The Smart Girl

Chapter 4

A year passed. They never discussed their relationship or made any plans for the future, but gradually, Nina came to believe that Igor had always been there and always would be – how could it be otherwise? Besides weekends, Igor started coming over on weekdays. He was clearly in need of a home, and she liked having him about – washing and ironing his shirts, giving him massage for his beginning osteochondrosis, treating his colds. Gradually, his stuff accumulated in her apartment: toothbrush, razor, slippers, bathrobe, books. Then Igor brought a pair of trainers and a tracksuit – trying to lose weight, he was running every morning and would not break his routine when he stayed overnight at her place.

Imagining her future life with Igor, Nina tried to listen to the woman inside her. The woman kept silent, but rather in an approving way – she did not seem to mind.

It all ended on the very day of their anniversary. Preparing to celebrate, Nina made a special dinner and laid the table nicely for the occasion. She had a plan for that night – she was going to make Igor a proposal. Her idea was to sell her apartment so that then they could buy jointly a new one that was larger and located closer to work – a place for them to settle down together. She was sure that Igor would agree – she did not imagine what objections he could have against such a sensible scheme. Nina did not insist on getting married. According to Igor, he was not seeing his wife – the woman would not let him cross her threshold, not even in order to see his son, – but they were not formally divorced, and Nina did not mean to rush things. She was sure that everything was going to sort out with time.

On hearing her out, Igor remained silent for a while, and then spoke in a thick voice, with his head down. “Well, it’s just as well… It’s for the better, I guess. You see, I’ve been meaning to talk to you, too.”

Nina listened to him unable to grasp the meaning of what he was saying. It took her some time to realize that Igor with whom she had grown so close was going to leave her and was telling her so. “But why?” she cried out. From his confused explanations, it appeared that actually he had been seeing his wife all that time. According to Igor, it was all for the sake of his son. The boy was to go to school that year, and Igor wanted to be there for him – wanted his son to have a father.

Nina kept silent. Logically, she admitted that everything was fair – that she had no claim on Igor, and so she should accept his leaving with good grace – but she was paralyzed. Nobody had dumped her like that before, and she had not known how hurtful it was. When Igor had collected his things and was already standing in the doorway, he said something else. “Excuse me, but I don’t think it’s so very important to you. You don’t feel anything in bed, do you? … I can see it, I’m not an idiot. I’m not saying you’re frigid – maybe, you just need another man, I don’t know.” Nina thrust the door open furiously: “Go away!” And he did.

That night, Nina did not have a wink of sleep, agonizing over Igor’s treason and her own humiliation. For some time, her logical mind tried to reason with her, arguing that Igor had not made any promises to her and thus, had not betrayed her – that there was nothing especially humiliating to her in that whole story – but soon her logical mind had to shut up overridden by the wounded, indignant woman. Together with billions of other women on this planet, Nina delivered the verdict that all men were swine – and cursed the stupid skirt whom she had never met and who had managed to get her husband back in spite of all her flaws. To be sure, that skirt was not frigid, oh no. She was probably doing all sorts of dirty tricks in bed – everything that males, those lewd apes, were so crazy about. Nina, who had never uttered a bad word in her life, cursed the woman in the meanest possible expressions.

The next day Nina phoned in sick and then even wangled a two weeks’ leave. She could not imagine running into Igor at work.

It was her first proper leave since she had come to work in the company. For a young employee, she was drawing a good salary while spending very little, so she had some savings. Now she decided to treat herself to a grand vacation. Since she had never been abroad before, she went to the country that was visited by all those of her compatriots who managed to earn some spare cash – Turkey.

On her first day in Turkey, she got a terrible sunburn.

The trouble of making reservations and buying tickets had done her good – she had got distracted from her agonies of a rejected woman and by the time she arrived at the seaside, she was open to new impressions. She stayed in a large hotel – allegedly, a four-star one. One half of the guests were holiday-makers from Russia while the other half were Europeans, mostly Germans. Having dumped her bag in the hotel room, Nina ran off to the beach at once. The beach was occupied by the Russians, while the Germans disdained Nature and spent their time in a civilized way, by the swimming-pool. Nina was not impressed by the water – it struck her as too salty and not as clear as that in the Black Sea. Nevertheless, she enjoyed a good swim and then stretched herself on a chaise-longue. She felt free and independent.

All around her, there was the bustle of beach life going on – naked bodies, joyous screams and laughter, the tumbling of volley-ball players, and the romping of children. Nina made acquaintance with a married couple from Novokuznetsk. The husband had a business of his own – a small shop manufacturing cast-iron fences for private residencies. It was the couple’s second visit to Turkey, and they were planning to do Italy the next year. Apparently, the fences were in demand. Seeing Nina roast in the sun, her new acquaintances offered her sunblock lotion but she waved it away laughingly. “Not to worry! It’s nothing, I’ll be all right.” The sunshine did not seem very strong, the sky being overcast with a light haze and a cool breeze blowing from the sea.

Nina went to swim another couple of times, lolled about on her chaise-longue, and when she came back to her room, she was surprised to discover that she had spent a good four hours on the beach. Then nightmare began. Her skin turned tomato-red from head to toe, blisters sprang up, and it all hurt unbearably. She recalled that cologne was supposed to help, and that she had a bottle of it in her bag. She got the bottle out and poured the contents onto herself. It did not help any, but now she was stinking of a cheap hair-dresser’s. Sensitive to smells, Nina was suffering doubly.

She thought of another folk remedy – urine. It took her some time to pluck up her courage, but finally she dragged herself to the bathroom. The folk remedy did not help much but now the stench of cologne was mixing with that of piss. That was too much for her. Nina jumped into the shower and washed it all away. Then, without wiping, she wrapped up in a bed-sheet and lowered herself onto the bed with a groan.

She was shivering with fever. Late at night she managed to doze off for a while, but then she woke up again. It was dark outside. Nina heard some noise coming from the bar on the same floor as the last customers were dispersing for their rooms. Everyone was going to sleep while she was in for a sleepless night. “Idiot,” she scolded herself. “Serves you right. Such idiots wind up in hell where the devil casts them into fire. Ah-a-a… Damn, how it hurts.” She recalled a summer when she had been taken to the Black Sea by her parents. A little girl, unaccustomed to the southern sun, she had got a little sunburned at first. What was it that her mother had used to treat her? Her memory gave her a prompt – it was sour cream, the Russian smetana. The idea of cool, dense smetana which she could spread all over herself, was beautiful. But where was she to find smetana in the middle of the night, in a Turkish hotel? Desperate and hopeless, Nina went out of her room to search of it.

In her bathrobe and slippers, she dragged herself to the bar. The door was closed, and it was dark inside. Nina knocked and waited, then knocked again. At last a fat Turkish barman appeared. He pointed at his watch – the bar was closed. Nina pleaded, “Pozhaluista, please. Just a second.” With a displeased look on his face, the barman opened the door. But how was Nina to explain to him that she needed smetana? The Turk did not speak Russian, and Nina did not know the English for smetana – it could be that the English people did not eat smetana and accordingly, did not have a word for it in their language. Using to the limit her scanty stock of English words, she made up the sentence, “Please give white put in salad.” The barman frowned in bewilderment, then smiled and nodded. He went to the kitchen and came back with a jar of some light substance. Heartened, Nina slipped him five dollars and hurried back.

The jar was icy, right from the fridge, and Nina wanted to use all of it as soon as possible. Once in her room, she threw off her bathrobe, scooped up a handful from the jar and spread the substance generously over her shoulders and the back of her neck. For a few seconds, she really had a sensation of pleasant cool, but then it started to burn twice as bad, ten times as bad! It was as if a red-hot iron was being applied to her shoulders. Nina smelled the substance, then tasted it. It was mayonnaise – a very hot, mustard-based kind. Nina started to cry. She was the most miserable person in the world.

Throughout the next several days, she was staying confined within the four walls of her room, recovering slowly. She ordered food from room service, but she had no appetite, and the contents of the tray remained almost untouched. The paperback detective story which she had taken along on her journey had long been finished, the local TV was impossible to watch, and she had got tired of the view from her window. For days on end she was lying in bed with headphones on, listening again and again to a course of conversational English. She never learned how to say smetana in English but it occurred to her that she should have simply asked the barman for some yoghurt.

She bought a large box of it from the same barman and, standing before the mirror, spread the yoghurt all over herself. It was a terrifying sight. “A new dish – roasted idiot under yoghurt,” she said aloud and stuck out her tongue at her own reflection. Still, the yoghurt helped.

Gradually, the pain subsided. Her burned hide started to peel off, revealing a new skin – thin, glistening, and already touched by suntan. On the sixth day, Nina went out of her room. The burns still hurt in various spots, but she could live with that. Beach was out of the question. Instead, Nina went on a touring spree. Before that, she had not realized that what was now called ‘Turkey’ had once been part of the antique world with Greek cities, theatres, baths, and arenas for athletic contests. The ancient world whose vestiges emerged from beneath the ground here and there was much more exciting than anything that was on that land now. An old fan of history, Nina bought up all the guide-books that were available and within the next few days visited every historical site within reach.

On the advice of her Novokuznetsk acquaintances, she also went to a folk restaurant located in desert highland, a half hour’s drive from her hotel. The restaurant was decorated in the oriental style and served dishes of local cuisine, but its main hit was a show of folk performers who sang and danced, involving the guests, Russians and Germans, in their dances. The fiery rhythms and throaty foreign voices had their effect on Nina. “In the final account, my holiday has worked out well,” she thought, clapping her hands. “It surely is something to remember.” A young mustachioed Turk wearing super-wide trousers with a super-wide belt drew her out to the center of the circle where she imitated – awkwardly, but gaily – a local dance. Then she drank strongest coffee, tasted oriental sweets, and inhaled the fumes from hookahs. Everything was perfect.

The show ended after midnight. Nina went out into the velvety southern night. There was a small crowd by the restaurant – the Germans were pushing for seats on the last cheap route bus. Nina avoided the crowd and went on to the taxi stand. A young man sprang up beside her. He smiled at Nina, “You danced splendidly.” Then he suggested, “Why don’t we share a taxi? What hotel are you staying in?” It turned out that they were staying in neighboring hotels, so they rode back together.

The guy’s name was Oleg. In the dark, Nina did not get a good view of him but he seemed rather handsome, of a tall, slender, light-haired type. He chattered on about something, and Nina responded irrelevantly, watching the trees and sparse buildings glide by in the beams of light from the car. A cocktail of local smells was flowing in through the open window. Beyond the trees, a grey strip of the beach could be seen embraced by the impenetrable mass of the sea with sparkles of waves under a huge yellow moon.

It was late, but Nina could not even think of sleep. The rhythms of Turkish dances were still reverberating in her head and her whole body. Breathing in the aromas of the night, she felt almost happy.

“How about a swim?” asked Oleg. Nina had not even noticed that they had reached their destination. They paid the fare and got off the taxi. The car disappeared leaving them on a narrow road under dark plane-trees. Her hotel was a five minute walk in one direction, and his about as much in the other. Close by, a gravel path branched off and wound down to the beach. Oleg took hold of her hand and put his arm around her shoulders. “What a night! Do you feel this warmth? It’s coming from the sea. The water is like fresh milk now. Come on, let’s take a dip,” he said looking her in the eye with a smile. In fact, Nina did not feel like returning to her hateful room – she felt like fooling around and being naughty. “I didn’t bring along my bathing-suit,” she replied with laughter hardly believing that she was saying that – that it all was happening to her. “I didn’t bring along my trunks either,” Oleg said with the same kind of laughter.

They actually took a dip – for just a minute. Then, for a long time, they made love on a chaise-longue that somebody had left behind on the beach. Above them was a coal-black, star-spangled southern sky. The planks of the chaise-longue were digging into Nina’s barely healed back, the waves were splashing onto the beach and receding, with loud hissing, just a few meters away, and in rhythm with the wash, a man was entering her – a man whom she had only known for half an hour. “It’s insane, it’s totally immoral,” urged the voice of conscience, but that voice soon faded away. What did conscience have to counter the southern night, the sea, and the wild, shameless love-making on a chaise-longue?

Nina felt good. At first, it was just good, all of it: the starry sky, the warm breeze, and the tight embrace with a man whose skin was salty from sea water. Her head was empty, and she abandoned herself to the rhythm that her partner created on a par with the surf. Then it was not simply good – a new sensation arose in the lower part of her belly, and in her thighs and buttocks. Weak at first, the sensation was growing rapidly. Her whole body tightened in anticipation of something extraordinary that was going to happen the next moment… However, the next moment Oleg made his last abrupt thrust with a groan and sunk onto the narrow chaise-longue by her side. Nina wanted more – the new sensation that had surged in her would not go away. She waited for a continuation, but the man kissed her casually, lit a cigarette and said, “Well, it’s time to go bye-bye, eh?”

Oleg walked her to her hotel. He suggested that they see each other the next day and go somewhere to dance. “And after that – to the beach,” thought the insane, totally immoral Nina with a smile. Oleg kissed her once more and vanished into the darkness. Nina watched the burning tip of his cigarette fade away, and then went up to her room. “I only hope I’ll recognize him tomorrow,” she thought giggling as she was taking a shower.

The next morning she woke up in high spirits. Her whole body was springy – she felt like moving, dancing. After breakfast, she went to the beach and took a swim. When she saw her Novokuznetsk acquaintances, she greeted them merrily and told them that she had had a very good time in the highland restaurant. “You look great. What happened to you?” asked the manufacturer of cast-iron fences simple-mindedly. “Nothing. I just relaxed,” Nina answered with laughter and said goodbye to the couple. As she was walking away from them, she saw the spouse of the cast-iron businessman explain something to the man with a grin, nodding towards Nina.

In order to kill time until the evening, she went down to a neighboring city that was famous for its bazaar. While she was at it, she meant to pick some souvenirs for her father and… and for his Lydia Grigorievna, damn her. The bazaar was really impressive – it was rather a whole town, with countless booths, or tiny shops, and a crazy labyrinth of aisles between them. The air was filled with a cacophony of sounds and an incredible mixture of smells – of coffee, exotic fruits, sweets and spices, leather, dyed fabric and burning ovens on which food was cooked or metal was heated by craftsmen who worked embossing designs on the spot. Russian tourists, known for their propensity to spend money easily, were popular here – recognized at once and solicited insistently. Within the first five minutes, yielding to the pressure from some swarthy tradesmen, Nina bought a shawl of impossible colors and a coin necklace that any Gypsy woman would be proud to have. Then she realized that none of those things was of any use to her – they would be impossible to wear at home – and tucked away her purse. After that, she was only browsing with the firm intention to go all over the bazaar. Finally, she bought a nice embroidered fez for her father and a perfectly tasteless brooch for Lydia Grigorievna as well as some trifles for her university friends.

Back in her hotel, she had lunch and lay down to have some rest – to store up energy for her night of dissipation. For dinner, she only had a cup of coffee. She could hardly wait for the appointed hour, and when it finally arrived, she walked out to the meeting place by the hotel – with a spring in her step, a shawl over her shoulders and a jingling coin necklace around her neck. After half an hour, her elated, mischievous mood was replaced by bewilderment, then vexation – her lover did not show up. It occurred to her that it could be a misunderstanding – that Oleg could be waiting for her on the road – and she ran down to the spot where they had previously got off the taxi. Oleg was not there. Another couple were kissing under a plate-tree. At the sight of Nina they laughed and, holding hands, glided down the gravel path to the sea. Nina waited for another quarter of an hour, and then dragged herself back to the hotel.

All her recent grievances assailed her again. “What’s wrong with me? Why am I being dumped? What am I – the worst woman ever?” she thought with tears in her eyes, ripping to pieces the innocent shawl.

She fell asleep towards morning and got up all jaded the next day. She did not feel like doing anything. It was the last day of her vacation – she was flying home the next afternoon. That gave her an occupation – she had to pack up, which could keep her busy all day, if necessary.

After dinner, she said to herself: “Like hell, I still have a night.” She put on her shortest skirt, a blouse that ended above the navel, and her posh coin necklace. Armored in that way, she went out on the prowl.

At the hotel, those who were seeking company for a night had a choice between hitting one of the hotel’s six bars and doing the promenade. Nina did not like the idea of sitting alone in a dingy, smoky bar room amid noisy, drunken compatriots, so she took the other option.

The promenade was a paved walking strip used in the daytime by married couples with children, and in the evening, by loners, men and women, in search of a bit of private good luck.

That was disgusting and humiliating – to pace to and fro pretending to be a lover of walks and waiting to be approached by some representative of the male species. Other women who loved walks just as much were cruising around casting unfriendly glances at each other. It was unbearable for Nina to be one of them, and it was only her angry determination that made her walk the whole promenade back and forth three times.

She was about to give up when a guy spoke to her. Shortish, dark-complexioned and fussy, he did not impress her at all, but she did not have any other choice. The guy called himself Zhora. Judging by his accent, he was from somewhere in the South – possibly, Rostov or Ukraine.

They did some chit-chatting, without much enthusiasm. Zhora livened up when Nina mentioned that she was leaving the next day. “That calls for a celebration, I swear!” he insisted joyously. He said that he could not invite her to his room as he was sharing it with another man, so it appeared that Nina had to invite him to hers. She did not like the idea – she no longer was in a mood for anything – but, being Nina, she had to carry through what she had begun.

On the way, Zhora picked up a bottle of the cheapest wine from the bar. In her room, they poured the wine into thick hotel glasses and drank it. There was nothing to talk about, and Nina wanted to be through with it as soon as possible. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be right back. You lie down,” she said without any ceremony, not wondering at herself any more.

When, wrapped up in a towel, she came out of the shower, the representative of the male species by the name of Zhora was already in her bed. Her instinct spoke loudly telling her that she should not lie with that Zhora, but from some evil obstinacy, she did.

Her instinct was right, it was no good. Zhora gave her no joy whatever. It was nothing like her recent love-making with Oleg – no stars, no sea-wash, and no gripping sensations in her body. Nothing. Besides, she soon felt sleepy and flaked out without even making it to the end of Zhora’s fidgety performance.

Her awakening was a nasty one. She had a headache, but worse still, she had a feeling that she had made some serious error for which she was going to pay. She received evidence of that at once – her bag was wide open, her things scattered about and her purse turned inside out. She had been robbed. The shortish Zhora from the South was a hotel thief who was in the business of robbing lonely dames that looked for adventure. He had drugged her wine and cleaned her out while she was knocked out. He took into account that she was leaving and so had no time to search for him and make a row. Nina buried her face in her hands and groaned from humiliation and shame. However, she had only about an hour left before the departure time, so the groaning had to be cut short. Thank heaven, Zhora had not taken either her passport or air ticket – he obviously wanted her to leave. He had even left her twenty dollars – enough to pay the bus fare to the airport.

On the plane, Nina was still stunned, unable to come to herself. All that had happened was so not like her, not her life. “Some vacation, to be sure. A real distraction,” she thought and suddenly remembered the stupid coin necklace. The greedy Zhora had snatched it, too. Somehow, the thought of it seemed so absurd to her that she burst out laughing hysterically causing the passengers to cast surprised looks at her and giving serious concern to the air hostess.

On arrival, she went out to work at once, trying to obliterate Turkey from her memory. She never saw Igor who had transferred to another branch of the company by that time. Apparently, his breaking up with Nina had not been easy for him, either, and he did not want to bump into her every day. Besides, Nina found that she did not care about all that as much as before – her feelings had blunted, and she had almost left the whole break up story behind her. She could live on.

However, she had to pay once more for her Turkish escapades. At first she did not pay attention to certain unpleasant symptoms, but after a week she had to see the doctor. The tests confirmed that the wretched Zhora (or was it the romantic Oleg?) had endowed her with a shameful disease. Nina felt as if the sky had collapsed on her. The doctor reassured her, “Don’t you rack yourself so, my dear. You look like a ghost. We’ve all been there, believe me. It’s nothing, it’s totally curable. You’ll be as good as new in a couple of weeks.” Nina had no way of explaining to the cynical, jovial doctor how horrified and disgusted with herself she was.

She took a course of treatment, then turned to another, more expensive clinic and insisted on being given another course although the tests indicated that she had been completely cured. Nina was certain now that she was not going to have anything to do with any men ever again – lovemaking was crossed out of her life with a thick, red line. “It’s simply not my thing,” she said to herself. “How much more proof do you need? Some people are born for this sex nonsense, others for profession. I live to be a professional, to make a career.”

Besides, she was soon seized by totally different events which involved her father, so that she had to put her intimate frustrations out of her mind for a long time.