surprised to see the man’s sweater looked perfectly dry, while his camouflage pants were wet up to the knee, and his feet were clean and wet, as if he’d driven right up to Aspirin’s door with his legs resting in a basin of water.
The girl spoke louder. When she started shouting, the guest snapped at her in the same language. She took a deep breath and continued speaking, now in a softer, calmer voice, her lips a thin line.
They are not Gypsies, Aspirin mused. Not Arabs, either. Central Asia? No way . . . but what was that language? Who are they? More important, what are they doing in my apartment?
“Just a minute,” he began, but no one paid him any attention. The girl went on speaking, burning the stranger with her eyes, or rather, freezing him on the spot, because her eyes now looked like two icicles. The guest listened. Aspirin felt the hallway growing cold, as if a very powerful air conditioner had suddenly switched on—sixty-four degrees . . . sixty-two . . . sixty . . .
The stranger then said something curt and imperative. He took a step forward, clearly intending to grab the collar of the girl’s dirty T-shirt. The girl recoiled and looked at Aspirin. He looked back at her.
“Hold on,” Aspirin said (by then the temperature in the apartment had plunged down to just above freezing). “You have yet to explain to me who you are to her, and where you are taking her. And I haven’t seen your passport. And . . .”
His guest turned to face him, and the yet unsaid words froze in Aspirin’s throat.
“He beat you up,” the stranger said.
“He brought me here! I spent the night here!”
“He made a mistake.” The stranger continued to stare at Aspirin, and Aspirin felt a strong desire to turn into a cockroach and hide under the molding. “Wouldn’t you say you made a mistake, Alexey Igorevich?”
“I . . .” Aspirin managed.
The girl spoke again in the same language. The guest took his eyes off Aspirin (much relieved, Aspirin took a step back into the dark living room) and moved closer to the mirror. Aspirin thought he saw ice crystals forming on the surface of the mirror.
The guest adjusted a cord on his neck—a red and yellow cord under his collar. An outline of an elongated object larger than a cell phone was noticeable under his sweater.
“Turn on the light, Alexey Igorevich.”
“What?”
“I said, turn on the light in the living room. Since we’re going to have a talk after all.”
The light was switched on. A crumpled throw, an empty bottle of brandy, and random magazines and CDs strewn on the floor came into view, and Aspirin cringed at the state of his apartment, only to be upset—it wasn’t like I invited these guests!—only to then feel fear once more.
The antique clock made one last sound and stopped. Its pendulum slowed down, the shorter amplitude coming as no surprise to Aspirin.
“May I sit down on the sofa?” the barefoot guest said with a smirk, already moving toward the couch. He clearly never bothered to ask for permission. Aspirin made a feeble attempt to fold the throw, but the guest took control by tossing the plaid fabric into the corner of the sofa. He sat down, crossing his legs.
The girl did not come into the living room, but instead lowered herself on the floor by the door.
“Did she really spend the night here?”
“What are you trying to say?” Aspirin scowled.
“I am trying to say that the morning came, and the girl was still here, under this roof. Nothing else was implied, so don’t look at me like that. Alexey Igorevich, why did you do this?”
“What exactly have I done?”
“Why would you bring someone else’s child into your house in the middle of the night?”
“Because there were druggies out there!” Aspirin snapped. “And alcos! And all sorts of hoodlums! Is that not clear to you?”
“It is not clear to me,” the stranger confirmed ruefully.
Aspirin noticed that the stranger spoke without a trace of an accent. Just like Alyona.
“Helping a child is a normal human reaction,” he said, cringing inside and wondering if the blood had dried on her shirt.
The stranger sighed, pursed his lips, then asked something of the girl. She responded curtly, almost rudely.
“My dear friend.” The stranger moved his bare foot, glancing first at Aspirin, then at Alyona in the corner. “Do you realize how many children are shaking in the freezing rain just about