"All right," the invisible Vovka Zolotarev concludes, now satisfied. Something hisses and clatters in the loudspeaker. "Press the button to the right of the door and come in."
Grishka, winking at Eddie, presses the black plastic button, and the door opens of its own accord.
"Everything's automated," Grishka says enthusiastically, turning to Eddie. "Vovka doesn't even get up to open the door. He just lies in bed and picks up the receiver and presses his buttons."
For all his automation, Vovka still has to share his apartment with somebody else. He has sworn to outlast her and take over her room. For the time being, however, the large room in the apartment belongs to Vovka and one of the two smaller rooms to his mother. Both he and his mother are pressuring their neighbor by every possible means, but basically by tormenting her with Vovka's music and his way of life. The neighbor, whom Vovka refers to as "Mashka" even though she's forty years old, calls the militia at least twice a week, which is easy, given the fact that the station's right next door and you can see its yard from the window. But since Vovka's outrageous behavior doesn't actually involve physical abuse, and since he is employed, there's really nothing the militia can do. They don't even come anymore. Vovka's convinced them that Mashka is crazy.
Now, if Vovka were a parasite like the kids in the Blue Horse, they could do something, such as exile him 101 kilometers away from Kharkov, but since he isn't, they can't do anything. Vovka isn't even a dude or an alcoholic, although he does drink a lot and has company every night.
Although nobody ever calls him anything but "Vovets" or "Vovka," Vovka is actually a pretty old guy – more than thirty. But he doesn't like to associate with men his own age. He prefers schoolboys. Even Sashka Plotnikov drops by Vovka's from time to time. Vovka maintains that he has a lot more fun with schoolboys. And he sleeps with and screws girls Eddie's age. Galka Kovalchuk from Eddie's class humped Vovka for a while, and everybody knew about it.
12
Vovka really is lying in bed in his room with his clothes on. On the wall at the head of the bed is a panel with numerous indicator needles, buttons, knobs, and lights, which Vovka himself installed in a very professional manner. That's his Control Panel. It's a rare thing in Saltovka for anyone to have a phone, but installed in Vovka's panel is a telephone receiver that he uses to speak to visitors on the other side of his door. Vovka threatens to "cop" himself a real telephone someday. He says the militia promised to let him tie into their line. "It's very possible," Eddie thinks. Vovka is the kind of guy who goes after things, and now that he's gotten acquainted with the militia through Mashka, he works for them as an electrician – for free, obviously – and has been helping them set up their communications room. He realized that he needed to make friends with them.
Vovka's face is almost invariably stern. People who don't know him might think he's a boring or somber person, or that he just woke up and is still vividly experiencing a bad dream. Nothing could be further from the truth. Vovka is simply a businesslike person, and everything he does – every one of his movements – is calculated.
"Greetings!" Grishka says, and puts his fire extinguisher down on the table. Like all the other tables in Saltovka, Vovka's is in the middle of the room.
Vovka gets up from the bed without answering, shakes Grishka's hand and then Eddie's. His hand is extremely limp. There is a vast gulf between Vovka's overflowing energy and his external appearance.
Once again without speaking, Vovka goes over to the sideboard, opens it, and takes out a few small glasses. After that, he goes into the kitchen and comes back with a large plate of pickled cucumbers, a hunk of bologna already carefully sliced, and some pieces of black bread. Putting the plate on the table, he looks thoughtfully at Grishka's fire extinguisher and then goes back into the kitchen and returns with a bottle of vodka and three forks. After placing the bottle on the table, he goes over to his panel and moves one of its levers. Western music flows into the room from invisible speakers. Vovka is no less a specialist in Western music than Kadik is, although he doesn't play the saxophone, merely the guitar.
As they are sitting down at the table, Grishka asks,
"Where's Mashka, Vovets?"
Grishka wants to be polite and start a conversation.
It's apparent that he has hit the nail on the head. Vovka's face, in any case, becomes noticeably livelier.
"She hauled her ass off to visit her little kurkul brother in the country," Vovka says, pouring vodka into the faceted glasses. All his movements are amazingly precise and professional. He pours out the vodka remarkably evenly, although he hardly looks at the glasses. It's clear that Zolotarev has been doing this all his life.
Looking at Vovka, Eddie-baby is reminded of a machine designed to pour mineral water into bottles, a machine of the kind he recently saw in a documentary film on television. "Clack – pour…, clack… clack… clack… next… clack!"
"May she be bull-fucked while she's there," Vovka says.
Eddie-baby saw Mashka the last time he visited Vovka. Nothing special – a woman like any other. Large, a bit of a bumpkin, a fool probably, but the sort you'd wish a bull on? That's just talk on Vovka's part. Eddie-baby imagines Mashka with a bull and surprises himself by snorting.
"What is it?" Grishka asks.
"I was just imagining Mashka with a bull," Eddie answers, smiling.
Grishka neighs loudly, holding his abundantly pimpled neck in the vicinity of his ear. Grishka likes to laugh emphatically and at length; it's a way he has. Maybe he wants to seem relaxed or grown-up – Eddie-baby has no idea. Grishka, laughs now for a particularly long time, and Eddie-baby feels awkward with Vovka around.
Grishka stops laughing and they lapse into silence again, although it is eased by the music – saxophones droning and trumpets blaring in a boogie-woogie. It occurs to Eddie that if Kadik were here, he would know at once what the piece is and who's playing it.
Several minutes pass while Vovka and the kids chew, snap cucumbers, squeak their chairs, and slap their hands on the table in time to the music, but are otherwise silent. It's always like that with Vovka – you don't know what to say until you get drunk, and then it's a lot more fun. After that Vovka is just another member of the group – they're all hosts – and it gets noisy and smoky, and the kids laugh and tell jokes. If any of the kids bring girls to Vovka's, they get up and dance. It turns into something like a club, with Vovka as the director.
"Well, let's get on with it and have another one," Vovka suggests, and without waiting for their consent, he again fills up their faceted little glasses. And again just as precisely as a machine.
"You, Vovets, could get a job at the philharmonic with that number," Grishka says in a nasal twang, snickering and pointing to the glasses.
Vovka doesn't reply but takes his glass and lifts it into the air. "Cheers!" Vovka toasts, and then empties the glass into his large, toothy mouth. Besides his ugly mouth, Vovka has another defect – he stoops and is shorter than Eddie, although the girls still like Vovka, probably because he plays the guitar and sings. In fact, Eddie's father once tried to teach him how to play, encouraging him with the promise that the girls would like him better if he could play the guitar and sing. It turned out, however, that Eddie had no ear or voice for music.
Still, he does like to sing. When he was little and had a good relationship with his mother and father, he would sometimes sing for them. His mother and father would sit on the couch, and Eddie would stand next to the table with a songbook in his hands and sing. Eddie-baby's preference was for folk songs. His favorite song was the old ballad about Khaz-Bulat.
The ballad's story is a bit unusual and is constructed in the form of a conversation between an old warrior from the mountains and a young, obviously Georgian prince. The prince is trying to persuade the old man to give him his wife: