The door opened slightly, and in the festering half-light a peachy soft face looked out at him, hesitantly. After a moment the door opened wider on its squealing hinges and out stepped, not the stinking old alcoholic with vomit down his chin, but an angel come to earth. Mitya gasped and felt a small pool of saliva collect in the corner of his mouth and then trickle gently on to his chin. He had never seen a girl so beautiful and so perfect. Blonde hair framed a delicate face with apple cheeks, a small freckled nose and eyes that seemed to stroke a place deep within his stomach. And here she was, in the stinking bog, with a twist of yellow toilet paper stuck to her perfect, peach-coloured plastic slipper.
Im sorry, she lisped, looking up at him through gluey black lashes.
No! Ah Mitya wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Im sorry, er, small female. Let me! and he held the wobbling door open for her as she slid through the gap between it and his underarm. I didnt know I thought you were the old man from up the corridor. He spends hours in the smallest room.
Im sorry, she lisped, looking up at him through gluey black lashes.
No! Ah Mitya wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Im sorry, er, small female. Let me! and he held the wobbling door open for her as she slid through the gap between it and his underarm. I didnt know I thought you were the old man from up the corridor. He spends hours in the smallest room.
Jesus, Im surprised hes still alive, joked the perfect angel with a wink.
Mitya felt something twang deep within him, like a ligament in his very soul stretching and snapping, never to be repaired. She turned slowly and swayed, tiny and ethereal, up the hallway towards the end room, and then hesitated, looking back at him from the doorway.
Who are you, beautiful? Mitya blurted, without meaning to make a sound, without knowing his mouth had opened, without giving his tongue permission to form any words at all.
Katya, she said, as if it was obvious, and she vanished behind the farthest door. The click of the latch struck Mitya like a punch in the face, and he gasped.
He took a long, slow piss and was struck by the thought that she, the angel, had been seated where his golden stream of warm pee was flying and foaming, just a few moments before. He shuddered and then, despite himself, leant down towards the toilet and could just make out a trace of her scent among the other odours rising from the dark bowl, the floor and the bin. Her scent, the musky scent of an angel, was subtle but powerful. Another hand rattling the door handle pulled him from his reverie, plucking him from his dream-like state and plunging him back into the reality of the smallest room. He pushed his way out of the cubicle, past the wobbly old man who roared something indecipherable but crushingly depressing at him, and made his way down the stairs and out to his van.
That my life should come to this, he thought, and aimed a ferocious kick at a passing tabby cat. He missed it by a wide margin and lost his balance for a moment, grabbing hold of the hedge to save himself and trying to ignore the muffled laughter bubbling from a bench behind it: a bench laden with small children and elderly hags, of course. Females, children: nothing but trouble. Ive got my work, he muttered to himself, and brushed the leaves from his shirt, ready to march off. As he did so, a butterfly bobbed up from the depths of the hedge and collided with his nose, making him flail slightly. Again muffled laughter scuffed his ears.
What are you doing, sitting there, cluttering the place up? Havent you got work to do? he roared over the hedge.
The babushkas looked at the small children and the small children looked at the babushkas, and then they all began giggling again, tears streaming down their cheeks.
There, there, Mitya, on your way, croaked a sun-kissed face pitted with tiny, shining eyes.
Idiots. Geriatrics and idiots. Youre no better than rats, laughing rats, scolded Mitya, but not loud enough for his audience to hear. He turned on his heel towards the setting sun, and his shiny van that glinted in its rosy rays. The night was young.
2
The Azov House of Culture Elderly Club
Galia smiled with quiet satisfaction as she finished making her way along the corridor, dishing out the steaming vareniki to her aged and tremulous neighbours. Xenia, hunched in the midst of a gallery of grainy pictures of her son, had been very happy to take the food. Galia had greeted the son as was expected, crossing herself in front of the little shrine devised in his memory and housed behind the television in Xenias sitting room. Twenty years had passed, but the sons keys and school bag still lay on the cabinet in the hall, where he had last thrown them that day in July 1974 before heading off for the river, and adventures.
Next was poor Denis, with his huge bulbous nose and disfigured cauliflower ears, a bachelor of bear-like proportions. He disappeared into his apartment with Galias offering and returned with a huge bunch of mottled grapes in exchange. Galia eyed the grapes and wondered what best use to make of them: they looked a little past their prime, but she accepted them gracefully. Baba Krychkova took the food with a little grumble about Goryoun Tigranovich and how selfish it was of him to go away and not tell her, and of course there was still no answer at Goryoun Tigranovichs door. The old Armenian was an enigma, and that was the way he liked it. There were rumours of gold, and foreign travel, and antique icons, and land deals in the Far East, but the thing was that no-one on the corridor really knew Goryoun Tigranovich at all. He gave out his vegetables and was always sober, polite and clean, but that was it. Galia wondered again whether she had been right to reassure Baba Krychkova that he was away. But it was true there had been no mewing of ridiculously fluffy white cats discernible from outside the door, and there certainly would have been if they hadnt been fed for a day or two. Galia had once seen them being fed when she popped in to exchange some garlic for a pineapple, and it had not been a pretty sight: the white cats turned in to beasts when food was involved. Anyway, it was best not to pry. The neighbour would re-appear when it suited him, or he would not.
Back in her kitchen, Galia clucked as she wiped down the plastic table top and put away her tools.
Dog lady! Boroda! You want some fat? Come on, my lady, have a little fat, itll help your eyes. Galia cut small strips of grizzled mutton fat for the dog, whose eyes already shone like stars.
She laid down her knife and flopped down on her tiny stool for a moment, wiping her eyes with the corner of her apron. She observed the knife lying before her: it had been sharpened so many times the blade was now a thin arc, chilli-pepper sharp. Pasha had cut his thumb on it the day he bought it: that had brought steam to his ears. She had cleaned the wound with iodine and bound it with gauze, all the time him muttering under his breath. It had been during the funny time, when he was sick and not himself, not long before the end.
The half hour struck in a lazy, absent kind of way, and Galia pushed herself up from her stool. It was time for the Elderly Club. She gazed from the window out into the hot evening. She could hear laughter rising in the courtyard like bubbles in beer, and the sound of children playing. Every so often a shriek would escape the young fat girl on the bench: itll come to no good, thought Galia, as she struggled to swat the mosquitoes dive-bombing her hair. Boroda made her way across the room and placed her muzzle gently into the corner of Galias open hand. Galia looked down at the dog and smiled.
In the cool darkness of her bedroom, she stood in front of the wardrobe and picked out tonights floral dress. The wardrobe contained four garments to choose from, each a different colour combination, but otherwise almost identical. This evening it would be the blue-and-white flowers, and the blue sandals over flesh-coloured pop socks. She would also take the white headscarf to keep the mosquitoes out of her hair. There was nothing like insects struggling in your hair to put you off your stride. Why had mosquitoes been created, she wondered, when their only purpose was to make other creatures miserable? But she mused only for a moment, the effort of getting her pop socks on over hot swollen ankles pushing the thought out of her mind.
Boroda, sensing it was time for Galia to go out, stood silently inside the front door, with her nose just touching it and her tail still, waiting to be let through. Then, jauntily balanced on her three legs, the dog wove her way along the corridor, down the stairs and out in to the courtyard, to sit a while under the bench and watch the children playing on the wide brown square of dry grass.
Boroda, sensing it was time for Galia to go out, stood silently inside the front door, with her nose just touching it and her tail still, waiting to be let through. Then, jauntily balanced on her three legs, the dog wove her way along the corridor, down the stairs and out in to the courtyard, to sit a while under the bench and watch the children playing on the wide brown square of dry grass.
Pyao! Pyao! Pyao! Youre dead!
Boroda made her way gingerly past the smaller, more unpredictable children and across the courtyard to the scruffy trees that hung over the swings. In a shady spot, she laid her head on her paw and twitched her long grey eyebrows. Sometimes, the children would make up a fidgeting circle around her under the tree and fashion her headdresses of wild olive leaves. She looked noble. She hoped they would stop the shooting and make her a headdress or two soon.
The lights, such as had bulbs in them, were burning brightly at the Azov House of Culture Elderly Club. The building itself was typical: concrete panelled, with large windows set high in cracked walls gazing on to parquet flooring, itself breaking away from its moorings. Forty-five women and two men, one of whom appeared not to be breathing, stood or sat at tables arranged around the walls of the central hall. At one end a plethora of spider plants hung from the top of a large serving hatch, trailing their grubby fingers across trays of moistureless biscuits, crackers and pretzels, such as could well be found on Mars. In the middle of the room, the host, chairman and general in charge, Vasily Semyonovich Volubchik, or Vasya to his friends, scrabbled through papers, dropped pens and stamped the all-important official membership cards.
Galia thought the Elderly Club was rather a waste of time but felt compelled to go, simply because she was old. There would be card games and tea, chess and arguments. And perhaps a talk on astrology or healthy eating, as if the old ones present didnt know what fate had in store for them, or what food might kill them. Galia handed her card over to be stamped, avoiding Vasyas enquiring eyes, and nodded to her old friend Zoya, whose hair had, on this occasion, turned out a violent shade of purple, and went to sit down in the corner.
One moment, Galina Petrovna, my dear, tolled Vasya like an old cracked bell. He was sorting through papers that kept falling from his fingers, splishing across the floor in great sheaves of hopelessness. Galias lips pursed despite herself and her left eye twitched very slightly.