On a summer evening on Kuzinetsky Most street, I was walking
up towards the FSB headquarters to take the metro home and lighting a
cigarette, when a man approached me. About fifty, in an expensive suit, with
Radovan Karovitch hair and a briefcase, he caught my eye and, seeming to be
reassured that I wasn’t a killer, he came up and said, with a heavy French
accent: Can I?”
He was signaling towards my lighter and taking a cigarette
of his own from his pocket.
“You can.” I replied
“aaaaah, you speak English.” As I lit his Galoises.
“I am English” I
told him, and we paused to inhale in a moment of fraternal amity.
Then he pursed his lips, narrowed his eyes and said in a
vaguely conspiratorial fashion.
“Ere, zey do not ave language.”
“They have Russian.” I pointed out, and he gave a superbly
gallic shrug, said “Hmmmmmmmmn” and we
parted.
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