Chapter 10
THE BRASSIERE
The door opened a crack, and in peeked the cleaning woman, pulling behind her a vacuum with a long cord: Comrade Švarcšnupf, may I tidy up now?
I passed my tongue over my lips and commanded: And thoroughly at that, Comrade! Yesterday I found dust in my drawers.
She barked back: Don’t be vulgar, Comrade! I’ll complain to the chief.
Immediately, I realised that she was Comrade Slepec’s aunt — well set up in the party cadres she was — and so I rushed into an explanation that I wasn’t joking, that the drawers I was referring to were not what she had in mind. But it didn’t matter. She still didn’t believe me.
It was high time for me to be off to my Russian lesson. But before I could, I still had to pop in at the chief’s office upstairs for my instructions for next
