THE OLD WOMEN'S CURSES
In the course of time Cardan fell into his usual habit of constant adventure and booze. An old dog failed to pick up new tricks, so to speak. He could not live a quiet life of a decent family man, and the marital relationships came up to the brink of precipice. The family life was approaching a disaster. Meanwhile, there were a lot of rumours about his tricks in the village. The number of naive people had greatly decreased: everyone knew about the insidiousness of the cunning swindler. "Ah, well, you'll be deceiving again," the old women said. "We won't have anything to do with you," was heard from the men. Cardan was like a hamster in the wheel, he was running in it as fast as he could, letting his talent off "the leash". He put blood, sweat and tears into it but his attempts just flopped. There was no way of assuming that he wasn’t able to cut it out any longer, he just needed a short break. The turmoil has to come down a little. He simply was the talk of the town and there was nothing to be done about that. His tricks were the favorite topic of any conversation, even among school children. When they ran into him in the street, they pointed their fingers at him and laughed. He was a local star for them, a great con man, almost as smart as the famous Ostap Bender.
At noon several women got together near the shop and started vividly discussing the latest rural news.
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"Guess what," said one of them, "yesterday Cardan rushed into my house with a saw in his hand and hurriedly, as if he had been doing something important, said to me, "Quickly, give me a liter of vodka! A trailer of firewood is being delivered to you! Look, look out the window!" I took a look. Indeed, a tractor with the firewood went past my yard. "Come on get a move on; we're in a hurry! We are preparing timber for the collective farm, the guys wanted to get warm and sent me to you! Let's settle it quickly! I have to run back to help them unload the trailer!" I paid him and started waiting. Five minutes passed by but the tractor didn't show up. I went outside – there was nobody there. I waited for half an hour longer – silence. Well, I guessed the bastard took me for a fool again. Oh, my dear, God will punish him one day! I swear he will be punished for such tricks!”
“Just the other day he comes to my house and says,” continues the second woman. "We are delivering manure to the collective farm field. The guys decided to get warm and sent me to you. Quickly, give me a liter of vodka and I'll run back! I'm in a hurry - they are waiting for me! The tractor with the manure is already on its way!"
“I paid him, hung on for a little while, then went out to the garden - no one. I went out into the street – nobody there. I waited, and waited, and waited – no tractor, nobody. Oh, that swindler, oh, that bastard! Just for the record, heaven will punish him one day for his tricks. Oh, he'll be punished!”
"My husband went to buy some furniture to the district center," the third woman began. He met Cardan there and told him about his plans because of his naivety. Later Cardan came running to my house and said, "Has your husband returned from the district center?"
“No,” I answered.
“I helped him to load the furniture. He said that if I came back late, my wife would pay you for it. So give me half a liter."
“Well, I paid off. My husband came back home and couldn`t understand what I was talking about.
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Then I quarreled with him because of that accursed Cardan. I hope he will not escape God's punishment. Mark my word, one day someone will play such a trick on him that he will remember it till the day he dies!”
"He sold me salt instead of sugar," the fourth woman added. Suddenly, the women's curses started pouring on Cardan`s head like a terrential shower.
Cardan's reputation got a serious beating, he had to rehabilitate it somehow. He realized that he needed to actually fulfill a few of his promises and to weather the storm. You cannot eat your cake and have it. He was going to regain the trust of some simpleton, and when he lost his vigilance, Cardan would make a move by a chess horse. He always played for keeps and that required patience and perseverance.
Such a simpleton, in his opinion, was approaching Victoria. He got his nickname for his passion for men rather than women. Rumors of his victories and love affairs spread far beyond the village. Cardan knew about his attraction to men but ventured "to play with fire" and give it a try. He decided to take advantage of his hospitality and leave him "with nothing." Victoria was good at his craft: Cardan could deceive old women, Victoria knew how to defeat men. Admittedly, he wasn't going to be another ball in Cardan's juggling act. Nobody could say for sure, who would be the winner this time – both of them were experts of the highest degree. Victoria invited Cardan over to his house. They had a few drinks, talked about their lives and said goodbye to each other.
The conqueror of the men knew that there was no need to hurry things up, and as a cat, patiently awaiting the appearance of a mouse from the hole that forgot about vigilance, so he expected a favourable moment for the realization of his intention. The great deceiver of old women, in his turn, like a sparrow, eating food put out to chickens, outstayed his welcome. But one day he lingered at Victoria`s table longer than usual.
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Magical effect of alcohol and a pleasant conversation brought him out of guard. The host poured and poured alcohol, and the guest drank and drank. The conqueror of the men realized that the client had matured. He intentionally touched the mug of water standing on the table, which fell into Cardan`s lap and moistened his trousers in an intimate place. "Oh, you're all wet. Let me change your clothes, otherwise, people might say that you wetted yourself like a baby," Victoria offered his help benevolently. Cardan did not understand anything; he did not know why he agreed to the host's offer to change his trousers, then he did not know what was happening, where he was - in hell or paradise - all mixed up in a total blur. Their romantic meeting dragged on for three days.
Cardan's wife rushed to look for her husband all over the village. "He is nowhere to be found. Where has he got to? A couple of times he spent a night somewhere else but not three days in a row," she lamented. She walked around the whole village but her husband seemed to disappear into thin air. As it turned out, no one had seen him in the village for three days. Finally, she was recommended to check at Victoria`s. Rumour had it that he had been there recently. Cardan's wife came to his house. "If he is not here," she decided, "I'll call the police and inform them that he went missing."
The door was locked and the curtains on the windows were closed. She walked around the house trying to find an opening between the curtains. In the end she got lucky. She looked in and couldn`t understand what was happening. Her hands began to pound at the window. "Open the door! Open it, you bastards!" she cried in frenzy but the door was not opened to her. Having done everything she could to get into the house, she ran to the neighbours, so that they helped her to take the husband away from the winner of the men. Victoria, sensing the trouble, quickly dressed Cardan, led him out into the street and put him on a bench in front of the yard.
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The men came running. The great deceiver of old women could neither sit, nor stand, nor, especially, walk after such a friendly visit to Victoria. They took him under his knees with their hands putting his arms on their shoulders and carried him home.
Thus ended the party arranged by two lovers of a game of chance. Nobody knows what really happened there. Someone would blurt out some nonsense with his black tongue and rumors would spread over the village, then it would turn out that it was just slander. Therefore, I don`t want to fantasize here as well. But people in the village laughed and reiterated, "There's definitely God in heaven. How deservedly he punished Cardan! This man could deceive almost anyone in the village and who could imagine that he was himself tricked like a child.”
His wife could not get Cardan under her thumb, so she broke up with him and returned to her mother`s house. Cardan, having spent a couple of weeks in bed, recovered and got outside. "Either my intuition failed me, or it all happened because of the old women`s curses," he mumbled but quickly cast aside the sad thoughts. "Am I going to sit around and do nothing? Am I going to keep to myself for the rest of my life? One ought to be always on the move! Cardan (driveshaft) is spinning - the car is driving." He flung his coat over his shoulders and straightened up, raised his head high, and went out and about the village "to conquer the world."
Inadvertently, I have recalled the words from the Ukrainian cartoon There Lived a Dog, "And Cardan began living as before, even better; forgotten were all his past troubles - all forgotten."
At the time I was writing this book, I was lucky to encounter Cardan. One morning, when the sun just started to rise over the tops of trees growing in the distance, he came to my house tuning into the rustle of awakening nature. “What a great piece of luck,” I thought.
“Do you need honey mushrooms?” he demonstratively extended a full bag in my direction. I accepted a weighty load.
“Wow, such beautiful mushrooms!” I sniffed in the forest flavour of the honey mushrooms. “And how do you manage with things so early?” I expressed genuine interest.
"An early bird catches the worm. You have to be always on the move. Cardan is spinning – the car is running.”
“Yes, it is important to keep spinning,” I agreed.
The barter took place. Again he comes to me half an hour later.
"So, what kind of worm has the bird got this time?"
“Do you need fish?”
“Yes, I do. You never seem to lose your touch.”
"I'll bring you some more tomorrow," he promised.
"All right, I will be waiting for it," I played along with a benevolent smile.
And this time I paid him for the fish.
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A bit later he comes for the third time.
"I`ve just thrown a net; I'll bring you some more fish in the morning. I came to say to you that I did not forget about you, or you may think that I got drunk and fell asleep. Give me a bottle of vodka, and at the dawn, as soon as I pull out the net, I`ll come to you immediately."
I knew that he was lying but it was done beautifully: everything was depicted to the finest point. He did not leave anything to imagination. What kind of net he threw, how he got into the water, what kind of fish were there; he told everything to the minutest details.
"You know, I can make a fool out of anyone but you. He looked sly for a moment as if he had outsmarted me in a game of cards."
“I've been meaning to ask you if it's true that when you served in the army near Moscow, you traded 100 trucks of sand for booze?”
“Yes, it is, Andrey. I was sent to Kazakhstan to serve up the rest of the term there as a punishment.”
“Have there been many interesting things in your life?”
“Oh, Andrey, there have been a lot. Do you happen to need a used bicycle?” he brought he conversation back to business.
"No, thanks! This time I'll take a rain check." I responded vehemently.
I couldn`t wheedle out more details of his life from him: a man will not saw off a branch that he is sitting on. He just kept promising that he would help me do any work about my household when I asked him. I listened attentively to him and was thrilled that there were such funny people on earth. One might have called him a liar, a swindler, a bastard but every person who had ever met him, somehow, deep inside wanted to be deceived. Otherwise, why did those people, who knew his deceptive nature, always fall into the same trap? There must have been a kind of inner attraction in that man, some kind of purely human charm ... As a child is forgiven for his pranks because of ignorance and a lack of experience of life, so Cardan was forgiven his tricks because you wanted to see him again, to listen to him, to have a laugh, to enjoy life. It's as simple as that.
Honestly, it was one of the most exciting conversations that I had had. I enjoyed every single moment of it. It was a win-win situation. Although, I had a slight edge over him, since he did not suspect of my playing along. Eventually, I just could not resist his charm and fell for his promises. I paid him upfront for the fish, even though I knew that he would deceive me. But he laid out everything so meticulously, so vividly painted his actions, so sweetly promised that there was nothing to be offended of.
I stood looking intently at Cardan, who was walking away by a quick and confident gait. Sad and warm thoughts filled my head: so much enthusiasm was in that man, so much ostentatious virtue towards people, so much life! Of course, he was not infallible, he had many faults but he was a jolly good fellow. The kind of which is considered to be larger than life these days.
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He was able to inspire a person with hope, even if it was temporary, that the world was not without good people; he was able to raise people's mood by talking to them, to fill the boring and monotonous routine of a rural worker with rainbow colours. Probably, exactly for those positive emotions, received after a conversation with him, he was always forgiven.
"Wow, and what a nice guy he is, just a joke of a man!" I stood and reiterated those words in my mind, which aroused a friendly smile on my face, while Cardan was disappearing behind the corner of the "deserted" street.
Nowadays Ukrainian villages are dying out. I remember how a few years ago I visited one of them. Life was boiling there: people planted vegetables, kept cows, went to work. Dilapidated houses are dispersed here and there now and only wind blows through the ruins, - the evil wind of change. There was their own "Cardan" in that village either, so as in hundreds of the similar villages that have remained only on the map of the former Soviet Union. There also were the men who were the life and soul of the village, about whom you can write whole volumes but, unfortunately, nobody remembers them now. This is exactly the reason why I decided to save the memory of Cardan and the stories about his tricks that amused people in the village smoothing their rugged and gray days for dozens of years.
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