Balázs Pataki - S.T.A.L.K.E.R. - Northern Passage

They drive southwards on Klovskiy Street, leaving behind the high-rise apartment blocks and office buildings of Kiev’s downtown. Taking a turn from the avenue that follows the right bank of the Dnieper River, Knuckles drives into a quiet residential area with neat-looking family houses. They appear to Nooria like smaller versions of the houses she had seen in the suburbs of Los Angeles, though these are secluded from the street by high fences and high-grown bushes hide most of them from the outsiders’ view.

The building in front of which the Hummer finally slows down lacks any of this seclusion. Where a garden would be, there is a parking lot and the house boasts a flashing electric sign that reads TAHITI SAUNA CLUB.

Slowly, Knuckles drives into a narrow lane leading to a black metal gate that slowly opens on their approach. From the backside, the house would look like the home of a decent family but the wall around the backyard garden is topped by CCTV cameras. The windows have grills, nicely forged but nonetheless placed there to keep anyone outside—or rather inside, an icy feeling in her guts tells Nooria when Sultan gallantly opens the door and helps her out of the car.

“You could use some rest,” Sultan says. “Do you want to stay for a few days?”

“No,” Nooria says a bit more decisively than what would be necessary. “Sorry. I thank you for your hospitality, but I want to get to Zone as soon as possible.”

“A reliable man will drive you tomorrow to a spot where you can easily enter the Zone. Until then, if you feel lonely there are some ladies living here who can give you company.”

When Knuckles opens the heavy safety door and they enter, the lights go up without Sultan touching anything. He notices Nooria's surprise with a satisfied smile.

“When I was a kid, I had to write my homework by a petroleum lamp. I came a long way Margarita… we all did.”

The interior of the house is spacious but appears surprisingly spartan for a man of Sultan’s standing.

“You could definitely ask my ladies to share some of their dresses with you,” Sultan says as he takes Nooria’s coat and sees the light fatigue she wears. “But what do I say—on second thought, I’ll see if I can get you something more suitable for the Zone.”

“My coat is enough,” Nooria says.

“Size will be a problem,” Knuckles says ignoring her words and looking Nooria up and down. “She’d fit twice into the smallest Kevlar jacket we have.”

“Have it arranged, I don’t care how,” Sultan snarls at his bodyguard. Then he asks Nooria in his polite tone: “Are you sure you want to leave tomorrow? I’ll fly to Minsk and my local partners are even worse than those in Kiev. I’d appreciate if you cheered me up there, Margarita. Those greedy Belarus bastards always make me nervous.”

“I want Zone.”

Sultan smiles but keeps pushing her. “You would enjoy going to the Zone with me. Just in a couple of days. You see, I love my car but there’s a much more comfortable way to get there. Unfortunately, that still needs to be arranged. That’s why I need to talk to my partners in Minsk.”

“I want tomorrow.”

“All right,” Sultan sighs and turns back to Knuckles. “ Ah, neterperlivaya suchka. Show her to one of the rooms upstairs. Good night, Margarita. I hope we shall meet again!”

Knuckles leads Nooria up a wooden staircase into a corridor from where a few doors open. The noise of a TV comes from one of the rooms behind as they walk down the corridor. Another door is ajar and Nooria feels the smell of freshly washed laundry mixed with sweet perfume. Knuckles opens the last door and ushers her into a small room with only a bed, a cupboard and a make-up table for furniture. The small window is barred on the outside.

“Sauna and jacuzzi are on the first floor,” Knuckles says putting the key to the door into his pocket. “Or ground floor or whatever tsokolny etazh is in English. First door to the right where we came in. Kitchen too. You will be picked up at five tomorrow morning. Good night.”

“Good night.”

“Don’t forget—you can’t go out of here!”

Knuckles’ malicious words already come from the corridor. Nooria looks around in the room, hesitating between the tiredness that makes her want to lay to sleep right away and her desire to take a proper bath at last. She opens the cupboard where she finds a set of towels, a white bath robe and a half-full tube of shower gel. Nooria takes them and makes her way back to the ground floor. Although she has no idea what a jacuzzi is, she hopes it’s a kind of shower.

The door where Knuckles directed her to leads to a large bathroom. To Nooria’s surprise, she finds not one but five showers and a variety of beauty products on the dark wooden shelf under a huge, brightly lit mirror. The bathroom is spotlessly clean and the pleasant smell of steam perfumed with pine wood scent emanates from somewhere. Suddenly she feels very dirty. Nooria quickly gets out of her clothes, and then lets the invigoratingly hot shower wash away the grit of the past days.

Stepping out of the steaming shower cabin and donning the bath robe, she is about to clean her socks and underwear in the basin when a door opens and a very young woman appears. She wears the same robe like Nooria and has a towel rolled around her head. Nonchalantly, a cigarette hangs on her full lips. She looks at Nooria in surprise, who quickly hides her scar with her wet hair.

“Novaya ty? ” the young woman asks and exhales the smoke. “Te vagy az uj lany?”

“Sorry but I don’t speak your language,” Nooria replies and glances over to her clothes. To her relief her blade, that she wouldn’t take a step without, is hidden from sight under her jeans.

“Oh sorry,” the other woman says with a giggle. The rolled Rs give her English a very hard accent. “I thought you were Hungarian like me. You look a bit like a gypsy, you know? I’m no gypsy, thanks God, but Sultan wants me to play one so I play a gypsy. The clients love it.”

“A—gypsy?”

“Where are you from?”

“From—the south,” Nooria cautiously replies, “and my name is—Margarita.”

“Welcome. I’m Lili.”

The woman called Lili measures her up and down and draws on her cigarette once more. The bitter scent of cigarette smoke spoils the clean atmosphere of the bathroom. Although apparently trying to appear cheerful, her gestures imply nervousness.

“Aha persze,” Lili skeptically says. “Whatever.” She looks into the mirror and moistening a finger with her tongue, removes a lash from under her eye. “Come, let me introduce you to the other girls.”

“I am washing my clothes.”

Lili laughs. “Why? We have a washing machine!”

“But I—”

It is only now, looking at the mirror, that Lili notices the scar on Nooria’s face. For a moment she says nothing, then laughs again.

“I see you tried to rebel once,” she says, killing the cigarette butt in the sink. “No need for that here. This place is not so bad… it’s quite okay, actually.”

She leads Nooria through the door where three other women relax in a jacuzzi. The room looks plain, though, with plastic chairs and tables arranged around the pool and a green tube lying on the tiled floor like a thin, long snake. Paper boxes line the wall, all filled with heaps of empty bottles.

“Vot novaya,” Lili tells the girls as they enter. “The black haired sweetheart is Irina. That with the round face, she is Nastya, and the blonde one is Larissa. Come… but not like that. Take off that robe.”