John Davis - The Year of Dangerous Loving

Hargreave smiled wanly. ‘So you do read the papers.’

‘For my English. So,’ she smiled, ‘you are a lawyer. So your nice wife is asking for lots of nice money in her divorce?’

‘Something like that.’

‘And now you are spending so much money for me!’ She took both his hands across the table and sparkled mischievously: ‘So I will make it a very good day for you, don’t worry, darling! We will make love as much as you like. Any way you like! Tell me how you like to do it.’

Hargreave seemed to feel his loins turn over. He grinned.

‘Let’s check out of here and go to the Bella Mar Hotel, it’s more secluded. And I’d like you to go home and change into a daytime dress. Bring a bikini, they’ve got a nice pool at the Bella Mar. I’ll meet you there. Know where it is?’

‘Of course I know the Bella Mar.’

Of course she knew it – she was a Macao whore. But that did not trouble Hargreave – he was going to have a nice day for a change. A lovely day! Nor did it worry him that he might be recognized – in an appropriate dress Olga would be just another tourist. Nonetheless he checked the hotel register when he signed in and was relieved that all the guests were foreigners; nor was there anybody he knew in the bar or on the terrace.

The Bella Mar is a grand old Portuguese hotel on the knoll, overlooking the tree-lined esplanade and the Pearl River estuary. The floors are polished wood, the ceilings are high and a sweeping staircase leads up to airy, old-fashioned suites with ceiling fans. The blue swimming pool is on the terrace below the verandah.

Olga Romalova dived and swam the length underwater, her long blonde hair streaming silkily behind her. She broke surface at the shallow end, her hair plastered. ‘How much?’

‘Nine seconds. You’re improving.’

‘Once more.’

She climbed up the ladder, gushing sparkling water, and walked back to the deep end in her tiny bikini. Hargreave, seated at a table under a beach umbrella drinking a Tom Collins, watched her every movement. She was truly beautiful. There were other couples at other tables, all watching her. The Chinese waiters were watching her. They doubtless knew her, but Hargreave did not care: they didn’t know who he was and he was happy – surely every man here must envy him, every woman must surely envy her exuberant beauty. Olga came to the deep end of the pool, held up her finger and demanded, ‘Ready?’

‘Ready.’ Hargreave looked at his wristwatch.

‘Now!’ She dived in like a goddess and streamed frantically underwater, her feet kicking. She gushed up at the shallow end. ‘Yes?’

‘Yes – eight seconds flat.’

A man at a table clapped, then everybody was clapping good-naturedly. Olga climbed out of the pool, beaming, gave them a wave and flopped down in her chair under the umbrella. She picked up her vodka and grinned: ‘I am improving, last week my best time was ten seconds. It is because I have stopped smoking.’

‘You come to the Bella Mar often?’

She shrugged. ‘Sometimes. It depends.’

‘I wanted to be an athlete,’ Olga said, ‘a swimmer. Athletes make good money in Russia. But there was no pool on the collective, so I swam in the river. So cold . For a pool I must go fifty kilometres on the bus. So expensive. So I thought, I will be a gymnast. I could walk on my hands, do backward somersaults. At my school we had parallel bars, a springboard, climbing ropes. I practised like crazy. But my teacher told me I am too big to succeed.’

‘Can you still do backward somersaults?’

‘Yes. Want to see?’

‘Later,’ Hargreave grinned.

She continued: ‘My mother always told me that the farm is not good enough for me, I must leave when I grow up – so little money, so much work. She died when I was ten. So I looked after my father, he was a sick man – he was a foreman, a very good farmer, but he was always sick, with tuberculosis, he died when I was fourteen. My big brother, he left many years before to work in the mines. So I went to an orphanage. I wanted to study to become a vet, but there were many difficulties, so when I was sixteen I went to work in a factory in Yekaterinburg. Do you know where that is?’

‘No.’

‘In the Urals. Very cold in winter. Big city, grey skies, grey buildings. I worked in an aluminium factory. We made plates, cups, pots, knives, forks. Millions and millions. But nobody buys them because people do not like the taste of aluminium. But still we make them, because Gosplan says so, because of the mines and the big hydroelectric stations producing the power. You know Gosplan? It is our big ministry for economics.’

‘Yes.’

‘Nobody buys our aluminium plates. Our wages are very little, and always late. Then we heard that some KGB men are stealing our plates and cups and making them flat with a steam roller and selling it to the West for much money. We were angry. But still we went on making plates for the KGB to steal because Gosplan said we must. Then one day the factory director sends for me. In his office is a man I haven’t seen. He says, do I want to be an actress, because I am pretty.’

‘He was wrong. You’re beautiful.’

‘I said, “Yes, of course!” So immediately I go to Moscow. Many days by train. So exciting. In Moscow they say to me: “We are the KGB, Mosfilm does not really want you, we want you to be a diplomat.”’

‘A diplomat? How old were you?’

‘Eighteen. Of course I was not going to be a diplomat, they were cheating me from the start, I was going to be one of their girls who sleeps with foreigners to get information. And for blackmail. But I did not know then. They said: “To be a diplomat you must first learn how to dress nicely, Western ways.” So they began to train me.’

‘What did they teach you?’

She grinned. ‘Mostly how to make love. And I already knew that, most Russian girls learn that very young because there is nothing else to do. I was kept in a hostel like a student, but I was really a hostess for KGB officers. I was taught to cook and entertain, even to sing Western songs, how to dance, very sexy, but after the party – there were always many parties – after the party I had to go to bed with one of my trainers.’

‘How did you like that?’

She shrugged. ‘I hated it, but they said it was part of my training. One of them I liked, the others I didn’t like.’

‘Were you paid a salary?’

‘Yes, I was working for the state. Then after only six months Gorbachev disbanded the KGB. Everybody was very anxious, and angry also. Then my trainers told me I was being sent to Istanbul to continue my studies. But, of course, when I got there I had to be a whore.’

Oh, Hargreave was so glad to learn she had been tricked. ‘Istanbul? Did you protest?’

‘At first I cried and cried, and argued. But what can I do? They hit me. The other girls told me the KGB would kill me if I tried to run away. They said a girl called Natasha had been killed, as a lesson. And I had no passport, no money. No job in Russia. And we were kept in this big house with high walls, and there were guards.’

Hargreave thought, Oh, you poor child . ‘And? Who were your customers?’

‘Rich Turks. Rich Arabs. And some Westerners, businessmen, English, Italian, Germans.’

‘How did you feel?’

He felt a stab of anguish when she shrugged. ‘Afterwards I got used to it. It was a nice big house, nice rooms, nice bar, nice garden, good food. The madam saved your money for you, every month you got paid, you could send it home or buy things, or put it in the bank. So I thought, this is better than Yekaterinburg, better than the KGB hostel where I got fucked for nothing.’