It was at this very moment, when the organs of reproduction were on my mind, that those fingers again visited my trousers. The first time the pressure had been so fleeting that it could have been the child. He was right under my nose, a well-dressed lad wearing a little-man soldier’s cap, a fancy thing from a nursery. But this, this was lingering and deliberate. No six-year-old was that interested in what my trousers were made of.
It wasn’t an itch.
Nor was it an insect, all of which have learned to be delicate walkers.
It was fingers.
Fingers at my trousers: an inch closer to my manhood.
My immediate instinct was to look for Cynthia Zipf. She’d said she desired me. The approach would have been in her style.
I looked carefully down at the people within range. But none bore the remotest resemblance to Cyn. And I’d have heard her voice a mile away: she’d never have been able to hold back on her extraordinary brand of Russian.
It had to be one of four: anyone else would have had to make too long an arm. The candidates were the child and his mother, an elderly man with a rheumy nose, and a woman turned away from me, her expression unascertainable.
I ruled out the old fellow. What could he have hoped for from me?
The tram stopped again, at the Public Library. The boy was dragged out by his mother. The old man was now facing me at close range. His eyes were pouched and cloudy. They touched briefly on mine, acknowledged that we were at closer quarters than either of us would have wished, and passed on.
Which left the remaining woman, who had her back to me.
Can anyone think poorly of me if I say I was flattered?
I could see nothing but thick black tendrils drifting out from beneath a blue woollen headscarf. Her coat was made of a decent material and its colour was in good taste—deeper than tan, the brown of early autumn. Her shoulders were slim. I got the idea that with shoulders like that she’d have a narrow, bony face, cosseted eyebrows and an expression that was supercilious.
I saw her shoulder twitch and the next I knew—but there was a problem: my trousers were made of thick winter wool. However, this only increased the work rate of my imagination. I thought of a pastry cook with fat pink arms caressing the dough. I thought, God, what a woman can do with dallying fingers. I eased my loins forward, invitationly...
Then the fingers were gone—not abruptly, but drifting away, sliding down the barrel. She made a slight adjustment to her shoulders—to the outer point of her humerus. She gave a little toss to her blue headscarf and inched backwards. I felt the mound of her right buttock against my leg. Had my arms not been trapped across my chest by the pressure of the other passengers, I could have got a grip on her.
I tried to peer round the blue scarf. I tried to find her reflection in the window, but it was completely fugged up. Was she a whore? Or had she been dispatched by Shansky the jeweller to capture the fortune I was carrying in my boots?
The tram slackened speed. There was a general stirring down the car. It was the stop for Kolomenskaya, the poor area to the west of Nevsky.
She got off without a backward glance. Her shopping bag was in her left hand, which tallied with her movements in the bus. She hefted it into her right hand. It was clearly heavy. So she’d got up early, had been lucky in the shops, had gone to her work and was now returning home. She’d better watch out, especially if it was meat she was carrying. Kolomenskaya was a tough area where everyone was always hungry. I tucked myself in about twenty yards behind her.
She had a quick decisive step. Her plain wide skirt swung with her stride, grazing the top of her black polished ankle boots. Her feet turned slightly outwards as she walked. She had a good carriage: I could have balanced a wine glass on top of that blue scarf.
She never looked back. I expect she learned to distinguish my footsteps. After a while the two of us were the only people on that street.
Then it struck me. These were hard times. So she was the family’s breadwinner, it made absolute sense. I was going to take my pleasure and then be obliged to deal with the husband or her brothers. Maybe she’d cry out in such a way that the listener behind the screen could accurately gauge the tariff of ecstasy. Maybe it was her mother who did the bargaining. Maybe it was yet more sinister—a roomful of cripples or sufferers from some ghastly disease of the poor who’d strip me of every single possession and turf me out naked, perhaps dead and naked.
My next thought: bet she’s as plain as a drainpipe living out here. So far I’d seen only her nose, from both sides, as she turned the corners. She was wearing glasses.
Again I watched the go of her. Sensible and balanced, as any decent woman should be... hang on, Charlie! She was no slut. A librarian, that’s what she was with those glasses. There were plenty of possible reasons why she’d got on at the Nicholas Station and not at the Public Library, where presumably she worked. She’d had enough of books for the day. She wanted some fun. A woman was entitled to think like that.
At no. 12 she stopped. She put the bag between her ankles, took a key from her coat pocket and inserted it into the lock. Her fingers still on the key, she turned and looked straight at me.
The street light was directly above her head. Everything about her was clear.
A little over thirty. A triangular, small-featured face. Clean complexion, in the sense of sleeping well and being free of doubt. General skin colour: milk and vanilla. There was nothing buxom about her, nothing remotely whorish that I could discern. No jewellery, no make-up, no pretensions towards elegance.
Her spectacles had wire frames. She regarded me over the top of them—they’d slipped a little down her nose. For the first time I saw her eyes. They were lovely and large, atropine green, not deadly at all.
So this was she, the librarian who rode the trams and took risks with men.
Chance, it has a sweetness and purity all of its own.
Seventeen
OUR BOOTS were muffled on the stone stair treads. She led the way, two steps in front. I watched the sway of her skirt. Underneath she was wearing woollen stockings. The seams at the heel of her ankle boots were as polished as the rest of them. A meticulous miss, my librarian.
An argument between two men was taking place in the rooms on our left. Above and on the right someone was practising a violin to a woman’s piano accompaniment. “Cock your wrist more, malenkiy. Remember what your teacher said.”
Upwards we went, to the fourth floor. Neither of us spoke.
She had two rooms: a bedroom and a tiny scullery. The latter was painted light green. The bedroom, however, had a warm, good-quality wallpaper—pink bushy objects like huge roses on a cream background. The bed was a small double with a clean white counterpane. Along one wall was a curtain of a floral pattern similar to the wallpaper. Behind it were a squat and a water tap, also her toiletries on a scrubbed wooden shelf under a mirror. In a recess beside the door was a rail for her clothes. At the foot of her bed stood a chest of drawers. On it was a framed photograph of a girl aged about six. Huge eyes, like moons.
She went into the scullery and set her bag down.
“A good cabbage. A turnip—they’re much tastier now that the frosts have started. Bread.” She aligned them on a narrow fold-down table. “Lastly”—the blood on the brown-paper wrapping was still damp. She slapped the parcel down beside the turnip—“horse. My ration card for a fortnight.”
“You were lucky.”
“I know the man.”
“Even so...”
“Do you want to share it with me?”
“Of course.”
“It was killed four days ago. The man told me before I bought it.”
“Four days is fresh in these times.”
Without spectacles, her face was elfin, small-boned and even fragile. But it was shrewd. When people took books from her section she’d make sure they registered them with her, and when they returned them, she’d check that the maps hadn’t been cut out. She’d be diligent, I kne
w it. Russians are always ripping maps out of books. They manufacture travelogue dreams from them.
She said, “I’m famished. Let’s eat first. We both know how things stand between us. You wouldn’t have followed me otherwise.”
There was nothing coquettish about the way she said this, nor in the way she unwrapped the meat and began to trim it.
I said, “How do I help?”
She went into the bedroom and took a metal token from a painted wooden box on the chest of drawers. “Hand this to the porter and he’ll give you a bucket of coals. It has to last me a week. We have to be careful about when we light the fire, when we eat and when we get into bed. I’ve learned how to do all three things in comfort. If I use more than eight coals a night, there’s one night I have to do without. Make sure he doesn’t put too much slack in the bucket.”
We ate on upright wooden chairs on either side of the fire. Hanging over the fireguard was her nightdress—pink with blue piping.
She said, “I’m no beauty, you can see that for yourself.”
“Some women don’t need to be.”
“I was sixteen before I discovered that.”
“How?”
“For exactly one year I’d been working in a corset shop. It was my first job—in fact I’m still there. When Madame Zilberstein’s out, I run it.
“This day Madame was behind the counter. A man came in with his wife. The woman began to discuss her needs with Madame—maybe it was a special corset for an important dinner, something like that. I was in a corner, checking a new delivery of stock against the order ledger. The man waited for a good moment. Then suddenly there he was in front of my table. He leaned over and pretended to help me count out a package of whalebones. He said nothing but his eyes—I knew what he meant even though I was a virgin. It was an instinct I had, plus the fact that I tingled down there. I wasn’t offended. Not maidenly, not at all,”—she flipped her hands sideways, a number of times, rapidly. I steadied her plate for her. “I realised it was what I’d been waiting for. So I returned that look of his. Then Madame asked me to bring over a particular style of corset, one with a dipped waist. But we both knew, he and I.
“He was waiting for me when I finished work. Down the street a little so that Madame wouldn’t notice. He gripped my arm and said, ‘I have to fuck you.’ His voice was absolutely urgent. I said nothing, continued walking. But actually I was longing to hold his cock, with both hands, because I knew that’s how it’d be with him.”
She broke off: took my plate and put them both on the chest of drawers. The fire was drawing well. Sitting down and crossing her legs, she said, “What was curious was the strength of that instinct within me. I only ever talk about it with men. They understand. The women I know would think me cheap.
“Walking at my side, the man (who was not unattractive, let me tell you) said, ‘Your eyes are too soft for disagreement. I know a hotel, five minutes away, that’s all.’ A few yards later, he said, ‘What’ll it cost me—is a good meal enough?’ “
“What did you say?”
“None of your business. What’s your name?”
“Charlie.”
“Well, Charlie, in fifteen minutes this room’ll be as cold as a tomb. Believe me. Come to bed.”
The kettle was mewing on its trivet. She filled a bowl from it and went behind the curtain to undress.
I raised my voice: “Yes, but the meal—did you take him up on it? Did you demand the best menu or did he just give you money and leave?”
“You’re going too fast. What happened was that I loved what he did to me so much that I fainted. My mind just couldn’t deal with all that pleasure. Remember, it was my first time. I had absolutely no idea what was possible.”
“You actually fainted?”
“Yes. After only a few strokes.”
“How long were you out for?”
“I don’t know. I came round when he bit me in the neck. Of course he was extremely proud of himself. If you really want to know, he gave me dinner and a good present as well. Afterwards he wanted to see if he could make me faint a second time.”
“Did you?”
“No, but he said that he very nearly did. As it happened, though, we never met again. It’s the nature of these relationships.”
“Did you think you were in love?”
“Not for a moment. I’ve never known what it’s like to be in love and I expect I never will. I think it’s an excuse people make to delude themselves that they’re happy . . . Are you getting undressed too? I don’t hear anything. If you’re one of those men who just want to talk, you can get out.”
I took off my boots and stood them where I could see them from the bed. I checked the door was locked. It was extraordinary, the whole incident, everything being handed to me on a plate like this. I reckoned I could quickly pick up the smell of a dangerous woman. But here there was nothing—except for the sudden aroma of vinegar as she prepared herself.
She said, “I’m assuming you don’t have any contraceptives. Anyway, they’re clumsy and expensive... How far have you got?” A white arm appeared and threw me a white towel. “That’s for your feet. At a minimum.”
It was warm in the room, warm and cosy among the flickering candles. Even with that small amount of coal, the fire was throwing off good heat. Outside, the street was quiet. Directly above us, someone else was also preparing for bed.
She called out, “I want you completely naked. Don’t think you’re just going to undo your buttons and fuck me against the wall as if I were a station whore. I know what I like. I like the weight of a man on top of me. His skin, his hair, his strength—his bruteness. It’s the differences I want. That’s what gives me pleasure.”
“Any rules?”
“No Frenchmen. Once was enough. A pervert of the worst type.”
“What about doing it alone?”
“I’ve told you, I’m after the differences. With a man I feel warm and confident for days after. When I look at the Neva I know I could swim it easily. If there was a mountain in the city I’d be able to run up it like a fly going up a window. With a man I feel good. Alone—nothing.”
Her fingertips appeared in the gap above the curtain rail. What was she up to now?
“Are you sure you’re not just a talker? I didn’t think so when you came out of the station. Virile, that’s how you looked, a proper man. If I was wrong, you should have said so before I gave you that bit of meat. I can’t afford to waste anything.”
A stopper came out of a bottle and again the tang of vinegar flooded the room. Was she trying to pickle it?
Suddenly it infuriated me that this horny little thing should be calling all the shots, hectoring and lecturing me. I peeled off my coat in a rush and ripped that footling curtain aside—sent it zinging down the rail.
“At last! Quickly, grab me. I’m getting cold. I don’t know how they ever get babies in Siberia.”
Her underarms were black as Tartary and her underbrush— tarantulas could have lived in it and never been glimpsed, or goatherds playing pan pipes as they wandered around. I thought, Christ, what must it be like in spring when everything’s warming up and it’s growing like fury? As she turned to dive into bed I grabbed her rump. She held still. With my other hand I unbuttoned myself. My cock bounced out—stood up, looked around.
“I know what’s going on back there,” she said, and whipping round she led me by my tether to a low footstool which she mounted to make easier between us what nature had made awkward by the difference in our heights. With one arm tight around my neck she slid her neat belly down mine till she had me nudging her groove.
Watching her eyes change colour, I prised apart the folding gates and entered my full length. We shuffled around. I kicked away the footstool so that her thick calves were against the side of the bed.
“Shamans,” she said, “that’s how they do it. They hire out for people in Siberia who want to make babies.”
“With mushrooms from the forest, spec
ial ones that get a man going in really low temperatures... You know, you’ll come off worse if we fall like this, with you underneath.”
“It’s quickest.”
“Slow is best,” I retorted.
We uncoupled—hurled ourselves into the icy bed where I made love to her thoroughly and she to me, all the while amid the reassuring scent of brown vinegar. When we’d finished we lay back, well pleased with each other. I said, “But you can’t have my heart.”
Eighteen
HER NAME was Xenia. As it got light she lit a tallow candle. It smoked and smelt of mutton fat. She looked lovely lying there, her small pale face sunk deep into the pillow and the light trembling on her cheekbones.
Her first words were, “What did you mean, about your heart?”
So I told her. Confessions, every man has a store of them.
She heard me out. Occasionally she gasped or cried out in revulsion but generally she kept silent. She had good sense—a shopgirl with a steady eye on the columns that record the debits and credits in a life. That’s what a man needs for confession. Someone who wants to set up a debate or a competition soon causes the flow of guilt to dry up. It’s a good quiet woman who does the trick.
I spoke of my adventurous father from Scotland, of the impossible wealth of the Rykovs, of my peregrinations as a naturalist, of my discovery of the beetle that carries my name—of how Nicholas and Misha were butchered by Glebov and his rabble.
Abruptly she averted her face. I’d painted the scene too strongly. It was the sheer meaninglessness of the violence that upset her.
And thus we reached Elizaveta.
I went at it slowly and in a roundabout way. I made Lizochka less attractive. I had us only engaged, not married. I smoothed and flattened the story. But try as I might I was unable to avoid the crisis. In fact, my own voice cracked as that whole snow-filled scene came back to me—the stable floor, the frosty sun snooping at the skylight, the woman, my wife, lying naked beneath the horse blanket.
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