All talk ceased as he entered the office. Embarrassed, Savage hardly opened his mouth to say hello and his colleagues couldn't hear him. He squeezed through to his desk and caught himself thinking that his movements were so familiar it was as if the three crazy months that had been extracted from his life like rotten teeth had never happened. Hidden behind the tub with its dried-out palm, Savely hung his coat on a nail, switched on his computer, took his pencils out of their case and began to sort out the papers that were scattered untidily over his desk.
His colleagues, with whom, as before, he had no common language even when not talking, watched him apprehensively over their computer screens, but by lunchtime they had forgotten about Savage and were buried in the daily grind. A sleepy fly bumped against the window and their chatter merged with its buzzing.
At the lunchtime break, Savage went down to the canteen that smelled of food and gossip and a sturdy waitress, fat thighs brushing against the tables, swept the crumbs onto the floor.
«You're an unlucky chap,» she said, looking at Savely and shaking her head. «With you, nothing's like it is with other people…»
Embarrassed, Savage concentrated on counting out his change. Behind the counter, a skinny woman with an elongated face that had scarcely enough room for her wide, plump mouth, didn't wait to be asked to serve him the bowls of soup and pasta that, true to habit, he had bought every day in his many years of going to the canteen at exactly the same time. Savage would have liked to ask for mashed potato but took what he was given, tipping the money out for the woman at the counter.
«What did you eat out there?» asked the waitress. She sank down at his table, propping her chin on her fist as she prepared to listen. «Tell me, go on.»
«Leave the bloke alone!» laughed the woman at the counter but, waving her away with a cloth, the waitress leant towards Savage. «Go on, tell me.»
Savage ate in a hurry, his face fixed on his plate and his spoon banging against his teeth but the waitress still stared brazenly at him.
«So, why don't you say something?» she said, trying to draw him out, as he embarked hurriedly on his pasta.
Stacking the bowls, Savage jumped up, nearly knocking over the table, and worming his way between the curious glances, he dashed out of the canteen. The waitress shrugged her shoulders and collected the used napkins. As she looked through the glass at the huddle of plates of food, she tried to imagined what she would have done if she'd been lost in the forest.
It seemed to Savage that his straggly beard was full of pine needles, his torn shirt hung like a sack and when he went down the corridor all the offices could hear the rustle of the plastic wrapped round his feet. He was constantly running a hand over his face, wiping his mouth, and sniffing the heavy odour that rose from his unwashed body. When he passed a mirror, however, he could see that he was clean shaven and was wearing a pressed suit and tie rather than rags.
His colleagues soon got used to his odd ways and, as before, paid him no more attention than the dried-up palm in its tub, which hadn't been watered in his absence. Hidden away behind the cupboard, he thought that some people live like a needle in a haystack and others are like a beam in the eye while Savely Savage was superfluous everywhere, an outsider to everyone.
News of visitors to the town travelled faster than the wind. The townspeople had grey faces covered with dust from the mines and glancing smiles like the northern lights so that new arrivals stood out in a crowd like stars in the sky. After a few days, however, they grew dull and their hearts became overgrown by despondency, turning into moss-covered stones and they drowned their northern melancholy in drink and couldn't wait to leave.
The ore quarry, a serpentine road cut into many kilometres, was so vast that the small town huddled on its edge seemed as though it was bound to fall into its gaping maw at any moment.
«How can you live in such a hole?» muttered a bald man with sharp ears. «This isn't a town, it's a common grave!»
«Like life, death takes some getting used to,» grinned a grey-haired man, scribbling in his notebook. «Mind you, dying here wouldn't be too bad!»
When they looked at the eviscerated innards of the ore deposit with bulldozers working at the bottom, which could hardly be seen from the viewing platform, the Moscow visitors felt tiny and insignificant. In order to shake off this unpleasant sensation, they popped into the Three Lemons and stayed there till the morning.
«Southerners are tight-fisted,» the barman said, distracting them with conversation as he poured out their drinks. «People from the temperate zone are mean and envious but northerners are wise and hospitable!»
The visitors laughed and emptied their glasses.
«That's because,» the barman went on, «there are no indigenous people here, apart from the Saami». People were sent into exile here or assigned here for work. Some came looking for easy money. The best people came along, intermixed and adopted each other's customs and traditions. It's a melting pot, like America. Here in the North, we're all visitors.
The grey-haired man looked around the room then at his watch.
«Any girls in that pot?»
«Of course. They come along in the evening.»
The bald man threw a bundle of money onto the table.
«Close the bar. Only let girls in. All the drinks are on us.»
His companion raised his eyebrows but the bald man showed him the prices in the menu.
«And the snacks!»
The bouncers stood legs apart and blocked the entrance, admitting only girls who flocked in like bees to honey. In the dim light the women seemed more beautiful, the men more intelligent and the adulterated brandy potent.
«You can certainly drink here in the North!» the bald man said, leaning towards the barman.
A kaleidoscope of girls flitted by, dancing and downing their drinks, with heavy sighs and a shake of their heads. Well and truly plastered, the Muscovites turned out their wallets and scattered their money around, flinging it onto the counter, throwing it on the floor and stuffing rolled up banknotes into cleavages. To them, the women's faces merged into one and in their drunken haze the bar seemed chock-a-block with twins, their cheeks flushed from the brandy, their eyes cold and their mouths wide open like the quarry as they laughed and yelled in an ear-tingling clamour.
«Do you feel like an oligarch?» the grey-haired man shouted, cuddling three girls at once.
«We are oligarchs!» said the bald man, doing a little dance, his sharp ears sticking out like wings.
The bouncers made way and Saam came into the bar with a retinue of gangsters. He looked at the dancing Muscovites then, with a nod at the barman, crossed over to his table, which was immediately vacated by the girls.
«Be quiet!» he bellowed and the music broke off. Conversations, laughter, the clinking of glasses and the scraping of chairs could be heard.
«Get them out of here!» the Muscovites yelled at the bouncers «Put the music on!»
«There's no point, guys. Be quiet. Don't cause trouble,» said the barman beckoning them over to appease them but the bald man, staggering, made for Saam's table.
«There'd be a shooting if Coffin was still alive!» a waiter said to the barman who nodded his head and reached for the pistol he kept under the counter.
«This is a private party!» the bald man shouted to Saam, knocking an ashtray off the table. It echoed as it rolled around the floor. «Come back tomorrow. Tonight's just for us!» He turned to the barman and clicked his fingers: «Music!»