The Eyes of Lira Kazan Read Online Free

girls declined the offer without even consulting each other, waved and turned on their heels. At the red light, with the crossing light showing eight seconds before it would change, they ran across and disappeared into the underground, carried down the escalators beneath the station’s copper-vaulted ceiling.
    â€œPutin’s there,” Tanya suddenly said.
    â€œI thought he went for a drink with the others.”
    â€œSo did I.”
    â€œMaybe he just felt like going home after all.”
    â€œOr maybe he’s following us,” Tanya replied. “There he is, he’s coming right towards us!”
    â€œHe’s just in a hurry – he wants to overtake us.”
    â€œNo he’s staring at us!”
    Putin did indeed stop at their level on the lowest steps of the escalator. He smiled for the first time, and suddenly looked a lot less like the original version – almost sympathetic, even.
    â€œI see we’re going the same way. Where are you headed?”
    â€œThat way,” Lira said evasively, putting out her arm, worried that Tanya would give away her address.
    â€œWe get off at Lomonosovskaya,” Tanya said, lying with confidence.
    They set off towards Line 3 with Putin still walking beside them. He talked about the training session, about how powerful the yoko geri move was, a killer kick if you put your strength right behind it. The girls’ expressions seemed to say: “So how many people have you eliminated like that?” The corridors were emptier than at rush hour and there was a smell of stale reheated pastry. Tanya
seemed nervous. When they reached an intersection she tried to get away.
    â€œRight, well… we’re going that way.”
    â€œSo am I,” he said.
    And so they found themselves still together on the platform, and then in the same carriage, holding on to the same bar, going nowhere.
    â€œSo do you live in the same place?” Putin asked.
    â€œNot far from each other,” Lira replied.
    Â 
    There were long silences. At each station the girls thought he would finally get off. Putin hadn’t said where he was going, they didn’t even know his real name. Lira examined him surreptitiously: he had a flat forehead, receding hair, thin lips that seemed to forbid conversation, and no wedding ring. A woman would normally take that as a sign that he was available, but Lira simply assumed that an agent wouldn’t burden himself with a family. It was a bit sad to be eyeing a man, no longer to see if he was attractive, but to find out if he was dangerous. This man was probably just a Russian like her, like all the others left behind by history, proud and ruined and, above all, lost. But Lira was well beyond any regrets for the past.
    â€œIsn’t this where you get off?” he suddenly said.
    They looked at each other, blushing, and jumped out of the train just before the doors shut.
    â€œWas I distracting you?” Putin shouted.
    And he disappeared with the train. They breathed a sigh of relief and burst out laughing.
    â€œYour spy’s just your average metro pick-up artist!” Lira giggled.
    â€œWell, be careful. A Mata Hari can be a man. Anyway we’re at the wrong end of town now. Back we go.”
    Lira laughed nervously. She was on edge. It wasn’t normal to have to take so many precautions just in order to ring her daughter. It wasn’t normal to have to invite herself round
so late to the flat of her childhood friend, who was already exhausted by a long day at a museum ticket office.
    â€œI’m sorry about all this,” she said.
    â€œDon’t worry. A little action doesn’t do me any harm after a day of listening to creaking floorboards and old museum attendants’ gossip. It was quite fun in the end.”
    The train screamed through the tunnels and finally the right station appeared with its bright friezes and sculpted garlands along the white vaulted ceiling. Ploshchad