The Museum of Doubt by James Meek Page A

as if the whole world was keeping him company but was too shy to step forward. All the young girls are looking at him, of course, but he doesn’t notice. All hisattention goes to the guitarist and the guitarist feels it, it inspires him and he sings better. When his song’s finished Mykola goes over to the guitarist who gets up and shakes his hand and they talk for a while. After a few minutes Mykola wishes him well and walks away by himself, with his beautiful walk, looking to one side and the other like if there’s anything good to be found in the city, he’ll be there. The guitarist looks after him and even though his friends are around him, it seems as if the world is following Mykola, a few steps behind him, and the guitarist has been left behind. He thinks about running after Mykola but he doesn’t, he’s too proud, and he doesn’t have anything to say to him, he just wants to be with him. He knows he’s lost something and the next song he plays is a Russian lover’s lament.
    My sweet, take me with you
    And there in the far places
    I’ll be your wife
    She could hear the general snoring. She put the phone down and wiped her face with a tissue.
    The balcony door opened and a fireman with a mask and breathing apparatus, drenched in foam, stepped out of opaque curls of smoke. He looked at the Queen for a while, hands on his hips. He reached into the fog and pulled a choking, writhing sinner out of the cauldron. He shoved Hrynyuk into a chair. Next he ushered in a hybrid imp, half maid, half fireman. Natalie wore the black skirt, black tights and heels and a fireman’s jacket and mask. She was carrying the cooked shashlyk on a tray. She laid it down carefully on a table next to the Queen, forked the meat off the skewers onto a plate, arranged it with bread and green herbs and hot sauce and a white napkin, pulled off the mask and collapsed onto thefloor. The fireman went over and began administering artificial respiration.
    Press conference, croaked Hrynyuk. They’re waiting.
    The Queen stood up. The fireman had one knee clamped high between Natalie’s thighs. Her fingernails were picking at the fastenings of his suit while they ate each other.
    Give the meat to the poor people of New York, said the Queen.
       
    Petya and Taras followed Mykola down Karla Marla, through an arch into a dark yard lit only by the light from upstairs windows. Cat kings of the wheelybins scattered at their approach from mounds of potato peel and carrot scrapings. At the entrance way Mykola felt for the doorknob and the conscripts closed in behind him, their hands reaching for his back and elbows to reassure themselves he was still there. Inside it was still dark, the bulbs stolen. There was a stench of urine. They shuffled up a set of steps like the newly blind and by memory Mykola found the lift button. The rough, time-chewed plastic wobbled under his fingertip and glowed cigarette-weak when the lift began to descend from its station above, clanking like an iron horse.
    In the lift there was a smell of old vegetables and rancid stains on old blankets. Taras put his nose into one of his five red roses and inhaled. From Azerbaijan, he said.
    No, they bring them from the west now, said Petya. Africa or something.
    Africa? said Taras, sniffing the flowers again, suspicious. Do they have roses in Africa?
    Petya laughed. America! he said to Mykola. This probably seems like Africa to you. D’you have lifts like this in America? Bet you don’t.
    Oh, we have all sorts of lifts in America, said Mykola.
    Even before the lift opened they could hear the sounds of a woman screaming. They stood in front of the padded steel door to Mykola’s flat, Mykola with the silver key held out, Taras with his face half-hidden by the roses, Petya taking his hat off and holding it protectively in front of his heart. The door was shaking. Every time it shook, it rattled, and every time it shook and rattled, or just before, they could hear a woman screaming