Here, among the higher officials, nobody thought that listening to a street singer was uncultured.
The street singer sang praise to the guests and they tossed money into his hat and showed him to the kitchen. The officials started singing themselves.
If only they hadn't sung! Then, everything would have been fine and it would have just been corrupted bureaucrats' drunken debauchery. But they sang so well! Bemish had a difficulty imagining state department officials coming to their boss's party and singing so well — or signing such papers at the same party.
Or was it all related? And will the poetry follow the corruption on its way to extinction? Mr. Andars departed Chakhar, burned by him, for the capital and composed his most beautiful poetry cycle about summer and fall. He was probably very happy. He probably obtained a lot of booty on the Chakhar trip.
Eight years later, Kissur and Andars found themselves on the different sides of the same sword and Kissur had hung rebellious Andars and loved listening to his poetry.
The next week, Bemish arranged a return feast at his villa.
During the dinner, Shavash kept glancing at Inis, who was serving the guests. When she, having provided the guests with the sweets, walked by Shavash with an empty tray, the official pulled her to himself suddenly and seated her on his knees. Inis jumped off hurriedly, upsetting Shavash's cup with her sleeve. Fortunately, there was no wine left in the cup.
Excusing himself, Shavash left earlier than the others. Bemish walked him down.
Getting in his car, Shavash said.
"Inis is charming, Terence. They say you made her your secretary? She is as smart as she is attractive, isn't she?"
"Yes."
"I will never believe it! Would you like a bet — I will take your secretary in for two weeks, and if I am satisfied, I owe you fifty thousand."
Bemish was silent.
"Mr. Bemish!"
"I can't do you this favor, vice-minister."
"Let me have her for one night, then. She can choose afterwards."
"Look, Shavash, have you asked Kissur to let you have Idari for a night?"
"How can you compare it?" Shavash was offended. "Idari is a highborn lady and what do you have here? A small briber's daughter that you bought for thirty thousand — they cheated you by charging twice more than the regular price."
"Get out of here, vice-minister," Bemish said, "before you hurt yourself over my fist."
In the evening, after all the guests had left, Bemish walked upstairs to the bedroom. Inis lay in the bed. Bemish sat on the blanket's edge and the woman, propping herself up, started to unbutton his jacket and shirt.
"This official, Shavash, asked me to hand you over to him," Bemish said. "At first, he hoped that I would offer you myself and, then, he couldn't hold it any longer and just blurted it out. I almost trounced him."
Inis shuddered.
"Don't give me away to Shavash," she said. "He is a nasty man. He has five wives and a whip for each one. He hangs out in red light streets at night and locks himself with his secretaries during the daytime — a week ago a secretary of his hanged himself — they said he embezzled too much. And how he entertains himself in bawdy houses!"
Bemish reddened. His knowledge of Shavash's behavior in bawdy houses was based on personal observations. And he doubted his behavior was much better.
The next day, when Bemish walked upstairs, Inis's room was empty. A pale note lay lonely on the table. "I hate him. But he called me and said that he would hang my father."
Bemish was at the ministry of finance in an hour. He threw a frightened secretary away and appeared at Shavash's office door.
"You scoundrel," Bemish said. "I'll tell Kissur everything. I'll tell the sovereign…"
"And the human rights committee," the official nodded. "I don't want to place you in an uncomfortable position, director. I assure you that Inis's father deserves a rope — I have his dossier here. It's pretty horrible — all these dirty tricks that a small, stupid, and greedy briber can commit, the dirty tricks that ended with deaths and dishonor. Can you believe that — for a bribe, he switched some names on the arraignment orders after the Chakhar rebellion, he accepted as completed a water dam that burst in a month and destroyed a whole village. I assure you — if you complain to the sovereign, her father will certainly be executed."
"Give me back my wife," Bemish screamed.
The official stood up unhurriedly from his armchair, walked around the table and stopped right next to the Earthman. Bemish stared right into his attentive golden eyes and long lightly mascara coated eyelashes.
"What do you want from me?" Bemish said. "Deals? Bribes?"
Shavash smiled at the Earthman without answering. Shavash was still very beautiful, maybe slight overweight for his height, and Bemish was surprised to notice some grey strands in his hair.
Shavash raised his hand slowly and suddenly started to unbutton Terence's jacket. Bemish was confounded and he closed his eyes. The hot hands slipped under his shirt and a soft voice sounded right next to him.
"If you want to quench your thirst, don't quarrel with a spring, Earthman."
Bemish didn't feel repulsion. But he definitely felt horror. Shavash's lips appeared next to his and, at least a minute passed, till Bemish realized that they were kissing. Then, a phone rang far away.
Bemish came back to his senses.
His jacket was unbuttoned, the shirt stood out above the pants in a funny way and something jutted in the pants. The small official stood in front of him and looked at the Earthman with laughing eyes.
Bemish raised his hand lifelessly and wiped his mouth with the palm. "Beat it," Shavash said. "Take your concubine and beat it. She bores me. She mewled in bed all night."
Bemish retreated crabwise to the door, turned around and rushed out. "Button yourself, at least!" the official sarcastically shouted after him.
Having torn out the office door handle, Bemish jumped out into the foyer. Something flapped in the air and a plastic folder fell at Bemish's feet with multicolored pages standing out. It was the folder with the Inis' father dossier. Bemish snatched it and kept running.
Nobody believed that Kissur would make friends with the Earthman. Greenmailer, par venue, gobbler that has recently swallowed a small automated door company with LSV help and used it as a step to swallow something bigger; one of the youngsters, that Trevis made his money with — a nobody without Trevis. This man had the crappiest reputation on Wall Street. "The hungriest of Trevis's scoundrels," the director of the automated door company said about him after he had been fired. How could Kissur, who considered a well-behaved president of, say, Morgan James to be an usurer fit for the gallows, be friends with this financial horse thief?
The friendship between the Earthman and Kissur caused a bit of harmless gossip — everybody expected that either the Earthman calls Kissur a pedigreed bandit or Kissur reproaches Bemish with the latter's passionate avarice. However, Kissur's presenting Bemish with his manor, caused thoughts and glances in the five main precincts.
Bemish visited the capital police prefect to sign a paper with a blue line. The prefect congratulated him with the manor, sighed and said.
"You shouldn't be so close to Kissur. Do you know how he launched his career? He and his seven friends robbed a state caravan. They killed thirty six guards and Kissur put the caravan master's head on a stake, thought the man was not guilty of anything except having children and an old mother that he needed to support. Then, Kissur quarreled with the robbers because their leader didn't want to step aside for him and he baked the leader in an earth oven."