Birds and a Stone

Anastasia Novykh

Birds and a Stone

Duty

“Lord, what a dull pain! Seems like it’s not my liver, but a solid yawning wound. When will it stop torturing me? When will it all end? This hell of a cirrhosis... At such a wrong time. Dam it, the death! We’ve already been face-to-face with this rawboned friend several times. But my daughter... She is to graduate from college. Who will help her in this nasty life? No, I can’t, I simply have no right to die!.. I need to hold out for three years. I have to hold out at any cost. It’s OK, it’s nothing, I must stay firm. We shall still fight the Raw-boned for Rebrov’s body...”

The ringing phone brought Rebrov back to the grey routine reality. “What is happening today? It was never like this before... Well, the world is really on the road to ruin. How could you leave your child alone...”

“Major Rebrov, officer on duty, fifteenth department. Can I help you?”

Twelve hours passed after Major had taken over his daily duty in the district department of Internal Affairs. During the latest days, the situation was very tough. A new gang was operating in the district for already three months. Within such a short period of their insolent and brutal activity, the felons already committed several robberies using firearms. People were horrified by these monsters’ barbarity. The department staff now had to collect information virtually in crumbs because the population reluctantly contacts militia.

After a number of successful robberies, getting a taste for entire impunity, the gang flew into a passion. Its members killed a female director of a local commercial store after torturing her savagely. The murder exasperated both local inhabitants (especially those involved in business) and the law-enforcement authorities. Paradoxically, grief and despair became the very things to temporarily unite people working in spheres so differing.

Life is life. And it includes various situations that each person evaluates from his or her own angle, according to his or her personal outlook at this very moment. Yet, there is also a certain boundary, common to all mankind, which invisibly exists in the subconscious of all people. And those who dare overstep it, not only incur others’ anger, but also destroy all the greatest valuables inside themselves, not even noticing it.

Having performed a deed through mind weakness, one thing is then you endeavour to correct it for good and to find reconciliation, first in your inner world rather than the outer. It’s quite another matter though when you tightly close the louvers of your consciousness, this lucid window in the temple of your soul. Then precisely comes a moment when, as ancient Slavs used to say, “...a ferocious rage chills heart with its power, dims eyes with a mist of anger, and a person falls into a trap of dark thoughts which burn down his essence worse than a fierce fire. He stays all alone like a raven on a charred tree in the middle of ruins...”

Nearly all the officers of the district department worked under pressing regime for already ten days in search of the murderers. No wonder, the staff’s nervous condition came to a breaking point. Telephone was ringing in the duty room incessantly. Its deafening sound made all present shudder each time, like a burst of thunder.

Major Rebrov tried to answer clearly and calmly although it took him quite a great effort. His body was simply falling apart with terrible pain. His head was breaking, his liver was aching, and his stomach was causing him trouble responding with a strong pain to any exertion and nervousness which there were plenty of. Apart from titanic exertion at work, it turned out that Rebrov had serious health problems. His liver “showed” itself at a very inappropriate time. Rebrov was dilatory hoping it would turn out all right. But, as Russians say, “a man won’t cross himself until a thunder begins”. With heavy paroxysm, without his family’s and colleagues’ knowledge, he went to see his friend who was a doctor. After respective tests, the diagnosis was more than unfavourable: developing liver cirrhosis. And no predictions on how the liver would do in the nearest future.

For Rebrov, it was not a stroke of bad luck, but rather a knockout. He would not be so afraid to die, if he lived alone. But he had a family – a wife and a daughter, his closest people on Earth for whom he felt inexplicably responsible. While Major was a single family bread-winner. His wife could hardly find any job, for she was suffering from asthma for already four years. His daughter attended the Pedagogical College where they charged big money for education. So, Rebrov’s salary remained the only source of the family income. And, despite the fact Major could retire even two years ago, he continued working in order to support his daughter until her graduation. And, all of s sudden, he got such a “luck”!..

Certainly, his friend recommended him the best doctors, advised him to take care of his health (because time wouldn’t wait), to go into a hospital for treatment. Yet, the treatment would cost quite a lot even by a minimal calculation. Major would not surely afford such enormous additional expenses. Innate honesty and conscientiousness would not allow him to borrow such a big amount from his friends, since his few friends were living from payday to payday just like him, merely making both ends meet. Finally, Rebrov immediately rejected his friend’s suggestion to pawn or to sell his realty. Firstly, his entire realty was a two-bedroom apartment which at one time he had awaited for almost fifteen years. And, secondly, he couldn’t allow himself to leave his family homeless for the sake of his own salvation. Thus, by his Consciousness’s standards, Rebrov’s choice appeared to be simple and narrow – to sweep away all medical predictions and to do his utmost to live another three years, so that his daughter would successfully graduate from college. And, then, whatever works... He decided to stand firm at any cost, all the way until his last breath.

Having recorded another telephone call in the journal, Rebrov took a pill of analgin to abate the pain which persistently reminded of the approaching inevitable end. Although his friend recommended ketanov, but the latter was much more expensive than analgin. Major always saved on himself believing it’s better to buy sweets or to otherwise entertain his child. Now, all the more, he would not spend up on his “shabby shell” as he lately began to name his body.

* * *

The district department was buzzing like a bee hive. Everybody was rushing about with their faces concerned. The tenth day of futile search was ending, and the atmosphere was nervous and extremely irritable. After all, except the urgent work, there were plenty of usual routine matters.

New “clients” – some tree hypes and a locally famous grubby beggar – were just brought to the pre-trial prison or “the monkey-house” as the Department staff called it. The beggar was always brought here when criminal statistics went down, as if no other beggars were found around. Department officers jokingly called this poor fellow Vasia, for in some way he was a local scapegoat. Once, a street gang beat him much heavily than they did with other beggars. The other time, an installation suddenly inflamed at a garret where he was spending winter; and, despite all Vasia’s efforts to extinguish the fire, he was the one to be accused of the arson by house lodgers. Still another time, he became an onlooker of such bloody doings which would shock any human being. Hence, Vasia constantly got into troubles.

Rebrov looked around for Chmil, his assistant, senior lieutenant. That one had asked leave for five minutes to speak to a pal, and disappeared for entire half an hour. Not seeing Chmil at his desk, Major held keys to a sergeant, his second assistant.

“Kostushkin, open.”

“Hi, Rebrov!” captain Onishchenko who was accompanying the group of prisoners entered the duty room. “Why are you so morose? How are you doing?”

“Nothing good,” Major waved his hand.

“Oh, please! Cast aside your gloomy thoughts. We all have “nothing good”,” Captain grinned. “You know very well: all the good in this life is either illegal or immoral or leads to obesity...”

“True,” Rebrov agreed, trying to show a likeness of a smile. “Where have you “dug out” such dandies?”

“Imagine, we were checking one address...”

Onishchenko didn’t had time to finish when one of the hypes, who was obviously out of his consciousness in full, suddenly turned from a passive “client” into a particularly aggressive one.

“Get up, everyone! You, goats! I’ll shoot down you all!” he shouted at the top of his voice, then switched to obscene vocabulary and started gallop around the room at rabid speed dumping chairs which were almost broken even without that.

Rebrov and Onishchenko reacted immediately, sergeants joined couple moments later. The entire crowd had to calm down the hype.

The other two hypes were observing this brawl with absolute indifference, while the beggar noted such active attention of the staff to a single person, quietly squatted and started to grabble rapidly towards the exit. However, at a very wrong time for him, senior lieutenant Chmil appeared at the door, hurrying to help his colleagues. His impressive figure which nearly occupied the entire doorway made the beggar exclaim. Without slowing down, the poor man turned around harshly and made his way back with the same nimbleness and speed and in the same pose. Once he reached his prison cell, he quickly took the vertical position and occupied his previous place beside the two drug hypes. Casting a sidelong look at Chmil, the beggar pulled a suffering face, and then continued to watch the brawl in the duty room. Rebrov’s assistant got amused with such a clownery, but he had no time to deal with the beggar at that moment. Having passed the unlucky escaper, the lieutenant only shook his fist at him, checking smile with difficulty. The beggar ceremoniously nodded with understanding. At that, the incident was closed, imperceptibly for those around.

Somehow, the furious hype was finally suppressed. He went limp as suddenly as he had gotten into rage before. All prisoners had got locked up in “the monkey house”. The men who had participated in the brawl, were now pouring out their emotions.

“Damn it, what a nervous day!” captain Onishchenko complained.

“Captain, it’s never so bad that it couldn’t become worse,” Chmil giggled.

“Curse that tongue of yours!” Captain responded rapidly. “We’ve been rushing about the whole day, as overworked hounds... People are going crazy. Each time they bring new surprises.”

“Perhaps, the Moon has turned to a wrong side. Look through the window: it’s huge, round, it’s full indeed...”

The men laughed.

“Yeaa, it’s really full... Today, four out of ten calls have been idle. People get worried over a single knock.”

“Well, there was an announcement on TV... So, they keep vigil.”

“It would be good if witnesses were as watchful! Yet, the lady’s been killed inside her own shop, while nobody saw nothing and heard nothing! We have a great deal of matters even without this... Just imagine, the damn “guest performers” have showed up again...”

“That would be the last straw!” Rebrov uttered with bitterness.

“Agree,” Captain nodded. “What a life! Everyday huge piles for a paltry monthly salary!”

“Captain, try being optimistic!” the senior lieutenant said.

“You’re too young to know what life is. An optimist is a former pessimist who has full pockets of money, whose stomach works excellently, and whose wife has left the city.”

The men burst out laughing again.

“Chmil is queerly merry today. Do you agree, Rebrov?” Onishchenko asked teasingly.

“He’s like this after he seeing that pal of him,” Major answered with a mysterious smile.

“With a pal?!” Onishchenko’s eyes flashed with zest. “I’ve seen his “pal” on the porch! Well-shaped pal, I’d say… What a bosom, what a “moon”!”

“All right, all right!” Chmil said with a contented smile. “What if it’s love at first sight?”

“Aha! Which one this time?” Onishchenko asked with a jeer. “You should marry, ‘cause love at first sight is becoming your chronic conjunctivitis.”

“What?” the senior lieutenant asked to repeat.

“Eye disease.”

“You’re jealous, Captain, aren’t you? By the way, all people are born free and equal,” and, after making a pause, Chmil cunningly added, “But some get married later on.”

“Well, finished as usual!” captain Onishchenko gave up, and the duty room got filled with laughter again.

* * *

The workday was almost over. It was indeed very intensive and hard both for the city inhabitants and local militia. The evil generated by the new gang’s activity was spreading by leaps and bounds. It was sowing out more and more fear in people, and attracted all the worst like a magnet. Besides the “the guest performers”, a group of drunk teens appeared in the city streets, trying to demonstrate their collective force to passers-by. Household crimes became more frequent. It seemed like people were losing their genuine cast of mind, surrendering to the negative side of their personality.

The district department became noticeably deserted around midnight. Only the operations group and officers on duty remained. People felt sleepy over the accumulated tiredness. Lost in thought, the senior lieutenant Chmil walked up and down the department and stopped in front of “the monkey house”. Quiet puffing of sleeping “residents” was heard from the inside. Satisfied with this serene atmosphere, the senior lieutenant sat into an old, worn armchair which the department had inherited from the former district socialist club. He put his legs on a single safe chair. Having settled in such way, he took some out-of-date newspaper and made a concentrated face in attempt to probe into the printed information. In half an hour, however, the newspaper was already peacefully heaving of senior lieutenant’s muted snore.

Sitting at the side desk, sergeant Kostushkin attempted to overcome sleep, but his young organism came into its own. His eyelids became leaden-heavy, and then he fell into a youthful slumber, carelessly propping up his cheek with his hand. Only when the telephone started ringing, both assistants started and woke up. But, once they saw there were no outside bosses around, they fell into sweet dreams again.

Only Rebrov sat it his duty post, not having a wink of sleep. That pain would not set his body free. Analgin deadened it for a while, but didn’t relieve for keeps. Major had never had such prolonged bouts before. He felt as if his body was belonging to someone else, and had to apply sizeable force to make it move. Needlessly, he would not want to budge at all. His consciousness instead... It rolled feverishly, conducting an internal analysis of the life spent. And all this was happening at peculiar consciousness estrangement from the body, through a misty shroud of the dull ache.

Rebrov still couldn’t calm down after the last telephone call. “What’s happening to humans? What’s happening to the world? Seems like everyone has got wild, embittered... And this old hag... She might have fallen into insomnia. We have such a strain here without her, while she took it into her head to lecture me on the phone at midnight. “Militia is useless nowadays!”... Anyone knows how to criticize! But let’s take them here to work as “a human waste cleaner” for a while! Respectable citizens do not see a hundredth of the filth that militiamen have to deal with... They’d better pay more attention to their children’s and grandchildren’s upbringing rather than throwing curses around. Most teens are left on their own! They kick up a row, they hype from sheer boredom and idleness, taking their “advanced” pals as an example. While a little time needed for a mind to be cracked... A youngster starts with a small dose so that his pals would not call him a looser, and then he takes no note of how he’s becoming totally dependent on that damned stuff. A hype can sell his mother for a dose! Yet, when we arrest teens, their parents commonly say: “My son wouldn’t do this”, “You’ve arrested him for no reason at all”. And, looking like a fool, you start vindicating yourself, you try to reveal the real facts and to show them their near cheerless future. What do I need this all hell for, I ask? Life is far from being a honey anyway...

Say, militia bosses castigate the operations for the low crime unraveling statistics. But how can the crimes be effectively unraveled, if militia works only at its enthusiasm? The Ministry of Internal Affairs budget is cut down by the Parliament almost each year. The city patrol service is totally messed-up, while it used to be the one to mainly help unraveling most of street crimes, hot on the heels. Again, experienced employees, being disillusioned about everything and everybody, further tend to leave the law-enforcement service due to money dearth. What has it all resulted in? Nothing good. The professional core of many service bodies have actually been destroyed; the positions previously occupied by high-rank specialists are now taken by the raw youth, half of those not even possessing college education. Besides, what stimuli do those youth really have? Officer’s honour, decency, dignity like in my times? Not at all. The main stimulus nowadays is craving for power and easy gains. Using the law as a cover, they shameless fleece citizens, and even dare being rude with those, – Rebrov looked at Kostushkin and Chmil sleeping peacefully. – Not everyone, of course, but great majority. Thus, how can militia be trusted by people whose interests, in fact, it should protect?”

Major massaged his eyelids and forehead to somewhat ease the dull pain.

“Well, on the other hand, I can understand the guys,” he went on thinking. “They need to support their families. Who wants to put his ass under fire and fray his nerves daily inside this filth for such a paltry pay? Looks like an exclusive circle... And I’m sitting here on the phone like a scapegoat and listen to complaints about the system...”

All of a sudden, Rebrov keenly sensed the caustic smell of the room again, exactly like on the day he had first entered the duty subdivision. It was a pungent, strong, very specific smell of sweat, tobacco and stuffiness, intrinsic in such authorities... One just could not get rid of this smell. It saturated him and his clothes with its miasma, and accompanied him everywhere like a stigma, notifying those around him of the place such individual works in. At first, working in the duty subdivision, Rebrov couldn’t get used to it a long while, but afterwards he even forgot about its existence. And now this smell struck his nostrils again, as if somebody thrust an open bottle of ammonia under Major’s nose. Rebrov hastily popped out to the corridor, opened the door-lock and got outside.

It was late autumn, and the weather was chilly enough, but Major liked the sensation of humid, fresh and bracing air. “What’s happening indeed?” he complained to himself, somewhat coming round after the unexpected suffocation. “That would be the last straw... Calm down, Rebrov, calm down...”

Major took out a cigarette, struck a match and began to smoke, trying to quiet his lately shattered nerves. However, obtrusive thoughts threaded one after another along an invisible spiral of logical reasoning on the sense of being.

“Well, life has flown by like a spark of this match. It hasn’t had enough time to kindle, while it already goes out with a waft of somebody’s will from above... From above?!” Rebrov got wondered at himself. “Am I getting old? Seems it’s not that age yet...”

It’s a paradox though: your body is falling into pieces, as if you’re a decrepit old man, while there is a feeling inside that you’re full of strength and youth... Youth... Oh! What a golden time that was! No burdens, only bright dreams and the unflinching faith in better future. The first true love... Yea, it was really the best part of my life...”

Major recollected how he dreamt of entering a literature college after the army service. He was very good in Russian language and literature as early as in the secondary school. But his fellow-countryman Sergei together with whom he was called up to the army asked for his help with entering a law school. As a joke, Rebrov applied to the same school to keep his company. He wrote a literature essay for two of them at the exam. They managed to pass the history exam somehow, same was with English. They amused a young teacher at the latter exam, and she was indulgent with them. Thus, jokingly, Rebrov entered the law school together with his friend. Being a lawyer was very prestigious during the Soviet times, too. Young people were as well educated by means of movies in which officer dignity, honour, fortitude and heroism were glorified. Both Rebrov and his friend were gripped by such a romantic appeal and aspired to become like their favourite movie characters.

Later on though, when they started working, their romantic youthful ardour somewhat diminished in view of the reality they faced. His friend left the service almost at the start, while Rebrov stayed and devoted himself to “the people of his Nation”. He changed jobs inside the service between preliminary and main investigations several times, and nearly everywhere he had steady conflicts with his management because of his honesty and straightforwardness. Then, he was enlisted with the Criminal Investigation Department headed by an “old school” man as honest as himself. Rebrov spent around fourteen years on the operations job, and it’s impossible to mention everything he saw and faced during those years...

The recent considerable conflict recurred to Major’s memory, after which militia bosses dismissed him from the operations, having accused him of “rude communication with senior officers”. The situation was as follows. For two years, the operations were tracking down a scum who had twice been imprisoned before and was related to numerous local crimes. Yet, it was very hard to prove his participation in those crimes was, for he managed to commit those with other people’s hands, formally remaining pure under the law. Nevertheless, once he made a floater. The operations had to follow on his and his partners’ heels for almost four days. Owing to such persistent work, they succeeded in preventing another crime. Two of Rebrov’s colleagues were heavily wounded upon detention of the criminal group. Finally, their hard work was depreciated. A member of the criminal group assumed responsibility for the crime preparation, whereas the main suspect was set free “due to evidence insufficiency”. At that, all major documents which could be used for his accusation mysteriously disappeared from the files. Two years of work and the colleagues’ wounds turned out to be idle. Why? Rebrov believed it was his duty to reestablish the truth in front of militia bosses who had actually ordered to release the main suspect. As a result, Rebrov was driven from the operations with a scandal, and neither his former merits nor the Investigation Department head’s intersession could mend matters. The best thing his honest boss could do for him was placing him into a duty subdivision of one of the remote city districts, and then hushing up the unpleasant affair.

At heart, Rebrov still felt aggrieved. The militia bosses actually showed they cared neither for his services nor for the fact he and his colleagues risked their lives while the bosses were comfortably sitting in their offices. Nor they cared for the fact Rebrov ruined his health doing his job. Cirrhosis was the outcome. No wonder, this disease could be called “a militia operations disease”. Daily violent stresses, dead bodies, rivers of blood... How could a normal organism endure this? Nearly the only way to relax was drinking vodka, so as to digress from the lingering shock state at least a little.

Major hastily searched for any sense in his entire service to which he had devoted the greater part of his life. “How have I spent my life? I’ve always been fighting for justice... How many real gangsters have I imprisoned? None! Those who must be in jail are now delegated to local councils or sit in the city administration, being considered “respected people”. But they precisely are the criminals! While who is imprisoned? A one who stole a hen from an old farmer in the market, or a car from his neighbour, or a beam from the factory? Well, they committed such crimes through starvation or drunk foolery! We imprison those who have no money to pay off, while the real gangsters don’t care! They just bribe, and a case is dismissed. It’s time to set official prices and let people do what they want... Why getting under fire and risking life? Chaos...”

Although the air was very refreshing, Rebrov got nervous again. A tangle of thinking again started to wind painful thoughts which had been already overthought numerous times with anger and hatred. Major put out the cigarette end, crushing it under his foot with such frenzy as if it was guilty of all the troubles in Rebrov’s life. Having entered the building, he closed the door behind himself and returned to his office. The disgusting smell inside was now felt muted, but still disturbed his nose with its stuffiness which seemed to be the stuffiness of the law-enforcement system as a whole.

Low snoring resounded in the duty room. Senior lieutenant Chmil opened one eye, examined the situation and fell asleep again. Major approached the peaceful, dozy “monkey house”. “H’m! Beggars, hypes... Same faces always. Ensuring statistics?! On these people? It’s so stupid... Everyone well understands this “civilization waste” is only a consequence of the surrounding mess, while the reason is in those who shamelessly produce such “waste”. And everybody keeps silent, trembling with fear. Where can we find justice in this country? And who really needs justice defenders now, when such terrible things are happening around? Feels like I was born not in my times...

Life, life... Who invented it as it is? When you are young, you dream, plan something, but eventually you get something else which is completely unexpected, and you flounder inside it your entire life. Looking into it deeply, all this around is not mine. All my life, I worked here just because it turned out this way. Besides, I needed to support my family. I thought I would realize my literary dreams once my daughter graduated, and I could retire... And there you are – cirrhosis... It appears that life is already coming to its end. Yet, what have I had time to do out if the things my soul desired? Nothing. It would be foolish to think I still have time. Even if there’s time, it is only here and now. And it should be used rationally, without losing a single chance, a single precious moment of life.

Who knows why I was born in the Earth at all... To assure continuation of my kin? But a child grows up in some eighteen years. What’s next? Grandchildren, the old age... Everything moves in a constant wild flow of looking after posterity, just like any animal has. Then what distinguishes a human from that animal? It is an ability to think? But what should one think about? About how to set a dwelling, to procreate children, to raise and support them? It turns out a human being differs from an animal only by the fact that it does everything instinctively, while he does same things deliberately? Judging from life, it does turn out like this. Yet, why does inside one want something greater, something exceeding the bounds of this exclusive circle drawn for ages? Yes, posterity is splendid. But you are born alone, you stew in the pot of your life almost on your own as well (because your family can be some external incentive and support for your personal life program), and finally you die alone, experiencing this event solely on your personal inner level. For, at bottom, no one knows either your thoughts, or your true feelings, or your real life with all “video” and “audio” reflections of the reality pictures inside your brain. Then why does nature need to accumulate such inner information, i.e. human thoughts? After all, not a single living thing except oneself needs it. What hides in the depth of this mystery of nature? If you spent eighteen years raising children (and at times you don’t understand whom you have brought up, for some of their thoughts and deeds remain an undiscovered secret for you), then for “nurturing” or for, better to say, “accumulation” of your inner fortune you spent your entire conscious life since the early childhood and until your last day on the Earth. So, what is the sense? Why are we given all these stages of difficulties and sufferings? Why the transient youth favours you with such instants of inner happiness for which you then long the rest of your days? What is the true basis of human existence? Who am I eventually? Am I just a body? Definitely, I’m not. Why does this sack bones and liquid move, thanks only to my will power? My will power? And who am I then, if I think regardless of the body pain? What is pain at all? Who am I?!»

Rebrov even winced of such new thoughts, having swept over him suddenly and touched the very depth of his heart. He slightly shook his head. Something unusual was happening to him this night, which had never come about before. His consciousness was accustomed to answer questions through logical, irrefragable reasoning. And now he was asking himself questions so simple at first sight, but yet incredibly intricate and broaching something deeply personal, such that his mind with its customary militia officer’s logic was nearly exploding of the overstrain of searching answers. Rebrov shook his head slightly again, fondly expecting to get rid of these thoughts in such a way. However, they did not disappear and only intensified their attack, in eager rivalry grappling with his usual somber thoughts of the daily routine. At that, his body continued to signal painfully of the serious defects inside of it. A next telephone call at 3 a.m. caught Major in such a terrible condition. Rebrov lifted the receiver and automatically responded with a tired voice, “Major Rebrov, officer on duty, fifteenth department...”