Yelena Moskovich - Virtuoso

Jana blinked into the quiet, grabbed her refilled plastic cup, and went back out into the party.

It seemed like months, years, since Zorka and Claire had left the party. Jana was smoking out the window, with her hand loosely on Aimée’s knee, as Aimée was telling her a funny story about Dr Coste from work, when Erki tapped Jana on the shoulder. She turned around and he passed her his phone. She looked at the open text message.

“It’s for you,” Erki said.

Jana read the text stream between Erki and Zorka.

< ;) >

< Serve & Obey>

She scrolled down further.

Come over here.

There were no more texts after that.

Jana touched the phone screen and began typing back.

She looked over at Aimée, then back at the phone. Erki was standing above her, observing. The blue bubbles were appearing in rapid succession.

< Please, Jana, I’ve said Fuck You to so many people in my life. Please, don’t make me say Fuck You to you>

It was in the doorway of Erki’s apartment, the two women, Jana with her coat on, Aimée with her hand on the door frame, and the conversation couldn’t quite find its form, their eyes went back and forth, between their shoes and their hands and their lips. I’ll see you later though? Jana said. Later? Aimée responded, with a disbelief that felt too expansive for one evening. Yes, later. Can I? The words were turning their heavy bodies, right, left. Later, at my place? Aimée asked, her voice somewhat dulled from the question. Would that be ok , Jana replied, feeling her thumb bend into her palm, her forearm tense, her weight shift, Because I need to go and see this friend , she was explaining again.

There was a certain relief in the act of going over each other’s words, in the doorway, with no utility, there was nothing more to understand, the information was exchanged and the Uber was waiting downstairs, and they were repeating each other’s words as if they could each grasp something of each other that they could individually keep, because just then, there was an urge to keep something of the other, because disbelief is expansive especially when the day is turning over its edge, and one can feel their whole lifetime in the words they must throw away at the threshold of a door.

Call me, then, when you’re about to leave , Aimée said and reached up and put her hand on Jana’s jaw and brought her lips towards hers. The hallway bulb flickered, then sparked back on.

There was Jana, footsteps going down the stairway.

There was Aimée, fingertips sliding off the handle of a closed door.

Zorka was waiting at the kerb outside the club with a big red smile. She had her stone-coloured bomber jacket open. Underneath, she was only wearing a leather bra top, which sat flatly over her small chest, with her gold SUCK IT necklace dangling, her bare white stomach prickling in the cold, combat trousers loose at her narrow hips, with the Calvin Klein waistband of her underwear showing, and the sleeves of her red mesh turtleneck tied in a knot on her crotch. Jana began to feel self-conscious about her outfit beneath her long camel-hair coat: the dark-blue trousers neatly ironed, and her cream blouse with the flimsy collar, open one button.

Zorka took Jana’s hand without a word and pulled her past the queue. She slid her eyes towards the bouncer, he nodded his head, and both women walked in.

Inside, the thump of the music from the various rooms, to the sides and below, throbbed the air, while people with their big December coats squeezed by: bristled leopard-print hanging open on their biceps like limping furred wings, long military-green coats with hunchback shoulders and stiff, angular lapels jutting up like scales, puffy snow-white jackets with thick hoods giving a double-headed shadow, sports caps on top of stringy hair like overgrown beaks, or jumpers of thick yarn with sleeves woven too long, hanging like excess flesh. The small bulbs of light hung on the ornate moulding of the ceiling were a searing yellow, then there were the tubular rays diffusing humidly from the dance floor ahead.

Zorka led Jana along a red velvet rope, cutting the hallway into two routes, one leading to the cloakroom, and the other towards the main room. After they checked Jana’s coat, she stopped and looked up at Zorka.

“I hope my outfit’s okay for here.”

Zorka let out a laugh.

“Jana, you always look like a bad-ass, even when your clothes are lame.”

Zorka cracked a smile and nudged her, until Jana gave a smirk back.

The hallway was lined with mirrors that flashed when the light changed, and seemed to be chewing on the faces they were reflecting.

There was a constant flow of people trying to get by, and Jana pulled her left shoulder in, trying to avoid getting bumped. As they entered the opening, a large room with a scaffolding of topless angels still clinging to the old walls, the crowded bar to the right, and at the end, the DJ with her chin to her neck, holding her headphones, the light on her face changing – white, yellow, green, blue. Jana felt a liquid splash on her forearm. It was so icy that it stung. She flinched and looked up. A tall girl looked back at her, dark, thinning hair, greasily parted in the centre, sticking to her temples, her long neck pushing out of an oversized sweat-shirt, striped purple and red, at her heart a worn patch of Mickey Mouse’s face.

Zorka turned around and saw that the girl had spilled some of her drink on Jana.

“What the fuck,” she snorted at the girl.

The girl raised one shoulder and shrugged.

Zorka leered towards the girl and flicked her collarbone. The girl stumbled and spilled some of her own drink on her sweatshirt.

Zorka took Jana’s hand again and pulled her deeper into the crowd.

When they got to the bar, Zorka squeezed herself between two boys, then leaned back towards Jana and shouted over the music.

“What do you wanna drink?”

“Whatever you’re having,” Jana replied.

Zorka’s grin grew.

When their drinks arrived, they were a fizzy copper colour. Jana took a sip, it tasted like a sparked metal and pine needles, as if it had to come from a plant which only grew beneath the snow.

“What is this?” Jana asked.

“Yeah, it’s gross, sorry,” Zorka said, “but it makes you feel good.”

They moved towards the wall with a small ledge at shoulder-height, placed their drinks there and leaned back.

“It was in her tits,” Zorka said, with her eyes in her drink. “Mamka, I mean.”

“Like cancer?”

“Yeah.” Zorka lifted her gaze over the sea of heads and balled up her mouth. “Yeah,” she repeated, and let her lips go loose.

“I had no idea, Zorka, I’m really sorry…”

“No one knew till the end, when it was too late you know. She was hiding it and stuff. And the funny thing is, it all went down when I had come back to visit – after all my years away. Man, when I left that house, I seriously thought I’d never see Mamka again, but my uncle Gejza convinced me to come. He said something like, all was forgiven. He bought me my ticket. Didn’t catch on to why he was being so generous until I saw Mamka in the flesh. She wouldn’t go to the doctor, and was not so thrilled to see my face either. She kept slapping me away, saying no, no, no, no, no. Then she got really sick. We got her to the hospital like dragging a cat into water. Uncle Gejza (who’s usually a total softie on all accounts) put his foot down on this one. Mamka was so frail, a boneless chicken, but she still threw a fit, wouldn’t let the doctors touch her – remember her fits?”