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Read Russia 2nd pass:Layout 1 5/2/12 1:03 AM Page 47
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damp metro with little bitty steps and also headed for the crossing, clutching
a tattered shopping bag against herself as if it was some treasure of incredible
value. Cautiously abandoning the pavement, the old granny set off on her
tiny little feet, mincing across the wheel-polished ice that skewed her steps
slantwise—and someone in the oncoming stream of pedestrians jostled her.
Afterwards many witnesses to the incident were haunted by the feeling
that everything that happened had been arranged deliberately. Many of them
had the impression that several seconds before the first squeal of brakes they
had sensed a certain connection between the murky road surface, an
advertisement billboard with an image of a gigantic mobile phone, a roofedover
planking walkway with the dark, stale brick crusts of buildings under
demolition behind it, an orange worker in the little glass box of a hoist,
repairing the vertical sign of a bank, and a kiosk selling fruit by the metro.
The most sensitive among them said they had felt as if they were suddenly
enclosed within a huge mechanical toy, like those in which a jolt sets beerbottle
caps tipping over in a long conveyor movement, little balls are released
and a weight drops down. Everything had been calculated down to the last
second and millimeter, the only thing missing was the old woman, who duly
crept out onto the icebound stage with her dreadful hat, that seemed to have
a faded and withered funeral wreath trembling feebly on it.
So, the old woman was jostled and the jolt sent the shopping bag hanging
on her elbow flying to land prone on the ice. With her feet skittering, the
old granny leaned down to retrieve her property, and just then the green
pedestrian light changed to red. The cars waiting at the zebra slowly set off
and slowly drove round her, swamping the doddering figure in headlights
and angry honking, and in the interplay of bright rays, glassy wings seemed
to sprout from its rounded back. As ill luck would have it, the bag was still
squirming about on the slippery surface. Meanwhile the first batch of cars
had ebbed away and a huge Jeep came roaring along the open roadway, grinning
with its bumper as it sped downhill toward the green light.
At this point the old woman should have abandoned her baggage and
made her escape. She had more than enough time to reach the pavement
with her doddering little steps. But the half-witted granny carried on fumbling
about in the middle of the road, as if she was washing the floor. The
driver of the Jeep hadn’t expected this. Afterwards no one could grasp what
was so valuable about the empty-bellied bag of cobbler’s imitation leather
that was presented at the inquiry together with its contents, namely: a threadbare
purse with two hundred and thirty roubles in cash; a little old cambric