opened at the ends, on both right and left sides; Aspirin was sure that Alyona knew about this in advance.
She had said this place was perfect.
Reaching the center of the balcony, Alyona stopped. The crowds were already gathered below, looking up at her, pointing fingers, unsure of whether it was a prank or a marketing ploy.
Alyona tuned up her violin. Still stuffed into the backpack, Mishutka stared at Aspirin through the window, and Aspirin had trouble deciphering the expression in the plastic eyes.
“. . . are you the father?”
“Me?” he asked in surprise. “Yeah . . . Why?”
The maître d’ let out a long and crass obscenity. Women in evening gowns coming up in a slow stream stared at him in confusion.
“What’s going on here?”
“Get the child back inside immediately!” a man in a black suit and a gold tie screamed. “What’s wrong with you? What if she falls?”
Aspirin looked at them in bemusement.
Then Alyona began to play.
Everyone fell silent. All of them, all at once. Those who stood by the balcony, and those who looked up from the street. The melody began with a soft, clear sound that locked the audience in an instant freeze-frame. A street in dusk, a girl on the ledge—a real live girl? A circus performer? A shadow? Wrought-iron lanterns to the right and left. A violin in the girl’s hands and the street under her feet. And—just for Aspirin alone—the fuzzy face of a teddy bear with his nose pressed against the glass.
The sound gathered force. A quick movement ran through the crowd when everyone recoiled. Aspirin recoiled too, standing only a few steps behind Alyona, separated by the glass, surrounded by the pungent aroma of cooling appetizers rising from the banquet table.
Alyona continued playing. The violin growled in her hands like a prehistoric monster. This sound, simultaneously bewitching and terrifying, sent chills down the entire length of Aspirin’s spine.
The girl led on with the melody—if the sounds made by the violin could be called a melody, assuming it had anything remotely in common with music as he knew it. Aspirin’s eyes watered as if from a bright light. He saw his expression in the glass, a distorted, broken reflection. He saw shifting shadows, the midnight-black hair of Luba from Pervomaysk; the drunken face of alcoholic composer Kostya, replaced by the laughing Nadya in her sailor’s outfit; Whiskas stared at something above Aspirin’s head; Irina gazed back at him with silent reproach, and Aspirin longed for the violin to stop, but it kept on playing, playing as if nothing in the world could stop the goddamn girl.
The mass stupor exploded. The maître d’ attempted to climb onto the ledge through the open window, but he was four times bigger than Alyona, and would have had the same success trying to squeeze through the eye of a needle. The spectators below screamed and threw empty bottles; one of them shattered on an iron streetlight pole. White, thrown-back faces glowed in the dim light; black mouths gaped open.
Alyona played.
Aspirin found himself in the middle of unthinkable chaos.
The man with the gold tie picked up a massive armchair (the effort made his jacket rip under his arms), swung it heavily, and made to throw it against the glass, aiming at Alyona. A split second before the chair could be tossed, Aspirin managed to throw his body at the man and push him off balance; he wasn’t thinking, he simply acted on instinct. The heavy piece of oaken furniture broke the glass and crashed on the floor of the balcony.
But the girl maintained her pace.
A shard of glass scratched her cheek. Two red drops swelled up and slid down the pale cheek like raindrops on the glass. Alyona played on.
Screams came from below, some of pain, some of violent anger. Someone was being supported and led out of the crowd. Aspirin saw faces distorted by rage, faces curious and seemingly undisturbed, and faces touched by fear; a police siren howled around the corner.
“Get her out! Take her away!”
A man in an elegant beige sports jacket flung himself onto the ledge through the hole left by the armchair. He reached for Alyona, slipped and almost fell to the street, holding on to the ledge with his fingers. A woman shrieked and attempted to help him, but neither her screams nor the din of the crowds below could deafen the monstrous force of Alyona’s violin.
The man opened his bloody fingers and plunged down from the second floor. Alyona kept playing,