FISHING
The beginning of winter is always a joy, there’s an insuppressible hope in the first snow on the ground.
I held a thick edition of Sport Express under my arm; soon a balding Major with ginger eyelashes joined me at the bar and placed his hands with their hairy wrists next to mine.
“I didn’t order anything, I was waiting for you,” I said. “What will you have to eat?”
“I’m sorry, Alexander Vasilievich, I just had a hearty get-together with the family troops,” he patted his stomach. “What about you? I’ll have some tea.”
We got a pot of tea, the major smoked, I listened to him retelling the plot of an excellent movie he’d just seen with the feigned delight of a children’s optometrist:
“The hero dies. But it’s like he is born again. But not in the future, in the past.” He paused,
