Mari Saat - The Saviour of Lasnamäe

But when it came to women – they were things of beauty, fragile and exciting – even the ones who were wrinkled and haggard, even the ones who aroused pity on sight… or the slatternly alcoholics with bloated faces curing their hangovers with a morning beer outside Tallinn’s main railway station – the very sight of them was downright painful… But then there was something more fragile, more lovely about them than there was with men of that ilk… Of course he had tried to convince himself that there was nothing more special about women than humans in general, or indeed any living creatures, that their special magic was merely the product of their own sensuality. No amount of sermonising was any use. There was no way out; it was completely hopeless. Time and again when he had to talk to a woman, explain something to her, and he was unable to avert his gaze from her delicate, smooth skin and the curves of her cheek and neck, he would feel his excitement rising, want to kiss the curves… and the rest, of course. Women were so trusting; they had no idea of the danger they embodied… Once Dmitri Dmitrievich had feared he could endure it no longer. That would have been a disgrace – he would have been deemed mad. And then he definitely would have been unable to carry on living.

Vova was the way out. Through Vova he’d obtained satisfaction for some time now. Each time he bought a service through Vova, he convinced himself with the thought that it was just like eating and drinking, he was just satisfying his appetite, a foolish rubbing. If only he had the will, if only he weren’t so indolent, he’d be able to make himself the focus of his energies, reach new heights…

A bought woman was good – with a bought woman everything was clear. She wanted money and provided a service in exchange for it – it was something you could envisage as mechanical, at least once it was over. You could imagine it as a temporary weakness that you might eventually, gradually overcome, one that the service provider recorded simply in the form of the banknote she earned. To the service provider it was just work… What’s more, at a place like Vova’s everything was matter-of-fact and freely entered into. There was no fear that young girls were held by force or that anyone was being treated badly. It was a safe, businesslike transaction. With an older woman… Or, as Vova put it – it was good for an older bit of skirt, a bit of a workout did them good – and the good thing for him was simply that it appeased his own body…

But now, suddenly, everything was becoming more complicated. And ironic, too – as if it were not the devil but God Himself directing temptation! He had replaced the indifferent, cold Madam Ira in that bed with a woman who was tormented by her work and frankly had ultimately been driven to it, and whom he had almost raped… The shame of it… A woman who, as he languished fretting next to her there in that bed, radiated enticement and purity at once… He had never felt that way about a woman before, felt that he wanted just to embrace, stroke, caress her – especially caress – and then sleep with, oh yes, of course that’s what his body wanted, but more powerful was another feeling that he had never felt for a woman before, or anyone else – to embrace, to caress, to protect, just hold in his arms, holding himself back…

He didn’t know what was going on or what might happen when he set off to visit Natalya Filippovna with his book. Clearly they would drink tea. Then he would let Natalya Filippovna look at the pictures and explain them. The pictures were so pure and beautiful in themselves… But then… Yes, fortunately, Natalya Filippovna had a daughter – and she said that she lived with her and hopefully her daughter would be at home. So in fact nothing could happen… So what was his real reason for going there? If the only talking he’d be able to do would be to explain the pictures? He would actually have liked to make a clean breast of everything to this woman, to tell her everything he felt and what it was that perplexed him and that he wanted to sleep with her but never there in that defiled bed. And that most of all he would like to buy Natalya Filippovna her freedom, including her freedom from himself, tell her that never again would she have to feel forced to sleep with someone, provide sexual satisfaction, not to anyone. Tell Natalya Filippovna that he could pay even for her not to have to sleep with him, however difficult that might be for him. But his earnings wouldn’t stretch that far… the whole thing would be pointless. So it would be better if the daughter was at home. And it was much better to explain the pictures there than sweating and fretting as he languished in that sordid bed. Surely the fairest thing to do might be just to back out? Not to call, not to make an agreement, and just back out of the arrangement with Vova too? How simple it would be.

That night Dmitri Dmitrievich had dreamt of a huge Russian fireplace, broad and tall, with a sleeping area on top. The sleeping area was so high you could stand in it without any trouble. On it stood a long, simple, stout table. And in the dimness, on chairs around the table in the sleeping area, a council of some kind was in session. A ladder reached the sleeping area from the floor below. The ladder stood very upright and there were wide gaps between the rungs making it fairly tricky to climb. But he, Dmitri Dmitrievich, needed at all costs, for some reason, to climb it. No doubt it wouldn’t have been so very difficult if he had held the rungs with both hands. He would have had no problem then, but one hand was full – in one hand he had the book, eternally thick and heavy, and getting heavier and heavier… The council watched him climbing and one of them said… or rather they were discussing him up there among themselves and asking, “Why is he holding that book under his arm? It makes climbing so much more difficult…” But he wouldn’t let the book go, because without it he wouldn’t have been fit to go visiting. He simply had to deliver the book…

Sofia had to go to Zhanna’s for her birthday. Actually, it wasn’t Zhanna’s birthday but her rat’s. The rat’s name was Johnny – in honour of Johnny Depp. He was Zhanna’s third rat already – the other two had both died when they were barely two years old from cancer. Zhanna said that actually the rats sold in pet shops were all lab animals bred with delicate, weak immune systems that made them all prone to cancer. When Zhanna explained this, the boys teased her that her rats had AIDS, infuriating her. She said that if Johnny also died aged two, then there was no way she’d be getting another, but added quickly that what did she or anyone else know: she had said the same about the previous one too… Anyhow, Johnny appeared to be a completely different kind of rat. She’d never seen such an intelligent creature before, not even a dog, to say nothing of cats. And come what may, they had to mark its first birthday, because there just might not be a rat to celebrate with in two years’ time.

Another reason why it was a good day for a celebration was that Zhanna’s parents had, admittedly with some misgivings, gone to St Petersburg for the weekend taking her younger brother with them, leaving her at home alone with dire warnings. In any case, Zhanna couldn’t have gone with them because she had a dance performance on the Sunday morning. Not that she’d have wanted to – in St Petersburg they’d be staying at her grandma’s in the city outskirts, drinking tea all the time, talking non-stop, never going anywhere interesting and afterwards, on the way back, would be amazed at how the time had sped by so quickly that they’d not been able to get anywhere…

“Bring what you can,” Zhanna had told Sofia, “everyone’s bringing what they can…”