Mimoid
FROM THE EDITOR: To everyone insulted on the pages of our magazine -
la (or who felt that he was offended) we are obliged to provide
provide an opportunity for a response (I wonder who came up with the
such stupidity?) It seemed to Roman Emilievich that he had been insulted
whether - his right. He thought about it and sent us a short text. B
cover letter, not intended for publication, he
expressed the opinion that this is much better than making excuses that he
not a camel, that even we can guess that by its shape it is a steam-
diya for a standard interview in his respected "MEGE", and that he is sure
that it won’t offend anyone, but maybe, damn it, it’ll be a little funny
pour, and that he is sure that we could emboss it without cuts.
That's what we do.
PROFESSOR COVERED UP
To the questions of the correspondent of the magazine "Fantakrim-MEGA" Mikhail
DUBROVSKY is kindly answered by Doctor of Philology, Prof.
Sor, author of the monograph "History of Soviet Science Fiction", laureate
awards "Bronze Snail", "Interpresscon" and "Wanderer" (all for
1993) Rustam Svyatoslavovich KATS. In conversation also accepts
participation of a wide-profile critic Roman ARBITMAN.
Peredelkino, 10 am. Mikhail Dubrovsky (later
called M.D.) is impudently helpful, in his hands he has a pile of
sled sheets. Roman Arbitman (latercalled R.A.) de-
laughs almost calmly. Dr. Katz (hereinafter referred to as
him Dr. Katz) is visibly nervous and swallows pills.
M.D. (with pathos): Dear Rustam Svyatoslavovich! Let me
On behalf of MEGA readers and on my own behalf, I would like to congratulate you on your semi-
honoring the awards and wishing with all my heart...
Dr. KATZ (grumpily): We realized it a little late. Two years ago
my friend, I should have congratulated you. Dear, excuse me, spoon to
lunch. Who gets up early, God...
R.A. (restraining the doctor): Messire, it’s not his fault. You yourself must
they refused to be interviewed. And then you exaggerate. Over time
It’s only been a year since your awards were presented...
Dr. KATZ (surprised): Is that so? Ah...
R.A. (continues): ...And two years will have passed when...
The reader will receive a journal containing this conversation.
M.D. (meaningfully, to the side): The mole of history slowly grows
et.
Dr. KATZ (on hearing): Who is this mole? Would you like to tell
shut up...
R.A. (hurriedly): So you, Mikhail Vitalievich, stopped at
that we wanted to congratulate and wish...
M.D. (surprised): Me? Oh yes, I wanted to. However, my first question is
growing up, I'm afraid it will seem a little incorrect to you. Or let's say
so, not entirely correct.
Dr. KATZ (grumpily): Then don't ask.
M.D. (without listening): Or even completely incorrect. But I still
but I'll ask. There are persistent rumors that you received all three awards
fraudulently.They cheated, speaking in Russian. Is this true?
Dr. KATZ (hysterically): How dare you?!
R.A. (calming the doctor): Calm down, sir. Don't give in
on provocation. (to Dubrovsky, in an undertone) Alas, this is true. Professional
He cheated on rubbish, so what’s there to hide? A criminal case has been opened.
Senior FSK investigator Alexey Sviridov convincingly proved that
the professor tricked several hundred people into reading
your book. And if no one read the book, there would be no awards
Naturally, I wouldn’t have received it. Not even included in the nomination list
would fall...
M.D. (slightly taken aback by this level of frankness): So what?
what to do now?
R.A. (after thinking): The bonuses will have to be returned and compensation paid -
tion for moral damage caused. Then the matter may not be
will go to court...
Dr. KATZ (hysterically, swallowing a pill): I'll give you -
"return"! You first earn at least one bonus, and then yours and
return!
R.A. (with some resentment): But, excuse me! I have, in some way
sort of, too...
Dr. KATZ (with obvious disdain): Ahh, an immortal collection
"We live once"! Well, we had the pleasure of reading, sir.
R.A. (with heartache): Twice! We live twice.
Dr. KATZ (grumpily): Have you at least one life been normal, like me, about-
live. So that it wouldn't be excruciatingly painful...
M.D. (cautiously intervening): So, this senior investigator
tel FSK Sviridov...
Dr. KATZ (completely)irritated): What the hell is the elder! Mo-
The bottom is green, it only bends. I remember when you followed me
came in '49...
R.A. (coughs warningly): Khe-khe!
Dr. KATZ (grumpily): What's the matter?
R.A. (ingratiatingly): Rustam Svyatoslavovich, comrade correspondent
I've already heard enough about your difficult youth...
Dr. KATZ (incredulously): And about that...
R.A. (interrupts very politely): And about the fact that Solzhenitsyn personal-
but he dedicated one chapter to you in The Gulag Archipelago, he also knows.
Dr. KATZ (Visibly softening): By the way, not the chapter, but read
one and a half. He dedicated one chapter to the astronomer Kozyrev. And to me -
woo, another half that much, three more pages in the notes to the first volume
mu and “Calf” have two paragraphs. In total, when converted to
page, just a chapter and a half comes out... (to Dubrovsky, almost
politely) Well, what is your question?
M.D. (digging through his pieces of paper): Now, now... Were there any
border... Didn't you participate... Were you in the occupied
noah... Where is this? Ah, here! (Reads from a piece of paper) How and when do you
came up with the idea to write your “History of Soviet Science Fiction”
ki"?
Dr. KATZ (proudly): Right then! I remember in fifty-one
During the investigation, I came across a book by some Britikov.
Vertukhai brought gruel instead. I begin to read it with grief - and vi-
Zhu (with a sudden Georgian accent): no, that’s how it was! Savsem ne
yes!
R.A.(cautiously): But earlier you said that the idea came
it only occurred to you after the 20th Congress...
Dr. KATZ (with genuine surprise): When did I ever say that?
R.A. (correct): Three years ago, in an interview with Ogonyok magazine,
special correspondent Mokrostupov. Do you remember?
Dr. KATZ (looking in amazement at Dubrovsky): Wait! And this one
Where do you think the correspondent comes from then?
R.A. (still correct, but already raising his voice): I tell you
explained. This is Mikhail Dubrovsky from the magazine "Fantacrim-MEGA".
Dr. KATZ (also raising his voice): What's his last name?
R.A. (loudly, with despair in his voice): Dubrovsky!
Dr. KATZ (shouting): How-how?!
M.D. (involuntarily also screams): Hush, hush! I am Dubrovsky.
Dr. KATZ (after a long pause): Ah, Dubrovsky. So it would be right away
they said. Okay, ask your question.
M.D. (rummaging through his papers again): Moment... Is there
close relatives abroad... Are you bringing foreign
currency or weapons... Damn! Not that, not that...Oh, I found it! (Reads) Difficult
but did you have to collect material for your book? Did you help?
anyone for you?
Dr. KATZ (quickly glancing at Arbitman): Nobody likes me.
could! I figured it all out with my own mind! (Looks again at
Arbitman, who is silent with the air of a martyr) Collect material
It wasn't easy, of course. (With a sigh, confidentially) They ran from
me like cockroaches. They didn't want me to put them in the bookinserted. One
I even threw myself under a train.
M.D. (with professional interest): Who?
Dr. KATZ (indifferently): I don't remember. Anyway, at the end of my "History"
ri" they all died...
R.A. (with some pressure): Rustam Svyatoslavovich, not all.
Dr. KATZ (scared): Huh? What?
R.A. (with strong pressure): Not everything, I say. About one thing there is
closed order. (A booming whisper in the doctor’s ear, but so,
so that Dubrovsky could hear) Consider him alive. It's clear?
Dr. KATZ (Having understood everything and being frightened): Yes, yes, one accidentally...
lived I mean, I’ve never been sick. (With increasing hysteria) And on
was not at the front! And I haven’t been to Paris in a long time! (Screams) And such books
didn't write! I didn’t write any at all!
M.D. (alarmed): Hush, doctor...
Dr. KATZ (calming down): Yes, yes, you are Dubrovsky. I remember... Well,
Finally, ask your question.
M.D. (sorting through a pile of his papers): Wait a second... We weren’t sick
Did you have the plague... Did you hit your head... Was there any among you...
our ancestors of schizophrenia... But where is he? Yeah, there you go! (reads from paper
k) Why, in your opinion, has no one written such a book before you?
written?
Dr. KATZ (with an astonished look at Arbitman): No one?
M.D. (confused): It seems like no one...
R.A. (with a threat in his voice): Nobody, nobody! Fact.
Dr. KATZ (surprised): How - no one? Who wrote it then?
sal? I don't understand anything.
R.A. (with a sigh, tapping the dial of his watch): Month-sir, time. (to Dubrovsky) The doctor wanted to say that he was already tired.
It's time to finish.
M.D. (in a pleading voice): Well, one more most important question!
(Strongly rummages through papers) Where were you on the night of the nineteenth
on the twenty-first... on the night from the fifth to the tenth... in Varfolo-
meevsk... Here it is, the question! (Reads) Tell me, professor, will there be
is there a sequel to your book?
R.A. (tapping his finger on his forehead expressively): Khe-khe...
Dr. KATZ (tiredly): Do you want to continue? Well, honestly?
M.D. (tensing, honestly): I saw him in the coffin.
Dr. KATZ and R.A. (joyfully, in unison): We’ll all be there! Thank you for your attention!
I didn’t even think about recording the conversation,
I just made it up out of my head
Danilo ARKADYEV,
Arkansa
Sheer rudeness!
TRUE STORIES FROM THE SNAKE GORYNYCH
______________________________
Continued. Start in room B.
E. Lukin
Shocked by the "Necessary Advance Notice" of Alexander Shchegole-
Wow, I hasten to assure:
1. I have always treated Kalmyks quite tolerantly.
2. I don’t question Stern’s identity as Larionova.
3. Adolf Hitler is my best friend first and only then
already Reich Chancellor.
12. EXPOSED
Readers, maybemaybe they guessed it, but here are the characters
dumbfounded to the point of complete oblivion of roles. Stupefaction disrupted the
present masks and revealed faces.
Rodriguez became Shchegolev, Loginov became Vitman, Bryder became Chado-
vichem. Like coffins in a horror film, cardboard boxes opened
boxes, and the stunned faces of Baikalov and Kaza-
kova. The packaging with the inscription "Household siphon. Sviyaga" had holes in it -
Lena was poked from the inside with a poke of a crutch, and someone’s unster-
just a familiar eye. Lazarchuk’s artificial one fell with a thud.
heart. Lancets turned into forceps and vice versa. The hall sharply
I changed the geometry - it was the roof of house number eighteen that went crazy.
The “Hamburgsky” looked clearly and ominously through the Nobel Prize.
account."
Perhaps Larionova-Stern was the only one who didn’t lose face.
Gasping faintly, she fainted, but did not leave the image.
But in general, of course, the mise-en-scène had to be saved.
Shchegolev was the first to try to catch himself, but in a hurry he completely
forgot the nationality of his terrorist and, in fright, stretched his
fingertips the corners of the eyes, for which at other times it is inevitable
I would have gotten a blow from Vyacheslav Rybakov.
But, fortunately, he had no time for Shchegolev. Screaming terribly
Rybakov rushed at the impostor, for, not being Lem, he was clearly not
was worthy of a spit! And I would have been dead if Rudenko and
Bryder, who, as it turned out later, pretended to be Chadovichjust
so, according to the old police habit. Having snatched the half-strangled victim,
from the tenacious fingers of Vyacheslav, the gentlemen officers shut her mouth
with their pants and under their twisted elbows they carried them into the toilet - to ask,
where is he, the enemy, doing the corpse of a classic?
The door closed behind them. It became scary.
13. INTERVIEW WITH A LOOP ON A CHANDELIER
Pseudo-Lem's retinue rushed to the doors, but was intercepted.
the elderly man struggled in vain in the grasping, numerous hands
informer Kazantsev, shouting that he is not Kazantsev at all, but Shapiro, not
believe me - ask Lavrenty Pavlovich or, at worst, the
who Katz... They were already removing the chandelier and attaching a loop to the hook.
But here the Swedish king (such a smart old man) successfully
struck the floor with a scepter and, opening the splintered openwork doors, carried
said something in his own way, in Swedish.
The crowd erupted. St. Petersburg residents moved to the left, masturbating
Borealists too. Hastily bowing, the cable master ran in and
deftly entangled the room with some hoses. Then into the hall
bodies of Luiza Telezhko with a pack of television crews. She recoiled when she saw
dev the adjusted loop.
- Take it off! Take it off immediately! - she screamed in horror. -
Close up!
And, exposing the microphone, she rushed... Everyone looked at the one to
to whom Louise rushed, and they were dumbfounded a second time. By the window, quietly
talking with the decent bookreader Yutanov, he stood to rivet my
brown eyes! - WellThe spitting image of Stanislav Lem!
- I'll fall to my feet! - Pan Stanislav said carefully,
taking the microphone. Then, without missing a beat, he fixed his darting eye on the
something in the crowd. - Panova! - he raised his voice and suddenly damn him
knows why he switched to Russian: - It is known that he is a bad writer,
usually a bad person. Take, for example, the St. Petersburg marginals.
One paragraph is enough to understand the moral inferiority of cars.
ditch What a paragraph! Just look at the faces there and you can immediately see
that they are crooks...
The immense Whitman began to stir angrily in the crowd. I heard
compressed:
-Who is marginalized? Am I marginal? You're the marginal one! And your father mar-
ginal! And grandfather is marginal!..
Shchegolev stood yellow, like Rodriguez.
The Swedish king became wary, again hit the floor with his scepter and
to the next amazement of those present, he headed towards the toilet.
ta.
- Nelson Karlovich Double! - he exclaimed, throwing open the door with
depicted on it with a thin girlish profile.
And the creepy trio again appeared before the eyes of those gathered. The face behind
the restrained one looked somewhat broken. The gentlemen's officers had faces
there was none at all. Both fussed and fussed around the false pan Stanis-
lava, carefully setting his arms in the shoulder joints and, unthinkably,
my delicacy in putting in place the students confiscated during the interrogation
would.
- Nelson Karlovich?..
The audience was so dumbfounded.
...And Kazantsev, by the way, was not called Shapiro at all, but Mitka.He ran away, the dirty trickster, taking advantage of the general confusion.
14. JUDGE
And you know, I understand the organizers of this, although not intentionally -
th, but, damn it, a grandiose disgrace. "Hamburg account"
- he’s like Caesar’s wife: just a divorce and a maiden name.
And where is that Arbiter (Gaius Petronius), whose impartiality is not called
would there be any doubt in anyone's mind?
Strugatsky, perhaps, Boris Natanovich?
So it is known that Strugatsky has long been controlled by dis-
traditionally using a device mounted in a plastic
soapbox. Stolyarov, however, swears that he carries this soap dish with
ourselves solely for hygienic reasons (in case
if, say, by mistake he shakes hands with Shchegolev), but,
I beg you, don't believe this...
And if not Strugatsky, then who? Computer, or what?
Well, Stolyarov also put wedges under the computer. Over the course of
for a month he washed his clothes with Napoleon cognac, carefully
ran and clicked loudly on the fingernail of computer viruses, so that
now with the mere appearance of Andrei Mikhailovich on the monitor
a wave of tenderness rolled over...
That is why the old one was discharged from abroad by Sidorovich
hamburger, in infancy - Russian emigrant, Nelson Karlovich
Double, expert in all types of martial arts, the largest authority on
settling accounts - from Hamburg to current account.
Let us remember that it is notto someone else, namely to him,
Nelson Karlovich, in the summer of 1943 they flew incognito to
Buenos Aires Adolf Schilkgruber and Joseph Dzhugashvili - finish the game
the very party “with three leaves”, with which, in fact, it all began -
moose And although the Second World War ended, as we know, crushingly
The final defeat of fascism is the result for the public. Our name is
Only Nelson Karlovich knows the real winner. He knows, but he doesn’t say
zhet.
For greater impartiality, the “Hamburg Account” had to be closed
rim with the Nobel Prize, and Nelson Karlovich himself with Lem. B
otherwise Stolyarov would have had time to make another soap dish.
Everything seemed to be provided for.
...And these numerous precautions were, in fact, de-
la, destroyed by a single spit of the expressive Vyacheslav Ryba-
kova.
Talent is, you know, unpredictable.
To be continued, yes, it should...
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