Ul hardly talked about love. When it is there, it is not necessary to speak of it. Perhaps he blurted out something in the style of: “tell this to our grandson!” But then he adored life-asserting stories. Well, for example, one fellow went into the drugstore for a thermometer. On the way back two guys attacked him. He began to struggle and during the fight it turned out that the thermometer was shoved into the mouth of one guy and was broken there. “Precisely with all the mercury! Get it?” Yara did. “But how did it get shoved into his mouth?” “Anything can happen in a fight. Maybe, there weren’t any teeth. Maybe, even somehow… And there’re much dumber incidents!” Ul said, and Yara believed that so it was.

The dumber the incident, the closer to the truth. On the contrary, the more romantic, the further from the truth. Not without reason the experienced librarians most often placed books about princes on white horses in the division: “developing literature about animals.”

Occasionally they went to Yara’s sister, who had a son a bit over two. The sister would instantly flutter off somewhere and Yara would serve her duty as an aunt. “Once upon a time there lived a mousey-scouty and a froggy-crocy!” she said solemnly. The diathetic chubby little boy did not care for fairy tales. He immediately lost focus and began to throw a potato. “Come, let’s listen! To whom is the most beautiful girl in the world telling a story about mousey-scouty and froggy-crocy?” Ul said in a dismal voice. The child froze. The mouth began to pull down dangerously. “And hoppy-bunny!” Yara continued to coo. “And money-bunny!” Ul made a correction. “In short, this entire brotherhood lived in a certain kingdom – a certain state, namely at the Savelovskaya subway station, not far from the computer market, and fed on talking cockroaches with no musical ear.”

So flowed the days of this exquisite fall. At times, a silly mood came over the formerly serious, almost stern Yara. “Will you do everything for me? And will you let me touch your eye with my hand?” she asked slyly. Ul was happy and was secretly afraid of his own happiness, understanding that he was absurd in happiness like an enamoured pit bull.

* * *

In that walk before the snowfall, everything was wildly hilarious to Yara and Ul. Goofy people were strolling along comical streets and with an intense look doing amusing things: shopping, answering the phone, looking fearfully at the sky, and pulling up their collars. Nearby a freezing woman with a handcart was stomping and selling snakes for cleaning clogged drains. Established couples politely hissed at each other or squabbled in tired voices.

And here suddenly snow came pouring down and everything was hidden somewhere. The square, the subway, the “chickn meat” in pita, and the woman with the handcart. Only car horns, short lost rays of headlights, and the two of them. And at that minute, when the whole world was only made of snow, Ul kissed Yara. After the kiss, he rubbed his own nose against hers. Yara liked this. They stood and rubbed noses like horses. And snow tried to get between their noses.

“Well, I’m going!” Athanasius’ voice reached them through the snowy shroud. “Where to?” Athanasius wanted to say that he was leaving altogether, but instead growled, “To buy water!” and went away to the kiosk. Ul heard an annoyed exclamation: either someone bumped into him or he against someone.

“He’s strange today! Something’s eating him. He’s probably jealous,” said Yara seriously. “Of whom?” Ul was puzzled. “Of you. Yesterday you were his, but today mine.” Ul was inclined to consider that he was his own man. “Perhaps because of the dive? I can’t stand being the guide. If anything happens, I’ll never forgive myself,” he proposed.

“Who’s he going to guide?” Yara asked, and with a movement showing ownership swept snow from Ul’s shoulder. “Dennis.” “Athanasius can’t be a guide. He has to be completely calm. In this state he won’t be able to make his way through the swamp!” Yara said decisively. Ul looked at her for a long time, then nodded. Better to teleport alive into the meat grinder at the sausage plant than to get stuck in the swamp. Certainly, Athanasius would brag, but must not let him. Yara was right.

“I’ll guide Dennis myself!” Ul proposed. Yara clicked her tongue. “You can’t. You have a different speed of passage.” It was useless for Ul to object. Passage depends neither on age nor on sex. An iron and a feather bed will not sink with the same speed even if they are of equal weights. “Who then?” Ul asked perplexedly. “Athanasius shouldn’t. Me neither. Kavaleria generally plunges like a needle. Maybe we’ll ask Max or Rodion?” “No need to ask anyone,” said Yara. “I’ll be the guide.” Ul was worried. “You’ve never been a guide! It’s not the same as diving yourself! I’m against it.” “Have to start some time. I’ll have a talk with Kavaleria, and you with Athanasius. Okay?” Yara said pleadingly.

Ul threw back his head, opened his mouth and began to catch snowflakes. Yara imagined that a snowdrift was growing in his stomach. “Say it!” she demanded. “That I agree? I don’t agree!” “Well, say it!” Ul swallowed some snow. “Don’t interfere! Don’t you see: the man is feeding.” “Please!” “Well, fine: I say it,” he yielded unwillingly. “Satisfied?”

“No. Say also that you love me!” Ul frowned. “Don’t blackmail!” “Say it!” Yara insisted. He stopped catching snowflakes. His face was wet. Only the snowflakes on his eyebrows did not melt. “I don’t know how to say it! My tongue is frozen.” “Don’t weasel out! Repeat: ‘I love you’” “You love me.” “OLEG!” Yara tried to strangle him but his neck was too muscular. With her pitiful vain attempts, she only delivered pleasure to Ul. Ul always uttered the words “I love” under the greatest pressure, asserting that the less often you utter them, the more they are worth.

“And why did you hide roses all over town and stealthily plant the coordinates? I found one rose in an old pigeon loft on Savelovskaya, another on the garret of a two-storey house on Polianka! Answer!” Ul leaned over and scooped up some snow. “Didn’t find it at Voikovskaya? I thought so.” “Confessed! Aha!” “Not aha. I simply saw how he put it there,” Ul extricated himself. “Who?” “An unknown in a black mask. I pursued him, drove him into a corner, but he drank acid. Only smoking laces remained,”

Ul quickly looked at Yara’s indignant face and suddenly proposed, “Fine. Come, I’ll shout this at the top of my lungs!” Before Yara could stop him, he jumped on a box and, holding onto a post, shouted through the snow, “Humanity, hey! This is my girl! Here she is, in the green cap! She’s not visible because she’s hiding behind the post!” “I’m not!” Yara was outraged and, making use of the fact that he was standing on one leg, pulled him by the ankle.

Ul flew sideways. In the air, he dodged like a cat, rolled over and jumped. It could seem to someone that he had broken all his bones. But only if the person does not know what a hdiver and such a hdiver jacket are capable of. “Must think first! It’s asphalt after all!” he was indignant. “I’d visit you in the hospital. Would bring rolled oats and oatmeal!” Yara encouraged him. “Wait!” Ul quickly asked. “Do you actually consider that rolled oats and oatmeal are different things? Some good mother I picked for my poor children!” “Wh-at???” Yara was mad. “What children?”

Athanasius approached with the mineral water. The water was icy, and snow had settled on top of the bottle. “Anybody want any?” he asked with hope. No one wanted any. Then Athanasius, feeling unhappy, gulped down the water, and his gums immediately froze.

On recalling something, Ul unbuttoned his sleeve and looked anxiously at the laced-up leather buckler on his left arm. Similar to a medieval vambrace and continued from the wrist to the elbow, the buckler was decorated with small cast figures. A bird with a female head; a suspiciously short-legged centaur; a goggle-eyed lady with a forked fish tail; a lion resembling a chubby sneering cat. Someone who has never seen a live lion could imagine one like this, but then would beat off the goggle-eyed fish-tailed lady with a harpoon. The figures were interwoven and, alternating with grape clusters, formed a guard plate rigidly fixed on rough skin. The only surprising thing was the difference in the colour of the metal. The goggle-eyed lady was dim, but the sneering lion, the centaur, and the bird blazed, as if they were cast a minute ago.

“Why has the mermaid faded? Ah, yes! We stole the herring from the hypermarket and released it into the Moscow River!” Ul recollected. “A mirror carp! Your idea, by the way!” Yara corrected him. After seeing how it opened its mouth in the aquarium, Ul assumed that it was shouting, “Oooh! Bro, I’m in ambush!” He touched the mermaid, and there was one less fish in the hypermarket but one more in the Moscow River. Ul blew snow away from Yara’s cheek. “Well, let’s go, snow grandma, to charge the clms!”¹ he said pertly. “And you’re snow grandpa!” Yara snapped.

They quickly went to the underpass. A large shaggy dog emerged from somewhere, ran after them, and started to bark at them furiously. Ul stopped and the dog stopped. “HOLY! Dang! So what’s next? No way, huh?” Ul was interested. The dog also did not know what was next. Its life’s plans disintegrated. It was confused, but could not stop barking immediately and, after several loud yelps, leisurely retreated. Athanasius attempted to treat the dog with water, but it only sniffed the neck in passing.

The underpass was full of people. Many were standing on the stairs and apprehensively stuck their heads out. “Has it stopped? It hasn’t stopped?” they asked every second. It was funny to Yara: they were sitting in a pit dug under the road, pushing and getting angry that they could not force their way to their multi-apartment burrows. Ul stepped in front like an icebreaker, breaking through the crowd with his wide shoulders. “Please allow us through!” he politely asked. Athanasius settled behind Ul and used the path opened up by him. Yara had a different tactic – where Ul was squeezing through, she glided like a snake.

Nearer to the centre of the underpass, Ul was inexplicably filled with politeness and began to make way for the counter-flow. To do this he had to press against the wall lined with a greyish tile. Ul got hold of the tile with his sleeve and proceeded further. Several seconds later Athanasius turned up in the same place of the underpass. He did not begin to complicate matters especially: tossed the bottle from his left hand to the right, touched the wall, and quickly proceeded forward. After touching the tile as Ul and Athanasius did, Yara felt a tingling in her wrist and light heat rising from her fingers to the elbow. Having ascertained that the clms was charged, she wanted to tear her hand away immediately, but here the crowd caught her and she delayed slightly.

On the street, a little girl of about eight flew over to Yara. She bounced off like a ball, but immediately hopped back and stared inquisitively at Yara’s sleeve. The sleeve was shining as if engulfed in fire. “The snow!” said the little girl. The snow falling on Yara’s sleeve up to the elbow instantly disappeared. On the other parts of her coat, it was lying like firm white cereal grains. Yara in a hurry hid her arm behind her back. The obstinate little girl kept stomping beside her and did not intend to leave. A returning Ul saved Yara from the girl. Approaching from behind, he patted the curious child on the back of her head. “Did you see the maniac? Come, I’ll show you!” he proposed in a nice voice. The child sped away in short spurts, frequently glancing back and whimpering. “Am I really not some gadget? Scared the child!” Ul stated smugly.

He took Athanasius aside and told him about tomorrow’s dive. Athanasius became pigheaded, especially when he found out who would be guide instead of him. Usually reasonable, here he simply showed asinine stubbornness. “Holy, dang!!!!” said Ul, grabbing him by the neck like a bear. “Now you listen to me! You’re not in shape. You’ll get stuck and ruin the newbie too! I have a girl and a friend! And I need you both!”

The subway station emerged unexpectedly. It had the external appearance of a red letter S on the side of the passage. Beside it stood a frozen old lady in a downy shawl, already almost transformed into a snowdrift, and who was selling violets sprouting in mayo jars. There were four. Yara purchased all from her, in order to keep Ul’s hands busy and deprive him of the possibility of hugging her in the subway. True, Ul got himself out of it and loaded Athanasius down with the violets. “All the same for you!” he said.

On top of the escalator, they launched beer bottles. Yara was pondering something and her face was temporarily in stillness. The green ski cap did not suit her. Her face seemed boyish, rather rude. Athanasius thought that she was plain and started to cultivate this thought in every way. Like any person fighting the love virus, he had in his heart a special box, where Yara’s shortcomings were carefully gathered. When love heated up, he would usually blow on some of her deficiencies like on coal, until it began to seem unbearable. Approximately, at the middle of the escalator, Athanasius finally conquered love and complacently drew himself up, perceiving himself free. However, here Yara revived, started to talk, smiled. Athanasius, confident that nothing would break him already, haughtily looked at her and… he wanted to howl.

The railroad car was the new type, trimmed with white plastic. Without the delightful corners for standing by the door. Because of the violets, there was no way Athanasius could hang on. He was swaying from side to side and Ul caught him by the collar. “You see how lucky you are that I’m beside you?” he asked, and then suddenly shouted to the entire car, “Hey, people! I’m happy! This is my friend, and this is my girl!” The superstitious Yara tugged at his sleeve. “Shh! Keep quiet! You’ll frighten off happiness!” It would be better if she had kept quiet. Ul immediately wanted to be contradictory. “Hey! Happiness! Hello!” he began to yell.

“Cuc-koo! I’m leaving already!” a person passing by commented in an intoxicated voice. His back was striped like a zebra with clearly marked steps. The railroad car started and like a sluggish caterpillar crawled into the tunnel.