Scene 9

«The taste is correct, but it is, as always, too spicy», pronounced Ruslan during the main course. At the starters' stage itself the master had thrown up his hands: «Hektor, good Hektor! Ginger in the Pelmeni! There was a time when the chef would have had his head chopped off for doing that. And when I came in, the entire house smelled of chili – something these walls have not yet experienced.»

«Correct!» Had it been anyone else, Maille would have taken away the plate at once. But coming from Ruslan's lips it was almost a compliment. The two of them had, back in Paris, often heatedly discussed the issue of spice requirement in a dish – about what governed the burgeoning of flavour and at what point the taste was spoiled or killed. Maille adored spicy food, however, and constantly sought to justify his culinary barbarism: he would wax on about how spice opened out the pores, the Vitamin C it provided, the sweat, the excitement, the adrenalin, the swoon it produced, the desire for a pang of delicious pain… On his part Ruslan knew that Hektor agreed with him in principle. And so their discussions on spice levels were always conducted in a sort of confessional atmosphere, in which fantasy and desire stood more in the foreground than did the spirit of true inquiry. The debates were all about the enjoyment of the description, about the trangression in the description.

But there was no time for that now; Maille had an important mission to accomplish. He showed Ruslan the blue paper with the Cyrillic alphabets: «Can you make some sense of this?» Even as Ruslan popped the canapes into his mouth one after the other with astounding speed, he cast a quick eye over the page. «Sure, the word is Winzawod.»
«Winzawod?»
«Yes, look, the ‹B› is circled twice. That can only mean Winzawod.»
«And what is Winzawod?»
«Everyone here knows what it means: a trendy neighbourhood with galleries, fashion boutiques and so on. High style amidst the ruins of a former winery east of the centre. Some of the gallerists are regulars at my restaurant.»
«And does the name Anna Schukowa say something to you?»
«No, but I can ask.» Ruslan reached for the telephone., dialled, waited, spoke a couple of sentences and then, with a triumphant laugh, picked up the last canape from his plate.
«Your lady works as an interpreter for some galleries in Winzawad – and also helps out at a shop for art implements.»
«Thanks! It's not bad, after all, to have a good relationship with class enemies!»

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