The Suitcase / Чемодан. Книга для чтения на английском языке

I think I’ll lie down for a minute…”

The mayor quickly removed his jacket, loosened his tie, and lay down on a nearby sofa. His feet in their green socks stretched wearily. His hands were clasped on his stomach. His eyes were shut.

The bodyguards went into action. One called the doctor. The other gave orders.

“Clear the room! I said, clear the room! Hurry it up! Start the ceremony!.. I repeat, start the ceremony!”

“Can I help?” the station chief asked.

“Get out of here, you old fart!” came the reply.

The first bodyguard added, “Leave everything on the table! We can’t rule out an assassination attempt! I hope you have the names of all the guests?”

The station chief nodded obsequiously. “I’ll give you the list.”

We left the room. I carried the briefcase in trembling hands. Workmen moved amid the columns. Lomonosov, thank God, was still on the wall.

The ceremony was not cancelled. The famous guests, deprived of their leader, slowed down near the tribunal.

They were ordered to go up. The guests settled under the marble slab.

“Let’s get out of here,” Likhachev said. “What is there for us to see here? I know a beer joint on Chkalov Street.”

“It would be good to know that the monument hasn’t collapsed.”

“If it does,” Likhachev said, “we’ll hear it in the bar.”

Tsypin added, “We’ll hear the laughter…”

We went upstairs. The day was cold but sunny. The city was decorated with holiday flags.

Our Lomonosov was taken down after two months.

Leningrad scientists wrote a letter to the paper, complaining that our sculpture demeaned a great man. The complaints were directed against Chudnovsky, of course. So we were paid in full.

Likhachev said, “That’s the main thing.”

A Decent Double-Breasted Suit

I’m not dressed too well right now, and I used to dress even worse. In the Soviet Union I dressed so badly that I was rebuked for it. I remember when the director of Pushkin Hills[40 - Pushkin Hills: An area in the Pskov Oblast named after Russia’s most celebrated poet, Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin (1799–1837), who spent a period of exile and wrote some of his best-known works in the region.

] told me, “Comrade Dovlatov, your trousers ruin the festive mood of our area.”

The editors of places where I worked were also frequently unhappy with me. At one newspaper the editor complained, “You’re compromising us, clear and simple.