Manchester Diary - стр. 2

It was the day before yesterday. Shamesh of the Central Synagogue of the City of Antwerp promised everything and promised Levi to send him to Manchester – England to look, to look at the English Jews and at their way of life. The day of the trip shifted each time in one or another circumstance: either the right person left somewhere, then his grandson was suddenly born and many other life events. After almost a year of “broaching,” he approached, at the end of the morning service, to Levi Shamesh by the name Bezborody and informed him:

– Well, now in February you can go.

They were going on the road for a long, long time. They measured and rechecked the route, the duration of the trip. Finally, the decision was made – to go to Rotterdam, to Europoort, from there to Gul, and from there to Manchester with respect and hand in hand. All the pleasure of two hundred and six euros, and approximately five hundred kilometers round trip.

Leninsky district of the city of Leningrad, where from one street you can go to another and the third, using only the gates and passage yards. Not far from the Sovetskaya Hotel, among these courtyards there is a large rectangular courtyard, which houses a rectangular pink building with white columns. This is a two hundred and sixty-eighth school. At some point, all the students of school number two hundred seventy-one were transferred to this school quite arbitrarily, because someone from the City Department of Education apparently needed this nice building with a good location. For a whole year Levi had to go to this “building with a good location” and sit in it for lessons where no one taught and no one studied. Pupils smoked in the classroom, played cards, scolded teachers, even abusively most often, teachers cried. After the lessons were over, it was impossible to get out of the building without passing by a half-old dropout who, like a security guard, stood at the door and demanded to give a trifle from all who came out – he was shaking. He shook this trifle on the subsequent purchase of booze and cigarettes. Each such exit from this school was accompanied either by a short fight, or, in any case, a spoiled mood.

Levy was alone. He had no friends, no friends. Some passersby, the defendants, surrounded him. Since childhood, Levy was fond of learning languages and one of his classmates found out about it.

– Can you please translate what is written on this disc? – asked his classmate.

Levy translated. Then this young man came up more than once, asking him to translate texts from various overseas packages, texts of foreign songs. They then got closer a little and after school they returned home together. This classmate lived in a house on the corner of Ogorodnikov Avenue on the road toward the left-wing house. Having reached this dark gray monumental building, covered with plaster, like goosebumps, one guy went up to his apartment, the other went on to his house. That guy’s name was not entirely in Russian – Seryozha Kunder.

A ticket is ordered, things are packed in a bag, but there’s no way to put your heart in it! Neither in a suitcase nor in a bag. She does not want to part with either her family or the house. Levy lay on the couch and in one pose, and in the other – but we must go. I left the house once, went back. Again and again. But now he is already sitting behind the wheel of a car, waving to everyone who has stuck to the windows and standing on the porch: let's go!