The Firebird Affair by Dusko Doder

Author:Dusko Doder
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Diversion Books

29

I sat in the car for a long time writing down all that I could remember about our conversation. Then I kept rummaging through the permutations and the implications of Churkin’s remarks. What did it all mean?

The story of the coup was simple and seductive, like a fairy tale, and like a fairy tale, it had an air of its own reality. It slowly dawned on me that I’d finally struck gold. My heart felt bubbly, like a glass of champagne.

Then I crossed the Borodinski Bridge.

Only yesterday, it seemed depressingly evident that many unexplained matters stored somewhere in the back of my mind would remain unexplained forever. Now, there was hope. I felt as if I had had an adrenaline transfusion. I had advanced the ball. To the ten-yard line. A vigorous final push was now required.

I stopped at a small bakery opposite the Kiev railway station and bought two fresh baguettes. Then I picked up a bunch of flowers from an old man with a gray film in his eyes who was selling leftover vegetables from a cart on Dorogomilovskaya.

Amanda seemed pleased by my attentiveness. She put the flowers into a cobalt-blue vase. There was an enigmatic look in her eyes, I thought, something I could not decipher. She looked gorgeous in her navy halter and white shorts; she was one of those women who would look beautiful in rags.

Only later did I realize how quickly Amanda’s little apartment had become home, how soothing it had been to smell her body, her perfume. Looking back, I felt I’d stumbled into a life that I was meant to live, though I couldn’t have described it before I met her.

“How was your interview?” she said, her fingers laced through mine.

“Fantastic.” I gave her an abbreviated summary.

After lunch, she led me into the bedroom, ran her tongue over her lips, then leaned toward me and swept her middle finger across my lips—ever so lightly, barely touching them. I could never forget the sensuality of that gesture, as if she had been a professional courtesan or a veteran of many exotic love affairs.

“I want to do something for you today,” she whispered. She was in a special mood today, I thought.

We were still dressed, lying face to face. I was holding her hand and caressing her fingers with my thumb. No sooner had I kissed her on the lips than I wanted to kiss every part of her.

“Wait,” she said and as we kissed slowly it felt as if Amanda’s mouth had melted into mine. Then she quickly slid out of her clothes and just looking at her gave me pleasure, even the little flaws on her body—the hairs, dark freckles, tiny blemishes.

She began to undress me and suddenly there was a look of horror in her eyes when she noticed my bruised shoulder. “My God, baby, you must see the doctor. Why didn’t you tell me?” The bruise had ripened, eggplant purple and black, and was rimmed with yellow, like some stellar explosions photographed by the Hubble telescope.

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