Igor went to Velichko in January, on trial, for half a year.
By then the workshops had moved for good, the leather section was open, and Velichko was looking for a man with skilled hands who didn't need to be told what leather was. They paid less there. It was forty minutes to get there with a change.
We did not close the shop. Slava stayed on as the craftsman, I stayed behind the counter, and the first two months were very hard, and after that they were merely hard. We handed over the twenty-two pairs from the hotel on time.
Igor gets home at seven, we have supper late, and he tells me things I don't understand, and I listen.
We do not talk about whether he will come back to the shop in six months. I don't ask, and that is not a feat but the same work as before: not to touch it with the tongue.
On the morning of his first day I came in at nine, as always.
Took off my coat. Hung it up. Put on my overall. Checked the pockets: three keys in one, the other empty. Opened the till, took out the tray, spread the change into its compartments and put the tray in its place.
Underneath it was empty.
Then I turned on the light in the front room. And for the first time went behind the partition myself and turned on the light there.
The lamp over the bench is old; it doesn't come on at once, and for the first few seconds the shop remains in a half-light in which nothing can be made out.
I stood while it came up.
Then Slava came, and the day began.
Open in the reader