A Young Scoundrel

Chapter 1

"Fyu-fyu… fyu!" A bird whistles three times. The youth Limonov sighs and grudgingly opens his eyes. Sunlight pours into the narrow room from Tevelev Square, through the big window, yellow as margarine. The walls, decorated by painter friends, always delight the just-awakened young man. Tranquil again, the young man closes his eyes.

"Fyu-fyu… fyu!" again calls the bird, then adds, in an angry whisper, "Ed!" The young man throws off the covers, gets up, opens the window and looks down. Beneath the window, by the low wall of the green square, stands his friend Genochka the Magnificent, wearing a bright blue suit, and smiling, head tilted upward, at him.

"You asleep, you son of a bitch? Get down here!" Behind the magnificent Genochka, on the emerald grass, camps a company of gypsies, breakfasting on watermelon and bread, laid out on shawls as on tablecloths.

"Rise and shine, the day is fine!" says a young Gypsy woman near Genochka, and actually beckons with her hand to the young man at the window.

The youth, placing a finger to his lips, indicates the neighboring window and, nodding his head in agreement, whispers, "Right!" – shuts the window and, carefully going to the sliding door which leads to the next room, listens. Rustling and some breathing can be heard from within, and the smell of tobacco seeps from under the door. His mother-in-law is undoubtedly sitting in her classic morning pose, with her tangled grey hair over her shoulders, before her mirror, smoking a cigarette. It seems that she, Celia Yakovlyevna, didn't hear her son-in-law's brief conversation with Genochka the Magnificent, her most fearsome enemy. Now, the young man realizes, it is time to act quickly and decisively.

Taking from the bookcase, the lower part of which has been made into a cabinet, his pride and joy, a cocoa-colored suit with gold highlights shining through the cloth, the young man quickly pulls on his pants, a pink shirt and a coat. At the head of the bed stands a card-table, and scattered over it are pencils, pens, paper, a half-drunk bottle of wine, and an opened notebook. Glancing with pleasure at some half-written poems, the young man closes his homemade notebook and, raising the lid of the table, takes from the drawer several five-ruble notes. He places the notebook in the drawer and closes the lid. The poems will have to wait for tomorrow. Holding his shoes in his hands, he carefully opens the door to the dark hallway. Fumblingly, without turning on the light, he goes past the Amimov's door and carefully places the key in the lock of the door leading out, out of the apartment, to freedom…

"Eduard, where are you going?" Somehow, Celia Yakovlyevna, having heard the metallic sound of the key in the lock, or simply intuitively sensed that her son-in-law was escaping, has come out of her room and is now standing, having turned on the light in the entrance-hall, in her classical pose Number Two. One hand rests on her hip, the other – complete with the diminishing cigarette – by her mouth, her gray, slightly longer than waist-length hair loose, her well-bred face angrily turned toward her escaping son-in-law. The Russian son-in-law of her younger daughter.

"Are you going out to see Gena again, Eduard? Don't deny it – I know it. Don't forget that you promised that today you'd finish the pants for Tsintsipyer. If you get together with that Gena, you'll just… wander around…"

Celia Yakovlyevna Rubinshtein is an educated woman. It is awkward for her to say to a Russian young man, who is living with her daughter, that if he meets up with Gena, he will once again get drunk as a pig, and perhaps, like they did last time, his friends will have to carry him home.

"Look, Celia Yakovlyevna… I'm just going down for some thread… then straight back," lies the shorthaired, somewhat puffy-looking poet, embarrassedly putting his shoes on the floor. He slips into his shoes and makes for the door, into the long corridor, bordered on both sides by dining tables, electric ranges and kerosene stoves. The fenced-off compartment with the kitchen and toilet – the priority for all the families who still live in this old building, number nineteen, Tevelyev Square – the corridor serves as a kitchen and the toilet is a communal one. Having passed through the entire row of tables, and inhaled, one after another, the smells of dozens of future lunches, the poet reaches the far end of the and heads down the stairs, taking them three at at a time. "Don't forget about Tsintsiper!" The pointless reminder from Celia Yakovlyevna reaches him. The poet smiles. What a name God gave this man! Tsin-tsi-per! The Devil knows what it is, but it isn't a name. Those two whole "ts"es, plus the completely obscene sound, "iiper"!

Genochka is waiting for the poet by the exit at the path to the Seminary District. There's a suitcase in Genochka's hand. "How much money have you got?" asks the Magnificent One, in place of a greeting. "Fifteen rubles."

"Let's go, quick, or I'll have to wait in line." Gennadii and the Poet walk hurriedly down through the Seminary Quarter, and, reaching the first corner, turn left toward the pawnshop.

The shadows on the street are heavy, dark blue. The sun is yellow as a rich, concentrated film of dyed butter. Without even taking your eyes from the asphalt, you can tell that it's August in Kharkov.

Even while they're several dozen meters away from the massive, fortress-like old brick building, the sharp, strong smell of mothballs reaches the two friends. For a hundred years, mothballs have been the foundation of this district, and it seems that even the old white acacias in this part of the street smell of mothballs. Hurrying along, the two friends go up the steps into a hall. The hall is high, roomy and cold, like the interior of a temple. Squeezing in among the old men and women, they get on one of the lines leading to the pawnbroker's window. The old men and women stare in surprise at the youngsters. It's unusual to see youngsters at a pawnshop in Kharkov. The poet, however, has already been to a pawnshop dozens of times. With Genochka.

"What have you got?" the poet asks his friend.

"My mother and father's plastic raincoats, a suit of my father's, and a couple of gold watches." lists Genochka, smiling. His is a unique smile: malicious and precise.

"You're for it, Gennadii Sergeevich!"

"It's not your problem, Eduard Venyaminovich!" parries Genochka. But, obviously determined that his friend be subjected to a commentary, he adds, "They went off on vacation. For a month. And left me with just 200 rubles. I told them that wasn't going to be enough. And now look what happens; they must pay for wronging their only son."

Genochka goes to the pawnbroker often, with his things and his parents'. He discovered this method of getting money before he met the poet Eduard. He pawns all of his father's things. His papa, Sergei Sergeevich, loves his handsome, stocky, blue-eyed son. Though Papa worries about his son's complete indifference to all human affairs except the quest for adventures and going to restaurants, and worries above all that now that Genadii is 21, worse things than pawnbrokers will befall him. A bad marriage, for example. It's Papa, not Genochka, who pays alimony to Genadii's former wife, and their son – his grandson. Papa Sergei Sergeevich is the director of the "Crystal," the finest restaurant in Kharkov, and of the restaurant trust of the same name, handling many other "trading points."

Genochka, not troubling himself about the things in the suitcase, pushes it through the welcoming slot in the window-cage and impatiently pounds on the patterned ceramic tiles of the floor with the heel of his shoe. They know young Ocharenko quite well in this pawnshop, and the transaction takes very little time. Ten minutes later the friends are already heading down the street, which smells of acacia and mothballs. Genochka has already contentedly placed notes worth sixty rubles in his black leather wallet. And, in another compartment, the pawn ticket. With revulsion.

"Well, where shall we go?"