The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life) - стр. 130
A black-haired soldier grabbed hold of a white-paint-coated rod in the gate’s grate while floating by behind the glass in the bus window.
I realized with absolute clarity that never again would I ever see the familiar gate of the Zona, neither that unknown soldier next to it, however, one thing I didn’t know yet… It was my way of leaving childhood.
>~~>~~>~
>~ ~ ~ The Adolescence
(…and, probably, that’s it. Enough is enough. It is time to roll the potatoes out from among the glowing ashes before they turned firebrands too. Yes, they told me that coals are crammed up with kilocalories, still I am not quite sure about the taste of those critters. Besides, it’s getting pretty dark and I’d rather not overeat at so late an hour. “And leave your dinner”, said some sage dietitian, “to your enemy”. Which is a pretty useless piece of wisdom in my case. Where could I possibly get them those enemies at all? I've been raised and carefully formatted for life in a society where each man is a friend, a comrade, and a brother to any other man…
Damn, but it’s so tempting to share the bullshit you once were fed with (and in ladlefuls too!) up to your ears. So, one day I poured a podcast homily to your step-sister, Lenochka, like, being good and kind is the innate feature of mankind at large, regrettably obscured by their ignorance of how immensely good they are deep inside, a sad pity!
She listened silently and same night my perversive stars flogged me Shakespeare’s “Richard III” on TV. What a treat! She stuck in the tube and watched, mesmerized, how all those good and kind people (sadly, uninformed of their hidden goodness) were strangling and shredding each other and cutting throats for a change. And sure enough, the next morning she watched the rerun too because Shakespeare isn’t a knickknack you can give the shake, it’s classic. Since then, my political line regarding the TV is that of armed neutrality.
Well, so much to emphasize the fact that, if I chance to come across an accidental enemy, I’d sooner give them my last shirt but not my dinner, moreover, the potatoes baked in the fire ashes.
The moment you break their charred crust and pour a pinch of salt into the steamy core, you see the light of Truth that no oysters, nor lobsters, nor any other fancy kulebyaki can hold a candle to them. Oh, no! Not a chance.
For their sake, all freaky nourishment leave willingly I to abstruse gourmets ‘cause we, uncouth and simple-minded garlic eaters, have no use for neither calipash nor calipee – nope! Our modest goal is an ample simple grub and plum dough, we’re not after excessive luxuries.
And were I a younger man but not a Negro advanced in my years and pressed by all kinds of problems which the struggle for life brims with, then to them, and them only, would I dedicate an ode of love and gratitude—to potatoes baked midst the fire ashes.
No wonder, that in the most poignant episode in all the pulp fiction series by Julian Semenov, his main protagonist Stirlitz, aka Soviet secret service agent Isayev, turns up the sleeves of his spiffy Fascist uniform and bakes potatoes in the fireplace of his Berlin apartment to celebrate the Soviet Army and Navy Day.
However, with all due admiration at his culinary patriotism, no, sir, dat’s ain’t da thin’. To really enjoy the taste of baked potatoes, you need to sit on the ground, under the open sky, with an evening like this one here around you…)