The restaurant «The Golden Bullock» was considered expensive and was frequented by a respectable clientele. Hans had wedged himself in at a table in a distant dark corner, but even there he looked like a white crow: a nondescript little suit and, no doubt, he’d come on foot. An inconspicuous little clerk of the lowest cut. Whitish little wisps of hair sticking out in all directions and ears at attention – that was the whole of his description. He was camouflaging himself, the parasite, playing the simpleton.
I came up to the table. Hans glanced at his watch – either a Piaget or an Audemars Piguet, I don’t know one from the other.
– Sit down, – Hans invited, and immediately, as usual, started being obscure: – You’ve gone somewhat bourgeois, of course, but your Slavic soul hasn’t stopped being mysterious.
– What’s this about? – I tossed my briefcase onto a free chair, sat down beside it and received a menu and a wine list from a waiter who came bounding over.
– Your lateness today – forty-seven seconds. A record. You’re becoming a respected member of society while continuing to trample its laws. Is there really no doing without being late?
– I didn’t come here to set records or to sign up as a burgher. What did you call me in for?
Hans chewed a piece of steak, took a sip of wine, followed with disapproval my finger pointing out dishes on the menu to the waiter… Chewed again… Examined the tablecloth plane of the table with a long stare… Ran a little finger back and forth… And finally asked:
– You’re from Russia?
– Yes.
– How many years since you were there?
– Six… or seven. Seven, exactly.
– I think the time has come to visit the historical motherland. I propose an excursion to Moscow.
– What for? – I was surprised. And my head span from the flood of sounds, smells, visions bound by fleeting flashes of memory to my native, beloved city. Moscow, Sokolniki, the Yauza… almost a song.
– You’ll learn everything in due course. – Hans got up from the table, laid an envelope in front of me and, tossing out «details inside» as he went, walked away.
I was left alone in the little restaurant – a pleasant place for Hans to meet his especially trusted subordinates. Where Hans met the less trusted ones, that I don’t know. Maybe at McDonald’s or some beer joint.
I chewed the bland pork knuckle, slurped the sour beer, and worked out that the food was going down the wrong throat. All my thoughts were occupied by the envelope lying in front of me and its incomprehensible contents. My mind was also being tormented by the memory of yesterday’s dream. Or rather, by the thought that the dream and Hans’s call had been driven into the same interval of time – ten minutes, no more. A bad omen for the business ahead. It would have made sense to throw the whole thing to the dogs and race off headlong on Lufthansa’s most expensive flight to somewhere like New Caledonia. Race off so that, meeting the dawn on an empty sandy shore, in the unsteady moment of the sun’s parting from its watery cradle, I might take a knife in a cold, unshaking hand and cross out the accursed past crosswise, slash myself across the chest with the gleaming blade. My ribs would crunch and, through the hole bubbling with blood, my witless soul would fly off to the cirrus clouds with their pink borders. Fly off with one single purpose – to return to earth many years later, so that once again a fair-headed boy might run across the grass, a boy whose entire Universe fitted into the joy of possessing five bricks of frozen milk. That’s what I should have done.
But had I ever in my life done anything right?
Setting aside my knife and fork, I broke open the envelope and drew out of it – ho-ho! – two thousand marks and a stubby little slip of paper which turned out to be an instruction. From the instruction it followed that I was to:
- get to Moscow within twenty-four hours;
- take a room in a hotel there;
- telephone Hans’s office and report my location and telephone number;
- await further instructions, which would be delivered within the following twenty-four hours by a courier.
Postscript: the sum enclosed with the instruction is payment for travel to the place of work.
I took a hundred marks out of the free packet and gave it to the waiter. Having waited for the change, I returned a five as a tip, then stuffed all the money in my pocket and for about five minutes couldn’t get up. It was slow going, working out that if Hans, tightwad and skinflint, was paying so luxuriously for travel to the place of work, then HOW MUCH WOULD HE FORK OUT FOR THE WORK ITSELF?!!! I wrestled a little with my numb, parched mouth, squeezed out a bit of saliva and spat on all my fears and forebodings. It’s all rubbish when that kind of money is in prospect. I’m going!