Anatoly Izotov - Cleopatra Hunting

© Anatolii Izotov, 2019

© International Union of writers, 2019

I was born in the summer of 1940 in the Kaluga region, spent childhood and youth in the Crimea, in Bogatoye village (formerly Bakhchi-Eli), located halfway between Simferopol and Feodosia. After graduating from high school I worked in the Donbass for a year, and then entered the Novocherkassk Polytechnic Institute. After graduation, I received a diploma of an engineer-hydrogeologist and a job referral to work at the numbered plant. I spent ten years working at a uranium mining enterprise in the restricted area of Uch-Kuduk city. Then, already an experienced mining engineer, I was sent to the North Bohemia, on a business trip abroad, which ran over ten years. I defended my thesis on Czech-related affairs and then returned to my native land where I got hired at VIOGEM Institute (Belgorod), eventually becoming the chief engineer. As of now, I am the Institute’s scientific consultant.

I began writing poetry since I was fifteen and got my first publication in «Kadievka Worker» and «Industry Cadres» papers (1958–1964). One of the works of that period, the white verse «Letter from Central Asia» was then included in the «Letters from the Poplar Fluff Spring» book, published by the Rostov Publishing House in 1967.

I have been writing prose since 1965. For a long time, I could not publish my early stories – the short novel «Cleopatra Hunting», «Farhad» and «To those who are in the field» and others, due to a specific nature of my work at a restricted access facility. From 2005 to 2010, I published four books in limited editions – a collection of poems, a collection of short stories and two novels.

I am actively involved in literary research, my most prized studies being the analysis of the creative legacy of M.Yu. Lermontov and Homer.

I am an (associate) member of the International Writers Association since 2015.

In this status, I enjoy regular publications in «Russian Bell Almanac» magazine, and I already took part in the literary contests held under the aegis of IWA – Yalos 2016, Yalos 2017. I also participated in the XXXIV science fiction convention «AELITA», Jules Verne prose contests, Innokentiy Annensky poetry contests and others. I was awarded diplomas of various degrees, including «For Major Contribution to the Development of Culture», the Grand Prix Diploma for Best Publicism-2017, the Laureate Diploma of the 2nd degree of the «Russian Literary Prize» by the «Russian Bell» magazine and the medal «For Major Contribution to the National Literature».

I published two books: the paper novel «Verka» and the audiobook «Stories».

Maya had blue eyes like chicory petals in the morning, with wide, bottomless pupils – their thick, smoky blueness mesmerized and beckoned like gentle summer sea. She might seem lanky due to her rather high stature and deep clavicular dimples. However, her slender legs, ample breasts, and beautiful posture gave her figure a special softness and femininity.

Every morning, Maya sat in front of the mirror for hours, carefully arranging her blond hair into a magnificent, intricate coif; then, with elegant movements of an artist she put shadows on her eyelids, painted her eyes and lips, and then passed on to clothes. Only after discovering the complete correspondence of her appearance to some unknown ideal, she would get out to the street. Even on her way to the medical station where Maya had been working as a nurse for four years now, she did not miss an opportunity to quickly check her full reflection in wide shop windows of the beauty salon, the music school and the furniture store, just in order to finally convince herself of the flawlessness of her figure. Then she went out onto the main road connecting the city center with the newly constructed buildings. Here, Maya would stop, making way first for the security officers with machine guns behind their shoulders and dogs on leashes, then for the escorts with machine guns tilted forward, and, finally, for a long convoy of prisoners.

The cons were escorted from the prison camp to a construction site, surrounded by barbed wire, where soldiers were already occupying their positions on watchtowers, and the officers were fussing about at the checkpoint. The men in the convoy all looked the same: dark-skinned, with their hands behind their backs, wearing heavy boots that raised clouds of reddish dust on the roadside. The cons were marching in silence, ready to obey the convoy’s command at any moment: to stop, raise their hands up, sit down or even lie down, which Maya could see for herself when a drunken pothead, who broke the ranks, was shot right before her very eyes. At the sight of a young woman, the prisoners began imitating racy, luscious kisses that merged into one piercing siren of unsatisfied love. Maya was not at all scared, and these sounds did not confuse her. On the contrary, she was amused: she tried to imagine what prisoners would do if they had a young, beautiful woman among themselves.

Maya always came to work long before the impatient people began gathering at the office – to prepare her tools and her workplace, and to set herself up for seeing patients. Maya worked swiftly, her hands were delicate and dexterous, and her soul was kind. Making injections, she always picked up the best moment for giving a shot so that a person would not feel pain and fear. She would joke with cheerful patients, find the words of consolation and faith for the gravely ill, and, she gave her best to inspire optimism in hopeless ones. She accepted their thanks with reserve, but every time a warm wave of joy would rise in her soul as she realized that her work was not in vain, and her efforts were wanted and sought after. At such moments her work seemed to be the highest and most celebratory moment of her life.

Maya willingly agreed to work overtime: she was dreadfully short of money. Almost all her earnings went to everyday expenses, and the scanty savings by no means made her dreams of escaping the burning desert and settling in the Moscow suburbs more feasible. There, Maya was promised a good job and a room in the hostel for the initial period, but she dreamed of her own apartment, that, by her humble standards, costs an arm and a leg. On top of that, Maya wanted to get good furniture and utensils. One could easily buy all of this in local shops. As things stood at the time, at least two skills were required in order for her to be able to put some money aside: to earn good money and to lead a wary life. As for the work, Maya spared no effort: she accepted paid night watches and worked on holidays, administered injections, performed domiciliary medical procedures, stepped in for other nurses. As for saving money, though, it was both difficult and humiliating for her generous soul. Maya almost did not know how to say no when she was asked for a loan, although she tried to learn how to do it because some wise guy would always try to avoid returning the debts. She participated in all charity activities and parties, made generous gifts, loved fashionable and beautiful dresses, used expensive cosmetics, bought jewelry, books, and trinkets, and went to the seaside every year. At the same time, she did not keep good track of what she was supposed to get for her overtime work, and she hated visiting the odious accounting department, where they would often «forget» to include the extra payrolls.

Maya had an unbridled imagination that took her away from reality. She loved poetry, read a lot and listened to poems with great pleasure, having even performed several times with solo readings of poems by Akhmatova and Yesenin at school evenings. Her favorite, though, was the wonderful poem «Egyptian Nights» by Valery Bryusov, which she knew by heart, and could read it time and time again, especially in moments of daydreaming.