Shot downed, K. nodded to Zhuzha and ordered her a chocolate cake with a slice of grapefruit on top. She blew a kiss at him in return: “Thank you honey.”
She called everyone that.
K. ordered another vodka.
He should tell her what happened. As he waited for the drink, K. again took out the folded slip of paper and tapped it on the table. Or show her this. She wouldn’t understand, but it would be an excuse for her to say: “Don’t be upset honey. Let me give you a rub.”
K. wasn’t upset, just anxious. It was all going too smoothly. Coincidences are bad omens. When they take us where we need to be, it means we’re not in charge of our fate.
By three o’clock the bar was almost empty. The bored bartender played billiards with tipsy guests for money, the waiters cleared the tables, and half the lights were turned off.
K. was twirling the letter in his hands when Zhuzha reappeared and sat down at his table with a smile. There was a bright bruise just above her wrist.
“Did a cat scratch you?” asked K., taking her hand and examining the injury. “You should have put ice on it.”
The bruise wasn’t there the night before, when she was looking for a chance to give a john.
“It was another guy,” she said irritably. “Drunk. Scum.”
Somebody from the Interior Ministry. He pounced on her right as she entered his room. Slipped the door chain and laid into her. Threw her at the wardrobe, smashed her into the door, threw her onto the bed. Lying on top of her, he choked and hissed: “I’m going to kill you, bitch.”
“He’d been drinking. He had the horrors,” she said. “I’ve seen this before. At least my teeth are intact.” He dragged her by the hair to an open window. It felt like he was going to throw her over the ledge. Her cries and resistance only provoked him. Zhuzha tried to calm him down and pleaded for him to order some coffee. He let her go and called room service. The brainless waiter didn’t pick up on the clues, put down the coffee, took the money and left.
“I hate this place,” she said, crumpling a napkin. “I hate everybody. I just want to live on an island with my cats. Never wake before three. No getting ready, no putting on make-up, no worrying about money. I was the best in my class, in my school even, you know? Ok, see you around honey.”
A man beaten at billiards by the bartender called her over. The nineties were surely returning. K. got up, dropped some cash, and staggered to his room. He would start making it all better from tomorrow.
Chapter 4
The morning was gloomy and cold. K. was startled by the overnight transformation on the square. Not a trace was left of the tents and debris.
A plump woman in a Santa Claus T-shirt in the middle of the square bellowed into a microphone at a gathering of a hundred or so pro-Russian demonstrators: middle-aged women, shabby men, soldiers on crutches, and mothers with prams. The excited crowd screamed, shook fists, and waved tricolours listening to speeches about the “Ukrainian junta,” the fascists and the superpowers bent on destroying them. Patriotic tunes started playing and the crowd joined in, swaying and wiping away forced tears.