Eva hurried home.
She still had time to deal with the bored hooligans before Márk arrived.
The elevator was occupied. She didn't even press the call button. She climbed to the fifth floor on foot. At least she would warm up from the stairs and wouldn't freeze while getting dressed—assuming, once again, that the central heating wasn't working.
Eva pulled on thick tights and put on an extra knitted cardigan under her autumn coat. She wrapped a scarf up over her face. Her red hair, reaching her chin, was hidden under a knitted hat.
Her coat wasn't conspicuous. Almost everyone wore this model.
The cuckoo clock had already cuckooed five times.
Time had slipped apart because of the bug.
Eva smiled gently.
The cuckoo would be her next task.
She went back down the stairs—lightly, almost cheerfully—and left the apartment block through the other entrance.
Eva never used that exit.
She walked around the building and headed toward the phone booth on this grumpy November afternoon.
There was a bench near the booth.
It was concealed by shrubs. In summer, residents from the neighboring block sat there in the evenings to chat. In the afternoons, children and hooligans horsed around nearby. The bushes surrounded it. In summer it was green, cheerful, pleasant. It protected those sitting there from curious passersby. Even serious comrades—men and women—could come down there in house clothes, slippers, tracksuits.
Eva placed her handkerchief on the bench. Sitting there wasn't forbidden. The bushes still concealed it.
Soon, two men approached. Eva knew both of them. They both lived in the block opposite Eva's apartment.
Which one could be the bored hooligan?
They shook hands. One of the comrades headed home.
The other—John—turned toward the phone booth.
He was calling relatives again. The phone at home was broken. Perhaps that's what he had been telling the other one for days.
Eva watched as he tried repeatedly to dial a number. She imagined his disappointed face. Today, his mission would fail. Eva's harassment would not succeed.
John took a lap around the area. Perhaps he went as far as the grocery store. Within minutes, he returned. He didn't give up on the day so easily.
Then he tried again to call the apartment—where no one answered.
Eva was certain now.
She slipped away unnoticed from her hiding place. She even bought tea at the grocery store.
She opened the apartment door cheerfully. She only removed her hat and scarf. She put the tea on to boil and waited for the next call.
John, the middle-aged "bored hooligan," may have made another round, because the phone remained silent.
Then it rang. Grimly.
Eva chuckled to herself as she picked it up.
In a stern voice, she spoke into the receiver:
"Good afternoon, Comrade John."
The device clicked. Eva smiled. The line went dead.
She would have liked to see Comrade John's shocked face. But that could wait until tomorrow.
Eva changed clothes. She put on her pink cotton tracksuit—the one with the planet Venus.
Now came the reckoning with the cuckoo.