Diamond lady. Prose in english. Natalia Patratskaya
to do in order not to be hungry and cold.
Lespromkhoz – it is like Magnitka mountain: if there are trees of necessary species nearby, then the forest industry enterprise justifies itself. They exhausted local reserves – and there was no profitable mountain.
The people are not without oddities: some leave these places in the cities, and from large cities people come to rest in the Cold Region, then they will come again and again. You look: turns into a local resident.
In the Cold City there was a police station, and in some villages there were no police officers. Musin, working as a district police officer, fixed the settlers. Apollo liked him, so he left him to work as his assistant. Letters from various cities of the country from wives of miners came to the police station.
Here is an excerpt from a letter from a woman: «My husband left for your city to rest, but forgot to return. What did you do with him: mushrooms, berries or fish-bird? Husband brought you cranberries from you, but returned home, and now you are lost for months, half a year at home we do not see him.»
In such cases, Musin tried to find a go-go berry getter and found, and Apollo helped him. But it was not always possible to return people from these reserved places, people got used to it and did not go home. Freedom felt the joy of generous nature and forgot about everything in the world.
Cold City is a small town by big concepts. In it, people traveled with gifts of nature from villages and villages, from distant places. To large cities far, closer to him. Hence, the city was not deprived of business people.
The buyers of the gifts of nature always liked to come to the city, it was possible to fight with them, it was possible not to touch them. Buyers have always been willing to pay off. Musin was known as a principled policeman, and his retirement would be freedom for buyers, dealers and many more business people.
However, the people respected the policeman Mussin, and his jokes, jokes, knew by heart:
– I spent a minute by the river, once shot, and drags a duck.
– In the house cranberries and lingonberries? You live without knowing the hard times.
– In the river fishing rod dived, immediately sank with a fish.
Is it really so? The cold region – the water region, washed by the seas-oceans, crammed with rivers, lakes. Is this a town-like paradise? What to protect in such harsh conditions? Fish in the river? So it is much more in the lakes of the region, and even more in the sea-ocean. The land of forests and water, the edge of pines, spruces and birches.
Here are the pines and cut down the local timber industry enterprise, and the birches in the northern terrain do not differ in height. To live in the village, you must have modest requests. Although in such places are secret millionaires! Why not? There are no high society evenings, luxury cars are not needed here, more all-terrain vehicles are appropriate here. And people save money.
And such was the call Musin from a woman:
– Musin, I need security, I saved money, help me buy a car.
And it’s not a joke.
People worked, got used to a modest life, and life in recent years in the Cold Region has become better. The wages of the gas industry workers and the oil industry increased, and again they, like geese, drew to the south – spending money. Houses are built in southern cities in order to warm bones in old age. But the trouble is: they will go there as if on vacation – and again they are pulled into the frosty waters of the region and into the taiga.
Musin has a new job: guarding the rich beggars. It is difficult to guess who is rich, who is poor. But no, no, yes, they also ask Musin, along with Apollo, to be guards in houses that are not always seemingly worthy of protection. Musin did not violate his principles and guarded. It would be possible to put security devices for the countryside, and they are put.
Quail – drunk – cause Musina – calm down. Calm down. The people of the policeman, while in a drunken state, especially esteemed. The policeman can cope with many cases for private payment, and maybe in good conscience. Solid character, honest look, the conscience of the Cold City – policeman Musin. Helping ordinary people…
And how to determine: a simple person or a rich man? Justice seek? In what? The life experience of Musin suggested that people who are constantly looking for some kind of justice, when they find her, do not know what to do with it. There are people who constantly resent for any reason, but experience says that Musin will not add to the bad character of people.
Small business flourished in the Cold City. All need licenses: shooting, fishing, picking berries. In the Cold City, the development of technology was not particularly involved, more and more oil, gas, mushrooms, berries, fur, fish.
Apollo gorged on local berries for the rest of his life.
The computers got to the cold lands, first of all they were put into the bookkeeping to cheat money. And people also wanted to play-work for them, but there was a time – there were not any in the stores. Apollo out of boredom decided to take a new toy. And how to take away a computer from the bondage of the accounting, so that no one would notice the loss of himself?
He spent a long time at home in front of the mirror, changed his appearance, thought out his outfit. Belly pulled in profile viewed himself. He looked at his TV. Finally I thought: he will have a TV instead of a monitor. And he needs a keyboard and an iron box. Decided – fulfilled. Apollo swirled among the accountants, and hid in a pantry.
Itself understands: not to take everything away at once. The box is big and heavy, this is where the floppy disks are inserted. I decided that he did not need diskettes, but he needed overseas boards. He opened the box and decided that he would take what instead of brains. Apollo hung the keyboard on his back, took the board in the bag, hung it on his stomach. He decided that he would create the guides for the boards at home.
In the morning, when the accountants put on make-up, Apollo slipped out in a raincoat, slightly plump. The bookkeeper did not immediately miss the keyboard, the computer was in place. Then they look, but there is no system unit. Called Musin.
«Musin, we have a strange thing missing here.» Part of the computer has disappeared. One is, and the other is not, – said the woman, whose computer is gone.
Musin himself had not mastered the computer at that time, but had heard about him. He scratched his clever head and decided that only a local craftsman could create such a trick. And the golden hands of masters can be counted on the fingers. They will make them from a tin can, at least for a computer case, even for any device. And everything will work, oddly enough.
Policewomen Musin asked the women in accounting if they had not seen a strange man or acquaintance. And those in one voice:
– Not!
Mussin decided to bypass the local radio amateurs. But the children were the first to talk. One guy runs and shouts: «And we have a computer!» And who screamed? Moussin went to Apollo, but he did not have time to hide the stolen goods, and he was very keen on tinkering the guides for the boards. Musin forced him to return the computer to the accounting department and asked him not to commit thefts anymore.
Oh, and here is the important call from the first-aid post from Zina’s medical assistant:
– Musin, help, with a young woman gold was removed!
– Where? When? Say more, please!
– The first case occurred with a girl. She walked off the train, broke her heel, sprained her leg, the guy at the train station helped her up, and the ring quietly removed her finger. She came home, the granddaughter of old man Kharitonovich.
– Who quietly took the gold?
– Specialist.
– And now what happened?
– With