Fly Hunter: The Story of an Inquisitor - страница 34

In the summer, Gulshan's mother gave birth to a girl, and Gulshan gave birth to a boy. Her first childbirth was difficult, and Gulshan was to spend at least a month in the maternity hospital. Aman-Jalil visited her, but not daily.

– A chief can't show undue interest in his subordinate, – he reassured her.

In reality, however, Aman-Jalil had cooled towards Gulshan. He became infatuated with a cabaret singer. The woman turned out to be unyielding, and it was difficult for Aman-Jalil to arrest her on suspicion of espionage and enjoy her for the three lawful days of preliminary investigation. Almost every day, Aman-Jalil visited the young detainees in prison. The newcomer was transferred to a specially equipped cell, where there was a nickel-plated bed with a soft net, delicacies and alcoholic beverages were brought to the cell, and Aman-Jalil spent three nights in the prison. Having enjoyed the fresh air, Aman-Jalil released her, even if she was actually a spy. But if the girl resisted, then she was tied by her arms and legs to the bedposts, and Aman-Jalil got what he wanted, but in that case, a queue of guards lined up after him, anyone who was free and willing, patients with venereal diseases were put at the end of the line, and the poor victim serviced everyone against their will. Sometimes the weak victims breathed their last under another sweaty and stinking body. If the scandal couldn't be hushed up, the guards drew lots, and the one who drew the lot was "disgraced" from his job. A report on the harsh measures taken was sent upstairs, and Aman-Jalil placed the failure somewhere in the area.

But Nigyar, as the singer was called, belonged to those circles where Aman-Jalil had not yet been granted access and where he was eager to enter. Perhaps that's why Aman-Jalil craved her love, admiration, her attachment. But this "ungrateful" woman refused to see him, sent back expensive gifts. But most offensive to Aman-Jalil was that Nigyar was the wife of Kasym-the-know-it-all, who had tormented him with mockery at school. Kasym worked as a compere, leading his wife's concerts, filling the pauses between numbers with jokes, humorous sketches… His wife, apparently, had told him about Aman-Jalil's courtship, and Kasym publicly shamed him, not naming names, but Aman-Jalil understood everything, he had already learned to understand half-words, and Kasym-the-know-it-all he always understood. And he always had the desire to slap Kasym like a fly, he hated this brazen, insolent man.

But his hands were tied. Kasym was a relative of Ahmed himself, not close, but a relative. And it was impossible to take him with bare hands. Especially since at all government concerts, Kasym spoke the right words, only those that are allowed to be spoken. But at government concerts, Kasym did not perform so often. But at regular concerts, Kasym, as Aman-Jalil found out, also managed to work as an intelligence officer, catching foreign agents who flew into our "world center" under the guise of musicians. Kasym was very intelligent, for Aman-Jalil's love of Nigyar's family, the government would not touch him. And so the matter was at an impasse.

Times were changing, but Kasym couldn't change quickly enough. He often had a strange dream: that wings were growing out of him and he was leaping off a cliff, flying far, far away through the darkness of the night towards the horizon ablaze with the dawn's flickers. Yet, the wings started to fall apart feather by feather, and how helpless his hands felt in the air, how powerless they were, nothing to lean on, nowhere to hold onto, and the abyss was endless, and as he fell, Kasym gradually dissolved into the air, or rather merged…