“Let’s go to your place,” said Nina.
Nothing had changed in Dima’s home. Not only Nina recognized the wallpaper, cupboards and small threadbare carpets – even the old copies of magazines stacked neatly on the table seemed the same. And of course, the shabby sofa in their former room was there. Nina sat on the sofa and stroked the surface with her hand. That was where she became a woman.
As on their first, historic date, Dima fussed about preparing tea. This time though, he did not even have any chocolates – only some fossil waffles.
“Dima, drop it,” said Nina. She took him by the hand and forced him to sit by her side.
Dima sat, with his hands on his knees and his head drawn back into his shoulders. Nina realized that he would never dare to make a move.
“Dima, kiss me,” she said, drawing him to herself.
That was good. There was no uneasiness – there was a feeling of comfort and closeness. Also, there was a feeling of something right which there had been in her life at one time and which she had lost since. After all, she had been a wife here, not just anybody. She had had a husband and a mother-in-law – same as all normal wives. She had had problems in her marriage – also, same as everyone. And now she was a chic, but totally lonely woman with vague prospects for the future…
After a somewhat awkward beginning, Dima took her with passion. He had actually grown stronger and seemed bigger. There was no resistance to his ardor in Nina’s body – it accepted him. Even the smell of strawberry soap did not vex her – it seemed appropriate and comfortable. Dima hastened his movements. Nina had, or at least, she thought she had, a pleasant sensation in the bottom of her belly – as she had had once, on a Turkish beach, with a totally strange man. Dima’s love agony was rapidly approaching its climax, but Nina knew that there would be a continuation and was anticipating it…
And then there was a loud sob, or a groan. Nina raised her head. It was impossible, it was a total nightmare, and still it was real – in the door of the room, looking at them open-mouthed, stood Tatyana Yurievna.
Nina went into hysterics. She was roaring with laughter, her whole body shaking, unable to stop. At last, Dima made her drink a few sips of tepid tea. Totally baffled and shriveled, he kept murmuring, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know. I’m sorry…”
Unconsciously, Nina got dressed and went out into the hall. She did not even look back at Dima who stayed behind in the room. But as she touched the familiar latch on the outer door, she heard, “Nina, wait, please.”
Tatyana Yurievna was calling her from the kitchen.
“Good heavens, is she going to offer me tea again?” Nina thought, appalled.
As Dima, Tatyana Yurievna had changed little, but now she was not herself with extreme agitation.
“Nina, listen,” she spoke, fiddling nervously with a kitchen towel. “I feel awfully guilty towards you. Please forgive me. I shouldn’t have interfered with you and Dmitry – I shouldn’t have kept him by my side. I am an old egoist. But everything’s changed now. I have no more claims. You can live wherever you want – I’ll just step aside. I can even give up this whole apartment for you to settle here. I’ll move in with my sister in Pushkino – she has long invited me.”
Nina’s head was reeling, the hysterical shiver in her body refusing to subside.
“Thank you, Tatyana Yurievna, but please, don’t. It’s not going to work, sorry,” – she said and darted out of that little apartment and of the life of those two people – her former family – never again to return to that page of her past.
That nightmarish incident was what she needed to shake her out of the stupor that had possessed her during the recent months. “That’s it, enough of recollections, enough of drama,” she told herself. “I must live on, build my life.”
Indeed, she was free and full of energy – she felt that she could attain any goal. Her father seemed to be doing all right now, and he was not alone – a good, loving woman was by his side. It was time for Nina to take care of herself.
She drew up a program of two obvious points. First, she had to find a good, promising job which she could devote herself to with enthusiasm. Second, get married and… yes, bear a child. Preferably, a girl, as her mama had wished.
The first point was not much of a problem – she only had to study the vacancy market and make the right choice. Nina knew her own value and was certain that she could find a good job whatever the competition.
It was not as easy with the second point. Here, she had no certitude at all. There were some men looming on the horizon – in the tennis club, and among relatives and acquaintances of her few friends. Some opportunities were probably going to turn up at her new job, too. Nina knew that she no longer was the ugly duckling that she had been in her school years – she had no reason to be shy or retiring now. She only needed to take care of herself in terms of clothes and the like. Also, she had to buy a car and learn how to drive.
Of course, all decent men were married, and those who were divorced were in no hurry to tie themselves up again – they would rather get what they wanted from a woman without giving her anything in return. But those were ordinary difficulties which single women had faced since the beginning of time – Nina was not afraid of them. Her methodical mind suggested that the main thing was to seize every opportunity to associate with worthy men. Unworthy men should be driven away with a stick, but for worthy ones, she should be an interesting, non-burdensome, and useful companion – someone they could talk to about work and about life, or go to bed with if it was mutually agreeable. She should behave like a woman, but without petty coquetry. Rather than posing as a touch-me-not, she should respect herself while respecting and valuing men, too. Then one of those worthy men would finally realize that he wanted to have her around always.
That was the theory, and Nina was prepared to put it into practice with the same persistency as she had used in mastering her profession. The problem was that, even realizing all that, she did not believe in any of it. Picturing her future in which she would be the wife of a worthy man that she was going to win through her strategy, she did not get any response from her inner self. The woman inside her maintained an indifferent silence. That woman had been silent for a long time already, as if waiting for something, and there was no knowing what it was.
Nina set about implementing her program. She had interviews in three firms and actually received one job offer which did not quite suit her, though.
Nina sized up her tennis partners and marked off two of them for showing some symptoms of being divorced. She assumed a friendlier attitude towards them and struck up an acquaintance.
All was going according to plan, everything was possible, but then her own biography went out of her control again. He father’s life, which meant her life, too, was run over by a steamroller named Gradbank.
Chapter 8
Nina first heard of Gradbank from Ignatiy Savelievich. One day, as they were having tea interchanging sad remarks about the bank’s management and their shady ways, Nina asked, “Tell me, Ignatiy Savelievich, are all banks like that today?”
The man replied, “Not at all,” and outlined the situation to Nina.
The banking sphere was undergoing a swift change which was not obvious to an outsider’s eye. Concentration of the banking capital was under way, and new leaders emerged which were supported by both the largest industrial groups and federal government. Small obscure banks were driven out of business by the dozen through absorption, suspension of license or sheer bankruptcy. The leader banks which headed that process were not spotless either, but still, they were of a different sort – for them, illegal operations were inevitable evil, while they were mainly aimed at legal business which in the final account proved more profitable than any shady dealings.