I went to the bath-house to take a steam bath. It was in the center of our village. It was built in oriental style right after the war. In spring the cupolas of this bank was covered with green grass with scarlet poppies blooming all around. From afar it looks like the villa of an Indian raja. A gray smoke was coming from the chimney.
When I opened the creaking door a ball of steam came out which wafted to the open window like in luxury suites of the Bourgeois Hotel in Dubai where the rich pay a million dollars a night.
It was damp in the cloak-room. The air was smelly. People were dressing and undressing in the thick fog.
I closed the door behind me and went up to the attendant Abu Zhibron de Turvelle Gasan ibn Abdelvakhab. I greeted him, and he gave me a torn towel, a piece of soap and showed me to the dressing-room. I undressed and taking the bowl entered the shower room. Here, too, people were washing in the thick fog. Further along people sat breathing heavily on concrete benches. Some were lying like dead bodies, with their eyes closed and their hands on their chests. Bowels and buckets were rattling here and there. The voices echoed like in deep caves where drops ring forming whimsical stalagmite and stalactite ornaments.
The door of the steam-room was too small, and I had to go in slightly bending my head. I looked around and saw my neighbor Ramazanov, red from heat. We exchanged greetings.
- How are you, Al Kizim? - he asked.
- I am all right, thank God - I said sitting down next to him.
We talked for a minute and fell silent. Then Ramazanov began to whistle.
- Don"t whistle, you won"t get money - I said. He stopped whistling and began to speak.
- Ah, there"s the rub... I always think why my money disastrously vanishes overnight instead of accumulating. I will never whistle any more. Indigence has stuck to my feet like Scotch tape. My elder son will be thirty soon. It"s time to marry off both him and my daughter. But where can I get the money, I wonder? I"ve been afraid to return home of late. As I come home my wife starts poisoning me with malicious words. She won"t stop until I punch her in the face. Then she starts crying.
- Where can get the money from, you silly woman? - I tell her. I haven"t got a printing machine to make money. Even dogs have a rest off and on whereas I don"t. I work day and night like a robot toiling at Uvada Factory. What can we do when there is no chance of selling the waste that they give us instead of money?
- Ah, you haven"t got money you say but you come home drunk every day! I wish you were dead, you wretched boozer. Mind, I"ll find a little gasoline and burn myself alive! - she screams.
I say:
Don"t shout, you fool, there are enemies around! The neighbors may hear you. If you don"t shut up I"ll take a rope and hang myself!..
In short, I am sick and tired of all this. I have a unique idea. If you want, Al Kizim, we can take on credit some fruits and vegetables from our neighbors and go to Russia.
I contemplated a moment and then said:
- Well. It"s a good idea. It would be good to earn a big sum money, buy a car and present it to my sons. They would be very happy. I agree.
Ramazanov though a while and said:
- Al Kizim, you are a nice man. I look at you, and I am conscience-stricken. I blame myself, and I cannot forgive myself the fact that I broke your leg by striking cutting it with an axe. I am sorry for you.
- Never mind. That happens. It must have been fated. I don"t bear a grudge against you. On the contrary, I am proud to be a cripple. The Great Tamerlane, too, was lame in one leg, and he didn"t complain. In spite of that he had conquered vast areas of the world from Europe to Hindustan. He had also founded the Empire of Timurids.
- Yes - Ramazanov said and continued - indeed, you are a good man, Al Kizim. Thank you for existing in this world. The world is held up on people like you. You are a Saint! I am sure, after you pass away you will get to Paradise right off. You will live there with Paradise girls known as Khurami and Guilmanams. As for me, I will have to work off my sins in hell. Upon my word!
- Don"t say that. Only God knows who is sinful and who is a Saint - I said.
- You are right Ramazanov agreed and took a pail of cold water. He poured water over the heated stones. There came steam rising from the stones. He repeated this several times. It became stuffy and hot in the room. I began to gasp.
- Wait, wait, the bath-house is going to explode now, enough! - I said.
- What? - sneered Ramasanov - do you call it heat? It"s below zero compared with the Russian bath! Yes, indeed! Those were the days when we steamed with friends in the Russian bath-house in Gorelovo village, Krasnoselsky District, Leningrad Region. That was a bath-house indeed! Having cracked a bottle of vodka each we sat in the heat steaming. It was winter! -40 C outside! Off and on we would go out into the frost , rubbing ourselves with snow and swimming in the ice-hole by the river Ligovka. Our bodies would keep warm for a whole a day afterwards. You should hear the songs we sang, oh my!
Patting himself now on the chest now on the toe Ramazanov started singing:
Ah, yeah, oh yeah
Russian bath, sweating-room
There"s nothing like it, I presume!
Gasping from heat I couldn"t sit there any more and went out into the shower-room which wasn"t so hot as the steam-room. I washed myself carefully and began to dress. Then I went up to the locker where I had left my clothes and saw that my things were not there, not even the torn towel which the attendant Abu Zhibron de Turvelle Gasan ibn Abdelvakhab had given me. My heart sank. Well, I thought, "the end of the world must be coming. What nasty people! The brutes! The scoundrels!.. How shall I get home now? If it were summer it would be different. But it"s severe winter outside! The snow-storm itself is crying for cold. I flew into a rage and shouted:
- Hey, you bloody scoundrel, come here! What"s this? What a rotten thing!
The attendant Abu Zhibron de Turvelle Gasan ibn Abdelvakhab came up to me and asked:
-What"s up?
- Where are my things? -I shouted - where are you looking anyway, you pig?! Don"t you know who I am? I am a freelance reporter of the Uvada newspaper! Just wait, I"ll scribble an article, and that will be the end of you. Do you want that?
He stared at me in surprise and then opened one of the lockers saying:
There are your clothes.
I looked and saw that the clothes were right where I had left them. It so happened that I confused the lockers. The attendant went away looking displeased. I was at a loss... Then, before going out, I apologized to the attendant. Abu Zhibron de Turvelle Gasan ibn Abdelvakhab pardoned me without hesitation.