Read Kolia for Free Online Page A

Tanya.”
    They toasted each other’s health. Kolia felt the warmth of the vodka working against the chill of October. He opened the Bradbury, which still smelled of printer’s ink and alcohol, and began to devour it. A Russian translation of a Dickens novel lay beside his glass; his club was rehearsing the play it was based on. At page sixteen, instead of a bookmark, Kolia had folded a sheet torn from one of Iosif’s notebooks, on which he had jotted down his essential reading list. Dickens was in good company. Hugo, Tolstoy, and Akhmatova topped the list; the Marquis de Sade and Laclos secured the bottom.
    Pavel Petrov was six feet, six inches tall. He was walleyed. His hair was a mottled confusion of blond and chesnut brown patches — the preponderance of brown hair was on the same side of his head as his one brown eye; on his blue-eyed side, his hair was primarily blond. No one messed with Pavel. He was, however, a gentle soul — unless, of course, an argument broke out after a night of the usual vodka and apple wine.
    Pavel, in collaboration with his mentor, Ilya Alexandrovich Bounine, had created a clown act known as The Bounines for the Moscow State Circus. He was the white clown and Bounine took the role of the augusteclown. Pavel had been juggling and breathing fire since his first year at the School of Circus Arts, which demanded versatility from all Soviet circus artists, but he had yet to acquire Bounine’s mastery of knife swallowing. As a revered teacher, Bounine was addressed formally by all his students, but Pavel called him Ilya Alexandrovich. They had both been members of the troupe that had recently toured with the circus outside the Soviet Union, and had certainly developed a fondness for the West, although not to the point of wanting to live there. Their art, they believed, was best practised in the USSR. It had only been a taste of Western freedom, a notion which remained as unfamiliar as the surface of the moon. Back in Moscow, when the gastronom on Tverskaya Street ran out of carrots or sausages or bread, they would simply turn to their trusted contacts to get the food and supplies they needed — often, it was Mitya.
    Pavel would usually drop by the tavern for a drink the night before the performance of a new sketch, and, his jawline would inevitably show traces of white makeup — a mixture of rice powder and talc. He tried not to overdo it, but his skin had to be white enough that the colours he applied to his nose, mouth, cheeks, eyes, and eyebrows would jump right out at the audience. His makeup wasn’t particularly elaborate, but his eyebrows, as a result of being brushed up and painted so often, had set into place with a permanent black tint that clashed with his natural hair colour.
    When Pavel entered the tavern that night, Kolia noticed him straight away and couldn’t take his eyes off the big man. Pavel found this slightly unnerving. He opened his briefcase, extracted a round pocket mirror, consulted it, and found nothing abnormal in his appearance. The rubbing alcohol always left his skin looking a little puffy and red, and there were always traces of white paint around his face. He didn’t look that unusual, and in any case, the room was dimly lit. He approached the bar, where Kolia was sitting in front of a couple of books and an open magazine.
    â€œFrench, huh?” Pavel queried, leaning on the bar next to Kolia and eyeing the magazine.
    â€œ Paris Match .”
    â€œI’ve been there, you know. Parisian woman are . . .”
    â€œA bunch of whores, from what I understand.”
    â€œNot at all. They’re lovely creatures with no shortage of character. Sometimes a little standoffish . . . Do you speak French?”
    Kolia downed his glass in one quick shot and then drew his bar stool closer to Pavel’s; he glanced at Mitya for reassurance. It was okay.
    â€œYeah. I studied it at school.”
    â€œGood for