“I don’t mind,” he thought irritably. For some reason he didn’t feel like calling back. But what’s there to do: go home? He’d go crazy there. He called back.
“Who are you calling?” asked Mother when he was dialing the number.
“Bezletov…”
“Maybe he can help find something for you?” Mother went right back to the same tune. “Get you a job? How about it, son? Wasn’t he working at the college…?”
“That’s right, we’ll talk about that,” Sasha joked, although in a different time and place, he would have snapped back. Whenever Mother met people whom she thought were decent, she immediately wanted them to find a job for Sasha.
In parting, she gave Sasha a five-hundred-ruble note, extracted from her emaciated wallet.
Sasha noticed there was only one more note left in there, and that was all.
Wh
