Safonov brought no new copy.
He had said: "It happens. I'll make a new one." I remembered it word for word, because I spent the whole of April expecting him to come.
In April he didn't come. In May I caught myself looking at the door when it opened, and looking not at the person but at whether they had a paper in their hands. In June I stopped.
In July I thought once that perhaps he had fallen ill, and then thought that he is old and all sorts of things happen to old people, and I stopped there, because there was nowhere further to think.
And only in September did I understand what exactly I had been waiting for.
I had been waiting for him to come and do it for me.
To come, put the paper on the counter in front of Igor, say in his even voice that he had promised, and everything would happen by itself, and I would be standing beside them and not guilty of anything, because I didn't hide it, he brought it.
The understanding did not come like a blow. It came like arithmetic: you sit counting the takings, and suddenly it is clear where it adds up.
That evening I did nothing.
And the next day I did nothing, and not a week later either. I had no more hesitations: I knew that I must, and it did not stop me locking the till, taking in orders and asking Slava whether he had eaten.
Open in the reader