17

We sat on the roof of a shed near the mentioned above phone booth the villagers used to call the city from. Neither Sue nor I knew where else to go; so we, hiding on that roof, entertained ourselves picking yellow plums and eating them, and throwing the seeds down on the road trying to fling them as far as possible.

“I told you I’d sacrifice anything for our friendship,” Sue convinced me heatedly, “You have no idea how restless I felt all the time while you were away! Then I realized I didn’t really need any Roma… So I just turned him down.”

“I don’t need him either,” I said ostentatiously, “I love Shurik. And Roma was just a passing thing, you know.”

“But you may never see Shurik again” reminded Sue.

“That’s true. Dads say after the May incident I’m never setting foot at Kruglovo again. But nonetheless, I will always love Shurik, for the rest of my life.”

“And you will never marry anyone else, right?”

I shook my head.

“No. No one else but Shurik.”

“What if he rejects you?”

“Then I’ll stay unmarried forever. I love him truly and deeply and I will love him until my last breath.”

Sue giggled up her sleeve.

“What’s so funny?” I snapped out rudely.

“Sorry. You’re just being so naive…”

“Why am I being naive?”

“Because… Shurick the hick… You may never cross paths with him again!”

“Never say never,” I said unexpectedly, “The world doesn’t revolve around dads, after all! There are plenty of ways to get to Kruglovo without them…”

“What ways?”

“What ways? Going there on our own, for instance! Why not?”

“Do you have any idea where it is located?”

“Not really…” I mumbled, “But we could buy a map and see…”

“Maybe it’s not even charted on the maps! Even if it is - do you know how many Kruglovos there may be in the country? More than you can count, that’s how many!”

“Oh well, we could find all the Kruglovos and travel to all of them… Sooner or later we must get lucky and come to the right place!”

Sue laughed contemptuously.

“Do you know how many years it’s going to take before you’ve been to all your Kruglovos? You’ll make me die, really…” she said doubling over with laughter, “I imagine this picture in sixty years… You are a crooked old woman traveling around on and on in search of Kruglovo… Ha-ha-ha! And when you finally see your beloved Shurik, a bald old man, wrinkly and toothless, all falling apart… Hallo, my luv!.. Oh, you crack me up!! Ha-ha-ha!!!”

“How funny!” I said offended.

But there was no stopping Sue.

“And then he… farts!!!” she squealed like a pig choking on her laughter.

That really took the biscuit. I sprang up and went at her.

“Say one more word and I’ll kick you off the roof. Understand?”

“Okay, okay, I got ya…” she pretended to be scared but couldn’t help laughing out again.

I swung at her with the intention of giving that little b***h a good punch and teaching her to watch her mouth when I suddenly saw the fat figure of my grandmother Zoya approaching our booth.

The blood drained from my face. I ducked down to the very edge of the roof and crawled rapidly back.

“What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

“Grandmother…” I gasped quietly, “Get down or she’ll see us! I wonder what the heck she’s doing here…”

We lied still up there like two spies. Meanwhile, Gran Zoya went inside the booth and we guessed that she had come here to make a phone call.

“She must be going to call my father and complain about me,” I said in a whisper, “What an old c**t! That’s all I needed…”

“Be quiet! Let’s listen to what she’s gonna say”

We got quiet on the roof. And the loud, distinctive voice of Gran Zoya wasn’t long in coming.

“Hello, I need an ambulance! I think, my husband’s having a heart attack! Yes, a heart attack! Please, come quickly to the address…”

A few days later my grandfather passed away.