the newcomer, extending his spade-sized hand. “Nice to meet you! I’m the son of Lieutenant Schmidt.”
“Who?” asked the city father, his eyes bulging.
“The son of that great, immortal hero, Lieutenant Schmidt,” repeated the intruder.
“But this comrade sitting here, he is the son of Comrade Schmidt. Nikolay Schmidt.” In total confusion, the chairman pointed at the first visitor, who suddenly looked sleepy.
This was a very delicate situation for the two con artists. At any moment, the long and nasty sword of retribution could glisten in the hands of the unassuming and gullible chairman of the city council. Fate allowed them just one short second to devise a strategy to save themselves. Terror flashed in the eyes of Lieutenant’s Schmidt’s second son.
His imposing figure—clad in a Paraguayan summer shirt, sailor’s bell bottoms, and light-blue canvas shoes—which was sharp and angular just a moment earlier, started to come apart, lost its formidable edges, and no longer commanded any respect at all. An unpleasant smile appeared on the chairman’s face.
But when the Lieutenant’s second son had already decided that everything was lost, and that the chairman’s terrible wrath was about to fall on his red head, salvation came from the pink ottoman.
“Vasya!” yelled the Lieutenant’s firstborn, jumping to his feet. “Buddy boy! Don’t you recognize your brother Nick?”
And the first son gave the second son a big hug.
“I do!” exclaimed Vasya, his eyesight miraculously regained. “I do recognize my brother Nick!”
The happy encounter was marked by chaotic expressions of endearment and incredibly powerful hugs—hugs so powerful that the face of the second son of the Black Sea revolutionary was pale with pain. Out of sheer joy, his brother Nick had thrashed him rather badly.
While hugging, both brothers were cautiously glancing at the chairman, whose facial expression remained vinegary throughout the scene. As a result, their strategy had to be elaborated on the spot and enriched with stories of their family life and details of the 1905 sailors’ revolt that had somehow eluded official Soviet historians. Holding each other’s hands, the brothers sat down on the love seat and began reminiscing, all the while keeping their fawning eyes on the chairman.
“What an incredible coincidence!” exclaimed the first son insincerely, his eyes inviting the chairman to partake in the happy family occasion.
“Yes,” said the chairman frostily. “It happens.”
Seeing that the chairman was still in the throes of doubt, the first son stroked his brother’s red, Irish-setter locks and asked softly:
“So when did you come from Mariupol, where you were staying with our grandmother?”
“Yes, I was staying,” mumbled the Lieutenant’s second son, “with her.”
“So why didn’t you write more often? I was very worried.”
“I was busy,” answered the redhead gloomily.
Afraid that his inquisitive brother might ask him what exactly kept him so busy, which was largely doing time at correctional facilities in various jurisdictions, the second son of Lieutenant Schmidt seized the initiative and asked a question himself:
“And why didn’t you write?”
“I did write,” replied his sibling unexpectedly. Feeling a great rush of playfulness he added, “I’ve been sending you registered letters. Here, I’ve got the receipts.”
He produced a pile of frayed slips of paper from his side pocket, which, for some reason, he showed to the chairman of the city council instead of his brother—from a safe distance.
Oddly, the sight of the paper reassured the chairman somewhat, and the brothers’ reminiscences grew even more vivid. The redhead became quite comfortable and gave a fairly coherent, albeit monotonous, rendition of the popular brochure “The Revolt on the Ochakov.” His brother embellished the dry presentation with such picturesque vignettes that the chairman, who had started to calm down, pricked up his ears again.
Nevertheless, he let the brothers go in peace, and they rushed outside with great relief.
They stopped behind the corner of the city hall.
“Talk about childhood,” said the first son, “when I was a child, I used to kill clowns like you on the spot. With a slingshot.”
“And why is that?” inquired the famous father’s second son light-heartedly.
“Such are the tough rules of life. Or, to put it briefly, life imposes its tough rules on us. Why did you barge into the office? Didn’t you see the chairman wasn’t alone?”
“I thought . . .”
“Ah, you thought? So you do think on occasion? You are a thinker, aren’t you? What is your name, Mr. Thinker? Spinoza? Jean-Jacques Rousseau? Marcus Aurelius?”
The redhead kept quiet, feeling guilty as charged.
“All right, I forgive you. You may live. And now let’s introduce ourselves. We are brothers, after all, and family ties carry certain obligations. My name is Ostap Bender. May I ask your original name?”
“Balaganov,” said the redhead. “Shura Balaganov.”
“I’m not asking what you do for a living,” said Bender politely, “but I do have some inkling. Probably something intellectual? How many convictions this year?”
“Two,” replied Balaganov freely.
“Now that’s no good. Why are you selling your immortal soul? A man should not let himself get convicted. It’s amateurish. Theft, that is. Beside the fact that stealing is a sin—and I’m sure your mother introduced you to that notion—it is also a pointless waste of time and energy.”
Ostap could have gone on and on about his philosophy of life, but Balaganov interrupted him.
“Look,” he said, pointing into the green depths of the Boulevard of Prodigies. “See that man in the straw hat?”
“I see him,” said Ostap dismissively. “So what? Is that the governor of the island of Borneo?”
“That’s Panikovsky,” said Shura. “The son of Lieutenant Schmidt.”
An aging man, leaning slightly to one side, was making his way through the alley in the shade of regal lindens. A hard straw hat with a ribbed brim sat askew on his head. His pants were so short that the white straps of his long underwear were showing. A golden tooth was glowing beneath his mustache, like the tip of a burning cigarette.
“What, yet another son?” said Ostap. “This is getting funny.”
Panikovsky approached the city hall, pensively traced a figure eight in front of the building, grabbed his hat with both hands and set it straight on his head, tidied up his jacket, sighed deeply, and went inside.
“The Lieutenant had three sons,”
