Igor Eliseev - One-Two

He was walking in our direction so confidently that despite my exhaustion and drowsiness, I instinctively moved away and put my arms forward to avoid a collision. But he stopped a half step away from us, and spoke with conviction, gesticulating vigorously and rather apprehensively, from time to time pointing at his throat and chest. His face seemed familiar. At last, through the noise of the tunnel, I managed to capture the sense of his words. We are dying.

“I am not scared,” I said, or was it just a thought? You were totally motionless except for your heart. I could hardly feel your hand, cold as a dead person’s hand, though your body was burning with fever. Plucking up my strength, I dug my elbow into your side.

“Damn, it’s so cold here,” you said, regaining consciousness. “And who the hell are you?”

“Looks like pneumonia. Does it hurt here? And here?” the young man asked, poking your chest and ignoring your question. “Try to give a cough.”

He rushed into our stuffy tunnel like fresh air. Peering into a thin face squeezed by thick temples of glasses, I could finally recognize him. It was the son of that woman with a round face– our first mother, according to the list.

“You need to go to hospital, and you’d better hurry up,” he concluded imperturbably.

“No, we don’t need to,” you reacted instantly.

His face was indistinct and vague as if I looked at it through a rain-streaked window. For a moment, I completely lost sight of him.

“Yes, you do, or else you’re going to get into trouble,” emptiness answered, turning into a human again.

“I don’t care,” your embittered voice croaked.

One way or the other the young man was likely to be the winner of the dispute, for it is not so difficult to win over two dying beggars, but at that moment Compass Legs unexpectedly arrived.

“What the fuck do you want?” he asked toughly, screwing up his face into an aggressive mask. “Come on; get out of here, smarty pants.”

“They really need help, or else they’ll get into mischief,” the young man whom he called smarty pants protested.

“I said get the fuck out of my place!” was the rude response.

“Don’t you have a bit of mercy for them?”

Compass Legs shrugged his sloping shoulders blankly and without further ado pushed the guy out of the tunnel. It became clear that there was no way out, or so it seemed to me. I don’t remember how long we stood in the dark, outside our own minds, at the extremity and appendix of the world. It seemed like death would never come.

Despite frosty weather, the young man, whose name was Yuriy, was waiting for us outside the tunnel. As soon as we came into view, he grabbed us and helped us get home to the attic. He had brought some medication from the hospital where he worked as a doctor.

“What is it?” you asked apathetically at the sight of a syringe in his hand.

“It is no big deal,” he replied with a slight smile. “It will feel like a mosquito bite.”

“Are we going to die?” I asked quietly.

“Sometime you definitely will,” Yura (Short name of Yuriy ) responded reasonably and shrugged, “but not now, certainly not!”

He stayed with us through the entire night and left to go to work the following morning. One injection of medicine was not enough to cure us, and he kept coming every evening, bringing food and staying with us for long hours; a little later, he provided warm clothes and an old, thick blanket.

Every person has secret thoughts that he or she can only confide in a real friend or a soul mate; however, those are particularly scant for people like us. So far, everyone coming into our life has never stayed in it long enough to see the consequences of his actions. Will Yura feel a strong desire to remain our friend? Actually, it doesn’t matter! All that mattered now was the fact that, for the first time in my life, I wanted to unburden my soul to someone. I was in such a rush to tell him everything that words literally jumped out of my mouth, escaped from my heart. Yura listened very attentively, not judging and not feeling sorry for us, just nodding from time to time, with a scarcely noticeable, ingenuous smile appearing on his lips from time to time.

In spite of the thin, slightly aquiline nose giving his oval face a characteristic hard look, he always emitted softness and warmth. He spoke just like everybody else, and at the same time in a way different from the others. He used to say, for instance, “smiley” instead of “smile”, “trouble” instead of “grief”, “pity” instead of “misery”, “angel” instead of “dear” – those were seemingly ordinary words but they evoked positive and reassuring emotions and corresponding sentiments. We found out that outside the tunnel there was a great, amazing world where magic and miracles await everyone; the world where happiness can be endless and people capable of doing good things are not weaker than those who lust after power and authority, where only giving can actually make you richer. He believed in his words with all his heart, and it made me hold my breath in order not to scare away or destroy this wonderful world of fairy tales . And he kept on and kept on speaking and I felt very grateful to him for having made me see the true face of mankind, or his version of this true face.

One day he brought a friend with him. I felt awkward because we were going to see a stranger and didn’t know how to act. Instinctively, I reached out for a blanket like someone or other reaches out for a towel after taking a shower.

“We brought some treats for you,” Yura kindly cooed. “I believe you don’t have lots of visitors today.”

“I believe today is not a visiting day,” I retorted, smiling, “unless you have an appointment.”

“Of course we have.” He was amazed by our diffidence. “My colleague and I have compelling reasons.”

“It is a bad case, I see. However, my colleague,” I pointed at you, “and I are deeply interested in it.” I cheerfully winked at you. “So, what have you got?”

Yura lowered his gaze to the ground and answered:

“A kind of gingerbready gift for high-muck-a-muck’s obedience and good behavior.”

“Oh, so you’re trying to bribe the official?” I could hardly help but burst out laughing.

“No, no, not at all. It’s the samples.”

“So why didn’t you put them in a container?” you asked with genuine reproach.

After that question all of us fell about laughing.

“All right, let’s go and prepare some reagents for clinical tests,” I offered you.

“You mean some tea?” you asked with astonishment.

“No, tea is totally out of fashion now.” I was genuinely amazed that anyone would dare to call things by their improper names. “In respectable houses, especially in white ones, they offer only reagents.”

Awkwardness that had been brought about by the stranger’s visit vanished like a mist. We all sat down at the “dining” table made from a set of empty buckets with a sheet of plywood on the top – our guests had providently brought cups and spoons with them – and had tea with gingerbread, talking and joking. Although, if the truth be told, the conversation was mostly led by Yura and his friend, a person with no name, no profession, no plans for the future and no face, as he described himself. In reality, he appeared to be a writer who hadn’t published a single book. This strange man sank deep into my heart at once. He looked at everybody with fatherly feeling but at the same time estranged eyes. For the first time I saw a mix of childishness and senility in human eyes, nearly alien eyes. He told us mostly the same things as Yury did, but in absolutely different, simplified ways, reducing them to statements such as that one should always stay in one’s own self, appreciate both bad and good things and take one’s life easy as if it were a pleasantry. His thoughts poured out of him freely like water from a cloud, without any doubts or barriers.