LITMIR.BIZ

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he explained.

      Gulia had a short argument with the waiter that she would guess all the numbers of his student card and they would not have to pay for coffee. “It’s nothing!” Gulia said modestly. “But then I lose things all the time! Here Nina just finds things!”

      Athanasius unnoticeably sent two roubles through a hole in his pocket into his boots and proposed to Nina to say where they were. She found them, slightly screwing up her face like a math professor whose multiplication table was being checked.

      Max thought for a long time what to ask, then recalled that in school they stole his phys ed form from the locker room, and asked who needed it. The rose-grey blonde smiled coquettishly. Her face was unbelievably flexible and expressive, with dimples. These pits, like shots from mortar, appeared at a new place every time.

      “No one. They simply dropped it out the window. But here the little soldier in the crack behind the heater, this is interesting. Do you remember, you cried all night?” It turned out Max remembered. He also began to stutter then, although they had a popular story in the family that the neighbour’s dog frightened him.

      Then they went to stroll around the centre. Max, timid at first and holding Nina fearfully like a doorknob in a public sanitary facility, gradually grew bolder and proposed to show her how to break the sentry’s neck correctly so that he would not let out a squeak.

      “Look, I’m squeaking! Squeak-squeak-squeak!” Nina immediately gave voice. A happy Max grabbed her by the neck.

      Gulia and Athanasius were walking behind, not too close so that the violent pair would not bump into them.

      “Why did you say that she’s unhappy? I think she’s cheerful,” asked Athanasius.

      “They all abandoned her. Mlada – this is our acquaintance – says that she has an aura of celibacy and can only wash it off with elephant blood!” said Gulia in complete seriousness. She pronounced with awe the name of Beldo’s servant.

      “With what blood?”

      “You mock in vain. We even went to the zoo, but really, how do you get to an elephant?”

      Athanasius mumbled something.

      Nina was talking animatedly about something, whereas Max was largely limited to gestures. Not wanting to stutter once more, he substituted words with movements of the head. He had the richest mimicry. He knew how to pucker his forehead in twenty ways. As for his nose – like the tuber of a jolly tractor driver – in general it skilfully conveyed expressions of every kind. It became a harmonica, fidgeted, or merrily breathed heavily and noisily.

      At the end of Tverskaya, the hdivers had a charge marker under one of the numerous memorial boards. Athanasius recalled it when fifty steps away Nina suddenly sprained her ankle and Gulia in the same second dashed onto the road. He had noticed earlier that the concept of roadway did not exist for her.

      Athanasius caught her a second before she was smeared on the side of a van sweeping past. Cars squealed with their brakes. Max and Nina, having pulled off her shoes, rushed from behind. The traffic cop, this herdsman of cars, with his stomach sticking out, stood in his booth. When they crossed the road, he whistled angrily but did not try to catch them. Pedestrians, even clearly mad, were small game to him.

      “Well, and where were you rushing to?” Athanasius asked on the other side of Tverskaya.

      Gulia thought for a bit, obviously trying to figure out why. “I forgot to buy napkins… Yes, napkins!” she said uncertainly.

      Athanasius was surprised by the speed of reaction of the newborn ele. About five seconds later Gulia was finally convinced that she needed napkins and it was for them that she hardly remained on the sidewalk.

      After mending Nina’s heel, they strolled for about another two hours and before parting they started to negotiate another date.

      “Let’s meet F-Friday!” said Max.

      Nina and Gulia exchanged glances. “We can’t on Friday.”

      “Why?”

      They did not get a clear answer. The girls hesitated. Nevertheless, Athanasius knew how to sum up from the scraps of answers that on Friday the warlocks were up to something. And it would be in the psychology school at Bolotnaya Square, on the next admission day.

      They said goodbye at the subway. Nina offered her cheek to Max and outlined the place with a long nail. “I hope you don’t intend to kiss me? It’s so disgusting!” she prompted.

      Max smooched her with athletic honesty, holding her head with his hands. Athanasius waited for some time to see whether Nina’s skull would crunch, but Nina turned out to be durable.

      “Well now! Not enough that this terrible person meanly dragged me to a date! He even attacked me!” Nina was outraged, taking out a mirror in order to check the damage inflicted on her face.

      While Athanasius was pondering whether he was obligated to kiss Gulia for the reason that Max kissed Nina and whether this would be plagiarism, Gulia got up on tiptoe – the difference in their height was large – and kissed Athanasius on the eyebrow. “Till we meet!”

      Max neighed so abominably that Athanasius again gave him a fist. The train approached. They hopped into a car.

      “Well, how do you like her?” Athanasius asked in the tunnel.

      Max looked suspiciously at him. He, like that lady on the phone, did not like to admit being happy. Dissatisfaction, if you examine it, is universal currency, with which everything can be purchased, if we bargain long enough. “Who?”

      “You know who.”

      “N-not bad. Okay,” answered Max.

      “For some reason it seems to me that this is for a long time,” said Athanasius. “Well, with Gulia. Not that intuition… Simply the more confused a situation, the more real it is, perhaps.” Max understood nothing and chuckled. The train slowed down, stopped, and again set off. “Now I’ll not calm down until I nail her ele. I know myself…” said Athanasius.

      “Watch you don’t n-nail her together with it!” Max advised quietly. They were silent again. Max swayed peacefully, holding onto the handrail. Athanasius was bouncing like a sparrow.

      “Did you understand everything?” he yelled into Max’s ear.

      “Yes,” Max winced. “What did I un-understand?”

      “Think!”

      Max thought till the next station. “Ah! That my Nina, most likely, is from Beldo’s fort but not from D-Dolbushin’s? She’s a pr-practical student,” he stuttered.

      “Oho!” thought Athanasius. “My Nina! He labelled her quickly! And several hours ago called her a dog.”

      “I’m not on about that,” he said. “The warlocks are having a new recruitment! Would be nice to see how all this progress with them? Eh?”

* * *

      Athanasius met Ul in HDive. Ul was standing with his schnepper similar to a double-barrel and aiming at a food can from fifteen steps away. He shot. The can remained standing. “Here I’m thinking about female whims. When it seems to someone that more time is spent with a horse and all that…” he said.

      “Is it true?” asked Athanasius.

      “It’s not about that. What forces them to behave like that at all? Maybe, a woman is capricious because it’s important for her to check if a man will stand the whims of a possible child? Some kind of test?”

      “There are girls who aren’t capricious,” Athanasius said carelessly.

      Ul again took a shot. “Who? Your telegrapher from Honduras? Holy! Dang! I suppose they learn to sleep on nails, eat with the head down, and open tanks with a finger.”

      “They learned,” said Athanasius.

      “What learned?”

      “She perished,” Athanasius lowered his eyes. “Didn’t make contact. In the mountains, where there was the hidden

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