Medicine for a Migraine

 A story. It is based on real events that happened in the late 20s.

1

 With a suitcase in hand, in a short double-breasted coat, new boots and a sailboat cap, Leva walked to the station. The suitcase was heavy even for a strong man like him and pulled to the ground. Therefore, from time to time it was necessary to put it on the ground – well, not in the dirt, of course, still the property of the community – and take it in the other hand. And do the same with the canvas bag where the wife put food and laundry. Walking along the red streets from the melting snow, bypassing puddles tucked in gray ice like broth, he realized the importance and responsibility of the task assigned to him, but for some reason he thought not about this at all, but about a recent visit to Dr. Naumenko. In fact, the real surname of the doctor was Roitman, but his father's name was Naum, from where the natural Ukrainian surname flowed. When Dr. Naumenko was summoned to the Torah, everyone in the synagogue shuddered, continuing to look at each other in bewilderment and shake their heads disapprovingly even after the hasty announcement of the Rebbe Stitz’s name – Moses. It happened every time for the first time, and every time the father of the doctor, who last month turned ninety, raised to the gray-yellow ceiling shaking hands from Parkinson's and unnatural for such a shrivelled body bass, lamented: In my youth, these walls were not heard. suchNames!

And it was to Moses Naumenko that Lova advised her mother-in-law to turn, with his help, who was cured of the incident with her after a quarrel with her neighbor, an endless hiccup. And she, in turn, was sent to him by a young lady suffering from an unheard-of disease for a Jewish woman - intolerance to male sperm. These and many other cases confirmed the fame of a doctor for rare diseases.

The doctor sat Leva in a chic, upholstered blue velvet, chair. He himself sat opposite in a black leather, usually cross-cross, folding short hands on the table in red hair and freckles. More than rich furniture, an incredible number of books and open above the knees, muscular, like a man, the legs of a maid in fielder’s stockings, Løva was shocked by the doctor’s clean, neatly sawn nails. He glanced at his spade palms and squeezed them into his fists.

- Well," the doctor asked gently, looking Loeve in the eyes, "what is bothering us?

- Us? – Lova, for the first time in his thirty-odd years, visited a doctor.

He carefully looked around and, seeing only a tightly closed oak door behind him, replied, We have a headache. Often. And a lot.

- You? Head? – incredulously asked Naumenko. Yes, the case promises to be interesting. Tell me about it.

And Leva told me about the sudden onset of pain in the right temple, giving pain to the ear and eye. About how, intensifying, the pain becomes dull and drilling, and then it is unbearable to look at the light, and shame on my wife for such weakness, and I want to get drunk, cover myself with a pillow and wake up only when everything is over. Trying to help the doctor get to the bottom of it, he embarrassedly admitted that the pain appears after taking a certain food – fatty broth, squarrets and cherry jam, as well as from the smell of cologne, which his wife persistently and in large doses uses, especially during menstruation, and from the loud mother-in-law crackling. However, for fear of being called crazy, he did not dare to advise his wife to stop cooking broths and jam, and his mother-in-law, slightly deaf after suffering scarlet fever in childhood, also became numb while he was at home. Dr. Naumenko listened attentively, tapping on the table from time to time. For some reason, Leva began to irritate and became silent. Moses Naumovich finally clicked his nail on the gilded cloves of a leather armchair and said: I do not see any point in examining you, and so it is clear that there are three people in health here. Moreover, you claim that you were not injured at work. If we try hirudotherapy, I'll prescribe you leeches. Apply it to the head, they will find where to stick and adjust blood circulation. Leva imagined himself pulling slippery, writhing leeches out of a glass jar and immediately remembered her grandmother, her leeches covered among rare strands of hair stuck together, still after a stroke, the back of her head.

- No, he said harshly, but not this filth. I already have someone to suck blood on.

- Well, the doctor easily agreed, then the clover remains. Tablespoon for a glass of boiling water. Brew and drink three times a day. For better results, tie a fresh cabbage leaf to your forehead at night. There is no other remedy for migraines yet. And come back in a month.

- But why clover? – asked Löw perplexedly, carefully straightening the bills before putting them in a crystal vase intended for this purpose, about which she warned and reminded her mother-in-law again ten times.

- It's horse food.

- Exactly, my dearest, have you ever heard of horses having a headache? – Dr. Naumenko friendlyly inquired and cheerfully patted him on the shoulder.

 2

And now, on the way to the station, Leva mentally returned to that visit, again and again admiring the mind and disarming logic of this man. What does learning mean? After all, if you think about it, there are only a few benches in the synagogue, and in fact there is a chasm. And it is all the more honorable that it was Moses Naumovich who recommended him to carry out such a responsible assignment. At the bazaar, the shoemaker Benjamin approached Leuve and, standing on his toes, whispered: “They told me to tell you.” Come to the restaurant in the evening on Fundukleevskaya - there is a case. Without going home after work, in order to avoid unnecessary questions, Leva came to the restaurant and was immediately sent as if waiting for him doorman in a small room, hidden from prying eyes black in golden birds, a curtain. There was almost no music, it was dark and quiet, although thirty people gathered. And Dr. Naumenko is among them. Løve was offered to sit down, moved a plate with smeared and stuffed with all sorts of tiny sandwiches. He silently swallowed one, the second, without trying the taste, drank a glass of sweet wine and, as if making it clear that he appreciated the hospitality provided to him, wiped his chin with a starched napkin and put it on the table. And then a man spoke, whose name Lev did not know, but often saw driving along Khreshchatyk in a black sparkling car. His speech was brief, so even when he came home, Leva remembered her word for word and exactly told his wife and mother-in-law, taking an oath of silence from them. Despite the very clearly stated by Leva the essence of what happened, the wife, as a wound up, continued to ask questions and, what was especially annoying, she answered them herself.

- So you were invited by the most respected people in town? Well, that. you That's what you think. Sitting, watching, asking questions. So to decide, or You can be trusted. more gold. And borrowed a suitcase... I want you to drag him to the border. And Dr. Naumenko himself vouched for you! And what was left for him, not to drag himself! In his life, he has not lifted anything heavier than an enema!

- And why did they want to take out the gold? – my mother-in-law grunted puzzled, putting aside a stuffed neck with a needle sticking out of it. - I'm swapping old chervonets for paper ones. It’s very convenient – you can’t cut your pockets. So chervonets, and so chervonets - the price is one, on the market you will buy the same thing that on this one.

- As you don't understand, Mother, this is a temporary phenomenon. Your paper is already losing its value, soon you will not buy a dead chicken with it, and a coin is almost nine grams of pure gold. You would talk to smart people more often, then you would not give the royal coins for garbage.

- “You’ve been smart for an hour,” his wife snarled. - Who are you to get into this? They found a good fool, an idiot, who is ready to go to prison for thank you.

- You don't understand the honor I've been given because your brain is chicken and you think like a chicken! - Leva hit his fist on the cutting board. An unearthed chicken neck jumped up and smacked to the floor.

The wife shuddered and blinked.

“Simochka, just don’t hold your breath,” the mother-in-law fussed, “don’t let God start hiccups.” Think about it. such People trusted Lyovka. such a thought, So he's worth it. And what, she stared at her son-in-law, is there any hope that that power will return?

- What? one“Mother,” cried Shema, who came to herself, “white, green, Petliurites, tsar?” They'll come back tomorrow, and Leva will drag the gold back. Honestly, it's good that Daddy, let him. there He'll be calm, he won't hear it.

She cried, and Loeve felt sorry for both her and herself for a second.

3

Leva gave the snub-nosed, short-cut conductor the ticket, and went into the car. Looking around, I caught her eye, but I wasn’t surprised – I knew what women liked. And this one was young, about twenty years old, and even coarse, stretched with a wide belt of a hat, could not hide her femininity. The coupe was empty. Leva carefully attached the suitcase under the seat and stared out the window, watching the landing in the neighboring seat-card car. That's how he used to drive.

It was cramped and stinking, between bags and baskets, but the community did not sting, paid the best place, as if giving an advance to another life. And he's not going to miss that chance, he's going to do it right, and he's going to come back and secure his place among the most respected people in the city. And isn't Rabbi Stitz so fond of repeating the words of one of the countless Jewish sages: "Who do people respect?" Someone who respects others. ?

The train started. The door slowly crawled, and a young man squeezed through the compartment with a barrel. He was dressed poorly and not particularly neatly: worn shoes, long, obviously not in size, trousers, cloth student palette and cotton wool, with a visor lowered on glasses. He greeted politely, shook off his whole body in a puppy way and sat down opposite Leva.

- “I was almost late,” he said, put the foggy glasses on the edge of the table and held out a narrow palm.

- And I thought I'd go myself," Lyova smiled broadly, "I see that all the compartments are crowded, and there is no one in this one. Where are we going?

- The guy hung up, sniffed his nose. I have not yet decided where to start a new life. Whichever station you like, I'll be there.

Oh, how! - surprised Lova. - Bold, though. Thank you. I cut it off in one fell swoop, too, when I was your age. Turns out it's hard not to look back.

They were silent.

- You, I see, also light, the guy could not stand, nodding at the bag.

- Yes, - agreed Lev, - only here are more books in the suitcase, heavy, you can not move them. I sell books, here and there tomorrow.

- Removing his coat, Daniel rubbed his glasses with the tip of a stale shirt. This unattractively dressed, unsightly appearance and unhappy look guy caused in Leva pity and even some sense of guilt for the fact that he was lucky to be born strong, tall, lucky.

- “Let’s have dinner,” he said.

- The guy readily agreed and without additional invitation reached for cakes and potatoes laid out on the newspaper. He ate greedily: continuing to chew one piece, already reaching for the next, and then and then getting food stuck in the back tooth with the long fingernail of a pinky.

- Whether hungry or voracious, thought Lev and took out a jar of wet apples, which he was going to open the next morning. And while the guy concentrated on eating them, biting the pulp around the kochan like a bird, Leva tried to start a conversation. He spoke about his work in the workshops, about the recent breakdown of the steam boiler, about the mother-in-law, who, although acting on nerves, but in the main issues - on his side.

- Are you working, studying, married?

- The guy shrugged off, what can I say? Money - not a penny, no family, the owner of the bastard - kicked out of work and did not pay, from the apartment, then threw out, the bride found another, with the money. Whichever way you look, it’s a disappointment. Nothing of their own, no one needs, disappear - no one will notice.

He had an appetite for the last apple. - I'm not an interesting person. Would you rather tell me where you take the goods, yours or who asked you to sell them? What kind of books are ours, revolutionary writers or scientific? What about religious ones?

- Leva was confused. My business is to transport them in one piece, and what they are - literate people know better.

He deliberately yawned loudly and lay down, putting the bag under his head. I didn't sleep.

Opposite on the bench, hiding with a finger, opening his mouth, the neighbor snored, and for a moment this snoring, occasionally interrupted by coughing, seemed to Leuve deliberate. It was not clear from Daniel's obscure account how he, without a penny in his pocket, got into the compartment carriage, and Leva regretted not asking about it, but, remembering his hungry eyes, he was ashamed of his suspicions. I wanted to drink, and Leva went to get boiling water. He was called by a guide.

- You take care of that neighbor.

- Why? – in the temple as if began to twist a needle.

- He's kind of weird, having put him on a train by one of the cichs, by the leathers.

With you, other people were supposed to be ichats, and at the last minute they were swarmed into a placeholder. What about you? Thieves with such an appearance are out of hand - you are prominent.

- “I am not a thief,” Lyova brushed aside, rubbing his temple, “maybe I was confused with whom.” You better tell me when the next station is.

- Soon Fastov, the girl replied.

Leva returned in the compartment, poured dried clover into a mug, poured boiling water, waited a few minutes and drank in a volley. Then, trying not to make any noise, he moved his suitcase. The train began to slow down, counting dark, faceless suburban houses. Lev saw the station building illuminated by a single lamp. Daniel threw off his coat, put his feet on the floor, yawned.

- Something stomach hurts, he said, squinting and groping the glasses that fell over the shelf. What station is this?

I don’t know, pretended Lev, pushing the suitcase under the shelf with the back of his boot. - Are you coming out?

- No, I haven't decided yet. Maybe we should just stick together. You help me with my work, and I'll help you with your suitcase.

He went out into the corridor, leaving a suddenly sweaty Lev to sit, pointlessly staring at the captured door.

Leva panicked. The legs were heavy and there was nothing to breathe. The temple hurts, stupid and twitchy. Did someone give up, and now he is pastured by this worthless, squeamishly pitying little man? And if this is true, how could it ever be so shameless and unceremonious to eat from the hands of the persecuted? Even a wolf will not take food from a person before eating it. Did he not eat Petka Onishchenko from the hands of Levin’s father, and then beat him, already sick, to death? Because of him, or rather because of his surfacing Petkin corpse, Lev had to leave Abazovka forever, where he was born and lived for twenty-five years.

In principle, their village was not bad, even beautiful, on the left bank of the swampy, quiet Berestovka, surrounded by a pine forest. And life there was not bad, not worse, maybe better than in other places. In any case, such pogroms as in Kharkov, Odessa, Kiev and even neighboring Nikolaevka did not happen here. So, on holidays, or on drunkenness, fellow villagers – those who had greeted, discussed matters, traded near the bazaar – will walk through Jewish huts. Where the glass is broken, where everything is broken, turned upside down. The main thing is not to get caught, or they can mutilate. Then they will go to the tavern to finish their drinks, and in the morning – again good neighbors. Life in the village is boring – something has to be done. On one of these days, my mother came to the forge.

- Lyovka, my father's bad. Barely breathing. Petty and friends came for a sewing machine. Then I'll trade for vodka. Dad didn't. They took the car and beat my father.

Within minutes of running home, Lova understood what hate was. I remembered how he skated with Petka on homemade skates, which his father made them, like the one in a warm coat that his father had overcast from his old one, finally went to school, as he lived with them, ate at the same table, when his mother was sentenced to sing for stealing. When he saw his father lying on the floor, he did not think. Maybe, if I thought about it, I did it differently. So I took a sleigh, a thicker rope, and went to the inn. Under some pretext, he lured Petka out, put her on a sleigh with one blow and took her to the forest. And there he tied and beat to a tree until it stopped. Then I dropped it under the ice in the river. When in the spring, on Easter, the corpse surfaced, everyone decided – Petka drowned on drunkenness. And Lyova, although he never regretted what he had done, and did not consider himself a murderer, left for Kiev that spring. And just as now, he did not have an answer to the main question - what is the human soul and why does He inspire life into the world? such souls.

- Zhytomyr, – having looked into the compartment, the snub-nosed conductor announced and added, – and your companion an hour ago to the slime mill.

- - I didn't believe Lev. - Maybe you thought?

- I thought so! The train was there for three minutes. He's the only one who's jumping through the stakes. Then he turned around and looked at it, and it was just a squirrel. And if you think back, we're going to be at Keev's tomorrow afternoon. I'll be at the third car.

She snuggled her whole body against Leuve, who was walking down the stairs. - I'm not a friend of mine in the next carriage, so maybe you've got some love.

4

 - After all, he turned out not to be a villain, – Leva rejoiced, heading to the Castle Hill, where a man without a name was supposed to meet him at the bazaar, – he suspected the guy in vain, and he really went where his eyes looked. I did not want to impose, went down to unknown where, hesitated to ask for help. Come on. You can still trust people.

Leva inhaled fully and walked faster. The road did not have to be asked, because the church with the bell tower was visible from everywhere, and the bazaar, therefore, was nearby. He turned to the mill and noticed two men following him. They walked lazily talking, and their appearance was not like parishioners heading to the service, nor the townspeople going shopping.

- People as people," Lyova reassured himself, "what is it now that you see a Chekist in every person you meet?

But it soon became clear that the two were following him and did not even try to hide it. They stopped and waited patiently as Leva shifted his suitcase from hand to hand, slowed his step as he looked around and acted as if they had made it clear that there was nowhere to get away from them or even try. Leva poured sweat, he took off his cap and wiped his face with it.

- They're grazing.

He said to them, “I love you, and I love you, and I love you.” tour Don't swear." But it never occurred to her that a sum full of gold coins could lead to prison.

- It is impossible to go to the bazaar, I will frame a person, Lev convulsively thought. Rounding the market gates, he saw the black and yellow sign “Bath” and stepped outside the threshold. Accustomed to nothing surprise the bather, gave out a number, a gang and soap. Leva went into the preban, but did not have time to catch his breath - after spreading the screen, the two looked at him waiting.

The March sun, crumbled with bright glare in the melting snow, blinded Leva with needles drilling her right eye and temple. He walked with his head down and his eyes covered. The Chekists carefully carried the suitcase, blowing away and passing it to each other, each time looking respectfully at Lev.

- It's hard, damn it," said one, "maybe he'll drag him to the station himself?

- It would be good, but it should not be," shook his head, the older one, with a mustache on a wide, pockmarked face, "this is now like seized evidence.

Leva was relieved to enter the darkness of a cramped room, sat on a chair and closed his eyes.

- You are better on the bench, it is stronger," the young advised, "the chair is already loose, and under you it will definitely fall apart.

- Did you get away with it? the moustache asked. - You can't even look at the white light.

- My head will break. I have a migraine. – Lava complained.

- As a bastard, the young man was indignant, as p.onThe money earned by the revolution to the enemies, so healthy, and caught - that's how the master's sore tormented him. Look, he's wrinkling like he's getting punched in the nose. I'll cure him better than any Jewish doctor.

He grabbed Karl Marx’s “Capital” packed in leather from a quivered table and struck Leva on the head with a sweep. The blow fell on the temple, and, bulging his eyes, he fell, stealing a suitcase standing with the edge behind him. The dirty boardwalk was covered with ringing gold scales. And at the bench, facing down, in a ridiculous position, Lyov lay, and the proud Nikolaev profile of the golden chervonets was stained with blood oozing from a lionish Jewish, broken when his nose fell.

- Oh, shit, the mustache exhaled, what have you done? Let's call the bosses, report everything, get the exact instructions.

As if through the wool, the awakened Lev heard the desperate eat, That's right. and will be done, They came from the next room. There was a temple, but that exhausting, coiling pain in the brain was gone. There was a taste of blood in the mouth and a nasty feeling of helplessness.

- You have to count and compile an inventory. I'll be here by morning. himself He'll check in from Kiev. And this one -- he looked at Lova -- they don't seem very interested. Okay, workhorse. Although, it would be good to spend it as an accomplice to the wreckers of Soviet power. So, migraine, did you feel better? he poked Lev in the shoulder. - So we'll count the coins, and you'll wear and stack it in that room. Just lock the door.

All night long, they counted and counted the chervonets, stacking them in yellow columns in an iron cabinet. By morning, the bourgeois had cooled, and the room became cold and damp. From the drunk moonshine mixed with tea brewed to blackness, the hands shook and dried up in the throat. A sheet with multiple digits was lying under a tin mug.

- Well, I couldn’t stand Lev, they thought, I’ll probably go.

- I will go, the moustache cried, the boss will come and question you.

- And why interrogate him, the younger one intervened, I mean, their gang in Kiev has long been tied up. And each of these thieves gives a different number. All right, so you don't have to tell us how much gold there was in the suitcase. Who would believe that the Jews were wrong in money?

- Wait, Yosiah," the mustache suffocated at the idea that overshadowed him, "if they confuse, then so can we. Right?! I mean, we're gonna be fools if we don't take some of it. There will never be such a case. Let's take a little bit of it equally, and we'll give the rest back.

- It turns out that we steal from our native Soviet power, Yosya doubted, pensively picking his nose.

- “Well, in your opinion, we are stealing from ourselves!” the elder knocked on the table. Follow orders!

- What about this?

- Take me to the river, and you know that. Let's say you try.

- So you are bandits, – Leva indignantly jumped up sharply – you need to stand against the wall!

Moustache snatched nagan.

- Stop, you bastard! Yosia, cover the back!

- Yes, I am both of you with my bare hands, Lyova roared and turned the table over. The bullet entered the tree.

- He jumped up to the mustache and pulled the nagan from his hands. Then he knocked the young man down and grabbed him by the neck. I'm going to choke like a chicken, you're golden. Your mother must have told you to study, Yosya, you'll become a human being, and you, no, went to the Chekists.

- Fedya, help, the young man huddled.

- And what, he cried, one Jew mows another! That's when you see it for free!

Leva let go of the blue man, who sat on the floor with a bag of Yoshu and came close to the elder.

- I'd kill you now, you mustache bastard, but I don't want to take another sin on my soul. Okay. I'm leaving. Suffocate with that gold, and I take the suitcase - I must give it to you. I'll throw Nagan in the river. You're gonna break something to your boss.

Throwing the bag into an empty suitcase, he stepped over Yoshu, kicked out the locked door with his foot, and a second later dissolved into the chilly grayness of the predawn fog.

 

                                                                        5

Leva walked in alleyways and courtyards, stopping and waiting in other people's front rooms, looking around suspiciously again and again, making sure for a thousand times that no one was watching him, and therefore he came home only three hours after the train arrived. He was surprised by the unlocked door and the noise of voices coming from the kitchen.

- It’s a strange time for guests, it’s not like Shabbat, he thought and listened.

- Just do not bury him, sobbed the voice of his mother-in-law, our Lev will not be taken so easily.

- Oh, mother, said Sima, I warned, and you are a thought, a thought. The chervonets come here, the papers come back. And he's in there, acting like a hero. Now, what prison or cemetery would you look for?

- Tip on your tongue, stepped some woman, whose voice Leva did not recognize.

- You, Sofa, would generally be ashamed to come here, if it were not for your Dr. Naumenko, whom you recommended to everyone in a row, my husband would be sitting in your place and having dinner. From my belly, I can see you're neurotic now, perfectly carrying sperm in unlimited quantities and waiting for twins. And my child, she cried, will be born an orphan.

- “I didn’t understand,” said Lyova, stepping into the kitchen, “what child?”

“Lyovochka,” cried the mother-in-law, victoriously rounding the eyes of women frozen from surprise, “well, who was right?” Sima, she immediately switched to her daughter, how did you not tell your mother this news? You’re definitely going to have a baby girl – you’ve been yawning all the time lately.

All night Leva walked from corner to corner, looking out the window and listening to the rustle on the landing. But it didn't seem to interest anyone else, and it was strange to say the least. Nevertheless, the street remained absolutely deserted, the wet March snow melted, not reaching the black paving stones, and it seemed that nothing could disturb this beauty and peace. But Leva already knew that peace is measured in minutes, and that unintended steps or a flashing shadow can be a harbinger of trouble, like a crack running through a mirror. The serenity of the night’s silence inexplicably disturbed and drove from the house towards the unknown tormented by Lev.

Clear. Mother-in-law wearing a knitted sweatshirt over her night shirt was already fiddling at the primus. As a child, buried in the pillow, Sima slept soundly - their child, to whom he, Leva, gave life and for which he was responsible, breathed in the beat. Taking an empty suitcase, Leva went to see Dr. Naumenko. Walking along the Fundukleevskaya by the hotel, he noticed that the sign of the restaurant had disappeared. Two workers pulled tables, chairs and boxes of bottles, carelessly covered with black with gold herons cloth. Frozen, he watched as a young boy in leather led out a doorman he knew.

- You will meet with your master, you are a holuyskaya muzzle, as well as what you remember, he said, pushing him to the car.

Wrapping on Bibikovskiy Boulevard and approaching the house, from the balconies of which the peeled stucco female bas-reliefs were doomed to stare, Leva slowed down, but still forced himself to climb to the second floor. Moses Naumovich himself opened the door, or rather his shadow.

- Oh, that's you, he muttered joyfully and let Leva into the hallway. - Come in, just be careful, don't touch it here, things.

The doctor’s gaze, in contrast to the fussy tongue-twitter, so not inherent in him, puzzled Lev no less than the changed appearance of the apartment. Along the walls of the hallway, a couple of days ago grated to shine, and now tracked the floor, there were bales and bowls, from the clothes dumped on the hanger carried sweat, the door to the dining room was open wide, and from there it smelled of cigarette smoke. The doctor followed the lion's eye.

- Yeah, not Paris. But not Lukyanovskaya prison. Bye.

From the dining room to the far room, slightly clubfooted, a maid passed. A narrow gray skirt of military cut, which changed the dress, shortened her pumped legs and made them even more powerful. Entering the office after the doctor, Leva handed out a suitcase.

- I didn't know who to give it to. I failed with an errand, someone gave us away, and the gold remained in Zhytomyr, but I swear, my fault is not here, and did not take anything. I wonder how I stayed alive. If he knew who snitched, he strangled with his own hands.

- And what is there to know, interrupted by the doctor, nervously going through a pack of unfilled recipes - here she is, walking around here as if nothing had happened. I was flattened - she and her roommate gave half the apartment. Yes, I do not complain, could be imprisoned or even shot, if the wife of their chief commissar was not my patient and a good friend of Lyubochka, my late wife – lucky that she did not live to see all this. But my father could not stand it – he was paralyzed last Saturday, when instead of Rebbe Stitz they – the doctor began to stutter – sent a new one, and he turned out to be a Chekist.

- How, astonished Lova, did he confess himself?

- Who needs his confessions? He reads Hebrew like I do in Chinese.

The office door opened.

Citizen Roitman-Naumenko, a familiar voice rang out. - Breaking the regime again, huh? Do we accept simulators in an intimate setting with closed doors? I'll have to tell my boss.

- The cohabitant, part-time commissioner, the doctor sighed guilty.

Lova slowly turned his head and looked at Daniel.

- How you doing, you bastard? I should have thrown you out of the train instead of feeding you, drinking you, listening to your stories. And you, then, all the way, sniffed out, asked, so that later, like the last nit, to escape.

Daniel laughed. - What the hell was that? You were just getting ready for the station, and we already knew where you were going, to whom and why. I've been following you from home, watching you goose out. And all your conspiracy with books is a circus, I just had regrets for you.

Without saying a word, Leva grabbed a crystal sore from the table and threw it into Daniel’s head. He abruptly sat down, and she, hitting the wall, crashed to the floor without breaking. Dr. Naumenko waved his arms protestingly.

- Don't, stop it! Don't get your hands dirty, Leo! And to you, young man, he looked at the pale Daniel, one must think of the soul. You're sick. I warned you, you have the initial stage of consumption, tuberculosis.

- You are lying, Daniel said through his teeth, you are scaring me out of class hatred. You don't realize you're gonna die before I die because I'm gonna kill you right now.

- You see," said Dr. Naumenko to Lev, "it is useless to appeal to reason when the gray matter assumes the color of their banner. Go, Leo, get out of here for some fresh air, or this unhealthy environment may trigger a new migraine attack. How's your head, by the way?

Leva was thinking. “You know,” he said, going out to the landing, I was cured there, in Zhytomyr.

- What do you say, Naumovich said, and who is this doctor?

“Karl Marx, but you probably don’t know the name,” Löva replied and went down to the street.

There was a car waiting at the front...