Arkadi Strugatsky - The Ugly Swans

"Look, do you think I could stay here for a week?"

"Sure."

"Where?"

"I want to sleep. Let a poor drunken woman get some sleep."

Victor fell silent but didn't move. Diana was already sleeping. "So that's what I'll do," he thought. "It'll be nice and quiet here. Except at night. Or maybe even at night. He's not going to booze it up every night. After all, he's taking a cure here. Stay here for three or four days ... or five or six. Drink less ... not drink at all ... and get some work done. It's been a long time. To start working, you have to get really bored, so bored that you don't feel like doing anything else." He dozed off, then jerked awake. "Oh, yeah, Irma. I'll write to Rots-Tusov, that's what I'll do. If only he doesn't squirm out of it, the coward. Owes me nine hundred crowns. When it comes to Mr. President, nothing really matters, we all turn into cowards. Wonder why? What are we all so afraid of? Change, that's what. No more going into the writers' bar and polishing off a glass of hundred-and-fifty-proof, no more bows from the doorman, no more doormen -- they'll make you the doorman. If they send you to the mines, that's really bad. But that's an exception, times have changed, a weakening of morals. I've thought about it a hundred times, and a hundred times I've decided that there's nothing to be afraid of, but I still am. Because it's a blind force," he thought. "It's a terrible thing when there's a blind, pig-headed, pig-bodied force pitted against you, impervious to logic and emotion. No Diana either."

He dozed off and woke up again. Through his open window came loud talk and hoarse animal laughter. Branches were snapping.

"I can't lock them up," said the drunken voice of the police chief. "There's no law for that."

"There will be," said the voice of Rosheper. "Am I a legislator or not?"

"Where is the law that says there has to be a hotbed of infection right outside of town?" barked the burgomaster.

"There will be," said Rosheper stubbornly.

"They're not infectious," bleated the falsetto of the middle-school director. "I mean medically speaking."

"Hey, middle school," said Rosheper. "Don't forget to pull your zipper down."

"Where is the law that says you can bankrupt honest citizens?" barked the burgomaster. "Where does it say that?"

"There will be, I'm telling you," Rosheper said. "Am I a legislator or not?"

"What can I throw at those assholes?" Victor thought.

"Rosheper!" said the police chief. "Aren't we buddies anymore? I nursed you along, you son of a bitch. I elected you, you son of a bitch. And now those germs are all over the place, and I can't do anything. There's no law, understand?"

"There will be," said Rosheper. "Take my word for it. In view of the poisoning of the atmosphere -- "

"Moral atmosphere," put in the middle-school director. "Moral and ethical."

"What are you talking about? I'm telling you, in view of the poisoning of the atmosphere and taking into account the poor spawning of fish in the neighboring reservoirs, the germs are to be liquidated and reestablished in a remote province. How's that?"

"How about a kiss from me?" said the police chief.

"Good boy," said the burgomaster. "What a mind. From me too."

"Peanuts," said Rosheper. "Nothing to it. Want to sing? On the contrary, I don't. Let's have another drink and go home."

"That's right. Another drink, and back home."

Once again there was a sound of snapping branches, and Rosheper said from somewhere in the distance, "Hey, middle school, you forgot to zip it up." Then there was silence. Victor dozed off again, slept through an insignificant dream, and then the telephone rang.

"Hello," said Diana hoarsely. "Yes, it's me... ." She cleared her throat. "Never mind, I'm listening... . Everything's fine, I think he liked it.

... What?"

Her body was stretched across Victor's, and he suddenly felt her tense up.

"Strange," she said. "All right, I'll give a look... . Yes... . All right, I'll tell him."

She hung up, climbed over Victor, and lit the lamp.

"What happened?" asked Victor sleepily.

"Nothing. Sleep, I'll be right back."

Through his screwed-up eyes he could see her picking up her underwear from the floor, and her face was so serious that he got worried. She dressed quickly and left the room, straightening her clothes on the run. "Rosheper got sick," he thought, listening intently. "Drank too much, the old geezer." The huge building was silent, and he distinctly heard Diana walking down the corridor, but instead of going to the right, to Rosheper, she made a left. A door creaked, and the footsteps broke off.

Victor turned on his side and tried to go back to sleep, but it was impossible. He realized that he was waiting for Diana and that he wouldn't be able to sleep until she got back. He sat up and lit a cigarette. The lump on the back of his head started to throb, and he made a face. Diana didn't return. For some reason he remembered the sallow-faced dancer with the eagle's profile. "What's he doing here?" thought Victor. "An actor playing another actor who's playing a third actor. The thing is, that was the room he came out of, the one on the left, where Diana went. Went to the landing, looked in the mirror, and turned into a fop. First he played the man about town, then a worn-out gigolo." Victor listened again. "God, is it quiet, everybody's sleeping ... someone's snoring."

Then a door creaked again, and he could hear footsteps coming closer. Diana walked in. Her face was serious as before. Nothing concluded; await further developments. Diana walked up to the telephone and dialled a number.

"He isn't there," she said. "No, he went out. ... So did I. ... No, don't worry about it, of course.... Good night."

She hung up. For a few seconds she stood looking into the darkness beyond the window, then she sat down on the bed next to Victor. She was holding a flashlight. Victor lit up a cigarette and gave it to her. She smoked in silence, turning something over in her mind.

"When did you fall asleep?" she asked.

"I don't know, it's hard to say."

"But after I did?"

"Yes."

She turned to face him.

"Are you sure you didn't hear anything? A brawl, fighting?"

"No," said Victor. "I think it was very peaceful. First they sang, then Rosheper and company urinated under our window, then I fell asleep. They were already getting ready to go back."

She threw her cigarette out the window and stood up.

"Get dressed," she said.

He snickered and stretched out a hand for his shorts. "Your order is my command," he thought. "Obedience is a fine thing. No questions asked, ever." "Are we driving or walking?" he asked.

"What? First we'll walk, then we'll see."

"Somebody get lost?"

"Looks like it."

"Rosheper?"

He suddenly felt her glance on him. There was doubt in it. She was already regretting that she'd asked him to come. She was asking herself, who is he anyway that I should take him along?

"I'm ready," he said.

She was still vacillating, playing with her flashlight.

"Well, all right, let's go." She didn't move from the spot.

"Maybe I should break a leg off the chair?" proposed Victor. "Or the bed?"

She woke up.

"No. It won't do any good." She opened the desk drawer and pulled out a huge black pistol. "Take it," she said.

Victor braced himself, but it turned out to be nothing more than a low caliber hunting pistol. It didn't even have a cartridge.

"Let's have some cartridges," he said.

She looked at him absentmindedly, then looked at the pistol.

"No. We don't need any. Let's go."

Victor shrugged and stuck the pistol in his pocket. They went down to the lobby and walked out onto the porch. The fog had thinned out; it was drizzling weakly. There weren't any cars at the entrance. Diana turned into a small path between the wet bushes and turned on the flashlight.