a moment at the owner of the house, who, picking his teeth, spoke with pleasure about the cock- fights held in Tashkent. She kept her eyes on him: a fairfaced man with prominent cheekbones, shifty eyes with a kind of crazy gleam, a sharp nose, thin lips. Bagila felt uncomfortable. She had already met such people and at the same time noticed that they were petty scrupulous, irritable, always predisposed to an argument, jealous and arrogant at the same time. On top of that, they are too cautious and ready to fawn. Without taking her eyes off that mobile, nervously cheerful face, she suddenly wondered: had the owner of the house read all these books? “Bagila, your tea is cold, give me your cup,” came a voice from her right side, and, looking there, she saw Turgat. ‘God, he’s annoying! It’s so stuffy, and yet he sits in a jacket like a doll! Can’t he wipe the sweat off his forehead!’ Bagila felt her alienation towards this man grow into almost disgusted contempt. She furrowed her eyebrows and did not think of holding out her cup to him. Turgat decided that Bagel was embarrassed by the unfamiliar situation, and he himself took her cup, giving it to Malika, who was pouring tea. “Malika, don’t make it too hot. Add more milk. Bagila loves it like that…” he said in a business-like way, in a sweetly soft, caressing voice. ‘That’s how it is!’ Bagila was angry. ‘Why is he pre- tending to be a supporter?’ “No, let it be hot,” she asked. Turgat did not lose his head and immediately showed that he perfectly knows all the desires and weaknesses of Bagila. “Yes, yes, it can be a bit hot. When she gets tired from a long journey, she likes hot tea,” he explained with perfect calmness. ‘Insolent!’ Bagila was furious. ‘He thinks something will burn him out!’ There was a red-hot seven-litre electric samovar, the breaths of people steamed with meat and vodka, the sparkle of two huge crystal chandeliers, six lamps each, which could decorate the hall of a small theatre, the room had turned into a real bathhouse. There was a huge fan, placed on the windowsill, which hummed straining, wanting to serve the feast, but it only mixed the damp stuffiness of the room with its rubber blades, which smelled of smoked meat and alcohol. Karatai, quietly
Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 66 67 68 69 70 71 72 73 74 75 76 77 78 79 80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 91 92 93 94 95 96 97 98 99 100 101 102 103 104 105 106 107 108 109 110 111 112 113 114 115 116 117 118 119 120 121 122 123 124 125 126 127 128 129 130 131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139 140 141 142 143 144 145 146 147 148 149 150 151 152 153