Chapter II.VII

Written: July 28, 2023

Translated: September 13, 2023

**M**ister Thurlow continued to hold the phone to his ear, but only beeps could be heard from it, indicating that the conversation between him and his neighbour had come to an end. He was still in shock from the content of the talking that had just happened between them. Slowly, as if half asleep, he put the phone down and plopped down in a chair, clutching his head with both hands. Darkness filled his gaze. Jo didn't know how long it had been since he hung up, but when from the yard the piercing bark of his faithful Buffalo reached his ears, he, looking for yesterday's shorts and T-shirt, cursed in every possible way the Cronus, God of the harvest, who did not take pity on his pitiful slave and did not make any efforts to delay this inevitable meeting for as many hours as possible...

Jo walked out onto the porch of his house. The rain, which he had the pleasure of seeing this morning, has finally stopped. He glanced at the wicket. Buffalo, as befits a good watchdog, ran near it and burst into barking. "So", mister Thurlow thought, "How great it would be now..." But common sense reminded its nervous owner in time that this was complete idiocy, let the dog loose on guests, especially if they are his neighbours and - most importantly - representatives of the better half of humanity. Sighing, Jo took the collar with the leash pre-attached to it hanging on a nail near the door and walked up to the wicket. The dog looked at the owner and continued to rush at the fence. The man had to almost forcefully put a collar on the powerful neck of his Buffalo and, tying it to a pole that stood some distance from the entrance to the house, let the guests in.

- Greetings, - Jo said to missis Yonce. - Hi there, - he nodded to her daughter.

Both women bowed to him and, stepping over the threshold, looked at the dog, which, at the sight of strangers, began to rear up, trying to get ahead.

- So, welcome to me, - mister Thurlow smiled. - As you can see, my dog is vicious...

- I think he'll get used to it, - missis Yonce said mysteriously, winking at little girl

- Hey, where are you going? - exclaimed Jo as Delia began to approach Buffalo.

- What are you afraid of, mister Thurlow, he won't touch her, - the neighbour said without a trace of concern.

- And how do you... - he started.

But Jo didn’t have time to ask his question and died out in mid-sentence. Delia was already standing next to the dog, who had stopped trying to break free from the leash. Now he sat still and looked at the girl with puppy dog eyes. She bent down and, patting the Belgian Malinois behind the ear, started whispering something cheerfully to him. And her mother turned her head to Jo and smiled.

- H-h-how is that possible.... - muttered mister Thurlow.

Jo, feeling ashamed of his dog, tried to fight back the tears that were welling up in his throat. He could not even think that his Buffalo, behind whom he always felt unquestioning loyalty to his master, would bend like a lamb to someone else's girl...

- How about you let us in? - missis Yonce said in a businesslike tone

- Yes, missis Ivette, right away... - Jo answered briefly

Closing the wicket, he headed towards the porch. The woman stood in the yard for a while and, calling her daughter, slowly followed him. In the hallway, Jo, smiling embarrassedly, said that he could not offer the guests slippers or any other house shoes. Adult guest nodded understandingly.

- Well, yes, you couldn’t imagine that a mom with kid would come to you, - she said ironically. - If it is no secret, when was the last time a woman set foot on your doorstep?

- Five years ago, then my mother left this world... - Jo said quietly.

- My sincere condolences to you, - she answered in a cloudless mood.

While the adults were having this dialogue, the little girl, without thinking twice, took off her shoes and, appearing before her mother and Jo in white stockings, jumped up and twirled in some kind of carefree dance.

- Be careful, Delia, don't get your stockings dirty, - missis Yonce said sternly.

- Fear not, mommy! - the child said loudly.

Delia stopped dancing and looked up at her mother. Then she turned her gaze to the owner of the house.

- You have a very cute doggie, ajussi Jo! - she said ingratiatingly.

- Well, yes... - mister Thurlow began slowly. - I understand that I could not resist your charms.

- Nothing can resist me! - she answered with some pride

- No messing now, dearie! - the mother again began to reason with her daughter.

- I'm hungry, - the girl ignored her words. - When are we going to eat?

When the child said these words, mister Thurlow only now noticed the picnic basket covered with a red towel, which missis Yonce was holding in her hands. The latter nodded to Delia and asked the owner of the house to take them to the kitchen. Jo slowly trudged ahead of them. There was an emptiness in his soul at the moment - one might think that Delia's ringing voice extinguished all his thoughts. Entering the kitchen, mister Thurlow offered the guests chairs. Adult guest, thanking her, put the basket on the table and, taking off the towel from it, began to lay out the food from it. The baby girl did not sit down at the table - she went to the window and tried to open the tightly drawn curtains. Jo rushed after her and helped her in this matter. The kitchen was illuminated by the rays of the sun, which was already shining with all its might in the sky, which had already cleared of clouds.

- Where are your dishes, mister Thurlow?

Jo moved away from the window and, opening the kitchen cabinet doors, asked a counter question:

- What exactly should you submit, missis Ivette?

The woman, after thinking a little, asked the owner of the house to get two large plates, two saucers and two cups (and the same number of forks and spoons). Noticing the bewilderment on his face, missis Yonce said that she herself had already had a good breakfast, so she was giving all the food to him and her daughter. Shrugging his shoulders, Jo complied with her demands - taking out the necessary dishes and cutlery, placing them near the sink.

- Let me myself, - the woman said immediately.

Missis Yonce took the initiative and began rinsing the dust-covered plates under running water. Jo stood next to her, not knowing what to do with himself. The little girl, who had previously been standing and looking out the window, came up to him and pulled him by the sleeve.

- What do you want, Delia? - mister Thurlow asked her

- Ajussi Jo, do you have anything interesting?

- Toys or something? - Jo inquired.

At the same time he tried to pull his hand away, but the child held tightly to his sleeve.

- Books! - she shouted. - I've already played enough in my eight years, - the girl suddenly said seriously.

- Well, books... - he thought. - I have a small library, - mister Thurlow began.

On these words Delia jumped in place.

- But it's mostly just scientific gobbledygook... - continued the owner of the house.

- I love science books, - the young guest interrupted him.

- You talk about encyclopedias, but in my bookshelf I mostly have materials on higher mathematics, - he said dryly

The little girl was a little depressed. Jo thought that he shouldn’t have answered the child so categorically and, stopping trying to pull his hand out of her grip, said in a soothing tone that he could have been mistaken, because he practically doesn’t read and already doesn’t remember well what’s there.

- Okay, so let's look at your books? - Delia asked him.

- Why wouldn't he? - Jo answered cheerfully.

The young guest let go of the man’s hand and followed the owner of the house, who was already entering his office. There he opened the bookshelf and, squatting down, began to take out books from the lowest shelf, where, as he remembered, literature for children was kept, which his grandmother had willingly supplied him with at one time. Delia went to the nightstand, which stood next to the desk, and asked Jo what could be there.

- If memory serve, there are vinyl records, - without taking his eyes off the books, he threw over his shoulder.

Delia, without asking permission, sharply pulled the handle towards herself. Jo, holding back from yelling at her, ran up to the nightstand, from which envelopes with records had already fallen out onto the floor, which seemed to be waiting in the wings to be released. Yes, he had already forgotten that the entire bedside table was filled to capacity with "mummified music"...

Most of the vinyls belonged to his late mother. Others were gifts from Jo's own friends and classmates. But, unfortunately, the record turntable has not been in this house for a long time - mister Thurlow sold it when he needed money for a funeral. Although it was not a big problem - that record player could only play audio, recorded in monaural format, therefore, if he wanted, Jo could buy himself a normal stereo system (or even switch to compact discs, which were then gaining popularity), but somehow it turned out that with the death of his mother his attraction to music died too, that's why he lived with a nightstand full of vinyl records, which he needed like a dead duck.

Now all this splendour lay on the floor at the knees of a little girl who, without knowing it, opened Jo's "attic of reminiscences". She began to sort through the envelopes with interest.

- Huzzah, I found it! - she shouted joyfully

Mister Thurlow sat down next to Delia and looked at the record cover. It was a photograph of a wheat field with clouds hanging over it. A woman with a red scarf on her head, standing with her back to the viewer, swung a sickle at the ears of corn.

- I'm so happy now! - Delia repeated.

Looking at the genuine joy of his guest, the owner of the house remembered how he got this record. This was six years ago - then his mother was trying to resist the cancer that had almost completely overcome her. Hamish McIntosh, his classmate whose parents had just returned from vacation in Lisbon, For his eighteenth birthday, he gave him an album purchased there from a musical band that was then just gaining popularity. There were fresh memories of how Jo, while his mother was in the hospital, turned up the volume to maximum and turned on the record player. But perhaps the monophonic system could not cope with the stereophonic record, maybe he just wasn't a fan of synthesizer sounds, but other than disappointment from these "electronic squeakers" Jo received nothing then. This record has been collecting dust until today, when it didn't fall into hands moved to this village young fan of the genre, which for mister Thurlow was a mystery behind seven seals.

- Ajussi Jo, I can take this for myself, right? - the little girl asked, unable to contain her joy.

- Of course you can take it, - Jo yawned and, rising from his knees, added. - I see you really want this.

- I just thought what would be best for Jerry, - she said as if making excuses.

- Who is Jerry? - mister Thurlow asked without much interest.

- That's, uh... - Delia's cheeks turned red. - That's boy, with whom I study in the same class.

"Most likely, this is her school sweetheart. Common thing", Jo thought.

- He loves electronic music, - continued the girl. - I made him a promise that I would give him one of these records for his eighth birthday.

- What date is his birthday, may I ask? - Jo already felt interested in talking with this child.

- And if it's my secret, then what? - Delia made a serious face.

- Then I won't pester you with questions about your classmates, - mister Thurlow conceded to his young interlocutor.

- All right, I'll tell you what, - the baby girl said as if she was doing her a favour.

And she told he this. "Hmm", Jo thought, "Delia's boyfriend's birthday falls on that day, when I found out that my mother would never be with me again..." Mister Thurlow, of course, did not tell his young guest anything about this, but he couldn’t help but notice to myself that it can be funny, that chance is a strange thing, because nothing prevents the process of death and birth from happening one after another...

- But you would probably be interested in listening to this record yourself, wouldn’t you? - he said out loud.

The girl's eyes darted around. She jokingly swung a blue and yellow envelope at him.

- What gives you that idea? - she said with cheerful malice.

- It's in those eyes of yours, though, - he answered calmly.

In order not to disturb the atmosphere of fun that hovered in the room, mister Thurlow took the blow with a record packed in an envelope. How fun it was, sitting like that and communicating with the child. Until this moment Jo could afford this except perhaps during those times when he himself was in his childhood years. Looking back, he could say with confidence that it was on that day that he began to treat Delia as something more than just a neighbour...

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