Panikovsky wept, covering his face with his small fists and whispering:
“What a heart!
I give you my word!
What a heart!”
CHAPTER 24 THE WEATHER WAS RIGHT FOR LOVE
Everything the grand strategist did in the days following the move to the hostel elicited a highly negative response from Panikovsky.
“Bender has lost his mind!” he told Balaganov.
“He’ll drive us all into the ground.”
And indeed, instead of trying to stretch the last thirty-four rubles for as long as possible by applying it strictly to the purchase of provisions, Ostap went to a flower shop and spent thirty-five rubles on a stirring bouquet of roses that was as big as a flower bed.
He took the missing ruble from Balaganov.
He put a note in the flowers that said:
“Can you hear my big heart beating?” Balaganov was instructed to take the flowers to Zosya Sinitsky.
“What are you doing?” asked Balaganov, gesturing with the bouquet. “Why does it have to be so fancy?”
“It has to, Shura, it just has to,” replied Ostap.
“What can you do!
I have a big heart.
As big as a calf’s.
Plus, this isn’t real money anyway.
We need an idea.”
With that, Ostap got into the Antelope and asked Kozlevich to take him out of town.
“I have to ponder over everything that’s happened in solitude,” he explained, “as well as make some necessary projections for the future.”
All day long the faithful Adam drove the grand strategist along white coastal roads, past vacation homes and health resorts, where vacationers shuffled in their open-backed shoes, hit croquet balls with mallets, and jumped in front of volleyball nets.
Telegraph wires hummed like cellos overhead.
Summer renters dragged purple eggplants and melons in cloth bags.
Young men with handkerchiefs on their hair, wet from a swim, boldly looked women in the eyes and offered their compliments, the full set of which was known to any male in Chernomorsk under the age of twenty-five.
If two vacationing women walked together, the young locals would loudly say behind their backs:
“The one on the side is so pretty!” And they would laugh their heads off.
They thought it was funny that the women couldn’t figure out which one of them was being complimented.
If a woman was walking alone, the jokers would stop, as if struck by lightning, and make kissing sounds with their lips, mimicking lovelorn yearning.
The young woman would blush and run to the other side of the street, dropping purple eggplants, which caused the Romeos to laugh hysterically.
Ostap, deep in thought, was leaning back on the Antelope’s hard cushions.
He couldn’t get money from Polykhaev or Sardinevich—they were away on vacation.
The insane Berlaga didn’t count—one couldn’t expect to get much from him.
Meanwhile, Ostap’s plans, and his big heart, demanded that he stay on in Chernomorsk. At this point, he would have been hard-pressed to say for exactly how long.
Hearing a familiar, otherwordly voice, Ostap glanced at the sidewalk.
A middle-aged couple was strolling arm-in-arm behind a row of poplars.
The spouses were apparently headed for the beach.
Lokhankin trudged behind them.
He was carrying a ladies’ parasol and a basket with a thermos and a beach blanket sticking out of it.
“Barbara,” he nagged, “listen, Barbara!”
“What do you want, you pest?” asked Mrs. Ptiburdukov without even turning her head.
“I want to have you, Barbara, to hold you!”
“How about that bastard!” remarked Ptiburdukov, without turning his head either.
And the odd family disappeared in the dust of the Antelope.
When the dust settled, Bender saw a large glass pavilion set against the background of the sea and a formal flower garden.
Plaster lions with dirty faces sat at the base of a wide stairwell.
The pavilion exuded the unnerving scent of pear essence.
Ostap sniffed the air and asked Kozlevich to stop the car.
He got out and continued to inhale the invigorating smell through his nostrils.
“Why didn’t I think of this right away!” he muttered, pacing in front of the entrance.