The book white dove of cordova read online. The White Dove of Cordoba read online The White Dove of Cordoba plot

Dina Rubina

White dove of Cordoba

Dedicated to Bor

“There is not a single person on earth who can say who he is. Nobody knows why he came to this world, what his actions, his feelings and thoughts mean, and what is his true name, his everlasting Name in the list of Light ... "

Leon Blois Soul of Napoleon

Part one

Chapter one

Before leaving, he nevertheless decided to call his aunt. In general, he was always the first to go to reconciliation. The main thing here was not to curry favor, not to lisp, but to hold on as if there was no quarrel - so, nonsense, a slight disagreement.

Well, - he asked, - what should you bring - castanuelas?

Then a fan, eh, Beetle? - he said, smiling into the receiver and imagining her patrician hunchbacked face in a halo of blue haze. - We stick a fly on your cheek, and you go out to the balcony of your almshouse to fan yourself like some kind of vigorous root.

I don't need anything from you! she said obstinately.

Vaughn how. “He himself was as gentle as a dove. - Well, la-adno ... Then I'll bring you a Spanish broom.

What Spanish is it? she muttered. And I got caught.

And what else does your sister fly there? - he exclaimed, rejoicing, as in childhood, when you fool a simpleton and jump around with a yell: "oh-ma-well, if you are a fool on che-you-re ku-la-ka!".

She threw down the phone, but it was no longer a quarrel, but a thunderstorm in early May, and it was possible to leave with a light heart, especially since the day before the spat he went to the market and filled his aunt's refrigerator to overflowing.

There was only round off one more thing, plot which he has built and developed (vignettes of details, arabesques of details) - for three years now.

And tomorrow, finally, in the morning dawn, against the background of turquoise decorations, from the foam of the sea (health resort, note foam), will be born new venus behind his personal signature: the conductor's last stroke, a pathetic chord in the finale of the symphony.

Taking his time, he packed his beloved soft olive-skin suitcase, small but torquey, like a soldier's knapsack: you will ram it to capacity, by the very, as Uncle Sema said, I can not, - Lo and behold, the second shoe still fit.

When preparing for the trip, he always thought carefully about his outfit. He hesitated over the shirts, replaced the cream one with a blue one, pulled out a dark blue, silk one from a bundle of ties in the closet ... Yes: and cufflinks, but of course. Those that Irina gave. And those others that Margot gave are a must: she is perceptive.

Well. Now expert dressed with dignity for all five days Spanish project.

For some reason, the word "expert", uttered to himself, amused him so much that he laughed, even fell face down on the couch, next to an open suitcase, and laughed loudly for two minutes, with pleasure - he always laughed most contagiously alone with himself.

Continuing to laugh, he rolled to the edge of the ottoman, hung over, pulled out the bottom drawer of the wardrobe and, rummaging among the crumpled panties and socks, pulled out a pistol.

It was a convenient, simple design of the Colt Glock system, with automatic blocking of the striker, with a slight smooth rollback. In addition, with the help of a hairpin or nail, it could be disassembled in one minute.

Let's hope, buddy, that tomorrow you'll sleep through the whole important meeting in your suitcase.

Late in the evening he left Jerusalem towards the Dead Sea.

I didn’t like to drive down these loops in the dark, but recently the road was widened, partly illuminated, and the camel humps of the hills that used to squeeze you from both sides, pushing you into the funnel of the desert, as if reluctantly parted ...

But beyond the crossroads, where, after a gas station, the road turns and goes along the sea, the lighting is over, and the fatal darkness swollen with salt is the one that only happens by the sea, this one sea, - piled on again, shook her face with the sudden headlights of oncoming cars. On the right, the black rocks of Qumran were piling up gloomily, on the left a black surface of salt with a sudden asphalt gleam was guessed, behind which the Jordanian coast was watering with distant lights ...

Forty minutes later, a festive constellation of lights soared and crumbled out of the darkness below: Ein Bokek, with its hotels, clinics, restaurants and shops, is the shelter of a rich tourist, including a poor Chukhontsi. And further along the shore, at some distance from the resort village, lonely and majestically stretched out its white, brightly lit decks in the night, the giant hotel "Nirvana" - in the five hundred and thirteenth room of which Irina, most likely, was already asleep.

Of all his women, she was the only one who, like him, gave her freedom, would go to bed with the roosters and get up with them. What turned out to be inconvenient: he did not like to share his dawn hours with anyone, shore a reserve of springy morning strength when there is a huge day ahead, and his eyes are sharp and fresh, and his fingertips are sensitive, like a pianist's, and his head cooks well, and everything works out in the smoking haze over the first cup of coffee.

For the sake of these precious dawn hours, he often left Irina late at night.

Having entered the parking lot of the hotel, he parked, took a suitcase from the trunk and, without haste, prolonging the last minutes of loneliness, went to the huge carousel blades of the main entrance.

Are you sleeping ?! - playfully barked to the Ethiopian guard - And I brought the bomb.

He perked up, gazed with the whites of his eyes and distrustfully stretched out a white harmonic of a smile in the darkness:

Yes la-a-bottom ...

They knew each other by sight. In this hotel, crowded and stupid, like a city, standing aside from the resort village, he liked to make business meetings, the last, final ones: the very final chord of the symphony, to which interested person it is also necessary to cut along a not weak road, between the rocky teeth hanging over the sea, tightened with braces and a net of a gigantic dentist.

And rightly so: as Uncle Sema said - you do not sink, you do not burst.(However, the uncle himself stomp my orthopedic shoe would never have been able to.)

Here it is, number five hundred and thirteen. Silent short intercourse of a key slot with an electronic key obtained from a well-trained attendant: you understand, I don't want to wake up my wife, the poor one suffers from migraines and goes to bed early ...

He had never had a wife.

She did not suffer from any migraines.

And he was going to wake her immediately.

Irina slept as usual - blankets wrapped in a cocoon like white cheese in a Druze pita.

It will always pack, bury itself, and even tuck it under the sides - even if you hire archaeologists.

Throwing his suitcase and jacket on the floor, he pulled off his sweater as he walked, kicked off his sneakers - foot on foot, and collapsed next to her on the bed, still in jeans - the lock was stuck on a bumpy break in the zipper - and a T-shirt.

Irina woke up, and they fidgeted at the same time, trying to free themselves from the blanket, from their clothes, mooing in each other's faces:

- ... you promised, shameless, promised ...

-… and I will keep my promise, you man in a case!

-… well, that you, like a wild one, pounced! wait ... wait a minute ...

-… I'm already standing, don't you smell?

- ... phew, impudent ... well, give me at least ...

- ... who doesn't give you ... here you are, and here ... and here ... and ... in-oh-oh-oh-oh ...

... In the open balcony door, a lemon moon in solidarity with him in rhythm, now soared over the railing with its shameless, shameless "bravo!" - sometimes increasing, then reducing the range of rise and fall. But then she froze at a dizzying height, balancing, as if looking at the heavenly surroundings for the last time ... and suddenly fell off and rushed, accelerating and accelerating the pace, almost gasping for breath in this race, until she groaned, thrashed, shuddered free, and - not fell silent, hanging in exhaustion somewhere in the backyard of heaven ...

... Then Irina splashed in the shower, every now and then switching the hot stream to the cold one (now she will show up in bed - wet, like a drowned man, and come on, warm her up to her own blue in the face), - and he tried with his eyes to follow the microscopic movements of the pale puffy luminary in the window , his recent partner in dump sin.

Finally he got up and went out onto the balcony.

The gigantic hotel was in a numb sleep on the edge of the shimmering salt lake. Below, surrounded by palm trees, a polished piano lid lay a pool in which a yellow, brittle moon hovered. Three dozen meters from the pool, there was a beach with arthropod pyramids of plastic sun loungers and armchairs collected for the night.

Dedicated to Bor

“There is not a single person on earth who can say who he is. Nobody knows why he came to this world, what his actions, his feelings and thoughts mean, and what is his true name, his everlasting Name in the list of Light ... "

Leon Blois

Soul of Napoleon

- Then the fan, eh, Beetle? - he said, smiling into the receiver and imagining her patrician hunchbacked face in a halo of blue haze. - Let's stick a fly on your cheek, and you will go out to the balcony of your poorhouse to fan yourself like some kind of vigorous root.

- I don't need anything from you! She said obstinately.

- Bona how. “He himself was as gentle as a dove. - Well, la-adno ... Then I'll bring you a Spanish broom.

- What kind of Spanish? She muttered. And I got caught.

- And what else does your sister fly there? - he exclaimed, rejoicing, as in childhood, when you fool a simpleton and jump around with a yell: "oh-ma-well, if you are a fool on che-you-re ku-la-ka!".

She threw down the phone, but it was no longer a quarrel, but a thunderstorm in early May, and it was possible to leave with a light heart, especially since the day before the spat he went to the market and filled his aunt's refrigerator to overflowing.

There was only round off one more thing, plot which he built and developed (vignettes of details, arabesques of details) - for three years now.

And tomorrow, finally, in the morning dawn, against the background of turquoise decorations, from the foam of the sea (health resort, note foam), will be born new venus behind his personal signature: the conductor's last stroke, a pathetic chord in the finale of the symphony.

Taking his time, he packed his beloved soft olive-skin suitcase, small but torquey, like a soldier's knapsack: you will ram it to capacity, by the very, as Uncle Sema said, I can not, - Lo and behold, the second shoe still fit.

When preparing for the trip, he always thought carefully about his outfit. He hesitated over the shirts, replaced the cream one with a blue one, pulled out a dark blue, silk one from a bundle of ties in the closet ... Yes: and cufflinks, but of course. Those that Irina gave. And those others that Margot gave are a must: she is perceptive.

Well. Now expert dressed with dignity for all five days Spanish project.

For some reason, the word "expert", spoken to himself, amused him so much that he laughed, even fell face down on the couch, next to an open suitcase, and laughed loudly for two minutes, with pleasure - he always laughed most contagiously alone with himself.

Continuing to laugh, he rolled to the edge of the ottoman, hung over, pulled out the bottom drawer of the wardrobe and, rummaging among the crumpled panties and socks, pulled out a pistol.

It was a convenient, simple design of the Colt Glock system, with automatic blocking of the striker, with a slight smooth rollback. In addition, with the help of a hairpin or nail, it could be disassembled in one minute.

Let's hope, buddy, that tomorrow you'll sleep through the whole important meeting in your suitcase.

Late in the evening he left Jerusalem towards the Dead Sea.

I didn’t like to drive down these loops in the dark, but recently the road was widened, partly illuminated, and the camel humps of the hills that used to squeeze you from both sides, pushing you into the funnel of the desert, as if reluctantly parted ...

But beyond the crossroads, where, after the gas station, the road turns and goes along the sea, the illumination has ended, and the fatal darkness swollen with salt is the one that only happens by the sea, this one sea, - piled on again, shoving in the face with the sudden headlights of oncoming cars. On the right, the black rocks of Qumran were piling up gloomily, on the left a black surface of salt with a sudden asphalt gleam was guessed, behind which the Jordanian coast was watering with distant lights ...

Forty minutes later, a festive constellation of lights soared and crumbled out of the darkness below: Ein Bokek, with its hotels, clinics, restaurants and shops, is the shelter of a rich tourist, including a poor Chukhontsi. And further along the coast, at some distance from the resort village, lonely and majestically stretched out its white, brightly lit decks in the night, the giant hotel "Nirvana" - in the five hundred and thirteenth room of which Irina, most likely, was already asleep.

Of all his women, she was the only one who, like him, gave her freedom, would go to bed with the roosters and get up with them. What turned out to be inconvenient: he did not like to share his dawn hours with anyone, shore a reserve of springy morning strength when there is a huge day ahead, and his eyes are sharp and fresh, and his fingertips are sensitive, like a pianist's, and his head cooks well, and everything works out in the smoking haze over the first cup of coffee.

For the sake of these precious dawn hours, he often left Irina late at night.

Having entered the parking lot of the hotel, he parked, took a suitcase from the trunk and, without haste, prolonging the last minutes of loneliness, went to the huge carousel blades of the main entrance.

- Are you asleep ?! - playfully barked to the Ethiopian guard - And I brought the bomb.

He perked up, gazed with the whites of his eyes and distrustfully stretched out a white harmonic of a smile in the darkness:

- Yes la-a-bottom ...

They knew each other by sight. In this hotel, crowded and stupid, like a city, standing aside from the resort village, he liked to make business meetings, the last, final ones: the very final chord of the symphony, to which interested person it is also necessary to cut along the not weak road, between the rocky teeth hanging over the sea, tightened with the braces and the net of the gigantic dentist.

And rightly so: as Uncle Sema said - you do not sink, you do not burst.(However, the uncle himself stomp my orthopedic shoe would never have been able to.)

Here it is, number five hundred and thirteen. Silent short intercourse of a key slot with an electronic key obtained from a well-trained attendant: you understand, I don't want to wake up my wife, the poor one suffers from migraines and goes to bed early ...

He had never had a wife.

She did not suffer from any migraines.

And he was going to wake her immediately.

Irina slept as usual - blankets wrapped in a cocoon like white cheese in a Druze pita.

It will forever pack, bury itself, and even tuck it under the sides - even hire archaeologists.

Throwing his suitcase and jacket on the floor, he pulled off his sweater as he walked, kicked off his sneakers - foot on foot, and collapsed next to her on the bed, still in jeans - the lock was stuck on a bumpy break in the zipper - and a T-shirt.

Irina woke up, and they fidgeted at the same time, trying to free themselves from the blanket, from their clothes, mooing in each other's faces:

- ... you promised, shameless, promised ...

-… and I will keep my promise, you man in a case!

-… well, that you, like a wild one, pounced! wait ... wait a minute ...

-… I'm already standing, don't you smell?

- ... phew, impudent ... well, give me at least ...

- ... who doesn't give you ... here you are, and here ... and here ... and ... in-oh-oh-oh-oh ...

... In the open balcony door, a lemon moon in solidarity with him in rhythm, now soared over the railing with its shameless, shameless "bravo!" - sometimes increasing, then reducing the range of rise and fall. But then she froze at a dizzying height, balancing, as if looking at the heavenly surroundings for the last time ... and suddenly fell off and rushed, accelerating and accelerating the pace, almost gasping for breath in this race, until she groaned, thrashed, shuddered free, and - not fell silent, hanging in exhaustion somewhere in the backyard of heaven ...

Dina Rubina's novel "The White Dove of Cordoba" is admired by many readers. The writer's language is very laconic, she knows how to write in such a way that it seems as if you yourself are one of the heroes of the book and you see everything as if in reality.

The main character of the book is a man of versatile talents Zakhar Kordovin. For most people, he is a respected teacher, expert, and adventurer. But at the same time, his personality hides something else. This man loves art with all his heart, he is an incredibly talented artist. Zakhar is engaged in writing fake paintings, but even experts cannot find flaws and take them for originals. He makes forgeries of famous works of art in order to distribute them among people, showing them beauty. Zakhar wants people to learn to see the beauty of painting, to be able to love it, to become mentally richer.

The main character has a story in the past that haunts him. He only thinks about how to correct the mistakes of the past and find the guilty ones in order to get even with them. In his family, from generation to generation, some mystical coincidences constantly occur. The events of the past resonate with the present, everything is woven into some incredible tangle.

Throughout his life, Zakhar is constantly traveling. The reader is presented with Ukraine, Russia, Italy, Spain, Switzerland, Israel. The sights of the cities are described in such detail and beautifully that they literally come to life in the imagination, it seems that you have visited all these countries. The author is surprisingly good at describing works of art, magnificent paintings that cause awe, one can only admire the richness of the language and the great talent of Dina Rubina.

In the novel, one can trace the theme of love for art, travel, detective and mystical plot lines. The main character, although it seems like a smug swindler, is nevertheless very talented and through creativity brings beauty to everyday life.

On our website you can download the book "The White Dove of Cordoba" by Rubina Dina Ilyinichna for free and without registration in fb2, rtf, epub, pdf, txt format, read the book online or buy a book in the online store.

© D. Rubina, 2015

© Publishing House "E" LLC, 2016

* * *

Part one

Chapter one

1

Before leaving, he nevertheless decided to call his aunt. In general, he was always the first to go to reconciliation. The main thing here was not to curry favor, not to lisp, but to hold on as if there was no quarrel - so, nonsense, a slight disagreement.

- Well, - he asked, - what should you bring - castanuelas?1
Castanuelas - castanets ( isp.).

- Then the fan, eh, Zhu? Ka? - he said, smiling into the receiver and imagining her patrician hunchbacked face in a halo of blue haze. - Let's stick a fly on your cheek, and you will go out on the balcony of your poorhouse to fan yourself like some kind of vigorous root.

- I don't need anything from you! She said obstinately.

- Look how. “He himself was as gentle as a dove. - Well, la-adno ... Then I'll bring you a Spanish broom.

- What kind of Spanish? She muttered. And I got caught.

- And what else does your sister fly there? - he exclaimed, rejoicing, as in childhood, when you fool a simpleton and jump around with a yell: "oh-ma-well, if you doo-ra-ka on che-you-re ku-la-ka!"

She threw down the phone, but it was no longer a quarrel, but a thunderstorm in early May, and it was possible to leave with a light heart, especially since the day before the spat he went to the market and filled his aunt's refrigerator to overflowing.

* * *

There was only round off one more thing, plot which he has built and developed (vignettes of details, arabesques of details) - for three years now.

And tomorrow, finally, in the morning dawn, against the background of turquoise decorations, from sea foam ( health resort, note foam), will be born new venus behind his personal signature: the conductor's last stroke, a pathetic chord in the finale of the symphony.

Taking his time, he packed his beloved soft olive-skin suitcase, small but torquey, like a soldier's knapsack: you will ram it to capacity, on the most as Uncle Sema used to say, I can not, - lo and behold, but the second shoe still fit.

When preparing for the trip, he always thought carefully about his outfit. He hesitated over the shirts, replaced the cream one with a blue one, pulled out a dark blue, silk one from a bundle of ties in the closet ... Yes: and cufflinks, but of course. Those that Irina gave. And those others that Margot gave are a must: she is perceptive.

Well. Now expert dressed with dignity for all five days Spanish project.

For some reason, the word "expert", spoken to himself, amused him so much that he laughed, even fell face down on the couch, next to an open suitcase, and laughed loudly for two minutes, with pleasure - he always laughed most contagiously alone with himself.

Continuing to laugh, he rolled to the edge of the ottoman, hung over, pulled out the bottom drawer of the wardrobe and, rummaging among the crumpled panties and socks, pulled out a pistol.

It was a convenient, simple design of the Colt Glock system, with automatic blocking of the striker, with a slight smooth rollback.

In addition, with the help of a hairpin or nail, it could be disassembled in one minute.

Let's hope, buddy, that tomorrow you sleep in your suitcase for an entire important meeting..

Late in the evening he left Jerusalem towards the Dead Sea.

I didn’t like to drive down these loops in the dark, but recently the road was widened, partly illuminated, and the camel humps of the hills that used to squeeze you from both sides, pushing you into the funnel of the desert, as if reluctantly parted ...

But beyond the crossroads, where, after the gas station, the road turns and goes along the sea, the illumination has ended, and the fatal darkness swollen with salt is the one that only happens by the sea, this one sea, - piled on again, shoving in the face with the sudden headlights of oncoming cars. On the right, the black rocks of Qumran were piling up gloomily, on the left a black surface of salt with a sudden asphalt gleam was guessed, behind which the Jordanian coast was watering with distant lights ...

Forty minutes later, a festive constellation of lights soared and crumbled out of the darkness below: Ein Bokek, with its hotels, clinics, restaurants and shops, is the shelter of a rich tourist, including a poor Chukhontsi. And further along the coast, at some distance from the resort village, lonely and majestically stretched out its white, brightly lit decks in the night the giant hotel "Nirvana" - in the five hundred and thirteenth room of which Irina, most likely, was already asleep.

Of all his women, she was the only one who, like him, gave her freedom, would go to bed with the roosters and get up with them. What turned out to be inconvenient: he did not like to share his dawn hours with anyone, shore a reserve of springy morning strength when there is a huge day ahead, and his eyes are sharp and fresh, and his fingertips are sensitive, like a pianist's, and his head cooks well, and everything works out in the smoking haze over the first cup of coffee.

For the sake of these precious dawn hours, he often left Irina late at night.

Having entered the parking lot of the hotel, he parked, took a suitcase from the trunk and, without haste, prolonging the last minutes of loneliness, went to the huge carousel blades of the main entrance.

- Are you asleep ?! - Jokingly barked at the Ethiopian guard. - And I brought the bomb.

He perked up, gazed with the whites of his eyes and distrustfully stretched out a white harmonic of a smile in the darkness:

- Yes la-a-bottom ...

They knew each other by sight. In this hotel, crowded and stupid, like a city, standing aside from the resort village, he liked to make business meetings, the last, final ones: the very final chord of the symphony, to which interested person it is also necessary to cut along a not weak road, between the rocky teeth hanging over the sea, tightened with braces and a net of a gigantic dentist.

And rightly so: as Uncle Sema said - do not sink, do not burst... (However, the uncle himself stomp my orthopedic shoe would never have been able to.)

Here it is, number five hundred and thirteen. Silent short intercourse of a key slot with an electronic key obtained from a well-trained attendant: you understand, I don't want to wake up my wife, the poor one suffers from migraines and goes to bed early ...

He had never had a wife.

She did not suffer from any migraines.

And he was going to wake her immediately.

Irina slept as usual - blankets wrapped in a cocoon like white cheese in a Druze pita.

It will forever pack, bury itself, and even tuck it under the sides - even hire archaeologists.

Throwing his suitcase and jacket on the floor, he pulled off his sweater as he walked, knocked off his sneakers - foot on foot - and collapsed next to her on the bed, still in jeans - the lock was stuck on a bumpy break in the zipper - and a T-shirt.

Irina woke up, and they fidgeted at the same time, trying to free themselves from the blanket, from their clothes, mooing in each other's faces:

- ... you promised, shameless, promised ...

-… and I will keep my promise, you man in a case!

-… well, that you, like a wild one, pounced! wait ... wait a minute ...

-… I'm already standing, don't you smell?

- ... phew, impudent ... well, give me at least ...

- ... who doesn't give you ... here you are, and here ... and here ... and ... in-oh-oh-oh ...

... In the open balcony door, a lemon moon in solidarity with him in rhythm, now soared over the railing with its shameless, shameless "bravo!" - sometimes increasing, then reducing the range of rise and fall. But then she froze at a dizzying height, balancing, as if looking at the heavenly surroundings for the last time ... and suddenly fell off and rushed, accelerating and accelerating the pace, almost gasping for breath in this race, until she groaned, thrashed, shuddered free, and - not fell silent, hanging in exhaustion somewhere in the backyard of heaven ...

... Then Irina splashed in the shower, every now and then switching the hot stream to the cold one (now she will show up in bed - wet, like a drowned man, and let her warm her up to his own blue in the face), - and he tried with his eyes to follow in the window the microscopic movements of the pale puffy luminary, his recent partner in sinister sin.

Finally he got up and went out onto the balcony.

The gigantic hotel was in a numb sleep on the edge of the shimmering salt lake. Below, surrounded by palm trees, a polished piano lid lay a pool in which a yellow, brittle moon hovered. Three dozen meters from the pool, there was a beach with arthropod pyramids of plastic sun loungers and armchairs collected for the night.

The icy shimmer of salt in the distance communicated an icy silence to the motionless night, something New Year's - like waiting for miracles and gifts.

Well, it won't be about gifts.

- Are you crazy: naked - on the balcony? - I heard a cheerful voice behind my back. - Do you have elementary shame? People are all around ...

Sometimes it would be desirable not only to turn it off, but to slightly turn down the sound.

He closed the balcony door, drew the shade, and lit the table lamp.

“You've recovered…” he said thoughtfully, lying on the bed and looking at Irina in her open terry robe. - I like it. Do you look like Dina Verney now ?.

- What about ?! What kind of woman is this?

- Maillol's Model. Throw off that idiotic robe, yeah ... and turn your back. Yes: the same proportions. With a thin back, a strong expressive line of the hips. And the shoulder now rises so smoothly into the neck ... Ay-ay, what a nature! It is a pity that I have not taken a pencil in my hands for a hundred years.

She chuckled, flopped down into the deep chair next to the bed and reached for a pack of cigarettes.

- Well, come on, go ahead ... Tell me something else about me.

- Oh, please! You see, when a woman gains a little weight, her breasts become more blissful, more generous ... smiling. And the skin color changes. The delicate layer of subcutaneous fat gives the body a more noble, pearlescent hue. There is such ... mmm ... transparency of glazing, you know?

He was no longer averse to taking a nap before dawn for at least an hour and a half. But Irina lit a cigarette and was vigorous and energetic. He will again demand that to the sacred sacrifice. The main thing is not to start trying to find out the relationship.

“And then, you know…” he continued, yawning and turning on his side, “this measured swaying of the hips, a view from behind and from above, it drives you crazy, if you still have your palms…

- Cordovin, you bastard! Bending over, she threw an empty cigarette pack at him. - You are just a malicious siren, Cordovin! Casanova, some vulgar seducer!

“Nope,” he muttered, falling asleep uncontrollably. - I'm just ... in love ...

It was all true. He loved women. He really loved women - their quick mind, earthly intelligence, tenacious eye for details; never tired of repeating that if a woman is smart, then she is more dangerous than an intelligent man: after all, ordinary insight then also acquires an emotional, truly bestial sensitivity, catches - from above, by thrust- something that no logic can overcome.

He was friends with them, preferred to do business with them, considered them more reliable comrades and, in general, better people. I often attested myself: "I am a very feminine person." He always knew how to warm and always found something to admire in each.

* * *

He woke up, as usual, at five thirty. For many years, some zealous and implacable angel had been waking up somewhere in the upper barracks, and minute by minute - no matter what dream he dreamed, no matter how tired he was two hours ago, at five-thirty he opened his eyes doom ... and , cursing, trudged into the shower.

But before that, he again today showed a tin.

It seems like he rises, with an effort tossing his torso - in of these in dreams, everything always happens with an irreversible series of burdensome movements - he sits on the bed, barely blinks his eyes ... And he sees: on the hotel coffee table - costs... Oh, you honest mother! - is the one crumpled tin... No, he says to himself (everything follows a long-memorized scenario of a cursed dream), - not a tin, you are a brute, but a Saturday silver goblet, an old heirloom, although - yes, slightly crumpled on the side; but that's because he fell off the truck. And Zhuk, an orphan (war, winter, evacuation), was not afraid, she crawled under the wheel, got it! And you, a bastard, a scumbag and a scoundrel ... went and handed over to an antique buy-out, without batting a shameless eye. And, most importantly, I would have read it long ago - what was there in a circle. In those years I could not, did not understand the outlandish squiggles, but now I would easily read it, because it must have been Hebrew?

Well, Zhu-u-ka, he moaned, as always (the script is moving, the dream rolls downhill, or rather, painfully rolls uphill), - I've been forgiveness a hundred times ... I realized ... I was looking for! Why are we quarreling again, by God: here he is - standing! It stands - dark, massive, not cleaned for a long time - so that the boat is indistinguishable - on its silver skirt ...

And he pulls a pound hand, with an effort, like water, overcoming the thickness of sleep. He pulls his hand, pulls ... finally grabs a heavy goblet, twirls it in his fingers, brings it to his eyes. And a three-masted galleon floats on three light waves, and angular - and now so understandable - letters twist along a silver skirt: "The train to Munich leaves the second platform at 22.30."

And then I just woke up. It seems that I woke up. Lord, until ... Sorry, Beetle!

He stood for a long time under the burning lashes of water, then abruptly switched to cold water and for a minute, groaning with pleasure, rubbed himself with a hard washcloth, which he carried with him everywhere.

Then he shaved, slowly, whistling softly, so as not to wake up the boa ahead of time there, on the bed ... Glorious plump boa, whose elastic rings, pulsing so sweetly, squeeze ... hmmm. Still, do not allow her to gain weight further.

Diligently shaving his protruding chin (in a morning shave this is the main thing - a steep as a hard bull's-eye chin with a hard-to-reach notch under the lower lip), he carefully examined himself in the spacious bathroom mirror.

And you're a little dry, boy ... Uncle Sema would say: got close... In his youth, he was rather sturdy. Often they even mistaken for a boxer. Now he has thinned, according to the image. The nose somehow ... ossified, or what ... Aristocrat, sir, your mother.

Only the hedgehog of thick black hair (a familially stable pigment, he casually responded to compliments) and the same resinous eyebrows, straight and almost fused over deep-set gray eyes, were the same. Yes, there are also those vertical lines in the corners of his mouth, which always conveyed to his face an expression of childish friendliness, an eternal readiness to stretch his lips in a smile: I I love you, my huge kind world... Yes, this is our trump card. Maybe that's your only trump card, huh boy?

When he tiptoed out of the bathroom to get a shirt and suit out of his suitcase, it turned out that Irina had woken up too - damn, how inappropriate is her lark nature! - and lies in its cocoon, shaggy, in a disgusting mood and full of combat readiness.

“You run away cowardly,” she said, watching him carefully and mockingly as he dressed.

“Yeah,” he smiled broadly at her. “I’m terribly sorry!” In general, I am very much afraid of you and I am servile to curry favor. Look at these cufflinks. Do you recognize? I adore them, I demonstrate to everyone: "a gift from a beloved woman."

- Beloved woman. Yes, you have a hundred of them in every city.

- Hundred?! Why so much, oh god! “Who needs it, and who can withstand it,” my uncle Syoma from Vinnitsa used to say ...

- What a bastard you are, Cordovin! We decided that now we will always ride together.

This is it in vain. Vile communal articulation - "we" ... Lifelong mooing, soap making the fleeting soap of love... Not a good symptom. Really have to transform her from a mistress to a friend? It's a pity, it's good with her, with Irina. As a matter of fact, during these three years an ideal life has developed with her, without any dastardly "we" ... "us" ... It helps us, baby, to build and live it is our lonely sensitivity, wolfishness, fluttering of the wings of our nose in anticipation of the taken trail. What kind of "we" is there.

- Do not make you take off your pants again, master-ah-ah-ka, - silly-plaintively he tightened, - for-a-dnitsa freezes! See, I'm already in my harness.

And yet he went to the bed, lay down - right in the suit - next to her, sleepy, unhappy, felt and mercilessly pulled her bare hand out of the blanket roll, began kissing, rising from fingers to shoulder: in detail, in detail, by a centimeter, saying something jokingly doctoral.

His rule was: no diminutives. All only with full, sonorous beautiful names. A woman's name is sacred, abbreviating it is blasphemy, akin to blasphemy.

And she softened, laughed at the tickle, pressed her bare shoulder to her ear.

- You smell good: jasmine ... green tea ... What kind of cologne is that?

- "Loksitan". They got me at duty-free in Boston. There, the saleswoman was so diligent, she worked conscientiously. "An old firm, an old firm ... handmade bottles." I bought it to lag behind. He sat up in bed and glanced at his watch. - Listen, my joy, seriously: do not be upset. Well, what a pleasure it is to hang around a university conference with the dreary title "El Greco: un hombre que no se traiciono a si mismo"?

- What does it mean?

- Who cares? It means "El Greco: the man who did not betray himself." A meaningless topic, another meaningless conference. Toledo, in general, is a gloomy city, and even in rainy April ... By God, it's better to sunbathe here. You still need to throw some dough on these baths ... well, from algae? "Madame is on vacation, madam has the right."

It was one of their favorite phrases, of which a lot had accumulated over the course of three years: a remark from the seller of an expensive store in Sorrento, where Irina tried not to let “the terrible money go to her purse”.

She laughed and said:

- Okay, get out. When is your plane?

He now openly and anxiously glanced at his watch:

- Oh ... I run, I run! And then you will not be in time.

He jumped up, grabbed his jacket, suitcase, turned around in the doorway - to kiss the air in the direction of the bed. But Irina is already tightly packed again, only the tousled top is sticking out of the blanket. My poor, abandoned…

He quietly closed the door behind him.

Going down the stairs one floor, he stopped, listened to the silence of the still sleeping hotel: somewhere below, by the pool, the cleaners were talking loudly and serenely, heavily dragging the boa rings of rubber hoses across the wet concrete. Leaning back against the door, he opened the zipper on his suitcase and pulled out two things: a knitted blue glove for his right hand - a strange one with slits for the pads of his fingers - and his so far sinless automatic Glock.

However, why so immediately ... strain. He lowered the pistol into his jacket pocket, pulled on a glove, wiggling his fingers like a pianist before the first bravura passage, then took out his cell phone and dialed a number.

- Vladimir Igorevich? Didn't you wake up?

In response, a grateful wave rolled:

- Zakhar Mironovich, dear! Hello! It’s great that we didn’t let you down. And from six on my feet and I can not find a place for myself. So when is it convenient for you? I'm in number four hundred and two.

“Well, great,” he said. - I'll come in a minute.

And the pistol again plunged into the toothy slit of the suitcase lightning: it is difficult to imitate such an agitated respectful gratitude, which sounded in the client's voice. And he had a keen, bestial hearing and an eye for shades and intonation.

And the truth: Vladimir Igorevich, polished to a shine, trembling with his belly, was waiting for him at the open door of the apartment. Interestingly, what cherished paths he makes his way with his morning razor among all his warts? And why won't he let go of his beard - or in the unspoken code of these new crezes a beard, as a concealment, is there a sign of secret intent?

- Not over the threshold! - exclaimed the fat man, stepping back and holding his hand at the ready with a spatula.

According to some roundabout information, the newly minted collector owns some factories in Chelyabinsk. Or mines? And not in Chelyabinsk, but in Chukotka? God knows, it doesn't matter. Archangel Gabriel bless everyone who invests in a piece of canvas coated with casein glue and covered with oil paints.

Indeed, he waited and worried: in the open door of the bedroom one could see a neatly made bed like a soldier.

The painting, a canvas stretched over a stretcher, was waiting in the wings, facing the back of the sofa.

How touching these amateur collectors are. All of them are in awe of that first moment when the X-ray eyes of an expert pierce the picture. It also happens that they throw a white sheet on a sofa or chair, where they put a picture, in order to preserve precious eyesight. connoisseur from annoying color environment. Operating room color antiseptic or child's play close your eyes tightly, you will open it when I tell you!

In this case, dear Vladimir Igorevich, you will now hear a short lecture on the insignificance and ephemerality of this very nobility.

He lowered the suitcase to the floor, threw his jacket over it.

- Is it okay that I hold out the left one? - asked, awkwardly shaking (he should have twisted and held out his palm from behind) the collector's plump paw and smiling one of his most open smiles. - Long-term arthritis, please excuse me. Sometimes I cry out from the pain like a woman.

- Yes you! - the fat man was upset. - Have you tried the Golden Mustache? My wife is very complimentary.

- What we have not tried, we will not talk about it. You just arrived yesterday?

- Of course! As soon as you said that today you are flying away and that this is the only way to catch you, I immediately ordered a number and, like that tenor in the opera - "a little light - at your feet!"

Where did he hear such an opera, I wonder. Maybe in your own Chelyabinsk? No, dear, God forbid you lie at my feet ...

On the coffee table stood a bottle of Courvoisier and two glasses of cognac, but it was evident that the poor fellow was already exhausted: he did not offer to sit down, or to drink. This is passion, I understand ...

“Well, let's get started,” said Cordovin. - I really have very little time.

“Just one word,” Vladimir Igorevich said, nervously rubbing his palms, as if screwing one into the other. - This is necessary ... You, Zakhar Mironovich, have to deal with all sorts of people - now even a frank trash knows what to invest in. And I represent your disgust for such forced acquaintances, like ours. Don't mind, I know! But, you see, Zakhar Mironovich ... my collector's age is really infancy - before it was not possible to collect art, where does the money come from an ordinary Soviet engineer-inventor? But I am a lover of painting with experience, from my youth. I remember that you come to Moscow, on a business trip for three days, a suitcase to a hotel - and you yourself trot to Pushkin, to the Tretyakov Gallery ... It's embarrassing to admit, I dabble in paints myself a little ... Well, I read a lot of things. I also found your book "The Fates of Russian Art Abroad" on the Internet, read it. I would be happy to invite you to my place.