Andrei Makine - A Hero's Daughter

"Yes," Ninka took up the tale. "She was scared to deposit her money in the savings bank. You see, in theory she was working as a cleaner at the children's nursery, and she was worth maybe half a million… But where to hide it? So she began stuffing notes into the mattress. Her dream was to work like a horse till the age of thirty, then find a guy, start a family, and have a cushy life. But of course it was her boyfriend who really screwed her. As well as her foreigners, she had this Vladik, a Russian, all to herself, for a bit of romance. One night he can't stop fidgeting, something's getting to him, poking him in the ribs, crackling under him… And in the morning he has a brainstorm! He waits for Sonka – Sophie, we call her – to go out and he undoes the stitching. And there, for God's sake!- beneath a layer of foam, are hundred ruble notes and foreign currency – packed so tight you couldn't count them! But he was clever, the pig. No question of taking it all. Sonka's friends would have moved heaven and earth to hunt him down. He started taking it out a little bit at a time. And that's how he lived. She was earning it; he was burning it."

"Men! They're all vampires!" Svetka sighed.

"So what happened in the end," Olya wanted to know.

"It finished the way it was bound to, of course! Using her money, he picked up a girl and flew off to the Crimea with her for the weekend. He passed himself off as a diplomat. And why not? He was flashing wads of those mattress-stuffing dollars. Why shouldn't it be true? When Sonka found out, at first she wanted to strangle him on that goddamned mattress that very night. But then she went all soft and forgave him everything!"

The gray winter's day sank gently into a silent and peaceful evening. And they were still chatting in the kitchen. Outside it began to freeze and voices sounded clearer and more resonant.

Hungarian Ninka was telling stories about her summer trips to Sochi, her quarrels with the local girls, and how one day some completely drunken Finns had thrown her out into the corridor stark naked.

"And their lady wives, by the way, developed a taste for coming to stay here. They come to Leningrad for the weekend as tourists and then instead of visiting the cruiser Aurora, they pick up clients by the shovelful. It was a girlfriend of mine who told me – they take all their trade. The militia leaves them alone. And that reminds me, she told me a good story. Four prostitutes meet: a Frenchwoman, an Englishwoman, a German, and a Russian. They start arguing around which of the four is best at picking up men. They're all lined up on the corner of Gorky Street and Marx Avenue, near the Hotel National…"

At that moment a car started honking noisily outside in the street. Ninka jumped up and ran to the window.

"Oh my goodness. My little friend's arrived. Right. I'm off."

She finished the story in the hallway as she slipped into her fur coat and put on some lipstick.

"Hey, are you going to walk around barefoot all winter?" Svetka exclaimed in astonishment, looking at her delicate ankle boots. "Take care or your toes will freeze and then no more dollars to fill your mattress! And then what will you sleep on with your little friend?"

Adjusting her fox fur hat in the mirror Ninka answered carelessly: "Oh, you big softies! You princesses with your peas! You sit there in your offices next to your radiators. It's easy for you. You get to be driven all the way to the bedside in an official car. But we're out there on our feet in all weather, like the sentries at the Mausoleum. Never mind ankle boots! Let me sell you my patent formula. When they kick you out of the Center, you'll need it!"

"So what's this patent formula?" chorused Olya and Svetka in amazement.

"The patent formula. You buy a pepper poultice from the drugstore, you cut it to the size of the sole of your foot, and, presto, you stick it to your foot. It works like a mustard plaster but it lasts longer and it doesn't burn so much. It's thirty degrees below outside but you can go out in elegant shoes. You feel as warm inside as if you'd had a good nip of vodka. That's how it is, my pampered friends. It's different from lolling around at the Kontik Hotel sipping cocktails."

Under the window the car kept on honking. "Ah right, I'm coming," grumbled Ninka. "He can't stand being kept waiting, that one. Ankle boots from abroad. I've put them on specially for him. Maybe he'll marry me, the fallen woman…"

They chuckled heartily as they kissed and Ninka raced down the stairs, her heels clattering.

Outside the evening was turning blue. Olya washed the dishes. Svetka sat slowly drinking what was left of the flat champagne and scrabbled about in the cake box for the little nuts that had fallen off.

"It's the last glass," she excused herself "Tomorrow I'm starting a new life. Help! That parfumier's coming from Paris tomorrow and I have to get up at half-past five…"

In the course of these evenings together Olya longed to talk openly to Svetka, to confide in her. To ask her, "What about you, Svetka? Do you like this life? Aren't you ever scared? Scared of your youth passing away… And this whole routine… From the first meeting when everything is official, the black shoes, the severe suit, the professional woman, Soviet style… until we get to the bed with Intourist sheets. Just the smell of them makes me want to throw up. Doesn't it scare you when you get one of these old fellows, you know, just on the brink of retirement, with an anemic body and scrawny armpits that already smell of the grave? The time it takes to get him warmed up, you're sweating like a masseuse or a nurse in intensive care. For the past ten years he's only been cheating on his wife with porn magazines, and now he's hungry for exotic Moscow nights, luscious Russian kisses… Doesn't all that make you want to throw up, Svetka? And yet with the young ones, it's even worse. At least the old guys don't take themselves too seriously. And they pay well. But these sons of bitches think they're giving us a thrill with their biceps that stink of deodorant. And on top of it they're so cheap! They're all penny pinchers. You'll never believe this. One day I was watching an Italian packing his bags. There was half a can of meat pâté left over from our breakfast. You know what? He wrapped it in plastic and slipped it into his suitcase. I said to him, Td get rid of that! It'll go bad in the plane!' But that cut no ice with him. He laughed. 'I'll have it for dinner tonight in Rome…' You go on waiting. You go on waiting, like an idiot.

It's the same with you, Svetka, you're waiting too, only you won't admit it. And you go on spinning your hula hoop like a robot…"

But Olya did not dare to say this to her so baldly That evening she skated around it, making a joke of it. But Svetka understood at once what she was driving at.

"Olyechka, that's the semi-Muscovite coming out in you. Ninka was right: all on a silver platter! Moscow? Well, excuse me! The Institute? Help yourself! The International Trade Center? Come right in! You should have lived in the village of Tiomny or like me, up near Arkhangelsk, then you wouldn't be wallowing in this morass of existentialism. An eight-mile walk to school each day and it was so cold that when you spat it froze in the air and made a noise as it landed. When you started taking in the laundry off the line it snapped in half. You take it into the house, you look at it, and presto, the shirt's lost its sleeves. And the people! Total savages! You can't imagine. Everyone's drunk. We had a neighbor. He and his wife were completely drunk every day. And a child every year. They had nine in all. All a bit cracked, of course. Thanks to the vodka, the parents had become complete zombies. A new child arrives and they give it the first name that comes into their heads. Afterward they find they've got two Sergeis and two Lyudkas… And you talk about being scared? Now this is scary. Nothing in the stores but canned mackerel in tomato sauce and weevily millet. That's all there is! And vodka, of course. The whole village goes to bed dead drunk every night and the wolves snatch the dogs from their kennels. You talk about 'our youth passing away.' Well, where doesn't it pass away? An anemic body… Well, get her…! A smell of the grave… You do talk a lot of rubbish, especially at bedtime. Now, just suppose you were married to a little Muscovite executive on a hundred and fifty rubles a month, do you think that'd be more fun? He'd never stop reminding you about his Moscow residence permit and his paltry square meters of living space. And where would you work? At the factory? Translating patents for a hundred and thirty rubles? At the end of a week you'd have such existential angst, you'd go and work as a cleaner at the Center. You need to simmer down. No one's keeping you here. The KGB? Oh sure, you bet they need you! They only have to whistle and people will come running from all over the Soviet Union to get their hands on your nice little job. They'll find more exciting girls than you to do it! You'd better believe it. You're too spoiled, that's your trouble. Look at Hungarian Ninka. No father or mother from the age of seven, brought up in an institution. And that's where one of the teachers assaulted her when she was fourteen, she told me. He took her into the shower and you can guess what happened next. In her place another woman would have become a drunkard and a wreck long ago, but she's as tough as nails… She's treating herself to a cooperative apartment in Yassenievo, buying herself a Volga, the latest model. She'll get married and everything'll be fine. She has about three hundred thousand rubles in different savings banks. While you're moaning away about your pointless existence and the futility of waiting, she sticks mustard plasters on her feet and off she goes, all flags flying! So what about my Volodya, you say? But what difference does it make to him? Foreigners are work, not a love affair. And apart from them there's no other man in my life, you know that. Volodya has his military service. I can't go running after him to Afghanistan. And over there, by the way, you get promoted fast. In no time at all he'll have his colonel's three stars. Then we'll get married. And there'll be no more talk of foreigners. I'll ask for an office job at the Center. Even now he's like a pig in shit. When he comes home on leave I stuff him with caviar and he gets to drink wine you won't find in most ministers' houses. And furthermore I'm a woman who gives him first-class service. So it'd be a great mistake for him to complain. Right, Olya. We've talked enough. Let's go watch the news on TV. It's odd – there's been no sign of Andropov for a long time. They say he's very sick. Oh look, you've washed all the dishes. You are sweet!"