“A newspaper exists as long as it has at least one subscriber. And while it is there - a report, an essay, and even the most lousy note, even in 100 lines, should be published on time ”

... We are sitting in the Lenkin Room for the second hour. Ten times already emptied the ashtray. In the room you can hang an ax. The windows did not open, firefighters would have arrived ...

But we are accustomed to this, to tobacco smoke: we do not feel at all that there is no ozone in the room. And again, then she, then I strike a match, lighting a cigarette (may the Ministry of Health forgive me and personally, Mr. Medvedev) ...
And she says everything. And I write everything down. Already the whole notebook has been written up (internally by swearing, that I skipped shorthand at the faculty) ...
No, really: Lenka is holy. She gives me information that I had to “work” myself for all the time that I was not here. But now it’s like a brick from the soul, and tomorrow there’s already a hundred lines in the number, no matter how much the problem.

I say “thank you” to Lenka, I close the notebook (in those years, the recorder was issued only by a very special correspondent), and I say that all this time the language was spinning in my head and pinched
- Elena Pavlovna, you are a saint. Any whim, within the limits of what is in my pocket ...
Lenkin lips touched a smile that I adored ... But
also feared. The riddles in this smile were no less than on the lips of the lady who was glorified by the great painter. And I already knew what it was, such a smile, could end. Witness once was unwittingly. She also smiled somehow to the peasant, ... What happened after that, I will not gossip, but I really would not like to be in that guy's place ...

- A bottle of champagne mastered? - Lena smiled at me.
A bottle of champagne during the day in the mid-80s was more expensive than me
daily allowances were paid for a business trip. The time was deep past midnight, so this amount could be safely multiplied by at least three. Moreover, the night shops at that time did not exist. And it was possible to rely only on free lads of peddlers - taxi drivers.

I unwittingly swallowed a com, wondering about the financial hole in my budget after this trip (do not be surprised, the salaries and prices in the 80s were somewhat differently related to each other than today). But, what proud of so far,
my face did not reflect these experiences. Lenka, in any case, did not notice anything like that ... Although, maybe she just pretended.
- Yes, no question, Elena Pavlovna! - I said...
Then, while I was running around looking for this damned bottle, I found it all.

- nevertheless, suddenly I was knocked on the head:
“But I am a fool.” I am a bastard. I am a complete shit ... Behind that, strewed with husks of words, but did not hide what we want both? It goes without saying, of course - a dog ... But, maybe, Elena Pavlovna too? So then it turns out, in her eyes, I - complete frigidity? And if so, how can I look after Elena Pavlovna in the eyes?
However, maybe all this is just a fantasy for me ... I have such fantasies. Twenty-five year old
Tortured by doubt, I returned to the hotel ...

A little background

Do you know what was the main nightmare for travelers in the seventies - early eighties "Brezhnev stagnation"? This is a hotel of any city, then not Russia, but the Soviet Union. And which would be called either "Central", or on behalf of the city in which it was located. If “Central”, then counting on a single room was useless. Even if you book a room a week before the trip from the editorial office. At best - “double”. And even the "triple". And even for four.
Well, if by the name of the city, you can count on a “single”. True, the shower will be about a hundred meters from the room to the right, and a shared bathroom for the same meters, but to the left. This room could be lucky with the sink. But I used it only in cases not related to washing. Because he understood perfectly well that my predecessors used it in exactly the same way.

I can not remember Ufa. Immediately after the train, where there was a lot of beer, I settled once in such a room. To restrain it was already completely "unbecoming", and the maid, restraining the tearing cry, hoarse: "where?". She smiled and opened the closet in the small hallway. In the center of this corner, behind the door, to my deep amazement, there was a toilet. A sort of silent result of adjustment, literally. But I was happy for a week. Although, sorry for naturalism, when sitting down, my knees were in the corridor ...
But I got distracted.

... my boss could do anything. True, not always. In a sense for others. For me, he showed his abilities only once, to my twenty-five years old.

It was on my birthday that he solemnly awarded me with a 7-day business trip to Kaluga and a single room ordered by him at the Central Hotel in this city. If he were a woman, in gratitude he would have kissed him, by God. But since our boss was a man in pants, I confined myself to a firm handshake and a sensual corporate look in my eyes.
What is this, today's brothers will say about the pen: a week in Kaluga, what kind of buzz? ...
Guys! I then worked, albeit in the All-Union, but departmental newspaper. Morals were harsh. Coming strictly at 9.15 (possible earlier). Leave strictly at 18.15 (later).
It happened that the “quadrilateral” (party organization secretary, chairman of the trade union committee, secretary of the Komsomol organization, and, of course,
the chief editor) personally stood with the alarm at the entrance and fixed it. God forbid that day be late for at least a minute. Could and deprive the prize.

... But!

How I loved our Chief! Our main editor!

He (on the basis of our departmental newspaper) has always been the Captain of the first rank. Call him a Colonel - you could get it by the “Klotik” (“Klotik” is the highest point on the ship).
My first note to this newspaper was from ENEA. With the presentation of craftsmen who have done something with their cars. I was inspired, and called my first note “Ichthyander” on wheels ”- that craftsman easily used his car both on land and in the water element.
And then I stand later, I smoke with the guys on the stairs (it was impossible to smoke in the departments categorically).
From above our chief chef slowly descends. I saw you.
- Well, how are you? Ihtiandor ... on eggs?
I, of course, was in shock.

But then, after my first business trip to the letter to the newspaper, it was he who gave a very competent title to my material. Not sure. But thirty percent of that one hundred point rating on the newspaper had this very headline. His title.
... cheered up. Okay. I continue further.
Ends workday. It has long been a typewriter with a tarp covered (laugh, guys), but then there were no computers. On the typewriter type only their "netlenki" tapped. On the "dog." And if something more serious, the lines, say, two hundred or three hundred, were placed in the machine office.
I really liked to appear in the machine bureau. And even an acquaintance already with dimensions, and freely defining not even up to a line, but before the mark is written, I always threw the necessary urgent 100 lines into the line number, so this, say, twenty or thirty more. Unless, of course, Galya worked at the machinery bureau that day. Moreover. My handwriting is not so hot,

but you can disassemble. But when Ghali changed, a burning brunette (hair on the left side was cut short, on the right side a raven wing covered her face, plus a perfect figure) I betrayed such pretzels in the material that the first-grader would be ashamed. In short, when Galina Viktorovna was replaced, I wrote more than necessary and the handwriting was deliberately illegible.

And then Galina Viktorovna reprimanded me, it was me who called me in the bureau:
- Alexander, well, that's what you have written here, I can not make out. Is it "f" or "oro"?
- Where? - I leaned over her shoulder. My myopia is
justified ... And bowing, as if involuntarily touching the cheek with the gun of her cheek, ear, ...