Methodius Buslaev. The Midnight Wizard

“Boys, boys!” Zozo interceded conciliatorily. “Perhaps we’ll stop fighting for no reason? So, shake hands and make up?”

Khavron unwillingly let go of his nephew’s ear. “Shake! Only let him remember: I catch him again – I’ll break him!” he repeated.

“Like hell you’ll catch me again!” Methodius said in an undertone. Lucky for him, Eddy was no longer listening. After jumping into a pair of his beloved boots, with a brush he whisked away from them a speck invisible to the world, and rushed into the big city on the hunt for tips and success.

***

Methodius and his mother remained in the apartment. Zozo Buslaeva put down the magazine and pensively looked at her son. A normal twelve-year-old adolescent – in any case, he appeared normal: skinny with narrow shoulders. He was also not noted for his height. He was ninth in line at gymnastics among fifteen boys of his class, but at the same time somewhat adroit. He played soccer well, ran not badly. When it was necessary to climb up a rope – here he was generally the first. Unfortunately, being ninth in line, more frequently he had to reach up to the rope.

And outwardly… outwardly, perhaps, not without charm. The edge of a front tooth chipped off to a third, long light-brown hair gathered at the back into a ponytail. The uniqueness of the hair was that they had not given Methodius a haircut since the moment of birth. At first Zozo did not do this because the child kicked, fought, and shouted like he was wounded, and then the grown Methodius began to assert that it was painful for him when scissors touched his hair. Zozo did not know whether this was true or not, but once, about five years back, when she attempted to clip off a piece of modelling clay stuck to her son’s hair, she saw blood on the scissors, not knowing where it came from.

Zozo Buslaeva was frighteningly afraid of the sight of blood. This was left in her from childhood, when, after cutting her hand with a kitchen knife, she decided that she was bleeding to death. Her parents were not at home. Little Zoe, losing her head, hid in the closet and, whimpering from the horror, hundreds of agonies coming alive in her imagination, sat there for one-and-a-half hours until Mother returned and threw open the sobbing door. The cut turned out to be minor; however, the horror did not go away and, having once settled in, had arranged for permanent residence. Now then, attempting to cut Methodius’ strand with the modelling clay, Zozo heard that terrible resonant and persistent sound when something drips onto the linoleum. Closing her eyes tight, she stood in the middle of the kitchen and felt how the blood was pouring onto her woollen socks. When, after getting a grip on herself, Zozo nevertheless opened her eyes – the scissors were completely dry, if we do not consider the small brown speck.

Besides the hair, there was something else in Methodius, which in no way fit into the scheme called “twelve-year-old adolescent.” And these were the eyes: slanting, not quite symmetrical, and of completely indeterminate colour. Some considered that they were grey, some green, some black, and a couple of people were ready to swear under oath that they were blue. In actuality, their colour changed depending on the illumination and the mood of Methodius himself.

Now and then, especially when her son began to be angry or was agitated by something, Zozo – if she happened to be beside him – felt a strange vertigo and weakness. It seemed to her that she was in an elevator descending infinitely into a tight dark mine. She almost saw in reality this elevator with the dim light, the flat iron buttons, and the boldfaced inscription of a marker: “Welcome to Gloom!” She saw and in no way could shake off the hallucination.

She experienced the worst shock when Methodius was still a child. Then a dog violently frightened him. This was a foolish sheepdog that adored rushing silently, even without a growl, at people and, without biting, knocking them down with its paws. Then for some time the sheepdog would stand over the victim, sowing horror and delighting in the produced effect, and would run away afterwards. However, three-year-old Methodius did not know this. In his belief, the dog was attacking in earnest. A bewildered Zozo did not even hear how Methodius yelled. She only understood that her son shouted and fixed his eyes on the dog. The sheepdog ran up to Methodius, knocked him down, and then suddenly, by itself with a kind of absurd comicality, fell down sideways and remained lying so, with a thread of saliva gleaming on its canine teeth. Later in court, they said the sheepdog had unexpectedly had a heart attack.

For long afterwards, Zozo could not come to her senses. She was unable to forget the dark flame flaring up for a moment in her son’s eyes. This was something impossible to describe, commonplace words like “glow,” “tongues of flame,” “fiery jets,” and so on, would not even come close. Something simply appeared in his pupils, something, which, even she, his mother, could not recall without a shudder.

But in the end Zozo discarded everything from her head. Fortunately for her, she was particularly frivolous. She constantly attempted to arrange her personal life, and this took away all her time and energy. Methodius only knew that at first there was papa Igor. Then life rolled papa Igor up in a rug and dragged him off somewhere. Now he appeared once every two or three years, grew bald, threadbare and worn-out by destiny, brought a nosegay of three carnations for the ex-wife and Chinese pistols for the son, and bragged that everything was fine with him. He had a new wife and a firm engaged in repairing washing machines. However, Eddy Khavron, knowing everything, asserted that papa Igor’s business was only so-so and it was not his firm but he himself that repaired washing machines. Sometimes Eddy Khavron branded Mr. Buslaev Sr. with the insulting term “an inferior one-man operation.”

After papa Igor in the life of Zozo and Methodius there were Uncle Lyosha, Uncle Tolya, and Uncle Innokentii Markovich. Uncle Innokentii Markovich hung around for a long time, almost two years, and earned Methodius’ objection. He forced Methodius to hang up pants, wash his own socks, and call him by name and patronymic. Then Uncle Markovich vanished into thin air somewhere, and Methodius no longer memorized the names of the remaining uncles in order not to overload his young memory heavily. “Choke up the cells of your brain with any nonsense, and then there won’t be enough space for lessons!” he reasoned.

Zozo Buslaeva scratched her forehead. She vaguely felt that what happened should not be abandoned so simply. That Methodius got into Eddy’s wallet was extremely serious. She, as a mother and a woman, must now stir up something pedagogical in the spirit of what the wise Makarenko devised. To punish perhaps, or in any case, to be strict. Here the only problem was that Zozo completely could not conceive how to be strict. She herself was even a slob in life. “Ahem… Son, I want to have a talk with you! You’ll not take more of Eddy’s money?” she asked.

“Do you know how much I took from him? Ten roubles and fifty kopecks! It wasn’t enough for me to get to school on the shuttle. I didn’t manage the bus because I overslept,” Methodius said unwillingly.

“But why did you not ask me?”

“You weren’t here. You met that German, who turned out to be a Turk, and set up a date at eight in the morning at the subway,” Methodius said.

Zozo blushed slightly, “You can’t talk like that to your mother! I wanted it so myself! But couldn’t you ask Eddy in words? Really, he wouldn’t give it?”

Methodius hesitated, “Our Eddy? In words? Have to ask him with a brick instead of words. He would give a thousand lectures. Like: ‘I’ve worked hard and sweated since seven years old, and no one gave me nothing. And you’re already almost thirteen, yet you’re a bum, a retard and a fool. You smoke on the sly and always go stuffing your face.’”

Zozo Buslaeva sighed and gave up. Actually, her brother began to manifest business wit early. Maybe not seven, but at seventeen he was already selling nested dolls and army hats on Vorobev Mountains subway stop, for which he was repeatedly beaten up by bad competitors. True, soon Eddy tired of standing under the open sky, catching the wind and head colds. After spending three weeks for checkups in the crazy house, he was discharged from the army and settled down in a restaurant. His wide shoulders and the passionate gaze of a conventional schizophrenic, crowned with the appropriate certificate, brought forth in the visitors of Ladyfingers an unhealthy appetite and a desire to repeat a double coffee with liqueur. “Met!” Zozo summed it up. “It’s possible you’re right and Eddy is a pain in the neck, but promise me never again…”

“Never, so never! I’ll go to school on the exhaust pipe of a shuttle!” Methodius promised.

Zozo sighed and was about to go into the kitchen, but suddenly some late thought overtook her and lightly nudged her in the back. Zozo stopped. “Kiddo, this evening I’ll have a… eh-eh… guest… Wouldn’t you like to go somewhere? For example, to Ira’s,” she proposed with the look of a cat digging with its paw in a tray of sand.

“And not be under foot?” Methodius specified with understanding.

Zozo thought for a bit. When you are fighting for your destiny and trying to arrange your life, a twelve-year-old son is already compromising material clearer than a passport. “Something like that. Don’t stick your head into the kitchen, don’t gurgle in the bathroom, don’t go for all kinds of nonsense every minute, and don’t be under foot. Exactly!” Zozo decisively repeated.

Methodius gave it some thought, estimating whether it was possible to bargain in this matter. “And how about my enormous desire to do homework? Soon the quarter will end. I officially warn you that I’ll grab a railroad carload of threes for the year,” he stated. In general, he had already grabbed it, but now appeared an excellent occasion to find some other guilty person. To miss it would be a sin.

“This is insolent blackmail! Maybe you’ll do homework now? Still lots of time till the evening,” Zozo said helplessly.

It seemed to Methodius that he saw a weak lilac glow, which Zozo threw out into space. Turning pale, the glow began to extend to the boundary of the room like a drop of paint on wet paper. Methodius, as usual not having any idea how he did it, absorbed the glow like a sponge and understood: mother had yielded. “No. I don’t have the inspiration now. My hour of triumph begins precisely in the evening. In the daytime I don’t get into the theme,” Methodius said. The most ridiculous thing was that this was the truth. The nearer to night time, the clearer his brain began to work. His sight became sharper, and the desire to sleep, so strong in the first morning classes and in the daytime, disappeared completely. Now and then, he felt sorry that school did not start with sunset and last until dawn. Instead, in the morning he was usually sluggish, thought badly, and generally moved on autopilot.

At ten to eight, Zozo decisively escorted Methodius from the apartment. “Go to Irka and sit at her place! I’ll call you when the uncle leaves!” she said, kissing him on the cheek.

“Aha. Well, see you later!” Methodius said. He had already left mentally.

“I love you!” Zozo shouted and, after slamming the door shut, rushed to freshen herself up. She concentrated, like a general before the main battle in life. In the next ten minutes, she had to make herself ten years younger.

For a while, Methodius aimlessly lounged around on the landing, then summoned the elevator and went down. Walking out from the entrance, he watched as, from an automobile parked by the house, an unpleasant copy of the masculine sex stepped out with a large bouquet of roses and a bottle of champagne, which he held with the kind of care that a militia would give to ammunition. Although theoretically the individual could be a guest for any apartment, Methodius instantly grasped that this was Zozo’s new worshipper. It was not even an assumption. He simply knew this and that was that. He knew by a whole hundred percent, as if on the man’s forehead was the sign: “I’m going to Zozo! I’m her type!” Thickset, with grey stubbles, a double chin, and almost without a neck, the new uncle resembled a pylon, through misunderstanding or because of genetic failure, born as a man. Methodius stiffened, looking him over. He did not even consider moving away from the entrance door.

“Why are you in the way? Don’t hang around here, young man! Quick!” the example of masculine sex said, after making a vain attempt to go around Methodius.

“Are you talking to me?” Methodius asked with hatred.

“Yes, you. Now get away from here! Take off!” the example bellowed and, having unceremonious pushed Methodius aside, forced his way into the entrance, while the door did not yet have time to close.

Methodius calmly looked around. Then he found a rusty nail, approached the automobile, glanced back, and thoroughly shoved its tip into the rear tire cover with the calculation that when the car made a move, the nail would enter deeper and pierce the tire. For a while, Methodius contemplated his work, experiencing a feeling of creative dissatisfaction. One nail seemed to him too little. He found the bottom of a broken bottle and settled it under the front right tire, and put a balloon onto the exhaust pipe, tying it with a wire. Pity he will not be here when the balloon begins to inflate, and then it will break. Well, no matter – let someone else take pleasure from this spectacle. “It’s you who shouldn’t be under foot! Understand?” Methodius said, turning to the car. He experienced not the least pangs of conscience. No one asked this hog swimming with fat to come to his mother with a broom of roses.

***

Severnyi Boulevard slowly immersed in the embraces of evening. Shadows shrouded its stone sides. A corner house had become mysteriously crumpled and it moved away deep into the shadows. Proportions were playing tricks. A sudden wind gust lashed Methodius in the face with a rumpled newspaper. An empty beer bottle was rolling behind the newspaper, recklessly jumping and attempting to catch up. For some reason this simple event seemed terribly important to Methodius.

“If the bottle rolls first onto the road, mother will drive away this character!” he quickly proposed, dashing right after them. But, alas… a torn portion of the newspaper was first on the roadway and instantly fell under a truck. The bottle rolled out immediately after it and shared its tragic fate. “Rotten trick! She won’t! Unless he takes off by himself!” Methodius growled. He stared at the newspaper with such irritation that… no, for sure, it only appeared so to him. The newspaper could not flare up without any reason. Moreover, the wind immediately took it away, so that it was not possible to say anything for sure. Methodius discarded all this nonsense from his head. He crossed the road, jumped over the cast iron barrier of the boulevard, and made his way to Irka.

Irka was his good friend, precisely a friend. The word “girlfriend” gives birth to unhealthy associations in the unhealthy mind of people, whereas the words “female acquaintance” or “lady friend” smack of something rotten. They talk this way about someone they are not sure of. Irka was exactly a friend, moreover with a capital F. Irka lived in the neighbouring building, and it was possible to appear at her place at any time of the day without phoning first, which, you must agree, is especially useful. Even at midnight, since Irka lived on the second floor and the tenants on the first were so kind to fence off the world with very convenient figured latticework. Irka’s grandmother posed no obstacle. She adored Irka so, that every desire of the granddaughter was for her not even a law but an order to the subdivision. The parents… But, about this a little later.

It was still not so late. A light was burning in the window beyond the porch of the first floor. It was visible through the open curtains that a moustached woman of grenadier build was standing by a cabinet and rearranging something on the shelves. For this reason Methodius decided to use the dullest of all the existing methods of guest appearance – namely to do this through the door. It is extremely unpleasant when they knock you down with a mop through the figured lattice.

After getting up to the second floor, he rang and almost immediately heard tires rustling in the hallway. This was even not rustling, but a light yet distinct sound of the inflated rubber outer-tires momentarily sticking half-heartedly to the linoleum. “Ir, it’s me, Met!” Methodius shouted so that Irka would not have to look through the peephole.

The lock clicked, the door opened. Methodius saw the dark corridor and the bright yellow spot of light shining through from the wide open door of the room. In the luminescent spot, a wheelchair was standing with a small stooping figure in it, a rug thrown over the legs of the figure. “Hello! Hop in!” Irka invited him in. She deftly turned around in the narrow corridor and dived into her room. Methodius followed her.

Irka’s room differed from the remaining ones in that there was not a single chair in it. Bright metallic handrails stretched along the walls at different heights. Irka hated to call her grandmother when it was necessary to get in or out of the wheelchair. The computer monitor twinkled by the window. Irka was in a chat room before Methodius’ arrival. Books and magazines covered the dying sofa. Irka was eternally reading twenty books at once, not counting textbooks. Moreover, she did not read consecutively, but pieces from different places. Strange that with such chaotic reading the books did not tangle up inside her head.

“Why are you standing like a lonely jerboa? Clear a place for yourself and sit down! And I’ll be right with you! Just have to tell people that I’m not home,” said Irka, nodding towards the bed. She rolled up to the computer and quickly typed:

Ciao, all! Gone to the front! Me.

“Well now, politeness, first of all! Otherwise people will think that I was hijacked,” she said, turning to Methodius.

He was going to sit down on the bed, but somehow he did not. As if there was a perpetual motion machine in the lumbar part of his spine. “Better let’s go to the kitchen. I’d like to get a bite of something,” he said.

Irka snorted, “Don’t frigging petition to me! Go to Granny. All I know about the refrigerator is that its door opens.”

“Well, are we going?” Methodius repeated.

“It’s you ‘go’ and I ‘ride’. Indeed I’m a race car,” explained Irka.