Echo of Someone Else's War

By Juan Miramar

The works of Juan Miramar,

presented in this book, are

distinguished, as always,

by sophisticated language,

subtle humor, a unique

philosophical perspective

on life, and vibrant Eastern

color.

The novella "Echoes of

Someone Else's War"

impresses with its captivating

and dynamic pl

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ukiyoto Publishing
• Release date: Jan 27, 2024
• ISBN: 9789360493349

Book preview

Echo of Someone Else’s War

Written in Ukranian & Russian by

Juan Miramar

Translated to English by

Ukiyoto Publishing

Ukiyoto Publishing

All global publishing rights are held by

Ukiyoto Publishing

Published in 2024

Content Copyright © Juan Miramar

All rights reserved.

No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, or stored in a retrieval system, in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publisher.

The moral rights of the author have been asserted.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated, without the publisher’s prior consent, in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

www.ukiyoto.com

A Story

Swaying in the wind

Dusty palm fans,

I'll never die

Or maybe I died yesterday

I live like a dream

Life is like a dream of me

And over a foreign land

The wind is a little tipsy

The wind's a little tipsy

He had never thought that anything like that could happen to him, moreover, he was absolutely sure that nothing new, interesting, unexpected could happen to him, that the rest of his life would drag on in a daily routine: lectures, sleep, a little work on his novel (two hours at the most), news and some moronic detective on TV, at night a few lines of another moronic detective and sleep again.

He hadn't read anything serious for a long time, and they didn't write anything that he could like, and he couldn't reread his favorite classics, like his friend Ivanov, either - suddenly they became bland, tasteless, like diet food, the resonance disappeared, empathy, more and more often he caught himself looking for the author's weaknesses, mistakes, he attributed it to envy and soon gave up re-reading altogether, although he knew that among his many sins there were only two - envy and avarice.

Days passed in such a measured rhythm: lectures, sleep, novel, detective, sleep. Sometimes it seemed to him that every morning his days were being snapped off by someone, like knuckles on old accounts, and soon all of them would be snapped off and a slightly bent, bare wire would be left on the right.

This generally banal image haunted him lately; even in his dreams he used to see this dimly shining wire arc and the worn-out circles that were orphaned in the left corner - the days of his past life.

That remarkable morning the telephone rang while he was drinking his morning strong tea in the kitchen, without which he could not imagine the morning at all. His wife answered the phone.

- For you, she said, entering the kitchen and handing him the receiver of the portable phone.

- Who? - he asked.

He didn't like phone calls, especially so early in the morning, and it could mean at least some trouble, if not, God forbid, trouble.

- I don't know, his wife answered, "long distance, I guess, and went back to her room, while he picked up the phone.

- Hello.

- Sabah al kheir, - said the voice in the receiver in Arabic with a strong Moscow accent and asked: - How is Saha?

- Pashet, he answered automatically, because that was how they had answered that question in Syria forty years ago.

Saha in Arabic meant health, sabah al kheir" meant good morning, and the voice with the Moscow accent belonged to his old friend and battle comrade Major Tolya Leonov. However, now he was probably a colonel, or even a general, but his voice remained the same: a little hoarse, with imperious intonations, which now seemed to have become even more noticeable - Tolya had become a big boss.

- What do you do? - Leonov asked in the meantime, as if they had parted yesterday after work, not forty years ago on a street in Beirut, half-destroyed by a Palestinian explosion.

- I'm drinking tea, he answered as if they had parted yesterday.

- That's good, - Major Leonov approved - he was still Major to him - but I asked not about tea, but what you do in general.

- Nothing special - the usual retirement hobby: I write books and read lectures. And you?

- Yes, and I'm a pensioner, - said Leonov, - retired, that is. I don't write books, though - I have another hobby.

- What is it? - he asked, but Leonov let his question pass his ears and asked his own: "Do you remember Nadir Nabulsi?

- I remember, of course, he answered, and in his memory he flashed a picture of a short, curly-haired, thick-necked Arab with very dark skin, which in combination with his curly hair - a real afro - thick lips, low furrowed forehead made him look not even like a Negro, but rather like a Polynesian of some kind - immediately recalled a picture from Miklukho-Maclay's Diaries, his favorite book of his childhood. Captain Nadir Nabulsi was a daring and brutal Palestinian field commander in Lebanon.

- He was killed then, during the shootout in Maji Square, remember? - he reminded Leonov.

- Not exactly, Leonov replied cryptically and paused.

- What do you mean? - he made the expected retort.

- And so, that he is alive, - Leonov said with anger in his voice, all of them disliked this fighter for the national hearth of the Palestinian people, - and probably healthy, which, it should be understood, and wishes us.

- Alive and well, he said indifferently, surprised by a little anger in Leonov's voice, "and flag in his hands. What's it to us now?! Things of bygone days.

- Not quite, Leonov grasped this meaningful remark like an actor who hadn't learned his role, and added: "We need to meet.

- Let's meet, he rejoiced, "come over. We'll drink vodka, sit and remember the past.

- It would be nice, Leonov stretched out dreamily. - What Russian man would be indifferent to the offer to drink vodka in good company?! But I can't - the service.

- I thought you were retired, he wondered.

- That's the point, Major Leonov replied cryptically, "if I were in the government service, I could think of something: a business trip or something. But you can't do that - the harsh laws of the market economy, damn them....

- Where do you work, he decided to find out, "that your rules are so strict?

- You won't believe it, Leonov paused meaningfully, "in the archives.

- You certainly don't look like an archive rat, he laughed, remembering how Leonov had looked then, in Beirut: the gray face of a conquistador under the funny round cap of a peacekeeping officer, gray with fatigue and dust. A hat with a feather would be more suitable for such a face with a humped nose and thin lips, and instead of an automatic rifle Leonov could have used a crooked yatagan or a smoking boarding pistol. He laughed again and asked: - What are you doing there, in this archive?

- I'm studying cases, replied the former major seriously, "and the case of your friend, Captain Nadir, among others, he lowered his voice. - We should meet - it's better not to talk about it over the phone.

He remembered that conversation, which had turned his whole life upside down, and for the umpteenth time he thought that he should have refused, but, as the classicist had rightly said, we are strong in hindsight.

He lifted his head from Detective Forsyth and looked around. All around was the Egyptian resort of Sharm-al-Sheikh, or rather, the resort town of Nama Bay, and he was sitting in a cafe with the idiotic name Viva! - Viva! However, it was not specified what Viva! and everything or, rather, everything Viva! Everything is Viva: and the inky blue sea (once their regimental office issued such ink, blue-blue, and they wrote their gloomy reports with this cheerful blue ink), and the bright sun, and the grayish-yellow sand of the beach, and the green awning of the cafe, and the bawdy waiters, and the smell of coffee and the sea. This Long live! was read on the young faces of the visitors. Long live! was silently proclaimed by the divers in black rubberized suits, from which water streamed onto the cafe floor, who walked across the veranda as if they had just visited the Maracotta Abyss.

Apparently only the old Englishman with the face of an elderly pirate, counting with a squeamish grimace the change brought to him by the shrewish waiter, and he himself, for he had no reason to do so, rather the reverse, considering that