Читать книгу A Bride of Allah - Сергей Бакшеев - Страница 5

A beige Lada, model six, leisurely moved in the right lane of Dmitrovskoe Shosse towards the center of Moscow. Andrei Vlasov has been operating a gypsy cab for a few months now. He deliberately drove slower than the traffic flow, keeping an eye out for a pick-up. The business day was over, the traffic got denser. Annoyed drivers flashed headlights at him and made gestures aimed to show what an idiot of a rookie driver he was.

Vlasov didn’t care about the insulting gesticulation. As soon as he picked up a passenger, he would show the lazy asses what driving in traffic looks like. They are having trouble passing him? Get a helicopter if you’ve got no patience!

His mental exercises in pride were interrupted by a call on his cell phone. He pulled a vibrating Siemens out of his shirt pocket.

“Hello?” he said wearily.

“Andrei, is that you?” Mom, with her usual stupid starter question.

“Who else would it be, Mom?”

“Andrei, make sure to buy some bread for dinner! Rye.”

“Okay, Mom, I will.”

“Just don’t forget! I know you; it will just skip your mind! Buy some right now and come home. You have to eat; you don’t take care of yourself. Unless Mother reminds – ”

“All right, I’ll go get some,” Vlasov reassured her, trying to avoid getting annoyed.

Over the years of living with Mother, just the two of them, he got seriously tired from her nagging. Mom didn’t want to understand that he was twenty-six years old and managed his own schedule. That said, he really could forget about bread; it happened before. It would be better to buy it right away, drive home, and have dinner. The most profitable passengers would be later anyway, when the restaurants downtown start closing.

Vlasov drove under a railroad overpass and parked the car in a narrow alley between two retail pavilions near Dmitrovskaya metro station. Getting out of the car, he habitually looked at the slightly bent front fender and broken turn signal. It was high time to get it fixed and touched up. The fall would start soon, rains and all. Corrosion would grow like spring grass on a sunlit hill. But everything takes time and money.

The small window of a baked goods kiosk gave off a mature smell of fresh bread. A big woman working the counter adroitly stuffed a brick of rye into a plastic bag, matte and rustling, and handed it to him along with change.

It’s got to be hard to stay fit among appetizing smells, though the skinny Andrei. His fingers, as if on their own volition, sank into the flavorful softness. Like an impatient kid, he broke off the end of the loaf; his mouth started salivating even before his teeth tore into the porous crust.

He didn’t feel like going back to the stuffy car right away. Andrei walked into a shady spot, moved his shoulders to unstick the damp shirt from his back. The bag was dangling on his wrist; a light breeze pleasantly cooled his sweating body.

How about some water?

His eyes scanned the small square for a suitable kiosk. Something about the foot traffic was unpleasantly off; it gave him a weird feeling, like a speck of dust in his eye. Okay, here are three men drinking beer by a colorful store display. The bottles are sweaty, just out of a fridge, so there’s got to be water in that fridge, too.

Andrei took a step toward the kiosk he selected, and the feeling of eye sore returned. An indistinct feeling of danger crept in. He’s been through this during the first Chechen war; everything around was still quiet, but something was already wrong.

He tensed without realizing it; shoulders unmoving, a slight turn of the head. His gaze landed on a scared-looking strange woman erratically looking around. Now that was the reason! It was that erratic glancing that made him uncomfortable.

The woman stopped indecisively obstructing the foot traffic. Andrei looked more closely. Dark complexion, straight longish nose, a headscarf covering the forehead, oversize knit cardigan, long, to the ground, dark skirt, hands clasped over her belly, like she was pregnant. From what God-forsaken place has she come into the capital city?

He kept looking. The woman, with a worried expression on her face, was looking at a policeman taking his time checking identification of a swarthy man from the Caucasus. The cop finished his inspection, handed back the papers with visible displeasure, and spotted the scared woman in a headscarf in the flow of foot traffic.

Good thing the cops were harassing the swarthy, Andrei thought. What the hell were they doing in Moscow anyway?

The policeman, looking tired, adjusted his hat and started toward the woman. Vlasov, curious, turned to look: would the woman try to get away? She definitely had a paperwork problem. Should he gently hold her arm to help the public servant extract a bribe out of a provincial from the Caucasus?

The woman, still indecisive, took a step back. No, honey, you aren’t getting away! Andrei smirked and quickly caught up with her. Behind his back, the policeman was clumsily navigating the foot traffic. The scared woman started looking for something inside her clothes; the nondescript cardigan opened up. Andrei suddenly noticed that the woman was young and slender. She was nowhere near forty as he first thought; a girl of barely twenty, just dressed like a villager.

On her stomach under the blouse, Andrei noticed an unnatural bump. Was she really pregnant? His brain was still trying to find an explanation, while the eyes noticed a strange hand movement. Her fingers now held a small black box with a thin twisted wire sticking out of it and disappearing into her clothes.

“Allah akbar!” the girl screamed. Fear in her wide opened eyes, her finger hit a bright button on the little box.

Hearing the call gave Andrei an electric jolt. The two words switched him into the danger mode, when a split second can make all the difference between life and death.

He hit the girl’s arms, pushing them to the sides. Tore the triggering device away from her. More wires were hanging down from under her blouse; the girl was confused, the expression of desperation on her face. Both her hands closed on Andrei’s fist clutching the trigger.

“Allah akbar!” she screeched, scratching with her fingernails.

Andrei threw the trigger away, bloody scratches on his hand. A few scared passerby stopped. Everyone was looking at the girl. She lifted up her blouse and started fiddling with torn wires.

“Allah akbar!” she lamented.

On her waist, there was a wide belt wrapped in tinfoil.

People in the crowd screamed.

“She’s got a bomb!”

“There’s a Shahid1!”

“Aaaargh!”

Many tried to run away. Crush, panic, crazy screaming! The policeman reeled back, stumbled, and fell down. Then he got up and hid behind the corner of a nearby building. His hat, left on the ground, was trampled by the crowd.

The three beer drinkers, bewildered, started pointing their fingers.

“Hey, she wanted to kill us!””

“For reals!”

“Let’s rough up the bitch!”

“Kill that snake!”

They surrounded the confused girl. One, wearing a flowery shirt, seized her by her hair and pulled her head back. Another, of a soft constitution, grabbed a beer bottle by its neck. The remnants of beer flowed over his fat arm. Foam was sticking to the red arm hair. The swing-up was accompanied with dirty cussing. Then a blow on the stomach! The blow was awkward and hit the thick belt. The bottle slipped out and broke on the asphalt. Sound of breaking glass and foamy spatter.

“Nah, that’s not how it’s done!” the third one got excited.

He was skinny and muscular, thrill in his eyes, a T-shirt clinging to his athletic frame, a tattoo on his arm. He struck with relish and visible pleasure. His fist collided with the girl’s chest; she fell back, but held up by her hair and pushed forward to meet another blow.

“Allah akbar,” she kept repeating stubbornly. But it sounded like a moan now.

Her helplessness excited the Skinny even more. His next blow hit her in the solar plexus. The girl bent over and gasped for breath. The hitter was pleased and indicated by a hand gesture that he wanted the victim’s head lifted up. This time, the blow was aimed at her mouth, hissing laboriously, “Allah —”. The whisper stopped with the blow, as bright-red blood started flowing from the split lips. The Flowery Shirt still held the girl. His breathing was heavy with excitement, spittle flying around.

“Drop the bitch!” the Skinny ordered. He was genuinely pleased with himself.

The girl was pushed down. She fell on her knees, the palms of her hands landing on the shards of the beer bottle. Her face was contorted with pain, but instead of a scream, her lips uttered another, barely audible, “Allah akbar”. Her headscarf slid off her head; raven-black hair flowed over her shoulders.

A kick landed onto her defenseless body. The girl lost her breath and fell on her side. The Skinny knew how to hit.

The Softie wanted another chance. He was idle for a while and now wanted to catch up.

“Hey, you, take it easy,” Andrei Vlasov asked shyly.

What at first looked like a righteous retribution, suddenly morphed into a brutal reprisal. He saw the girl’s face screwed up in pain. Blood flowing freely across her cheek and chin; her mangled fingers clutching on to her stomach; bloody spots on her white blouse. But no one listened. Human forms jerked excitedly. Kicks kept coming. A crowd of viewers encircled the spectacle. People were slowly getting over the initial shock, fear gradually giving way to anger; they were encouraging each other.

“Hit her!”

“Terrorist bitch!”

“Keep at it!”

“People like that should be killed on sight!”

The policeman, now calm, was watching from a distance, an expression of curiosity on his face.

The crowd went nuts.

The girl helplessly threw her head back; lips pressed together, eyes closed. On her outstretched neck, now in full view, right above her collarbone, Andrei saw a dark spot. At first, he thought it was a drop of dried blood. No, blood can’t dry that fast. It’s still flowing on her skin, looking like the crawl or wet crimson worms.

The spot was a birthmark. Just like the one Sveta had!

The constricting feeling of forgotten tenderness made him lurch forward.

He loved kissing that birthmark. Sveta’s was slightly raised; he could find it even in the darkness. Just by running his tongue over it. He has done that many times. Found the birthmark, touched it gently, and then kissed her on her open quivering lips…

The memories made him lose his breath.

“Enough. You’re going to kill her,” Andrei whispered.

No response. People had their backs to him. Behind the kicking legs he could see the girl’s twisting body. Pain radiating from the writhing figure like a palpable wave hit Andrei on the sides of his head; all he could see was Sveta, the girl he loved.

His darling was suffering. It was impossible to take!

“Bomb!” Vlasov shouted furiously and tossed the plastic bag with the loaf of bread in it into the crowd.

Everyone immediately stepped back. The new wave of panic was stronger than the first one. Shouting pushed people into action. People ran away, some fell, covering their faces with their hands. They were stepped on, trampled, stumbled on. Desperate screams! Stampede!

Andrei Vlasov picked up the battered girl. Her body was fragile and light, but the thick oval belt on her waist dragged her mid-section down making it inconvenient to carry her.

Behind the kiosks, he put the girl into the back seat of his car. The key scratched the face of the ignition lock for a time before it finally went in. A turn of the wrist, and the engine started purring; sweaty hands grabbed the steering wheel. The car backed up and then charged away.

* * * * *

Meanwhile, one man kept his cool in the commotion.

A lithe young man by the name of Aslan Kitkiev stood near a newsstand behind a thick trunk of a tree. His hands twisted an open glossy magazine while his eyes carefully watched what was happening. Aslan wore an impeccable dark suit and a light shirt. He didn’t wear ties; rich bangs covered his narrow forehead, his long dark hair was obviously cared for by a good hairdresser. Only his thick black eyebrows and longish straight nose betrayed a native of Northern Caucasus.

The young man’s normally gloomy look turned downright evil as Andrei Vlasov was stuffing the girl into his car. The beige “sixer” was very close; at the last moment, Aslan moved to intercept, but stopped. He was supposed to have nothing to do with this, just be a random passerby.

His teeth were gnashing as his narrowed eyes stared at the license plate of the car driving away.