Birds and a Stone. Anastasia Novykh

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      Duty

      “Lord, what a dull pain! Seems like it’s not my liver, but a solid yawning wound. When will it stop torturing me? When will it all end? This hell of a cirrhosis... At such a wrong time. Dam it, the death! We’ve already been face-to-face with this rawboned friend several times. But my daughter... She is to graduate from college. Who will help her in this nasty life? No, I can’t, I simply have no right to die!.. I need to hold out for three years. I have to hold out at any cost. It’s OK, it’s nothing, I must stay firm. We shall still fight the Raw-boned for Rebrov’s body...”

      The ringing phone brought Rebrov back to the grey routine reality. “What is happening today? It was never like this before... Well, the world is really on the road to ruin. How could you leave your child alone...”

      “Major Rebrov, officer on duty, fifteenth department. Can I help you?”

      Twelve hours passed after Major had taken over his daily duty in the district department of Internal Affairs. During the latest days, the situation was very tough. A new gang was operating in the district for already three months. Within such a short period of their insolent and brutal activity, the felons already committed several robberies using firearms. People were horrified by these monsters’ barbarity. The department staff now had to collect information virtually in crumbs because the population reluctantly contacts militia.

      After a number of successful robberies, getting a taste for entire impunity, the gang flew into a passion. Its members killed a female director of a local commercial store after torturing her savagely. The murder exasperated both local inhabitants (especially those involved in business) and the law-enforcement authorities. Paradoxically, grief and despair became the very things to temporarily unite people working in spheres so differing.

      Life is life. And it includes various situations that each person evaluates from his or her own angle, according to his or her personal outlook at this very moment. Yet, there is also a certain boundary, common to all mankind, which invisibly exists in the subconscious of all people. And those who dare overstep it, not only incur others’ anger, but also destroy all the greatest valuables inside themselves, not even noticing it.

      Having performed a deed through mind weakness, one thing is then you endeavour to correct it for good and to find reconciliation, first in your inner world rather than the outer. It’s quite another matter though when you tightly close the louvers of your consciousness, this lucid window in the temple of your soul. Then precisely comes a moment when, as ancient Slavs used to say, “...a ferocious rage chills heart with its power, dims eyes with a mist of anger, and a person falls into a trap of dark thoughts which burn down his essence worse than a fierce fire. He stays all alone like a raven on a charred tree in the middle of ruins...”

      Nearly all the officers of the district department worked under pressing regime for already ten days in search of the murderers. No wonder, the staff’s nervous condition came to a breaking point. Telephone was ringing in the duty room incessantly. Its deafening sound made all present shudder each time, like a burst of thunder.

      Major Rebrov tried to answer clearly and calmly although it took him quite a great effort. His body was simply falling apart with terrible pain. His head was breaking, his liver was aching, and his stomach was causing him trouble responding with a strong pain to any exertion and nervousness which there were plenty of. Apart from titanic exertion at work, it turned out that Rebrov had serious health problems. His liver “showed” itself at a very inappropriate time. Rebrov was dilatory hoping it would turn out all right. But, as Russians say, “a man won’t cross himself until a thunder begins”. With heavy paroxysm, without his family’s and colleagues’ knowledge, he went to see his friend who was a doctor. After respective tests, the diagnosis was more than unfavourable: developing liver cirrhosis. And no predictions on how the liver would do in the nearest future.

      For Rebrov, it was not a stroke of bad luck, but rather a knockout. He would not be so afraid to die, if he lived alone. But he had a family – a wife and a daughter, his closest people on Earth for whom he felt inexplicably responsible. While Major was a single family bread-winner. His wife could hardly find any job, for she was suffering from asthma for already four years. His daughter attended the Pedagogical College where they charged big money for education. So, Rebrov’s salary remained the only source of the family income. And, despite the fact Major could retire even two years ago, he continued working in order to support his daughter until her graduation. And, all of s sudden, he got such a “luck”!..

      Certainly, his friend recommended him the best doctors, advised him to take care of his health (because time wouldn’t wait), to go into a hospital for treatment. Yet, the treatment would cost quite a lot even by a minimal calculation. Major would not surely afford such enormous additional expenses. Innate honesty and conscientiousness would not allow him to borrow such a big amount from his friends, since his few friends were living from payday to payday just like him, merely making both ends meet. Finally, Rebrov immediately rejected his friend’s suggestion to pawn or to sell his realty. Firstly, his entire realty was a two-bedroom apartment which at one time he had awaited for almost fifteen years. And, secondly, he couldn’t allow himself to leave his family homeless for the sake of his own salvation. Thus, by his Consciousness’s standards, Rebrov’s choice appeared to be simple and narrow – to sweep away all medical predictions and to do his utmost to live another three years, so that his daughter would successfully graduate from college. And, then, whatever works... He decided to stand firm at any cost, all the way until his last breath.

      Having recorded another telephone call in the journal, Rebrov took a pill of analgin to abate the pain which persistently reminded of the approaching inevitable end. Although his friend recommended ketanov, but the latter was much more expensive than analgin. Major always saved on himself believing it’s better to buy sweets or to otherwise entertain his child. Now, all the more, he would not spend up on his “shabby shell” as he lately began to name his body.

* * *

      The district department was buzzing like a bee hive. Everybody was rushing about with their faces concerned. The tenth day of futile search was ending, and the atmosphere was nervous and extremely irritable. After all, except the urgent work, there were plenty of usual routine matters.

      New “clients” – some tree hypes and a locally famous grubby beggar – were just brought to the pre-trial prison or “the monkey-house” as the Department staff called it. The beggar was always brought here when criminal statistics went down, as if no other beggars were found around. Department officers jokingly called this poor fellow Vasia, for in some way he was a local scapegoat. Once, a street gang beat him much heavily than they did with other beggars. The other time, an installation suddenly inflamed at a garret where he was spending winter; and, despite all Vasia’s efforts to extinguish the fire, he was the one to be accused of the arson by house lodgers. Still another time, he became an onlooker of such bloody doings which would shock any human being. Hence, Vasia constantly got into troubles.

      Rebrov looked around for Chmil, his assistant, senior lieutenant. That one had asked leave for five minutes to speak to a pal, and disappeared for entire half an hour. Not seeing Chmil at his desk, Major held keys to a sergeant, his second assistant.

      “Kostushkin, open.”

      “Hi, Rebrov!” captain Onishchenko who was accompanying the group of prisoners entered the duty room. “Why are you so morose? How are you doing?”

      “Nothing good,” Major waved his hand.

      “Oh, please! Cast aside your gloomy thoughts. We all have “nothing good”,” Captain grinned. “You know very well: all the good in this life is either illegal or immoral or leads to obesity...”

      “True,” Rebrov agreed, trying to show a likeness of a smile. “Where have you “dug out” such dandies?”

      “Imagine, we were checking one address...”

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