Ah, too bad, butter fingers, Galia muttered to herself as the last of the vareniki slid from her tired fingers and plopped with a puff of flour on to the floor. Boroda extended her noble neck a few inches from her box under the table, politely indicating that she would happily clear up the fallen morsel if Galia would permit.
Go on then, lapochka, you may as well have it. Do a good job mind, clean it all up, my bearded lady. Borodas sharp pink tongue lapped up the mixture in seconds and her tail thumped gently on the wall of the box.
No gulping, mind even street dogs dont have to gulp! Galia teased. Boroda flicked her a grateful glance and continued licking the floor clean with a great deal of care. The dogs needs were simple: bread, potatoes, occasional scraps of fat and bits of fruit were her staples. She, generally speaking, would not have dreamt of begging for food from the table, but if it fell her way that was a different matter. In her turn, Galia would not have thought of putting a collar around her neck. They were equals, and chose to be together in companionable quiet. There was no constraint, and new tricks were not required. The spillage all cleared up, Boroda licked her lips and then the tip of her long thin tail, and settled down to sleep.
Galia was prevented from returning to her reverie by the sudden bleeping of the phone, which brought her huffing into the hall. Oh for goodness sake! she muttered under her breath, is a body to get no peace in this world? and then loudly Hello! Im listening!
Galina Petrovna, good afternoon! Its Vasily Volubchik here, said a confident but somewhat creaky voice.
Yes, I know, replied Galia with a sigh, and then, fearing she sounded rude, and how can I help you, Vasily Semyonovich?
Im just checking that youre coming to the meeting this evening, Galina Petrovna. We have a very exciting agenda, I assure you: the Lotto draw, and er, oh, er, bother, what was it? Ive forgotten the most exciting thing, er
Yes, Vasily Semyonovich, Ill be there. I am sure it will be most entertaining. Goodbye! and Galia replaced the receiver with a slight frown. Vasily Semyonovich Volubchik was nothing if not determined. He had been phoning every Monday for at least three years to ensure that she didnt forget to attend the Elderly Club. And every week he promised her something exciting. So far, the most exciting event hosted by the Elderly Club had been a talk on fellatio by a local enthusiasts group. Or did she mean philately Galia could never recall the difference. But it had not been exciting: merely diverting, in her estimation.
She padded down the hall in her soft white slippers to wash her face and neck. She had a feeling that the evening was going to be dull. Looking back later, she couldnt quite believe how wrong this feeling had been. She had no presentiment of how her life was about to change. People often dont.
Straindzh lavv, straindzh khaize end straindzh lauoz, straindzh lavv, zats khau mai lavv grouz
On the east side of town, in a square box of a room with orange walls and a shiny mustard lino floor, a youngish man intoned the words of his beloved Depeche Mode without a recognizable tune. He was wearing some sort of uniform that was very clean, but still smelt to others around him of something not quite savoury. The man was making busy, precise preparations under a bare sixty-watt bulb as the sun set outside, unnoticed. His black nylon trousers, crease-free and firmly belted, sparked small currents against his thighs that made the black hairs there stand up as he moved. His regulation blue shirt was neat and pressed and tucked in snugly all the way around. It made taut pulling noises as he reached to comb his hair, which he found minutely satisfactory. He had shaved carefully, including his neck and that part of his shoulders he could reach, and had fully emptied his nose into the basin (down the hall on the left, no, second left: first left is the room of the violent alcoholic well, one of them). He had cleaned out his ears with a safety match, and the match had then been safely placed in the bin not in the toilet, as had happened once, by accident, when it had bobbed about in the yellow-brown water for several days, disturbing him greatly to the point where he couldnt sleep. For that matter, a match had also once been carelessly left on the bedside cabinet. But only once. The match problem had been overcome and Mityas will imposed on the small woody sticks and their sticky pink heads. Now they always went in the bin, immediately, and he slept well.
These things he did every day, in a set order. Or rather, every evening. He turned over the cassette Depeche Mode, Music for the Masses as he did every evening around this time, and pressed play with the second finger of his right hand. He inhaled deeply and closed his eyes as the music began. He envisaged the night before him, and emitted a satisfied snort, quietly, just for himself.
Mitya was thorough. He took pride in being thorough. Thorough and careful would have been his middle names, he thought, if his middle name hadnt been Boris. He frowned and paused with the boot brush poised in his hand. The thought of his middle name spoilt his mood as a bark spoils silence, and he shuddered briefly in the shadow of his thoughts about Mother. There were things he held against his mother, and his middle name was one of them. A drunkards name, a name with no imagination: a typical Russian name. His left eye twitched slightly as he aimed the boot brush at a mental image of his mother hovering near the door, and slowly and deliberately pulled the trigger. Her green-grey brains spread out across the orange wall as Dave Gahan hit a rousing chorus and Mitya felt a tremble shoot from his stomach to his groin. Life was sweet. He had his order, he had his job, and in this room on the East Side, he was in control of his own affairs. He was Lord of all he surveyed.
There was a muffled click in the hallway, and Mitya froze, sensing trouble. He was not mistaken: a thumping beat suddenly vibrated his orange walls, snuffing out his tape like a candle in a snow storm. He lowered the boot brush and bit his lip. His neighbour, Andrei the Svoloch, was hosting a party, again. Soon there would be girls with too much make-up, girls with too much perfume, girls with skirts impossibly short and tights with ladders reaching up with clawing fingers towards their unmentionable parts. Girls: his neighbour was a success with them, it seemed. The younger, the better, according to Andrei, although Mitya always tried not to listen whenever his neighbour opened his ugly, tooth-speckled mouth. Mitya violently disapproved of Andrei, and his girls. He frowned at them from around his door, and when they laughed, he closed the door and frowned at them through the keyhole. They came out of Andrei the Svolochs room to go down the hall to the stinking shared toilet, and then he sometimes frowned at them through the keyhole of the toilet too, just to make his point, although this always made him feel bad afterwards. He didnt know why he did it. It wasnt like he found them interesting. It wasnt like he wanted to see them at all. They were just hairy girls, after all.
Mityas view was that girls, and women in general females, to use the technical and correct term were a distraction. Men should keep their eyes on the prize and their wits about them. Girls were for when the fight was over. Or nearly over, as Mityas fight would never be over, fully. He knew that if he ever got in the position of being in physical contact with a girl, he would make sure that she knew where she was in his order of priorities before any actual physical contact ensued: somewhere near the bottom, way down the line after work, eating, sleeping, beer, going to the toilet, Depeche Mode and ice hockey. Oh yes, hed show her. Shed realize how lucky she was, to be in physical contact with Mitya. One day. When he had the time. When he met the right one.
Mityas boot brush was still poised in his hand, one plastic-leather boot shiny, the other slightly dull. He collected his thoughts, pushed the girls firmly to the back of his mind, in fact out of it completely, and polished the dull boot with a frenetic stroke that turned his hand to a blur and made his neatly combed hair vibrate like a warm blancmange on a washing machine. When he had finished, the boot gleamed and small beads of sweat stood out on Mityas forehead. He folded a piece of tissue twice and blotted away the small drops. His arm ached slightly, and his heart was beating faster.
With satisfactory boots in place, he collected his wallet, keys and comb, and indulged in a last look around the room. Everything was in its place under the glare of the bright single bulb. He was out of here, and it was going to be a long night. He felt big, and enjoyed the noise his confident footsteps made stomping on the floor. He was a man on a mission, a man with a plan. He was important. The only cloud on the horizon, so to speak, was his bladder, which was now painfully full.
In the hall, Andrei the Svoloch with his hateful dyed hair and cheap cologne was leaning against his doorway, smoking a cigarette with one hand and rubbing the thigh of what appeared to be a schoolgirl with the other.
Hey Mitya, off for another night on duty? Youre so fucking dull, mate! Why dont you join us for a drink? Come on have a look at what weve got on the table? Maybe you want some? Andrei slid his hand right between the schoolgirls legs and she squeaked.
Mitya winced, but despite himself, he glanced into his neighbours blood-red room. It was a scene of hell. There were women everywhere: draped over the divan, curling over the TV, straddling the gerbil cage.
Im going to work, just as soon as Ive had a piss, he muttered, and stomped down the corridor. Turning on a sudden impulse at the toilet door, he bit out the words, You need to clean this toilet, Andrei. Its your turn. I did it the last four times. Im not doing it again!
Andrei the Svoloch laughed, displaying two rows of stumpy yellow teeth, and pushed the schoolgirl back inside the red room, closing the door behind him with a hollow thud. Mitya pushed hard on the toilet door, and his nose connected with the back of his hand. It was locked, again.
Son of a bitch.
His swollen bladder would not be denied. The strain of keeping the pee in was bringing a film of sweat to his smooth upper lip. He had been periodically waiting to use the filthy toilet for over half an hour but every time he gave up and went back to his room, the cursed toilet occupant would come lurching out and be replaced by another incontinent before Mitya could get back down the corridor. So now he had to wait, and risked leaning on the wall next to the violent alcoholics door, his slim legs tightly bound together, hands clenching and unclenching. He hammered on the door again.
Come out of there you stinking old tramp! Im going to call the skoraya youll go to the dry tank! Mitya really, badly, needed to pee.