Return to Leo (Part II)

For a good five minutes I shined this began by him boot and when I took the next one, meaning already the fourth in the row, Leo came out of the kitchen.

His face was sort of secretive, and in his right hand he held a large revolver, a Russian reproof, which in his bare, freckled palm, covered in red hair, looked gigantic.

I shined the boot, and he slowly crept along the wall in the direction of the entry doors. With the weapon in his right hand barrel up, he held it behind him under his undershirt, which lightly gave him the appearance of some suspicious hunchback.

I didn’t know completely what was being played, and in the meantime Leo stood already at the doors, with his left hand delicately holding the doorknob.

Nervously I kept shining, when suddenly he pushed opened door. Behind the door there was no one. In this undershirt and his socks, with revolver in hand Leo looked now like a hero from a cowboy film, who in an incomplete outfit had to escape quickly, caught flagrantly by a jealous husband.

To the complete set he was only missing a hat, and if it came to this cowboy film, then I don’t have to add it would be with all certainty a comedy. He returned to the kitchen and after quite a long time, already without the reproof, came back to me. He took from my hand the brush and the shoe.

“Well, I see that this is going pretty well for you, you have a good career if you find yourself in the West, apparently very often the beginnings of future millionaires,” he joked, with satisfaction watching under the light the shined by me boots.

“You know, lately they’ve really been hassling me and I have to be attentive and careful. And now I’ll tell you something. All these guys caught at the border are dicks and amateurs. For example, do you see my shoes?”

“Yeah I see them, they’re sitting right in front of me.”

“Well then look one more time, all of them are perfect, now imagine, that with one of them something happens, the tags fall off or one of the stitches ripped open. I, even though I’m not a cobbler, will try to fix this, will even think that I did fix it, but from a kilometer everyone will see my shitty repairs. You see, everything has to be done by competent professionals. This, that we’re arranging for you, this is a one hundred percent sure thing. You know, I’m soon going too…”

“Where?” I asked.

“To Italy, maybe Austria, maybe Germany, maybe to Israel, but the ultimate destination for sure America, where I’d like to have a respectable shoe store, and after some time maybe a network of these stores. Only in America they let you be happy for your money. Because here for example if you have more money, so the more you have to play the pauper. I spent a few years playing the pauper in Kazakhstan.”

“The eagles are flying…” I interrupted philosophically.

“More like rats escaping a sinking ship,” Leo laughed.

“Speaking of eagles I had in mind my eventual trip,” I explained and we both had a laugh.

“Because soon I won’t be here either, and even though you’re a goyem, I like you and trust you a little more than the others, so would like to explain to you a few details. I think you understand that our discussion has the character of the most top secret and if you said something one day from this conversation here or already there and repeat it, then you don’t even have a clue from what direction you could have horrible troubles, and even not half bad if it ended only with horrible troubles. You know, some forty kilometers west from us is a medium sized county seat. Seemingly such an average town, it figured even in the history of Poland, I think in connection with some invasion by the Golden Horde of Genghis Khan. This town is divided, and its much bigger part belongs to the Russians. Stationed there is hella Soviet army and there’s a kind of Oberkommand for the entire lower half of East Germany, meaning a part of the so called zone, southwestern Poland and all of Czech without Slovakia. There are also there centers of Russian intelligence and counter-intelligence working in this area. You see, until not long ago the Russians, as the liberators, or rather like the occupiers, had really everywhere anything their heart desired. Now, because from the end of the war has passed already almost ten years, it’s changed a little. They have to be a little more discrete and so that in the long run they can keep this all, they pay more often. Do you know what the mafia is?”

“Yeah, I know,” I answered lightly surprised by such a radical change in topic, “there’s a Sicilian mafia, where after all it starts, Italian, the mafia is in America, mainly in Chicago and New York, in Marseilles, it’s this kind of villainous organization which for big money arranges for you different illegal things, which you couldn’t do all by yourself, because either you’d be scared or unable to do it.”