Red Square - Martin Cruz Smith [135]
Arkady was Returning over the meadow when he saw four sections of the Wall left standing like gravestones. So Max was wrong, he thought; not everyone wanted to erase the Wall and turn without pause to the money till. Someone thought a memorial was appropriate.
Next to the section was a construction crane with a double jib for tall buildings. About seventy meters up, at the crown of the top jib, the block and tackle held a square basket. Against the sky Arkady saw a figure climb over the edge of the basket and jump. Arms and legs spread, he plunged through the air and disappeared behind the sections.
Arkady walked over quickly. Closer, the sections were each four meters square and elaborately spray-painted with every color of peace symbol, and airbrushed with Christs, gnostic eyes, prison bars, names and messages in different languages. Behind the cement slabs people sat at tables set on gravel. A sign said JUMP CAFÉ.
A truck offered sandwiches, cigarettes, sodas and beer. The customers were bikers, some older couples with dogs leashed to their chairs, a pair of businessmen dark enough to be Turks and a circle of teenagers, the sun sparkling on the rivets of their jackets.
The jumper, a boy in a tank top and fatigues, was swaying upside down a few feet in the air. Arkady realized that he had never hit and that he was connected by elastic cords running from his ankles to the top of the crane. The jib lowered to let him settle on the earth, hands first. He released the cords and staggered dizzily to his feet to applause from the bikers and tribal whoops from his friends.
Arkady was interested in the two businessmen. Their suits were good, but they had massed bottles of beer on their table in a gluttonous volume. They had thick bodies and slouched with their heads tucked in a familiar attitude. Though they sat looking away from him, one of them had memorably ugly hair, long in the back, short on the sides, with an orange fringe on top. Though they didn’t clap, they watched with close attention.
A second figure was still in the cage high above the tables. He pulled in the loose cords and seemed to sit down. A moment later, he climbed onto the edge of the cage and balanced himself with one hand on a cable. A schnauzer yapped and its owner plugged its mouth with wurst. The figure on the cage looked like he was trying to pick a place to land.
“Dvai!” shouted the man with the bad hair, fed up with waiting. Come on! The way fishermen shout when someone is slow pulling in a net.
The figure jumped. He dropped with his arms and legs windmilling. This time Arkady saw cords playing out loosely behind. He assumed that careful calculations took into account the weight of the jumper, the distance to the ground, the full extension of the cords. The face hurtling down was white, eyes first, mouth peeled open. Arkady had never seen anyone so full of second thoughts. He heard an audible chord as the elastic went taut, then the diver was rising in reverse, a quarter of the way back up. He bounced lower, more slowly and more crazily. Now his face was red and the oval of his mouth resumed human shape. Two girls in leather jackets ran forward to help their hero down. Everyone else applauded except for the two businessmen, who laughed so hard they coughed. The one with the hair leaned back to catch his breath. He was Ali Khasbulatov.
Arkady had last seen Ali with his grandfather Makhmud at the South Port car market in Moscow. Ali smacked the table with his hand like a body hitting the ground and started to roar all over again. When an empty bottle rolled off the table onto the gravel, Ali didn’t deign to pick it up. The other man at the table was also Chechen, older with eyebrows brushed like fans. The kids in leather jackets found the laughter offensive, but after some cautious glances left the two men alone. Ali spread his arms like wings, pretended to flutter, then to drop. Waved away praise for his acting from the man across the table.