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to Afghan, but I fought there and risked to get killed there every minute only so you here with your other bastards could grow fat cheeks and backsides, so you here could rip off dough from young guys for their employment, you dirty scum, and then pay off for your bustard son skipping his army service, and avoiding going to war. So that you on the money of workmen like me, money that you suck from them like a leech, making up various reasons, you could on that money fix your bastards in institutes, buy them cars and leather coats. I told him roughly like that, in the end I couldn’t hold on and yelled at him. He stared at me, flushed with anger, eyes bulging out, he hadn’t faced such dumbfounding impudence for a long time, in short he looked as if he would kick off right now, which would be very appropriate from my point of view. But I’m all wound up, on the edge, I couldn’t just leave slamming the door behind me – not enough, that’s for the refined. I was ready to kill him for mocking at my battlefield wound. So I grabbed the first thing I got my hand on – pity it was a light plastic stationery kit – and hurled it at his red bald spot. Take this! – I said *** your mother…! And I stepped out. I didn’t hear a sound behind my back, that scum was probably still in shock. Well, obviously with my character (though, if you think of it, what did my character have to do with it, people have to be provided with work regardless of their bad or good characters but here it’s different and everyone considers it normal) afterwards I didn’t find any other work except as a night watchman. Eventually I began receiving the pension, an unexpected miracle, I by the way thought that everyone had forgotten about my existence. So the pension plus wages as a night watchman at a construction site, overall: five or six trips to the market. In one word, if you don’t spend anything on clothing and medical treatment or do this very seldom – the money was just enough for food. But I was young, and still am young now, though I’m disabled, sometimes I forgot about it. Honestly, I wanted to dress well, wanted girls falling in love with me, or at least have money for hookers, who in our city you couldn’t even come close to if you had less than a fifty in your pocket. I wanted us to have plenty of everything and first of all wanted that mom was in no need of anything, because she unlike me needed only the necessary things. What kind of a son I am if she wouldn’t have the very necessary things? That’s why I constantly thought about money, thought where to get, earn more money, what I could do, fix something. So one night I sat in my booth, looking after some dog shit which in our building site was more common than any construction materials, I sat looking at my stump, smoking my favourite “Prima”, because I started to love what I could have; I sat thinking my sad thoughts: how could I start living normally, like a normal person. On my arrival from Afghanistan I tried to enter the institute again, but it was more like trying my luck, I understood that I had lost my last knowledge at war but thought that like a war veteran I would get some discount. But regardless of my veteran benefits, they cut me down like a rabbit. And now before the new attempt to become a student and eventually an engineer I had a whole year ahead. A whole year of expectations and loads of unrealized opportunities to become a human being without a higher education. So I sat there thinking about all this stuff and heard some steps. I looked out of the booth and saw one absolutely plastered guy staggering towards me. I met him and said – what are you wandering about the building site for? Either you’ve got no better place for a night walk, or you’re trying to steal something? If you’ve come for stealing, I’ll knock you down stiff in a second, because it is my job here to protect our precious and not yet dragged away socialist property. He looked at me with his cloudy eyes, he was drunk but my refined wit at such late hour surprised him. He flapped his eye lashes, suddenly hiccupped, smiled and moved to me trying to hug and kiss me. So I easily, to keep him on his feet, shoved him off with my hand, which even though it is in the singular is, thank God, healthy, and persistently repeated the question. He mumbled something, nodded benevolently, went in his pocket and pulled out – my God! – a wad of fifties. He took one note from the bundle and pushed it to me and put the bundle back in his pocket, pity not the other way around. Champagne – he mumbled, stammering, stumbling over his words so I could hardly make out what he wanted. “Champagne, – he said, – and be quick.” “Shoot off to Kubinka and back, – he continued, – quickly.” Kubinka – our soviet black market in Baku where you could buy anything anytime was quite far away from the site. “Get a taxi, – he said in the end.” I stood there like fool with the green note in my hand, and he was already walking back. That moment I woke up and rushed after him. I reached him when he was entering through the back door – it must have led to the kitchen – of the glass – fronted café which was across the road from our building site. This café, they said, was about to be demolished due to the new construction of a multi – storey building nearby, but it was still standing there, all shabby, covered with dust from the pile of cement and sand at the building site. Our builders lunched there during the day for a ruble or two. So I went into this glass café after him. Called him, shouted a couple of times but he probably hadn’t heard me or paid attention, so I went after him through a rotten, stinking corridor and entered an inconspicuous little door after this jolly fellow. I entered and froze still. There was enough to make you dumbfounded! Brightly lit, spacious restaurant suite, at the table a drunk bunch of eight – ten people, table – my eyes hurt by the splendour– what you wouldn’t have there (later I was recalling, figured out – there wasn’t champagne on the table), chicks sat at the table, in front of each an open Marlboro pack. They giggle, squeal, kiss each other, and behind that door when I had been going after that drunk dickhead everything was quiet, dead kingdom. The door it turned out was soundproof. They stared at me, then at that chum who gave me the money. He already managed to cuddle up on the lap of one of the girls. “What is it? – that psycho said, fluttering his uncomprehending eyes at me.” I handed him his money back. He began, how he could, explaining to this crowd that he had been sending me to Kubinka after champagne. This news made them rejoice, they were all heavily drunk and were slow to grasp anything, so they also started giving me money. Well, I thought, if I start explaining anything to them – it will take till the morning, to hell with you, I’ll go, drink as much as you like. I thought why not, let’s have a free ride once in a lifetime at the expense of these nutters, and if some madman in my absence decides to clean the building site of the dog crap, I hope they choke on it! In short, I went to Kubinka and brought them three bottles of champagne, a box of American cigarettes and put it all on the table along with the change. When I turned around to leave, they clutched at my trousers and wouldn’t let go. They were laughing, looking at the crumpled notes on the table, you see, they were very amused by the fact that I returned them their change and they sat me at their table. I didn’t pose, drank with them, I was hungry too, and the food was top class. They were served by the chef of this stinking joint, turns out it was stinking for some and fragrant for others. And he served them at VIP standards so I understood that these are most likely big shots here, or at least wealthy people. Early in the morning the feast finished. Everybody left and my psycho asked me to take him home. “Do you remember the address? – I asked him.” “Sure, – he replied with a self – satisfied smile.” I had enough time till my boss would appear and I, supporting this fellow, flagged down a car and went with him. At his place I paid the taxi with my own money because I hadn’t taken the change from the table, woke him up and helped him to get to the third floor, or rather dragged him on my back. The flat astonished me much more than that luxurious night feast around the building site. I had only seen something like that in museums, and even that didn’t happen often. The flat was rich; it’s difficult for me to describe it. There were moulded golden cupids on the ceiling, splendid furniture, a video recorder, (I had only heard that they existed) great tableware, about a thousand rubles worth, one – hundred – and – fifty – ruble lighters on the coffee table, in short – you would be dazzled only by spending too much time in a flat like this. So I decided not to wait for this visual effect, especially because Osman – that’s how his friends called him, I remembered – dropped on the sofa and was already snoring. I left quietly closing the door behind me. That’s how I met Nagiyev, it’s Osman’s surname – for some reason he didn’t like being called by his first name. About two days later, in the evening as I started my shift, Nagiyev suddenly pulled in with his new “Lada”. He came to me and without any other words just said that he needed me. So I started helping him in some small ways, go there, and bring this and that, find something. He expressed his requests very cordially, so it looked as if he was asking me for a favour, he
