Fly Hunter: The Story of an Inquisitor - страница 32

Everything imaginable was on the table. Aman-Jalil spared no expense, asked all merchants for an additional tax, and they brought the freshest, best of everything. Usually, every wedding invites the zurna musicians, an ensemble of eastern instruments: tar, kamancheh, zurna, nagara. But Aman-Jalil decided to impress and invited a brass band as well. The brass band played waltzes, polkas, and marches while guests drank and ate. During the change of dishes, for rest, the quartet played "shur" or the tarist mournfully sang a long mugham. Specifically at Aman-Jalil's request, a famous baritone, Baybulat, came and sang several classical arias. After receiving the agreed sum in a sealed envelope, he habitually put the money in his pocket without opening it, preparing to leave for his next performance, but Aman-Jalil invited him to stay. The celebrity dared not refuse, although he was not supposed to receive the next fee. Invited to the table, as always, he drank, boasted, and flirted with the young daughters and wives of Aman-Jalil's colleagues. But the guests envied his presence and forgave his little jokes: this celebrity did not visit ordinary mortals, and his fees were breathtaking.

The old bridegroom stared blankly at the people gathered in his house: all strangers, he had never seen them before, except for Aman-Jalil, with whom he had had a preliminary conversation that the old man couldn't recall without shuddering. He already quietly hated his young wife, five months pregnant, for the second day since she moved in, acting as if she had grown up here, the mistress… "And her mother, damn sluts, looks so foolish: she gazes, silly thing, like a love-struck girl at the young husband, and he gazes at her daughter. Well, what a family! What's happening in this world, everything has turned upside down: the young marry old men, I'm fit to be her grandfather, and the young marry old women, but this marriage is beyond my understanding. In the past, such marriages were only for convenience, but what convenience can this young lad have? The widow has no money, although what kind of widow is she, damn it, she's not even a widow yet. I should kick them all to the devil! Just stand up and curse: 'go to such-and-such's mother!' As for me, this devil will kill my Javanshir right away, and I'm ready to give everything, sacrifice everything for the sake of saving my only child. For my boy, I'm ready to crawl on my knees before them. But this young slut, I'll get my revenge, I've already figured out how I'll do it… And what a wedding I had forty years ago, no one then thought about a coup, what a life it was under Renke, oh, what a life. Recently heard on the radio how a famous actress gave an interview: sweetly praised Iosif Besarionis's bloody regime, talked about how everyone lives well, but when asked how she envisions our bright future, she replied that when everything is like under Renke, stores are full of goods, you can freely travel abroad… and something else similar, I don't remember anymore. I'm sure all the radio workers involved in that broadcast were either fired, imprisoned, or even shot… For Javanshir, I made a deal that compared to it, selling my damn soul is nothing."

Aman-Jalil soon led the "newlyweds" into the bedroom. They bid them farewell with laughter, greasy jokes, and vile suggestions. Gulshan looked at Aman-Jalil in fear. "Is he really going to lay her down with the old man? Does he want to amuse himself?"