04/01/1992
- And how did it happen? - the same question was asked again. The question was addressed to Gorokhov, who had become something of a celebrity. Bragin, who had come to the engineers, was interested in this no less than the others - the previous session, that is, he listened to the story not from the beginning, but from the moment the box was unpacked.
This time, the request for a story came not only and not so much from Bragin, but from the deputy head of the mechanization department. His voice sounded louder and more blurred, or something. In general, he was drunk.
Gorokhov glanced sideways at his can of Coca-Cola, placed on the table, and made a maximally indifferent look, although everything indicated that he was ready to tell this story again and again.
- So, it was like this, - Gorokhov began, looking at the newly appeared deputy mechanic - a strong man with a permanently rumpled and permanently poorly shaved face due to a pile of stacks of papers. - I'm going down from the bridge, - he continued, - and I see some kind of pavilion in the middle of the sidewalk. They pitched a tent so that the entire sidewalk was blocked. Either go around the courtyards or straight along the avenue. There's an American flag on top. And the tent is like an army tent. Big. I heard about the annexation early in the morning, on the first channel. There was "one hundred twenty minutes"//Soviet-Russian central TV program in 1980s-1990s// on there. There was music, various news, as usual. And then April Fools' jokes, like the giant rat in the subway was finally caught, or about aliens. Then about us and about America. Well, it seemed like a joke like any other, no worse than the others. Then before going out I switched to the second channel, and there was our "day after day", and there was only one thing: America, America. Only America. I thought that... Well, that they had conspired with the first program. And then I walk down the street and see what I see.
Gorokhov glanced again at the red can with white writing on it, which stood on the table and had the peculiarity that it could be opened without any can opener.
- I see a pavilion, - he continued, - And people are crowding around it. There is a police car nearby. They also stretched out ribbons. The kind you see in movies, maybe someone has noticed. American ribbons - they are made of some kind of polyethylene, not like our rope with red rags. I go up to them, ask, and they tell me: "America is taking us. Now they are distributing humanitarian aid." I was surprised - how so? To any passerby on the street or something? Everything will go away so quickly. Two or three times in one hand... These are our people, our people will figure this out quickly. - So you weren't surprised that we were separating and joining? - The deputy mech grinned, not wanting to cast doubt, but rather to give Gorokhov some extra energy in his story.
- I'm not even talking about that, that goes without saying. - It turned out it wasn't that simple. The kids were given a chocolate bar, though, without any questions - these "Bounty" and "Mars."
- And "Snickers," - the deputy mech put in.
- Shut up, - a female voice was heard, - you're yourself already like a "Snickers."
In fact, the deputy mech wasn't the only one like that today. The general mood was definitely not working. The prank, what looked like a prank, apparently was something disproportionately greater than just a joke "shouted" on TV.
- Well, then, Gorokhov continued, - I approach this tent. She's like our army, yes, I told you... I approach, squeeze through the crowd and see - there are policemen standing at the entrance... Not Russian cops, but policemen. The uniform is exactly like in the movies. The caps are so big. They are so big, it's scary. In general, not like Russian ones.
- For you, Russian ones are already strangers, then, - muttered Mikhalych. For him, such an attitude was quite natural - the older generation, nothing can be done about it. He also went to a communist rally on the occasion of the collapse of the Union and supported the State Emergency Committee. That's the kind of person he is. Bragin, like many others, got rid of his party card. He did this back in 1990.
After a short pause, giving Mikhalych a chance to grumble, Gorokhov continued:
- I go into the tent, and there are tables set up. There are also some plastic boxes for papers. There are two people sitting at the tables. Men and women. Everyone speaks Russian. As I understood it, and as they said later, they left at different times. Some five years ago, some in the seventies. I even noticed that some spoke with a slight accent. It's amazing - I would have spoken the same way in ten or twenty years... I can't imagine how they...
- I would have asked them, - Mikhalych butted in again, - First they sold out the Motherland, and then came back to buy everyone. F*ck them!
They began to try to calm Mikhalych down, citing the fact that the deputy mechanic, like the others before him, needed to hear the whole story in all the necessary details. - At one table they wrote me down in the log, - continued Gorokhov, - The log is not like ours. All the sheets are fastened vertically, so that it turns out to be a big notebook. That's at the first table. At the second table they gave me an invitation to get a ticket. Not the ticket itself, but an invitation. They didn't hand out tickets there, on the street, that is, in the tents. At the third table they asked me if I had a passport. Imagine, I had one - I wanted to drop by the traffic police at lunchtime. Now they made it so that you can sign up for a technical inspection in advance. So I wanted... I'll go another time... When they found out that I had a passport, they suggested that we go to another section of the pavilion - it was behind the curtain. Everyone went to the exit in the middle, and those who had a passport went behind the curtain and there was one table with stacks of boxes all around. At the table there was a woman and another policeman. The same kind of thug as those at the entrance. They looked at my passport, wrote it down, and gave me a box. They told me to go out on the opposite side. The one facing the house. It was fenced off with ribbons. They told me to go out unnoticed and continue through the yard. This was to avoid creating a stir. They know what's going on, and it's in vain that we think they're so naive.
- It's not for nothing that they have our emigrants there, - said the deputy mech, - they have a good idea of everything. They know what's going on with us. Five years ago we walked the same streets, and now look at us - foreigners!
- Well, we'll be like them, too, - Dima exclaimed cheerfully. A young specialist, as they called them, a recent graduate. If the Union were alive, he would have been perfect to be a Komsomol leader. They would say that behind his back from time to time. It was not a flattering, although good-natured, characterization. - The reaction to Dima's words was that Mikhalych cursed under his breath. - Well, I walked away, walked a couple of yards, sat down on a bench near the entrance and opened the box there. There was a chocolate bar. A regular, flat one. Then a Snickers, where would we be without it. And a bag of flour in film. Film like that, shiny like foil, only film. Flowers are wrapped in something similar, but not like that. And sunflower oil in a plastic bottle and cornflakes. These are not like our sticks - these are like... like little flatbreads. Heavy, not like sticks. A can of stew. Another can of beer, and well - Coca-Cola. I'll give the Coca-Cola to my boy, and there's only one can left from the beer, - Gorokhov climbed under the table, after which he put the aluminum can on the table with a dull metallic ringing. - Everything was rewritten in the list - it was there, - Gorokhov continued, - The stew was made in Oregon. So, - he summed up.
- Well, who will say that this is a prank? - Dima's voice was heard.
Bragnin, who had been pondering Gorokhov's story all this time, agreed, expressing the idea that it would be too expensive for a prank.
Okay, this is all talk, - the deputy mech announced, - And has anyone looked at the map? How is it that we will have a piece of America, but Russia on all sides, and America is thousands of kilometers away? This was the most obvious argument, and surprisingly so easily ignored.
- Do you know that Russia has the Kaliningrad Region, and it is also at a distance?
- There will be an air bridge.
- No one has canceled the transit. Everything will be in transit through Russia, what's so unclear about that, - answers poured in from all sides.
- And what do they need us for anyway? What are we going to do, what are we going to do in this America of yours?
- If anyone doesn't like it, there's the train station over there, - someone present answered.
Bragin looked out the window. The day was shining with blinding light - the pure winter white snow that had fallen in the morning had no intention of melting, but there had never been anything like this in winter - the light from the spring, already April sun that had begun to rise above was reflected so much from the whiteness of the snow that the eyes were clearly stinging in the street and you had to cover them with your hand, looking through a narrow slit in your fingers. Something like this seemed to have happened once, but a long time ago, about fifteen years ago.
- I can't wait until tomorrow, - thought Bragin, - If tomorrow all this doesn't die down, if it doesn't become clear, then it's a prank... Madness, but what hasn't happened in recent years. At least in a day it will be clear what is happening. Pranks don't last more than one day.