I tap her shoulder. She turns round, looks at me for a couple of seconds and smiles.
‘Privet, Martin, kak dela?’ She doesn’t seem surprised to see me.
‘Privet, Lena. I wasn’t sure it was you.’
‘It’s me.’
Her breasts are pushed up, look enormous. I’ve never seen Lena wear anything like this before. I can almost see her nipples. I notice that she’s not wearing her golden chain with the cross.
Here she is. Lena. My long-disappeared Lena.
I find myself thinking of the days we spent together, just after my arrival, when I had plenty of energy and Moscow was a white canvas. The Propaganda era. I picture Lena lying on her kommunalka bed. Or sitting on the floor of my balcony, her legs dangling through the bars, gazing over the city.
‘It’s been a long time,’ I say.
She nods.
‘Oh Bozhe, Lenushka, you look so different.’ My eyes can’t help going from her face to her breasts and down to her mini-miniskirt.
‘Thanks for the compliment.’
‘I sent you so many messages,’ I say. ‘You never called me back.’
She stops dancing, steps aside. ‘Call you? What for?’
‘To talk, to see each other. I thought a lot about you. Lena, I’ve missed you.’
Behind Lena, the two older expats are looking at me, impatient. Lena steps back as if to go back to dance.
‘Would you like a drink?’ I ask.
‘No thanks, I’m OK.’
‘I didn’t know you came here.’
‘I’ve come a few times,’ she says. ‘I like the music.’
I can hardly hear her, I step closer. She’s wearing the same perfume she wore back then, and, as I inhale as much of the sweet aroma as I can, I feel a shudder through my body, and now I’m seeing Lena in Propaganda, the first night we met, when she was the most beautiful dyev in the club and I whispered a few Pushkin verses in her ear.
‘Where are you working now?’ I say. ‘I went to the restaurant. They told me you don’t work there any more.’
‘I quit work. I’m taking a break now.’ She comes closer. ‘Listen, I can’t talk right now.’
Her girlfriend comes over, talks in her ear.
‘I really need to go,’ Lena says. ‘It was nice seeing you.’
She turns round but I grab her arm and pull her aside.
‘I’ve been wanting to see you for ages. Lena, you look great. I’ve missed you so much.’
‘Martin, you are drunk.’
‘I really miss you, Lena. I miss what we had.’
‘What did we have?’ She shakes me off. ‘You only wanted me for sex.’
‘That’s not true, Lenushka.’
‘Martin, I need to go now, let’s talk another day.’
‘What are you doing later tonight?’
Lena puts her hand to her neck, as if to grab the necklace she is not wearing. ‘Martin, you are drunk. Go back to your friends.’
The old fat expat comes to me. ‘Listen, man,’ he says, ‘tonight these two ladies are with us. Move on and look for another one.’ He is American.
‘Don’t worry,’ I say, ‘she’s just an old friend.’
‘Tonight she’s our friend.’
‘Whatever.’ I turn to Lena. ‘See you later. Don’t leave without saying goodbye.’
I go back to the brothers, who have gathered in a corner next to the entrance.
‘I see you’re relaxing your policy,’ Colin says.
‘What do you mean?’
Colin smiles and points his bottle of beer at the dance floor. ‘I just saw you over there,’ he says, ‘trying to pick up a whore.’
I look back at the dance floor, where Lena is dancing. The shiny boots. The push-up bra. The miniskirt. The make-up. I should have realised sooner. Of course Lena can’t possibly like the fat American. Of course Lena has not come to the Boarhouse for the music.
I leave my beer on the floor, rush outside the club to get some fresh air. I sit on the kerb. Maybe everything is a misunderstanding. Sure, there are plenty of prostitutes at the Boarhouse. It’s a trashy place and that’s why we don’t like it. But not Lena, I tell myself, not my Lenushka. I need to talk to her, clarify things. I need to hear her tell me what’s going on. I need to go back into the club. I try to get up on my feet but I realise I’m too drunk, I can hardly stand.
The image of the fat American flashes in my head, the hollow feeling in my stomach grows. I feel a spasm, as if I were about to cry, but I hold back my tears and, instead of crying, I puke. Beer. Pieces of mashed Bavarian sausage.
I feel a bit better. I breathe deeply, find some chewing gum, go back into the club.
The air is steamy. I find Lena next to the bar, drinking a cocktail with her girlfriend and the two old guys.
I approach her. ‘I need to talk to you,’ I say.
‘You are drunk, Martin.’
‘I’m OK, Lena, I just don’t know what’s going on. Let’s go out for just five minutes.’
The fat American guy now steps in between Lena and me, puts his hand on my chest. ‘Back off, asshole.’
‘Be cool, man,’ I say. ‘I only want to talk to her.’
Then he pushes me and, pissed as I am, I fall to the floor, which is dirty and wet. I get to my knees, and I feel I’m about to puke again. I breathe deeply, trying to gather my thoughts, and then someone grabs me and pulls me up. It’s Diego.
I see the American guy smiling, now putting an arm around Lena, and I find myself punching him with all my strength, except that what I hit is not his face as I had intended, but his neck. It doesn’t feel like a clean punch, not that I really know how a clean punch feels. Somebody pushes me. A soft slap lands on the back of my head. Now Stepanov steps in, shouting in Russian. Diego is holding me and I’m confused. I never get into fights.
Next thing I know I’m outside the club, sitting on the pavement, next to what I suspect is my own vomit. Colin sits on my other side with a bottle of water.
‘Drink some cold water, man.’
I feel pain in my hand and in my knees. For a few seconds I don’t remember Lena or the guy or how I ended up here and during these seconds I’m puzzled but unhurt. Then the image comes back into my head, the shiny boots, the red lipstick, the push-up bra, the American man with sweat patches under his armpits, and it hurts like hell and, with embarrassment, I notice tears in my eyes.
‘Where is she?’ I say.
‘Who?’
‘Lena. Where is she? I need to talk to her,’ I say, trying hard to hold back my tears in front of Colin.
‘They’re all gone, man.’
‘Where to?’
‘Fuck knows. We’ve all been kicked out. Congratulations, our first time. Now we know what it takes to get kicked out of a trashy club in Moscow.’
‘Where did they go?’ I ask.
‘Forget about them,’ Colin says. ‘Come on, throw up a bit more before you get in a car. We need to get you home.’
52
I WAKE UP AROUND NOON. I open the balcony door, step outside. I glance at the grey roofs and the grey sky, trying to gather my memories of the night and, as soon as a coherent sequence of events forms in my head, I feel my lungs shrink. Back inside, the flat feels small, claustrophobic, as if during the night the ceiling has lowered and the walls have moved closer to each other. I need to get out. I shower quickly, dress, rush down the stairs and out onto the street.
I turn the corner into the Boulevard, my pace faster than usual, my mind bombarded with images of the Boarhouse: the boots, the cleavage, the miniskirt, the fat American. My right hand is swollen, my entire body aches. As I instinctively turn left at Bolshaya Nikitskaya, I start to recall the Amsterdam moment, now three years ago, when I found out about Katya’s affair. I remember how the entire university knew by then, everybody except me, and how the thought of Katya with her law professor sparked a physical ache, a painful emptiness in my chest, not unlike what I now feel thinking of Lena and her Boarhouse companion.