Liza Alexandrova-Zorina - The Little Man

Antonov opened the car window and hate pounded in Savely's temples at the sight of his shiny cheeks.

«Okay, mate?» smiled Antonov. «Nothing to worry about. We're just going for a drive.»

«What are you talking to him for?» drawled Vasilisa. «He's no-one.»

«You should be s-shot!» Savely exploded.

In a little town, either you kill boredom or boredom kills you.

«Get me a gun.» Coffin told his aide, wiping his kvass-soaked trousers with a handkerchief. «And quickly!»

He devoured Savely with eyes that burned right through his pockets and Savely began to feel uncomfortable. Sensing fun and games ahead, Shorty jumped out of his seat and got under their feet. Smacking his lips and positively buzzing with curiosity, he was trying to work out what Coffin had come up with.

Saam brought over the double-barrelled shotgun Coffin always kept in the boot. He was breathing hard and his lips trembled with excitement. Coffin smirked when he saw this and raised an eyebrow in surprise but he failed to read his fate in the other's face.

«Take it. Shoot yourself,» he said, offering the gun to Savely.

Two aides rushed over to Coffin, helpfully seized the gun and put the barrel to Savely's chin and his finger on the trigger.

«Or shoot me,» Coffin said, looking straight ahead as if he were looking into a mirror. «If you don't, I'll shoot you.»

Delighted at this unexpected entertainment, the gangsters crowded round Savely. Passers-by slowed down and a plump woman hanging out washing on her balcony, paused, a sheet raised above her head. Savely was trembling. The palms of his hands were sweating and the barrel of the gun dug into his chin. His hands shook and he felt that with one jerk of his finger he would press the trigger. It seemed as though his body was no longer attached to his head and his head had been stuck on a spear. Scared to move, Savely looked askance at his daughter. One of the bandits grinned.

«Shush!» Coffin licked his lips.

A shot rang out.

Startled pigeons rose into the air. The gun fell to the ground. Savely, as if in a dream, couldn't tell whether he'd been shot or whether he'd shot Coffin but his nostrils filled with the smell of gunpowder that reminded him of bonfire smoke and made him want to sneeze.

Everyone stared at the spread-eagled body that only a second before had ruled the whole town with terror. Shorty whimpered, aware of a gnawing pain in his stumps as though they were sprouting new legs while Saam, looking at the spreading pool of blood, thought that it was possible to see into the future not just in coffee grounds but in swirls of blood as well. Coffin lay there, arms spread wide as if he wanted to embrace his own shadow. It seemed that at any moment he would get up as if nothing had happened, feeling the hole in his head in astonishment. Vasilisa, her hands over her face, shrank into the furthest corner of the car, while Antonov looked as if he was about to whimper the way he did as a little boy when he was clipped around the ear. He didn't take his eyes off the gun that was lying on the floor and his earlobes were white with fear.

No-one tried to stop Savely. The gangsters moved apart in silence, letting him through, and, moving backwards, he went further and further away from the veranda where his life had split in two like a vase falling from a shelf. Savely crossed the square on wobbly legs, his shirt soaked through, horror keeping a murderous grip on his throat until he threw up, stomach heaving.

A woman's scream cut through the silence. There were shouts behind him as though the sound had just been switched on. Savely could see the gangsters running towards him and, darting round a corner, he fled.

Teetering, he made his way through courtyards where people shrank away from him, assuming he was drunk. «Hello, Savely,» nodded an elderly neighbour, putting down her shopping bags. He had always been polite enough to ask after her health and had been rewarded with lengthy accounts of her ailments, evil doctors and costly medicines. It was a shared ritual, unbroken for years, but now Savage recoiled, hiding his face behind his upturned collar and the old lady watched him go, her hand over her mouth.

The police were already waiting at home. Savely looked up at the windows of his flat and had the impression that there, behind the tightly closed curtains, Savely Savage was taking his key from under his mat. Crossing his legs, he pulled off his boots, shuffled across the corridor into his room and switched on the TV. If he were to look out of the window, he would see someone, peeping out from behind a corner and looking up at his windows, imagining that Savely Savage was looking at him.

Patrol cars sped around town like mad dogs, spreading out through the streets one minute, forming a pack the next. Savely sat in the basement counting the drops of water falling from the damp ceiling. Cats yowled in the darkness. The roar of the patrol cars, excited conversations and yells reached him from outside. Savely tried to piece the evening into a single whole, like a mosaic, but its events fell to bits and got all mixed up. He began to imagine he'd shot Antonov from a gun his daughter had provided and that the gangsters had pressed the trigger just as they put the barrel to his chin. He couldn't believe what had happened to him and, huddled into a dark corner like a child, he simply trusted everything would sort itself out.

During the night, keeping close to the buildings, he made his way to the outskirts of town. Five long rows of brick-built garages at the side of the roads formed a whole town, a rabbit-warren where Savely Savage took refuge. He stretched out on the bare earth and tried to go to sleep so that he could wake up from a bad dream.

Severina was so pretty she would look lovely even in a distorting mirror. Weeping drunken tears, the nanny at the children's home could never admire her enough. The nanny had no children, her husband had left her and she spent all day and all night at work until eventually she moved in along with all her stuff. As she sang each child to sleep, she would imagine it as her own, that she had carried it and given birth in agony, until she completely lost her marbles, talking to her babies for days on end.

Severina struggled at school and when she stopped going she could read only one syllable at a time and count only on her fingers and couldn't understand why the world was like a children's home full of nasty abandoned children.

«My, but you're beautiful,» said the gangster, taking her by the chin. He had got out of his car that had pulled up alongside her. «Let's go for a drive.»

Severina had seen Saam several times at the children's home where he would pick out boys for Coffin's gang. He got his nickname from his narrow, deep-set eyes and his short, stubby build. People said his stare could bend horseshoes but, unlike Coffin, Saam was cautious and went through life like a cat on a windowsill. No-one could remember when he'd arrived in the town or where he came from. He didn't talk about himself, joking that he was born when he first held a knife and that he first held a knife when he was born.

Saam took Severina to the town market which was squeezed into the old bus depot. Brightly coloured stalls huddled together. The clothes hung from string, dresses and suits dancing as they fluttered in the wind. Boys from the children's home hung around but the women on the stalls, with their red swollen faces, never took their eyes off them. Sometimes they went back to the home with their pockets full to the brim and then they would be surrounded by a noisy pack of girls cadging presents. More often, however, they would be brought back by a policeman and the hapless would-be thieves could long be recognized by their swollen ears.

«Pick something!» Saam urged. «Don't be shy!»