Swallows Have Arrived Page #4

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The night shift.

Hey, old man.

Go back to your hut!

We're not in your way.

Thanks for that!

We're leaving, Pops, we're leaving.

Forgive us.

- Come on.

- Why? Where do we go now?

Where the f*** are we going?

Can you believe

how many windows there are.

And there are people living

behind every one.

That's nothing!

Can you imagine how much

dough there is behind them,

if you piled it all together!

What do you reckon, Pik?

Why do they need so much money,

if they don't get wasted?

Imagine I've stopped thieving,

found a respectable job,

and I've got money falling out

of the sky on my head.

But what am I suppose do with it

if I don't jack up? Eh?

I don't know.

Maybe build a house,

plant a tree,

have a son and bring him up.

Don't talk rubbish!

You can read that in any book.

I'm asking you as one of the lads.

Just take any decent family man,

get him really high,

so he jumps out of his slippers,

and there and then

his decent family life stops.

He'll remortgage his house,

chop his tree up into matches

and send his son out thieving.

And why's that, eh?

I think they're blind

because they don't know

what a high is.

That's just you

talking crap, Eskimo.

That means everyone's blind

and you're the only sighted one.

And why not?

There's only one saint

for every million.

And there is only one Jesus,

full stop.

Maybe dope is also a holy source,

living water.

Whoever tries it once

forgets everything.

Maybe it's dead water, not living.

Poppies also come

from Mother Earth,

so it can't be dead.

What was that?

What's up with you Eskimo?

Don't scare us,

it's scary enough as it is.

Some bird just almost flew

into my face.

What was it, Pik?

A sign

What f***ing sign?

A Godly sign

We've got to stop jacking up.

Don't talk rubbish, Pik. It was

probably just a swallow flying past.

Swallows don't fly at night,

do they?

It was probably a bat or an owl.

Let's go somewhere

a bit lighter, eh?

Eskimo's knowledge about swallows

touched me kind of strangely,

because he'd probably never looked

up at the sky before that night.

At that time neither I,

nor Mullah, nor Eskimo knew

that the swallows had already

sensed an early autumn

and flown away to warmer climes

which know no winter.

Greetings, good fellow!

Greetings, father.

Why have you come here?

I can't pray.

Maybe your briefcase

is getting in the way.

Galka!

I knew she'd crawl back at night.

Yes, I'm coming.

Alright, I'm coming...

What are you sitting around for?

Bring grandma in here.

- In here?

- In here, in here. Where else?

Hello?

How's it goin'?

Yeah, Cousin's coughed up.

Yeah, it's all OK.

I didn't get round

to repaying my debt to Haly-Galy.

Mullah called me

and said that that night some thugs

had broken into Haly-Galy's,

strangled Gerasim and Valka

and taken all the medicine,

money and valuables.

I also found out from Mullah that

there had also been an old woman,

Valka and Galka's mother.

She had been lying

there paralysed for ten years

in a little room

at the back of the flat

where no one ever went,

apart from the sisters.

They kept the goods

under her mattrass.

The thugs didn't touch her,

they just carried her through

to the couch in the living room,

where Valka and Gerasim's bodies

were already lying.

Mullah says no one knows

anything about Galka.

But they say it was probably

Cousin, who set it all up,

because he had lost

at cards in prison.

And after we said good bye,

Mullah added, as if by the way,

that Eskimo had hung himself.

Camera:
Leonid Derjagin

Anna Zabludovskaya

Costume and set design

Tigran Kaitmazov

Music by Shirvany Chalaev

Producer Alan Galazov

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