David, losing notes

Author - Journalist of the Rain

Up with boots, with disheveled hair and a bare navel - detainees by us are often carried in funny poses. And you look at the faces - they are distorted by hatred or fear. This combination of a ridiculous and disturbing mystical way makes others freeze, from the walking Oxymoron - not to tear myself away ... The last two days people were constantly worn by me, but in their place I had been one musician all the time.

Once my friend Dima and I could drink champagne and any other drinks in the Alexander Garden with impunity. And all thanks to David, the violinist. Every evening, especially in the spring-summer time, he stood in the transition to the Lenin Library, and we, also almost every evening, went to celebrate either passed the exam, then a failure, then upcoming. During the sparsely clock, David’s violin was heard long before the entrance to the transition, and therefore we came up with a secret sign with David. Sometimes we sat in Aleksandrovsky, on a green tubercle near the transition, with champagne, and David, as soon as the policemen noticed in our direction, immediately began to play the “summer thunderstorm” of Vivaldi. These alarming parties Stakkato became an ideal conditional sign that it is time to hide a bottle.

We can say that we were friends with David, or rather even - he is with us. Because he knew about us, almost everything, but he didn’t like to tell our studies and personal life: “From Georgia I ... I play ... nothing, I have enough! .. Well, and what is that girl? ..”

But the last couple of years, David did not appear in the transition. I often thought about him, seeing in the same place the old man playing on the saw. And once I leave the metro and suddenly hear - a violin! I was delighted, accelerated, but after a couple of steps I touch out-some kind of too correct, not his music. David played as if he did not care about us, lovers of hackneyed motives. It should go somewhere bapto-from playing Forte, and instead of Fortissimo, whom anyone waits, at least someday and at least remotely hearing a well-known melody, David suddenly froze sharply and played quietly, instead of a lego, he pulled a bow and pinching the strings with his fingers-in general, he behaved as if there was no one with his ears, and if anyone is-surprised.

And on the eve of the "Million Millions" I met him again. He came to the end of the old Arbat, recognized the violin and tried to remember where I had already heard her ... David! I catch his gaze during the game - but he does not even nod me. The time that we did not see, it seemed, did not aged him, but - deceived him. This happens when a person in his eyes read so many misfortunes experienced that there is no place for age in them. "David?" - "Ah, hello, dear." - "I am Lesha." -“Yes, yes! Sorry, I don’t remember anything at all. ” - "Where are you gone?" - “Are you talking about the transition where I used to be at the Library? Better not to remember. But I don't remember! " -David, as before, pronounces each word on exhalation, separately from others, as if everyone wants to abandon everyone. He removes the violin under the mouse and calls him with a bow - closer, quieter: “Riot police officers flew at night - I already left. We broke their heads. I got to the hospital, and now, I lost my memory. Not all! " - squints. "Why are they so?!" - “My drinking is tired. And your friend is, with glasses who? .. Yes, Dima! You go. I'm nothing. And then I rest, gain strength. And how I get - I’ll take work. ”

We were silent for a minute, escorting her, but I was glad to at least a little look away from David - his right eye was squinting. As if someone invisible rested in his temple with his index finger and pulls the skin back.

At first, I was not even particularly surprised to learn about the rigidity of the riot police, but I thought more about this beveled eye - on the face of the smiling David, he looked at the same time funny and - no. Just like those detained. That is why the last two days I looked at them and involuntarily imagined this mowed eye of David. But not only that's why.

David had to continue to play, and I walked away, leaning on the fence. The last time he winked at me and plunged into the game. It was the "summer thunderstorm" of Vivaldi. But something in his game has changed: he was still free in the interpretation of intonations and pace, but now, when, you know, after some next rise, the notes had to run along the scope of the flowing one, David suddenly lost them: he forgot, skipped, jumped to the next, replaced others. And at that moment he pressed his chin into the violin and ... squinted, very much. It was as if he was most tormented not because of his riot police crippled, but that-after that he lost his notes, his most expensive, something insanely personal. When the police surrounded people on Moscow squares and boulevards, and then squeezed the ring and carried away everyone they wanted, around them, inside these chains, I saw people, unfortunately, too similar to David. In this moments - when playful, when cruel - the fight against riot police, their personal notes seemed to be lost, and sometimes replaced.