On his way back to the dress circle with Rachel, since that's where their seats were, he was already starting to feel ashamed of his action, but there was nothing he could do about it now. Rachel easily straightened the matter out and, not wishing to offend the girls, found them good seats of their own. But as they were leaving, Asya gave him a dirty look of such intensity that it even sobered Eddie-baby up. The Plague was also scornful of Eddie-baby and upset about what he had done. The Plague had already managed to become quite friendly with Olga and had learned from her that Asya (whose real name was Liza Vishnevsky, though her parents and friends called her Asya) had just come from France, that she and her family had been repatriated from there, that Asya was the most interesting and romantic girl Olga had ever met in her life, that she was her best friend, and that Olga was ready to sacrifice her life for her.
"What the fuck did you do that for?" the Plague said. "What the fuck for?" Eddie-baby himself didn't know why. Just out of stubbornness, probably. He wanted to have things his own way. Eddie-baby had had things his own way his whole life.
14
Asya and Eddie-baby were reconciled within the month. In the first place, it turned out that they lived almost next door to each other – only a few buildings separated them. The buildings in Saltovka are arranged according to no particular system; there aren't any yards between them, just bushes and trees. It's obvious the architects who built the district were dreaming of a city of the future landscaped with forests of maples and groves of elderberries.
Passing among the slender limbs of the maples and the low, dusty elderberry bushes, Eddie-baby had frequently seen a girl walking ahead of him or behind him, invariably wearing long dresses that reached to the ground, and velvet coats with hoods. Asya had two such coats – objects of envy to the other girls of Saltovka, and rather like Kadik's alpine parka, although that was something that Eddie-baby would encounter only later on. Sometimes Asya was accompanied by her classmates, and sometimes she was alone. Eddie-baby finally summoned up his courage and said to her, "Hello, mademoiselle!" And she answered, "Hello, barbarian!"
It was evening and a light snow was falling, and Eddie-baby walked with Asya around her building for a long time. They talked about books they had read – Asya was amazed at how well read Eddie-baby was; she hadn't expected him to be – and then they talked about the Soul, about God, and about Love.
Eddie-baby had already talked about the Soul, about God, and about Love with another girl, a beautiful girl who resembled an angel from a medieval picture – Veta Volin. That she looked like an angel was something that the senior Pioneer leader Sonya Alekseevna had told Eddie-baby, not something he had thought up by himself. But it was different with Veta Volin. Eddie-baby was desperately shy with her and finally made the decision to kiss her only a whole month after their first meeting. Asya, however, kissed him herself on that same snowy evening, and the snow fell on their faces and on their lips, so that their kisses were wet. They were both terribly cold after their three-hour conversation, and Eddie-baby very badly needed to visit the toilet. Asya's and Eddie-baby's lips were ever so cold, and Asya's smelled slightly of tobacco – she was a heavy smoker…
They never really fell in love – there wasn't any romance – but they did become true friends. The reason there wasn't any romance was because, as Asya said, Eddie-baby was first of all unfortunately a year younger than she was, and besides that, they both turned out to have very strong characters. "Two such strong people cannot be lovers," Asya said. Asya was the first person to realize that Eddie-baby had a strong character.
"How's Svetka?" Asya asks, drinking a little wine and setting her glass down on the table. After that, she goes to the door and closes it. From the door she crosses to the window, opens the transom, and only then lights herself a cigarette. Her parents don't smoke.
"How is she? The same as she always is," Eddie-baby answers, shrugging his shoulders. "She was recently seen at a dance at the Stakhanovite Club with Shurik."
Asya sighs. She sympathizes with Eddie-baby's love for the capricious and impetuous Svetka, although she also believes that the daughter of a prostitute is no match for him. Everybody in Saltovka knows that Svetka's mother sleeps with men for cash. But Asya bows down before love and takes an active advisory part in all the romantic affairs of her friends and girlfriends.
"Perhaps I ought to punch his face in?" Eddie-baby asks thoughtfully.
"That would be silly," Asya objects. "How do you know, maybe there isn't anything between them. Can't they just go dancing somewhere together? And anyway, why the idiotic habit of settling everything with your fists?… After all, he's your friend too…"
"What do you mean, my friend!" Eddie answers, frowning in annoyance. "It was Svetka who introduced us. He's her friend…"
"All right," Asya says, "look at the problem from a different angle. Considering it logically -"
"Wait a minute" – Eddie-baby stops her – "how can you consider things logically with Svetka? When we were celebrating May Day, the first time we were together, it was very logical from her point of view to run off to the pond to drown herself. And that's not even mentioning the fact that the pond is a long way off, so that you'd lose all desire to drown yourself by the time you got there… She's crazy!"
"Eddie!" Asya interrupts him. "You're the last person to say anything like that. Even your own friends think you're crazy, or didn't you realize that?" Asya says, becoming agitated and waving her cigarette around.
"They do?" Eddie-baby asks incredulously.
"Of course, I don't think so myself," Asya says, "otherwise you wouldn't be sitting here in my home. I think you are a sensitive boy and very fine, whereas almost all your friends are crude working-class guys and girls who don't understand what you're like. But you're a nice one too! It's your own fault Svetka ran away from you to drown herself. What did you expect when you showed her your knife and said you'd cut her if she betrayed you?"
"She was dancing with Tolik Lyashenko. And for too long," Eddie-baby points out in confusion. "It seemed to me she was pressing close to him. And later on, when we were all playing spin the bottle, the kids laughed in a disgusting way when Svetka went into the other room with him to kiss, and they were gone for a long time… And anyway, I didn't want to cut her, I just wanted to scare her a little."
"Very nice!" Asya says indignantly. "If I were her, I'd never speak to you again. But she probably loves you, since she came back to you after that."
"Do you think so?" Eddie-baby asks with hope in his voice.
"Of course!" Asya replies. "Although, as you know, I don't feel that your relationship with her has much of a future. You're completely different from her, she's not the right kind of girl for you."
Eddie-baby is silent.
"I think I understand you," Asya continues. "You and I are kindred spirits -"
A bell rings in the hallway. Asya leaves and comes back with a girl wearing a chestnut coat. The girl has short black hair and is leaning slightly on a walking stick. Clenched between her teeth is a pungent White Sea Canal Russian cigarette.
"Allow me to introduce you," Asya says. "This is my friend Katya Muravyov. She was repatriated too. Katya writes poetry, like you. It's her heritage. Her ancestor was the famous Decembrist Muravyov-Apostol, who was executed and who also wrote poetry."
"Hi." The girl tersely greets Eddie-baby while firmly shaking his hand. "Glad to make your acquaintance."
"Katya lives in Moscow, but she's visiting me," Asya tells Eddie.
"Pleased to meet you. Eduard," Eddie introduces himself.
"Is that really your name?" the short-haired girl asks impudently, deftly moving the cigarette to the other corner of her mouth. With her tongue. Eddie-baby knows how it's done…