.

was trembling with excitement. “Papa, Papa!” he yelled. “Say ‘sermon’!”

      “Sermon!”

      “Your grandma’s a boxer!” Costa said and laughed happily.

      Chapter Five

      A Bedtime Story

      Modern children are taught to fear everything. Children walking along the street should look no higher than the asphalt, and if someone accidentally says “Hello!” to them, they should quickly change into a run after poking the person in the eye with a pencil beforehand. Such children, who see danger everywhere, can grow up only as hunted animals.

Joseph Emets, Hungarian philosopher

      Papa was busy searching for beds the entire second half of the day. Mama, who initially wanted to pick out everything herself, stayed home with the children. She had to get Costa and Rita down for a nap.

      There were three furniture stores in the city. One was in some basement, one on the main street, and one in a glass hangar. The shop on the main street sold office furniture, revolving chairs and huge desks for managers. Papa wanted to buy himself such a desk for his office, but he looked at the price and decided to leave it for later, when he would already be writing the brilliant novel.

      Yes! Papa had a dream – to write a brilliant novel. Sometimes this novel really was stirring in him, it was so dying to come into the world. But Papa pushed it back into his soul with both hands and said to it, “Sit quietly, mature!” So, for the time being, the brilliant novel fought its way out only in fragments.

      In the glass hangar were plenty of nice sofas, kitchen units, and bedroom furniture. There were beds too, but none shorter than 200 cm. Papa calculated what it would be if he bought beds of 200 cm for all seven children, and realized that he did not need this train of seven cars stretching to fourteen metres in the house. Hence, he bought only one such bed for Peter, who was a metre ninety tall. Thus, there even left some margin for the kid to grow in the direction of a decent member of society. Though in their former two-bedroom, Peter lodged perfectly well with knees drawn in on a small sofa.

      There was nothing else interesting in the glass hanger, and Papa went to the store in a basement. Here he immediately saw a bunk bed and, pleased, he rushed to the sales clerk, who hid a half-eaten egg in a new nightstand and smiled questioningly, waiting for a question.

      “Can I have two more of these?” Papa asked.

      The sales clerk explained patiently that what Papa saw in the store was all they had. If Papa did not see something, then they did not have it. For example, he did not see the moon, so it meant it was not for sale in the store. However, if Papa insisted that he wanted to buy exactly three beds, they were ready to do the impossible. They would get the money from Papa now and give him the beds in August, when they would have a new shipment.

      Papa turned down such a scheme and, having bought the bunk bed that was there, began to think where to find two more. In the end, he hit upon buying the city newspaper ads and found another bed. Papa phoned and drove around the city, looking for the necessary street.

      The street turned out to be in Outskirts, the name of the area bordering the city. There were many identical parallel little streets and one-story houses very similar to one another and overgrown with grapevines, cherry trees, and some southern plants, blooming.

      An old married couple opened the door, both strong, tanned, and, similar to the houses on the street, looking like each other. The bunk bed they showed Papa was a little shaky, but then a metal ladder was attached to it with hooks, and a huge number of stickers and chewing gum trading cards were glued on both the inside and outside of the bed. Some of the trading cards seemed awfully familiar to Papa. Terminator, Terminator-3, Rambo! Wow, hello childhood!

      “Your children no longer need the bed?” Papa asked cautiously.

      “No. They’re already grown. The son has gone swimming and the daughter’s in Kamchatka,” the chubby head of the family said and winced, because his wife stepped on his foot so he would not chat too much. She was afraid that Papa would not buy the bed, thinking that it was ancient.

      “They barely slept on it! We bought the bed when they were in seventh grade,” she hastily said. “And we’ll even give you the mattresses!”

      Papa immediately agreed and together with the old man began to disassemble the bed. It was secured with such strong bolts that Papa was immediately reassured. A bed with such bolts simply could not fall apart, rather everything else around would fall apart first. If it was unsteady, one could put something under the legs!

      Примечания

      1

      Woe from Wit is a comedy in verse by Alexander Sergeyevich Griboyedov (1795–1829), Russian diplomat and playwright, as well as poet and composer. The play is a satire about post-Napoleonic Moscow society. It was written in 1823 but only first published in 1833. It was compulsory reading in school during Soviet times.

      2

      Megamind is the super-intelligent alien protagonist of the 2010 3D computer-animated superhero action comedy of the same name.

      3

      The Headless Horseman (1865-66), a novel by Thomas Mayne Reid (1818-83), an American novelist of adventure novels, is based on a south Texas folk tale.

      4

      It is unclear whether Schwarz is a historical or purely legendary figure. It has been suggested that he was a historical alchemist of the late 14th century who developed gunpowder in Germany.

      5

      The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species.

      6

      Valerian is a perennial flowering plant with the roots being used in herbal medicine, since valerian root has sedative and anxiolytic effects.

      7

      The Nursing Madonna shows the Virgin Mary breastfeeding the infant Jesus, a depiction representing Humility.

      8

      Our Lady of Kazan is an icon representing the Virgin Mary as the protector and patroness of the city of Kazan.