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expenses and quite significant for me: to her doctor, for injections, to the nurse and so on – it cost a pretty penny, sometimes added up to a thousand rubles along with the food that I had bought and delivered to her because the food in our city hospitals was more symbolic than real, just enough so that the patient didn’t drop dead. So I couldn’t go on without that money anymore. I told mom that I was making some money on the side. She trusted me but tried to find out in more detail how exactly I was doing it. I didn’t reply, changed the subject and she didn’t insist just heaving a sigh. Then I was trying to convince her that I work honestly, no dodgy dealings, and she would calm down. And really I was working, wasn’t I? I wasn’t stealing or anything. Now quite often I had to take part in drinking sprees that Nagiyev was giving, sometimes he was bringing drugs and all his gang was screaming with delight. They tried to pull me into it but I refused categorically and they left me alone. They were all getting high from the drugs – it was funny to look at – they injected stuff, and smoked grass. Nagiyev was smart, his kind don’t rush headlong into it, he was far too serious for that, much too enterprising, he didn’t get too far into the drugs, and booze, he would chill out one day, then get some rest, and then doing business all week. His business was doing great, he was making good money, and mainly he was engaged in the clothing trade. I asked him once, how come he doesn’t work anywhere, isn’t he worried that they might declare him a sponger? “Well, – he told me – why do you think I’m not working anywhere? I work, if you’re interested, as a laboratory assistant at a factory laboratory. You see, I almost ruined my health working there with all those bad, poisonous chemicals.” He giggled. “I see, – I said.” I wouldn’t be surprised if it turned out that he “works” in the laboratory of the factory at which I toiled in the past. He lived alone in that luxurious flat of his. In his thirty four years he had been married twice and twice divorced. He black marketed big time, had connections with other cities, with their traders. They brought goods from there, he sent from here. A couple of times he sent me to Moscow and Vilnius with large parcels, in other words he was doing business and kept his eyes open. I often took bags stuffed with clothes to his mother, who lived with her feeble – minded daughter, Nagiyev’s sister, in another part of the city. I only had a glimpse of Nagiyev’s sister once when I was waiting in their hall. She had Downs’s syndrome, though it’s not easy to tell their age, I thought she was about forty – forty five but looked like a very chubby child. I also often brought stuffed bags from Nagiyev’s mother. One she would hang over my shoulder, the other I took in my hand, and it looked as if she’d rather I had not just two but four hands. Lately I moved about the place in a taxi most of the time. As to moving forward in time… I don’t really know whether I moved at all, as if time stood still for me, was kind of sticky… One day Nagiyev told me to go to the airport to meet some friend of his from Odessa. So I went. I met him. The guy was a bright, smart, kind of fashionable and jolly young man. With a porter we took all his suitcases to the car and rode. At Nagiyev’s there already were sitting two broads – when did he manage? – and all three of them were a bit squint – eyed. Nagiyev and Odessit hugged and kissed them and started partying straight away. I tried to leave but Nagiyev asked me to stay and have a drink with them. I stayed since I had nowhere to rush to, mom checked out of hospital a week ago and so far was feeling ok – touch wood! We drank vodka; there was caviar, Nagiyev’s favourite Swiss cheese, olives, mushrooms, pickled aubergine, skewered sturgeon, and our national pasty with meat or vegetables – kutabs. Then we drank champagne. Now and then Nagiyev and Odessit went to the bedroom with the girls, each one with both at once, and whenever Odessit went with them, a little while later from the bedroom came out squeals and howls, which made drunken Nagiyev sombre. Then he would get up from the table and start picking at Igor who just got back from the bedroom, about why the girls were lying, saying that it’s good with him but keeping quiet, whereas with Odessit they squealed with pleasure. “What’s the point? – said Igor and sat at the table.” The girls giggled and him, Nagiyev, flew into a rage and started sending them away, trying to take his dresses back off them. When they got changed and demanded their money, he threw it behind them shoving them out onto the landing. Igor caught up with them and also paid. When he came back, Nagiyev, reaching boiling point, was very angry at him and was looking for a chance to provoke him. They drank some more and little by little remembering old grudges, ended up fighting. I jumped up to separate them but Nagiyev shoved me away telling me to mind my own business. He grabbed Igor by his collar, shook and pushed him away. It wasn’t a strong push but drunken Igor fell down. Nagiyev, not paying any attention to him, sat at the table and started drinking beer panting heavily. I got up from the sofa to see why Igor wasn’t getting up and approaching him noticed how, slowly, his eyes became glassy. “Hey! – I said to Nagiyev, – have a look.” “Leave me alone, – he barked, – has he fallen asleep there or what?” I unbuttoned Igor’s shirt and put my ear to his chest – in Afghanistan I learned to recognize the slightest glimmer of life in a human body – the heart wasn’t beating. Igor fell, hitting the sharp end of the cupboard with his temple, the temple was dented, the bone broken and a thin trickle of blood was coming out of it. The guy was dead, they don’t get deader, damn, and the first thing I thought of was that I got into a shit worse than anything I had before in my life. I raised my head – Nagiyev stood above me white as a sheet. “He’s dead, – I said, – you’ve killed him.” Why I said these absolutely unnecessary and obvious words, I can’t clearly remember. Could be that I already anticipated what would follow and wanted to some degree to protect myself from that pointless statement of facts. Nagiyev looked sobered up. “Calm down, – he suddenly said, and really he looked quite calm if one didn’t take into account the ashen paleness of his face, – we have to figure out what to do.” We sat at the table. There was nothing we could do for Igor now, I had wide experience with stiffs, had there been a tiny, minute piece of hope, I would immediately call an ambulance. But he was dead and no ambulance could have revived him. “Now, – said Nagiyev suddenly with the tone of a man who already decided everything, paused and continued, – you will take this matter on yourself.” I thought I had misheard him. I haven’t even started becoming abashed by his impudence, while he was already explaining to me point after point that it will be better for both of us. Practically he was trying to persuade me. I much too late understood that I was being cajoled and unfortunately began to consider Nagiyev’s words, just with a silly, lost smile saying from time to time: “Are you crazy?”, “Have you gone mad?”, which of course couldn’t be taken into account as a counter – argument against Nagiyev’s reasoning. “First of all, – Nagiyev said, without paying attention to my remarks – first of all, you’re a war veteran, – one, decorations – two, disabled – three, this is manslaughter, I’m a witness (here I choked with indignation, he’s a witness, you see) – four, – Nagiyev continued with perfect calm, – good lawyer is my problem, – he kindly added, – five, considering all these facts the sentence will be minimal, I’m telling you, they won’t give you much, I’ll do everything, and now listen to me very carefully, – he said in some icy, almost threatening voice, and I really began to listen to him very carefully, even forgot about my remarks, – here’s what it is, – he said, – for each year you’re inside I’m giving you seven grand, it’s six hundred a month. Not you, not your mother never even dreamt of that kind of money until you met me, try to earn it working as night watchman on your building site. Now I’ll give you a flat payment of fifteen grand, so that while you’re doing time your mother is well provided for. Apart from that, I will take care of her, and will do everything she needs, you know me. The rest of the dough you’ll get when you’re out.” He made a pause, and then I automatically put into this pause my now favorite phrase: “Have you gone mad?” He quietly looked at me for a few seconds. No, of course he didn’t look like a madman. “And now listen to me even more carefully, – he said in a while, – and try to use your brains.” “Well, – said I.” And he goes, – if you don’t take it on yourself, I am obviously going down, but I promise you: I’ll do everything to take you with me as an accomplice in murder. You know my connections; I think you understand that it won’t be difficult for me to share the sentence with you. I’ll take you with me, you can be as sure about that as about my promise to pay you for doing time for me. And if we both go down, then after the jail you’re nobody, like before. At that moment I had an urge to knock him down, I sprang up with