"Rackles, crazies and galakhs", in Khlebnikov's words, populated the city in his time. "Rackle" is a local Kharkov word, or rather a Bursatskii word, born in the Bursatskii Gulch. It seems to the Bookseller that now, after many years, Rackles and Crazies have again appeared in Kharkov. Crazies especially. Something is happening in Kharkov. Something still not quite understood by the Bookseller, dragging around his heavy sacks of books.
"Ed, we're going to Anna Rubinshtein's. You want to go with us?" asked Motrich, as they cheerfully delivered the cargo to Store No. 41 and handed it to Liliya, who it turned out was rushing off to the cinema with her young husband, Alik. The Directress didn't even get up to help and simply slipped the money into the cashier's kiosk, after putting it into an envelope.
"Yeah, I want to." And he did want to. For the first time in the Bookseller's life, maybe, he was with the people he really wanted to be with. A strange, tranquil pleasure came over him.
"We just have to buy something to drink." Motrich stood searching the pockets of his fur coat for change. He hadn't worked anywhere at all for a long, long time, and as the Bookseller knew, he had no money. Directress Liliya always sternly warned the Bookseller not to lend Motrich any money. Either the Bookseller's own or money from the cash register. "Even if he promises to give the money back to you in a few hours, don't give him any. Volodya's a poetic genius; maybe that's why he drinks so much. Getting him to pay back a debt is impossible. It's awkward squeezing a debt out of our poetic genius. Remember: you have no money for Motrich!"
The Bookseller contributed a five-ruble note toward the drinks. Misha Basov didn't even pretend to look for money in his pockets. Obviously he never has any money either. The Bookseller, who still had a hundred rubles severance pay from the foundry shop, and six suits hanging in his closet in Saltovka, condescendingly pardoned the intellectual for his unworldly poverty.
Wet, greasy snow slopped clumsily onto Kharkov, blown in from time to time by gusts of wind from the streets perpendicular to Sumskaya, where the Bookseller was hurrying, barely keeping pace with the big Motrich in his fur coat and the elk-like Basov in a light woolen jacket. The snow of Blok's "Blockade," or perhaps the snow of "The Twelve," fell on the heads and shoulders of the young people. On the black, Georgian-style cap of the Bookseller – it, and the heavy ratine overcoat, remained to the Bookseller in memory of the brave little Jew Mishka Issarov, who had wanted to outwit life and had paid dearly for trying. Before he offered Ed the chance to work with him he gave Ed three meters of ratine for an overcoat, at a price of 57 rubles a meter… The Symbolist snow clogged the city of Vrubel and Khlebnikov, Tatlin and Vedenskii, and through it walked Motrich and Misha Basov, in their present, and, distinct from them, into the future walked the Bookseller. In the future, awaiting him, was Anna Moiseyevna Rubinshtein, "prodigal daughter of the Jewish nation," as she sometimes called herself – a woman who was destined to play a major role in the fate of Eduard Savenko. The ex-steelworker, not entirely sure what he wanted, having found Anna, unconsciously chose her for this role. Afterwards, he called his choice "Fate," "Destiny," "the Roll of the Dice." But if we turn to a romantic, yet more truthful explanation, we will see that the worker very much wanted to become an intellectual, to become a poet, to learn, to study more and more. And wanted this passionately, heedlessly, violently. Having read a few dozen pages of the Introduction to Psychoanalysis, he got a big notebook and started copying out the book word-for-word because he knew that he needed this book. Alas, there was no other way of obtaining a copy of this rarely-republished work. And he couldn't bring himself simply to commandeer Melekhov's book. Anna Moiseevna served as another study-aid, and it was necessary to commandeer her.
Anna Moiseevna herself opened the door to the damp Symbolist, his pockets full of bottles of port. Backing up against their primus stoves in their nightgowns, the women of the corridor stared in terror at this invasion of hulking Decadents. Crying, "Hey, Vovka! Misha!" Anna, in a heavy dress… and in a complex aroma redolent of some twenty very different dinners, the four of them made their way through the doorway of her private compartment. And led the Decadents, herself among them, into the tiny inner corridor of her apartment-compartment and, heavily opening the door to her room (on the door were hanging her overcoat and dresses),herded the decadents into the room. On the little card table (At which the poet will write the whole of his first book of poems, as well as "The Cook" and "The Notebook") a candle burned, and from a low wooden bed Anna's friend, the broad-faced Vika Kuligina, rose smiling…
"Who are these guys, Anna?" From behind the panel of a folding door which divided Anna's room from the main room appeared – first the cigarette of Celia Yakovlevna, and then the aforesaid Celia Yakovlevna herself. "Ah, the poets have arrived!" At this point Celia Yakovlevna was still pleased at the appearance of the poets.
"Good evening, Celia Yakovlevna!" Basov, swooping suddenly, darted past the surprised poet and, grabbing the hand of the lady with the cigarette in his own wet hand, brought it to his lips. The bookseller did not yet know that Misha Basov, whom he knew as a symbolist, was also a surrealist; and this well-read youth was imitating the manner of Andre Breton in kissing ladies' hands. The not-so-well-read bookseller timidly mumbled, "Good evening."
"Mama, go to your room! Time for you to go to sleep!" Softly but mercilessly, Anna pushed her mother into her room. And lit a second candle, standing it on the windowsill. Beyond the window the wild, featureless snow was falling. Falling on Tevelyev Square, and on the former cathedral which faced it, on the Theatrical Restaurant at the corner of of Tevelyev and Sumskaya, on the people coming through the raised gates, on the venom-red sign reading "Keep your savings in the credit union!" – the amateurish product of a Kharkov advertising agency, low in the Kharkov sky…
Why such snow? – wondered the Bookseller, glancing out the window. Maybe something's happened? The present becoming the future? – he thought, and was afraid.
Chapter 8
Up out of the green ravine encircling the tavern come two more members of the illustrious "SS": Paul and Viktorushka. The latter with a green sprig stuck in his straw hat. Genka greets his friends by standing and adressing a few authoritative orders to Dusya, the barmaid.
When Ed joined the "SS," Paul and Viktorushka were already SS men. Genka became acquainted with Paul/Pavel during the brief period in which he was a foreman (!) in the "Piston" Factory. Genka in a factory! It's difficult to imagine Gennadii Sergeevich against the background of machines and greasy iron. Even in blue overalls and with an office-worker's notebook in his hand. Still, the Piston Period in Genka's biography is real enough, and Genka is actually proud of this working-class episode in his biography. Even though a friend of his father's rather prosaically installed him at the factory so that he would have a Place of Work to write down on his application to the Institute. It's very possible that Genka took up his job at the factory as an exotic adventure, and that, in this light, he very much liked the metallic jungles of the Piston. Ed has had to listen many times to the stories of the legendary era in which the SS was founded, when Pavel Shemmetov was working in the foundry of the Piston, Fima was an engineer, Genka was supervising, and Vagrich Bakhchanyan was writing cliche motivational slogans. Ed still isn't entirely clear on who met whom, and how they got to know each other. It seems that the stout Frankophile, Paul, introduced Bakhchanyan to Genulik.