At last, Mr. Langbo left proudly the fighting crowd and he could notice two policemen slowly passing by but suddenly Dr. Elshtein’s wife seized his hand and started painfully kicking his legs. Mr. Langbo howled.
She wasn’t a woman she was a medusa-gorgon and a fury. A slender woman named Maria-Theresa, half-French woman and half-Lithuanian played well women's soccer and she was a master of fencing and liked Dr. Elshtein. That’s why Mr. Langbo didn’t have any chances.
Many of doctors were in perplexity some of them were clasping and some were smiling.
*
Of course, there was a big scandal. Intelligentsia, at such forum and in such way it’s rarity. There bite more painful and more people suck in this scum than during the open fight where there is fight’s clarity.
Organizers were lucky that there weren’t journalists and it was better to calm down, otherwise, one can provide some sanctions. A man in a hat with wide brims was observing this situation attentively. Then, he followed the big hall and sat at the eighteenth row.
The first day was rich and of course representative. Sixteen reports should maximum show the problem. If in the middle of the last century investors in the world were ready to give one hundred and thirty milliard dollars for the topic of expansion of life’s duration so nowadays this sum is bigger. Two third of investments were as budget money of developed countries including public health and military developments. The third part was deposited by private investors in different countries. One couldn’t revalue the main role of the USA in this topic. By different assessments this country deposited into the topic of expansion of life’s duration about sixty five percent of all money.
No wonder that the first report was read by the representative of the USA Department of Health, by the famous Dr. Harry Posman who quickly and confidently covered audience by colorful graphs and histograms, by which one could see that in coming years, the life duration of the USA citizens should cross the centenarians with confidence.
*
A black felt Helmut von Neumann’s hat slightly staggered and shuddered to the soothing voice of Dr. Posman. The pain started since Posman’s pince-nez then went along both side rows of the conference hall. Helmut knew that he could not have time. His right hand found a saving pocket of his trousers, where there was a package of endorphins, including an exotic type of Rock-mole or tablets Zaldiar. He was clutching up this saving bag, knowing that it wouldn’t help. Severe pain began slowly turning from both flanks.
A day later, Helmi would have had a birthday. The boy would have turned six years old. He saw a couple of father’s gifts. Although father came rarely, he didn’t forget about his birthday. Yes, it was a dream: a compass and binoculars! That day, an aunt teacher Hanna organized an excursion. "An excursion" - it was the noise and hubbub, flags, crossing the street, the whole world.
When the sirens started sounding, Helmi was clutching his palms, depicting binoculars. While Aunt Hanna was quickly making children entering the refuge, Helmi was counting planes, and remembered that they were a lot. He played and forgot about time. Then every boy had a "weapon": a stick, a wooden gun, and some lucky boys had Schmeisser. Helmi dreamed that someday he would be written up for an award for his feat and he would stand in front of the formation next to his father.
As a result, he fell into a reverie, and lingered. It saved him. Aunt Hanna grabbed the boy badly and ran to the deep entrance into the shelter. In the corridor at the entrance the teacher started calling loudly and looking for a group when the earth began trembling and the light went out. It was like an earthquake. It seemed that the moderate explosions tremors were near. The stucco began falling down, bricks and stones were falling out of arches. Aunt Hanna, painfully holding the boy was rushing in the shelter, holing with difficulty through the people and finally she heard a baby’s crying and children’s screaming.
The thing Helmut saw then human’s soul can’t either understand or forget. It would come in black nightmares for all his life, and if heaven exists, it will be an eternal imperative.
As if the sun with its perturbations burst into the earth's stronghold to incinerate all live. Those seconds Helmi could see as immediately, his little friends and adults were burning down like torches. He saw the unprecedented flame raging, people were writhing, human skin was bubbling and bursting and their bodies were becoming smaller. And then the fire came to him from both sides and Helmi cried hysterically when his hair and eyelashes flashed, and severe pain began to overshadow his mind when he fell with aunt Hanna into the floor gap, and that she saved the boy’s life, covering him with his body.
*
Maria-Theresa or just Mari, a thirty-eight years old blond rogue, glanced and smiled fleetingly doctor Elshtein. His report was the fourth and the doctor wanted very much to make a furore. She glanced triumphantly at the second row, where a bitten Mr. Langbo was sitting, she listened carefully to the long report, written by Yankees copy and therefore it was dull for her, and she was watching curiously at a strange man in a dark suit and felt hat, she couldn’t see his face.
- Hey, maybe this man feels bad?
Mari silently whispered Thomas, but he was too absorbed in his report.
In Mari’s life there were a lot: big balls, preference till five AM, high marks in various universities, noisy parties and the ability to make friends. Due to her fast and lively intellect she was greedily absorbing knowledge. Half a year she has been studying at the Munich Technical University, about three years at the University of Paris-Sud, half a year at Imperial College London, and then began to go in different states of America and as a result when she was thirty-four she became a professor. She was a different one.
When she first came to Paris from Vilnius, there was such a joke. She asked in French an old professor to give her an envelope. There were other students. The old man’s eyes popped out of his head. He said,
- Mademoiselle, I agree, but why green?
People were knocked over. The fact is that “vert” translates as "green", and con, is a kind of French slang, which one can translate as the female sexual organ.
*
In the next report they announce the news about the hormonal adult’s condition and hormone deficit during aging. Dear doctor Mark Gordon from Chicago told brightly about the latest hormonal achievements of anti-aging. Despite of his inspirational report, she was able to separate the lambs from the goats. Since the twenties, many scientists began to use hormones for many purposes, and also for aging delay. The real blooming of this science took place in seventies, when it became possible to transform hormones. Theoretically, it could constantly prevent the destruction of the hormonal centers and human life could grow for decades. But experimenters could only restore partial hormonal centers.
*
By the side look Mari saw some movement at the entrance of the auditorium, where the typical policemen in civvies were carefully examining the public. Her guess was confirmed when for a moment a police cap flashed in the doorway.
During the coffee break the Elhsteins were the center of attraction. This couple was younger, fresher and lovely and looked more democratic than the heavyweights pharmacists, physicians, endocrinologists and other traditionalists. And if the doctor Elshtein could smile dazzlingly, her smile would carry a secret of previous ancient aristocratic incarnations.
*
The lobby was divided into two poles. Mr. Langbo looked grimly at a group of the upstarts and felt that his soul demanded satisfaction. His colleague from the company Roche, Daniel O’Day, a specialist in molecular diagnostics actively supported him.