His cheeks burned beet-red, his eyes shone with boundless joy. He was dressed in the most incongruous and disparate garb: an absolutely new — the label still attached — cowboy hat; an elegant silvery raincoat; a sailor's worn striped vest; camouflage army pants and rubber bedroom slippers.
«Quo, so to speak, vadis?» the stranger ardently declared, and caring not a fig about the raincoat, plopped down onto the whitened floor. He raised his hat, revealing a shaved head, and winked at Alex: «Colleagues!»
He whistled to Mollie and dug into his rucksack. He produced a hefty stick of smoked sausage, viciously bit off a piece and tossed the rest to the dog, who eagerly got down to business devouring the meat. Meanwhile the stranger extracted a newspaper from his pocket, spread it out on the floor and poured out the contents of his bag onto it: a half-loaf of bread, a piece of cheese, some unripe apples and a jar of squid, which he wasted no time in unsealing with what looked like a pirate's knife.
«Take a load off!» he said, remembering himself, and invited the others to a bite. «Won't you join me?»
Orest and Alex charily sat down.
«So, where you headed?» the stranger asked merrily, pulling a bottle of vodka out of his breast pocket.
«Straight ahead,» said Orest.
«Fellow travelers!» he replied, overjoyed, and handed Alex an apple. She distrustfully wiped it on her shirt, bit into it, and made a wry face:
«Poison…»
«It's only good with vodka! Have some, quick!»
«No, I don't like it.»
«Can it be? Well, fancy that… I'm captivated!» To prove it, the young man took a long swig from the bottle and extended it to Orest. «My compliments, you lucked out! I've never had girlfriends that didn't drink…»
Orest wavered, but all the same had a sip. He winced and quickly pinched off a piece of bread, sniffed it and chewed it up.
«Why so little?» their host said in disappointment. «The vodka's fresh!»
«We're circus people,» explained Orest. «We work closely with animals, and they really don't like the smell of liquor. So don't take it the wrong way.»
The young man wasn't offended. He stuck the bottle in his mouth and guzzled the entire contents. Alex even gasped.
«Oh, that's nothing!» said the young man with pride. «I can drink a champagne bubble down in one gulp without coughing!»
«I doubt that,» replied Alex. «It's pressurized. Your stomach would rip apart.»
«We should believe what people tell us… By the way, I'm Berg. At your service!»
«Orest. Animal trainer, and this is my assistant, Alex.»
«Alyona,» she sullenly corrected him. «Berg — is that a first or last name?»
«It's a title,» he quickly responded, and pricked up his ears, looking out the car. The train ground to a halt. But there was no station nearby. To one side lay fields, to the other a chicken yard with a banner on the roof declaring, «Zhirinovsky's Cock Poultry Farm.»
«They must be lettin' a passenger train go by,» Orest suggested.
«Most likely so,» answered Berg, and burst out laughing. «Chickens! Sandgrouse! But not a hen maiden in sight… Come on!»
«Where to? What for?» said Alex, perplexed.
«Such clerical questions!» answered Berg, exasperated, adding, «On the other hand, the ladies are welcome to stay. Communists, onward!»
And he leaped down to the embankment. Mollie rushed after him.
«Stop!» Orest chased after the dog, but she was already galloping after Berg on the other side of a wire netting.
«Oooh, you!» Alex went after them.
Berg stopped in front of a wicket gate and had a look around:
«What about chickens — you ever tried to train them?»
Mollie ran into him. Orest into the dog. Alex into Orest. Berg punched the gate and flew inside, Mollie at his heels. At top speed, she rushed into a roiling chicken sea, joyfully pouring forth a stream of barks. The birds scurried about, clucking. Mollie, out of her mind, flung herself from side to side, chomping her jaws nonstop.
«Mollie! Mollie!» Orest and Alex chased after the dog. «Stop! No! Bad girl!»
The bitch flew into a rage and paid them no heed. Uproar, feathers flying. Those caught up in this jumble could hardly move about. Berg roared with laughter.
«What're you laughing at, you bald idiot?» Alex yelled.
But Berg yukked it up harder than ever.
Mollie ran into the building, giving chase to some chickens that had fled there. All three sped after her.
They found the dog standing over a half-crushed hen. Mollie was breathing heavily, licking her bloodied snout with feathers stuck to it.
A nearby door swung open, a kind-looking woman in a snow-white smock and kerchief looked out from it. Beyond her they spied a room filled with identical snow-white women, seated in orderly rows and gazing attentively at a stage, where someone was delivering a lecture from the rostrum.
«Vote for candidate Kuroschupov, the director of our poultry complex, the most liberal, democratically-minded and patriotic official in the district!»
In the course of his talk, the speaker indicated a little old coot, modestly seated on the edge of a stool, round as an egg and completely embarrassed.
Berg roared with a new round of laughter. All the snow-white kerchiefs turned to look at him, and the one standing at the doorway asked in confusion:
«Who are you, citizen?»
She saw two chickens in each of Berg's hands, and rejoiced:
«You're here to trade?»
«No,» he bawled, «ra-a-i-d!» and ran off down a long corridor, Mollie in hot pursuit. Alex and Orest scuttled, too.
Dashing out of the building, they found themselves on the side opposite the railroad. They could see the freight train beyond a hen house.
«No problem,» said Berg. «We'll make it.»
And they double-timed it around the intervening structures.
Along the way they passed a calf tied to a peg.
«How about we raise some cattle?» declared Berg, handing the chickens to Orest and untying the calf.
«Reapers!» screamed Alex.
Some distance off, bearded peasants were waving their scythes. Noticing something amiss around the calf, they whooped and flung up their scythes, making tracks for the thieves.
«Now this is serious,» Berg picked up the flaps of his silvery raincoat and did his best impression of a sprinter, bound for the railroad. Mollie, on the other hand, made a run for the peasants, who froze in their tracks. Thereupon she looked around, saw her friends bolting headlong in the opposite direction; she visibly drooped, tucked in her tail and trotted after the others.
One by one, the luckless thieves jumped into the first train car they happened on. Mollie adroitly leaped in without any help. Berg hastily got to sealing shut the heavy doors, plunging the car's interior into twilight.
Blows resounded on the outer paneling, embankment stones rained in through the open hatch.
«Open up, you crooks,» their many-voiced pursuers called out to them. «We're a'gonna get in anyway! Open up or we'll smoke ya out! Climb through the window, Semyon!»
Orest elbowed Alex.
«Get up on my shoulders, batten down that hatch!»
Alex clambered on top of him. In quick order the train car was submerged in pitch darkness. But closing the hatch only increased the peasants' rage.
«Well, burn 'em down, then!» They heard the striking of matches.
«Going by statistics, a train car will burn down in four minutes,» sighed Berg in the dark.
From somewhere far off they could hear women's voices approaching.
«The brood-hens are in on it, too,» Berg chuckled. «This is definitely curtains.»