I get from the shelf an old, worn out book, I open the necessary page, and the first lines read fill me with warmth, light and an appetizing savour of the far sea.
There has come stuffy January night of the Argentina summer.The black sky has become covered by stars. “Medusa” easy stood at anchor.Silence was broken of night neither by wave splash, nor by a scratch of tackles.
It seemed, the ocean slept a deep dream.
So Alexander Beliaev’s novel “Amphibian Man “, the book which very long time ago rushed into my life mysterious, inexplicably and floated big, by the majestic ship on tender, solar waves of my childhood begins. And, I think, not only mine. But the book was then, in the beginning there was a film.
There was a hot summer of 1961.That year was unusually significant.It was time of general euphoria.In April Yury Gagarin travelled into the space, we as boys, having elicited the permission at the owner of the only thing in our house of the TV KVN, having clung to tiny, in size with a post envelope to the screen increased by huge lens, with delight observed how smiling there on the carpet path the cosmonaut number one walks.
Everywhere, then, there appeared cinemas and cafe with names “Space”, “Companion”, “Planet”, “Orbit”, prospectuses named after Gagarin or parkway of Cosmonauts.Boys, almost all of them dreamt to become cosmonauts, understanding that it is a unique standing trade on the Earth.
My recent desire to become a geologist (we for some reason lived in the house of geologists though anybody from my parents had no relation to geology) and to drag from expeditions full backpacks of stones, suddenly has somehow grown dim and went out.
That year I passed into the second class, and it was also some kind of significant event.We grew for the whole year and now presumed to myself with feeling grown wise life of people indulgently to look over immature first formers.
Those hot summer days all day long, we diversified with games in war, in Cossacks-robbers, built boards and carton staffs, imagined myself the commanders-in-chief developing important strategic plans of defeat of enemies.
Nobody wanted to become enemies and therefore hot debate quite often inflamed. Sometimes it reached fights, but in our children’s fights there were iron rules: no scuffle, only wrestling: if you stack your opponent on his shoulders, then you are winner.
There were two more kinds of entertainments which were considered fine attending swimming classes so was called as city water sports complex with huge pool and towers for jumps, and a cinema.
Films then, in the sixtieth, were few, the same tape was repeated for weeks in all cinema halls of the city, and to waste time on the same film it seemed to our parents empty employment.
But it so seemed to them.We in this respect had absolutely other opinion.
Once my friend Mamed told:
My elder brother watched a new film yesterday about the man, which lived under water. “Amphibian Man” is called. He tells it is an astounding film. We will go?
We sold a pair of the empty bottles put by at his place, and for the obtained 20 kopecks went to watch the film in the most favourite city cinema “Ashkhabad”.
In summer, during school vacation, the cinema administration allowed young spectators to sit directly at the proscenium.Having sprinkled a little preliminary water, we laid down on naked stomachs on cool boards, and, having buried noses almost in the screen, briskly made comments on the plot, shaking by fists and disclosing from time to time a hall approval or disappointment shouts.
They hissed at us but did not become angry, understanding that boys are boys and it is necessary for them to splash out their emotions.
On the poster before the entrance to the cinema a huge head in any inconceivable silvery helmet with protruding eyes and webby paws exposed forward was drawn, as though warning: do not approach, it will be worse!
And what is “amphibian”? I asked Mamed.
I do not know, probably, it is translated as a frog. You see his eyes, as those of a toad…
Having clamped in hands dark blue tickets, we entered into a hall and sat down on the favourite first row.Light went out, on the screen at first there was a caption, the first shots then went, and there and then we were taken with warm waves of the far sea in a far-away country, where Ikhtiandr Amphibian Man lives.
We left the cinema silent, still absorbed by what we have just seen. We saw many films, worried about different heroes, but all those were not comparable with what we experienced by seeing the “Amphibian Man”.
The film enigmatically got into all your cells, filling unknown until then with joyful sensation of life and simultaneously grief on brightly flashed and so tragically broken love, it grasped us from the first to last shot.
The next day, having got two coins, we with my friend again went to the cinema.And on the third day too we did.Eventually, it bothered him, and he suggested replacing Ikhtiandr with swimming.
And then I went to the cinema alone.Soon I could not change any more what has become traditional route for me.I knew the film by heart, could retell it from beginning to end, repeat each gesture and each word of heroes, and still it again and again pulled me to the treasured screen.
Here only I had no money.All pennies which I saved, saved during school dinners, quickly was wasted.But I could find the way out.
I noted for a long time that at the court yard behind the cinema a guy who as it then appeared, was the artist at the cinema, washes off paint from old posters. He put the framed canvas on the ground, stood on them, turned his trousers to knees and, watering from hose, erased the paint by bare feet.
The uncle, let me help you, I offered the services the pain maker, counting on the small fee for service. I asked, however, without any hope of success. However he unexpectedly quickly agreed, but at once warned:
Only consider, the brother, I will not pay you for it.
All right, only ten kopecks are enough for me to get into the cinema, with a compassionate voice I asked.
Well, it is not a problem; I will help you to get into the cinema.
I was slipping on the canvas looking how under my heels disappears from canvas the person of heroes of recent films. For some reason to tears it became a pity for me, but very much it would be desirable to look at Ikhtiandr once again. Soon the canvas was washed up and pure.
The guy brought me to the ticket collector, presented as the assistant, and here I already sit in the hall.I do not sit more truly, and I lie on the stomach on cool boards of the proscenium, expecting approach of that magic moment when light will slowly go out, the hall will shroud illusive twilight and from the screen Andrey Petrov’s unusual music will pour down the fisherman in the final journey, “farewell speaks to the wife, Perhaps it is necessary to it to have a rest, fall asleep at a sandy bottom.
Let children-orphans will forgive him, the fisherman could not explain, it is not necessary that one should not cry that he has chosen the best of roads….
Together with Ikhtiandr I fell to sea depths, rescued from sharks fine Guttiere, desperately hated bastard Pedro Zurita and clenched fists for pleasure when old Indian Balthazar full of advantage, protecting the honour of the daughter, have finished with him.
Together with the man -amphibian I went for a drive astride a dolphin, together with Guttiere cried, when villains had ruined Ikhtiandr, and he already could not live among people.
I wanted to become same courageous, strong, kind, fair, as Ikhtiandr.And to love the same as it it is sincere, it is light and selflessly.And it, my first child love has come.
That year I at first sight fell in love with the neighbour’s girl with whom we already were on friendly terms for some years.I imagined her as Guttiere and should rescue from something necessarily.
But sharks were not found in our court yard, and enemies, in the form of small neighbouring boys, who my beloved dispersed without my help as she imitated Young guards and herself was ready to protect somebody.
My girl-friend had not loved me, despite all attempts to entice her songs from “Amphibian Man”, for example, we all would go to the bottom, there, there, we would drink wine….
Probably, alcoholism at the sea-bottom did not correspond to her representations about heroism of heroic youth during that heroic time of our nice childhood.By the way, that girl grew and became a famous variety singer.
The film soon was put off the screen, having given way to other films. I did not go any more to the yard behind the cinema, and did not erase paint from old posters. But fine and a tragic story of Ikhtiandr, a love story, separations and loneliness for ever remained with me, becoming a part of my life.
In order never to leave my big brother as I named Ikhtiandr, I have found the book which I read until it had worn out.Only when on the sea the storm rises, the old Indian comes to extraordinary anxiety.
He hastens to the seacoast and risking to be washed off by water, stands on coastal stones and shouts, shouts day and night, the storm will not cease yet: Ikhtiandr!
Ikhtiandr!My son!.But the sea stores the secret .
I close the book and I look out of the window. Actor Vladimir Korenev, who had become during his lifetime a legend, recently went away. Farewell, to Ikhtiandr. You anyway have remained with us.