Night Watch - Watch Out!

Saturday night is traditionally a movie night at VS. All the tenants gather in the communal kitchen to watch a movie previously screened and approved by Father Fyodor. For the past two years we were watching bootleg copies of Mexican telenovellas fetched by Father Fyodor on the black market.

Last night father Father Fyodor was away on business and no pre-approved entertainment was available, a bit negligent on Father Fyodor's part, may God forgive me for criticizing her servant. Gavrik, baba Katya's son, said that he had a copy of Night Watch, a fantasy he said. Some fantasy! In the absence of other options, it was unanimously voted to watch Night Watch. We should have known there would be trouble. I don't know why we keep on listening to this stupid boy (but then again he is the only one with the DVD collection). Last time two years ago, Gavrik made us watch Eight and a Half Weeks. Immediately upon the end of the second rerun, Eight and a Half Weeks was unanimously condemned as ungodly filth (well, almost unanimously ... since Ded Semyon couldn't stop grinning and did not respond to outside stimuli for about an hour after the end of the movie, he was considered as abstained), DVD confiscated, Gavrik was publicly spanked, and father Fyodor gave a brief, but powerful sermon, ordering all residents of VS to take a vow of chastity for at least three months effective immediately. Incidentally, nine months after watching that movie VS was blessed with an unprecedented boom of absolutely healthy premature, as Father Fyodor called them, babies, all of whom weighed eight pounds or more, except Father Fyodor's twins who weighed only seven pounds each. Our Fedya, though born at 28 weeks of gestation, was the biggest of all at nine and a half pounds... oh yeah, back to tonight.

Needless to say that Night Watch stirred a bit of a controversy in VS. Baba Katya was crossing herself every few minutes whispering, "Demons, demons among us." Ded Semyon would then spit at the screen, yet they both continued to watch until the very end. People gave nervous glances to Gavrik, who had an uncanny resemblance to vampire Andrei. Mothers would cover their babes' eyes during the vampire scenes and pressed them tightly against their bosom, to the loud protests of some of the seventeen-year-old babes. In the state of great confusion brought on by the disturbing images in the film, Lyudmila too pressed Vorob'yaninov against her ample bosom and kept on doing it, I would say, rather unmotherly over and over again. Baba Katya said that she saw Lyudmila early next morning leaving Vorob'yaninov's apartment. He must have really gotten scared, poor thing...

After the end of the movie, the emergency meeting of the VS was called. It was unanimously declared that VS doesn't support violent entertainment with the elements of witchcraft and owning materials of this sort would be grounds for eviction. Lokhankin, as the president of Slovodka, confiscated Gavrik's copy of Night Watch and promised swift justice if Gavrik would bring filth like this again into VS. Baby Katya promised that Gavrik would get a good beating that night and swore to keep a better eye on him. It was also unanimously decided not to mention the incident to Father Fyodor, lest he would make us take another vow that no one would keep.
When we got to our room, Vasisualiy immediately popped the DVD into our player and watched the movie again, to acquaint himself better with the enemy, as he said. We have to know what and who we stand against, in our fight for good, Masha. He is a real fighter, my Lokhankin, and such an idealist! I think he really enjoyed acquainting himself with the forces of evil. Later, when we were in bed, he asked me if I thought that Father Fyodor was "the other". I personally don't think that screaming "I can see through all of you" in the drunken stupor qualifies him as "the other" though his gift to sniff out vodka through closed doors or his sheer ability to consume as much as he does might... So I said, Yes dear, I think Father Fyodor might be. At the very least there's something "otherly" in his knack of picking our entertainment without causing much controversy.

Next week we are going back to "Simply Maria". Get your handkerchiefs ready and bring a spare for your wife!