could hardly wait for the appointed hour, and when it finally arrived, she walked out to the meeting place by the hotel – with a spring in her step, a shawl over her shoulders and a jingling coin necklace around her neck. After half an hour, her elated, mischievous mood was replaced by bewilderment, then vexation – her lover did not show up. It occurred to her that it could be a misunderstanding – that Oleg could be waiting for her on the road – and she ran down to the spot where they had previously got off the taxi. Oleg was not there. Another couple were kissing under a plate-tree. At the sight of Nina they laughed and, holding hands, glided down the gravel path to the sea. Nina waited for another quarter of an hour, and then dragged herself back to the hotel.
All her recent grievances assailed her again. “What’s wrong with me? Why am I being dumped? What am I – the worst woman ever?” she thought with tears in her eyes, ripping to pieces the innocent shawl.
She fell asleep towards morning and got up all jaded the next day. She did not feel like doing anything. It was the last day of her vacation – she was flying home the next afternoon. That gave her an occupation – she had to pack up, which could keep her busy all day, if necessary.
After dinner, she said to herself: “Like hell, I still have a night.” She put on her shortest skirt, a blouse that ended above the navel, and her posh coin necklace. Armored in that way, she went out on the prowl.
At the hotel, those who were seeking company for a night had a choice between hitting one of the hotel’s six bars and doing the promenade. Nina did not like the idea of sitting alone in a dingy, smoky bar room amid noisy, drunken compatriots, so she took the other option.
The promenade was a paved walking strip used in the daytime by married couples with children, and in the evening, by loners, men and women, in search of a bit of private good luck.
That was disgusting and humiliating – to pace to and fro pretending to be a lover of walks and waiting to be approached by some representative of the male species. Other women who loved walks just as much were cruising around casting unfriendly glances at each other. It was unbearable for Nina to be one of them, and it was only her angry determination that made her walk the whole promenade back and forth three times.
She was about to give up when a guy spoke to her. Shortish, dark-complexioned and fussy, he did not impress her at all, but she did not have any other choice. The guy called himself Zhora. Judging by his accent, he was from somewhere in the South – possibly, Rostov or Ukraine.
They did some chit-chatting, without much enthusiasm. Zhora livened up when Nina mentioned that she was leaving the next day. “That calls for a celebration, I swear!” he insisted joyously. He said that he could not invite her to his room as he was sharing it with another man, so it appeared that Nina had to invite him to hers. She did not like the idea – she no longer was in a mood for anything – but, being Nina, she had to carry through what she had begun.
On the way, Zhora picked up a bottle of the cheapest wine from the bar. In her room, they poured the wine into thick hotel glasses and drank it. There was nothing to talk about, and Nina wanted to be through with it as soon as possible. “I’m going to take a shower. I’ll be right back. You lie down,” she said without any ceremony, not wondering at herself any more.
When, wrapped up in a towel, she came out of the shower, the representative of the male species by the name of Zhora was already in her bed. Her instinct spoke loudly telling her that she should not lie with that Zhora, but from some evil obstinacy, she did.
Her instinct was right, it was no good. Zhora gave her no joy whatever. It was nothing like her recent love-making with Oleg – no stars, no sea-wash, and no gripping sensations in her body. Nothing. Besides, she soon felt sleepy and flaked out without even making it to the end of Zhora’s fidgety performance.
Her awakening was a nasty one. She had a headache, but worse still, she had a feeling that she had made some serious error for which she was going to pay. She received evidence of that at once – her bag was wide open, her things scattered about and her purse turned inside out. She had been robbed. The shortish Zhora from the South was a hotel thief who was in the business of robbing lonely dames that looked for adventure. He had drugged her wine and cleaned her out while she was knocked out. He took into account that she was leaving and so had no time to search for him and make a row. Nina buried her face in her hands and groaned from humiliation and shame. However, she had only about an hour left before the departure time, so the groaning had to be cut short. Thank heaven, Zhora had not taken either her passport or air ticket – he obviously wanted her to leave. He had even left her twenty dollars – enough to pay the bus fare to the airport.
On the plane, Nina was still stunned, unable to come to herself. All that had happened was so not like her, not her life. “Some vacation, to be sure. A real distraction,” she thought and suddenly remembered the stupid coin necklace. The greedy Zhora had snatched it, too. Somehow, the thought of it seemed so absurd to her that she burst out laughing hysterically causing the passengers to cast surprised looks at her and giving serious concern to the air hostess.
On arrival, she went out to work at once, trying to obliterate Turkey from her memory. She never saw Igor who had transferred to another branch of the company by that time. Apparently, his breaking up with Nina had not been easy for him, either, and he did not want to bump into her every day. Besides, Nina found that she did not care about all that as much as before – her feelings had blunted, and she had almost left the whole break up story behind her. She could live on.
However, she had to pay once more for her Turkish escapades. At first she did not pay attention to certain unpleasant symptoms, but after a week she had to see the doctor. The tests confirmed that the wretched Zhora (or was it the romantic Oleg?) had endowed her with a shameful disease. Nina felt as if the sky had collapsed on her. The doctor reassured her, “Don’t you rack yourself so, my dear. You look like a ghost. We’ve all been there, believe me. It’s nothing, it’s totally curable. You’ll be as good as new in a couple of weeks.” Nina had no way of explaining to the cynical, jovial doctor how horrified and disgusted with herself she was.
She took a course of treatment, then turned to another, more expensive clinic and insisted on being given another course although the tests indicated that she had been completely cured. Nina was certain now that she was not going to have anything to do with any men ever again – lovemaking was crossed out of her life with a thick, red line. “It’s simply not my thing,” she said to herself. “How much more proof do you need? Some people are born for this sex nonsense, others for profession. I live to be a professional, to make a career.”
Besides, she was soon seized by totally different events which involved her father, so that she had to put her intimate frustrations out of her mind for a long time.
Chapter 5
Nina’s father had worked for Simonyan for over two years when everything in the company began changing, and not for the better. Simonyan who, previously, had been paying only occasional visits to the company started showing up almost daily. He rummaged through the accounts and questioned Nina’s father at length about the company’s assets and operations. Then, one day, he broke to Yevgeniy Borisovich, “Sorry, old boy, we’ll have to tighten our belts. It’s hard times, you see,” – and ordered that most of the assets be sold out and half of the employees be dismissed, with only a bare minimum kept, which meant giving up some of the company’s projects.
Yevgeniy Borisovich was dumbfounded. He was convinced that the company was on the rise, and the market was in for growth, too, so it was time to expand rather than economize. Simonyan cut short his questions, “I said, it’s hard times!” – but then, seeing how upset his manager was, he softened, patted Nina’s father on the shoulder, and said reassuringly, “Take it easy, man. Things will sort themselves out.” Still, Yevgeniy Borisovich was in extreme distress and confusion.
Shortly after, Simonyan took out a large bank loan in the name of the company and immediately transferred the money to another account of his. He did not explain anything to Nina’s father – he only promised to return the money as soon as he could. Then he took out another loan and yet another one. The company’s total debt exceeded a critical level: with the reduced business that the company had left