"You're for it, Gennadii Sergeevich!"
"It's not your problem, Eduard Venyaminovich!" parries Genochka. But, obviously determined that his friend be subjected to a commentary, he adds, "They went off on vacation. For a month. And left me with just 200 rubles. I told them that wasn't going to be enough. And now look what happens; they must pay for wronging their only son."
Genochka goes to the pawnbroker often, with his things and his parents'. He discovered this method of getting money before he met the poet Eduard. He pawns all of his father's things. His papa, Sergei Sergeevich, loves his handsome, stocky, blue-eyed son. Though Papa worries about his son's complete indifference to all human affairs except the quest for adventures and going to restaurants, and worries above all that now that Genadii is 21, worse things than pawnbrokers will befall him. A bad marriage, for example. It's Papa, not Genochka, who pays alimony to Genadii's former wife, and their son – his grandson. Papa Sergei Sergeevich is the director of the "Crystal," the finest restaurant in Kharkov, and of the restaurant trust of the same name, handling many other "trading points."
Genochka, not troubling himself about the things in the suitcase, pushes it through the welcoming slot in the window-cage and impatiently pounds on the patterned ceramic tiles of the floor with the heel of his shoe. They know young Ocharenko quite well in this pawnshop, and the transaction takes very little time. Ten minutes later the friends are already heading down the street, which smells of acacia and mothballs. Genochka has already contentedly placed notes worth sixty rubles in his black leather wallet. And, in another compartment, the pawn ticket. With revulsion.
"Well, where shall we go?"
Chapter 2
They're climbing over the stone wall which separates Taras Grigoryevich Shevchenko Park from the Kharkov Zoo. Naturally, they could simply buy tickets – for just one ruble twenty kopeks apiece – but the youths consider it a point of honor not to pay to enter "their" territory. The Zoo is a traditional playground for Ed and Genka, as for all the other members of the "SS": the painter, Vagrich Bakhchanyan; "The Frenchman," Paul Shemmetov; "Fritz" Viktorushka; and Fima, nicknamed "Dog." Every member of the "SS" is in some way out of the ordinary. You couldn't call the "SS" a typical group of young people…
In Kharkov the August sun is pitiless. Nonetheless the two young men are wearing suits of the "dandy" style, introduced by Genadii and formerly championed by members of the foundry-workers' guild, and nowadays by the poet, Ed. Usually, once they've made it through the broken glass atop the stone wall, the kids jump to earth among the jungles of the Zoo, weaving through gigantic tussocks of steppe-grass and burdock, nut-trees and other August exuberances, then descending into the ravine by a little path which only they know, passing by an old oak which grows at the bottom of the ravine, and coming up out of the ravine right next to the "Tavern." Its ancient sides, having once been covered with paint which started out as a reddish yellow, lean against each other. The young men's shoes are covered with the pollens exuberantly packed in several years'-worth of Ukrainian grasses – the heavily fertilized, crude, mighty Ukrainian grasses of the field across the way. Genadii is holding a package of bottles. Vodka. In the "Tavern," they don't officially sell spirits.
Climbing up the path after his friend, Ed wipes his face with a handkerchief. From time to time they overtake a thick cloud of midges, which try to draw as many milligrams of blood as they can from their quickly-moving prey. Gena and Ed constantly wave their arms, or the cigarettes they're smoking, to repel the raids. Dripping sweat but unperturbed, they take the path to the summit and go on, along a narrow path between carefully-planted flowers, to the front of the "Tavern." As if greeting their arrival, from the depths of the Zoo sounds the roar of a tiger.
"Zhul'bars," states the poet.
"Sultan." disagrees Gena.
On the open veranda of the "Tavern," all by herself, doing something with the chairs, is "Auntie" Dusya. A big, strong woman in her thirties, with a red Bulgarian face, but still "Auntie." "Hey, look vat showed up! Genochka showed up!" she exclaims joyfully. And why wouldn't she be glad? The dandy, Genochka, gives her more in tips than she gets in a week of serving eggs, sausage with peas, or chicken to visitors to the Zoo.
"If you please, Dusya, put this in the freezer!" says Genka, imitating his father, a former Colonel in the KGB and the Director of a Trust. Like his father, Genka addresses everyone with the formal pronoun. This is his own idea of chic. And Genka doesn't swear, which distinguishes him from Ed's many other friends, who curse non-stop.
"I am certain you have met Eduard Limonov, Dusya…?" Genka stares, with a certain patronizing irony, at Ed.
"Sure, you've had your friend here with you, Genochka…"
"Certainly, Dusya. But since then he's changed his name. Please take note: 'Eduard Limonov.'"
Eduard didn't change his last name, Savyenko. It's just that the "SS" and some other friends – Lyonka Ivanov, the poet Motrich, Tolya Melekhov, were sitting with Ed and Ann in their room, playing, out of sheer boredom, a sort of literary game, and they decided they would live in turn-of-the-century Kharkov and be poets and symbolist painters. And Vagrich Bakhchanyan made a rule that they all had to think up appropriate last names for themselves. Lyonka Ivanov decided to call himself Blanket. Melekhov became Breadman. And Bakhchanyan decided that Ed would be called Limonov. The game ended, they all went home, but the next day, while introducing Ed to a painter-friend from the newspaper "Leninist ____________________," at the Automatic, Bakhchanyan referred to him as "Limonov." And has called him that ever since. And it turned out that Genka really liked the nickname. All the young "Decadents" in the Automatic now call him Ed Limonov. The nickname stuck, and now even Ed himself doesn't call himself Eduard Savyenko much anymore. He has remained "Limonov." Nobody calls Lyonka Ivanov "Blanket" anymore; nobody calls Melekhov"Breadman" any more; but Ed remains "Limonov." Besides, for reasons even he doesn't understand, Ed himself likes "Limonov." His real name, the very common, ordinary Ukrainian family-name, "Savyenko," always depressed him. So let it stay "Limonov."
The two young men are sitting at a table on the veranda, so that they can look out at the pond, and the swans and ducks swimming around on it. The "Tavern" is definitely the most picturesque restaurant in Kharkov, which is why Genka chose it as his headquarters. From the pond wafts the smell of muddy water. Two workers are lazily pulling a hose and just as lazily starting to sprinkle the heavy flowers.
"Well, what shall we have to go with our vodka, Comrade Limonov?" Genka takes off his jacket and drapes it over the back of the chair. He rolls up the sleeves of his immaculate white shirt and loosens the knot of his tie.
"Maybe some chicken?" Uncertainty can be heard in the poet's voice. He's gotten used to deferring to the more elegant, experienced and self-assured Genka on this sort of question.
"Dusya, what's good today?" Genka turns to "Auntie" Dusya, who has once again come up on the veranda.
"Oh, Genochka… it's still so early; how…" Dusya twists her frace into a pitiful frown. "The cook still isn't here; we only open at noon. I could get you a little snack, and, if you want, I could make eggs with sausage. When the cook gets here, he can make you Chicken Kiev…" Suddenly, a peacock cries out, long and loudly. As if at this signal, the whole Zoo begins to cry, roar and howl.
"Well, what do you think, Ed? Should we have some eggs with sausage?"
"Let's."
"Dusya, make us some fried eggs with sausage. Six eggs each. With salt, but without lard – the way I like them. Bring them in the frying pan. And more vegetables, please – tomatoes, cucumbers…"