It was a little before eight when she unlocked my apartment with her set of keys and shouted from the doorway.
“Wake up, sleepyhead!”
She sped down the hallway, poked her head into the bathroom, shot a probing glance at the kitchen, and barreled right into the room where I was sleeping, naked, as usual, so I finally gave her a good show.
“Ooo.” She sat down next to me and touched my shoulder. “Whatcha got there?” she asked, examining my tat. “Is that a dog?”
“It’s a dragon. It’s not finished yet, that’s all.”
“Nah, that’s no dragon. That’s a dog. Look, here’s its tail. It’s a wiener dog.” She touched my dragon again, sending waves of fire across my skin—but she hopped off the mattress before I could deliver a good comeback. “Come on, get dressed,” she ordered. “I want to show you something.”
I put my clothes on in a hurry. I’m generally a pretty confident dude, but after the wiener dog, I wasn’t in the mood to argue with her. Dasha opened up the balcony door, stepped outside, stood there, and waved. “Come on,” she said, “what’s the holdup?” There she stood in her white hotel robe. Her hair was pulled back into a bun, and she had apparently slept that way, so it looked like an array of vegetables a chef had selected with exacting skill for the soup of the day. I walked over gloomily.
“All right,” she said, looking around. “Let me show you the neighborhood and then you can go back to sleep. Look,” she began, making room for me on the balcony. “You see that?”
I peered down. There was so much sunlight that it blinded me and blurred the objects near the ground. My eyesight came back to me almost instantly, though; things regained their shape and colors grew fuller. Greenery and heat were ushering out the month of May—fresh air was lying on the rooftops and pooling between the apartment blocks. Schoolkids were running down the street, a few other people were zooming around, and a street sweeper stood on the corner, his vest flashing orange. “Today is no ordinary day,” I thought. “Today is something like a holiday.”
“So, that’s the school,” Dasha said, pointing at the building across from us. “I didn’t go there because I only moved here three years ago, but just so you know, some freaky stuff goes on over there. The principal often spends the night in her office, but not by herself—she has visitors… a car with diplomatic plates. They blast Italian pop music all night and stick their heads out of her office window to smoke. She has a red nightgown, just so you know. That’s the beauty salon next door,” she continued, pointing. “Those girls give each other nail extensions all day. They go outside for smoke breaks, take a seat on the bench—you see that bench up against the wall—whichever of them just got her nails done has to have her girlfriend pluck the pack out of her pocket. Then they sit there like owls digging their claws into the wooden bench. Check it out sometime. There’s a real shady restaurant around the corner—every morning the owner walks around in a pink kimono, talking to somebody on his little girly cellphone. A little farther back, there’s a sports bar where a bunch of Arabs watch the European soccer leagues. A while ago some Vietnamese guys opened up a seriously gross buffet—I’ve never seen one of them eat any of the food they make. Next to the Vietnamese joint, in the alley, there’s a sauna that’s just a front for a brothel—something to keep in mind… There’s a vacant building next to that; bums hang out there in the summer months—kinda neat. Local artists have their studios next to the bums—make sure you keep ’em straight. And there’s a TB clinic across the way. So, what else do we got?” She looked to the left. “There’s a publishing house over there. I suspect they hide documents for companies that do under-the-table accounting—fresh packages of paper come in at dusk and corpses wrapped in Chinese rugs go out at dawn. The city fathers have a mansion a bit farther down—it seems like their mistresses are living out their days there. Sometimes I see them on the back porch—not the city fathers, obviously—their mistresses, drinking their tea mixed with rum. The youngest lady is about seventy or so.”
“You serious?” I asked incredulously.
“I’m dead serious. By the way, she has a red nightgown, too. She’s always just standing there, drinking her tea. Her rum tea. They just put up a new apartment block over there, but nobody wanted to move in at first. It was too pricey. So some construction workers lived there for a bit—they unrolled their sleeping bags, cooked meat on open fires, and rummaged around in the warehouses for something good to eat. I’m tellin’ ya, they lived like a band of partisans. Down around the corner, there are a few convenience stores, but they’re always closed for some reason. Nobody really knows what kind of business they’re actually running. I’ve seen some young women go in there, but I’ve never seen them come out. There are some houses on small lots at the bottom of the hill—there’s nobody living down there—but hey, there’s nobody dying, either. There are tons of trees. Everything’s in bloom this time of year. On the top floors, the lights are always on at night, and there’s generally some kind of business—maybe a Xerox place, or a notary, or a place where they make headstones—on the lower floors. There’s a gas station and some auto repair shops down the road—and the river, too. The army recruiting office is right below us,” she said, leaning down. “I know a couple of secretaries who work there… it’s a real tough job, it wears you down. Have you served yet?”