Sapphire fairy. Prose in English. Natalia Patratskaya
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title, such as “Yes and no.” Openwork stockings and the name of the film remained in memory.
On the hills, where skiers skated, a tiny buffet fit in a wooden house, he worked on major holidays. Usually skiers did without hot drinks and buns. But at the end of the ski season, the buffet was working properly, the competitions were large, the people on the fells were crowding.
After the ski race, the girls took hot coffee in paper cups, went outside from a wooden building. The guys found a camera, and a moment after the coffee stopped. The skiers in the photo are visible white knitted headphones, covered with ski hats on top. Feofan Afanasyevich bought hats for everyone when he went on a business trip. He also gave out suits and skis, even ski boots. All their jackets, their mittens, their cheeks, red from the cold, their own, but the photos are not colored, they did not invent color photographs then. Katerina, Lyudmila, Tamara, Feofan Afanasyevich and Kirill froze in the photo.
Institutional dormitories began to enter Katerina’s life – no, she did not live in them. Long corridors, very long, surprised and alarmed. The same hostel was in the city where Katerina participated in student competitions. Student races. She studied at a technical institute and advocated for her institute and city. Skiers lived in competitions in a dormitory while local students rested on vacation. Places unusually beautiful and picturesque.
Mountains, snow and frost. The ski race was not canceled in the frost at thirty degrees, all competitions were held as it should. The ski trail passed through the beautiful mountains. Tears from the eyes flew during descents and turns, dark glasses were not worn at that time. All the hostels are the same, but the cities are different. Oh, how scary sometimes to go in the winter! Weather. Road.
Better not to risk it.
Once flew to one city, and then went by bus to the place where the competitions were held. All on the switchboard, and returned home, but by train with a transfer. The train came home at night. With skis from the station to her street Katerina walked. Fearfully? Not even cold. Night. Frost. Skis in a case. Sports bag. Coat with a red fox. The youth easily transfers much.
Still from one trip there were photos. On them, next to the sculptures were Katerina and Lyudmila. Katerina in a coat, in stockings, in suede boots, tight tight calf legs. The girls were shooting Kirill on the photo. He is also in one photo. Kirill studied at the same institute with Katerina. Snow on the track then lay coarse-grained, slid very well in March.
The sun was almost out the window. The window was reflected in big glasses. Katerina twisted the sapphire in her hand and continued to write. When she took sapphire in her hands, she always felt a desire to write, or to remember, or to invent new stories or constructions. Blue Sapphire personified a fragment of her inspiration.
Once Katerina sat on a steep bank and looked across the river, where the floodplain was located. Either from the sun’s rays, or from what else the Ghost City began to appear before her eyes. The girl wanted to shout:
– You can not build a city on the other side! There is a floodplain!
But no one heard Katerina, and the city continued to be built. Round houses with concave roofs appeared one after another.
– Who grows there at home like mushrooms? – Katerina asked aloud in the next parish to the river bank.
“These are the guys from the building faculty frolicking,” Cyril replied.
– Cyril, this is not a dream?
– Katerina, people work around the clock. I myself help them. Students of the Faculty of Civil Engineering finish, and this city is their collective graduation project.
– Interesting. But diplomas – paper! And these are real houses!
– Katerina, famous architects from the Northern capital are helping us, a joint project has been developed with them. They have designed many houses in the city. And I offered them round houses, by the way, after one conversation with you. You said it was scary to walk on the roofs. I came up with concave, round roofs, from which, if you roll, it is inside the roof. In the center of the house passes the water flow with a filter. Filter graduates do your faculty.
– I did not know.
– And who do you see besides yourself? You are always on your own. And now I approached you with caution: what if you run out?!
– Listen, Cyril, flood your city in the spring!
– Do not flood. We connected another department, the guys are developing a project for a dam that serves as an embankment. Do you love the other side of the river that I do not know?
– You’re right. On the other side of the river, there is no need to move over the clay from the shore, and it is not necessary to work for the ascent rate, and the water is warmer there, and the shore is smaller. Where did you get the money?
– You will not believe!
– Speak!
– Remember, went to the competition in the mountains? You are not the best at skiing, but one spectator fell in love with you. By the way, do you even know that the races were next to the government sanatorium?
– Someone mentioned something.
– The audience we had what is necessary! You filmed. A man approached me alone. He asked about you and told me to play along with you in your dreams.
“I recall that you and other of me were drawing ideas.” Did they build rings at home?
– Yes, as you said. Why did you not go to the Faculty of Civil Engineering?
– Better tell me how to get from one bank to another? On a ferryboat?
“Everything is under our control.” Soon will begin to put a new bridge in this place, where we are now sitting.
– I can not sit down, as soon as the bridge in my place put! Why so? Kirill, what’s the point in building a city on the other side?
– There winds less blowing.
– I take everything for a joke, but the city is really growing fast! And the city is beautiful!
Respectable men came out on a steep bank of a steep car. Katerina jumped up from her observation point. Kirill also rose. They were not allowed to leave. The men from the car stopped them.
– Hi, Kirill! – Said a tight man with gray hair. – Introduce me to the girl.
– Chef, girl name is Katerina.
– Great, I even lost my speechlessness by surprise! The city will be named Catherine in honor of this girl! Congratulations! Said the man majestically and extended his hand to Catherine.
– You break etiquette! – suddenly said Katerina.
– Here are the times! My hand refuse to embrace such a cute palm!
– I need you here? – Katerina asked sharply and, not waiting for an answer, rolled down from the steep bank to the water, where a group of skiers gathered for another training session.
Katerina approached Tamara:
– Tamara, do you see the city on the other side?
– She still asks! I see!
Cyril approached them:
– Beauties, you are invited today in a cafe for a conversation…
– Cyril, you sold us to someone? – asked Katerina.
– Katerina, I try for you.
– I do not believe, I will not come.
– Katerina, you will definitely come! The chef is asking for it.
– The meaning is, Mr., close to the financiers?
– Insult!
Katerina and Tamara came