English / Sample translations /

/Translated by Andrew Oakland/

It was Boris. It seems his original intention was to go down to the cellar, though now he was making for the steps. Then he stopped, peered about the landing in the deepening dusk. As the dusk became total darkness he was unable to see as well as he needed to. He looked straight at me, but the shadow thrown by the lighted panel in which I was crouching was at that moment too deep for his eyes to penetrate. For a time it seemed that all he could see was the shadow. But then his focus sharpened and he realised what he was looking at. I realised that he had realised.
"There you are," he said, his tone almost soft. He stepped back a little. "Get up."
I raised myself. I had the advantage. All he could make out was my outline; I had been able to look into his face. He was just trying it on.
He shouldn't even be here. If things had been fair, he'd still have been promenading in front of the cafe and that game of hide-and-seek on the steps would never have taken place. We want it, Pilot had said. Of course he did. And it seemed they really did want to reduce their outgoings, in spite of all the talk.
And on top of that, perhaps: No witnesses, Boris.
When he swung a right at me he was no longer grinning. The light from the yard was causing the knuckle-duster to sparkle as he prepared it.
I felt the adrenaline whip through my body. But in my mind there was still a space of quiet and calm. If you can do that, instead of upsetting you the adrenaline can speed up your perception. If you've got anything about you, you've got somebody like Boris in the palm of your hand.
It was like a film in slow motion. The fist was flying. I had plenty of time. I looked at the fist and then moved my head back. The punch stopped short of my eye: the arm could reach no further. Now it was my turn. From that place in my head I was controlling myself like a puppet. I lowered my centre of gravity and moved closer in towards his flailing arm. Then I unleashed my neatly packed fist at an angle from below, the knuckles nice and forward-facing, against his chin. Maybe once it had been firm, some time in the distant past, say four, five seconds ago. Now it might have belonged to a cutout doll. It simply snapped. And Boris fell to the ground.