At six in the morning – you won’t believe it – the virgin silence of my room was ripped open by the piercing shriek of Ramon’s alarm clock, for the first time in a year. I leapt out of bed… no, I got up slowly… lying again, I rolled over in bed… If I’m honest, I barely managed, with enormous difficulty, to crack open one eye, make out the dial, and fall asleep. It was only at noon that I got out of bed, and in the most slovenly manner possible I spent the remaining time until nightfall in contemplation. I wandered aimlessly about the hotel paying no attention whatsoever to surrounding reality. By force of thought I carried myself far into the sky and deployed troops there in battle formation. The entire firmament turned out to be echeloned in depth. First line of the offensive – reveille at six in the morning. Second line – an hour of cross-country. Third line…
I declared war on myself and in my head sketched out a plan of operations under the title «The Regimen». A word short and dense, like an order – and for failing to carry it out, death!
From the next morning I went on the attack against my own laziness. Bright and early, when the tender Caribbean sun was only just putting out its first timid rays, pinkish, warmish, feeble… So then, from the crack of dawn I dragged my fat backside down to the beach and measured off kilometer after kilometer at an easy trot. Like some Moses Kiptanui I ran along the strip between the palms and the surf for a full sixty minutes. Tirelessly I kneaded the clinging beach sand with my feet. I streamed sweat, my poor legs hummed like telegraph poles, my poor gray eyes wept, and in my poor ears the tune «I was made for loving you, baby» came bubbling up. That was me remembering my kitty along with the group «KISS». Remembering and weeping. I was sorry for Anechka and sorry for myself. The one bright spot in those Jesuitical mornings was the understanding that subcutaneous fat burns off during a run on the sand exactly as it ought to burn: fast and surely.
After the run I would crawl on half-bent legs to a table in the restaurant and come back to myself, drenched in sweat. Then I would eat pudding, drink a glass of orange juice and, having solid grounds for it, plod off to sunbathe. Studied the girls, enjoyed life, meditated, and even – I’m not afraid of the word – philosophized. All the aforementioned actions were carried out on my lawful lounge chair, that very one.
I gave birth to one philosophical maxim a day. They looked approximately like this: Life is angular when you are round…
Having brought forth in mental agony the latest piece of gibberish and thereby brought closer the long-awaited hour of lunch, I – flint, you could make nails out of men like me! – would go not to the restaurant but in the opposite direction. There, in that opposite direction, in a secluded corner under the palms, trial number two awaited my willpower: a thousand push-ups in four sets. Excellent load for the arms and the abdominal press.
After puffing away for half an hour in an unnatural pose (a gentleman without a lady), I at last earned peace and ease. The daily exercise quota ended there. Working individual muscle groups and other athletic nonsense I left for later. All I needed was to shed weight, so that next time the heavies wouldn’t call me a fat man but would admire a muscular, tanned body.
In the evening, after the physical exertions endured, ladies interested me only so far as they went. I was inert and passive. A single desire possessed me: to turn in early in my room and quietly, peacefully, hit the sack. Hit the sack so as not to waste the night on trifles and wake up refreshed. Wake up refreshed so as to be ready for labor and defense. Be prepared! Always prepared! Sleep, sleep, sleep…
With such pious thoughts I fell asleep five or six times a week. Seven out of seven never came off, because now and then I missed out on my night’s rest, got caught in the snares set for me. Among the vacationing contingent there turned up outstanding specialists in seduction, and from time to time I had to tumble about in somebody else’s bed until morning. But – appreciate the strength of spirit! – in the morning I would still put in my kilometers on the beach. Even if more than one megacalorie had been burned off in the night. On days like that I was proud of myself. There was reason to be.