Twelfth Night

This memory was brought on by a song, and it ties in with the last one I posted - I sensed that I would soon remember more about the old man, and indeed I did!

One of the many songs by Vladimir Troshin I have has always fascinated me, and since I usually listen to the CD in the car, I didn't know the title (my car radio can't read Cyrillic characters and so it assigns random number and letter combinations to each song). But last night as I drove home the song came on and this time it really struck a chord with me. So I looked up the title at home and googled it - it is from a 1955 screen adaptation of Shakespeare's "Twelfth Night"!
This realisation brought on another memory; Maksim, then fourteen or fifteen, is staying with Lyoshka after school, so it must be during the time when he had bad marks at school due to his own laziness.
Lyoshka asks Maksim if he is finished with his homework, and Maksim says he has done everything; he shows it to Lyoshka, who nods and says "Alright". The he announces that he has a special treat for Maksim today: They will go to the cinema and see "Twelfth Night" by Shakespeare! Maksim groans, as he thinks this can only be boring. But Lyoshka says: "Stop making such a face and get your coat; I know you'll like it!"
Maksim still isn't too pleased, but he knows resistance is futile, so he puts on his coat and plods behind Lyoshka, who tells him that they will visit an old friend of his after they've been to the cinema. Lyoshka explains that this old friend is a former teacher (or something similar) of his, someone who "has been through hard times", as he puts it - Maksim asks no further questions, as he knows that "hard times" is Lyoshka's way of referring to the last Stalinist purge, during which Lyoshka was also arrested and sent to a GULAG; Lyoshka was only released in the previous year (due to Stalin's death), and so the memories are still too fresh and he prefers not to speak about them.

They reach the cinema, sit down - Lyoshka has bought a bag of snacks, perhaps sunflower seeds, to appease Maksim - and after the newsreel the film begins and Maksim is prepared to hate it. But to his surprise it isn't boring at all, it is funny, light-hearted and entertaining.
As they leave the cinema and walk to where Lyoshka's old friend lives, Maksim asks Lyoshka if he has any books by Shakespeare he can borrow. Lyoshka says he has some, and of course Maksim can read them; after the visit to the old man Lyoshka accompanies Maksim on his way home, and when Maksim tells Vadim and Natasha about the film, how much he enjoyed it and that he is going to read more by Shakespeare, Vadim grins and says: "I don't know how you did it, Morkovich ("Morkovich", or "Son of the carrot", was Vadim's nickname for Lyoshka due to his bright red hair), but you've really turned him into a bookworm." Lyoshka laughs and playfully boxes Vadim on the arm, and the memory fades out...