Having done his homework, Lyosha quickly cleaned up the flat and fed his grandmother dinner. While she was eating, he was peeling potatoes in the sink, recalling today's training. The way he made a mistake by driving Vienna to the barrier, but he cut the angle, and because of this she grazed the pole with the croup, and it fell. That was his mistake. He always analyzed his training and what he was doing right and what not. In his mind, he was restoring a picture of his movement and now he understood that he should not cut this corner. It was necessary to do a couple of paces, and only then to turn and direct to the barrier...
The doorbell rang. Thinking about the jump, he reflexively reached the door, and quickly wiping his hands on the old T-shirt, worn over the same old training ones, opened the door.
Mobsters came inside the flat, talking noisily and watching him retreat deep into the corridor. There were about five of them, Yefim followed them and then Nazar.
Alexey was standing and looking at them. He was not scared, he was not here at all. He had been riding on Vienna a second ago, and his thoughts were there, on horseback...
“Well, what, will you return the loot or how?” asked one of them.
“What?” Lyosha really did not quite understand what all these people wanted from him.
“Return the dough, a sheared freak. That's what!”
In the corridor, they heard footsteps and, leaning on a stick, grandmother came out of the kitchen at the sound of voices.
“Lyosha, who are they?”
“Grandma, I need to talk, let me bring you to your room,” Alyosha quickly intercepted his grandmother, who had not yet been able to see everyone standing in the hallway since it was dark and she forgot her glasses in the kitchen. He quickly turned her around and led her into the room.
“Did you take the medicine?” he asked.
“I forgot. They are there, on the table, in the kitchen.”
“I'll bring them to you now.”
Alyosha brought the grandmother to the chair in her room and, sitting down, quickly rushed to the kitchen.
There, Nazar and Yefim were already sitting on stools, and two more mobs were standing, propping up the wall and the refrigerator. Apparently, the rest did not go inside and left.
Alexey squeezed between them, poured water from a carafe and chose pills from a basket with tubes and tablet that his grandmother had to take in the evening. He, taking them, just silently went out.
When he returned, they all were sitting silently, waiting for him.
“Sit down,” Yefim kicked another stool in the direction of Alyosha.
He silently sat on it.
“I have no money,” he finally said, “maybe only after the New Year...”
“And where do you spend all the money?” The guy standing by the fridge aggressively twitched his broad shoulders.
Alexey was silent, looking at the floor, realizing that he had nothing to answer.
Yefim reached for the door of the refrigerator, opened it. There was a lonely pot of soup, a faded carrot and that was all. In the freezer, opening it, they saw four cutlets. There was nothing else in the fridge. Half a loaf of black bread lay on the table. Yefim got up and began to open the lockers. He did not find food anywhere else, only in the sink there were potatoes unpeeled by Lyosha.
“And where are the parents?” He asked.
Seeing that the guy was stubbornly silent, like a partisan, Yefim took a pack of recipes and quickly revised them, putting them on the table in front of Nazar, who was carefully watching everything.
“If you do not speak, then we will go and talk with grandmother.”
Alexey ran to the exit from the kitchen and closed the aisle.
“Not! She mustn't worry.”
“Then sit down and answer questions!” Yefim again pushed a standing stool with his foot.
Alex sat down on it and nervously squeezed his fingers.
“My mother divorced my father ... for a long time, I don’t remember him, and she married a Finn four years ago and left.”
“Do you live with your grandmother?”
Alexey nodded, continuing to squeeze the fingers.
“Does your mother help with money?”
“Not. She can’t. She does not work, and Finn does not give her money.”
“Do you live on a pension?”
“Yes. But the grandmother used to work, and then...”
“What happened?” Yefim kept looking at the guy with his piercing gaze, from which goose bumps ran through Lyosha's body.
“Grandma was hit on the head, and all the money was taken away. And now she can’t earn money. But Petrovich began to pay me interest for rent and gave me the other two horses for private work. However, grandmother's medicines are expensive, but for the current month, we’ve sort of bought everything...”
Alexey was silent, not knowing what else to say. Yefim looked at Nazar, who absently went through sheets of recipes on the table.
“Here, take it.”
Yefim pulled out a wad of money from his pocket, the so-called "a roll" (a roll of bills). The money was pulled with a rubber band, and taking out a dozen bills from there, put them on the table.
Alexey jumped up in horror and slammed himself into the cooker standing behind him.
“I will not take! Not! I can never return such money.”
“You can. You will return, you will grow up, you will begin to work, then you will give. Now take it or I will give it to your grandmother.”
“Will you again turn on the meter for this money?”
“Not. It is just debt.”
Yefim got up, Nazar followed him, and they silently left the kitchen. Two mobs followed them. Alexey heard the door slam and there was silence after their departure.
***
Coming out of the doorway, stinking with cat urine, and breathing the frosty air, Yefim lit a cigarette.
“I have two guys growing up. You never know what happens in life. Let them also be helped, if anything,” looking at the lantern and falling snowflakes in the light of it, Yefim once again puffed on a cigarette.
“Forget about this debt,” Nazar glanced in the direction of the mob, “how hasn’t he bitten the dust yet?”
“That’s why he’s so skinny ... Petrovich should be told to give him a side job more often.”
They were not allowed to finish the speech. A ringing phone was brought from the car, and Nazar picked up the phone. After listening, he looked at Yefim.
“They grabbed her. Now we will wait for this snickering party leader to bend under us.”
Discussing this topic, they got into their cars. They did not want to go back to the wenches in the bathhouse. Nazar said to bring him to the house of parents. Today he wanted to spend the night there. Not that he longed to see his father and mother, who now, without understanding his son, became distant and alien to him. Just now he did not want to go to Yefim. After all, he had seen in this flat, he wanted to be alone, in silence, with his thoughts and with that what was inside him.
***
Mom, opening the door and seeing her son, was delighted at first, but then gave her face a sense of indifference. Nazar, having said hello, went to his room. Father on his greeting had not even shifted gaze from the TV screen.
It was good that here, in this three-room apartment, he had his own room, where he could, having shut the door, be cut off from the whole world.
He slowly looked around the room, which remained the room of the teenager, who he was before leaving for the army with still idealistic views on life, plans, and dreams.
Returning from the war a different person, he did not change anything here. Everything in it reminded him of what he was before: a naive kind boy, brought up with faith in a good and bright future.
He lost this belief in a brighter future immediately, as he first saw pieces of the bodies of those who had just recently been human. Not but that it embittered him, no. It was just then that he realized that he should build his bright future by himself, and not sit and wait for it to come. Otherwise, while he was waiting for this, another high-ranker would determine his life. The fact that somebody had the power of his life and death, and he was sent to his doom was a lesson. He remembered it forever, and now no one would ever decide for him how he would live. Now he would decide how others would live.
Nazar, without undressing, lay down on the bed and looked at the ceiling above him.
In his head, to the smallest details, pictures of what he had seen today surfaced. This piercing poverty and at the same time everything is clean, neat and so homely comfortable. These were neat curtains on the kitchen window, well-kept flowers, and neat stacks of dishes in the hanging shelves, a clean stove, and a cozy table with three stools. How terribly this all contrasted with the fact that these people simply had nothing to eat. There was little saucepan of soup and a dozen potatoes in the sink, and also bread so neatly lying in a wicker basket.
Yefim left them money. Nazar understood it was scary to imagine your own sons in the place of this Lyokha that was why Yefim helped.
Again, painfully ache inside, and the conscience, about which he had long forgotten, began to gnaw and eat away at him with strange thoughts. Why did he not give money? Because he was so, he was not accustomed to regretting. He was indifferent to everyone, and even more so to some boy who was nobody to him.
That evening he fell asleep, remembering this flat and him, frightened, but at the same time trying not to show his fear, sitting on a stool in sweatpants with stretched knees and a washed-up T-shirt. Now, with this haircut, he became different ... Nazar remembered his hair, how they glittered with gold in the light of the dim light bulb of that room, and how soft they were to the touch. He felt sorry that now it was no more...
So, unwittingly, he fell into a dream.
***
On the eve of the New Year holidays, everything changed in Moscow, became different, and people also changed. Now on their faces more often it was possible to meet carefree fun and smiles. They were in a hurry for gifts and planned with whom they would meet the upcoming ninety-fourth year.
Petrovich also changed. Probably, the upcoming holidays and, in connection with this, the good earnings, that celebrations gave, changed him. Instead of a sullen mood and eternal immersion in the problems of stable’s life, he became more affable and even joked and laughed during training.
This change in him was also reflected in the fact that now he either began to give Aleksey the opportunity to earn some extra money from rental or went to the city with Mashka to rent.
Tonight Alyosha and Masha were again standing near the door of the restaurant, waiting for the visitors to come out.
Mashka often smoked, cursed and flirted with all passers-by, offering them a cheap ride on a horse.
Lyosha was hard to overpower himself and offer a ride to people passing by him. Therefore, he stood silently, got cold, shifting from foot to foot, holding the motive of Vernissage, from whose nostrils poured steam.
Alexey did not like to do horse rental in the city, although it was profitable. And despite the fact that he needed money so much, he didn’t like it. It rejected his inner world, all his nature, everything that was in him. He was turned out from the very action. Standing and waiting for a client, he felt as if he was on the corner peddling ass. But the worst thing was that he understood that a horse that obediently obeyed a person should stand like this and wait when someone got into it in a drunken state.
For Alexei, there was a clear line between horse rental, training and city horse riding. He recognized only the training of those who came to really acquire knowledge and learn to ride. And it was unimportant that maybe this person was incapable and soon, realizing that it was hard work, left this venture. It did not matter for Lyosha. He selflessly shared his knowledge with those who wanted to gain it. He was not bothered by the fact that the newcomer had to repeat a hundred times to sit straight, not to fall forward with his shoulders and to hold his knee tighter.
Alyosha was happy when Petrovich gave him the opportunity to practice with such riders, he put his soul into them, sharing with them what he knew and could do himself.
Those who came just to ride, he also trained, but reluctantly and forcing himself to do it, not believing that Petrovich was correct. Alexey did not understand those people who treated the horse like a merry-go-round, used them just for riding and that was all. He was wild. After all, the horse is alive. After all, it has a soul, and it feels everything. So how can you ride on it, like on a mechanical carousel? These questions he could not answer.
But the most unacceptable for him was to go to the city with horses for riding. These city horse riding, as everyone called them, were inwardly so disgusting to him that every time he barely restrained himself when another drunk customer climbed onto his horse to show off on it in front of his lady. All of this looked ridiculous and stupid. But the drunken people did not understand this, considering themselves as dzhigits, since they mounted a horse, and the fact that they couldn’t even sit straight in the saddle didn’t worry them.
All this Alyosha had to watch every time, standing with a horse on the sidewalk and feeling that he was selling himself and his horse and that they shouldn’t be sold for money something that was a priceless gift from above. And people, having lost all values, decided that everything could be sold and bought.
That evening, Yefim gave him a lot of money, so much so that Lyosha had never seen such a sum before. He recounted it all and wrote down the exact amount for himself, knowing that as soon as he started earning enough money, he would immediately save this amount and give it to Yefim. Now the money was simply vital. The main part went on medicines for the next month, another part he allocated for food, having decided that it was necessary to buy something else besides potatoes and buckwheat with bread. He finally allowed himself to buy chicken legs, which for some reason everyone called “Bush’s Legs”, and carefully put them in the fridge. He also bought canned meat and canned fish, as well as cereals.
He hid the rest of the money, realizing that grandmother's illness could bring new spending on drugs. Therefore, even with a little money in reserve, he was very happy with the opportunity to earn extra money. Since he had no choice, he carried out the work that Petrovich gave him, and when he did not allow him to teach, he silently walked with fat Makha to the city.
This evening was very cold. His autumn boots, even when worn with two socks, were frozen; he no longer felt his cheeks and the tip of his nose, his face was partially stiff with frost. In contrast, Mashka felt excellent. Another person who wanted to ride, not only generously paid, he also gave Makha a bottle of brandy, and she sipped it with pleasure. Therefore, her cheeks turned pink, her eyes glittered with crazy lights, and she sang a song about the junior lieutenant, often repeating the verse:
"Junior lieutenant, young boy,
Everyone wants to dance with you,
If you knew female longing
On a strong shoulder ... "*
Especially impressively, she howled the last lines of the verse. Passersby turned to this, some offered to ease her melancholy to which she snapped without any malice. In such a “funny” way they had been spending the second hour already.
At the restaurant the cars stopped, out of them, judging by their appearance, mobsters got out. Yefim came out of the middle car, a little hesitantly, and Nazar followed him.
Makha, who had already been very tipsy, as the bottle of brandy almost came to an end, immediately recognized them and screamed at the full power of her lungs:
“Hey, lads! Is Sanya with you?! I am bored without him!”
And Mashka again loudly trolled the verse of the song.
Nazar turned his head to this singing, examining the riders and the horse standing on the road. A guy wrapped in a scarf with a raised collar seemed familiar to him. But when he heard Makha’s voice, he immediately realized that they were from Petrovich’s stable, and that meant that this frozen snowman was the very Alyosha...
“I'll be right here,” Nazar threw over his shoulder, turning to his lads.
Coming to the horse, which Lyosha was holding for the rein, he stretched out his hand, tucked in a glove, and patted it on the mane. A quick glance took Alexey. Seeing that he was not just cold, but had already chilled, he turned to Mashka.
“Take it,” he handed her several bills, “go back to the stable. Give money to Petrovich. Here is a normal salary for today. Do you understand? And now quickly go from here.”
Masha even sobered up when she saw how much money Nazar had given, they would not have earned so much in a week. She first wanted to answer, but then closed her mouth in time, because of all this company she was terrified of Nazar for his wolfish gaze. She could joke and flirt with other mobs, but noticing him she always fell silent and tried not to get caught sight at all.
Nazar went to the entrance of the restaurant, where people were waiting for him.
“Gave money them to leave?” Yefim asked him coming inside.
“Yes. It’s a pity for a horse, what a long time they keep a horse in the cold.”
Yefim did not continue this topic, switching the conversation to another one. And they had something to talk about. For the third day, the abducted Sarychev’ wife had already been sitting in the basement of an abandoned house. While they did not touch her, but Sarychev was in no hurry to rescue his missus. He fell silent and did not go to negotiate with them.
***
The winter, which had fully entered into its rights in the center of Moscow, was pleasing to the eye with snow-covered streets and colorful pre-holiday windows. But outside the city, winter was perceived differently. There was a serious frost, the breeze climbed under the clothes, and the snow crunched underfoot.
The shoot-out was assigned to the wasteland behind the warehouses. At this time it was deserted. Nazar knew that Sarychev was planning an ambush, and they had already figured out all his people, arranged in points. Nazar had his own plan, and he acted on it. Sarychev's wife was brought in another car. She was the guarantor of their lives.
Vladimir Leonidovich, without losing his composure at the sight of a woman, who had fallen into prostration from the whole over a week, handed over the signed papers to Nazar. Nazar’s lawyer long and carefully again rechecked them all, although some of the papers were signed and notarized at his presence, an extra check would not hurt.
There was such heat in the air that you brought a match, and everything would flare up from the tension between those who were standing opposite each other.
All this time, a pistol was attached to the temple of Sarychev's wife, which was the key to the life of everyone here.
When the lawyer, satisfied with the review of the papers, nodded to Nazar, he in a split second, drew his gun, discharged him into Sarychev standing opposite him.
Not letting anyone come to their senses, Nazar spoke loudly, raising one hand.
“Everyone is quiet! Now I own everything that Sarychev had, and all of you,” he showed his hand to the people standing in front of him with machine guns thrown up, “you work for me ... or you get shot in the forehead.”
With these words, pre-prepared searchlights blinded Sarychev’s people.
“And do not rely on those who were in ambush. They are dead,” Nazar said calmly. “So, either you work for me, or...”
After a second pause, they slowly lowered the machine guns.
“Very well,” seeing this, continued Nazar, “and now remember. I will double your salary, but if one of you goes to the cops to report on today ... he will not live to court.”
Seeing that the people in front of him realized the whole picture of what had happened, he continued, “Take the widow home.”
His guys released a woman who rushed to the corpse of her husband, lying in dark red with blood in the snow. Her mind seemed clouded, so mad was her look.
Nazar quietly sat in the jeep, and all their cars moved from this wasteland. He quickly looked through the folder with Sarychev’s signatures, realizing that he now had a controlling stake in his bank and in his club.
“You are desperate, Nazar,” Yefim leaned back in his seat, feeling how the accumulated tension was coming down, “and if they had begun to shoot?”
“They could. But we had been insured. Our guys kept them all on sight.”
“But you stood at gunpoint.”
“And you were standing,” Nazar’s eyes flashed with yellow sparks in the dark.
Yefim just waved his hand, realizing once again that it was only thanks to the pressure of Nazar their affairs so rapidly were on the upswing.
***
Coming home from school, Lyosha, at the porch, saw an ambulance standing there. His heart sank anxiously, and he quickened his pace and ran up the stairs.
In their flat, there were two people in lab coats, over which they were wearing winter jackets, and on the threshold, a neighbor stood. Seeing Alexey, she quickly spoke.
“Varvara called today, said it was bad to her. I was just at home. I came to her, and she was lying, all white. I called the ambulance.”
Having listened to this, Alyosha quickly squeezed into the flat and rushed to the bed where the grandmother was lying. Although she was pale, she apparently felt much better now and, seeing her grandson, even smiled at him.
Lyosha bloomed at that smile, feeling that the horror that had shackled him from within was receding. He sat on the bed, and his grandmother began to tell him about what had happened and what the doctors had said.
Her head shake, plus age, weak blood vessels and the weather gave such attacks here. Nothing wrong now she was not found. Most likely, it was a reaction to changes in atmospheric pressure. But the doctors did not want to leave her at home but offered to take her to the hospital so as not to take risks and re-take the cardiogram of the heart and undergo an examination at the hospital in the hospital.
Alexey was confused by this, he didn’t know what was better. Of course, he did not want to let his grandmother go to the hospital, but at home, she could become worse... Seeing his lost look, the seemingly sullen doctor relented and having learned that they only live together, calmly explained to him again that grandmother would be better in the hospital, than here. Since this crisis could happen again, she was alone at home.
Lyosha did not argue, having believed this doctor and, having quickly collected the things necessary for her grandmother in the hospital, he went with her to the ambulance. Arriving at the hospital, he was with her all the time while the hospital formalities were completing. Then, putting on shoe covers, he went to her ward and helped her to stay there. Alyosha carefully laid out his grandmother's clothes in the bedside table and, after sitting a little with her, sadly left the ward.
Now he understood that he was alone again. No matter how hard it was, he returned home to this empty apartment and forced himself to sit down for lessons.
One thing pleased Lyosha that the next day he had the most long-awaited competitions for which he had been preparing for so long. He had to jump on Vienna and Badminton. These thoughts gave the power to live and cope with what was happening in his life.
Notes:
* "Junior lieutenant"
Irina Allegrova
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