By the end of the second day of the October festivities, the majority of Saltovka's residents have grown weary of celebrating and have gone to bed early – many windows are dark, drenched in black. Certain restless groups, however, are still marking the holiday, and from their partly open windows music can be heard. Eddie catches a few notes of the ever popular "My Black Sea… My Black Sea…"
Returning to Svetka's yard, Eddie sits down at the domino table and remains there for a while with his elbows resting on it and his hands covering his face. The branches of a large tree nearby tremble in the wind, and in the light of the streetlamp their blurred shadows, tremendously exaggerated, move across the surface of the table and over Eddie-baby, creating the impression that he and the table are in constant motion.
Remembering that his "first prize," the box of dominoes, is still in his pocket, Eddie takes it out and mechanically lays the dominoes out on the table. "Kill Svetka?" he thinks. "Kill Shurik? Kill them both? Not kill anybody?" Eddie isn't afraid to kill them, but he's held back by a small technical detail – the lack of a murder weapon, his razor. As he lays the dominoes out on the table, he suddenly realizes that he won't kill anybody today. There's nothing to kill them with. And he also realizes that tomorrow he'll no longer be able to find the strength to kill Svetka or Shurik or both of them together. Because tomorrow it will be daytime. And before it's daytime, he will have to sleep. And while he's sleeping, the most decisive part of his pain will leave him, and all that will be left will be the pain he'll have to live with.
"It was stupid," Eddie thinks. "It was stupid not to bring the razor." Obviously it was as a result of taking the notebook with his poems in it that he left his razor behind. "Fool!" Eddie thinks bitterly, since he wants to act the way he's supposed to according to the unwritten laws of Tyurenka and Saltovka. Eddie wants to kill. The kids and punks – public opinion, in other words – will forgive him for the murder, and he'll be a hero for a long time, since he will have acted "the way he should have." They won't execute him for the murder since he's only a minor. The very worst he'll get is fifteen years, which after a bullet in the head is the most severe punishment in the penal code. "Asshole!" Eddie whispers to himself. "You've always been an asshole, and you always will be."
Eddie thinks there's something wrong with him. Probably he isn't the same as the other kids; probably he really is different. Although it's actually a very hard thing to say whether you're the same as or different from other people, since you can't really get inside another person's skin. The other kids don't write poems, of course – they don't know how to – but the fact that Eddie does write them doesn't at all prove that he isn't the same as they are. Still, if he were the same, he would have fucked Svetka. And he hasn't.
Eddie hears footsteps in one of the entrances to Svetka's building – not hers, though, a different one. Somebody is coming down the stairs. When the person coming downstairs finally emerges, whistling to himself, Eddie recognizes him at once – it's Garik. There's nothing remarkable, of course, about Garik's being here at three o'clock in the morning. After all, his Ritka lives in the same building Svetka does.
"Hello, poet," Garik greets Eddie ceremoniously as soon as he recognizes him. And then, noticing the dominoes on the table in front of Eddie, he shakes his head and, lifting his finger to his temple, rotates it significantly…
"Have you gone crazy, or what? Playing dominoes with yourself in the middle of the night?"
"I'm waiting for Svetka," Eddie answers.
"Isn't she home, then?" Garik asks in surprise. "I saw her in the yard on her way home when Ritka and I got back."
"By herself?" Eddie asks, his heart skipping a beat. He so wants Garik to say yes.
"No," Garik answers reluctantly. "She wasn't by herself. She was with your friend Shurik… What's his last name… Ivan… Ivan something… Ivankovsky?" Garik asks uncertainly.
"Ivanchenko," Eddie sternly corrects him. "Only he isn't my friend. He's Svetka's. Was it very long ago that you saw her?"
"I don't know… A half-hour ago? An hour, maybe?" Garik says, shrugging his shoulders. "Did you have a fight or something? And you didn't come to Plotnikov's either. Everybody was waiting for you," Garik says.
"Well, how was it?" Eddie asks for the sake of decency. He doesn't really care "how it was"; he's anxious for Garik to leave so he can go upstairs to Svetka's and… Exactly what, Eddie doesn't know. Burst into Svetka's apartment and knock her down? Strangle Shurik and put an end to him for good?
It's pretty hard to get rid of Garik, however. The Morphine Addict likes to wander around late at night, and he likes to gab.
"It was fun," Garik says. "And your friend Asya was there… She didn't look very good," he announces.
Garik likes everybody else to look bad and him and Ritka to look good. He's a bastard and pretends he's an aristocrat, although his mother's only a nurse and not even a doctor. It's in fact because his mother is a nurse that Garik became a morphine addict. His mother makes home visits to the very sick and gives them morphine injections to ease their pain. So there's never a shortage of morphine ampuls in their house. Garik's mother only recently discovered that her son had been stealing ampuls from her for several years and injecting himself with morphine.
It's clear to Eddie why she never noticed it before. He knows Garik's mother, a hysterical woman who twitches so much that she probably has to give herself morphine injections every day. So how would she know how many morphine ampuls she has? Now, however, Garik has to find other ways to get his morphine. He has to buy it. Which is why he's always short of cash. Once Garik the Morphine Addict even took part in the burglary of a store with them – with Kostya, Eddie, and Lyonka Tarasyuk. He wasn't much use, however.
To Eddie's dismay, Garik sits down next to him on the bench and demands conspiratorially,
"Show me your left hand."
"What for?" Eddie asks in annoyance.
"I can read palms now," Garik says. And without asking Eddie's permission, he takes his left hand and peers at his palm…
"Your hand looks just like an ape's," Garik observes. "Like it's very old. An old, old hand."
"Are you going to read my palm or criticize me?" Eddie asks. He's very interested in his own future and always has been. The Tyurenka Gypsies tried to read his palm many times, but he refused. A Gypsy once read in Veniamin Ivanovich's palm that he would marry Raya, and now he's been married to her for over sixteen years. Eddie doesn't want a Raya for a wife.
Bending so low over Eddie-baby's hand that all his hair hangs down – his hair reaches to his shoulders – Garik examines Eddie's palm…
"So," Garik says, "you'll die when you're in your thirties."
"Thanks!" Eddie says angrily, and pulls his hand away. "You've already read it."
"What are you getting so mad about?" Garik says in a conciliatory tone. "We're all going to die. Some sooner, some later. Your Life line breaks somewhere in your thirties. True, there's a hint that you won't die, that you'll come close to death but will survive. And if you do survive, you'll live for a long, long time."
"Can't you tell exactly when that will happen, so I can at least prepare myself?" Eddie asks half-mockingly, half-seriously. "So I can at least make a will?" Garik's death sentence alarms him.
"What do you think this is, algebra?" Garik says proudly. "Palmistry is unable to give exact dates. All we can do is predict what will happen. Let me see what there is in regard to your Heart line…"
Garik examines Eddies palm, kneading it and scratching it with his fingernail.
"Oh, not too fucking bad," he announces. "I even envy you. Everything's just fine in the love area." So Garik's found somebody to envy now… Even though he's been fucking his Ritka, and that's a certainty.