You don’t want one?
Fine, then at least have mercy on me!
I’m hungry!
I’m not going anywhere, you know that!
Maybe you want me to sing Schubert’s Serenade to you?
Come to me, my dear friend?
I’ll do it!”
But Koreiko didn’t take him up on the offer.
Even without the serenade, he knew that he’d have to part with the money this time.
Slouching forward and lingering on each step, he started coming down.
“A tricorne sits low on your forehead?” Ostap continued playfully. “And where’s the gray travel coat?
You won’t believe how much I missed you.
Well, hello, hello!
How about a kiss?
Or shall we go straight to the vaults, to the Leichtweiss’ Cave where you keep your tugriks?”
“Dinner first,” said Koreiko, whose tongue was desiccated from thirst and scratched like a file.
“Fine, let’s have dinner.
But none of your funny business this time.
Actually, you haven’t got a chance.
My boys are positioned behind the hills,” Ostap lied, just in case.
The thought of the boys dampened his spirits a bit.
Dinner for the builders and the guests was served in the Eurasian style.
The Kazakhs settled on the rugs, sitting cross-legged, the way everyone does in the East but only tailors do in the West.
The Kazakhs ate pilaf from small white bowls and washed it down with lemonade.
The Europeans sat down at the tables.
The builders of the Eastern Line had endured many hardships, troubles, and worries during the two years of construction.
But putting together a formal dinner in the middle of the desert was no small feat either.
The Asian and European menus were discussed at length.
And the issue of alcoholic beverages had also been contentious.
For a few days, the construction headquarters resembled the United States just before a presidential election.
The dries and the wets locked their horns in battle.
Finally, the party committee spoke out against alcohol.
Then another issue came to the fore: foreigners, diplomats, people from Moscow!
How do you feed them in style?
After all, they’re used to various culinary excesses in their Londons and New Yorks.
So they brought an old expert named Ivan Osipovich from Tashkent.
Long ago, he was a maitre d’ at the famous Martyanych’s in Moscow, and was living out his days as director of a state-owned diner near the Chicken Bazaar.
“So please, Ivan Osipovich,” they told him at the headquarters, “we’re counting on you.
There will be foreigners, you know.
It has to be special somehow—chic, if you will.”
“Trust me,” mumbled the old man with tears in his eyes, “the people I have fed!
The Prince of Wurttemberg himself!
You don’t even have to pay me anything.
How can I not feed people properly one last time?
I’ll feed them—and then I’ll die!”
Ivan Osipovich grew extremely anxious.
When he was told that alcohol was ultimately rejected, he almost fell ill, but he didn’t have the heart to leave Europe without a dinner.
The budget he submitted was substantially reduced, so the old man mumbled
“I’ll feed them and I’ll die” to himself and added sixty rubles from his own savings.
On the day of the dinner, Ivan Osipovich showed up wearing a tailcoat that smelled of mothballs.