From the competition, they returned on this day in the evening. The driver of their horse carrier first drove two horses to a nearby stable not far from them, and then came for them and took them from Bitsa.
Getting stuck in Moscow traffic, they finally reached the hippodrome and unloaded their horses. Lyosha spent a lot of time with Badminton. He hosed his foot in the sink with cold water, then Petrovich gave him a stinking ointment, which he had brought from the vet infirmary, and Alyosha diligently rubbed this ointment into the inflamed joint of the horse. Having been finishing winding a bandage over a quilted leg wrap on Tokha's foot, he heard a noise. Several people entered the stable.
Mobsters - Lyoshka immediately recognized them, sitting on his haunches at the foot of a horse and winding the bandage. Although Badminton had only one sick leg, quilted leg wraps were wound on all four legs. That's what he was doing, thinking that these guys were their roof. Once Petrovich said so about the company of strange short-haired boys in leather jackets, sweatpants, and sneakers. They came occasionally to them at the stable. It seemed that their ringleader loved horses and even when he was not very drunk he rode them. Sometimes Alexey caught this company. And now they, loudly talking and swearing, walked along the stable aisle passing by him and Badminton standing in cross ties in the middle of the aisle and entered Petrovich’s room.
Lyosha understood why they came here today, they came to have a drink. That is how thick Masha used to say about it, cooking pasta with stew on the stove at the request of Petrovich and warming a teapot for them. Makha herself was always glad to see such guests, she made eyes and obviously flirted with all these sporty-looking guys, but they just laughed and called her Thumbelina. But Masha hoped every time that she would pick up one of the brothers and would have an amorous relationship with him. Alexey had heard all this from her in her sentimental stories, although he vaguely imagined how to flirt with someone and what that meant in general.
When the whole noisy company finally closed the door in Petrovich’s room behind her, Mashka sat down next to Lyosha and, watching his diligent efforts to wind the bandage around Tokha’s leg.
"They came to booze up ..." She said. "I’ve seen there a rather tall, with broad shoulders, in a tracksuit ... he is a newcomer, I’ve already learned, his name is Sanya. I liked him, Lyoshka ... and it seems he likes me too." Masha straightened out a washed-up faded blouse, which covered her curvaceous forms. "I’ll flirt with him... And we will leave here ... We will go to Paris. There, they say, life is different ... Well, am I worse than skinny Parisian women? And I have to be happy. Isn't that right, Lyokha?"
Alyosha nodded in agreement, vaguely imagining Paris and fat Makha there ... and amorous relationship. Masha was not embarrassed by his childishly naive view on her reasoning; she sighed languidly again and continued.
"Do not think, Lyokha, I was thin, like you, skinny as a worm... and then, after the abortion, which I made from this freak ... and began to drink pills, and now ... But nothing, I’ve decided to stop fressing after the New Year and by the summer I will have lost weight. Why are you laughing? I bet you - I will lose weight."
"Well, I am laughing not at this ... I believe that you will lose weight ... I just cannot imagine you like a worm..."
"When I was young ... like you. I was quite thin."
"Are you old now?" Lyosha even turned away from bandaging the horse's legs and looked at Makha's puffy pimply cheeks.
"Of course, the old ... no, rather I'm an adult. I'm already twenty!" Masha snorted, but then her gaze began again thoughtfully-languid. “Although, of course, I don’t really like this Sanya ... I like Nazar ... but will he look at me like that ..."
Mashka again adjusted her blouse, which ugly covered her sides with fat folds and, standing up, went to the storeroom to put a pan of water, knowing that Petrovich would call her and give the command to cook pasta or buckwheat with stew. Judging by the number of packages in the hands of the mobsters, they came here having solidly laid in stocks and apparently wanted to carouse here all night.
Putting a saucepan with water on the fire, Masha thought about Nazar. He was for her as a prince from a fairy tale on a white horse. Yes, he was exactly on the horse. After all, he came here to ride horses, and therefore he was the most fantastic prince: handsome, stately, with dark hair whirlwinds at the crown and shaved to zero at the neck, with crazy wolfish eyes, with yellow lights, eyes and a smile from which it was getting scary. But still, Masha dreamed about him. He was for her the unrealizable ideal of the man of her dreams.
"Mashka," Petrovich's voice came from the storeroom, "come to take the bags of food ... Make the buckwheat for the boys and cut vegetables, they are hungry. And where is Lyokha?"
"Well, he is busy with his ... bandaging his legs," taking the bag of products from Sanya’s hands, Masha dazzlingly smiled at him, showing with all her appearance that she was ready for everything.
"Tell Lyokha, let him saddle Amethyst ... Mitya. Nazar wants to ride."
Petrovich finally gave to Mashka all the packages with food and pushed her out of the caster.
"Lyokha!" Carrying food into the nook of their mini-kitchen, Mashka screamed at the whole stable. "Saddle Mitya. Nazar wants to ride."
Alex quickly finished messing around with wrapping bandages on Badminton's legs and brought him into a loose box. The boy led Ametist into the aisle of the stable placing him there and fastening him from two sides with ropes, which were fixed to the walls of the passage so that the horse stood in the middle of this passage. He began to clean it quickly. Then he ran for the saddle and bridle into the tack room. Then he climbed into the attic, where the washed numnahs were drying, and, choosing a newer one, which Petrovich allowed taking when he saddled a horse for Nazar, put the numnah on the horseback. Then he put the saddle on top and pulled with the girth, though not in full force. It was necessary to cinch the girth already in the street, but not in a stable. On Amethyst's front legs, he put on the best and the only more or less “unworn” boots allotted to all horses, which were used only at competitions or for such elite clients. The boots were tightly wrapped around the low part of horse front legs, protecting them from strikes and injuries during the gallop.
Lyosha, standing next to Amethyst, unfastened the ropes holding him in the middle of the aisle, and threw the reins of the bridle around his neck, then removed the halter from the horse muzzle and put on the bridle. Frankly speaking, Mitya was a little malicious. He began to turn his face, trying to lift it as high as possible, so that Alyosha could not shove a bit into his clenched teeth. But Lyosha wasn’t afraid of such tricks. He knew what to do, so he confidently grabbed the horse nose and, squeezing it a little, pulled down and there with his other hand, raising the snaffle to Amethyst’s lips, made him take the iron in his mouth, and the rest was paperwork. He put the bridle on the horse muzzle and fastened the throat patch.
Alexey, without waiting for Petrovich’s order, led the horse out of the stable and began to walk it along the parade-ground, walking next to it and holding it for reins. Fifteen minutes later, Nazar came out of the stable. By his vacillating steps, it was obvious that they had already had a drink there, in the storeroom, and more than once, but this usually did not prevent Nazar from famously riding a horse.
Nazar focused his eyes and saw that his Amethyst, on which he usually ripped up in a racing circle, was walked by a thin lass with a tail sticking out from under her cap.
"Hey, belle!" Nazar waved to Lyokha, "lead the dray-horse here!"
Alexey started at the hail, but since he was regularly mistaken for a girl because of a ponytail hair hanging from under the cap, he didn’t even object to this and, in general, with this company of mobsters, as Petrovich told them, it was better to be silent otherwise you would have to pay with your life...
Lyosha didn’t understand that, but it was not interesting for him either. His was none of his business, he had to saddle the horse and bring it, and then pick it up after Nazar had ridden enough. He had to take the horse afterward to the stable, straddle, clean, wash the horse's legs from the dirt and put it back in the stall.
That's how Alexey always did when these guys came, and Petrovich told him to saddle some of the horses for Nazar.
Nazar waited for a horse to be brought. He saw the lass puffing up tightened the girths on the horse belly and, going around the horse, held the stirrup on the other side so that he, climbing on him, did not pull the saddle over.
Nazar patted the horse neck, breathed in the smell of horse sweat and dung, which he had liked so much since childhood, and putting his foot in the stirrup, famously jumped into the saddle. The girl, taking the horse by the stirrup and seeing that he was already in the saddle, let him go and looked up, to make sure that he was holding the reins to unclench her hand, with which she was also holding these reins.
"Let go." Nazar drew reins, looking at the eyes looking from under the cap to his eyes and froze, forgetting what he wanted to say...
From under this cap, the surprisingly serious sky-blue eyes, which resembled the morning sky, looked at him...
Inside him, something painfully clenched, and his heart sank...
But it was only a second. The cap visor again hid her eyes. Making sure that the rider was holding reins she began to move away, only the tail of hair, protruding behind from the cap, was swaying in rhythm to her movement.
Nazar rubbed his face with his hand, as if trying to get rid of this strange obsession, although it is not an obsession. He did not know himself what it was.
“I need to stop drinking so much,” flashed through his mind. He happily fastened upon this idea, which rationally explained everything that seemed strange, but now so explicable that he had felt at that second, seeing these eyes.
Nazar squeezed the sides of the horse and, at a frisky trot, immediately jumped on it towards the race circle, knowing that it was impossible to trot on the asphalt, but now he needed to get away from what he still could not explain to himself.
The horse felt the rider's mood, and only restraining reins did not allow him to gain speed right off the run, but when they reached the sandy circle, Amethyst felt freedom and such an energetic push of the rider’s legs on his sides that he rushed right off the bat.
And Nazar forgot everything as soon as an avalanche of air stormed into his lungs, as soon as space merged into a single stream, and a hum from the sound of hooves sounded in his ears, merging with the sound of his heart.
How he loved this freedom, how he loved this flight, this air, this sky above his head and the wings that grew from him as soon as the steed carried him, picking up speed.
Soon they returned to the stable. Nazar knew that all these horses he rode were not so young and not so healthy, and therefore a long gallop was difficult for them. He loved horses and protected them. And no matter how much he wanted to ride longer and faster, he understood that he had to take pity on his horse, and then he did him into a trot, and then into a step and with regret that his flight finished so quickly, he returned to the stable.
Coming inside and leading the horse by the bridle, he again saw her, the same girl in a cap and with such eyes. She also saw them entering, quickly walked to him, without raising her head, picked up the reins, leading the horse to unsaddle. At first, Nazar wanted to talk but then decided to ask Petrovich about her. Although it was strange, he seemed to have seen her here before. Nazar strained his memory, yes, he saw. All these two years that he had been coming here to ride, and they had been patronizing the hippodrome, he saw her at the stable. Yes, only this cap, always hiding the face, and she always tried to avoid them all herself. Messing around with horses, she was either sitting at their legs, smearing or bandaging something, or removing manure wheelbarrows, or sweeping the stable. Now Nazar recalled all the moments when he had seen her. Therefore, it was not surprising that he did not notice her: she was skinny and the clothes on her were not attractive, she dressed like a boy, training pants always stretched on her knees and this cap. There was only a hair tail behind. And two years ago she was shorter, but now she grew.
Thinking about this strange girl with the eyes of the morning sky, Nazar returned to the table in the storeroom. There was booze already in full swing. He was quickly organized a bowl of hot buckwheat with stew and poured a full glass of vodka, which he drank in one gulp.
"Petrovich," Nazar turned his gaze to the drunken Petrovich, "let's invite your wards to the table, but somehow it’s not in a human way. As if we are fattening here, and they are sweating their guts out there in the stable, sort of like they are nonhumans or something."
“But whom to invite ... there are more children ... kids."
"So, all the more they need to be fed. Well, lads, move over!"
The guys at the table vigorously supported the initiative to feed everyone who was in the stable. Petrovich did not object, he looked out from behind the door and, already a little bit hoarse voice with drunk vodka, he called Masha and the girls, who had not yet gone home, but were busy with the horses, and said that Lyokha should be taken with them.
When a noisy company of giggling girls settled at the table and, without complexing, began to put food on their plates, Nazar finally saw her, the same one, in a cap, with a tail. She modestly snuggled up at the very corner of the table and, bowing her head, covering her face with a visor cap, ate buckwheat. Judging by the rate of disappearance of the one from her plate, it was obvious that she was hungry. Nazar felt somehow sad about it. How many times they feasted on here, and only now it occurred to him that not everyone lived as well as they did.
"You know, Nazar," Petrovich raised a filled glass, “I wanted to have a drink for my student, for Lyokha — Aleksey, what is his patronymic... Aleksey Ivanovich Krylov.You see, we went to the competitions today. He jumped on my Tokha and would have leaped ... but only Tocha ... Badminton pulled his leg at the last obstacle. And Alyosha has withdrawn from the competition... But the other would not feel sorry for the horse and would have won ... and Lyokha ... he took sorry... But I do know that he will win when he has a horse, not these hired nags, but a good, real, athletic one. He will definitely win..."
The mobsters were all noisy at once, impressed with such a story. Some began to congratulate Petrovich that he had raised this not only an athlete but a lad, while others began to demand Lyokha to drink with him.
"One cannot drink with him ... he is still small ... sixteen only to him," drunken Petrovich said stammering.
"So, at least can we congratulate such an athlete?" Several guys asked at once.
"Why, here he is ... Lyokh, you at least lift your head."
Alexey reluctantly raised his head. More than anything, he did not like attention to himself. Now he felt his ears and cheeks were burning, and even his appetite immediately disappeared, although he had eaten that day only late at night at his grandmother's house.
Lyosha looked around uptight and stumbled upon Nazar's sight. Today it was the second time when their eyes met. Then the first time when he raised his head, standing down beside Nazar's horse, he saw eyes looking at him, in which yellow sparks flashed, and then something strange made him blush and drop his eyes. Well, then Nazar quickly left, and he, going to the stable and shoveling manure in the stall, tried not to think about what he had felt ... although he could not understand it. And now he again came across these eyes, and again he saw strange yellow lights in them, and again something inside him hooted as if his heart began to beat stronger...
Lyosha quickly looked away and nervously squeezed the fork in his hand.
"Well, you really embarrassed the guy. He didn’t get used to fame, and he doesn’t need it." Petrovich, in his own way, regarded Alexey’s burning cheeks."You’d better give him food."
The guys again all shouted all at once, but gradually conversations from Alexey’s success in equestrian sports turned to the general themes of the stable, and then to the problem of already drunk vodka.
"Makha, bring vodka." Petrovich waved his hand towards Masha, who all this time languidly looked at Sanya and made strange grimaces for him, probably in her understanding, which should attract his attention to her.
"I’ll bring it, I have already eaten all.." Alexey said said, getting up and quickly leaving the storeroom. After this gaze of Nazar, he felt as on pins and needles and was only looking for an excuse to get out of here.
Lyosha quickly went up to the refrigerator, an old ZIL, given away by someone for their stable, lonely standing in the aisle and eternally bristling with parts of equestrian ammunition and flyblown all over its once white door with an almost broken huge handle. Opening it, he began to pick off the freezer, which again had frozen because of the large amount of ice on its sides. Naturally, no one's hands had ever reached to defrost this refrigerator, and therefore it was necessary to open this freezer in it literally with a fight every time. Well, a broken hoof hook lay on the fridge, which usually was used to scrape dirt, sand, and earth from the hooves of a horse. Alexey used this hook, deftly hobbled the frozen door, and gently pulled it towards himself, fearing that it would crack from such pressure. The door gave way, in the depths of the freezer there lay bottles with labels from which a white eagle looked at him. Lyosha, taking out one of the bottles, admired this eagle, it was so beautifully painted on it.
"Do you want to drink?"
Hearing these words behind his back, Alexey startled in surprise and quickly turned around. The bottle covered with frost began to slip out of his hands, feeling it, he rushed after it and ran into other hands...
Nazar deftly intercepted the falling bottle and froze, looking at him.
For the third time today, Lyosha caught his breath from his gaze into those eyes. And now, when they were so close, and another's hand, which lay on top of his, and Alyosha felt its fever or it was because he was still holding a frozen bottle of vodka, and therefore Nazar’s hot hand burned him in a counterbalance hoar frost on glass with a white eagle.
"I’ve been looking at the eagle ... it is beautiful ..." Lyosha felt that having said this on the exhalation of air from the lungs, he could not breathe, but simply stood and did not breathe.
"It takes you forever to do the simplest of errands... the guys have already waited." Giving his voice a cold, Nazar spoke evil, still feeling his hot hand under his arm ... or this cold flowed with hoarfrost created such a strange contrast ...
"The freezer froze ... that's why it took so long ..." Lyosha whispered on the rest of the air in the lungs.
Nazar's cold voice finally kept him off a precarious balance, and now he no longer knew what to do. He only tentatively pulled his hand toward himself, seeing the yellow lights light up in those eyes, like a predator's. Yes, just like that, he had seen those eyes in a zoo at a wolf ... but only that was strange, he was not afraid of those eyes now. He just did not know what to do. Finally, his hand was freed from Nazar’s hand, and Alexey, having gained freedom, stepped back half a step, slamming himself into the refrigerator.
Nazar saw the guy slamming his back against the refrigerator, shying away from him, and now he stood still, realizing that he was trapped. He stared at him again. Now he did not doubt that this was a guy. The face was still quite boyish and these eyes, even with the dim light of the bulbs in the stable, they still remained as clear as the sky. A face like a face, even a mustache wasn’t cut through, Nazar recalled that the guy is only sixteen. That’s why the skin was so tender and light, and his cheeks were so flushed with a blush, well, just like that of a fair maiden. He grinned at this comparison and looked at his lips, the usual ... Although not, as if they were circled a little brighter around the contour because of this, they looked expressive, while they were not plump, but some neat ... seductive.
Nazar quickly looked away at the shoulders and the general view of this Lyosha standing before him. He was a thin, bony teen goner. He was poorly dressed, everything was well-worn, faded, the neck was thin and there were prominent clavicles in the undershirt collar.
"Can I go?…"
Nazar flinched from his voice and tore his eyes away from the contemplation of these clavicles.
"Get out from here."
He abruptly turned away from the guy and quickly returned to the storeroom. Alyosha finally sighed, feeling that he had almost lost consciousness from the lack of air in his lungs, and flinched again, hearing the footsteps echoing along the aisle. Turning his head, he saw Yefim, it was Nazar's friend, so he knew him too. They always came together, but today, obviously, Yefim was somewhere got tired and just now came to the storeroom to join their company.
Passing past Lyoshka, who was stark in the open refrigerator, Yefim threw at him only one glance, from which Aleksey covered himself with cold sweat and again forgot to breathe. But Yefim simply passed and, entering the storeroom, closed the door behind him, and immediately cheers came from there.
These cries and noise brought Lesha back to life. He finally detached from the refrigerator and closed the freezer first, strongly pressing its door into the protruding ice, and then the refrigerator itself. Yefim always scared him with his menacing look, always unshaven with three-day stubble. He was older than Nazar, but for some reason, Nazar was the main one, although he was twenty-five, and Yefim was only in the role of his assistant. Although it didn't matter for Lyosha, in general, he tried to stay out of sight all this time, but that day was clearly not his day.
He walked quickly down the aisle to the exit and turned around to the next wave of noise coming from the storeroom. A strange thought flashed through his head that Yefim could see him and Nazar, facing each other. After all, this refrigerator was perfectly visible from the passage of the stable. For some reason, this thought scared Lyosha. Although he could not understand, why? After all, he just took out the vodka, and Nazar took it away and carried it away ... But somehow he felt like a deceiver, with himself. Although again it was strange ... so what if Nazar had been standing and holding his hand. Well, he did not hold it, but it just happened...
But Yefim, if he saw it, what would he think about it? Alyosha again tried to drive away from himself these thoughts, which were so strange and incomprehensible to him. He could not understand at all why he was so disgraced because of all this. It seemed they had been just standing, only talking ... But why it was so difficult, as he wanted to assure himself.
In order not to exhaust himself completely with these incomprehensible thoughts into which he was plunging, he took a manure wheelbarrow, manure pitchfork and went to the stall of the Bystryi, having decided that cleaning manure in the loose boxes before evening feeding of horses would do him good.
***
For the rest of the evening, Nazar was drinking and listening to the conversations of the guys with half an ear. For some reason, his thoughts were far from everything at the table. Even the arrival of his chum Yefim did not return him to reality. And why had he only gone for this vodka? But he did not know ... But when he saw that Lyosha got up from the table and left, he, after waiting a couple of minutes, went out after him. Then everything went somehow wrong ... wrong ... not in a boy's way. Nazar felt that it was nastily in his soul. But why? Did he scare the boy with his appearance? Well, of course, scared, he almost knocked over the little fridge. Although did he really scare ... These eyes, when the boy looked at him, there was no fear, there was misunderstanding and probably the question what it was... Only he himself could not say what it was ... Bad thoughts arose in his head and made him squirm. Well, he had never felt anything of the kind for any girl ... and here the boy... Nazar felt an abomination and self-loathing, from the fact that he had thought about it and realized. But then he remembered how much he had already drunk. Obviously, it was necessary to finish with a drink. He looked angrily at the practically empty bottle of vodka on the table with the label from which the eagle was looking at him. In his ears, it sounded, “I’ve been looking at the eagle ... it is beautiful ...” and these eyes, so clean, childish and attentively alert.
"Enough!" Nazar slammed his fist on the table. The guys at once all fell silent. Yefim, who was watching him closely all night, continued to scan him with his eyes.
Seeing that he had attracted attention and now he needed to do something about it, Nazar pulled Petrovich across the table, grabbing him by his clothes.
"Why do you keep faggots in your stable?"
From such Nazar’s assault, Petrovich even sobered up.
"Which faggots?" he looked at Nazar, frightened, and hung above the table.
"And who is the one with the tail?"
Nazar let go of his hand, and Petrovich, by inertia, returned to his chair. He quickly went over in his mind all the girls who were wearing tails ... and then he remembered what Nazar had said about the faggot that meant it should be a fag...
"No, I don’t have such," answered Petrovich sincerely, looking frightened at Nazar.
"Do you protect him? Maybe you are also one of these? And here we are sitting at the same table! And you also put this gay to us at the table today, but you know what happens in this..."
Nazar, flushed with his own speech, rushed to Petrovich. Well, Yefim intercepted him in time.
"Quiet! Listen, slow down the momentum." Yefim, as usually, spoke in a deaf, hoarse voice, so that goosebumps ran through the skin. "Petrovich, the boy with a tail at your stable. Who is he?"
"o this is Lyokha ... my athlete," Petrovich even cheered up, realizing who Nazar was talking about, and then fear flashed again in his eyes. "Come on, Nazar, have you really thought ... yes, he is not one of these ... I swear to God!”
Petrovich abruptly stood up and, in the ecstasy of faith, mixed with a drunken rage, broke off the shirt collar on his chest, took out a chain with a cross and pressed his lips to the cross.
"You see, Nazar ... the man swore on the cross. You sit down, do not get excited ... let's talk to him and see."
Nazar abruptly pushed away Yefim’s hands and sat back in his chair, gleaming evilly with his eyes.
"And what is he then like a woman with long hair walking around?" intervened in the conversation one of the brothers and overturned already heated glass of vodka into his mouth.
"Well, I don’t know ... I don’t care ... he works well, he is responsible, he does everything, he mucks out the loose boxes, he exercises horses and he has a talent ... he feels the horse ... he jumps well ... if he had a good horse, we would ..."
It was clear that Petrovich was already falling into a drunken state, when his thoughts were far from a rational story, much less a dialogue.
"Petrovich! Hear?!" Yefim grabbed the front of Petrovich’s shirt and shook him. "He must not appear like that anymore here. Since he is not a faggot, let him have his hair cut. Did you understand me?!"
"I understand ... I understand..."
Drunkenly hiccupping, said Petrovich, and reached for a glass of vodka, being already tired of this conversation.
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