The blood from the girl's twat for some reason sobers Eddie up, and he suddenly hears everything around him. Groans are coming from somewhere nearby. "Oh-ah-oh," the other girl is rhythmically groaning. "Oh-ah-oh…"
At the moment when Eddie was investigating the fat girl, he was deaf, so to speak, but now all the sounds have returned. Laughing and baring their teeth, the younger kids push the fat girl under the fence. Eddie walks away from them in the direction of the groans…
It turns out that they're fucking the blonde on her coat in the alley. Now Eddie understands where all the older kids have gone. They're all here. Somebody still has a bottle, and they're joking and taking swigs from it while waiting their turn in line.
The girl's legs are pushed up and out. One of the older punks is lying on top of her, supporting himself on his arms, with his pants pulled down around his ankles so that his ass is exposed. He first moves toward the girl and then ever so slightly moves away from her again. The girl hasn't been resisting for a long time, obviously, and her groans are calm now. "Oh-ah-oh," she moans weakly. And again, "Oh-ah-oh…"
The girl has clasped the guy's back with her arms, which look very white in the dark of the alley, and the movements of the two are accompanied by a smacking sound, as if someone were eating sloppily. "Veniamin Ivanovich doesn't like it when people eat sloppily," Eddie thinks for some reason.
Suddenly the guy starts to move really fast on the girl, and finally, writhing, he hisses, "A-a-a-ah!" and climbs off of her. He's done.
Very white in the dark and almost naked, except for her stockings, which have fallen down around her ankles and are wadded up there in awkward rolls, the girl lies in the November air and waves her legs, probably in hysterics. "Well?" she asks hoarsely. "Well, then?"
"She finally likes it now," one of the older punks says. "She's stopped making out she's a virgin."
"Would you like a new prick, you bitch?" another kid asks her spitefully, kneeling in front of her and sticking his penis into her.
"O-o-o-oh!" the girl bleats as if in pain.
"Do you like a big prick, you whore?" the punk asks again, angrily grabbing the girl by her hips and moving her on his cock.
"O-o-o-oh, yes!" the girl answers, breathing with difficulty.
"Now he's going to split her with his log," the other kids laugh drunkenly. "He'll clean out her oven. Mishka has a prick like an elephant's."
Leaning against the fence, Eddie thinks, "So that's what they call fucking. And that's what all of the men and women in Saltovka and Kharkov and the whole world do when they sleep together. And that's what Svetka is probably doing with Shurik."
Under the new punk, the girl's breathing is even louder and more labored. "U-u-u-uh!" she howls. "U-u-u-uh!" The girl emits another trilled groan and then suddenly farts. The kids laugh maliciously…
"Is that what Svetka's doing?" Eddie wonders in horror. "With Shurik? She ought to do it with me," Eddie thinks distractedly. He's starting to get scared. He suddenly understands why Svetka likes Shurik. He remembers Shurik's still sparse but real moustache, the coarse, chapped skin of his cheeks, his big, rough, clumsy seventeen-year-old hands. Svetka, like this girl and the other girl, or any girl when you get right down to it, likes it when her warm soft belly and her warm body are held by rude, rough hands. "It's the contrast," Eddie thinks. "Mushka likes it too."
For the first time in his life Eddie suddenly sees clearly that in the struggle for survival of animals of the male gender, his inborn characteristics are too pisspoor for him to stand much chance of winning. The fingers of his hands are too long, the skin on his face is too tender, and thanks to his half-Mongol mama – Eddie thinks of his mother with hostility – he hardly has any moustache or beard at all. How could Svetka, the most tender, long-legged, and defenseless creature in the world, love somebody like him? Shurik, however, can set her on his tall, hairy knees, grab her with his rough, oarlike hands, rub his razor-shaved stubble against her tender cheek, and Svetka probably feels safe…
Carefully, as if afraid that somebody will stop him, Eddie moves toward the 'source of his pain, moves in the direction of Saltovka, maneuvering among the laughing and drunkenly swearing punks. He's moving toward Svetka. He doesn't understand why, but he's drawn to Svetka.
Several kids are standing near the trolley line looking at something. Lying in the beams of their flashlights (all the Tyurenka kids carry pocket flashlights with them so they can get into their parents' wooden houses at night without turning on the light) is the beaten man. Eddie stops for a moment to look. The man is lying on his stomach with one of his arms unnaturally twisted under him and the other one out of sight. His coat is no longer beige but a dark, dirty color, from the blood it has apparently absorbed. You can't see his face, but in place of his ear and cheek there's a dirty, clotted mass. The man isn't moving.
"I think," Sashka Tishchenko whispers to Eddie, glancing around and looking absurd in this situation with his guitar on his back, "that Tuzik went ahead and hit him in the stomach with his bayonet. He decided to take him out, probably…"
After a brief pause Sashka goes on. "They beat him a long time… Because of the knife. He had a knife. He cut Valka Fitilya's hand, and the kids went crazy. They beat him with chains and a fence board. Each one took a turn. It doesn't take much…"
After another pause, Sashka sighs and says to no one in particular, or maybe to himself, "Got to get out of here… Before the trashes come. He's dead for sure, since he isn't moving." And then he turns off his flashlight. "The guy had bad luck…"
28
It's already very late when Eddie finally reaches Svetka's building. Only after he has entered her yard does he realize that he has no idea at all what to do next. He has no definite plan. He has come here by following his instincts. But once he's in Svetka's yard, his instincts abandon him.
Svetka's windows don't look out onto the yard but onto the street. Stealthily, like a criminal, although he really has nothing to be afraid of, Eddie goes around Svetka's building, steps a little away from it, and looks up at her windows on the second floor. They're dark. Either nobody's home, or else they're asleep.
Remembering that Svetka has two other windows, the ones in her own room, which are on the other side of the building. Eddie slips around to that side and checks those windows too. The blinds are drawn, but even so, if a light was on, you'd be able to see it.
Precisely because rumor has it that Svetka's mother is a prostitute, she and Svetka have a separate two-room apartment all to themselves. "Only somebody like Veniamin Ivanovich could manage not to get a separate apartment, even though he's a trash," Eddie angrily thinks about his father. Eddie's furious with everybody tonight.
"Should I go up and ring her bell?" Eddie wonders to himself. "But if her mother's home, she'll get really mad, since it must already be after two, must be between two and three. And what if her mother isn't there and Svetka's with Shurik?" Eddie thinks. "What happens then?" When he grabbed his notebook of poems to go to the Victory, he forgot to take his razor too. "It was that goddamn dude Kadik!" Eddie thinks angrily. What can he do to Shurik now without his razor? Eddie has no idea – he's half drunk and can't concentrate. He stands there and looks up at Svetka's windows.