“He — is tired,” I said.
“Oh, so? Well then, I can leave!”
“But I won’t let you,” I said, catching her by the scarf and pulling her down beside me. “Vousi, dear girl, are you a specialist only for ladies’ good humor or in general? You wouldn’t be able to put a lonely man whom nobody loves into a good humor?”
“What’s to love?” She looked me over. “Red eyes and a potato for a nose.”
“Like an alligator’s.”
“Like a dog’s. Don’t go putting your arm about me, I won’t allow it. Why didn’t you come over?”
“And why did you abandon me yesterday?”
“How do you like that —.abandoned him!”
“All alone in a strange town.”
“I abandoned him! Why, I locked for you all over. I told everyone that you are a Tungus, and you got lost — that was a poor thing for you to do. No — I won’t permit that! Where were you last night? Fishering, no doubt. And the same thing today, you won’t tell any stories.”
“Why shouldn’t I tell?” I said. And I told her about the old Subway. I sensed at once that the truth would be inadequate, and so I spoke of men in metallic masks, of a terrible oath, of a wall wet with blood, of a sobbing skeleton, and I let her feel the bump behind my ear. She liked everything very well.
“Let’s go right now,” she said.
“Not for anything,” I said and lay down.
“What kind of manners is that? Get up at once and we’d go. Of course, no one will believe me. But you will show your bump, and everything will be just perfect.”
“And then we’ll go to the shivers?” I wanted to know.
“But yes! You know that turns out to he even good for your health.”
“And we’ll drink brandy?”
“Brandy and vermouth and a polecat and whiskey.”
“Enough, enough… and no doubt we’ll also squeeze into cars and drive at a hundred and fifty miles per hour?… Listen, Vousi, why should you go there?”
She finally understood and smiled in discomfiture.
“And what’s wrong with it? The Fishers also go.”
“There is nothing bad,” I said. “But what’s good about it?”
“I don’t know. Everybody does it. Sometimes it’s a lot of fun… and the shivers. There everything — all your wishes come true.”
“And that’s it? That’s all there is?”
“Well, not everything, of course. But whatever you think
about, whatever you would like to happen, often happens. Just like in a dream.”
“Well then maybe it would be better to go to bed?”
“What’s the matter with you?” she said sulkily. “In a real dream all kinds of things happen… as though you don’t know! But with the shivers, only what you like!”
“And what do you like?”
“We-e-ll! Lots of things.”’
“Still… imagine I am a magician. And I say to you, have three wishes. Anything at all, whatever you wish. The most impossible. And I will make them come true. Well?”
She thought very hard so that even her shoulders sagged. Then her face lit up.
“Let me never grow old,” she said.
“Excellent,” I said. “That’s one.”
“Let me…” she began inspiredly and stopped.
I used to enjoy tremendously asking my friends this very question and used to ask it at every available opportunity. Several times I even assigned compositions to my youngsters on the theme of three wishes. And it was always most amusing that out of a thousand men and women, oldsters and children, only two or three dozen figured that it is possible to wish not only for themselves personally, or their immediate close ones, but also for the world at large, for mankind as a whole. No, this was not witness to the ineradicable human egotism; the wishes were not invariably strictly selfish, and the majority in subsequent discussions, when reminded of missed opportunities and the large problems of all mankind, did a double take and in honest anger reproached me that I hadn’t explained at the beginning. But one way or another they all began their reply along the lines of “Let me…” This was a manifestation of some kind of ancient subconscious conviction that your own personal wishes cannot change anything in the wide world, and it makes no difference whether you do or do not have a magic wand.
“Let me…” began Vousi once more, and again was silent. I was watching her surreptitiously. She noticed this, and dissolving into a broad smile, said with a wave of her hand, “So that’s your game. Some card you are!”
“No — no — no,” I said. “You should always be prepared to answer this question. Because I knew a man once who always asked it of everyone, and then was inconsolable — ‘Oh what an opportunity I missed, how could I not have figured it out?’ So you see it’s entirely in earnest. Your first wish is never to grow old. And then?”
“Let’s see — what else? Of course, it would be nice to have a handsome fellow, whom they would all chase, but who would be with me only. Always.”
“Wonderful,” I said. “That’s two. And what else?”
Her face showed that the game had already palled on her, and that any second she’d drop a bomb. And she did. All I could do was blink my eyes.
“Yes,” I said, “of course that, too. But that happens even without any magic.”
“Yes and no,” she argued and began to develop the idea, based on the misfortunes of her clients. All of which was very gay and amusing to her, while I, in ignominious confusion, gulped brandy with lemon and tittered in embarrassment, feeling like a virgin wall flower. Well, if all this went on in a night club, I could handle it. Well, well, well… some fine activities go on in those salons of the Good Mood. How do you like these elderly ladies…
“Enough,” I said. “Vousi, you embarrass me, and anyway I understand it all very well now. I can see that it’s really impossible to do without magic. It’s a good thing that I am not a magician.”
“I really stung you well,” she said happily. “And what would you wish for yourself, now?”
I decided I’d reciprocate in kind.
“I don’t need anything of that sort,” I said. “Anyway, I am not good at things like that. I’d like a good solid slug.”
She smiled gaily.
“I don’t need three wishes,” I explained, “I can do with one.”
She was still smiling, but the smile became empty, then crooked, and then disappeared altogether.
“What?” she said in a small voice.
“Vousi!” I said, getting up. “Vousi!”
She didn’t seem to know what to do. She jumped up and then sat down and then jumped up again. The coffee table fell over with all the bottles. There were tears in her eyes, and her face looked pitiable, like that of a child who has been brutally, insolently, cruelly, tauntingly deceived. Suddenly she bit her lip and with all her strength slapped my face. While I was blinking, she, now in full tears, kicked away the overturned table and ran out of the room. I sat, with my mouth open. An engine roared into life and lights sprang up in the dark garden, followed by the sound of the motor traversing the yard and disappearing in the distance.
I felt my face. Some joke. Never in my life have I joked so effectively. What an old fool I was! How do you like that for a slug?
“May we?” asked Len. He stood in the door, and he was not alone. With him was a gloomy, freckle-faced boy with a cleanly shaved head.
“This is Reg,” said Len. “Could he sleep here too?”
“Reg,” I said, pensively smoothing my eyelids. “Of course — even two Regs would be okay. Listen, Len, why didn’t you come ten minutes earlier!”
“But she was here,” said Len. “We were looking in the window, waiting for her to leave.”
“Really?” I said. “Very interesting. Reg, old chum, how about what your parents will say?”
Reg didn’t reply. Len said, “He doesn’t have parents.”
“Well, all right,” I said, feeling a bit tired. “You’re not going to have a pillow fight?”
“No,” said Len, not smiling, “we are going to sleep.”
“Fair enough,” I said. “I’ll make your beds and you can give all this a quick clean-up.”
I made their beds on the couch and the big chair and they took off their clothes at once and went to bed. I locked the door to the hall, turned out their lights, and went into my bedroom, where I sat awhile listening to them whispering, moving furniture, and settling down. Then they were quiet. About eleven o’clock there was the sound of broken glass somewhere in the house. Aunt Vaina’s voice could be heard singing some sort of marching song, followed by more breaking glass. Apparently the tireless Pete again was falling down face first. From the center of town came the cry of “Shivers, shivers.” Someone was loudly sick on the street.