Han Ong

He's lost his mind, he's lost his mind, Natasha said.

Her mother pointed at the phone.

Like Boris, she was convinced that they were listening.

Loudly, she said, Boris, I'm going to make you meat patties for lunch, all right?

Twenty minutes later Muratov left the house by the back door.

He had shaved his beard but left the mustache.

He went through the courtyard which had been flooded by a storm the night before.

Broken branches stuck up from an enormous puddle which Boris trudged through, carrying a large shopping bag that held a change of linens, a sweater, his favorite little pillow, and every bit of money that there was in the house.

Sivtev and Emelianenko, who had been left outside the front door, sat on the bench smoking, trying to decide whether to go and get some beer.

Captain Popov came back with the necessary stamp at 10.15.

Natasha opened the door immediately and said that Muratov had gone to work.

Popov threw a fiery glance at his goons.

"'But he doesn't work.

What's his job?'

His mother-in-law intervened.

"'He's an artist.

He doesn't go to an office, but he works a lot.

You saw yourself.

He constructed Lenin's sarcophagus.'

"'He's been fired since then,' Popov said.