The Rascally Romance (in a single helluva-long letter about a flicking-short life) - стр. 7

-doing in full swing around two rows of tables for a hundred of participants, and from the thick of the festivity there came a loud yell, “Mr. Ogoltsoff!” And presently my arm got grabbed gently, yet irresistibly, by a burly gray-haired mujik who led me up to a young stout woman sitting at the head of the females’ table. “You were teaching us! Do you remember me? Who am I?” (…well, anyway, she was taught the word “Mister”, but what, on earth, could her name be?.)

“Are you ‘Ahnoosh’?”

My wild guess ignited general delight and tender pride, wow! their Ahnoosh was still remembered by her name among the teaching staff at the local State University. And her father, the principle mahtagh-doer, never loosening his firm welcome clutch, steered me to a vacant place at the far end of males’ table, where they immediately replaced a used plate and fork, brought a clean glass and a fresh bottle of tutovka, while the toastmaster was already rising upon his feet with another speech about parental love and university diplomas…

The Karabakh tutovka (hooch distilled from Mulberry berries) by its lethal force stands on a par both with “ruff” (a fifty-to-fifty mixture of vodka and beer) and “northern lights” (medicine alcohol mixed with champagne to the same proportion). I mean, such a product calls for a duly substantial snack rejecting the principles of veganism, whereas on the rich festive table only bread and watermelons could actually pass a strict vegetarian control. Nonetheless, to uphold virility of vegans, I bravely gulped tutovka down after each toast speech and my dinner companion on the right, named Nelson Stepanian (a double namesake of that hero pilot fighter in the Great Patriotic War), took pains to swiftly refill my glass, hiding a hooligan smirk in his sky-blue squint…

And then I was not up to no Planes… I just picked up my haversack bundled with the tent and sleeping bag, and barged away across the slope to find some quiet secluded place, and there, swaying, yet closely attending the process, I rigged up the one-person Made-in-China synthetic tent.

The residual shreds of verticality and blurred self-control were spent for reeling to a nearby Oak tree to take a leak behind its mighty trunk… The turnabout and the very first step towards the erected tent pushed me back and smashed against the bumpy Oak bole… Limp and unresisting, I slid along the crannied bark down to the tree roots and, completely spent, curdled there… The consciousness twilight thickened sooner than the upcoming twilight of the night. The dim modicum of closing horizon circle swerved pitilessly, a surge of overwhelming sickness rolled up to squeeze me, I rolled onto my side and, balancing on the unsteady elbow, honked over a gnarly bulging root, then fell back into the hard sharp quirks of bark bumping against the back of my head.

Do fish get seasick?.

~ ~ ~

In the dead of night, its harsh chill woke me. Recovering the ability of upright walking was a knotty task but, eventually, I tacked up to the tent, adding on the way my feeble, yet heart-felt part to the grisly howls, and satanic laughter of jackal packs in their uproar over the nearby slopes.

That was the first night to bring it up for me that certain nights are not easily dealt with, you have to clamber through them to survive till next morning. Terrified by the sharp ruthless claws ratcheting my chest, I lay as low as I could and waited for the dawn as for salvation. It came at last but brought no relief, and though my weak piteous moans were of no help at all, I didn’t have it in me to withhold them—everything was wrung away by the excruciating sickness.