Tanya Grotter and the Golden Leech
Шрифт:
Best deputy Herman Durnev, director of the firm Second-Hand Socks and chairman of the committee “Loving Aid to Children, Pensioners, and the Handicapped,” stood before the large mirror in the lobby and fussily repaired the necktie on his emaciated neck with the protruding Adam’s apple. His long face with hollow cheeks smacked slightly of a ghastly green, and his eyeteeth jutted out slightly more than in ordinary respectable moronoids. This uncommon appearance fell to the lot of Uncle Herman by inheritance from his distant relative Count Dracula, a relationship that Durnev, however, did not even suspect.
“Ninel! Are you here?” Uncle Herman shouted. No one answered. The best deputy restlessly began to turn his neck and yell even louder, “Ninel! Do you hear me? Ninel! Bring me another tie! This dark-blue one makes me look chubby!”
Muffled, house-shaking steps were heard, as if a dray horse was driven along the corridor, and from the room, her massive body brushing against the wall, Aunt Ninel slowly appeared. The spouse of Uncle Herman was so stout that one could make three of her husband out of her and still mould a small swamp bogey from the leftover.
“Sweetie, don’t make it up! The dark-blue tie suits you very well!” Aunt Ninel cooed soothingly, affectionately putting her hands on her husband’s shoulders. Uncle Herman staggered and sagged almost to the floor.
“No, it doesn’t, doesn’t, doesn’t! I look completely bloated with it on!” The best deputy pouted and stomped his foot.
Aunt Ninel wanted to sneer that her husband had less fat than a mummy, but she reconsidered. To argue with Uncle Herman was as useless as teaching a donkey the principles of versification or holding back by the exhaust pipe a bus already started.
“Fine, dear, I’ll bring you your favourite lilac tie with the little reddish-brown flowers! Only, I beg you, calm down!” Aunt Ninel agreed and made her way into the bedroom.
Underfoot near her, coughing maliciously and hanging onto the slippers, the dachshund One-And-A-Half Kilometres was turning round and round. Earlier the dachshund even bit Uncle Herman, but since he was Lisper the Rabbit, it stayed away from him, remembering his powerful “hind paws.”
Aunt Ninel opened the wardrobe in the search for the necktie and in an instant, Uncle Herman nervously jumped on the spot, frightened by her amazed outcry. Running into the room, the best deputy saw that his wife, covering her mouth with her hand, was frozen at the door.
“Ninelie, which happened?”
“M-m-m! M-there!” Aunt Ninel mumbled in horror.
Uncle Herman rather cowardly glanced into the wardrobe. Things were chewed up and soaked with sticky mucus. Mucus was dripping from both his new black coat and his spouse’s evening gown. The smell issuing from them was so loathsome that Uncle Herman instantly understood why his wife was holding a hand to her mouth.
“I don’t understand… I took a shirt from here ten minutes ago and everything was in order! And the dog could not have done it, it can’t reach so high to nibble!” the deputy said, puckering. “Nothing is gone?”
Aunt Ninel’s eyes glided along the shelves. She abhorred touching the things with her hands. “No, nothing. Everything’s in place… Although… yes, exactly, no sweater! It was here, underneath!”
“What sweater?”
“Tanya Grotter’s sweater, the one she wore at home! And who would hanker after such junk? It’s disgusting even to wash the floor with it! I’m a fool, why didn’t I immediately throw it out?” Aunt Ninel groaned.
Uncle Herman’s knees buckled and he dejectedly collapsed onto the sofa. No, this in no way resembled an ordinary theft. Especially as even the most adroit pilferer would not know how to penetrate into the apartment through closed doors and the glassed-in balcony, on top of that in the presence of the owners!
“Again this vile Grotter! It’s always her! Her! And why did we take her into the house then? Should have sent her to a settlement even in infancy! No, ship her directly to prison from the maternity ward!” the best deputy groaned.
It did not even enter Durnev’s head that someone besides Tanya herself could steal the sweater, although even this, according to him, disgusting girl would hardly begin to chew on the things of her Uncle Herman at that.
“Good that Pipa is now resting in camp by the sea! We could at least save her from this horror!” Aunt Ninel said, full of suffering.
Soon, having dressed up in one of the suits miraculously left intact, one he had to fish out from the wardrobe with the aid of the mop, Uncle Herman left for the Duma. His clothing, hands, and hair gave off the sharp smell of cologne, which Durnev scented himself with in order to drown out the sickening stink of mucus.
Aunt Ninel summoned the domestic help, who was having a day off, and decisively started cleaning up. After putting masks over their faces, the women extracted everything from the wardrobe and sent them away for dry-cleaning. This was that same dry-cleaner where the workers were still stuttering after the acquaintance with Black Curtains, which they attempted to free from centuries-old magic dust. The domestic help had hardly carried in the enormous bags with the malodorous things, when the receptionist immediately fainted, and the manager locked himself up in the office, weighing whether he should voluntarily turn himself in at the psychiatric hospital.
Meanwhile, Aunt Ninel set off for the glassed-in balcony, where Tanya once lived from spring to late autumn, and conducted a thorough search there. “It’s time to dispose of this girl’s trash! Everything to the last pin!” she muttered, throwing into the garbage can everything that could still remind her of the orphan. Into the garbage went Tanya’s broken pencil case (special thanks to Pipa), water colours, school notebooks, book stands, and all the other things discovered in the wooden locker on the balcony. Aunt Ninel got rid of them with methodical carefulness, at the same time without taking the thick rubber gloves off her hands. “Enough surprises for us! Everything into the dumpster! Everything!” she repeated, tearing up into shreds Tanya’s school diary and furiously ramming the crumpled papers into the can.
When it was the turn of the school bag – a really nightmarish school bag, which you will rarely see even on a first-grader – a charred stump, on which the remains of varnish were still visible, suddenly dropped out of a side pocket. “And what else is this? Some vile stick! She dragged in all kinds of trash!” Aunt Ninel grimaced with disgust. She did not know that this fragment, the old bow of the double bass, flared up in Tanya’s hands during flight. Durneva decisively broke the charred stump with her knee and flung it into the can. She already aimed at sending off the worn boots next when suddenly the garbage can began to tremble, began to shake and… Aunt Ninel heard a ringing voice, which at once filled the entire balcony.