singing her songs and setting out her flowers. But if, say, it was stocks and willowherb, then Tashka had had a scrap with her mum, or got landed with a really awful client, and she was feeling sad.
Today happened to be one of those days – there was a sprig of juniper hanging down over the curtain too (in the language of flowers that meant ‘guests not welcome’).
Welcome or not, what could he do? He’d been dragged there.
They knocked and went in.
Tashka was sitting on the bed, looking darker than a thundercloud. She was chewing sunflower seeds and spitting the husks into her hand – no ‘hello’ or ‘how’s things’ or anything of the sort.
‘What do you want?’ she said. ‘And what gulls are these you’ve brought? What for? I’ve got enough trouble with this trollop.’
She nodded to the corner, where her mum was sprawled out on the floor. It looked like she’d got as tight as a newt again then coughed up blood, and that was why Tashka was in such a rage.
Senka started to explain, but then the Jappo’s jacket slipped off and fell on the floor. When Tashka saw Senka’s shackled hands, she fairly bounded off the bed, straight at Masa. Sank her nails into his plump cheeks and started yelling:
‘Let him go, you fat-faced bastard! I’ll scratch your slanty eyes out!’ – and then a whole heap of other curses, Tashka had quite a mouth on her. Even Senka winced, and the spruce gent stood there just blinking.
While the Jap used his free hand to fight off the mamselle’s assault on his handsome yellow features, Erast Petrovich stepped aside. He answered Tashka’s swearing in a respectful voice: ‘Well, yes indeed, far from the m-motherland, one becomes unaccustomed to the v-vigour of the Russian tongue.’
Senka had to come to the Jap’s defence. ‘Stop it, will you, Tashka? Calm down. Leave the man alone! Remember those beads I gave you, the green ones? Are they safe? Give them to these gents, the beads belong to them. Or I’ll be for it.’ And then suddenly he took fright. ‘You haven’t sold them, have you?’
‘Who do you think I am, some floozie from Zamoskvorechie? As if I’d sell a present that was given to me! Maybe no one’s ever given me a present before. The clients don’t count. I’ve got your beads put away somewhere safe.’
Senka knew that ‘safe place’ of hers – in the cupboard under the bed, where Tashka kept her treasures: the book about flowers, a cut-glass scent bottle, a tortoiseshell comb.
‘Give them back, will you? I’ll give you another present, anything you like.’
Tashka let go of the Japanese and her face lit up. ‘Honest? What I want, Senka, is a little dog, a white poodle. I saw them at the market. Have you ever seen a poodle? They can dance the waltz on their back paws, Senka, they can skip over a rope and give you their paw.’
‘I’ll give you one, honest to God I will. Just hand the beads back!’
‘Don’t bother, no need,’ Tashka told him. ‘It was just talk. A poodle like that costs thirty roubles, even as a puppy. I checked the price.’
She sighed. But it wasn’t that sad a sigh.
Then she climbed under the bed, sticking her skinny backside up in the air – and she was wearing only a short little shirt. Senka felt ashamed in front of the others. She was a real harum-scarum. He walked over and pulled her shirt down.
Tashka scrabbled about down there for a while (she obviously didn’t want to get her treasures out in front of strangers), then clambered back out and flung the beads at Masa: ‘There, you miser, I hope you choke on them.’
The Jap caught the string of beads and handed them to his master with a bow. The gent flicked through the little stones, stroked one, then put them in his pocket.
‘Right then, all’s well that ends well. You, m-mademoiselle, have done nothing to offend me.’ He reached into his pocket, took out a wallet, and extracted three banknotes. ‘Here is thirty roubles for you. B-buy yourself a poodle.’
Tashka asked in a matter-of-fact voice: ‘So what way is it you’re planning to horse me, then, for three red ones? If,’ she continued, ‘you want it this way or that, I’m agreeable, but if you want it that way or this, I’m a decent girl and I don’t let anyone do dirty things like that to me.’