Gor shuddered as she picked at it. ‘Yes, some do. But I have not used animals in my magical expositions, ever. I find, when we are confusing and confounding the human mind, that animals are neither necessary nor advantageous.’
‘But they’re cute. Kopek would be cute, in a top hat or with a wand or something. He could hold it in his beak. Go on, Mister Papasyan, you could use him.’
‘No, no, Albina, really, it’s not necessary.’
‘Mama, tell Mister Papasyan he should use Kopek.’
‘Well, Gor, it is a good idea, don’t you think?’ Sveta beamed at him and wound a finger through her brittle blonde hair. ‘After all, people like animals—’
‘No, Sveta, it is out of the question. That … bird, can play no part in my—’
‘Our!’ interjected Albina.
‘My magic show. And that is final.’
Sveta drew in her lips and began to fiddle with the cuffs of her cardigan. Albina eyed Gor for a moment and let out a low chuckle.
‘You thought Kopek was swearing, didn’t you?’
‘Yes, Albina, he was swearing.’
‘No, you see, that’s where you’re wrong! He’s a very clever bird. He was speaking Japanese.’
‘Albina, really I think our guest—’
‘Shut up Mama! Let me tell Mister Papasyan.’ Albina stared at her mother as the latter avoided her gaze and dropped her eyes to her hands, which were now pulling on a scrap of fluff in her lap. ‘Kopek was speaking Japanese! He’s very keen on karate. So am I.’
‘She is,’ smiled Sveta, looking up at Gor and nodding.
‘I’m a yellow belt. Fu kyu is a karate exercise.’
‘It is!’ Sveta smiled again. ‘Albina learnt it at school.’
‘So you have a dirty mind, Mister Papasyan,’ said the girl, and she sent Gor a look from the curving corner of her eye. He could imagine her causing havoc in a hen-house.
‘I don’t know about that, Albina,’ simpered Sveta.
‘Are you a millionaire, Mister Papasyan?’ the girl lisped eventually, ‘because Mama says you can’t be, but Mister Golubchik in the bakery says you owned a bank—’
‘Albina!’ shrieked her mother, ‘we do not gossip here!’
‘Ladies!’ Gor began, his face closed, blank eyes on the floor. ‘It has been an interesting afternoon, but I fear I must leave you. I don’t think we will get an awful lot more done today.’ He was determined not to be drawn into a foolish conversation about karate moves, his finances or anything else with a twelve-year-old, or whatever she was.
‘Oh, but Gor, I can’t let you leave just yet,’ cried Sveta. ‘Here we’ve been planning all afternoon, and I haven’t offered you anything at all. Let me make you some tea and a little sandwich, before you go. I insist!’
When he thought about it, Gor had to agree that he was famished, especially as there had been no egg at lunchtime, so he gratefully allowed Sveta to trot into the kitchen to prepare a little something. He was relieved when Albina, after some minutes of further staring, stumbled out to help her mother. He took a turn of the room, briefly opening and then closing the purple curtains that shut out a view of the neighbouring block.
Sveta returned with a small tray on which stood a glass of tea, a rye-bread sandwich stuffed with cheese and parsley, and a painted oval dish of congealed boiled sweets.
‘Here, Gor, please help yourself. Albina and I will eat later.’
The women sat on the sofa opposite his armchair and watched as he began his snack. The tea was perfect. ‘Ahh!’ A warming glow spread throughout his belly. ‘This is wonderful, Sveta!’
‘Thank you. It is Georgian. You can say what you like about the Georgians, but when it comes to tea, they know what they’re doing.’
‘Indeed! And stew, in fact,’ agreed Gor. ‘Georgian cuisine is most satisfying!’ He bit into the sandwich, the coriander seeds on the crust adding a sweet lemony aroma to the sourness of the dark rye. He was suddenly ravenous, and chewed quickly.
‘I don’t know about that, to be honest. I don’t eat out much. Home cooking does for us. We like cutlets and stewed cabbage – you can’t go wrong with that.’
‘Oh yes, nothing wrong with that. Cutlets are a fine food. I didn’t mean to—’ Gor took another bite of the sandwich and started to chew. It was at this point that he noticed something odd, and it slowed his mastication. He felt something that was neither cheese, nor parsley, nor bread. Something with a strange texture – a crunch, slightly papery, slightly hairy, and slightly mushy, all at the same time. His jaw stopped moving and his teeth rested together, the food un-swallowed. Some sense was preventing his tongue from pushing the bolus to the back of his throat for the next stage. He gagged, and looked down at the sandwich.
‘Albina here likes ukha fish soup,’ carried on Sveta.
‘I like the heads,’ the girl agreed.
Gor nudged the two leaves of rye bread apart to view the filling more closely.
‘Oh yes, the fish heads, you do, don’t you?’
‘The eyes and brains are the tastiest bits,’ smiled Albina.
He squinted, and frowned. There, squashed between the cheese and the parsley, lay the partial remains of a huge, hairy brown moth. Its wings were spread wide, and covered most of the area of the bread. Only half its mottled, brown body remained.
‘They are full of vitamins, aren’t they?’ laughed Sveta, catching Gor’s eye as he looked up, his face pale, his twisted mouth still full of chewed up cheese-moth-parsley. Albina was watching him closely, her face twitching.
‘Is something wrong?’ Sveta’s face still curved with a smile, but her brow was creased with concern. Gor’s great eyes watered as they swiftly searched the room for any opportunity to get rid of the unwelcome food. There was none: no napkins, no plant pots. And still the women stared. There was nothing else for it. He manoeuvred his tongue underneath the mothy mouthful and swallowed, with steely determination.
‘No,’ he squeaked when he was sure it was not coming back up, and he cleared his throat before taking a thankful gulp of the hot, sweet tea, ‘Well, yes, actually. I must go.’ He shuddered at the thought of the moth flushing into his stomach, struggled out of the chair and hurried from the room, placing the unwanted tray back in the darkened kitchen on his way out.
‘Oh no, tell us what is wrong, please!’ implored Sveta, a note of genuine concern in her voice.
Gor sat on the bench to turf off the navy slippers and shove on his own comfortable brown boots.
‘I … well, I don’t know Sveta, maybe it’s all nonsense, but things keep … I don’t know, it’s just so strange … I must admit, I’m a little bit frightened.’ He looked up into her face.
‘But why?’ Her hand was on his shoulder.
‘There was a huge moth in my sandwich just now.’
‘A moth? Oh … dear!’ cried Sveta. ‘But that’s nothing to be scared of, Gor—’
‘It’s not the first odd thing, I assure you! There was the rabbit—’
‘Oh yes, the rabbit was dreadful!’
‘What rabbit?’ cried Albina.
‘And phone calls … at all hours of the day and night. Endless, silent phone calls! Knocks at the door too, when there’s nobody there. And then this morning, an egg disappeared from the pan,