‘I accept that,’ I agreed again. ‘Write out a receipt.’
This time he looked at me really warily.
‘I think you were in a hurry, driver Gorodetsky …’
‘I was.’
‘And your car … isn’t a Lexus,’ he remarked in a flash of brilliant insight.
‘A correct observation!’ I exclaimed. ‘It’s a Ford!’
‘We could try to resolve the situation – for half,’ the policeman said in a very low voice. ‘And writing out a receipt takes so long …’
I could feel the laugher welling up inside me. He was so very hungry. Of course, for the last seventeen years I hadn’t lived the way other people did. But, even so, I did remember a thing or two.
They hadn’t changed at all since my first meeting with Pastukhov at the Exhibition of Economic Achievements metro station. ‘I tell you what, Roman, write me out the fine,’ I said. ‘I’d really like to save a bit of money and not waste time. Only it makes me feel sick. Do you understand?’
His face seemed to shudder.
‘Do you think it doesn’t make me feel sick?’ Roman asked in a quiet voice. ‘Don’t dare stop some of them … And then there’s others that wave their fancy IDs at you … and they’ve closed down all the factories in my parents’ town, and you can’t buy anything on a pension … and I …’ He faltered, waved his hand through the air and looked at me. He held out my documents. ‘Drive on.’
‘What about the fine?’ I asked.
‘Forget it!’ He swung round and walked back to his partner.
I watched him go. Sometimes remoralisation doesn’t require magic. It was just a pity that this kind of wizardry didn’t work for long – and it didn’t always work … not on everybody.
As I drove slowly back into the lane on the right, I heard the sergeant’s partner exclaim: ‘You what?’
‘Well, you know – he’s a popular actor, in theatre and films …’ Tarasov lied clumsily. ‘Let him go.’
I raised the window, squeezed in between a dusty Nissan and a battered old Volga, blinked my emergency lights to thank them for letting me in. And looked at my watch.
Not bad: I’d be home in an hour and a half.
From here it was about twenty minutes on foot by the direct route, through the side streets and courtyards …
In actual fact I drove up to the building a quarter of an hour later – some switch or other had tripped in the mysterious mechanism of Moscow traffic jams and the pace of the cars became almost lively. I stopped in front of the building, in my usual spot, and recalled that a long time ago I’d cast a spell on this convenient patch of asphalt to prevent other people from parking there. Should I stick consistently to my principles and move the car? That would be stupid – no one else would park on this spot anyway.
So I decided not to count magic employed previously as a breach of terms, climbed out of the car and locked it. Now I would go home, and I wouldn’t need my abilities as an Other there either …
My mobile jingled. I looked at the screen.
‘Dearest, buy some black and white bread, vegetable oil, ten eggs, sausages. And the toilet paper’s running out.’
Sveta always writes texts with capital letters and punctuation marks. It amuses some people and makes other angry, for some reason. I like it.
I shrugged and set off towards the nearest supermarket, the Crossroads. As everyone knows, since ancient times crossroads have been regarded as the meeting places of evil forces, vampires and dark sorcerers – no wonder that was where they preferred to bury them, after first hammering an aspen stake through their chests with texts from Holy Writ attached to it, just to make sure. That was probably how the first road signs had appeared …
The modern-day supermarkets that had incautiously taken this name were not particularly well respected in Moscow, owing to a certain lack of chic and the low-income range of their clientele. But I always felt more comfortable there than in upmarket places with sparser crowds like Alphabet of Taste, Gourmet Globe or Seventh Continent.
I didn’t have far to walk – it only took five minutes. But even so I had time to think with bitter sarcasm that today, having abjured the use of magic, I was bound to get into some kind of scrape. The young checkout girl would short-change me and give me lip. An old pensioner at the checkout would count the change in her hand and sob bitterly as she took the chicken thighs and millet off the conveyor belt and put them back in the basket. A beardless youth would try to buy cheap vodka or fortified wine, and the checkout girl (the same one who was going to short-change me) would pretend that she didn’t notice his age.
Basically, something unpleasant was bound to happen, something on which, in normal circumstances, I could use the weak remoralisation spells available to me because of my rank – Reproach, Crying Shame, or even Disgrace – in order to restore justice and punish vice.
But even now I had no intention of giving in. I was going to show everyone, and in the first place myself, that I was capable of living like an ordinary human being while preserving my dignity and making the life around me better. I would shame the checkout girl (dammit, how had I got landed with this girl I’d never even seen?), pay for the old woman, who would bless me as I walked away, and lecture the youth sternly on the harmfulness of consuming alcohol in adolescence. Basically, I was going to do everything that I always did, only without magic.
It had worked with the traffic police!
So when I grasped a basket and set out on my journey round the shop (right, oil – there it is … the eggs are close by) I was ready for anything. Sausages … bread … the toilet paper’s near the entrance, I’ll pick it up there …
Standing in the queue for the checkout, I automatically picked up a round lollipop and a chocolate egg with a surprise in it off the counter. I thought about how for the last few months these traditional treats had no longer roused the same childish delight in Nadya that they once had.
What could be done about it? Children grow up faster than we can grasp what’s happening.
There was an old woman in the queue. And a youth with some kind of bottle. And the checkout girl was young and lippy-looking, with a piercing in her nose.
I braced myself inwardly.
The old woman set out on the conveyor belt a chicken, a bag of grain (what was this, did my clairvoyant abilities still work, even when my magic was blocked?) and, rather unexpectedly, a bottle of Crimean Cahors wine. And then a plastic card appeared from her little old purse.
‘My terminal’s not working, only cash,’ the checkout girl began.
‘Am I supposed to know the terminal’s not working?’ asked the old woman, instantly joining battle.
‘I put up a sign,’ said the checkout girl. Then she deftly raked together the old woman’s purchases, got up and carried them to the next conveyor belt. ‘Leila, let the granny through ahead of the queue.’
The old woman moved to the next checkout, muttering something indignantly, although she did growl ‘Thank you’ to the girl with the pierced nose. The queues waited patiently. The youth fidgeted nervously, looking at his watch, but he stayed where he was. I studied the sign: Sorry, we are temporarily unable to accept bank cards.
A man who looked like a building labourer bought two packs of two-minute noodles and a can of strong beer, and then set off towards the chemist’s stand with a confident stride. I had no doubt that he was going to buy either ‘antiseptic liquid, 96 per cent ethyl alcohol’ or ‘tincture of hawthorn’, which possessed the additional advantage of having a pleasant smell. And then the youth who came after him didn’t buy any alcohol at all, but some kind of vitaminised lemonade ‘made with natural ingredients’. Maybe he was intending to mix this lemonade with tincture of hawthorn too, of course. But I decided not to think badly of people. Otherwise I would start thinking of them as inferior too.