and the boy sat silently at the table in the smoky kitchen. Spilled on the second.
– What, let me ask, do you have a calendar for 1989? Collecting rarities? – paying attention to the tear-off calendar, which I saw only as a child, the fighter asked, removing the knife from his eyes, assessing the peacemaking position of the environment.
The locals looked at the calendar in surprise, then at the guy.
"What year do you think should be on the calendar?" "what is it?" the landlord asked cautiously.
– It's 2019, don't you know? – what is it? " the intruder asked sarcastically, overturning his glass. But when he met the genuinely startled stares, he removed the grin from his face.
"Gavrila, Nikifor-it's time for you to leave us," Mikhalych's wife said rudely. The husband's drinking companions had not heard this tone from the humble hostess before, but they preferred not to find out the details and quickly left the hut.
– That voice…"who didn't seem to be the only one who told you to be polite to your father.".. I don't quite understand it yet, and I don't really believe it, but tell me your name.
– Can I still show my passport? What kind of interrogation are you doing here, mother? We sat, talked and will. I have to go, " the guy said roughly, getting up from the table.
– Not Ivan? the woman asked pleadingly, looking with tearful eyes into the boy's eyes. These words startled Mikhalych, who had hitherto remained calm.
"So what?" – passing to an exit, the fighter answered through teeth. "She's a clairvoyant, too." Now you can easily find information for each person. Come on, clowns.
The guy left the house. The wife sat down next to her husband, looking at each other meekly.
– Well, what's wrong with that? Where did this ghoul come from in our underground? – partially sobered, gave Mikhalych.
His wife only looked at the calendar in confusion. A few minutes later, the door in the house opened and the same guest from the basement entered the kitchen. He asked in an exemplary tone:
"Where am I?"
"I don't quite understand how this is possible, but I recognized you. Come in, Ivan Maksimovich, sit down, " the woman replied, as if in a state of prostration.
"How do you know my middle name?"
"We'll get to know each other.".. Maksim…"your father's coming," the man said, getting up from the table.
***
"Is it really eighty-nine?" – biting off a slice of Soviet sausage, the guy asked.
– Yes, van, for us this is the usual and natural course of time. Tell us about-how you live? my mother asked.
– What do you do for a living? my father added.
– Yes, I am…– considering how to present your, to put it mildly, not quite legal activity, Ivan drawled. But then I got my bearings and changed the subject:
– What kind of activity and life? If you really are my ancestors and I have somehow been transported back thirty years, then you'd better tell me how it happened that I don't know my parents. Do you know what it's been like without my father and mother all these years? What does a child feel when they watch their families on TV and don't know what parental warmth and support is? Why are you so sad? No answer?
Maxim Mikhailovich looked at the floor.
– I will answer, – my wife Olga said quietly, – when you were born, our life changed, it is a natural process, but we were not ready for these changes. The constant screaming, the sleepless nights, the nerves as a consequence of the discord. Maxim did not get enough sleep, went to work in the morning with a cast-iron head and eventually gave an ultimatum: either I or this little screaming creature.
"You memorized everything word for word…,– surprised detached issued a man.
I was afraid your father more than life feared, and there was something to fear, – said Olga, a Bathrobe covering the bruise on forearm, – so tossed you to the gates of the orphanage of the district centre.
"You didn't love me at all?" Ivan asked in a choked voice.
"I did, and I still do." I only sent the child to an orphanage for one reason – it would be safer for you here than where your father could reach you.
– So that means from whom I have this vein of aggression and rage. Well, dad, consider the boomerang back, now don't forget it…
Ivan's face was calm, his tone quiet and insinuating, but there was lightning in his eyes. In an instant, he hurled the knife from his bosom at his father, who was sitting across from him, but the blade clanged as it struck the tree. Ivan realized with dismay that he was sitting on the ground, in the very Park from which he had disappeared. In front of him stood a huge tree trunk, in which the handle of a knife launched at his father often swayed from side to side.
"I saved you from two careless actions today, and I won't protect you again," came the same voice that had sounded in the parents ' hut.
"You know now that you have to pay the bills, it can happen right away, maybe in thirty years, as in your case with your father, maybe in eighty or ninety, in the next incarnation, or in the next incarnation.
Tikhon went to the tree, easily removing the knife from it, and handed it to Ivan.
He continued:
– It's not karma, not a fee for the offense and not so much a boomerang, however, on the Ground it sounds completely out of place. This is simply the law of causation. You create an action that creates certain consequences. You are a Creator Ivan, not a murderer, think what you are doing, and then in thirty years no one will throw sharpened pieces of iron at you. Get up off the ground, people are watching. While your hands are still clean, but I will not appear at your fork again, you will choose from now on which way to go.
Tikhon gave his hand to the boy, who got up without refusing to help.
And that's another way let's say, in this place, Tikhon made a helpless gesture, – anything, but then if that is not right.
Tikhon smiled.
– I don't know who you are, but thank you for fulfilling your dream. I didn't think I'd ever be able to look my father and mother in the eye, much less find out why.
"That's not the whole truth. Don't blame your father for your fate. These are just cause-and-effect relationships, the result of your incarnation the day before last. We will not go into details, but I will say that this is only your choice.
"I dug deep."
– More than. You're not a fool, I know. Make a choice so that you don't have to, then regret it… then it's much, much later… and everything will be fine. Be.
Tikhon held out a firm hand. Ivan responded with a genuine friendly handshake.
The stranger winked and took a few steps behind Ivan. When he turned around, there was no one behind him, only couples walking in the distance, and a stall selling balloons.
***
After scanning the space again, Gideon
