NINE

Translated by Kathleen Cook.

THE WOMEN AND THE SHOEMAKERS

Our idea of the literary hero is quite different today from that of earlier times. For writers then it implied above all deviation from the norm, hostility to society, even to a pathological extent. Their heroes were strange, unusual people, maniacally obsessed, out of place in real life, doomed to heroism.

«The poor creature should have bought herself a sewing machine!» a sympathetic reader once said of Madame Bovary in a mixture of real life and fantasy. To which her more sophisticated companion replied: «Then she wouldn't have been the heroine of the novel.»

Does this mean then that being a hero involves the destruction of life as a natural order of things; that the author is bound to cripple a perfectly adequate existence, that the novel is, in fact, a mutilated life resplendent with gaping mortal wounds?

What would have happened to Flaubert's novel if Emma Bovary had in fact ignored the author, refused to give herself up to carnal passion, and bought a sewing machine instead?

And could we possibly imagine a heroine, or simply a protagonist, to whom nothing very much has ever happened? Caught fast in a cocoon-like quiet equanimity, she has never been truely happy, although real misfortunes have passed her by. Her service, if she can be said to have performed one, could only be that she represents the norm with which true heroes clash, a wall to bang their heads against interminably, or, you might say, the amorphous grey anonymity that provides a background for them. To serve, just serve, to have no meaning, to stand in the common ranks, to assert nothing, to deny nothing, to keep out of the big picture, never to speak on a platform or lead anyone into battle — the most ordinary existence, which can hardly be to anyone's credit.

Our heroine lived in an old wooden house with aspidistras but no running water, her small daughter, her husband and her elderly mother-in-law. The girl's father, heroine's husband and mother-in-law's son was a thick-set lecher, who would make a pass at any woman, even the ones in calico overalls who swept up leaves at the steam-baths. His cheerful nonchalance suggested that he viewed this existence as the norm, the natural order of things. His mother and wife would wait patiently throughout his long absences, and it is quite possible that their life would have continued in this pattern of enforced waiting and joyless meetings, had he not one day, in a blind moment induced by a rather special woman, thrown his wife out of the house and given her a parting smack on the backside to boot.

He hadn't meant to insult her, just whacked her like a ball — clear off, you're in the way. Yet strangely enough, this slap, which was not a serious blow, just a token, so to say, became a kind of «moment of truth» for our heroine, as if the curtain had been raised prematurely revealing the naked hulk of an unfinished stage-set on which the beauty of life was to be played out. She was not afraid of the bare wooden crossbeams still smelling of pine, the mechanism of the intersecting joints, cogwheels, hooks, blocks, ropes and pulleys suddenly exposed to view, but gone suddenly and forever was the young girl's dreaminess with its fragile wings, the blind trust in life and expectation of surprises. All that remained was the way she walked, which made people behind her call «Hey, miss!» then apologise «Sorry, madam» when they caught sight of her face.

Two years went by. The mother-in-law was allocated an apartment with running water in place of the old wooden house, took the aspidistras with her and found her daughter-in-law and the little girl in their hostel. They went to live with this white-haired old woman who was trying to redress the wrongs of the past, but without the husband, now enamoured and lured away by a woman with an almost masculine voice and a rudimentary beard.

They rarely left their cosy apartment with the aspidistras, bought a sewing machine with an overlock, and a tailor's dummy, and began to make leather berets, handbags, fashionable coats of long-haired wool, and even wedding dresses for which the mother-in-law made pink and cream flowers, light as puff-pastry, and long satin gloves with pointed triangular finger tips or oval ones like grapes. The old woman could never sew without showing off her stitching and pleating skills. All three of them were remarkably well dressed, and that was the only remarkable thing about them. The needle's eye had launched them into the world. Through it they saw and sensed reality. And through it, in turn, reality scrutinised them, bestowing its modest joys and blessings.

The new apartment was near a shoe factory, and the faces of the local residents bore all manner of blemishes and bruises, from a tobacco yellow to a purplish-black, in which they took pride like badges of distinction, the women even more than the men. Theirs was a tense, proud life, with ecstatic singing, raucous shouts, unruly family brawls that spilled out into the street and attracted rings of onlookers who surveyed the unsightly bloody consequences with a deferential distaste.

Among the shoemakers was an artist whose apartment was packed with unsold pictures. Quite a few people were willing to buy, swap or simply take advantage of his weaknesses and wheedle them out of him, these cruel, masterly pictures, but that wasn't how it usually turned out. For a start the artist would make his client stay for a drink in his studio, stinking of urine and tobacco, with cockroaches scuttling from behind the pictures and long, muddled conversations punctuated by belches and heavy drinking, all this in vast quantities and with the best of intentions. Then suddenly he'd turn nasty, fly into a rage and start a fight that should have ended in hugs, but did not usually get that far, because the art-lovers, unlike their author, soon capitulated.

Watching this life from the sidelines one might have thought the shoemakers had read and learnt by heart the founder of Socialist Realism and were simply acting out the script to the letter. But this was hardly the case. Most likely the founder himself had actually hit upon the bitter truth, namely the deep-seated attraction for heroic art, however shabby its attire.

The local fool Boriska was always going up to people in the street, even children and old ladies with dogs, asking them if they felt like a drink. Hearing the occasional no, he would blush and mutter in a barely audible whisper, to his own amazement, «And I never drink.»

When our heroine and the old woman decided to replace the plumbing in the bathroom and lavatory whose terrible roars and gurgles seemed to harmonise with the street noises outside, they were forced into a closer acquaintance with the shoemakers than they might have wished.

«Third floor! That'll be three grand for you, ma!» they announced, blotches glistening gleefully. In the fetching and carrying that ensued some vital parts went missing on the way, such as pipes, taps and even for some obscure reason the cistern lid, although who could possibly have wanted to pinch that. But disappear it did, in transit into the dark jungle of the shoemakers' mysterious realm.

In their innocence the women phoned the shop, which dispatched a team of young, loud-mouthed, skinhead loaders now suspected of stealing. They made short work of the crafty shoemakers, without wasting any words or any time on words.

From among the group of suddenly alert but still contemptuous shoemakers they picked out the ringleader and grabbed him by the jacket so deftly that only the collar remained forlornly embracing his scrawny neck. The snide yells of the mob ceased instantly, and they produced the missing parts, laying them silently at the victors' feet like captured banners on a public square.

Yet all the same these silenced men radiated arrogance, the superiority of tradition over upstarts and pretenders, backed by the universal cry: «Can you possibly understand, dear Sir, what it means when a man has nowhere to go?» And the founder of Socialist Realism together with many other men of letters would certainly have understood and loved them for it. And the more silent and depressed they were, the more obviously serious and important they seemed; after all it was not for nothing that the double-headed eagle, the emblem of the medieval shoemakers, survived to become the standard of a whole state. And although they never took part in opinion polls and didn't give a damn about elections, they were capable of creating a fair amount of mayhem in private life, and life as we know, is always private.

«Ladies!» cried one of the upstart loaders fervently from the porch platform as they were departing. «Fancy asking that lot to help you. They're all dickheads! Be sure to call us next time.» The women didn't know how to thank them.

In spring when everybody was dressed up to the nines like butterflies, their business was going so well that they were able to buy a plot of land and plant marrows and strawberries. But just when things were looking so good, the mother-in-law suddenly went down with flu and died shortly afterwards of complications leading to heart failure. Our heroine finished off the collar of the man's silk shirt that her mother-in-law had been making, so that every tiny stitch was as even and neat as possible. But she could not lose the sense of naked loss. It was as if she had been robbed of all her possessions at the railway station before setting off on a long journey.

When some people die the sense of loss dominates all other feelings, even long, deep feminine grief, and lingers on achingly, as a solitary street lamp destroys the peace of night with its dull glow.

At the funeral our heroine caught sight of her husband. He was peeping out from behind an enormous woman, a new one, without a beard this time, but still out of the ordinary. He had his arm respectfully round her waist and winked at her, pleased with himself as usual. The shoemakers crowded the cemetery with their usual air of self-importance. No one was going to keep them out — they knew the rules. They all stood silently around the grave with nobody to make a speech. Then out of the trees a man came forward, wiping his tears and told them the old woman had once been a care-worker at an orphanage and had helped him get up in the world. But it was obvious from his tattered coat and scruffy haircut that she had done nothing of the sort and he was as forlorn and destitute as ever. After this the rain in the cemetery seemed like the beginning of a universal deluge, and beneath its steady downpour it was irrelevant who had made or not made what of whom.

At the table when they had all warmed up, the orphan turned out to be a man in an expensive sweater with the limpid wandering eyes of a womaniser, which shifted gently from our heroine to her fifteen-year-old daughter, not looking them straight in the eye, but somewhat lower, as if approving the finish of their skin. The shoemakers behaved quite peacefully at the funeral dinner, knocking back their drinks unobtrusively, and even downing the fruit punch, little fingers crooked daintily. One of them was indignantly assuring his neighbour that he never pissed inside the house entrance. He would rather get it frost-bitten than piss in the entrance. Nobody had thought of accusing him of this so the impassioned fervour with which he kept defending himself was hard to understand.

A week after the funeral our heroine sat her daughter down at the sewing machine, and the girl pressed the pedal, singing happily like a bird, as if she had been born to it. She had no friends and seldom went out except to school and her dancing class, as if her needle eye was very narrow with no need of broader impressions, anything new or unknown, and her girlish trust in life encompassed everything she did, never demanding, always satisfied, as if it fed on air.

In lieu of payment for a satin-collared blouse, a woman they knew who worked in a marriage bureau selected some photographs of the girl from an album, added the words «Blue-eyed blonde would like to meet…» and sent it round the world. Letters began to arrive in different languages with photographs of men, shops, swimming pools and big cars. The daughter was fascinated by them and asked for some money one day to buy a dictionary. The cat also showed an interest in the box containing the gaudy sweet wrappers of this brightly coloured alien world.

To avoid paying for a lined leather jacket the marriage bureau woman offered our heroine long term credit to buy a licence for a dressmaking business and promised her two assistants and some clients. She also invited some local officials who «might be useful» to their little contract-signing celebration. Two of them left, but the third went to sleep on the sofa. They decided not to wake him up. Next morning the guest apologised and took his leave, but returned that evening and asked if he could spend the night there. Our heroine phoned the woman to find out the name of the man in the dark-blue sweater. She laughed, but told her.

Every day the mother sat sewing. The daughter came home from school, dealt with the letters and wrote some herself, glancing occasionally into the dictionary. The man in the dark-blue sweater went off and came back in the evening, amazed at himself because no one had invited him or tried to keep him. He just felt like coming back here instead of some callous place infested with the pain of unrealised hopes. He bought fish and vegetables for supper. The days passed uneventfully, without sorrow or joy, changing only the colour of the sky and the attire of the trees, but not the essence of life, which changes, if at all, slowly, imperceptibly, each change demanding a heroic effort.

One day the daughter read a letter out to her mother. «When David and I were fixing the motor bike our instruments were spread out on a newspaper. As I glanced at it and read your advertisement, I wondered if this was my fate,» the girl translated.

«He's an architect from London who lives in Cape Town. He likes it there. It's warm and sunny. Look at this!» She waved a photograph of a bronzed foreigner squinting against the background of a dazzling turquoise swimming pool. He had a kind face like a pedigree dog and was wearing linen trousers. «And that picture is by his son David.» The picture showed a horse with red wings rearing up over blue waters with a black-haired boy-rider in swimming trunks. «It's a self-portrait. He's taught the children to make model aeroplanes and to draw. Shall I write to him?»

Six months later the girl finished school, got a passport, a leaving certificate and flew off to Cape Town. Then she sent a form asking for her parents' consent to her marriage and an invitation to the wedding. She was marrying the architect.

Our heroine tracked down her husband, now living alone for some reason.

«Will you take me back?» he asked.

«Sure I will,» she agreed easily, without implying any sense of injury. «As night-watchman for the warehouse.»

He spat morosely, but all the same went to the notary's office to record his consent, peering sadly and thoughtfully through the tram window at the women outside.

A year later the daughter came back. «I can't stand it any longer. The boys drive me mad, pestering me for food and trying to scare me all the time. With a mouse or a snake. There are snakes all over the place, slithering around under the windows. If you throw a banana into the bushes it starts a real battle. Neil won't teach me to draw. He just wants to lie in bed with the shutters drawn. And it's so hot! Never any hope of winter» She opened the window, broke off an icicle and put it in her mouth laughing joyfully. «I'm pregnant! They say it's a girl, and I've promised to go back as soon as I've had the baby, otherwise he wouldn't let me go!»

Neil sent his wife some money and asked her to come home as soon as possible. He also sent several unanswered letters to his mother-in-law, which the daughter did not think to translate, so our heroine had no idea they existed.

Then a parcel arrived with a picture by David. Another self portrait on a red-winged horse, only this time the rider had no swimming trunks and his little willy was sticking up.

«He does that on purpose» the daughter confided. «They're all idiots, those kids. With them around you could never grow up.»

The girl answered the letters affectionately, thanking them, but she didn't want to go back to Cape Town and sat down at the sewing machine instead to make little caps and nappies. In the autumn she gave birth to a daughter, called Anna after her dead grandmother, and all four of them began to live together, neither happy, nor unhappy, and died as is only right and proper each in her own time without experiencing any particularly beautiful or unusual feelings, apart from a sense of gratitude that God looks after the shorn lambs and protects them from the wind, whenever he can.

Here one should probably conclude that such a life would be no good at all as the basis for a novel, because it is so poor, so unprepossessingly awkward, and certainly not made of the delicate pale saffron silk that Madame Bovary chose for her one and only ball at La Vaubyessard. And that most likely even this account of such a life would not have seen the light had it not taken place in the vicinity of the shoemakers with their folk heroism that spices the whole story like hot pepper.

NINA

Being left by her husband is bound to change a woman one way or another, to produce a kind of curvature of the emotional spine. For Nina the consequences of the divorce were a lack of trust in people that surprised even her, a fear of change and a mulish obstinacy. What is more she developed the habit of trying to keep warm by enveloping herself in heavy dressing gowns, fur jackets and shawls with tangled bobbles of wool. Wrapped up like this she would stew away like kasha in the oven, wallowing in the slow warmth, treasuring it, avoiding draughts and open doors for fear that they might bring something unpleasant.

The break-up with her ex-husband had been unpleasant, quick and shattering. A friend ran in and asked if she knew where Zhenya was. Nina replied, where he always was — away on a business trip. The friend's eyes narrowed. «Oh, no he's not. I saw him today at the bus stop with a woman.»

Nina was stunned. Although she did not confront him with it, he seemed to sense that she knew and deliberately got on her nerves by complaining every single day that he was fed nothing but fruit preserves. That she, Nina, was filling him with sticky-sweet apricot preserves. She thought he had said «killing» him. Then one day in a fury she spattered a whole jar of preserves all over the wall and he, mightily pleased with himself, went off never to be seen again. She was left with Vaska the black male rat that occasionally emerged from behind the cupboard to survey his domain, and her little daughter she had mindlessly given birth to by her fickle husband.

Mindlessly, because at the sight of intellectual men Nina lost the ability to think straight although she was well aware how equivocal and evasive they could be in their dealings with women. You could never tell what they were after, whether it was you know what or not. Yet shivers ran down her spine at the sight of owlish spectacles and carefully washed pink hands accustomed to brushing everything aside. Particularly if he was wearing a long dressing gown and had a pipe in his hand. A sight like that was enough to make her grovel at his feet slavishly grateful for she knew not what. Nina would suddenly go dumb. Her silence was actually a challenge, a call for action, but action of what sort? How could she guess what he wanted? At this point, however, she preferred not to deliberate. Instead she relied on her own obstinacy to guide her onto the true path, like the torch on a miner's forehead.

And here she was today, caught unawares like an idiot and quite unprepared. She couldn't have guessed from the telephone call that he would be like this. Instead of her pleated dress she was wearing an old green sweater with a wooden pipe-shaped ornament. And there he stood in his glasses, beret and casually belted raincoat. While he was looking through the folder of music she had decided to sell because it was cluttering up the study, she deftly removed the head from a salmon and garnished the fish with spring onions, oil and olives. Her miner's torch had switched full on, thank goodness. When he looked up from the music and saw the table had been laid, the visitor smiled happily, rubbed his hands and went out to get some beer.

They took a long time over the meal, savouring each morsel, as if they were eating it for the first time. The fish was juicy, the beer just right, and they praised it lavishly, each saying they had the tastiest bit. He stretched out a hand over the table and touched the wooden pipe-shaped ornament on her breast — it was warm. His voice was silky from the yellow beer and artful.

Nina did not respond at once. She had learnt from her husband to choose her words carefully, because he got quite exasperated if she picked the wrong one. Her idea of doing her daughter's hair in «sausage-curls» for a nursery-school parade provoked a reaction out of all proportion, which included the Young Family Encyclopaedia being hurled out of the window and threats to jump off the balcony. Nina remembered the incident because it was both funny and frightening. Her husband had also made her wary of questions beginning with «why» and «what for». Answers such as «the tram got held up», «I forgot my key» or «I changed my mind» produced a barrage of additional «whys» which confused her and made him tear his hair. No answer was ever any good. The best thing was to keep quiet and let it pass over. When you kept quiet you seemed more convincing and they left you alone.

Nina pointed with her chin at a shelf with some unusually-shaped empty wine bottles. He took the hint with a big smile and went off to the Wine World shop, returning with two emerald green bottles. Nina reflected aloud that the wine would go down even better with a nice piece of meat.

The meat hissed and sizzled in the deep frying pan. Faces flushed, they ate and drank themselves to a standstill and sat there blissfully replete from the life-giving juices.

«I must be going. It's high time», he said sadly to the empty bottle.

«High time,» it reverberated. The echo spun the words round lightly, turning them into a sad question, but he heard it and replied.

«They'll be waiting for me.»

«Waiting for you?» Nina's voice trailed off on its own grieving path. «Who's waiting?» Her voice was really unhappy now, and as before the visitor grasped everything with his inner ear.

«Oh, my wife.» He had intended to say this lightly, but it came out quite differently. Evidently his wife was no laughing matter.

«Your wife. Not for me. No one's waiting for me.» Her voice had really let itself go now, vibrating with a kind of greyish-green absinthial anguish.

The visitor stood up, kissed Nina's onion-smelling hand meaningfully and bowed, while Nina blushed at the proximity of his barleycorn hair. Having taken his leave he sat down and reached for the bottle again, the full one this time, not the empty one.

«Maybe it's not time after all?»

«No, it isn't,» crowed Nina's detached voice.

«No, it's not,» the visitor pronounced. «I can stay another hour or two. In fact I must.»

Nina happily prepared some open sandwiches with sprats, topping the dead gold-flecked fish with thin slices of lemon. They had a few more drinks — they had been quite shattered by their recent parting and now they were invaded by a sense of mischief, prickly as fir needles.

«So what's she like, your wife?» asked Nina brashly, not really expecting this to disconcert him. He was too chubby and cheerful for that, no sharp corners.

«Fine. She's a skilled musician. Very intelligent.»

«But is she nice?»

«Eh? What did you say?»

«Is she nice? Kind?» Nina suddenly got so agitated that she took a three-litre jar of fruit preserves firmly out of the fridge and started searching for the bottle opener in a state of complete and utter confusion, constantly reminding herself what she was looking for and what it looked like — a hammer and sickle, a hammer and sickle.

«I wouldn't exactly say that,» he replied, uttering something he would normally have shrunk from saying. «I'd say she is a good person. But why do you ask?» Hearing no reply, he looked at her back. The back said everything she thought on the subject, and they seemed to agree — he and the eloquent back. He experienced a wild sense of relief when he said what he had wanted to say for a long time. But he also realised straightaway that this was a trap. For it was one thing when only you knew, but quite another when you shared the knowledge, and now the detached bit was demanding some appropriate behaviour from the non-detached bit. The detached bit was inescapable, there was no getting away from it. You can run away from something that hasn't been said, but once it's out they'll catch you and hand you the bill. You've said it now, so pay up!

Reflecting thus, he unexpectedly fell asleep in the armchair, his thick round beard pointing upwards. Vaska the rat took advantage of the opportunity to come out and make sure there had not been a foreign invasion, but retired reassured — no aliens. You can escape uncomfortable thoughts by going to sleep, because although thoughts are stronger than man, man is more devious than thoughts. He has other ways of living as well.

Nina also dozed on the divan. She dreamed of a sweet-smelling meadow with flowers, fluttering butterflies and humming insects. There were women in headscarves haymaking, men with pitchforks and a motorbike. But she slept lightly and kept getting up to put a small stool under his feet, cover him with a tartan blanket or simply feast her eyes on him. At one point he woke up and asked the time, then said he must go and went back to sleep. In the morning Nina examined him carefully. A bespectacled man without his glasses is irresistible, but doubly so when he is asleep, for he appeals to the maternal instinct as well. You could see how harmless he was, like a little child, with his damp eyelashes and fine blonde hair.

Nina sighed and went down to the shop for some beer, then decided to get some fish, salted crackers, lemons, olives and ham. He woke up, lost and guilty, kissed her hand and said miserably, «I must be going.»

«Have a beer before you go.»

«Do you think I should?» he hesitated.

«Yes. I do. What about you?»

«I don't want to go, but I must.»

«Must?» Nina's thoughtful eyes reproached him, and he began to wonder too — what for? In fact the question «what for?», if not understood superficially, in its everyday meaning, is a disturbing one, with a sting like a wasp. He didn't want to think. He just wanted to enjoy himself, without any dreary questions.

The visitor went to have a shower and sang a few bars in an attractive, beery bass, then downed a mug of beer, cheered up and told Nina two very smutty stories about some friends of his.

One of them, on tour in Alma-Ata, booked a double room in a hotel for himself and his friend. Then, also accompanied by his friend, he found a woman right there in the hotel, and the two of them made love to her together. But the thin, sallow-faced creature turned out to have an appetite for men as voracious as a refuse-disposal unit and kept complaining «more», «more», «no good», «no good», which absolutely paralysed them. Eventually the exhausted hero could bear it no longer and told her to clear off. She wouldn't. He threatened to call the manager, at which she screeched in a real fury that she was the manager and that as of now they were no longer staying there, because hotels were not for… At this point he trailed off.

The second story was no better. One evening a friend of his was offered a girl in a restaurant, a real good looker in high heels. They retired to his room and everything seemed fine, until she went off to the bathroom to get undressed. What emerged was a completely naked creature with the most obscene blue prison tattoos all over except on her hands and feet. This monster sat down on the arm of the chair, ran her hand through the poor man's greying hair and cooed: «My little silver fox.» Next morning his colleagues found him in a hotel on the other side of town.

Nina resisted the desire to laugh. Because people sometimes misunderstand and think you are laughing at them. So she just said «poor chap» and saw from his face that she had hit the nail on the head. All men are poor chaps if you think about it. She had always thought so at least. But you mustn't give way to them too much or you will be even poorer. Actually she had enjoyed it. She always liked hearing how people had been disappointed, and feeling sympathetic and sorry for them. She liked to feel involved. And these stories, although silly and smutty, were about people being disappointed.

It was while Nina was feeling sympathetic that things began to happen. He finally put his hand on her knee. Casually, absent-mindedly, as if nothing special was going on. Without looking at her, he stared pensively at the ceiling. Then the hand was removed. Nina shifted very slightly towards him, also absentmindedly, as if nothing special was going on. Then he put his hand back on her knee and inched his way up very slowly. Nina watched as the light material of her Indian skirt was raised and gathered into folds like a window blind, revealing more and more white skin, and at last, unable to restrain herself any longer, opened her legs wide and threw back her head, arching her neck.

They dressed afterwards and went out into the raw cold wind to buy a bottle of brandy. Nina fried some meat with potatoes and spices, while he watched in silence, his arms round her waist. She did not need to be told that everything was right between them. From raw to cooked, from hard to soft, from strange to familiar. That's the way it goes. Not only in the frying pan. They ate and drank leisurely with relish.

«A museum needs a curator,» he said. «A teacher should have a pupil, a nurse a patient and a railway engine a driver. A key needs a lock and vice versa. That's the way things are, and praise or blame don't come into it.»

«No, they don't,» Nina echoed. This was why she liked intellectual men. Because whatever they told you made it easier to understand things. You could always repeat it without fear of making a fool of yourself.

«It's time I went.»

«It's late, half past eleven. Wait till tomorrow. In for a penny, in for a pound.»

«You're right as usual.»

He grasped her under the arms and laid her, rich and creamy as well-cooked soup, on the sofa.

Next morning, after a protracted breakfast, he dialled a number but kept getting the engaged signal. Nina revelled in this sign that seemed to augur well, but eventually took pity on him and decided to help. She got through straightaway.

«Hello.»

«Please don't worry. Your husband is at my place. Nothing has happened to him.»

Her visitor leapt off the sofa and began rushing up and down, waving his hands in horror as if warding off a cloud of mosquitoes.

«Why on earth did you do that?»

«I don't know. It was all so unexpected.» Nina forgot about her resolution not to answer questions beginning with «why».

«But you could have kept quiet and said nothing, couldn't you?»

«Unexpected situations always make me say something,» Nina insisted.

«And is it always something silly?»

«Yes, it is. But perhaps not always,» she looked warily, but no shouts ensued. «Maybe it was better like that.»

«I don't think so. On the contrary, I think it made things worse.»

«She doesn't love you.» The obstinate miner's torch on Nina's forehead switched full on.

«Oh, for heaven's sake. Aren't things bad enough?»

«There's a hole in your pocket and your top button's missing.»

«Bad omens,» he mocked. «Why were you looking in my pockets?»

«I wasn't,» said Nina in an aggrieved voice. «Your key fell out and I put it back.»

«Alright, I'm sorry. But I must go now.»

«Can I see you home?»

«That's funny,» he shrugged his shoulders. «Like kids do. But come along if you like. Nobody's wanted to do that since I started school.»

As it happened they didn't have far to go. It was about a twenty-minute walk. Nina was disappointed that they got there so quickly. But glad they lived so close. They stood outside the door indecisively. He lifted his hand to ring the bell and gave Nina a meaningful look. She stood her ground, because the torch told her not to budge and not to get in a flap. Nobody opened the door.

«Want to see what my place is like?»

«Mm. What a lot of books.»

They took off their coats, and Nina perched decorously on the edge of the sofa.

«Well then?» He slapped his knee. «How about a little farewell drink?» Nina didn't like his changed manner. He was now quick and business-like. And wouldn't look at her. «There should be some fruit in the kitchen.» He began to pour them some red wine.

Nina went off to the kitchen and found a wicker basket with apples and oranges on a clean wooden table. She touched the blinds. Were they made of straw? At that moment a key turned in the lock and in came a pretty woman with a pretty girl. Unable to brake, Nina found herself moving towards them along the corridor. The woman took off her boots casually, blew a curl from her forehead, neatly removed the fruit from Nina's hands, who was now totally at a loss, and barked:

«Out you go, the pair of you. Quick march.» The command was as loud and clear as on a parade ground.

Outside he slapped his forehead and roared with laughter. Then looked at Nina and laughed even louder at the sight of her affronted, puzzled face.

«My wife,» he announced, with a puzzling air of pride, «makes up her mind about anything in twenty seconds flat. And has never been known to change it. She switches straight from question to answer, bypassing the two stages of thought and feeling, of which she in her sniper-like fashion has no need.»

«Thanks for the explanation. I'm still coming round, but I do understand,» Nina mumbled, making him chortle again.

«Don't sulk. Instead, oh, wisest of women, tell me what we're to do now.»

«Have lunch,» Nina sighed. «What else can we do if we've been thrown out?»

«Correct, top marks. I've got a concert this evening, to which I now officially invite you. Oh, by the way.» He fell about laughing again, as if a bubble had burst inside him and he couldn't restrain himself. Nina waited patiently. «I quite forgot to thank you for seeing me home.» This upset her, but he still seemed to find it all enormously funny. «So that was the plan. I'm terribly grateful to you for seeing me home. I really am. It was a brilliant idea.»

«What's all the laughing about,» Nina retorted. «You've just been thrown out.»

«That's my punishment,» he brushed it aside. «From on high. Still we won't waste any time, will we?»

Nina was beginning to see him in a new light. It occurred to her that the smutty stories were about him and not his friends. Her suspicions grew stronger when she saw him in evening dress. What a fine-looking man he was! She was hardly aware of the music, but sat worrying all the time until she had worked herself up into a state of unrelieved anxiety. All of the many doors in the theatre let in draughts, and she had nothing to keep her warm. At the end he brought over an important-looking man in evening dress, with a handlebar moustache like the one on the statue in front of the Conservatory, and said: «Nina, this is my friend, Jamil Ismailovich. He's our conductor.»

«That's all we need,» Nina blurted out, realising at once that she had put her foot in it, because the statue pursed his lips and his companion giggled delightedly. She attempted a diplomatic apology, but what actually emerged was, «Goodbye, Shamil Basayevich, do come round some time.» After which they both had mild hysterics, and the statue immediately forgave her faux pas, gasping «What a woman! What a woman!» Generally speaking it was a case of what her absent husband would have called «every one a winner», but these laid-back concert people, thank the dear Lord, did not seem to attach the same importance to it, so she had come out unscathed.

On Sunday, while Nina was sleeping peacefully, he left a note saying he had to go home. Letting himself in with his key, he found a stranger in jeans and a thick sweater sprawled out in an armchair with a score and beating time with a hairy hand. His wife was wearing a light sleeveless negligee, her long slender legs bare, and also reading a score but on the sofa. The apartment was quiet, strict and sterile. The clock ticked away relentlessly.

«I've come to get my things.»

«Feel free.»

«And the computer.»

«Go ahead,» she leaned forward, turning slightly, and pulled the plug out of the socket without looking.

«You cut a fine figure.»

«You too.»

«Like a beanpole.»

«Hog.» She yawned and put her hand to her mouth. «Fornicator.»

«I called you one name. You called me two.»

«But you hit out first and I hit back. You should always hit back harder.»

The young man in jeans looked up and gazed unseeingly in their direction. He was obviously listening to something deep down inside him.

«Do you follow me, Felix?»

«Yes, so far.»

«What's he doing here, this Felix?»

«Ask yourself.»

«But I've only been gone a week. You're quick off the mark.»

«Didn't you know? Felix, what do you value most in people?»

«Speed.»

«There you are. You're upset, but he's happy. It takes all sorts.»

«That's a fascist slogan.»

«I'm glad you've got the message.»

«But I've only been gone a week.»

«I find this conversation somewhat tedious,» said his wife with another quick yawn. «Let's have a bite to eat, then get down to work.»

She and the unusually tall Felix got up quickly and went into the kitchen. Nobody seemed interested in him.

«So it's just as well I've been putting it about then,» he shouted vengefully into the kitchen. There was no reply.

Downstairs in the entrance he was greeted by an agitated Nina, flushed with emotion. He put a hand on her shoulder, still indignant.

«She's got herself this Felix.»

«Maybe she had him before,» said Nina, suspiciously.

«Oh, no,» he objected. «That's impossible.»

«We were told at a lecture that you can catch hepatitis through a condom.»

«What did you say? Catch hepatitis through a condom? Where do you hear lectures like that?» He smiled unexpectedly. «At the Women's Lonely Hearts Club? I bet the lecture was called 'How to restrain your partner from casual sex.' Note that my mood improves quickly as soon as I see you. In just a week, fancy that?»

«But you and me did…»

He again brushed her aside scornfully.

«That's you and I. She never changes her mind.»

This almost made her cry.

«But I like her. She's so angry, and good-looking, and slim. I'd like to be like that.»

He waved his hands like a drowning man. «For God's sake! No, it's not really anger. She's just made like that. It's a question of temperament. You are one type, she's another.»

«Which is best?»

«It's all relative,» he sniggered.

«The worse you treat a man, the more he values you!»

He got the giggles again.

«How strict we are today! Dear, oh, dear.» He kissed Nina on the cheek. She melted somewhat, but did not give in, still upset by his trip home.

«Have we got anything to eat?»

«No,» Nina continued to rebel. «Only apricot preserves.»

«Apricot preserves!» He stared at her in rapture.

«I want to go home and do my hair in sausage-curls,» Nina said challengingly. She couldn't risk making a mistake this time.

«What did you say? Do your hair in what?» He jumped up and down at the prospect of hearing the word again.

«Sausage-curls,» Nina repeated obstinately.

«Ooh!» He doubled up with laughter. «Ooh!» he groaned, trying to straighten up, but spluttering helplessly. «O-o-h!» A fresh bout nearly laid him low again, but he managed to control himself. «Help! Save me! Don't mention that word again or I'll die.» His face quivered, threatening another convulsion. Straining every nerve, he somehow contrived to avoid total collapse. «A man who laughs all the time is a happy man. Don't you think?»

Nina smiled in spite of herself. People vary. One man can become furious and tear his hair, while another will split his sides laughing, and no one can say which is best, which worst. Better put it out of your mind, not think about it, for there's no knowing where it might lead. Let him have his laugh. Why should she mind?