“It’s time to get down to business,” he said sternly. “Look how dusty the yard is. Sweep it thoroughly before we put the tables here. And don’t forget to sprinkle some water on the ground.”
Yura’s eyes shone. I understood he was not going to shirk this chore. How could he? He was to have a hose in his hands, in his own hands. I would have to be content with the modest role of assistant.
The rubber hose, neatly coiled in rings, lay in the vegetable garden near Yura’s house.
After dragging it to the faucet, Yura quickly and skillfully attached the end of the hose to the faucet, which gave a squeak. He turned the faucet on, and a spurt of water flew hissing out of the hose. Yura put his face to it and gulped down some water.
“Redhead, uncoil it little by little,” he commanded. “We’ll start at the gate.”
Fine, uncoil it I would. In general, it was useless to argue with Yura, especially under such circumstances.
It wasn’t easy to handle such a heavy hose, but the pleasure I derived from it was great. One could get the water to run in the most intricate ways – by putting a finger in the middle of a jet or pressing it to the end of the hose. As I uncoiled the cold hose, which felt like the body of a snake, my whole being anticipated the water tricks Yura had already begun to perform.
Here, water spurted like a thick twisted strand, there, like a fan, then like many thin little braids. It was splendid! A taut hose in one’s hands is not just a piece of rubber. It feels like a live snake. Putting a hand on it, a bit away from the end, you can feel the life beating inside it. And, oh, how it wriggles! It’s hard to hold it back – it seems determined to set itself free. Let it go, and it begins to hop about.
Meanwhile, the asphalt began to look like a zebra. Neither the fence, nor the door of the storage room, nor the roof had been ignored.
“Pull it!” Yura shouted from time to time. “Pull it more!”
I was uncoiling the cold, heavy, bouncing rings of the snake. My hands and shoulders already ached.
V-zh-zh-zhik! The stream lashed the clay fence, and a dark arc appeared on it. Trra-a-amb-mb-mb! sounded on the slate roof of the storage room. Took, took, took! It drummed on Jack’s kennel.
Jack had been standing by the fence, ready for battle, since the water began seething in the hose. Our yard dog considered the water jet his bitter enemy, and he began to fight with it the moment he was able to reach it. Now, that moment had arrived.
R-r-r-rrr! Jack bared his fangs after crouching to the ground, spreading his paws and raising his snout.
“Do you want to bite it? You’re welcome to,” Yura directed the stream at Jack’s snout, and Jack immediately took a bite of the stream of water. His fangs clicked. Yura and I began to laugh.
Poor Jack, who didn’t understand the humor of the situation, continued to bite the stream of water that beat against his snout. His eyes were bloodshot, he was furious. The poor thing was sneezing – water was getting in his nose – but the staunch dog didn’t stop the fight and obviously didn’t consider himself defeated. We were laughing so loudly that Robert at last noticed us.
“Why are you torturing the dog?” He yelled from the table where he and Tamara continued holding their meeting. Yura shrugged his shoulders, as if to say, “We’re not torturing anyone” and directed the stream at the trunk of an apple tree. The space under it was filling with water, and Jack, who felt he had won, barked loudly and, spreading his paws, started shaking the water off. He did it so incredibly fast that his body looked like a spindle, spinning like mad, sending water flying in all directions like a solid silvery cloud. Yura and I found ourselves under that shower. Jack, after shaking off the remainder of the water, lay down, his long red tongue out, looking at us smugly.
Yura’s soul craved revenge for the unexpected shower, for the dog’s smirk and, naturally, for Uncle’s order to leave the dog alone. He directed the water at the windows, at the laundry hung to dry in the yard, at the henhouse where scared hens began to cackle.
“What are you doing?” Robert asked irritably.
We moved toward him. Yura smiled radiantly and, as if by accident, hit the ground at Uncle’s feet with a spurt.
Robert jumped up.
“You’re going to get it!”
“Yura, stop it! Leave the hose alone!” That was Tamara, trying to stop the conflict from developing further.
When quarrels would begin, Tamara looked like Grandma Lisa – her eyebrows raised, her eyes open wide, her voice high and sharp like her mother’s. And she waved her hands in the same imperious way.
But Yura was out of his senses.
“Ee-ee-yi!” Yura answered his aunt’s admonitions in that strange way. The indescribable squeal, ranging from low to high notes, could easily serve as a war cry in the jungle. You may remember its description in Kipling’s book, Mowgli, in the part where the animal nation takes up arms against the inhabitants of the village. It wasn’t clear how Yura could reproduce that squeal, for he certainly hadn’t read Kipling’s book.
So, Yura was out of his senses. When Yura was out of his senses, this friendly, pleasant child could instantly turn into a dangerous creature, capable of any prank. “Something is going to happen,” I thought, both curious and scared, looking at my cousin, whose face was lit with a smile that didn’t augur well for either Robert or Tamara. Still smiling as he watered the yard not far from the table where his uncle and aunt were sitting, he suddenly turned the jet into a fan and doused Robert with water.
“Oh, Forelock, I’m sorry!”
His apology was pointedly derisive – Chief had been demoted to Forelock.
Robert leaped to his feet.
“Misha! Valya!” He yelled. “Take him away!” And he took a step toward Yura. At that very moment, he was doused with water from head to toe.
“I’ll kill you!” Robert roared. It was scary to look at him. His face was distorted: his long nose veered to the side; his teeth were bared; his noble little moustache wasn’t lying in a neat line but rather sticking out; and his thin hair was stuck together, disheveled, plastered to his forehead. He rushed toward Yura, but Yura continued dousing him with water as he retreated with the hose in his hands and a smile on his face. Robert suddenly dashed to the duval, grabbed a piece of rubber hose from near the trestle bed and, brandishing it like a battle club, chased after Yura. The latter at last dropped the hose and ran away. The wet and disheveled uncle looked like an Indian warrior who had just swum across a river.
“I’ll kill you!” He kept yelling.
And Yura laughed loudly. What was going on in the yard resembled a Roman spectacle. Excited spectators squealed, chirped, cackled and barked from the buildings, porches, attics, the henhouse and the kennel.
“He’s out of his mind!” Tamara yelled, throwing up her hands.
Grandma Lisa, who ran out of the house, attracted by the commotion, waved her hands and shouted something. Their voices were drowned in the general hubbub, merging with the barking, chirping and cackling.
The participants in that show continued their ridiculous battle in the middle of the yard, ignoring the audience.
Perhaps, throughout our lifetime, the principal events that stick out in our minds are those that strike us with their unnaturalness and abnormality but at the same time are full of vivid details that spark our imagination. They include sounds, smells, scenes – instantaneous, like snapshots, feelings we experience – fear, pity, a realization of the ridiculousness of a scene that can hit us at the most tragic moments… And all that, blended together, remains in memory as a powerful and unforgettable impression.
That was how two seemingly incompatible scenes became intertwined, engraved in my memory. The first was the old yard at sunset: the intricate shadows of the trees, the wonderful aroma of flowers, the fresh smell of leaves after watering, the blissful tranquility, stillness and cool of the evening. And the other was the same yard, seized by madness: squealing, noise, shouts, faces contorted in fury, figures dashing around the yard.