I gave Violetta three hundred dollars and sat her down on a chair in front of me. I settled myself on the sofa, prepared to hear out yet another cheerless story. In dealing with prostitutes I allowed myself only two types of behavior. Either I became the swine who hauls the meat straight to bed, or I played the bosom friend, nodded my head, kept silent and put myself in her place. The place was, as a rule, one and the same – bad and grievous. A bitter lot drove a delicate, vulnerable soul onto the pavement, she has been at this only two months and so forth with insignificant variations.
– What’s your name? – I asked the girlfriend.
– Violetta.
– Talk, – I said.
– About what?
– Whatever you like. I’ve got loads of time.
– So we’re not going to screw, then?
– Don’t feel like it for now. Go on, talk.
For the hundred and first time I heard out the well-rehearsed tale of the first year at the institute, which she dropped, of the problems in her little homeland, which she left, of the help rendered to her aged parents and invalid brother, who know nothing of her line of work, of the insolent cops who extort money and the wicked bandits who don’t pay… or the other way round, I wasn’t paying attention… From the compositions of Hamburg prostitutes her story differed in specific, purely Russian details.
Before long Violetta, who was not without shrewdness, fell silent. It seemed she had noticed the expression on my face, and she asked point-blank:
– What did you pick me up for?
– Want to come by five grand of the green stuff?
– I do.
– Then we’ll discuss it in the morning. I’m feeling drowsy somehow. I’ll go and sleep.
– Am I staying here?
– As you like. We can ring each other in the morning. Only bear in mind, I’m not driving you home.
– Then I’m staying.
– Bedding’s in the cupboard. Good night. – I got up and went into the bathroom to clean my teeth.
Scrubbing away at my teeth with the brush, I issued myself a formal commendation for the fact that the first dealings with my future companion had passed without a hitch. Prostitutes were for the most part a nervous and touchy lot, requiring special handling. All my experience of dealing with them showed that there is no difference between a woman for sale and one not for sale. A prostitute could be faithful and devoted, affectionate and tender, modest and unapproachable, but on one condition. On condition that the partner knows nothing of her active sexual activity. Unfortunately, I knew that Veta knew that I knew. The resulting skew in relations had to be corrected, since a companion who behaves like the last of the whores – that is not a good thing. That kind of hockey we don’t need. Only a friend, comrade and brother rolled into one could help me get hold of eight million. For that role Veta was suited as no one else was. Clever, bitchy, keen on money. Had she been born a man, she’d have been a ranger like me, armed and very dangerous.
I went back into the room, spread out the bedding and lay down under the blanket. Before sinking into the warm den of sleep, I ran another two or three little thoughts through my head.
The first – don’t relax. Violetta has yet to learn that I don’t divide women into categories. Ladies for sale, not for sale, putting out and stringing along – I knew none of these. All women existed for me as a notion beyond category – She, the Only One.
The second thought. Violetta, it was clear at first glance, considered all men cattle and classified them very simply – rich cattle, capable of paying for her, and destitute cattle, capable of nothing. The normal view of a normal prostitute on the interrelation of the sexes. Such a view didn’t bother me personally, but it could get in the way of the business.
Therefore, the third thought. In the interests of the business I had to become an exception for Violetta, to turn into a hundred-and-eighty-nine-centimeter cloud in “Diesel” trousers. To prove by my worthy behavior that she is an ordinary woman, attractive and pleasant, with a life and a fate of her own. And that for the next few days the two of us were not to be without each other.