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  “And it’s not even a question of how much they pay!” Linda continues to hold forth. “I reckon rudeness is rudeness however you try to explain it away. In my experience, the more insignificant someone is, the ruder and more arrogant they are.”

  “I reckon there’s no direct correlation,” Torte says. “There’s no hard and fast rule. Anybody can turn out to be a good person or a rude bastard whatever their position in society…”

  “I tell you what...!” Linda is incensed.

  The others are watching the discussion with interest. Mutt sees my disconsolate expression and turns round, bumping into the client as he comes over. At the same moment he knocks a glass of juice towards Linda.

  She shrieks, pulls back her chair and jumps up. The table is covered in juice, any of us could get soaked. Everyone moves away, forgetting about the argument.

  I get up.

  “Hello!” I welcome our guest cheerfully. “We were just waiting for you! We just had a little incident here, don’t worry about any of this, have a seat!”

  Silence. Everyone is looking at me. Then at him. The client hasn’t even noticed anything. A waitress runs over to us with a cloth. Lucky.

  “Hello. My name is Viktor Sergeevich. Nice to meet you.” Viktor Sergeevich sits down. “I don’t have a lot of time, I’m sorry. Do you have something to show me?”

  Those that have brought scrapbooks push them towards him at the same time.

  “Could you tell us what the job is about in a bit more detail?” Torte asks straight out.

  “I can. I’ve got a bit of land. On that bit of land there’s a dacha. And there is this little playground. With a climbing wall. I need one of you to do some jolly little design. You know, flowers, clowns…”

  “Clowns?!” Gray asks.

  “Or some little cats or dogs or something… Who’s up to the job? Who did I talk to? Was it you I was chatting to?” Viktor Sergeevich suddenly turns to Mutt.

  Mutt gets a bit flustered. A momentary pause.

  “Everyone’s up to it,” Linda says indignantly. “Don’t bother looking at the scrapbooks. You need to see this stuff on site. Let’s go to your place and paint something. And you can have a look.”

  “Sure, fine. Here’s the address,” Viktor Sergeevich jots it down on a napkin. “There’s a man at the entrance, I’ll tell him you’re coming. Thanks, see you.”

  “And the fee..?” Torte asks hurriedly.

  “A good one,” Viktor Sergeevich smiles. “A good one.”

  Then he leaves. His whole visit must have only lasted a fifth of the time we waited for him.

  “So, you’ve already had a little chat, have you?” Linda asks pointedly.

  Mutt smirks.

  “It was me who got him to come. I didn’t have to share.”

  They all share a look. Tension hangs in the air.

  • • •

  We’re going, me and Mutt, along a busy street. All the time I’m trying to imagine how he sees the city. A deserted city, with no people in it. A city in which only three or four people live, the ones Mutt talks to. There’s just no one else. But he’s not the only one like that. We’re all like that. It’s just that we do see these people. We see the hassle.

  Mutt strolls forward calmly. He doesn’t look to the side as he goes, doesn’t look round when there’s a loud shout on the other side of the street, doesn’t follow the pretty girls with his eyes. He strolls along an empty path on a distant planet, and in his heart there is calm and quiet.

  Maybe it’s really better like this. What are they all for? Hand on heart, do you need other people? That crowd of strangers, that’s bustling around us day in day out rushing about their business, shoving people, dealing with their own problems and taking up your living space.

  On the other hand, human beings are social creatures. They need society. They need to be friends with someone, have power over someone, take orders from someone. Be someone’s lover, someone’s enemy. Have kids with someone, earn money with someone. And the really sad thing is that you need to pick these people from the crowd. The percentage of suitable individuals for each of these tasks is close to zero. But there’s nothing you can do about it. You can run away from people, disappear into the woods, for instance. Go out to the back of beyond, buy a plot of land and an old house for pennies. As long as there’s water and electricity. Fill in the cracks, gradually get insulation. Do a bit of farming. Chickens, a couple of cows. Grow a beard and once a month set off to get sunflower oil and flour in ‘the city’ (a half-forgotten village with twenty houses). Just like in Thoreau. “Walden, or Life in the Woods.” Fishing every day. Walking in the woods. Listening to the sound of ancient trees. Collecting mushrooms. And after a year your heart is filled with blessed peace.

  But Mutt didn’t go out into the back of beyond. He created solitude inside himself. In a way, he already lives in those woods. Just in the city. Right in the middle of the noise and bustle of the city, the wailing car alarms, the unfinished conversations, the stress, the stress, the stress. In the middle of all that, Mutt strolls calmly along, with silence inside him and peace in his heart.

  I envy him.

  • • •

  We see the right house a hundred metres from the entrance. The house towers two stories higher than the rickety houses around it. The plot of land is surrounded by a two-metre fence on all sides. The estate agents haven’t got here yet, and nearly all the plots feature the little country cottages typical of the Soviet past. Single-storey wooden constructions, pre-fab huts and train carriages. The road is scattered with cinder. There’s been rain recently and there are puddles everywhere. In about five years these plots will be sold and done up, and they’ll bring mains gas to the dachas, and they’ll lay a normal road, and villas and mansions will spring up all over.

  For now Viktor Sergeevich is a pioneer. Apart from his house, there are no other solid structures to be seen in the area.

  We’re walking along, the same cast as before. Me, Mutt, Torte, Gray and Linda. You can feel the tension in the group. They haven’t discussed it openly, but everyone realises that only one person’s going to get the job.

  We’re met at the entrance by a guard who has a pot belly, uniform, and a big dog with intelligent eyes. The dog doesn’t bark but sniffs us all carefully. The guard listens to our story then lets us in to the property without too many questions, instantly losing all interest in us.

  “So what now?” Linda asks, addressing the question to everyone.

  “I think we’ve got to go over there,” Torte nods.

  In the corner of a large plot of about sixteen acres at the opposite end from the house, there is a playground. Swings, ladders, multicoloured constructions for climbing and a low zig-zag brick wall.

  “So there’s the wall,” Mutt states blankly.

  “So what, we’re going to paint it?” Linda asks, unsure.

  “No,” Mutt says, “it’s going to be painted by whoever he chooses.”

  Mutt doesn’t specify who this is, doesn’t even hint in his tone, but everyone knows who he’s talking about.

  “But we agreed that we’d show him some examples of our work,” Torte says.

  “Well where then…?” Linda asks unhappily.

  “Over there,” Torte points to the high wall surrounding the plot. We’ll each take a section and paint something. Like, a couple of lines for an example. Then he can come and have look and then choose.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Mutt says.

  I’m not sure whether he’s joking or whether he really does agree. Torte, not waiting for anyone else, goes over to the wall and starts to set up. When he starts painting, the others follow his example one by one. Apart from me, of course.

  After fifteen minutes they’re all absorbed in their work. I’m leaning against a wa
ll not far away. I’m bored. No one wants to talk to me. It’s this concentration of theirs, there’s no way of distracting them. Why did I even come with them? They asked me to themselves. And now they’re ignoring me. Artists. How can I get them talking?

  “Well,” I say. “What makes’s the difference between an artist and a person?”

  “I don’t know, what?” Torte asks, expecting a joke.

  “I don’t know,” I say, “Tell me.”

  “An artist is a person with a capital P,” Linda says.

  There is a puddle near the wall where Linda paints, so she has to dance around it.

  Mutt had told me she doesn’t normally paint straight on the wall but always makes stencils first. But she still decided to take part in the ‘competition’.

  “That’s all just fancy talk,” I say. “Give me a definition.”

  “A biped…” Gray begins, “although not necessarily… An artist is a person who can paint.”

  Looks like I’ve got them going. Now I need to fan the flames.

  “What does that mean ‘who can paint’?”

  “You can be an artist even if you’ve never finished a single painting in your whole life,” Gray says. “And you can paint your whole life and not be an artist.”

  “Interesting version you’ve got,” Torte notes. “That way you can advertise yourself as an artist, and never take a brush in hand! Kind of like, I’m an artist. Top drawer. But I don’t need to paint.”

  “It’s not that,” Linda says. “It’s inside. I mean, it doesn’t start with technique.”

  “Agreed,” Mutt says. “You need to be able to see.”

  “How’s that?” I ask.

  “Like this. It’s like… Like a microphone. One that’s incredibly sensitive. But for your eyes.”

  “A microphone…? Don’t you mean a camera?”

  “No, the sensitivity doesn’t work like a camera, but exactly like a microphone. I mean, if we’re talking about cameras then it’s like the colour reproduction. You can get more from one and the same source. But not see any further.”

  “How’s that?”

  “Well right… Say there’s a melody. An insensitive microphone will catch the main features. But a sensitive one will pick up all the vibrations. From the bass notes to the little squeaks. And maybe the most important secret of this melody, its fundamental theme, can only be heard at those frequencies which the ordinary microphone doesn’t even pick up. Of course, there are problems too.”

  “What sort of problems?”

  “The same as in a real microphone. The higher the sensitivity, the stronger the background noise. And it requires more effort to make sure that that noise is filtered.”

  “Is that why you don’t notice people? To get rid of that noise?” I ask, and immediately regret it.

  Mutt says nothing. No one says anything. I’ve probably said something wrong.

  “Do you understand them?” Lady F asks with a smile.

  I turn to face her. She’s standing next to me, her arms folded across her chest, evaluating the paintings on the fence.

  “Sometimes I understand them,” I say. “Why not? The main thing is, I like talking to them.”

  “Oho! That makes sense. Understanding need not be expressed in the literal perception and comprehension of what is heard, but in the willingness to listen.”

  I look at her in surprise. You wouldn’t immediately reckon that this fragile red-headed little girl was capable of such formulations.

  “Don’t talk like that, you’re scaring me!”

  “Good,” Lady F laughs. “I won’t then. I’ll tell you this instead. Go and take that hose off that tap, OK? The quicker the better.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Deadly serious. Go on, don’t hang about.”

  I look at her in surprise, but decide to follow her advice. I go over to a tap attached to a bit of a pipe which is sticking out of the ground. I pull the plastic hose off. Nothing happens. A couple of drops fall out of the hose. What next? I lift my head. Lady F is nowhere to be seen.

  I go back to the guys.

  “Where’s Linda?” I ask.

  “Hello!” she shout behind me suddenly.

  I turn towards the sound of the shout. Linda is knocking on the window of the house.

  “Hello, is there anyone in? Do you think I could just nip to the toilet?”

  “Wait,” I say. “Maybe ask the guard…”

  At that moment Gray starts shouting. What’s going on?

  From the direction of the gate, silent and focused, not barking or growling, the black dog with intelligent eyes is charging at Linda. His lead is dragging behind him and the guard is running after him, his face twisted in fear.

  Linda screams and runs towards me. The dog follows her. Linda stumbles and falls into a puddle. Right into a dirty puddle. I need to do something. It’d be good if I had a stick. A stick. She’s not going to make it, she’s not going to make it!

  The dog, running at top speed, gets his lead caught on the tap sticking out of the ground. He’s knocked over by the speed and falls to the ground. You hear a good loud smack. Jumping back onto his feet, he tries with all his might to break free, but the snagged lead won’t let him. Now he starts to bark, tugging on the lead as hard as he can, till it’s choking him.

  The guard runs over and takes him by the collar.

  Linda lies in the puddle and cries. Poor girl. We run over to her, console her, calm her down.

  The wall and the paintings are forgotten.

  • • •

  “Did he call?”

  “He did.”

  “And what?”

  “Didn’t have much good to say. Swore at me. Asked why we ruined the wall.”

  “And you?”

  “I said, sorry, how about I come and paint over it.”

  “And he agreed?”

  “He did. I think all the same he’ll ask me to do that wall. Plus I called him first. Plus, it was me and you who first met him. So, it seems fair. How’s Linda?”

  “She’s ill. They thought that it had passed, but no, a couple of days later her temperature rocketed. How did you get back?”

  “I got back fine. But I need a car, of course. I should buy one. I’ll get one after this job. I’ll have to take it on credit, of course.”

  “You’re right all the same. Not having a car, is like not having hands. So get one, I approve.”

  “Thanks. We all good? Come over tomorrow.”

  “Fine, alright then, see you!”

  • • •

  Mutt’s tower isn’t there. It’s just disappeared. But I’m not worried, I know the secret now. Mutt’s on the other side, finishing painting the wall. I go over and for a minute or so to watch how he works with the brush.

  “Now your tower’s disappeared entirely?”

  “Mm-hm.”

  “Everything will change in the dark. The world will fade a bit and it’ll be like your tower is emerging from the receding water. The painted skies will be more distinct than the background. The painted world will be brighter than the real one.”

  “So what. But in the day no one will see it.”

  “It’s interesting, this desire of yours to completely cut yourself off from the life of the city.”

  “I’m not trying to cut myself off. I just want to cut out the noise.”

  “Which is to say, people?”

  “Which is to say, people.”

  “Why?”

  “You’ve answered the question yourself. Because people are noise.”

  “But how... Friends. Work. Relationships.”

  “I don’t have problems with friends and work.”

  “And relationships?
How can you find someone if you’re not going to look?”

  “And why should I go and look specially?”

  That seems to be the end of the matter.

  “Tell me about it,” I say.

  Mutt says nothing.

  “Tell me about it,” I ask again.

  “It’s an nasty story,” Mutt is sparing with words. “I had a lot of friends. All different, from school, from my neighbourhood. I wanted to go to the Academy of Arts. Prepared some sketches. Showed them to my friends. None of them liked them. I fixed them. I redrew them so that everyone liked them.”

  “And didn’t get in in the end?”

  “Yep. Now I don’t even know if I would’ve got in if I’d not listened to anyone.”

  “You could go now.”

  “I don’t want to. I’m alright. My friends now are into street art. None of the old ones are left.”

  “Were you angry at them for not getting in?”

  It’s as if Mutt was anticipating this question.

  “I don’t want to think about it. Which is fair enough. I don’t want to listen to anyone anymore, I don’t want to pay attention to anyone’s opinion. I don’t want to run any checks. I’m on my own. And all the rest is noise.”

  “Something to that. It’s a good option.”

  “It’s the only option.”

  “I thought an artist had to be always doubting. Searching for himself. Searching for something new.”

  “And so? There is the world and there is the artist. Where do people fit into that system?”

  “So who do you paint for?”

  “For no one,” Mutt replies without a trace of doubt.

  “But how come?! You’re an artist even without an audience?”

  “Perfect. I don’t paint something so that I can show it to someone. I do it because I need to. Not for something but because of something. I need to. Me personally. For me it’s important to paint reality. Be a mirror to it. What have other people got to do with that?”

  “Not for something, but because of something?” I look carefully at Mutt.

  “Yep. Not for something, but because of something.”

  “And what if no one sees your work?”