Charlotte had been taught to submit gracefully. But the resentment that lay just beneath the surface made each and every act of submission, no matter how trivial, feel like rape. So when they’d arrived back at the loft, Pavel had sensed her reluctance. Unlike other men, he hadn’t rushed her. He’d sat, sipping a cognac, patiently waiting for her to come to him.
“Would you tell me another fairytale, Pavel?” she asked, moving closer to him on the couch and stretching out her legs. “About your dacha.”
“Ahh! My beloved dacha!” he replied. “I hope you are not another one of those Americans who always think of that ridiculous Egyptian in Dr. Zhivago? What was his name?”
“Sharif. Omar Sharif,” Charlotte said.
“Right. I will tell you about my banya that I built with my own hands,” he said, briefly touching her hair. “But first you must relax. Close your eyes, Charlotte.”
She obeyed.
“In the big house, I did nothing but pay people to spend my money. It has a swimming pool and fancy Finnish sauna. This is for business. But the banya, this small wooden cabin, is only for me and my closest friends.”
Pavel’s voice was so deep, so mellifluous, she felt as if she were being carried away. As his hands slowly massaged her neck, she purred.
“Good! You are getting relaxed, Charlotte. The banya is made of cedarwood. Inside, I have made a simple room for drinking vodka and hot tea with jam. There are pegs nailed into the wall for hanging my robes and towels. They are all white and soft. From Sweden. You cannot imagine what luxury these towels are for me, Charlotte. You are asleep?” he asked, gently pinching her arm.
“No, just dreaming, Pavel. Tell me more,” Charlotte said.
“When I sit in my sauna, I like it very, very hot. So I dip a big wooden spoon into a bucket filled with water from my river.”
Charlotte smiled. “Your river, Pavel?”
“That is correct. Before it was the people’s river. But now it is on my property. So it is my river,” Pavel replied. “I throw this water on hot rocks. You can hear the hiss, the sizzle of heat. I slap my back with a broom of birch twigs. It stings. The soap and the slap of leaves. But it feels good. Then I climb wooden steps and soak in a deep wooden tub with cool river water.”
Pavel’s hands had now slipped discreetly beneath her shirt. He was gently kneading the muscles in the small of her back. How did he know exactly where she ached? Charlotte sighed.
“Are you still here, Charlotte?” he asked.
“I’m melting.”
“After the banya, I go out and plunge into my river. I put my head under this ice-cold still clean rushing river. I hold onto a rusty old ring on the dock because the river flow is so strong. The river is also full of weeds. Weeds that can strangle people who are drunk.”
Pavel gently squeezed the flesh above her buttocks. She was so relaxed, he could have strangled her right then and she wouldn’t have even bothered to struggle.
“I come up from the river, naked. I am dripping wet and reborn. Clean and pure like a baby after baptism. This is how we Russian men get clean after another day of hurting or cheating other people. People who are sometimes friends. We must do this or we drown ourselves.”
Languid with the heat from the fireplace and the strength of his stroking hands, Charlotte touched his face.
“I will tell you one more thing about the banya. And then we will move onto other things. It is in the banya where a Russian man is almost vulnerable. We do not even have a word for vulnerable in our language, Charlotte. But with the steam and the heat and the sweat, secrets are revealed, souls are swindled, lies are uncovered.”
Pavel sighed. “There are millions who have returned to the church in Russia. They have bumps on their foreheads from kissing the cold stone and praying. But me? I will always return to my banya.”
During his story, Pavel’s hands had navigated their way, slowly, so slowly, through her layers of clothing, moving in a series of slow-motion fits and starts.
“Please, hurry,” Charlotte finally said, arms over her head and legs sprawled open on the couch. “I want you to hurry.”
“There is no hurry,” he said, fingers fluttering like a moth’s wings over the hollow space between her shoulder blades. “Just breathe, Charlotte. Breathe.”
She closed her eyes and obeyed.
With other men, Charlotte had also always insisted on keeping some piece of clothing on, even if it was only a lacy French bra. It comforted her, somehow. It made her feel less exposed. But Pavel had understood her need for darkness and her fear of being naked. By the time they had gone into her bedroom and he had brought her to a second climax, it was she who had snapped the light on.
“I want to see you,” she’d said. “I want to see where you like to be touched.” And he’d shown her.
Before Pavel had drifted off to sleep, Charlotte ran her hands over her own body, amazed at the smoothness of the curves, at the sensitivity of areas like the nape of her neck and the inside of her calves.
As he began to snore, her eyes traveled over his taut muscles; his knotted arms and long, delicate fingers. Even his toenails were buffed. When he abruptly shifted position, stretching out his arms, she wriggled away. It was then that she saw the tattoo. It was the silhouette of a sailing ship, hidden in the crook of his left arm. Her heart leapt as he turned over and she closed her eyes, pretending to be asleep.
She woke up at three in the morning, her pulse racing. It was the usual nightmare with her mother chasing her. Snapping the switch off on her bedside lamp, she sat up in the dark and saw herself as a small child, shrieking and clutching something tightly in her fists; something that was all over the sheets and pillowcases of her bed. But what was it? Not blood. Charlotte was sure of that.
Pavel’s kiss startled her so badly she nearly screamed.
“What is it, Charlotte. What’s happened?”
“Nothing. It’s nothing.”
“Please, Charlotte. Allow me to comfort you.”
She stiffened and pulled away.
“Or if not comfort you then listen, Charlotte. I am a very good listener.”
And to her surprise, she told him the truth. “It was a dream about this thing that happened to me when I was a kid,” Charlotte replied, pulling the sheet around her body, hugging herself. Charlotte was so stupefied at the intensity of the memory that her teeth were chattering.
With his eyes shut, Pavel’s fingers traced the outline of his tattoo, following the shape of its billowing sails, caressing the waves that lapped up against the ship’s prow. As if by touching it, Charlotte thought, he might find himself transported elsewhere. Even his voice sounded as if it were coming from far away.
“Do you know what is the hardest thing for humans to forgive, Charlotte?” he asked.
“Hurting children,” she instantly replied, seeing that image of herself in bed as a child.
“Perhaps. But I think it is forgiveness itself.”
Charlotte just shook her head.
“You think it doesn’t make sense? But if you forgive even the closest friend one too many times, the friend will become an enemy. It has happened to me. Because to accept forgiveness, you must first accept that you are loved. Do you see?”
“Not really,” Charlotte answered, pulling the sheet so tightly around her body, she could hardly move.
“Ambulance drivers in Italy used to wear black hoods. So that the people they saved would not feel they owed them a debt of gratitude. It works the same way for people who are forgiven. There is a debt that grows and grows. Only if you are very lucky does the other person not feel resentment. It may be guilt. It may be the burden of debt. But in the end, it all becomes too much to bear.”
When Pavel closed his arm, the tattoo of the ship disappeared, almost as if it had caught a gust of wind and sailed away. “Enough of my mysterious philosophy, Charlotte,” he said. “Why have you not asked about my tattoo?”
“I didn’t want to pry,” she answ
ered.
“The ship is a symbol of my love of freedom,” Pavel said, quietly. “And my regret at its loss. Simple, no?” he added with a smile.
“Not so simple at all, Pavel.” Charlotte replied, afraid to look into his eyes. “But I don’t want to think about any of this right now. Help me forget.” And Pavel did.
36
Like the steel rivets on a ship’s waterproof door that pop, one by one, as the pressure builds, Charlotte felt her head begin to pound as her stomach muscles cramped. It was six on Wednesday morning and she was in her bath. The small television in the armoire where she kept her towels was on with the sound muted. Lulled by the heat, she’d caught only the tail end of the banner running across the bottom of the screen. Witness to the murder of Amy Webb …
As she grabbed a towel and climbed out of the tub, she nearly lost her balance. Reaching for the remote control, she turned up the volume and paced, as restless as a cat, waiting for the commercials to end. The anchorwoman on Channel 1 fiddled with her earpiece and gazed into the camera.
“Last night, police report they received a call at 1-800-577-TIPS from a woman who claims to have seen someone leaving the East Side residence of Amy Webb on the Friday afternoon she was murdered. Apparently, the woman, a housekeeper from Croatia, did not come forward until now as she was frightened of being deported. She spoke to authorities through an interpreter. We’ll have more news on this story as it develops.”
Willing herself to remain calm, Charlotte retraced her movements on that afternoon. It had been pouring rain. She distinctly remembered that. And it was nearly dark. Her head was hidden in the hood of her parka. What could the woman have possibly seen that would endanger her? Hearing a hesitant knock on the bathroom door, Charlotte picked up her bottle of Caleche, paused, and placed a few dabs on her pulse points. Looking hard in the mirror, she practiced her most radiant smile, and put on a bathrobe. At times like this, façade was all she had to hold onto. “I’m coming, Pavel,” she shouted. “I’m coming.”
As he leaned down to give her a kiss on the mouth, she felt just the tiniest prickle of regret. She’d opened herself up to this man and—related or not—now her life was unraveling. Her carefully constructed world was falling apart. And Pavel already seemed to have one foot out the door. Chatting away in Russian on his cell phone while picking up his coat, he did little more than exchange pleasantries before promising to call and set up a week for her visit to Moscow.
After his cursory kiss good-bye, Charlotte sat slumped in a chair at her kitchen table, sipping her coffee. She thought of Max and his depth charge metaphor; of how she’d lived for so many years without ever thinking of her childhood, as if it had simply ceased to exist once it was over. Suddenly, she was besieged by memories that were almost cinematic in their detail.
She remembered her twelfth birthday party. For once, her mother had seemed almost eager to share in the planning. She had suggested a costume theme. After the class trip to the Egyptian wing at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, Charlotte came up with the idea of ancient Egypt. She would go as Cleopatra. The day of the party, Charlotte went off to school, ecstatic and anxious.
When Charlotte got home, she’d walked through the door with her eyes closed. She’d imagined the hall transformed into a pharaoh’s tomb with golden caskets and hieroglyphics on the walls. But there was nothing. The hallway was empty. “Mom! Mom!” she had yelled out, racing from room to room.
“Where are you?”
Her mother appeared from her bedroom with an open book in her hand. “Slow down, Charlotte,” she’d said, annoyed. “Whatever is the matter?”
“It’s my birthday, Mom. All my friends are coming over for my party. And I don’t see any decorations.”
Her mother had just made a clucking sound with her tongue. “Surely not, Charlotte. The caterers are coming next Wednesday, not today.”
Forty girls had rung the bell that afternoon while Charlotte hid in her room. No one at school spoke to her for a week. They tittered when they raced past her in the hallways. This was when Charlotte had her first stomachache. She lay in the nurse’s room for hours, holding her belly, moaning.
Thinking about it now, she tried to imagine Vicky pulling a similarly cruel trick on her daughter. Vicky who had shelled out half a million dollars for a “Jewels and Jeans” birthday party for her thirteen-year-old. All thirty girls got goody bags with fourteen-karat gold name necklaces from Jacob the Jeweler and a full day of spa treatments at Rapture.
Vicky’s daughter had worn a pair of Swarovski crystal-studded Diesels and a $400,000 ruby and diamond tiara from Fred Leighton. Although the tiara had been borrowed, there was something about the party that seemed scarier to Charlotte than the prom scene in the movie Carrie.
“What if she doesn’t have a good time?” Vicky had wailed when they got together for lunch at Nello’s. “What if her friends are bored?”
“Vicky, you’ve hired the rap singer Nas for Christ’s sake. You’re giving them $500 necklaces, a dinner catered by Art of Eating, and a day at a spa. What are you worried about?”
“I just want her to love me, that’s all,” she’d replied, fumbling with her napkin.
Right, Charlotte had thought, of course. There was nothing wrong with wanting to be loved. But why did parents assume they had to seduce their children, to woo them like lovers? It was like Darryl, the fashion designer, with her plans to create a dojo for her nine-year-old ninja. Charlotte also remembered a recent call from Deena, the client she had seen at Pure who farted and ran away with her daughter’s personal trainer. For some reason, Deena assumed that Charlotte actually missed hearing her old client’s voice.
“Charlotte. I need your advice so badly! You’ve got to help me,” she’d pleaded.
“Certainly, Deena, anything.” Charlotte had replied, trying to imagine where in hell she’d find time to solve some new decorating disaster.
“It’s my nineteen-year-old girl, Kyle. You remember her, right? The light of my life?”
“Sure,” Charlotte said, dimly remembering the surly, overweight fourteen-year-old who’d snubbed her for months, treating her as if she were invisible.
“She’s a sophomore at Wellesley. We’re so proud of her. It’s one of the finest all-girls colleges in the country, Charlotte.”
“So what’s the problem, Deena?” Charlotte asked, fixated on a guy texting on a cell phone while his tongue moved in and around a girl’s mouth. Great multitasking, Charlotte thought to herself.
“Sorry, what did you say?” she asked.
“I said, my daughter wants a gender reassignment, Charlotte. She says if we won’t pay for it, she’ll go to Thailand.”
“A what? Charlotte squeaked. “Forgive me, Deena. But I have no idea what you’re talking about.
“A sex change,” Deena whispered. “It’s called gender reassignment now.”
“Holy shit!” The expletive flew out of Charlotte’s mouth before she realized it. “Did you tell her that this reassignment isn’t exactly like switching from science to French or turning in a hatchback for a sedan at Avis? It’s permanent, for god’s sake.”
“I’m beside myself, that’s all I can say. I figured the college would put an end to it. It’s all girls, Charlotte. If she turns into a boy, she’d have to transfer.”
“That seems like the least of your problems, Deena. Have you tried saying no?”
“Yes. And I got nowhere. And now the damn college is changing their rules. In her favor, Charlotte. They’re saying if you come in as a girl and change your mind, or grow a penis or whatever, they’ll graduate you as a boy.”
“Deena, I don’t know what to say. Except to tell her the answer is ‘no’ again. Tell her you’re perfectly willing to pay the $53,000 tuition. But you have to draw the line somewhere …”
This was the dilemma, wasn’t it? thought Charlotte.
Parents didn’t know how to say “no” anymore. They didn’t dare. Only children did.
Ch
arlotte believed that children often longed to hear the word. There was safety and certainty in the word “no.” It implied that there were rules; that there was someone to rely on who was wiser, older, smarter. And what about sending tweenies off on private jets for shop-til-you-drop tours of Paris, then shipping them off to a $70,000 “tough love” wilderness camp in Utah? Vicky had “shared” her latest plans for her daughter before leaving for Botswana. How tough could love be at seventy grand?
Was it all the fat from their asses being injected into their faces that had turned parenting upside down—that had made rich, educated grown-ups so intimidated by their children that Charlotte had seen mothers down on their knees on the street, begging and bribing kids to stop screaming? Is this what had turned so many toddlers and teenagers into tyrants? Is this why daughters dreamt of being as thin as famine victims or becoming boys, while sons annihilated themselves with drugs and booze?
Making a desultory effort to clean up her kitchen after her solitary breakfast, Charlotte thought, once again, of her own mother; of how many ugly betrayals and humiliations there had been. Wandering off towards her bedroom, she stepped into her closet and reached for a wide, pinstripe Comme des Garcons cotton shirt, a pair of orange silk Turkish pants, and a Beene scarf.
Charlotte knew that she had to stop the thinking, the thawing. She had to work. Pavel had opened up an account in her name at Commerce Bank to cover the decorating expenses. “I trust you,” he’d said, holding her hands in his before giving her the checkbook. The opening balance was small, only $200,000. The rest would be wired from an account in Cyprus. Charlotte had been tempted to “borrow” $8,000 to pay off her Amex debts from this account. She’d cover it with mark-ups. But she resisted.
Pavel had paid Max for the cassa panca himself. But Charlotte had covered thousands of dollars more from her own account: fabrics at the D&D, the Murano lamp, and the restored commode that she’d bought from the new dealer downtown. Then there was the $40,000 for curtain hardware: the custom-made poles, finials, brackets, and rings. She’d spend a couple of hours tallying up her totals and then, maybe, head out to East Hampton.
The Craigslist Murders Page 14
