Who Is Martha? Read Online Free Page B

dexterously and to the sound of rustling tissue paper, he envisaged how he would step out onto the street in a minute, where the wind, upon catching sight of him, woud leave everything else untouched – leaves, newspaper shreds and empty plastic bottles – the wind would rush towards him with an insane pleasure and before the eyes of the world, it would air Levadski’s delicate pink secret, the jacket lining.
    Levadski bought the shirts with mother-of-pearl buttons and double cuffs in the branch on Frantsusky Boulevard. He was allowed to fish a complimentary pair of cufflinks out of a big round bowl. In a hat shop a few streets up he spent an hour trying on headwear. A bowler hat made Levadski look like an emaciated Churchill; mortified, he put it back on the counter. A homburg with an upturned rim didn’t suit him either. The design made Levadski look like a wrinkly youth who had gotten drunk after failing an exam. Finally he let himself be persuaded by a style called Dreamer, a home-grown version of the Borsalino.
    “Imposing,” said the hat seller with a click of his tongue, “very distinguished.”
    “Where can I get a walking stick with a silver handle?” After five hours on his legs he felt more dead than alive. “Or better yet, where is the nearest pastry shop?”
    “Just around the corner, right in front of the Memorial to the Orange Revolution. There’s only one place you’ll find the silver walking stick, at 5 Victory Avenue.”
    Levadski dragged himself to the pastry shop and ordered a piece of chocolate cake. As he was not wearing his dentures he swallowed the alcohol-dipped cherry decorating his cake without chewing it. Am I not a moving sight? thought Levadski. A bee landed on a carnation that was leaning against the rim of a vase. Strange, thought Levadski, you can keep a dog, a cat, a goldfish, a parrot, a trained thrush or a blackbird, some people keep a snake or even a spider at home, but you can’t keep a lone bee. The bee dies without its folk. Oh, it is going to die anyway! Levadski put the fork down on the saucer and leaned back. The bee flew from the carnation onto Levadski’s cake. Impertinently it showed him its behind.
    Levadski watched the animal and remembered how he had ignited a dry bush in the Carpathians when he was a student of ornithology between the wars in order to attract the beee-ater. He had hoped that a little posse of these birds would appear in order to snap up the insects escaping from the fire, which is precisely what happened. With a short sharp “whoop” the red-eyed birds made the air around Levadski whirr. It was his first successful experiment. With bated breath Levadski watched as one of the birds caught a bee and crushed it against a branch in order to squeeze out its poison.
    “Check, please!” The large behind of the waitress who was placing empty coffee cups on a tray at the next table reminded Levadski of one of his resolutions from this morning. When the waitress brought him the check Levadski patted her hip with a shaky hand. “A bee,” he apologized, paid and left.
    A taxi stood in front of the Memorial to the Orange Revolution. Levadski got in. “Victory Avenue, please. Number five.” The taxi driver spit his cigarette butt out the window and drove off. “You know,” Levadski said, hugging the shopping bags and suit box to his ribs, “I don’t understand what the Memorial to the Orange Revolution is about. There was such media hype when it was inaugurated last year. There is a pedestal, but where is the memorial?”
    “Modern art,” replied the taxi driver and switched on the radio, from which the last note sung by a male choir was fading away. The taxi driver must have been embarrassed at having to talk to a toothless old man, although he was well over sixty himself. Or, he understood something about modern art and found the idea of an invisible memorial extremely fascinating.
    “The same old story, like everything in this world,”