Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

A girl was standing beside the town fountain. Her head was turned towards it and she was leaning all her weight on one hip. The young man could see her luminous complexion, pink ear, which seemed to him as fresh as a segment of orange, and a copper-coloured curl that had caught on her ear like an unusual earring. The girl was wearing a simple little floral sleeveless dress. The dress revealed the girl’s plump shoulders sprinkled with rusty freckles, her broad hips and the chubby calves of her legs.

All around, in the tops of the old plane trees, whose leaves had acquired a pale grey-green colour in the bright sun, birds were chirping. The young man walked round the fountain and stopped opposite the girl. Now he could see her face. She had a regular, full little face, almost child-like, with bright green eyes, quite wide set. The neckline of her dress gave the young man a glimpse of her ample bosom and the freckles, like an army of pale orange ants, disappearing into the shadowy dip between her breasts. The girl was licking ice cream out of a crunchy cornet. She ran the tip of her tongue round its edge, as though she were making a little pit, tidily licked up the drips of ice cream that were sliding down the outside of the cornet, pushed the foamy mass towards the top with her tongue, and then, with her full, pink lips, she sucked up the peak. The girl was licking her ice cream so carefully and with such concentration that she might have been solving a difficult mathematical problem. From time to time she took her right foot out of her clog and scratched her left ankle. And then she tucked her right foot back into its clog, took out her left foot and used it to scratch her right ankle. All this time, she did not for a moment lose her focus on the ice cream. As though the ice cream was a tiny wild animal she had caught. She played with the ice cream like a cat with a mouse.

The air was glowing with the setting sun, birds rustled in the surrounding treetops, paled by the sunlight, the water in the fountain sputtered in short comic spurts. Everything seemed to have been numbed by the heat which was slowly settling into the ground; there was not a breath of wind, the leaves of the plane trees hung as though turned to stone. But nevertheless, the young man seemed to feel a vague current of air. At a certain moment the girl raised her eyes and looked straight at him. Her slanted, light-green eyes met the young man’s. A little blob of ice cream was melting on the girl’s lip. The young man felt a sudden longing to be that little blob.

Day Three

1.

Kukla was nearly six foot three, slim, with an exceptionally straight back and an easy gait, all of which made her seem younger than she was. What stood out on her regularly featured face were her strong cheekbones, slanting eyes of indeterminate colour, usually called ‘almond’, and her shy smile. That smile was also unusual for her age. She had broad, bony shoulders, as though she had done a lot of swimming in her youth, although she despised every sport apart from walking. Her ‘uniform’ contributed to the refinement of her appearance. That was what Kukla called her simple outfit: a dark straight skirt, light silk blouse, usually white, and a fine woollen cardigan, usually grey. She always wore a small necklace of real pearls. Her hair was dark, well streaked with grey, secured at her nape with an ordinary little comb. The only unharmonious parts of her body were her feet. She wore men’s size shoes, forty-four. When she was younger it had been hard to find anything in her size, so she had simply begun to buy men’s. But she successfully disguised her handicap through the lightness of her stride. Unlike many of her contemporaries, Kukla was not afraid of death. However, she had the feeling that she would live a long time: all the women in her family had been centenarians. And there was something else: those who came near her were inclined to think they could feel a vague current of air, something like a gentle breeze.

‘Please explain to him,’ Mr Shaker was saying, ‘that I am prepared to take on all the financial obligations, that is travel costs, hotel accommodation while he is in Los Angeles and a rapid course of English. Dr Topolanek assures me that he would give Mr Mevličko unpaid leave, if, that is, the gentleman decided not to remain in America.’

Kukla translated all of that for Mevludin.

‘Ask him what he wants me there for,’ said Mevlo.

Mr Shaker began by explaining at length the purpose and importance of his industry of potions and powders, and then said that Mr Mevličko’s job would be to advertise his products. He, Mr Shaker, had a whole team of experts in marketing. They would see to it that Mr Mevličko became a great star of promotional videos, posters, websites and other advertising material.

‘Tell him I won’t have my picture taken, not at any price,’ said Mevlo, but Kukla interrupted him.

‘And what would Mr Mevličko’s salary be?’ she asked Mr Shaker.