Libertionne. Anna Tishchenko
how did you earn a living before you started to teach history?”
…The dark spots in front of his eyes start to clear, and he hears his own voice, confident and clear, as if he is teaching in his department: “More water, please. And so. Freedom is a myth, Evelyn. You, as an employee of an organization for the protection of human rights should know this well. As for myself, I’m not saying that absolute freedom is a good thing, but for some reason, the more a certain group of people is called to it, the more blood it is going to shed.”
“No, that’s not it,” Evelyn Young hotly objected. “We live in a free empire. We have democracy, openness, freedom of speech.”
“We have no freedom of speech. If you mean the right to go yell in this ridiculous park, then I’d like to remind you that there are a lot of things you can’t yell about there.”
“No, of course, you can’t say anything that insults someone’s honor, or incite violence…”
“Evelyn, try to go out on the street and declare that heterosexualism is not perversion. And to fight for the rights of heterosexuals. This is not a call to violence and does not insult anyone’s honor. And then you will see what kind of freedom of speech we have.”
If only Tiberius had known how much he would have to pay for these words, which he would never have spoken while sober! Moopechka turned pale with horror, and then, his eyes resembling those of a lemur, he quickly filled Tiberius’s glass with a tea-colored liquid and shoved it into his hand.,
Again he nodded off.
The next image: he is standing, holding onto the surface of a perforated steel supporting column; the column is somehow swinging, as is the floor beneath it; on his arm hangs Mupochka, plaintively asking about something, looking unhappy. “That’s awful. What’s the matter?” Tiberius raised his bleary eyes and saw in front of him Don Largo, caught in the beam of a spotlight. “Oh, I see, he probably wants to be photographed. This is why Melissa and they were worried.” Tiberius tried to focus on the show business idol. “Nothing special, just some overdressed peacock, honestly. And then he dares to reject my friends? Now I’m going to take care of this…”
…He finally regained permanent consciousness in a taxi. His own car, Paul told him, absolutely refused to take him home, because the incoherent speech of its owner indicated that he was extremely intoxicated. And drivers in such a condition are not only prohibited from sitting in the driver’s seat – they aren’t allowed in the vehicle at all. After Tiberius was unable to correctly recite, even a second time, the tongue-twister that was generated, the car angrily shut down, but not before it informed him that he would need to present a narcologist’s report before it would make the next trip.
The taxi showed less indifference. Moopechka apologized on the way for the Secret of Priapus and carefully inquired about what exactly his Honey Bunny remembered about what had happened. When he found out it was practically nothing, he almost felt glad. The fragile world had been restored.
As soon as he walked into the apartment, Tiberius made a beeline for the bathroom where, after retrieving a special first-aid kit from a secret compartment under the sink, he injected himself with an antidote right through his pants. The cursed haze melted before his eyes, his head stopped spinning on its own axis, and his thoughts, at last, became clearer. It was awful that the memories of the previous night’s events did not return, and that there was no trace of the intoxication. The hops was gone. The threat of a night of passionate love, however, still existed. However, there was a decent option for salvation which had rescued Tiberius on several occasions.
“Paul!” he cried, poking his head out of the bathroom. “I’ll be in the shower, and you’ll play for a while, okay?”
“Well, I, basically, don’t want to,” indecisively murmured Moopechka, with the tone of voice of a chronic alcoholic who has just been offered a glass of superb cognac.
“I’m going to be bathing anyway,” Tiberius informed him in an innocent voice. “And you can quickly come in for five minutes, that’s all.”
“Oh, just for five minutes,” Moopechka licked his lips, and quickly added “I’ve got big plans for you today. Because you are always like that… in a hurry. You don’t even get undressed.
Tiberius again felt annoyed.
“You’re like Psyche, who tortured Cupid about this. It all ended badly.”
“Really? How? And who is this Psyche?”
Tiberius tried to explain in a way that Moopechka would understand.
“A mortal woman. She loved Cupid. The ancient Greek god of love, if you don’t know. He seduced her with words, and not only. They met in the darkness, and Psyche didn’t see what her lover looked like. She had to wait three months, and then he promised to marry her. This means to fill out a marriage license, only for an unlimited time. But her feminine curiosity led her to take a lamp and have a look at her beloved. The lamp dripped oil on his chest. Hot oil. He awoke, took offense and flew away.
“Oh,” said Moopechka, impressed. “She should have been more careful. With the lamp.”
“She shouldn’t have stuck her nose where it didn’t belong,” hissed Tiberius and slammed the door.
“Tibby!” Moopechka looked with interest at the bloody streaks that added color to the impossibly snow-white walls. “What an interesting design! Was this done by hand? Did it cost a lot?”
“No, not really,” Tiberius smirked.
“It’s creative,” Moopechka nodded approvingly, and sat down at the computer.
Now the coast was clear. The culmination of the evening was near – that is, the illegal book. He turned out the lights, and then, using a special flashlight, pulled out a small, unregistered smartphone. He looked toward the closed door again, then switched on his most valuable thing. He scrolled through the list of books stored in this tiny, unassuming storage device. To what lengths people went through to find them, buy them, and, most importantly, to hide them. His experience as a professional historian was helpful, very helpful. Access to secret archives, permission to examine them. And then came the methods he learned at his previous job. A real job. Thus he became the owner of ten thousand books; for the possession of each one of them he would face at least two years in prison.
Today’s selection was “Undine” by Friedrich de la Motte Fouqué. Tiberius had read it before, but today for some reason he was pulled toward it again.
He remembered the golden, tousled hair, the iridescent, greenish eyes, and their tragic maelstrom. And the taste of her gentle lips, opened in a silent scream, so warm and soft. He sat on the edge of the bathtub, as there was nowhere else. The already small bathroom in Tiberius’s typical apartment was even smaller because of the secret compartment built into the wall. Like a serial killer who cannot part with the victims’ blouses, he could not keep away from his beloved books. A small button, invisible to prying eyes, opened an entire cabinet, which held the real printed books that were most dear to his heart. Of course, the lion’s share of his treasures were a hundred kilometers away, and difficult to access, so how could he live for endless weeks without the wonderful smell of old paper, fine hand-made drawings, and worn leather bindings? Already not afraid of Paul, who was just a meter away on the other side of the thin glass partition, he opened his treasury and gently traced the binding of the real, living, non-electronic “Undine” and took it out of the closet. An hour passed, then another. The antidote started to wear off, and the dizziness and weakness returned, to be expected after such a disgraceful series of events. But he could not bring himself to stop. His headache and intoxication grew stronger – he had to sleep. Finally, Tiberius put the book back and carefully peered into the main room. There he was – Moopechka in headphones, frozen in front of the monitor, only his fingers showing signs of life, a very active one.
“Paul?”
“Just