Everything you do is good, Mamochka. Everything’s right.
Everyone is already awake in the apartment, everyone’s stirring, all the Men and Women have started talking. They slam doors, burble water, jingle on the other side of the wall. The morning ship has left the slip, it cuts through the blue water, the sails fill with wind, the well-dressed travelers, laughing, exchange remarks with one another on the deck. What shores lie ahead? Mamochka is at the wheel, Mamochka is on the captain’s bridge, from the crow’s nest Mamochka looks onto the shining ripples.
“Alexei, get up! Shave, brush your teeth, wash your ears. Take a clean towel. Put the cap back on the toothpaste. Don’t forget to flush. And don’t touch anything in there, you hear me?”
All right, all right, Mamochka. How right everything you say is. How much sense everything immediately makes, how open the horizons become, how reliable a voyage with an experienced pilot. The old colored maps are unrolled, the route is drawn in with a red dotted line, all the dangers are marked with bright, clear pictures: there’s the dread lion, and on this shore —a rhinoceros; here a whale spouts a toylike fountain, and over there—is the most dangerous creature, the big-eyed, big-tailed Sea Girl, slippery, malicious, alluring.
Alexei Petrovich will wash up, put himself together; Mamochka will come and check whether he messed anything, or else the neighbors will yell again; and then it’s food time. What did Mamochka make today? To get to the bathroom you have to go through the kitchen. Old ladies grumble at the hot stove, they’re stewing poison in pots, they add the roots of terrible plants, follow Alexei Petrovich with bad looks. Mamochka! don’t let them hurt me!
Dripped a little on the floor. Oh no.
There’s already a crowd in the hallway: the Men and Women are leaving, noisily checking for their keys, coin purses.
The corner door with opaque glass is wide open; on the threshold stands that brazen Sea Girl, smirking. She winks at Alexei Petrovich; she’s all tilted; she puffs Tobacco, her Leg is stuck out, her nets laid—don’t you want to be caught, eh? But Mamochka’s to the rescue, she’s already racing like a locomotive, her red wheels pound, she whistles, out of the way!
“Shameless hussy! Get out of here, I say! Not enough for you… have to have a sick man as well!…”
“Ga-ga-ga!” The Sea Girl isn’t afraid.
Dart—and into the room. Saved. Yu-u-ck. Women—are terrifying. It isn’t clear what they’re here for, but they’re very unsettling. They walk by—smelling like they do… and they have —Legs. There are lots of them on the street, and in every house, in this one, and that one, and that one, behind every door, they’ve hidden, they’re doing something, bending, rummaging around, giggling into their fists; they know something and they won’t tell Alexei Petrovich. He’ll sit down at the table and think about Women. Once Mamochka took him with her out of town, to the beach; there were lots of them there. There was one… a wavy sort of fairy… like a little dog… Alexei Petro-vich liked her. He went up close and looked at her.
“Well, what are you staring at?” shouted the fairy. “Get out of here, you retard!”
Mamochka came in with a bubbling pot. He looked in. There were the pink weenies of sausages. He was glad. Mamochka sets the table, moves, wipes up. The knife pops out of his fingers, strikes the oilcloth somewhere to the side.
“In your hands, take the sausage in your hands.”
Ah, Mamochka, guiding star! Heart of gold! You’ll fix everything. Wise, you’ll unravel all the tangles, you’ll destroy all the back alleys, all the labyrinths of this incomprehensible, unnavi-gable world with your powerful hand, you’ll sweep away all the walls—here’s an even, leveled plaza. Boldly take one more step. Farther on—wind-fallen trees.
Alexei Petrovich has his own world—in his head, the real one. Everything’s allowed there. But this one, outside—is bad, wrong. And it’s very hard to remember what’s good and what’s bad. They’ve set up and agreed upon written Rules that are awfully complicated. They’ve learned them, their memory is good. But it’s hard for him to live by someone else’s Rules.
Mamochka poured coffee. Coffee has a Smell. You drink it—and the smell goes over to you. Why aren’t you allowed to make your lips into a tube, cross your eyes to look at your mouth, and smell yourself? Let Mamochka turn her back.
“Alexei, behave yourself!”
After breakfast they cleaned the table, set out the glue, cardboard, scissors, tied a napkin around Alexei Petrovich: he’s going to glue boxes. When he’s done a hundred of them—they’ll take them to the pharmacy. They’ll get some money. Alexei Petrovich loves these boxes, he doesn’t like to part with them. He wants to hide them on the sly, save at least some for himself, but Mamochka watches carefully and takes them away.
And then other people carry them out of the pharmacy, eat little white balls from them, and they tear up the boxes and throw them away. They throw them right in the trash bin, even worse, in their apartments, in the kitchen, in the trash he saw a ripped-up, dirtied box with a cigarette butt inside. A fearful black rage then filled Alexei Petrovich, his eyes flashed, he foamed at the mouth, forgot words, fiery spots flashed in front of his eyes, he could have strangled, torn them to pieces. Who did this? Who dared do this? Come on out, why don’t you! He rolled up his sleeves: Where is he? Mamochka ran over, calmed him down, led the enraged Alexei Petrovich off, took away the knife, tore the hammer from his convulsed fingers. The Men and Women were afraid and sat quietly, hidden in their rooms.
The sun has moved to another window. Alexei Petrovich has finished his work. Mamochka fell asleep in the chair, she’s snoring, her cheeks gurgle, she whistles: pssshhew-ew-ew… Alexei Petrovich oh so quietly takes two boxes, ca-arefully, on tip-tip-tippy-toes—goes to his bed, ca-aarefully, carefully puts them under his pillow. At night he’ll take them out and sniff them. How the glue smells! Soft, sour, muffled, like the letter F.
Mamochka woke up, it’s time to take a walk. Down the stairs, only not in the elevator—you can’t close Alexei Petrovich up in the elevator: he’ll begin to flail and squeal like a rabbit; why don’t you understand?—they’re pulling, pulling on my legs, dragging them down.
Mamochka floats ahead, nods at acquaintances. Today we’ll deliver the boxes: unpleasant. Alexei Petrovich deliberately drags his feet: he doesn’t want to go to the pharmacy.
“Alexei, don’t stick out your tongue!”
The dawn has fallen behind the tall buildings. The gold windowpanes burn right under the roof. Special people live there, not the same kind as us: they fly like white doves, flitting from balcony to balcony. A smooth, feathery breast, human face—if a bird like that roosts on your railings, tilts its head and starts to coo and bill—you’ll look into its eyes, forget human speech, and start clucking in bird language, you’ll jump along the iron poles with fuzzy little legs.
Under the horizon, under the bowl of the earth, giant wheels have started turning, monstrous conveyer belts are winding, toothed gears are pulling the sun down and the moon up. The day is tired, it has folded its white wings, flies westward, big, in loose clothes, it waves a sleeve, releases stars, blesses the people walking on the chilling earth: good-bye, good-bye, I’ll come again tomorrow.