I studied minutely every grey streak in the sullen square of sky beyond the window. Nothing of interest.
I turned over onto my stomach and cricked my neck until the vertebrae crunched, so that I could see the face of the watch lying on the floor. For a long time, a very long time, I hypnotised the minute hand with my stare.
When my eyes started swimming and – oop! – the hand finally twitched, I got up, went once more to the bathroom and doused myself with cold water. Then I walked through all four rooms of the flat and studied the meagre furnishings attentively: three wardrobes, two sofas, four armchairs, ten or so chairs and a table. No television, no video, no radio, nothing for the soul at all did I discover. Clearly the little flat was rented for working purposes.
Well then! Time for me to get to work too.
I went out onto the street and, weighing up which side to approach the assignment dumped on me from, wandered off somewhere into the housing-estate distances. I had no imagination whatsoever, never had. Every question I settled thoroughly. Every detail, every little fact I tested carefully with my teeth, all but chewed it over. Today I was out of luck. There was no food for analysis. Hans, who had entrusted me with this business, is a blockhead and a swine. It would have been simpler, far simpler, if he had hung a machine gun round his own neck and, bent under its weight, hosed lead into the crowd of idlers strolling along the Arbat. The probability of the complete destruction of Moscow’s drug dealers would have been far higher than in my case. Whom can I find outside Moscow? Dismal dacha-dwellers pulling charlock out of their plots? And they haven’t been there for ages. Wrong season. Unless I start blowing up every dacha in a row. How many are there outside Moscow? A million? Even if it’s only a hundred thousand, and I blow up ten a day… maybe Magda will help with a couple… and another five at night… and hire a plane and hammer away from it in a square-cluster pattern… no! I definitely won’t manage it in a year. Depressing.
In among these thoughts my body was being crushed in the crowd of a bus, tormented by the stuffiness of a metro carriage, cut by the piercing December wind, and it wandered, wandered, wandered. Where to? Where had I ended up?
I looked around.
Well, I never.
Pain, longing and a confusion of feelings.
Hello! Long time no see, my beloved old courtyard, which knew me as a snot-nosed toddler, a dashing lad and a pimply youth.
I nearly burst into tears from the sentimentality that swept over me, barely suppressed the tickling urges at the corners of my eyes. My heart began thudding hollowly. A small lump of flesh tore furiously outwards from my chest, but couldn’t punch through the cage of bones, howled, went off into a mournful half-cry, half-wheeze, and lost its strength. My legs gave way, my body went slack and collapsed onto a bench.
Yes, it was no joke.
Seven long years without seeing my little homeland, a particle of which, it seemed, I always carried about in my memory, and which, as it turned out, had worn thin, faded, mouldered away over the days and nights of foreign business. So that’s how it worked out.
Living in Germany, I was slightly weighed down by the unfamiliar order of a rational life, but never, not once, did I allow myself a chaotic voyage back over the waves of memory, into my courtyard, into my youth. I wasn’t subject to nostalgia, I wasn’t. The only feeling that occasionally stirred me up was a gastronomic longing for a hunk of black bread, eaten with something warm and sour, with cabbage soup or some other kindly-smelling piece of cookery. The whole business, in that case, was to trudge as far as the restaurant «Mishka», knock back a shot there, put away a portion of day-old shchi with a kebab and cheerio! In the morning, cheerful and content, off to work.
There it was simple, and here misfortune knocked my legs out from under me. Longing came down on me, leaving not a trace of the sensible, dry Arbalet.
– Sashka? Is that you?!
– Mila? – I recognised her at once. I had never forgotten the chestnut hair down to her shoulders, the green eyes with their merry sparks, the little hooked nose with its bump (the object of Milka’s endless anguish) and the legs turned in ever so slightly. I had remembered all along the liveliest girl in the class and, along with that, my first love.
So here we are, then, Milok.
Slowly, crookedly and uncertainly, I got up from the bench.
– Well, I never! I can’t believe it, Sashka, – Mila bounded up to me, planted a kiss on my cheek. – They said you were killed in Afghanistan!
– Not exactly killed, just a bit. – I touched my lips to her cheek too.
– Still cracking jokes.
– I’m too old to crack jokes. What’s been going on here without me?
– All sorts… No, I can’t believe you’re alive. Listen, you’ve got such an a-accent! Where have you been hiding? In America?
– Closer, in Germany. That’s where I live. By the way, where did my mother get to? I called about ten times, some random people pick up the phone. They say she moved somewhere.
– I don’t know.
– Pity. All right then, how are you doing?
– Oh, – Lyudmila waved a hand. – So much that’s new, you couldn’t tell it in an hour. Let’s meet up some time. Only call me at work first, take down the number.
I took out a pen, scratched seven little digits in my notebook and asked:
– Where are you stomping off to?
– Thought I’d drop in on my family.
– I see. Well, till tomorrow.
– Till tomorrow. Only be sure to call.
– I’ll call.
I watched the figure, spoiled by a sheepskin coat, walk away, and thought… No, I thought nothing. I turned round, left the courtyard for good, never to return, and set about searching for that ill-starred little dacha which had to be blown up and which, at the same time, was impossible to find.