The commission’s work was into its fourth hour.

  An atmosphere of unrest had certainly come on.

  I directed myself towards the stage again, where the last fifteen minutes were devoted entirely to Moniuszko.

  The museum piece sang with the sound of a bordello madam.

  I dreamt of being back home to turn on the radio station AMERICAN FORCES NETWORK IN EUROPE and listen to big band Tommy Dorsey, Charlie Barnet, Jimmy Lanceford, Count Basie or Benny Goodman.

  There was a short intermission and then the characteristic rhythm of Soviet song came from the stage. Unfortunately at this time they were heard everywhere, and grating to the ears.

  A curvy brunette came up to sing next.

  She had a pretty face, with the tiniest mustache, surrounded with a head of long flowing hair. On her shoulders she had a big triangular black poncho, somewhat resembling a bed sheet, somewhat some fantastical liturgical cloak.

  Her beautiful black hair matched the black poncho, so much so that even with good eyesight one had to take a good look to see where the hair ended and the poncho began, and where the poncho ended and the hair began.

  A not-too-long green dress revealed strong but nimble legs. Her thick stockings hid hairy legs underneath, which for this audience signaled immeasurable layers of feminine passion.

  She had wooden shoes imitating cork in the fashion of the time on her shapely feet.

  Accompanying her the entire time with his wet-combed hair was the ubiquitous pianist in the rubber coat.

  A hotshot with a harmoszka appeared on stage during the more dynamic segments.

  He wore on his head something like a Cossack papacha, adorned with a red star cut from glistening paper.

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  His playing was not half bad, at times even syncopated.

  The situation had to amuse him greatly, I know, because every so often he’d make these monkey faces. He’d leave the stage during the slower Soviet numbers.

  During just one such a number, one of the prospectives attempted to relieve himself behind one of the works of art being displayed to the right of the stage.

  It was a relatively big painting, of a rural landscape seen as if from the backyard.

  There were bushes in the foreground and then fields. Somewhere on the horizon, seven tractors with waving red streamers, except for one, which rather than a red flag waved a white-red one, and which drove as the last tractor, as if slower.

  The prospective relieved himself under this socio-realistic painting, and had he been looking at it he would think that he had returned to the countryside.

  Instead, he stared at the singer, waving the entire time with his free hand.

  Several other prospectives brutally pulled him away, but he was uninterruptible, and even put up some opposition before finally being tossed in the direction of the pungent defecated bathroom.

  The performer was just finishing singing some lyrical Russian shit, and the hotshot reappeared with his harmoszka.

  She began some mindless hit of the Soviet composer Dunajewski, which probably stood as the peak of the performance, the end of the program.

  Everything went OK, when suddenly from the very end of the hall there came a loud cry: Show your pussy!

  The artist let it go, ignoring it.

  She only turned her head back like a fawn, allowing her rich, long, ebony hair to fall further down her hefty rump, and kept singing .

  She had her eyes half shut and was trying to get back in the mood.

  She was almost at the refrain when from another part of the hall there came an even louder cry: You gypsy bitch, show your pussy!

  The hotshot tried to silence this outburst, letting out several hopeless chords on his instrument.

  It had the opposite of the intended effect, spurring on the irresponsible and thoroughly spontaneous rumpus.

  This time the singer stopped mid-word and darted off the stage in the direction of the doors marked with the sign COMMISSION.

  When she opened them, she let out a horrible shout and bolted back, coming eye to eye with a group of twelve completely naked peasants, just at the moment waiting to be measured, weighted and otherwise medically examined.

  The pianist who accompanied her was so preoccupied with his accompaniment that he had no idea what was going on.

  When she darted off stage, he thought he might be next in getting pelted with tomatoes, which were still very much in season.

  So this ugly thing ran, in his long rubber coat, looking back to see if something was already flying his way.

  The other artists, directed by tribal instinct, ran off like monkeys from the stage and hurriedly exited the hall, the hotshot calmly leaving at the tail end of the musical procession out.