Twisted
Page 19
In any case, I really meant what I said; Natalia was good, and would do right in almost any situation. She even handled my troubling situation with imprisonment and upcoming deportation in the smartest way possible. Before getting me out of jail, she called one of her friends she’d known since working in the shipping company. He was an immigration lawyer and had a few connections in the Aliens Department. He made sure that the papers I’d signed before they jailed me, which stated that I agreed that I’d broken immigration law and would leave the country with a deportation mark in my passport, were dismissed, on account of me being a foreigner and their not supplying a translator to make sure I understood what I was signing. The magic touch of his acquaintances also resulted in the police agreeing to free me after Natalia had signed some other papers, showing them our booked return flight tickets to Ukraine.
I understood that hers was not easy decision, but I was sure she would make the right one … and she did. After a few more days of tearing herself to pieces, with the words, ‘I am not going to become a struggling-all-my-life single mom. I will have a child when I am ready emotionally and financially to afford it’, she went to a local clinic and had an abortion. The procedure was successful and a few days later she was back in the salon, working her ass off, trying to bury the unpleasant memories of her mistake as deeply as she could.
The business was going well and we were making enough money to keep our family financially stable – and, what’s more important, together. The girls even managed to buy a car when they came back from France – an old silver Opel Vectra with an automatic transmission. Both Lena and Natalia had been to driving school a few years ago, but were still too nervous to sit behind the wheel, so most of the time the car remained parked under our apartment building, getting covered with dust. It was a useless purchase, although it made them both feel so much more significant and successful.
Frankly speaking, I have a green-eyed monster that keeps reminding me that I’d also made a fair amount of money in the past year, and that I could also have had a car or some kind of business of my own. But I try to toss it away, reminding myself to be grateful for being alive, and filling my thoughts with admiration for my sisters instead.
* * *
For the last few days, the salon has been overcrowded. It is the end of December and New Year’s Eve is two days away. It is eight in the evening. Lena has just finished her last client for today. Instead of going home to relax, she decides to change her hair colour.
‘No! Don’t even think about it!’ I hear Natalia’s irritated voice.
Here we are; another family drama is about to happen. Maybe I should wrap it up for today and slip away before these two crazies put me in the middle of it …
‘What is your problem? It is my hair and I want to go black!’
I hear the volume picking up drastically between the two.
‘Lena, you will regret it. It’s no way to treat your depression! Go and shop for new boots or hook up with some guy but leave your beautiful golden hair alone!’
‘Jul?’ Lena is calling me to help her to deal with Natalia.
Crap! Too late to slip away!
As I walk into the room where my sisters are just getting started, Natalia’s cellphone starts to ring.
She picks it up and Lena and I fall silent, letting Natalia speak in peace.
‘Hello? Yes. Irina? Hi! Haven’t heard from you for such a long time! How are you? Where are you now?’
While she is busy on the phone Lena grabs my hand and pulls me to the little storage area where we keep all the hair and nail products. She pulls out the box that says ‘blue-black’ and silently lifts her eyebrows, asking me what I think about her choice.
While I am trying to pick the right words so as not to upset her, Natalia walks in.
‘That was Irina …’ She pauses, looks at the box in Lena’s hand, frowns, but says nothing about it. ‘She is in Cape Town … in South Africa. She got married there and quit working.’
‘Oh, good for her!’ I exclaim with a grin. ‘Where is South Africa?’
‘Anyway,’ Natalia interrupts, ‘now she works as an impresario and is looking for girls to bring there. She says the money is good, and the work is clean. She swears that the strip club is for real …’
Unfuckingbelievable! She is actually considering it! She was the one who was all, ‘Never again!’ and ‘Look what happened to Jul!’ and ‘It’s so nice to be home together’ … and now there is this sparkle in her eyes! She is actually considering going to this who-the-hell-knows-where-it-is country! No way! Over my dead body …
Notes
Chapter 5
1Natural currency of Ukraine since 2 September 1996
Chapter 9
2Leap in acrobatics – double back somersault with double full twists.
Chapter 10
3French, ‘Tak-tak … there … impossible’
4French, ‘After … change … tak-tak’
5French, ‘Oh, my love!’
6French, ‘No! Very hot! Very hot! Change!’
7French, ‘Jealous! Very jealous. Love! Change! Change!’
Chapter 11
8Russian, ‘Jerks!’
Chapter 16
9French ‘I love you’
10French, ‘magnificent’
Chapter 17
11Russian, ‘And as they say in Odessa, they are two huge differences.’
Chapter 21
12Poppers: a slang term for alkyl nitrites that are often inhaled to enhance sexual pleasure
Chapter 29
13Russian, ‘Toilet’
14Russian, short for ‘cents’
15Russian, ‘Thanks’
Chapter 33
16A contraceptive sponge that women often use during menstruation to stop the bleeding during intercourse.
17Turkish, ‘Cheers’
18Yoga position also known as the Shoulder Stand
19One of the supermarket chains in Turkey.
Chapter 36
20Italian, music term: allegretto, meaning a moderately fast tempo; furioso, meaning an angry and furious way of playing.
21Turkish, ‘My love!’
Chapter 42
22Karl Marx, The Critique of the Gotha Program
Chapter 54
23Turkish, ‘whore’