© Ustinova T., 2015

© Design. LLC "Publishing House" E ", 2015

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All night the wind entangled in the roof roared and roared, and a branch of an old linden tree knocked on the window, making it difficult to sleep. And it started snowing in the morning. Maxim looked out the window for a long time and senselessly - just to delay the moment when he still had to pack up. Large flakes swirled in the November pre-dawn blizzard, slowly fell on the wet blackened asphalt, the lanterns flickered in the puddles with ugly pale yellow spots. With the last of its strength, Moscow was waiting for a real winter - so that, as soon as it comes, it would start waiting for spring. Maxim loved spring more than anything in the world - green, hot, midday, salty, with kvass from a barrel and walks in Neskuchny garden- but you still have to live and live before it, and somehow you can’t believe that you will live.

The light hit my eyes, my head was buzzing, as if in a transformer box. The newscaster - outrageously buoyant for half past five in the morning - said that "the predicted warming in European territory is a little delayed and snowfall is expected." "Go to hell!" - Maxim Ozerov advised the presenter and turned off the TV.

Sasha has already left for duty. In her ability to wake up in an inescapably good mood, there was a shamanism inexplicable for Ozerov: Sashka was cheerful, light, always had breakfast with pleasure, and with her whole appearance reminded Max of a thoroughbred, businesslike dachshund, who had gathered with the owner for a fox. He himself did not know how: in order to get up, he had to start ten alarm clocks, in the mornings the burrs that had taken up during the night bled from nowhere. Ozerov froze, shuffled his feet, knocked down corners and suffered from the realization of his own imperfection and spiritual laziness. Sashka took pity on him and - if he happened to leave earlier - cooked breakfast. He always refused, and she forced him to eat.

On the table stood a lukewarm jug with the rest of the coffee and a huge antique basket with a lid, straps and a darkened brass lock. The basket was covered with a terry-cloth kitchen towel. From under the towel protruded a polished thermos and the optimistic edge of a Krakow sausage. Pinned to the basket was a piece of paper with the caption: "To go."

So, snow?.. Maxim Ozerov defiantly pulled out of the closet and looked at his red camping down jacket with a torn sleeve. Well, a down jacket, but what is it? .. If it snows, there are four hundred versts and a hook ahead, then it’s a down jacket, and not at all the smart coat that he was counting on! Predicted warming is delayed, clearly stated. That is, apparently, it should be expected by spring.

- Spring! - Maxim recited in the silence of the apartment. - The first frame is exposed! And noise broke into the room! And the blessing of the nearby temple! And the voice of the people! And the sound of the wheel!

Well, at least yesterday at the service they checked the wheels - all four - and not a single one knocks. He climbed into a down jacket, threw a backpack over his shoulder, grabbed Sashka's basket - it crunched in greeting - and went out.

Ozerov was driving his off-road vehicle from Moscow, the windshield wipers creaked strainedly, the wide tires with a hum crushed the muddy water in the rolled rut of the Volga federal highway, the headlights cut through the gray veil of snow and drizzle. Yesterday he agreed to call on the dacha for Fedya - Kratovo was on the way, but now Maxim was hoping that Velichkovsky would oversleep, and then he would win back on him. After wandering around the old and very sleepy village for a while, Ozerov finally turned onto the right street.

At the gate of one of the houses loomed a stooped figure dressed in a poisonous green robe, monstrous canvas trousers and orange fur moccasins. The image was completed by a bathing felt hat pulled down over the eyes with the inscription in large ligature "Steam to everything is the head." In one hand, the figure held a backpack the size of a small house, in the other - Ozerov almost could not believe his eyes! - a bottle of champagne; black headphone wire streamed down the hoodie, which turned out to be a snowboard jacket with a lion's face on the back.

Fedya Velichkovsky didn't oversleep.

- Mister Director! Why didn't you tell me? We agreed that you will call! And you? Did you fool the little girl? - Fedya, somehow stuffing his incredible backpack into the trunk, unceremoniously climbed into the basket with Sasha's supplies, sniffed the sausage appraisingly and with enthusiasm and even with some lust asked: - Do you have hard-boiled eggs and fresh cucumbers? ..

- Comrade screenwriter! Ozerov yawned without opening his jaws. - Saryn on a kitchka! Come sit down!

- Good morning to you too!

The doors slammed, the petrol V-8 roared contentedly, and the “lifted” dark green jeep with a bright orange snorkel merrily rolled along the washed-out village road.

Velichkovsky threw off his fur moccasins and, tucking his legs under him like a yogi, settled himself in a wide leather armchair.

“We will have breakfast in Vladimir at the gas station,” he ordered. - I've thought of everything.

Under the stupid felt cap his head itched unbearably, but Fedya firmly decided that he would never take off his cap. In any case, until the boss pays due attention to her.

“Uh-huh,” Ozerov replied without any enthusiasm.

No, one “yup” is not enough! Velichkovsky scratched his head and continued earnestly:

“You, Mr. Director, fill your crew, and I, Childe Harold, will seize badly brewed coffee with sausage in dough. Sitting at a table by the window, I will look at the fast cars flying through the fog of black and silver suspension of snow and rain in ... uh ... - Fedya hesitated for a second, choosing the most vulgar epithet - in a barely hatched, unfriendly gloomy morning.

- Base! Ozerov issued a verdict.

For Velichkovsky, this was the second trip, he was in good mood He loved the whole world and especially himself in it. An invitation to the expedition was tantamount to being drawn into the circle of initiates, a special sign that meant "you are your own among your own." Something like the highest government award and a very closed club, where only the most faithful, close and promising were accepted. “Close and promising” Fedya was only six months old. And no one - not even Ozerov - guessed how much he liked it!

Business trips were invented by Vladlen Arlenovich Grodzovsky - CEO"Radio of Russia", shark, pillar and Mephistopheles of the radio world. Several times a year, Grodzovsky, by personal decree, sent Ozerov - his chief director, accomplice and right hand - to some country town with the theater, where Maxim masterfully and very quickly recorded performances based on Russian and foreign classics for the State Radio Fund. Productions received European awards, county theaters received fame and a small extra income, and radio employees received a sense of belonging and relaxation without interrupting their native production. Working on these trips has always been… a bit of a make-believe.

And now the chief director, winner of everything and an absolute professional Ozerov was sure that Chekhov's "Duel" at the Nizhny Novgorod State Drama Theater would be done in two days. In the worst case - for two and a half. And then - a week of an official business trip, when you can hang out around the city, wander around museums, go to a comedy in a theater where everyone is already your own, drink beer and eat crayfish in restaurants on the embankments. This is how Ozerov now imagined "a few days in the life of a Moscow director in Nizhny Novgorod."

There was no work for Velichkovsky - he was taken exclusively as a reward for his labors. Rather, even in advance. He was a good writer, and Ozerov determined with an unmistakable instinct that over time he would become very good! .. Fedya talentedly and completely shamelessly wrote any, even the most fierce, situation, kept time, knew how to ask questions, make the right impression, knew when to argue and when you have to agree, and did not forgive yourself for hack-work.

He was lazy, unpunctual, pretended to be a frondeur and a cynic.

Ozerov picked up Fedya on the morning sports channel, where he worked as a correspondent and became famous for a minute story about a cycling marathon, managing to use the word “coherence” eighteen times on a dare, and so cleverly that the material went on the air.

It was hard to drive. The snowfall only intensified, and the track was noticeably powdered. A hefty SUV slid and floated in a rut, Maxim constantly had to “catch” his yaw with the steering wheel, and in a snowstorm everything merged: the rare Sunday cars, neat, alert in the fog, and the graying tongue of the highway with smeared markings, and the broken dirty roadside ...

- Well, the weather! Fedya said. He took an electronic cigarette from the pocket of his incredible pants, leaned back in his chair and tried to inhale - it did not work. - How it works?

- Got sick? - Ozerov, squinting one eye at Fedya, snatched a cigarette from his mouth and threw it into the cup holder between the seats. - No smoking in my car!

“They are environmentally friendly,” Fedya objected.

“Chart a bus in Vladimir and smoke yourself,” Ozerov threatened, “and take off that felt cap!”

- Well, finally, Maxim Viktorovich! - Fedya threw his hat into the back seat and began to itch with rapture, like a monkey. - I've been sitting in it for two hours like a fool, and you just noticed! Where is your directorial observation?

- I'm driving a car. I'm watching the road.

"It doesn't matter," Fedya went on enthusiastically. – For us, artists, the most important thing is to observe life and draw conclusions. Are you drawing conclusions from life, Maxim Viktorovich? Are you watching her?

- Not now.

- And I'm always watching! And I categorically affirm that any event can be restored by its finale! If you know exactly how it ended, as an observant person, you can always tell what exactly was the impetus! So to speak, to understand what was in the beginning - a word or not only a word, but something else!

“Mmmm,” Ozerov drawled, “what have you been reading? American psychologists? Or did old Conan Doyle have an effect on you?

Just before the business trip, Fedya finished the script based on the stories about Sherlock Holmes. He fiddled around for a long time, tried on, and eventually unearthed some kind of pre-revolutionary translation, so the script turned out to be amusing and completely unrecognizable, as if Conan Doyle suddenly took and wrote a completely new story.

Maxim liked this script so much that he even showed it to his superiors. The authorities thought about it and ordered to take the promising Fedya to Nizhny. The boy must rest, unwind and feel like "part of the whole."

- And got this garbage! Maxim nodded at the cup holder, in which an electronic cigarette dangled. - I'd rather buy a pipe.

I don't smoke, you know! Mom is against, and indeed the Ministry of Health warns! But how is a writer without a cybaret? Look around - everything is cloudy, everything is gray, everything is dark. Emptiness and darkness! In the soul of chaos and a passion for destruction!

- Is it chaos and passion in your soul?

- And what? Fedya asked. - Not noticeable?

In Petushki, the blizzard began to subside, and in Vladimir it completely subsided. They climbed over some kind of invisible wall, behind which suddenly there was no blizzard and the upcoming winter. The sky began to rise, the asphalt, black and damp from the suspension of snow, dried up, immediately became dusty, the wipers creaked in vain on the windshield. For a while, their jeep raced as if along the border between the seasons, and then suddenly, somewhere above, the sun shone blindingly brightly. It splashed through a hole in the sky, broke through the clouds, flooded the road, the fields, the forest blackened in the distance, sparkled in the rear-view mirror of the passenger car running in front, fell vertically on the dusty dash of the jeep. The endless blind grayness was replaced by a contrasting green-gray haze, pierced by warm sunlight, the last of this year.

They put on dark glasses - the movement turned out to be synchronous and "cool", like in a movie about special agents and aliens. Ozerov was amused.

Forever clogged with trucks, the Vladimir district turned out to be absolutely free. Fedya, who proclaimed himself a navigator and buried himself in the "device", discarded it as unnecessary. The Internet was barely moving, traffic jams were not loading, and Ozerov knew himself putting pressure on the gas - technology was once again put to shame.

- And you, Mr. Director, know where to govern? Fedya asked. He fished a wrinkled green satin out of the glove compartment and began to scrutinize it. “We're in E-14, right? Or… or C-18?

And he began to thrust the atlas under Ozerov's nose. Maxim Atlas pushed me away.

- Here in a straight line, Fed. In a straight line right up to the bottom. Let's not miss.

They drove through the villages. Why is the federal highway laid through the villages? It's uncomfortable, slow, unsafe, and in general! Fedya was always shy, but he really liked this Asian barbarity. There was some kind of regularity in him - without villages and the road is not expensive! .. He liked to read strange names, guess the accents - the farther from Moscow, the easier it was to make a mistake: Ibred, Lipyanoy Duke, Yambirno, Akhlebinino ... Fedya felt sorry for the lopsided, blackened dilapidated village houses, destroyed either by vibrations from multi-ton trucks, walking around the clock along a highway cut right in the middle of the village, or by the villainous connivance of the owners, or simply by some kind of misfortune. Therefore, in every village along the way, he always looked for some strong, well-built, built-on, shiny house with fresh, not peeling paint - just to rejoice at it and think: “What a beauty!”

He would never admit this to anyone - yet he is a frondeur and a cynic who knows that life is gloomy and unfair. Yes, and he is quite a few years old, twenty-four in the spring knocked. And he has everything behind him - a quarrel with his father over the choice of a profession, a university, a proud refusal of graduate school, an unsuccessful romance, an unsuccessful first script, an unsuccessful first report! .. In general, Fedya was a seasoned fighter, but he felt sorry for the homeless to tears dogs and heartily rejoiced at the right houses.

Immediately after Vladimir, he began to whine and whine that he wanted to eat and “stretch.” Ozerov answered for some time that he had to be courageous and endure hardships - it was a game, she amused both - and then Maxim taxied to a gas station.

Fedya shoved his feet into his moccasins, wrinkling up his heels, and tumbled out.

- Cold dog! he proclaimed with delight. - Give me a hat, Maxim Viktorovich, it will blow in my ears!

Ozerov tossed him a hat “Steam is the head of everything,” which Fedya immediately put on.

- You while refuel, and I'm in line! Would you like an espresso or a cappuccino?

- In what queue? Ozerov muttered under his breath as he got out of the car. - Where is the queue from?

The sky was shining, and it was so cold that the breath froze and seemed to rustle around the lips. Maxim buttoned the collar of his down jacket under his chin. After sitting in the car for a long time, he was trembling. And Sashka thought that he would have a "picnic on the side of the road", he collected a basket! ..

- Maxim Viktorovich! - shouted leaning out of glass doors head of Velichkovsky. - You grab some supplies!

- Balda, - Ozerov said under his breath and shouted in response: - I won’t take it! I'll eat it myself!

The gas station was clean, light and smelled delicious - coffee and muffins. There was a queue to the counter with rolls, the tables in the cafe were all occupied. Fedya was sitting at the counter by the window on a high nickel-plated chair, the second prudently held his hand and waved frantically at Maxim, like a signalman on board a ship.

– What are you waving?

- Yes, you see what a stir there is! Now you hold the chair, and I'll go in line. Would you like a cappuccino or espresso? Do you want me to bring champagne from the trunk, you get drunk, and then I'll drive?

- Fed, get in line. Me tea. Black.

- With milk? - said Fedya. “How is cousin Betsy?”

They sipped from large glass mugs, Fedya alternately biting off a sausage, then "a sweet snail with vanilla cream." Another sausage - a spare - was waiting on a plastic plate, and Fedya was happy to think that everything was still ahead.

- So - the details! he announced with his mouth full. - The most important thing is the details, Maxim Viktorovich. Oscar Wilde said that only very superficial people do not judge by appearance! Here's an example! What does my appearance tell you?

Ozerov laughed and looked Fedya from head to toe - he immediately put on his hat "Steam is the head of everything."

- Your appearance tells me that you are a lazy, sloppy and self-confident type. Fedya nodded happily. - What is your height? Meter ninety?

“Three,” said Fedya. - Meter ninety-three.

- Any form is disgusting to you.

- From what do you draw such a conclusion, Maxim Viktorovich?

- Instead of taking on a somewhat decent appearance, you still go on a business trip, and even with your superiors, and even to an unfamiliar place! - you put on all your one hundred and ninety-three centimeters dimensionless canvas pants and a jacket, suspicious in every respect. A man in those pants and jacket is definitely not to be taken seriously, but you don't even think about it.

“I don’t think so,” Fedya confirmed, widening his chocolate eyes. “I know you take me seriously, but I don't give a damn about the rest. Meetings, dates and love chickens are not planned for the next week. So your conclusion is wrong. Wrong, colleague! ..

The founding father and “organizer of our victories” Grodzovsky called everyone “colleagues”, and Fedya was terribly pleased with such an appeal.

– But the experiment must be clean! You know me well and are therefore biased. But here are the rest of the people! What do you say about them?

- Fed, eat up and let's go.

- Wait, Maxim Viktorovich! What are you, right? Sunday is at our complete disposal, and we have already traveled a path comparable to ...

- There's a performance tonight. I want to see.

Fedya waved his hand impatiently, holding the sausage in it.

- We will have time, and you know very well about it! .. - He switched to a whisper: - There is a couple sitting there. Well, get out, get out, at that table! What can you say about them?

Ozerov glanced around involuntarily. A man and a woman, quite young, were munching on sandwiches, each looking at their phones.

“They quarreled,” Fedya said into Maxim’s ear. The trip didn't go well! Did you notice how they paid for the food? They queued together, but ordered separately, and each paid from his wallet. Sit together too! That is, they are a couple, but had a fight on the way. She must have insisted on a Sunday trip to her mother, and he was going to the bathhouse with his friends.

- Fedya, go to the bath yourself! ..

“And that blonde over there in the Ford is gluing a beaver from a BMW,” Fedya pointed behind the glass. Ozerov, interested against his will, looked into the street. She danced around her car for a very long time, as if she didn't know how to put a gun in the tank. But he didn't pay any attention. And now she asks him to fill her washer, see?

There really was an old Ford parked in the parking lot, and a young platinum-haired creature in a tiny white fur coat and a hefty man in a leather jacket that didn’t converge on his stomach, actually like a beaver, were trampling around beside him. The young creature held a canister in his hands, and the man rummaged under the hood of the old Ford, trying to lift the lid.

“In fact, she knows how to do everything herself,” Fedya Velichkovsky continued. - When the beaver was on the way, standing on the highway with a turn signal, she was already opening the lid. And immediately slammed it as soon as he turned!

Maxim looked at his screenwriter, as if seeing for the first time.

– Listen, and you, it appears, the dreamer! Maybe you'll really be a writer. Most importantly, you lie from the heart. And you won't be tested.

Why don't you check? You can come and ask! You want me to ask! Easily! By the way, Bulgakov...

- Let's go, huh? Ozerov asked almost plaintively.

- You go, and I'll just take one more sausage. Should you take it?

- You'll burst.

The sun shone with might and main, the road lay ahead, spacious and wide, rested against the radiant cold horizon, until Nizhny Novgorod There were still two hundred miles left.

It's good, thought Fedya Velichkovsky, that it's still a long way off. Since childhood, he loved to travel “far away”.

- This is our last date. I'm leaving.

Lyalya, who was rattling pots on the shelf, froze and carefully placed a large frying pan lid on a small ladle. The cover could not resist and went.

– Romka, what did you… say?

- Lal, you understand everything. And let's not get hysterical, okay? I have a performance tonight. After the performance, I will go to my place.

- Where to yourself? Wait, - said Lyalya, groped for a stool, sat down, immediately jumped up and flopped down again, as if her legs were not holding her. – The performance, yes, I know, but… No, wait, it’s also impossible…

She was going to cook porridge - before the performance Roman ate only porridge and drank black coffee - and now the very open gas blazed and hissed, escaping from the burner. Turn it off Lyalya did not guess.

- Well, that's it, that's it, - he came up and stroked her head. - Well, you're a smart old woman! .. You understand everything. We both knew that sooner or later...

“I love you too,” Roman said, and pressed her head to him. “So we are breaking up. So much better, right!

Despite the fact that in the first second she realized that everything was over and he would leave her, he would leave today, now, she suddenly believed that she would manage. He loves her. He just said it himself.

“Romka, wait,” she asked. - You explain to me what happened? .. - And for some reason she suggested: - You stopped loving me?

He sighed. Under her cheek, his stomach growled.

“Probably never loved,” he admitted thoughtfully. - That is, I loved and still love, but not in the right way! ..

- But as?! How to?

Lyalya escaped, tears appeared in her eyes, and she began to swallow quickly, trying to swallow them all to the last.

- Lyalka, don't be hysterical! Roman shouted. Our paths must part. I figured it would be best if they parted ways right now. Why continue when it is clear that there will be no continuation?

“But why, why not?!

Grimacing, he moved away and stood up, leaning his shoulder against the door frame. Very tall, very handsome and preoccupied with the "breakup scene".

- Well ... everything, Lyalka. I'll probably go to Moscow. This metropolitan celebrity will record a performance with us, and I will leave. I can't... here anymore. - With his chin, overgrown with corsair bristles, he pointed somewhere in the direction of clocks that ticked peacefully on the wall.

The clocks were ticking, paying no attention to the catastrophe that had just shattered Lyalin's life into pieces. They didn't care.

“Don’t think that I am a vulgar!” But I'm really cramped in here. Well, what awaits me? I played Trigorin, Glumov too. Played Mr Simple. Well, who else will they give me? I'm getting old, Lala.

“You're only thirty-two,” she said to say something.

The blue gas flame, bursting the burner, hissed and danced before her eyes.

“Thirty-two already!” Already, but not all!.. Every day on TV they show boys and girls who are twenty-five, and they are stars! The whole country knows them, although they are mediocre, like ... like sheep, I see! I should have left a long time ago, ten years ago, but I dragged on. And now... I've made up my mind.

Romka, you won't leave me.

“If you loved me,” he said with annoyance, “you yourself would have sent me out a long time ago. I need to evolve or I will die. And you're just as selfish as everyone else.

Then it suddenly dawned on him what he needed to stress in the “separation scene” - namely, egoism and true love. He got excited.

"You know who you're dealing with!" I am an artist, not a carpenter like your stupid neighbor! .. I must grow above myself, otherwise why? Why was I born? Why did you endure all the pain?

- What kind of pain? Lyalya asked herself quietly. She also realized that he “captured the essence of the mise-en-scène”, now he will play out and leave. And she will be left alone.

The clocks continued to tick, and the gas hissed.

Lyalina's whole life turned to dust before her eyes, and Lyalya sat and watched her turn.

- If you loved me, you would help me for real! You wouldn't give me a moment's rest! Made me want more. Fight and win!

- Romka, you always said that at home you need just peace and nothing more. That you give everything to the viewer. And I helped you! True, I tried. I always select a repertoire so that you have something to play! We even fight with Luka because of this!

Luka was sometimes called the director of the drama theater behind his back, where Lyalya worked as the head of the literary department, and Roman did not work, but “served”. He knew that great artists always "serve in the theater."

“You are a smart adult aunt,” Roman said wearily. “You couldn’t seriously assume that I would marry you!”

“I… assumed,” Lyalya confessed.

He waved his hand.

- Well, what do you want from me? .. I will not stay. I have to break out.

She nodded.

He stood still in the doorway, looking at her. He did not want to finish the mise-en-scene. It felt kind of sensible, didn't it? Weird feeling.

“Well, I’m going to the theatre,” he said at last. Don't wait for me tonight. You understand everything, my dear! ..

"Good" understood everything.

Nevertheless, she was actually a “smart aunt” and read mountains of various literature in her life. From this literature, she knew that this happens, and even quite often. Even almost always. Love ends in failure, hopes perish, dreams are crushed.

…You are no longer needed. You did everything you could for me - you picked up performances for me, looked for roles, persuaded obstinate directors. Now I have "stand on the wing", and your guardianship bothers me. I will leave - to Moscow, to New York, to the North Pole - and there I will begin a new life. It makes no sense to drag the old one along with you, and it’s boring. And here's the most important thing - I fell out of love with you.

And now it's time for me. You understand everything, my dear. How grateful I am to you.

“I am very grateful to you,” Roman muttered, not too confidently. - Things ... I later, okay?

Something rumbled on the porch, the old house shuddered as if it was still intact, as if it had just not turned to dust.

- Mistress! shouted from somewhere. - Are you at home?

Roman, who wanted to say something else, waved his hand. Lyalya sat and watched as he hastily pulled his jacket off the hook and put it on, without falling into the sleeves. The front door, upholstered in black leatherette for warmth, swung open, and, bending his head, neighbor Atamanov entered the house.

“Good,” said the neighbor. - Lyal, I made the cornices. Bring in?

“Bye,” Roman said with his lips over his shoulder. - I love you.

The door slammed. Light, liberated footsteps sounded across the porch.

- What are you like? Atamanov asked. - Your gas is sizzling! Linen, eh, going to boil?

Lyalya sat on a stool and looked at her hands. The nail polish has completely peeled off. Tomorrow she was going for a manicure. Today there can be no manicure, today Roman has a performance. He plays the main role. She must be present. He always says that her presence keeps him going. And tomorrow just right. After the performance, Romka will sleep until noon, and she will have time to run to the salon.

- Cornices, I say, made. Shall we kill now?

The neighbor pulled off his shoes one on top of the other—Roman always said that it was a plebeian habit to take off his shoes at the threshold—he went into the kitchen and turned on the gas. It immediately became quiet, as in a crypt.

Lyalya looked around, expecting to see the crypt, but she saw her own kitchen and neighbor Atamanov.

- What do you need?

- Lyal, what are you doing?

“Get out of here,” she said. - Leave now!

- And the cornices?

Pushing him out of the way, Lyalya rushed into the room, ran around it in a circle, knocked down a chair, opened the door to the bedroom, where destruction reigned - Roman always left defeat behind him. Lyalya shook her head, howled, slammed the door, jumped out into the street and ran.

She stopped at the gate and ran back. Having reached the porch, on which the utterly astonished neighbor Atamanov got out, she rushed to the gate.

- Stop! Stop who I'm talking to!..

The neighbor intercepted her when she was already pulling the latch.

- What are you? What it is?

- Let me in!..

But Atamanov was a hefty strong man. He grabbed Lyalya and carried her. She struggled, thrashed him and screamed. He dragged her into the house, slammed both doors, and said angrily:

Lyalya went into the room, sat down on the sofa and buried her face in her knees, as if her stomach ached.

- Did you quit? a neighbor asked from the corridor.

Lyalya nodded at her knees.

“Be patient,” said Atamanov.

“I can’t,” Lyalya admitted.

- Yes, what is there ...

"I can't," she repeated dully.

The neighbor huffed and sighed. Lyalya rocked back and forth.

“He is not a match for you,” said the neighbor at last.

Lala nodded again. Her face was on fire.

“You are a woman…” he searched for a word, “a decent woman. And this is some kind of remnant!

- I beg you, Georgy Alekseevich, get away from me.

- How can I leave, - the neighbor Atamanov was surprised, - when you are not yourself?

He stomped on and went out, the door slammed.

Lyalya began to howl softly, and she felt so sorry for herself, for no one needed, for an old, fat, disheveled woman who had just been abandoned by the only man in the world, that tears poured out profusely at once and flooded her palms into which she buried herself. Lyalya grabbed an embroidered hard pillow and began to wipe them with it, and they all poured and poured, flowed down the embroidery.

No one needs all this anymore - no embroidery, no pillows, no milk porridge, which she has become accustomed to cooking. And no one needs a house, and a garden. Nobody wants her life anymore. Romka said that he did not just stop loving. He never loved her the way he should. What's wrong with her? Why can't you love her right?

Lyalya did not even notice how the neighbor Atamanov appeared in the room again. She didn't see or hear anything and felt only how he pushed her in the side.

Get up and help.

Lyalya lay sideways on the sofa, pressing a pillow to her face.

“Come on, come on, what’s up!”

He dragged stools from the kitchen, placed them near the window, and again began to push Lyalya.

“I can't,” she said.

“I won’t be able to do it next time either,” Atamanov said rudely. - I have a lot to do! The frosts have come, and to this day my roses have not been covered, everyone will die. Get up!..

She had neither the strength nor the will to do anything. Shedding tears, she rose unsteadily, as if her body would not obey her, and stood in the middle of the room, her arms dangling.

The neighbor handed her a heavy cold drill, behind which a black cord was dragging, and Lyalya accepted it obediently, and he perched on a stool and said softly from above:

- Bring a newspaper, hold it so that the dust does not fly, and give me a drill.

Lyalya gave him the drill, found an old newspaper on a hanger under her coat and jackets, and climbed onto a stool. She did all this, as if watching herself from the sidelines - here is a shaggy, tear-filled, terrible woman, shuffling in slippers, goes into the corridor, bends down, fumbles, then, hunched over, carries a newspaper, as if she had a heavy load in her hand.

- Hold it straight, do not shake your hands.

The drill squealed, the wall vibrated, small yellow sawdust fell on the newspaper. She screamed for quite some time.

“It’s not necessary,” Lyalya said, and she didn’t hear herself because of the squeal, “nobody needs it anymore.

Tatyana Ustinova

Shakespeare is my friend, but the truth is dearer

© Ustinova T., 2015

© Design. LLC "Publishing House" E ", 2015

All night the wind entangled in the roof roared and roared, and a branch of an old linden tree knocked on the window, making it difficult to sleep. And it started snowing in the morning. Maxim looked out the window for a long time and senselessly - just to delay the moment when he still had to pack up. Large flakes swirled in the November pre-dawn blizzard, slowly fell on the wet blackened asphalt, the lanterns flickered in the puddles with ugly pale yellow spots. With the last of its strength, Moscow was waiting for a real winter - so that, as soon as it comes, it would start waiting for spring. Maxim loved spring more than anything in the world - green, hot, midday, salty, with kvass from a barrel and walks in the Neskuchny Garden - but you still have to live and live before it, and somehow you can’t believe that you will live.

The light hit my eyes, my head was buzzing, as if in a transformer box. The newscaster - outrageously buoyant for half past five in the morning - said that "the predicted warming in European territory is a little delayed and snowfall is expected." "Go to hell!" - Maxim Ozerov advised the presenter and turned off the TV.

Sasha has already left for duty. In her ability to wake up in an inescapably good mood, there was a shamanism inexplicable for Ozerov: Sashka was cheerful, light, always had breakfast with pleasure, and with her whole appearance reminded Max of a thoroughbred, businesslike dachshund, who had gathered with the owner for a fox. He himself did not know how: in order to get up, he had to start ten alarm clocks, in the mornings the burrs that had taken up during the night bled from nowhere. Ozerov froze, shuffled his feet, knocked down corners and suffered from the realization of his own imperfection and spiritual laziness. Sashka took pity on him and - if he happened to leave earlier - cooked breakfast. He always refused, and she forced him to eat.

On the table stood a lukewarm jug with the rest of the coffee and a huge antique basket with a lid, straps and a darkened brass lock. The basket was covered with a terry-cloth kitchen towel. From under the towel protruded a polished thermos and the optimistic edge of a Krakow sausage. Pinned to the basket was a piece of paper with the caption: "To go."

So, snow?.. Maxim Ozerov defiantly pulled out of the closet and looked at his red camping down jacket with a torn sleeve. Well, a down jacket, but what is it? .. If it snows, there are four hundred versts and a hook ahead, then it’s a down jacket, and not at all the smart coat that he was counting on! Predicted warming is delayed, clearly stated. That is, apparently, it should be expected by spring.

- Spring! - Maxim recited in the silence of the apartment. - The first frame is exposed! And noise broke into the room! And the blessing of the nearby temple! And the voice of the people! And the sound of the wheel!

Well, at least yesterday at the service they checked the wheels - all four - and not a single one knocks. He climbed into a down jacket, threw a backpack over his shoulder, grabbed Sashka's basket - it crunched in greeting - and went out.

Ozerov was driving his off-road vehicle from Moscow, the windshield wipers creaked strainedly, the wide tires with a hum crushed the muddy water in the rolled rut of the Volga federal highway, the headlights cut through the gray veil of snow and drizzle. Yesterday he agreed to call on the dacha for Fedya - Kratovo was on the way, but now Maxim was hoping that Velichkovsky would oversleep, and then he would win back on him. After wandering around the old and very sleepy village for a while, Ozerov finally turned onto the right street.

At the gate of one of the houses loomed a stooped figure dressed in a poisonous green robe, monstrous canvas trousers and orange fur moccasins. The image was completed by a bathing felt hat pulled down over the eyes with the inscription in large ligature "Steam to everything is the head." In one hand, the figure held a backpack the size of a small house, in the other - Ozerov almost could not believe his eyes! - a bottle of champagne; black headphone wire streamed down the hoodie, which turned out to be a snowboard jacket with a lion's face on the back.

Fedya Velichkovsky didn't oversleep.

- Mister Director! Why didn't you tell me? We agreed that you will call! And you? Did you fool the little girl? - Fedya, somehow stuffing his incredible backpack into the trunk, unceremoniously climbed into the basket with Sasha's supplies, sniffed the sausage appraisingly and with enthusiasm and even with some lust asked: - Do you have hard-boiled eggs and fresh cucumbers? ..

- Comrade screenwriter! Ozerov yawned without opening his jaws. - Saryn on a kitchka! Come sit down!

- Good morning to you too!

The doors slammed, the petrol V-8 roared contentedly, and the “lifted” dark green jeep with a bright orange snorkel merrily rolled along the washed-out village road.

Tatyana Ustinova

Shakespeare is my friend, but the truth is dearer

© Ustinova T., 2015

© Design. LLC "Publishing House" E ", 2015

All night the wind entangled in the roof roared and roared, and a branch of an old linden tree knocked on the window, making it difficult to sleep. And it started snowing in the morning. Maxim looked out the window for a long time and senselessly - just to delay the moment when he still had to pack up. Large flakes swirled in the November pre-dawn blizzard, slowly fell on the wet blackened asphalt, the lanterns flickered in the puddles with ugly pale yellow spots. With the last of its strength, Moscow was waiting for a real winter - so that, as soon as it comes, it would start waiting for spring. Maxim loved spring more than anything in the world - green, hot, midday, salty, with kvass from a barrel and walks in the Neskuchny Garden - but you still have to live and live before it, and somehow you can’t believe that you will live.

The light hit my eyes, my head was buzzing, as if in a transformer box. The newscaster - outrageously buoyant for half past five in the morning - said that "the predicted warming in European territory is a little delayed and snowfall is expected." "Go to hell!" - Maxim Ozerov advised the presenter and turned off the TV.

Sasha has already left for duty. In her ability to wake up in an inescapably good mood, there was a shamanism inexplicable for Ozerov: Sashka was cheerful, light, always had breakfast with pleasure, and with her whole appearance reminded Max of a thoroughbred, businesslike dachshund, who had gathered with the owner for a fox. He himself did not know how: in order to get up, he had to start ten alarm clocks, in the mornings the burrs that had taken up during the night bled from nowhere. Ozerov froze, shuffled his feet, knocked down corners and suffered from the realization of his own imperfection and spiritual laziness. Sashka took pity on him and - if he happened to leave earlier - cooked breakfast. He always refused, and she forced him to eat.

On the table stood a lukewarm jug with the rest of the coffee and a huge antique basket with a lid, straps and a darkened brass lock. The basket was covered with a terry-cloth kitchen towel. From under the towel protruded a polished thermos and the optimistic edge of a Krakow sausage. Pinned to the basket was a piece of paper with the caption: "To go."

So, snow?.. Maxim Ozerov defiantly pulled out of the closet and looked at his red camping down jacket with a torn sleeve. Well, a down jacket, but what is it? .. If it snows, there are four hundred versts and a hook ahead, then it’s a down jacket, and not at all the smart coat that he was counting on! Predicted warming is delayed, clearly stated. That is, apparently, it should be expected by spring.

- Spring! - Maxim recited in the silence of the apartment. - The first frame is exposed! And noise broke into the room! And the blessing of the nearby temple! And the voice of the people! And the sound of the wheel!

Well, at least yesterday at the service they checked the wheels - all four - and not a single one knocks. He climbed into a down jacket, threw a backpack over his shoulder, grabbed Sashka's basket - it crunched in greeting - and went out.

Ozerov was driving his off-road vehicle from Moscow, the windshield wipers creaked strainedly, the wide tires with a hum crushed the muddy water in the rolled rut of the Volga federal highway, the headlights cut through the gray veil of snow and drizzle. Yesterday he agreed to call on the dacha for Fedya - Kratovo was on the way, but now Maxim was hoping that Velichkovsky would oversleep, and then he would win back on him. After wandering around the old and very sleepy village for a while, Ozerov finally turned onto the right street.

At the gate of one of the houses loomed a stooped figure dressed in a poisonous green robe, monstrous canvas trousers and orange fur moccasins. The image was completed by a bathing felt hat pulled down over the eyes with the inscription in large ligature "Steam to everything is the head." In one hand, the figure held a backpack the size of a small house, in the other - Ozerov almost could not believe his eyes! - a bottle of champagne; black headphone wire streamed down the hoodie, which turned out to be a snowboard jacket with a lion's face on the back.

Tatyana Ustinova

Shakespeare is my friend, but the truth is dearer

© Ustinova T., 2015

© Design. LLC "Publishing House" E ", 2015

* * *

All night the wind entangled in the roof roared and roared, and a branch of an old linden tree knocked on the window, making it difficult to sleep. And it started snowing in the morning. Maxim looked out the window for a long time and senselessly - just to delay the moment when he still had to pack up. Large flakes swirled in the November pre-dawn blizzard, slowly fell on the wet blackened asphalt, the lanterns flickered in the puddles with ugly pale yellow spots. With the last of its strength, Moscow was waiting for a real winter - so that, as soon as it comes, it would start waiting for spring. Maxim loved spring more than anything in the world - green, hot, midday, salty, with kvass from a barrel and walks in the Neskuchny Garden - but you still have to live and live before it, and somehow you can’t believe that you will live.

The light hit my eyes, my head was buzzing, as if in a transformer box. The newscaster - outrageously buoyant for half past five in the morning - said that "the predicted warming in European territory is a little delayed and snowfall is expected." "Go to hell!" - Maxim Ozerov advised the presenter and turned off the TV.

Sasha has already left for duty. In her ability to wake up in an inescapably good mood, there was a shamanism inexplicable for Ozerov: Sashka was cheerful, light, always had breakfast with pleasure, and with her whole appearance reminded Max of a thoroughbred, businesslike dachshund, who had gathered with the owner for a fox. He himself did not know how: in order to get up, he had to start ten alarm clocks, in the mornings the burrs that had taken up during the night bled from nowhere. Ozerov froze, shuffled his feet, knocked down corners and suffered from the realization of his own imperfection and spiritual laziness. Sashka took pity on him and - if he happened to leave earlier - cooked breakfast. He always refused, and she forced him to eat.

On the table stood a lukewarm jug with the rest of the coffee and a huge antique basket with a lid, straps and a darkened brass lock. The basket was covered with a terry-cloth kitchen towel. From under the towel protruded a polished thermos and the optimistic edge of a Krakow sausage. Pinned to the basket was a piece of paper with the caption: "To go."

So, snow?.. Maxim Ozerov defiantly pulled out of the closet and looked at his red camping down jacket with a torn sleeve. Well, a down jacket, but what is it? .. If it snows, there are four hundred versts and a hook ahead, then it’s a down jacket, and not at all the smart coat that he was counting on! Predicted warming is delayed, clearly stated. That is, apparently, it should be expected by spring.

- Spring! - Maxim recited in the silence of the apartment. - The first frame is exposed! And noise broke into the room! And the blessing of the nearby temple! And the voice of the people! And the sound of the wheel!

Well, at least yesterday at the service they checked the wheels - all four - and not a single one knocks. He climbed into a down jacket, threw a backpack over his shoulder, grabbed Sashka's basket - it crunched in greeting - and went out.

Ozerov was driving his off-road vehicle from Moscow, the windshield wipers creaked strainedly, the wide tires with a hum crushed the muddy water in the rolled rut of the Volga federal highway, the headlights cut through the gray veil of snow and drizzle. Yesterday he agreed to call on the dacha for Fedya - Kratovo was on the way, but now Maxim was hoping that Velichkovsky would oversleep, and then he would win back on him. After wandering around the old and very sleepy village for a while, Ozerov finally turned onto the right street.

At the gate of one of the houses loomed a stooped figure dressed in a poisonous green robe, monstrous canvas trousers and orange fur moccasins. The image was completed by a bathing felt hat pulled down over the eyes with the inscription in large ligature "Steam to everything is the head." In one hand, the figure held a backpack the size of a small house, in the other - Ozerov almost could not believe his eyes! - a bottle of champagne; black headphone wire streamed down the hoodie, which turned out to be a snowboard jacket with a lion's face on the back.

Fedya Velichkovsky didn't oversleep.

- Mister Director! Why didn't you tell me? We agreed that you will call! And you? Did you fool the little girl? - Fedya, somehow stuffing his incredible backpack into the trunk, unceremoniously climbed into the basket with Sasha's supplies, sniffed the sausage appraisingly and with enthusiasm and even with some lust asked: - Do you have hard-boiled eggs and fresh cucumbers? ..

- Comrade screenwriter! Ozerov yawned without opening his jaws. - Saryn on a kitchka! Come sit down!

- Good morning to you too!

The doors slammed, the petrol V-8 roared contentedly, and the “lifted” dark green jeep with a bright orange snorkel merrily rolled along the washed-out village road.

Velichkovsky threw off his fur moccasins and, tucking his legs under him like a yogi, settled himself in a wide leather armchair.

“We will have breakfast in Vladimir at the gas station,” he ordered. - I've thought of everything.

Under the stupid felt cap his head itched unbearably, but Fedya firmly decided that he would never take off his cap. In any case, until the boss pays due attention to her.

“Uh-huh,” Ozerov replied without any enthusiasm.

No, one “yup” is not enough! Velichkovsky scratched his head and continued earnestly:

“You, Mr. Director, fill your crew, and I, Childe Harold, will seize badly brewed coffee with sausage in dough. Sitting at a table by the window, I will look at the fast cars flying through the fog of black and silver suspension of snow and rain in ... uh ... - Fedya hesitated for a second, choosing the most vulgar epithet - in a barely hatched, unfriendly gloomy morning.

- Base! Ozerov issued a verdict.

For Velichkovsky, this was the second trip, he was in a great mood, loved the whole world and especially himself in it. An invitation to the expedition was tantamount to being drawn into the circle of initiates, a special sign that meant "you are your own among your own." Something like the highest government award and a very closed club, where only the most faithful, close and promising were accepted. “Close and promising” Fedya was only six months old. And no one - not even Ozerov - guessed how much he liked it!

Business trips were invented by Vladlen Arlenovich Grodzovsky, the general director of Radio Russia, the shark, pillar and Mephistopheles of the radio world. Several times a year, Grodzovsky, by personal decree, sent Ozerov - his chief director, accomplice and right hand - to some provincial city with a theater, where Maxim masterfully and very quickly recorded performances based on Russian and foreign classics for the State Radio Fund. Productions received European awards, county theaters received fame and a small extra income, and radio employees received a sense of belonging and relaxation without interrupting their native production. Working on these trips has always been… a bit of a make-believe.

And now the chief director, winner of everything and an absolute professional Ozerov was sure that Chekhov's "Duel" at the Nizhny Novgorod State Drama Theater would be done in two days. In the worst case - for two and a half. And then - a week of an official business trip, when you can hang out around the city, wander around museums, go to a comedy in a theater where everyone is already your own, drink beer and eat crayfish in restaurants on the embankments. This is how Ozerov now imagined "a few days in the life of a Moscow director in Nizhny Novgorod."

There was no work for Velichkovsky - he was taken exclusively as a reward for his labors. Rather, even in advance. He was a good writer, and Ozerov determined with an unmistakable instinct that over time he would become very good! .. Fedya talentedly and completely shamelessly wrote any, even the most fierce, situation, kept time, knew how to ask questions, make the right impression, knew when to argue and when you have to agree, and did not forgive yourself for hack-work.

He was lazy, unpunctual, pretended to be a frondeur and a cynic.

Ozerov picked up Fedya on the morning sports channel, where he worked as a correspondent and became famous for a minute story about a cycling marathon, managing to use the word “coherence” eighteen times on a dare, and so cleverly that the material went on the air.

It was hard to drive. The snowfall only intensified, and the track was noticeably powdered. A hefty SUV slid and floated in a rut, Maxim constantly had to “catch” his yaw with the steering wheel, and in a snowstorm everything merged: the rare Sunday cars, neat, alert in the fog, and the graying tongue of the highway with smeared markings, and the broken dirty roadside ...

- Well, the weather! Fedya said. He took an electronic cigarette from the pocket of his incredible pants, leaned back in his chair and tried to inhale - it did not work. - How it works?

- Got sick? - Ozerov, squinting one eye at Fedya, snatched a cigarette from his mouth and threw it into the cup holder between the seats. - No smoking in my car!

“They are environmentally friendly,” Fedya objected.

“Chart a bus in Vladimir and smoke yourself,” Ozerov threatened, “and take off that felt cap!”

- Well, finally, Maxim Viktorovich! - Fedya threw his hat into the back seat and began to itch with rapture, like a monkey. - I've been sitting in it for two hours like a fool, and you just noticed! Where is your directorial observation?

- I'm driving a car. I'm watching the road.

"It doesn't matter," Fedya went on enthusiastically. – For us, artists, the most important thing is to observe life and draw conclusions. Are you drawing conclusions from life, Maxim Viktorovich? Are you watching her?

- Not now.

- And I'm always watching! And I categorically affirm that any event can be restored by its finale! If you know exactly how it ended, as an observant person, you can always tell what exactly was the impetus! So to speak, to understand what was in the beginning - a word or not only a word, but something else!

“Mmmm,” Ozerov drawled, “what have you been reading? American psychologists? Or did old Conan Doyle have an effect on you?

Just before the business trip, Fedya finished the script based on the stories about Sherlock Holmes. He fiddled around for a long time, tried on, and eventually unearthed some kind of pre-revolutionary translation, so the script turned out to be amusing and completely unrecognizable, as if Conan Doyle suddenly took and wrote a completely new story.

Maxim liked this script so much that he even showed it to his superiors. The authorities thought about it and ordered to take the promising Fedya to Nizhny. The boy must rest, unwind and feel like "part of the whole."

- And got this garbage! Maxim nodded at the cup holder, in which an electronic cigarette dangled. - I'd rather buy a pipe.

I don't smoke, you know! Mom is against, and indeed the Ministry of Health warns! But how is a writer without a cybaret? Look around - everything is cloudy, everything is gray, everything is dark. Emptiness and darkness! In the soul of chaos and a passion for destruction!

- Is it chaos and passion in your soul?

- And what? Fedya asked. - Not noticeable?

In Petushki, the blizzard began to subside, and in Vladimir it completely subsided. They climbed over some kind of invisible wall, behind which suddenly there was no blizzard and the upcoming winter. The sky began to rise, the asphalt, black and damp from the suspension of snow, dried up, immediately became dusty, the wipers creaked in vain on the windshield. For a while, their jeep raced as if along the border between the seasons, and then suddenly, somewhere above, the sun shone blindingly brightly. It splashed through a hole in the sky, broke through the clouds, flooded the road, the fields, the forest blackened in the distance, sparkled in the rear-view mirror of the passenger car running in front, fell vertically on the dusty dash of the jeep. The endless blind grayness was replaced by a contrasting green-gray haze, pierced by warm sunlight, the last of this year.

They put on dark glasses - the movement turned out to be synchronous and "cool", like in a movie about special agents and aliens. Ozerov was amused.

Forever clogged with trucks, the Vladimir district turned out to be absolutely free. Fedya, who proclaimed himself a navigator and buried himself in the "device", discarded it as unnecessary. The Internet was barely moving, traffic jams were not loading, and Ozerov knew himself putting pressure on the gas - technology was once again put to shame.

- And you, Mr. Director, know where to govern? Fedya asked. He fished a wrinkled green satin out of the glove compartment and began to scrutinize it. “We're in E-14, right? Or… or C-18?

And he began to thrust the atlas under Ozerov's nose. Maxim Atlas pushed me away.

- Here in a straight line, Fed. In a straight line right up to the bottom. Let's not miss.

They drove through the villages. Why is the federal highway laid through the villages? It's uncomfortable, slow, unsafe, and in general! Fedya was always shy, but he really liked this Asian barbarity. There was some kind of regularity in him - without villages and the road is not expensive! .. He liked to read strange names, guess the accents - the farther from Moscow, the easier it was to make a mistake: Ibred, Lipyanoy Duke, Yambirno, Akhlebinino ... Fedya felt sorry for the lopsided, blackened dilapidated village houses, destroyed either by vibrations from multi-ton trucks, walking around the clock along a highway cut right in the middle of the village, or by the villainous connivance of the owners, or simply by some kind of misfortune. Therefore, in every village along the way, he always looked for some strong, well-built, built-on, shiny house with fresh, not peeling paint - just to rejoice at it and think: “What a beauty!”

He would never admit this to anyone - yet he is a frondeur and a cynic who knows that life is gloomy and unfair. Yes, and he is quite a few years old, twenty-four in the spring knocked. And he has everything behind him - a quarrel with his father over the choice of a profession, a university, a proud refusal of graduate school, an unsuccessful romance, an unsuccessful first script, an unsuccessful first report! .. In general, Fedya was a seasoned fighter, but he felt sorry for the homeless to tears dogs and heartily rejoiced at the right houses.

Immediately after Vladimir, he began to whine and whine that he wanted to eat and “stretch.” Ozerov answered for some time that he had to be courageous and endure hardships - it was a game, she amused both - and then Maxim taxied to a gas station.

Fedya shoved his feet into his moccasins, wrinkling up his heels, and tumbled out.

- Cold dog! he proclaimed with delight. - Give me a hat, Maxim Viktorovich, it will blow in my ears!

Ozerov tossed him a hat “Steam is the head of everything,” which Fedya immediately put on.

- You while refuel, and I'm in line! Would you like an espresso or a cappuccino?

- In what queue? Ozerov muttered under his breath as he got out of the car. - Where is the queue from?

The sky was shining, and it was so cold that the breath froze and seemed to rustle around the lips. Maxim buttoned the collar of his down jacket under his chin. After sitting in the car for a long time, he was trembling. And Sashka thought that he would have a "picnic on the side of the road", he collected a basket! ..

- Maxim Viktorovich! shouted Velichkovsky's head poking out of the glass doors. - You grab some supplies!

- Balda, - Ozerov said under his breath and shouted in response: - I won’t take it! I'll eat it myself!

The gas station was clean, light and smelled delicious - coffee and muffins. There was a queue to the counter with rolls, the tables in the cafe were all occupied. Fedya was sitting at the counter by the window on a high nickel-plated chair, the second prudently held his hand and waved frantically at Maxim, like a signalman on board a ship.

– What are you waving?

- Yes, you see what a stir there is! Now you hold the chair, and I'll go in line. Would you like a cappuccino or espresso? Do you want me to bring champagne from the trunk, you get drunk, and then I'll drive?

- Fed, get in line. Me tea. Black.

- With milk? - said Fedya. “How is cousin Betsy?”

They sipped from large glass mugs, Fedya alternately biting off a sausage, then "a sweet snail with vanilla cream." Another sausage - a spare - was waiting on a plastic plate, and Fedya was happy to think that everything was still ahead.

- So - the details! he announced with his mouth full. - The most important thing is the details, Maxim Viktorovich. Oscar Wilde said that only very superficial people do not judge by appearance! Here's an example! What does my appearance tell you?

Ozerov laughed and looked Fedya from head to toe - he immediately put on his hat "Steam is the head of everything."

- Your appearance tells me that you are a lazy, sloppy and self-confident type. Fedya nodded happily. - What is your height? Meter ninety?

“Three,” said Fedya. - Meter ninety-three.

- Any form is disgusting to you.

- From what do you draw such a conclusion, Maxim Viktorovich?

- Instead of taking on a somewhat decent appearance, you still go on a business trip, and even with your superiors, and even to an unfamiliar place! - you put on all your one hundred and ninety-three centimeters dimensionless canvas pants and a jacket, suspicious in every respect. A man in those pants and jacket is definitely not to be taken seriously, but you don't even think about it.

“I don’t think so,” Fedya confirmed, widening his chocolate eyes. “I know you take me seriously, but I don't give a damn about the rest. Meetings, dates and love chickens are not planned for the next week. So your conclusion is wrong. Wrong, colleague! ..

The founding father and “organizer of our victories” Grodzovsky called everyone “colleagues”, and Fedya was terribly pleased with such an appeal.

– But the experiment must be clean! You know me well and are therefore biased. But here are the rest of the people! What do you say about them?

- Fed, eat up and let's go.

- Wait, Maxim Viktorovich! What are you, right? Sunday is at our complete disposal, and we have already traveled a path comparable to ...

- There's a performance tonight. I want to see.

Fedya waved his hand impatiently, holding the sausage in it.

- We will have time, and you know very well about it! .. - He switched to a whisper: - There is a couple sitting there. Well, get out, get out, at that table! What can you say about them?

Ozerov glanced around involuntarily. A man and a woman, quite young, were munching on sandwiches, each looking at their phones.

“They quarreled,” Fedya said into Maxim’s ear. The trip didn't go well! Did you notice how they paid for the food? They queued together, but ordered separately, and each paid from his wallet. Sit together too! That is, they are a couple, but had a fight on the way. She must have insisted on a Sunday trip to her mother, and he was going to the bathhouse with his friends.

- Fedya, go to the bath yourself! ..

“And that blonde over there in the Ford is gluing a beaver from a BMW,” Fedya pointed behind the glass. Ozerov, interested against his will, looked into the street. She danced around her car for a very long time, as if she didn't know how to put a gun in the tank. But he didn't pay any attention. And now she asks him to fill her washer, see?

There really was an old Ford parked in the parking lot, and a young platinum-haired creature in a tiny white fur coat and a hefty man in a leather jacket that didn’t converge on his stomach, actually like a beaver, were trampling around beside him. The young creature held a canister in his hands, and the man rummaged under the hood of the old Ford, trying to lift the lid.

“In fact, she knows how to do everything herself,” Fedya Velichkovsky continued. - When the beaver was on the way, standing on the highway with a turn signal, she was already opening the lid. And immediately slammed it as soon as he turned!

Maxim looked at his screenwriter, as if seeing for the first time.

– Listen, and you, it appears, the dreamer! Maybe you'll really be a writer. Most importantly, you lie from the heart. And you won't be tested.

Why don't you check? You can come and ask! You want me to ask! Easily! By the way, Bulgakov...

- Let's go, huh? Ozerov asked almost plaintively.

- You go, and I'll just take one more sausage. Should you take it?

- You'll burst.

The sun shone with might and main, the road lay ahead, spacious and wide, rested against the shining cold horizon, there were still two hundred kilometers more to Nizhny Novgorod.

It's good, thought Fedya Velichkovsky, that it's still a long way off. Since childhood, he loved to travel “far away”.

- This is our last date. I'm leaving.

Lyalya, who was rattling pots on the shelf, froze and carefully placed a large frying pan lid on a small ladle. The cover could not resist and went.

– Romka, what did you… say?

- Lal, you understand everything. And let's not get hysterical, okay? I have a performance tonight. After the performance, I will go to my place.

- Where to yourself? Wait, - said Lyalya, groped for a stool, sat down, immediately jumped up and flopped down again, as if her legs were not holding her. – The performance, yes, I know, but… No, wait, it’s also impossible…

She was going to cook porridge - before the performance Roman ate only porridge and drank black coffee - and now the very open gas blazed and hissed, escaping from the burner. Turn it off Lyalya did not guess.

- Well, that's it, that's it, - he came up and stroked her head. - Well, you're a smart old woman! .. You understand everything. We both knew that sooner or later...

“I love you too,” Roman said, and pressed her head to him. “So we are breaking up. So much better, right!

Despite the fact that in the first second she realized that everything was over and he would leave her, he would leave today, now, she suddenly believed that she would manage. He loves her. He just said it himself.

“Romka, wait,” she asked. - You explain to me what happened? .. - And for some reason she suggested: - You stopped loving me?

He sighed. Under her cheek, his stomach growled.

“Probably never loved,” he admitted thoughtfully. - That is, I loved and still love, but not in the right way! ..

- But as?! How to?

Lyalya escaped, tears appeared in her eyes, and she began to swallow quickly, trying to swallow them all to the last.

- Lyalka, don't be hysterical! Roman shouted. Our paths must part. I figured it would be best if they parted ways right now. Why continue when it is clear that there will be no continuation?

“But why, why not?!

Grimacing, he moved away and stood up, leaning his shoulder against the door frame. Very tall, very handsome and preoccupied with the "breakup scene".

- Well ... everything, Lyalka. I'll probably go to Moscow. This metropolitan celebrity will record a performance with us, and I will leave. I can't... here anymore. - With his chin, overgrown with corsair bristles, he pointed somewhere in the direction of clocks that ticked peacefully on the wall.

The clocks were ticking, paying no attention to the catastrophe that had just shattered Lyalin's life into pieces. They didn't care.

“Don’t think that I am a vulgar!” But I'm really cramped in here. Well, what awaits me? I played Trigorin, Glumov too. Played Mr Simple. Well, who else will they give me? I'm getting old, Lala.

“You're only thirty-two,” she said to say something.

The blue gas flame, bursting the burner, hissed and danced before her eyes.

“Thirty-two already!” Already, but not all!.. Every day on TV they show boys and girls who are twenty-five, and they are stars! The whole country knows them, although they are mediocre, like ... like sheep, I see! I should have left a long time ago, ten years ago, but I dragged on. And now... I've made up my mind.

Romka, you won't leave me.

“If you loved me,” he said with annoyance, “you yourself would have sent me out a long time ago. I need to evolve or I will die. And you're just as selfish as everyone else.

Then it suddenly dawned on him what he needed to emphasize in the “separation scene” - namely, selfishness and true love. He got excited.

"You know who you're dealing with!" I am an artist, not a carpenter like your stupid neighbor! .. I must grow above myself, otherwise why? Why was I born? Why did you endure all the pain?

- What kind of pain? Lyalya asked herself quietly. She also realized that he “captured the essence of the mise-en-scène”, now he will play out and leave. And she will be left alone.

The clocks continued to tick, and the gas hissed.

Lyalina's whole life turned to dust before her eyes, and Lyalya sat and watched her turn.

- If you loved me, you would help me for real! You wouldn't give me a moment's rest! Made me want more. Fight and win!

- Romka, you always said that at home you need just peace and nothing more. That you give everything to the viewer. And I helped you! True, I tried. I always select a repertoire so that you have something to play! We even fight with Luka because of this!

Luka was sometimes called the director of the drama theater behind his back, where Lyalya worked as the head of the literary department, and Roman did not work, but “served”. He knew that great artists always "serve in the theater."

“You are a smart adult aunt,” Roman said wearily. “You couldn’t seriously assume that I would marry you!”

“I… assumed,” Lyalya confessed.

He waved his hand.

- Well, what do you want from me? .. I will not stay. I have to break out.

She nodded.

He stood still in the doorway, looking at her. He did not want to finish the mise-en-scene. It felt kind of sensible, didn't it? Weird feeling.

“Well, I’m going to the theatre,” he said at last. Don't wait for me tonight. You understand everything, my dear! ..

"Good" understood everything.

Nevertheless, she was actually a “smart aunt” and read mountains of various literature in her life. From this literature, she knew that this happens, and even quite often. Even almost always. Love ends in failure, hopes perish, dreams are crushed.

…You are no longer needed. You did everything you could for me - you picked up performances for me, looked for roles, persuaded obstinate directors. Now I have "stand on the wing", and your guardianship bothers me. I will leave - to Moscow, to New York, to the North Pole - and there I will begin a new life. It makes no sense to drag the old one along with you, and it’s boring. And here's the most important thing - I fell out of love with you.

And now it's time for me. You understand everything, my dear. How grateful I am to you.

“I am very grateful to you,” Roman muttered, not too confidently. - Things ... I later, okay?

Something rumbled on the porch, the old house shuddered as if it was still intact, as if it had just not turned to dust.

- Mistress! shouted from somewhere. - Are you at home?

Roman, who wanted to say something else, waved his hand. Lyalya sat and watched as he hastily pulled his jacket off the hook and put it on, without falling into the sleeves. The front door, upholstered in black leatherette for warmth, swung open, and, bending his head, neighbor Atamanov entered the house.

“Good,” said the neighbor. - Lyal, I made the cornices. Bring in?

“Bye,” Roman said with his lips over his shoulder. - I love you.

The door slammed. Light, liberated footsteps sounded across the porch.

- What are you like? Atamanov asked. - Your gas is sizzling! Linen, eh, going to boil?

Lyalya sat on a stool and looked at her hands. The nail polish has completely peeled off. Tomorrow she was going for a manicure. Today there can be no manicure, today Roman has a performance. He plays the main role. She must be present. He always says that her presence keeps him going. And tomorrow just right. After the performance, Romka will sleep until noon, and she will have time to run to the salon.

- Cornices, I say, made. Shall we kill now?

The neighbor pulled off his shoes one on top of the other—Roman always said that it was a plebeian habit to take off his shoes at the threshold—he went into the kitchen and turned on the gas. It immediately became quiet, as in a crypt.

Lyalya looked around, expecting to see the crypt, but she saw her own kitchen and neighbor Atamanov.

- What do you need?

- Lyal, what are you doing?

“Get out of here,” she said. - Leave now!

- And the cornices?

Pushing him out of the way, Lyalya rushed into the room, ran around it in a circle, knocked down a chair, opened the door to the bedroom, where destruction reigned - Roman always left defeat behind him. Lyalya shook her head, howled, slammed the door, jumped out into the street and ran.

She stopped at the gate and ran back. Having reached the porch, on which the utterly astonished neighbor Atamanov got out, she rushed to the gate.

- Stop! Stop who I'm talking to!..

The neighbor intercepted her when she was already pulling the latch.

- What are you? What it is?

- Let me in!..

But Atamanov was a hefty strong man. He grabbed Lyalya and carried her. She struggled, thrashed him and screamed. He dragged her into the house, slammed both doors, and said angrily:

Lyalya went into the room, sat down on the sofa and buried her face in her knees, as if her stomach ached.

- Did you quit? a neighbor asked from the corridor.

Lyalya nodded at her knees.

“Be patient,” said Atamanov.

“I can’t,” Lyalya admitted.

- Yes, what is there ...

"I can't," she repeated dully.

The neighbor huffed and sighed. Lyalya rocked back and forth.

“He is not a match for you,” said the neighbor at last.

Lala nodded again. Her face was on fire.

“You are a woman…” he searched for a word, “a decent woman. And this is some kind of remnant!

- I beg you, Georgy Alekseevich, get away from me.

- How can I leave, - the neighbor Atamanov was surprised, - when you are not yourself?

He stomped on and went out, the door slammed.

Lyalya began to howl softly, and she felt so sorry for herself, for no one needed, for an old, fat, disheveled woman who had just been abandoned by the only man in the world, that tears poured out profusely at once and flooded her palms into which she buried herself. Lyalya grabbed an embroidered hard pillow and began to wipe them with it, and they all poured and poured, flowed down the embroidery.

No one needs all this anymore - no embroidery, no pillows, no milk porridge, which she has become accustomed to cooking. And no one needs a house, and a garden. Nobody wants her life anymore. Romka said that he did not just stop loving. He never loved her the way he should. What's wrong with her? Why can't you love her right?

Lyalya did not even notice how the neighbor Atamanov appeared in the room again. She didn't see or hear anything and felt only how he pushed her in the side.

Get up and help.

Lyalya lay sideways on the sofa, pressing a pillow to her face.

“Come on, come on, what’s up!”

He dragged stools from the kitchen, placed them near the window, and again began to push Lyalya.

“I can't,” she said.

“I won’t be able to do it next time either,” Atamanov said rudely. - I have a lot to do! The frosts have come, and to this day my roses have not been covered, everyone will die. Get up!..

She had neither the strength nor the will to do anything. Shedding tears, she rose unsteadily, as if her body would not obey her, and stood in the middle of the room, her arms dangling.

The neighbor handed her a heavy cold drill, behind which a black cord was dragging, and Lyalya accepted it obediently, and he perched on a stool and said softly from above:

- Bring a newspaper, hold it so that the dust does not fly, and give me a drill.

Lyalya gave him the drill, found an old newspaper on a hanger under her coat and jackets, and climbed onto a stool. She did all this, as if watching herself from the sidelines - here is a shaggy, tear-filled, terrible woman, shuffling in slippers, goes into the corridor, bends down, fumbles, then, hunched over, carries a newspaper, as if she had a heavy load in her hand.

- Hold it straight, do not shake your hands.

The drill squealed, the wall vibrated, small yellow sawdust fell on the newspaper. She screamed for quite some time.

“It’s not necessary,” Lyalya said, and she didn’t hear herself because of the squeal, “nobody needs it anymore.

But neighbor Atamanov somehow heard everything and stopped the drill.

- Not necessary! He shook his head. - How is it not necessary? So you will sit without curtains all winter, an eyesore to passers-by?

- What's the difference now?

- You, Olga, are still young, and therefore I cannot judge you strictly. The desire to worry, you worry, cry, but keep it in your head: he left, and thank God! ..

- Why? Lyalya asked him. Why did he leave? What did I do wrong? I tried! I am everything for him! .. Every day I ...

- Yes, what are you doing here? - and Atamanov again sharpened his drill at the wall. - How sensitive you all are, women, where you shouldn't be! He didn't leave you, he left at all! He will leave the next one, and he will also leave the one that will be through one!

Lyalya sobbed, dust from the newspaper fell on the floor.

- Don't you shake! shouted the neighbor. Who will wash the floors? You yourself will be!

Lyalya obediently stopped sobbing and only sobbed convulsively.

The neighbor drilled a little more and again stopped the drill.

“You are very greedy for beauty,” he continued with annoyance. - The more beautiful the little man, the better, it turns out. And beyond the facade, you don't see anything, just like chickens. Your artist is nobody, nothing! No chores, no housework. Where have you seen it - with a normal man with legs and arms, you go to the neighbors, then fix the porch, then the frames fell out, then the stairs slanted! ..

Lyalya was suddenly offended:

“I won’t ask you for anything more.

- Yes, you at least ask, at least don’t ask, I have eyes! .. What is the use of him, from the artist ?! Here you tell me! No, you say! He gives a performance - I agree, I went to the theater, I saw it. What will he do in life? You are both in the housework and in the garden, although the woman herself is cultured and educated. What is he? No matter how you come in, he lies on the sofa, and even in some kind of dressing gown, like a Turk! Or watching TV. What did he not see there, on TV?!

Yegor, you don't understand anything.

- You don't understand anything! Give you beauty! He has curls, become, a voice like Chaliapin's! He whispers on stage, but you can hear it in the back row. I was in the theater, I heard! Well, you left, left the theater, and then what? Take care of him, feed him, water him, please him. You pleased him for a year, another went. How long to?! Hold the newspaper more evenly, I overslept everything!

And the drill screeched again.

- He is a creative person, - Lialya spoke passionately, as soon as the screeching stopped, - very talented! It cannot be adapted to the economy, so what?! But with him so interesting! He has his own opinion on everything, he ...

“I also have my own opinion on everything,” the neighbor interrupted. - And the creative ones are now divorced, like mangy dogs! Wherever you look, creativity is everywhere! He sings in karaoke - creative, which means that the hopaka dances, also creative, he folds figures from paper or knits from threads, there too, creative! My late grandmother Akulina and every single neighbor of her current creative would give a hundred points ahead - they sang, and danced, and knitted, and weaved lace! and plowed, and sowed, and kept cattle! Another thing - they did not represent on stage!

He squealed a little more with a drill and continued:

- This is what I'm saying to that, a rubbish person is rubbish, and whether he is creative or not creative is the tenth thing!

Lyalya, who never thought that her Roman was a "rude person", began to shout that Atamanov did not understand anything in life, that his standards were long outdated, that now her life was over, and there would be no new one, she loved so much, But it turns out he didn't like it at all!

The neighbor listened while continuing to work. Several times she got down from the stool and carried away the newspaper with a mound of yellow dust, carefully pouring it into a bucket. Her tears, large and hot, dripped onto the newspaper. She came back, climbed in again, and everything repeated.

In an hour and a half they hung the cornices, Lyalya did not stop for a second, she kept talking.

Then the neighbor wound up a rubber cord and told her to follow him - he will cover the roses, you need to keep the net there. Lyalya put on a jacket and boots and dragged herself out into the street. It was cold and dark already with might and main, icy green stars were trembling at the edge of the sky. Lyalya's hands were very cold, especially from metal mesh, which she held, she did not think to put on gloves.

Lyalya spoke without stopping, and caught herself only when Atamanov, having adjusted the last box, began to pick up tools from the ground.

“God, what time is it?” Spectacle! I'm too late! All because of you, Yegor! ..

He pulled up the sleeve at his wrist and looked, bringing the watch almost up to his nose.

- No, I'm not late! Seventh hour.

- How?! I still have to get together! Yes, what is it!..

And she ran down the path.

- Stop, stop! Atamanov shouted after him. – Don’t fuss, I’ll give you a ride in a car! It's five minutes away! Well, seven!

Lila waved her hand at him.

She has never been late for a performance in which Roman played, and now she will be late, and this will mean that everything is over. Indeed and forever. And neither correct, nor change, nor return back.

Damn that neighbor! Damn him with his homegrown philosophy and roses!

Well, who, who, looking at night, covers roses ?!

Going to the theater, preening, evaluating yourself in the mirror, stamping your foot - every time as a premonition of the New Year. When Vasilisa was little, she was very afraid that something like that would happen, because of which New Year will have to… cancel. Some kind of misfortune: a meteorite will fall or a tsunami will fly. She was not at all worried about the consequences of the misfortune, the death of civilization there or the split of the planet, but she was worried that the New Year would be cancelled. The fact that there are no tsunamis and earthquakes on the Volga was also not of much interest to her. She was simply very afraid that the holiday, so longed for, so close, the best, would never come.

Now she looked forward to every trip to the theater with the same enthusiastic fear. She was afraid that he would not happen, and she knew that everything would be fine, and she hoped and dreamed.

- What an admirer of the theater, - snorted the grandmother, - look at her! Just Tatyana Doronina!

Vasilisa passionately explained to her grandmother that there is nothing higher than theatrical art in the world - only there living people every time live tragedies and dramas in a new way, and sometimes even comedies. Only on the stage, emotions and passions are concentrated to such an extent that sometimes lightning flashes in the auditorium! .. And she, Vasilisa, simply feels currents, or flows, or even whirlwinds.

Grandmother listened, making an ironic face.

– Do you always feel the whirlwinds or only when on stage is he? she invariably inquired at the end of her granddaughter's monologue. “He” was always pronounced with a breath and delight.

- Grandma-ah! - Shouted, becoming crimson, Vasilisa. - Well, how can you?

Grandma always gave up and admitted for him if not a genius, then certainly a talent, a talent, one might say. A couple of times, Vasilisa, having asked the administrator Eduard Sergeevich for freebies, brought her grandmother to performances where is he shone in the lead role. Grandmother looked at the stage attentively, not taking her eyes off, and Vasilisa surreptitiously threw lightning glances at her, she was still afraid to notice irony on her face. But my grandmother was very serious. True, after the performance his she did not evaluate the game in any way, she only said that the performance was good, and the actors and the director, apparently, did their best. Vasilisa pestered, begged for praise more ... essential, bright, especially for him but could not be asked.

“Let’s wait for retirement,” my grandmother said, standing in line at the wardrobe, “and we’ll go again!” When I was young, I loved theatrical buffets very much, I loved them so much! .. There is always special chocolate, I don’t know what’s the matter. And sandwiches without fail with white fish. And soda!

Vasilisa languished - she was not interested in sandwiches and soda, she wanted to talk only about German, and his game, oh his finds.

Grandmother gave up, and all the way home they talked about the game and the finds. They went, as a rule, on foot, it was necessary to climb up the hill to the Kremlin. In the middle of the way, my grandmother began to choke - her heart had been hurting hopelessly for a long time. Vasilisa knew that a little more, a little more, before that shop, and she would have to sit her grandmother down, grab nitroglycerin from her reticule, shake a tiny pill into her palm and wait, hoping with all her might that she would "let go." Each time it let go differently, sometimes immediately, and sometimes they sat on the bench for a long time, and the grandmother repeated everything to her soothingly:

"Nothing, nothing, it'll be fine."

She and Vasilisa were waiting for some kind of "quota" for the operation. Without a “quota”, the operation cost incredible money, and there were none, even conceivable.

Vasilisa studied at the philological faculty - mostly in fits and starts, somehow. Not so much studying as looking for where and how to earn money. She collaborated in the newspaper "Volzhanin", wrote notes in the sections " Cultural life” and “Leisure”. They paid depressingly little for them, but she had the opportunity to go to performances, exhibitions and movie premieres for free. She tried to work as a waitress - it was much more satisfying there, but after the shift she was so tired that she could not sleep, her legs and arms were buzzing, it was impossible to settle down. In addition, once drunken brothers fought in a restaurant - with shooting and stabbing - the plot was shown in the criminal chronicle, the grandmother saw and was frightened so that she landed in the cardiology department for two weeks. Vasilisa had to leave the restaurant. And then she found the theater and his!

His she saw in the role of Alexei Turbin, and everything was gone. As if her eyes were suddenly opened. She began to run to every performance, and then to rehearsals, she was allowed in with an editorial certificate from the Volzhanin newspaper. Pressing her fist to her lips, she looked at the stage, and her eyes burned. Only in the theater nothing mattered: neither grandmother's illness, nor the expectation of a "quota", nor lack of money, nor the future, which they both feared. Only there was life - beautiful precisely because it was invented, not real, and if it was not real, then it was not so frightening.

And is he!.. He was the best.

When is he he said, gasping for breath, on the stage: “You won’t refuse to accept this ... I want the one who saved my life to have at least something in memory of me ... this is the bracelet of my deceased mother ...”, Vasilisa also began to choke, tears poured from her eyes by themselves, and she not only felt, she was the woman to whom Aleksei Turbin brought the bracelet of his dead mother, she disappeared in the besieged city, every minute she was afraid of the Petliurists and the Germans, she passionately pitied Turbin and still lied to him! ..

Vasilisa got a job in the theater as an assistant dresser. They paid her even less than in Volzhanin, but she got the opportunity to iron his suits. They always smelled especially, bitter and tender, and Vasilisa, burying her nose in her uniform or velvet camisole, kept imagining, imagining...

In the theater about German there were dirty rumors that he was sleeping with the head of the literary department, Vershinina, a strange middle-aged lady who wore shawls and long unkempt skirts; takes care of the director's daughter, an aspiring actress, utterly pretty; drinks, does not pay debts ... Vasilisa did not listen to anything and did not believe anything. Of course, when such a titan lives among the pygmies - what remains for the pygmies?! Just spread rumors!

She wrote about German a few notes, all "passed", they were published, and is he said to her once in the corridor: "Thank you, dear girl." Vasilisa then could not eat or sleep for several days, every minute she rushed to the Kremlin park and there she walked alone under the lindens, worried about the “nice girl”.

She had to get another job, which she carefully concealed in the theater - mopping the floors in the fitness club "Perfection Itself". Once - Vasilisa had just changed into a green overall and pulled out her mops and brushes from the back room - Valeria Dorozhkina herself, a prima and star of the drama theater, came to the club. Vasilisa began to rush about, trying not to catch her eye, and then she realized: Valeria, like all the other clients, not only does not pay attention to the cleaning lady, not only does not notice her, but as if she does not suspect her existence at all. And - it worked! Nobody in the theatre.

Vasilisa could not stand this Dorozhkina. Firstly, Valeria came up with the idea of ​​contacting him Ramses - Roman Zemskov - and everyone picked up. Nothing special, but there was something in this opera nickname for him insulting, degrading. Secondly, Dorozhkina always talked to him mockingly, called "a sweet boy" and "a provincial heartthrob." Thirdly, she despised everyone, including the director of the theater Lukin - behind his back they called him Luka, however, more often Yurivanych, as if by his first name and patronymic, - she never greeted or said goodbye to anyone, walked past, looking over their heads, and she was condescending only to the director Verkhoventsev, a genius and celebrity, with whom she openly lived in the presence of her husband. Young artists were afraid of Dorozhkin like fire, and young artists fawned over and sought her attention - in general, it was disgusting to look at all this.

Today's performance is special - a director from the capital with his retinue should be invited to it. Part of the retinue has already arrived - a young bearded man with a plastic trunk, which contained some technical accessories - microphones, a computer, a small sound console. The bearded man, accompanied by Luka and Verkhoventsev, walked around the entire stage and the auditorium, stood here and there, then said that he would put microphones here and there, after which he immediately left, categorically refused to drink in the director's office - you can immediately see a specialist from Moscow! ..

When it became known about the radio play, there were some conflicts, skirmishes and intrigues among the artists. Everyone wanted to play for a federal radio station, although they despised the idea in advance - who needs performances on the radio in our time: no money, no fame! Nevertheless, there were hopes for some glory, and they did their job. For two weeks the theater was seething, rumors filled it, accumulated like steam, burst out. Vasilisa at dinner told her grandmother who called whom and how. Then an announcement appeared on the order board about who was playing, and passion subsided a little.

Vasilisa really wanted to see the director, who came to the theater all the way from Moscow, and she was also very rooting for Roman Zemskov, who was appointed to the main role. She was sure that the Muscovite would appreciate and feel his talent, and she was afraid in advance that he would take Roman with him, take him to " Big world" - forever and ever.

Today it was not her shift, there was nothing to iron, and she was going to the theater as a spectator - with an excited foreboding.

- You, please, - said the grandmother, when Vasilisa was about to leave, - you, please, don’t be very late. Okay, Vasenka?

Grandmother did not feel well, but she was invigorated so as not to poison her granddaughter's evening.

Vasilisa kissed her, promised that in the evening she would tell everything, and ran out into the street.

Green stars burned in the dark sky, a cold wind blew from the direction of the Volga, and Vasilisa, shivering in her skinny jacket, ran up the paving stones to the Kremlin.

She always put on a warm jacket under her jacket, but today she didn’t - to be very beautiful. A warm jacket would spoil the whole look.

Before the first call, a scandal erupted.

This sometimes happened before important premiere performances or when it was necessary to play for "special guests". It was believed that this was necessary "for the nerve", in an excited state, the artists played especially convincingly and with full dedication.

The scandal was started by Dorozhkina, who thought that her dress was put on by a "stranger".

Who did you give my things to? she squealed and threw corsets, bras and garter belts at the dresser Sofochka. Sobbing Sofochka on the fly grabbed things, put them on the ironing board. - To whom you gave, speak! Well, what are you crying, cow?!

Sixty-year-old fat and short of breath Sofochka, who adored the theater and all actresses to one, bought with her own money special starch and some special “scented” water to pour into the iron, darned “at home” these same stockings and corsets, and so skillfully that the most experienced eye could not detect the hole, was all shaking with sobs and covered with a hand. At the noise, the artists fled from the neighboring dressing rooms, the stage workers involved in today's performance crowded at the door. The bearded and stately Valery Klyukin, the husband of Valeriya Dorozhkina, also came and watched from afar with an unkind smile. According to rumors, she and Dorozhkina were “on the verge of a divorce”, and it was as if Valeria with her violent temperament were to blame for everything. The husband and namesake in the theater was listed as a decorator, and it seemed strange to everyone - a star and a decorator! However, Klyukin's article and corsair bristles looked more like a fashion producer, but still there is a misalliance. Now Klyukin was looking at his raging wife with interest and distrust.

In the end, Verkhoventsev himself appeared.

The star continued to shine.

- It stinks! - And again shoved the dress under Sofochka's nose. "Don't you feel anything?!" Tired of working? So I'll write you a pension! Get out of here!

“What are you doing, Valeria Pavlovna,” one of the artists decided. - Sofochka could not give your dress to anyone!

- Yes?! And why does it stink? Only Nikiforov cabbage soup is cracking from a can! Tell me, did you give it to Nikiforova? Or did this green creature, your helper, give?

“None… to anyone…” Sofochka hiccuped. “Nico…never…”

Roman Zemskov, leaning against the doorframe, watched in silence. Catching Klyukin's eye, he grimaced and stood up so that his backs covered him from Valeria's husband.

- What are you watching? the prima shouted, noticing Roman. - Why are you standing here? Get out, mediocrity, provincial! Are you dreaming of a career in film? Here's to you, not a career! - And she showed him a graceful figure, all consisting of thin bones. “You’re good for nothing but fucking crazy old women like our juggernaut!”

“Shut up,” Roman hissed, his cheeks slowly reddening. - Stop it now. Somebody give me some water, she's hysterical!

- Ah, hysteria! - Dorozhkina spat at Roman, put her hips on her hips and went to Sofochka. - Where is the second one? Which one do you have on your errands?

Klyukin suddenly laughed loudly, from the heart.

“Lerochka, you are overacting,” director Verkhoventsev remarked. He seemed absolutely calm, even indifferent, nevertheless he took a pipe from his breast pocket and began to light it. Smoking in the corridors is strictly prohibited.

- I?! It's all of you who are underplaying, because you are not capable. They-on-ten-you! And you are impotent! All your merits are far in the past! What are you good for, you old stump?! Just eat up for the great ones - they eat, and you collect crumbs from them! You don’t have anything of your own, you steal everything, stop! Where is the second?! - again she ran into Sofochka. - Tell me, where?

“I'm here,” Vasilisa squeaked from the back rows, dressed up for the occasion of the “special” performance in a blue silk dress. Her eyes were frightened.

Klyukin moved as if he wanted to take her hand.

- Did you give my dress to Nikiforova? Well, speak! Washer, cleaner! Go to the sports club to wash the toilets and take out the buckets, you have nothing to do in the theater! She cleans toilets, does anyone know about this?! From management? Maybe she's dragging my dresses around the toilets?!

Vasilisa took a step back and swayed as if Dorozhkina had hit her. Horror and shame filled her ears with a faint ringing. Worst of all, Roman heard about washing toilets! He heard, but seemed not to pay any attention. He was breathing heavily against the wall, looking at the prima frowningly.

"None of you are capable of anything!" The star continued to shine. Because you are nothing! And you, too, are nothing! - She caught sight of the pretty Alina Lukina, the daughter of the theater director. “Do you think your dad will push you into art?” Your dad is a dirty lecher, you understand?! Lord, how many times he hinted at me, how many times! Only me on him,” and she spat on the floor.

"That's enough," the theater director said firmly, squeezing his way over to her. - Alina, go to your dressing room. And you calm down, Valeria Pavlovna, or I will call the orderlies.

She laughed.

“You are all afraid of me, everyone! Because I'm the only one telling the truth! And you are all like beetles, up to your ears in manure! Well, tell me, tell me that you didn't call me to bed! Wasn't it?

The headmaster grimaced as if in toothache and tried to take her hand.

- Don't touch me, freak! You think I don't know what you're doing to me behind my back?! With this bedding of yours, Lyalechka! .. She deliberately chooses the repertoire so that I don’t get anything, but only him, this mediocrity!

- It is not true! Lyalya shouted out of breath. She just ran into the office and landed right at the epicenter of the eruption. – Why do you say that?!

- Then what do I know! And you try in vain, he will leave you anyway! Bro-osit! He has been playing with the director's daughter for a long time! I saw it with my own eyes! You are an old, useless nag!

Here the artists and employees moved at once and screamed with sweet horror and indignation. The director and director looked at each other. Verkhoventsev neatly hid the still unlit pipe in his breast pocket, and they took the star under their elbows on both sides.

- Sofochka, ice water from the buffet, quickly!

- Don't touch me, put your paws away! yelled Valeria.

- Yes, she's gone crazy, Lord, damn hysterical!

- Guys, now the first call will be given!

- Sophie, quickly! ..

- I'll slap her, and that's it!

- How are we going to play?

Sofochka, completely red, wiping herself with both hands, trotted heavily along the corridor - everyone made way for her and averted their eyes - and found herself face to face with a tall type, no one saw when he entered from the stairs. The type was completely unfamiliar and out of town in the theater corridor - in an open red tourist jacket and heavy boots. Behind him loomed another, also unfamiliar.

“Hello,” said the first type to Sofochka, frozen in front of him like a jelly seized by a sudden frost. She blinked in confusion, not knowing which side to go around him, he occupied the entire corridor.

From under his brows, he glanced at the crowd with lightning speed, made some decision, took his hand out of his pocket and held it out to Sofochka:

Either a sigh or a groan went through the crowd.

“I finished the game,” Verkhoventsev hissed through his teeth and unceremoniously pushed Dorozhkina towards the dressing room. She suddenly took too big a step and almost fell. - Gentlemen, hypocrites, everyone in their places, in five minutes the first call!

The director of the theater waved his hands in the manner of a hostess driving chickens from the yard into the chicken coop. The performers moved randomly.

- Hello, hello, Maxim Viktorovich, my last name is Lukin, we are on the phone, if you remember ...

“You will pay me for this,” Roman Zemskov said loudly to the star, went out onto the platform and banged the door. The old chandeliers on the ceiling, not washed for a long time, shuddered.

“Later, later we’ll figure it out,” the director cackled, “kids, all in their places, in their places, my dears!”

"Relatives" dispersed reluctantly, looked around and were indignant at various voices. Valery Klyukin wanted to go after his wife, but changed his mind and disappeared somewhere.

“It’s fun here with you,” the capital director said loudly. - Do you have fun before every performance?

- Only in front of some, - the artist Nikiforova responded in a vindictive voice, offended by "soup from the can", - when we are waiting for important guests! ..

“Later, everything later!” Lukin went on clucking.

Director Verkhoventsev shook Ozerov's hand and pointed with his eyes at the artists, as if inviting him to be an accomplice:

- Fine tuning, nervous nature, you understand.

“I am also a nervous person,” said Ozerov. I would like to see the performance and now I am nervous that I will be late. Am I late?

“How can you be late when everyone is… here!” We have opened the director's box for you, it is for the most honored guests. Alina, girl, go to your room, we'll discuss everything later.

“Dad, you should fire her. Right now!

- Alinochka, we will decide everything. You, most importantly, do not pay attention!

“Yes,” said Ozerov. - This is a gentleman by the name of Velichkovsky, named Fedor, he is my ... screenwriter and assistant. Fedya, where are you?

The two-meter okhlamon, who was watching the action from behind Ozerov, stepped forward and dangled with his whole body - he bowed to the audience.

Impossibly pretty Alina Lukina instantly measured the assistant with her eyes, the artist Nikiforova assessed him with a short glance over her shoulder, even the inopportunely raging prima flashed at the door of her dressing room - looked with one eye.

- And this is our head of the literary department, Olga Mikhailovna Vershinina.

Lyalya, whose hands were shaking badly, just nodded. She didn’t have the strength to meet visitors properly. She thought about what Romka was going through at his door, probably even crying - he was sensitive, like a child - and she could not come in and comfort him.

Has no right.

He fell out of love with her, and maybe never loved her.

- Lyalechka, escort the guests to the box, and we ... will come soon.

Lyalya was sure that the director and the main director would now run head to head to the office, take an open bottle of Armenian cognac from the safe and gulp down half a glass of grief!

- Come with me.

She did not remember their names, these Moscow ones, neither one nor the second! ..

“Are we going straight in outerwear?” the assistant and screenwriter inquired, and pulled off his shoulders a wild green jacket with a lion's face on the back. It must be customary for the capital to dress like this in the theater.

“You can leave your clothes in the waiting room,” Lyalya said hostilely, thinking only of Romka. - I will show.

On the semi-dark narrow stairs loomed the neighbor Atamanov, whom she completely forgot about as soon as she heard the noise in the corridor! She heard a noise, pulled off her handkerchief and rushed away, but he remained on the stairs. A neighbor brought her to the theater - and nothing, they had time, they had time for the scandal itself! - and did not leave, but for some reason dragged after her.

- Georgy Alekseevich, what are you doing here? Go home, I won't be soon.

- Nothing, I'll wait.

- Where will you wait? No need!

The capital director put his hand to the neighbor:

– Do you want to join us in the box for especially honored guests?

Lyalya woke up:

- Why, don't! .. Yes, it's just my neighbor!

- Georgy Atamanov, - he introduced himself. - Why, you can go to the box. I have never been to the lodge.

- That's fine. The friend doesn't mind.

“Yegor,” Lyalya said menacingly, who had quite enough adventures for this evening, “go home, I beg you.”

- Maxim Viktorovich, give me a down jacket, I'll take it right away. And you, comrade neighbor! Fedya suggested.

- You don't know where! Lyalya perked up.

- And there is a door, it is written - reception. Maybe there?

And Fedya Velichkovsky, taking his jackets in an armful and smiling sweetly, trotted sideways through the door.

Also an artist, Lyalya thought with hatred.

- He'll catch up.

Catch up so catch up! It was easy to get lost in the old theater building, but Lyalya had neither the strength nor the emotions for ... politeness. And the neighbor sniffs and stomps behind his back. This is how he expresses sympathy, does not want to leave the abandoned Lyalya with his care, damn him at all! ..

In the dimly lit reception room, Fedya piled the jackets on a hanger - the down jacket immediately fell off, he bent down and picked it up. Strange noises came from behind an antique closet with linen curtains, and he looked behind it.

A girl in an absurd shiny dress wept bitterly, her shoulders trembled, the knot of dark hair on the back of her head quivered.

“Hello,” said Fedya Velichkovsky. “Is that you, Cousin Betsy?”

The girl stopped sobbing, looked at him and quickly wiped her eyes.

“I beg your pardon,” Fedya apologized gallantly. He definitely did not know how to console the girls crying behind the closet. - Did I interfere?

“I… just like that,” the girl murmured. - I am already leaving.

- Did you have any misfortune?

She looked at him.

“Fyodor,” the okhlamon introduced himself. - A terrible mistake, terrible! .. Was misled. I was assured that today they will present a comedy, but it turns out they are giving a drama!

The girl blinked. Quite stupid, Fyodor thought with sympathy.

Fumbling in the knee pocket of his oversized canvas trousers, he pulled out a bag of tissues and handed them to her. The girl took a napkin and crumpled it.

Are you a dramatic artist?

The girl seemed to be scared.

- No, what are you! .. I am ... an assistant dresser. I actually study, but here I work part-time.

Having said about the dresser, she suddenly, as if anew, saw the scandal, the angry Dorozhkina and the sobbing unfortunate Sofochka. We must find her now. Find and soothe! Although how can you console me? .. Nothing, nothing will help! ..

She wiped her nose with a napkin, stood up and straightened the wrinkled hem. Fedya stepped aside.

- to see you off?

This made her even more frightened.

- Oh, no, don't!

“As you please, Cousin Betsy,” he followed her out onto the stairs and turned his head in different directions.

So far, he really liked it. I even liked the performance in the corridor, although Fedya was a principled opponent of all scandals and hysterics, especially public ones! .. Father always said that there is nothing worse than hysterical women and neurasthenic men. Fedya agreed with him completely.

But here is a theater, a special world. Maxim Viktorovich buzzed his ears about this “speciality” when he wrote his first script.

- You let the artists play, give! .. An artist lives only when he plays. What is this replica? Why does he say yes? What is this "yes", it is completely incomprehensible! This is a radio play, they are not visible, they must do everything with voices, intonation, and not with their faces! Here is and write so, to they did.

And in the “special world”, it must be supposed to swear and call names in public, and even before the very performance. It might be interesting - a picture of manners.

Again - a theory! .. Fedya was a lover of various kinds of theories. According to his theory, the original picture should be recreated “from the contrary”, that is, from the result, from the final to the beginning! Let's look, listen, observe and establish exactly how it all began.

Very entertaining. Although a little sorry for the unfortunate "Cousin Betsy." So he never asked her name.

Fedya rubbed his hands as if from a frost, looked around in the corridor, ran slightly, jumped up so as to reach the ceiling not with his palm, but with his elbow, almost did not reach it, and then went on sedately.

He got lost very quickly, came to a dead end, returned, went up the stairs, went down, decided to ask for directions, but there was no one.

After wandering for some time, he reached a luxurious walnut door, slightly ajar. Every other door he came across was shabby and locked.

“Keep in mind,” they said loudly outside the door, “I won’t leave this business like that.” Well, my patience has run out! And do not persuade me!

The interlocutor answered something, but Fedya did not catch what it was.

- We are a regional theater, not an animal circus! Let him leave, leave, let him drown himself in the Volga, I don't care!

Fedya understood that he was eavesdropping, and eavesdropping was not good, but he could not help himself.

- Yes, I do not care about all the considerations! It is necessary to exterminate, burn it with a red-hot iron, so that it would be disgraceful to no one! ..

After the “red-hot iron”, Fedya realized: it’s not worth knocking and asking how to get into the director’s box, especially since a bell suddenly hit with a hard aluminum sound overhead - one, two, three! ..

Fedya rushed in the other direction, hit the stairs again, went down again and fell out into the brightly lit empty foyer. A stern usher in a tight gray suit looked suspicious.

Fedya asked where the director's box was, and the ticket attendant asked where his ticket was, explanations and altercations followed, and meanwhile the light slowly went out, as if the candles had been blown out.

He ran into the box when the artists had already entered the stage. A strict usher hurried after him, so that in case of a misunderstanding, he would be immediately expelled.

Ozerov looked around and whispered irritably:

- Where are you walking?..

“He was caught breaking in without a ticket,” Fedya whispered in response, quickly sitting down, “and was escorted here.

The ticket attendant silently disappeared, Maxim Viktorovich waved his hand - be silent, they say.

Fedya stared at the stage. The scenery was rich and beautiful, no chairs hanging on the grate and panels waving in the air, symbolizing, as a rule, the inner restlessness of the hero.

A handsome man with tight curls - in the corridor he told a hysterical lady that she would pay for everything - he explained to the same lady in passionate love. His eyes burned, his voice trembled, his hands trembled too - every detail was visible from the director's box. The lady looked at him steadily, as if a string was being pulled tighter and tighter between them.

Nobody in the hall dared to move.

Even Ozerov leaned forward, rested his elbows on the velvet parapet, rested his chin in his hands, and froze.

Fedya did not catch the moment when he stopped listening to the text and looking at the play of the artists, but began to live one life with them, and at what moment it became important for him that she would certainly stay with him so that all contradictions would be resolved, because it is quite clear that a friend without friend, these two will die! ..

When the light suddenly flashed and the curtain went down, he did not understand anything.

“The great power of art,” Ozerov said with pleasure, laughed and stretched. - What did I tell you? It's not just a good theatre, it's a great theatre! And the team is great. You and I will record a masterpiece, Fedya, you'll see! Well? To the buffet?

What about intermission? Velichkovsky asked stupidly.

- He is! Come with us to the buffet, George! We are off the road, we really want to eat. Only we need to quickly, otherwise the director will come for us now, and there will be no buffet for us, but there will be only continuous conversations.

- Yes, you can go to the buffet, - their unexpected neighbor agreed. - Why not go?

There was no crowding in the buffet, but deft Ozerov pulled Fedya out of the crowd by the hand, who began to look at photographs of the artists, put him in line, and he himself found a free table behind the column.

- What to take? the neighbor asked. - Cognac?

- Sandwiches, water, well, and some juice.

All around, an elegant, very theatrical crowd was noisy and talking. Some of the ladies had bouquets in their hands. They discussed the performance and praised the artists and the production.

Ozerov listened.

Fedya appeared. Inexplicably, he brought three plates of sandwiches and cakes at once.

“Almond,” he said. - The Bolshoi Theater has the most delicious almond cakes in the world! And in the Conservatory there is tarragon. Nowhere is there such tarragon as in the Conservatory. When my parents took me to the symphonic fairy tale “Peter and the Wolf”, I still couldn’t wait for the break and drank five glasses at once! .. I took it here too, maybe nothing?

And he took from his pants pocket a tiny bottle of green liquid. George pushed his way to a table behind a column. He brought more sandwiches, bottled water, and two glasses that smelled sharp and delicious.

“This is for you,” he announced. - For cognac, with the arrival. I would drink myself, but I can’t, driving!

They chewed sandwiches with pleasure and talked to Georgy as if they were an old friend.

- Yes, what kind of theatergoer am I, - he said. - While my wife was alive, she dragged me here, I even liked it. We have a good theater, not some backward one! And then ... I didn’t go anymore. Although Lyalya, Olga Mikhailovna Vershinina, my neighbor, she is in charge of literature here, she got me extra marks. But the director ... What is he doing?

“Yes, actually, it doesn’t do anything,” answered Maxim. - He sits on a chair, prevents the artists from playing and criticizes everyone.

Yes, I'm serious!

- So I'm serious and explain!

“Wait, Maxim Viktorovich,” Fedya entered, alarmed that Georgy would take everything at face value, “how does he not do anything? The director does the whole show. How the artists stand, where they go, what they say, it's all the director comes up with.

“But isn’t it in the play?”

They managed to eat and drink everything, but they did not give a call. There must be long intermissions here.

The three of them returned to the box, sat down and talked a little more.

The hall gradually filled up, an even rumble rose from the stalls and mezzanine to the balconies, which were also full.

There was no call.

Gradually, the noise died down and an alarming semi-silence was established, the audience did not understand what was happening.

When the noise began to rise again, the director came out through a slit in the curtain. Maxim did not even immediately recognize him - in the light of the footlight he seemed yellowish-pale and very small.

The director announced to the astonished audience that an accident had happened and the performance was cancelled.

Tickets will be refunded, please contact the box office.

Ozerov looked out the window, behind which the snow was falling. The blizzard came at night, and in the morning it turned out that the hill, on which the windows of his room overlooked, was covered with snow so that I wanted to move off it on my ass. Frosty dampness wafted from the open window. Now is the time to draw back the curtains, lie down on the sofa, cover yourself with a blanket and watch the snow fly. Watch for a long time, without stopping, and feel how it starts to snow in your head, and soon it will close everything, both good and bad, and there will be only one thing left - to wait for spring.

Covering himself with a blanket and lying around until spring was by no means impossible, and Maxim forced himself to get dressed and go down for breakfast.

He breakfasted languidly and joylessly, almost completely alone. All the business travelers had already gone on business, and there were no other guests in the hotel. Then Fedor Velichkovsky appeared.

Along with him came curiosity, impatience and hunting passion.

Fedya ran around the buffet counter, put two slices of bread into the toaster, thought for a moment and put two more. He poured water from the decanter into a glass, drank it, poured more, thought, took the decanter and dragged it to the table.

- Would you like something, Maxim Viktorovich?

Why are you wearing a hood?

- BUT! Fedya threw back the hood of his blue sweatshirt. His hair stuck out in all directions. - So this is for conspiracy, boss! So that no one guesses!

- I want cheese.

- Melted or something like that?

- Ordinary.

On Fedya's own plate dangled lettuce leaves, two transparent slices of ham, and a mountain of toasted bread. Two slices of Ozerov's ham cheered him up.

He brought cheese separately, and a lot - a small mound of cheese.

“I want tea,” said Fedya. - I never drink coffee in the morning, Maxim Viktorovich! Only good old English tea! Girl, girl, can I have some tea? Only not a cup, but a teapot! And it is possible, so that not a package, but pour normal tea leaves?

“Well, you are a gourmet,” Ozerov stated with a smile.

“I can't help myself. Nothing! I tried, tried very hard, but changing yourself is much more difficult than it seems!

He smeared butter on a piece of toasted bread, spooned some strawberry jam on top of it with a spoon – quite a bit – admired it and took a bite.

"Didn't you suffer from insomnia, boss?" he asked with his mouth full. Maxim shook his head.

... Now what to do? Leave? Transfer record? It is unlikely that the troupe will return to working condition and they will be able to record the performance.

- Fedya, you fantasize, but within the framework of reality. What makes you think that he was killed? Nothing was clear yesterday.

“Everything is clear as day,” Fedya Velichkovsky declared, chewing deliciously toasted bread. Ozerov also immediately wanted bread. “This is pure murder. We saw a quarrel. We heard screams. We were at the epicenter of the drama. Everything according to my theory - we were present at the end of the story, and we can only restore the events and understand how it all began.

– Why do we need to restore the events, Fedya?

- What do you mean why? To understand the origins! You are the director, Maxim Viktorovich! You are the director and I am the screenwriter! Before our eyes, well, almost ours, a real tragedy broke out, and what, we won’t even make an attempt to penetrate to its origins?

“Yes,” Ozerov agreed. - Tragedy. And your grandiloquent irony is inappropriate.

“What are you talking about, chief,” Fedya muttered after a pause. - It's just me. Sorry.

... During the intermission, the artist Valeria Dorozhkina always remains in her dressing room, and no one comes to her. Just before the curtain is given, a glass of lukewarm sweet tea with lemon is placed on the table for her to take a sip of "lukewarm" as soon as the intermission begins. Yesterday everything was exactly the same. The costume designer Sofochka, unhappy to the depths of her soul, saw with her own eyes how Valeria entered and closed the door behind her. True, she did not come straight from the stage, on the way she lingered somewhere, but not too much, only for three or four minutes. And she didn’t go out anymore, even when the minute readiness was announced on the internal radio. Sofochka watched from the dressing room and was terribly worried - not for herself, of course, for the actress, whom she had so upset just before the performance! Valeria still did not appear, and after much torment Sofochka decided to knock. No one opened, and she pulled the door. Oddly enough, the door was locked. Frightened Sofochka raised a fuss, they ran after the director.

The dead Verkhoventsev lay in the middle of his office, throwing back one arm and pressing the other to his chest, as if showing the actor how to read a monologue. His briefcase was lying on the floor nearby, papers had come out of it, and on the table were a bottle and two glasses of cognac. One empty, the other almost untouched.

They began to call the ambulance, look for the director, an unimaginable commotion arose, someone rushed to the radio room to warn them not to give a call. Sofochka felt so bad that she could only mumble and point somewhere in the corridor. Finally, Vasilisa guessed that the dresser was trying to explain something important. "What, what, Sofochka?" “Lera,” the costume designer finally said.

The dressing room door could not be opened. They sent for a locksmith, but where does a locksmith come from in the theater in the evening ?! Helped neighbor Lyalya Vershinina, who ran backstage after the director announced the misfortune. A neighbor brought a box of tools from the car and cracked the lock in no time. Dorozhkina was lying on the couch, stretched out, next to her on the carpet lay an empty glass and a slice of lemon that had rolled out of it. In the first second, everyone decided that she, too ... had died. However, the Moscow guest Ozerov fearlessly felt her pulse, said that she was alive, and demanded ammonia. Vasilisa rushed over and brought a liter bottle from the dressing room - they sprinkled ammonia on the trousers so that they would not shine after ironing. Ozerov put a piece of cotton wool under Valeria's nose, she shook her head, pushed his hand away and began to cough violently.

It all looked like a scene from a play.

Maybe that's why Fedya Velichkovsky believed ... not completely.

Who do you think killed him and why?

We don't even know why he died. Maybe he had a heart attack?

- But yesterday everyone said that he had never been sick with anything!

- Fedya, your parents are doctors. You know very well that anything can happen at any moment.

“It is precisely because my mother and father are working in the field of medicine,” Fedya began, regaining his former tone, “that I say that Verkhoventsev died a violent death!” My parents always say that a person is a very reliable construction. For no reason at all, she can go to the next world, of course, but this is unlikely.

- Who is she?

“Construction,” Fedya explained without batting an eyelid. “Do you think they will… as they say… take statements from us?”

“What can be taken from us if we haven’t seen anything?”

I don't know about you, but I've seen a lot! I saw how everyone quarreled before the performance. There was just no smoke coming from them! I heard how this handsome man, how is it? ..

- Roman Zemskov. He should play the main role in our play.

- As this Roman said that he would take revenge on the beautiful Valeria.

- He didn't say that.

- But that's the point! They definitely put something in her tea! Maybe the lethal dose was intended not for Verkhoventsev, but for her, but somehow he accidentally drank it.

- And she? What did she drink then?

Fedya shrugged. For some reason, he poured tea in a saucer and now held it with all five fingers under the bottom and blew, squinting his eyes.

“There can be any number of explanations, boss!” Verkhoventsev could visit her during the intermission or before the intermission and drink her tea, and then she only finished the rest. Or… or they drank something together, and it wasn't her tea at all, but he drank more than she did! Therefore, he died, and Valeria only got poisoned. Plus, cognac! He had a bottle and two glasses on the table in his office. I wonder if they have fingerprints on them? Someone drank with him and poisoned him! Any theater is not only a temple of art, it is always and always a hornet's nest!

Ozerov looked at him.

“Of course, there are all sorts of emergencies in theaters,” he drawled thoughtfully, “but I have never heard colleagues poison each other to death.

“Even if Verkhoventsev died… on his own, Valeria was definitely poisoned. And Roman, just before the performance, said that he would take revenge on her.

“So you mean it was Roman who put the poison in her tea.”

“I don't rule out the possibility, Chief.

– But the fat dresser Sofochka brings tea!.. The second one, the little one, said yesterday that this is a ritual and it never changes. What's her name, little one?

“Cousin Betsy, I think.

Ozerov waved his hand.

“We won’t do the job now,” he said with anguish. - We must call Grodzovsky and return to Moscow. And tell Moskvitin that he was going to.

Moskvitin was a sound engineer.

"Wait, chief, we shouldn't be starting right now!" Let's go to the temple of art and the hornet's nest at the same time and orient ourselves on the spot. After all, we should only be in Moscow next Monday. Are you not curious?

Ozerov was very curious, but not to confess to this boy! ..

Maxim suddenly smiled. He is older - he quickly figured - only twelve years old, and it seems that for a lifetime. Or for several lifetimes.

Fedya finished the bread, all the cheese and all the jam, drank all the tea, looked around the table as if to check if there was anything else left, and threw a hood over his head.

- Come on, boss. Let's do a reconnaissance.

On the high hotel porch, I had to close my eyes, it was so white around. Even the river, unfrozen, wide, turned white all over, as if dark water had been powdered with snow. Cars were moving along the road, breaking up liquid snow porridge on two sides. The hill, to which the hotel nestled, was all covered up, the trees stood waist-deep in snow, and he continued to bring down.

- No, boss, well, what a beauty, you must agree! Fedya exclaimed, and Ozerov, pulling on his gloves, looked at him with pleasure. For some reason, he liked Fedya's completely inappropriate enthusiasm.

“I love winter,” Fedya continued to rant, while they, lifting their legs like a crane, made their way through the liquid porridge to the car. He constantly squelched his nose and ran into Maxim, who stopped, looking for a place where to step. - No, of course, I love summer more, but there is a special charm in winter! Snow, mud, dog cold! By the way, it has been noticed: the more disgusting the winter, the more fun holidays. The best holiday is the New Year, eh, Maxim Viktorovich?

Maxim started the engine, the wipers drove across the glass, bringing down semicircles of wet snow. Fedya climbed into the passenger seat and turned on the heater at full power.

– Do you know where to go? I don't remember anything yesterday. Up to the Kremlin, then, in my opinion, to the right. Let's turn to the world mind! - and Fedor fished out a tablet from his backpack. “He is all-powerful, and he will tell us.

- Fedya, I know the way.

- What if you turn the wrong way at the most crucial moment, and instead of the Nizhny Novgorod Drama Theater we end up in the Saratov Comedy Theater?

Ozerov drove out of the parking lot and drove along the wide, disheveled winter river, wondering if he should call the director of the theater, Lukin, and warn him. Surely that is not up to the guests of the capital now! .. Fedya poked at the tablet and exclaimed every now and then: “Stop, stop, where did you take me! .. Come back! .. Where is the route? Yes, I'm not in Lakinsk, I'm in Nizhny, why are you so stupid? Do you want to embarrass me?"

Slowly, slowly, they reached a pedestrian street, almost empty on this snowy Monday morning, and Ozerov, driving the jeep to a low stone fence, said:

- Come on, get out.

Fedya, as if nothing had happened, shoved the dishonored tablet into his backpack and got out of the car.

“We need to book a city tour,” he suddenly said. - Mom said! She in any city, wherever we come, first of all orders an excursion. My father and I are used to it! She believes that only savages come to an unfamiliar place and sit in a hotel or at work, and are not interested in anything else!

The heavy, unkempt door of the service entrance creaked open, and a watchman in a blue uniform looked at them sternly and solemnly. In front of him, large, laced notebooks were laid out on a yellow office table.

“We're going to the director,” Fedya Velichkovsky declared cheerfully, throwing back his hood. Under the hood, a felt hat “Steam is the head of everything” was found, and Ozerov realized that the solemn watchman would not let them in for anything.

Neither passports, nor Radio Russia certificates, nor verbal assurances of trustworthiness will help.

I should have called the manager right away!

No one answered the phone on any of the numbers known to Ozerov, and they would have left without salty slurping, if not for the head of the literary department. As she walked, brushing the snow off her coat and handkerchief and stamping her feet vigorously, she entered the vestibule, greeted her, and said to the watchman in a low voice:

- Uncle Vasya, these are guests from Moscow, let me through.

“Thank you,” Ozerov muttered. “We have already lost hope.

She nodded, not listening, and walked across the trampled marble floors towards the stairs that could be seen around the bend. The hem of her long skirt was splattered with mud.

- No news? Fedya asked with ardent curiosity. - Do not know?

- What's the news? muttered a pale and somewhat puffy head of the literary department under her breath. Fedya could have sworn that she had been sobbing all night. Maybe she and director Verkhoventsev had special relationship? I think that's what they call it in the plays! - What kind of attack on us, and even so unexpectedly! Poor Yuri Ivanovich. He and Verkhoventsev were not exactly friends, but they understood each other well. And this is important, very important for the theatre, when the chief director and the director act as a united front. After all, our world is very complicated, very complicated. All nervous, subtle, talented.

- And because of what yesterday the scandal happened?

“My God, but not because of anything,” said Lyalya, grimacing. - The most ordinary swara! Valeria Dorozhkina is a great craftswoman on them.

She pulled open the door and let them through.

- Yuri Ivanovich, Yuri Ivanovich! - She pronounced "Yurivanych". - They came to you!

The door from the reception room, where Cousin Betsy had sobbed behind the closet the other day, to the director's office was wide open and propped up with a figurine of a cast-iron bulldog so as not to slam shut, and behind it there was some kind of movement, as if Yurivanych was running back and forth.

- We're here for you!

The director stood near a tall bookcase and threw books out of it onto the floor. Throwing away some of it, he ran over to the table, pulled out a drawer full of papers, turned it inside out on the carpet, knelt before it and began sorting through the papers.

- Yurivanych, - Lyalya barely uttered, - you ... what ?!

- May I help? Fedya Velichkovsky leaned in. He instantly tore off his jacket from his shoulders, ran up to the director and squatted down. – What are we looking for?

Lukin glanced briefly at Fedya's benevolent and interested physiognomy, but it seems he did not notice him.

- What? What have you lost?!

“Money,” said Yuri Ivanovich, and strangely twisted his head, as if he was making an effort not to sob. - All the money is gone!

- Wait, what money? - This Ozerov asked.

The director sat sideways at the table and plucked his glasses from the bridge of his nose.

- Who are you? You to me? I can't, I'm not accepting now! Lyalya, the money was stolen!

He jumped up and ran to the bookcase - Ozerov stood aside, letting him through.

Lyalya suddenly realized, gasped and pressed the handkerchief to her mouth with both hands:

– Those?! That money, Yuri Ivanovich?

He nodded vigorously several times. Books fell to the floor with a dull thud. Ozerov understood that some new catastrophe had happened, no worse than yesterday.

- Knock Knock! May I come to you, Yuri Ivanovich?

Maxim walked to the door and carefully closed it in front of the visitor's nose.

- Come in a little later. We have a meeting.

Then he took the director by the arm, dragged him to a chair and forced him to sit down. Lukin tried to jump up.

- I'm Maxim Ozerov, I have to record a performance with you. Explain what happened.

Fedya Velichkovsky, from a dark bottle he had taken from nowhere, dripped stinking drops into a mug and topped it up with water. The director snatched the mug from him, took a sip, choked and began to cough. Lyalya deftly dug through the paper rubble.

“Money,” the headmaster coughed. His bald head turned purple. - I had money in the safe, five packs! .. Bank packs, sealed. Until yesterday, they were in place, but now ... they are gone! Gone! Maybe I shifted them?.. Yes, I did not shift them! Lyalya, dear, after all, five hundred thousand! ..

“Are you sure you didn’t translate, Yurivanych?”

- It seems not! No, why should I transfer them somewhere?!

Were they in this safe?

The director nodded sadly.

- In the furthest corner. Get out of those folders! And now it's empty! Gone, stolen! Lyalya, what are we going to do?!

Maxim came up and looked inside a large fireproof cabinet. And Fedya came up and looked. And shook the armored door back and forth.

Who else has the keys?

- What keys? Ah, the keys! I had spare houses and the main director had them, but no one else! Even Tamara Vasilievna has none. Boys, what do we do now?

Ozerov sat down at the table opposite the director and said very calmly and firmly:

Let's discuss the situation. - When he spoke so calmly and firmly, everyone obeyed him and came to their senses. - Last night, the money, five hundred thousand rubles, was in place. Do I get it right?

“Absolutely, absolutely, my dear.

- Today you came to the office, and ... what? Has the safe been broken into?

“God forbid, nothing has been broken into, the safe is in perfect order. It was locked, I opened it with these same keys, - Yuri Ivanovich pointed to a bunch that dangled in the keyhole. - I took out Bochkin's personal file, just to prepare for compiling an obituary ...

- How, Bochkin also died? Fedya was surprised from afar.

- My God, Bochkin is our main director! He tragically passed away yesterday. Vitaly Vasilievich Bochkin.

“Verkhoventsev is a pseudonym,” Lyalya explained.

From all the shocks that had happened over the past day, her legs could not hold her. She sat down on the first chair she came across, took the mug from which the director drank, and also took a few sips.

“You don’t understand, Maxim Viktorovich,” the director suddenly said, and Ozerov was surprised that Yuri Ivanovich remembered him. “You don't fully understand. This money ... is not simple, it is gold. That's how it is. They were given to me by a philanthropist, very big man in area. He is our patron. Not just passed it on, not face to face, but in public, at a meeting! ..

“This is money for roof repairs,” Lyalya explained. – Our roof is in a very bad condition, and the budget… you know what the budget of theaters is. In the spring, it began to flood us, so we saved the scenery and archives with the whole theater. They were on duty at night.

- All summer they were looking for money, bowing, asking. It's not easy, no one gives. I'm in the mayor's office, and in the administration, - Yuri Ivanovich sadly waved his hand. - Nobody wanted to fork out! And this one ... gave! Half a million tutelka in tyutelka! We wanted to carry out the work before the snow, we started already, and then! .. The main thing, you understand, I didn’t even notice that they weren’t there. I got a personal file, and only then! ..

- If the safe is not broken, then it was opened with keys, - said Fedya Velichkovsky. He seemed to be sniffing at the thick door, then stuck his head inside. Are your spare keys in place? Houses?

- You are my dear, how do I know!

- What about director Bochkin's keys? That is, Verkhoventsev?

So they took him to the morgue yesterday. Lord, what a misfortune, what a misfortune!

“Yuri Ivanovich, we need to call in specialists,” Ozerov suggested with sympathy. - Competent authorities.

- I can’t call the organs, Maxim Viktorovich. The director began to wipe his glasses with his tie. - There's no way I can. This is a delicate matter. Our patron will not forgive. He won’t forgive anyway, and if I get the police involved! You see, he gave them to me from hand to hand. No receipts, no notes. He is such a ... special, difficult person.

- Bandit? - Fedya Velichkovsky clarified, although everything was already clear.

Yuri Ivanovich sadly put on his glasses.

“A difficult man,” he repeated. - He loves our theatre. AT work book I didn’t look at him, you know, what exactly is listed there, a bandit or a deputy! I don't know and I don't want to know. He always helps us. He is always involved! And then such disrespect, such a mess! Half a million, is it a joke! ..

“And the roof,” Lyalya interjected softly. - Just started.

“Boys, darlings,” the director suddenly started up, “you won’t say a single word to anyone!” Swear no sound!

- I swear! Fedya promised loudly, but Ozerov said nothing.

Lyalya got up and began to return the books one by one to the bookcase. By the way she put them, it was clear that the money was half a million tutelka in a tutelka! - disappeared completely, no one will ever find them, and there is no hope that Yurivanych accidentally transferred them from the safe to the bookcase.

“Maybe it was all about the money, boss?” Fedya asked. He looked into an empty aquarium with dry sand at the bottom. - What do you think? Maybe the director Bochkin, that is, Verkhoventsev, was killed only in order to get the keys to the safe from him? Kush is good!

- Why were they killed? the director asked with horror and turned to Fedya along with the chair. - How is it - killed? He just lay ... on the floor ... and there were no traces or hints even ... Maxim Viktorovich, this is impossible!

“Our Fyodor is a screenwriter,” Ozerov explained. - Specializes in detective plays.

- Staging! repeated the director, clutching his head. “A radio recording was scheduled for today, my God! ..

We won't record anything today.

- Maxim Viktorovich, you are my dear, how can we be? We just have to, we have to!

- Record a performance based on Chekhov's story "Duel"! – exhaled the director with heat. We were so prepared! We were going!

“Everyone quarreled when the composition was approved,” Lyalya put in sadly.

- That's right, that's right. We must record, if not today, then tomorrow or in three days! I beg you, Maxim Viktorovich!

“Yes, you don’t have to beg me,” Ozerov was somewhat confused.

No, no, you don't understand!

- I don't understand.

- It's all-Union radio! Well, that is, all-Russian, of course! Such a record is in some way a spit into eternity!

Ozerov widened his eyes.

– How?! Our radio performance will be broadcast on the federal air, we will remain in the State Radio Fund's record library! Lukin broke up.

- In Berlin they will represent, - Fedya stoked the heat. - At the competition "Golden Microphone"!

- Yes, yes, of course! And then - I promised. Not only to artists, but also ... to our philanthropist. I had the imprudence to firmly promise him! He is waiting for our theater to finally thunder throughout Russia. We must, we must make it happen!

Ozerov shrugged. He liked the director and evoked sympathy.

“Let's do it,” he said at last. “Actually, that’s what we came for, I just realized that it would be difficult now…

- In memory! Yuri Ivanovich shouted. - In memory of the great and untimely departed! He is a student of Lyubimov himself! Lyubimov himself staged, one might say, the hand of our late master! .. The artists will play like never before, I promise you!

Was the deceased a good director? Fedya sat astride a chair and for some reason pulled the hood of his sweatshirt over his head.

There was a silence, a very short one.

“Competent,” Lyalya was the first to answer. - Vitaly Vasilyevich was actually an experienced and professional director. He liked to quarrel with artists, and he also liked to quarrel with artists, but as far as I know, many directors do this. For example, Yuri Lyubimov ...

“Immediately after the funeral,” Yuri Ivanovich folded his hands in prayer on his chest. - We will hold it and the next day we will give a performance! Maxim Viktorovich, you are my dear, we will do just that, right?

“Good,” Ozerov agreed. - You can also try.

“Uh-uh,” breathed the director of the theater and waved at himself, like a fan, with his outstretched fives. - How difficult, my God, how difficult everything is! ..

Suddenly the door opened wide, and a draft blew against the curtains. The papers spilled on the floor rustled and crawled.

- Yuri Ivanovich, sign my dismissal!

Walking broadly and firmly, Roman Zemskov approached the table and, looking into the director's eyes, placed a piece of paper in front of him. He didn't look around.

“What a dismissal,” Lukin muttered under his breath, took the sheet of paper, put it far from his eyes, and, moving his lips, began to read the only phrase inscribed on it.

Fedya craned his neck and stopped rocking in his chair. Lyalya moved deeper behind the closet door. Ozerov crossed his legs.

- My dear, - after reading several times, began Yuri Ivanovich, - how is it possible? What are the numbers? We have ... such incidents, and you are going to give a tear?

“I don't care,” Roman said firmly. “If you don’t sign, I’ll just leave, that’s all. I will not stay a day in this almshouse!

- Yes, how can I sign when you are involved in all our performances, the entire repertoire rests on you!

- Don't care. I wanted. To your. Repertoire,” Roman said very clearly, leaning his palms on the edge of the table and moving closer to the director's nose. Are you signing, or am I leaving like that?

- Romochka, my dear, you don’t do it the same way! Not done! Who will I introduce to your roles now ?! Well, who? You know, our second director is rather weak, Vitaly Vasilyevich didn’t allow him to do anything serious, he won’t even have time to prepare anyone! Wait, dear, at least ... well, at least until the summer!

Roman Zemskov narrowed his eyes and grabbed a piece of paper from the director's hand.

“Understood,” he said. Don't say later that I didn't warn you. Happy to stay!

Ozerov, who liked Yurivanych, decided it was time to intervene.

- In what productions does the young man participate? he asked in a low voice, and removed an invisible speck from his own velvet knee.

Both the director and the rebellious artist, as if on cue, turned and stared at the director from the capital.

“My God, almost all of them,” muttered the headmaster. - And he plays in Krechinsky's Wedding, and in the White Guard, and in the Gronholm Method, and ...

"That's nice," interrupted Ozerov. - The material is great! As soon as I have a few free days, I will prepare someone from the second team. You certainly have a candidate.

Ozerov still admired his knee. The head of the literary department was completely quiet behind the door of the bookcase. Fedya Velichkovsky scratched himself.

- Yes, - as if Maxim Viktorovich suddenly remembered, - another performance for Radio Russia! Which of the promising ones would you recommend, Yuri Ivanovich? Nevertheless, the federal broadcast is a serious matter. Again, Berlin, European awards ...

“Vanechka,” the director squeezed out and looked pleadingly, “Vanechka Esaulov is a very good artist, he gives big hopes…

- Call him, Yuri Ivanovich, let him teach the texts!

- Esaulov? Roman Zemskov repeated and flared his nostrils. “Which one is Von Koren?” Or Turbine? Are you completely crazy?!

- So after all, there is nowhere to retreat, my dear! - Yuri Ivanovich shouted, apparently belatedly guessing Ozerov's director's intention. - You twisted my arms completely! I need to close the gap! Where is he with me, Vanechka Esaulov… my God… it’s embarrassing, of course, and the volumes are large, but…

- Yesaulov will not play von Koren! Zemskov yelled.

“It will, it will,” Ozerov drawled soothingly. We will help him and he will play.

Roman stood over the director for a second, as if a kite was hovering over a wild chicken, then slowly tore the statement to pieces again and again.

“Good,” he said. - I got it. But only until the New Year, you understand? And not a day more!

“Of course, of course, dear,” nodded the director. Not a day, not a second! It would have been like that for a long time, otherwise… sign the application!.. But where should I go? Yes, and Yesaulov is a good, good artist!

Roman threw scraps of the statement on the floor and left, slamming the door hard. The director sighed loudly.

“It’s fun with you,” Ozerov stated when the door closed.

- Do not think that we have a nativity scene here and no discipline, Maxim Viktorovich! After yesterday's tragic events, everyone's nerves are on edge. Artists of nature are subtle, impressionable. Zemskov is not a bad guy, a very good guy, but he is a star. Such a star, my God! ..

“Yurivanych, I’ll go,” Lyalya said dully.

- Lyalya, just don't say a word to anyone! The meeting must be held, and then there's that money!... How clumsy, how clumsy everything is!

– Introduce me to the second director. Does he know anything? Ozerov asked.

- In the know, of course, in the know! The late Vitaly Vasilyevich shifted all the routine work to him, and he is trying very, very! ..

- I'll introduce you, Yurivanych. If Igor is now in place. And I'll take Ostrovsky from you, this is my Ostrovsky.

- On the spot, Lyalechka! Such a day, everyone gathered, who will sit at home ... My God, what a disaster, what misfortunes.

In the waiting room, in front of a covered typewriter "Moskva", sat an elderly, dejected aunt.

- How is it, Lyalya? the aunt asked in a tragic half-whisper when they left. - Nothing?

Lala shrugged.

Yuri Ivanovich jumped out next:

- A tour, a tour of the theater is a must, Maxim Viktorovich! I myself was going to conduct for you and for ... young man. Here Lyalya will show you everything! And the interview must be organized! Be sure to organize! We have one girl who writes very fluently for Volzhanin! Call both Komsomolskaya Pravda and AiF, we have guests from the capital.

The head of the literary department led them into a corner room full of drafts, disheveled books, folders, and old furniture. The yellow-painted walls above were all wet with stains.

“The roof,” Lyalya explained indifferently. - Now we can't fix it. Do you want some tea?

- Do they steal from you at all? Fedya Velichkovsky asked anxiously.

Terrible, but he liked everything! ..

I liked the old theater with dimly worn staircases and round windows overlooking the snow-covered lindens and the deserted city street, then suddenly - unexpectedly! - on wide shaggy brown water. I liked the director with his captured glasses and bald head. I liked the artist Zemskov, who, in front of Fedya, gave such tours that it even became hot in the cold office! I liked the head of the literary department, dressed like an elderly gypsy, with long, disheveled, unkempt hair and a thick volume of Ostrovsky under her arm. I liked the detective play that was played right in front of his, Fedina's, eyes - the real one, in real scenery, modern, but similar to the old one.

He also really liked how the chef instantly tamed the obstinate artist! He doesn't seem to understand!

Fedya really wanted to ... investigate, sneak along dark corridors, eavesdrop on ominous conversations, draw conclusions, refute accusations and build versions. He also imagined how he would tell the whole story to his father and mother, and they would listen - very carefully and with sympathy, but making ironic faces.

He was very fond of when his parents made ironic faces.

... Where could the "Privalov millions" go?

“Fedka,” the chief suddenly said, “where did you get valocordin?”

“Huh?” Fedya was surprised.

- You dripped valocordin to the director. Where did you get it from?

Velichkovsky nodded at his backpack.

“Over there, in the side pocket. I always have valocordin, nitroglycerin, head and diarrhea medicines with me. - Here he gallantly shuffled his foot in the direction of the head of the literary department. - Pardon the prose of life, madam. Mom taught me! She believes that every cultured person should have elementary means of salvation at hand!

“Amazing,” said Ozerov.

- Who could steal the money, Lyalya ... what is your patronymic?

- Olga Mikhailovna, but everyone just calls me Lyalya. I'm used to.

- Has anything gone missing before?

She shrugged. The old electric samovar at first sniffed, and then whined subtly. Lyalya began pouring tea leaves into a teapot with red and gold flowers.

“Sometimes things go missing. Valera Dorozhkina has the most. But she also has things ... special. Dear, beautiful. At Sofochka, this is the head of the costume department, somehow the lace collar disappeared, and they were not found. But they never took the money, never! .. Nobody locks our doors, everyone's bags are wide open, and it never occurs to hide them!

Ozerov went to the window and stared at the snow, which kept falling and falling, filling the wide semicircular balcony with the peeling balustrade.

“The fact that the director had a large sum in the safe was known to the whole theater,” he said thoughtfully. – Did this philanthropist of yours hand over money to him in front of everyone? .. When was that? ..

- Oh, yes, somewhere before the start of the season. Yes, yes, there was a meeting of the troupe, we always invite him, he certainly participates. So in September.

- Until today or until yesterday, the money lay quietly in place. And suddenly they disappeared!

“Chief, according to my theory, we should move from the end to the beginning. We see results! The result is this - the director died, the star was poisoned, the money was gone. We have to simulate the initial conditions.

Ozerov nodded, not listening.

- And Roman Zemskov? Good actor? - he asked. He played great yesterday!

- He is a great artist.

Ozerov turned around:

- And all the time beats in hysterics?

- No! - Lyalya objected hotly. - No no! He is very impressionable, of course, but all artists have a mobile nervous system!

- I guess.

“He is a man of rare talent, of the rarest! He's a diamond, you know? He's subtle, smart, super-gifted! What is it like among the stupid and untalented?

“What,” Ozerov clarified, “is there really not a single gifted one anymore?”

“There is nothing comparable to him,” Lyalya said firmly.

Her eyes suddenly filled with tears. She cried for half the night and was sure that for today the tears were all over, that she would somehow endure the day in public, but it turned out that there were still many, many more! Whole lake. And the lake overflowed its banks.

Lala snorted. These two are strangers and very cold. So it seemed to her. With them, you can't, you can't! They will look at her with disgust and without any sympathy. They will laugh at her!

- I'm now, - Lyalya muttered, - just a second.

And she ran out of the office. The younger one, two meters tall and shaggy, seemed to even whistle after her.

“Chief,” muffling his bass, said the two-meter and shaggy one, when the door slammed shut, “maybe she’s with this, with Zemskov, special relationship, and not at all with the late director Verkhoventsev?

- What do you care, Fedya ?!

- I'm investigating. Why did she cry? She was crying for some reason!

“Come on, Fedya, let’s have some tea,” Ozerov suggested. - Get the cups! We got into history.

- Can you really prepare a replacement for all the performances in three days?

- Fed, are you nuts? Of course not! I have never seen a performance!

- So it was a move! – enjoying, stated Fedya. - And it worked!

Ozerov opened the cupboard—the head of the literary department, like Yurivanych, had old, heavy furniture, as if it had survived wars and revolutions—and set out the cups one by one.

The lower door opened with an old woman's creak. Maxim sat down and peered thoughtfully inside. There was nothing interesting there.

Lyalya returned, thinner and older in a few minutes in the corridor, and began to pour tea.

“Igor Podberezov, our second director, will come up now,” she said and sniffled. - I looked at him. He asks if you need a rehearsal or if you'll be recording right away.

“A rehearsal is not needed,” Ozerov said, and slammed the heavy closet door. – Recording for radio and without rehearsals is a rather difficult test. Playing in front of an empty hall is difficult and unusual. So we will rehearse right on the stage, and just read it the day before. It can be right here with you. Or where do you read? .. We must ask Yuri Ivanovich to schedule a reading for tomorrow.

- I will tell him. Yurivanych was still worried about the interview. So I'll arrange, do you mind?

- I'm not against.

- We have one girl working part-time, she writes for the newspaper, and we'll start with her.

“Chief, can I walk around the theater for a bit?” Fedya Velichkovsky asked meekly, having blown out all his tea in an instant. - I promise to behave well, not to get into skirmishes and not get involved in fights!

What other fights? Lyalya clinked her cup. We don't have any fights!

Maxim nodded, and Fedya ran out the door.

He had no definite plan, he was going to walk along the corridors, look into the wings, go on stage and look into the auditorium, if possible. He never saw the "inner life" of the theater with his own eyes, but from time to time he dragged books from his mother, she was very fond of memoirs, especially acting and directing ones. According to memoirs, the theater lives according to completely different laws, not like all other institutions. And the word "institution" is inappropriate here. According to the memoirs, the theater is a “big family”, where every now and then they quarrel, make peace, love and hate, intrigue, help, help out, whatever they do. Fedya Velichkovsky absolutely could not imagine a family of several hundred people! His own family - mother, father, brother and he, Fedya - was already quite numerous, especially if you add aunt, uncle, grandmother Shura and cousins! According to memoirs, for a real artist, parents just don’t matter, but the “theatrical family” matters. There is the highest court, there are the main awards and the main disappointments.

Fedya Velichkovsky - as an aspiring screenwriter and future writer! - I really wanted to study this phenomenon, at least superficially, from the outside.

Yes, and the detective play, replenished with new sinister details, greatly occupied him. Stealing money - that's what matters! It is well known that any crime has only three motives: love, it is also hatred and passion; money, inheritance, forged bills and all that; and an attempt to cover up a previous heinous crime.

Fedya was sure that in this detective play it was all about money.

He went up to the top floor, looking into everything. open doors, and appeared as if in front of the gates, bound by a new tin. One of the gates was open. Fedya thought and went in.

In a huge room, everything turned out to be somehow exaggerated. Too big chairs, too big lanterns, too big potted trees, everything is not real. Fedya did not immediately realize that this must be a workshop where scenery is made.

– Lost? a tall bearded man asked in a low voice as he stepped out from behind a closet. He was wiping his strong, sinewy hands with a rag.

“Probably not,” Fedya Velichkovsky admitted. - I'm on a tour. I have such an excursion - for one.

“Valery Klyukin,” the man introduced himself. - Husband of Valeria Dorozhkina. I immediately tell everyone that I am a husband, so that there are no questions.

“And what questions do I have…may I have questions?” Fedya didn't understand.

“You never know,” the bearded man shrugged. - I have such an honorary title - the husband of a star.

- I think it's a good name! Fedya said. - If you theoretically imagine that I could have a wife, I would prefer her to be a star, and not just some miserable fool.

- Well, yes, - either Valery agreed, or did not agree.

– Do you make decorations right here?

- Right here.

- What do you think could happen to the main director?

Valery threw the rag into a corner; it landed on a box in which, like cartridges in a bandolier, yellow long cans were tightly stuck.

"He's dead," said Klyukin indifferently. What else could have happened to him?

“Maybe he was killed?”

- Drop it. Who needs it?

- I don't know. But they also tried to ... kill your wife. On the same evening.

Klyukin thought a little.

“Listen, young man. I don't care about my so-called wife. We are getting divorced. I can’t and don’t want to anymore! .. She is quite alive and well, everything is fine with her. I don’t know if they tried to kill her, or she herself ...

Fedya pricked up his ears.

- What about yourself?

- Nothing! Klyukin barked unexpectedly. – You can continue your tour elsewhere. I have a lot of work.

Fedya, who had never been kicked out of nowhere in his life, smiled vaguely, muttered "thank you" and walked out of the tin-studded gate.

Strange personality this "husband of the star", very strange!

In the corridor on the second floor he met a very pretty girl. He had already seen her yesterday. It seems that she is the daughter of director Yurivanych.

“Hello,” the girl said cheerfully from afar and waved her hand at him. - You haven't left yet?

“No,” Fedya answered, and smiled too. We didn't mean to!

- And I'm playing Katya, the official's daughter, in Duel. There are only a few lines, - and the girl shrugged, - but still better than nothing! What is your name?

Velichkovsky introduced himself in all his uniform.

“Fedya is a funny name,” the girl cheered. - And I'm Alina!

“Alina,” Fedya began immediately, “have pity on me. I do not dare to demand love, perhaps for my sins, my angel, I am not worthy of love, but ...

- How?! – quite perishing laughed Alina. - So love? .. How fast you are! Do you work on radio?

“On the radio,” Velichkovsky admitted. - I also try to work on television.

- Are you an artist, Fedya?

- I'm a screenwriter. Well, also, of course, an editor, sometimes an assistant director, when necessary, a correspondent ...

- Fedechka, - Alina took his arm and pressed her strong and weighty chest a little. “Write a script for me!” The best and most beautiful! For the very first and most beautiful channel! Better yet, for a big movie! I will become a famous artist and you, too, will be a little ... glorified.

- I ... will try, - Fedya flinched a little and asked stupidity: - Do you want to act in films?

“God, who doesn’t want to act in films?!

“I don’t want to,” Fedya admitted frankly.

So you're not an artist! Although you have ... a good texture. You are handsome.

Fronder and the cynic Velichkovsky, declared handsome, thought about whether to retreat.

No, he is an experienced person! .. After all, he has one unsuccessful romance behind him and his first love in the tenth grade, which is also not very successful! He forgot a little what was the matter in this very tenth grade, but the object of his love did not seem to pay any attention to him, and the teddy bear presented for Valentine's Day was left on the classroom desk - somewhat for show. Parents, when Fedya didn’t even tell them about it, but casually mentioned it - he felt sorry for the bear, he took money for him from his mother, looked closely and chose for a long time - they said that you should not pay attention to this. If a girl does this to your bear, son, you have only one way out - do not give her any more gifts. And the scratch healed very quickly, even surprisingly. He did not want to remember the unsuccessful romance at all! There was no longer a scratch, but a bloody wound, and he was still a little afraid to disturb her.

He is an experienced person, but due to some inexplicable, ridiculous cleanliness, he was afraid and did not understand the girls who pressed their breasts in the first seconds of their acquaintance. He did not feel any pleasure or trepidation, on the contrary!.. A coldness immediately set in in his head, he pulled away, began to speak in a complicated and flowery way - in general, as a rule, after a while, to Fedya's relief, the girl began to get bored and stopped the onslaught.

…But this is another matter! Here - a detective play in the scenery of a drama theater! Maybe it makes sense to continue?

- Escort you? Fedya inquired, deciding that it made sense to continue.

The light hit my eyes, my head was buzzing, as if in a transformer box. The newscaster - outrageously buoyant for half past five in the morning - said that "the predicted warming on European territory is a little delayed and snowfall is expected." "Go to hell!" - Maxim Ozerov advised the presenter and turned off the TV.

Sasha has already left for duty. In her ability to wake up in an inescapably good mood, there was a shamanism inexplicable for Ozerov: Sashka was cheerful, light, always had breakfast with pleasure, and with her whole appearance reminded Max of a thoroughbred, businesslike dachshund, who had gathered with the owner for a fox. He himself did not know how: in order to get up, he had to start ten alarm clocks, in the mornings the burrs that had taken up during the night bled from nowhere. Ozerov froze, shuffled his feet, knocked down corners and suffered from the realization of his own imperfection and spiritual laziness. Sashka took pity on him and - if he happened to leave earlier - cooked breakfast. He always refused, and she forced him to eat.

On the table stood a lukewarm jug with the rest of the coffee and a huge antique basket with a lid, straps and a darkened brass lock. The basket was covered with a terry-cloth kitchen towel. From under the towel protruded a polished thermos and the optimistic edge of a Krakow sausage. Pinned to the basket was a piece of paper with the caption: "To go."

So, snow?.. Maxim Ozerov defiantly pulled out of the closet and looked at his red camping down jacket with a torn sleeve. Well, a down jacket, but what is it? .. If it snows, there are four hundred versts and a hook ahead, then it’s a down jacket, and not at all the smart coat that he was counting on! Predicted warming is delayed, clearly stated. That is, apparently, it should be expected by spring.

Spring! - Maxim recited in the silence of the apartment. - The first frame is exposed! And noise broke into the room! And the blessing of the nearby temple! And the voice of the people! And the sound of the wheel!

Well, at least yesterday at the service they checked the wheels - all four, - and not a single one knocks. He climbed into a down jacket, threw a backpack over his shoulder, grabbed Sashka's basket - it crunched in greeting - and went out.

Ozerov was driving his off-road vehicle from Moscow, the windshield wipers creaked strainedly, the wide tires with a hum crushed the muddy water in the rolled rut of the Volga federal highway, the headlights cut through the gray veil of snow and drizzle. Yesterday he agreed to call on the dacha for Fedya - Kratovo was on the way, but now Maxim hoped that Velichkovsky would oversleep, and then he would win back on him. After wandering around the old and very sleepy village for a while, Ozerov finally turned onto the right street.

At the gate of one of the houses loomed a stooped figure dressed in a poisonous green robe, monstrous canvas trousers and orange fur moccasins. The image was completed by a bathing felt hat pulled down over the eyes with the inscription in large ligature "Steam to everything is the head." In one hand, the figure held a backpack the size of a small house, in the other - Ozerov almost could not believe his eyes! - a bottle of champagne; black headphone wire streamed down the hoodie, which turned out to be a snowboard jacket with a lion's face on the back.

Fedya Velichkovsky didn't oversleep.

Mr Director! Why didn't you tell me? We agreed that you will call! And you? Did you fool the little girl? - Fedya, somehow stuffing his incredible backpack into the trunk, unceremoniously climbed into the basket with Sasha's supplies, sniffed the sausage appraisingly and with enthusiasm and even with some lust asked: - Do you have hard-boiled eggs and fresh cucumbers?