LENA
I kept calling and texting her. The thing is, we had had a fight-nothing serious, not a big deal, but at first I thought Nastya wasn’t answering because she was upset with me. So I kept texting, angrily at first—“Fine, go ahead and pout”—and then conciliatory: “I’m sorry. Let’s make up already.” Then I started panicking: “Where are you?”
NASTYA
At this point my parents were busy exploring the contents of my phone.
LENA
Three years’ worth of text messages and photos.
NASTYA
So I got to Moscow and at the end of the day got on the train back to Kirov: my parents had summoned me back for a talk. Our friends came over to see me off. We had these two friends who brought vodka and drank it, I think, for the first time in their lives that day, because everyone was so upset.
My parents told me to end it. I said, I can’t, I don’t want to, I love her, we’ve been together for a long time. They said, in that case we’re going to have to do something about her. My parents are very wealthy people. And they said, “We’re just going to make her disappear.” I got really scared. I texted Lena, “Let’s break up.” Instead of responding by saying “OK,” Lena got on a train and came to Kirov.
LENA
I stood under her windows until she came out and we talked. I was in tears, slobbering.
NASTYA
I promised Lena we wouldn’t break up, and I promised my parents we’d break up and everyone was happy and I was miserable.
LENA
When we got back to Moscow, we tried living separately because we were afraid Nastya’s parents might surprise us with an inspection. But soon we were living together again. That was really the most difficult time. Because, say, Nastya would have an earlier class than I and she would leave the house and then I’d go to the window and see a black SUV outside—I think all large cars look like Nastya’s father’s car—and I’d see it parking and then I’d quickly grab my things and go up a floor and change out of my pajamas and into my school clothes standing up on the landing. And then I’d call Nastya in hysterics and she’d say, “It’s probably not my father” and I’d say, “But I hear someone coming up the stairs.” And then I’d be too scared to go back into the apartment.
NASTYA
In the summer, my best friend was getting married. I went to Kirov for the wedding. Lena was in Abkhazia on vacation with her mother. And I forgot to log out of Vk.com [a Russian social network] on the computer. That’s when my parents cornered me again. I admitted that Lena and I were still in touch. For some reason my parents decided I should have labor therapy and sent me to work in my father’s factory. I guess they thought if I spent two weeks wearing coveralls and sorting timber, I’d become less dykey and more feminine and start liking men. They also took my phone away.
LENA
That’s when I realized I was in real trouble, that Nastya’s parents would talk to my parents. My father is a military man and a real homophobe. He thought Nastya and I were just friends. We could be watching television one day and there would be a mention of gays and he’d say, “They all belong in the gas chamber.” And we’d just sit there quietly.
I decided to preemptively come out to my mother. I had this mythical boyfriend named Lyosha, who never existed; I would just tell my mother everything that was going on with Nastya except I’d call her Lyosha. My mother was perfectly satisfied with Lyosha, but not once he turned into Nastya. But she didn’t throw a fit or anything. But the day before our vacation was supposed to end, my mother got a call from my father, who said he now knew everything and told her to send me home. So I was on the train for three days stressing out.
He picked me up at the station. His eyes were red and his hands were shaking. He said, “Either we forget this ever happened and then I continue to support you, or you are no longer my daughter.” I said, “I have to think about it.” He was shocked. He was sure I’d accede immediately. He and I had a very good relationship, and I lived with him, not with my mother, after the divorce.
NASTYA
Two days later it’s the bachelorette party. I went and got a manicure and pedicure and am sitting at home, wearing pink pajamas, my toenails are bright red, and I have on high-heeled shoes because they were too tight, so I’d sprayed them with some compound and put them on to stretch them out before the party. And I’m sipping coffee from a demitasse cup.
And then my parents barge in. Both have bloodshot eyes and both are screaming. “We were at Lena’s father’s house and he said you are the man. You’re the man in the relationship!” I say, “Look at me! Do I look like a man?” And they just keep screaming. Then my mother started telling me Lena was a whore and saying all sorts of things about her. I said, “You know, this is the person I love. After you talk about her like this, I don’t even want you to be my mother.” That’s when my father started hitting me. He didn’t stop until after he’d split my lip. There was blood everywhere.
I went to wash up and saw myself in the mirror: half my face is blue and my lip is badly torn. I came back downstairs and said, “Dear parents, we have to get my things together now and take me to the hospital. I need stitches.” My father looked at me and said, “Nah, it will heal on its own.” In the end I needed six stitches. So I said, “OK, then I’m going on my own.” I started packing—they wouldn’t let me take a lot of my things. I left with a small suitcase of summer clothes; they wouldn’t even let me take my laptop.
My best friend’s fiancée came to pick me up and took me to the hospital. Lena came, and they stitched me up.
LENA
Her entire face was blue. I had never seen anything like it. She went to her best friend’s brother’s apartment, which happened to be empty. The next morning, as soon as my father went to work, I got my bag and slipped out of the house. I’d made my choice. Our parents started looking for us. We shut our phones off.
NASTYA
My father got the idea that Ksyusha, my best friend, must be hiding me. He went to see her father.
LENA
Ksyusha’s father is the same sort of bigwig as Nastya’s.
NASTYA
Ksyusha told her father that if he’d seen my face, he’d be on my side too. And that if he surrendered me to my father then she’d cancel her wedding. He agreed. So we stayed there a few more days and then we went to Moscow.
LENA
Not so simple. We had tickets to go to Moscow. But two hours before the train leaves, Ksyusha’s father calls: “You have to exchange your tickets because Nastya’s father has put a tracker on your names and now he’s bought tickets to go on the same train,” which Ksyusha’s father knows because he’s put a tracker on him. So we got tickets on a later train. While we were at the station exchanging tickets, my father was there looking for us, but we saw him and hid. Once we were on the train, I got paranoid. I said, “Your father is in Moscow and he’s probably tracked these tickets too by now, so he’ll be waiting for us at the station.” So we got off in Vladimir [about one hundred miles outside Moscow] and took a commuter train the rest of the way—and then only as far as a suburb of Moscow.
Our old apartment was inaccessible: Nastya’s father had changed the locks. We went to the apartment where I was renting a room for my things. The place was a dump. And my “room” was actually a bed in a tiny room where another girl lived. We stayed there for a couple of months, until we were able to rent an apartment.