The question arises: what was I freezing my extremities for, exposing my tender body to abominable squalls of wind? In the envelope received on that wind-blown square lay a scrap of paper with the text: «Arbalet! Check out of the hotel at once and proceed to the address – blah-blah-blah… There you will receive from contact number two further instructions and an advance.»
There’s no happiness in this life!
I gathered up my things, took a gallant farewell of the floor attendant with the playful eyes, and set off for a distant district unknown to me. I definitely hadn’t heard the name of the district seven years ago, some sort of Trizvezdyulyovo… Contact number two was waiting there, certainly the same sort of useless small fry as this morning’s. And, I was sure, knowing exactly as much Russian as a stevedore in the port of Hamburg, all of two words – «Fuckin’ A» and «Fucked»! I’d checked it with my own ears. Where does Hans dig them up, in what back alleys? Not my problem, though. I was more taken up by the last word but one of the note.
I rode for a wearyingly long time in a battered taxi Volga and built rainbow plans the whole way about the remuneration to come.
I climbed briskly up the steps – humpbacked reproaches to a lift that didn’t work – all the way to the very top floor, and heard, in waking life, the rustle of cash packed tight into an imaginary wallet.
I pressed the doorbell and before my eyes, in the box marked «Sum in figures», round-sided zeroes were lining up in an even rank. First, second, third, fourth…
Whoops!
The door was opened by such a gorgeous mademoiselle in such a clinging mini-dress! with such legs coming out from under it! and such a figure! that the dress was bursting at the seams!!!
In short, I forgot everything in the world. I goggled, swallowed my tongue, then bleated something in greeting and obeyed her commanding «Well, come in, handsome» with delight.
Ye-es, there are disappointments in life – you ask for bread and they give you biscuits.
Like a clumsy oaf I lumbered into the little flat and, not knowing what to do with my suddenly superfluous hands, stopped in the hallway. The mam’selle – the marvellous wonder who had opened the door to me – had vanished somewhere in the recesses of the murky little flat, many-roomed, many-metred and full of promise. I gradually came to my senses, shrugged off my coat and, orienting myself correctly on a chink of yellow light under a door, presented myself before the clear eyes of a natural blonde – bobbed hair – with brown eyes.
– So you’re Arbalet? Well, hello, – she said in the purest Russian, and measured me somehow sceptically with a mocking look. Hmm, my hundred and eighty-nine centimetres of height and ninety-five kilos of solid muscle had never been the object of anyone’s scepticism. Very strange, that.
A tricky girl, this one.
I straightened my spinal column, squared my shoulders, breathed in three litres of air and choked on her point-blank question: «What do you want?»
What do you mean, what? Well, that thing, what’s it called, ah yes, I remember, it’s written in the note. Look!
She skimmed the piece of paper with her eyes and asked:
– Are you going to have supper?
– No question about it, of course I am.
Over a decorously conducted supper it emerged that I had to locate, by certain treasured signs, an outbuilding somewhere in the Moscow region, and then blow it to bloody hell. After which I was to race off by train to Belarus, from there through Poland to Germany, where for the whole business I would receive two hundred thousand marks. The advance, fifty thousand, would be handed over the day after tomorrow in the evening.
But those were details!
The most important thing I found out from my new friend – her name was Magda, she had a good command of the language because she’d grown up in Russia in the family of a German embassy employee, and, lo! since childhood she’d loved the traditional Russian beverage for all occasions in life – vodka. I perked up and expressed a totally hundred-per-cent readiness to dash to the nearest kiosk for the miracle-working fluid. Magda cooled my ardour: «Sit down, will you, it’s closer to walk to the fridge.» Indeed, it was closer.
The frosted half-litre of Stolichnaya we drank not so much briskly as soulfully, with a bit of conversation. Then we sat a while, sighed, gazed at the dusk beyond the window. As soon as the drink started pressing gently under my crown, I got my hand up Magda’s skirt. And instantly took a crushing blow to the jaw. Hmm, hint taken. Struck out.