SELENA ENTERPRISES, Toronto, Canada. All rights reserved
The novel first published in the magazine THE NEWS OF THE NEW WORLD, North Carolina, USA, 2001/2002
Reprinted with permission
Later that night nobody paid attention to two persons leaving an empty office building on Main King street through the back door.
"Tonight we became another million dollars richer," one of them said, throwing the key into one of the litter bins that usually decorate the backyards of all official buildings. "Sounds like good news but it doesn"t boost my mood much. What about you, esquire?"
Jack did not say anything. He looked very upset.
"Don"t shed crocodile tears, my friend. We"re only at the beginning of the way. Did I tell you it might be a long one? But trust me: reward always finds the hero. Meanwhile I think it"s the right time to wet our whistles."
"Yes," Jack agreed. "And I"m peckish. But I"m afraid the hotel restaurant is closed. It"s too late."
"But what is mullticultural money for?" Nick asked, taking cash out of his pocket. Then he smiled and added.
"Since tonight we resigned from Dr. Bahadu"s center, we can use this money at our discretion. Right?"
Jack smiled and nodded his head like his former pluracultural boss used to do.
"Right, right! Let"s go to the nearest restaurant."
"Restaurant. That"s a good idea. But unfortunately there"re not any restaurants in this shabby dullsville."
Jack looked at Commandante with surprise. What is he talking about? There are dozens of them in Smallton.
"I don"t know why in North America all those dull and sad munching facilities are called restaurants. That disgraces this mellifluous word. They should be called canteens, eateries, chewing-shops or whatever but not restaurants. A restaurant is an establishment where people do not eat. Or do not eat only. It"s a place where people enjoy life. A place with exquisite interiors, live sensual music and all-night dancing, snow-white tablecloths, crystal chandeliers and goblets, champagne, flowers and the most important - beautiful approachable women packed in smart evening dresses and jewelry. It"s a place where people carouse, lead a dissolute life and burn this transitory short-term sucker out. The nearest true restaurant that I know of is in Toronto. It"s only an hour"s drive away. How about a small trip to shake up our old bones and break up blood congestion?"
Jack felt that this was exactly what he needed and eagerly agreed. On their way, the companions picked up a couple of drive-thru burgers and dashed along the empty night highway to the nearest metropolis.
The restaurant "Rasputin in Sorrento" was located downtown. The unusual name was accounted for by the fact that the owner was Russian and his wife was Italian. Several years ago, the couple bought a huge century-old house on the banks of Lake Ontario. They renovated it and opened the luxurious restaurant with interiors imitating the Winter Palace rooms in St. Petersburg - the famous residence of Russian tsars. The rooms were done exactly in the same way as they looked when the great profligate surprised its arches with his unpredictable escapades.
Actually, gossip said that this restaurant was a Mafia joint venture. When godfathers from both countries first met in Toronto they felt themselves like two little naughty kids left by themselves in a candy store. This was the country they had been dreaming of! The laws were so liberal and the powers-that-be were so trusting. As well-behaved gentlemen, the authorities realized that it was the peak of impoliteness to ask people about the source of their money.
Since it was so nice to deal with such courtesy, people of both clans decided to build several great money-laundering facilities on the banks of the Great Lakes. The restaurant was one of them. But who can prove this? And who wants to? Let people gossip.
The companions were seated under a gigantic chandelier at a huge round table covered with a tablecloth. The tablecloth was so white that it was impossible to look at it for a long time like on a sunny winter day it is impossible to look without sunglasses at the sparkling snow. Jack glanced at the array of silver cutlery surrounding porcelain plates and asked:
"Who is Rasputin? And why do we need so many knives and forks? I think that would be enough for a squad of people at least".
"As far as the second question is concerned, the answer is simple: "I don"t know." Probably you can use them as darts and throw them at neighboring tables when you get warm enough. By the way, the man you"re asking about was a great fan of such a fascinating game.
"So, who was Rasputin? He was a favorite of the last Russian tsarina Alexandra Fedorovna. Trust me, he was a man who knew what life is about. I believe there was no one person in the twentieth century who could stand close to him in terms of the amount of booze and women he could put through himself. His contemporaries considered him to be a real devil. When the Russian nobility decided to kill him, they invited Rasputin to a party and prepared his favorite pastries. Instead of cream they put potassium cyanide inside. Typically, a grain of this poison can kill dozens of people instantly. To be safe, they added it to the wine too. Rasputin ate a dozen pastries, drank a bottle of wine and said that he never had tasted such shitty pastries and wine in his life. Then he went home."
Jack laughed.
"Really?"
"Yes. Then they shot him. Poisoned and wounded, Rasputin managed to run away. Finally, the assassins caught him and put him into a winter river under the ice. Later, the autopsy discovered that he kept breathing in the ice-cold water for several minutes before he died. I think this man had such a thirst for life because he was an example of an individual who knew what life was about and he"d definitely appreciate a place like this."
Jack looked around. He had never seen such a restaurant. The huge round room with marble floors and a sky-high cathedral ceiling had a beautiful fountain with arm-large goldfish in the middle. Snooker-size tables finished in oak surrounded the fountain and the number of waiters who were serving each table could easily compete with the number of forks and knives.
There was a separate waiter for taking an order and for bringing soft drinks, hard drinks, appetizers, entrees, deserts and cleaning the table. The most amazing thing was that the waiters moved absolutely quietly, flitting like high-class ballerinas. Having done their job, they immediately vanished into thin air. But the moment the butt of a cigarette touched an ash-tray, a ghost-waiter emerged from his mysterious underground shelter and the ash-tray was immediately replaced with a clean one.
"Why are all the waiters men only?" Jack asked. "I don"t see any women serving here."
A pink suckling pig was lying on a huge dish in the middle of the table. The esquire was helping himself with a knife and a fork, trying to cut a hot leg, but was getting nowhere.
"That"s a tradition," Nick answered, watching the futile attempts of his companion with a smile. "In Russian first-class restaurant, the waiters always were recruited from men only. It was considered that women were good for dishwashing only."
"They"re doing a good job," Jack said as a waiter emerged from his invisible shelter and helped Esquire to finish separation of an appetizing limb from the pig"s body.
"I agree," Commandante said, passing a small silver pail with horse radish to Jack. "Most of all, I like that they are not rushing to ask you: "How are you folks doing here?" immediately after they see that you have started to chew your sandwich. And I don"t need, with my mouth full, to mumble something that would sound to him like "I"m fine, thank you", when in reality I say: "Get lost, pest, or I"ll choke."
"Now after a waiter takes my order in a North American restaurant I always make two warnings: the fewer times he asks me how I"m doing, the greater his tip will be, and I add "no ice" after each dish or drink ordered. Because in this country ice is added to everything that"s liquid. I knew a restaurant that was so captivated by success with iced tea that it added to its menu some new treats - iced soup and iced gravy."
While the companions were chatting and enjoying a suckling pig with beet-colored horse radish, huge jellied sturgeon with pineapple sauce, choice caviar and refrigerated, ice-cold vodka "Rasputin" from a misted up, bear-shaped bottle, three men and a young woman in motley national suits appeared on the large podium in the far corner of the restaurant. The two men started to play acoustic guitars and the woman started to sing.
"What language is this? Italian?" Jack asked, turning his chair in a way that he could watch the band better.
"No. Gypsy. Actually, gypsies live all over South-Eastern Europe: Hungary, Romania, Russia, Ukraine. Probably, even in Italy, I"m not sure. Mother-nature gave them a bright appearance, beautiful voices and innate hatred for any job except singing or dancing. This is a nation of unexcelled singers, dancers and thieves. I hope tonight you"ll get to know only the first two features from this list."
Meanwhile, the singer went off stage and moved to the restaurant hall, coming up to the tables. She was accompanied by a very tall gentleman with shoulder-length gray hair dressed in an immaculate gray suit with long jacket tails. The gentleman played a violin and the instrument seemed to be a toy - miniature and exquisite - in his hands.
Jack never heard such music. It seemed that in the hands of a virtuoso the violin became alive. Though Jack did not understand the words, it was clear that the violin told about its love - strong, sad and not shared. The violin was weeping and complaining, making his heart fill with sympathy and compassion.
When the singer approached the companion"s table, the violin gave up its sadness and switched to a merry, sparkling tune. The woman started to dance right in front of Jack inviting him to join her. Her perfect, tanned legs were slightly covered by a fluttering colorful skirt. The bottomless, beautiful hazel eyes of the singer, her long jet-black hair, slender figure and merry, brisk melody with increasing tempo made this invitation irresistible. To add to his bravery, Jack quickly emptied another glass of vodka, jumped up from his chair and joined a whirlpool of joyful men and women dancing between the tables. In a few minutes Adjutant felt himself an integral part of this reckless, joyous fraternity of people spinning around in a devil-may-care dance.
When Jack returned to his table, he found two young women sitting next to Nick. Both were dressed in dйcolletй evening dresses and were visibly tipsy.
"Here is my friend!" Commandante exclaimed as he saw Jack approaching. "Let me introduce to you my colleague - professor Lee Vanbrook. And these are the most glamorous women of the Universe and its neighborhood: Natasha and Sasha. Only I still can"t remember who is who. Sorry, we - scientists - are so absent-minded people."
"Tash," a pretty slender woman in a black dress with semi-transparent top introduced herself.
"Sash," said the girl in a white dress.
She stretched her hand to Jack and exclaimed:
"Cool! Another professor! I love those absent-minded guys. Last summer I had a boy-friend. He was a professor of something very complicated and boring. In bed he was always forgetting: did he come or not? So he started all over again. That was really great!"
It looked like Jack lost the ability to talk. He sat in the chair and could not take his eyes off the beautiful woman in the black dress.
"Actually, my colleague is a distinguished expert and founder of a new science: sexcybernatics. In his latest monograph The battle of sexes: from apes to gays he applied a very complicated integral-equation-based simulation to prove that in relations with a woman a man always acts like a sun tan: first he sticks and then he fades. How about we arrange a short journey to our luxurious hotel suite where my friend will read you a couple of chapters from his new best-selling work that finally answers the eternal question humanity wasn"t able to answer for centuries: Why Tax is Less Enjoyable Than Sex?"
The day was dawning when the merry procession returned to Smallton and reached the Grand Hotel. Leaving the restaurant, Commandate bought a huge basket with flowers, half a dozen bottles of champagne and a large pail with caviar. The hilarious company burst into the room and Commandante yelled:
"Why does nobody meet our cortege? Where are the fanfares and kettledrums? Where is a guard of honor?"
Unexpectedly, the door of a second room opened and a sleepy, lanky man in a nightgown emerged in the doorway.
"Wow!" Sash exclaimed. "Here you go! Here is our guard of honor and virginity."
Commandante cast a quizzical look at the man, went back to the door, looked at the plate with the room number once more and returned to the living room.
"Who are you and what are you doing in my room?" he asked angrily, staring at the stranger.
"I am professor Van Leebrook and, as far as I know, this is my room", the stranger answered with a Dutch accent as he rubbed one bare-foot leg against another one.
"Awesome!" Sash exclaimed again. "The third professor! It looks like we"re going to have real fun this night!"
Nick screamed.
"What?!"
"Did you hear that?", he added, addressing a question to his friends. "If you"re a professor Van Leebrook, then who am I? Senior deputy junior janitor?"
Nick popped his hand into his pocket and took out a badge reading "Professor Van Leebrook. University of Waterloo". He picked up this badge on the very first day during his registration in the front lobby. Commandante victoriously showed the badge to all people present in the room.
Now the stranger was staring at Nick. It looked like he began to doubt which of two professors Van Leebrooks in this room was the true one. Taking advantage of the stranger"s confusion, Adjutant, who had not stopped holding tight and kissing Tash since they got into the car, moved the third professor out of their way, sneaked into the bedroom and shut the door.
"It looks like we have a complicated scientific problem here," said Nick, putting bottles with champagne and a pail with caviar on the table. "Trust my internationally acclaimed experience, we need at least a gallon of good booze to solve it ."
Jack was sleeping and had a nightmarish dream. An angry warder was hurdling him through a long prison corridor. A mob of outraged people was standing on both sides of a corridor, crying that they were true professors Lee Vanbrooks, and he - Jack - was a miserable impostor. The mob was yelling, jeering and throwing thick brick-like books at Jack. The warder pushed Jack into an airless cell with a cold concrete floor, damp walls and bars on the tiny window. The false professor fell with his face down on a rough plank bed and felt somebody shake him like an empty pop can . . .
Jack opened his eyes and saw Commandante standing near the bed and shaking his shoulder.
"Hey, professor, pop your lids open," Nick said quietly, offering trousers to his companion. "It looks like our distinguished scientific career is history now. Let"s hit the road quickly."
Jack looked around. A pretty young woman was sleeping in the bed next to him. The crumpled blanket fell on the floor and the woman was absolutely naked. Adjutant tried to beat a hangover headache to remember what happened last night. Finally it occurred to him that his dream had a good reason behind it. A true owner of this room arrived yesterday! Jack felt cold sweat appear on his forehead.
"Where is he?" Jack asked, horrified by the thought that any moment his night dream may come true.
"Sash is performing a research test on which of two professors is true. I arranged his turn to be first," Commandate said with a smile and pointed with his eyes to the sleeping beauty. "Great chick. I wish I were you this night. But hurry up now."
The companions sneaked into a living room. Jack noticed the empty bottles thrown all over the place and heard sounds of splashing water, kisses, loud panting and moaning going from a bathroom. Leaving the room the companions heard Sasha yelling in a discontented voice:
"What the hell kind of professor are you if you can"t do it the fifth time nonstop!"
---------------------------------------------------------
Если Вы зашли на эту страничку с моего персонального сайта,
нажмите кнопку Back в левом верхнем углу, чтобы вернуться.
Если нет, приглашаю зайти на мой сайт www.borisboston.com
где Вы можете посмотреть мои последние работы, а заодно
заработать до $ 1000.