Read Online The Funeral Party by Ludmila Ulitskaya - Free Book Online Page A

removed his surplice and was pushing through the crowd of guests towards him. “I hear you’ve come from Israel to teach a course of Judaics?” he asked in school-book English.
    Reb Menashe stood up. He had never talked to a priestbefore. “Yes, I’m lecturing on Judaeo-Islamic culture at the Jewish university here.”
    “They do some wonderful courses, I once read a book about biblical archaeology published by that university.” The priest broke into a happy smile. “Your Judaeo-Islamic theme is presumably developed in the context of the contemporary world by some sort of trade-off?”
    “Trade-off?” Reb Menashe didn’t understand the expression. “No no, political parallels don’t concern me, I’m interested in philosophy.” He seemed agitated.
    Alik called to Valentina. “Valentina, keep an eye on those two and make sure they don’t stay sober!”
    Valentina came over, pink and plump, holding more paper cups to her chest. She put them before Leva, and the three men drank together. A moment later their heads came together, they nodded their beards and gesticulated. Alik looked at them with deep satisfaction and said to Libin: “I think I’ve successfully played the role of Saladin today.”
    Valentina sought Libin’s eyes and nodded towards the kitchen. A moment later she was squeezing him into a corner. “I can’t ask her, you’ll have to,” she said urgently.
    “I see, you can’t, so it’s down to me.” Libin was offended.
    “That’s enough. We must pay right now, at least for one month!”
    “We’ve only just been asking for money.”
    “Just—a month ago,” Valentina shrugged. “Why should I fork out more than anyone else? I paid the phone bill last month, it was all out-of-town calls. Nina talks a lot when she’s drinking.”
    “She’s only just given money,” Libin sighed.
    “Okay, ask someone else then, how about Faika?”
    Libin burst out laughing: Faika was up to her ears in debt, and there wasn’t a person in this room to whom she didn’t owe at least ten dollars. Libin had no choice but to go to Irina.
    Money wasn’t just a mess, it was a disaster. In the years before Alik became ill he had sold few paintings, and now that he had stopped working and could no longer run around the galleries his income was virtually zero, or rather less than zero. Debts grew: those which had to be settled, such as rent and phone bills, and those which would never be paid, like medical bills.
    As well as this there was another unpleasant story, which had dragged on for several years. Two gallery-owners from Washington had organized an exhibition for Alik and had failed to return twelve of his works. Alik himself was partly to blame for this, and it would never have happened if he had gone back to the gallery on the day the exhibition closed, as they had agreed, and taken everything back. But he was enjoying in advance the sale of three of his paintings, and had borrowed the money to go off to Jamaica with Nina, so he didn’t make the final day. Even when he came back he didn’t go immediately. The cheque for the paintings didn’t arrive for some reason, so he phoned Washington to find out why. They asked him where he had been, and told him the works had been returned and had had to be put in storage, since the gallery had no space for them. This was a barefaced lie.
    Alik had asked Irina to help. Another fact emerged: when he signed the contract he had left his copy with the gallery-owners. This blunder gave them the upper hand and made them even more brazen, and there seemed to be almost nothing Irina could do about it. All she had was the catalogueof the exhibition, which contained information about the paintings and a reproduction of one of those that had ostensibly been sold. She embarked on the process of suing the gallery, and while the case creaked on she reluctantly made Alik out a cheque for five thousand dollars. She told him she had screwed it out of them; in reality she