No Way Out at the Entrance

One should put together with the greatest effort a reserve of strands, since onagers, 1 ballistae, and other missile weapons are of no use, if they cannot be drawn with ropes or strands. The hair from the manes and tails of horses is also very well suited to ballistae.

There is no doubt that women’s hair is also very good for similar types of machinery; that has been proven by experience at the moment of the plight of Rome. When the Capitol was besieged, as a result of constant and long use the missile machines deteriorated, but there was not a reserve of strands, then Roman matrons cut off their hair and gave it to their husbands in battle; the machines were repaired, and the enemy attack repelled.

Chapter 1

The D Route Minibus

Four brothers go to the oldest.

“How do you do, Tommy Thumb!” they say.

“Hello, Peter Pointer,

Toby Tall,

Ruby Ring,

And Baby Small!”

Rina was sitting on a bollard swinging her legs and waiting. The subway next to her was spitting out people. Rina counted nine hundred people. Among them five hundred and ten were women. Leaving the five-hundred-and-eleventh woman uncounted, Rina jumped off the bollard and went to buy ice cream. She had enough money for either one good ice cream or to two so-so ones. After wavering for a while, she asked for two. “Who said that they’re bad? They’re underrated!” she said to herself and relaxed.

A drunk tumbled out of the rear door of a stopped car. He started to shove his passport under her nose and said that there was no kid in it. This did not surprise Rina too much: she always got into some mess.

Instead of quickly walking away, she took the passport and shook it. Not even one smallest kid fell out of the passport. “True!” she said. “No kid! Well, doesn’t matter: when you do, come quickly for teaching tips!” The drunk was offended and started to grab her sleeve.

Rina ran to the stern guard, who had risked his life catching an old hag illegally selling mushrooms on a string, and slipped him the passport. “Here, I found a document! Will you please have a look whose?” she asked and dived behind the pavilion.

Thirty minutes left for her to wait. In any case, so Kuzepych said. When she saw that nine people had gathered at the appointed place, she should press the centaur. Once. And that was all.

“Cool! Third generation Muscovite and was never on Planernaya!” Sashka realized, after walking up to the city. He always pronounced his favourite “cool” with a stress at the end. Something bright flew high above the buildings. At first Sashka thought it was a ball, but looking closely he figured out that it was an ordinary plastic bag. It was flying by itself and was not bothered at all that under it was twenty floors of emptiness.

Sashka took a step to the post and looked around with interest. Amusing region. Cramped, toy-like. The buildings come right up to the subway shelter. One can go out to the balcony and stare at the crowd. At night, when you are lying in silence, you listen as the floor shudders and trains rush past somewhere under you. Sashka focused to determine where he was now. Before him stretched an asphalt area with islands, where buses and minibuses docked. As always there were many of them at subway stations.

“Please, do you know where the Route D minibus is?” he asked a woman in a red windbreaker. The woman was playing with a child. She absent-mindedly lifted her eyes and part of the tenderness addressed to the child accidentally splashed onto Sashka. Almost immediately on the face that came to the tenderness waned, fell somewhere inside, and Sashka was sorry that he had torn a person away from a pleasant occupation. “Don’t know!” the woman said and again dived into her child as into a pond.

“Excuse me, please? Route D minibus?” Sashka turned to a stooping back emerging from behind the post. The back wobbled, and Sashka realized that he had missed the mark with the respect. A person of his age was looking at him. True, in order to determine this, Sashka had to lift up his head infinitely. The fellow was not simply two metres tall but somewhere close to two-ten. Narrow-shouldered, long-armed. The teeth were big. Two front ones like a beaver’s. The eyes were green, mocking. The arms dangled like ropes while walking, and the chin was making “snap-snap,” right-left. On the stranger’s forehead Sashka saw a long abrasion, badly overgrown, exiting under the hair.

“Didn’t fit into the elevator. Moscow is a town of dwarfs,” tracking his look, lanky explained talkatively. “And I'm powerless to help on the subject of the minibus. I’m searching for it myself! ”

Sashka continued to roam along the area. No one knew about the route D minibus. Sashka reached the last asphalt island and was prepared to return to the subway, when he suddenly saw a sheet with the bold letter “D” on the post. After surveying the queue, Sashka was convinced that they would completely fit into one vehicle.

Turning, his knapsack hit the fellow standing in front of him. That one looked around, gave Sashka the once-over, and not so much spat but hissed at the asphalt. Sashka thought that they call such a fellow “a lad” or “a young lad.” Not tall, thickset, in a turtleneck. He was moving unhurriedly, ingratiatingly, like a cat.

“Makar!” He put out a hand, solid as a stump, to Sashka. Just in case Sashka pressed it strongly, expecting his hand would be in a vice now, and was mistaken, because “the young lad” did not even bother to close his fingers. It was nonsense. On one hand, for some reason they wanted to get acquainted with you. On the other hand, they treated your hand like a dead fish. The voice of “the young lad” was appropriate. Cracked. With a little twang.

“How are you? Not bad?” he asked without the least embarrassment. Makar talked slowly. From word to word it was possible to stretch a rope and dry towels. When people talk this way, it is hard on the brain. A desire emerged in Sashka to describe to Makar his entire life from the moment of birth, in order to see at what place he would fall asleep. But he restrained himself and answered briefly that he had never felt better.

“Eh, real never?” Makar clearly attempted to back Sashka into a corner, posing questions, which could not be answered properly. And Sashka did not answer at all. He was no longer looking at Makar but at a girl who grabbed her purse every time someone’s cell phone rang. To her, a melody did not play any special role.

Makar was not pleased that someone could be distracted from contact with him. He took Sashka’s button and began to twist it off. “Local?” he asked sullenly. Sashka shook off his hand. Such impudence surprised Makar. “You know anyone here?”

“Aunt Claude from the flower kiosk!” Sashka unmistakably sensed that Makar would not fight. Such types like to work on empty chatter, looking for the collocutor’s weakness. They prefer to take an automatic casing from their pocket and twirl it in their fingers. Or to open and close a switchblade. Or to work such a thing into their speech that it would be clear to all with whom they are dealing.

“Eh, bold?” Makar finally caught on.

“You guessed it.”

“Ah-h! Well, got it! Come on: take care, brother!” Makar again for some reason put his hand out to Sashka, who, remembering the last time, simply touched it with two fingers and turned away. Sashka understood that the “take care!” was not a threat but simply a last attempt to spoil his mood.

A white minibus appeared out of nowhere. In the lower left corner of the glass on the driver’s side was a sheet of paper with the same letter “D” as on the post. Sashka was experienced in riding minibuses and did not sit down right behind the driver. Too much trouble: someone is always getting out, changing seats. He wanted to hide in the corner and look out the window, watching how Moscow steamed by the sun slowly wound around the wheels of the minibus. After flopping down onto the second single seat, Sashka placed his knapsack on his knees. A trembling reverberated in his shoulder: the door was slammed shut. The minibus started to signal a turn. It squeezed into the flow of cars.

No one noticed how the smiling girl with freckles in the last row of seats as if by chance pulled up her sleeve and, after touching the beaming centaur, said in a whisper, “Full load!” Without waiting for an answer, she put the sleeve back in place and leaned back onto the seat.

Looking from the tall minibus at the compact cars passing them, Sashka observed closely those sitting inside and thought with amazement: so many people and all different. Not a single person is repeated, everyone is distinguished by something. Each has his own look, his own unique turn of tiny events, and all this inimitably stamped in the thoughts, the fates, the feelings. For several seconds Sashka’s head began to spin. “Again!” he thought. Memory diligently unwound the tangle.

Yellow tank top, green trunks, black helmet, red nose, blue gloves. Sashka mockingly watched as his opponent rushed to the ring, using the thumb of the glove to drive the mouth guard hurriedly into his mouth.

“Dudnik, Bychkov! Two for two! 3 Lively! Dudnik, special invitation?” The coach’s name was Paul Paulych. He consisted of experience, paunch, and a whistle. Roughly in this order. Although there were days when the whistle advanced into first place and experience and the spare tire trailed behind.

Sashka (the very same Dudnik) ducked under the ropes and climbed into the ring. He did this very lazily. He showed that it offended him that they sicked a newbie on him, an oldbie, third year there. Bychkov was already shifting his feet in the ring. One felt that he was nervous. Certainly. First battle. Bychkov had attended the section for all of four months, skipped rope and diligently worked out in front of the mirror double jabs, bobs, delivery of a right punch, and other basics. On the whole, a typical piece of meat, though powerful, certainly.

“Ready? Go!” After tapping gloves with Bychkov, Sashka began to dance around lazily. Open, only the right glove was raised somewhere at the level of the chest. Bychkov, on the contrary, was keeping down. He kept his gloves by his nose, and the chin almost squeezed into his chest. He kept down, and then – wham-wham – a double hit. He learned the ropes hitting the bag. But one can be a champ with the bag all the time: it does not hit back.

“Bychkov, don’t lean forward! More active! The feet! Show this clown! Bolder!” Paul Paulych began to yell. Sashka resented clown and, being offended, began to wriggle even more. He was completely open and only took some jabs with the glove, and just either broke off at a distance or let a hit pass over the ear. He had decided to himself that the entire fight would go this way. Clown, so clown!

Bychkov was huffing and puffing and, having grown bolder, worked like a hammerer. On the rare occasion when he pressed too hard, Sashka stabbed with his left. At the end of the first two-minute Bychkov was entirely soaked. The grinning mouth guard was making a hoarse sound. He pushed it back with a glove. Sashka was even sympathetic. When you are gasping for air, the mouth guard seems like terrible trash. Like something so bloody-rubbery and sweet-tasting.

“Ten more seconds! More active!” Paul Paulych bellowed. Sashka, long waiting for this moment, lowered his right hand and now stretched out only with the body, occasionally moving the shoulder up. Simutaneously he was counting the remaining seconds and thinking about any outside things. The Russian dictation tomorrow… Must get something for Father for his birthday, but he has not decided on the price… Seven… Eight… Nine…

Sashka counted ten, then eleven, then twelve, and, surprised that the fight had not been stopped, looked over at Paul Paulych. That one was talking with someone who had put his head through into the hall. Realizing that the fight was over, Sashka completely forgot about Bychkov and remembered only when the first of two hits cut into his cheekbone. Sashka was thrown back. He, protecting himself, jerked up his hands, but managed only to scratch the bottom of Bychkov’s right glove just enough to direct it to his own chin. The words “go, lights out!” became a reality not only for girls with the name Sveta. 4

After some time the smell of ammonium chloride broke through to Sashka in the dark room. You do not want to, but you come to. Simply out of disgust.

“What a clown! Wriggled, eh? Leave now! Rest for two weeks!” Coach said without sympathy. Sashka looked at him and smiled. Thoughts in him were very few and everything was kind of strange. And people seemed to him surprised: this was probably because he had “slowed down” a little. Somewhere on the horizon loomed Bychkov – confused, feeling sorry for him, and simultaneously being proud of himself. He still did not know that in the next training session he would be paired with one of the stricter guys so that it would be made distinctly clear to him that you do not hit someone who had turned away or knock out the dazed. 5 Paul Paulych spat out the whistle, with which he had called up to himself two older fellows in order to send them into the deserted ring.

Out on the street Sashka sat on a tire for a long time, examining the thick poplar trunks. They were sawn off, waste oil was poured under them, but all the time shoots were sprouting and sprouting. Along the edge of the poplar, the bark of which was stripped off for the most part such that it turned out white almost like human skin, flowed a stream of ants. Occasionally first one, then another turned slightly to the side and tried to crawl into a deep crack in the poplar trunk. It moved its whiskers and stepped back.

Sashka attempted to glance into the crack but saw only a head with two large eyes and moving whiskers. He drummed on the trunk with his nails and a large golden bee suddenly crept out of the crack. It fearlessly passed through the stream of ants and, after flying so closely that its wings touched his cheek, disappeared. Sashka plodded to the road. His head was clear and it only slightly resembled a rumbling bucket. Although, of course, with any attempt even to look around, Sashka would begin to sway.

His head was spinning no longer. Sashka as usual pulled back the upper pocket of the camouflage jacket and, considering whom to give the money to, glanced all around. “I’ll be darned! Everybody here is about fifteen! Well, maximum sixteen!” he thought. Not so often you meet your contemporaries in this quantity. Sashka even looked around in order to ascertain that those behind also fit in this range. Improbable, but they did!

Sashka came up with the option that they had finished classes somewhere or, let us suppose, everyone here except him were classmates going somewhere together. But no. No one in the minibus knew anyone else. Otherwise, they would not drop curious glances at each other. There would also not be careful, waiting tension.

Immediately behind Sashka sat a girl, the same one that grabbed her cell phone when someone else’s rang. Small, frail, with a thin neck, which could be encompassed with two fingers. How the head could be held up on such a flower stalk was incomprehensible but it was solidly supported. The face was rather sharp, clever, agitated. Thick eyebrows, lips nibbled at. The hair was not simply cut short but ultra short – to one joint of the little finger. Bulging, obstinate forehead. She wanted to be first in everything for sure. Wrote letters to politicians, directors, and singers. Ready to sweat her guts out like an electric broom for twenty-five hours a day.

In the next row by the window was a skinny fellow in a blue suit and tie, a cream shirt. Brushed, well-pressed. Amazing, all these trappings looked organic on him. One had the feeling that he was always in a suit and not just once a year on occasion. It was stuffy here in the minibus but he was like an idol. Not a drop of sweat on his face, the collar was completely done up, and even the tie was not loosened. He was sitting and moving alarmingly away from his neighbour who was dropping powder from donuts onto her knees and at the same time onto his as well.

The neighbour was his complete opposite. Large, plump but not fat, with a chest like a sofa. From her face fluttered absolute, unaffected calm. Whether “the suit” moved away from her or not bothered her little. Most likely, the girl did not even turn her head in order to find out if someone was sitting beside her. She was in a contemplative half-sleep all the time. She was dressed in a spacious hand-knitted top. Any crumbs would fall through such a top and cat fur would not be visible on it. Her hair was long like a mermaid’s and carelessly braided. And she did not have such hair because she let it grow specially, but simply did not prevent the hair from doing what it thought fit. If you want to get into the life of such a girl, do not attempt to flicker before her eyes. This is too tiresome for her. Simply come and settle down beside her. Possibly, in a year or two she will discover that some stranger is sitting near her in the kitchen, and finally it will come home to her where her pancakes have been disappearing to.

To the right of “sleeping beauty” was a young fellow in a bright T-shirt rhythmically twitching his head. Small, hook-nosed, continuously moving his feet restlessly even while sitting. Teeth uneven, crowding each other. Over the left eye was a black plastic patch tied with two fabric strips. Sashka was pondering for some time whether he actually did not have an eye or this was the final stroke of a romantic portrait. Sashka was still at a loss why on earth the young fellow was twitching when he noticed the small headphone.

Suddenly the young fellow in the tee turned to his neighbour and loudly (immediately evident that music was roaring in his ears) uttered, “A bet on your phone number, your name’s Lena!” The calm girl looked thoughtfully at him.

It seemed to her one-eyed neighbour that there would not be an answer. He managed to take off and put on the headset four times when he finally heard, “Should be: a bet on your phone number, your name ISN’T Lena!”

One-eyed was happy. There was contact! “A bet on your phone number, your name isn’t Lena!” he obediently repeated.

“You lose. I’m Lena!” the girl sympathized and continued indifferently to sprinkle powder from donuts onto the knees of the neighbour on her left.

Sashka almost slipped down under the seat. He saw that one-eyed had made a guess for the first time in his life and was confused now, not knowing how to move on further.

“Serious, Lena? Or are you pulling my leg?”

“Leave me alone, eh?” the girl dully requested.

“How ’bout showing some document?”

“Fat chance!”

“Here I can show mine! I don’t mind!” one-eyed proposed and with the motion of a conjurer extracted two passes and a calling card. “Don’t look here! I turned out like a dork here!” he imparted and showed precisely this photo with pleasure. Sashka noticed that on the photo one-eyed was presented with two eyes. And even saw the name: Cyril.

Across the seat from Sashka a girl in a black tank top breathed on the glass and drew gallows. On her neck were two army dog tags tied together, in standard military style. On her face were delicate pink pimples. “Interesting, does she know that you need a second dog tag for hanging on the left big toe of the dead body?” Sashka gauged. Sensing that she was being looked at, the girl with the dog tags stopped sketching and turned around interrogatively. Sashka hurried to put a wooden expression on his face.

Staring, he disturbed not only the girl with the dog tags but also the big-forehead person with the flower-stalk neck. She jerked up her face with annoyance, at the same time covering the cell phone screen with her palm. Sashka perceived that he was to her a kind of additional seat of the minibus.

“For one!” Sashka heard and did not understand how he found himself with money in his hands. She did not ask, even did not demand, but would give a target designation. Since you are staring and not busy with anything, do something useful.

“Also for one!” The girl with the death dog tags woke up.

“Interesting, why to me? Could give to Makar. Or only to him at night in the park and together with a purse?” Sashka was being mentally malicious. The precisionist in the suit also charged Sashka to pay for the fare and immediately demanded change. His bill was so smooth, as if he kept it in a dictionary all night. The girl with the donuts could not be bothered and, not even making an attempt to count, poured out a handful of change into Sashka’s hand.

While Sashka was sorting out the money, someone gave him a friendly nudge in the shoulder. The fellow sitting diagonally grinned at him like an old friend. This turned out to be that same fellow with the abrasion. “Hello!” said Sashka.

“Hello to you too! I said that I would go search! You nodded and bolted!” the fellow said reproachfully and added, “Danny!” Leaning towards Sashka, Danny pushed him with a sharp knee and simultaneously scratched his cheekbone with the forehead. Not a person but a walking injury for the surrounding people.

“Noticed?” he whispered.

“That everyone is of the same age?” guessed Sashka.

“Well, that’s not too bad!” Danny dismissed it. “More: we don’t stop at traffic lights. One. No one gets on or off along the way. Two. Several times people raised a hand but we didn’t even stop, although lots of free seats.”

“Strange,” agreed Sashka. “Usually they take everybody.”

“Hey, you two! Stop whispering! Can’t move?” the bossy girl impatiently tugged at Sashka’s sleeve. Her voice sounded fearless. It was felt that she not only spoke the plain truth but also brandished it like a shaft. Sashka discovered in his own hand a bundle of money and, remembering that it was time to get rid of it, passed it forward.

“Hey! Pass it on!” he hailed and shook the shoulder of the person sitting directly in front of him. The person turned around. Out of surprise, Sashka jerked his hand back. He thought it was a guy there but “hey!” turned out to be a girl.

The beauty of the girl was so obvious that even a catty sharp-tongued old hag would not call it into question. True, she would feel obligated to add that there are signs of dystrophy from the long legs and there cannot be a brain in such a pretty head. However, there is no getting away from envy: you cannot climb up to the fence at least to spit on one who sits on it.

Noticing what impression she had made on Sashka, the corner of the girl’s mouth twitched and this spoiled seventy percent of the impression. Roosters are not the only smug ones. Simply one can more readily forgive hens.

“May I ask an improper question? What camouflage is this? English? Bundeswehr?”6 she asked. Sashka answered that for the time being the camouflage was Russian. Three more improper questions were posed to him in the next forty seconds: “Why the hanky on the neck?” (Cool.) “Why a smell of burning from him?” (A fire.) “What does Sashka want to express with his military pants?” (Simply comfortable.)

It turned out Sashka was not the only one who saw the beauty. The young fellow with the patch on his eye also gave her the once-over. “A bet on your phone number, your name’s… eh-eh… Natasha!” he plunged in, not wasting time on display of fantasy. His calm neighbour raised her eyebrows and with defiance shook the crumbs off her skirt onto his knees.

“Nevertheless, well done!” Sashka mentally approved. “He has no fear of a snub. He flies through life as a woodpecker. Knocks, doesn’t open, flies further.” Sashka himself was unable to be this way. For Sashka the world was too detailed, and the people too. He could not talk in phrases prepared ahead of time. He vaguely caught that for each person there exists special words, which reach him like a key and unlock his soul. But he did not know these words. Therefore, when he talked to a girl, he would carry on with the usual stock nonsense. What music she likes, what sites she visits, and so on.