“Ask him how much you can win.”
“
“A million marks! Or several million! You can be a millionaire!”
Zara was about to say that there was a lotto in Russia, too-plenty of lotteries-but then she realized that to Pasha that wasn’t the same thing at all. He might win at the casino, and he made a lot of money off the girls-a lot more than an ordinary person could win in a lottery-but all of that was work, and Pasha complained about it all the time, constantly complained about how much work he had to do. In Finland anyone at all could become a millionaire; anyone could win a million without doing any work or inheriting it or anything. You couldn’t win a million marks in the Russian lotteries. Not just anyone could become a millionaire in Russia. You couldn’t even get into the casino if you didn’t have money or connections. Anyone who didn’t wouldn’t dare to try and get in. In Finland you could just lie around on the sofa in front of the television on a Saturday night and wait for the right number to come on the screen, and a million dollars would just fall into your lap.
“Think about it-even a chick like you could win a million!” Pasha laughed.
The idea was so amusing that Zara started laughing, too. They busted their sides laughing.
1991
The customer had a spiked ring around his dick and something else, too. Zara couldn’t remember what it was. She just remembered that they tied one dildo on Katia and another one on her, and she was supposed to fuck Katia at the same time that Katia fucked her, and then Katia was supposed to hold Zara’s pussy open, and then the man started to push his cock in, and Zara didn’t remember anything after that.
In the morning she couldn’t sit up or walk; she just lay in her bunk smoking Prince cigarettes. She didn’t see Katia, but she couldn’t have asked Katia anything; it would have made Pasha angry. She could hear Lavrenti on the other side of the door telling Pasha that Zara was only going to do blow jobs today. Pasha disagreed. Then the door opened and Pasha came into her room and ordered her to take off her skirt and spread her legs. “Does that look like a healthy pussy to you?”
“What a damn mess. Tell Nina to come in here and give her some stitches.”
Nina came, stitched her up, gave her some pills, and left, taking her pearlescent pink lipstick smile with her. Lavrenti and Pasha sat in their spot on the other side of the door, and Lavrenti talked about sending flowers to his wife, Verochka. Their anniversary was coming up-twenty years-and they were going to Helsinki.
“Invite Verochka to come to Tallinn, too,” Pasha said. “We’re going to be there, anyway.”
Tallinn? Zara pressed her ear against the crack of the door. Did Pasha say they were going to Tallinn? When? Maybe she just thought she heard him say that. Maybe she misunderstood. No-that’s not the kind of thing a person misunderstands. They were talking about Tallinn, saying that both of them were going there, and they must be going soon, because they were talking about Lavrenti’s anniversary and a present for Verochka, and his anniversary wasn’t far off.
The lighted sign on the building across the street blossomed like wood sorrel, her cigarette lit up like a lantern, and everything was crystal clear. Zara felt her bra for the photograph in its hidden pocket.
When Lavrenti was alone for once, sitting outside the door, Zara knocked and called him by name. Lavrenti opened the door and stood on the threshold with his legs spread wide, a knife in one hand and a piece of wood in the other. “What do you want?”
“Lavruusha.”
People are more agreeable if you use their first name, so Zara used his, and she used the affectionate form for good measure.
“Lavruusha
“I speak Estonian.”
Lavrenti didn’t say anything.
“Estonian’s a little like Finnish. And there will be a lot of Finnish customers there. And since Estonian is a bit like Finnish, I could handle the Estonian customers and the Russians and Germans, like I do here, plus the Finns.”
Lavrenti didn’t say anything.
“Lavruusha, the girls told me that tons of Finns go there. And there was a Finnish man that was here who said that the girls were better in Tallinn, and he preferred to go there. I spoke Estonian to him and he understood me.”
The old man had actually spoken a mixture of Finnish, German, and English, but Lavrenti couldn’t know that. He had stood by the window in nothing but his socks and a cocky attitude and said, “Girls in Tallinna are very hot. Natasha, girls in Tallinna. Girls in Russia are also very hot. But girls in Tallinna, Natashas in Tallinna. You should be in Tallinna. You are hot, too. Finnish men like hot Natashas in Tallinna. Come to Tallinna, Natasha.”
Lavrenti left without saying anything.
A few days later the door flew open. Pasha kicked Zara in the side.
“Come on, let’s go.”
Zara was curled up in a corner of the bed. Pasha pulled her by her leg onto the floor.
“Get dressed.”
Zara got up and started dressing quickly-she had to be quick, had to be quick when she was told to do something. Pasha left the room, yelled something, a girl shrieked, Zara didn’t recognize the voice, she heard Pasha strike her, the girl shrieked louder, Pasha struck her again, and she got quiet. Zara put on an extra blouse, felt to make sure the photo was still in her bra, shoved a scarf and a skirt in her coat pocket and filled her breast pocket with cigarettes, poppers, and painkillers-they didn’t always give them to her, even when she needed them. She put her makeup in another pocket and some sugar cubes in a third, because they didn’t always remember to give her food, either. And she brought her Pioneer badge. She had carried it with her in Vladikki because she was so proud to get it, and it had traveled with her through all the nights and all the customers. Pasha had seen her with it once, grabbed it from her, laughed and tossed it back.
“I guess you can keep it.”
Then he laughed some more.
“But first you have to thank me.”
Zara undressed and thanked him.
Pasha had left the door open. The new girls were huddled like cattle as Lavrenti prodded them into the yard. A truck was waiting there. There was a sob among the herd. The wind was strong, even in the courtyard-it whistled along Zara’s body, a delightful wind, and she breathed in the wind and the exhaust. She hadn’t been outside since she was first brought here.
Lavrenti waved to her and told her to get in the Ford that sat waiting behind the truck.
“We’re going to Tallinn.”
Zara smiled at him and jumped in the car. She caught a glimpse of the expression on Lavrenti’s face. He was surprised. Zara had never smiled at him before.
This time she was allowed to go without handcuffs. They knew she wasn’t going to go anywhere.
There were lines at every border crossing. Pasha would run his eye over them, disgusted, get out to smooth out the situation, then come back to the car where Lavrenti and Zara were waiting and step on the gas, and the car would brush past the line and over the border and they’d be on their way. Through Warsaw and Kuznica to Grodno and Vilnius and Daugavpils, always at top speed. Zara sat with her nose against the window. Estonia was getting closer; there were pine trees everywhere, dairies, factories, telephone poles and bus stops, fields, and apple orchards with cows grazing in them. They made little stops sometimes, and Lavrenti would remember to get food for Zara from some little stand. They drove from Daugavpils to Sigulda. They had to stop in Sigulda because Lavrenti wanted to send a postcard and take a picture to send to Verochka. Her girlfriends had been there years
