**We Have Everything!**

“We’re open 24 hours a day, 7 days a week! We have everything!”

Ugh, what a nasty thing.

Balancing on a ladder old as the world, I dipped a rag into a bucket and scrubbed at the bright, screaming sign, trying to wash the filth off. It didn’t help much — fresh dust blew off the highway and settled back onto the orange surface the moment I wiped it — but nobody asked my opinion. The boss told me to wipe it once a day, so I wipe it; that’s my job, small as it is.

Cars tore past at full speed, indifferent to the little lonely shop that glowed sadly in the dark in little squares of window light.

Phew, that’s that.

With a sense of duty done I climbed down, dumped the dirty water under a scrawny pine, and trudged back to the counter.

I put the kettle on, fixed my hair in the mirror; the expressionless glass reflected a fifty-two-year-old woman in a blue work smock with stupid embroidery: “Everything for you.” My head was a mop of split, short hair, my nose looked like a little potato, and my face — puffy, like a ball of rising dough with little raisins for eyes — showed the wear of life. I was glad youth was long gone and I no longer had to ache over being ugly.

Besides, night shifts in an empty place aren’t so bad. If I were younger and prettier I probably wouldn’t have agreed to sit here at the crossroads of a busy highway and the little road that leads to my village, where the only customers are the lonely long-distance drivers hankering for a woman’s attention — and the nearest place to live is ten kilometers away, so you can scream your head off and no one will hear.

And work is scarce. It’s good I got this shop. It’s dry, warm, clean — better than standing at the station selling pies to passing train passengers like most of our village women.

“You’re not so bad for an old woman,” I told my reflection, pulled out lipstick and daubed my lips with a bloody red smear.

I sighed, poured tea and stared out the window at the glittering stream of cars.

*Cling!*

Oh — a customer. I set down my cup, tidied the remaining hair on my head, turned — and froze.

Someone long, naked, bald and covered in gray scales was shuffling toward the shop, and — worst of all — headless. Well, it had a head, but he was carrying it under his arm like a cabbage.

“Mistress,” the head croaked in a deep bass, “mistress!”

My legs gave out, I grabbed the counter and screamed like a banshee.

“What are you yelling for?” the head asked peacefully and tried to smile with its thin oval face. The smile was something else — the monster’s lips stretched to show little triangular teeth, some rotten and broken.

“I… I…”

“Have you a goose?” the head asked businesslike.

“A… G… Goose?” I stammered.

“Goose,” the creature confirmed. Its disproportionally long arms moved, stretched up, and the head began to peer into the display window.

“No goose!” I blurted.

“How come?” the freak looked genuinely disappointed and stretched its arms toward me so its foul head was level with my face. “What do you mean no goose? Your sign says — we have everything!”

“Everything we have, goose we don’t.”

The freak yelled at the top of its lungs:

“Goose is everything! Give me a goose! I’ll pay a silver rouble! Give me a goose! I’ll pay a silver rouble!”

I clung to the counter and wailed like an alarm truck — I didn’t expect myself to bawl like that. Old and ugly as I am, life worthless, but if this freak gets angry and can’t find a goose, it’ll pin me to the devil.

Suddenly memories of childhood came back — how the girls and I stole currants in Grandma Nyura’s garden, and my Mitka, now dead, jumped into my mind: good man, kind, drank his fill but honest, and his ungrateful daughter ran off to the city with the first guy she found and in five years didn’t come home or even write… And now death was here.

Then I got mad at myself — I wasn’t dead yet, so I could stop whining. I’d been a whiner all my life; at least I’d die with some dignity.

“Goose isn’t everything!” I wiped my tears and sprang up from behind the counter like I’d been sprung on a spring and bellowed at the unwanted guest with everything in me, “There’ll be a goose tomorrow. Now shut up and go on — there are plenty of you wandering around and I’m alone!”

Then something incredible happened — the head fell silent and looked me in the eye with interest.

The cold, fishy stare of its unblinking, pale eyes made me shiver, but I forced myself to stand and face death.

“What sort of goose?” the awful mouth said, and the monster froze like it was waiting for an answer.

“A live one,” I managed, swallowing my voice and already calculating how to steal a goose from my neighbor Vasilich to buy my own skin, I barked and waved my arms, “and now go, go away, don’t scare my customers — come tomorrow.”

Surprisingly, the hideous visitor left, making sure to close the door in accordance with the scratched sign.

I trembled all night; a sip of cognac from the special anti-stress bottle in the storeroom didn’t help. Prayers and scraps of ghost stories and an old movie about a hero fighting a devilish flower-monster in his shop came to mind too late. The night went on as usual — a few trucks stopped whose drivers wanted to buy food and a little beer, and a taxi with a bunch of tipsy men stopped by wanting to keep the party going.

At nine in the morning the owner arrived: a fat man with developing baldness and oily eyes. We had an arrangement — he sells during the day, I take the night.

“Well, Lidochka, did you sell much?” he asked, taking off the cashbox, “why is it so dirty here?”

I looked at the floor — lord have mercy! From the door to the counter the floor was covered in a layer of greasy gray filth.

“That drunken fellow was dragged in — he was screaming and was filthy; I didn’t have time to clean up!” I lied smoothly and ran out before I missed the only morning bus, the old beaten-up *PAZik*.

After dozing a couple of hours I rubbed my eyes and tried to figure out what to do next.

Quit? Oh, that won’t help. That thing isn’t human, that’s obvious; if it wants me it’ll find me anywhere, and my home is only half an hour away by car or two hours on foot.

Leave for a long way off? With what money? And who’d want me? I’m an old block of wood.

I made the single right but difficult decision (I never took what wasn’t mine in my life!), grabbed a sack and tramped to the backyard where my plot met Vasilich’s yard — he kept geese. I didn’t have geese myself; only a cow, goats and a dozen hens. I shoved a rotten board aside from the fence — the nails had long since disappeared — and prepared the sack…

“Te-ga, te-ga, te-ga!” I whispered, “te-ga, te-ga, te-ga!”

A curious gander was caught in twenty minutes.

Shaking on the battered bus, I feared only that someone from the village might be heading into town and my flapping bag would draw attention. But I was lucky — I was the only passenger, as always at that hour, and the old gray-haired driver paid no attention to such riffraff.

I shoved the goose into the storeroom and, having muttered the Lord’s Prayer by memory, went to wait.

And sure as midnight struck — it came.

“Hey!” I shouted as soon as the door opened — wipe your feet, don’t track it in later!

The sound of my own voice gave me strength and confidence.

The monster shifted across the rag and I thought I should spread a bigger rag so it wouldn’t be uncomfortable.

Trying not to look at the terrible head, I said: “Don’t stand there, don’t touch the goods; get your rouble ready, I’ll bring the goose now.”

Apologizing in my head to the poor bird I was handing over for the freak’s unknown purposes, I put the sack on the counter.

“Here’s the silver rouble!” a clawed hand reached out to me with a big coin stamped with a two-headed eagle.

“Ah,” I thought to myself, “that coin’s antique — it’s worth a lot.”

The long thing was halfway out the door when I shouted after it, “Thanks for the purchase, come again! And bring friends!”

It turned, gurgled: “I’ll bring them.”

I spent the day fussing over the fowl, then slept, and the next night — it was back, bigger!

A hairy one burst in, no eyes or mouth visible, slurping:

“Mistress, they say you have everything? I need a mouse.”

“No, special goods by special order tomorrow! And tell all your friends — first you order, next day you pick up.”

“All right,” it said, “tomorrow it is.”

No trouble with a mouse — I had plenty in the cellar, only had to shell out for the cheese for the trap. The hairy thing took the mouse with something like a bird’s claw, hid it in its fur, and gave me a pearl necklace in return.

Next day I went into town to the pawnshop. You wouldn’t believe it — the appraiser looked at the rouble and paid me thirty thousand right away! I’d never held so much money. I didn’t show the necklace to anyone — I’d never had one like it.

Though old and unlucky, I was still a woman. And nothing feminine is foreign to me.

On the third night an old hag came — what a nose! A wart on the nose! A fang stuck out of her mouth, gray braids hung from under her scarf, a bony leg — a witch. I thought to myself then — compared to her I’m a beauty, I could go on TV.

“They told me you have everything! I’d like a couple liters of animal blood; I’ll give you a mirror…” she said.

But I wasn’t listening. I put my hands on my hips and started scolding her:

“What’s wrong with your manners? This is a shop, not an almshouse. Everything has its price. Thirty gold! Pay now, I don’t run tabs!”

“Oh, poor granny is being robbed!” the crone wailed. “Where will you get so much, my dear peach…”

I cut her off: “Not my problem.”

I gave it to her, of course — what else could she do? I drew the blood from my cow that same day. Poor beast, but what could I do…

Oh, and when I reached into my purse later that day, there was the silver rouble.

“Well, well!” I told myself — apparently it’s never spent. Thank you, damn you, creature.

And so it went — as soon as midnight struck, they came. And all in single file, and each obeyed me — I asked for one a night, after all, I’m alone, and look how many of them there are! I had to please them all and fulfill the orders. How they keep order and take turns among themselves, I don’t know — there’s certainly no shortage of customers.

Once a mishap happened — in came a short, two-headed fellow with a patchy green beard and horns, and began to order when a man — completely human and a good ten years younger than me — walked in. He immediately screamed and fainted.

He must have fallen awkwardly and hit his head on a corner — the spirit left.

My old patron perked up, wagged his beard and said, “I want this one — fresh corpse, soft.”

“Why not the bald devil for you?” I barked at him. “Go to your lot — there’ll be an auction in two hours.”

He stomped out cursing, but my word is law. Exactly two hours later they were packed in! All sorts — crooked, hunchbacked, long, fat, thin, with fangs and toothless, with heads and without heads, with legs and hooves.

They jostled and offered prices — everyone wanted a corpse; it was a scarce commodity!

I sold that goat-legged one for two little vials. I came home, drank one, then the second — it tasted vile, swampy, smelled of rotten fish.

Then I looked in the mirror — I didn’t recognize myself, so pretty. I had been such an ugly thing in my youth, and Mitka didn’t spurn me. Now! A young maiden! Big firm breasts, a slim figure, face like a Snow Maiden, pale and smooth, eyes like lakes, a braid to my waist as thick as my arm. The young woman in the mirror laughed like a mare.

And I felt good!

I went to the pawnshop and reported to the owner — “Mother died, I am her daughter, my name’s Lida, now I’ll live here, will you hire me?”

He looked me over and smacked his lips: “Pity about the old woman. I’ll take you — your mother was an honest woman, never took a dime from me; the shop had customers by the throng with her on, and she managed it all. If you’re the same, we’ll work well together.”

“Of course — a throng,” I thought to myself with a smirk — since I buried the bewitched merchant’s herb by the road that some bastard gave me in exchange for rotten eggs, trade here has been booming.

So here I turn and twist. I’ve sold that unspendable rouble in five cities already, and I’ve melted down some of the gold and gems the monsters bring me; I even took an old book once to Moscow to sell!

I built myself a house, put up a satellite dish, set up a household so I wouldn’t faint worrying where to get ducks, guts, or animal blood for my customers; I hired three helpers — I’m not going to run a whole collective farm by myself. Besides, a suitor has appeared — he passed by, saw me and vanished; no love potions needed. He grumbles about my night shifts, but I’ll make him a calming brew tomorrow; he owes me a tailed fellow, and that’ll cure his jealousy.

I’ve made a price list — I know how much to ask for rat legs or fish heads.

The boss is pleased with me — business is brisk, I’ve got everything in my hands, nights (except Saturdays — I told my clients I take Saturdays off; after all, I’m a woman, and besides, I’m married and must spend some time at home with my husband) I always work, never sick, and I even refused to have a partner.

There’s a reason for that — why would I want extra eyes or ears?

And I’m clever and pretty.

By the way, I made it a rule that as soon as my client comes I hang a “Closed” sign on the door.

Except in cases where someone orders a fresh corpse. Strange people come; no one’s likely to go looking for them, and I can’t refuse orders — business is business. If you want to live, you must know how to spin.

So I spin.

Come on in to our shop!

We work for you 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

We have everything!