Weller loves the adventures of Major Zvyagin. Mikhail Weller - the adventures of Major Zvyagin

Actually, it's not really an adventure. And Zvyagin is not exactly a major. Retired.

And not exactly an action movie. And it's not even an action movie at all. It's more of a life textbook.

There was such a genre - “novel of education”. This is a textbook of luck. Without magic, without advertising and touts. A person wants - that means he can do everything. A loser can become a success. Ugly - beautiful. Unhappy lover - to become loved.

The main thing is to want and believe in yourself and also know what and how to do.

Here is Zvyagin - a cross between Robin Hood and an ancient sage: he always knows what to do, and forces others to do it - for their own happiness.

And the set of rules “How to get the woman you love” was simply hung up by Moscow students in their dormitories.

Mikhail Weller

The Adventures of Major Zvyagin

Instead of a prologue

OWN HAND IS THE LORD

“Do what you must, and come what may.”

Knight's motto.

“Hope is in God, and strength is in the hand.”

Inscription on the blade of Hetman Mazepa.

“Lenya, you’re not at all interested in perestroika,” my wife reproached from under a heap of newspapers, while the TV promised the collapse of Leningrad on all counts, including oxygen starvation.

“Yes,” Zvyagin agreed phlegmatically, “I’m not at all interested in perestroika.” “He leafed through an atlas of cats published in the GDR, which no longer existed. – Do you know the difference between a Siamese downy and a Siamese shorthair?

– You are apolitical! – the wife stated indignantly.

“I’m apolitical,” Zvyagin nodded meekly, admiring the cat’s portrait.

- And in the newspapers they write...

– I know what they write in the newspapers.

- What?

- All the same.

- Namely?

- That there’s nothing to eat. That the Union is falling apart. That the economy is falling into tetanus. That the carriages are not unloaded, the deputies are corrupt, the past is tragic, the future is gloomy, and in general I don’t like collective neuroses.

- And what do you like? – the wife asked.

- To make it interesting. And heal people. The first is from character, obviously, the second is from profession.

– Isn’t this interesting to you?! - and she, with the characteristic intonations of a teacher with twenty years of experience, began to read about the successful retirement of the executioner who tortured Vavilov.

- I would kill him! – with the directness of ringing youth, the daughter said, appearing at the door.

- Hm-yes? – Zvyagin yawned. - And how would you kill him?

- Shot!

- Of what? From a cosmetic bag?

A light family dispute arose about crime and punishment, and how aggressive and irreconcilable the female part of the family was, whether the schoolgirl or the schoolteacher, was just as good-natured and accommodating as the husband and father of the family.

– You might think you weren’t wearing an officer’s uniform!

– I wore what they gave me.

- How can you, with your indifference to human suffering, be a doctor!

- Easy and carefree. The main thing here is to get a good night’s sleep,” and Zvyagin got up from his favorite sofa and proceeded to the bedroom. – I’m waiting for my wife with the first stagecoach! – he shouted from there.

In the morning, jumping up silently (warm-up, shower, coffee - it was Sunday, and the household were sleeping), he leafed through the newspapers, skimmed an article from earlier and thought briefly: a gloomy smile appeared in his eyes.

In the ambulance, if Sunday falls in the middle of the month and the weather is decent, in order to have fewer accidents, you can relax a little: in free time, it has long been recorded that people are less likely to require urgent medical care. They gossiped and got tired of it:

- Gostiny always has three packs of Bulgarian ones...

“And there are almost a hundred cases around the city – all of them were poisoned by these Uzbek grapes.”

– Food supplies within the framework of jihad!..

– I understand everything, but why are there no hats anywhere!..

– And what’s amazing: there is no gasoline, but there are more car accidents...

We left for a call, the driver turned up the music, the paramedic was dozing in the cabin - he was young, obviously drunk yesterday, on Saturday evening, despite the shortage of alcohol; Judging by his temperament, thank God, he is not threatened by a shortage of women.

“Grisha,” Zvyagin turned around, “do you know what in the old days they said: a doctor did not become a doctor until he filled the cemetery with his patients?”

“There’s a line at the cemetery,” Grisha responded. – And there are still not enough doctors.

After a pause, Zvyagin answered not entirely clearly:

“Everyone has his place,” he said.

- And your time.

“Exactly,” said the driver. They screamed as they turned under the Okhtinsky Bridge.

“When they left the GB, they changed their last names,” said Zvyagin, but in fact he didn’t say it out loud, he just thought. We don't need any extra words.

Having worked and returning to the station, he plopped down in a sagging chair under the window and crossed his outstretched legs: “The basis of action is what? - plan. What is the basis of the plan? – information. Basis of information what? – leakage at the joints. Pliable links who? - clientele. Who is the best clientele? - women, of course. So, Major, now let’s carry out archaeological excavations in our rich and littered memory.”

Mikhail Weller

The Adventures of Major Zvyagin

Novel of education

“Do what you must, and come what may.”

Knightly motto

“Hope is in God, and strength is in the hand.”

The inscription on the nickname of Hetman Mazepa

Instead of a prologue

Your hand is the ruler

Lenya, you’re not at all interested in perestroika,” my wife reproached from under a heap of newspapers, while the TV promised the collapse of Leningrad on all counts, including oxygen starvation.

Yes,” Zvyagin agreed phlegmatically, “I’m not at all interested in perestroika.” - He leafed through an atlas of cats published in the GDR, which now no longer existed. - Do you know the difference between a Siamese downy and a Siamese shorthair?

You are apolitical! - the wife stated indignantly.

“I’m apolitical,” Zvyagin nodded meekly, admiring the cat’s portrait.

And the newspapers write...

I know what they write in the newspapers.

All the same.

Namely?

That there is nothing to eat. That the Union is falling apart. That the economy is falling into tetanus. That the pastures are not unloaded, the deputies are corrupt, the past is tragic, the future is gloomy, and in general I don’t like collective neuroses.

And what do you like? - the wife asked.

To make it interesting. And heal people. The first is from character, obviously, the second is from profession.

Isn't this interesting to you?! - and she, with the characteristic intonations of a teacher with twenty years of experience, began to read about the successful retirement of the executioner who tortured Vavilov.

I would have killed him! - with the directness of ringing youth, the daughter said, appearing at the door.

Hm-yes? - Zvyagin yawned. - And how would you kill him?

Shot!

Of what? From a cosmetic bag?

You'd think you weren't wearing an officer's uniform!

I wore what they gave me.

How can you, with your indifference to human suffering, be a doctor!

Easy and carefree. The main thing here is to get a good night’s sleep,” and Zvyagin got up from his favorite sofa and proceeded to the bedroom. - I’m waiting for my wife with the first stagecoach! - he shouted from there.

In the morning, jumping up silently (warm-up, shower, coffee - it was Sunday, and the household were sleeping off), he leafed through the newspapers, skimmed an article from earlier and thought briefly: a gloomy smile appeared in his eyes.

At the ambulance, if Sunday falls in the middle of the month and the weather is decent, in order to have fewer auto accidents, you can relax a little: in your free time, it has long been recorded that people are less likely to need urgent medical care. They gossiped and got tired of it:

“Gostiny” has Bulgarian three-packs - always...

And there are almost a hundred cases around the city - all of them were poisoned by these Uzbek grapes.

Food supplies within the framework of jihad!..

I understand everything, but why are there no hats anywhere!..

And what’s amazing: there is no gasoline - but there are more car accidents...

We left for a call, the driver turned up the music, the paramedic was dozing in the cabin - he was young, obviously drunk yesterday, on a Saturday evening, despite the shortage of alcohol; Judging by his temperament, thank God, he is not threatened by a shortage of women.

Grisha,” Zvyagin turned around, “do you know what in the old days they said: a doctor did not become a doctor until he filled the cemetery with his patients?”

That’s why there’s a line at the cemetery,” Grisha responded. - And there are still not enough doctors.

After a pause, Zvyagin answered not entirely clearly:

“Everyone has his place,” he said.

And your time.

Exactly,” said the driver.

They screamed as they turned under the Okhtinsky Bridge.

When they left the State Security Service, they changed their last names,” Zvyagin said, but in fact he didn’t say it out loud, he just thought. We don't need any extra words.

Having worked and returning to the station, he plopped down in a sagging chair under the window and crossed his outstretched legs: “The basis of action is what? - plan. What is the basis of the plan? - information. Basis of information what? - leakage at joints. Pliable links who? - clientele. Who is the best clientele? - women, of course. So, Major, now let’s carry out archaeological excavations in our rich and littered memory.”

Only a day later, at home, having taken a fancy to a page in a notebook, plump as a loaf and heavy as a grenade, he dialed the phone number:

Tatyana Ilyinichna? Doctor Zvyagin is worried. How is your health? This is in the order of things... Let's get some conversation... No, just like that, nothing is needed. I never refused a cup of tea. Free. Tomorrow at seven, that's for sure.

Whistled " Turkish march", called again:

Sasha? Listen, there's a conversation. Yes, you mentioned it once... Not by telephone, of course. Why put it off?

A couple more calls, and he was walking back and forth on the carpet, putting his hands in his pockets and grunting with satisfaction; the grunt came out with some kind of metallic cold purr.

“I won’t get my hands dirty on you,” Zvyagin affectionately promised someone. - I'll trample you with my feet. To the dust! Understood?..

His face took on an expression of calm concentration, like that of a helmsman at the helm, aiming for a course point on the horizon.

Tatyana Ilyinichna, a faded blonde, received him in a small respectable apartment - half business, half boudoir of a well-lived lady.

Which flowers! I recognize the guard. Officers and gentlemen are one and the same.

They drank French cognac in tiny sips and Ceylon tea: they spoke lightly, with playfulness, on the subtext of a non-existent, but seemingly not excluded, flirtation.

Thank you,” she took two packs of rehypnol. - Only a good sleeping pill can guarantee good dream in our time and at my age.

Zvyagin paid a compliment.

So how can I serve in turn? - the hostess inquired with gravity strong man, accustomed to winning according to the rules of the games of this world.

“I was once a lieutenant,” said Zvyagin, “and through my youth and intemperance of language I got into a bad story.

Where and when was this? - Tatyana Ilyinichna quickly asked.

And one person from your department helped me a lot.

I didn’t know about your affairs with state security.

Recently I came across his name in the newspaper. And in a negative sense.

Who speaks positively about the KGB now?

Because by nature I don’t like dogs kicking dead lions...

This is typical for decent officers.

- ...I would like to thank this man, now an old man, a pensioner, for the good he has done. So that he doesn’t consider everyone scum. I don't like to blend in with society.

I recognize your whims... - Tatyana Ilyinichna narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t like anything unfinished,” Zvyagin answered.

He who wishes but does not act breeds the plague. Don't know who said this? William Blake.

I would like your education.

What is his last name?

Then his last name was Khvat.

She quirked her eyebrow slightly.

With the rank of colonel or lieutenant colonel, obviously.

A lot of unseemly things have now become known about him. If what they write is true, it’s even criminal.

This doesn't concern me!

We took a sip of tea. She puffed on a thin American cigarette.

But I don’t work either in personnel or in the archive, dear Leonid Borisovich.

Sorry if this is not possible - the issue has been removed.

Well... nothing is impossible at all.

Zvyagin, looking away as if in thought, turned his face to the most advantageous angle, emphasizing the sharpness of his features, the squareness of his chin and the cold green of his eyes.

What a Hollywood movie hero you are. I would have fallen head over heels... but with you it’s hopeless.

She waved her hand and burst out laughing.

Are you in a hurry? Take that bottle out of the bar. And your request is nonsense, I’ll ask the department to send a request. Listen, Zvyagin,” turning to you, she looked with naked directness, “do you like me?”

Zvyagin purred metallic and clinked his glass.

“The monkey wanted love with the elephant, and that’s when it burst,” he recalled children's joke, leaving the night entrance. - There is another joke: “So, even this didn’t help, the guy in the white coat asked the lady; well, then you really need a doctor; and who are we? yes, a team of painters, we are working here... “You will go to great lengths for the triumph of justice,” he mocked himself.

The second question was resolved much more simply; Yes, in our time there is nothing particularly complicated about it.

Sasha, the most intelligent, fragile young man, greeted him with a sweet smile and a handshake with a thin little hand - like a karateka’s wooden vice; Zvyagin squeezed the handle with difficulty and grunted with satisfaction.

Mikhail Weller

The Adventures of Major Zvyagin

Instead of a prologue

OWN HAND IS THE LORD

“Do what you must, and come what may.”

Knight's motto.

“Hope is in God, and strength is in the hand.”

Inscription on the blade of Hetman Mazepa.

“Lenya, you are not at all interested in perestroika,” my wife reproached from under a heap of newspapers, while the TV promised the collapse of Leningrad on all counts, including oxygen starvation.

– You are apolitical! – the wife stated indignantly.

“I’m apolitical,” Zvyagin nodded meekly, admiring the cat’s portrait.

- And in the newspapers they write...

– I know what they write in the newspapers.

- What?

- All the same.

- Namely?

- And what do you like? – the wife asked.

- To make it interesting. And heal people. The first is from character, obviously, the second is from profession.

- I would kill him! – with the directness of ringing youth, the daughter said, appearing at the door.

- Hm-yes? – Zvyagin yawned. - And how would you kill him?

- Shot!

- Of what? From a cosmetic bag?

– You might think you weren’t wearing an officer’s uniform!

– I wore what they gave me.

- How can you, with your indifference to human suffering, be a doctor!

At the ambulance, if Sunday falls in the middle of the month and the weather is decent, so that there are fewer auto accidents, you can relax a little: in your free time, it has long been recorded that people are less likely to need urgent medical care. They gossiped and got tired of it:

- Gostiny always has three packs of Bulgarian ones...

“And there are almost a hundred cases around the city – all of them were poisoned by these Uzbek grapes.”

– Food supplies within the framework of jihad!..

– I understand everything, but why are there no hats anywhere!..

– And what’s amazing: there is no gasoline, but there are more car accidents...

“Grisha,” Zvyagin turned around, “do you know what in the old days they said: a doctor did not become a doctor until he filled the cemetery with his patients?”

“There’s a line at the cemetery,” Grisha responded. – And there are still not enough doctors.

After a pause, Zvyagin answered not entirely clearly:

“Everyone has his place,” he said.

- And your time.

“Exactly,” said the driver. They screamed as they turned under the Okhtinsky Bridge.

“When they left the GB, they changed their last names,” said Zvyagin, but in fact he didn’t say it out loud, he just thought. We don't need any extra words.

Only a day later, at home, having taken a fancy to a page in a notebook, plump as a loaf and heavy as a grenade, he dialed the phone number:

- Tatyana Ilyinichna? Doctor Zvyagin is worried. How is your health? This is in the order of things... Let's get some conversation... No, just like that, nothing is needed. I never refused a cup of tea. Free. Tomorrow at seven, that's for sure.

The sun had passed midday when we turned off the highway towards the stream. The yellowing bush tinkled dryly, spider threads traveled in the Indian summer skies.

The potatoes began to gurgle on the fire. Olya spread the oilcloth on the grass and served dinner.

“It doesn’t happen like that,” she said. - It’s all not true, huh?

A heavy, furry bumblebee with a deep humming sound sat on a clover flower and began to examine it.

“It doesn’t happen,” Sasha agreed. - But there is.

Feeling one with this forever beautiful world passed through him like a warm wave, lifted him to his feet, spread his arms into an embrace and poured out into a cry:

- We will never die!

On a slushy and gray March morning, the telephone was ringing in Zvyagin’s apartment. He called persistently, without stopping.

This call tore Zvyagin out of a deep sleep - the duty was bad, there was ice, several serious accidents in a row - and he stood up to the phone, casually cursing himself for not unplugging it from the socket.

– Leonid Borisovich, you know what?

“I don’t know,” Zvyagin said coldly. -Who is this and what do you want?

- Sorry, I called you at work, they said that you were already at home...

- They said it correctly. “And then he finally woke up and recognized the voice: “Lydia Petrovna?” Something happened?

“Not bad either,” Zvyagin agreed. - Everything is fine?

- Yes, Sashenka called just now, fifty-one centimeters, three nine hundred, everything is fine!

“Congratulations,” said Zvyagin. – How is the weather in Frunze?

- How is Sasha?

- Wonderful! The plant is going to build a house, and now they, as a young family, will be put on a preferential queue, how long can you live in hostels!

Zvyagin chuckled. "How can live in the dormitories." A person quickly gets used to taking for granted what until recently seemed like a fabulously unattainable miracle.

- He's so happy! I was just a little upset that I wasn’t my son.

Like this. He is still upset that he is not his son. Well, that's fine.

- I said hello to you! – Lydia Petrovna said hastily.

Yeah. Either he passed it on or he didn’t. Well, okay. Not in this case.

He wanted to go back to bed, but the memories wouldn’t let go, he thought and called Jakhadze.

“Our ward’s daughter was born,” he said.

- Which one? – Jakhadze did not understand.

- To whom you gave the Volga, Comrade Prince.

- Why didn’t he send a telegram? – Jakhadze was indignant.

- Well, declare blood vengeance on him. Don’t be violent, the guy has enough trouble as it is, he has no time for us. Answer me: I’ve been planning to visit you for two years, so maybe you can treat me to a barbecue?

– Yesterday we should have soaked it! – Jakhadze said tragically.

– Don’t make a cult out of food. I'll arrive in an hour.

Dzhakhadze was well-rested, fresh, scrubbed blue; he managed to drive to the culinary department and the kebabs were spinning in the kebab bar, spreading the aroma, and the owner himself, in a vest (which he called “kitchen”), conjured with fragrant mountain herbs.

“It’s great that you and I pulled this off,” Zvyagin said proudly.

“We need to send him a telegram,” Jakhadze worried.

“No way,” Zvyagin dismissed. - And don’t remind me. The best thing is if he forgets about us altogether.

- He won’t forget.

The shish kebab was excellent, in the opinion of the unpretentious Zvyagin, and no good, in the opinion of the discerning owner.

Jakhadze solemnly stood at the table and sang praises.

“The nightingale is an orator,” said Zvyagin. - Nonsense. While I was driving to you now, I was trying to count how many people were involved here. My role is small - like a connecting gear...

-You were the conductor! – Jakhadze announced. – You were... the leader!

“Build a monument to me,” Zvyagin suggested. “I’ll wipe the dust off him.” On Saturdays. Didn't you read yesterday's Izvestia? There's an article about an engineer who went blind. The doctors refused - the case was hopeless. So he made himself such a device that he could not only see, but also read. For the twenty-sixth of March, look.

“In the twelfth hospital, Serezha performed hematoabsorption in a state of shock - the first case,” said Dzhakhadze. - What are you doing, who washes the kebab down with milk?!

“On sailing military ships, sailors received one and a half pounds of meat a day,” said Zvyagin. “They were strong guys.” True, they were flogged by molts.

LOVE DOES NOT LOVE

1. Follow the rules for using the subway

“A thousand years ago the Normans sowed wheat in the south of Greenland. If the climate had not changed, peaches would now be ripening in Leningrad. And even in December in hospitals it would be at least twenty degrees, which is not bad at all...”

These idle thoughts, excusable for a person tired from being on duty, but generally characteristic of Zvyagin, were not developed. Having gotten off the escalator, a young couple was moving in front of him towards the metro exit and, judging by the short movements of their heads, wrapped in scarves and earflaps, they were swearing rather than cooing. Unexpectedly, after a particularly expressive nod, supported by appropriate gestures, the young man fell to his knees as if cut down and, tearing off his hat, froze with outstretched arms in the pose of a peasant trying to hand off a petition to the tsar who was hastening for state needs.

The girl turned around with a contemptuous grin and walked away proudly. A slight commotion formed in the crowd: reserved Leningraders circled around the figure. Zvyagin poked his knee into the back of the desperate intercessor and looked down at the fair-haired round head with malevolent curiosity. The next moment it seemed to the young man that the boom of a crane had been welded to his collar: he was lifted into the air and, weakly understanding what was happening, hung short time in Zvyagin’s hand until he thought of straightening his curled legs and standing on them.

- How long have you had this weakness in your knees? – Zvyagin inquired.

He tried unsuccessfully.

– Rehearsal for an amateur performance? – Zvyagin continued mockingly. – Gymnastic exercises for the mentally retarded?

- L-let you...

“They also complain that our sewing is bad: the collar just won’t come off.” Did you go to school?

- Yes, w-what do you want!..

- Attention! Were you taught that it is better to die standing than to live on your knees?

The caught man pulled open the zipper of his jacket with the clear intention of leaving it in the hands of his tormentor, like a lizard leaves its tail, but wooden fingers closed around his wrist.

- What do you need? – he muttered in impotent rage.

“So that you don’t break the law,” came the unexpected answer.

- Which?!

- Begging is prohibited here. There is no need to beg for alms - and judging by your archaic pose, this is exactly what you were doing. Moreover, in the prime of his life, being seemingly quite able to work.

Not heeding his father’s admonitions, the disciple turned his face distorted with humiliation and promised Zvyagin many selectively bad things.

With his free hand, Zvyagin rummaged through the bag hanging over his shoulder and held out a yellow tablet:

- Swallow and go, speaker.

- What is this? – the young man asked mechanically.

- Amitriptyline. Great for calming your nerves. Don't worry, I'm a doctor, not a drug dealer.

With a lightning-quick movement, he put the pill into his mouth, which was slightly opened for an answer, and slapped his palm from below on his chin: a reflexive jump of his Adam's apple indicated that the pill had slipped to its destination.

- Free. And don’t repeat your tricks too often - you’ll wear out your pants.

He stood for a second, reading Zvyagin’s face, but found neither mockery nor sympathy in it: just a slight condescension.

“I won’t repeat it,” he said quietly and meaningfully. He ducked under the plush rope and went down.

A gray rabbit earflap remained on the worn concrete. Zvyagin chuckled, looked back and followed with her after the retreating owner.

A breeze blew from the blackness of the tunnel, the train approached, blinding with its placed headlights and shining with lacquered blue, when a ward stepped out of the aligned crowd and put his foot on the edge of the platform, like a jumper taking off.

Mikhail Weller

The Adventures of Major Zvyagin

Instead of a prologue

OWN HAND IS THE LORD

“Do what you must, and come what may.”

Knight's motto.

“Hope is in God, and strength is in the hand.”

Inscription on the blade of Hetman Mazepa.

– You are apolitical! – the wife stated indignantly.

“I’m apolitical,” Zvyagin nodded meekly, admiring the cat’s portrait.

- And in the newspapers they write...

– I know what they write in the newspapers.

- What?

- All the same.

- Namely?

- And what do you like? – the wife asked.

- To make it interesting. And heal people. The first is from character, obviously, the second is from profession.

- I would kill him! – with the directness of ringing youth, the daughter said, appearing at the door.

- Hm-yes? – Zvyagin yawned. - And how would you kill him?

- Shot!

- Of what? From a cosmetic bag?

– You might think you weren’t wearing an officer’s uniform!

– I wore what they gave me.

- How can you, with your indifference to human suffering, be a doctor!

- Gostiny always has three packs of Bulgarian ones...

“And there are almost a hundred cases around the city – all of them were poisoned by these Uzbek grapes.”

– Food supplies within the framework of jihad!..

– I understand everything, but why are there no hats anywhere!..

– And what’s amazing: there is no gasoline, but there are more car accidents...

“Grisha,” Zvyagin turned around, “do you know what in the old days they said: a doctor did not become a doctor until he filled the cemetery with his patients?”

“There’s a line at the cemetery,” Grisha responded. – And there are still not enough doctors.

After a pause, Zvyagin answered not entirely clearly:

“Everyone has his place,” he said.

- And your time.

“Exactly,” said the driver. They screamed as they turned under the Okhtinsky Bridge.

“When they left the GB, they changed their last names,” said Zvyagin, but in fact he didn’t say it out loud, he just thought. We don't need any extra words.

Only a day later, at home, having taken a fancy to a page in a notebook, plump as a loaf and heavy as a grenade, he dialed the phone number:

He whistled the “Turkish March” and rang again:

- Sasha? Listen, there's a conversation. Yes, you mentioned it once... Not by telephone, of course. Why put it off?

A couple more calls, and he was walking back and forth on the carpet, putting his hands in his pockets and grunting with satisfaction; the grunt came out with some kind of metallic cold purr.

“I won’t get my hands dirty on you,” Zvyagin affectionately promised someone. “I’ll trample you with my feet.” To the dust! Understood?..

His face took on an expression of calm concentration, like that of a helmsman at the helm, aiming for a course point on the horizon.

Tatyana Ilyinichna, a faded blonde, received him in a small respectable apartment - half business, half boudoir of a well-lived lady.

- Which flowers! I recognize the guard. Officers and gentlemen are one and the same.

They drank French cognac in tiny sips and Ceylon tea: they spoke lightly, with playfulness, on the subtext of a non-existent, but seemingly not excluded, flirtation.

“Thank you,” she took two packs of rehypnol. – Only a good sleeping pill can guarantee good sleep in our time and at my age.

Zvyagin paid a compliment.

- So how can I serve in turn? – the hostess inquired with the gravity of a strong person, accustomed to winning according to the rules of the games of this world.

“I was once a lieutenant,” said Zvyagin, “and through my youth and intemperance of language I got into a bad story.”

– Where and when was this? – Tatyana Ilyinichna quickly asked.

– And one person from your department helped me a lot.

– I didn’t know about your affairs with state security.

– Recently I came across his name in the newspaper. And in a negative sense.

– Who speaks positively about the KGB now?

– Because by nature I don’t like dogs that kick dead lions...

- This is typical of decent officers.

– ... I would like to thank this man, now an old man, a pensioner, for the good he has done. So that he doesn’t consider everyone scum. I don't like to blend in with society.

“I recognize your whims...” Tatyana Ilyinichna narrowed her eyes.

“I don’t like anything unfinished,” Zvyagin answered.

– He who wishes but does not act breeds the plague. Don't know who said this? William Blake.

- I would like your education.

- What is his last name?

- Then his last name was Khvat.

She quirked her eyebrow slightly.

– With the rank of colonel or lieutenant colonel, obviously.

“A lot of unseemly things have now become known about him. If what they write is true, it’s even criminal.

– This doesn’t concern me!

We took a sip of tea. She puffed on a thin American cigarette.

– But I don’t work either in personnel or in the archive, dear Leonid Borisovich.

– Sorry, if this is impossible, the question has been removed.

- Well... nothing is impossible at all.

Zvyagin, looking away as if in thought, turned his face to the most advantageous angle, emphasizing the sharpness of his features, the squareness of his chin and the cold green of his eyes.

– What a Hollywood movie hero you are. I would have fallen head over heels... but with you it’s hopeless.

She waved her hand and burst out laughing.

-Are you in no hurry? Take that bottle out of the bar. And your request is nonsense, I’ll ask the department to send a request. Listen, Zvyagin,” turning to you, she looked with naked directness, “do you like me?”

Zvyagin purred metallic and clinked his glass.

“The monkey wanted love with the elephant, and that’s when it burst,” he recalled a children’s joke, leaving the entrance at night. – There is another joke: so, even this didn’t help, a guy in a white coat asked the lady; well, then you really need a doctor; and who are we? Yes, there’s a team of painters, we’re working here... You’ll go to great lengths for the sake of justice,” he mocked himself.

The second question was resolved much more simply; Yes, in our time there is nothing particularly complicated about it.

Sasha, the most intelligent, fragile young man, greeted him with a sweet smile and a handshake with a thin little hand - like the wooden vice of a karateka; Zvyagin squeezed the handle with difficulty and grunted with satisfaction.

- Mom just baked a wonderful cake. “Cakes are her weakness, although now it is becoming increasingly difficult to satisfy this weakness,” he sprinkled garrulously and affectionately. – Do you know what Gorbachev cake is? Same as Napoleon, only without eggs, without sugar, without butter and without flour. Should you sit in the kitchen or with me?