The car raced at high speed through familiar countries, passed more than once, taking me to France, to a large city in Alsace, to Strasbourg.
Not that there were any important things or business meetings waiting for me there. Not. The son of my St. Petersburg friend, after completing his postgraduate studies in St. Petersburg, went to improve his education in Strasbourg. Since he was a smart boy, the French state gave him such a scholarship that he could easily live and study. For some six years, Arthur studied French and English almost perfectly, and began to successfully communicate in German. Arthur was a gifted and diligent boy. It was he who invited me to visit him in his new city for a couple of days. Since there was nothing to do with the general crisis, after long delays, I nevertheless took advantage of his invitation.
Quite quickly, having overcome these 500 kilometers with a small tail, separating his home from mine, I drove into the midnight city filled with lights, to the station square. I don't think the city itself amazed me that much. He was solemn, a little pompous, elegant. Maybe because I had already looked enough of such cities, it seemed to me a little out of place in this embellished stiffness of his. Having dealt with the map and address of my friend, I parked the car with some difficulty and rang his doorbell. Arthur had taste and ambition, he rented his apartment in one of the most expensive areas, in a villa where representatives of embassies and even an English baron lived. Quiet respectable area adjacent to a large park and police station for a calm sense of security. Even if the apartment was in the basement of the mansion, with a tiny kitchenette and a shower stall right in it, with two tiny single beds, but here there was such a necessary isolation and remoteness from all these representatives of the former colonies-"republics" like Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia that Arthur was really happy with this "basement" at the mansion.
We sat at the table and talked excitedly about our life, tried to finish a bottle of red wine that I bought in Luxembourg, and this evening first turned into night, and then into morning. We went to bed at five, and at eight, having already prayed and took a cold shower, I stood and waited for Arthur to wake up. How he felt my arrival and just before my arrival he bought a large pack of green tea. I already brewed and drank a couple of cups, went to wake my friend. After a lean but healthy breakfast, we left the house, passing into the power of this monumental and solid Strasbourg. We walked in the middle of the Victory Alley, it was a mild and a little gray October day, the trams of the future were moving left and right – absolutely futuristic, which the city residents were so proud of.
Before my arrival, Arthur insistently asked me to bring him a kippah, and now he proudly and without hesitation walked in this little black velvet cap, the ritual headdress of the Jewish people. In the very center of the city, as it seemed to the boy, there were no manifestations of anti-Semitism, and Arthur could clearly and with pleasure feel like a Jew.
Due to his lack of life experience and his slight euphoria, he did not notice such subtleties as oblique Moroccan-Algerian views.
In addition to the languages listed above, Arthur also knew the holy language – Hebrew, which he learned voluntarily and with great desire. The level was such that he could freely communicate and write in this language. Arthur's family was completely Russian or Ukrainian, nothing religious was imposed or instilled on him. Only, perhaps, the surname somehow connected this young man with the mysterious people to which Arthur was so eager. Translated into Russian, she sounded like a Camel. One way or another, everyone wants to find their roots and understand themselves and their souls, and I think that Arthur was on the right track and his inner compass did not deceive him.
