Zakhar Prilepin - Sin

To hell with it all, I thought and went back to the table.

“Your friend says that you didn’t touch anyone,” I said to the driver, who was looking away. “If that’s so, then I apologize. I hope everything was as you say. In any case, our girls should be left alone when they’re working.”

The short guy, the one whom Syoma called a “samurai,” was drinking juice through a straw, and his face grimaced, like a little monkey about to sneeze.

I still went back into the foyer, and even went outside, feeling as if I had suddenly lost a lot of blood.

Thirty meters or so from the club, the foreign car still had all its lights on, and the teenagers whom Molotok had insulted were sitting in the car.

Vadik came out, seeming embarrassed.

“Zakhar… That tall Muscovite… He told Alya that they’d kill her if she complained.”

I nodded, unable to decide what to do.

I held a cigarette in my hands, and for the first time I didn’t feel like smoking, I felt a little sick, and my head was spinning. I went into the hall, and the first thing I saw was the poser. His drunken and sweaty face was blurred, as if he had no face muscles.

Molotok appeared from somewhere.

“Everything OK?” he asked.

I nodded again: all OK.

“Where were you?” I asked, although I didn’t care.

“That ‘Afghan’ is in the club again,” Molotok said, not hearing the question. “He ran in while we were getting rid of those jerks… Shall I throw him out?”

“No, don’t,” I replied.

The poser walked past us, brushing me with his shoulder.

“Something has to be done,” I thought. “Something has to be done. I need to pull myself together. They’re like animals, they sense everything…”

“He’s got a glass,” Molotok nodded towards the poser.

“Sir, you can’t take glasses outside,” I said to the poser.

He stared at me disdainfully, took a sip of wine and spat it out on the steps, almost hitting the girl who was standing below.

“Go back inside,” I asked again.

“Weren’t you already told how to behave?” the poser replied, turning his blurry, disgusting face to me; in his thick-lipped open mouth, like something alive, ready to fall out, his moist, thick tongue moved.

God, how does he know, I thought miserably.

“Behave like you were told,” the poser said.

I swallowed thick saliva and saw that the “Afghan” was standing nearby, making strange movements with his fingers, as if he was flexing them, and was listening to us.

The rain began to fall again, slowly and sparsely.

The tall Muscovite walked past us, haughtily, with a very satisfied expression on his face, and was already walking down the steps, when he suddenly turned around.

“So, you got it, right?” he said to me loudly.

I didn’t reply. Molotok looked around uncomprehendingly, looking me in the face a couple of times.

“Didn’t you hear me?” the Muscovite asked, turning back and walking right up to me.

“I can hear everything,” I said distinctly.

He nodded and went to the jeep.

The “Afghan” behind my back laughed hoarsely. The poser made strange movements with his face, as if he wasn’t letting something inside his mouth jump out.

“You were told, you can’t take glasses out with you,” Molotok, who had no idea what was going on, finally said to the poser.

“Don’t touch me,” the poser replied, and turned back, accidentally splashing wine on Molotok’s chest, and returned to the club.

“Shit!” Molotok cursed in a whisper and began to brush the wine off his chest.

“You got wet, guys!” the “Afghan” shouted and laughed again.

“Fuck off,” Molotok said to him, and the “Afghan” found this even more funny, he was already hoarse with laughter.

We returned to our counter and sat down on the stools. I leant my head against the wall, pushing the beret to the back of my head and revealing my wet forehead.

“What’s wrong?” Molotok asked. “I don’t get it. What happened?”

“Nothing,” I replied. “You can see for yourself that nothing happened.”

“Why did that tall guy talk to you like that then?”

Molotok fell silent, dissatisfied. He didn’t like my replies. He thought to himself, and you could see how hard it was for him to think without expressing his thoughts out loud.

The club patrons began to disperse.

I sat at the counter, trying not to see anyone or think about anything, but for some reason I imagined that everyone walking past was looking ironically at me. It seemed intolerable — but I endured it, I put up with it, and smoked…

The packet was running out. I didn’t take it off the counter anymore.

The girl who had come up to me — …imagine, I didn’t ask her name… I thought — also walked past me without saying a word, without even nodding her head. She took a taxi and drove away in it without turning around. I looked at her from behind the glass, for some reason waiting for her to turn around. It was important.

Molotok kept silent, sometimes watching me taking out a new cigarette, then turning around immediately as soon as I lit up — so he didn’t have to look me in the face.

The “Afghan” stood on the steps for a little longer, still swaying, and sometimes twisting his face into a smile. Then he waved a hand in our direction, and, swaying, walked away.

At about five in the morning, once he had calculated the takings, Lev Borisych rolled past, and left without saying goodbye. He never said goodbye, in fact.

Disdainfully clicking her heels, Alya went out to smoke. Twisting up her unattractive face, taking a deep drag, she stood to us half-turned, so I could see her and understand what she thought of me. Vadik came out after her, cheerful for some reason. He also lit up, to keep Alya company. He smokes one cigarette a night — right at this time, at five in the morning, when the sun is coming up.

What a sour sunrise it was today. It was swill, not a sunrise.

The Muscovites were almost the last to leave. Devoid of emotions, with an empty head, I waited for the tall guy to stop again and say something to me, but hiccupping loudly, he was talking with the driver, and walked past me as if I no longer existed.

The poser followed him, and stopped in the foyer to put on his coat. I watched him waving it around, bathing us in the stench of barely perceptible rot. The poser was in a hurry, and wanted to say something to the Moscow guests, but he was too late, and they drove off, stepping on the gas and brazenly honking at everyone who was wandering in the road.

The poser went outside. When Vadik saw him, he dived back into the club, but got a chubby hand on his backside. The poser grinned happily at Vadik’s vanishing back, and when he saw us he loudly gathered a mouthful of saliva and spat, hitting the glass door. The thick yellow spit, like a crushed and chewed mollusk, ran down the glass.

I jumped off the stool, and it fell down, crashing behind me.

The poser hurried down the steps.

He hailed a taxi, waving his arm. …He doesn’t want to drive his own car, he’s drunk… I realized. The taxi drove towards him — but I got to him first.

Turning the poser around by his shoulder, I did something that I never allowed myself to do to the club patrons — I punched him in the face, in the jaw, with a good, solid blow. I caught him by the coat, not letting him fall. I grabbed him by the hair, which was oily and slippery, straightened his head up and punched him again, aiming for his teeth.

I let the poser go, and he fell down face forwards, dripping blood, spit and something else.

“He’s not going anywhere,” I said to the taxi driver in an even voice. The taxi driver nodded and drove off.