Claws of Mercy. Natalie Yacobson

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      The entry broke off. The next few pages were blank. Then Ruslan came across a symbol scrawled across the page in red pen.

      Was it some kind of nonsense or a cipher?

      He closed his eyes, and he immediately pictured a gloomy surgical room, where some monster was performing an operation, and a beautiful girl in an evening gown was handing him instruments. Was this the same nurse he had seen this morning? Her hair, eyebrows and eyelashes are black as coal, and her eyelids are lined with red shadow. The operation is done in the dark. There are no lights on, but the monster assistant’s skin glows by itself. The place is full of living statues.

      “Come to us!” A chorus of voices whispers.

      Ruslan struggles to open his eyelids. What the hell is this? He’s starting to go mad. They say it happens to all the inhabitants of big cities who find themselves in the wilderness for the first time.

      He couldn’t fall asleep again. Dima turned on the radio. Some frivolous song filled the interior of the car. It was more fun to drive with music, but gloomy thoughts still nested in the head.

      “Do you believe you can build a mansion with swimming pools, saunas, tennis courts and museum galleries full of paintings and sculptures in such wilderness?” Dima asked him casually.

      “Do you mean sculptures?” Ruslan was interested. “It is like the one in front of the entrance to the hospital we passed.”

      “Were there any sculptures there?” Dima was genuinely surprised.

      “Didn’t you see them?” Ruslan felt a chill run down his spine.

      Dima shook his head negatively. He could drive the car perfectly well. We should have put him behind the rudder right away. But Ruslan drove the car well until he passed the hospital. At that moment he felt sick. Are there such strong infections that can make you sick from the doorstep? He hadn’t even interacted with any of the sick people. Unless someone contagious out of meanness had slipped his notebook into the opened window of the car in order to infect the driver. We must get rid of this weird find soon. Maybe throw it out of the window on the side of the highway right now. Ruslan was about to do it, but at the last moment he changed his mind. It was pitiful! It was as if he was parting with some secret that he would still need.

      He’ll have to hold the blank pages to the fire. Probably there’s something written in milk or lemon juice. Then the text will appear only from the proximity of the flame. That’s how people who need to hide something from prying eyes make notes. Probably some of the patients were hiding their secrets from the doctors.

      Ruslan looked in his pocket for a lighter. He had recently quit smoking, but he kept the lighter with the view of the Ostankino TV Tower as a memento of the excursion. On the blank sheet of paper, the fire had left cinders, but there were no letters. So there are no records here. It was a shame. He thought he was close to solving some mystery.

      Eerie visions haunted him all the way. Would this area be filled with ghost stories? It was useless to ask his companion about it. Dima thought only about where he would go on vacation: Turkey, Greece or Crimea? Where is the resort better? Where are more comfortable hotels? Where to find a cute traveling companion?

      But this summer he’s unlikely to have time for a vacation. After all, they would have enough work for at least six months. The unfinished mansion was part anthill, part quarry. Various architects started to work on it, and for some reason they all quit. He would have to finish the job for everyone. As far as Ruslan could see, they had all started building in their own individual style. Different superstructures didn’t fit together. Some were deliberately destroyed, as if each new hired architect was trying to destroy the traces of his predecessors’ work.

      Ruslan got a stack of blueprints that contradicted one another. All made by different people. Now he has to create his final drawing, into which he will transfer the idea of his employer. The building should resemble a labyrinth, which combines the styles of different eras and countries.

      The idea is grandiose, but how can it be realized? Ruslan gloomily looked at the piles, the foundation, the laid foundations of the towers and galleries connecting the different buildings. Would it be necessary to destroy all this in order to work according to a new plan?

      “Each building should be built in the style of one of the ancient civilizations: Egyptian, Roman, Indian, Greek, Chinese, and only the smallest building in the style of Russian terems, and all this will be connected by covered passages,” Ruslan cringed over the dictated conditions.

      “I wonder who they are building such an expensive gift for? For sure, it is for a beautiful woman,” dreamily stretched out his companion, who was fixated on charming persons.

      “In my opinion, the rich people are beginning to lose their brains because of their fads. Such a structure can only be called a whim.”

      “But this whim is well paid for,” Dima said thoughtfully, who had already paid off debts and alimony from the generous advance payment. And there was still a fee ahead. He doesn’t care what and on what principle to build. The customer pays, so he is always right.

      Ruslan sighed and ruffled his blond hair. He didn’t like the idea of a fancy palace, but where else would he find work?

      “Damn palace!” He hissed, looking at the construction site with its unfinished towers and buildings. “Our ancestors staged revolution and overthrew monarchs just to bring back the era of palaces and the rich. How people don’t rush to get away from inequality, but end up returning to it again.”

      “Do you want to go back to the USSR?” Dima joked.

      Ruslan remained silent. He didn’t like to talk politics.

      “It was good that we weren’t sent to build a hospital. Personally, I like palaces much better than hospitals. The hospital we passed this morning gives me the creeps.”

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