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Tanya Grotter and The Magical Double Bass
Tanya Grotter and The Magical Double Bass
by Dimitriy Yemets
Eksmo, 2002
On a bright autumn morning, when everyone gave the world a long look
and was disgracefully happy, and the foliage on the trees shone like
it was beaten out of gold leaf, out of the entrance of the multi-story
apartment house on Rublevskiy Highway peered a tall round-shouldered
man in a gray overcoat.
They called him German Durnev. He was the director of the Second-Hand
Socks Company and father of a one-year-old daughter, Pipa (short for
Penelopa).
Stopping under the cover of the main entrance, Durnev looked around
disapprovingly. The sun, whose rounded features were as flat as a
pancake, had deserted the neighboring roofs as if he were lazy and
pondering whether he should stand up and rise further or just go down.
In a pile of leaves not far from the door reclined a woman in orange
overalls gazing into an open manhole. Her profile was regular and
Grecian in outline, but copper-red hairs bristled on her which
involuntarily called up memories of snakes. Inside the manhole someone
tempestuously romped and rattled. Sulky sparrows pecked something on
the asphalt, briskly bouncing back like rubber balls from passersby.
From window and cellar to playground and tiny park, on the tops of
the trees and in the sky hung with sponges of stormcloud, off cats'
eyes and women's purses, from automobiles' exhaust pipes to stores'
marquees and all of their summer visitors' scorched noses -- from
everywhere, rubbing its carrot-orange palms, stared the tiny young
newborn, October.
But German Durnev was not affected in any way by all this beauty.
The weather, and nature in general, interested him only so much as it
determined his actions -- whether or not to grab an umbrella or place
spiked winter tires on a car.
"So rude, this sun! One, two... And it's not worth spit to him,
after all... Though if should they fade generally... unless on such a
day someone was in a working mood... Five, six... Early or late,
there's quite enough plaguing me...Or there will be... Seven...." he
mumbled, counting off marble-shaped pills and placing them under his
tongue.
When the marbles had dissolved, Durnev had pondered enough and told
himself, "Well, now I will at least live to see lunch, if my new corns
plaster doesn't give me blood poisoning."
Naturally, Durnev did not suspect that he was being watched from
behind. Watched by a big, miserable bird -- gloomy, rumpled, with a
long molted neck almost without a feather, staring from on top of the
doorway behind him. In the bird's beak, it held a photograph cut
out of a magazine. It looked at this. Yes, this was him, German
Durnev, taken together with his wife Ninel and his daughter Pipa at the
International Suspenders Exhibition at VVTs.
You can imagine how astonished Durnev would have been if by chance
he'd raised his head and glanced at what sat on top of the door. However,
German Nikitich was not one of those who pay attention to birds -- unless,
of course, it was a boiled chicken laying on a plate in front of him.
Moreover, at the present moment, the shifty mind that led the Second-Hand
Socks company was busy deciding business, like how to sell two boxcar
loads
of handkerchiefs as children's wear.
She threw up her hand, on the middle finger of which was a shining
ring, and whispered in a low voice, "Sparkis frontus!"
At that very instant, a green spark shot out from the ring and
singed the bird's wing. Losing feathers, the Dead Vulture fell like a
stone onto the asphalt. Somehow it hoarsely crowed and took off again,
hurling itself over the nearest apartment building.
"I hate those living corpses. It's impossible to kill them a second
time. Much better to have simply lounged around," she grumbled.
"Bother the hair of Drevnir -- this is not sneaking into some gate! Only
picture it -- you, a member of the Academy of White Magic, head of the
Tibidox wizards' school, Sardanapal Chernomorov -- forced to lower
yourself to lying around doing warding spells! Where, may I ask, are
our junior magicians? Where are the assistants?" she asked, pursing her
lips severely.
The clattering in the manhole ceased. Onto the surface rose a short
fat little man dressed in orange overalls, from which water flowed
down. Not -- pardon me! -- not at all on his coveralls, but on his
cloak. His coveralls could only be seen by someone not paying much
attention at first glance. Exactly the opposite was true of the orange
cloak on her companion.
Finally sweeping off his drenched cloak, the head of the magic
school muttered, "Firstus drumus!"
Steam piled out from the clothing, and a few moments after, it was
perfectly dried out.
"Oof! From the stinky I expect only foul remarks. They chopped my
head off, too. Some hot-blooded type in winged sandals, staring into
his own shield. Back then I was a badly brought up witch with
nightmarish habits, and only you, Academician, re-educated me," said
she.
"Stop! How many times will you thank me? Glueing your head back on
was merely a trifle. It wasn't anything new among serious mages, ones
fully experienced with spatial tranfer spells. Well, and if you gave
up your former habits -- praise and honor to you! My services
were...ahem...minimal...ahem...."
"How can you say that!" exclaimed Meduziya. "I only turned travelers
into sculpture! Anyone who looked at me instantly turned into stone!"
"Nonsense! That's not how I remember it. You were quite a young
girl with a complexion full of pimples. The pimples cast that horrid
spell, and by chance they caught sight of them. To speak frankly, I
understood you perfectly: those were the ancient Greeks, who stuck
their curious noses everywhere. You even moved to an island to get a
little farther from their eyes, but all the same they wandered about
nearby, waving swords. To me, all that was needed was to cure you of
pimples. Then what a beauty stood there! Even Koshchei the Undying
and his crowd turned red when you came flying into Tibidox on the
skeleton of your faithful horse...."
"I'm not apologizing, I'm not taking offense. I simply don't love it
when you utter that name in my presence...." Meduziya relented.
"Better tell me now: did I really drag after you all this way from
Tibidox, just to visit this very smelly manhole, the odor of which you
breathe in so as to steal the keys and small change from passersby?
Just don't be tricky. We have, after all, known each other for three
thousand years already."
"You have a cold because you didn't put on a scarf when we flew over
the ocean...And the needs of the lopeared disturb me very little, in
this world filled with enchanted manholes, enraged turnstiles and
cellars that slam shut with a bang. We should protect them, not sit
with folded hands. Scarcely will we leave when _they'll_ be at this
manhole again, laying on incantations. And we can't do anything about
it."
"I saw. But how did you? I want to say, they were above ground!"
Sardanapal mysteriously smiled:
"Now, now, Meduziya, don't be so harsh. If only from respect for the
memory of Leopold Grotter."
"More than that. He's his heir. And even rather close -- Leopold's
the nephew of his grandmother's second cousin. Naturally among the
lop-eared, this relationship is even closer -- to them the seventh water
is sour -- but any of us, like you, would know the formula of mage-kinship
from Astrocactus Paranoidal!"
"There it is! She grabbed me! But now....!" yelled the teacher.
"I kill and hack-ga to get you back-ga! Unless you lets walk-gi the one
who talks-gi! Phooey-gi on youey-gi! And on youey-gi phooey-gi!"
"No way-gi I'll say-gi! Stupid witch-uga live in ditch-uga! Now I will
make-gi a curse you will take-gi! You go play in a grave-gu!" angrily
bubbled the kikimorka, trying to accompany her own words with well-aimed
spit.
"I see-ga you need me-ga!" the sly kikimorka instantly reconsidered,
then lisped mournfully that she was a poor orphan and that she, an
orphan, might be treated badly by anybody.
"She'll never tell us a thing. I know these people. But she's not
going about her own business here, I'm sure. Can we collect her for the
museum, so she can't blab to anybody" offered the Undead Management
teacher, shaking the kikimorka by her ears.
"Scleroticus marasmaticus!
Fullissimo debilissimo!"
After this he coolly relaxed his fingers and dropped the spy in the
grass. After some time the little green woman lost her head, shook
her hair, and was strongly confused. She looked at Sardanapal and
Meduziya bluntly and without curiosity. Making a few wobbly steps
along the lawn, the kikimorka slightly regained her senses, snorted
scornfully and, waddling to the manhole, leaped in there like a toy
soldier. Out from the manhole splashed a little fountainlet of water,
a few bad words could be heard -- then all was quiet.
"She swam away," said Sardanapal, the green whisker pointing the
direction.
"All these undead get terribly boring. Once upon a time, we'd lay
an incantation on her so she wouldn't intrude on the lop-eared. She's
disturbed the balance of forces, and now our whole operation may go
poorly." Meduzia tsked her tongue anxiously.
"I agree she was the only one who could succeed in organizing to
protect and set her against us. What is more, her getting away forces
us mages to hand over our position to her. If it were not for Leopold
Grotter and his newborn on the night...."
"Not just Grotter. You never were afraid of her, Academician! Even
when she was in power!"
"Trifles. My own aunts could have beaten that... Just one of the
old spells activating. She has a thousand of them scattered
everywhere." Sardanapal smiled and advanced on an escaped head of
cabbage which was trying to wind its own tie around his foot.
Meduziya pulled a face from loathing. Into her hand in some unknown
way sprang a lorgnette, with which she closely examined the parts of
the destroyed iron.
"WHAT? Do I hear you right? You want to hand over the daughter of
Leopold Grotter to this miserable lopear? The little girl who in
some mysterious way survived the fight with She-Who-Is-Not? The little
girl whom She-Who-Is-Not disappeared after meeting?"
"I'll tell you everything like it was that night. You remember, that
three days before it all happened, those terrible thunderstorms burst
over us..."
"A cupid? To you? But why a cupid? An Amor to someone not interested
in Amour...."
"So the little cupid wrung out his wet suspenders and delivered me
a letter from Leopold Grotter."
"Naturally, nobody. And you soon will know why. The truth only
those whom I absolutely trust need to know. I sent the little cupid to
warm up in the Russian bath -- realizing I was glad that the cyclopes
arranged it in the basement (although sometimes one of a pair
certainly tears things up) -- but I myself immediately stopped to read
the letter. It was very brief: Grotter reported that after a great
number of failures, he was finally successful in obtaining the
Talisman of the Four Elements."
"I should have bespelled her mind sooner," muttered she. "The
Talisman of the Four Elements contained in itself the power of fire,
air, earth and water! Given that, for the one who carries it, the
Talisman means enormous power. It's disturbing that whoever owns the
Talisman might indeed throw out a challenge himself...to She-Who...."
"In the beginning I wanted to use the flying carpet, but setting out
on the carpet in such dampness was indeed a waste: it's moth-eaten. And
then, the jet divan is almost one and a half times faster...Well, and
I don't generally mention the fast-runner boots. Since they were
evil-eyed, their precision landings are off by almost 20 versts...Oh,
of course I could grab a mop with propellors or a flying vacuum cleaner,
but you well know that they're uncomfortable. In the long time flying
there, they'd make my back go numb, and the lack of a luggage rack
makes it a bother for one to carry even the smallest load."
When you have business with mighty mages, you can't lose your
concentration on any little thing.
"And nobody was even trying to attack?" asked the startled Meduziya.
"So then you figured out that Chuma del'Torte had disappeared?"
"We knew the Grotters very well, Meduziya. They were people of art,
mages in lofty subjects. Magic and music -- they lived for them. For
a child of theirs there was no baby carriage; he always used the double
bass case. Fearing that the little girl also was dead, I bent over the
case, and -- o miracle! -- she slept peacefully, and in the palm of
her hand was held the silver scorpion of Chuma del'Torte."
"Yes. But the did not seem to hurt the little girl, although I
noticed two red spots on the tip of her nose. It looked like the scorpion
stung her right in the mole. Even a light sting usually would be
enough to kill an adult magician... And she, who is a little one, it
would simply overwhelm. A one-year-old girl dealt with the silver
scorpion and wasn't even woken up."
"All the same, it's unbelievable that she survived. Maybe the
scorpion didn't use its poison? Or had made use of it before?" asked
Gorgonova with incredulity.
"No, there was plenty of poison. And Chuma del'Torte doesn't keep
an old scorpion. But even forgetting about the scorpion, the rest
remains: a spell of destruction -- this was a fearsome white flash
that burned up everything in a sphere around it -- also did not seem to
cause Tanya harm in any way. But to a mage it looked like it wasn't
because it was directed selectively. It took out everything and everyone
who was near, with the exception of the one who uttered the spell."
Along Meduziya's cheek rolled a tear which fell onto the pile of
maple leaves. The leaves began to smoke. The unknown Russian
storyteller who first called women's tears 'burning' gave this sign
that that someone was also one of the magicians.
"Poor unlucky Grotters! And that was indeed the Talisman of the Four
Elements?" sniffled Meduziya.
Only now discovering the hot leaves under her own feet, Meduziya
pronounced a short spell, accompanying it with its sign, which her
magic ring inscribed straight in the air. The fire went out. A trace
of Meduziya's sign for some time still hung in the air, faintly
wavering. Gorgonova irritably wiped off her palms.
"But why do you want to give the little girl to Durnev? Why send
her out into the world to the lop-eared? What is it to us to raise her
in Tibidox?" she asked with vexation.
"He promised that he'd give up all his habits and would be our
gatekeeper. You yourself know that it's hard to rely on the cyclopes.
Those dimwits' heads are like a sieve," said Meduziya,justifying herself.
"And why...well, you yourself know that's because...."
"No, of course not. But Sardanapal, we could make amends for the one
in the Drained Bath, and then...."
"We don't know how she did it, but we know what it cost Leopold and
Sofya. And to expose the little girl to danger again...Except for
that..." Here Sardanapal made a long pause. "There's still one other
reason...It's extremely important, and it's why Tanya must not be
found in Tibidox in any way. Just in case, since that might not have
to appear for a long time...."
"For the time being I can't tell you, even though I trust you more
than anyone. But this is the same reason for which Grotter did not
stay living in Tibidox, and took Sofya and the child to that
wilderness where, except for marsh kikimoras, werewolves and the undead,
they never ran into anyone. And this was Grotter, with his beautiful
capital-educated manners and his habit of holding daily music gatherings.
You understand, Meduziya?"
"And so, the decision...This very night we return here with the
child and slip her to German Durnev and his wife. It cannot be that
seeing the poor orphan would not touch their hearts...Let them raise
her together with their own daughter. The little girls are the same
age; they will be happier together. Let's go, Meduziya. It's time!
A-a-a-a-choo!" Suddenly the academician sneezed so deafeningly that
all the constellations were blown off his handkerchief at once, and
the telephone booth that stood by the apartment house came tumbling
down on one side with a crash.
Greatness was passing, filling the street in that hour when it was
forced to walk along our works; little attention was paid to them.
And indeed, what would have attracted curiosity, when only a shaggy
mongrel and, a short distance away, an elegant borzoi with a long muzzle,
could be seen? For the two experienced magicians did not need to cook
up a pair of warding spells.
The curious thing was that, even on a funny children's pony, Docent
Gorgonova managed to look majestic as she looked out over her own bird.
If somewhere on the way she came across the Dead Vulture, the poor
devil was going to be the worse for wear. But then, he was also dead
already, so to lose his life was nothing special.
The sun lazily yawned and rose over the roofs. The unusual day
continued.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
German Durnev was a man of 117 bad moods. If the first mood could be
characterized as slightly bad, the last, the 117th, equated to a good
gale force storm. It was in this 117th poor mood that the leader of the
Second-Hand Socks company came back to the apartment house that day.
On the way home, it constantly seemed to him that the other cars were
driving too slowly, and he began to hit the horn with his palm.
At this it twice seemed to him that the honking sound slowly softened,
and then, leaning his head out the car window, he screamed, "Hey, what
are you towing? Drive around him, drive around! You want me to walk out
and nail you one? You want to give a sick man a heart attack?"
The sick man that Durnev spoke of, naturally, was himself. The basic
reason German Nikitich's mood deteriorated so severely was the feeling
that they were after him, and that some sort of strange and mysterious
forces secretly were making fun of him. It all began that very morning
when he'd just set out for work. Along the way something in the trunk
clattered so loudly that it made the car jump, but when he got out to
look, he found that nothing was in the trunk. When Durnev got back
behind the wheel, he found stuck to the windshield his own picture from
a magazine. It seemed to him that a page should be puddle-soaked if it
was thrown onto the glass by the wind.
The director was so over-excited that, when he tore off his picture,
his fingers trembled; and he unexpectedly tore off from the photograph
the part with his head and ears. Keeping an eye on this bad omen for
himself, German Nikitich swallowed thirty tablets of "Tranquility" all
at once and washed them down with a small bottle of valerian drops.
All the same, when he had arrived at work he discovered that the
trashbasket in his private office was overturned, and all the trash
from it had been shaken unceremoniously onto the carpet. And not
simply shaken out, but also had had something stinky spilled over it.
Becoming enraged, Durnev immediately fired the cleaner, then
announced that he was not taking calls.
"25...26...I am not the least bit nervous. What are you staring at?
Get to work! Really, I didn't ask you to bring me the price of an old
toothbrush," he began to scream at a subordinate who timidly looked
in. The poor manager slipped into his own crumb-sized private office,
where it smelled like he was being swallowed by motheaten sweaters
and threadbare jeans, and, collapsing into his chair, barely managed
not to die from fright.
He leaned over the playpen and made attempts to kiss Pipa on the
top of her head. His daughter's right hand grabbed Papa by the hair;
with the left she squeezed a plastic shovel and began to saw Papa's
neck in two, obviously prepared to do the same thing to him that
she'd done with the dolls.
With work he freed his hair and in any case stepped a little
farther from the playpen, where she could not reach and could not
walk so far. With strength, Pipa threw the shovel after him, but
got a scolding only for hitting the little glass on top of the
television set, followed immediately by songs of praise for her
readiness to spread breakage.
"Oh, how strong our daughter is! What good aim!" rapturously
screeched Ninel.
"Also nobody...." answered Ninel, after German made his way by her
to the peephole.
Pipa threw a shoe after them, but its shoelace had wrapped itself
around her hands, and the shoe, rebounding, hit her on the nose.
Pipa yowled like a steamboat whistle.
By that time German was looking through the peephole. Nobody was
visible through it, though the doorbell did not fall silent and
continued to demand persistently that they open it.
"Hey, who's there? I'm warning you, I don't like this joke!"
bellowed Durnev, and arming himself with a hammer, looked out onto
the landing. Suddenly his face look like the old woman's who
mistakenly petted a Nile crocodile instead of a poodle.
In front of the door, barely fitting onto the narrow landing, lay
the enormous case for a double bass. The case was exceptionally old,
covered on the outside with thick rough leather looking something
like scales. Had German Nikitich been a little more erudite or had the
habit of leafing through books in the first place, he easily might
have thought how painters always depicted such skin on dragons.
Moreover, on the bulging handle of the double bass case was riveted
a little copper label on which was written:
But Durnev had not the smallest wish to examine either the case
or that additional label upon it. He only figured out that someone
had abandoned a large and suspicious item on his threshold and that
those who'd abandoned it were now getting away quicker than anything.
German Nikitich awkwardly leapt over the case, and jumping out
onto the stairway, screamed across, into echoing emptiness:
"Hey, you there! Well, and take away your suspicious stuff -- I'll
call the militia! Secretly placed bombs are nothing of mine!"
Still yelling out vaporous threats, German Nikitich came back. The
case was still in the same place. Not walking up the next few steps,
Durnev squatted on his hams and propped his head on his palms.
"Ninel, Ninel, come here -- look, this is what they've left us!"
he called plaintively.
From the apartment peered his spouse's head. Ninel's hands clutched
a Tfal frying pan aimed at her husband, armed with a hammer.
"Don't take it into your head to touch it! There's a bomb in there
for sure!" yelped German Nikitich.
At this moment from the case came a strange sound. The Durnevs
decided that this was the alarm of a timing mechanism.
But the expected explosion did not follow. Instead of this, from
the case was heard a child's demanding crying. Exchanging amazed
glances, Durnev and his spouse crept up to the case. He flicked the
old latch, the lid was pushed aside....
"Aah! Did you see? This is a child!" exclaimed Ninel, running into
her own spouse.
Hearing that the little girl could stay with them, his wife swelled
up with anger so far that she could hardly fit on the landing.
Durnev turned red from outrage. It seemed that his ears and nostrils
were about to gush steam.
"Poor tiger! Found by those two! Still, he's lucky he was dead!"
exclaimed Durnev with feeling.
This was the only pity which German Nikitich expressed upon
finding out about the death of his third cousin. The little girl
lying in the double bass case had quieted down for the time they
read the note, but afterwards began to cry twice as loud.
"Oh, how she's burst into tears, just as if she understood something!"
said Durnev. "I swear, when she grows up, she'll land in jail! Just
for that, for the pleasure of watching that spectacle, we'll legalize
her guardianship! Feed her, Ninel! In the refrigerator there's some
kefir that's past its expiration date. Just the same as throwing it
away."
So German Durnev and his wife Ninel became Uncle German and Aunt
Ninel. Under these resounding titles they became known in their own
time and in the reference book _One Thousand Very Unpleasant Lopears_.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Notes:
mushroom: Kikimoras are associated with them. It's a clue that she and
the Dead Vulture both were spying on German Durnev. (She must've been
the critter in the trunk.)
New Year's tree: Along with (Orthodox) Christmas or Epiphany, Russians
have long celebrated New Year's Day. They used to decorate the first
sheaf of grain harvested (kept around the house for good luck), but
nowadays they have New Year's trees instead of Christmas ones.
Grandfather Frost and the Snow Maiden are also associated with this
holiday.