Nick went to a pretty school in one Asian capital. He was there from 9th to 11th grade. The school was located on the outskirts of city, in an unpopular area called "Kamchatka". Houses here were built on cumulative-flood soils. It means that there was a bit of soil with a lot of sand, pebbles, clay and enormous boulders underground. These boulders, if they interfered with construction of state office buildings, were broken up by stonemasons and taken away in an unknown direction. Yes when people took the stones for themselves, they were laid out along fences to look like some medieval construction. This went on for decades. Large patches of worthless ground were handed out to veterans after the war. They were mainly colonels. Colonels constructed serious houses and planted orchards of apple trees and berry bushes. Large sections of the orchards were allocated for strawberries. Nick and other half-starving boys of the area, kids of the hungry fifties, always looked at those reddening raspberries with longing, but were afraid of as much as approaching the bushes. As a rule, enormous sheep dogs, taken as trophy in Germany and brought back home by the colonel, guarded the perimeter of the garden. Besides the colonels and the poor postwar locals, no one lived in the area at first. Gradually though, the place was cultivated and in early sixties this was already quite a populous area, built-up with small houses in which the people were just getting by.

Director of Nick’s school was one of the colonels. Nobody know to which branch of service he belonged, but suspected it was the KGB, since he was constantly gloomy and looked on everybody with a prickly penetrating look. When a naughty child ran by him in a school court yard, he stopped this child and asked, frowning:

- Your name?
The schoolboy answered, afraid and stammering.
- In what grade are you?
- In second "B", - poor fellow squeezed out of himself.
- You know how much they give for the runaway? – asked director.
- I don't know! – The misbehaving began to cry.
- But who must know? Dostoevsky?
- I don’t kno-o-o-w! – the schoolboy already wailed wiping floods of tears.
- But do you know that you have to walk quietly, in a direct line?
- Yes, I do-o-o-o!
- Then walk quietly in a direct line and button up your collar, – would say the director without a shadow of a smile, and then he would release the kid who by then has wet himself.

The city education department sent the teachers, who for various reasons did not like the Soviet regime at the peak of its gloom, to the colonel. Apparently they were sent here for reeducation and with KGB’s approval. There were many PhDs among them. All of them had yellow tickets, indicating unreliability. The ticket meant they could not work in research, and consequently they settled in schools.

Oh, these teachers were extremely good! They taught marvelously whoever wanted to learn. Nick gratefully remembers them till now.
Basil, a physics teacher, thin, with nose humpbacked, hair parted to the side, wore wide bell-bottomed trousers when everybody was already wearing narrow trousers for ages. His Ukranian accent came out in " the Law of Hook " or " the Law of Gey-Lussak ", but how persistently did he hammer knowledge into our heads! Till now, if woken at night and asked about the Doppler's effect or Plank's constant, they would answer.

Maria the math teacher was pedantic to the point of being ridiculous. She demanded that the right side margin on each page should be outlined at 2.5 cm from the edge. If the margin lone was at 2.4 cm, expect a lower grade on the test. She also demanded a sequence in development of formula or equations. Could we have thought it would be as useful as it turned out to be later on?


Polly the chemistry teacher, a choleric young woman, knew her field as if she were a professor. She caused us great delight when she brought in a primitive spirit generator made from pan and an Indian tea metal box to teach "generation of spirits" in her organic chemistry class. She certainly risked her job by doing that but nobody told on her.


Georgy the history teacher, a large and beautiful man from the Caucausaus, looked just like the actor Simonov who played the father of Ihtiandre in the " Amphibian Man". Georgy had encyclopedic knowledge. He taught so well that he had all our attention and there was complete silence during the class. We never heard him talk about the party line or about the fundamentals of Marxist-Leninist theory. One heard that he was imprisoned for his views. Typically, he would say,

The unity and struggle of contrasts is a philosophical law, but professor Katz contends that the contrast causes unity and struggle. Then he would lift up his index finger, as Georgians are prone to do, with a palm compressed. Who was Professor Katz that so bravely contradicted Marxist dialectics, was never explained, and never asked. To suspect Georgy in anti-Semitism didn't occur to anyone, since everybody knew that his wife was Jewish. She was the literature teacher.

Nick was a sportsman. He has lived in "Kamchatka" for about ten years. He changed a few schools and has hated all of them to the bottom of his heart. Only last three years have been interesting because of the teachers. Yet his main love was the "Youth Sports School" in the city centre. Nick was a serious track and field athlete. Once after training he decided to go into the café next door and exchange the coupons for food. He got the coupons because of the forthcoming competition. You could only exchange coupons at a cafe called "Freshness" right next to the stadium. The cafe did not correspond to its romantic name. It was a gloomy single-story wooden building built in the beginning of the century and painted a dark green color. The café steadily converted into a usual jerry-shop (?), filled by beer drinkers. Food in the "Freshness" was good and the canteen was decent for those times, but athletes, who could not bear the smell of smoke and drunk screams preferred to exchange the coupons for chocolate. Nick took a chocolate bar and was about to leave, but has confronted with the history teacher Alex. Alex was strongly drunk but managed to stay on his feet.

- Hey Nick! What are you doing here?
- I have exchanged the coupons for chocolate, answered Nick.
- Obviously. - Alex was kidding around, - but I'm drinking with him. He made a vague gesture.
- With whom? - asked Nick.

The teacher put an index finger across his lips.
- T-s-s! Don't recollect his name in vain! Come sit with us. I can’t stand it anymore. If anybody told said me two years ago, that I was to sit beside him and have a drink, I would spit in his face. Come sit with us, don’t drink anything. You know, I am afraid that half an hour will pass and the unreparable will happen.

- Who are you talking about? - Nick insisted.
- Let's go, - Alex was not answering the question. - Have shish kebab on me. Do you like mutton shish kebab?
- Sure I do, - said Nick, although all he really wanted was to drink water.

They came to a table filled with food and drinks.
- Can you imagine, said Alex to himself, he is wining and dining on me!
- I will pay for my shish kebab, -Nick began to fuss.
- What’s with you? Are you going to offend me? I might be a teacher, but an Ossetin will not allow his guest to pay for himself at his presence!
Please, Evgeny, meet my student Nick. He can jump above his own height. Alex was impressed that Nick did just that at a school tournament.

A fifty-year old man, thin and pale as a spirochete, looked at Nick and nodded absent-mindedly. He was already strongly drunk.
Alex called the waiter by a wide gesture and ordered shish kebab for Nick.
- You, Evgeny, - he addressed the guest, - can you have some dignity in front of this young boy, at least for a while?
- What? I have no dignity? - asked Evgeny, hardly able to focus his eyesight.
- Were you loyal?
- I was always loyal to the party.
- And that is why you betrayed all of us in succession, - Alex squeezed out of himself, - You betrayed Emmy, you betrayed Arnold, you betrayed Valentine. What have you betrayed Valentine for, traitor?
- Choose your words, Alex! You think if Khrushchev has dismissed of all, it will always stay this way. You are lagging behind. Other things are going on.
- Other things? What, traitors are in charge again? – Alex raised his voice and was holding Evgeny by his shirtsleeve.

People at neighboring tables began to turn heads with interest.
- Can you keep it down, Alex? Otherwise they will throw us out of here, - said Nick.
- Well, - said Alex, I will try to. Nick, look at him. He was loyal to the party but to people around him he is complete shit.
Nick wasn’t happy he joined. He didn’t feel he could be an intermediary. He could only guess what Alex was talking about, and he was tired after his workout. He was getting a headache from the cigarette smoke.
- Do you think it was easy to supervise a school at the time? - Evgeny asked, - I had to fulfill the plan on enemies of the people and their accomplices. I was honest and reported only on the accomplices.
- You are lying! - Alex exploded, - what about Emmy and Arnold? They killed them but you guzzle down shish kebab and drink beer and your mug looks smooth. Do you want a cuff in your mug?
- All right, I shall go, - Evgeny has begun to bustle.
- You will not go. I didn't say everything yet.
- OK, will you stop talking nonsense? Who are you to shame me? I am number two in the Board of Education, and you have been a good-for-nothing teacher till now. If you will touch me I will call the police.
- Well that, I am pleased, - said Alex unexpectedly, - Now I am convinced you are a bastard. I would enjoy choking you with my own hands but do not want to spoil my sons’ future. Get out and don’t get in my way. I am not going to hold off next time.

Evgeny got up and walked to the exit unsteadily. Nick saw that he has forgotten his briefcase by the chair.
- He left the briefcase, - he told Alex.
- Good, Nick, catch up with him and give him the briefcase back. May be he will be choked with his treacherous documents.

Nick has caught up to Evgeny, gave him the briefcase back (Evgeny did not even thank him), and returned to the teacher.

- Nick, did you get who it was? Alex asked.
- Obviously, the schoolmaster of the school you worked in before.
- Yes, this shit was a schoolmaster of the bet school in the city. But here, you know, I was banished from Osetia by Kurt Malaev.

Nick did not know, but nodded in the affirmative. He understood that the new wave of memories has gushed on Alex, who was now clasping his head with two hands and could hardly restrain tears.
- You know, I got a PhD in Osetia worked in research. I didn’t know what sins it was necessary for the God , that I have met him. He is much worse then Evgeny! I will have some more vodka...

Alex filled a large wineglass up to edges and splashed some fruit water for Nick.
- Lift a glass, I want to say a toast, - he said. - Let there be more good people on Earth and less like Evgeny and Koort Malaev! Bastards will not disappear completely but let there be less of them than of decent people. Remember this name – Koort Malaev. If you ever meet him, step aside. He is my blood enemy. I pray I won’t meet him face to face because I won’t be able to restrain myself. I’ll kill him.

Nick remembers. Alex and his blood enemy Koort Malaev are no longer but Nick still remembers the name, whatever for.