Несовременные записки. Том 3

"'Daddy, where is my stick now?' recalled he once a dialogue of their last evening together. 'It's in Arctic ocean already?'

'No, kiddy. It'll be there in two weeks.'

'And it won't sink when it get to the ocean?'

'No, no. It will never go down. It's wooden, and wood never sinks in water.'"

"Why did John Bonham die?' remembered he another talk of theirs.

'He had drunk too much wine.'

'But Daddy, you drink much wine too.'

'Who told you so?'

'Mummy did '

'Take it easy, boy. I never drank as much as John Bonham.'

'I don't want you to die, Daddy.'

'I won't, kittie.'"

There came February, the last winter month, and the breath of spring, still elusive and fragile, began to be felt. Days became appreciably longer, the sun warmer. Thaw patches were coming in sight here and there; snow lay dirty and porous, as if prompting to the nature that it was time to get it away. The winter was drawing to end, and his long waiting together with it.

He rang just after having come from their castle and stone where he had stood imagining their forthcoming meeting, the talks which they would have and the plays they would invent. There was a tense pause on the line; then a succession of high-pitched beeps of a trunk-call; free line signals; a melodic tune; another beep, that time single; and a voice. A funeral drum of a voice — of the voice, for there were the same old dull and monotonous modulations. And a funeral drum of the news.

'They did not return yet,' he heard.

'Why?'

'Will… well, because Jesey got a contract and stayed.'

'Where?'

'Somewhere in Germany.'

'What do you mean by "somewhere"? No city, no address? Where exactly?' he remembered how Leo had said "ekzatly" when they were building their castle.

'I don't know.'

'Tell it to the mariners'.

'What do you want to say?'

'I say, tell your lies to the mariners.'

'How dare you!' a tone of indeservably insulted dignity. 'I really don't know'.

'And who knows, then?'

'Be so kind to stop your inquires, please. I am not going to answer your questions.'

He hung up.

It was a bad shock — suspected and sudden. To hope for the best and to be simultaneously prepared for the worst is a natural standard way but if your hopes go down the hole your preparedness for the worst appears to be of no help at all. The trouble, however foreseen, takes you aback, it covers you like an avalanche, deafening, and dumbing, and blinding you; and for some time you can't do anything about it. It is not a lack of courage or whatever else akin to courage. It's just that your mind is ready to resist the disaster but there is something else in you that is not. Soul? And who knows a cure for it?

* * *

The man is me, and the boy is my little one, Leo. And the town where he was my guest is my native one. Sometimes, when I look at the bunch of the houses on the river bank, I really see a flock of children — of abstract unknown children among whom I try to guess my boy. But who knows which house is disguising my son? And he motionlessly and voicelessly runs down to the water and doesn't see me standing on the opposite bank. I feel like in prison, I lost my freedom at the moment we said good-bye to each other and am now waiting for thee to come and release me, just like then in July, at the walls of our castle, when I was thy king and thou wert my true knight.

Where art thou, my little knight?

Where are you, my little one?

Can you hear me?

Can you ........

April 1993

Авторский перевод:

1

Город стоит на высоких берегах быстрой извилистой реки, которая пробивает себе путь в мощных скалах, поросших сосняком и березняком. На одном из своих бесчисленных изгибов река образует обширную глубокую ложбину, и если вам доведется оказаться на ее восточном крае, вашему взору откроется великолепная панорама старого города, чьи маленькие островерхие домики в беспорядке разбросаны по склонам речных берегов. Приходилось ли вам когда-нибудь видеть приморские посёлочки, зажатые между горами и морем? Их домики, рассеянные там и сям на склонах гор, напоминают стайку ребятишек, что появились на вершине горы и затем внезапно бросились очертя голову вниз, к морю, и только бесконечная масса соленой воды остановила безудержный бег первых из них на самом берегу. Так же и дома старого города: они тоже напоминают стайку ребятишек, мчащихся к воде, — хотя водная преграда оказалась здесь далеко не такой непреодолимой, как бесконечные морские просторы, и некоторым из бегущих удалось перескочить через узкую ленточку реки; однако слишком много энергии было потрачено на неистовый бег вниз, и лишь немногие из беглецов нашли силы взобраться на противоположный склон, да и то не очень высоко. Сравнения такого рода — пусть и не безупречные — неизбежно приходят на ум наблюдателю, который стоит на краю ложбины, очарованный лежащей перед его глазами перспективой.