for sale. Her owner went to Madagascar and married a Madagascan prince there. Before leaving, she made a silly mistake giving Toma the keys, and number 12 was turned into an art studio. On many of her paintings you can see number 12. For a whole year, we did not hear from the new Madagascan princess. Toma Stenko’s paintings hung themselves up on the empty concrete walls of the apartment (I am kidding, of course). And then, in February, Olga Yevgenievna Barsukova, our neighbor and owner of the said apartment, unexpectedly returned. She arrived with the prince who boasted of many names, of which I have committed to memory only one: Abamelk. Olga and Abamelk observed the paintings for quite some time, in silence. Paintings were spread across the three rooms. No one asked, “Why are these paintings hanging here?” After a prolonged silence Prince Abamelk posed a question to Toma Stenko, “Are you happy?” “I can’t tell you. But while I am painting, I am”. “What if I’d buy all these paintings? Except for those displaying female sexual characteristics. (He pronounced exactly those words, ‘female sexual characteristics’.) What if we will take them away to Madagascar, and you will get the apartment?” Toma Stenko thought it over and then asked, “What are your objections to female sexual characteristics?” “It is considered highly indecent in Madagascar to depict women this way, even a whore from a soldiers’
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