“Everything’s clear!” Papa said. “This cat will not be in our house anymore! And there will be a lock on the attic door!” He felt like the greatest detective in the world. Sherlock Holmes smoked nervously on the balcony, occasionally interrupting to beat his head against the wall.
Chapter Thirteen
Uncle Blahblah
Sleeplessness before bedtime is a difficult situation!
©Alena
A day passed, two days, then a week, and the old man did not call. However, Mama all the same looked at the phone in horror, like looking at a planted bomb that will definitely blow up someday. At times, she even tried very inconspicuously, as if by accident, to cover the phone with a pillow.
“Perhaps we should call him?” Papa suggested.
Mama grabbed his hand. “No! What are you doing? What if he has made up with his granddaughter, but you’ll stir him up with your call, they’ll fight, and he’ll come back!”
Papa looked at the phone and sighed. “Sad to be old. He’s a good person, but he lives in three rooms with his granddaughter, who doesn’t let him smoke or file his nails with a pumice stone. But he’ll get used to it all,” he said.
“Yes,” Mama agreed. “I thought about it. Imagine, we’ll also be subject to a granddaughter this way.”
“That’s alright,” Papa said. “Chin up! One hope is that we’ll have many grandchildren and it will be possible to find among them the least harmful. One that will let us file our nails with a pumice stone.”
Autumn by the sea is the golden season. It is the time of poets, artists, old men with beautiful beards and skinny legs, and ladies in hats. The sun no longer turns shoulders into steaks, the nights are chilly, but the sea is still warm, mothers with children have gone home, and only the gulls disturb the sleepy beaches with their calls. The Gavrilovs, living on the coast for the first year, earlier perceived this as a cliché, but it turns out that everything was exactly so, and all their former friends knew this.
After waiting till mid-September, their old friend Uncle Blahblah came to them. They called him Uncle Blahblah because he could explain for twenty minutes what a normal person would understand after four and a half seconds.
Uncle Blahblah was formerly a lawyer who left work to write detective stories and scripts of police serials. His detective stories were somewhat long-drawn-out and very didactic, but employees of Internal Affairs really liked them because everything in them was very thorough. That is, not like Papa Gavrilov’s heroes flying across the sky, attaching themselves by suspenders to the sun, and falling in love without a break. With Uncle Blahblah, if a bench participated in a book, then he specified the material from which it was made, its length, weight, the number of nails, its combat capabilities in a fight, and a lot of other details. Later on, this bench might not be mentioned at all.
In addition to scripts and detective novels, Uncle Blahblah also wrote poems not containing punctuation. His poems had never been published, but Papa considered them good and advised Uncle Blahblah on how to release his poems to the world. “You either perform them with a guitar or present your poems to your heroes!”
“How do I present them?”
“Well, say you have a criminal lawyer or senior investigator who writes poetry! Then you can introduce them directly into the main text and a reader will understand!”
“Oh! That’s an idea!” Uncle Blahblah exclaimed happily, and in his books appeared the head of the homicide department who, after putting aside his pistol (the description of the pistol followed on the second page), wrote poetry.
Upon learning of Uncle Blahblah’s arrival, Mama groaned that they had no place to put him. “He’s rich! He can rent a room in any hotel!”
“First, he doesn’t like unnecessary spending. Second, he wants to talk with me and show me his new poems. Third, he intends on improving his health and soaking up the sun,” Papa defended him.
“Let him soak up the sun somewhere else! I don’t want a lawyer in my house seeing that our things are all over the place!” Mama said, but yielded.
The next day Papa met Uncle Blahblah at the station. Uncle Blahblah emerged from 1st class, although he had written in the mail to Papa that he would come by 3rd class.[23] After jumping out of the car, Uncle Blahblah shook Papa’s hand and immediately rushed to a flowerbed to smell the flowers. He smelled flowers anywhere and scared people unaccustomed to this.
“I waited for you by another car,” Papa said.
“You mean 1st class?” Uncle Blahblah asked. “Oh, yes! Such nice people showed up! You see what the deal is: I pointed out some minor corrupt practices to the conductor. In a completely friendly manner. They took offence and called the head of the train. He rushed over as red as a lobster, but we talked and it turned out that they had a free 1st class compartment. Expensive, you know, few people can afford it.”
“Free?” Papa asked, knowing that Uncle Blahblah would not pay an extra three kopeks.
“Why free? How narrow your thoughts are!” Uncle Blahblah was indignant, picking up the handle of his suitcase on wheels. “Are you aware that each train has a book of ‘Complaints and Suggestions’? I wrote words of gratitude and my own poems in there!”
The Gavrilovs settled Uncle Blahblah in Papa’s office on the first floor. On this occasion, Papa’s laptop moved into the next room and Uncle Blahblah’s computer was assigned to the table. However, he rarely worked on his computer. He more often wrote in a quick hand in a thick notebook with metal springs.
Uncle Blahblah was chubby and well-nourished, led a healthy lifestyle, and rode a bike to the sea every morning, where he doused himself with water from a child’s bucket, considering bathing unwholesome. Then Uncle Blahblah returned to the Gavrilovs and walked around the room, occasionally stopping to smell the blooming geranium.
In the evening, Uncle Blahblah drank wine, which he bought in plastic bottles from a Tatar. They were very cheap, because it was an illegal enterprise, trading under the counter, and completely lacking sanitary certificates.
“You’re great, I’m great! We’re both geniuses, you know? Friendship of the great, you know? Pushkin and this… Turgenev![24] Pour yourself another!” Uncle Blahblah said to Papa.
“Thank you, I have juice,” Papa refused.
“You don’t respect me as a person!”
“I respect you as a poet!”
“This is great! C’mon! To the muse! Where’s your muse?”
“The kids packed it away.”
“But who’s this running?”
“The kids are still up!”
“Why aren’t they sleeping?”
“The light distracts them. When there’s light somewhere, children flock to it like moths. Therefore, we usually arrange ‘night’.”
“How’s that?”
“Turn off the lights in the whole house. The children see that there’s nowhere to run to, there’s darkness everywhere, and go to sleep with grief,” Papa explained, going for the bare heel of Costa, who especially came down to see Uncle Blahblah.
“Uncle Blahblah!” he uttered loudly.
“Who’s he talking about? Who’s this Uncle Blahblah?” Uncle Blahblah, not knowing that he was Uncle Blahblah, tensed up. He naively thought he was Valentin Sergeevich.
Mama came down, lifted Costa onto her shoulder, and carried him away. In the kitchen remained Papa, Uncle Blahblah, Kate, and Peter. Having finished eating, Peter got up from the table and trudged to his room. He was hoping to slip away unnoticed, but far from it.
“Wash up after yourself! Once or twice!” Kate said in her usual voice, not even her most commanding.
She said this to Peter, but Uncle Blahblah decided that it was to him, and he was frightened at first, but then was carried away. “What a woman this one will be in ten years! A character!” The poet-lawyer was delighted. “A true woman should be heard a long way away! She’ll be a hybrid of a dictator, mother, muse, and victim. Precisely so!”
“Very funny!” Ka
te said sullenly and uttered an angry outcry. It turned out that Peter had turned the head of the faucet the wrong way and covered the tiles with water.
“Society of mutual understanding of will!” Uncle Blahblah continued enthusiastically. “You tell me, ‘Do this!’ I’ll do it! The woman says, ‘Put down the glass, go to work!’ Here it is – genuine concern for fellow creatures!”
“Where’s your wife?” Kate asked.
“She left me. She wasn’t destined to understand my complex soul,” Uncle Blahblah said bitterly and again reached for the bottle.
“Please put the glass down and go to work!” Kate said.
“I’ll put it down… that is, I already did!” Uncle Blahblah said and obediently trudged off to Papa’s study to write a story. Some time later, he walked stealthily into the kitchen to get the bottle, but it turned out that Kate had already poured all the wine down the sink and washed the bottle, which was now drying upside down.
Uncle Blahblah uttered a sad sigh and returned to the office. He worked all night, both in his notebook and on the computer, and when all the children came downstairs in the morning to get ready for school, they saw Uncle Blahblah cooking eggs and bacon. Bacon was sizzling in the pan, and a very satisfied Uncle Blahblah was standing beside it.
“I was thinking about you all night!” he said very solemnly. “You people are creative, freelancers, so to speak, and your life is chaotic! You lack a system, discipline! That’s possible in a small family, in which everyone runs where he wants, but in a big family, the structure must be monarchic! Here’s what I’ve come up with for you, dear Gavrilovs!”
Uncle Blahblah ran into Papa’s study, and the printer started to hum almost immediately. Then Uncle Blahblah came out and attached a sheet of paper to the fridge with four magnets.
“Here!” he said. “The fruit of my night’s reflection! I once saw similar rules on the Internet. They’re similar in structure, but I’ve altered everything, of course.”
FAMILY CHARTER
1. No matter what, Mama and Papa are always right.
2. And they will be right in the future.
3. Mama does not raise her voice, she draws attention to the important things and emphasizes details.
4. Papa does not curse, he worries that the children will develop into bad people.
5. Peter and Alex do not tease the girls, they prepare them for the fact that their husbands will also not be angels.
6. Alex does not refuse to read aloud, he proceeds from the premise that it is easier for an illiterate to remain a good person.
7. Kate does not bully Alena every second, she reminds her that she has a wise older sister.
8. Costa does not butt, he is preparing for the international tournament of fights without rules.
9. Vicky does not die twice an hour, she is rehearsing the ballet The Wounded Swan.
10. Rita does not whine like a chainsaw, she reminds everyone that she also has a right to attention.
11. All the children hear a speech addressed to them for the first time. They do not express dissatisfaction with shouts, but with calm objection, “I am distressed and cannot agree with you for such and such a reason.” After which, the reason is voiced and the next steps agreed upon.
Papa and Mama liked Uncle Blahblah’s rules. The children also appreciated them. Peter even asked to have them sent to him by email, and Rita and Costa laughed for a long time, not because they understood anything, but because they saw that the others were also laughing. Kate alone reacted sceptically to the family charter.
“Papa, he’s what, brilliant..?” Kate asked after breakfast, when everyone was drinking tea. Uncle Blahblah thought that they were talking about him and blushed modestly. “…puts a wet spoon into the sugar bowl!” she finished.
Late in the evening, when the other children were already asleep, Kate climbed up onto the wardrobe, tossed and turned for a long time, arranging her pad, then rolled over on her stomach and leaned out from under the blanket. This meant that Kate wanted to talk with Mama. Mama sensed this and remained below. She stood with one knee on a revolving chair.
Kate lowered her head, touching Mama with her hair. “All the same, Uncle Blahblah is partly right!” Kate declared. “You’re not correct parents.”
“Why?” Mama was surprised.
“Well, here’s an example. When you say NO, it should immediately be NO, not ‘no-yes-no-yes’. It’s always possible to pressure you or wear you down. You told Costa, ‘I’m not buying a chocolate egg!’ but then you bought it anyway. Inconsistency! Or tonight you said, ‘Candy only after dinner!’ But they gobbled them up before dinner, and nothing happened.”
“So I should chase after them with a chainsaw because of the candies?”
“No. But then there was no need to say ‘after dinner’. Instead, say, ‘I don’t care when you eat candy. Decide for yourself!’ Then there won’t be disobedience.”
Mama sighed. “I pity Costa.”
Kate hung down even lower. “You shouldn’t pity children! You must love them, but not pity them!”
“Why’s that?”
“Because! At our old school, Oksana Timofeevna was like that. At first, she took us all to the museums to see butterflies, and when her class got on her nerves, she poured a jar of water on Smirnov, pulled a wastebasket over Apresian’s head, and then ran away from school because Apresian’s parents are well-to-do.”
Mama thought for a moment. “So what do you recommend?”
“Well, change a little bit!” Kate graciously consented. "You’re good. And don’t argue with Papa! If he says something, so it will be. Love us, but no need to pity. We’re all little rascals.”
“Are you a rascal?”
“A little,” Kate sighed. “Each of us pressures you differently.”
“Vicky dies and Costa waves his sword?”
“Well, yes. Roughly,” Kate admitted.
“Hmm… And how is it at the Mokhovs?” Mama asked jealously.
“Everything’s the other way around there. It’s great! There the kids become the mother to their mama!” Kate said enthusiastically, and Mama was even a little jealous because Kate rarely praised anyone.
“How’s that?”
“I don’t know how to explain to you… Aunt Tanya sits at the computer, and they bring her sausages on bread. They cook and bring it! The kids can generally do anything. You want to sleep for three hours, do. You don’t want to lie down, don’t, but do you still have to go to school in the morning? Therefore, they go around twelve, and read as much as they want, and watch whatever movie they want.”
“And supervision?”
“Why supervise them if they are normal? Indeed, all parents only pretend to supervise. Actually, to supervise someone, you have to be a born bully. People simply delude themselves, yell at the kids because of a spot of ketchup on a shirt, and the kids quietly laugh at them and nothing changes.”
Mama put a hand on her forehead. “And what do you recommend?”
“Two options!” Kate said. “Option A. You’ll be quite strict. But it doesn’t work for you, because we already know that you aren’t strict. Option B. You’ll just quietly paint, sculpt with clay, and read aloud. Then you’ll be happy because you like all this, and we’ll sense this and then the whole house will be happy! This I, Catherine the Great, said! Good night!”
Chapter Fourteen
How Peter Lost a Billion to Rita
The worse the circus, the more the clowns.
©Peter
Uncle Blahblah lived with the Gavrilovs for a week, after which he could not stand the noise and rented a room from an old woman who lived by the sea in a pre-revolutionary house. The old woman on the top floor had flooded this old woman’s place and she wished to write such a paper that they would even shed tears in court. Uncle Blahblah, rubbing his palms, promised that they would shed tears in court and rolled his little suitcase on wheels to the old woman’s place.
Now Uncle Blahblah nurtu
red his creative soul in the evening and night. In the morning, he sunbathed on the beach, sponged down using a child’s bucket, then slept, and dined tastefully. He also composed for his hostess a tearful civil complaint with heartbreaking details on how the old woman above, in response to a polite request to take measures to stop the flooding, laughed viciously, as a result of which the old woman below sustained moral injury. Peter went to visit Uncle Blahblah several times after school, because the old lady with whom he lived baked remarkable charlottes.[25]
One day Peter returned from there and immediately shouted excitedly, “Know what? Uncle Blahblah moved to the old lady above!”
“How? Why?” Mama was surprised.
“Ah, I don’t know! It seems he’s now composing a complaint on the old lady below! The old woman above is also not bad. She cooks meat well, but her pancakes are slightly burnt! Her TV is huge, hangs on the wall, while that of the old woman below stood on the table and only had forty channels.”
Mama looked at Peter anxiously. The Gavrilovs had not had a TV for fifteen years already, but, unfortunately, the computer had successfully replaced it.
A few days after this, Alena ran home from school in great excitement, waving colourful leaflets. “Some auntie from the circus came to our class! She invited everyone to the circus. Here, look! 3+1=3!” she yelled.
Peter started to study the flyers with apprehension. “Buy three tickets and get the fourth one free. Children under six are free!” he read and began to count.
Peter was one, Vicky – two, Kate – three, Alena – four. Rita, Costa, and Alex were still little, they would let them in anyway. It turned out they would buy three tickets and seven people would get into the circus. Hmm… Hmm… Arithmetic! Just in case, Peter repeated several times that they certainly would let no one in free, but later he went to consult Papa. He once again voiced to Papa his doubts about the honesty of advertisers and only after this handed Papa the flyer.
Mutiny of the Little Sweeties Page 11