a stone’s throw to places that were safe.
Then suddenly, talk of the devil, there was Tashka walking towards him. Not alone, though, with a client. He looked like a counter-clerk from a shop. Drunk, with a bright-red face. And one armed draped over Tashka’s shoulders – he could hardly even walk.
What a fool she was to be so proud! Why did she need to let herself get pawed and mauled like that for just three roubles? And there was no way of telling her it was a shame and a disgrace – she didn’t understand. Of course not, she’d lived in Khitrovka all her life. Her mother was a whore, her grandmother too.
Senka was going to go over and say hello. Tashka saw him too, but she didn’t nod, and she didn’t smile either. She just made big, round eyes at him and jabbed her finger at her hair. There was a flower in it, she must have put it there for an occasion like this. A red poppy – ‘danger’.
But who was the danger for, him or her?
He went across anyway and opened his mouth to speak, but Tashka hissed: ‘Clear off out of it, you fool. He’s after you.’
‘Who is?’
Then the counter-clerk stuck his oar in. He stamped his foot and started making threats. ‘What you doin’? Who are you? This little mamselle’s mine! I’ll rip your face off!’
Tashka punched him in the side and whispered: ‘Tonight... Come tonight, then I’ll tell you something really important ...’ and she dragged her admirer on down the street.
Senka didn’t like the way she was whispering. It wasn’t like Tashka to frighten him for nothing. Something must have happened. He’d have to go and see her.
He was thinking of waiting on the boulevard for night to come, but then he had a better idea.
Since he was already here, in Khitrovka, why not pay a visit to the basement and lay in a bit more silver? He had the other five rods hidden in his suitcase, wrapped up in his long-johns. It couldn’t hurt to have a few more. Who could tell which way fate would take him now? What if he suddenly had to leave his native parts in a hurry?
He took another four rods. So that made nine altogether. That was serious capital, no matter which way you looked at it. Ashot Ashotovich, may he rest in peace, wasn’t around any longer, but Senka would just have to hope that some other intermediary would turn up sooner rather than later. Thinking that way was a sin, of course, but the dead had their own interests and the living had theirs.
When he clambered out of the passage into the basement with the brick pillars (‘columns’ was the cultured word), Senka moved the stones back into place, took two of the sticks in each hand and set off through the dark basement towards the exit on Podkolokolny Lane.
He only had two more turns to make when something terrible happened.
Something heavy hit Senka on the back of the neck – and so hard that his nose smashed into the ground before he even had time to squeal. He still hadn’t realised how much trouble he was in when he was pinned to the floor, with a hobnailed boot to his back.
Senka floundered this way and that, gulping at the air. The rods went flying out of his left hand, jangling sweetly on the flagstones of the floor.
‘A-a-agh!’ poor Senka yelped, as steely fingers grabbed him by the hair and wrenched his head so far back his neck-bones cracked.
Out of sheer animal terror – it had nothing to do with courage –Senka swung the rods clutched in his right hand up behind him. He hit something, then he struck at it again with all his might. And then he struck it once more. Something up there gave a grunt, deep and hollow like a bear’s. The massive hand clutching Senka’s hair let go, and the boot shifted off his back.
Senka rolled over sideways, spinning like a top, got up on all fours, then on to his feet and dashed off, howling, into the darkness. When he ran into a wall, he recoiled and ran in the opposite direction.
He darted down the steps into the dark night street and ran as far as Lubyanka Square. Beside the low wall round the pool he dropped to his knees, and plunged his face into the water, and it wasn’t until after he’d cooled off a bit that