“Listen, go and tell that prick not to touch me. He keeps touching my leg,” Alya said, flaring her nostrils.
“What prick?”
“Come on, I’ll show you.”
Why does she think it’s my job to drive men away from her, I thought lazily, sliding off the stool. She’s put on the shortest skirt you can imagine. And she shows her legs… they’re beautiful… to everyone. ‘Come on, I’ll show you’ — that’s a way to talk… after all, I don’t tell her where to go.
She has long legs, yes, only she herself isn’t attractive. But her legs are wonderful.
“That guy.”
I nodded and went up to the table where the three Moscow guests were sitting. It was their driver who had been stroking the waitress’s leg. He watched me coming over.
“Please, don’t touch the waitresses anymore,” I said, leaning over. “OK?”
The driver shrugged his shoulders.
“I didn’t touch anyone.”
“All the better,” I replied and walked away.
Silly sheep, I thought again. She should wear a more decent skirt, she’s not at a children’s matinee performance…
I had only just got back to the foyer — it was empty, which was not allowed, because someone could get in without a ticket — I had just walked in, when the tall Muscovite stopped me, touching me on the shoulder.
“You insulted my friend,” he said.
“I didn’t insult anyone,” I replied, tired. But this was a different, almost weak-willed tiredness, not the one I felt at the start of the evening, that arose from predictable human insolence, which I could break so easily.
“He didn’t touch anyone, and you insulted him, you ruined his evening.”
“What do you mean, he didn’t touch anyone, if she’s complaining?” I said. Molotok was still away somewhere.
“He didn’t touch her,” his voice was well-modulated, and as he talked he trembled with an approaching fury that was prepared to break out, which I had nothing to resist with. “I think you should go and apologize,” he said.
To hell with it all, I thought and went back to the table.
“Your friend says that you didn’t touch anyone,” I said to the driver, who was looking away. “If that’s so, then I apologize. I hope everything was as you say. In any case, our girls should be left alone when they’re working.”
The short guy, the one whom Syoma called a “samurai,” was drinking juice through a straw, and his face grimaced, like a little monkey about to sneeze.
I still went back into the foyer, and even went outside, feeling as if I had suddenly lost a lot of blood.
Thirty meters or so from the club, the foreign car still had all its lights on, and the teenagers whom Molotok had insulted were sitting in the car.
Vadik came out, seeming embarrassed.
“Zakhar… That tall Muscovite… He told Alya that they’d kill her if she complained.”
I nodded, unable to decide what to do.
I held a cigarette in my hands, and for the first time I didn’t feel like smoking, I felt a little sick, and my head was spinning. I went into the hall, and the first thing I saw was the poser. His drunken and sweaty face was blurred, as if he had no face muscles.
Molotok appeared from somewhere.
“Everything OK?” he asked.
I nodded again: all OK.
“Where were you?” I asked, although I didn’t care.
“That ‘Afghan’ is in the club again,” Molotok said, not hearing the question. “He ran in while we were getting rid of those jerks… Shall I throw him out?”
“No, don’t,” I replied.
The poser walked past us, brushing me with his shoulder.
“Something has to be done,” I thought. “Something has to be done. I need to pull myself together. They’re like animals, they sense everything…”
“He’s got a glass,” Molotok nodded towards the poser.
“Sir, you can’t take glasses outside,” I said to the poser.
He stared at me disdainfully, took a sip of wine and spat it out on the steps, almost hitting the girl who was standing below.
“Go back inside,” I asked again.
“Weren’t you already told how to behave?” the poser replied, turning his blurry, disgusting face to me; in his thick-lipped open mouth, like something alive, ready to fall out, his moist, thick tongue moved.
God, how does he know, I thought miserably.
“Behave like you were told,” the poser said.
I swallowed thick saliva and saw that the “Afghan” was standing nearby, making strange movements with his fingers, as if he was flexing them, and was listening to us.
The rain began to fall again, slowly and sparsely.
The tall Muscovite walked past us, haughtily, with a very satisfied expression on his face, and was already walking down the steps, when he suddenly turned around.
“So, you got it, right?” he said to me loudly.
I didn’t reply. Molotok looked around uncomprehendingly, looking me in the face a couple of times.
“Didn’t you hear me?” the Muscovite asked, turning back and walking right up to me.
“I can hear everything,” I said distinctly.
He nodded and went to the jeep.
The “Afghan” behind my back laughed hoarsely. The poser made strange movements with his face, as if he wasn’t letting something inside his mouth jump out.
“You were told, you can’t take glasses out with you,” Molotok, who had no idea what was going on, finally said to the poser.
“Don’t touch me,” the poser replied, and turned back, accidentally splashing wine on Molotok’s chest, and returned to the club.
“Shit!” Molotok cursed in a whisper and began to brush the wine off his chest.
“You got wet, guys!” the “Afghan” shouted and laughed again.
“Fuck off,” Molotok said to him, and the “Afghan” found this even more funny, he was already hoarse with laughter.
We returned to our counter and sat down on the stools. I leant my head against the wall, pushing the beret to the back of my head and revealing my wet forehead.
“What’s wrong?” Molotok asked. “I don’t get it. What happened?”
“Nothing,” I replied. “You can see for yourself that nothing happened.”
“Why did that tall guy talk to you like that then?”
Molotok fell silent, dissatisfied. He didn’t like my replies. He thought to himself, and you could see how hard it was for him to think without expressing his thoughts out loud.
The club patrons began to disperse.
I sat at the counter, trying not to see anyone or think about anything, but for some reason I imagined that everyone walking past was looking ironically at me. It seemed intolerable — but I endured it, I put up with it, and smoked…
The packet was running out. I didn’t take it off the counter anymore.
The girl who had come up to me — …imagine, I didn’t ask her name… I thought — also walked past me without saying a word, without even nodding her head. She took a taxi and drove away in it without turning around. I looked at her from behind the glass, for some reason waiting for her to turn around. It was important.
Molotok kept silent, sometimes watching me taking out a new cigarette, then turning around immediately as soon as I lit up — so he didn’t have to look me in the face.
The “Afghan” stood on the steps for a little longer, still swaying, and sometimes twisting his face into a smile. Then he waved a hand in our direction, and, swaying, walked away.
At about five in the morning, once he had calculated the takings, Lev Borisych rolled past, and left without saying goodbye. He never said goodbye, in fact.