Platform 41th kilometer, former "Siding 41th kilometer" when the Kurovskaya branch line still was single-track, is situated only three miles from dacha settlement Kratovo in the parallel Ryazansky railway direction.
Long ago in childhood whole winters Albert dreamed about a small artificial lake surrounded with dacha houses, hidden under high pines. The lake is situated nearby, rights from the four-track railway with the unaccustomed left side traffic. The larger part of the settlement is situated lefts. The dachas had formed well-learnt by him network of the unpaved streets, extended one and a half miles, in some places till two ones. Beyond them a pine forest immediately begins, which till now reminds to Albert the childhood and emits something cheerful, easy, carefree, unlike spruce-birch dark forests of the Yaroslavsky and Savelovsky directions, severe ones, but beautiful in its own manner.
At the same time here, in Kratovo, along the edge of the forest the voices of the mushroom pickers were sounded from every shrub, either of local people, or of summer residents of Moscow. But it was enough to go a little further, the voices became disappearing staying only in the memory, then some "voice of Silence" became to be heard, claiming itself by its silence, even shouting by it. Here a passing train may be heard too, but this railway is another at all, not similar Ryazansky one. There aren't large dacha settlements and large towns. That epoch, Albert as if was discovering a new mysterious world and expected beyond this single-track railway, the farther, the feeling of something beautiful and unknown would be increased.
For the first time, he knew the nature free from unnatural noises, from society, which oppressed and imposed its unnatural ideology, the society, which demands to report about everyone's private life, which threatens and forbids to live in a distinctive manner. However, the society was here powerless. The nature lived according its own laws, and staying in it alone, it is impossible to explain with words, what ways through and what sense organs through this feel of the God's presence comes. About its meaning, also, untranslatable into the human language, one may say that it is wonderful.
During all his childhood, Albert dreamed to walk by forest from the Kurovskaya railway branch to the North, till the Nizhegorodsky (Gorky) direction, but he had not time to return to time and the parents would be troubled. Only being an adult, he had realized his dream, but this realising gave him nothing, excepting a little disappointment. In some places the forest was a little worse, here and there he looked like a dry marsh covered by short trees. There were beautiful boondocks was seen in the East direction, but there was situated a guarded facility beyond a high fence, there was dachas of the Soviet and post Soviet bureaucrats. A little more to the West, there was a view of extensive fields, in which one could see a local twisting road. The road turned to the North, just here a large village Aksyonovo began and beyond was seen a ferro-concrete octopus of a town named with mad name Electric Coals was digging in the green body of the nature. But regarding the very center of the woody grace, it began just from the same place near the settlement Kratovo became silent, and extended till the Kurovskaya railway and only a little bit further.
The most sparsely populated railway direction rejoiced him and at the same time provoked in soul a beautiful nostalgic sadness about the best instants of the distant childhood, and when Albert had learned the teleportation, it costed him nothing to visit these nooks, to learn every station of the former single-track railway, now it already was two-track one, in order at once to pop out in any of them in the area from Korenyovo to Gzhel. That's why he has helped his wife to flee along only this railway and he told about the plan to old Paul yet yesterday in New-York, when in Moscow it already was evening.
From Albert's point, how we already know, New-York was in the immediate vicinity, but he had to show to old Paul the place where the fields begin and the road with them, leading in the town Electric Coals. This is the thing he was busy, when Nadezhdz waited for him in Taganka square.
Even if he is watched, the whole this fuss will be concentrating only along the Kurovskaya branch railway. When the persecutors learn that this area of the forest is used to drop persecuting at all, they will not have time to catch them taking a detour and there is not a straight road from "41 kilometer" to Electric Coals. There is a pitted swath covered here and there with swamps and stumps, but only a tank could pass on it. They weren't prepared the "objects" they watched would flee, also, it would be risky to use helicopter for a simple reason: it would be very hard to hide from the chiefs an application such a machine in the operation.
Albert teleported from the electric train away and appeared now in every station, excepting Ovrazhki, he didn't remember it well enough. As they agreed, Nadezhda came out in the Platform 41th kilometer while the door was closing, and ran forward.
The helper of Skolopendrin wanted to pull the emergency brake, but the chief stopped him. Firstly, Nadezhda was alone; secondly, they had to watch the direction. She was running so till disappearing from the line of sight of the persecutors, who were leaving now by train to the next station Donino.
-The less noise, the better. We have got on their tail again, - Skolopendrin explained gladly to his subordinate runner. - And now you will keep the whole operation. We come out in Donino. Run back quickly to meet her and the main thing, you must not be noticed. Now she will lead us to his husband, maybe to the whole lair.
-Can they be armed?
-Unlikely. They are mystics, sectarians. Her husband isn't noticed in carrying a weapon, - Skolopendrin has lied to calm the subordinate, fortunately, he don't connect with the group was running an operation in the Sveta's apartment at night and they had got themselves shot. - You are an athlete and have to win in which case. However, this would be a blunder, because you must not be seen. Try not to disrupt the operation and not to scare them. Report us from the radio, but by as the quiet voice as possible. Remember: you have the honor that the outcome depends on you.
"If he got himself shot, this would be of his own making, - Skolopendrin thought, - because he would discover himself. No great loss. If I give him a weapon, what if he being scared would kill this dude, who is beyond a price. Let him be running. It' not the first time.
Nadya still slowly was running on the sleepers. Just the train, she had popped out, has disappeared beyond a turn, Albert climbed out from his cover in shrubs and ran following her. Soon they met. Joying, Nadya recognized his husband in the running man and it gave her forces.
-My love, run slowly, in order not to be tired, but not too slowly, because we have to drop them. And I run faster to see, whether all right there.
Albert still didn't reach running the place one had to turn lefts to the North, but suddenly he noticed in front something was not typical in the prospect of the railway tracks, immediately he has lain doggo. Really, a man was running to meet, he ran according to the sports rules and when he has reached the Albert's cover, Albert has recognized in him Skolopendrin's companion who stood in the train near him when Skolopendrin talked on the radio. It was just necessary to incapacitate him. Without long thinking, Albert shot. The persecutor from all over has fallen down on the sleepers, grabbed his wounded leg, rolled over the rail and further onto the ditch from the low embankment. He groaned and in full was busy only with himself. Albert didn't need to shoot him at the second time. He rushed to meet his wife and unnoticeable led her from the tracks. Till the trail they went quickly on foot in azimuth. On the trail they rushed to run again.
-I can't anymore! I am tired, it's hard to breathe!
-Be patient, my love, a little bit else. It seems, we have dropped them. It means, you are saved.
Finally, they ran out of the forest and saw at once an alone car in the field, which as if was bored on the road. They came up to the car with quick steps. A gray-haired passenger was sitting near the driver. Albert without saying widely opened the rear door and let his wife come into, after this he himself came into. However, Nadezhda recognized old Paul, clothed in a usual coat in order not to attract attention. He was alive and healthy.
In a few minutes they left the car in the settlement Hrapunovo. The old man payed to the driver and the last helped them to pull a big backpack out of the trunk. Soon they came into the gate of an abandoned house with boarded up windows.
But those who soon came out of it, were two women. One of them was pretty, but the other was but the other was tall and some kind of strange. They agreed that the "strange" one will keep silent. In the last resort to whisper or pretend to be a deaf-mute. If "she" start to speak, in the best case "she" will be mistaken for a transvestite.
It began to darken. No one was met in the street of the settlement. After walking two miles and a half, the strange pair came to a station "Lesnaya", what belongs to the quite branched Yaroslavsky direction. They had to be nervous for a while, because the electric train was late about ten minutes, however, it was even for the better: so, they had to be exposed less time in the Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow. In an hour they passed without stopping the station Perlovskaya. Nadezhda didn't guess that sees this city in the last time.
At the Yaroslavsky station the two disguised beyond recognition "friendesses" quickly came to the path, where the Transbaikal express train was going to leave. The tickets were bought beforehand. A woman, train attendant who was experienced with different passengers, didn't pay them close attention. There were else an old married couple in the four-sleeper coupe. They weren't too talkative, but when the old woman attempted to talk with the strange Nadia's "companion" - Nadya had whispered to the neighbor, as if "she" is her husband's sister and she just took "her" from a mental hospital and now she is bringing "her" home. And as if she is a schizophrenic, and her illness is expressed in the reticence and lack of mobility, that's in a harmless form for the others. They had to tolerate these neighbors till Novosibirsk. After their coming away, the door of the coupe opened and an old man with a girl came in, presenting her:
-She is Olesya, my "granddaughter".
Olesya behaved quite uninhibited, sometimes she sat down on the old man's knees, turned to kiss. Usually, at first he threatened her with the finger, then kissed her reciprocally. Nadezhda and disguised Albert looked at the strange pair not with indignation, as other people would do, but with admiration, the first is a wanderer from the last century, the second is ready to enter the coming century.
-Let your love reach till the doorstep and enter into the twenty-first century, - Albert expressed them his best wishes.
-Thank you! - they both answered.
Nadezhda was smiling, keeping silent.
-Maybe, you love the new dress more than the former one, don't you? - one day she asked him in the train.
-I don't feel, neither a great pleasure, nor a sadness. However, there is a positive side. It is good to flee in these clothes, to hide himself. That really inspires confidence, that's very practical. And what is your opinion? - he asked, turning to Olesya. - Whether would I be mistaken for a disguised man if I keep silent?
-You would be mistaken for a woman, certainly, if you are scraped, however, for a strange one: tall, flat-chested one, and a strange look of face, - Olesya answered, laughing.
-Yes, really. You invented a version of the mentally ill relative, that's admirable!
The rest of the time in this train was spent in the excellent mood. No one was embarrassed by no one, even Olesya handled simply and naturally and named everyone by their names. It wasn't blamed.
And outside, starting from the Ural, the snow already was lying enough surely. Along the Siberian main line, the Siberian summer and winter are similar to the Moscow ones. Only the snow falls a little earlier. In summer, there are a little more mosquitoes and the nights are colder; in winter the thaws take place rarer. The landscape to see from the train, also, it differs little from the Moscow one. Of course, if in summer you to look in the grass with attention, you can see the ramsons, which is no around Moscow, also, a lot other grasses. Also, there are a lot of grasses near Moscow, which don't grow here. A lot of larch, also, cedars similar to pine, but at a glance from the train, there are a few of the changes. Only closer to Krasnoyarsk the terrain becomes rougher, instead the hills you can see not steep mountains, they are named "sopkas". Now they turned white, because the snow-covered forests are on their tops.
Albert came out of the train in Krasnoyarsk at the first time. Old Paul seemed as if the sopkas around the city are similar to the mountains in Yalta around the trolleybus station, but the climate is different at all and the air of the industrial city left much to be desired.
The bus was winding on the road during about six hours, and the blackness outside didn't give any idea about the terrain. Only at midnight they arrived in the neighboring large village and had to walk the four miles through the forest on a trail. Being tired, they reached finally a rickety, but big wooden house. They switched on the lamps and heaters.
Olesya put the tea and old Paul went to the cellar. He returned in about twenty minutes, bringing sausage, cheese, and some strange, not locally made bread. The inscriptions on the packages of the delicacies were in English.
-Well, mister mathematician, how much time it is in New-York now? If here it is two ante meridiem, therefore there is two post meridiem now, - Albert answered, smiling. He understood, where Albert climbed over to buy the food.
-Are we for a long while here? When we finally return home? - Nadya asked.
-Never, - the spouse answered.
-Whether, are you joking?
-I am not joking. If you return there, it would be a suicide, but I want you are alive. We have no there way anymore. Therefore, we never return there.
Next chapter: http://la-flagellation.blogspot.ru/2018/02/chapter-5-lifeguard-and-cheater-part-2.html?zx=9fcb1efc19287bb1
Long ago in childhood whole winters Albert dreamed about a small artificial lake surrounded with dacha houses, hidden under high pines. The lake is situated nearby, rights from the four-track railway with the unaccustomed left side traffic. The larger part of the settlement is situated lefts. The dachas had formed well-learnt by him network of the unpaved streets, extended one and a half miles, in some places till two ones. Beyond them a pine forest immediately begins, which till now reminds to Albert the childhood and emits something cheerful, easy, carefree, unlike spruce-birch dark forests of the Yaroslavsky and Savelovsky directions, severe ones, but beautiful in its own manner.
At the same time here, in Kratovo, along the edge of the forest the voices of the mushroom pickers were sounded from every shrub, either of local people, or of summer residents of Moscow. But it was enough to go a little further, the voices became disappearing staying only in the memory, then some "voice of Silence" became to be heard, claiming itself by its silence, even shouting by it. Here a passing train may be heard too, but this railway is another at all, not similar Ryazansky one. There aren't large dacha settlements and large towns. That epoch, Albert as if was discovering a new mysterious world and expected beyond this single-track railway, the farther, the feeling of something beautiful and unknown would be increased.
For the first time, he knew the nature free from unnatural noises, from society, which oppressed and imposed its unnatural ideology, the society, which demands to report about everyone's private life, which threatens and forbids to live in a distinctive manner. However, the society was here powerless. The nature lived according its own laws, and staying in it alone, it is impossible to explain with words, what ways through and what sense organs through this feel of the God's presence comes. About its meaning, also, untranslatable into the human language, one may say that it is wonderful.
During all his childhood, Albert dreamed to walk by forest from the Kurovskaya railway branch to the North, till the Nizhegorodsky (Gorky) direction, but he had not time to return to time and the parents would be troubled. Only being an adult, he had realized his dream, but this realising gave him nothing, excepting a little disappointment. In some places the forest was a little worse, here and there he looked like a dry marsh covered by short trees. There were beautiful boondocks was seen in the East direction, but there was situated a guarded facility beyond a high fence, there was dachas of the Soviet and post Soviet bureaucrats. A little more to the West, there was a view of extensive fields, in which one could see a local twisting road. The road turned to the North, just here a large village Aksyonovo began and beyond was seen a ferro-concrete octopus of a town named with mad name Electric Coals was digging in the green body of the nature. But regarding the very center of the woody grace, it began just from the same place near the settlement Kratovo became silent, and extended till the Kurovskaya railway and only a little bit further.
The most sparsely populated railway direction rejoiced him and at the same time provoked in soul a beautiful nostalgic sadness about the best instants of the distant childhood, and when Albert had learned the teleportation, it costed him nothing to visit these nooks, to learn every station of the former single-track railway, now it already was two-track one, in order at once to pop out in any of them in the area from Korenyovo to Gzhel. That's why he has helped his wife to flee along only this railway and he told about the plan to old Paul yet yesterday in New-York, when in Moscow it already was evening.
From Albert's point, how we already know, New-York was in the immediate vicinity, but he had to show to old Paul the place where the fields begin and the road with them, leading in the town Electric Coals. This is the thing he was busy, when Nadezhdz waited for him in Taganka square.
Even if he is watched, the whole this fuss will be concentrating only along the Kurovskaya branch railway. When the persecutors learn that this area of the forest is used to drop persecuting at all, they will not have time to catch them taking a detour and there is not a straight road from "41 kilometer" to Electric Coals. There is a pitted swath covered here and there with swamps and stumps, but only a tank could pass on it. They weren't prepared the "objects" they watched would flee, also, it would be risky to use helicopter for a simple reason: it would be very hard to hide from the chiefs an application such a machine in the operation.
Albert teleported from the electric train away and appeared now in every station, excepting Ovrazhki, he didn't remember it well enough. As they agreed, Nadezhda came out in the Platform 41th kilometer while the door was closing, and ran forward.
The helper of Skolopendrin wanted to pull the emergency brake, but the chief stopped him. Firstly, Nadezhda was alone; secondly, they had to watch the direction. She was running so till disappearing from the line of sight of the persecutors, who were leaving now by train to the next station Donino.
-The less noise, the better. We have got on their tail again, - Skolopendrin explained gladly to his subordinate runner. - And now you will keep the whole operation. We come out in Donino. Run back quickly to meet her and the main thing, you must not be noticed. Now she will lead us to his husband, maybe to the whole lair.
-Can they be armed?
-Unlikely. They are mystics, sectarians. Her husband isn't noticed in carrying a weapon, - Skolopendrin has lied to calm the subordinate, fortunately, he don't connect with the group was running an operation in the Sveta's apartment at night and they had got themselves shot. - You are an athlete and have to win in which case. However, this would be a blunder, because you must not be seen. Try not to disrupt the operation and not to scare them. Report us from the radio, but by as the quiet voice as possible. Remember: you have the honor that the outcome depends on you.
"If he got himself shot, this would be of his own making, - Skolopendrin thought, - because he would discover himself. No great loss. If I give him a weapon, what if he being scared would kill this dude, who is beyond a price. Let him be running. It' not the first time.
Nadya still slowly was running on the sleepers. Just the train, she had popped out, has disappeared beyond a turn, Albert climbed out from his cover in shrubs and ran following her. Soon they met. Joying, Nadya recognized his husband in the running man and it gave her forces.
-My love, run slowly, in order not to be tired, but not too slowly, because we have to drop them. And I run faster to see, whether all right there.
Albert still didn't reach running the place one had to turn lefts to the North, but suddenly he noticed in front something was not typical in the prospect of the railway tracks, immediately he has lain doggo. Really, a man was running to meet, he ran according to the sports rules and when he has reached the Albert's cover, Albert has recognized in him Skolopendrin's companion who stood in the train near him when Skolopendrin talked on the radio. It was just necessary to incapacitate him. Without long thinking, Albert shot. The persecutor from all over has fallen down on the sleepers, grabbed his wounded leg, rolled over the rail and further onto the ditch from the low embankment. He groaned and in full was busy only with himself. Albert didn't need to shoot him at the second time. He rushed to meet his wife and unnoticeable led her from the tracks. Till the trail they went quickly on foot in azimuth. On the trail they rushed to run again.
-I can't anymore! I am tired, it's hard to breathe!
-Be patient, my love, a little bit else. It seems, we have dropped them. It means, you are saved.
Finally, they ran out of the forest and saw at once an alone car in the field, which as if was bored on the road. They came up to the car with quick steps. A gray-haired passenger was sitting near the driver. Albert without saying widely opened the rear door and let his wife come into, after this he himself came into. However, Nadezhda recognized old Paul, clothed in a usual coat in order not to attract attention. He was alive and healthy.
In a few minutes they left the car in the settlement Hrapunovo. The old man payed to the driver and the last helped them to pull a big backpack out of the trunk. Soon they came into the gate of an abandoned house with boarded up windows.
But those who soon came out of it, were two women. One of them was pretty, but the other was but the other was tall and some kind of strange. They agreed that the "strange" one will keep silent. In the last resort to whisper or pretend to be a deaf-mute. If "she" start to speak, in the best case "she" will be mistaken for a transvestite.
It began to darken. No one was met in the street of the settlement. After walking two miles and a half, the strange pair came to a station "Lesnaya", what belongs to the quite branched Yaroslavsky direction. They had to be nervous for a while, because the electric train was late about ten minutes, however, it was even for the better: so, they had to be exposed less time in the Yaroslavsky railway station in Moscow. In an hour they passed without stopping the station Perlovskaya. Nadezhda didn't guess that sees this city in the last time.
At the Yaroslavsky station the two disguised beyond recognition "friendesses" quickly came to the path, where the Transbaikal express train was going to leave. The tickets were bought beforehand. A woman, train attendant who was experienced with different passengers, didn't pay them close attention. There were else an old married couple in the four-sleeper coupe. They weren't too talkative, but when the old woman attempted to talk with the strange Nadia's "companion" - Nadya had whispered to the neighbor, as if "she" is her husband's sister and she just took "her" from a mental hospital and now she is bringing "her" home. And as if she is a schizophrenic, and her illness is expressed in the reticence and lack of mobility, that's in a harmless form for the others. They had to tolerate these neighbors till Novosibirsk. After their coming away, the door of the coupe opened and an old man with a girl came in, presenting her:
-She is Olesya, my "granddaughter".
Olesya behaved quite uninhibited, sometimes she sat down on the old man's knees, turned to kiss. Usually, at first he threatened her with the finger, then kissed her reciprocally. Nadezhda and disguised Albert looked at the strange pair not with indignation, as other people would do, but with admiration, the first is a wanderer from the last century, the second is ready to enter the coming century.
-Let your love reach till the doorstep and enter into the twenty-first century, - Albert expressed them his best wishes.
-Thank you! - they both answered.
Nadezhda was smiling, keeping silent.
-Maybe, you love the new dress more than the former one, don't you? - one day she asked him in the train.
-I don't feel, neither a great pleasure, nor a sadness. However, there is a positive side. It is good to flee in these clothes, to hide himself. That really inspires confidence, that's very practical. And what is your opinion? - he asked, turning to Olesya. - Whether would I be mistaken for a disguised man if I keep silent?
-You would be mistaken for a woman, certainly, if you are scraped, however, for a strange one: tall, flat-chested one, and a strange look of face, - Olesya answered, laughing.
-Yes, really. You invented a version of the mentally ill relative, that's admirable!
The rest of the time in this train was spent in the excellent mood. No one was embarrassed by no one, even Olesya handled simply and naturally and named everyone by their names. It wasn't blamed.
And outside, starting from the Ural, the snow already was lying enough surely. Along the Siberian main line, the Siberian summer and winter are similar to the Moscow ones. Only the snow falls a little earlier. In summer, there are a little more mosquitoes and the nights are colder; in winter the thaws take place rarer. The landscape to see from the train, also, it differs little from the Moscow one. Of course, if in summer you to look in the grass with attention, you can see the ramsons, which is no around Moscow, also, a lot other grasses. Also, there are a lot of grasses near Moscow, which don't grow here. A lot of larch, also, cedars similar to pine, but at a glance from the train, there are a few of the changes. Only closer to Krasnoyarsk the terrain becomes rougher, instead the hills you can see not steep mountains, they are named "sopkas". Now they turned white, because the snow-covered forests are on their tops.
Albert came out of the train in Krasnoyarsk at the first time. Old Paul seemed as if the sopkas around the city are similar to the mountains in Yalta around the trolleybus station, but the climate is different at all and the air of the industrial city left much to be desired.
The bus was winding on the road during about six hours, and the blackness outside didn't give any idea about the terrain. Only at midnight they arrived in the neighboring large village and had to walk the four miles through the forest on a trail. Being tired, they reached finally a rickety, but big wooden house. They switched on the lamps and heaters.
Olesya put the tea and old Paul went to the cellar. He returned in about twenty minutes, bringing sausage, cheese, and some strange, not locally made bread. The inscriptions on the packages of the delicacies were in English.
-Well, mister mathematician, how much time it is in New-York now? If here it is two ante meridiem, therefore there is two post meridiem now, - Albert answered, smiling. He understood, where Albert climbed over to buy the food.
-Are we for a long while here? When we finally return home? - Nadya asked.
-Never, - the spouse answered.
-Whether, are you joking?
-I am not joking. If you return there, it would be a suicide, but I want you are alive. We have no there way anymore. Therefore, we never return there.
Next chapter: http://la-flagellation.blogspot.ru/2018/02/chapter-5-lifeguard-and-cheater-part-2.html?zx=9fcb1efc19287bb1
Good day! This post couldn't be written any better!
ReplyDeleteReading through this post reminds me of my previous room mate!
He always kept chatting about this. I will forward this article to him.
Pretty sure he will have a good read. Thanks for sharing!
I doubt that my post would be the best. I translated it from Russian. My level of English is intermediate - that's B1.
ReplyDelete