thinking about ringing him myself... to ask for protection.'
'You're serious? You'll allow it?'
Svetlana looked at me and nodded. Then she added:
'While I'm with her, Nadya's in no danger. Believe me, I'll make mincemeat of any three Higher Ones. But it's best to take precau tions. When's your flight?'
'In five hours. From Sheremetievo.'
'Semyon will get you there in an hour. So you still have two hours left. You can have something to eat, then we'll pack your things. How long are you going to be there?'
'I don't know'
'Then how much underwear and how many pairs of socks shall I put in?' Svetlana asked reasonably. 'I can't imagine you washing anything while you're away'
'I'll buy new ones and throw the old ones away. Geser promised to give me heaps of money'
'I wonder how much "heaps" is for him,' Svetlana replied doubt fully. 'I'll pack five sets of underwear. Sit down at the table ?I'm serving the soup.'
'Daddy!' Nadya called from the sitting room.
'What, my little daughter?' I answered.
'Daddy, will Uncle Afandi give me the beads for a present?'
Svetlana and I looked at each other, then walked quickly into the sitting room. Our daughter was still watching the cartoons. The screen showed a group of different-coloured animals gath ered round a campfire.
'What uncle's that, Nadya?'
'Uncle Afandi,' said our daughter, without looking away from the screen.
'What Afandi?' Svetlana asked patiently.
'What beads?' I asked.
'The man Daddy's going to see,' Nadya told us, with that 'How stupid you grown-ups are!' intonation. 'And the beads are blue. They're beautiful.'
'How do you know who Daddy's going to see?' asked Svetlana, continuing the interrogation.
'You were just talking about it,' Nadya replied calmly.
'No, we weren't,' I objected. 'We were talking about me going on an assignment to Uzbekistan. That's a beautiful country in the East - Geser used to live there once. Do you remember Uncle Geser? But we didn't say anything about Afandi.'
'I must have misheard, then,' Nadya replied. 'There isn't any uncle.'
Svetlana shook her head and looked at me reproachfully. I shrugged ?okay, I'm sorry, I shouldn't have butted in. Mummy would have got a lot more out of her...
'But the beads are real anyway,' Nadya suddenly added inconsist ently. 'You bring them, all right?'
There was no point in asking any more about Uncle Afandi. Nadya had had 'fits' of clairvoyance ever since she was three, if not two. But she was absolutely unaware that she was prophesying, and as soon as you started asking 'How do you know that?' she clammed up.
'My fault,' I confessed. 'Sorry, Sveta.'
We went back to the kitchen. Svetlana poured me some soup without saying a word, sliced the bread and handed me a spoon. It sometimes seems to me that she plays the role of a perfectly ordinary housewife with emphatic irony. But after all, it was her choice. Geser would be absolutely delighted if Svetlana came back to the Watch.
'Rustam has had a lot of names ... is that what Geser said?' Svetlana asked thoughtfully.
'Uh-huh,' I said, slurping my soup.
'We can assume that now he's called Afandi.'
'Anything's possible.' I wasn't exactly counting on it, but in my situation I couldn't afford to ignore even the slimmest lead. 'I'll ask around.'
'It's good that Alisher will be with you,' Svetlana observed. 'You let him do the asking as often as possible. The East is a subtle business.'
'Now there's an original thought... ' I said sourly. 'Sorry, I've been hearing wise thoughts about the East all day long today. The rivers of eloquence have already flooded the lake of my aware ness, oh Turkish delight of my heart!'
'Daddy, bring back some Turks and some delight!' my daughter responded immediately.
I didn't meet Alisher often at work. He preferred working 'in the field' - he was always out on patrol and usually only appeared in the office in the morning, with his eyes red from lack of sleep. I once heard that he was having an affair with some girl from the accounts department, and I knew he was a seventh-level Other, but apart from that I knew very little about him. He was natur ally reserved, and I don't like to force my friendship on anyone.
However, Semyon seemed to be on friendlier terms with him. When I went down and got into the car, Semyon was just finishing telling a joke. As I sat beside him, he was leaning back over his seat and saying:
'All right, Daddy, let's go the long way round. Bring me a little scarlet flower, please!'