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Anastasia Novykh
Egoosmos
Part I
An Unusual Fishing
Those were last warm days of the passing summer. Everyone used that time in one's own way appreciating such a generous benevolence of nature at its true value. Some were contented with observing sunny day views through windows, instead of rainy images that were common for this summer period. Some hastened to take the air, walking along those few islands of green that were miraculously preserved in the middle of grey asphalt-and-concrete composition of urban civilization. And the most adventurous ones longed for nature, in order to have a full-fledged vocation, gather enough strength and impressions see the coming winter out.
Three cars, packed with those desiring to have a first light fishing, worked their way round holes and bumps along a wood road. The driver of the leading car was a fair-haired man with blond-brown moustache. He looked about 30, average height, athletic build. Friends treated him with respect and called him ‘Sensei’ as he had been heading oriental martial arts circle for many years and was famed for his skill among professionals. His primary activity, however, was medicine. Vertebrology in particular. Sensei was quite out of the ordinary, interesting man with vast mental outlook and inexhaustible sense of humor. Therefore, the number of those willing to spend time with him even at such a ‘quiet arrangement’ as fishing, turned out to be enough and to spare as usual.
Sensei’s old Soviet car “Moscvich” blinked its stoplights twice, and the cars that followed it stopped. The driver cast a glance examining a gauge of the road, which ended at a broad clearing. And with an irony he asked a tall guy, who sprawled on the passenger chair: “Well, where have you taken us to, fatherland’s son born out of wedlock?”
“Me, taken?!” Eugene answered with a grin, and then added mischievously: “But... Sensei, it’s you who drives. I’m merely showing the way to the radiant future!”
Sensei smiled together with other guys. Looking about at the brake along the wood road and at the glade ahead, Eugene said in jest: “Yep! It looks like the place.”
“It looks like, it looks like!” his friend Stas could not contain himself any longer. Stas sat in the rear seat holding a large bottle in his hands that was filled with water and bait for fish of prey – loaches. “The sun has risen already. It’s just the time of biting! And here we are in the thickets checking your fourth looks like.”
“I told you I’d been here two years ago,” Eugene started to make excuses and added poetically, “I recall there was a forest, a clearing, a river... That was a top-class place! Oodles of fish! There were splashing ones this big!”
At these words, trying to impress on the others, he began to stretch his hands wide to show the size of fish. But his spread was obviously limited by the inside of a car so as to illustrate more precise “parameters” of “monsters” found in the river. As people jokingly say, the longer the fisherman’s arms, the less trust there is to his stories.
“Pull the other leg, Eugene! There’re none such in nature,” pronounced senior sempai Victor, a stocky guy who was sitting near Stas and eating a bun.
“There are too! Sure thing, there are,” Eugene persuaded fervently. “Sensei, tell them...”
“Well why there aren’t? Everything’s possible nowadays,” Sensei agreed with a smile. “And those, with two heads and three tails...”
The guys laughed, while Eugene waved his hand at them with feigned offence.
“Oh, why would I talk to you... I’ll see you boast about when you catch such a bomber.”
With those words, he left the car in businesslike air and went ahead to examine the passage to the river as well as the surrounding country.
“Stas, take a walk with him,” Sensei suggested, when laughter in the cabin faded more or less. “If the place’s good, we’ll stay here. Or we’ll drive about till the evening with this apology for a guide.”
Stas nodded and carefully handed the bottle over to Victor.
“There you go, the valuable cargo. And mind you don’t eat them, gormandizer!” he wagged his finger in jest.
“They’re kind of languid,” Victor observed with irony examining the “field car-aquarium”.
“What would you want? Poor things got sick of such a trip,” Stas complained in a fit of temper, who devoted the whole overnight to laborious procuring of this dainty for catfish. “It's no joke, they make this land journey for the first time, and Eugene turned out to be among the guides. Good heavens!”
“Yeah, no luck,” Victor sympathized with laughter.
Stas got out of the car and hastened after Eugene, who rounded the kink.
It should be noted that there gathered quite a diverse public in the cars if judge from age and profession. For example, Victor, who rode in Sensei’s “Moscvich,” was an investigative officer. Eugene and Stas, apart from their “lifetime” pursuit of unceasing training, during their “recess,” so to say, earned their living as mechanics in auto repair shop. The fourth passenger in Sensei’s car, Ruslan, a lean medium-sized chap with slightly worked out muscles, was a common factory worker.
The other car, called “doggy” among the folks, was driven by Volodya, a stocky man of sturdy build with determined features. He was a head of special mission unit for several years already. Near him were his colleagues and friends: Bogdan, Oleg, and Seva (or as he was called, Svat). Notable for their military bearing, they were also distinguished for their peculiar manner of communication, which develops among people who were in the services together for a long time. The fourth passenger, who sat next to Volodya, curiously enough, was of a quite different social environment. It was not for a month as Valera came out of prison, where he had served another term. He was Volodya’s friend since childhood and a neighbor. In outward appearance Valera was not much different from Seva or Oleg. An ordinary young lad, medium-sized, average built. His face, however, bore a particular imprint of life in a prison. One could read distrust in a somewhat stern look, even a hidden threat for anyone, who would dare violate his personal space.
Behind the wheel of the third car, ‘Volga’, there was Nikolai Andreevich. His passengers were young individuals, who had just recently graduated from university Andrew, Nastya, Tatyana, and Kostya. One wouldn’t call this merry crowd a company of inveterate fishermen, excluding Nikolai Andreevich, of course. Quite the opposite. The company was so full of buoyant youthful energy that no respected fish would have approached such laugh-n-noise generators that are all about tricks and unrestrained chattering about every trifle in the world. This atmosphere could be endured, perhaps, only by a psychotherapist (not too long at that), Nikolai Andreevich being such, by the way. But everyone in the car was too anxious so as not to miss such a rare opportunity of breaking away for a holiday together with Sensei. That’s why they thrust themselves as “fishermen” in an alleged effort to improve in their piscatorial skills as well as in knowledge of the area’s flora and fauna.
Such was the big, motley company looking forward to arrival of their walkers Eugene and Stas. In was but in ten minutes that this impressive couple went back at a jog trot with joyful news. Already from afar, they started to make signs at car drivers and their passengers that the fishing place was finally found. Eugene tried to mime that there’s a whole plenty of fish varying in size. He showed the sizes comparing them to different body parts of his companion.
“It is there!” Stas panted out, getting into Sensei’s car together with Eugene. “First go straight, then to the right. There’s a convenient path to the river.”
After tedious waiting and coping with the last yards towards the long-expected aim, the cars drove out at a clearing located on a bank of a small river. The place turned out to be beautiful indeed. There was a smooth wind in the river in this spot. Coniferous trees mixed with broad-leaved trees surrounded the clearing. The air was sweet with aroma of conifers. The green clearing was lit with bright sunrays that created splashes of light reflecting from diamond dewdrop placer. All this, along with the view of the far bank, created a truly enchanting picture of nature.
A sandy slightly downgrade shore was not yet touched by a gross imprint of a boot, and that unspeakably gladdened inveterate fishermen of our big company keen to some local fauna. Content with appearance of the place, everyone started to make up for lost time. “Experienced fishermen” headed by Sensei seized their fishing implements and went straight to the river to set everything up, with such passion at that, as if they had merely ten seconds to fulfill their fisherman’s dream. The others started to pitch a campsite.
After common preliminaries were concluded, and the folks fortified themselves with a light breakfast, most of the company dispersed alongshore – some with a spinning reel, some with a fishing rod. With their fishing “arsenal”, almost everyone decorously seated themselves at a respectful distance from each another in secret hope of a felicitous catch just at their chosen spot.
The riverside in the wilderness was swiftly filled with paraphernalia of civilization. Should a New Guinea’s Papuan happen to be here, he would examine all these queer articles for a long time. And if someone explained the purpose of each article to him, including various super cool fishing accessories, the Papuan would laugh for a day or two at the fact that some smart merchant had been able to fool so many people. An entire tribe, what do you know! But there was no Papuan around, and the fooled people believed firmly that the purchased stuff would help them lure the cunning fish out of the river.
Eugene alone stayed in the “camp” and it was just because his fishing net got tangled. The lad belonged to that extreme category of “fishermen” who cannot bear to sit with a fishing rod for hours. He liked the fish to be caught at once and in loads. Eugene could also chase after fish one-on-one when submarine hunting. At least, there was a peculiar sporting blood in it – who wears out whom. But to sit idly contemplating the water from the riverside was not his trip. That’s why Eugene always took his “tangle” net for fishing. It was as easy to fish with it as it can be: setting nets, driving fish into them, and there you go – now you can cook fish soup! That’s all there is to a “wet work”. That’s why Eugene was not being deceitful when he promised a grandiose catch as he pinned his hopes on this safe bet option. However, an unexpected misfortune occurred. He did not check the net at home and he also did not exert himself with conscientious packing at his last fishing. That’s why he got such a stable result. The “tangling net” fully justified its name this time matting sinkers and floats badly. No matter how hard the lad tried his efforts got nowhere.
But Eugene wouldn’t have been Eugene if he had given way to despair or showed that things weren’t going his way. At any rate, he could not allow it to happen in front of girls. So, he explained his prolonged stay at the camp during the most appropriate time for morning fishing by “purely gentlemen’s motives” – telling punning stories to girls so as to render “invaluable assistance” in women’s toils of washing dirty dishes after a raid of such a “starving bunch”. In brief, Eugene did not waste time even here.
Sitting in a folding chair, he “sympathized” the girls in good faith:“...that’s in our technological age when cosmic saucers furrow the celestial space, when humanity has automated manufacturing by ninety percent, these fragile, tender fingers are to perform infinite number of movements over that dirty, modernized human trough of abdominal satiety, this monstrous implement that favors lust of flesh, its stomach and pride...”
At this time, there appeared an SUV on the provisional forest “road” that the cars of this company struggled through. The SUV stopped at the glade passage. A lean man got out of the car. His hair was light and thin, his small beard was reddish, and his face was somewhat pale. Camouflage fishing smock was rather big and looked as though it was off somebody’s back.
Eugene discontinued his ardent speech addressed to “working-people” and turned his eyes towards an intruder with curiosity. Noticing fixed attention directed at him, the SUV driver thrust his hand into his trousers’ pocket. Then, playing with a car key with the other hand he waddled towards Sensei’s “Moscvich,” the rear of which slightly stuck out at the “driving lane.”
“Well, whose jade sprawled here halfway?” the stranger said deliberately vociferously and kicked the car wheel couple times.
Eugene sprang up from his seat right away and nearly choked with his saliva – that much he wanted to pant out to the uninvited guest’s face.
“Yo, man, what this leg-throwing is all about?!”
“So, it’s your rattletrap then?” he asked with a jeer.
“Mine or not, what’s the diff it’s got to do with you?”
Eugene walked up to Sensei’s car hastily. He took out a not-too-clean handkerchief and made as though he wiped last specks of dust from it. After demonstrating such an evident love of domestic cars, Eugene assumed the threatening attitude of a fervent owner.
“Now then, what’s the matter exactly?”
“What’s the matter?!” the car driver voiced indignantly. “Left this junk in the middle of the road and there he asks what’s the matter! Decent cars can’t go through.”
“Do you call this tractor a decent car?!” a flame of patriotic sentiments flared up in Eugene in a flash. “One would only race rhinos in Africa in it, not break wind along decent Slavic passages. Besides, there’s plenty of space here. No harm will be done to your tractor, if you shift its tracks a bit towards the bushes.”
“Yeah, right! And who will paint and glaze my car afterwards, you?”
“Well, why not paint it, if there is such a need? I might as well cover it with drawings so that you wouldn't wish for more. Its own jap mother won’t recognize it! Just give me a minute, I’ll get some tools...”
And Eugene swan about towards the tents, as if intending to keep his word momentarily. After making several steps, he came to a standstill and, pulling a not very bright face, he turned back and thoughtfully remarked: “I say, man, it just flashed across my straight gyrus... What on earth would you need this passage for? There’s only a steep ahead. This place is occupied. There’s a lot of us here too! Won’t you find other places for yourself? The river is big enough.”
“What for?! I’ve been feeding the fish here for an entire week. Served them different dishes like in a restaurant. And here you all are on a lured spot...”
“But, I kinda got them food too!” making barefaced single-minded countenance, Eugene exclaimed happily. “One could say gave up the last piece of bread, all for them scaled-fish! Oh, my,” he drawled, “we might have fed them up through and through! I should not wonder if it lies at the bottom of the river like a pig after dinner, lazy to lift its tail upwards. And I rack my brains why it doesn’t bite. The poor things just got distended...”
The girls listening to this conversation laughed gently.
“Listen man! Maybe, we just ‘dynamite’ this impudent fish?”
“Do what?!”
“I’m saying, did you happen to take along some dynamite?” Eugene asked expressly loudly with clear interest.
The driver beamed a gap-toothed smile failing to keep a dead-pan before such an ardent speech of the odd fellow.
“Don’t fret, I’ll get it out without that all right.”
Eugene glanced at that ‘dentist’s gladness’ smile and said with sympathy: “Do you know, by chance, if fish have heart attack?”
This question seemed to draw the stranger away from the line of captiousness, as he answered shrugging his shoulders: “I don’t know. Maybe. Since it has a heart, then heart attacks can happen.”
“Oh, I see now.”
“What do you see?”
“I was thinking how you were going to get it out.”
“Oh, bother!” the man latched on. The SUV driver laughed good-naturedly together with Eugene. Then he spoke in level tones: “All right, then, call the owner of the car.”
“I’m for him. What, do I not look like?”
“You?” the man hemmed. “You’ve not enough wit... and moustache too.”
Eugene was just about to open his mouth to argue about his effulgent intellect, but after hearing about the moustache he stopped short and took a good look at the driver.
“Come on, now, call him,” he hurried observing Eugene’s reaction.
“What do you need him for?”
“I need him, full stop. Should I report to you, or something?”
“Well, have it your way, man,” Eugene warned him in jest to be on the safe side. “You’ve asked for it yourself. I tried my best to make it safer for your persona...”
With that he moved towards the river and passed out of sight behind the waterside slope.
Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich were sitting on a snag that seemed to have seen quite a lot of fishermen’s second principal “operating tools” in its recumbent life. Both men with fishing rods in their arms were watching their floats in such a manner as though fish was just about to bite. Eugene came down the sand fill. The fishers were so focused on the process that no one paid attention to his coming. The lad looked at the floats rocking gently in the water and asked an eternal question of a traveler passing along the shore.
“Well, does it nibble?”
“Ah, just small fry,” Sensei answered with eternal reply of a fisher.
Eugene lingered for a moment in secret hope that a grandiose biting would start at his presence. But with no sign of that momentous event he returned to the urgent subject.
“Hey, Sensei! There is a cheeky fellow looking for you. He’s come on an SUV. He hold himself so high-flown...”
Keeping his eyes on the float Sensei smiled and asked: “Skinny, with a thin red beard?”
“Yes.”
“Turn him out!”
“OK,” Eugene rejoiced and started climbing up the sandy slope.
“Hey, wait!” Sensei called after him. “I’m joking, you know... He’s a parson.”
“A parson?!” Eugene slid down the slope in ineffable amazement. “The parson who, you said, would join us to fish?”
Observing confused the confused guy’s face, Sensei nodded with laughter and stood up to come out of his “fishing ambush”.
At the sight of his friend, Father John (or Vano as Sensei called him since childhood) seemed to have transformed right away. One wouldn’t recognize a former SUV driver in him. He assumed a humble posture and took on long-suffering air.
In uncommonly heartfelt voice, laying stress on “o”s, the guest started pouring out his complaints and admonitions: “What in the wide world is going on? It not enough that I’d barely found you, God being my helper at that, now there’s also this arch adolescent indulges in vile blasphemies. It almost came to manhandling...”
And so, Father John drew an intentionally vivid picture of his acquaintance with Eugene, winning the audience naturally on him. Then, he delivered a short edifying sermon on the topic that one ought to love one's neighbors. With a serious look on his face, Sensei ‘attended’ unto Father John’s touching speech, nodding in response and casting reproving glances at Eugene. The latter even got embarrassed at such words of the priest. The tips of his ears turned red as if he were a delinquent teenager. And when the guy – with the aid of flaming speech of the priest – was driven into a condition of browsing grass under his feet, wishing to sink into the ground for his behavior, before Sensei first of all, Father John suspiciously stopped short. Eugene was silent at first, depressed with shattering ‘accusation’. Then he raised his ‘madcap’ timidly and... saw Vano and Sensei shudder in silent laughter. That’s when Eugene finally grasped the concealed meaning of the aforesaid.
“Gee whiz!” he breathed out with relief.
All three let out a booming laughter. The laughter as a bait lured the guys and girls. After calming down, Vano heartily greeted Sensei and shook hands with the rest. Changing to ordinary pronunciation he observed in jest: “No, really, I’ve been puzzling out your maneuvers for two hours. I thought we agreed to meet in a different place...”
“I passed the word to you as it was explained to me,” Sensei said merrily, pointing to Eugene.
“Now, that’s who explained it to you?!” Vano exclaimed with a laughter. “No wonder you turned out here then. Pretends to be Ivan Osipovich!..”
“Do what? Which Ivan Osipovich?” Eugene didn’t get it.
“Susanin, young man. Susanin. It’s a shame not to know one’s history,” Father John uttered with reproof.
The entire company rolled with a new fit of laughter. The name of a renowned peasant of Kostroma uyezd (district), who led a party of Polish-Lithuanian interventionists into impassable dense forest, glued to Eugene through life by widely different people at that. But he did not seem to be daunted by that a bit. Quite the opposite, it stirred up pride in his historical compatriot.
Being in the focus of everyone’s attention, Eugene feigned a smile, shrugged his shoulders and pronounced: “Even Homer sometimes nods. You never know what happens in life. Incidentally, the motto of my ancestors has it that all happenings of life in their incidents and opportunities are divided precisely into two halves. May be and may not be.”
By these words he called forth a new hailstorm of jokes and laughter. Later on, when everyone managed to figure out who is who and what place they occupy under the sun, there began a hospitable welcome of the dear guest. In an attempt to rehabilitate himself before the newcomer, Eugene started fussing about, which was unnatural for his mischievous nature, offering a verity of services. He aided in parking the SUV near the “best tree on the glade” that in his opinion cast the widest shadow. He thoughtfully carried Vano’s fishing tackle to the bank of the river and even inflated his rubber dinghy.
Such a valuable addition to fisherman’s accessories as a means of travel by water ineffably inspired the gathering. As would be expected, the right of “the first rowing” was passed to inveterate fishermen. Along with Vano they started to plough the waters in turns in quest of a decent fish biting.
As of Eugene, as soon as he made sure that the object of his “first-sight affections” swam out a considerable distance, he smiled slyly. His eyes lit-up with mischievous twinkle. While everyone was consumed with the process of morning fishing, “Susanin’s descendant” set out to implement his much suffered insidious intent. Especially as, in his opinion, there was not much of a true fishing to look forward to as such because of his hopelessly entangled net.
Having found an empty water bottle, Eugene learnedly made an unpretentious sprinkler out of it by pinning several holes in its cap. Then he filled it with water and made his way to the provision tent where he generously poured sugar into the bottle. Next, he thoroughly shook up his “detonating mixture”, got out of the “bunker” and looked at the dinghy with a happy grin. The guy sashayed towards the SUV, walked round it casting amorous glances at this foreign monster. He glanced back and, seeing no unnecessary witnesses, with un– speakable pleasure, he started to plot a sweet water trail from an anthill located behind the mighty trunk of the “best tree on the glade” that cast a blissful shadow – the car was parked next to it exactly owing to Eugene’s exorbitant endeavors – towards the hateful “tractor”. Whistling a patriotic tune to himself, he threw some sweet water on the wheels and lower door chinks of the SUV with particular inspiration.
The guy regretted a single thing: there were no spectators of the scene who would appreciate at its true value the inventiveness and acting talent of the performer. Only a bird sitting on a top pine-tree branch with its head bent awry was curiously watching the fuss of a ground biped which was absolutely incomprehensible for its bird’s nature. Having emptied the entire bottle, “avenged Susanin” had a sigh of great relief and, as if being a devoted Green Peace member, started delightfully watching how the first scout ants were successfully overcoming the invisible distance he had drawn. Eugene’s mood turned apparently better. However, his crazy enthusiasm did not run out at that.
Having waited until the sun slightly warmed up the water, Eugene decided to indulge in underwater hunting and to catch at least one worthwhile fish. He glanced over the water expanse in search of a fish Klondike and rested his gaze on a boat drifting near the far bank and attracting him like a magnet. Vano was there for already half an hour with Victor who had offered himself to be Vano’s fishing mate. And suddenly Eugene’s advantageous mind was visited by his unfailing “muse” – a gorgeous mythical woman with an inexhaustible sense of humour as the guy visualized her.
Having unpacked a massive aqualung, sweating over its weight, Eugene carried it to rush bushes, making a small detour through a forest so as to remain unnoticed. And, at the very moment when the guy was enthusiastically putting on the aqualung, the rush bushes began rustling suspiciously. Stas’ crown came into view in the middle of the bushes. Eugene’s friend appeared at the most interesting point, as they say.
“Oh! And I’ve been thinking where you are! I saw you taking the aqualung and walking to the forest, as if you were going to dive. I decided to please myself with such an entertaining spectacle.”
“No way!” Eugene grinned. “Don’t you dare touching my bright idea with your dirty hands!”
Right before Stas’ appearance, Eugene was completing to invent his great maneuver on how to convince the men fishing nearby that not simple fish could be found in this place, but gigantic ones similar to sharks. He was enjoying himself with such idea of a true fishing commotion. Stas’ appearance didn’t make a part of Eugene’s strategic plan, for he had always believed: if two people came to know something, than even a pig could find it out. Yet, at the same time he was eager to impart his huge idea of a laughable enterprise with someone. And who else could size up such submarine performance, but Stas who'd always been an unintentional witness of Eugene’s lifelong adventures? In his turn, Stas was bored of their unsuccessful fishing. Thus, when Eugene expounded his idea to him, his friend not simply supported it, but expressed his eagerness to participate in Eugene’s underwater adventure, having added the initial plan with some new refined details. Stas brought his aqualung to the departure point, i.e. to the rush bushes, put on the equipment and submerged simultaneously with Eugene, believing they both remained unnoticed by their half-asleep fishing companions.
The couple swam under Vano’s inflatable boat at the depth. At that moment, Victor was sitting at the stern with a fishing-rod in his hands. Fish was not biting at all, and it seemed like it even didn’t approach the fat worm which Victor had dug out in his grandmother’s kitchen garden the day before. Victor strenuously fought sleepiness, trying to focus his eyesight on a steadily wavering float. However, his pupils were further turning towards his bridge, and his eyes were closing all by themselves, temptingly replacing the monotonous river view with a sweet, untroubled dream. Only thanks to his incredible will effort, his vigilant conscience and the awareness of his fisherman’s duty, Victor periodically managed to unfasten his lead-like eyelids.
Vano was sitting at the other side of the boat with a spinning rod. His fishing was much more vigorous. He continuously dropped out his minnow into the water, now here, now there, not losing hope to catch at least something. It seemed like this man was not even familiar with “tiredness”, “sleepiness”, “dejections” notions. While Vano was recurrently winding the fishing-line round the spinning bobbin, his glance roved over the water surface not far from the boat. Then he looked askance at dormant Victor, archly smiled and providently moved aside from the boar edge. He quickly reeled the fishing-line on and began to replace the minnow with enthusiasm, as if nothing had happened.
At that very moment, “the saboteurs” were already straight at the planned whereabouts. Eugene carefully swam up to the worm inertly twitching on Victor’s rod and strongly pulled the fishing-line. Slumberous Victor nearly flopped into the water from surprise, having clutched at the rod instinctively. An excessive dose of adrenalin burst into his blood, like a sudden hurricane, and agitated sundry dust-forming “trash” in his human brain “garret”, namely some archaic hunting instincts. Victor’s eyes turned round in a flash, and he excitedly called out to Vano, having completely forgotten that “fish preferred silence”:
“I got it! I caught it, I caught it!”
The fishing-line tightly stretched, having bent the rod into a steep arc, and started to spin. Not believing his fishing luck, Victor persistently endeavored to pull it.
“Wow! What a fish! It’s probably a huge pike!” he kept saying boastfully, concentrating his delighted gaze on the muddy water depth.
Vano imitated sheer elation for his companion on his face and began helping him fussily with advices how to drag out the huge fish. Fishing passion was flaring up “on board”.
“Look, look how strongly it’s conducting!” the “happy fisherman” was bragging about, dizzy with his unprecedented luck. Victor even half-rose in agitation. “Give me the net, I’ll lead it closer now!”
At that moment, the fishing-line sharply stretched towards the middle of the river, and a mighty blow at the boat bilge immediately followed. Because of such an unexpected tremor, Victor, being busy with his “huge pike” chase, failed to keep the balance and fell overboard. The instinct of self-preservation in the face of such river monsters prevailed over the fishing instinct. Having dropped the rod, Victor started getting back into the boat at an unbelievable speed and, being panic-stricken, nearly overturned it together with Vano. If it were not Father John’s timely assistance, nobody knew how everything would eventually end.
“Wow! Wow!” Victor repeated like saying a prayer, with his teeth chattering either of cool water or of fear. “Have you seen this? It’s given such a blow! It’s probably this big, not less…”
Along with these words, his fishing “disease” further expanded.
“Yeah, looks like an old cat-fish,” Vano nodded, diligently expressing an awakened interest of an amateur fisherman.
“A cat-fish?! Wow! Yet, have you really seen it?! There is a whole shoal of them here! It’s dragged such a rod away, skunk!”
“Well, this cat-fish weighs something around sixty kilos,” the fishing-mate stirred up the passion and started plying the oars. “My spinning rod definitely won’t help us to cope with them.”
“Yeah,” Victor agreed, secretly being happy that their boat was rapidly moving away from the place of his recent “joy” which had ended with a total horror for him. “We need a stronger fishing-line, and bigger hooks…”
Evidently, the experienced fear caused Victor’s continuous verbal outpouring. On the move, he began to contrive fabulous methods of catching those huge fish.
Still, the most interesting the situation appeared for the rest of the company who were waiting for the two unlucky fishermen on the bank. Having dropped their rods, the other guys perplexedly witnessed Victor’s unbelievable overboard acrobatics and the next happy “rescue of the drowned man” scene which was immediately followed with the high-speed rowing towards the bank. Having felt himself on the ground, Victor finally grew bolder. He started excitedly telling the others about his nearly lucky catch as well as about his heroic fight with the river monsters in the water where he had almost seized the huge fish by the tail… As everyone knows, the biggest fish caught is always the one which certainly gets away from the hook at a crucial moment of a fight.
The flaming fishing and hunting passion spread among the others, being stirred up by Vano a great deal. Everybody started strenuously getting ready for the trophies capture. Some brought huge hooks, some got capron lines… Someone warned that it was better not to go into the water, for he had heard a tragic story about some enormous cat-fish which had swallowed a whole god, and that there were also cannibal cat-fish. Then, a whole serial of various “reliable” cases followed. After all the thriller stories, the guys began to construct “a super-tackle”, a single one for everybody by the way.
Vano morally supported their fishing initiative as he should, but didn’t take any active part in the “project” implementation. He kindly put his boat at disposal of the enthusiasts, and joined Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich who were peacefully sitting far from the entire fuss, on their favorite snag.
“What is this panic all about?” Sensei interested.
“Well,” Father John waved his hand, “your Susanin has played an amphibian. He and his friend have put on aqualungs and are pulling our leg.”
“A-а-аh… This guy is capable of anything like this… As a matter of fact, fishing is a very useful thing… especially for developing one’s imagination.”
They laughed looking at the guys on the bank. By that time, Eugene and Stas had already approached the group as if nothing had happened. They actively joined the general fuss, pouring oil on the flames with passionate speeches and intensive gesticulation.
The “wonder-fish” catching lasted for about three hours. The guys thoroughly furrowed the river space by turns, trying to find Victor’s “valuable take”. In the end, fairly having fagged out their vigor and overstrained their nerved, they all got tired and almost lost hope of catching anything at all.
In the afternoon, the “wonder-fish” secret got disclosed in a very trite way. And the main thing was that it was disclosed by the inimitable humorist who had been the one to make the others swear of non-disclosure of this, nearly “government level” secret… At first, everything went right according to the plan. Eugene even decided to demonstrate courage and heroism of a fearless swimmer in front of the gazing fishermen. The water had already got warmed enough, but nobody really hurried to get into it after all those thriller stories. Only Eugene indulged in swimming with pleasure, diving like a duck in various places in quest of big cat-fish.
Suddenly, being at the deepest part of the river, the guy started to flounder desperately, as if he was drowning. First, everyone thought it was his next tomfoolery. Yet, such of his actions were usually followed with some comic speech declaring all the “heroic merits” of his, whereas now he was speechlessly floundering, disappearing under the water from time to time. Stas was the first one to rush to his help. Bogdan and Svat jumped into the water right after him without hesitation. At that moment, Eugene had finally managed to free himself from something, and he started swimming towards the bank at such speed which probably exceeded the dreams of Olympic swimming champions. Like a shot from a gun, he got out of the water, turned round dread and began looking narrowly at the place where he had nearly drowned.
“What’s happened?” the guys asked, coming up running.
“Have the cat-fished attacked?!” agitated Victor tried to elicit.
“There’s no cat-fish!” Eugene began to jabber very seriously. “Stas and I, we’ve played a trick on you with the cat-fish. But now somebody has been really pulling me to the depth. It’s something very strong and shaggy! It’s a total horror! It’s still giving me the shivers. I’ve released one foot, but it grasped me by the other one with its claw! I wanted to dive under it, but it’s sooooooo huge…”
Sensei who was just passing by the group, stopped, listened to their conversation for a while and looked at the place showed by Eugene on the water. Then he glanced at each of the present, smiled and went his way to get extra hooks.
The crowd was listening to Eugene’s words with distrust when suddenly he fell into a silent stupor. His fastened his eyes upon the water. Everybody looked in that direction, too. Rising from the abyss, there appeared an odd monster overgrown with long slime. It slowly started approaching the bank. The people were standing motionless: some couldn’t move because of interest, some – because of a natural weakness. While the “monster” was gradually showing its human body from the water, and its upper part was clearing from slime, the dead-stopped guys began to give signs of life. In the end, the object of Eugene’s enormous fear became completely transformed into Vano who shook off the last “flock” of slime, dipped into the water and walked to the bank with his customary gap-toothed smile, sleeking his hair with his hands.
“Well, how is the cat-fish?” he teased Eugene archly, and the entire crowd rolled with laughter.
After this incident, nobody was afraid of entering the water any more. The guys were heavily splashing in the river, having thoroughly scared away even the smallest fish. Vano was actively stirring up all that chaotic young enthusiasm with an interminable stream of jokes. He impressed Eugene so much that the latter became friends with him and discovered him as an irreplaceable mate for his “funny affairs” without even noticing it. Almost everyone abandoned fishing and devoted themselves to full-blooded rest. Only Sensei was still sitting on the bank with his rod, as a faithful fisherman. Vano and Eugene could stand it no longer, pointedly swam up to Sensei’s rod and started to tug by the fishing-line one after another, imitating a mighty bite. Sensei tolerated their mockery for a while and then he gave in and said with a smile, “If fishing wasn’t so calming, I would “drown” you both long ago, crucians.”
Eugene cried out optimistically in response, “Fish does not drown in the water!”
And Vano teased Eugene right on the spot, “Hey, you, amphibian! Haven’t you confused something about what does not drown in the water?”
Hilarious laughter resounded above the river again.
“Nothing?” he pointed to the fishing float.
“Nothing,” Sensei answered with a slight sadness.
“You’d better abandon this hopeless occupation,” Volodya advised with a smile. “I believe no decent fish has ever been found here.”
“E-e-eh, no…” Sensei drawled persistently, but then added after a pause, grinning, “Do you know a folk fishing token? ‘Good biting comes either before you start fishing or after you’ve already made off’.”
“Exactly! So, you better make off, as those “most honest” fishing folks recommend”, Volodya proposed with a laughter.
Sensei supported his joke, “Are you delicately hinting at the “law of nature” under which honest people cannot be good fishermen?”
They both laughed, recalling the widespread fishing tale.
“I’d like to catch at least a single decent one. With such ones,” Sensei pointed at his bottle with several little herrings peacefully swimming inside, “my cat won’t even let me in the door”.
Volodya grinned again and looked towards the forest. Valera came out of it and walked to the camp, dragging along a dry tree trunk.
“Oh, Valera… dragging another log…”
Sensei turned round.
“Fine fellow. He is stocking firewood for tonight, in contrast to others,” he looked at Volodya unambiguously, and then uttered, “including myself”.
“I’ve proposed him to go swimming, but he keeps holding himself aloof from the group.”
“The feels shy. He’s in a new company for the first time. He knows nobody here, except you.”
“It’s true,” Volodya said in a bass voice. “By the way, I wanted to talk with you about him. He’s a good guy, although he’s got quite a hard destiny. He needs help in order not to get into trouble again… We were friends since childhood. He’s my neighbor. We used to attend gym together, and hung out in the same street company… His parents works in the North while Valera was brought up by his grandmother. She’s a really nice woman. Well, when his parents came back to live with him, Valera turned fourteen. And then his “merry life” started. His father started drinking alcohol and beating his mother. She wouldn’t wait long, divorced him and married another man. Yet, her second husband proved to be not better than Valera’s father, and brawls in the family became even more frequent and worse. Valera became very irritable, for reason or without it. For the first time he went to jail by total foolishness. He had then just turned eighteen. A month before he was supposed to go to the military service, he thrashed a man in a street fight. They imprisoned him for a year, after which he was released. He tried to find job, but no one would hire him. Moreover, his stepfather was nagging him with claims that he didn’t want to support a criminal at his expense. To cut a long story short, he had no money, but wanted to have many things like most young people. Well, as a result, he got imprisoned for another three years, this time for a robbery. When he returned from jail, the situation at home was as bad. He didn’t have any opportunity to rent an apartment, and so he got drawn into a gang again. He moved to an apartment in the neighboring district, married a nice girl, but less than in a year he got in trouble once more. They exposed him, fool, to a very serious crime, and he got into jail again... It’s good they’d condemned him to only five years. And, while he was imprisoned, his wife left him, and his parents died in a car accident. His granny was his only close relative remained, but she’s about eighty years old… He’s been released just recently and is still under criminal department control… So, he’s got a really tough life. But, in general, he’s a not a bad guy.”
“Indeed, not a bad guy… having three criminal records only,” Sensei grinned.
“You see, it’s just because he’s life turned the wrong way. I know him for so many years! I sent him letters to jail, to support him morally, so to say. We corresponded particularly frequently during the last four years. It would be good to settle him somewhere, so that he won’t break loose again… You see, he is a weak-willed, wavering guy…”
“Wavering, you say?!” Sensei grinned again and gazed at Volodya strangely.
The latter got confused.
“Well, what if he gets under somebody’s influence again or does something inappropriate…”
“All right, we’ll think something out.”
Meanwhile Father John, Sensei, Volodya and Nikolai Andreevich were still trying to fish, catching some tiny ones, which could be used “at least for a smell of fish-soup” as they said, and inconsolably waiting for bells jingle on the “track” which could signal of some big bite. Should they had been very old men, they would hardly be interested in anything except the fishing-rod and the fishing process itself. However, they still had young blood running in their veins, therefore they further more often cast glances at the sparring guys. Finally, Vano couldn’t resist such temptation any more, left his rod to Volodya’s charge and walked towards the fighters.
Three cars, packed with those desiring to have a first light fishing, worked their way round holes and bumps along a wood road. The driver of the leading car was a fair-haired man with blond-brown moustache. He looked about 30, average height, athletic build. Friends treated him with respect and called him ‘Sensei’ as he had been heading oriental martial arts circle for many years and was famed for his skill among professionals. His primary activity, however, was medicine. Vertebrology in particular. Sensei was quite out of the ordinary, interesting man with vast mental outlook and inexhaustible sense of humor. Therefore, the number of those willing to spend time with him even at such a ‘quiet arrangement’ as fishing, turned out to be enough and to spare as usual.
Sensei’s old Soviet car “Moscvich” blinked its stoplights twice, and the cars that followed it stopped. The driver cast a glance examining a gauge of the road, which ended at a broad clearing. And with an irony he asked a tall guy, who sprawled on the passenger chair: “Well, where have you taken us to, fatherland’s son born out of wedlock?”
“Me, taken?!” Eugene answered with a grin, and then added mischievously: “But... Sensei, it’s you who drives. I’m merely showing the way to the radiant future!”
Sensei smiled together with other guys. Looking about at the brake along the wood road and at the glade ahead, Eugene said in jest: “Yep! It looks like the place.”
“It looks like, it looks like!” his friend Stas could not contain himself any longer. Stas sat in the rear seat holding a large bottle in his hands that was filled with water and bait for fish of prey – loaches. “The sun has risen already. It’s just the time of biting! And here we are in the thickets checking your fourth looks like.”
“I told you I’d been here two years ago,” Eugene started to make excuses and added poetically, “I recall there was a forest, a clearing, a river... That was a top-class place! Oodles of fish! There were splashing ones this big!”
At these words, trying to impress on the others, he began to stretch his hands wide to show the size of fish. But his spread was obviously limited by the inside of a car so as to illustrate more precise “parameters” of “monsters” found in the river. As people jokingly say, the longer the fisherman’s arms, the less trust there is to his stories.
“Pull the other leg, Eugene! There’re none such in nature,” pronounced senior sempai Victor, a stocky guy who was sitting near Stas and eating a bun.
“There are too! Sure thing, there are,” Eugene persuaded fervently. “Sensei, tell them...”
“Well why there aren’t? Everything’s possible nowadays,” Sensei agreed with a smile. “And those, with two heads and three tails...”
The guys laughed, while Eugene waved his hand at them with feigned offence.
“Oh, why would I talk to you... I’ll see you boast about when you catch such a bomber.”
With those words, he left the car in businesslike air and went ahead to examine the passage to the river as well as the surrounding country.
“Stas, take a walk with him,” Sensei suggested, when laughter in the cabin faded more or less. “If the place’s good, we’ll stay here. Or we’ll drive about till the evening with this apology for a guide.”
Stas nodded and carefully handed the bottle over to Victor.
“There you go, the valuable cargo. And mind you don’t eat them, gormandizer!” he wagged his finger in jest.
“They’re kind of languid,” Victor observed with irony examining the “field car-aquarium”.
“What would you want? Poor things got sick of such a trip,” Stas complained in a fit of temper, who devoted the whole overnight to laborious procuring of this dainty for catfish. “It's no joke, they make this land journey for the first time, and Eugene turned out to be among the guides. Good heavens!”
“Yeah, no luck,” Victor sympathized with laughter.
Stas got out of the car and hastened after Eugene, who rounded the kink.
It should be noted that there gathered quite a diverse public in the cars if judge from age and profession. For example, Victor, who rode in Sensei’s “Moscvich,” was an investigative officer. Eugene and Stas, apart from their “lifetime” pursuit of unceasing training, during their “recess,” so to say, earned their living as mechanics in auto repair shop. The fourth passenger in Sensei’s car, Ruslan, a lean medium-sized chap with slightly worked out muscles, was a common factory worker.
The other car, called “doggy” among the folks, was driven by Volodya, a stocky man of sturdy build with determined features. He was a head of special mission unit for several years already. Near him were his colleagues and friends: Bogdan, Oleg, and Seva (or as he was called, Svat). Notable for their military bearing, they were also distinguished for their peculiar manner of communication, which develops among people who were in the services together for a long time. The fourth passenger, who sat next to Volodya, curiously enough, was of a quite different social environment. It was not for a month as Valera came out of prison, where he had served another term. He was Volodya’s friend since childhood and a neighbor. In outward appearance Valera was not much different from Seva or Oleg. An ordinary young lad, medium-sized, average built. His face, however, bore a particular imprint of life in a prison. One could read distrust in a somewhat stern look, even a hidden threat for anyone, who would dare violate his personal space.
Behind the wheel of the third car, ‘Volga’, there was Nikolai Andreevich. His passengers were young individuals, who had just recently graduated from university Andrew, Nastya, Tatyana, and Kostya. One wouldn’t call this merry crowd a company of inveterate fishermen, excluding Nikolai Andreevich, of course. Quite the opposite. The company was so full of buoyant youthful energy that no respected fish would have approached such laugh-n-noise generators that are all about tricks and unrestrained chattering about every trifle in the world. This atmosphere could be endured, perhaps, only by a psychotherapist (not too long at that), Nikolai Andreevich being such, by the way. But everyone in the car was too anxious so as not to miss such a rare opportunity of breaking away for a holiday together with Sensei. That’s why they thrust themselves as “fishermen” in an alleged effort to improve in their piscatorial skills as well as in knowledge of the area’s flora and fauna.
Such was the big, motley company looking forward to arrival of their walkers Eugene and Stas. In was but in ten minutes that this impressive couple went back at a jog trot with joyful news. Already from afar, they started to make signs at car drivers and their passengers that the fishing place was finally found. Eugene tried to mime that there’s a whole plenty of fish varying in size. He showed the sizes comparing them to different body parts of his companion.
“It is there!” Stas panted out, getting into Sensei’s car together with Eugene. “First go straight, then to the right. There’s a convenient path to the river.”
After tedious waiting and coping with the last yards towards the long-expected aim, the cars drove out at a clearing located on a bank of a small river. The place turned out to be beautiful indeed. There was a smooth wind in the river in this spot. Coniferous trees mixed with broad-leaved trees surrounded the clearing. The air was sweet with aroma of conifers. The green clearing was lit with bright sunrays that created splashes of light reflecting from diamond dewdrop placer. All this, along with the view of the far bank, created a truly enchanting picture of nature.
A sandy slightly downgrade shore was not yet touched by a gross imprint of a boot, and that unspeakably gladdened inveterate fishermen of our big company keen to some local fauna. Content with appearance of the place, everyone started to make up for lost time. “Experienced fishermen” headed by Sensei seized their fishing implements and went straight to the river to set everything up, with such passion at that, as if they had merely ten seconds to fulfill their fisherman’s dream. The others started to pitch a campsite.
After common preliminaries were concluded, and the folks fortified themselves with a light breakfast, most of the company dispersed alongshore – some with a spinning reel, some with a fishing rod. With their fishing “arsenal”, almost everyone decorously seated themselves at a respectful distance from each another in secret hope of a felicitous catch just at their chosen spot.
The riverside in the wilderness was swiftly filled with paraphernalia of civilization. Should a New Guinea’s Papuan happen to be here, he would examine all these queer articles for a long time. And if someone explained the purpose of each article to him, including various super cool fishing accessories, the Papuan would laugh for a day or two at the fact that some smart merchant had been able to fool so many people. An entire tribe, what do you know! But there was no Papuan around, and the fooled people believed firmly that the purchased stuff would help them lure the cunning fish out of the river.
Eugene alone stayed in the “camp” and it was just because his fishing net got tangled. The lad belonged to that extreme category of “fishermen” who cannot bear to sit with a fishing rod for hours. He liked the fish to be caught at once and in loads. Eugene could also chase after fish one-on-one when submarine hunting. At least, there was a peculiar sporting blood in it – who wears out whom. But to sit idly contemplating the water from the riverside was not his trip. That’s why Eugene always took his “tangle” net for fishing. It was as easy to fish with it as it can be: setting nets, driving fish into them, and there you go – now you can cook fish soup! That’s all there is to a “wet work”. That’s why Eugene was not being deceitful when he promised a grandiose catch as he pinned his hopes on this safe bet option. However, an unexpected misfortune occurred. He did not check the net at home and he also did not exert himself with conscientious packing at his last fishing. That’s why he got such a stable result. The “tangling net” fully justified its name this time matting sinkers and floats badly. No matter how hard the lad tried his efforts got nowhere.
But Eugene wouldn’t have been Eugene if he had given way to despair or showed that things weren’t going his way. At any rate, he could not allow it to happen in front of girls. So, he explained his prolonged stay at the camp during the most appropriate time for morning fishing by “purely gentlemen’s motives” – telling punning stories to girls so as to render “invaluable assistance” in women’s toils of washing dirty dishes after a raid of such a “starving bunch”. In brief, Eugene did not waste time even here.
Sitting in a folding chair, he “sympathized” the girls in good faith:“...that’s in our technological age when cosmic saucers furrow the celestial space, when humanity has automated manufacturing by ninety percent, these fragile, tender fingers are to perform infinite number of movements over that dirty, modernized human trough of abdominal satiety, this monstrous implement that favors lust of flesh, its stomach and pride...”
At this time, there appeared an SUV on the provisional forest “road” that the cars of this company struggled through. The SUV stopped at the glade passage. A lean man got out of the car. His hair was light and thin, his small beard was reddish, and his face was somewhat pale. Camouflage fishing smock was rather big and looked as though it was off somebody’s back.
Eugene discontinued his ardent speech addressed to “working-people” and turned his eyes towards an intruder with curiosity. Noticing fixed attention directed at him, the SUV driver thrust his hand into his trousers’ pocket. Then, playing with a car key with the other hand he waddled towards Sensei’s “Moscvich,” the rear of which slightly stuck out at the “driving lane.”
“Well, whose jade sprawled here halfway?” the stranger said deliberately vociferously and kicked the car wheel couple times.
Eugene sprang up from his seat right away and nearly choked with his saliva – that much he wanted to pant out to the uninvited guest’s face.
“Yo, man, what this leg-throwing is all about?!”
“So, it’s your rattletrap then?” he asked with a jeer.
“Mine or not, what’s the diff it’s got to do with you?”
Eugene walked up to Sensei’s car hastily. He took out a not-too-clean handkerchief and made as though he wiped last specks of dust from it. After demonstrating such an evident love of domestic cars, Eugene assumed the threatening attitude of a fervent owner.
“Now then, what’s the matter exactly?”
“What’s the matter?!” the car driver voiced indignantly. “Left this junk in the middle of the road and there he asks what’s the matter! Decent cars can’t go through.”
“Do you call this tractor a decent car?!” a flame of patriotic sentiments flared up in Eugene in a flash. “One would only race rhinos in Africa in it, not break wind along decent Slavic passages. Besides, there’s plenty of space here. No harm will be done to your tractor, if you shift its tracks a bit towards the bushes.”
“Yeah, right! And who will paint and glaze my car afterwards, you?”
“Well, why not paint it, if there is such a need? I might as well cover it with drawings so that you wouldn't wish for more. Its own jap mother won’t recognize it! Just give me a minute, I’ll get some tools...”
And Eugene swan about towards the tents, as if intending to keep his word momentarily. After making several steps, he came to a standstill and, pulling a not very bright face, he turned back and thoughtfully remarked: “I say, man, it just flashed across my straight gyrus... What on earth would you need this passage for? There’s only a steep ahead. This place is occupied. There’s a lot of us here too! Won’t you find other places for yourself? The river is big enough.”
“What for?! I’ve been feeding the fish here for an entire week. Served them different dishes like in a restaurant. And here you all are on a lured spot...”
“But, I kinda got them food too!” making barefaced single-minded countenance, Eugene exclaimed happily. “One could say gave up the last piece of bread, all for them scaled-fish! Oh, my,” he drawled, “we might have fed them up through and through! I should not wonder if it lies at the bottom of the river like a pig after dinner, lazy to lift its tail upwards. And I rack my brains why it doesn’t bite. The poor things just got distended...”
The girls listening to this conversation laughed gently.
“Listen man! Maybe, we just ‘dynamite’ this impudent fish?”
“Do what?!”
“I’m saying, did you happen to take along some dynamite?” Eugene asked expressly loudly with clear interest.
The driver beamed a gap-toothed smile failing to keep a dead-pan before such an ardent speech of the odd fellow.
“Don’t fret, I’ll get it out without that all right.”
Eugene glanced at that ‘dentist’s gladness’ smile and said with sympathy: “Do you know, by chance, if fish have heart attack?”
This question seemed to draw the stranger away from the line of captiousness, as he answered shrugging his shoulders: “I don’t know. Maybe. Since it has a heart, then heart attacks can happen.”
“Oh, I see now.”
“What do you see?”
“I was thinking how you were going to get it out.”
“Oh, bother!” the man latched on. The SUV driver laughed good-naturedly together with Eugene. Then he spoke in level tones: “All right, then, call the owner of the car.”
“I’m for him. What, do I not look like?”
“You?” the man hemmed. “You’ve not enough wit... and moustache too.”
Eugene was just about to open his mouth to argue about his effulgent intellect, but after hearing about the moustache he stopped short and took a good look at the driver.
“Come on, now, call him,” he hurried observing Eugene’s reaction.
“What do you need him for?”
“I need him, full stop. Should I report to you, or something?”
“Well, have it your way, man,” Eugene warned him in jest to be on the safe side. “You’ve asked for it yourself. I tried my best to make it safer for your persona...”
With that he moved towards the river and passed out of sight behind the waterside slope.
Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich were sitting on a snag that seemed to have seen quite a lot of fishermen’s second principal “operating tools” in its recumbent life. Both men with fishing rods in their arms were watching their floats in such a manner as though fish was just about to bite. Eugene came down the sand fill. The fishers were so focused on the process that no one paid attention to his coming. The lad looked at the floats rocking gently in the water and asked an eternal question of a traveler passing along the shore.
“Well, does it nibble?”
“Ah, just small fry,” Sensei answered with eternal reply of a fisher.
Eugene lingered for a moment in secret hope that a grandiose biting would start at his presence. But with no sign of that momentous event he returned to the urgent subject.
“Hey, Sensei! There is a cheeky fellow looking for you. He’s come on an SUV. He hold himself so high-flown...”
Keeping his eyes on the float Sensei smiled and asked: “Skinny, with a thin red beard?”
“Yes.”
“Turn him out!”
“OK,” Eugene rejoiced and started climbing up the sandy slope.
“Hey, wait!” Sensei called after him. “I’m joking, you know... He’s a parson.”
“A parson?!” Eugene slid down the slope in ineffable amazement. “The parson who, you said, would join us to fish?”
Observing confused the confused guy’s face, Sensei nodded with laughter and stood up to come out of his “fishing ambush”.
At the sight of his friend, Father John (or Vano as Sensei called him since childhood) seemed to have transformed right away. One wouldn’t recognize a former SUV driver in him. He assumed a humble posture and took on long-suffering air.
In uncommonly heartfelt voice, laying stress on “o”s, the guest started pouring out his complaints and admonitions: “What in the wide world is going on? It not enough that I’d barely found you, God being my helper at that, now there’s also this arch adolescent indulges in vile blasphemies. It almost came to manhandling...”
And so, Father John drew an intentionally vivid picture of his acquaintance with Eugene, winning the audience naturally on him. Then, he delivered a short edifying sermon on the topic that one ought to love one's neighbors. With a serious look on his face, Sensei ‘attended’ unto Father John’s touching speech, nodding in response and casting reproving glances at Eugene. The latter even got embarrassed at such words of the priest. The tips of his ears turned red as if he were a delinquent teenager. And when the guy – with the aid of flaming speech of the priest – was driven into a condition of browsing grass under his feet, wishing to sink into the ground for his behavior, before Sensei first of all, Father John suspiciously stopped short. Eugene was silent at first, depressed with shattering ‘accusation’. Then he raised his ‘madcap’ timidly and... saw Vano and Sensei shudder in silent laughter. That’s when Eugene finally grasped the concealed meaning of the aforesaid.
“Gee whiz!” he breathed out with relief.
All three let out a booming laughter. The laughter as a bait lured the guys and girls. After calming down, Vano heartily greeted Sensei and shook hands with the rest. Changing to ordinary pronunciation he observed in jest: “No, really, I’ve been puzzling out your maneuvers for two hours. I thought we agreed to meet in a different place...”
“I passed the word to you as it was explained to me,” Sensei said merrily, pointing to Eugene.
“Now, that’s who explained it to you?!” Vano exclaimed with a laughter. “No wonder you turned out here then. Pretends to be Ivan Osipovich!..”
“Do what? Which Ivan Osipovich?” Eugene didn’t get it.
“Susanin, young man. Susanin. It’s a shame not to know one’s history,” Father John uttered with reproof.
The entire company rolled with a new fit of laughter. The name of a renowned peasant of Kostroma uyezd (district), who led a party of Polish-Lithuanian interventionists into impassable dense forest, glued to Eugene through life by widely different people at that. But he did not seem to be daunted by that a bit. Quite the opposite, it stirred up pride in his historical compatriot.
Being in the focus of everyone’s attention, Eugene feigned a smile, shrugged his shoulders and pronounced: “Even Homer sometimes nods. You never know what happens in life. Incidentally, the motto of my ancestors has it that all happenings of life in their incidents and opportunities are divided precisely into two halves. May be and may not be.”
By these words he called forth a new hailstorm of jokes and laughter. Later on, when everyone managed to figure out who is who and what place they occupy under the sun, there began a hospitable welcome of the dear guest. In an attempt to rehabilitate himself before the newcomer, Eugene started fussing about, which was unnatural for his mischievous nature, offering a verity of services. He aided in parking the SUV near the “best tree on the glade” that in his opinion cast the widest shadow. He thoughtfully carried Vano’s fishing tackle to the bank of the river and even inflated his rubber dinghy.
Such a valuable addition to fisherman’s accessories as a means of travel by water ineffably inspired the gathering. As would be expected, the right of “the first rowing” was passed to inveterate fishermen. Along with Vano they started to plough the waters in turns in quest of a decent fish biting.
As of Eugene, as soon as he made sure that the object of his “first-sight affections” swam out a considerable distance, he smiled slyly. His eyes lit-up with mischievous twinkle. While everyone was consumed with the process of morning fishing, “Susanin’s descendant” set out to implement his much suffered insidious intent. Especially as, in his opinion, there was not much of a true fishing to look forward to as such because of his hopelessly entangled net.
Having found an empty water bottle, Eugene learnedly made an unpretentious sprinkler out of it by pinning several holes in its cap. Then he filled it with water and made his way to the provision tent where he generously poured sugar into the bottle. Next, he thoroughly shook up his “detonating mixture”, got out of the “bunker” and looked at the dinghy with a happy grin. The guy sashayed towards the SUV, walked round it casting amorous glances at this foreign monster. He glanced back and, seeing no unnecessary witnesses, with un– speakable pleasure, he started to plot a sweet water trail from an anthill located behind the mighty trunk of the “best tree on the glade” that cast a blissful shadow – the car was parked next to it exactly owing to Eugene’s exorbitant endeavors – towards the hateful “tractor”. Whistling a patriotic tune to himself, he threw some sweet water on the wheels and lower door chinks of the SUV with particular inspiration.
The guy regretted a single thing: there were no spectators of the scene who would appreciate at its true value the inventiveness and acting talent of the performer. Only a bird sitting on a top pine-tree branch with its head bent awry was curiously watching the fuss of a ground biped which was absolutely incomprehensible for its bird’s nature. Having emptied the entire bottle, “avenged Susanin” had a sigh of great relief and, as if being a devoted Green Peace member, started delightfully watching how the first scout ants were successfully overcoming the invisible distance he had drawn. Eugene’s mood turned apparently better. However, his crazy enthusiasm did not run out at that.
Having waited until the sun slightly warmed up the water, Eugene decided to indulge in underwater hunting and to catch at least one worthwhile fish. He glanced over the water expanse in search of a fish Klondike and rested his gaze on a boat drifting near the far bank and attracting him like a magnet. Vano was there for already half an hour with Victor who had offered himself to be Vano’s fishing mate. And suddenly Eugene’s advantageous mind was visited by his unfailing “muse” – a gorgeous mythical woman with an inexhaustible sense of humour as the guy visualized her.
Having unpacked a massive aqualung, sweating over its weight, Eugene carried it to rush bushes, making a small detour through a forest so as to remain unnoticed. And, at the very moment when the guy was enthusiastically putting on the aqualung, the rush bushes began rustling suspiciously. Stas’ crown came into view in the middle of the bushes. Eugene’s friend appeared at the most interesting point, as they say.
“Oh! And I’ve been thinking where you are! I saw you taking the aqualung and walking to the forest, as if you were going to dive. I decided to please myself with such an entertaining spectacle.”
“No way!” Eugene grinned. “Don’t you dare touching my bright idea with your dirty hands!”
Right before Stas’ appearance, Eugene was completing to invent his great maneuver on how to convince the men fishing nearby that not simple fish could be found in this place, but gigantic ones similar to sharks. He was enjoying himself with such idea of a true fishing commotion. Stas’ appearance didn’t make a part of Eugene’s strategic plan, for he had always believed: if two people came to know something, than even a pig could find it out. Yet, at the same time he was eager to impart his huge idea of a laughable enterprise with someone. And who else could size up such submarine performance, but Stas who'd always been an unintentional witness of Eugene’s lifelong adventures? In his turn, Stas was bored of their unsuccessful fishing. Thus, when Eugene expounded his idea to him, his friend not simply supported it, but expressed his eagerness to participate in Eugene’s underwater adventure, having added the initial plan with some new refined details. Stas brought his aqualung to the departure point, i.e. to the rush bushes, put on the equipment and submerged simultaneously with Eugene, believing they both remained unnoticed by their half-asleep fishing companions.
The couple swam under Vano’s inflatable boat at the depth. At that moment, Victor was sitting at the stern with a fishing-rod in his hands. Fish was not biting at all, and it seemed like it even didn’t approach the fat worm which Victor had dug out in his grandmother’s kitchen garden the day before. Victor strenuously fought sleepiness, trying to focus his eyesight on a steadily wavering float. However, his pupils were further turning towards his bridge, and his eyes were closing all by themselves, temptingly replacing the monotonous river view with a sweet, untroubled dream. Only thanks to his incredible will effort, his vigilant conscience and the awareness of his fisherman’s duty, Victor periodically managed to unfasten his lead-like eyelids.
Vano was sitting at the other side of the boat with a spinning rod. His fishing was much more vigorous. He continuously dropped out his minnow into the water, now here, now there, not losing hope to catch at least something. It seemed like this man was not even familiar with “tiredness”, “sleepiness”, “dejections” notions. While Vano was recurrently winding the fishing-line round the spinning bobbin, his glance roved over the water surface not far from the boat. Then he looked askance at dormant Victor, archly smiled and providently moved aside from the boar edge. He quickly reeled the fishing-line on and began to replace the minnow with enthusiasm, as if nothing had happened.
At that very moment, “the saboteurs” were already straight at the planned whereabouts. Eugene carefully swam up to the worm inertly twitching on Victor’s rod and strongly pulled the fishing-line. Slumberous Victor nearly flopped into the water from surprise, having clutched at the rod instinctively. An excessive dose of adrenalin burst into his blood, like a sudden hurricane, and agitated sundry dust-forming “trash” in his human brain “garret”, namely some archaic hunting instincts. Victor’s eyes turned round in a flash, and he excitedly called out to Vano, having completely forgotten that “fish preferred silence”:
“I got it! I caught it, I caught it!”
The fishing-line tightly stretched, having bent the rod into a steep arc, and started to spin. Not believing his fishing luck, Victor persistently endeavored to pull it.
“Wow! What a fish! It’s probably a huge pike!” he kept saying boastfully, concentrating his delighted gaze on the muddy water depth.
Vano imitated sheer elation for his companion on his face and began helping him fussily with advices how to drag out the huge fish. Fishing passion was flaring up “on board”.
“Look, look how strongly it’s conducting!” the “happy fisherman” was bragging about, dizzy with his unprecedented luck. Victor even half-rose in agitation. “Give me the net, I’ll lead it closer now!”
At that moment, the fishing-line sharply stretched towards the middle of the river, and a mighty blow at the boat bilge immediately followed. Because of such an unexpected tremor, Victor, being busy with his “huge pike” chase, failed to keep the balance and fell overboard. The instinct of self-preservation in the face of such river monsters prevailed over the fishing instinct. Having dropped the rod, Victor started getting back into the boat at an unbelievable speed and, being panic-stricken, nearly overturned it together with Vano. If it were not Father John’s timely assistance, nobody knew how everything would eventually end.
“Wow! Wow!” Victor repeated like saying a prayer, with his teeth chattering either of cool water or of fear. “Have you seen this? It’s given such a blow! It’s probably this big, not less…”
Along with these words, his fishing “disease” further expanded.
“Yeah, looks like an old cat-fish,” Vano nodded, diligently expressing an awakened interest of an amateur fisherman.
“A cat-fish?! Wow! Yet, have you really seen it?! There is a whole shoal of them here! It’s dragged such a rod away, skunk!”
“Well, this cat-fish weighs something around sixty kilos,” the fishing-mate stirred up the passion and started plying the oars. “My spinning rod definitely won’t help us to cope with them.”
“Yeah,” Victor agreed, secretly being happy that their boat was rapidly moving away from the place of his recent “joy” which had ended with a total horror for him. “We need a stronger fishing-line, and bigger hooks…”
Evidently, the experienced fear caused Victor’s continuous verbal outpouring. On the move, he began to contrive fabulous methods of catching those huge fish.
Still, the most interesting the situation appeared for the rest of the company who were waiting for the two unlucky fishermen on the bank. Having dropped their rods, the other guys perplexedly witnessed Victor’s unbelievable overboard acrobatics and the next happy “rescue of the drowned man” scene which was immediately followed with the high-speed rowing towards the bank. Having felt himself on the ground, Victor finally grew bolder. He started excitedly telling the others about his nearly lucky catch as well as about his heroic fight with the river monsters in the water where he had almost seized the huge fish by the tail… As everyone knows, the biggest fish caught is always the one which certainly gets away from the hook at a crucial moment of a fight.
The flaming fishing and hunting passion spread among the others, being stirred up by Vano a great deal. Everybody started strenuously getting ready for the trophies capture. Some brought huge hooks, some got capron lines… Someone warned that it was better not to go into the water, for he had heard a tragic story about some enormous cat-fish which had swallowed a whole god, and that there were also cannibal cat-fish. Then, a whole serial of various “reliable” cases followed. After all the thriller stories, the guys began to construct “a super-tackle”, a single one for everybody by the way.
Vano morally supported their fishing initiative as he should, but didn’t take any active part in the “project” implementation. He kindly put his boat at disposal of the enthusiasts, and joined Sensei and Nikolai Andreevich who were peacefully sitting far from the entire fuss, on their favorite snag.
“What is this panic all about?” Sensei interested.
“Well,” Father John waved his hand, “your Susanin has played an amphibian. He and his friend have put on aqualungs and are pulling our leg.”
“A-а-аh… This guy is capable of anything like this… As a matter of fact, fishing is a very useful thing… especially for developing one’s imagination.”
They laughed looking at the guys on the bank. By that time, Eugene and Stas had already approached the group as if nothing had happened. They actively joined the general fuss, pouring oil on the flames with passionate speeches and intensive gesticulation.
The “wonder-fish” catching lasted for about three hours. The guys thoroughly furrowed the river space by turns, trying to find Victor’s “valuable take”. In the end, fairly having fagged out their vigor and overstrained their nerved, they all got tired and almost lost hope of catching anything at all.
In the afternoon, the “wonder-fish” secret got disclosed in a very trite way. And the main thing was that it was disclosed by the inimitable humorist who had been the one to make the others swear of non-disclosure of this, nearly “government level” secret… At first, everything went right according to the plan. Eugene even decided to demonstrate courage and heroism of a fearless swimmer in front of the gazing fishermen. The water had already got warmed enough, but nobody really hurried to get into it after all those thriller stories. Only Eugene indulged in swimming with pleasure, diving like a duck in various places in quest of big cat-fish.
Suddenly, being at the deepest part of the river, the guy started to flounder desperately, as if he was drowning. First, everyone thought it was his next tomfoolery. Yet, such of his actions were usually followed with some comic speech declaring all the “heroic merits” of his, whereas now he was speechlessly floundering, disappearing under the water from time to time. Stas was the first one to rush to his help. Bogdan and Svat jumped into the water right after him without hesitation. At that moment, Eugene had finally managed to free himself from something, and he started swimming towards the bank at such speed which probably exceeded the dreams of Olympic swimming champions. Like a shot from a gun, he got out of the water, turned round dread and began looking narrowly at the place where he had nearly drowned.
“What’s happened?” the guys asked, coming up running.
“Have the cat-fished attacked?!” agitated Victor tried to elicit.
“There’s no cat-fish!” Eugene began to jabber very seriously. “Stas and I, we’ve played a trick on you with the cat-fish. But now somebody has been really pulling me to the depth. It’s something very strong and shaggy! It’s a total horror! It’s still giving me the shivers. I’ve released one foot, but it grasped me by the other one with its claw! I wanted to dive under it, but it’s sooooooo huge…”
Sensei who was just passing by the group, stopped, listened to their conversation for a while and looked at the place showed by Eugene on the water. Then he glanced at each of the present, smiled and went his way to get extra hooks.
The crowd was listening to Eugene’s words with distrust when suddenly he fell into a silent stupor. His fastened his eyes upon the water. Everybody looked in that direction, too. Rising from the abyss, there appeared an odd monster overgrown with long slime. It slowly started approaching the bank. The people were standing motionless: some couldn’t move because of interest, some – because of a natural weakness. While the “monster” was gradually showing its human body from the water, and its upper part was clearing from slime, the dead-stopped guys began to give signs of life. In the end, the object of Eugene’s enormous fear became completely transformed into Vano who shook off the last “flock” of slime, dipped into the water and walked to the bank with his customary gap-toothed smile, sleeking his hair with his hands.
“Well, how is the cat-fish?” he teased Eugene archly, and the entire crowd rolled with laughter.
After this incident, nobody was afraid of entering the water any more. The guys were heavily splashing in the river, having thoroughly scared away even the smallest fish. Vano was actively stirring up all that chaotic young enthusiasm with an interminable stream of jokes. He impressed Eugene so much that the latter became friends with him and discovered him as an irreplaceable mate for his “funny affairs” without even noticing it. Almost everyone abandoned fishing and devoted themselves to full-blooded rest. Only Sensei was still sitting on the bank with his rod, as a faithful fisherman. Vano and Eugene could stand it no longer, pointedly swam up to Sensei’s rod and started to tug by the fishing-line one after another, imitating a mighty bite. Sensei tolerated their mockery for a while and then he gave in and said with a smile, “If fishing wasn’t so calming, I would “drown” you both long ago, crucians.”
Eugene cried out optimistically in response, “Fish does not drown in the water!”
And Vano teased Eugene right on the spot, “Hey, you, amphibian! Haven’t you confused something about what does not drown in the water?”
Hilarious laughter resounded above the river again.
* * *
When the group blissfully stretched themselves out in the sun after their “water treatment”, Volodya took a seat near Sensei.“Nothing?” he pointed to the fishing float.
“Nothing,” Sensei answered with a slight sadness.
“You’d better abandon this hopeless occupation,” Volodya advised with a smile. “I believe no decent fish has ever been found here.”
“E-e-eh, no…” Sensei drawled persistently, but then added after a pause, grinning, “Do you know a folk fishing token? ‘Good biting comes either before you start fishing or after you’ve already made off’.”
“Exactly! So, you better make off, as those “most honest” fishing folks recommend”, Volodya proposed with a laughter.
Sensei supported his joke, “Are you delicately hinting at the “law of nature” under which honest people cannot be good fishermen?”
They both laughed, recalling the widespread fishing tale.
“I’d like to catch at least a single decent one. With such ones,” Sensei pointed at his bottle with several little herrings peacefully swimming inside, “my cat won’t even let me in the door”.
Volodya grinned again and looked towards the forest. Valera came out of it and walked to the camp, dragging along a dry tree trunk.
“Oh, Valera… dragging another log…”
Sensei turned round.
“Fine fellow. He is stocking firewood for tonight, in contrast to others,” he looked at Volodya unambiguously, and then uttered, “including myself”.
“I’ve proposed him to go swimming, but he keeps holding himself aloof from the group.”
“The feels shy. He’s in a new company for the first time. He knows nobody here, except you.”
“It’s true,” Volodya said in a bass voice. “By the way, I wanted to talk with you about him. He’s a good guy, although he’s got quite a hard destiny. He needs help in order not to get into trouble again… We were friends since childhood. He’s my neighbor. We used to attend gym together, and hung out in the same street company… His parents works in the North while Valera was brought up by his grandmother. She’s a really nice woman. Well, when his parents came back to live with him, Valera turned fourteen. And then his “merry life” started. His father started drinking alcohol and beating his mother. She wouldn’t wait long, divorced him and married another man. Yet, her second husband proved to be not better than Valera’s father, and brawls in the family became even more frequent and worse. Valera became very irritable, for reason or without it. For the first time he went to jail by total foolishness. He had then just turned eighteen. A month before he was supposed to go to the military service, he thrashed a man in a street fight. They imprisoned him for a year, after which he was released. He tried to find job, but no one would hire him. Moreover, his stepfather was nagging him with claims that he didn’t want to support a criminal at his expense. To cut a long story short, he had no money, but wanted to have many things like most young people. Well, as a result, he got imprisoned for another three years, this time for a robbery. When he returned from jail, the situation at home was as bad. He didn’t have any opportunity to rent an apartment, and so he got drawn into a gang again. He moved to an apartment in the neighboring district, married a nice girl, but less than in a year he got in trouble once more. They exposed him, fool, to a very serious crime, and he got into jail again... It’s good they’d condemned him to only five years. And, while he was imprisoned, his wife left him, and his parents died in a car accident. His granny was his only close relative remained, but she’s about eighty years old… He’s been released just recently and is still under criminal department control… So, he’s got a really tough life. But, in general, he’s a not a bad guy.”
“Indeed, not a bad guy… having three criminal records only,” Sensei grinned.
“You see, it’s just because he’s life turned the wrong way. I know him for so many years! I sent him letters to jail, to support him morally, so to say. We corresponded particularly frequently during the last four years. It would be good to settle him somewhere, so that he won’t break loose again… You see, he is a weak-willed, wavering guy…”
“Wavering, you say?!” Sensei grinned again and gazed at Volodya strangely.
The latter got confused.
“Well, what if he gets under somebody’s influence again or does something inappropriate…”
“All right, we’ll think something out.”
* * *
With the company’s bywords and jokes, the evening stealthily approached. Oleg and Stas started exercising. Such habit which had become a daily physiological need for many of the guys present contagiously affected the others. The guys from the special operations group practiced a slightly different training technique than Sensei’s disciples, which generated mutual interest of the two exercising parties. One word led to another, and the guys began to share their accumulated “military” and “civil” experience. Unnoticed, it came down to little sparring bouts.Meanwhile Father John, Sensei, Volodya and Nikolai Andreevich were still trying to fish, catching some tiny ones, which could be used “at least for a smell of fish-soup” as they said, and inconsolably waiting for bells jingle on the “track” which could signal of some big bite. Should they had been very old men, they would hardly be interested in anything except the fishing-rod and the fishing process itself. However, they still had young blood running in their veins, therefore they further more often cast glances at the sparring guys. Finally, Vano couldn’t resist such temptation any more, left his rod to Volodya’s charge and walked towards the fighters.