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was money,” Ruslan answered without hesitation.

      “Are you joking?”

      “It is absolutely not. If a beautiful woman gets mixed up with someone who has only wealth among his virtues, it’s immediately clear what she found in him – a voluminous purse, well, maybe some connections. All beauties strive for a high social status through marriage or love affair.”

      “You’re a pessimist!”

      “I’m a realist!”

      “Don’t you get any attention from women?” Dima scrutinized his handsome colleague.

      “They do, but not for long. I don’t have much to offer them,” Ruslan bitterly remembered that all the romances that had started in high school and at the institute had ended there. How is it that in the modern world you can get acquainted only at school and at work? And if in the circle of colleagues found no one suitable, then there is nowhere else to look. There are, however, dubious dating sites, where you can pick up a promiscuous person or a fraud.

      “Once I met a pretty girl by giving her a cheat sheet for an exam,” Ruslan recalled.

      “And how did it all end?”

      “She lived in the Moscow suburbs, and I lived in Moscow. While we were going to school, we met. Together with the studies, the affair ended.”

      Ruslan doesn’t even want to think about those times. It was impossible to live on a scholarship or to buy a bouquet of flowers for a girl. Many students worked part-time after classes, and they had no time to meet someone. During the school years, only children of rich parents live well. If Valentina has children, they will be able to have fun and go on dates between classes, spending parental money on flowers and visits to cafes.

      “Did you hear that Vereskovsky’s wife is planning to go to the hospital before the construction is finished?” As if by the way, Dima said. “So she won’t visit us again. It’s a pity! I enjoyed talking to her much more than to her stern husband.”

      “Is she seriously ill?”

      Dima almost laughed. “She wants to have plastic surgery at some elite hospital.”

      “Are you serious? Why would she do that?”

      “Who can understand with these beauties?”

      Ruslan shrugged his shoulders. Probably Valentina Vladimirovna’s beauty is just skillful makeup. All the stars look perfect after cosmetic salons, but when you wash off the makeup, they get old and dull before your eyes. He was well acquainted with this situation on the example of one theater star, with whom his mother was friends.

      “She wants to change her facial features?”

      “Why would she? Did her husband fall out of love with her? Did he think she was ugly?”

      “It is worse! Valentina Vladimirovna fell under the general craze – she wanted to become like a movie star. She’s very fashionable now. Everyone wants to be like her, but not everyone has the money to realize this dream. The star’s name is Athenais. You’ve probably heard of it?”

      If he wasn’t too busy working, Ruslan would go to the movies. But it seems that overwork is a good thing. Otherwise, what absurd thoughts would he have been indoctrinated into by the movies? Women go to the movies and then start dreaming about plastic surgery instead of doing housework and cooking! It’s high time the star business is shut down since it indoctrinates healthy viewers with such sick thoughts.

      A star named Athenais was now a mass lunacy. Ruslan didn’t know what was so special about her, because he hadn’t seen any movies with her. He had only heard glimpses on the radio that she had caused frequent suicides, and that girls who wanted to be like her had died under the knives of plastic surgeons. But the fate of Valentina Vladimirovna is not his business. If she wants to become another victim of beauty, it makes no sense to dissuade her.

      “Why don’t we go to the nearest movie theater this weekend? There’s an Athenaïs movie playing right now called ‘Blood Dawn.’ It is about the struggle of violent religious sects. They say it’s more moving than Romeo and Juliet.”

      That’s the last thing we need! Ruslan was already under the impression that a gorgeous girl who could easily win first prize in a beauty contest was eager to reshape her face to look like Athenais.

      “No, I don’t! I’m going to sit down this weekend to work on some new blueprints.”

      Dima turned away with a sigh, clearly swallowing the reproach:

      “You’re so boring!”

      Let him be boring, the main thing is that he’s alive. Those guys who go to movies with Athenais die in droves. Ruslan noticed in his friend’s things a glossy advertisement with some Egyptian movie and ran his eyes over the first lines. What a coincidence! This very star, it turns out, played the role of that Egyptian deity called Alais. That’s why her statue will be made of gold! Apparently, the oligarch himself was no less impressed by her than his wife.

      Ushebti

      The huge wooden box was delivered first thing in the morning. It was not marked “valuable cargo” for nothing. Apparently, it was museum stuff inside again. Dima had accidentally ripped off the tag and was now looking for it all over the rotunda. Ruslan decided to open the box instead of looking for the tags to it. Inside, packed in shavings and sawdust were ominous statuettes.

      “These are Ushcheti,” Ruslan guessed. “Vereskovsky had ordered to make a separate chamber in the rotunda for them. I’m afraid that won’t be realistic. He doesn’t even realize that the whole rotunda will collapse if we make an extra room in it.”

      “So let’s make an annex,” Dima concentrated on looking at the statuettes. “Are they made of black wood or stone?”

      Ruslan took some figurines out of the drawer. The feeling was that they were about to bite his fingers.

      “Why do I feel like I’m holding not a figurine but a grenade?”

      “They have a very evil look,” Dima suggested.

      “But they are skillfully made. The material seems to be terracotta, and this one seems to be made of sycamore.”

      “They must be very expensive.”

      “But they do have an ominous look to them.”

      “They’re funerary statues.”

      “What good are they?”

      “It is just a museum, put them in a display case and admire them. Well, you can still study them.”

      “Our oligarch loves such exhibits.”

      “But he doesn’t know the meaning behind them.”

      “What’s the point?”

      “These figurines served as the dead man’s slaves. They were to do all the work for the dead in the afterlife, so that the deceased would rest after death.”

      “It is fascinating! But our employer doesn’t need them, he has enough live slaves.”

      “They are hired laborers, not slaves. It’s different.”

      “Not much different!” Ruslan’s back was already hurting. The work was hard and the pay was small. One might as well have worked for a single tortilla, like the slaves of ancient civilizations. But his colleague was not discouraged. No wonder, because he got a smaller part of the work, so he could get busy looking at Ushebti.

      “I see you like these sinister freaks very much. Do you wish you could take them back to your place?” Ruslan teased his buddy.

      “It is no way! I’m not crazy.”

      “What makes you think I think you’re crazy?”

      “There are stories that those who have

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