My father-in-law, the old man Nikolai, God rest his soul, drank methodically and regularly: “every third day” as he himself put it. For years, it had been an unalterable law of his existence. No matter what was going on around – constant arrivals and departures of numerous relatives; weddings and divorces; perpetual rows, minor and wild, with fights and without, of his sons with one another and with their wives; visits from his imbecile daughter with her little brats; moving to a new place of residence; renovations; illnesses; fires; global cataclysmic events; the end of the world, if you like – the “third day” always began, went by and ended in the same way, following the same pattern. Regardless of the presence in the house of guests or friends – not that he had any friends of his own except, perhaps, an alcoholic who lived next door and used to stop by now and then, which actually made no difference – the old man would spend that day alone.
Prior to the “third day”, there was the “day before”. On the “day before”, as the “third day” was approaching, the old man’s excitement mounted. His skinny frame drifted from one room to another with increasing frequency. Now and then, he would stop dead in his tracks in front of the TV set, having been attracted by bright flashes and invariably high sound volume, which annoyed him even more, such that he swore in foul language at anyone who fell in his way. Antonina Dmitrievna, his wife, was the one who used to catch hell more than anyone else. But, driven by insatiable greed for work and money, she carried on stitching on her sewing machine in perfect calm. Making clothes for the city elite, she earned five times as much money as myself, the head of the patent department of a large enterprise, and as her son, a designer, and yet she reiterated the phrase “No money!” a thousand times per day. Moreover, she had long since reconciled herself to the inevitability of the “third day”.
And then the “third day” would finally come! In a buoyant mood, the old man would wake up earlier than usual, take a chunk of fatty pork and painstakingly cook it on the gas stove while the others were still asleep.
At the longed-for hour, 11 a.m. (the hour at which alcoholic drinks began to be sold), the old man would be the first to enter the shop and buy a bottle of vodka. Tenderly clasping the bottle close to his consumptive chest, he would rush home to prepare a dish called turya (soup of bread and water or kvass). Loaded into a bowl were chopped onions, crumbled brown bread and cottage cheese, with cold, rusty, chlorinated tap water poured on top of the ingredients.
The old man Nikolai used to prepare his specialty snack in an aluminum bowl. The boiled pork fat that had got cold by that time would be waiting for him on a cracked and chipped plate; he would drink vodka from a faceted table glass that had got dim from long use.
During and as a result of cut-glass ware buying spree, Antonina Dmitrievna had filled all the visible and invisible shelves of the sideboard with crystal wine glasses and tumblers that nobody ever used. The expensive household tableware was also a mere symbol of prosperity and was in no way intended for the “third day”.
The old man was trembling with excitement. With a shaking hand, in a respectful standing position, he would open the bottle. The rhythmic and melodious clink of the bottleneck on the glass-rim, drowning the rattling noise of his wife’s sewing machine, announced the end of the prelude to and the beginning of the act itself.
The first half-glass was a bit of a challenge. Choking and spilling precious drops of liquor, he had difficulty swallowing, groaned and cleared his throat for a long time. Then, having taken a mouthful of turya from the aluminum bowl, he bit off a chunk of boiled pork fat. Gradually, the look in his eyes would become brighter and warmer. With a somewhat less shaking hand, he would pour himself another half-glass of vodka. He would drink it slowly, savoring the liquor. Looking at him, one could say that he was swallowing vodka easily, smoothly and appreciatively. The old man would take a huge checkered linen handkerchief out of his pocket and carefully wipe his dripping nose, light a cigarette with a cardboard holder and begin to ponder over something. Then, with his pale-blue eyes gazing into vacant space, he would begin talking.
His discourse used to be a conglomeration of names and vile curses intertwined in incomprehensible phrases. Now and then, ordinary words would slip in and, having flashed like diamonds, disappear in a muddy torrent of abuse.
But he wasn’t swearing. He was thinking – hard and slowly. His brains, finally relieved from the stress of waiting for the “third day”, seemed to be shifting piles of rock in search of an answer to the apparently nagging him, and therefore recurrently popping up, question of “Who needs it?”
