Libertionne. Anna Tishchenko
slyly. Laura raised her eyebrows, but Michael nodded in understanding.
“I understand what you mean. You are talking about the right to some capricious luxury, about deviating from the established norm.
“Yes, yes,” Tiberius nodded hurriedly. “That’s exactly it.”
“By the way,” Michael said, bringing the teacup to his lips and glancing at Lancelot with amused curiosity, “our restless friend – why here? I don’t mind, I’m just interested.”
Laura sighed.
“Martha is worried that I making her into a housewife, and so she refused to watch him today.”
“It’s rather strange, as she’s never worked, and almost never leaves the house.”
“But she says that I can’t see her personality,” Laura said with an irritated wave of her hand. “I had to take Lance with me to a meeting of the trustees. Now there’s one trustee less. You see, he didn’t like the fact that Lance made passionate love to his briefcase. What a bore…”
Laura scratched the one responsible for the change in the lineup of the board of trustees behind the ear, and leaned back on the couch. Neither she nor Michael noticed the buttons that had come undone, but Tiberius with effort shifted his gaze to the painting hanging before him on the wall. It depicted an alpine mountain ridge covered with snow, but in his mind’s eye he saw a completely different picture.
“You actually have physical meetings?” Michael said, his eyebrows raised in surprise. “There’s a thing called videoconferencing…”
“For those who want their business and private affairs to be part of the public domain? Certainly,” Laura snorted, “even you, Michael must know that the best network security is the absence thereof. I mean, the network, not the security.”
“Why not put Lancelot in a hotel for animals?” Tiberius inhaled deeply and tried to think rationally.
Two pairs of eyes, one dark-brown and doglike, the other feminine and jade, stared at him sternly and judgmentally.
“We were there,” Laura answered reservedly, “and we didn’t like it. They put them in cages – roomy ones, but still cages – and they feed them dry food. They give them muskrats.”
“Er… muskrats?”
“Yes. Rubber ones. One single toy, can you imagine? And there’s no social interaction.”
“I see.”
A blasphemous thought crept into Tiberius’s head, that the capricious Martha and Lancelot, for the modern and free Laura, were a replacement for something, something natural for a unmodern and unfree woman.
A nurse suddenly walked into the room.
“Mr. Storm, you have a visitor. Not a sick one, I mean. I think.”
“Oh,” Michael sighed, “I completely forgot. I have a commissioner today, from the ministry of health. And what do they need?”
Laura perked up.
“That’s good. I like commissioners. Show them in.”
And for some reason she opened her smartphone. A scraggly woman entered the room, resembling a moth-eaten hyena in a bad mood. A tweed suit, a tablet computer under her arm, and an unfriendly look.
“Mr. Storm!” she began in a harsh, barking voice. “We have been observing your activities for a long time, and some issues have arisen. Yes, issues.”
“How can I help you?” Michael asked politely.
The hyena stuck her long nose into the tablet computer.
“Our commission has watched your activities for the last three years and has detected excessive, I would say, loyalty. You discharge your patients too soon…”
“Clearly because they are quickly cured,” Michael smiled, but it was obvious that he was not himself.
“Today, according to our data, you received a socially dangerous, aggressive, violent psychopath. That’s right, dangerous! Yet I’ve audited the premises, and I have not seen any such patients. Where is he?”
“There,” said Michael, pointing at Tiberius, who was wearing a business suit and quietly drinking tea.
“Explain! And explain also, why your office looks so strange? This looks more like a historical museum than the ordinary office of a practicing physician.
“I can explain,” Laura said, her voice now soft and gentle, a sure sign that she was very angry. “Dr. Storm was in the middle of a treatment session for a patient, which you have unceremoniously interrupted,” she added, raising her voice.
“Yes, but…”
“In the course of one year, under the leadership of Dr. Storm,” Laura said, glancing at her smartphone, “the clinic has cured and returned to society sixteen thousand five hundred and three patients, which is two and a half times more than his predecessor did in ten years of work.”
“But this office!”
“Shock therapy for the patients. The Dr. works with each one personally. Personally! Now let’s look at the complaints over the course of eight years of work… Can you believe, not a single one. As for complaints about the ministry of health…” Laura turned the screen of her smartphone toward the woman inspector, “should I dictate the seven-figure total?”
“But wait, I…”
“That’s right, you. Let’s open your private file, Mr. Bitch.”
“What?! You cannot…”
“Why not? I truly can, as I’m the rector of the university where you were once a student. We take care of our graduates, keep an eye on them, so to say.
Mr. Bitch turned pale and jumped a little.
“Perhaps… I’ve seen everything that I wanted. I have no more questions for you, Dr. Storm. Would you allow me to leave? I will write a report…”
“I have a question – she was relentless – did you see the door?”
Mr. Bitch saw the door.
“Please be so kind as to use it right now, and to carefully close it from the other side. And also, when you have written the report, send it to me beforehand for approval. Lancelot, give the respected representative of the commission my business card.
The bulldog trotted unhurriedly across the room with a business card in his teeth. The miserable hyena graciously took the card, which was moistened with dog drool, and quickly slipped out the door after shooting Laura an obsequious smile.
“You are a monster!” Michael exclaimed in admiration.
Laura chuckled ambiguously, but it was clear that she felt good.
Compulsory Romance
Ignoring the elevator as always, Tiberius walked up his own stairway. The electronic key was acting up as usual; the green light refused to switch on. From the doorway of the adjacent apartment, the long nose of his female neighbor, Mr. Stern. The lady was of venerable age, but this in no way detracted from her enormous energy and enthusiasm. These wonderful qualities were entirely dedicated to spying night and day on all the residents of the building who had the misfortune of being her neighbor. And of the subsequent related visits. She was constantly pestering Tiberius with various requests for help, and he, out of pity for the creature, almost never refused.
“Aaaah, Mr. Crown, finally. They brought you a little package. And by the way… I have this little refrigerator I need to bring into my apartment,” she pointed to a huge crate that resembled the sarcophagus of Pharoah Seti I, standing like a monument in the center of the elevator landing.
Tiberius was