In response to the buxom saleslady’s question as to what size he was, Levadski shrugged his narrow shoulders and asked to be measured. “I commissioned this excellent suit I am wearing shortly after the war, in London, at the royal outfitters, for the forty-second International Ornithological Congress,” Levadski said with outstretched arms. His breath stirred one of the saleslady’s thin curls, who, lips drawn in, was taking his chest measurements. “Back then I was a little taller and didn’t have a hunch, but I was just as unspectacular in breadth as I am now.” The saleslady wet her right index finger and started turning the pages of a style catalogue. “I haven’t grown a bosom, either,” Levadski tried joking.
“What color would you like the suit to be?” the saleslady asked, without giving him the time of day. “Dark blue, brown, black, light gray, charcoal, pinstripe, dark buttons, gold buttons?”
“Dark blue with dark buttons, please.”
“And the lining?”
“Burgundy of course.”
The saleslady disappeared behind a door in her clattering heels, shortly afterwards reappearing with a dark blue suit and an older colleague. The lady explained to him that fashionable suits did not have a burgundy lining but were either dark gray or old rose. “Old rose would be stylish, dark gray would be more suited to business.”
“Then I will take old rose,” said Levadski, who in times gone by would have blushed in a situation like this, in times gone by, when he found people who were in the habit of saying “in times gone by” dreadful.
Levadski also bought a pair of suspenders, a beige scarf made of Irish pure new wool, a dark blue silk scarf with a rocking horse pattern, a silk bow tie with bright red bullfinches set against a black background, a silk tie with roseate terns and anchors, as well as ten white cambric handkerchiefs with an indecipherable monogram consisting of a multitude of curlicues. He had a hard time with the shirts. What they had in stock was checked or striped, with horrible plastic buttons. “Out of the question!” Levadski was incensed. “I have worn that cheap stuff for ninety-six years. Let me at least die in style!”
The desire to die in luxury he had never lived in spread like wildfire within him. It grew within him and swallowed up his fear of death. The sudden desire for luxury robbed Levadski of any sense of respect for the seriousness of his situation and reduced his lung nibbled by cancer to a mere trifle.
“My God!” Levadski moaned, “Is it so difficult to find shirts with mother-of-pearl buttons in a city of millions?”
The buxom saleslady grabbed the receiver. “I will call our branch office, meanwhile please take a seat.” Out of protest, Levadski leaned against the sales counter with a pain-ridden face and stared out of the window. In the to-ing and fro-ing of people in the street he noticed a big white poodle in front of a sidewalk advertising column sniffing at a poster. Moscow Circus, Parachute Jumping Kamikaze Dogs Landing On The Back Of A Lion! Come And See Our New Fall Show! The dog lifted a hind leg, signed the poster and trotted off. Levadski deliberated on what the dog had meant to say by making the gesture. To hell with art? I can do that too? Down with posters — Save the rainforest?
“Our branch on Frantsusky Boulevard stocks shirts with mother-of-pearl buttons. With a double cuff but, unfortunately, only in white,” said the saleslady, clasping the receiver with her diamond-bedecked hand. Levadski noted with satisfaction that the telephone was an anti-quated model with a cord and dial, like the one he had at home.
“Marvelous. Double cuffs would be wonderful!”
To the pitying gaze of the two sales ladies, Levadski did a twirl in front of the mirror in the new dark blue suit. Without hesitation, he kept the suit on — the style was called Dandy. While the two ladies packed his outfit from the ornithological conference into a suit box like a corpse, dexterously and to the sound of rustling tissue paper, he envisaged how he would step out onto the street in a minute, where the wind, upon catching sight of him, woud leave everything else untouched — leaves, newspaper shreds and empty plastic bottles — the wind would rush towards him with an insane pleasure and before the eyes of the world, it would air Levadski’s delicate pink secret, the jacket lining.
Levadski bought the shirts with mother-of-pearl buttons and double cuffs in the branch on Frantsusky Boulevard. He was allowed to fish a complimentary pair of cufflinks out of a big round bowl. In a hat shop a few streets up he spent an hour trying on headwear. A bowler hat made Levadski look like an emaciated Churchill; mortified, he put it back on the counter. A homburg with an upturned rim didn’t suit him either. The design made Levadski look like a wrinkly youth who had gotten drunk after failing an exam. Finally he let himself be persuaded by a style called Dreamer, a home-grown version of the Borsalino.
“Imposing,” said the hat seller with a click of his tongue, “very distinguished.”
“Where can I get a walking stick with a silver handle?” After five hours on his legs he felt more dead than alive. “Or better yet, where is the nearest pastry shop?”
“Just around the corner, right in front of the Memorial to the Orange Revolution. There’s only one place you’ll find the silver walking stick, at 5 Victory Avenue.”
Levadski dragged himself to the pastry shop and ordered a piece of chocolate cake. As he was not wearing his dentures he swallowed the alcohol-dipped cherry decorating his cake without chewing it. Am I not a moving sight? thought Levadski. A bee landed on a carnation that was leaning against the rim of a vase. Strange, thought Levadski, you can keep a dog, a cat, a goldfish, a parrot, a trained thrush or a blackbird, some people keep a snake or even a spider at home, but you can’t keep a lone bee. The bee dies without its folk. Oh, it is going to die anyway! Levadski put the fork down on the saucer and leaned back. The bee flew from the carnation onto Levadski’s cake. Impertinently it showed him its behind.
Levadski watched the animal and remembered how he had ignited a dry bush in the Carpathians when he was a student of ornithology between the wars in order to attract the beee-ater. He had hoped that a little posse of these birds would appear in order to snap up the insects escaping from the fire, which is precisely what happened. With a short sharp “whoop” the red-eyed birds made the air around Levadski whirr. It was his first successful experiment. With bated breath Levadski watched as one of the birds caught a bee and crushed it against a branch in order to squeeze out its poison.
“Check, please!” The large behind of the waitress who was placing empty coffee cups on a tray at the next table reminded Levadski of one of his resolutions from this morning. When the waitress brought him the check Levadski patted her hip with a shaky hand. “A bee,” he apologized, paid and left.
A taxi stood in front of the Memorial to the Orange Revolution. Levadski got in. “Victory Avenue, please. Number five.” The taxi driver spit his cigarette butt out the window and drove off. “You know,” Levadski said, hugging the shopping bags and suit box to his ribs, “I don’t understand what the Memorial to the Orange Revolution is about. There was such media hype when it was inaugurated last year. There is a pedestal, but where is the memorial?”
“Modern art,” replied the taxi driver and switched on the radio, from which the last note sung by a male choir was fading away. The taxi driver must have been embarrassed at having to talk to a toothless old man, although he was well over sixty himself. Or, he understood something about modern art and found the idea of an invisible memorial extremely fascinating.