The Funeral Party

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The heat was terrible, with one hundred per cent humidity. It was as if the whole of this great city, with its inhuman buildings, its magical parks, its different coloured people and dogs, had reached the point of a phase transition, and at any moment its semi-liquefied people would float up into the soupy atmosphere.

The shower was permanently occupied, with a queue of people standing outside. For a long time they hadn’t bothered with clothes, although Valentina wore a bra to prevent her large breasts chafing in the heat; normally she never wore one. Everyone was dripping wet, the sweat failed to evaporate from their bodies, towels didn’t dry, and hair had to be dried with a hair-dryer.

The blinds were half-open and strips of light fell across the floor. The air-conditioning hadn’t worked in years.

There were five women in the bedroom: Valentina in her red bra, Nina with her gold cross and long hair, so thin that Alik had once told her, “Nina you’re as skinny as that snake-basket.” (The basket stood in a corner of the room; when Alik was younger he had gone to India in search of ancient wisdom, but the basket was all he had brought back with him.)

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