A night taxi

The girls sit behind, one is a blonde, another is a brunette, the blonde came to the meeting with her girlfriend, strictly they are not girls, both are over thirty, but in the light of electric rays they both look younger. Nevsky is crowded even at this late hour, big black limousines noiselessly rush by, many cars like that are parked near shining with lights restaurants and casinos, the women sitting behind follow them with long glances.

The brunette clicks with her lighter, asks the driver a permission to light up. “Yes, of course”, he willingly comes into the conversations. “I myself smoke, many times was going to quit”. “How many?” the brunette asks with slightly detected coquetry, with the same coquetry she talked to the American in the restaurant while the blonde invited by him was mostly silent. The blonde has big eyes on a thin capricious face and a short hair-cut, she silently smokes looking in the window.

Meanwhile the driver talks, peering at the darkness of the road, we have already considerably driven off Nevsky and the quantity of lights reduced. He has either accidentally or purposefully unshaven face, he is maybe up to forty, but the boyish quick temper still remains in his eyes. His speech overflows from smoking to a healthy way of life, skiing and romance, he says how in winter they used to go to his parents’ dacha with his future wife, how they had lain ten kilometers of ski-track over snow-drift from the station, had stoked the stove, chopped ice, had tea by candle light, warmed each other under the blanket. The brunette comments, asks questions, but the driver only slightly listens to her while he continues his monologue. Having fastened his gaze upon the darkness he talks how little was needed for the enthusiasm then, the troubles totally passed by, but good luck went into his hands maybe because of a high spirit or maybe a high spirit was created because of good luck, then both vanished, and which of them had been primary was the question which still had to be resolved.

“And now?” the blonde interrupts her silence. “What’s now?” the driver responds at once and looks in the mirror whom this new voice belongs to. “Go to your dacha now?” asks the blonde and the driver says that now they have another dacha with electricity, running water and the highway leading right to their door, but his wife, his daughter and himself now seldom go there. “Is the wife the same?” asks the blonde and the driver nods that, of course, the wife is the same, that the family is sacred, as for the romance, now it should be searched for at another dacha with another person.

The blonde nods, the brunette ardently objects that the relationship needs to be worked on and the romance should be created with one’s own hands. With the same enthusiasm she replied to the American in the restaurant when he talked about the search of his half all over the world. I translated his words that he had crossed the ocean solely to meet the blonde whose photo startled his imagination, but I knew that he had already been to Odessa and Kiev and met many women there and that there was a list of other women in my notebook the meetings with whom I had to translate yet. The American was a real macho with a dazzling smile which for some reason left the blonde indifferent, she responded to him tersely, let her girlfriend carry on the discussion about the loneliness and about all those masks people wore to conceal it.

The driver brings us to the block shown by the brunette, the girls open the doors, before leaving the blonde gives me the envelope with a letter and photos which she asks to translate and send by email today. I nod, the girls say good bye, go fast to their entrance through a dark courtyard and we go further.

We ride along dark streets of the outskirt, rare lanterns dimly burn, the driver switches on the headlights carefully going around ruts and pits. We miss the street where we should turn, I see nothing to the left and to the right, no cars towards us at all, I scrutinize the darkness trying to understand where we are. “Do not be afraid, I will not take you out of your way”, says the driver and adds that he just badly knows this part of the city. “Some are afraid” he says and tells me how he had recently stopped near a woman hitchhiking at the road, but having seen him she refused to go with him. “Am I really so frightful?” he asks seriously and seems to wait for my reply. I shake my head and say that it is rather a woman’s negative attitude to life. “Not really?” he chuckles, still cheers up, asks me about the girls we had dropped and having found out about an American fiance says: ”Right, let them better marry Americans, here they quickly become accustomed to a good life and if something happens. . .” and he sighs, adds that he had once accustomed his wife to stay at home and now even though their daughter has grown up his wife still does not know any other problem.

We drive to my place, I give him the hundred rubles warm in my fist, we say good-bye and part. At home I switch on my computer and translate the blonde’s letter to an old man with silver hair whose pictures I also scan. In the picture the old man hugs the blonde against a background of Mediterranean sea, palms and a hotel shining with mirrors, the blonde looks fragile and youthful, the old man is in a cowboy hat carelessly pushed to the back of his head. In her letter the blonde writes that she had lost her job and delivers chips to kiosks, but since her car has been broken she needs the money for its repairing and for her daughter’s school and she points out the amount which she asks the old man to send her.

In the morning when I sit at the computer again the blonde calls to ask if the money has already been wired, the brunette calls to find out if the American asked about her, the American calls to inquire with whom and when a new meeting is appointed today and I look at my watch, remember, switch off the computer and run out. Looking at the cars rushing along the street I think that yesterday’s driver probably “bombs” the city in another place and I come up to the edge of the sidewalk and lift up my hand to stop someone else.