Trafika Europe 13 - Russian Ballet

Naum Vaiman

looked up at me with a wry twinkle in his eyes. “I have a lavish one.” “If you are prepared to make a trade, even a partial one….” I had entirely missed his little tweak regarding the Hebrew. “What do you have to trade?” We were still ascertaining the possibility of a deal when, suddenly, like a gust of wind, the alarm of a raid swept through the swap meet. Everyone flung themselves along the narrow trodden pathway, shoving, falling, trampling on the books. The “speculators” gathered up their goods from their improvised stalls in a panicked haste, throwing them into rucksacks, shoveling them into pockets, some diving into the crowd, others into the woods. I saw their books falling into the wet snow, their delicate pages helplessly flying open in the snow, treasures that were immediately trampled into the dirt. I ran together with the “collector of Judaica” – I was still hoping to make a deal – he ran spryly, not lagging one bit, in an almost business-like manner, the whole time smirking over something. His expression bore not a trace of fear. Only once we reached the metro could we catch our breath and introduce ourselves. “Pyotr Naumovich,” he introduced himself and gave me his phone number.

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