She had kept herself on course with the faint hope that her American boy would be here after all, her lover of a single night, and that he would smile and wave, coming anxiously toward her, wondering only why she had been unable to meet him as promised the night before, offering salvation.
But her boy was not there. No one was going to magically rescue her. Ignored by the bartender, she leaned onto the counter, struggling to see. Her boy was not there. And neither was the man to whom her tormentors had consigned her.
Then she saw him. With his back three-quarters to her. He swung his jaw back over a heavy shoulder to bark at a waiter in English. A silver ornament and colored device decorated his shoulder strap.
She could not do it. She did not have the strength.
She rose carefully from her barstool, avoiding as much of the pain in her rump as she could. It was hard to imagine bearing the weight of a man on top of her now. She felt bruised to the bone. But, she reminded herself, there were worse things in the world, as the security officers had been glad to point out.
There were no women at the man's table. It was still early, and the man and his comrades were drinking brown bottles of beer and talking. Valya hunted her way between the tables, catching an already-sore hip on the jut of a chair. She tried to walk with dignity, while her insides sickened. The big man turned and called to the waiter again, with less patience this time.
She could not do it. She had no idea where the words would come from.
She paused for a moment, aching for an excuse not to continue. She would have been glad of an incontestable physical illness, one so fierce it would give her tormentors pause. She thought again of the darkened room, the single lamp, of questions and irresistible blows. She remembered the threats, and how it felt to lie soaking on a concrete floor.
One foot in front of the other, she told herself. Just like a soldier. It won't be anything. You've been through far worse.
She stopped behind the man's chair, waiting for him to notice her. But he was speaking rapidly to the two other men at the table. Finally one of his listeners looked up in Valya's direction. A moment later, the big man's head turned to seek out the new attraction, twisting coils of fat over his collar.
"Hello," Valya said.
The big man looked up at her with a mix of curiosity and suspicion. He said nothing.
"We have met," Valya went on.
The big man nodded. "I know that."
"The other night," Valya said, fighting to remain calm. She wanted to cry and run away. Instead, she tried to outfit her voice with the easy sexuality of a woman in a film. "I was with my friend. Her name is Tanya."
"I know," the big man said. "I never forget a woman who walks away from me with a full drink on the table." Their eyes met fully for the first time. Valya saw hatred in the dark pupils.
I cannot do this, she told herself.
She laid a hand on the man's shoulder, resting her fingers over a cold colored shield. She felt as though she had been forced to touch a snake. But she kept her hand in place.
She smiled as richly as she could manage. "Oh," she said, laughing, "this is such a misunderstanding. But I thought you did not find me to be attractive. I thought you wanted me to go away. I believed you to be in love with Tanya."
The big American's eyes softened just a little. Then his face widened with a smile full of big white American teeth. Meant to devour their American steaks, Valya thought.
"Me?" the man laughed. "Me? In love with old Tanya?" His drinking companions joined in the laughter. "Wouldn't that be the day?"
"You hurt my feelings," Valya lied. "I thought you wanted for me to go away." She tried to remember a few colloquial English phrases of the sort not taught in the Soviet school system. "You made such eyes for Tanya."
"I didn't know you had the hots for old Tanya, Bill," one of the other drinkers said. "Didn't know she was your type."
The big man laughed again, but less forcefully this time. "Old Tanyer," he said. "Now that gal's been drove hard and put away wet. Wouldn't nobody but Jimbo take that mare for a ride."
The third man shook his head as if he had tasted something foul. "Old Jim's blind as a bat."
"I think Jimbo just likes a lot of bacon on his gals," the big man said. His accent made it hard to catch all of his words. He still had not moved to shake off Valya's hand, and she warmed it back and forth on the heavy shoulder. "Christ," the big man said, "I remember him way back when at Huachuca. Sonofabitch was always over in Naco or Agua Prieta jumping some big Mex gal. Almost lost his clearance."
"Those were the days," the third man agreed. "At least them Mex gals had sense enough to wash every so often." He looked up at Valya, then down along the trace of her figure, then back into her eyes. His face bore an expression of incomparable insolence.
The big man turned out from under Valya's hand. She thought he was going to send her away. She nearly panicked. She was ready to do anything, to get down on her knees. She saw the huge, soft-faced interrogator standing over her again. And the younger, handsome officer, telling her that they merely wanted her to befriend someone for them, saying it in an easy tone that threatened the end of the world.
The big man kicked a chair back from under the table. "Have a seat," he told Valya. "What are you drinking?"
Valya half-tripped down into the chair. Her backside hit with force, and her backbone shook with a presentiment of age. It took her a moment to relax into the pain.
"Anything," she said. "It does not matter. Something strong."
Suddenly the big man leaned in close to Valya, inspecting her. She cringed back into the bad light.
The big man whistled. "Jeez. Your boyfriend give you that shiner, honey-pie?"
Valya could feel her face swelling with the blood of embarrassment. "An accident," she said. "I have fallen down the stairs."
The big man smiled slightly and sat back. "Yeah, I guess fell down them stairs a couple times myself."
He reached around behind Valya and jerked her chair next to his. He settled a big hand on her far shoulder, then railed it down her side before halting it on the swell of her bottom.
He nodded, figuring. "You're a skinny little gal," he aid, "but I guess you'll do." He leaned in close so that his friends could not hear. His lips brushed Valya's hair. He smelled like a puddle of stale beer.
"One hundred American dollars," he said, "and not a penny more."
24
Noburu dreamed of a yellow horse by a salt lake. He approached the horse, but the animal paid him no attention. Browsing over tufts of stunted grass, the animal appeared weary beyond description, and its back was so badly bowed that a child's weight might have broken it. Noburu himself wore a fine English suit, but he had come away without his cuff links. He was searching for his cuff links on the sandy waste, and he feared that the horse might devour them by mistake. He called out to the animal. He knew its name. And the horse raised its head, swiveling dully in Noburu's direction. The yellow horse was blind. Disease had whitened its eyes. It soon turned its nose back to the dying grass.
Brown men came. Out of nowhere. Coming from all sides. They rushed slim-legged from the sea, wailing in a foreign language. Noburu assumed they had come to slaughter the horse. He ran toward the uninterested animal, determined to shield it in his arms. But the brown men were not immediately concerned with the horse. Noburu had been mistaken. They were coming for him.
Countless hands slithered over him, catching his limbs in small firm grips. They had made a cross of light from antique headlamps, and they intended to crucify him. He struggled, for he sensed that hanging from that cross of light would be the most painful of tortures. But the mob had him in its power. Their hands grew in strength, clamping him. He smelled the foreign spice of their breath. He tried to reason with them, explaining that he could not possibly be crucified without his cuff links. It was impossible to think that he might end like that, badly dressed in public.