Jimi Hendrix Live in Lviv by Andrey Kurkov

Author:Andrey Kurkov
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-06-19T00:00:00+00:00

27

The rainy morning brought Taras a surprise email from Russia. An unknown man named Arnold offered himself as an exclusive agent for Taras across the Ryazan Oblast.

Where’d he find out about me?! Taras wondered, reading through the long and detailed email, which read more like a business plan.

Arnold promised to get him twenty to thirty clients a month for a thirty percent commission and a share in the business. “Share in the business” made Taras exert his tired brain even more. The previous night’s work hadn’t been particularly arduous—the latest Polish client’s stones proved small and amenable. There were three of them, but they had all come out relatively easily. Taras was already free by three in the morning and spent an hour and a half at the bureau chatting with Darka, and slowly sipping strong coffee from the “Venetian” ashtrays. There was a bitter taste on his tongue from the coffee even now, and Darka’s alarmed voice was still ringing in his ears. It had happened once he’d already got home, just a couple of hours ago. Darka had suddenly called him and told him about a strange customer who had come up to the window at half past five and asked for a glass of fresh water.

“Maybe he was drunk. I explained to him that I didn’t have any water. He left, but then he came back and spent half an hour rocking me, until Orest Vasilievich came for me,” she told him in a still shaky voice.

Why had she called him a customer, Taras wondered, remembering their conversation almost word for word.

He looked back at the email from Ryazan on his laptop screen.

What the hell does a “share in the business” mean? An implacable irritation took hold of Taras. So what, I’m meant to buy an old bus just to shake some stones out of the citizens of Ryazan in bulk?!

He shook his head wearily. He looked at the clock—just past eight.

Taras got undressed and lay under the duvet.

Sleep came immediately, but it brought with it a nightmare, from which Taras didn’t manage to escape for the following several hours. In his dream, he and Oksana were walking along Kopernyk, and as they went past the shop “Semena,” Taras wanted to show her the courtyard where an old acquaintance of his had once lived. In the little courtyard, woven with grapevines and ivy, they were suddenly attacked from above by birds—enormous white seagulls. The seagulls crashed into them feet first and started to peck. Taras lay on his back, kicking the birds away with his legs; he couldn’t see them, but he heard them. He used his hands to cover his cheeks and eyes. But the birds pressed down onto him, beating their wings, and swiped their sharp claws across the back of his hands and his arms. Oksana was crying next to him. He threw his hands from his face, which scared the birds off momentarily, and turned to look at her. She was sitting on the ground, waving her arms.

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