week anyway. This one suddenly fell out of the statue’s hands. Can’t I buy it as a souvenir? He promises to pay five hundred pounds sterling. How do you feel about that?’ Zhanaidarov, who with all his gut felt that disaster was approaching by the minute, rubbed his fingers against each other in his pocket, sweating with excitement. ‘Let him take it for free,’ he said, and smiled as if to acknowledge his generosity. The Scotsman, who did not seem to understand a word of Russian before, understood and exclaimed: ‘Ooh, that’s some good Russian!’ ‘He is a Kazakh, not a Russian,’ the interpreter laughingly corrected. ‘Yeah, ta, ta! Cossack!’ the Scotsman laughed, too. ‘Free is good! Scotsman lubits free!’ Everyone laughed in unison and then, from up high, Ashten gave a short hiss: ‘Come on, it’s freezing.’ The words were spoken so quickly that not only the foreigners but even Ashten’s compatriots did not immediately realise where the voice was coming from. However, everyone, especially the English, realised that there was a sharp sound in the air, not even a sound, but a whole sentence in the local language, and immediately their laughter was cut short. They began to look around as if someone had lightly rubbed them on the tip of their ears, but finding nothing and no one suspicious, they did not ask about anything. For the thousandth time the Scotsman was thankful for the dry lamb hide that had lain in Ashten’s barn for forty years. He wrapped it with the utmost care and put it in a bag with the big letters ‘Adidas’ on the sides. The foreigners, despite the rather late hour, were not about to leave the unfortunate square, where a cold Ashten was still standing. In addition, the leader of the delegation, a lanky Englishman, was about to make another speech. He said that they were extremely happy to see with their own eyes this unique statue, a statue found nowhere else in the world, and that this visit would remain in their memory as the brightest one that greatly enriched their spiritual life. After him the Englishman, who was really Scottish, took the floor. He reported that they were in excellent spirits, that they would speak at length of this trip when they returned home, that the piece of hide which had fallen from the statue would henceforth be preserved in

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