The Tour (Begemot, 2020)

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The Tour (Begemot, 2020)

excerpt from the novel

 

 

CHAPTER IV – THE STOLEN BALALAIKA

 

Natalia Nikolaevich Volkova slapped her fleshy hand on the carved mahogany table and threatened to spread her dominant alto widely.

“That balalaika will be found. This is where I’m the thinnest, and that is what my punishment will be for the one who dared to do such an act. The suffering of my family was enough. I had a veil over my eyes and allowed that balalaika that was owned by my great-grandfather to be listed as a prop of the theatre. And now on top of that someone stole it. No, this will not go unpunished. Fyodor Sevastopolovich Krajnitsky, look me in the eye.” Fyodor swallowed and looked with great fear at the People’s Actress of Russia and the current first actress of the New Komsomol Theatre in St. Petersburg, who when she took the balalaika at the rehearsal of the trilogy The Coast of Utopia by Tom Stoppard, concluded that it was a completely different balalaika bought from a store, and the one from her glorious Romanov family disappeared somewhere. “When the English can write about the famous Bakunin, then the real Russians will have to keep at least those things that are important to their history. What is all this? Everything is twisted! The lines I utter sound like I’m about to take a hot dog out of a basket at any moment. Come on, please. Immediately call Matryona Alexandrova to explain this repertoire move. I, Fyodor Sevastopolovich, had patience and did not dismiss this shitty project from the theatre’s repertoire, but the American who smells of menthol and says “wonderful” after every rehearsal, when we have not moved a finger, will not bring us world fame. Let’s us think for a moment and realize where we are going.”

“Well, let us see, what do you suggest?” The play has already started, there’s nothing to do. Money was spent and…”, Fyodor swallowed, and Natalia straightened up and looked at him contemptuously.

“First let’s find the balalaika, and then we’ll talk. I have a plan, but here, I give in and it’s costing me respect and tradition. And open the window. It stinks of cheap tobacco,” she said, slamming the door, while Fyodor Sevastopolovich smelled around him to check how poisoned the area was when knocking on the door routinely Anyutka appeared, the secretary who informed him that the Macedonian Theatre was due to arrive in St. Petersburg tonight. Fyodor slapped himself on forehead and panicked immediately.

“Is everything ready? In fact, nothing’s ready. And when do they arrive?” he asked, raising his anger at his co-workers. “Weeeell… I think tonight … yes, tonight around midnight,” the secretary said uncertainly, and Fyodor just sat down on the wide director’s armchair, sweating profusely. “Can I get you some tea?”, added the not very smart, but beautiful secretary, to which Fyodor responded by throwing at her The Idiot by Dostoevsky, the writer whose name he bore, and the rather thick novel stood on his right side, ready for negotiations as the next project. Anyutka skilfully evaded Fyodor Mikhailovich’s difficult novel and disappeared through the door. Fyodor lowered his head to the desk and after a few minutes he yelled: “Seryozhaaaaaa, Nikoljkaaaaaa, Ivaaaaan!!!” In less than a minute, Seryozha Nikitin, Nikolay Namusov and Ivan Kratkiy, who was the tallest of them, appeared before him. “The Macedonian group is coming iiiin…” the calculation of the hours while staring at the wristwatch raised his anger and despair even more: “in ten hours. I want them to be well accommodated and the theatre prepared for their play tomorrow.”

“You mean the day after tomorrow,” Seryozha corrected him, smiling bitterly. “We were turned down from the Sevastopol Hotel because of the unpaid bills from last fall when the theatre group from Tanzania came, so I’ll have to go to the Viy Hotel. I know we don’t want to go there, but that’s the only option.” They didn’t want to go to the Viy Hotel because the manager of that hotel was Fyodor’s political opponent and they shared an affair he didn’t want to talk about, let alone use their services. “Okay, there is one variant left, and that is to put them in a hotel a little further away – Priamukhino, but they’ll have to use the metro, etc. “Done,” Fyodor replied shortly. “Let them take a little ride on the subway. Something else? “Ivan replied that he would inform all the media today and that the press conference would be held the day after the show, but that… “All that today, right? And what have we been doing so far?” All three looked at the ceiling, and Fyodor just waved his two hands, saying through his teeth: “I want everything to be perfect by ten o’clock tonight, otherwise don’t come back to work.” The three organizers, who pretended to have done everything they said, went out the door and immediately set to work. Fyodor covered his face with both hands and sighed desperately. Then he took out a bottle of vodka from the bottom drawer and poured himself a small, wide glass. He drank it bottoms up and snorted angrily.

AuthorSasho Ognenovski
2021-06-02T20:02:56+00:00 May 31st, 2021|Categories: Prose, Literature, Blesok no. 137|0 Comments