Once cold autumn...

Refugee stories

As a young lover, the girl going to hell on the horns, the same a very green newcomer from Moldavia gets to looking for any job. He came at the other end of the city in the employment office on Bobyen Avenue. All immigrants cling to one another. It`s always by language and nationality. A Filipino united with a Filipino, an Uzbek with Uzbek, and a Thai with a Thai. But our gypsy Vovke Chorbu united here with the locals. He respectfully referred to the employment office or labor exchange as a “casa mare”.
Bobyen located on a spacious and imposing avenue draws a rich, tabooed part of the city, called Outremont, which literally means Behind the Mountain. The settlement was ancient, appeared three hundred years ago, immediately after the Iroquois trail, which went around the northeastern slope of Mont-Royal, dropping fighting feathers, spears and tomahawks, escaped the last Iroquois, cramped by French musketeers. The only francophone settled here; they were not very waiving to emigrants; they considered that the new arrivals all are colonizers and in the referendums, they all voted for the secession Quebec from Canada. However, the emigrants did not remain in debt, traditionally devoted their squeaky voices to a single and indestructible Canada, and they called the local French as “Quacks.” That is nothing more like "people eating frogs."
There were tensions, you can’t say anything here. But the calculation of our cunning programmer from Moldova contained a double intent. Don't be he a gypsy Vovke Chorbu. First of all, the citizen of Kishinev-city intended to learn French directly in the free element of verbal communication. And secondly, Vovke indulged himself with the hope that here, in the bureau for indigenous people, for “bureau for its people”, and Vovke hoped also to get here something.
That year in Montreal, the weather stays as ordered.  All was a quiet, dry and warm autumn reigned. Blue icy sky; gray gibberish domes and spires of many churches; shimmering reddish, black-leaved and bright yellow Canadian “sugar” maples. The trees are long and picturesquely corroded for the winter, lethargically exploding with gold leaves, and chestnut and honey interspersed with amber and purple. Special, crazy orange fires blaze aspens.
It seems that nothing can shake peace and goodness in nature.
In the morning, after registering at the labor exchange, the people, mostly shabby lumpen proletarians, retired to the street to smoke and, glancing towards the blackened sandstone of St. Mark’s Church, hanging out at the Bureau’s doors on the blue graphite sidewalk, slightly dancing around not from the first frosts, not on the purely national ease of character and body. Yes, perhaps, because the benches along Bobyen, as well as throughout the city, once and twice swung. The motley amalgam of stagnant foliage sounded sleepily under the feet of inhibited passersby. People looked at the unemployed noisily making noises and together they smiled. Like, they say, nothing, when our government comes, everything will fall into place.
Whatever it was, but after a grueling stay inflowing sands ignited by the white Judean sun, Vovke enjoyed looking at the surroundings and felt repose and long-awaited intercourse with his native nature. Native - not native, but related. With the tranquility and the feeling of inviolability, the sunken chest of “Ruske rum” was filled, day and night, before extracting food from the computer.
   Despite the fact that Vovke otkoldaperil his in the Soviet army, and then still rewind the "milium" in the Israeli, he did not smoke and therefore did not jump out on the street with Bobien, remaining in the "Kasa mare" for fear that he would miss his last name if you shout it out to work. But the full thrill caught Vovkе, looking like his new kamarads, twisting on the bare asphalt, rested with a back, someone with an elbow on his second-hand Shag Subaru moored at the curb with four moderators.
   As a rule, there was no work for Vovka. He came to Bobien from afar, first to take the line; the rest arrived with a pedestal and he cautiously told everyone “Hai! An owl? ”, To which he received in response the traditional“Owl!” or“Bien” and no one has ever asked how the Russian is.
   At about eight o'clock, all job seekers dispersed around the enterprises, and Vovke persistently sat out the lesson given to him up to eleven. It was hard to guess, but in spite of everything, Vovke still received satisfaction. First of all, it is from the consciousness of accomplishment. And besides, it was at eleven in the morning from a bakery on St. Matthew Street that the Concordia metro station threw yesterday’s garbage containers, which were not sold, but still quite edible “baguettes”. Vovke deftly extracted French bread from under the lock with a chain and pounded the long busty wheatears with hot tea without oil in his one-room studio apartment, hovering over the temples at the height of the twenty-seventh floor.
With work no luck. It was 12 percent in the country, 15 - unemployment in the province. But the free elements of verbal communication were more than enough. The lumpiness smoking marijuana and chipped around the corner returned from the street tipsy. In the darkroom “Kasa Mare” for them there were about five or six tarred yellow paint oak blocks of benches. Vovke sat as one of them, in a corner, but closer to the window, flipping through the “La Presse” and guarding his rusty Suburban in the free parking lot. On all the other benches in the most capricious and picturesque positions, his companions were located and continued their terrible chatter brought from the street.
“What are you saying to me?!”, More than the others, a cunning guy named Patrick in a green beret and with pinches of vegetation under his nose, depicting a mustache, performed. - I remember, how not to remember? J`me souviens!
“Shmu suve!”, - learning, Vovke was delighted, - “I remember”.
  - In 1837, we were in Montreal, ..- Patrick squealed with anguish in his voice. How not to remember! We have “J`me souviens” on every car number. But I remember the other well! As in November 1976, our party led by Ren; Leveque won for the first time, and everyone was waiting for a decisive referendum on sovereignty. But pity.
- And in August 1977, - Jacques, wide-eyed and lop-eyed carpet, gets involved in the debate, - we put a pick into them in jo, having dragged our Bill 101 through our National Assembly. Let our antagonists mockingly call our party PQ - picks! Like, PiKyu - pinned! But after Bill 101, no one has the right to use commercial marks in any language other than French.
-Yes, yes! - one more wafer, blower, sperm-pharynx, intercepts and interfere, - not only as a result of this measure in Quebec the number of schools with English training has drastically reduced, but it also obliges them to register their signs only with us, and the money for our relentless struggle!
The screamers squinted at the "colonialist" suspiciously and suspiciously at this point. Not a "snitch"?
But Vovke, tired be one of the boms, rustled with a newspaper, and even if he tried to retell something from what he heard, he would never have been able to.
Like many people from Eastern Europe, Vovke was Mumu. Read and even write in a foreign language - yes. But talk! The spoken language of Quebecuans is strikingly different from the French "exclamation" with the obligatory emphasis on the last syllable in general and from their own written in particular. And not a talking person, it is clear - just a "chock with eyes." Soon the Kwaks completely let themselves go and stopped paying all attention to the "colonizer". Sits and let him sit like a sitting, stuffed garden.
Expansive francophone boms type in "Kasa Mare" elatedly slugging, not tired of gesticulating wildly, which is why from their loving conversations resembled the last stage of the "bazaar", after which there should have been a knife fight. But nothing like this has ever happened. Patati-patata, patati-patata ... And it continues so on to infinity.
It turned out the essence that the labor exchange was a patriotic club and a narcotic den at the same time. The hostess was a wide-banged-up band-dispatcher hiding the “fat body” in a baggy chair and behind armored glass.
The situation with the accelerated learning of the language suited Vovka and he brought a talking electronic dictionary with him in the “Kasa Mare”. The matter of mastering went off faster and faster.
“Monsieur, do you remember the glorious October of 1970?” - it was not in the Patrick case. “Our Front de lib; ration du Quebec then was successfully stolen by the British merchant consul and made him hostage to our immediate demands. And when they did not consider us, FLQ settled with them the life of a traitor who betrayed our interests as the Minister of Labor of Quebec Pierre Laporte. They may insult our gallant “Front” - “Fak u”, but tanks on the streets of Montreal, arrests, 200 armed actions carried out, an explosion of financial exchange, the expropriation of several banks, the seizure of hostages and murder - all this means something!
At various times, as Vovke understood, three people were killed in an explosion of sham bombs and two were shot. In 1966, their valiant organization prepared and launched a plan called “Revolutionary strategy and the role of the avant-garde” (Strat; gie r; volutionnaire et la; le de l'Avant-garde), which described the long-term strategy of successive armed actions having their own the end, ultimately, revolution. And most importantly, in their fiery cries, they seriously expressed their dissatisfaction with the fact that they were taken away by newcomers, immigrants, and other Satanists.
Beyond this, even the powerful propagandist little mindful of Patrick did not reach. “In the Soviet Union,” he compared the situation to Vovke, “when there was not enough bread for everyone, that was also the case. A little bit: This is the Russian took away our bread! We do not need any "big brother"! Now Quebec has all the evils of emigrants ...”
“You don’t know how to relate to all this,” Vovke thought hard, “everyone is right there in his own way.”
"Casa Mare" by this time was once again empty and Vovke was left alone with the dispatcher. “Bazlat is easy,” the Moldovan thought, “But there is blood ahead. Patriotism always gradually develops into Nazism, Nazism - into fascism. Initially, this is a struggle for sovereignty, which supposedly unites everyone living in the territory, and after the victory, ethnic cleansing. There was here one Prime Minister, Lucien Bouchard, a real Fuhrer-blackhead with a broad handler. Oh, how he shouted from the stands, how he went broke! And suddenly the “cleaners” unearthed that the fighter for the “purity of the nation” wife is not just an American, but also an American Jewish woman. And the political corpse of the prime minister flew to a lawyer in the "Bombardier". Some - the clever people theorize, others - the practices make a career, and the street punks deal with undesirable ones. They still do not know that they do not get anything doing the revolution. The power is captured by others. ”
-What are you sitting, idiot? Go home! - said the Quebec lady behind the glass in a drunk voice in English for the colonizer, who had never deigned to even look at a foreign guy before, and Vovka rose to leave, but then the telephone rang sharply.
- Hey, Russian, what is your name? - Swiftly returned Vovke from the threshold of the dispatcher. - Do you have a driving license?
-Yes, my car is worth it. Ander Window.
-What are you, stupid? I am not asking about the car, but about Likes. Is there or not?
Answer quickly.
And into the phone:
-He said that he has a lens!
A minute later, swollen with fat, like a fur seal, the young woman impatiently explained: “This is a serious order. Payment - 11 dollars per hour. And all yours. This we have not yet been! You come to Chech (she called the church), you find the supervisor, he will explain everything to you. Urgent! ”
And there was something in the bander's voice that was so inexplicably mysterious that the unemployed man started and inquisitively looked at the charred eyes of the production commander.
Before Canada, Vovke never sat behind the wheel, but upon arrival, in just a year, he changed three cars. In such a city without a car for a less permanent job will not take. Industrial zones are taken out of the city limits, and in the city itself, sometimes, even there are no sidewalks. Nobody here strolls through the streets, holding hands or embracing, the car is not only a means of transportation, but also a means of personal and family safety.
More than five hundred dollars for a wheelbarrow on a Vovke never paid. Through dealers bought rubbish from second, from third hands; stalled - threw on the sidelines and that's it. He paid only rented rooms, so as not to pay for new ones. Well and driving experience at Vovke - the cat wept. He was rescued only by natural courage and soldiery hardening.
Nevertheless, Chechinsky supervisor Sebastian, who was pale as a masturbator from childhood, explained Vovke in the distorted English that he would drive a truck out of town into an enclave like San Michel and collect there charitable assistance in bags put up in advance on the street by agreement with the tenants, Khoyaeva houses and country villas.
- It’s easy to go there. - said Sebas, unfolding a map of the area in front of Vovke. - There everything is square and rectangular. You come here, check out. After every street, you have to call. Zell has? Take mine whatever happens - just call me!
At the end of the briefing, the Chechen leader put the keys to the white van under Vovke’s hands under the black leafy maple, hurriedly sighed into the blue Merc and disappeared.
From the pink porch of the Catholic cr;che, she immediately ran off to Vovke, in a“noisy, beautiful autumn,” a thin and sharp-haired, Ukrainian, not yet old woman.
“I know,” looking around, she often said. “You speak Russian.” So, here, I will tell you that our Chechen driver should have done this work, but he called in the morning that he was sick. You know, you can refuse, because, how to say it, the ongoing large-scale action is illegal. The collection of donations is held in favor of the prohibited organization FAK u. You can burn. The driver therefore became ill, because he was afraid, probably. Last night was absolutely healthy.
-Aaaa, - Vovke said only in response. - Don’t worry. Everything will be tiptop. I will not be planted, I think. Or not be caught. Better tell me your name, what are you doing here?
-Well, I won't tell you my name, it's too early. No, I will. What should I be afraid of? Svetlana my name is. From Western Ukraine, many of our Catholics have come to the fore. I translate them.
Oh, these lovely Slavic women! Itself swells from hunger, under two or three men walks, and its necessarily help. They teach their foreigners khahaley and husbands to Russian, and then sacrificially sing Russian songs to their newborn foreign children, tell fairy tales and cry, because they are tired of living in a foreign land...
-Thank you, Sveta, - according to the gypsy custom, Vovke bowed low to the woman.
On the steps, he bravely climbed into the spacious, like an army gas chamber for training, a milk-white cabin of a hand-operated truck, quickly and carefully looked around: how is everything interestingly arranged! He pulled over, realized the gasoline leverage lever in the carburetor, pressed the clutch, turned the ignition key to the starting position and released the clutch pedal. He hit his nose with a burned fiber, but the motor roared helpfully. The gears of the gearbox gritted from the slow shifting gears. And - let's go!
The wagon certainly jerked a couple of times but crawled as a reactive turtle. He moved slowly, by sideways along the church alley, under the maples, at a lower first speed. The engine roared and roared and smoked with might and main from peregazovki. Out of the corner of the eye, the fearless Russian gypsy saw the ribs plastered with people, watching his clumsy actions.
Before the highway, Vovke tried the entire amplitude of the gearshift. He liked her and on the Metropolitan-street rushing to the fourth with gas, he choked with delight. Newcomer gadjo felt like the real owner of a foreign expressway and his fate, towering over the seat above everyone.
We used to be in Italy, where the air is blue! –
He sings at the full power of his young breast.
There the sailor's eyes were misty for melancholy.
I remember. I remember the mountains and valleys.
I remember. I remember rivers and meadows!
Dear land, Soviet Russia,
You are dear to the heart of the sea!
With the conspiracy of the things were bad. Sebastian gave Vovke some tenth copy of the sorted out list of all the compassionate San-Michele’s or what benefactors, patrons, philanthropists, philanthropists, and philanthropists. He had an only paper with last names, with addresses, telephone numbers and in the free column - a space for a signature. Rented, they say. And Sebas strictly warned:
-No one, never give up this registry. Only me!
By the naive organization of the case, it was obvious that it would be easier to catch all the criminals. But for someone, it is always not profitable. One of the leaders of the French bourgeois revolution, Maximillian Robiesper, once stated before the parliament that he was committing everyone for taking bribes, and they, having unanimously voted, turned the boss over the whole head with their favorite guillotine. The same as the former subjects stabbed Muammar Gaddafi knives. “Garbage” will be hungry in a highly moral society ... But over-fulfillment of the “landing” plan threatens them with unemployment. Or can kill for no reason. Their efforts need to be coordinated with the capacity of prisons. This is the practice of garbage around the world. And in general, do not repass all. A generation is replaced by a generation, and there is no law-abiding. But the work in the "garbage authorities" frees the "garbage" from all responsibility.
During the daytime, the deliverers were mostly old men and women. They stood along their avenues. Behind their backs are their houses, at their feet, they are black as black poodles, the standard for the whole city are garbage plastic bags stuffed with men's and women's rags, squeaking children's toys and broken shoes, handbags and empty leather wallets. Sometimes a heavy iron struck the leg, iron ironically encased in a bag. Donors greedily pulled their skinny goosenecks towards Vovke.
And Vovke though that! He had seen Paris too, and London, and walking across the super-giants on his own two feet, never made a mistake in choosing the right direction. So it is here. I drove up to the villa or duplex-triplex, put the truck on the handbrake, jumped out of the cab, pulled the tailgate curtain, lifted and inserted the bag, pulled the curtain, threw it into the cabin and - through the gases. After this, he drives to the next house. All clear, in the military. But it rained. The autumnal is cold. She was In half and with snow.
Vovke didn’t prepare to plow in the open air, he was wearing only a soft flannel shirt with a turn-down collar of the azure color, she immediately drenched, stuck and stuck to her body, smoking on her back, but didn’t hesitate under the bad weather - what did he have to do ?! However, the Moldovan has already done about two hundred "jumps"; there was still the same amount, if not more, and by telephone, I began to push Sebas. The old men dragged their “donation gifts” onto the verandahs, and now, as they roared along the stairs, Vovke was swelling. Former spiritual joy vanished as the spirit of vinegar essence from the vinegar.
-O, we? - in live, verbal communication, ingratiating coves, old donators to young and strong Vovke, looking into his eyes, and considering him, apparently, a desperate functionary. - Patati, patata, patati, patata!
Prominent, patched, in the south, dark, the rum quite went for his metro station Namur.
It took another hour for Vovke to squeeze the “wagon” between the ramps to the warehouse door in reverse without hooking the concrete bump stops. The matter was complicated by the fact that the truck did not have a rear-view mirror, but only a side mirror. This practice was completely absent from Vovke. Having clasped his teeth to pain, he fidgeted and fidgeted back and forth, forward and back, saving the truck from collisions and contact with concrete, and gaining particular experience of moving backward in the position of the front wheels.
Helped for stupid movement Vovke met the huge toothy newcomer Negril. The black man surprisingly did not swing his arms and did not shout “Left!” or “Right’’. Carefully, he only screamed, “Stop!” It was when he just filling himself in a dangerously close to the wall.
- Do you probably want to eat? - then he asked Monsieur Vovke sympathetically, and, smiling happily at something of his own, dragged a white pizza stick to the white ;migr; driver, being the foreman of the “rippers of bags” of “Village de Valere”.
“Do not think, monsieur, I am not a Negro, I have served with Haiti on US ships,” he managed to explain for some reason.
After unloading, when this whole whirlwind was over, Vovke, at the direction of Sebas, rolled the truck to an empty seat, locked the cab and, leaving the ignition keys to the brigadier, set off on the subway. Proceeds from the sale will go to the maintenance of underground revolution specialists.
And in the next morning on Bobyen Vovke was met as a hero: many approvingly patted him on the back and shoulders, shouting something. It turned out that many of the fucking lumpen spiked English.
-So, what is your name there, and what did you get from Sebastian,” asked the bander respectfully.
–I got twelve hours, eleven dollars each, one hundred and thirty-two. But the top ten Sebas calculated for the time you spent for lunch.
-How?! - exclaimed Vovke under the approving good of kamarads. - Sebas knows very well that I did not eat lunch! Where is he now? I will go and pin him on the face!

The text is written by Vladimir Morgan


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     Above Maximilian Robiesper