I Burn Paris by Jasienski Bruno

Author:Jasienski, Bruno [Jasienski, Bruno]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Twisted Spoon Press
Published: 2012-04-21T04:00:00+00:00

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At ten a.m. sharp a cushy six-seater Fiat showed the relevant transit papers and drove across Jena Bridge toward Bourbon Palace.

The official on duty led the Russian delegation through chilly, well-worn corridors to a small conference room where four gray-haired men in black were waiting at a table piled high with files. They immediately began to negotiate on the specifics. The French had invented some additional clauses; they didn’t agree to being paid in installments, demanding an immediate cash settlement. The session stretched out interminably.

Captain Solomin took no active part in the discussion and maintained a dignified silence, yawning discreetly into his hand and letting his bored gaze roam about the ceiling.

At just the moment when the bargaining seemed to be winding down, a gray-haired, needle-nosed gentleman pulled a watch from his pocket and declared it was time for lunch.

The head of the Russian delegation, rattled by this new delay, tried to offer an objection, explaining that there was at most half an hour till the deal was finalized, that things should not be left to hang, and that after matters were concluded everyone could relax and enjoy their lunch all the better. The gentlemen with Bourbon noses did not see fit to acknowledge his remarks and rose from the table as if on command, after which the gray-haired gentleman announced in a steady voice that the meeting would resume at two o’clock. The Russian delegation could only bite their lips and go for a stroll while waiting for the meeting to resume.

Captain Solomin blundered through the endless corridors in search of a lavatory, and then spent a long time wandering in search of the way back. When he finally made it to the stairs and found himself on the street, his colleagues were no longer in front of the palace. They had tired of waiting and left for town without him.

Captain Solomin set off down the quiet streets with their glassy asphalt, walking at a leisurely pace. He knew this neighborhood well. This was where he had only recently driven elderly rich men with Legion of Honor ribbons in their buttonholes after a night at the theater. The worst passengers! Always pulling tricks – they’d pour you a handful of change you could count till the day’s end and still not reckon the full amount – and then all you got was a five sous tip.

Because of his involuntary occupation Captain Solomin was nursing a powerful grudge against the French as the personification of all the attributes diametrically opposed to the “generous Russian spirit.”

By force of longtime habit the captain – though having exchanged his driver’s uniform for a cavalier’s tights – had not ceased to rate people by how they tipped. This was in no way symptomatic of any kind of solidarity with the class of pariahs whose ranks he had only just left, but rather one of those grooves of accustomed behavior that had been dug in his mind, into which thoughts flowed automatically, like tears down the lines of a furrowed face.

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