id grimly. “What do you think?”
“We could, at a pinch, stick the scar back on.”
“Look, you’re paid for the brainwork, I’m the muscle. So get on with it.”
Glancing through the other prints, Viktor was struck by one full-face portrait showing scar and broken nose to maximum advantage, with the plus of an animal-at-bay expression much at variance with the smug Hollywood smile of the airbrush portrait.
“You couldn’t bring me a coffee,” he said, and Pasha, seeing the problem as good as solved, betook himself to the stove.
Before and after – that was it! The whiter-than-white technique of the TV soap powder ad could be applied to faces as well as shirts!
“Got anywhere?” asked Pasha, bringing the coffee.
“I think I have, and without our image makers! All we do is enlarge the scar-broken-nose-horrible-expression one, superimposesome cosmetic house name, and stick it up beside the existing poster.”
*
Andrey Pavlovich was slow to get the idea, but when he did, his eyes flashed with Young Pioneer fervour.
“Cosmetics,” he said, thinking aloud, “there’s money in them. Some could go towards our friend’s election expenses. Pasha, ring Potapych. Get him to find out if he is in fact financed by some cosmetics firm.
“Nice work!” he continued, turning to Viktor. “Image makers still asleep?”
Viktor nodded.
“By the way …” he reached into a pocket. “Key to the new lock. You still have the old one, I take it.”
Viktor stared, at a loss for words.
“You’ll find Sonya, and this Nina, now formally engaged as her nanny, and happy to be so.”
“And Kolya?”
“Enjoying my hospitality. Not here, elsewhere. Undergoing ‘educative treatment’. I’d have a good look round your flat when you go, in case he’s left something. He was on a hard drugs run between here and Odessa, then switched to plastic explosive. Price has gone up fivefold, thanks to the elections.”
“When can I go?”
Andrey Pavlovich consulted his watch.
“In two hours’ time. Pasha will drive you. Not as warder but for protection!” he added with a laugh, seeing Viktor’s expression. “I need your brains.”
17
Red Army Street, Tolstoy Square, brief traffic jam, then fifteen minutes freeway to the turn-off past the rubbish collection point and pathetic Eiffel Tower dovecotes of the waste area, where, less than a year ago, Viktor, Sonya and militiaman Sergey walked Misha in the snow, friendly stray dogs intervening.
For a moment there was the strange confused sensation of finding himself lowered, in special diving suit and protective submersible, into the past. And if he felt frightened, he had only to pull on an invisible air line leading up to reality and they would pull him up, remove his helmet, let him get his breath back and make up his mind whether he really did want to go down into the past.
They drew up right outside the block. It was not the first time Pasha had been here.
“I’ll wait by the transformer hut,” he said.
*
Holding his two keys but eyeing the bell, he hesitated. If he rang, Sonya or Nina would open, and though the place was his, let him in like a visitor.
So he both opened and rang. The first thing he saw was a saucer of milk for the cat that scratched.
Sonya, wearing a denim tunic dress embroidered with roses, looked out into the corridor.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
He took his shoes off, looked into the sitting room, and wasbrought up short by the unfamiliarity of pink wallpaper, green tapestry throws over the armchairs and couch, and a pink crochet-edged tablecloth. He raised the cloth a little and was relieved to see the old polished surface smiling up at him.
“Don’t you like it?” asked Sonya from the door.
“No.”
“Doesn’t like the improvements, Nina,” Sonya called, opening the door of the bedroom.
Nina, in towelling dressing gown, was sitting moist-eyed and miserable on a double bed where the single had
“We could, at a pinch, stick the scar back on.”
“Look, you’re paid for the brainwork, I’m the muscle. So get on with it.”
Glancing through the other prints, Viktor was struck by one full-face portrait showing scar and broken nose to maximum advantage, with the plus of an animal-at-bay expression much at variance with the smug Hollywood smile of the airbrush portrait.
“You couldn’t bring me a coffee,” he said, and Pasha, seeing the problem as good as solved, betook himself to the stove.
Before and after – that was it! The whiter-than-white technique of the TV soap powder ad could be applied to faces as well as shirts!
“Got anywhere?” asked Pasha, bringing the coffee.
“I think I have, and without our image makers! All we do is enlarge the scar-broken-nose-horrible-expression one, superimposesome cosmetic house name, and stick it up beside the existing poster.”
*
Andrey Pavlovich was slow to get the idea, but when he did, his eyes flashed with Young Pioneer fervour.
“Cosmetics,” he said, thinking aloud, “there’s money in them. Some could go towards our friend’s election expenses. Pasha, ring Potapych. Get him to find out if he is in fact financed by some cosmetics firm.
“Nice work!” he continued, turning to Viktor. “Image makers still asleep?”
Viktor nodded.
“By the way …” he reached into a pocket. “Key to the new lock. You still have the old one, I take it.”
Viktor stared, at a loss for words.
“You’ll find Sonya, and this Nina, now formally engaged as her nanny, and happy to be so.”
“And Kolya?”
“Enjoying my hospitality. Not here, elsewhere. Undergoing ‘educative treatment’. I’d have a good look round your flat when you go, in case he’s left something. He was on a hard drugs run between here and Odessa, then switched to plastic explosive. Price has gone up fivefold, thanks to the elections.”
“When can I go?”
Andrey Pavlovich consulted his watch.
“In two hours’ time. Pasha will drive you. Not as warder but for protection!” he added with a laugh, seeing Viktor’s expression. “I need your brains.”
17
Red Army Street, Tolstoy Square, brief traffic jam, then fifteen minutes freeway to the turn-off past the rubbish collection point and pathetic Eiffel Tower dovecotes of the waste area, where, less than a year ago, Viktor, Sonya and militiaman Sergey walked Misha in the snow, friendly stray dogs intervening.
For a moment there was the strange confused sensation of finding himself lowered, in special diving suit and protective submersible, into the past. And if he felt frightened, he had only to pull on an invisible air line leading up to reality and they would pull him up, remove his helmet, let him get his breath back and make up his mind whether he really did want to go down into the past.
They drew up right outside the block. It was not the first time Pasha had been here.
“I’ll wait by the transformer hut,” he said.
*
Holding his two keys but eyeing the bell, he hesitated. If he rang, Sonya or Nina would open, and though the place was his, let him in like a visitor.
So he both opened and rang. The first thing he saw was a saucer of milk for the cat that scratched.
Sonya, wearing a denim tunic dress embroidered with roses, looked out into the corridor.
“Hi,” he said.
“Hi.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
He took his shoes off, looked into the sitting room, and wasbrought up short by the unfamiliarity of pink wallpaper, green tapestry throws over the armchairs and couch, and a pink crochet-edged tablecloth. He raised the cloth a little and was relieved to see the old polished surface smiling up at him.
“Don’t you like it?” asked Sonya from the door.
“No.”
“Doesn’t like the improvements, Nina,” Sonya called, opening the door of the bedroom.
Nina, in towelling dressing gown, was sitting moist-eyed and miserable on a double bed where the single had
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