The masterpiece was created a couple of days before by 2 soldiers. You could guess at a glance that they were soldiers because of their black underpants and black high boots. Who else would wear such boots in summer?. So I increased the sagging breasts and slightly rounded the hips of the sculpture. They seemed wider than necessary but I did not correct it.

Why did I do it at all? Very clear, it’s not right to let the work of art disappear in the rest of the sand with all the soldiers’ labor gone to ashes…

…and I did not roll on top of her like one of the soldiers two days before, but just returned to fishing.

The current carried the float to the broken dam below the stadium, where ages ago I stumbled off the insidious slab. The point marked half of the Rechka having been passed already and after the other half it would run beyond the Zona, away from the barbed wire over 2 parallel rows of poles, breaking out thru the strip of loosened ground in between the wire-walls for catching the footprints of NATO spies. Half of the walk along the river was over and the three-liter milk-can contained just a couple of “miserables”. The neighbor’s cat would be disappointed.

When down the stream there loomed the second (and also last) bridge in the Zona, I decided not to go any farther but try my luck at the sharp bend of the current under the precipitous drop-off in the bank. And right there happened that after what folks go fishing at all. The float did not twitch or flinch but went under the surface deep and slowly. I pulled back and the vibrating pole in my hands responded with the strangely unyielding resistance. No fish jumped from the water wiggling in its flight over the air. I had to pull the tight line all the way closer and closer and finally drag it onto the dry land… The fish twisted and arched and beat the sand, scaring me by its might and size, never had I seen the like of that dark blue piece of alive thick hose.

I threw the “miserables” back to the river, filled the can with water, and lowered the pray into it but the fish had to stand there upright—its length did not allow for tumbling in the can. 2 boys came from the bridge, they had already finished fishing and were on their way home. They asked me about the catch and I showed them the fish. “Burbot!” without a sec of hesitation identified one of them.

When they left, I realized that I couldn’t catch anything better, that it was time to cut the line and go home… I walked ascending the Gorka and the glory ran before me—a couple of boys jogged for a couple of hundred meters to meet before the Block. They wanted to take a look at The Burbot. And when I was already nearing our house, an unfamiliar auntie from the corner building stopped me on the walk to ask if that was true.

She peeped into the can at the round muzzle of The Burbot turned asleep by that time, and asked me to give it to her. I immediately handed the milk-can over and waited while she carried the fish to her home and brought the can back, because it’s only right to do what you’re told by grow-ups….

~ ~ ~

In those years, a year was much longer than nowadays and it was packed with bigger number of memorable events. For instance, in the same summer with The Burbot my sister, and brother, and I went to the pioneer camp, though we were not young pioneers yet.