Valya averted her eyes, refusing to make a gesture toward the girl. But as she looked away she found herself trapped by the gaze of a solid little woman dangling darkhaired calves over the edge of a bed. Somewhere in her thirties, the woman had coal-black hair and a bit of a mustache. Georgian, perhaps. Her face bore the scars of disease, but otherwise she looked as robust as if she'd merely been on an outing. She grinned at Valya as though she had only been in to have her temperature taken.
"If they can't take the consequences, they shouldn't be so quick to spread their legs," the woman said with a slight accent, nodding proudly to the sickened girl who had taken possession of Valya's bed. "They all want to have their fun, then they don't want to pay the price."
Valya broke away from the woman's stare and worked unsteadily down between the rows of beds toward the exit. But the harder she tried to avert her eyes, the more she seemed to see. She tried to force her eyes down to the floor, to simply scan her next steps, but the sight of old stains and splashes, chips and scuffs, only aggravated her feeling of hopelessness. Why couldn't they take a bucket of water to it? It certainly was not sanitary. Weak-legged, she suddenly saw her future with perfect clairvoyance. Another nondescript clinic. Another bed not quite dirty enough to force a change of sheets. Another…
What kind of a life was this?
Trailing her little bag of essentials, Valya stood in line before the desk. She breathed deeply, fighting the nausea, but the effort only poisoned her with bad air. She felt sweat prickling under her clothing, polishing her forehead. She thought that she would collapse at any moment, that she would be terribly sick. Then they would see. Then they would understand…
But nothing occurred beyond the slow falling away of the queue ahead of her, until she stood before the clerk at the desk. The woman's hair was drawn back into a strict bun, and the skin stretched over her lean features with no hint of softness or resilience. She did not look up from her paperwork.
"Patient's name?"
"Babryshkina. Valentina Ivanovna."
"Difficulties?"
For an instant, Valya imagined herself telling this woman how sick she felt, how badly she needed to lie down just a little longer.
"No."
"Sign here, Comrade."
Valya bent down over the emptiness that seemed to grow larger in her with each new thought or action. She almost wished she would discover some terrible wetness on her legs that would make them let her rest a little while.
She signed the form.
"And here, Comrade. In two places."
Valya made no effort to read the forms. She signed where she had been told to sign, wanting now to be gone from the place.
Without a discernible gesture of completion, the woman behind the desk said, "Next."
Naritsky waited for her down the block, posing against his automobile. Even before she could distinguish the expression on his face, Valya knew that Naritsky was very pleased with himself. For waiting all the while. The thought i of him sickened her now and, for a moment, she could not imagine how she had ever allowed him to touch her, to have her. But even at her most self-pitying, Valya could not tolerate such mental flaccidness for long. She had enjoyed her times with him. And the sex had been all right. Not as sheerly athletic as with Yuri. But far more imaginative. Naritsky was vulgar. And that part of her was vulgar too.
Yet, handsome though he was, it was not sex that had attracted her to Naritsky. She could do without sex. And she had not run out man-hunting the moment Yuri left for central Asia. But Naritsky had seemed like a chance, a last chance.
Once, Yuri had seemed like a chance too. To a young, very foolish girl. And she had thought she was being so wise. An Army officer would always have a job. And Yuri was so bright, so much the ideal of what an Army officer should be. Everyone had predicted a great future for him. But this was not a country of great futures.
Officers, Valya thought, in a split second of disgust. Lives as stiff as their uniforms. In a country falling apart, where everything had been falling apart for decades, where nothing ever quite worked, where no dream ever quite came true, Yuri had seemed so strong and safe and capable of providing a worthwhile life. But there was nothing to it. And behind the rough uniform cloth he had hidden a love that did not even respect itself. Yuri and his slobbering devotions. A love all weakness. When she needed him to be strong. Men were filth.
And what does that make me? Valya asked herself.
Naritsky. Smiling. By his late-model automobile. Not too flashy. Naritsky was too clever for that. Naritsky was clever in so many ways. But he had been an ass when it mattered.
A friend had put them in touch. There's this guy. Works with foreigners. Business. You know. Nothing illegal. Not really illegal. You know. Anyway, he's got friends. But he needs a good English interpreter. A few extra roubles. Odd hours. Supplement your income. And he can get the nicest things. Let me show you…
The nicest things. Men aren't really my vice, Valya decided. I'm the tart of nice things. When it all went to pieces, she had considered, for an instant, destroying all of the material goods Naritsky had given her. But the mood passed like an inkling of terror, forcibly suppressed. She knew that she did not have the strength to cut and tear and throw away the only primary colors in her gray world.
And Yuri? I'm not a good woman, Yuri. I lied. And when you had to choose, you chose your army. What did you expect?
Yet, she knew that she would never tell him a thing. And if he found out, she would deny. And, anyway, he would forgive her. Everything. Yuri was hopeless.
Thank God for that, she thought.
Well, she had failed. She had convinced herself that she could control the situation with Naritsky. That she could use him. But now, wobbling out of a clinic on a lifeless October afternoon, there was no denying her failure. She had not controlled a thing. Naritsky had used her as his whore, paying her off in clothes and little toys that blinded her to everything else. And they were trifles to him.
She had considered turning him in. But there would have been no point in it. Naritsky had too many friends. And it would have been far cheaper for him to buy off the militia than it had been to buy her off. Minor consumer electronics. Or just the European condoms he refused to use.
She had actually imagined that Naritsky would marry her, that it would only take a divorce from Yuri. But Naritsky had never intended to marry anyone. Thank God she had not written to Yuri, hadn't really started anything.
She had been a fool.
Drunken, Naritsky had laughed in her face. "You're spoiled goods, my darling."
Later he had sought, lavishly, to make up for that single, killing, honest remark. But Valya had finally grasped the extent of her folly.
Now Naritsky preened against the side of his little blue car, jacket thrown open despite the cold air. A rich man in a country that grew poorer by the day. A country that, after a hundred years of promises, could not provide adequate birth control devices to its people. A country that still could not feed itself. All the promises. Like the promises a man made to a stupid mistress.
As Valya approached, Naritsky gestured toward her but did not really move. He had selected an expression of concern that made Valya want to shout, "Liar, liar, liar.
"Are you all right?" he asked.
Valya pulled her light stylish jacket closer against the chill, tucking in her scarf. She nodded. This was no place for a scene, no time for final decisions. And Naritsky seemed to sense something. He did not touch her but merely opened the car door. Automatically, she moved to get in.