Yesterday I saw the screensaver of the film "Vertical Racing" on TV and remembered this wonderful attraction, which was popular in Soviet times and which has now practically disappeared. Last time I was in "Vertical" about 7-8 years ago at our place on Levoberezhnaya. Those were the times. There was a tent where everyone could plunge into childhood again and where such pretzels on motorcycles were made, which was breathtaking! Now it is simply unrealistic to imagine something like this near the Livoberezhnaya metro station, where every piece of land is built up with glass and concrete, soon people will have nowhere to go. Since then, I have not seen such tents anywhere else. And you?

In search of some information about the "Vertical" I came across the site www.attraction.kiev.ua, where I learned interesting information about the history and current situation with this attraction in the city of Kyiv:

It all started in the mid-70s, when dozens of thrill-seekers tested themselves on the "Vertical" attraction in Kyiv. In the 80s, the attraction operated near the station. m. "Levoberezhnaya", its owner was an experienced extremist racer Leonid Bukhin. Further collapse of the Union, sports system. The "verticals" were outdated, there was no one to build new ones. I had to former boss motorcycle teams to work as a driver for the deputies. But by the age of fifty, I got tired of it. The "good uncle" just arrived, or rather a good friend of youth, who proposed the revival of the attraction.
Now, perhaps, he is the only one in Ukraine. The modern design is more reliable - pine boards are put on a metal frame. The former "barrels" were completely wooden, and during the performance the spectator bridges trembled, deviating from the axis by 30-40 cm. That's something the audience "sausage"! How did the riders feel? The vibration was not a hindrance - they were so "pressed" into the wall that the body became five times heavier. And now, only from the side, it seems that it is easy to ride with spreading "wings". At a speed of some 60-80 km / h in a "barrel" of 8 meters in diameter, such a whirlwind spins that the cheeks of the vertical workers swell like sails.
Today, "Vertical" is working to revive the old tricks: sitting on a motorcycle sideways, backwards and even standing. There are plenty of males who want to become "vertical workers". But: "Verticals" were originally something like a family business. A father taught his son, a brother taught his brother, and they were reluctant to share their skills with outsiders. And finding a diligent student is not so easy. The slightest disobedience - and the injury is guaranteed. And no insurance. The Motorsport Federation of Ukraine, under the auspices of which the updated "Vertical" operates, is already "barely breathing" to pay more "disabled" ones. But let's not talk about sad things. The main thing is that there is an accessible place in the city where the younger generation of boys and girls can take an example from representatives of this truly courageous profession.
P.S. By the way, motorsport in the form in which it is in Kyiv has been preserved thanks to the athletes themselves. If it weren't for dad's money, young motorcyclists would hardly have honed their skills in a wasteland in the area of ​​the stubborn one, not far from the car market. It is gratifying that in November last year the city was finally allocating a piece of land in Pirogovo for official competitions. For the fall, there is already a planned whole world championship in motocross.

And be sure to watch this excerpt from the movie "Man Follows the Sun". Now remember how great it was? ;)

Those who grew up in the Soviet Union probably remember the vertical wall racing attraction. As if the wall is horizontal... Usually they came along with the circus, set up their own vertical wall and entertained the people with unusual motorcycle races.

Last week I happened to watch a similar attraction that was popular in America in the middle of the last century. At the same time, the organizers tried to restore the atmosphere of that time - the wooden wall, motorcycles, and even the outfits of the participants were from the distant 1950s.

To begin with, a cyclist rushed vertically. Don't yawn here - pedal until they give it.

Then came the motorcyclists.

And even go-karts.

Sitting sideways without arms.

Then money was thrown down, and the participants collected their hard-earned money.

Ride in pairs.

Finally, the money was collected again, but in a different way. Spectators held their banknotes at arm's length, and the stuntman rode a motorcycle and snatched earnings.

On this pleasure ended and we went to the motorcycle museum. But more on that next time.

The number "12" became fatal for performers of the Mayatsky circus: January 12, 1963 the author of the unique attraction "Ball of Courage", motorcycle racer Pyotr Mayatsky fell off his motorcycle during the performance and received severe injuries. Exactly 12 years later, in the same city, on January 12, his wife and daughter also almost died while performing the same tricks. Since then, the "Ball of Courage" has not been used in the Soviet circus, although its analogues exist in the world today.

This number was invented and patented by Pyotr Mayatsky in 1950. Its essence was as follows: in a mesh ball with a diameter of 7 meters, suspended under the dome of the circus at a level of 15 meters, on high speed motorcyclists rode horizontally and vertically, performing "eights" and dead loops. The ball consisted of two hemispheres, and the culmination of the number was the moment when the lower hemisphere separated and descended, while the motorcyclist continued to move along the very edge of the upper hemisphere.

The attraction was incredibly popular with the public. "Ball of Courage" in 1952 received the first prize at the 1st All-Union review of circus acts created by Soviet youth. Pyotr Mayatsky performed with his wife Nadezhda and son Vyacheslav. With this number, the Mayatsky family forever entered the history of not only the Soviet, but also the world circus - later this attraction was used in many countries of the world.

On November 12, 1963, the artists performed in Krasnoyarsk. Pyotr Mayatsky's motorcycle unexpectedly caught on the footrest of the grid cell, and the artist collapsed to the bottom of the ball, and the motorcycle fell on top of him. Mayatsky survived, although he was severely mutilated: his arms, legs and ribs were broken. But still, a year later, he returned to the "Ball". And since 1966, together with her parents, Marina Mayatskaya began to perform in this issue.

In 1968, Pyotr Mayatsky died suddenly of a heart attack at the age of 63. His wife and daughter continued his work - in order to bring the attraction back to life, they had to rehearse for 8 hours daily. In 1975, they were unexpectedly summoned by telegram on a tour to Krasnoyarsk. The artists flatly refused - among the circus there is such a sign: you can’t return to the place of the tragedy, otherwise a new one will happen. Nadezhda asked to send them to any other city, but the management insisted on a trip to Krasnoyarsk. The case reached the Ministry of Culture. “Do you believe in omens? Pack your things and go on tour!” - categorically ordered the artists.

And then mysticism began: on the same day, January 12, 12 years after the previous tragedy, in the same city, during the same three-hour performance, the irreparable happened again: the lower hemisphere, together with the artists, collapsed into the arena. As it turned out, the old winch could not stand it. Fortunately, at that time, the Mayatskys managed to complete the performance - otherwise they would have flown into the auditorium on motorcycles, and then they would not have been able to avoid numerous victims. The artists were already bowing to thunderous applause, when suddenly the floor was gone from under their feet.

Nadezhda and Marina were seriously injured, but survived. Marina walked on crutches for two years, both artists, due to the third disability group, could no longer perform at a height with the Ball of Courage number. In 1977, Marina Mayatskaya created the Trained Cheetahs and Dogs attraction, and since 1994 she has also acted as an eccentric clown.

Nobody could repeat the Ball of Courage in Russia. Motorcycle racers still perform in the circus today, but the ball is installed in the arena, and not hung under the dome. The complication is carried out in a different way: people stand in the center of the ball, and motorcyclists ride around them. The Guinness Book of Records holds the record for the Prague circus performers who raced around 15 volunteers standing in the center of the ball for 3 minutes.

tragic stories on the arena happen, unfortunately, often.

The Indiana motorcycle rumbled quickly and strongly, like a twin anti-aircraft gun - so that the silencers do not take power, they are not put on racing cars. Goga Ivanov got into the saddle, gave afterburner and said to me:

- Sit in front of me, on the tank. Then I will move back, and you will lead yourself ...

- Shall we fall?

- No. We will never fall with you. You can't fall: we'll die.

- I can't.

- Doesn't matter. Life is short. We need to know everything.

We were standing inside a huge, two-story building-high "barrel", where at the very top there was a gallery for spectators of the "Vertical Wall Racing" attraction. But now, for some reason, there were no spectators, and I regretted it, because it would be easier with them: if the act succeeds, it’s nice to enjoy the triumph, and if we crash, it’s better when people are nearby. And the motorcycle rattled and pulled out of Goga's hands, and he said to me sadly, but firmly:

- Sit down, we have to go. And there will be no spectators - when a person decides to ride the wall, he does it alone.

- I don't count. This is my life, my work. People need someone to be able to drive over the wall at any time.

"But it's pointless!" It does nothing for people!

“What do you bring people when you catch a killer?” You can't make amends for the harm they've caused.

– But this is necessary for human justice, calmness and confidence of other people!

- Right. People need more than just bread. They need confidence. Everyone would like to drive over the wall at least once in their life, but not everyone succeeds. I ride every day to remind people that it is possible, you just have to remember to drive over the wall at least once.

I sat in front of him on the tank and heard through the painful roar powerful engine his even, calm breathing.

- Go?…

Hot gasoline smoke, the round wooden wall of the “barrel” trembles with a roar, which fences us off from the whole world, from triumph and shame, from laughter and sympathy, leaving us alone with ourselves, it trembles with impatience to check if you can at least once in life to drive on the wall?

- Go.

The door slammed shut, through which we entered the bottom of the “barrel” - the last opportunity to get out and live as we used to live, and not ride along the wall, but buy better felt slippers, become a serious person, arrange your life with dignity and beauty. But then I will never again be able to come here, to the gallery, neither with my beloved, nor with friends, nor with my children, because every time Goga Ivanov will start at the bottom in a roar and smoke, and then climb up the wall in swift spirals , along with it, my fear will rise from the bottom of the “barrel”, defeating me in a one-on-one game. And no matter how many chances to drive over the wall in the future, fear will always be the winner ...

Ribbed rubber wavered front wheel, the spokes flashed, merging into a shining disk, the spokes, the heavy motorcycle rolled along the round arena, the floorboards groaned, closer to the edge, next to the wall, the first circle was passed, everything flickers in the eyes, the motorcycle bends down into the arena, the slope is against the wall, now the motorcycle will fall apart from tension, push, push, the sky collapsed on my shoulders and pressed, drove me into the car, and in front of us was a narrow path, rising steeply, but for some reason the motorcycle did not fall, but all the time took off with a roar, and the road bends behind us, and I see with horror that I am hanging upside down, and only then I realize: we are rushing along the wall! On the wall!

The path is the wall. But she will never rise above me again, her vertical is powerless - I drove, raced through the second dimension, through fear and felt slippers! So, I'm not so small! Let them build walls!

So I woke up with a feeling of some amazing happiness, a huge victory, and for a long time I could not believe that none of this had happened, I did not want to believe that everything was a dream; and although I knew that Goga was treating a broken arm in a sanatorium, the Indiana motorcycle was quiet, forgotten in the gray desert twilight of the garage, and now it was April and the attraction was not working, but still I did not want and could not believe that tonight, now, just that I didn't ride the wall. I really needed to know that I could drive over the wall. Because at the age of thirty a person should know everything about himself, and since one way or another we cannot find out everything about ourselves, then you need to know at least whether you are ready to drive over the wall.

The phone rang piercingly and for a long time, and I lay without opening my eyes, and the feeling of joy and strength remained, as if everything had actually happened, and I believed, I knew for sure that in reality everything would have been the same. And in this slumber, which lay like a narrow bridge between sleep and reality, I stretched out my hand and picked up the receiver, in which the voice of Sashka Savelyev gurgled, choking on words and feelings. At first he scolded me, it seems, for laziness and parasitism, then he said clearly and separately:

I finally woke up

– Do you have any thoughts? State…

Sashka said that he had already called all the linear departments - there were no reports of the loss, and he explained something else for a long time and confusingly. He spoke all the time somehow in a mumbling monotone, as if he felt some kind of guilt behind him. Finally I got bored.

- That's it, the report is accepted. Order to deliver Baton, I'll be in control in half an hour.

Swallowing the scalding tea, I feverishly pondered the line of conversation with Baton. Apart from the absolute certainty that the suitcase was stolen, I did not have any incriminating facts about Baton. And accusations based on certainty alone do not exist. Baton has been sitting for sixteen hours, but the victim is gone. The situation is dire. However, there is one chance...

When I entered the office, Sashka was talking animatedly with Baton. Well done Baton. And does not think to give up. Well, he, in addition to surrender and a clear victory, has a win on points. I hung my coat in the closet, smoothed my hair and sat down at the table. The loaf looked happier and livelier than yesterday, but I felt in this elation the ringing tension of expectation. After all, for many years Baton studied law from the other side of my desk and knew very well that if we don’t bring the owner of the suitcase into the office now, it means that the victim has not shown up, which means that it is almost impossible to prove his guilt legally and then he will still compete with us. Well, let's get started.

- Tell me, Dedushkin, do you have felt slippers?

It was an instant, almost imperceptible, like a glare of sunlight on the eyepiece of an enemy's binoculars. But I noticed it, or maybe, rather, felt it - Baton bounced back and immediately relaxed joyfully, confident that we were on someone else's trail.

- Slippers? he asked thoughtfully.

“Yeah, slippers,” I said calmly.

- Felt?

- Well, yes, felt.

- No. I'm really sorry, but I don't have felt slippers...

- That's fine, - I said rather ... - I was sure that you do not have such slippers. I've been thinking about you, about myself and about these slippers for half the night.

- Yeah? Baton said uncertainly. He did not know where I was leading, and just in case he decided to refrain from reasoning. - And what?

- Nothing. I don't have them either. Do you see a connection in this?

Baton shrugged.

- I don't understand…

- I am saying this to the fact that there is such a dialectical law of unity and struggle of opposites. And you and I are opposite poles.

– In a procedural sense? Baton inquired briskly.

- Yes. And in the human too.

- What?! Ah… Well, yes… – Baton chuckled. "But that's not grounds for taking me into custody, is it?"

- Well, you throw it! Your freedom we… restricted… for a different reason. But you and I… how should I put it… a special form of social relations – “cops and thieves”…

Baton laughed merrily.

- Got it. Do you want to say that we are, they say, bound by one chain?

- Not certainly in that way. But because of the wording, I will not argue with you. I mean, as long as I'm a detective, you won't have felt slippers.

“But you don’t have them either, do you?” Baton recalled.

“No,” I nodded, “although I need them. You're stopping me from having slippers.

- Yes, why me? Baton was sincerely indignant. - On me, or what, the light converged like a wedge? Also found the king of the underworld?

- Once you said to me: "Snot" ...

"So you're taking revenge?" Baton frowned. - Fe. Ugly, not pretty at all...

I shook my head.

“Oh, Baton, it means that you didn’t understand anything during these eight years.

- What is there not to understand? Beaten pride, like an old wound - and after twenty years it hurts.

- What kind of pride? It was only then that I got mad at you. For "puppy". Now I understand that I was a real snotty puppy. And even now you don’t want to put up with the fact that even though you are a puppy, I still caught you, the old wolf.

- So what?

- And the fact that while you are a thief, and I am a detective, you and I will not have slippers. Moreover, eight years have passed and I am no longer a puppy, and you have already become quite old, well, just a decrepit wolf ...

“Let's wait and see,” Baton flashed his golden crown angrily. “You might have to apologize for all this…”

“No,” I shook my head decisively, “I don’t have to apologize to you. I'll prove that you stole the suitcase.

Is this without a victim? Baton smiled slyly.

- Why without a victim? I will find him, I promise you that for sure.

“And what are you doing to me like that?”

“Because we have a fundamental relationship. Remember when I was a puppy and I told you it was wrong to steal and you laughed at me? Do you remember?

-Let's...

“Now I still think that stealing is not good. Very bad. It's just disgusting. And all normal people think so. But you and me, and all normal people just do not care. Therefore, I am obliged to prove to you that it is impossible to steal. You understand - you can't. And every time you steal, I will come and catch you and put you in jail. And it will be until you get tired of this whole life and desperately need felt slippers. Then we will buy them together.

- And not vice versa? Baton squinted slyly. “So you’ll get bored to death, not me?” A? And you - resign ... And I will calmly buy slippers ...

We all laughed, and our atmosphere was relaxed, light, like at the dinner table in a sanatorium, in any case, we looked just like that. I opened the safe, took out several folders, a railway timetable, and said:

- Jokes are jokes, but it's time to find the victim, Your criminal handwriting will help us.

“It’s a trifle, but it’s nice,” Baton perked up. “Usually my grandfather used to check with me whether the vine was well-dampened before pouring it on me. What's with my handwriting?

- Despite the fact that you never grab the first suitcase that comes across in the car. You plan a victim for yourself and "graze" it, waiting for right moment, you put your "luck" on the exact calculation: along the route there are several stations where oncoming trains stop either at the same time or a few minutes after the departure of your train. That's why you only steal at these stations. Here, luck is simply necessary: ​​if it is impossible to steal at the first station, you wait for the next, sometimes the third, and sometimes the entire run is idle. But as soon as the moment turns up, you take someone else's suitcase and immediately change into an oncoming train. And you move away from the victim at twice the speed of the train. By the time a person is missing, by the time he reaches the next station, he will report to the police, by the time they are handed over along the line - you, along with a crowd of passengers, are already getting off at the platform in Moscow, taking a taxi and heading home. Unless, of course, inspector Saveliev, who knows you by sight from photographs and is interested in the contents of your suitcase, does not stop at the station square. How do you like my story?

- Pretty entertaining. And what about the victim? Without it, it's just a psychological study. Amusing. And no more ... As you like to say: it has no evidentiary value in court.

“That’s right, we need a victim. You, Baton, are a smart, experienced person and correctly guessed that we do not have a victim. Therefore, we will now deal with its calculation. Maybe if we're wrong, you can tell me...

- Well, let it go. I do not receive a salary in the criminal investigation department in order to catch myself together with you.

- Why are you all "money" and "salary"! Sasha was surprised. - After all, there is an academic interest, disinterested creativity.

- How, how! I will be given a “five” for creative satisfaction, and you will receive a medal. Wow awards on your competition!

“They won’t give you a medal for you, Dedushkin,” said Sashka. - In our country, medals are more likely to be given for courage than for quick wit.

“But in court they give us more for quick wits,” Baton was upset.

“So you have a quick wits, Dedushkin, harmful, and they give a lot for this,” Sashka politely explained.

- Well, well, let's see how smart you are, - said Baton, - maybe they don't give you medals correctly.

“Maybe,” I agreed. - So, let's start a session of the materialization of spirits. What time did you keep him, Sasha?

- It was half past seven. He walked from the Chisinau train - 18.25. Express "Moldova" is called a train.

- Excellent, - I took the schedule and began to write down all the express stops on a separate sheet. - Please call the information desk, find out if there were any delays, stops and delays outside the schedule.

While Sasha was industriously spinning the phone dial, I wrote out the schedule of all the trains that departed from Moscow from the Kievsky railway station for the previous day, perpendicular to the schedule of the Moldova Express.

The Chisinau ambulance stopped nine times: Kotovsk - 0.13, Vapiyarka - 1.49, Zhmerinka - 3.03, Vinnitsa - 3.47, Kazatin - 4.52, Kiev - 7.08, Konotop - 9.29, Bryansk - 13.47, Sukhinichi - 15.20 and at 18.25 - Moscow. It turned out a kind of axes of coordinates, where the curve of movement lay between time and direction. Therefore, one of the Moscow trains had to necessarily cross one of the nine time points of the Chisinau train.

The line was crossed in Konotop by the Danube Express, which arrived there at 9.10 am and went on to Sofia-Istanbul nine minutes later. Somewhere at the nearest semaphore, he met with the Moldovan station approaching the station, which, according to Sashka, had never left the schedule on this flight.

Seven minutes later, Baton left for Moscow. With the suitcase of his fellow traveler from the Danube Express.

After acquainting Baton with the results of my calculations, I asked:

"Shall we be serious now?"

No, we are not interested in others.

- That is? Baton raised his eyebrows.

- Or it is that your household kindly informed Inspector Savelyev that you were still at home the day before yesterday. And they left, therefore, from Moscow ...

“It's a rare case when an alibi gets in the way,” Sasha laughed.

- Okay, - I said and turned to Sasha: - Sit down at the typewriter, I'll dictate a couple of telegrams to you.

Sashka sat down on a chair for a long time, adjusted himself to the typewriter, then said in an unnatural voice, in which metro drivers proclaim on empty platforms:

- Go-o-o!

- Write down, I dictate:

"Phototelegram.

Ungheni border checkpoint. I ask you to urgently show the Danube Express train crew No. 13 a real photo for identification. In a positive case, find out to which station the identified person had a ticket, where and under what circumstances he got off the train ... "

Baton, turning away from us, looked out the window, at the street, flooded with cold spring wind, lined with squares of the window lattice, and his head no longer looked like a frigate's prow decoration. He seemed to be very tired from our whole conversation.

Sasha asked:

- Is that all?

- Wait. After all, I promised to prove it, - I picked up the phone and called the duty officer: - Send for the delayed convoy.

Baton, without turning around, looked out the window.

- Write, Sasha, the next one.

“Chisinau, Criminal Investigation Department Zhel. dor.

I ask the train crew to identify the passenger using the attached photograph.”

I caught Sashkin's puzzled look.

- They've already gone back from Moscow. And the last telegram to Konotop:

"Linear department st. Konotop-pass.

I ask you to interrogate the cashier who worked yesterday from 9.00 ... "

Baton sighed noisily, leaned back in his chair and looked at us as if from afar, wanting to examine us more closely:

– And what now?

Sasha shrugged.

- Now we will take a picture of you and send the pictures to Ungheni, Chisinau and Konotop by phototelegraph. Your pictures will be shown there. In Ungheni, you will be recognized by the conductors with whom you traveled to Moscow, and in Konotop, the cashier who sold the ticket will surely remember you. Did you get a ticket for a soft carriage?

Baton, without answering, laughed at some thoughts of his own, and after a while said:

- The wonderful city of Konotop. It will go down in history by the fact that Julio Jurenito was killed in it because of the boots and Lech Dedushkin, nicknamed Baton, was burned because of the suitcase. He ran his hands over his face as if to wash away the laughter. “That’s all fine, but what about the victim?

“Sasha, hand it over to the telegraph,” I handed out the forms and answered Baton: “You will have coffee, and cocoa. We'll find it, I promised.

“Then hurry up,” Baton said seriously. - You don't have much time. Fifty hours left...

That's exactly what he said. Under the law, a detained suspect can be held in custody for no more than three days. After that, not a single prosecutor without solid evidence, on suspicions alone, will give a sanction for arrest.

“Nothing, I think we’ll have time,” I answered him, also seriously. “In general, I’m not a lazy person, and for you, God knows, I’ll try from the bottom of my heart. You see, lately I have been in great need of felt slippers.

There was a knock on the door, and guards entered. Sasha said:

- All. Citizen Dedushkin, you will have to be bored for the time being, waiting for the results. If you decide to tell something - you are welcome, we will be glad. My self-esteem will not suffer even without a test of intelligence, and we will be satisfied with your voluntary recognition. The so-called sincere. It's better for you - they will give you less.

- That's bullshit! After all, I can already confirm this whole crossword puzzle of yours, because my route, which you so cleverly calculated here, does not yet prove my legal guilt. You need a victim.

“Exactly,” I said. - Very necessary. I'll try. As for the confirmation of the route, this is after the answer to our telegrams. Then it will be seen that you yourself, of your own free will, did not say a word of the truth, everything had to be done by us. The court will be interested...

Baton unconsciously folded his hands behind his back - for a moment his attention weakened, and a reflex, developed by many years of being in custody, surfaced from the depths - and moved towards the doors. He stopped halfway, looked into my eyes and said:

– Do you remember, in “The Feast of St. Jorgen” Mikael Korkis says: “The main thing in the profession of a thief is to escape in time”?

- Yes I remember.

- And I think that the main thing in the profession of all lucky ones is not to pick open sealed bottles.

- Why?

“You never know what kind of genie you will release from. Here I broke this rule. He turned to the escort: - Well? ...

The door slammed shut, and Sasha and I were silent for another minute, until he asked:

- How did you understand him - did he release the genie now or eight years ago?

- Don't know. I didn't understand either...

- Well, then load it with work: the boss must keep the apparatus in suspense, - said Sashka. His head now looked especially like an explosion: red coarse hair stood on end. Did you happen to have a cigarette lying around on your desk? Smoked everything.

Knowing that I don’t smoke, the guys deliberately put half-smoked packs in the bottom drawer of my desk and come running to me in difficult times. I rummaged through the table and found a red square box with a picture of a dog's face. Sasha twisted the pack, put it back on the table:

- "Friend". Great cigarettes... I don't even smoke them in the middle of the night.

"You're too picky," I said peevishly. - Let's get down to business. So, so: we still have two more channels of information - the order and the camera found in the suitcase. I will take care of the order, and you hand over the device to the scientific and technical department and, if there is a film in it, put two questions before the examination: what kind of film is in the camera, let them establish the country of origin, and second, let them determine professional level filming. Film frames, if it is there, let them print large format ones.

- Order received. What are you going to do about the order?

“I’m thinking of taking it to the Historical Museum to show it.” He amuses me greatly with this order.

- Why so?

- Most likely, this is an old Russian order. You see, here it is written in Slavic script: “St. Alexander Nevsky ... ”This tie, probably, confused Baton - he decided that it was Bulgarian. Two things are not clear - why they carry such a jewel with them in a suitcase and who is the person to whom it belongs.

– When will you?

- Tonight, probably. And please stop your nasty habit of answering any phone call that I'll be in twenty-three and a half minutes.

When I'm not there, Sasha gives out such answers that people on the other end of the line shudder. To all women, he speaks briefly, but impressively: “On the operation ...”, although he knows that I went to the clothing store for a new overcoat or to the court archive for a certificate. He even has a theory about this, which boils down to the fact that it is difficult for an employee or production worker to believe that sometimes our work can consist of all-day chatting around the city and very often completely unsuccessful. Or just in a long fruitless search for some trifling witness, or even in shooting at a shooting range or sambo wrestling. If you are a detective or an investigator, then let's interrogate criminals all day, and at night sit in ambush or conduct searches and arrests. Therefore, they say, there is no need to destroy illusions about the nature of our work, to introduce new doubts into the somewhat shaken romance of our profession.

I went outside and sunlight was so bright, dense, cold that I wanted to swim on it. The shadows cast by the people lay on the pavement, blue, precise, and there were no halftones, and the bare trees, pressed into the pavement with iron gratings, seemed like ridiculous structures placed along the streets, like abstract decorations in a modern interior. And in this furious fury of light, casting a clear evil shadow from every obstacle, where the white-hot red color destroyed everything else, leaving only black-blue, there was some kind of straightforward intransigence, the screaming incompleteness of nature. On such days, when you have not yet been exhausted by the joy of the beginning of spring, the bliss of warm air, until senseless sensual bliss has seized you from the mere feeling that you live in this wonderful world of blue dawns, sticky young foliage, transparent snow puddles, I think that life Still, it doesn't work out the way you want it to. On days like this, this unbearable light shines through you better than any X-ray, because the rays of an old smart German cannot show spiritual scars, show unhealed spiritual wounds, and cannot fix pockets of life's dissatisfaction. And in general, he claims that there is no such organ in a person - the soul. There are lungs, a brain, a heart, but no soul. He was a great comforter of people, a real lyricist, the wise physicist Roentgen, whose rays again confirmed that a person has no soul, and therefore there is nothing to hurt. And that's why the April light is waiting for you on the street, cold, furious, irreconcilable, not knowing that you have no soul, and highlighting all its nooks and crannies. It wakes up the memory like a dormant beast, and throws it at you when you don’t want to and can’t fight it, when you have already realized that there can be no peace between a dream and everyday life, and agree to draw at least a ceasefire line in your soul . But the light of April knows no compromises, you will not persuade him, because he is you, and you cannot deceive yourself. And you will not turn it off, because it is the light of your youth, the sharpness of unbroken corners, not polished by the experience of tolerance.

From this, probably, painful excitement seizes me on such days, the desire to do something, change everything, run somewhere, buy felt slippers or rush along the wall. And at night you have colorful dreams of childhood dissolved in years, when you are happy in the feeling of your eternity and being needed by people, when there is no time of the day, but there are only seasons and the question never arises why you live on earth. I dream of my comrades, no, not today's, respectable, already graying men, burdened with service problems or lack of breast milk from their spouses, but those guys from eternity, from my sense of immortality and the expediency of my existence. I just can't believe that these are the same people, ascending the spiral of their qualitative development. Because they again returned to the starting point of their worldview, although life dispelled the illusion of immortality for them and forced them to answer why they live on earth. As adults, they simply forgot about immortality, and from this it was born again, only relegated to the background, like an old scenery in a theater. But there was another question: “Why are you hanging around the world?” And they answered it by becoming engineers, doctors, pilots, that is, people, in a socio-historical sense, a hundred times more valuable than I am. So, anyway, many people think.

I read somewhere that every seven years a person undergoes a complete replacement of all cells. It seems that a person reappeared, only not all at once, but gradually. So, I should have been updated four times already, and if this happened, everything would probably be fine. But it seems to me that sometime, at seven, or maybe at fourteen, something broke in my genetic mechanism, and nothing else changed, and I grew only quantitatively, taking the small, straightforward world of childhood into the country of adulthood, which does not shrink, fit or fall out of the flexible round frame of my current Everyday life. And over the years, my memory, breaking through the twilight of time with the rays of a toy projector - an alloscope, turned into a painful April light, passing through my life and never letting it fall apart into separate incoherent pieces, dooming me to lifelong moral color blindness, because I do not distinguish halftones, and of all the colors for me there are only white and black.

But besides, when the April light is raging on the street, I always think about Lena. He does not allow me to forget anything, and then I again regret that the cells in me are frozen and do not want to be replaced by new ones, because during this time I would have had time to completely regenerate and shed my former self, like a snake sheds its old, last year’s skin, and, becoming completely, 100% new, I could forget everything forever. But because the cells do not change, I myself remain the same as I was, and I don’t want to forget anything, and in this whirlwind of dazzling light I spend hours aimlessly remembering everything and thinking about Lena, about myself, about both of us, about how be and nothing happened. And, probably, because the cells do not change, they get tired, and my melancholy turned into an even sadness, which is hardly disturbed by this violent light, unless we meet at night in a restaurant the day before, where I go to eat borscht.

I walked along Gorky Street through this unbearable light, as if floating in it, knowing that a person is freed from immortality, because it is very difficult for him to answer the question why he lives at all. And in the inner pocket of the jacket lay a heavy precious cross, exciting with its incomprehensibility, like a mysterious sign of bondage that determines fate.

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