Yelena Moskovich - The Natashas

The green curtain behind her was gathered to one side and hung like a sheet of moss. Polina stood in the middle of the room, her hands in her coat pockets, observing Béatrice’s body. The shopkeeper turned to face Béatrice.

Béatrice was held in place by their gaze. She felt herself leaning from the eyes of one woman to the eyes of the other.

She was not sure where to look. She wanted to observe Polina, to take the time to study her face, but as she traced her shoulder, up her neck, around her chin and to the hairline behind her ear, she felt her eyes were being repelled from seeing her face.

Béatrice’s eyes drifted from Polina’s body on to the street behind her, outside the glass window of the shop. She saw a pigeon-faced man veering towards the window. He shuffled forward so eagerly that he almost ran his nose into the glass. He pulled his chin back and adjusted his head to a secure distance from the glass. Since it was difficult to estimate exactly where this invisible surface was, his head bobbed like a slow-boiling potato.

Behind the man, a teenage boy came forward. One side of his mouth was stretching up as his eyes protruded, glossy like saliva from a kiss. He was staring. Then he cut his face to the side and let out a bark. He brought his arm out and wound his hand toward himself, until his two friends came to join. There they stood, the boiling potato, the saliva-eyes and his two chicken-legged friends in their bunched-up jeans, all staring at Béatrice.

She felt her skin tighten beneath the lace. She was cold. Goosebumps pushed towards the surface. Béatrice looked down at her breasts. They were abundant, white, held up by a thick, black satin bra. Beneath them, her white stomach, then her underwear, black lace as well. She felt her pubic hair reaching between the thinly woven black strings. She looked down. There were her legs and her bare knees.

She had nothing on beneath the long black lace dress except for her structured bra and her transparent underwear. Béatrice wanted to snap her arms over her body and run behind the curtain, but the women’s eyes would not let her move. The potato man’s mouth was hanging open. Behind him, a woman walking past, stopped and darted her eyes at Béatrice. Her mouth was sour, as if preparing to say the word “unfortunate”. She quickly looked away and walked off.

One of the boys tapped on the glass of the window with his knuckles and said something that made another boy lick his puffy bottom lip. The third boy pushed his tongue into the side of his cheek repeatedly.

It was unbearable to be on display like this, fastened in place by the women’s gaze. Béatrice grew light-headed, as if she were stretching away from herself. Just then, Polina turned sharply towards the boys behind the window. They stumbled into each other, then scattered. Béatrice’s forearms sprang closed over her breasts and she ran back behind the green curtain.

The older man continued standing there, his mouth open, bobbing to the memory of Béatrice’s breasts.

Béatrice stood alert behind the curtain, her arms still wrapped over her chest.

She heard the women continue talking uneventfully, sometimes one of their heels took a step this way or that, but neither came back to see her.

Good. Stay away.

Her teeth clenched down and sucked in the flesh of her cheeks. A taste accumulated in her throat, bitter as grapefruit, thick as yoghurt. She thought of the shopkeeper’s bare forearms lain apathetically upon the starched pages of the open notebook as she looked Béatrice up and down. She thought of the woman named Polina and her black-magnet face that repelled the eyes from seeing. Those boys behind the window staring at her, those boys and their easy adolescence. Yes, it must be easy , Béatrice thought. And the old man and his open mouth and his breath like a fly’s wings rubbing together. His eyes on Béatrice, assuming a right to her body. The memory rippled through her like nausea.

A set of fingers slid around the curtain’s edge and began to pull. The shopkeeper walked in, past Béatrice as if she were not there, to the table with the sewing machine. She pulled off the woollen shawl and swung it around her shoulders. She paused then, and looked at the metal needle of the sewing machine.

“Well, have you decided about the dress?” she said as if to the needle.

The woman named Polina came into the doorway, the beginnings of a smile playing across her burgundy-painted lips.

Béatrice’s gaze drew upwards over the small valley below her nose where the skin stretched into a smile. Over each wide eye, the dark stroke of an eyebrow. Her hair was much lighter, an almond colour. It fell generously to the left.

Béatrice began hesitantly. “How… much is it?” she asked.

Polina’s eyes glimmered like shards from broken bottles.

“How much is the dress. How much is the dress…” the shopkeeper echoed to herself.

Béatrice waited. Polina relaxed her lips and took a long breath in.

“…You know sometimes people pay more for a dress than…” she finally said.

Béatrice waited. The shopkeeper was already gone and the heavy green curtain was swaying.

“The dress is on me,” Polina said. She walked over to the stacked chair, took it off the boxes and set it on its feet beside Béatrice. “Take a seat.”

Béatrice did not know if she should sit here with this woman. But her spine made contact with the wooden back of the chair and she knew she had accepted.

“You are very rigid, don’t be so rigid.”

“Okay,” Béatrice said.

“You wanted a dress, you got one.”

Béatrice stayed silent.

“Don’t you like the dress?”

“Yes.”

“Good. There’s no reason you shouldn’t. You’ve got a very beautiful body, are you aware of this? Of course you are aware. I won’t make you go through the banality of the beginning of this conversation. Your breasts are especially nice.”

“I know,” Béatrice said like a sullen child.

“Well then. Why are you so unhappy?”

“Who says I’m unhappy,” Béatrice said. Her arms locked across her gut.

“No one. Are you happy?”

“No, I’m not.”

“Good. I value sincerity. I am being sincere with you, I hope you know. Now, if you’re satisfied with your body, why aren’t you happy?”

“I don’t care about my body.”

“Maybe you don’t, but others seem to. Don’t you care about them?”

“If they care about my body I don’t care about them.”

Béatrice was now in sync with Polina. She was ready to strike back. Polina raised her hand towards Béatrice’s face. With the tips of her fingers, Polina dabbed Béatrice’s temple, then slid her fingers up Béatrice’s chignon.

“I don’t care about your body, Béatrice .”

The way Polina said her name pulled Béatrice open like a tin can. Her mind was full of questions that squirmed against each other.

“There are people who leave their bodies and their bodies go on living without them,” Polina said. “These people are named Natasha.”

“Na… ta… sha…” Béatrice repeated unconsciously under her breath. She heard the individual sounds, but could not hear the name they were meant to form.

“ Telo… Nomer… Chiffre…Youpka… ” Polina said very quietly as if counting.

Béatrice’s eyes grew thin, trying to listen.

“ Anja… Sofia… Salomeya…Viktoria… ” Polina continued her count.

César stood motionless in the street where the woman who was at once Rosa and Violeta had left him. A persistent buzz rummaged in his pocket. He pulled out the object and held it in his palm. It was his cell phone, ringing. He read the name of the caller out loud: “Marcel.” His agent was calling.