26
Once Dymok and Eddie emerge from the crowd, Dymok bounds over to the very tall iron fence that separates the rear courtyard of the Victory Movie Theater from the surrounding square. Eddie follows him. The fence has thick iron spikes five or six meters high that are painted black and end at the top in very sharp points – the kind of spikes that pagans used to impale Christians on in ancient times. Pagan Turks, probably. "I ought to impale that bastard Shurik on one of them," Eddie thinks with hatred.
Despite the fact that there is no gap to be seen and the gate is locked with a chain heavy enough to stop an elephant, Dymok confidently strides up to the fence. Only after he's gotten a little closer does Eddie notice that one of the spikes is missing, and that it's possible to slip through into the courtyard on the other side without any trouble. Which is exactly what they do – Dymok first and Eddie-baby after him.
Eddie immediately sees Tuzik and his gang. On steps of the same kind they have on the front side of the Victory, the boys are sitting in picturesque poses around one unmistakable center – their hetman. After the lighted square, Eddie at first has trouble getting used to the dark rear of the movie theater, where the gang has evidently made a point of eliminating all the streetlights. In keeping with the architectural plan of the Victory, there aren't any windows on this side of the building.
The wind whistles in the trees and the bare bushes along the fence. It is strangely quiet, except for the occasional roar of the human sea carried on gusts of wind from the other side of the square. The sea laps and then recedes…
There are maybe twenty or thirty punks sitting on the steps. Tuzik, in a black jacket and white shirt, his heavy reddish face standing out sharply against the background of the movie theater, has his arm around a blonde with brightly painted lips whom Eddie has never seen before.
"What are you squinting at, poet?… Come on over…," Tuzik says.
"He guessed, the bastard," thinks Eddie. "Is it really that obvious I'm nearsighted?" Vitka Golovashov is only a little nearsighted, and he squints a lot more than Eddie does. Eddie tries not to squint.
Disentangling himself from the girl, Tuzik gets up and offers Eddie his hand.
"How're you doing, poet!" he says. His hand is wide and strong. They say he's as strong as a machine – not hands but flywheels. "Just the kind of hands a hetman ought to have," Eddie thinks with respect. Even though Tuzik drinks like a horse and doesn't do sports.
Eddie-baby is seeing Tuzik up close for the first time. There's nothing particularly noteworthy about his face. Tuzik maybe looks like the overfed sailor in the movie An Optimistic Tragedy. He's not very tall, but he's as broad as a gorilla in the zoo. There's nothing sinister about his face, but judging from his reputation and his actions, he must be sinister. To tell the truth, Eddie was expecting to see a face disfigured by scars and sporting a black eye patch like the ones Stevenson's pirates wear.
"This is Kokha," Tuzik says, introducing the blonde. The girl offers Eddie her warm little hand.
"My real name is Galya," she says. "'Kokha' is my nickname."
"Here, have a swig, poet," Tuzik says, holding out a bottle of vodka, and then, nodding toward the girl, he adds, "She liked your poem about Natasha. Could you write something like that about Galya?"
The weight of uncertainty falls from Eddie's mind. It all makes sense. Tuzik's girl wants a poem written about her. Svetka asked him to write poems about her more than once, too. Eddie knows that women are vain and there's nothing you can do about it. After taking a swig of the vodka, Eddie answers, shrugging his shoulders slightly,
"Sure, why not?"
"What kind of a prize did they give you?" Tuzik wants to know, taking a long pull from the bottle Eddie has just handed back to him.
"Just some crap," Eddie wavers, "…dominoes."
"What whores," Tuzik smirks. "You wouldn't call them generous. I'll pay you cash – just get it written. She really wants a poem about herself," he says, indicating Kokha with his head, even a bit shyly, as it seems to Eddie. A shy Tuzik.
"Only I can't do it right away," Eddie warns him. "I'll need time."
"Well, sure," Tuzik agrees. "You need inspiration. When can you do it?"
"In a week, or maybe two…," Eddie decides.
"All right," says Tuzik. "But remember, I'm going to pay you. It's not for free." And then, in a different voice, as if now that he's finished with the official part he can settle down and enjoy himself, he adds, "Why don't you sit down? What are you standing for?" and throws the empty vodka bottle into the dark, where it smashes against the asphalt. "Sit down, we'll smoke some dope now. Timur!" Tuzik calls.
A gloomy-looking, dark-haired, long-waisted kid in a soldier's overcoat with torn-off buttons who is sitting a little bit higher up on the steps than they are climbs down to Tuzik and hands him a cigarette box.
"Iosif Vissarionovich's favorite brand," Tuzik observes ironically.
And in fact, embossed on the cardboard box in gold is the brand name Flower of Hercegovina. Even five years after Stalin's death, the whole country still knows what kind of cigarettes the leader and teacher smoked.
"But inside," Tuzik continues, "there's a totally different kind of filling." Tuzik opens the box and takes out one of the cigarettes. Dymok, sitting at his feet, immediately offers the hetman a light. Just like a magician.
"They're filled with grass," Tuzik explains. "Timur was born in Tadzhikistan. They serve hashish and weed there in the morning instead of tea. Here." Tuzik offers Eddie the cigarette. "Do you know how to smoke it?"
Since Eddie-baby says nothing, not wishing to admit that he's never tried dope before in his life, Tuzik considers it necessary to give him a short course on how to smoke grass. "Draw it in really deep, as much as you can, and hold the smoke. Don't exhale for as long as possible; otherwise it won't work."
Eddie has heard a lot about dope, but he's seeing it for the first time. He takes the cigarette from Tuzik. It looks just like an ordinary cigarette, only the smell is unusual – stifling. Eddie draws on the cigarette just as Tuzik has shown him, but carefully.
"Well, what do you think?" Tuzik asks happily. "Is it working? Do you feel anything, poet?"
"Nah… nothing…," Eddie answers in annoyance. "I don't feel anything."
Tuzik sucks in smoke with such intensity that the cigarette visibly diminishes. "What else would you expect with a rib cage like he has?" Eddie thinks in awe.
"Here, swallow some more," says the hetman, giving the cigarette back to Eddie. "I'm already feeling good," he announces in a changed voice.
Eddie takes another drag, but he still doesn't feel anything, just the reek of the cigarette and an unpleasant burning in his throat.
"All right," Tuzik decides, "it's not working. Don't waste good stuff. Go get some vodka from the guys!" Tuzik nods toward the punks higher up on the steps.
Eddie climbs the steps, and a kid in a goatskin coat with its sleeves and collar torn off, so that fur curls up around his throat, hands him a bottle.
Eddie drinks and looks at their faces. Nobody he knows. These kids are probably the nucleus of the gang… Eddie knows the relatively harmless Tyurenka kids, the ones who go to school in Saltovka and live around the pond in Vitka Nemchenko's neighborhood. But Tuzik's kids are older, for one thing, and besides that they're obviously almost all from the other side of Tyurenka, the one that borders on Zhuravlyovka, which is why Eddie doesn't know them.
"So the goods really go for the poems?" the kid in the coat asks Eddie as he hands him a piece of cheese. "Here, have a bite! I heard that Esenin was a fearful fucker," the kid says. "He couldn't keep the whores off him."