Papa was busy searching for beds the entire second half of the day. Mama, who initially wanted to pick out everything herself, stayed home with the children. She had to get Costa and Rita down for a nap.
There were three furniture stores in the city. One was in some basement, one on the main street, and one in a glass hangar. The shop on the main street sold office furniture, revolving chairs and huge desks for managers. Papa wanted to buy himself such a desk for his office, but he looked at the price and decided to leave it for later, when he would already be writing the brilliant novel.
Yes! Papa had a dream – to write a brilliant novel. Sometimes this novel really was stirring in him, it was so dying to come into the world. But Papa pushed it back into his soul with both hands and said to it, “Sit quietly, mature!” So, for the time being, the brilliant novel fought its way out only in fragments.
In the glass hangar were plenty of nice sofas, kitchen units, and bedroom furniture. There were beds too, but none shorter than 200 cm. Papa calculated what it would be if he bought beds of 200 cm for all seven children, and realized that he did not need this train of seven cars stretching to fourteen metres in the house. Hence, he bought only one such bed for Peter, who was a metre ninety tall. Thus, there even left some margin for the kid to grow in the direction of a decent member of society. Though in their former two-bedroom, Peter lodged perfectly well with knees drawn in on a small sofa.
There was nothing else interesting in the glass hanger, and Papa went to the store in a basement. Here he immediately saw a bunk bed and, pleased, he rushed to the sales clerk, who hid a half-eaten egg in a new nightstand and smiled questioningly, waiting for a question.
“Can I have two more of these?” Papa asked.
The sales clerk explained patiently that what Papa saw in the store was all they had. If Papa did not see something, then they did not have it. For example, he did not see the moon, so it meant it was not for sale in the store. However, if Papa insisted that he wanted to buy exactly three beds, they were ready to do the impossible. They would get the money from Papa now and give him the beds in August, when they would have a new shipment.
Papa turned down such a scheme and, having bought the bunk bed that was there, began to think where to find two more. In the end, he hit upon buying the city newspaper ads and found another bed. Papa phoned and drove around the city, looking for the necessary street.
The street turned out to be in Outskirts, the name of the area bordering the city. There were many identical parallel little streets and one-story houses very similar to one another and overgrown with grapevines, cherry trees, and some southern plants, blooming.
An old married couple opened the door, both strong, tanned, and, similar to the houses on the street, looking like each other. The bunk bed they showed Papa was a little shaky, but then a metal ladder was attached to it with hooks, and a huge number of stickers and chewing gum trading cards were glued on both the inside and outside of the bed. Some of the trading cards seemed awfully familiar to Papa. Terminator, Terminator-3, Rambo! Wow, hello childhood!
“Your children no longer need the bed?” Papa asked cautiously.
“No. They’re already grown. The son has gone swimming and the daughter’s in Kamchatka,” the chubby head of the family said and winced, because his wife stepped on his foot so he would not chat too much. She was afraid that Papa would not buy the bed, thinking that it was ancient.
“They barely slept on it! We bought the bed when they were in seventh grade,” she hastily said. “And we’ll even give you the mattresses!”
Papa immediately agreed and together with the old man began to disassemble the bed. It was secured with such strong bolts that Papa was immediately reassured. A bed with such bolts simply could not fall apart, rather everything else around would fall apart first. If it was unsteady, one could put something under the legs!
However, the mattresses surprised Papa most of all. One was light and rustled continuously, but the other, on the contrary, was awfully heavy. Papa slipped twice loading it into the van.
“What are the mattresses stuffed with?”
“One with straw. But this with cotton wool, seed husks, and beans,” the head of the family said.
“How many beans?”
“Already hard as stone. But many, very many. Then I worked on the base!” the old guy said, and after rustling the mattress for the last time, hastily slammed shut the trunk. He was still a little sorry to part with the bed and the mattresses.
Papa returned to Vine Street only in the evening. Having dragged stools, chairs, and even a solid box from the whole house into the kitchen, the entire family was sitting quietly at the table and having tea.
Tea was rarely managed without adventure, because there were usually not enough cups. As soon as the happy owner of a cup of tea, especially if the tea was with lemon and sugar, got up to get something from the fridge, someone would steal his tea at a moment’s notice. The previous owner instantly discovered the thief by the pattern on the cup and rushed to take it away.
“I thought you didn’t want it!” the thief justified himself.
“You thought nothing! Now give it back!!!”
“Too late! I’ve already spat into it!” the thief sighed, and still did not return the cup.
At other times, however, it goes without saying, the robbed walked around with his cup all the time and sometimes, in a fit of suspicion, even carried it to the bathroom.
Mama was clinking her tea with a spoon, dissolving a fallen bit of oatmeal cookie and pondering something intensely. “How many bunk beds did you buy?” she asked Papa.
“Two.”
“Hurrah! I’m very happy! I was just thinking that the cribs would be enough for Costa and Rita for the time being!”
“And Kate?”
“Kate will sleep on the wardrobe.”
“WHAT??? WHERE?” Papa stared at Mama and then at Kate. Kate did not look up, but one could sense that she was very satisfied.
"It’s her idea!” Mama explained. “Remember the huge wardrobe on the second floor? Well, you still didn’t understand why there were metal corners that can withstand an elephant? We nailed a railing to it so that no one would fall, and just lay a mattress on it. Still, dust collects on the wardrobe and it has to be wiped clean all the time.”
