now? Some of them are beaten up. Or raped. Does that bother you at all?”
“Of course it does! But why does it matter—who are you to moralize and preach to me?” Aspirin desperately wanted to reach for the blanket. Or at least to wrap his arms around himself—the room was freezing cold now. However, he restrained himself, unwilling to show his weakness. “I didn’t invite you here tonight. Either you tell me who you are and then take the girl, or . . .”
“Don’t let him take me!” Alyona shouted.
“Or?” the stranger asked curiously.
“Or just leave,” Aspirin finished softly.
Deep in thought, the guest reached for the empty bottle with his bare foot. For one crazy second, Aspirin expected him to use his toes to unscrew the top; instead, the stranger pushed the bottle over like a bowling pin.
“This is getting rather complicated,” the stranger said. “Fine, I will tell you. I am the director of an orphanage, and this little brat ran away from us without any warning. And now I have come to bring her back. Do you have any questions?”
“I have many, but they are irrelevant—you’re lying,” Aspirin said. “You are not a director of an orphanage.”
“Then who am I?”
I would love to know that, Aspirin thought.
“Grimalsky, you don’t care about her,” the stranger said. “Where I would take her, whether it would be good or bad for her . . . she would never bother you or make you do things you do not want to do. Doesn’t that sound good?”
Aspirin said nothing.
“Weren’t you going to kick her out just before I showed up? Hmm?”
“I will deal with her myself,” Aspirin said softly. “Wherever I am going to take her, whether it would be good or bad for her . . .”
“He said it!” The girl jumped. “Did you hear that?”
Another clap of thunder outside.
“Grimalsky, you are so screwed,” the man on the sofa said sadly. “I really wanted to help you, but even good intentions in your execution end up in . . . ahem. Here, take this.” He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a leather cord with a document holder and an elongated leather case attached. He took out a laminated stamped document and dropped it on the sofa.
“Birth certificate of Grimalsky, Alyona Alexeyevna, born in 1995, mother—Kalchenko, Luba, father—Grimalsky, Alexey. I am not offering you money, since you’re well off, and Alyona is a modest, unspoiled little girl.”
“How . . .” Aspirin exhaled.
His guest rose from the sofa, putting away the document holder along with the leather case.
“It’s simple, Alexey Igorevich. I gave you an out, but you refused. So you are very, very much in it now. And so good-bye, hopefully, for a while.”
“This is a fake!” Aspirin flung himself to the sofa and grabbed the document. The names and dates were not written in longhand, like on Aspirin’s own birth certificate, but typed on what appeared to be a defective typewriter. Only the signature of the head of the Office of Vital Records was in longhand. In his opinion it was such a poor forgery, Aspirin had to laugh.
“This is a fake. It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous.” His guest stopped in front of the opened piano, with the head of a porcelain doll still resting on the keys. “Because the document is real—at least, it matches the appropriate entry in the Registry of Vital Records of the town of Pervomaysk.”
“I haven’t . . .” Aspirin choked with indignation. “I have never been to Pervomaysk.”
“You certainly have been to Crimea. With Luba.”
“It’s a lie! It’s a trick! I have not . . .” Aspirin turned his head in search of the girl, but she’d already left the room. “I don’t want her—take her! Get out of here, both of you!”
“I am certainly leaving,” his guest said, placing his hands on the keys. A chord hung in the air. Aspirin flinched. The guest’s fingers, long and tan, with white knuckles, flew over the keys, and Aspirin stopped speaking because those random sounds made his skin crawl.
“I did warn you,” his guest said softly. “She’s not exactly God’s gift to mankind. However, if you ever upset the newly born Alyona Alexeyevna . . . ‘Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord.’”
He touched the keys again. Another chord. The antique clock’s pendulum twitched and moved faster than usual, as if trying to show off its efforts.
“You can’t leave her here!” Aspirin shouted. “Do you understand? I am going to leave this apartment to