The Old Women s Curses. Chapter 12

THE OLD WOMEN'S CURSES

In the course of time Cardan fell into his usual habit of constant adventure and binge drinking. An old dog failed to pick up new tricks, so to speak. He could not live a quiet life of a decent family man, and the marital relationships came up to the brink of precipice. The family life was approaching a disaster. Meanwhile, there were a lot of rumors about his tricks in the village. The number of naive people had greatly decreased: everyone knew about the insidiousness of the cunning swindler. "Ah, well, you'll be cheating again," the old women said. "We won't have anything to do with you," was heard from the men. Cardan was like a hamster in the wheel, he was running in it as fast as he could, letting his talent off "the leash". He put blood, sweat and tears into it but his attempts just flopped. There was no way of assuming that he wasn’t able to cut it out any longer, he just needed a short break. The turmoil has to come down a little. He simply was the talk of the town and there was nothing to be done about that. His tricks were the favorite topic of any conversation, even among school children. When they ran into him in the street, they pointed their fingers at him and laughed. He was a local star for them, a great con man, almost as smart as the famous Ostap Bender.

At noon several women got together near the shop and started vividly discussing the latest rural news.
"Guess what," said one of them, "yesterday Cardan rushed into my house with a saw in his hand and hurriedly, as if he had been doing something important, said to me, "Quickly, give me a liter of vodka! A trailer of firewood is being delivered to you! Look, look out the window!" I took a look. Indeed, a tractor loaded with firewood went past my yard. "Come on, get a move on; we're in a hurry! We are preparing timber for the collective farm, the guys wanted to get warm and sent me to you! Let's settle it quickly! I have to run back to help them unload the trailer!" I paid him and started waiting. Five minutes passed by but the tractor didn't show up. I went outside – there was nobody there. I waited for half an hour longer – silence. Well, I guessed the bastard took me for a fool again. Oh, my dear, God will punish him one day! I swear he will be punished for such tricks!”

“Just the other day he comes to me and says,” continues the second woman. "We are delivering manure to the collective farm field. The guys decided to get warm and sent me to you. Quickly, give me a liter of vodka and I'll run back! I'm in a hurry. They are waiting for me! The tractor with the manure is already on its way!"
“I paid him, hung on for a little while, then went out to the garden - no one. I went out into the street – nobody there. I waited, and waited, and waited – no tractor, nobody. Oh, that swindler, oh, that bastard! Just for the record, heaven will punish him one day for his tricks. Oh, he'll be punished!”

"My husband went to the district center to buy some furniture," the third woman began. He met Cardan there and told him about his plans because of his stupidity. Later Cardan came running to my house and said, "Has your husband returned from the district center?"
“No,” answered I.
“I helped him to load the furniture. He said that if I came back late, my wife would pay you for it. So give me a bottle of vodka."
“Well, I paid off. My husband came back home and couldn`t understand what I was talking about. Then I had a quarrel with him because of that accursed Cardan. I hope he will not escape God's punishment. Mark my word, one day someone will play such a trick on him that he will remember it till the day he dies!”

"He sold me salt instead of sugar," the fourth woman added. Suddenly, the women's curses started pouring like a tropical shower.

Cardan's reputation got a serious beating, he had to rehabilitate it somehow. He realized that he needed to take it down a couple of notches and to actually keep a few of his promises, so that he could weather the storm. You cannot eat your cake and have it. He was going to regain the trust of some simpleton and when he lost his vigilance, Cardan would make a move by a chess horse. He always played for keeps and that required patience and perseverance.

Such a simpleton, in his opinion, was approaching Victoria. He got his nickname for his passion of poking fun at others. Rumors about his playing pranks on the fellow villagers spread far beyond the village. Cardan knew about his experience in pulling practical jokes but ventured "to play with fire" and give it a shot. He was used to rolling with the punches and made up his mind to draw on his own experience to get out ahead. He decided to take advantage of his hospitality to make things work and leave him with nothing. Victoria was good at his craft: Cardan could deceive old women, Victoria knew how to make fools out of men. Admittedly, he wasn't going to be another ball in Cardan's juggling act. Nobody could say for sure, who would get out ahead this time – both of them were experts of the highest degree. Victoria invited Cardan over to his place. They had a few drinks, talked about their lives and said goodbye to each other.

The prankster knew that there was no need to hurry things up, and as a cat stalking a mouse, awaits patiently at the hole until it loses its vigilance, so he expected a favorable moment for the realization of his intention. The great deceiver of old women, in his turn, like a sparrow, eating food put out to chickens, outstayed his welcome. One day he lingered at Victoria`s table longer than usual.

Magical effect of alcohol and a pleasant conversation brought him off guard. The host refilled and refilled his glass with alcohol and the guest drank and drank. The party was getting into full swing. The prankster realized that it was time to make a move. He intentionally touched the mug of water standing on the table, which fell into Cardan`s lap and splashed over his trousers in an intimate place. "Oh, you're soaked wet. I'll lend you some dry clothes. You can get changed in the adjacent room. Otherwise, people might say that you wetted yourself like a baby," Victoria offered his help benevolently. Cardan went into the adjacent room to get changed. Taking advantage of Cardan's absence from the table, he emptied a flask of castor oil into the salad. He could not forgive Cardan a trick that he played on him back in the day. One day Cardan traded him an ax for vodka and managed to leave Victoria's home with the vodka and the ax. After that he had been plotting revenge on Cardan for years. Their friendly party dragged on for three days because Cardan could not stay away from the toilet for more than a few minutes. He had a terrible diarrhea.

Cardan's wife rushed to look for her husband all over the village. "He is nowhere to be found. Where has he got to? A couple of times he spent a night elsewhere but not three days in a row," she lamented. She walked around the whole village but her husband seemed to disappear into thin air. As it turned out, no one had seen him in the village for three days. Finally, she was suggested that she should check at Victoria`s. Rumor had it that he had been there recently. Cardan's wife came to check it out there. "If he is not here," decided she, "I'll call the police and inform them that he went missing."

The door was locked and the window curtains were drawn. She walked around the house, trying to find an opening between the curtains. In the end she got lucky. She found Cardan closed in the latrine. Her hands began to pound at the door. "Open the toilet! Open it, you bastard! Where have you been all this time?" she cried in frenzy but the door was not opened to her.
"I have a horrible diarrhea. I can't walk. Can you ask someone to help me get home because I won't be able to do it on my own," he explained the situation to her; tears running down his eyes.

Finally, she ran to the neighbors, so that they helped her take her husband away from the cruel prankster. Victoria, sensing trouble, quickly assisted Cardan to get out of the toilet, led him out into the street and sat him down on the bench in front of the yard. The great deceiver of old women underestimated Victoria. That was his fatal mistake. He could neither sit, nor stand, nor walk after such a friendly visit to him. The men came running. They took Cardan under his knees with their hands, putting his arms on their shoulders and carried him home.

Thus ended the party arranged by two lovers of a game of chance. Nobody knows what really happened there. It is a common thing here that someone might blurt out some nonsense with his black tongue and the rumors would spread all over the village, then it would turn out that it was just slander. Therefore, I don`t want to fantasize here and say that it was really so as well. But people in the village laughed long and said time and again, "There's definitely God in heaven. How deservedly he punished Cardan! This man could deceive almost anyone in the village, and who could imagine that he was himself tricked like a child.”

His wife could not get Cardan under her thumb, so she broke up with him and returned to her mother`s. Cardan, having spent a couple of weeks in bed, got better and went outside. "Either my intuition failed me, or it all happened because of the old women`s curses," mumbled he and quickly cast aside the sad thoughts. He hoped that ignoring the incident would make it fade away. People will gradually forget about it if you don't make a big deal of it. "Am I going to sit around and spin my wheels? Am I going to keep to myself for the rest of my life? One ought to be always on the move! When the going gets tough, you have to spin twice as fast to set things right. Cardan (driveshaft) is spinning - the car is moving." He flung his coat over his shoulder and straightened up, raised his head high, and went out and about to face the world.

Inadvertently, I have recalled the words of the Ukrainian cartoon There Lived the Dog, "And Cardan began living as before, even better; forgotten were all his past troubles - all forgotten."

While I was writing this book, I got lucky to bump into Cardan. One morning, when the sun was just starting to rise over the tops of the trees that grew in the distance, he dropped by my place, tuning into the noise of the awakening nature. “What a great piece of luck,” thought I. I couldn't have been happier to see him if he'd been Santa.

“Do you need honey mushrooms?” he extended a full bag in my direction. I accepted the weighty load.
“Wow, such beautiful mushrooms!” I sniffed in the forest flavor of the honey mushrooms. “Your agility never ceases to amaze me. How can you get up at the break of dawn and go about your things so early in the morning?” I expressed genuine interest.
"An early bird catches the worm. You have to be always on the move. Cardan is spinning – the car is running.”
“Yes, it is important to keep spinning,” I agreed. The deal was struck and he left.

Once more he swings by half an hour later.
"So, what kind of worm has the bird got this time?"
“Do you need some fish?”
“Yes, I do. You never seem to lose your touch. You're really putting me to shame with your ability of being so agile. Honestly, I admire your resourcefulness.”
"I'll bring you some more tomorrow morning," he promised.
"All right, I will be waiting for it," I played along with a benevolent smile.
And this time I paid him for the fish.

A bit later he shows up to the scene for the third time.
"Wow, look who's here! You always get your timing right."
"I've just thrown a net; I'll bring you some more fish, first thing tomorrow morning. I came here to say to you that I didn't forget about you, or else you may think that I got drunk and fell asleep. I was wondering if you could give me some money, and at the dawn, as soon as I pull out the net, I`ll come to you straightaway."

There was no doubt that he was lying. However, it was done so beautifully; the process was depicted so meticulously that he did not leave anything to imagination. He described to me the net that he threw; the way he got into the water; the kind of fish were there; he told me everything to the minutest details.

"You know, I can make a fool out of anyone but you. He looked sly for a moment as if he had outsmarted me in a game of cards."
“I've been meaning to ask you if it's true that when you served in the army near Moscow, you traded a sack of sand instead of a sack of sugar for booze?”
“Yes, it is, Andrey. That made me famous among the soldiers.”
“Have there been many interesting things in your life?”
He hesitated a moment, looked up at me, as if remembering something, and then continued, this time even more warmly.
“Oh, Andrey, I've been through thick and thin. Some day I will tell you all about it. Do you happen to need a used bicycle?” he brought the conversation back to business.
I noticed that he started pushing all of my buttons, because I gave him a lot of rope. I could see where his mind was moving.
"No, thanks! This time I'll take a rain check," I responded vehemently.
"You do like to play things pretty close to the chest, don't you? I mean you never tell anyone about your adventures."
"It's a trick of the trade. The less they know about me, the sounder they sleep." He excused himself.

I wanted to ask him some more questions, but didn't have a clue how I can overcome his resistance to divulge his personal secrets. Anyway, pretty much everyone in the village new his biography and they would share gladly it with me. So it was not a big deal that I couldn't wheedle out more details of his life: a man would not saw off a branch that he is sitting on. He just kept promising that he would help me do any work about my household when I asked him. I listened attentively to him and was thrilled that there were such funny people on earth. One might have called him a liar, a swindler, a con artist, but every one who had ever met him, somehow, deep inside wanted to be deceived. Otherwise, why did those people, who knew his deceptive nature, always fall into the same trap? There must have been a kind of inner attraction in that man, some kind of pure human charm ... Like a child is forgiven for his mistakes because of ignorance and a lack of experience of life, so Cardan got away with his tricks because you wanted to see him again, to listen to him, to have a laugh, to enjoy life. It's as simple as that.

Honestly, it was one of the most exciting conversations that I had ever had. I enjoyed every single moment of it. It was a win-win situation. Although, I had a slight edge over him, since he did not suspect of my playing along. Eventually, I just could not resist his charm and fell for his promises. Against all better judgment I paid him upfront for the fish, even though I suspected that he was lying to me. But he laid out the things so nicely, so vividly painted his actions, so sweetly promised me things that there was nothing to be offended of.

I stood by my house, looking intently at Cardan, who was walking away in a quick and confident gait. Sad and warm thoughts filled my head: so much enthusiasm was in that man, so much of ostentatious virtue towards people, so much life! He seemed indestructible, endowed with more energy than anyone I had ever known. Of course, he was not infallible, he had quite a few flaws. For what it's worth, he was a jolly good fellow. The kind of which is considered to be larger than life these days.

He was able to inspire a person with hope, even if it was temporary, that the world was not without kind people; he was able to lighten the people's wretched existence by talking to them, to fill the boring and monotonous routine of a rural worker with rainbow colors. He learnt so many little tricks to make
his way in their world. Perhaps for those positive emotions, received after a conversation with him, he was always forgiven.

"Wow, and what a nice, funny guy he is, just a joke of a man!" I stood and reiterated these words in my mind, which aroused a friendly smile over my face, while Cardan was disappearing around the corner of the deserted street. People like him are a trial to the world if they lose their acumen. Even if he took advantage of someone, he was forgiven for that. Our Saviour has said, "Do not judge...". Neither will I not point my finger at him.

Finally, I came to realize why some people long for the Soviet Union times. There was nothing attractive in those squalid conditions, that oppressive regime, that hard labor in the fields for a pittance. They miss their youth that passed by, the people they knew, the dreams that they had. Definitely, those were the moments that they would always remember. I reminded myself of the fact that only those people can be successful and happy, who can draw conclusions from the past, but always look into the future. All that water under the bridge now. So I discontinued my reverie and went on with my home chores.

Nowadays, Ukrainian villages are dying out. I remember how a few years ago I visited one of them. Life was boiling there: people planted vegetables, kept cows, went to work. There are some dilapidated houses, which are dispersed here and there now, and only wind blows through the ruins, - the evil wind of change. There was their own "Cardan" in that village either, so as in hundreds of the similar villages that have remained only on the map of Ukraine. There were also some men that were in the habit of stealing the show, who were the life and soul of the party. One might write thick volumes about them, but, unfortunately, nobody remembers them now. This is exactly the reason why I decided to save the memory of Cardan and the stories of his tricks that amused people in the village, smoothing their rugged and gray days for dozens of years.