Baba Yaga Laid an Egg

‘We’ll go to Prague and have her cremated.’

‘It’s Pupa’s daughter who’ll decide about all those things.’

‘A lot she cares!’

‘All in all, we have a major problem.’

‘God, what a fool I am! How did I ever get involved in all of this!’ complained Beba, not considering that Kukla had got involved in it as well, through no fault of her own.

As they walked briskly along, the two women did not notice that the whole town had become immersed in a smoky pink colour. The heavy, brocade sunset had turned the little river and lavish façades of the houses pink. The window-panes sent russet reflections to one another. The treetops had sunk into the late-afternoon dusk and were giving off a heavy, intoxicating mist.

Beba and Kukla walked on, deep in conversation, until at a certain moment they stopped as though immobilised. The two women stood with their mouths wide open. In front of them appeared a gigantic – egg! It appeared, just like that, as though the finger of fate itself had rolled it where Beba and Kukla could bump into it. To be more precise, in front of them was a large shop window, and in the window a gigantic wooden egg! They had seen eggs like this, real-life-sized ones of course, they sometimes turned up in the Zagreb markets, where, having travelled from Russia, Ukraine and Poland, they rolled around on the counters, with Russian lacquered boxes, spoons and wooden dolls, the ones that fitted inside each other.

‘Good Lord, look at that King Kong of an egg!’ exclaimed Beba, almost devoutly.

The egg was painted in shiny, bright colours and muddled patterns of flora and fauna. Beba and Kukla’s eyes floated over flowery meadows, with butterflies the size of helicopters flying over them, fields blooming with red poppies, blue cornflowers and golden corn; they plunged their gaze into greenery and creepers, ferns and trees, with monkeys and birds swaying on their branches. Then they lowered their eyes to the undergrowth: there was a rabbit family hiding under one shrub, Adam and Eve under another, does and stags under a third. The egg was girded with bushes of ripe raspberries and blackberries, with mushrooms growing at their feet. Snails slid and ladybirds scuttled over their tops. The boggy areas were particularly striking: there were luxuriant water lilies with frogs swinging on them, large fish wallowing in their depths and wading birds peeping out of the reeds. Finally, Beba and Kukla directed their eyes to a tall palm, with a camel resting in its scant shadow. Somewhere in the air above the camel a small family was sitting in an eggshell, like a little boat: a woman, two children and a man with glasses on his nose and a paintbrush in his hand. All in all, it was a garden of Eden painted by an amateur. The man with the glasses on his nose and brush in his hand was evidently the painter of this grandiose creation. The egg consisted of two parts, and metal rivets and a handsome lock with a hook in the middle suggested that the egg opened like a trunk.

That was not all. All around the gigantic main egg, life-sized eggs were scattered: wooden painted Easter eggs, crystal Swarovsky eggs, more or less successful imitations of the famous Fabergé eggs, a new series of Fabergé eggs. The eggs scattered round the main egg gave off magical reflections of bluish, lilac, golden, golden-greenish, crystal-whitish, milky-silver tones, and the whole thing was a sight that must have left everyone who saw it speechless.

The shop bore the unambiguous name ‘The New Russians’. The interior looked more like an art gallery than a shop. The walls were white and almost bare. In two or three places there were art photographs of eggs in glass frames. A young woman was sitting at the elegant white counter, and behind her was a white-painted glass display case full of exhibits.

‘How much is that large egg in the window?’ asked Beba in English.

‘Unfortunately, it’s not for sale,’ the girl replied politely.

‘Why did you put it in the window, then?’

‘As an advertisement, to catch people’s attention.’

‘And what would it cost if it were for sale?’

‘We are not an ordinary souvenir shop. We are a specialist gallery,’ the girl stalled.

‘Specialising in what?’

‘Why, eggs…’

‘And these other eggs, are they for sale?’

‘Yes.’

‘How much is this “Peter the Great”?’

‘Three thousand five hundred.’

‘Three thousand what?’

‘Dollars. Most of our customers are Russians, you know.’

‘Rich Russians?’

‘Well…’ the girl smiled.

‘And how much is the “Tsar Alexander Caviar Bowl”?’ Beba read from the plaque in the window.

‘Six thousand dollars.’

‘And a real Fabergé egg?’

‘Don’t ask!’ said the girl with feeling.

‘Nevertheless, if you were selling that big egg, what would it cost?’

The girl looked at the two elderly women dumbfounded.

‘Are you Russian?’

‘No, but we’d really like to buy that Russian egg!’

‘In fact, it isn’t Russian,’ said the girl. ‘It was made by our local artist Karel…’

‘Karel Gott?’ Kukla blurted out, half to herself.

‘How do you know?’