And then one evening Kiira phoned and straight out said hello from Vova and said that Vova had invited her, Natalya, to his flat. Natalya felt a stern coldness envelop her heart and with the same sternness in her voice replied quickly that she no longer wanted to hear anything about Vova and she would never do that job again…
“Calm down,” chided Kiira, “don’t be so touchy! Vova’s not asking you to come to work, his wife’s back at it, she’s bellyaching about it but she’s back at it – money doesn’t grow on trees. It’s just that there’s a punter, just the one, who won’t go with her any more and just wants to see Natalya, just meet her and that’s what I, Kiira, on behalf of Vova, am now trying to arrange – although it’s not directly any responsibility of Vova’s and it’s nothing to do with Kiira. Nothing at all. But you have to meet people halfway when it’s an emergency like this.”
At that Natalya’s heart escaped her stern grasp as if it had slipped loose, and then started to flutter.
“I don’t know…” she murmured, bemused, when Kiira persisted, “I don’t want to, I don’t have time for any punters… I have my own job…”
But Kiira kept on cajoling – there was nothing to fear and nothing indecent, all you’ll do is sit down for a while, have a cup of tea, a chat. The punter just wants to chat, get things clear, I can come with you if you like… Natalya listened through a fog of sound filling her ears, and her body was being washed now by waves of heat and now by waves of cold…
And so she agreed to go to Vova’s on Thursday evening – Thursday had to be convenient for the punter and at the same time she was calm, there were no other punters, she could sit down calmly and have a cup of tea…
The three days before Thursday evening – as well as the whole of the day on Thursday – felt like a terribly long journey on an express train: her feelings hurtled through her, ever changing, like pictures flashing past a train window – happiness, trepidation and unexpected, unfounded sadness, and fondness and suspicion… They all hurtled around inside her while she had to sit in her place at a work bench or distractedly choose food in the shop or peel potatoes at home… Sometimes she smiled privately but tried immediately to wipe it away… And she sensed that everyone else was happier and was smiling all the time, and Sofia had started to laugh again and chat and seemed to have forgotten about the rat and those horrible boys who more likely than not had taken her money – or probably would have, if she hadn’t given it to them… Better not to think about them.
Natalya had intended to wear the same silk blouse with the red and gold flowers but then began to waver – she’d already waited once in vain. She dressed simply in a black skirt and her grey sweater; it was a tidy sweater, solid, and when all was said and done she wasn’t going on a date, was she? At least she mustn’t make that kind of impression. Even so she dabbed some perfume behind her ears, on her wrists, under her arms… The perfume was ancient, the one she’d brought back from Crimea. She used it only a couple of times a year, when she went to the theatre with Sofia to see the ballet, The Nutcracker or Swan Lake. She always tried to go to the theatre once a year with Sofia, and sometimes also when she was struck with a yearning for the warm, blue, sighing sea… But she tried to be careful with it, she wouldn’t be able to afford anything like it these days. Yet the scent in the bottle firmly stoppered with a cork had lasted nevertheless.
Vova and his wife Ira had stowed the tea table in the living room between the deep easy chairs and the sofa. A beautiful bouquet of flowers stood in a vase on the table, providing shade to a brandy bottle, glasses, teacups, a flask and a bowl of biscuits… In one of the easy chairs sat Jaakko – the Finn, her very first punter, who was cold and greasy like a lizard and looked like one too – bald and colourless. He stood up quickly, as soon as Natalya came through the door, but then just stood there by his chair, ill at ease.
Vova offered Natalya a seat and she sat down because she felt her legs growing suddenly numb and didn’t understand. Jaakko? Why Jaakko? What was the Finn’s part in all of this?
Jaakko had been a regular client who’d visited at exactly the same time, once a week, no more, no less. He never made any sound – except for his rhythmic, increasingly rapid breathing that stopped suddenly and he left as quietly as he arrived, quickly, almost in shame. For some reason Natalya even felt gratitude towards him – that she could forget him, that she could imagine that he wasn’t really a person, just a rubber robot that she could completely erase from her life – like an unpleasant film, she could just turn the telly off or switch channels… And now she was especially offended that that grey, cold, greasy lizard was occupying the space that belonged to her lovely, warm, tender Dmitri Dmitrievich – what he had to say to her could not be of importance. Perhaps he was going away forever and just wanted to say goodbye; perhaps he already had a family or God knows what, but not under any circumstances should he have been… in his place… She might have guessed as much, she should have realised beforehand, she should know by now that everything in this world was wicked and nothing else, wrong and no two ways about it. It was all a mockery.
“Yes, Natalya Filippovna,” said Vova, “this bouquet is for you. Jaakko chose it just for you, for the wonderful, fleeting moments he spent with you…”
Natalya could no longer hear what he was saying. She felt that Vova was a grey lizard too of the same ilk, only stronger and more execrable for that reason; as if none of them were people – not even Kiira and Vova’s wife Ira. And this room around her was not a place for people, it was some kind of lair for all the animals that had lured her here into a trap. And she burst into tears – how much from offence and how much from despair, she did not know.