Arkady Strugatsky: Monday Begins on Saturday

“And how about wings?” I asked. “Or, say, a halo around the head? You are searching for one in a thousand!”

“But all we need is just that one,” said Hawk-nose.

“But what if there’s only nine hundred?”

“We’ll settle for nine-tenths.”

The forest fell away on either side; we crossed a bridge and ran along between potato fields.

“Nine o’clock,” said Hawk-nose. “Where are you planning to spend the night?”

“I’ll sleep in the car. How late are the stores open?”

“The stores are already closed,” said Hawk-nose. “You could stay in the dorm,” said The Beard. “I have an extra bunk bed in my room.”

“You can’t park near the dorm,” Hawk-nose said dreamily.

“Yeah, I guess so,” said The Beard, chuckling for some private reason.

“We can park the car over by the police,” said Hawk-nose.

“That’s a lot of folderol,” said The Beard. “Here I am prattling nonsense, and you trail right along. How’s he going to get in the dorm?”

“Right, right, damn it,” said Hawk-nose. “Quite so; can’t get through a workday without forgetting one of these sidelights.”

“How about transvecting him?”

“That’s a no-no,” said Hawk-nose. “You are not dealing with a sofa, you know. And you are no Cristobal Junta, and neither am I…”

“Don’t worry yourselves,” I said. “It’s not the first time I slept in the car.”

Suddenly I felt a terrible yen to sleep between sheets. It had been four nights that I had been sleeping in a bag.

“I’ve got it,” said Hawk-nose. “Ho-ho—Iznakurnozh!”(lzba na kuryikh nozhkakh: Log cottage on hen’s legs, of Russian folklore)

“Right!” exclaimed The Beard. “Over to Lukomoniye with him!”

“Honest to God, I can sleep over in the car,” I said.

“You are going to sleep in a house,” said Hawk-nose, “on relatively clean sheets. There must be some way we can repay you….”

“You wouldn’t want us to push a ruble on you, would you?” said The Beard.

We entered the town. Ancient stout fences, mighty log houses with blackened timbers and narrowish windows, decorated with filigreed fronts and the regulation carved wooden cockerels on the roofs, stretched on both sides of the street. Here and there a dirty brick structure with iron doors evoked the half-known word for grain stone. The street was wide and straight and bore the name of Peace Prospect. Up ahead, toward the center of town, I could make out some two-story town houses with interspersed open squares.

“Turn right at the next alley,” said Hawk-nose.

I switched on the turn signal, braked, and turned right. Here the road was overgrown with grass, but a brand-new car manufactured in the Ukraine was snuggled up against one of the gates. House numbers were hung over the posterns, and the numerals were almost invisible against the rusty tinplate. The alley was modishly titled Lukomoriye Street.(A magical place in Russian literature.) It was rather narrow and squeezed between sturdy palisades that must have been erected in those times when Swedish and Norwegian pirates raided the lands.

“Halt,” said Hawk-nose. I braked, and he bumped his nose on the gun barrel again. “Now, then,” he said, massaging his nose. “You wait for me here and I will go to arrange everything.”

“Really, you shouldn’t,” I said, for the last time.

“No more arguments. Volodia, keep him in your sights.”

Hawk-nose climbed out of the car, and, bending down, squeezed through the low gate. The house was invisible behind the towering gray stockade. The postern was altogether remarkable, big enough for a locomotive depot, hung on rusty hinges that must have weighed a stone apiece.

I read the signs with growing astonishment. There were three. On the left wing, coldly gleaming with thick glass, there was an imposing blue sign with silver letters:

SRITS

Izba on Hen’s Legs

Monument of Solovetz Antiquity

On the right wing hung a rusty sheet-metal tablet reading, Lukomoriye St., No. 13, N.K. Gorynitch, (Reference to Zmei Gorynitch, a fire-breathing dragon of Russian folklore) while under it, in shameless splendor, a piece of plywood bore in inked letters leaning every which way:

CAT OUT OF ORDER

Administration

“What CAT?” I asked. “Committee for Advanced Technology?”

The bearded one tittered. “Main thing is—don’t worry about it,” he said. “It’s quite amusing here with us, but everything will be quite under control.”

I got out of the car and proceeded to wipe the windshield. Something suddenly scuffled overhead. I took a look. Settling in and propping himself comfortably on the gate was a gray-and-white tomcat of gigantic proportions such as I had never seen before. Having settled himself to his satisfaction, he bestowed me with a sated and indifferent gaze out of his yellow eyes. “Kiss-kiss-kiss,” I said mechanically. The cat politely but coldly opened his huge and toothy jaws, delivered a dull throaty growl, and turned away to look inside the yard. The voice of Hawk-nose issued thence:

“Basil, old friend, may I be permitted to disturb you?”

The bolt squealed. The cat got up and noiselessly dived into the yard. The gates swayed heavily, there was an awful cracking and screeching, and the left wing of the gate slowly swung open, followed by Hawk-nose’s straining and reddened face.

“Philanthropist!” he called. “Drive in!”

I got back in the car and slowly drove into the yard. The yard was quite extensive. In its depths stood a house constructed of huge logs, and in front of it a squat giant of an oak with a thick, wide, and heavy crown, which screened the roof from view. A path paved with flagstones led from the gate to the house, curving around the oak. To the right there was a vegetable garden, and to the left, in the middle of the lawn, reared a well-house with windlass, blackened by time and covered with moss.

I parked the car off to the side, turned off the engine, and got out.

The bearded Volodia also climbed out, leaned the gun against the body of the car, and started to shrug on his rucksack.

“Here you are, all settled,” he said.

Hawk-nose was closing the gates with groanings and squealings for accompaniment while I, feeling a bit out of place, was looking about, not quite knowing what to do with myself.

“Ah, and here’s the landlady!” cried The Beard. “And how be ye, Granny, Naina, light of my eyes, Kievna!

The landlady must have been well on the other side of a hundred. She came toward us slowly, leaning on a knobby cane, dragging her feet clad in felt boots with galoshes over them. Her face was a dark sepia web of wrinkles, out of which jutted a nose as sharp and curved as a yatagan. and her eyes peered pale and dim, as though obscured by cataracts.

“Greetings, greetings, my young one,” she pronounced in an unexpectedly resonant basso. “So this will be the new programmer? Hello, friend, welcome, and make yourself at home!”

I bowed, feeling well advised to keep quiet. Over the black kerchief tied under her chin, the old hag’s head was covered with a nylon scarf, which was gaily decorated with a picture of the Atomium and bearing the same inscription in several languages: Brussels World Fair. Sparse bristles stuck out under her nose and on her chin. She was dressed in black broadcloth and a quilted vest