Clear. Come on in.
– You do not have an apostment – meeting?! Then sit and wait!
Levi is sitting and waiting. Mr. Pajkis continues to explain to the little woman dressed in a large oversized coat, with glasses with thick glasses on his face, a wig on his side, the wisdom of some kind of computer program in the classroom. It takes more than half an hour. The doorbell rings. Inside the cylinder squeezes, red beard, coat:
– Hello, I called you
“Ah, yes, yes, come through, please,” Mr. Wilkin points out with his hand, inviting me to his office, which is located opposite the classroom.
“This one,” the bowler shows at me, “the“ before ”came to me.
Before not before, and the apoyment is an apoment and we must wait.
“This gentleman – that is, Levi – will wait,” Mr. Wilkin throws in his direction, and they both leave in a deep office.
So Levi sits between two slightly opened doors, from one of which a puzzled little face in a hung wig looks out, glancing at the computer screen, perplexedly slamming his eyes. From the slit of another door, the conspiratorial voice of Ginger's beard continually rustles. But here Beard released all his rustling and rustling and crouched slipped out of the wagon, solidly called the "office".
Mr. Wilkin called Levy into his office. On the table were several open IBM brand notebooks. Mr. Wilkin brought Levy's data to one of them for upcoming English courses. Then he picked up the phone, began to call somewhere:
– Here you go. Have you a job. Mr. Saltzman. A very good person. His supermarket is on Lancaster Street. He is now at Minch’s afternoon prayer, and after half past two he is waiting for you.
“Good luck,” Mr. Wilkin held out his hand toward Levi, and hurried to his discouraged computer student.
* * *
“Well,” pondered, leaving Levi's carriage office, “he spent an hour and a half to be directed to the same Salzmann. It seems that the whole of Manchester, he is the only one who has a job and at least some work.
Here it is the right store with the desired sign. A shop, like a shop, not a Passage, of course, not a super neat, but not quite a stable. Grocery and gastronomy, perfumery and haberdashery were multiculturally and amicably mixed on all shelves. Between the shelves, wigs and bales were anxiously and tensely trying to quickly fill their baskets and bags with luggage purchases. When, at the appointed time for the “apartment”, or ten or fifteen minutes later, Mr., corresponding to the description of Mr. Zaltsman, did not appear, Levi addressed the question to a passing woman:
– Sorry, you do not know, Mr. Salzman in his place?
“Wait a minute,” the woman replied, stopped putting the goods on the shelves and climbed up the steep stairs somewhere upstairs.
After that, they came for Levi and he, too, had to climb this ladder and wait for a long time in a separate small room of this “his whole life” reception, until finally Salzman himself decided to materialize in the doorway, who took him to his office and sat him in battered chair:
– Do you want to work for me? Who are you and where are you from? – began his interrogation with passion Mr. Salzman.
Levi took out a cover letter from Mr. Mihai Lightner.
– Very good letter. Highly. Can I make a copy?
Levi nodded in agreement.
– Do it.
After my approval, Mr. Salzman began to revive. He got up and began to walk here and there, and when he finished, he returned with a piece of paper. He picked up a mobile phone and began to ring somewhere intensely, and then handed the phone to Levi:
– This is my wife. She is from Belgium. Talk to her.
It is easy to guess that the employer wanted to test my truthfulness and knowledge of the Dutch language at the same time.
– ABOUT! As I have not spoken Dutch for a long time, ”a woman named Rosa chirped into the phone.“ Where are you from and how long are you going to work with us? ”
– You know, Ms. Rosa, my task is to learn English to a decent level, and in order to cover the cost of housing and food, I am ready to engage in some, even simple, unskilled occupation. If my candidacy suits you, how much are you willing to pay me?
In the phone to pay the word, something immediately gurgled, Rosa's voice wished Levi all the best and asked me to give the phone to her husband.
– Sure sure. H-m-m… – Mr. Salzman was talking with his suprgoy, according to shaking his head, covered with a cap-bale.
Then he finished a meaningful, warm conversation, looked thoughtfully at Ari, and again took his eyes slightly clouded with impressions:
– You know, we now have a “meeting-meeting”, we, behold, we will consult everything and we will call you and let you know about your decision. We have your number.
“Well, consult,” Levi thought, and at parting he said:
– Have a nice day. Azloha, Good luck!
With a somewhat heavy heart, Levi went outside, completely filled his lungs with a refreshing moist air and exhaled it with force along with the air of this wonderful little shop, its goods, its owners and visitors. The virtuous air of Mr. Salzman, who was lucky enough to breathe with him, also exhaled.
Let's say: OK, as they say here, and as everyone now said, ride. Now this fad from grandfather's leaflet can be crossed out. Classes in the area were over and Levi went in the direction of his Volvo to once again go to the city center and get to know him more attentively. It should be noted that in the Salford area itself, Volvo's auto enjoyed unprecedented popularity – there were only six or seven pieces along one curving path along one side of the curb. Perhaps in this way their pious owners tried to protest to the defeated Hitler Reich, and now to the Schroider government, the German economy, the car industry with their Mercedes, BMW. Maybe the nearest Volvo dealer was someone's relative, and maybe Volvo itself is a good, good-quality car. Despite the abundance of Swedish cars, a German luxury car was parked around the corner – Porsche Carrera 4x4. In order to brighten up its obvious Aryan origin, the Jewish owner forked out and … Acquired unusual license plates with the inscription “Mashiah” – Savior. Who knows, maybe for centuries the expected Messiah should really come from barbarous Germany.
Levi drove past the unprecedentedly high wall of the local prison, turned into a street between the brewery and the car wash, stopped.
– Good. From here the center is already close and parking without requisitions and guards. Levi locked the door of his faithful avtomobilchik with a key and strode towards the center.
The second day of our acquaintance with the monster city took place at a brighter time of the day than the last time. This walk again enticed Levi and he walked and walked again through the wide streets and through the green squares, decorated with monuments of unknown celebrities, walked, getting his ample portion of this city, the people who lived and lived here, these stone buildings, these thoughtful, silent, already elderly trees.
Having received this daily share and being satisfied, Levi turned back to his car. In the list-list given by the householder’s wife, one of the remaining points indicated that one more Jew named Yael, an employee or bakery owner, who was interested in his car, should be visited.
Levi slowed down in front of the bakery, seeing that there was absolutely no place to park. He was met by two negresses, dressed in municipal uniforms.
“Hallo,” Levy called them through the open window of the car – can I park my car here for a couple of minutes?
– Do, do! – Both African boys nodded approvingly, and proceeded further.
Levi entered the bakery.
– Hello! I was sent by Mrs. Lightner. She said that someone here wanted, perhaps, to buy my car.
As often happens in such stories, the red-haired fat man hatched his already overly hatched eyes on me:
“Oh, I don’t know a lady like that, I don’t need a car,” he said indistinctly in his loose mouth, as the machine probably kneads dough for shabbat challah and soft buns. Seeing that his yummy doesn’t impress Levi and he doesn’t go away, the fat one seems to be awakened:
– BUT! How, how! Of course! A machine! Let's go and see her more quickly, – the fat man rushed headlong somewhere and for some reason into the side utility room, quickly returned and stood right next to Levi looking at his unwashed Volvo B70 car.
– Can you open the hood?
– Of course we can.
Levi opened the hood. The diesel engine peacefully and steadily clatter its mechanism. Baker Yael stood and looked at the rattling steel unit. What did he hope to see there, this Jewish baker?! Knead dough, challah on shabbos or maybe a cake with whipped cream? The bonnet lid closed deafeningly and impressed Yael looked inside the cabin:
– Oh, power windows! – He exclaimed shocked, – and you have a third seat?
“No, I don’t have a third seat,” Mr. Yael, ”Levi answered patiently,“ but its installation is provided for and if you like, you can purchase and install it. ”
The redhead held out his warm, wet, sticky palm, Levi shook it, causing the red-faced automatic smile, which solemnly and sensually said:
– I am very, very interested in this car. Be sure to call you today.
He never called, and Levy did not hear anything more about this ginger baker.
Levi returned to his lodging house, the owner Mikhah came and the two of them, as already started, got into a large Volvo 940 car, drove around the corner, parked, and went to the Teaching House – Beit Midrash. After returning from prayer, there was an unchanged orange-brown soup with scanty cushions of dough and fried meat. After the meal, Levi went up to himself, washed himself, read an English textbook and fell fast asleep. Imperceptibly, the whole body plunged into the state of “Stand by”, and a part of the soul connected to some unknown levels of Heaven. For recharging. Sleep sweet.
Valera Lustik
Feet slowly wander along the asphalt covered with deep old wrinkles, absorbing its dust and inescapable sadness. Street Courland. The Institute of Aviation Instrumentation, from a socialist past, stands slightly above the smoked houses with communal apartments, in which there are many families, trying to share the world with one toilet, one kitchen, sometimes one stove – on a burner per family. Before reaching school 271, where Levi once and for some time studied, he decides to turn onto Derptsky Lane in order to go through it to the avenue, now called Riga. At the end of the avenue you can see the ruffled waters of the Fontanka: nearby the Gulf of Finland and its tides with the North Wind influence the mood of the river. It happens that in the fall this mood is such that the waters leave the banks and go for a walk along the promenade, spilling further and further along the adjacent streets and squares. At the turn, the legs turn left, on Riga Avenue. Once in the middle of it lay tram rails, those rails on which a boy named Yura left his five-year hand. A tram ran along the rails, tapping evenly and tinkling from five in the morning. A new government came and the head of the city ordered to remove the rails, reselling them for recycling, like old metal, and “taxis” became an alternative to moving, and their owner was some kind of relative or friend.
Levy is moving on the right side of the avenue, apparently, according to the habit of remaining from school, from school number 278, in which he studied and from there returned as a child. Walking on this side, he looks at the windows of the second floor of a pink low house, on the other side of the street. That other part has even numbers, the thirtieth numbers. Once upon a time from a number of these windows, almost a whole floor, a cozy welcoming light shone. In this apartment there lived a friendly Lyustiks family – mother, father, son and youngest daughter. Valera Lustic was born in 1963 and older than Levy, but, nevertheless, they managed to somehow get to know each other and maintain friendly relations. Levy willingly went to visit Valera. He was never refused admission, but he was indifferent, because there was no benefit from him. Valera always had a full house of various people, guests diverse and interesting. He made some deals with them, and they also with each other. This apartment was full of business life. Valera’s sister is a pretty sweet girl with full wet lips. Levy told Valera that he really liked his sister.
“You know,” with a little snobbery and adult thoroughness, Valera tightened, “our family has her own plans for her.” We want to marry her with a rich Jew from Hungary.
Well, from Hungary, so from Hungary. Levy could not offer anything to this pretty girl – neither wealth, nor position. Of course Valera is right.
It so happened that since 1983 Levi has not seen Valera for a long six years, and when he appeared again in Leningrad, he did not go to him, because he didn’t have much to tell. But time passed, Levy gradually got to his feet, began to make good money. While walking along the avenue, turned into the familiar front door, climbed to the second floor, pressed the call button.
– Who's there? – an unfamiliar voice outside the door. Levy introduced himself.
The door opened, and the one who opened the door immediately disappeared into the rooms. Levy came in. A lot of fashionably dressed up guys are important to talk, talk. Among them, Valera, who is even more plump, has a striped shirt, ruddy with a short soft beard on her face.
– Oh, Levy! Hello! How are you?
– Gd bless! All is well. How about you?
“Fine too, buddy.” You sit down here if you want, and I have to talk about business with the guys.
Valera stepped aside and spoke, spoke, spoke. And Levy was sitting. But he did not sit for long, because he realized that no one would drive him, but he would not entertain either, since no one needed him here and, rightly, was not interested.
– Thanks for the hospitality. Well, I'll go, ”Levy went to the door.
– Ah, well, be healthy, – the answer sounded half-indifferent, – come in somehow else.
“Come in” sounded like a formal invitation and Levy really did. Not immediately, not next week, maybe in six months, or maybe in a year. The door was not opened as fast as the last time, everyone was asking who and where. When they let inside, they personally took us to the living room, where several people were sitting, and among them the dull Valera. Blush disappeared from the cheeks, a deep sadness and hopelessness fell on his face.
“Ah, it's you, Levy.” Hey.
– Hi, Valera. How are you?
– You know, bad.
Valera did not hide or hide anything, but in a completely simple-minded, fallen tone, he said:
– One evening they rang the front door. Two masked men entered, armed with pistols, ordered everyone to lie on the floor and after that they took money from the table and, without saying goodbye, left. Serious guys. It's good that everyone survived, ”he added despondently.
“How much money did they take from you, Valera?” I asked, so as not to be silent and ask at least something.
– More than a hundred thousand rubles. This money is not mine. This is the money of those people who came to visit me and left them in storage. The trouble is that these people, knowing about this misfortune of mine, nevertheless demand them from me and demand very harshly.
One hundred thousand! What an incredibly colossal amount, Levy was horrified to himself. One hundred thousand, when the average salary in the country is only one hundred rubles a month! And all these people, why did they leave their money with Valera? So that later one of them could make a “tip”, bring his friends and then rob him, then to demand everything back. These are such business relations and such business partners, don’t bring Gd.
Drizzles a cold rain. Levy recalls how he also walked along this sidewalk and also drizzled with a cold rain, but he specially opened his jacket so that everyone would see him for the first time tied a red tie. Cold and proud. The ends of the tie tremble with joy, playing with the wind. Here is the one-story building of the Louis Pasteur Hospital. Seven-year-old Levy was saved here when purulent appendicitis was discovered in him. Then he really didn’t want to be put to sleep, put up a fight on the operating table and shouted everything – “fascists, fascists”.
Here is the “Baronovsky” house, opposite which stood two beer stalls and a long line of men who blew foam from the mugs, diluted beer with vodka, and then cursed, urinated, fought, wallowed. These Larkovs have long been gone, but the smell of a mixture of beer and urine seems to have settled here forever.
How much did he not see from that tragic moment to Valera? He never saw him again. Only a couple of telephone conversations he had with him. What for? Probably low. Nostalgia when people try to look in and return to their past.
“How are you, Valera?” Do you live all the same? – I ask questions on the other end of the wire from the Netherlands.
– Do not you know? I now live in Uzhgorod and try to earn money as a customs broker.
– Why?
– Yes, because! Because I was forced to sell my apartment!
“Such a nice apartment, in a good place.” Yes, you didn’t seem to need it.
– Why, why! – annoyed Valera. The memories for him, apparently, are very painful and painful, —
– They took me to the forest, hung me upside down, like Pinocchio, and forced me to sign the documents. I now do not have an apartment, I live in Uzhgorod.
Drizzle sprinkles from heaven, nailing to the earth, it seems eternal, inexorable St. Petersburg dust. Breathes fresher, lighter. Windows of the former apartment
have long been left behind, and his slightly naive full face is still looming in front of me. Does a person have constellations and a designation or not?
1981 year. Hotel "Soviet". Happy Valera Lustik is the owner of two warm jackets with hoods, which he just purchased from Finnish tourists. In a country where there are only two tailoring factories, the Volodarsky and Bolshevichka factories, you can sell these trophies with great profit. A shabby guy nicknamed Sheep comes up to Valera and takes these two bags from Valera under some pretext. He does not give him money, but sends him away with threats. Valera can not do anything and leaves robbed with impassable disappointment and bitterness, which, it turned out, will have to carry his whole life.
In addition to Valera’s face, another face pops up, not as rosy and naive as Lustik’s – the face of a certain Vitya Chingin, who also liked to sit out and stay for no reason at Valera, a healthy guy-champion in wrestling. Our world is so small and the planet is so small. Levy met him, surprisingly, in Amsterdam. Vitya's wife was Jewish, and her brothers lived in the Netherlands. All of them were granted a residence permit very quickly and without any restrictions on the grounds that their brother Boris Fastovsky was abducted in Leningrad and demanded a ransom for him. Then they released him and wrote about this story in the newspapers. With these newspapers, Boris came to Holland, drawing anti-Semitic motives to his twists and turns. He and all his relatives and friends who came to him, also took advantage of these newspapers and these motives, healed comfortably and happily. Levy later learned that a terrible tragedy had happened: he was kidnapped from one of the Amsterdam towers where Boris's office was located. The kidnappers demanded a ransom of a million guilders, but for some reason they were not given a ransom, and Boris disappeared forever. Neither the police, nor the psychics, nor the money helped his mother learn about his fate. Viktor Chingin and his wife served a short term in the pre-trial detention center on suspicion of complicity in the abduction, but were released for lack of evidence. After some time, according to rumors, they divorced, but still sued each other for a long time because of common or other people's money.
The rain intensifies and Levy took a step. Regardless of which side of Riga Avenue, towards the Commercial Port or Lermontovsky Avenue, passing by the thirtieth numbers, each time he glances at the lit light in the windows of the second floor and sees a peaceful and friendly family of Lustiks: mother, father, Valera and his pretty sister- a brunette with curly hair and full, sensual, wet lips.
