"You just make yourself at home," said he hospitably. "Till morning, till the tow gets here."
"Thank you," Pepper said meekly.
"This doesn't bother you?" asked Voldemar politely.
"No-no," said Pepper. "Don't mind me..." Voldemar leaned his head back, began rolling his eyes and singing in a sad voice:
I see no limit to my many woes. I wander here alone bereft of sense. Please tell me why you do not want my love. Why trample down a love that's so intense?
The mud was slowly slipping down the windshield and the swamp could be seen gleaming beneath the moon; a car of odd design was sticking up in the middle of the swamp. Pepper switched on the wind-shield wipers and after a while, to his amazement, he discovered that, sunk up to the turret in the quagmire, was an ancient armored car.
Another holds you in his arms tonight;
I stand here anxious, weary, and alone.
Voldemar struck the strings with all his might, sang falsetto, and started clearing his throat.
"Hey, mate!" a voice from outside. "Got a bite to eat?"
"What if?" cried Voldemar.
"We've got yogurt!"
"There's two of us!"
"Out you come! There's enough for everybody! We stocked up - we knew we'd have a job on!"
Driver Voldemar turned to Pepper.
"What d'you think?" he said, delighted. "Let's go, eh? We'll have yogurt, maybe a game of tennis ...eh?"
"I don't play tennis," said Pepper.
Voldemar gave a shout: "Okay we're coming! We'll just inflate the boat!"
Quick as a monkey, he clambered out of the cabin and set to work in the back of the truck, metal clanked, something dropped and Voldemar whistled gaily. Then came a splash, a scraping of legs along the side and Voldemar's voice calling from somewhere below: "Okay, Mister Pepper! Hop down here, and don't forget the mandolin!" Below, on the brilliant liquid surface of the mud, lay an inflated dinghy, and in it, legs wide apart, stood Voldemar like a gondolier with a sizeable engineer's shovel in his hand; he smiled delightedly as he gazed up at Pepper.
... In the old rusted armored car of Verdun vintage, it was sickeningly hot and stank of hot oil and gas fumes. A dim lamp burned over the iron command table scarred with indecent messages. Underfoot, squelching mud chilled the feet; a dented tin ammunition rack was packed tight with yogurt bottles, everybody was in pajamas and scratching their hirsute
chests with all five fingers, everybody was drunk, a mandolin was droning. The turret-gunner in a calico shirt, not finding room below, was dropping tobacco ash from up aloft and sometimes fell backward himself, saying each time: "Beg pardon, I took you for someone else..." and they propped him up again in an uproar...
"No," said Pepper. "Thanks, Voldemar, I'll hang on here. I've got some washing to get through... I haven't done my physical exercises yet either."
"Aha," said Voldemar, respecting this, "that's a different matter. I'll drift across then and as soon as you've finished your washing give us a shout and we'll come over for you ... just give us the mandolin."
He floated off with it and Pepper remained sitting and watching him trying at first to row across with his shovel. This just made the dinghy go around in a circle; after that, he began to use the shovel as a pole and all was well. The moon bathed him in its dead light; he was like the last man after the last Great Flood, sailing among the roofs of the highest buildings, very much alone, seeking rescue from loneliness, still full of hope. He poled up to the armored car and banged his fist on the carapace; somebody stuck his head out of the turret, guffawed cheerfully, and dragged him inside upside down. And Pepper was left alone.
He was alone, like the only passenger on a train at night, trundling along with its three battered carriages along some decayed branch line, everything creaks and sways inside the carriage, the smell of locomotive cinders wafts in through the shattered warped windows, cigarette butts leap about the floor along with screwed-up bits of paper. Somebody's forgotten straw hat swings on its hook, and when the train pulls into the terminus, the sole passenger steps out onto the rotting platform and nobody is going to meet him. He's certain nobody's going to meet him, and he'll wander home, brown himself a two-egg omelette on the stove along with a bit of sausage three days old and going green...
The armored car suddenly began to shake and was lit up with convulsive flashes. Hundreds of brilliant multi-colored threads extended from it across the plain, and the glare of the flashes and the moonlight showed circles welling out from the armored car across the smooth mirror of the swamp. Someone in white poked out of the turret; in a strained voice he proclaimed:
