Think #28 05 июня 1999

Story - Kir Bulychev "You can ask for Nina?"

                Kir Bulychev


           You can ask for Nina?



     - You can ask for Nina? - I said.

     - It's me, Nina.

     - Yes? Why do you have such a strange
voice?

     - A strange voice?

     - Not yours. Thin. You're upset chemnibud?

     - I do not know.

     - Maybe I should not have to call?

     - Who says?

     - Since when did you stop me to learn?

     - Who know?

     Nina's voice was younger twenty years. And in fact, Nina's 
voice only years five younger mistress. If a person is not

you know, the voice of his age to guess
difficult. Voices of the Old earlier owners. Or a long stay 
young. 

     - Well, - I said. - Look, I
call you about the case.

     - I guess you still have the wrong number - "Nina said. - 
I do not know. 

     - It's me, Vadim, Vadim, Vadim! What is it?

     - Well! - Nina sighed, as if she
sorry to stop talking. - I do not know
no Vadik and Vadim Nikolaevich.

     - Excuse me - I said and hung up
tube.

     I immediately dialed the number again. Of course, I just 
do not get there. My fingers do not would like to call Nina. 
And they took the wrong number. And why do not they like? 

     I found in the desk packet of Cuban cigarettes. Steady as 
a cigar. They probably made from scraps of cigars. How can I 
have a thing to Nina? Or near it? No. Just wanted to know 
whether the house she said. And if it is not at home, it 
changes nothing. It may be, for example, my mother. Or in the 
theater, because a thousand years was in the theater.


     I called Nina.

     - Nina? - I said.

     - No, Vadim - answered
Nina. - Once again you are mistaken. You have a number
typing?

     - 149-40-89.

     - And I Arbat Street - one - thirty
two - five three.

     - Of course - I said. - Arbat - it
four?

     - Arbat - a G.

     - Nothing to do - I said. - Sorry, Nina.

     - Please - Nina said. - I
still not occupied.

     - I'll try to get you no longer - I said. - Somewhere 
conjure. That gets to you. Very bad phone

work.

     - Yes, - has agreed to Nina.

     I hung up.

     We have to wait. Or dial a hundred.
Time. Something closes in arbitrary
lines at the station. And I have dial up. "Twenty-two hours 
sharp," - said the woman on call "one hundred". I suddenly 
thought, what if her voice is recorded long ago, ten years ago,

she dials the number "one hundred" when she
bored when she is alone at home, and listens
his voice, his young voice. Maybe
be, she died. And then her son or the man who loved her, 
gaining a hundred and listens to her voice.


     I called Nina.

     - I hear you, - said Nina, a young voice. - It's you 
again, Vadim? 

     - Yes - I said. - It can be seen, our phones are connected 
tightly. You just do not angry, do not think I'm kidding. I am 
very carefully dial the number I want.


     - Certainly, of course - said quickly
Nina. - I do not think for a minute. And you
in a hurry, Vadim?

     - No, - I said.

     - You have a great deal to Nina?

     - No, I just wanted to know whether the house
she said.

     - Did you miss?

     - How do you say ...

     - I understand are jealous - "Nina said.

     - You are a funny man - I said. -
How old are you, Nina?

     - Thirteen. And you?

     - More than forty. Between us the dense wall of bricks.

     - And every brick - this month, right?

     - Even one day can be a brick.

     - Yes - Nina sighed - then it is
very thick walls. And what do you think
now?

     - It's hard to answer. At the moment no
about. I talk to you.

     - And if you were thirteen years
or even fifteen, we could
acquainted - "Nina said. - It was
would be very funny. I would say: Come
tomorrow night at the monument to Pushkin. I do
will be waiting at seven o'clock sharp. And we would
each other do not know. Where did you meet
Nina?

     - As if.

     - And in Pushkin?

     - Not really. We once met at
"Russia."

     - Where?

     - At the cinema "Russia."

     - I do not know.

     - Well, at Pushkinskaya.

     - Anyway, somehow I do not know. You
probably joking. I know Pushkin
area.

     - It does not matter - I said.

     - Why?

     - It's been a long time.

     - When?

     The girl did not want to hang up.
somehow she persevered conversation.

     - You are alone at home? - I asked.

     - Yes. Mom in the evening shift. She is a nurse at the 
hospital. It will remain for the night. It could come today, 
but forgot House passage.


     - Yeah - I said. - Okay, lie down
sleeping girl. To school tomorrow.

     - You talk to me like a child.

     - No, you're talking to you, as with
adult.

     - Thank you. Only do if you want
go to bed at seven o'clock. Goodbye.
And do not call her Nina. But then again
me get. And wake me, little girl.

     I hung up. Then he turned on the television and learned 
that the lunar rover was a replaced 337 meters. Moonwalker 
doing business, and I'm lazy. The last time I decided

call Nina already eleven o'clock,
an hour he held a trivia. And he decided,
What if again, I caused a girl, hang
up immediately.

     - I knew what you call again, - said Nina, coming to the 
phone. - Do not hang up. Me Honestly, very boring. And nothing 
to read. And to sleep early. 

     - Well, - I said. - Let's talk. And why are you so late no 
sleep? 

     - It's only eight, "said Nina.

     - Do you watch behind - I said. -
The twelfth hour.

     Nina laughed. Laugh it was a nice, soft.

     - You so want to get rid of me,
that is awful - she said. - Now
October, and because it was dark. And you think
that night already.

     - It's your turn to joke? - I asked.

     - No, I'm not kidding. You do not just lie to watch, but 
calendar is lying. 

     - Why lie?

     - And now you tell me that you have
not October, and February.

     - No December - "I said. And for some reason, though he 
himself did not believe it, looked the newspaper lying beside 
the sofa. "Twenty-December 3" - was written

under the title.

     We were silent for a bit, I was hoping that
She was about to say goodbye. But she
suddenly asked:

     - Have you dined?

     - I do not remember - I said sincerely.

     - So it's not hungry.

     - No, not hungry.

     - I'm hungry.

     - And that house has nothing?

     - Nothing! - Nina said. - Though the ball inclined. Funny, 
huh? 

     - I do not know how to help you -
"I said. - And there's no money?

     - Yes, but quite a bit. And already
closed. And then, what you buy?

     - Yes - I agreed. - Everything is closed.
Would you like me poshuruyu in the fridge and see what is there?

     - Do you have a refrigerator?

     - Old - "I said. - North.
Do you know this?

     - No, - said Nina. - And if you find that then?

     - And then? I'll grab a taxi and'll drop
you. And you go down to the entrance and take it.

     - Do you live far away? I - on Sivtsev
Vrazhek. House 15/25.

     - I'm at Mosfilm. At the Lenin
Mountains. For the university.

     - Again, I do not know. Only it does not matter.
You are well come up and thank you for it.
And what you have in the fridge? I just
so I ask, do not worry.

     - If I remember - I said. -
Now bear phone in the kitchen, and we
you'll see.

     I went to the kitchen, and the wire stretched
for me, like a snake.

     - So, - I said - open the fridge.

     - Can you wear a phone for me? Never heard of it.

     - Of course I can. And your phone where
worth it?

     - In the hallway. It hangs on the wall. AND
that you have in your fridge?

     - So, so ... what's in the package?
This egg is not interesting.

     - Eggs?

     - Yeah. Chicken. That is, like, bring
chicken? No, she's French, ice cream.
While you cook, very hungry.
And my mom would come to work. Better we'll take the sausage. 
Or not, found a Moroccan sardines, sixty cents the bank. And to 
them have half a tin of mayonnaise. Do you hear?


     - Yes - Nina said very quietly. -
Why are you so serious? At first I wanted to laugh, and then I 
was sad. 

     - This is why? In fact, since
hungry?

     - No, you know.

     - What do I know?

     - You know - "Nina said. Then he paused and added: - Well, 
let them! Tell me and you have a red caviar?


     - No, - I said. - But there is a fillet
halibut.

     - Do not have enough - said Nina
firmly. - Let us digress. I understood everything.

     - What is understood?

     - What do you too hungry. What do you have
out of the window visible?

     - Out of the box? Home, copying factory. Right now, 
poldvenadtsatogo, change ends. And a lot of girls out of the 
checkpoint. Also see "Mosfilm". And Fire team. And the 
railroad. That's on it Now comes the train.


     - And you all see?

     - The train, however, goes far.
Only visible to the chain of lights, windows!

     - Now you're lying!

     - It is wrong to talk with senior - "I said. - I can not 
lie. I could be wrong. So what did I go wrong? 

     - You made a mistake that you see
train. It can not be seen.

     - What is it invisible or something?

     - No, the only visible window light
can not. Yes, you do not peeped from the window.

     - Why? I stand in front of the window.

     - And you have the kitchen lights are on?

     - Of course, as well as I in the dark
refrigerator to climb? I have it burned out light bulb.

     - You see, I'll have a third time
caught.

     - Nina, dear, tell me on what you
I was caught.

     - If you look out the window, then threw back the 
blackout. And if you threw back the blackout, then extinguished 
the light. Right? 

     - Wrong. Why should I Burn? War, or what?

     - Oh-oh-oh! How can you lie like a gas meter so? And that 
same world, or what? 

     - Well, I understand, Vietnam, the Middle
East ... I do not know.

     - And I'm not talking about that ... Wait, you
disabled?

     - Fortunately, everything I have in place.

     - You have a reservation?

     - Which book?

     - And why you did not at the front?

     - Here the first time I only suspected something was 
wrong. The girl I like to play it. But it does so ordinary and 
Seriously, I almost had me scared. 

     - What should I be the front, Nina?

     - In the most ordinary. Where everything. Where
Dad. At the front with the Germans. I'm serious, I'm not 
kidding. And then you talk so strangely. Maybe you're not lying 
about chicken and eggs? 

     - Do not lie - I said. - And no
Front no. Maybe, in fact, I
come and see you?

     - So I'm really not kidding! -
almost cried Nina. - P you stop.
I initially was interesting and fun. And we now somehow wrong. 
Forgive me. As if you do not pretend, and tell the truth. 

     - Upon my word, girl, I say
the truth - I said.

     - I was even frightened. We have a stove
barely warm. Drove a little. And dark. Only
oil lamp. Today, no electricity. And I
one sitting oh how you do not want. I'm kind of thing 
themselves nakutala. 

     And then she abruptly and somehow angry
repeated the question:

     - Why are you not at the front?

     - What can I be the front? - Already
and in itself really a joke gone somewhere not there.
- What might be the front of the seventy-second year!

     - You are fooling me?

     Succeeds a tone of voice again, he was mistrustful, he 
whined a little, three inches from sex. And incredibly, 
forgotten picture appeared before his eyes - something that was 
with me, but for many years, thirty or more years ago. when I, 
too, was twelve years old. AND the room was a stove. And I'm 
not a couch, picking up his feet. And lit a candle, or it was a 
kerosene lamp? And the chicken seems unreal, fabulous bird, 
which may be eaten only in novels, although I did not thinking 
about the chicken ... 

     - Why are you silent? - Asked Nina. - You better say it.

     - Nina - I said. - What Now
year?

     - Forty-second - "Nina said.

     And I have been laying in my head sliced
inconsistencies in her words. She does not know
cinema "Russia." And the phone she had only six rooms. And the 
blackout ... 

     - You're not mistaken? - I asked.

     - No, - said Nina.

     She believed in what was told. Maybe
the voice mocked me? Maybe she is not thirteen years? Maybe it 
is, forty years of a woman, ill even then, a girl, and she 
thinks that she remained there, where the war? 

     - Listen, - I said quietly. Not
hang the same tube. - Today, twenty
December 3, 1972. The war ended
Twenty-seven years ago. Do you know?

     - No, - said Nina.

     - You know it. Now the twelfth
h ... Well how do you explain that?

     - Well, - "Nina said humbly. - I
also know that you do not bring myeon chicken.
I had to guess what the French
hens do not happen.

     - Why?

     - In France, the Germans.

     - In France, long ago there was no
Germans. Only if the tourists. But German
Tourists come here as well.

     - How so? Who lets them?

     - And why not start?

     - You do not try to say that the Krauts
We will win! You probably just pest
or a spy?

     - No, I work in SEVe, the Council of Mutual Economic 
Assistance. Doing the Hungarians. 

     - Here again, lying! In Hungary the Nazis.

     - Hungarians long ago drove their
Fascists. Hungary - a socialist republic.

     - Oh, and I really was afraid that you in fact a wrecker. 
And you do all the inventing. No, I do not mind. You better 
tell me how to later. Think what you want, just to feel good. 
Please. And excuse me, I'm so with you rudely spoke. I just do 
not understand. 

     And I have not become more argumentative. How can we 
explain this? Again, I imagined how I sit in this same 
forty-second year, as do not want to know when we take Berlin 
and hang Hitler. And find out where I lost bread card for 
October. AND said:


     - We will win the fascists May 9, 1945.

     - Do not be! A very long wait.

     - Hey, Nina, and do not interrupt. I
I know better. And Berlin, we take the second
May. Even be a medal - "For the Taking
Berlin. "But Hitler commit suicide. He
take poison. And give it to Eva Braun. And then
SS will make a his body into the yard the Reich Chancellery, 
and obolyut gasoline, and burn.


     I am told this is not Nina. I told it to myself. And I 
dutifully repeated the facts, if Nina did not believe or do not 
understand immediately returned, when it requested

explain something, and almost lost her confidence again, when 
he said that Stalin dies. But I then returned to her faith,

telling about Yuri Gagarin and Novy Arbat.
And even laugh Nina, telling that
women would wear trousers flared and very
short skirts. And even remembered when our
go over the border with Prussia. I lost
sense of reality. Girl and boy Vadik Nina sat me on the couch
listened. Once they were hungry as hell. And things have Vadik 
situation was even worse, than the Nina, the bread card he 
lost, and before the end of the month they will have to live 
with his mother one of its card, working card, because Vadik 
sowed card somewhere in the yard, and only fifteen years later, 
he suddenly remembered how it was and will again be 
disappointed because the card can be found even after a week, 
and she, of course, fell into the basement, when he threw on 
the lattice coat, intending to drive in football. And I said, 
already then, when Nina tired of listening to, what felt good

tale:

     - You know Petrovka?

     - I know - "Nina said. - And it is not renamed?

     - No. So ...

     I told him how to enter the yard under the
arch and where in the yard is basement,
closed bars. And if it's in October forty-second year, the 
middle of the month, then basement, most likely lies bread 
rationing. We're there in the yard, playing football, and I 
lost the card. 

     - What a mess! - Nina said. - I would
it did not survive. We must now find her. Do it.

     She also got into the taste of the game, and somewhere
reality is gone, and already, neither she nor I knew what year 
we are - we were out of time, closer to its forty-second

year.

     - I can not find the card - said
I. - Many years have passed. But if you can,
Come back to the basement to be opened. In
extreme case say that the card you're dropped.

     And at this moment we are cut off.

     Nina was not there. Something crackled in
tube. A woman's voice said:

     - This is a 148-18-15? 're Concerned Ordzhonikidze.

     - You have the wrong number - I said.

     - Excuse, - he said a female voice
indifference.

     And they were busy tone. I immediately dialed again Nina's 
room. I had to apologize. You had to laugh with girl. After 
all, was obtained in the general nonsense ... 

     - Yes, - said the voice of Nina. Another Nina.

     - Is that you? - I asked.

     - And it's you, Vadim? What do not you
sleep?

     - I'm sorry - I said. - I have another
Nina needed.

     - What?

     I hung up and dialed again.

     - You scrip came down? - Asked Nina. -
You drank?

     - I'm sorry - I said, and again threw
tube.

     Now the call is useless. Call from
Ordzhonikidze all returned to their seats. A
what she has now the phone? Arbat -
three, no, Arbat Street - one - thirty-two -
thirty ... No, forty ...

     Adult Nina called me herself.

     - I sat at home all evening - said
she said. - I thought you call, explain
why did you do yesterday so behaved. But you can see, quite mad.

     - I guess - I agreed. I did not want to tell her about a 
long conversation with another Nina. 

     - What is another Nina? - Asked
she said. - This is an image? You want to say that
I would like to see another?

     - Good night, Nina - said
I. - Tomorrow will explain everything.

     ... The most interesting is that this
strange story was no less strange end. The next morning I went 
to mom. And he said, that make out the mezzanine. I

three years, promised to do, and here came
himself. I know that my mother did not eject. From what she 
felt, could useful. I dug an hour and a half in old magazines, 
books, volumes of disparate applications to the "Cornfield". 
Books were not dusty, but it smelled of old, warm dust.

Finally I found a phone book for 1950
year. book swelled from investments in her notes and papers 
laid pages, corners which have been frayed and zamusoleny. Book

was so familiar that it seemed
strange, how could I forget her - if
no conversation with Nina, so would never
reminded of its existence. And it was just
ashamed to be honest as of end-suit, which give junkman to 
certain death. 

     The first four digits are known. F-132 ... And I knew that 
phone, if none of us pretended to be, if you need me do not 
make fun of, was standing in the alley Sivtsev Vrazhek in the 
house 15/25. No chance to find that the phone was not. I sat 
down with a book in the hallway, pulled out of the bathroom 
stool. Mom did not understand anything, just smiled passing, 
and said: 

     - You're always so. You will begin to disassemble
book, to read in ten minutes. AND
clean finish.

     She did not notice that I read the phone book. I found 
this phone. Twenty years ago, he stood in the same apartment 
that and in the forty-second year. And was recorded at

Frolov, KG

     Granted, I was rubbish. Searching
something that could not be. But it is to admit that ten 
percent is quite normal people, it appear they were in my place 
would do the same. and I went to Sivtsev Vrazhek.


     New tenants in the apartment did not know what went 
Frolov. And the sting of whether they are here? But I was lucky 
in house management. An old buhgaltersha remembered Frolov, 
with her help I learned all that was required, through address 
table. 

     It was already dark. According to the new area, including
identical prefabricated towers walked drifting snow.
In the standard two-storey shop selling French hens in frosted 
transparent plastic bag. I will be tempted buy the chicken and 
bring it, as promised, though with a twenty-year delay. But I

well done that has not bought it. The apartment
There was no one. And just as loudly echoed the call, it seemed 
to me that here people do not live. Left.


     I was about to leave, but then, once
climbed so far, rang the door next.

     - Say, Frolova, Nina S. -
your neighbor?

     The guy in the shirt, with a smoking soldering iron in 
hand, said calmly: 

     - They are gone.

     - Where?

     - Month as gone to the North. Until spring
not return. And Nina S., and her husband.

     I apologized and began to descend the
stairs. And I think that in Moscow, it is
probably does not live a Nina S.
Frolov, born in 1930.

     And then the door behind again dissolved.

     - Wait, - said the same guy. -
Mother to say something he wants.

     His mother immediately appeared in the doorway,
wrapping a bathrobe.

     - And you who she be?

     - It's easy - I said. - Familiar.

     - Not Vadim?

     - Vadim.

     - Well, - happy woman -
you almost did not miss. She would have me to never forgive. 
Nina and said: I will not forgive. And a note pinned to the 
door. Just a note, perhaps, the guys ripped. A month has 
passed. She said that you come in December. And even said that

try to come back, but far from something like ...

     The woman stood in the doorway, looking at
I like waiting for that I am now open
a secret, tell her about the failure
love. Maybe she and Nina tried: he who
you? And Nina, too, told her: "Just a friend."


     The woman paused, took a
a letter from his pocket apron.


     "Dear Vadim!

     Of course, I know that you do not come.
And how can we believe children's dreams, which are themselves 
already seem to be only a dream. But bread rationing was in the 
same basement, which you had to tell me ... "