I was blamed for using child labour as in my eatery there worked a boy of sixteen and a girl
of seventeen, while the surrounding area was cleaned by a fourteen-year-old fellow. In winter he
was shovelling snow and in summer he was waving a broom. The guys in the cafe were selling
burgers and drinks, they were also not startled by dirty work: keeping clean the toilet and washing
the floors.
My eatery was in the building of a former cinema house, and in summer there were tables and
chairs outdoors under a sunshade.
One spring day I approached the cafe from the street and knocked on its window. The sales
girl opened it and I bought French fries and some water. I poured the water from the bottle into a
plastic glass (that looked very much like Graal), gulped some air and opened the pack of fries.
Nearby a bunch of sparrows was eating crumbs on the table. I took out a piece of fried potato and
started to feed sparrows from hands. You would not believe it, but sparrows adore French fries and
swallow large chunks of it.
When there was no food left, I went to wash my hands and after that talked to the guests of
the cafe for quite a long time. One of the guests made a note in a Complaints and Suggestions Book.
Having a wild time
In front of the shop a car got parked against the rules: nearby was the police and a bus stop. I
crossed the street at the traffic lights. A policeman started the siren and slammed the car door. Next
to me there was a dog park where dogs were walked and trained. I strolled deeper into the wood. A
man wearing sunglasses and a goatee was looking after the dogs. I glanced at the wrist-watch and
quickened my pace. Suddenly, there was a loud clatter, and looking up I saw a police helicopter
flying low, just above the pine trees. It was clear that they were chasing someone. Ahead of me on
the path I saw a messy man walking backwards with a hand in his pocket. He told me that he had a
grenade in his pocket and was going to pull the pin. I fell on my stomach and covered my head with
my hands. The lad was saying that the green had come to power and that they didn"t know how to
grow bread and were leaving burnt earth behind them. The police was approaching. I got really
numb and could not think. Having switched on the bullhorn, the policeman, who had named himself
as a major Devyatiyarov, cried that everything was under control, told the man to raise the hands
and not to fool around. The lad stopped. He got rounded up. I stood up and came to them. It turned
out that in the man"s pocket he had two hunting cartridges. Nearby flew a raven, crowing. My hands
were soaring with nettle stings. I lit a cigarette and felt dozy as I if I had been given sleeping pills.
On a tree trunk there was a huge piece of dark resin. I shook it off and took a bus number 23 to my
country house.
It seemed to me that
Major Devyatiyarov was examining what had remained of a burnt car. "Aron Stepanyan," he
called me. I came by. The burnt car, its model was Deviatka, was brown. On the top of the car there
was an empty bottle of beer Baltika. The number plate had been taken off the car. Major
complained that it would be impossible to put the pieces together.
It was getting dark. A shepherd was leading a herd of cows down the road. We went after
him.Jump
I was standing behind high gates, locked by a rusty chain with a padlock, with the figures of
two lions.
Bivouac
Natalia and I were in the courtyard when several boys ran into it, among them was one guy on
a bicycle with a retroreflector. They told that in the Silver pine forest a corpse had been found.
Natalia got curious and we went over to see it. The sun was beaming amongst the tops of the trees.
We passed a cutting and saw a lot of gapers. We came closer and spotted a shelter built up from
young pine branches and thick spruce branches. Outside it stood a pair of boots. Inside the shelter a
male body was lying, next to him was an empty bottle. Major Devyatiyarov made his way to that
shelter and asked everyone to step back. Suddenly terrible smell came from the shelter and
everyone heard that man let rip. The corpse turned on the other side and we could hear him
breathing.
I burst out laughing, the wife stopped me, "Aron, be quiet." In the crowd of onlookers was a
Biology teacher. "Dead corpses don"t sweat," he stated.
Warm rain
I was fighting for my place in the sun. After drinking one raw egg, I tied up a red armband of
a community support police officer and went outdoors for duty.
Sun
I was walking along a narrow path through deadwood and fern. I came across a house, its
window shutters were open, they had no decorative plat-bands. Inside the house at the table was
sitting a man with a red scarf and a hat. Next to him was a plate with fish. The nightingale started to
sing, there were two rows of village houses in front of me.
Radioman
I had to see a psychiatrist, I had received a radiogram after which my eyebrows thickened and
I saw a satellite in a starry sky above me.
Sunflower
My bicep was around thirty-two or thirty-three centimetres, little serving of stew. I could do
one pull-up. A high-wire act.
Save women
I had a bad day. Frowning, I was riding a bus home. Outside there were billboards
congratulating women on the 8th of March. In a bar I drank a glass of beer with croutons. Nearby
was sitting a young woman with dreadlocks. She asked me for a light. I checked my pocket and
replied in the negative.
Tenmart
My neighbour was driving me in her car to a big mall. When we were passing a tunnel, a
motorbike drove by. When we got to the place, I took a pushcart and entered the shopping mall.
After I got food products and dry goods, I approached a cash desk. Ahead, there were eight rows ofcash desks. I had a leakage in a carton of milk, the cashier took a phone and called the manager. A
young woman cancelled that item. I took a bus home. At home there was a Christmas tree decorated
with a star and toys. The plan for today was fulfilled.
The Sleep of Reason Produces Monsters
It was time to move forward. I restarted the computer and entered the names of the new team
members: Klim, Osip, Egor, Oleg...
Floor polisher
I got a pass. I held down the ball with my knees and threw it over a bold head of the
quarterback. I had a thought that it takes two to make a thing go right. Then I got the ball, kicked it
with all the strength and scored a goal.
Aloe
The camera was moving backwards and stopped at the wall of an old animal burial ground.
The garden of Eden generator
We stepped out onto a platform of River station. I had to go to the toilet. The station toilet was
a wooden booth with a hole in the floor. I entered it and accidentally dropped my wrist-watch into
the hole. "Aron, we missed the train," said Natasha. "Then we"ll have to fly in the clouds," I
answered.
Russian project
We celebrated New Year"s at our place with Nikolay and his wife. Nikolay was a man of a
short stature, with a thick black beard, big lips and a fleshy nose, he was wearing horn spectacles.
We clinked glasses.
The New Year, a new car model, a new country, a new set of houses, a new life.
Youth
I was fiddling about the whole summer. I was walking the streets with my stunning haircut.
Vasia the gypsy came home from a camp site with a green suitcase. On a wooden fence around the
school building was a common swear word.
Voronino Village
Friday came. I had a plan to go to the country. A suburban bus drove me to a village named
Voronino quick as the wind.
My Voronino Village is a country of flowers starting from forest violets and strawberries to
lilies of the valley and cornflowers. Grass is whooshing in the fields and wild horses are grazing
there. Century-old trees are seen in the distance.
Sunday
Natasha was rattling her pans in the kitchen. I went outside. In the backyard, washed clothes
were hanging on a rope with wooden clothes pegs. Behind the booth I saw Maxim with a cigarette
in his mouth. I pulled out the cigarette, took a belt out if the trousers and spanked him. Then I went
to a street market. Many treats were lying on stalls. I was given a fresh cucumber. I put it into apocket and went to the river.
Diary
In Jordan I was staying in a hotel called Three stars. In the bar a waiter brought me a cup of
tea and two pieces of sugar. On the screen of a laptop that was lying on the table was the following
text: Black as night, David... My phone rang. I pulled out the antenna using my teeth and
answered, "Aron is listening." The voice said that it was Salma from a pet shop. I closed my laptop,
descended from the 4th floor in a lift, caught a taxi and got there in five minutes. Salma took out a
small turtle from the aquarium, put the animal into a carrying bag and gave it to me. I pulled out a
wallet, took twenty dollars out of it and gave them to Salma.
I had given that turtle to Maxim as a present back in Russia as he was already big enough
then. We had been feeding it with grass and vegetables.
Nata, that had been keeping a diary for a long time, made a note about the turtle and told us
about that.
In the afternoon debt collectors phoned to frighten me and to ask whether I was planning to
solve the problem with the loan. I hung up the phone and went to sleep. Tomorrow is a new day.
Summer cottage
My grandfather owned a summer cottage with an area of six acres in a garden community Red
handicraftsman. He also had a wooden shower cabin with a water barrel on top and an outdoor
toilet. In the garden there had been drilled a deep well.
LLC Refrigerator
Have you ever heard the sound of a working jack-hammer, a router bit or a drilling machine?
That"s how my refrigerator sounded before the repairs.
Car window
I gave a lift to a guy in a cap. He had no money and suggested giving me a ticket to a rave
concert and some weed. I rejected the weed and drove the car for three bus stops. "Thank you,
Aron," he said and showed me thumbs up.
Fellowship
Major Devyatiyarov turned up. He asked me to accompany him to one fellow, with a cleft
lip. We entered a dog shelter. Its owner told us that they had started to come across stray dogs with
one cut-off leg. Major was on duty and had a service gun, I had a long flash light with me. We
crossed a lawn and stepped on a bridge, under it was a raging river. On the bridge we saw blood
stains. We went downhill to a house, Devyatiyarov told me, "Aron, sit in ambush in the bushes."
The house looked like a jail with grids. One troublemaker lived in it, a gaol-bird as they call such
guys in prison slang. He had been recently released. The door was ajar, major waved to me and I
followed him inside. It was dark in the house and I switched on the flash light. On an oak table were
playing cards, a plate and a bottle of ketchup. Then we heard the sound of a circular saw. The gaol-
bird tried to hurt me or major with the circular blade of the saw. I jumped aside. The saw dashedagainst the table. Major punched the ex-con with the but of Makarov gun, he slumped down.
We searched the house and found a sailor's passport. The criminal used to be a sailor on a
cruiser before he was sent to prison. A crossover came and the ex-con was taken away. Later on he
confessed in everything.
I bought a leather collar for a dog with three legs.
Note
When I got lost in the forest, the sun had already sat down and I had no compass with me. I
stopped at a quite open space, with my back at a young alder tree with soft catkins. I gazed up and
found the Big Dipper and imagined a line nearly five times longer than the side of the constellation.
The North Star was shining brightly. I was following it in small steps. I heard a quickly running
express train Silver Arrow. It came to me that I would soon get home.
Northern Dvina River
The steersman told me that their chronicler had broken his leg and that I would replace him on
a drakkar. I put on a linen shirt and sailcloth trousers. We got several barrels of tar on board the
drakkar and a large number of cattle skins. The boatswain with a pipe signalled all hands on deck.
We took up the oars and set the sail. The ship sailed off from Yaroslavl along the Kotorosl River to
the Volga River, then right to the White Sea and to the Arctic Ocean. Captain was smoking a pipe,
two ducks were flying low above the water.
Quite quickly we reached the northern rivers by rowing and skilfully catching the wind. Water
was really cold. Our drakkar went out to the White Sea and we cast a net. From the shore it could be
seen through a spyglass how twelve guys on a drakkar with a dropped anchor were between the
devil and the deep blue sea. Our voyage lasted for fifty-five days.
Who are we?
One of the parties in Israel gave me the following task: go to Mamayev Kurgan, download to
a flash drive the pantheon of the USSR heroes, and also the names of pioneers from Moscow
museums, and the names of writers, cosmonauts, soldiers, officers, doctors and scientists. The air
was getting tough, more often people turned to money and sex for consolation.
The Israeli government did not distance from the USSR, but assumed the USSR history as a
part of its own one. So, the heroes of war and space, scientists were our heroes as well, in history
student books there were units about war without a doubtful topic of collectivization.
Having put on my costume and taken the documents, I took off to Moscow.
Naked in a hatThe USSR ran out of photographic film, and the country got flooded by stickers and playing
cards with naked women.
Satisfactory condition
I had a gift to whistle and to parody politicians, actors and singers. I couldn't ape on stage,
and, moreover, my Jewish wife had cheated on me with some pop star. I got back to work in a taxi.
Piece of bread
A grandmother from Moldova sent me a letter and asked to come and help her with the
chores. I took all the money from my bank account, bought different appliances and went in red
direction. The village where the grandmother lived was thirty kilometres from the town of Comrat,
and there was light and gas in the village, except for a couple of houses, including the
grandmother"s.
When the grandmother saw me, she was happy and asked me to buy her some bread. I went to
a pub, had two glasses of beer, putting salt on the rim of a glass. Then I went to a grocery store, they
had no bread. I brought pasta and cheese for the grandmother. I dug up four seedbeds, left grandma
2000 leu and the appliances, then I left.
Catholic school
I heard the bell ringing and started running ahead of all yellings. A pioneer, looking at the
world through a magnifying glass. It meant that I started to get off course.
Waiting
My open-top car was parked not far from the mountain top. Next to it was a trampoline. I
jumped into the car and was waiting for Natasha to walk up to me.
Stopwatch, tape measure and shell
After all, there seemed to be a double-edged sword between me and the trainer. I was given a
chair with a star painted on it. There was no water on the table. The clock was fast. A light flickered
in the hall. The trainer cancelled the meeting.
Milk
A raven sat on a bench. I was wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt. Having drank kvass from a
bailer, I opened the garage door and moved out a motorcycle. After its technical inspection, I had to
change spark plugs. Java was quite new and started easily.
The Queen was to come to Voronino today at noon to inspect the hospital. It was clean and
bright in the hospital: wooden glass doors, large windows, cupboards with powders and medication,
glasses with saline solution. Having checked the hospital, the Queen went on. I was escorting her onmy bike. I got paid fifty kopecks.
Icon
In the 90s, before leaving to Israel, after I got all the stuff packed, I left an icon to a pastor I
knew.
A large coarsely drawn icon of the Saviour with sharp edges. King size.
Philip OK
When I was little, my uncle Philip took me to his work. He was a street cleaner and from
morning till noon was sweeping the dance floor. We gathered rubbish and looked for coins of small
and sometimes big value, that had fallen from the dancing people"s pockets. By noon the whole sum
went up to more than a rouble. After work, we sometimes went to the post office, where my uncle
took a fountain pen and black ink (that was always running out) to write letters, to sign and sent
bundles and parcels. He had a very neat handwriting and he scolded me when I was scratching
paper with a pen tip.1961
I was sitting at a table in a large spacious and light hall. Tables were standing in several rows.
There were many people sitting at my table. In front of it was a circular window, people were
entering it and moved upwards as if on an escalator. An angel at the rostrum called for me and one
more person. There were two cards in his hands. The angel said, "Aron and Vova, come closer."
We approached. The angel read, "Years of cruel treatment and being a burden for dozens of years."
We were standing with our heads lowered. He proclaimed that we were not worthy of the Heaven.
A hatchway opened and we flew to Hell. Next moment I woke up from anaesthesia. In the mouth
there was a taste of sleeping gas, nearly vomiting. I was taken to a ward in an invalid carriage.
Fulcrum
First my face was childish, then charming, later creased and looking more like a snout.
Natalia sent me what she used to call snout-washing products. In a new city I was always looking
for some feed first. It was usually berries and fruit.
Endless summer
My friend Ilya was holding an egg incubator. He had spent much time in France where he had
his business. Now he was living in Israel. His company was entitled Hay from under a horse.
Video pirates from the North Kusatsu
North Kusatsu is a small mountain range in Japan. Interpol was investigating how
videocassettes with classical feature-films shoot by the USA, India and Great Britain appeared on
the market. The films had been cut and badly put together, yet the sound was synchronised. The
films were multi-voiced. Wearing a pointy beard and a black suit with a badge Aron Stepanyan I
was standing in a hall full of people and journalists. The lights were switched off and a video
projector started to work. Indisputable evidence proved that Japanese special forces were taking part
in video pirating. The video showed how two Japanese men opened a briefcase full of copies of
films and offered to buy any of them for five thousand dollars. A fat Japanese man in big glasses
promised many more videos in different genres. I took a word and started my speech, "Everyone
knows what papier mache is. Take a bottle, to which pieces of paper or newspaper cuttings are
glued. In a similar way videotapes are made in Japan, they are cut into pieces and then glued
together again."
A rare bird will fly to the middle of the Dnieper River
My friends didn"t have any boundaries and, following their hearts, they started to come to my