And we drank honey there

Where do poems come from?

- What a question, - of course, from under a bushel.

Flooded with unsleeping horror,

The hooped mind is silent...

And suddenly the silence broke into a scream...

For several people to whom I showed poetry exclaimed in surprise: "Yes, you have a rich imagination!"  And I decide to write these few pages in my defense: somehow I don’t want to go to the grave with the title of dreamer.

I have always loved poetry and memorized it instantly.  It never occurred to me to write them myself, although I easily got parodies and comic congratulations.  There was, however, one exception.  Once, while still at the institute, I composed a poem that was supposed to be sung to the motive of a song from the film "Spring on Zarechnaya Street".  Here it is:

I'm walking along the old street.

And I lack more strength:

Why, why is your tongue long

Didn't I shorten it before?

Then along Neglinnaya Street,

I didn't walk along the Lubyanka...

The rhyme aroused great enthusiasm in our company.  Then I did not yet know that any seemingly innocent poem could turn out to be a prophecy, otherwise I would have been careful not to make friends laugh with it and would have burned it out of my memory. & nbsp; But we can't predict...

Several years have passed.  I graduated from college and got married. My husband and I were even able to settle in our own, that is, a cooperative apartment. However, our time and stability are as incompatible as genius and villainy, and so my husband considered it his duty to apply for permission to leave the USSR and unexpectedly received such permission (which, according to probability theory, was 99.999% excluded), with a proposal to get out no later than than in ten days.

My world has collapsed. We firmly knew, that no one would ever let him out of here, and both prepared for any turn of events, but not for what was coming now. Gathered as in a trance. For three nights we could not fall asleep at all, then we pretended to ourselves that we were sleeping.  When the plane melted in the sky, I turned my back to the airfield and found myself face to face with loneliness, physically felt like cold gray walls, closed from all sides, against which even if you beat blood, not a single sound will penetrate.  Something had to be done, if not for oneself, then for the sick father and mother, so that their tormented, inquiring gaze would at least lighten up a little. & nbsp; And I found a welcoming home where I could feel a little more than a living corpse.  She looked at the refuseniks from a distance, admired their courage, and could not understand what was preventing them from being pushed into the car without further words and taken away in an unknown direction. Well, in my perplexity, I was closer to the truth than some experts on the subject.

I continued to work in my, thank God, unclassified design bureau and, of course, didn't say a word there about my husband's departure.  It was necessary to prepare for retribution.  I had no idea if I was violating any laws by my silence, but I knew that by our standards I deserved a good auto-da-fe at a meeting of angry employees, and when it happens it is only a matter of time. So I was not at all surprised when one day, towards the end of the working day, the personnel officer came into our room and whispered in my ear: “Pack up your things, get dressed and go out into the corridor.” They are waiting for you there.  I readily nodded, quickly packed up, and followed her out.  A tall young blond man in a gray raincoat stood in the corridor, and he said without introducing himself: "Hello." Let's go downstairs, they want to talk to you.  I looked back at the personnel officer - in response to my glance, she exhaled hastily: "It's all right, they let you go," and immediately disappeared. & nbsp; She looked frightened, and I began to vaguely guess that it didn’t smell like a meeting here, but something else.  Keeping silence, the stranger and I went down the stairs, passed the watchman and went outside.

Our design bureau stood, and still stands, on the descent to three railway stations; for this reason, even a taxi did not have the right to stop before entering - a police whistle immediately began. & nbsp; So, on this seditious place, halfway onto the sidewalk, a beaten gray Volga was parked, in which the driver and someone else were sitting, and near the Volga stood a short young man of Caucasian appearance, with a mustache, and looked at us.  As soon as we caught up with the Volga, my escort and the Caucasian at the same time snatched something out of their bosoms and put it under my nose. My companion said briefly: "State Security Committee."

They could have waved a canteen pass or movie tickets in front of me - I still couldn't distinguish the color of the books or the letters. As if through a dream, my consciousness registered that the back door was open and I was offered to sit down.  Nodding mechanically, I got into the car and found myself sandwiched between the one who was already there and the Caucasian.  You the juicy blond sat down with the driver and, turning around, said: "We'll go to your house now. Only we don't know the road (!), so please tell us how to go. I nodded for the third time in three minutes, and off we went.

I haven't said a word in all this time, more from being completely dumbfounded. At first, all my strength was spent on not moving - it seemed to me that this would be interpreted as resistance. Then it gradually dawned that they did not expect anything of the kind, but, on the contrary, they were surprised - surprised by my silence, the absence of questions, expressions of surprise or indignation; they would like to talk, but there is no reason.

The little shabby (but strong) little man sitting on the right even repeated several times: "Nothing, nothing ...", but, having not received an answer, fell silent.  So we drove in silence for about forty minutes.  Only from time to time I said hoarsely: "To the left ... now to the right," - and again silence.

Finally, we arrived.  We got out, and then I saw that another Volga, a van, had rolled up behind us, and it was black from people.  Two people got out of the van and joined our group.  "What floor?" the tall one asked when we were all in the elevator.  "The last one, as if you don't know."  "I don't know," he answered sincerely.  The elevator has stopped.

The neighbor rushed frightened to her door (was she guarding, perhaps, on the stairs?).  I opened the door to my one-room apartment with the key, turned on the light.  Here the tall blond man drew himself up and announced: “I am senior investigator So-and-so, Alexander Nikolayevich. We're here to search your apartment.  Here is the warrant signed by the Deputy Prosecutor General of the USSR.  He handed me a piece of paper; again, anything could have been written there - I was not able to distinguish A from B, let alone read. But the words finally reached me, and then, through all the unreality of what was happening, amazement suddenly cut through that the deputy. The USSR Prosecutor General knows about my existence and even bothered to sign this crumpled piece of paper.

Alexander Nikolaevich, who had already been addressed twice as Sasha, remarked: "We could invite your neighbors as witnesses, but we understand what inconvenience this will cause you (pause - so that I can appreciate their delicacy), and we brought understood with themselves," he pointed to the shabby little man and one of those who were in the van. & nbsp; Then he solemnly said: "You can help the investigation if you voluntarily hand over the objects to be seized, such as materials of anti-Soviet content, currency, and so on." I goggled.  He continued: "Question for the record: do you have a Chronicle of Current Events in your apartment?" I cautiously asked: "What is it?"  In an instant, all his politeness disappeared, fire flashed in his gray eyes, his jaws began to play, his face was distorted, and he hissed: "Well, let's not be ironic." I shut up.

The search has begun.  After my husband left, I lived with my parents, and my apartment with my husband was completely empty.  However, they were carried for more than an hour.  I've been thinking about my parents all this time.

The fact is that two weeks ago my father was taken to the hospital with a fifth heart attack; in the hospital, he was clinically dead, and the young doctor in intensive care was himself surprised and proud that he managed to get out of his father. & nbsp; Mom was at home alone and had just begun to calm down, believing in an incredible miracle - that father would get out this time. If I do not return home in half an hour, she will start to worry, and she also has a weak heart and high blood pressure ...

The state of stupor finally left me from fear for my mother, and I looked around the room impatiently.  They tried to cover up the traces of the pogrom: they screwed back the double frames of the windows and the balcony door (which, of course, did not screw in any way), put the countertop and cushions back in place.

I was given a protocol to sign. I signed without reading, because the letters were still jumping before my eyes. Suddenly, the apartment began to run around. Different people came in, went out again, reported in a whisper.  Sasha, that is, Alexander Nikolaevich, kept saying: "Let's wait a little more." Then, to play for time, he demanded to search my bag. I said: "I already signed everything for you." "If necessary, we will draw up a separate protocol." Me: "What about the Attorney General?" He did not answer, but he looked at me so that I immediately handed him the ill-fated bag. & nbsp; There was a letter from her husband in the bag, but he, having shaken the letter out of the envelope, only turned it over in his hands and put it back.  True, the so-called "understood" he excitedly jabbed his finger into the foreign envelope and whispered something, but the senior investigator cut him off: "I read everything - there is nothing there in my department."

At that moment, a Caucasian entered and made him a sign. Sasha stretched out again and ordered: "Now we will go to our place." I objected: "I should call home and explain that I will be late, otherwise my mother might be bad," but he did not listen. Then I asked: "Are you going to take me to the Lubyanka?" He felt as if embarrassed, and smiling embarrassedly, he confirmed: "Yes, there." "How interesting..." I was about to drawl, but again he looked so that the end of the exclamation got stuck in my throat.

We went out into the darkness (there was no light on the landing), took the elevator down and got into the same Volga in the same order. This time I was not asked to tell them which way to turn, and I could hardly restrain myself from congratulating them on learning the way so quickly. But when they began to drive up, my wit disappeared in a moment. We did not drive into Furkasovsky Lane, as I expected, but turned onto Malaya Lubyanka and immediately stopped. Our car was parked across the pavement, and high iron gates went up in front (how I didn’t notice them before!) What a height they were, I couldn’t see from my place. It was already dark for a long time, it was raining, the iron was shining, and I looked at the glare and tried to fight the oncoming waves of horror and not tremble, which, of course, the lumps of muscles sitting to the left and right of me would instantly feel.

We stood in front of this incredible gate for about half an hour.  My whole body became numb, and I began to bite my lips and move my fingers and toes to restore blood circulation.  Finally, the gate silently opened inward, and the car drove into the yard.  I was ordered to get out, then we filed through the courtyard and entered the side door. Some endless corridors, ascents, descents, another ascent, and I found myself in a room with the same inseparable Sasha, who, apparently, also began to get tired.

Sat on both sides of a single table. "I don't know anything about your case," he said, already, as it were, making excuses. "An amazing coincidence - and I don't know anything."  "Maybe it's an accident," Sasha shrugged his shoulders, "although we don't have accidents." I again reminded my mother about the call, but in such cases he seemed not to hear anything, he should have gotten used to it.

We sat in silence for a while.  However, my strength was running out, my head could not rest on my shoulders, and I put it on my crossed arms on the table and closed my eyes. “Why are you sitting like a martyr,” he said irritably, “we are not animals at all. Demand an investigator if you are unwell. (It's my fault too!)  "I thought you were my investigator.  Give me some water." “I told you that I don’t know anything about your case,” he got angry, then nevertheless looked out into the corridor. The bell rang. Sasha slowly returned to the phone, picked up the receiver, listened and briefly ordered: "Let's go."

We went down one flight, entered the room, and there were several people in military uniform and in civilian clothes standing around the table, and he was sitting at the table.

It was about midnight when I went outside - not from the gate, but from the door that opened directly onto the street. A Caucasian was walking with me, who, as it turned out, was also called Sasha.  Two more stomped behind.

The first few steps were just a feeling of surprise: that I was still alive, and that they let me out of there.  Surprised that I can feel the fresh night air and raindrops on my face.  But after a few steps, the shock of surprise passed.  There was no more acute horror, but the feeling of the unreality of what had happened returned with its original strength. & nbsp; I didn’t think about what was left behind in those corridors and rooms, and not about what would happen in an hour when I saw my mother, but about something completely different.

I understood that my life was over, and here on this empty square a line was drawn.  Now I will go down to the subway, and some otherworldly existence will begin.

The Caucasian Sasha, meanwhile, said that I should think hard that my fate is now in my own hands, but here they wish me well, they want to save me and pull me out of the quagmire.  I didn't listen - and realized that I was released only to see what I would do next: I did not behave as required ("Why not frankly?" he thundered), the car malfunctioned, and my behavior on the so-called freedom should give this car new fuel.

Almost all the lights in the square were off.  The statue stood in the middle of an empty and rain-black square, dimly lit from the front, and I could see only a black silhouette.  Not a soul around. No matter how the soul - and next to it, with the mustache? and two in the back?  "Are they human...?" - I thought wearily and began to descend into the pit of the underground passage to the subway, as if into a crypt.

… That night, I still managed to doze off in the pre-dawn hour, despite the crazy eyes of my mother, who kept clutching her head in her hands and repeating: “What will happen to my father? What am I Will I tell him?"  I don't know how we both survived this endless night.  But it's morning - you have to go to work, do something there, talk to someone.  You can close your eyelids while you ride the metro - then the pain in the eyes subsides a bit.

I come to my department. Faces pale with fear. They speak in an undertone, as if they were dead. It is difficult for people to talk on the phone: the connection is constantly interrupted and, although it is restored after half a minute, it is not known what the interlocutor said during this time.  I don't touch the phone.  They let me out to see what I'll do, who to call, and I'm not doing anything.

But they call me. What to say?  "I won't be able to talk to you or see you anymore. Goodbye. Goodbye everyone.  After two such answers, my friends decide that I'm crazy.  One friend arrives, with a short interval - another. Every time I go down to them in the entrance. Thank God, the space in front of the watch is very tiny and only the two of us can fit on the bench. When people enter or leave, two male figures are visible in the opening of the open door on the street. But they do not go inside, and I can explain what happened to me, and that I am sitting and waiting to be taken there again. Amazement on the faces. I point my finger at the figures outside the door: they will follow you!  They don't believe a damn thing, for the life of me.  Again in the working room - again listening to intermittent telephone conversations.

Then they call me to the phone.  The voice of the Caucasian Sasha: "Well, what did you decide?"  Me: “You should at least put in a longer tape, otherwise it’s impossible for people to talk at work.”  There is a click in the receiver and dead silence - I said something inappropriate.

During my lunch break, I can even go outside and have a coffee.  Luxury. But as soon as she came, immediately a phone call and the voice of the personnel officer: “Go downstairs, they are waiting for you there.” While I am getting ready, my colleagues look at me with horror.

Going down.  The car is not the same as yesterday. There is only a driver and one of yesterday's acquaintances, a short, strong man who was once called "Comrade Captain". and who, during the search, showed himself to be a book reader.  Then an old magazine "On land and at sea" fell into his hands, he lovingly stroked it and said: "Oh, yes, this is a very valuable thing." I immediately suggested: “Take it for yourself - I won’t need it anyway.”  He immediately jerked his hand away, as if grasping a hot iron.

So, two men are enough for me: it is not at all necessary that there are four of them, and that I am being carried sandwiched between two muscular bodies? So I ask him. He is a guy, apparently with humor, answers without hesitation: "Here, you see, they already (!) Trust you." In passing reports:

"And your interrogator got sick. The heart is beating." Ah, so I have my own personal investigator? But I didn’t know, I called the person at the table to myself he.  I remember: yes, indeed, he swallowed valocardin yesterday, and it came in handy for me: when asked what common interests I had with refuseniks, I replied that they helped get medicine for my parents; however, to the tricky question, what kind of medicine, she could not hold her tongue: “You are taking valocardine, but where can I get it?” What is reproachful  followed: "Why didn't you come to us?" I got angry and blurted out: “I was waiting for you to bring it.”  Then he narrowed his eyes and said in a low voice: "Don't you think you're playing with fire?" (Again a wave of fear.)

...We entered yesterday's gate, which opened immediately, and not half an hour later. I'm going to the yard. I ask: "Are you really the captain?" (I already know that both Sashas are senior lieutenants.) & nbsp; Nods affirmatively with modest dignity.

We went inside, went along the corridor and suddenly found ourselves in front of a magnificent palace staircase.  "Napoleon stayed in this house," the literary-historical captain proudly says.  I guessed that we got to the Rostopchin residence from the back side.

We go up the marble stairs, just like in the Hermitage.  The captain opens the tall carved doors, and I find myself in a huge hall. In the middle, along the centerline, a table as long as a football field, and just as green.  On the opposite side at the head of the table, side by side like newlyweds, two male figures in golden epaulettes, with gray hair and red, even crimson faces - well, apparently, had lunch. On the sides of the table are several people in military uniform. One says: "General Aleksei Petrovich wants to talk to you." I remembered the name and patronymic, because that was the name of Yermolov, and he must have been in this hall.

Miracles! What a warm company: Napoleon, Rostopchin, Yermolov, General Alexei Petrovich ... and me! & nbsp; The general's conversation lasted more than two hours and was absolutely pointless.  They didn’t even threaten me, they just gave me a lecture about the intrigues of the CIA, world imperialism, fascism and Zionism and about our wise policy – there is, they say, a détente of international tension and a decision has been made: not to immediately arrest those who are entangled in enemy networks, but first to give them time to realize their delusions.

Here the general suddenly jumped out: "So Sakharov succumbed – but  three times Hero of Socialist Labor! I was surprised again: yesterday the Prosecutor General, today two generals, and here is Sakharov. & nbsp; It means that they accept me at the highest level.  Great honor, but for what? & nbsp; The whole world knows about Sakharov's activities, but mine is unknown even to me!

After a new proposal to think carefully, the generals said goodbye, and the captain took me outside through the entrance booth on Dzerzhinsky Street, explaining, like a real guide, that every citizen can drop a letter with his suspicions or suggestions into the mailbox in this booth.  "And do they write to you a lot?" I asked.  "A lot," he sighed bitterly, "especially around the holidays."

I came home with one thought: to fall down and close my eyes.  But my mother was waiting at home. Trembling, she said that the neighbors above us broke down the door in their absence, but nothing was stolen, and when the hostess ran into the apartment, the first thing that caught her eye was two dirty prints of men's boots on the tablecloth of the dining table, covered with lime from the ceiling. I couldn't understand anything... It would be nice if the neighbors downstairs: it means that someone stood on the table to put a microphone in the floor or plinth of our apartment.  But the neighbors upstairs?  Or they mixed up the apartments - where to insert the microphone? Or do they want the whole house to go crazy with panic?

Then I remembered that the last time I went up the stairs to my parents' apartment, there were always two guys sticking out on our landing who greeted each other friendly and tried to start a conversation while I unlocked the door. At that time I was still surprised at their friendliness, but I was too busy with my own thoughts to think about the reasons for such incomprehensible politeness in the house of a brick factory. "Mom, who are those guys from the apartment across the street?"  “A young family was moved in there a week ago. They have a small child, and the father and a friend go out to smoke on the stairs.  I was called to see the child when he fell ill, but I refused, explained that I was retired and no longer had the right to practice medicine.

…Do we go out on the stairs to smoke in our house? Invite mom to see the child? & nbsp; Are they trying to talk to me?  Does the child's father always smoke with a friend? My head began to spin, the last remnants of drowsiness dissipated, and... generals, captains, lieutenants, witnesses, thirty thousand couriers... WHAT DOES ALL THIS MEAN??

I was sitting on a dismantled bed in my parents' apartment and, seeing nothing, looked into the glass of the sideboard opposite.  Last night there was no time to think, but now a spasm of disgust passed through the body from the knowledge that this room had been searched.  I remembered how yesterday he hissed, staring at me through the glasses: “Do you think it was nice for me to rummage through your underwear?”

Now it was hard to believe that it was me who answered him: "You are paid money for this." Crazy!  Yes, but yesterday there was still no football table, generals, dirty sole prints on the table, two guys on the landing and two in the yard of our design bureau.  Yes, but yesterday there was an apartment turned upside down, a ride between two cast sides, there were iron gates, then a gap in memory, in which separate moments flashed and disappeared like lightning, and then the return of the coherence of the action and the memory of how I left them in midnight, into the blackness grinning at me,

I left them at midnight into the grinning blackness...  I even begin to think awkwardly - the same feeling as if I lay down uncomfortably: I want to change position, move. & nbsp; Move words?

I left them late at night - into bared blackness. It was better this way, and suddenly it occurred to me , that these were two lines of poetry. There was a piece of paper lying next to the phone. I took it and wrote:

I left them late at night

Into bared blackness.

The feeling of a black deserted square, the way I drew a line under my whole old life, rushed again, and -

Looking at the deserted square –

So that's where they draw the line!

That's right! They draw the line, not me.  Unexpectedly for myself, I wrote this - I dared to face the truth.  A line was drawn under me, and from now on I am alone. No one will support you with a word or even a look; I myself must move away so as not to drag others into an airless space, where at the top are the soles on the table, on the side, on the stairs, two continuous but a smoking guy, on the street, probably, something vile is moving too ... No, it's better to think in verse - then it's not so scary.

Not a word, not a sound, not a look...  (And those three who led me? - "What's with the people,", - I remembered yesterday's objection to myself).

Not a word, not a sound, not a look –

To one ghouls along the way.

Where are you going? Don't, don't

To rush about and fight in the net.

The black silhouette of the monument...

From the darkness, the monument emerges –

Hello, skewed births...

And this is already an echo of today: the twisted facial muscles of the person rummaging through my underwear cannot be called that - the faces appeared today, but they are just purple, not twisted. That's right!  It's not my fault that I was served for dessert to well-dined mugs in the great hall of the Rostopchinsky Palace.  Let it stay that way.

Well, the final two lines have been ringing in the brain for a long time. They were surprised by my calmness, the absence of questions. "You are obviously aware of the actions discrediting the Soviet person.  That’s why they behaved so calmly when they came for you,” the senior investigator and senior lieutenant Sasha ominously threw me yesterday (So it didn’t seem to me: they really were puzzled!) & nbsp; I retorted: "Is it a crime to be calm?" & nbsp; And she added to herself: “I wish I wouldn’t be calm: since my husband left, I have been waiting and waiting for almost a year for them to come after my soul.” How is it with Akhmatova? - "Whoever is afraid of something, it will happen to him".  So it happened.

And as a sentence I repeat:

Everything you expect comes true.

I rewrote it all again, read, laid my head on the pillow and FALLED.

The next working day dragged on in tense expectation, but nothing happened. When I was walking home in the evening, looking as always at my feet, some unusual glare caught the corner of my eye. & nbsp; I raised my head. In the distance, where the access road to our elongated house opened onto the road, opposite the mouth of this road, a battered dirty blue Volga stood by a concrete fence. (Oh, how I already knew this battered style!)

In our neighborhood, brick factory workers couldn't have cars, even dirty ones.  Owners of personal cars from other houses have long obtained permission to build garages at the beginning of that same concrete fence - all the garages were molded there.  And near the brick-works houses, one could only meet taxis.

There were two paths leading from the house, one to the trolleybus, the other to the buses. The Blue Volga looked through the path to the trolleybus.  Should I try to go back and check the road leading to the bus stop? Well, of course! - there was the same dirty Volga, only gray-green.  I frantically took a breath of air and trudged home.

No one smoked on the site. Obviously, I got promoted. Or downgraded? Which is higher: two smokers or two Volgas? I didn't manage to think this idea throughdto the end, because by entering, I saw, that something happened again at home. Mom didn't have a face. At first she denied , assured, that she just didn’t feel well, but then admitted that three people came, there was one woman among them, and urged her to speak frankly with me. That's how! if I don't recruit , then maybe , my mother can be recruited - so what did they reason?

What scared her the most was that the woman asked where your toilet was and went out into the corridor alone when everyone else was in the room.  "She must have put something in the kitchen," my mother said in a whisper.  I reassured her, swore that I would never turn on the speedo again. Finally, she calmed down, but the evening was over, again she had to try to fall asleep. Yesterday the poems helped, I wanted to reread them, and I glanced at the already curtained window. & nbsp; There was a narrow gap between the wall and the curtain, I remembered the car outside the window and reached out to draw the curtain, and suddenly:

In the evening I wondered by the window –

Will stupid fate smile?

Look closer at the – window

I would have seen her a long time ago!

That's really true - before you had to look both ways! Then it came in one breath:      

There she is, walking on the corner

With an impudent cigarette in his mouth.

Tires rustle on pavements,

The phone breathes brownies.

Surrounds a quiet peaceful home,

Rising up in single file.

There is a knock on the door. And - order slowly.

That's what you are, my destiny!

I wrote down the lines and noted with satisfaction that "there she is, walking on the corner" " goes back to “Out, look, out-out playing, blowing, spitting on me.”  Yes, devilry!  There is no other definition for what is happening to me.  This is a real pandemonium of demons.

Reread everything over again. What a miserable rhyme «window– for a long time" - but what to do? & nbsp; Does it matter if it's good or bad?  Point!

It doesn't matter if it's good or bad

I am writing as I am baptized. -

Push away, drive away

Hanging snout of animal fear

And at least until the morning, but sleep, but sleep...

There was no exaggeration here. I really couldn't remember ever having such an urgent need to cross myself. After all, demons can only be driven away by the sign of the cross.  However, it doesn’t hurt to take these lines out of the house tomorrow morning, away from sin - with this thought, I fell asleep like a log.

But I rejoiced early that I outwitted them at least with sleep. The days dragged on, filled with tight breathing in the back of the head, interruptions of voices in the telephone receiver, the rustling of already sung tires. & nbsp; We managed to warn everyone we could, and loneliness sank like a transparent but impenetrable cap.  I almost physically felt its glass walls, through which the special entomologists of the great country continued to study me with such interest.

The dream is gone completely. It was only in the subway cars that they could really sleep - probably the subconscious assured itself that they would not want to make crowds of people spectators of the arrest. & nbsp; So a week passed.  Nothing seemed to happen, but meanwhile I turned into a charred firebrand.

And now this moment has come. Ten in the morning. I sit at my desk and wait, but still startle when some unusually loud phone rings.  They ask me.  An unforgettable voice with a Siberian hoarseness that I heard only once, but I will not be able to forget the rest of my life.

- I suggest you drive up immediately. You know where.

0, holy simplicity!  No one thought to suggest that you can only be summoned there by a summons, certified by a seal and handed over personally. & nbsp; And at work, it never occurred to anyone to say: "Excuse me, but on what basis should we let her go?" And so I trudged on my own rack. Of course, nothing would have changed: they would just have pushed me into the car. But, at least, it was possible to quarrel, demanding a summons, and from this alone you could feel like a man, and not a crushed insect. But what to do? - no one thought of it.

I entered, as ordered, through the door next to the iron gate, and found myself in a shabby waiting room. Along the walls were semi-rigid benches with backs, like at a railway station. There was no one at the reception. With a beating heart, she sat down on the bench and waited.

Much later, a textbook on an investigative case came into my hands, where, among other things, the means of exerting psychological pressure were described. One such means is to wear people out with anticipation.  But here again they miscalculated with me. I sat for a while, then closed my eyes…and immediately dozed off (which didn’t work at all at night!) Obviously, from the place where the peephole was located or whatever they had there, this could not be noticed, because the reaction came only after forty minutes, when I turned in my sleep and laid my head on the back of the bench.

Immediately, a thunderous voice was heard from heaven: "Citizen such and such, come to the door." I approached, the door opened, and... the familiar senior lieutenant-investigator Sasha was standing on the other side. We again went through endless corridors with ascent, descent, ascent again , until we stopped in front of a door somewhere on the top floor. Sasha opened the door and let me go ahead. I entered and found myself in a square room. A large window opposite the door, no curtains.  To my left, in the far corner, a table with two cabinets - in the form of the letter P. & nbsp; In the middle of this P, he sat and, as usual in classic spy novels, wrote something.

After a while, he raised his head and happily exclaimed:  "Ah, finally, finally!  Well, hello, sit down over there.  I looked around. I was assigned a tiny table in the near corner to the right of the door, so that all the light from the window - and a bright reflector lamp under the ceiling helped it well - fell on me. Sitting at the table, I could only see the outline of a thin dark figure in the corner by the window, a hazy yellow spot instead of a face and gleaming glasses.

I sat motionless under the light from the window and from the lamp, then only from the lamp, for six hours. I drank a cup of coffee about seven in the morning. At ten she went on orders, at about twelve she sank into a chair in a square room, habitually frozen by fear, which returned as if on cue. He methodically asked questions, called names, and all my strength wow they asked him to answer his questions every other time "I don't know" and "I don't remember."  Once it dawned on me that they were asking me for my own address, and I mechanically answered “I don’t remember.” Recovering myself, I clearly named the address, because I was scared (and, it seems, where I was more scared) that I was giving a reason for a psychiatric hospital (as if this needed a reason!)

At some point after another "don't know" I heard a lazy and dissatisfied voice: “I don’t understand at all, are you non-contact?” & nbsp; And suddenly, without any transition, he began to shout at me.  This went on for about twenty minutes, and for the first minutes, each volley of cries resounded with a sharp pain in the lower abdomen, so the meaning of the words was completely lost. Then I adapted a little to the rhythm of the scream and was even able to think: “He shouldn’t be trying so hard if he has a bad heart.  I've seen enough cores - even artificially induced excitement is harmful to them, so as not to get sick again.  This reflection distracted me from the spasms of pain, and I began to parse the words.

He, like a machine, shouted the same thing: "You pathologically hate Soviet power, you hate it pathologically." Soon everything was clouded over again, and I only heard: "pathologically ... power…" She felt the approach of fainting and, in order not to give him such pleasure, said hoarsely: “It is you who pathologically hate the Soviet regime and take the opportunity to shout about it loudly.” And, lo and behold, the cry suddenly stopped!  He even looked at me with some surprise (or rather, the lenses of his glasses flashed in surprise) and quite calmly said: & nbsp; "However, you managed to throw me off balance" (Here are those on!)

After a while, he got up, gestured for me to follow him and led me along the corridor, then down the stairs, led me to a room with upholstered furniture and a small man at a table with a shaded green lamp (it was already dark).  And he put me in front of a little man, recommending: "Here, Comrade Head of the Investigation Department, admire it."

I realized that he was demonstrating to the boss that he couldn't get anything out of me within the limits allowed (at least to know what they want to get out of me?) - he needs new sanctions. The boss looked at me with contempt, said "very sorry", and we went back.

The rest of the evening he lazily threatened to put my patrons in Lefortovo, into the basement of my patrons (without saying who they were), monotonously repeating his questions and tensely waiting for something. Once he threatened that now I would see a person whom I would like to see the least. (I've been wondering for sixteen years who this mysterious person is.)  And at seven in the evening I finally signed a piece of paper to leave. & nbsp; I was taken outside through the same reception room and let in on all four sides.

I was walking along the wall of the KGB building, bent over in pain, holding my stomach with my hand. Relieved, I boarded the subway train. Here I only felt that my lips were parched and burning in my mouth - it is not surprising if there was no sip of water in my mouth for more than twelve hours.

On the way home, I nevertheless went into a telephone booth and, in a completely different voice, told my friends, who were so interested in him what happened to me today - and mainly, what was missing: no water, no food, no withdrawal to the mandrel; I didn’t remember the questions and my answers.

The booth stood on the edge of a wasteland, near the blank wall of the house - there were no people here even in the summer, that's why I chose it. As soon as I picked up the phone, a tall fellow lined up in front of the broken, of course, door with a briefcase, which he held in both hands, with a side edge in front of his chest, directing the opposite edge to my speaking mouth. I turned to face him and began to clearly pronounce each word so that he could hear well. Having finished, she went out, he entered the booth, and I stood in front of the door and began to wait for what he would say. But he just stood in the booth and looked into the distance, he didn’t even pick up the phone. I said "What a fool" and went home to her mother.

It was nine o'clock when I crossed the threshold.  I began to persuade myself to somehow relax in order to reduce the pain that stubbornly did not let go. An hour later, I finally managed to urinate, it became a little easier.  Sleep was out of the question.  One had only to close one's eyes, the light hit the face and the cry "pathologically... pathologically..." was heard.

It seemed to me that I was lying deep on the marshy and viscous muddy bottom and would remain lying here if I did not find a way to pull myself out by the hair or at least tear myself away from the sucking mud.  And the whole night is still ahead ... The next day no longer interested me - let them drag me to the state house again. & nbsp; With their skill, I will last no more than a week, and the pain in the lower abdomen overpowers all other irritants - I no longer have to be afraid. & nbsp; What about fainting? -I forgot about fainting! You have to pull yourself out by any means so that tomorrow you don’t fall off your chair there.

I remember a room in a government building.

My brain seemed completely empty when this phrase popped into my head.  But this is Vera Inber! So the memory is still working:

We remember the sad day between days... Thank you, Vera Inber, you've come in handy - you just need to disguise yourself:

 

                   ;                          ;                I know a room in a government building.

Yeah, I know this room all too well: youwthree P-shaped tables...

There are three tables with the letter P.

So, and I'm at the table opposite. All frozen like an idol.

I'm sitting there like a concrete idol.

Measuring like in a dream:

What did I measure - hours?  No, your answers: so that every other time it was "I don't know" and "I don't remember"...

"I didn't ask about signs.

Didn't see it.  I don't remember the day...»

...And the day is coming to an end,  and with dim light

Life is leaving me drop by drop.

Day-day, day-me - not fat, however, vocabulary.  Well, not to fat - I would live.

And the rumble in the temples, and the darkness in the window glass.

Move?  Whisper: water...

No, it's too late... The voice is monotonous again.

Bespectacled eyes swim out of the darkness.

Here I am holding in my hands not so hot, but my only evidence of the stone room and proof to myself that I'm still sane.  I felt that I slowly and with difficulty broke away from the mud and now I was hanging low above it in a strange balance. & nbsp; One thing was good - weightlessness seemed stable.  Until something else is done to me, I will stay here.  The pain subsided and made itself felt only with sudden movements.

Maybe I'll get out before I get dragged again ("I'll drag you along," he said ominously calmly). I lay down and closed my eyes. Again there was a cry in my ears: "You hate ... pathologically, pathologically ... " Suddenly I remembered Voznesensky: “Polytechnic! Polytechnic!",  - and, as soon as "pathologically" was heard inside, she began to remake in her mind, but in the same shrill voice to "Polytechnic," Polytechnic..."  The attempt was successful, and soon managed to doze off.

The next day went smoothly, and I even received a letter from my husband. The letter was a month old, he persuaded me not to hide my head in the sand like an ostrich from reality, but to finally apply for departure. I came to life a little because the letter was not lost.  In addition, after the honor of an official interrogation done to me (all the previous ones, it turns out, were just "conversations"), finally, there was an occasion to go to a lawyer, that is, to act, and this is still better than sitting, staring at wall and waiting for a knock on the door or a phone call.

The next day I went to S.V. Kalistratova and learned there from her two things, from which she again sank like a stone to the very bottom, from where, as it seemed to me, she rose a little. First - she said that she was deprived of "permission" and she cannot provide legal assistance under Article 70. The second is that our mutual friend (oh, she knew him very well!) is called an investigator for especially important cases (and I have never heard of such a position) and therefore personally leaves searches only in exceptional cases. (I am, therefore, an exceptional case. Thank you for the honor.) & nbsp; She recommended another lawyer.

They haven't threatened me with the 70th article yet - or rather, it hasn't reached the articles yet. The fact that Kalistratova connected my incoherent story with a similar article was bad, but the fact that I and my parents, my poor father, brought back to life by doctors from clinical death - an "exceptional case", was much worse.

He mentioned that he would interrogate his father. I did not believe the seriousness of this threat.  It turns out, in vain.  And I'm powerless to do anything...

Every day we anxiously waited for news from the hospital and, finally, we did.  Mom, returning from there, with tears of gratitude, told how the same doctor who pulled my father out of clinical death categorically refused to allow the investigator to see his patient and gave a written conclusion that the patient would die immediately at the mere mention of the upcoming interrogation.  And I don't even know the name of this dare chaka!

Fuss began at work. My boss and our intimidated personnel officer were interrogated (what they were interrogated about - I can’t figure it out to this day), and I began to wait for the circle to close on me again. & nbsp; But the days turned into weeks, and I kept waiting and waiting.

Two cars were parked near the house, brave guys were breathing in the back of their heads, in the subway car, when there were few people, one could always notice two frozen guys at the door (just like sentries in Smolny), and the senselessness of the Sabbath was the worst of all.

p>

In those days, I learned about the fate of the unfortunate Voronyanskaya. The thought that I was avoiding such a fate only because my husband was abroad and for this reason my disappearance would not go unnoticed - did not get out of my head. & nbsp; I felt with all my skin that only a thin shell of possible instant publicity prevents them from turning me into dust, and this shell will be crushed the second they decide to benefit from my self-created "fame".

I lost sleep again. The image of a yellow-faced thin male creature in a dark suit and glasses has grown to the cosmic dimensions of an all-pervading world evil. I saw him on the TV screen when they showed Gromyko, Nixon or someone else with the same type of face.  At an unexpected angle, the figure on the screen suddenly turned into a figure at the table or simply into a head swaying on a thin neck, shining with two glasses and hissing: “Are you non-contact?”

Now there was no question of any letters from her husband – they probably immediately went to "business".  Rereading the last letter, where he compared me to an ostrich, I thought bitterly that if we take analogies from the animal world, then I, perhaps, am not an ostrich, but a rabbit frozen under the dead gaze of a boa constrictor.

You called me an alarmed ostrich,

No, I don't hide my head under the coat:

I'm not an ostrich, but a rabbit, spellbound

The movements of the boa constrictor in front of you.

...The snake wriggles in front of me,

Retreats, crawls closer again.

And this month of torture continues.

And looking into her yellow mouth with horror,

I froze...

Well, press it, grind it.

Crack the last light in your eyes!

I'm so tired of waiting for the meeting,

That's all the same - strangle or not.

Nevertheless, ,, alas, I didn’t care, no matter how I tried to convince otherwise.  In memory without endca rhythmic cry popped up:

"You/ hate the Soviet/power.  You / hate the Soviet / Soviet authorities.  I walked along the streets to this rhythm, heard it in the sound of subway wheels.  Once, at home, through the wall, I heard Vysotsky's ironic howl: "Scary, already horror".  “It’s scary, it’s already horror,” howls Vysotsky, but does he know where the fear is, and where the horror is? I thought in my heart. Wait, wait, - yes, this is it:

The young man stands straight during interrogation,

He stands silently - not a word in response...

It seems Mikhalkov. Third or fourth grade of elementary school.  0x, Comrade Mikhalkov, please do something for me:

 

"Scary. Already horror," howls Vysotsky –

Does he really know where the fear is, and where the horror is!

The dead beast of wild fear

It was like a vise squeezed my chest.

 

Pulse beats like a bottom bell

Buzzing and buzzing in my head...

What to grab onto?  How to remember

That somewhere there are PEOPLE on earth,

 

What's next, behind the walls, people laugh,

They go to the cinema, buy flowers.

How to believe it?  And do not bend,

If your lips are white with fear.

When I finished, I was not too lazy to get up and look in the mirror. The lips were bluish-white.

After I warned all my friends not to get close to a cannon shot, life flowed like in an aquarium.  It was possible to observe moving silhouettes behind invisible transparent walls, but their movement and my writhing on the coals had nothing to do with each other.  The only reality was my mother's anguished eyes, my father's heaving chest in the hospital bed, and the black receiver of the telephone.  Everything else was as far away as life on Mars. And I (who could believe!) breathed a sigh of relief when, like a fish in a net, my hero pulled me out of the aquarium, calling on the phone and ordering me to come tomorrow (already an achievement: tomorrow, not an hour later!)

This time he said sarcastically: ''If a subpoena is required, they will hand it to you now*'. I was frightened (scared again) that they would now come to work: & nbsp; "No, please hand it in your institution, not here".

And here I am again in front of the door to the reception.  But now it’s easier to breathe - we managed to get a manual on the investigative case, the script is already known: will wear you down with anticipation, and I'm ready for it.  And most importantly, she is determined to write down questions and her answers.  If I had known about this inalienable right last time!

Oh, miracles!  I enter the reception room, and immediately familiar Sasha, starley and startrack, appears in other doors. There will be no waiting time. But what happened to Sasha? His face is emphasized closed and severely contemptuous.  He does not look at me, because he is disgusted.  On the way, he sings through his teeth:

"Now you've finally figured out whose influence you're under" (I wonder under whose?)

Here is a familiar, all too familiar room. But the snow has already fallen, the winter sky is lighter than the autumn one - so the room has brightened a little, the light of the day overpowers the light of the lamp under the ceiling, and now I see in front of me not a spectacled snake, but a man with a diseased liver.  Well, press it, grind it.

He offers to sit down at a table in the far corner - and I take out paper and a pen. "What is it?" "I will record the interrogation." Explosion of hatred: “You pathologically hate the Soviet government. You are slandering us in every possible way in your so-called complaints.  I took a breath into my lungs and wanted to blurt out, but it turned out squeaky: “And it seems that no one chose you anywhere.” He instantly turned hatred into contempt: "How did they teach you!"

I have already understood that it is impossible to be non-contact; therefore, you need to smile: “No one taught me. The procedural code says that the accused has the right to write down questions and answers. "You are not the accused." "Well, suspect." "And where did you get the procedural code? " "As if  you don't know!"  "I know, I know everything. I know what lawyers you run to.  I know who you meet (of course!). I know who your patrons are (at least tell me who they are, I would ask them to save me from him!). I know that  you sold yourself for a can of stew. What did your accomplices give you in the subway, stew or chicken?"  I, proudly: "Hungarian chicken!" "That's it, sold out for a Hungarian chicken. We know whose influence you are under!"  Yeah - says the same thing as Sasha.  So this is the approved version. I wonder what article for such a crime is "to be under the influence"; or is it supposed to be a psychiatric hospital?  Most likely, she is the most.  You have to be careful and... smile, smile.

He probably could not bear my smile, because as if by chance he said: "This kind of thing falls under Article 64." Here I really perked up.  Really, everything is not like with people: I would be afraid of the mention of the 70th (and Kalistratova warned me that I would be lucky if they limited themselves to the 190th), but to bring me under treason to my homeland - even they would not have found so much humor .

I carefully wrote down his threat. "Why are you writing? I'm talking off the record, and we'll take everything from you anyway.  "For God's sake," I said. “I just can’t believe my ears, so I’m writing it down to make sure that I’m not dreaming.”

Here he said again, "Look, you're playing with fire," and I bit my tongue.  And he suddenly got up from the table and, with an imperceptible movement, took out a pack of cigarettes from somewhere, quickly approached me, holding out a pack: "Light up!"

All my prudence evaporated in the same second, and I began to laugh indecently. He calmly waited until I calmed down, and asked, now smiling affectionately (oh, these unpredictable transitions - I lost count of them and just waited tensely, but what will happen in the next moment): “What are you laughing at?” & nbsp; “Yes, yes,” I replied. “In all spy films and novels, the investigator offers the criminal a cigarette, he takes it with trembling fingers, takes a deep puff and immediately begins to crack.” "Well, - he almost shouted joyfully, - yes, it's wonderful! Smoke, smoke, and let's, let's quickly split up, since you really want to use criminal jargon, but in our opinion: let's finally work together and get out of the abyss together! "Thank you," I said sadly, "unfortunately, I don't smoke." "Pity, pity..." he sighed.

In such conversations, and always remembering the "friendly" smile, again sat with him all day without getting up, but this time there was no fatigue, no thirst, no pain - in full accordance with science. "We've already been sitting for six hours, why aren't you complaining?" he asked sarcastically. Perhaps my innate aversion to dramatization helped again.  Just as at the very beginning, without knowing it, I knocked them out of their usual tricks, so now I did not bite the slipped bait. & nbsp; "I'm not tired - that's why I don't complain. And I'm not tired because I write down questions and answers. & nbsp; Now it’s clear why you don’t get tired,  He did he looked confused and did not know what to answer, and, of course, immediately twisted me around his finger: & nbsp; "Question on the record: Name your closest friends." "I don't have any friends." "How is it not? You have been living in Moscow for so many years, and everything is gone! Why not frank?"  I am silent. "Name your closest acquaintances."

...In the previous six hours, the same several surnames were inflected.  These people had already visited him against their will - they were grabbed on the street, pushed into cars and taken to him for a "conversation." During such many hours of "conversations", he, obviously, in order to take a break from threats, complained offendedly to his forced interlocutors about me - he is engaged, they say, in slandering organs - and boasted that he had almost driven me into a corner (in the fifth, what?), Yes, the authorities (that is, the generals) got in with their bride and ruined everything. & nbsp; And to me, in turn, he, meaningfully sorting through the sheets of my "case", painted picturesquely how I spent hours in the company of these renegades; and just as I did not dare not to sign the search protocol and not to appear in the interrogation chamber, although I did not see a single summons in my eyes, I also did not dare to answer “I don’t have any acquaintances” and confirmed the named names.

Surprise was also expressed: "How, don't you have other acquaintances?"  Oh, how brave I have become!  "They are, but if I name them, you will also start dragging them like me." “Well, we won’t write down such an answer in the protocol.” - he said sympathetically, - otherwise it may harm you in the future. What humanity! Only a few years later it dawned on me that all he needed from me was the names on the protocol.  And he spent six hours on it!  True, I learned a lot of interesting things: that my actions (or lack of them?) fall under Article 64 "treason"; that I sold myself to foreign agents for a can of stew, and that somewhere (if only I knew where!) I have already been awarded or will soon be awarded the Order of either the White Lion or the White Elephant (one of the rare moments of fatigue that day, and therefore I don’t remember not only the exact name of the order that was waiting for me over the hill, but even in honor of which animal the order was established; I only remember that the animal is large, African and not a crocodile).

Towards the close of the curtain, another phenomenon occurred: a dry, tall old man with a bald and round head like a pot silently entered the room.  He instantly got closer, pulled himself up, lost all his bossiness and helpfully began to show him the papers lying on the table ( my business?), respectfully referring to the old man as if "Semyon Evgrafovich" - in any case, the name-patronymic was specifically Russian, kondovy.  The old man came out and I dared to ask: "Who is this, the expert?"  "Expert," he replied absently, as if for a moment he had forgotten my presence and wondered what this appearance might threaten him.  By God, I sometimes sympathetically thought: well, what a difficult and dangerous job he has!

After the appearance of Semyon Evgrafovich, he lost all interest in me and soon let me go, in parting, once more mockingly suggesting that I complain about the length of the interrogation; and I immediately began to call my friends - to warn that he managed to get me to sign the protocol with the names he needed.

You could go home and sleep like a human being.  But it turns out that sleep flees not only from the vision of a hanging snout, but also from a quasi-joyful impatience to get to some end ("I now understand your character quite clearly: everyone strives to climb on the rampage," - so he summed up his working days).  And instead of sleep, I again had to grab a pencil.

Recalling the long day that had passed, I could hardly believe that the interrogation took place in the same room as the first time.  Everything seems to be the same: the same lamp hit my eyes, he opened the same iron cabinet in the wall and shook some pieces of paper (proof of my crimes? & nbsp; But he didn’t show it close, so I remained in the dark until now pore). The same well of gray walls outside the window, but today the room seemed lighter and more spacious - the change came from the fact that I took a pen and began to write, and focused on the process of writing; this was enough to keep his teeth from chattering, and he didn't have to clench them painfully so as not to give him pleasure.

I clearly remembered that the last time he screamed, I almost fell off my chair, but I no longer remembered the state that made me clutch at the countertop.  "Look at what you have brought yourself to," he noted then with satisfaction.  Yes, enjoy...

 

Electric chair

Not always with wires,

And a knife switch for death

Don't turn it on.

 

(It's good that I'm an electrician and have turned on all sorts of circuit breakers more than once, - no problems with vocabulary.)

And on a simple chair

Available on schedule

Your miserable life

Take it easy.

I suddenly saw, that I was writing not on my own, but on their behalf, even their vocabulary: "on schedule", "withdraw" - no one ever heard such words from me. & nbsp; But let's move on:

How nice to look at

On trembling hands.

Hear small fraction

Teeth chattering.

It's good if you passed

Such sciences

From whom

the chair seated on it is ready.

 

What, my dear, are you shaking?

As if current is being passed?

If I didn't grab the table,

That's right, I could fall!

Here my imagination, or rather ,, the ability to identify with my characters has dried up, and a dashing monologue broke off at once. Had to end up with a boring withtention:

...So on ordinary chairs

In the institutions of the capital

Slowly done

The death penalty.

Why only in the capital?  Okay - I only know about metropolitan institutions, even if they appear. Or maybe in non-capital places no one breeds psychological nuances: & nbsp; gave in the teeth, and that's the end of it?

Recently, I was amazed when I read in a book by Sharansky how he describes his condition and an unsuccessful attempt to calm the trembling of his fingers in a similar situation (of course, in a much more difficult one, but I firmly believed that I would soon be finished), in the same institution, and possibly in the same warm company. What shocked me most of all was that Sharansky, although without rhyming, almost verbatim repeated my words. & nbsp; So, long live the lyrical heroes in civilian clothes. With such heroes, why surrealism, mauvism, fauvism, etc.? We were born to make Kafka come true. Fingering with paws, Judge Savelyeva   mottled kafka moved into immortality. But we digress...

For a while  obviously there were more important things to do than mess with me  (I wanted to write “Thank God” and realized it: after all, this means that someone else unexpectedly got into that room and, instead of me, floundered in the waves of oncoming horror, foot and car surveillance, insomnia ... And what does God have to do with it? ), and a semblance of normal life seemed to set in.

Father returned from the hospital - it was necessary to prepare him, and mother carefully told him about the misfortune that had fallen.  To our surprise, he took the news much more calmly than we expected, and cut it off: “Let them come, but I won’t open the door for them. Let them break. I got sick of mine. even visited the next world.  Yes, let them just try!"

I calmed down a little, and another "event" happened: total surveillance was removed. The cars disappeared completely, and the stompers appeared once or twice a week - trained on me, or what?

Somehow, in one of these now infrequent appearances, I quickly, in dashes, walked to the trolleybus through the cut down apple orchard. They, the poor, also had to switch to running (that's how I discovered them). Fresh snow creaked underfoot, and this creak itself formed into the rhythm of Lermontov's "Date":

I know how comforted

Along the ringing pavement

Yesterday I rode like crazy...

"I love the desperate guys on the ringing pavement, - I thought to the beat of Lermontov's rhythm, - they stick out, as if by chance, the whole day behind my back.

Ha-ha, it turns out , for poetry and the night is no longer necessary.  More to come:

Everyone is so young –

Blush on the cheeks.

So businesslike –

On the conscience, not out of fear.

Out, out, running with briefcases,

With newspapers in hand,

(Newspapers are rolled up, what is there? camera or microphonen?)

 

Sheepdogs look like gray

With diapers in his teeth,

There is no other activity

The poor guys have –

Look carefully all day,

Where the eyes look.

In the snow, cold, muddy slush

Hang around the streets.

My formidable person

Off the hook - don't let go!

Yeah! Again "out, out they run" - again the devilry. But now they are small demons, nimble and fidgety, trying not to catch the eye.  Did I live up to the irony? ("Let's not be ironic," the senior investigator Sasha would say.) And to hope - the flying rhythm of "Date" could only mean one thing: I believed that I had a chance to get out.

Obviously, sensing such a mess, my hero tried to deliver a new blow: stepping back from his father, he took up his mother. One day, when I came home, I found my mother lying on the sofa, as white as a sheet, and my father, who could hardly move himself, fussing around her. & nbsp; It turned out that the phone rang, my mother picked up the phone and heard: “Hello. I -you know the investigator for especially important cases, here, I'm going to send you a subpoena. Name a day when you can come to me, and if you can't, I'll come myself.  Then my mother dropped the phone and fell unconscious by the phone. Father called an ambulance, and now mom is better.

And if he calls again?

The next day, when I arrived at work, I could hardly wait for ten o'clock.  I dial the phone number, carefully given by someone from Sash, so that I will call when I "think about it." It turns out that this is his office phone.  "Ah, hello, hello." What can I serve? "Why are you mocking your mother?" Do what you want with me, but why are you torturing her?  She heard your voice yesterday and fell unconscious».

In response, jubilation: "This, you know, to the wrong address.  Blame yourself for what happened to your mother. This behavior of yours led me to interrogate her." "What are you going to interrogate her about, what can she tell?" "Well, let me decide that."

I hung up. Thoughts frantically jumped from subject to subject. What to do?  Something must be done immediately.  The father repeated once again that he would not open the door for them, but how to protect himself from the phone? & nbsp; And in one breath I write a letter to the Red Cross with a copy to Andropov.  It's a pity it didn't occur to me to make a copy for myself: probably, the letter came out not quite ordinary. When I finished, I unexpectedly calmed down for my parents, but still decided to go to Kalistratova and show the letter to her first.

Kalistratova was not there, a young lawyer who knew about my case from Sofia Vasilievna agreed to receive me.  I am waiting for the reception, trying to remember all the shades of the morning conversation.  Through the open door I hear her fervent exclamation: “No, no, I won’t go to the Kremlin: they have parquet floors, and the doctors are profiled!” - and involuntarily having fun.

She reads the letter, shakes her head.  He looks at me inquisitively, returns the text: "Well, then. Since you are at war with them openly, then send them away. They are not allowed to call on the phone. The notice must be delivered in person. If your mother finds a reason and refuses to take it...” Quietly say "thank you" and go to the post office. So, the war is open, only one of the warring parties cannot be distinguished even under a microscope.

(Note. Lawyer's last name: Reznikova)

I began to wait, already without any fear of what they would do to me for this letter.  I even understood why I no longer feel fear: the first time I did something against them, I knew what was threatening me and was ready for the consequences.

We didn't have to wait long for events - but the news turned out to be quite surprising. I warned all close and distant acquaintances, and from my warning waves began to diverge in cities and villages, like circles on water. And in a certain Siberian city, one person who wrote memoirs at night - completely unknown to me, but who knew through third hands one of my friends - so this man got scared and decided to hide his memoirs just in case. He went to his closest friend, who refused to accept the manuscript for safekeeping.  He went to another close friend, who instantly denounced him.  So, I once again served faithfully to my native authorities.

Sure, it took all the genius of my vis-a-vis< span style="font-size:11.0pt"> to add one plus one and guess that some provincial report is related to his stormy all-Moscow activity.  And I vividly imagine how, forgetting about the trembling creature crouched on a chair, he grabs the plane ticket he brought (they don’t give a separate plane - a disgrace!), his colonel’s overcoat, hurriedly runs out of the room to jump on a horse, sorry, in plane, and personally search and interrogate a dangerous criminal.  Oh the joy of hunting!

So, when the order came over the phone again, I already knew why I was needed.  Last time I was required to confirm my acquaintance, so this time I will need my statement that I have never heard of this person (as if they did not know that!)

I was not mistaken: the question - the answer - the signature - the protocol is ready, the plane trip is framed, and I am free again.

Freedom! and it's only two o'clock in the afternoon, you can go to have lunch. I pass the iron gates and then I realize with surprise that it seems that the invisible wall that separated me from normal people for half a year has collapsed, and there is no longer any need to be afraid for friends who have not been awarded the title of renegades. So, you can run to a friend who works very close to the institution that loves me. I go in, and we go with her to the dining room of the employees of the hotel "Metro pol".

But, oh, criminals, after we dined, we went out through another exit - who could have expected such deceit?  I return to work, and immediately call the boss. "Where have you been?" "Probably you know." “They called from there and were looking for you. Worried about where you've gone. (What a touching concern!) & nbsp; "Call them, please, and tell them that I have not run away abroad, and that in the dining room of the Metropol" two exits. It wouldn't hurt them to know that.  The boss's eyes light up at the prospect of such a call. Apparently, they spoiled his blood for warming a snake in their department.

And he called me for the last time and then wrote down word for word everything that I invariably repeated before, and in response I heard: "We do not believe you, they want you well here, but you lie, we know who pulled you in and where, stop screwing around and lighten your soul, "(And it's not heavy for me, by the way!)

It must have been far upstairs (in the Rostopchin Hall or even higher?) that the decision was finally made to leave me alone: something went wrong with them, and I'll never know what it was.  But this office can’t just leave a person alone: all the senseless fuss that happened with me had to be recorded and sealed with my signature. Still, a couple of times he tried to knock me down for the sake of order: & nbsp; "I remember, you used to say that it was Pushkin Square, not Mayakovsky Square.  Or: "And you said before that you met at the monument to Marx, and not at the bust of Lenin." What, scared?   I joked: you've said the same thing before.  I got angry and blurted out: "None of your operatives knows where the bust of Lenin is located, so you are confused." But, apparently, he was now given the directive to show peacefulness (or was it the second directive to his state - who can guess?), And he only shook his head paternally: "You're climbing on the rampage again." And in the end, when I asked if it was possible to go on a business trip, he answered with a radiant smile: “Of course, of course. And tell at work that you have a good relationship here.  Here you are, grandmother, and St. George's Day!

The last flower in the bouquet. And he probably rightly believes that the most odorous. I began to think about whether there is a threat or not, and came up with nothing. & nbsp; It would be possible, of course, to start a rumor that I was recruited, but where is this rumor spread? & nbsp; I did not communicate with anyone, did not write to anyone, and I would never have known about the execution of the threat. However, something had to happen - and it did.

My friends with "issued" they continued to drag me with surnames to him without any sense. & nbsp; And once such a pearl was issued: “But we are not going to detain her (that is, me).  We (who - we?) do not need such people here. Let him leave if he wants to. When this chorus was repeated a second time, I went to the lawyer and asked: "Is this a trap?" Elegant and thin, looking more like a journalist than a lawyer, and who had long ago categorically refused to take money from me, he immediately became extremely serious and said: “No, this is not a provocation. They offer you to leave, and if I were you, I would take advantage of the offer until it was taken back.  You have lost your fear, and this is the worst thing for you. I was very surprised; "Why do you think so?  Every minute I just wait for a car to hit me or a brick to fall on my head. He: “You can’t help but notice the difference between how you looked before and how you look now. You smile all the time, and it annoys them!"  "Am I smiling all the time??"  "Yes, yes, you are smiling now".

I'm completely confused. "Really?  And I didn't know. It must be nervous. They stuck a label on me that I was non-contact, so I, probably from fear, have been smiling ever since.  "Fear or not fear, but this smile is striking, especially in contrast to your former appearance. Leave immediately."

I came out as if bruised by a butt. That's what "good relationships" lead to.  So, the first serious warning.  But I'm not Taiwan and won't wait for the hundredth.

That same evening, I was walking from work to the metro in the blue twilight, the lights had just begun to fill up.  It was Friday, and I already knew that if there were no special circumstances, they also went for the weekend. So, two days will be quiet.  You can think about what to do next.

I didn't even remember that a person could feel so good.  With greedy eyes I looked around everything around, as if for the first time I saw hurrying cars that had nothing to do with me, buses and trolleybuses, where you don’t need to jump up at the last second and watch who jumps up after you, a burning red metro letter. Was the air like spring, or did it just seem so?  Forgotten on away, the state of peace and tranquility descended on me like grace...

It seems that for the first time in three months, the muscles began to relax a little, and the second part of the "Apassionata" sounded to the beat of the steps, and to the beat of the "Apassionate" - lines:

I'm leaving work - the day has passed.

They didn't touch, didn't take, didn't call...

Now it's Saturday... Oh, how nice:

They didn't give two days - they gave eternity.

 

Cars rustling, not behind me - easy!

The bus arrives at the bus stop.

The lights and the letter M in the subway came on,

And quietly lets go in my soul...

Coming into such a state of mind, I was sure that I deserved two quiet and peaceful weekends and I could calmly think about my problems, but fate decreed otherwise.

On a Sunday afternoon, a call from a long-suffering friend who had the misfortune of bearing one of my surnames torn from me: - Come, let's chat...  "Chat" - the expression is not quite correct.  In fact, we will sit side by side on the couch and write notes to each other, alternately tearing out a notebook from each other, because conversations aloud in this apartment fall entirely under Nekrasov's definition: "To speak is to anger the Almighty, to please cursed demons." Went to "chat", drive more than an hour.  I no longer pay attention to the two cars at the entrance to the entrance (but I should pay attention: after all, today is Sunday, which means there are "special circumstances").

I enter the entrance, climb the stairs, looked up and was dumbfounded.  Ahead, two figures loom on the landing - a guy in civilian clothes and a young policeman.  I stand with my mouth open.

 

Civilian: "What are you stopping for?"  Me: "What are you doing here?"  "We must, here we are.  Well, come on in!  By the way, where are you going?" Me: "What do you care?"  "And here it is. What apartment are you in?"  Me: "Well, let's say, in such and such a" (I call the number of the neighboring apartment). & nbsp; "Then come in."  Me: "Thanks for the permission. I'd rather go to the police and tell them what's going on here.  "Why declare?  Here, you see, a comrade policeman is standing nearby. Me: "You can steal a police uniform." He: "Well, if you are so afraid of us, then we will move away, and you go where you need to." Me: "No, you go up the flight above, otherwise I'm afraid of you." He: "Coming".  And they obediently (I can’t believe my eyes) go one flight up.  I timidly climb the landing, holding on to the railing. Coming up with my friend’s apartment, I make a sharp jerk to the left and with all my might press the bell button with one hand, and pound on the door with my fist with the other. & nbsp; At the same second, a civilian panther falls on my shoulders (it seems that he missed the entire flight in one jump, right on Lermontov), and now both my hands were torn off the door and twisted behind my back. & nbsp; The next moment he pulls me away from the door and turns me around to face the stairs. Now I will fly head over heels down.

The door opens. A friend is on the doorstep.

Three lines sound at the same time.  Girlfriend: "What's wrong, what are you doing to her?"  Me: "Close the door. Here is an ambush against you." Civilian, to her (still holding me in pincers): "Go back. You are not allowed to leave the apartment.  It seems that only a friend owns herself at this moment. “I don’t go out anywhere,” she says calmly. - Let my friend go now. She couldn't have known that our family was under arrest. I invited her two hours ago." The civilian, releasing me, with anger: "She deceived me!" & nbsp; Me (pulling up my sleeves and examining my already bruised hands): "I don't think I promised to marry you." Civilian: “I didn’t want to take note of you, but I have to. Present your documents! Me: "I don't carry it with me."  He: "Then go to the police! What's your last name?"

Me: "To the police?  That's fine! By the way, we will draw up a report there on the bodily injuries that you inflicted on me.  Here, comrade policeman will confirm.

A young policeman shifts nearby.  He is clearly embarrassed to be a participant in all this mess and fight with the women.

The civilian immediately cooled down.  "You deceived me," he repeats already peacefully.  I remind him again that I didn't promise to marry him.  Girlfriend interrupts the fight:  "I'm sorry I invited you. They came here 15 minutes ago and announced that my husband and I were forbidden to leave the apartment. And half an hour ago they turned off the phone.  Me: "Apologize for me to my parents that I knocked loud – probably frightened everyone.  I figured they were standing there waiting to break into the house when you opened the door.  She: "On the contrary, we have there is full agreement… Parents and children can even go outside under escort.  Only my husband and I are forbidden. Me: "And the neighbors?" Her: "I don't know what they were told." So far, everyone hid out of fear".

The civilian, meanwhile, regained his militancy: "Enough talk! Close the door, you are not allowed to go out.  Girlfriend – to me, ignoring him: “Go home and tell whoever you can that we are holding on. But don't try too hard.  I think that now such parsley is going all over Moscow.  Then - to him: "I will not close the door until she leaves the entrance, understand? "  He understands.  I have always admired her ability to handle them.  In front of my eyes, they more than once unquestioningly carried out her, say, proposals.

For the last time we say goodbye to each other, and I slowly go down the stairs under the gaze of three pairs of eyes.  Downstairs, I wave my hand once more, and the apartment door slams shut.  How many days or weeks or months? - better but guess.

(End of story: the family was under arrest for two weeks. Every morning the owner of the apartment opened the door and proclaimed: Wake up – hello! No Soviet power! 

But the Soviet government, consisting of two brave representatives of its most important infood, stubbornly stayed at the door like a faithful dog.

One fine morning the owner opened the door - and alas! everything comes to an end: there was no one at the door, as if the whole family had a bad two-week dream at the same time.  We filed a complaint with the Ministry of Internal Affairs.  The answer came immediately:

"A check carried out on your complaint showed that no posts were installed on the landing in front of the door of your apartment and no one blocked your exit from the apartment."

Signature: name

In the meantime, I safely got out of the yard, past two cars, and now I'm walking down the street, almost jubilant.  The feeling of victory is superimposed on the sharpest feeling of anxiety for my family close to me. & nbsp; I DID NOT FEAR, I didn’t overcome fear - it simply didn’t exist. & nbsp; There was one desire - to break through the barrier in any way and warn.  And not only did they not dare to drag me to the police station, they even asked for my name and address.  Poor people!

Again, right on the move, I roll up my sleeve and look at the bruises on my arms with some idiotic pride.  The thought flashes through my head that they would probably look at the orders and medals they received for me with the same pride (and maybe they will get them, who can figure them out!), and I start laughing uncontrollably right in the middle of the street. But then I remember the lawyer's warning, and immediately it becomes no laughing matter. & nbsp; We have to make a decision.

What is there to decide?  Is there any other way?  And on top of that, this fight...  I was wildly lucky: they are not up to me now if they really decided to lock up the entire dissident Moscow. But then what?  Another threat of interrogation of parents?  No, you have to take off your feet.  Let them look for another object for their stormy life (or death?) activities. Enough from me, from my father and mother.

End. And it immediately became easy. It was the first hour of my existence as a free man. Suddenly, I just felt sorry for all these little men floundering in their dark, petty, evil activities: red-cheeked, hard-assed cunning guys, and gray- and yellow-faced investigators who need to carry out the plan at any cost, and young provincial lieutenants with university badges (whether they dreamed of such a future they, breaking into the capital's university through all competitive slingshots), and gray-haired generals, with difficulty moving their tongues after drinking vodka and doomed to cirrhosis of the liver.

All.  Farewell, rocky mountains.  Farewell, mountainous rocks. Farewell, Iron Felix! Happy staying!

Nothing else could bring me out of my state of acute pity for those who remained: neither the months-long refusal to issue a testimonial, nor certification, nor transfer to another department, so that it would be easier for new colleagues who did not know me to persecute me. Strangers watched for a day or two. a week, and then they rushed to help, as best they could: they took food for me in the store (I couldn’t stand in lines during working hours), approved my job offers, warned that so-and-so was taken to the department specifically so that dug under me, and not for a minute did they leave the two of us in the room: they were always "on duty" there; at least two more.  When I was transferred to piecework, my co-workers flooded me with orders, and I suddenly began to earn the most money after the head of the department. & nbsp; The party organizer had to call me aside, and we quietly agreed that I would not write out more than 160 rubles a month for myself, but I warned that I did not intend to work for more than 160 rubles. & nbsp; "Yes, yes, horsech'", he nodded in fright.

When my poor dad died (yes, he courageously held on, but he could not remain inwardly firm all the time, and with his heart any sharp fluctuations from anger to joy or from contempt to hatred were equally deadly) - when my poor father died, there was such an outburst of sympathy that the director, still refusing to give me a reference, ordered through gritted teeth to write out a funeral allowance, although the day before he had shouted: “She won’t see my (?!) money like her ears.” It was evident how painfully our director was worried that he was not allowed to crush such an insignificant booger, – alas, the apparent permafrost turned out to be not eternal, the whole layer thawed and floated, and it was not in the power of the trusted workers of the convicts' sharashkas, from which our director came out, to stop the rolling avalanche. & nbsp; And he was ordered from above to sign a hated characterization.

And now I have an exit visa in my hands. Well, to mock on paper in the end - it’s tempting, I can’t resist. But such fear cannot be overcome to the end, and is it necessary?

I can't bring myself to call my native organization with solid letters that rely on it. I'll call it with the other three letters – no, no, not the famous three letters, but the cheerful letters "B", three Bs, B cubed:

BBB my dear, daring BBB!

About you, daring, all the sheep are beashut be-ee?

And aren't you, golden one, famously making a raid...

Uh, no, that won't do! No respect - this does not correspond to the objective reality that was given to me in sensation (and in what sensation!).  All kinds of poets came to the rescue in the moments, when all hope left me.  And now... Come on, Serezha Yesenin, help me say goodbye!

BBB you're mine, BBB

No, let the first line be just a knock on the door:

BBB, you're mine, BBB.

This is a dream or delusional gyrus.

But you froze in vicious impotence

And it went back to itself...

BBB you are mine. BBB.

This is a dream or delirium expanse,

But I will see the blue sea

And the path of the moon on the water...

This is the end of the fairy tale.  And a normal dream is still not given to me.  But I do not regret, as Vysotsky would say.  On the contrary, I feel sorry for people suffering from insomnia.  Eccentrics, why suffer! & nbsp; Wouldn't it be better to spend this time usefully and with a powerful effort to open a spring in oneself that cannot break through during the day, when a weak trickle is littered with the yoke of everyday worries and convulsive attempts to overcome fate. Would I be able to write even such weak lines during the day:

I was there. Alas, unexpectedly

I woke up near the table.

And everything is shrouded in mist –

To whom I was a trump card...

I didn't touch their rusty nuts

(Yes, I would die of fear).

And yet... Oh my God,

Who was there when I was?

 

Who will be confused by other people's cries:

- Just think, dashing trouble!

But he is above everyone, the sword of Damocles,

Navis, if I was there.

I would like to believe that now the worst is behind us, and if the sword of Damocles continues to hang over the country, then it is suspended on some other thread (poor consolation, of course).

And my summary of the whole story is simple, but no less sad.

 

There were eight weeks.

There were plenty of nights.

There are ten poems.

There are two deaths.