Inga Abele - High Tide

“Are you interested in work over the phone?”

“What kind of work is it?” Ieva asks before she gets what’s going on.

“A certain way of talking over the phone, you understand?”

Ieva understands and yanks the phone cord out of the socket. There’d been no sex in the Soviet Union. Now the city was full of so-called escort clubs — cropping up like mushrooms after the rain. Sex over the phone and in saunas, escorts, strip teases, massages. Once she was approached in the square facing the National Opera by a man with a pathetic droplet of perspiration at the tip of his nose. He’d said:

“Do you want to be a model? You’ve got a great rack and long legs.”

Ieva grows tired, but doesn’t give up. Everyone in this insane city needs a job — but does that mean she won’t find one? Riga swarms like the entrance to a beehive in the spring, and pulls Ieva along with it — young and with her hair in the wind. Each new day brings hope, but each night brings dark defeat.

She applies for a job at an advertising agency. They need advertising agents for the publisher of the largest illustrated magazine. Her interviewing director is a lean, bearded-type in a plaid jacket who dozes lazily in the rays of sun falling across the large desk. Ieva tells him outright:

“Hire me. I’m done with being a secretary who gets cognac thrown in her face.”

The director opens his eyes, smiles, and draws a checkmark next to Ieva’s name.

She goes to training, where she and the other blank canvases listen as a well-rounded and advanced advertising agent lays out the rules of the game and gives them secret tips: how to handle their victims, how to conquer and win a seat at the table. Shamelessness, tactics, obstinacy — he more or less spoon-feeds these things to the silent group.

And then they’re let out into the world with contracts in hand. Their salaries depend on the price of the deals they sign on.

The first place Ieva ends up is in the office of a car dealership. The front room she’s told to wait in has a table, a chair, and a dark glass wall. Ieva walks around the room, looks out the window. Sits down in the chair and thinks — about nothing. The minutes go by; her half hour has already come and gone. She hears quiet music coming from behind the door. Ieva remembers that she’d almost ripped her only pair of stockings that morning. Do they have a run in them now? She stands up, checks her nylons and carefully straightens and smoothes her skirt back down over her thighs.

She’s finally called in. Ieva goes into the adjacent room, and it’s like there’s a small party going on. A low stone table is covered in bowls of fruit and bottles, there’s music playing, and several men in suits are sitting on the leather sofa. One of them asks her:

“So, what did you want to tell us?”

They’re all grinning at her. Ieva turns to face the thick glass wall and sees that it’s only tinted black from the outside. For an entire half-hour, it’s like she’s been in the palm of the collective hand of the men sitting down behind her. Like a live movie on a giant screen.

“Thank you, but I’m all set.” She blushes and leaves the room to the thunderous sound of laughter.

She lucks out at the wedding shop. The store’s management hears her out and has her prepare an ad series for six magazine issues. Ieva’s almost walking on air. Finally, this hopeless running around until her heels are rubbed raw will yield some results! She showers kisses on Monta, Aksels, her mother and father, is up late sketching drafts and coming up with slogans. She won’t say anything at the agency, just show up and drop the signed contract on the table; she has brains, after all, and she’ll come up with a marketing slogan so amazing it could inspire anyone. Your wedding dress — the caress of a silky summer night! A velvety autumn dream! A luxurious wintery mist!

The management at the wedding shop like her suggestions, Ieva is overcome by excitement and the store director just smiles as he looks at this blustery and passionate advertisement agent.

“The way you look right now, I’d marry you myself,” he says. “But first I’ll have to consult with our accountant.”

Forget the accountant! It’s a fantastic offer. Ieva slides the contract over to his side of the table. All the director has to do is pick up a pen and sign it. Still smiling, he watches Ieva float out the door, the valuable piece of paper clutched tightly in her hands.

Yes! Ieva really is walking on air. A five-hundred-lat contract! She’ll finally be able to buy something for herself, Aksels, and Monta. Take a trip to visit Gran by the seaside. Being poor is something you can only deal with for so long. Constant poverty can wear down even the strongest spirit. Ieva dreams of one day going into a store and just buying things. Without mentally tallying her remaining santims.

Back at the agency, she finds Zane smoking in a sunspot in the hallway by an open window. They’d already noticed each other during training. Zane is pretty, with an honest face and honest eyes. She used to be a TV journalist. She looks over as Ieva runs up to her with sparkling eyes and gives her a big hug.

“Good news?” Zane asks.

“A five-hundred-lat contract!” Ieva says proudly.

“Oho! Me, I’m sick of it. I’m quitting. I go to all kinds of companies, see all the people I used to film pieces on, and they all laugh at me when I try to convince them to advertise with us. ‘Do you seriously have nothing better to do?’ they ask. Guess I’ll have to go back to television.”

“Why did you leave in the first place?”

“Lost my husband and kid in a car accident. For two years after that I was totally wrecked. Now I’m trying to bounce back.”

Ieva bites her lip and lowers her eyes. She doesn’t know why, but she feels like the wooden floor of this hall, the color and boards worn down smooth by hundreds of shoes, will stay in her memory for years to come.

The advertisement agency tells Ieva that her contract is worthless. The director’s signature is there, but there’s no stamped seal.

“Did you honestly not know that you also need the stamped seal?”

Ieva remembers the smile of the wedding store’s director. He knew — Ieva’s sure of it.

And it’s true. No one lets her in to see the director back at the store. An elderly, owlish accountant sits at the desk; a cast iron creature with a heart of lead.

“Young lady!” she glares at Ieva sternly over round glasses. “Do you want to bankrupt us? Do the math — do you know how many dresses we’d have to sell to break even on this kind of contract?”

Fine, fine. Ieva doesn’t sleep that night, but she also refuses to give up. All the books say that success is the most important thing of all. And the face of Fortune could turn toward Ieva at any moment — she can’t give up hope.

A new store for fancy designer jeans has opened up downtown. Walking down the street, Ieva sees a sign in the window saying they need a sales associate and heads right in. She’s got nothing else to lose.

The store is clean, classy, and quiet. There aren’t many people in the city who have the means to shop here. The sales associate hands Ieva the storeowner’s business card, and Ieva calls him. His voice is calm and polite. He asks her to send a photo first.

If they need a photo, she’ll send a photo. Ieva gets her picture taken for the first time at a photo shop. With the exception of a few pictures from her time living with Gran at the seaside, she has no other photographic proof that this Ieva person has ever existed. She’s pleased with the outcome. Before she sends the photo, Ieva looks at it and wonders what people would say about the girl in the picture if they saw her on the street. Dark hair, a delicate face. Narrow eyes like she’s Icelandic. Ieva remembers Jonsy and decides right then — even if she dyes her hair later in life, she’ll never be like that.