23
With college behind me, I enter the Academy of Music. My main subject is the same: theory of music. Later I discover I finished top of my class. We hold on, keeping afloat!
I bump into Pasha in the corridor. We stop and chat. Seems he just can’t graduate from college.
“I take exams, but they don’t let themselves be taken,” he says. “Like soldiers in the Red Army.” And then he adds, irrelevantly, like a red herring. “Come on, let’s go and look for our unforgettable.”
He doesn’t give the name, but I know at once who he’s hinting at.
“What for?”
“I’m broke, I’ll borrow a rouble from him.”
“If that’s all, then here, take a rouble and relax.”
I give him a rouble.
