When the taxi had left we stood on the side of the road watching the false money whirl in the breeze like leaves falling from trees against the background of the sky with cranes trains flying over, calling sadly and breaking the hearts of the peasants that worked in the cotton fields of Uzbekistan staring at their flight with a sigh.
With his hands deep in his pockets and slightly bent, like a ruffian of the 60-ties, Ramazanov was walking nervously from side to side like a pole bear in the Zoo, gasping from heat.
- Well, what shall we do now, Your Honor? - I asked him.
Ramazanov stopped for a moment and, without saying a word, began to walk to and fro again. After a while I myself answered my own question:
- I tell you what, Your Honour. Well, Sir, we should go to your cell-mates right off, without delay, and tell them to return our legitimate goods. We shall tell them frankly that the money they had given us turned out to be false!
On hearing this Ramazanov stopped again, looked at me with a grin as I if had gone mad and started laughing silently.
- Buriby, why are you laughing instead of shedding bloody tears - I asked him.
- Poor Al Kizim! You are an old youngster. What legitimate things are you talking about? Money and pleasure are the only legitimate things to those brutes! They have nothing to do with the thievish laws. Because the trash that they stuck to us in the criminal world is called scumbag! It"s a gang of crooks who spit upon the law the more so upon our thievish law! If you tell them that the money they gave us is false, you will be done for. They will tell you right off that the money was real, and you, like an ungrateful jackal, after consulting your accomplices, substituted the real banknotes for false ones. By this you will sign your own death sentence, and they will bump you off. Do you want that?
- Looking at Ramazan I stood stock-still for a moment. Then I said:
- God damn you, Buriby! God damn the day when I agreed to come here with you! How can we go home, and what shall we tell our villagers who gave us the fruits and vegetables on credit? What shall we tell God on the Judgment Day? What a wretched man you are, Ramazanov!.. He who murders you will get to Paradise - I said clenching my teeth.
- And he who murders you will get to Hell - Ramazanov retorted spitting trough his teeth..
I was about to attack Ramazanov with the shout of a savage when suddenly a tractor with a trailer appeared in the horizon. I raised my hand to stop it. Then Ramazanov looking at me in astonishment said:
- Do you really want to ride on this jalopy?
Casting a glance at him hurriedly I said:
- And you are expecting a limousine, aren"t you? Yes, I want to go as soon as I can from you on this dilapidated vehicle.
Ramazanov thought a little and then said.
- I see-ee-e! So you are deserting your countryman in trouble, eh? That"s what I thought. When a man has money you praise him to the sky, and when he is in trouble you desert him with damnation, right? Al Kizim, you are not a man but a foul jackal.
Now the tractor had approached us and stopped near me. A man in a checked shirtsleeve was sitting in the cabin. He was bearded, with emerald eyes and red curly hair. He opened the door and shouted like a fisherman standing on the seashore where one can hear the noise of the break beating against the rocks.
- Which way are you going? - I asked him pointing to the road. He gestured me into the cab.
I climbed in while Ramazanof got into the trailer. So we drove ahead. The driver asked me in a loud voice where we were going, and told him about our adventures. Thus we got acquainted. His name was Dima. His full name was Pakhomov Dmitry Stepanovich.
Without tearing his eyes from the road he uttered:
- Ye-ee-s, people have really gone mad these days. It wasn"t like that in the past. But you shouldn"t worry, everything will be all right! I will help you. I am a farmer. I have a small farm. There"s a little house where you can stay until you find a job.
I thanked him for the kind attention, and we drove on.