“What a hooliganism!” said the woman with dignity. She took two cans of delicacies, scanned the counter, and with great precision, ripped the cover off the Cosmic Man magazine. “I’ll remember you, number ninety-three! These aren’t the old times for you.” She wrapped the two cans in the cover. “We’ll see each other in the municipal court.”
I took a firm hold on the driver’s arm. His rigid muscles gradually relaxed.
“The nerve!” said she majestically and departed.
She stepped along the sidewalk, proudly carrying her handsome head, which was topped with a high cylindrical coiffure. She stopped at the corner, opened one of the cans, and proceeded to pick out chunks with elegant fingers.
I released the driver’s arm.
“They ought to be shot,” he said suddenly. “We ought to strangle them instead of dispensing pretty books to them.” He turned toward me, and I could see his eyes were tortured. “Shall I deliver your books?”
“Well, no,” I said. “Where will I put them?”
“In that case, shove off,” said the driver. “Did you take your Mintz? Then go and wrap your dirty pantaloons in it.”
He climbed up into the cab. Something clicked and the back door began to rise. You could hear everything crashing and rolling inside the van. Several books and some shiny packets, boxes, and cans fell on the pavement. The rear panel had not yet closed completely when the driver shut his door and the van took off with a jerk.
The girls had already disappeared. I stood alone on the empty street and watched the wind lazily turn the pages of History of Fascism at my feet. Later a gang of kids in striped shorts came around the corner. They walked by silently, hands stuck in their pockets. One jumped down on the pavement and began to kick a can of pineapple, with a slick pretty cover, like a football down the street.
Chapter SIX
On the way home, I was overtaken by the change of shifts. The streets filled up with cars. Controller copters appeared over the intersections, and sweaty police cleared constantly threatening jams with roaring bull horns. The cars moved slowly, and the drivers stuck heads out of windows to light up from each other, to yell, to talk and joke while furiously blowing their horns. There was a instant screech of clashing bumpers. Everyone was happy, everyone was good-natured, and everyone glowed with savage glee. It seemed as though a heavy load had just fallen from the soul of the city, as though everyone was seized with an enviable anticipation. Fingers were pointed at me and the other pedestrians. Several times I was prodded with bumpers while crossing — the girls doing it with the utmost good nature. One of them drove alongside me for quite a while, and we got acquainted. Then a line of demonstrators with sober faces walked by on the median, carrying signs. The signs appealed to people to join the amateur club ensemble Songs of the Fatherland, to enter the municipal Culinary Art groups, and to sign up for condensed courses in motherhood and childhood. The people with signs were nudged by bumpers with special enthusiasm. The drivers threw cigarette butts, apple cores, and paper wads at them. They yelled such things as “I’ll subscribe at once, just wait till I put my galoshes on,” or “Me, I’m sterile,” or “Say, buddy, teach me motherhood.” The sign carriers continued to march slowly in between the two solid streams of cars, unperturbed and sacrificial, looking straight ahead with the sad dignity of camels.
Not far from my house, I was set upon by a flock of girls, and when I finally struggled through to Second Waterway, I had a white aster in my lapel and drying kisses on my cheeks, and it seemed I had met half the girls in town. What a barber! What a Master!
Vousi, in a flaming orange blouse, was sitting in the chair in my study. Her long legs in pointy shoes rested on the table, while her slender fingers held a long slim cigarette. With her head thrown back, she was blowing thick streams of smoke at the ceiling, through her nose.
“At long last!” she cried, seeing me. “Where have you been all this time? As you can see, I’ve been waiting for you.”
“I’ve been delayed,” I said, trying to recollect if I had indeed promised to meet her.
Wipe off the lipstick,” she demanded. “You look silly! What’s this? Books? What do you need books for?”
“What do you mean by that?”
“You are really quite a problem! Comes back late, hangs around with books. Or are those pornos?”
“It’s Mintz,” I said.
“Let me have them!” She jumped up and snatched the books out of my grasp. “Good God! What nonsense — all three are alike. What is it? History of Fascism… are you a Fascist?”
“How can you say that, Vousi!”
“Then, what do you need them for? Are you really going to read them?”
“Reread them.”
“I just don’t understand,” she said peevishly. “I liked you from the first. Mother says you’re a writer, and I went and bragged to everyone, like a fool, and then you turn out to be the next thing to an Intel.”
“How could you, Vousi!” I said with reproach. By now I had realized that it was impermissible to be taken for an Intel. “These bookos were simply needed in my literary business, that’s all.”
“Bookos!” she laughed. “Bookos! Look at what I can do.” She threw back her head and blew two thick streams of smoke out of her nostrils. “I got it on the second try. Pretty good, right?”
“Remarkable aptitude,” I remarked.
“Instead of laughing at me, you should try it yourself. … A lady taught me at the salon today. Slobbered all over me, the fat cow… Will you try it?”
“How come she did that?”
“Who?”
“The cow.”
“Not normal. Or maybe a sad sack…. What’s your name? I forgot.”
“Ivan.”
“An amusing name! You’ll have to remind me again. Are you a Tungus?”
“I don’t think so.”
“So-o… and I went and told everyone that you are a Tungus. Too bad…. Say, why not have a drink?”
“Let’s.”
“Today I should have a strong drink to forget that slobbering cow.”
She ran out into the living room and came back with a tray. We had some brandy and looked at each other, not having anything to say. I felt ill at ease. I couldn’t say why, but I liked her. I sensed something, something I couldn’t put my finger on; something which distinguished her from the long-legged, smooth-skinned pin-up beauties, good only for the bed. I had the impression that she sensed something in me, too.
“Beautiful day, today,” she said, looking away.
“A bit hot,” I observed.
She sipped some brandy; I did too. The silence stretched.
“What do you like to do the most?” she asked.
“It depends. And you?”
“Same with me. In general, I like to have fun and not have to think about anything.”
“So do I,” I said. “At least I do right now.”
She seemed to perk up a little. I understood suddenly what was the matter: during the whole day, I had not met a single truly pleasant person, and I simply had gotten tired of it. There was nothing to her, after all.
“Let’s go somewhere,” she said.
“We could,” I said. I really didn’t want to go anywhere, I wanted to sit and relax in the cool room for a while.
“I can see you’re not too eager,” she said.
“To be honest, I would prefer to sit around here for a bit.”
“Well then, amuse me.”
I considered the problem, and recounted the story of the traveling salesman in the upper bunk. She liked it, but I think she missed the point. I made a correction in my aim, and told her the one about the president and the old maid. She laughed a long time, kicking her wonderfully long legs. Then, taking courage from another shot of brandy, I told about the widow with the mushrooms growing on the wall. She slid down to the floor and almost knocked over the tray. I picked her up under the armpits, hoisted her back up in the chair, and delivered the story of the drunk spaceman and the college girl, at which point Aunt Vaina came rushing in and inquired fearfully what was going on with Vousi, and whether I was tickling her unmercifully. I poured Aunt Vaina a glass, and addressing myself to her personally, recounted the one about the Irishman who wanted to be a gardener. Vousi was completely shattered, but Aunt Vaina smiled sorrowfully and confided that Major General Tuur liked to tell the same story, when he was in a good mood. But in it there was, she thought, a Negro instead of the Irishman, and he aspired to the duties of a piano tuner and not a gardener. “And you know, Ivan, the story ended somehow differently,” she added after some thought. At this point I noticed Len standing in the doorway, looking at us. I waved and smiled at him. He seemed not to notice, so I winked at him and beckoned for him to come in.