July 11, 1993
Sunday
6:10 PM
Worn out, we lay in bed. I stared at the ceiling. Vera smoked.
After she stubbed her cigarette out in the ashtray, I asked:
— Where’s Sergei?
— In Tyumen. Promised to come by end of month.
— Can you drive?
— I potter around downtown a bit.
— Not scary?
— What? — Vera answered from somewhere around my groin.
— Getting out on the road. Could drive straight under a truck.
— What makes you think I’d drive under a truck? — she took my cock in her mouth, and the phrase about the truck came out garbled, but understandable enough…
— Well, that…
— Do I look like an idiot to you? — Vera pulled away from an activity that had been promising new shades of experience.
— Not at all, — I answered honestly. — Not even a little!
— So why ask?
— Just wondering. If it’s not a secret, what was in the contract?
— No secret. An apartment downtown, a foreign car.
— That’s it?
— That’s it.
— Got it?
— Got it.
— Not scared to get behind the wheel?
— What’s there to be scared of? — Verochka climbed on top of me.
— Well… you got everything the contract promised. Now you might die. Don’t get behind the wheel…
— So if I don’t drive, snow falls on my head instead? Am I supposed to be scared of everything now? I got what I needed, I’ll handle the rest myself.
— Not afraid of dying?
— There you go again. I’m not scared of anything. That dorm was up to my throat. Sick of it, thirty years the same thing over and over! Even if it’s just one year, I’ll live like a human being. What do I have to be scared of? — Verochka rose up a little, shifted, oh! impaled herself on my cock, performed a shamanic dance with her hip joints.
I forgot about everything, plunged into primal sex. Finished with real effort. Managed to get up somehow. Headed to the shower without needing to be told. Came back, not to the bedroom, but the kitchen. Sat down on a chair and immediately jumped back up. Cold on my ass! Looked around, picked a T-shirt up off the floor, put it under me.
Verochka came in, sat down across from me. Bare ass, no problem. Easy for her.
Well, would you look at that.
I recalled what I’d heard, and asked to confirm:
— Thirty years in the dorm?
— What’s so strange about it? First it was moving around garrisons with my parents. My dad’s a warrant officer. Then four years at technical college, five years in the rag trade, three years at Trekhgorka, then at ZiL. Got sick of it.
— What rag trade?
— The textile institute.
— You finished a whole institute?
— What, doesn’t look like it?
Hm, Verochka didn’t look older than sixteen. All right, fine, her gaze was adult, deliberate. Twenty, tops, was the most I’d have guessed. But she’d just admitted it herself, a thirty-year-old crone. Well, would you look at that!
— Didn’t want anything else?
— Like what? A place and a car’s enough. Seryoga threw in some cash too. I’m renting a container at Luzhniki, setting up a little sewing workshop, I’ll break through. And if I don’t, so be it. You get a chance once, there’s no second one, gotta grab it. If you sit around wondering what’ll happen, whether it’s worth the risk, nothing ever comes of it. You’ll just sit on your ass your whole life. So, getting dressed?
— Getting dressed.
We got up, gathered the clothes scattered across the floor, and restored ourselves to a decent state. Verochka asked for my home phone number. For the second time in my life, I struggled to recall the seven-digit combination. The first time had been back at the dorm, bragging to the guys about how to find me.
Nobody had ever called. Not once.
Verochka dictated her own number and immediately borrowed twenty thousand for gas. I had to dig the bills out of my pockets while she preened in front of the mirror. Volunteered to drive me home, trying on her driving-enthusiast gear, sunglasses and a bare-shouldered tank top.
Arrived home puzzled. Wandered the living room, glanced at the video cassettes, all watched already. What now?
Return them to the rental place, get new ones, and stare at some strangers whose lives were full of conflict and allusion?
I was sick of it! When were we going to start working?
Verochka was right. If a chance came your way, you had to sink your teeth in.
It wasn’t going to get any better than what I already had right now. Turning down happiness that had fallen into my lap would be foolish.
The front door slammed. Zhorik came crashing into the apartment, stuck to the wall, peeled off, caught his breath, jabbed a finger in my direction:
— We’re gonna work great together! It won’t be easy. We’re gonna slave away like Papa Carlo. But it’ll be worth it. Eight thousand square meters and a river view, phew, tired ourselves out celebrating. Yeah, almost a whole hectare…
Zhorik gurgled something incoherent, peeled himself off the wall, shuffled toward his room, muttering:
— Yours’ll be even better. We’ll get you an estate in Hertfordshire and a little place in Nice. Yeah! Main thing is don’t chicken out, don’t get lazy. Tomorrow we head to Nauchny. Getting down to work. And, uh… hiring staff.
Unsteady on his feet but holding a steady course, Zhorik made his way into his room.
