Twisted (26 page)

I am alone in the apartment, so I have to get up to open the door. Lena is still at school, my father is working, and mom and Natalia are away in Istanbul.

‘Hey, Jul, is Lena home?’ It’s Serega with his friend.

‘No, she is at school still, should be home soon,’ I answer, trying to sound cool, but feeling shy: I’ve been caught in my old home dress by two eleventh-graders, even though one of them is my sister’s boyfriend.

‘Can we wait inside?’ Serega’s friend jumps in. I think his name is Pasha.

‘Sure. Can I get you some iced water? It’s really hot today.’ As we walk into the kitchen, Pasha hugs me from behind and jokingly exclaims, ‘Uff ... what a pretty sister Lena’s got. Maybe I should date you. What do you think, Jul?’

They grin as I try, blushing, to pull my dress back down, which has ridden up from Pasha’s unexpected grab.

‘What are you up to? Studying?’ Serega asks, while winking at his friend. ‘You know, Pasha is an outstanding student in our class. He could teach you a lot of things.’

They grin again, looking at each other, and I realise that they are making fun of me.

‘Okay, I really have to study. I have a Chemistry test tomorrow.’

‘Oh, Chemistry?’ Pasha interrupts me and they laugh again. ‘That’s my favourite.’ He moves closer to me and hugs me again, this time from the front, pressing his crotch against me.

I push him away, trying to free myself. ‘Okay, guys, you wait here. Lena should be back soon.’ I leave the kitchen. But Pasha laughs again, which irritates me, and follows me to the room.

‘I can teach you some …’

As we walk in, he grabs me in a tight hug again and starts kissing me, while groping my ass under my skirt. I try to push him away again but this time he forcefully grips my hair, making it very painful for me to move.

‘What are you doing? Stop it, you idiot!’ I scream.

‘Serega, come help me! The doll doesn’t want to study!’ he shouts while pushing me onto my desk.

‘What are you doing? Her sister will come back soon! Are you crazy?’ Serega exclaims as he walks in. He knows what is about to happen.

‘Tell him … tell him to stop!’ I shout now at Serega, while trying to fight with his friend. But as he approaches us he grabs my hands and pulls them down to the desk.

‘Let’s do it quickly …’ I hear, and still cannot believe that it is happening to me …

Pasha closes my mouth with his sweating hand, rips my underwear, then falls on and forcefully penetrates me. I look up with a stare full of pain and pleading, hoping that Serega will take pity on me and stop this nightmare. But it is Alexandra now, who with her animal smile is firmly holding my hands and repeating her sugary ‘You really enjoy this, Victoria, right? You really do?’

A stronger wave of pain and terror suffocates me … the greater the horror in my eyes, the more Pasha gets excited … all of a sudden my whole world narrows down to drops of sweat that are falling from his chin onto my cheeks … one after another, echoing his rhythmical, aching strikes … one after another …

‘Wake up … wake up … your sister is here.’

I jerk, trying to understand where I am and what is going on. The dream was so real that I am actually surprised that I am not in my room in Kherson. I’ve had nightmares about it once in a while, but they’d never been so detailed and close to what had happened to me as this one.

‘Jul, oh my God! What happened to you?’ I hear the voice that’s almost crying, and it takes me a few seconds to recognise it.

It’s Natalia!

I get up and walk to the bars.

‘Nata … Nata … how did you find me?’ I start crying as I see the pity and horror in her eyes. I know she is shocked to see me like this. I stretch my arms through the bars and hug her. ‘Oh, Nata, you were so right … it’s all my fault …’

She hugs me back, very firmly. ‘Don’t cry, my baby sister … everything is going to be fine … we are going home.’

Her sobs make her voice quiver.

* * *

‘Jul? I am busy here with a client. Can you please write down the appointment for this lovely lady?’ Natalia is shouting from the men’s part of the hair salon.

‘With pleasure,’ I reply with my welcoming smile to the ‘lovely lady’ as I walk in.

I’ve been working in my sisters’ salon for two months. Natalia has done some short hairdresser’s courses, and now does some of the easier cuts if the three hairstylists who work for them are busy or have a day off.

Lena has learned how to do acrylic and gel nails. It was our mother’s idea to expand our services, and since my middle sister set up a table in the women’s part of the salon, business has picked up even more.

I’ve always found touching people’s hair freaky, so I deal with supplies and the clients at reception.

I’ve been clean for three months. As soon as Natalia had got me out of my fucked-up situation she insisted on me going to rehab. I agreed. ‘We both know you need it, Jul. It’s really difficult to do it on your own. You will have to get proper help if you want to stop,’ she told me on the way home from Istanbul. ‘Besides, Jul, you look like shit and you don’t want mom and papa to see you like this. I found a good rehab a hundred kilometers away from Kherson. Let me take you there.’

I just nodded and we went there straight from the airport. It was not easy, but in the end I came out of that place brainwashed and ready to start a new drug- and alcohol-free life. Now and then I still have my mellow moods and light depressions. It’s really not easy, but ‘one day at a time’, and I do generally feel like a new person.

The most difficult part was coming back to the real world after the month in rehab, when one on one I faced all the evils inside me. My second week ‘out’ was the worst. My depression put me into such misery that I couldn’t even get out of my bed for five days. The only thing that could lull me was a line of coke that I wanted to get, despite the clear understanding that I may not have a second chance to survive. As I was losing it completely, Natalia walked into our bedroom with a cup of hot tea and some astonishing news about my ex-roommate Inna. Apparently she was on one of her regular trips back home on the ship to renew her visa. Obviously wasted, she fell overboard and drowned. It was night-time so the crew only noticed her absence in Kherson port when it was too late even to search for her body. The story was awful, but it encouraged me to stay strong and eventually helped me to climb out of my fucking depression.

It could have been me instead of Inna. It can still be me, if I do not stop moaning and take control of my life … oh, Nata, what would I do without you …

All the way from Istanbul I couldn’t stop crying and apologising to Natalia for what I’d said and done. ‘You were right. I was irresponsible. I put you girls down and almost killed myself … you were so right, Nata,’ I mumbled, wetting the sleeve of her sweater.

‘Don’t cry, my baby! I never should have said those things to you. No one is perfect and anyone can make mistakes.’ She was calming me down, gently stroking my hair. And, after a deep sigh: ‘Including me. I’ve also done a stupid thing.’

I looked at her with worry and surprise.

Nata? A stupid thing?

‘What do you mean? What happened?’

‘Agh … you know the story about my Russian boyfriend in France …’

‘Yes, Lena told me in her emails that he’s a perfect guy, and that you two are serious about each other.’

‘Yeah, turns out I can be as blind as Lena. He seemed serious about us, and kept telling me. And then I fell pregnant …’

She paused, trying not to cry.

‘What? Are you? Now?’ I stared at her, pointing at her belly.

‘Yes, and the bastard disappeared as soon as he found out about it. He said congratulations, then stopped returning my calls …’

She sighed and looked away. She was ashamed. ‘Yeah … so, as you see, I am not Miss Perfect either …’

‘What are you going to do?’ I asked. ‘Are you going to keep the baby?’

She sighed again and said, with desperation in her voice, ‘I don’t know, Jul. I don’t know what I want to do about it … I haven’t figured it out yet …’

‘Oh, Nata, don’t worry. Whatever you decide, I am sure it will be the right solution. Besides, you have us to support you, right?’

She hugged me again and I fell silent, trying to process the information she’d thrown at me. I was a little shocked. I would be ready to hear that from Lena, but not my big sister …

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 …

Chapter 5

1
Natural currency of Ukraine since 2 September 1996

Chapter 9

2
Leap in acrobatics – double back somersault with double full twists.

Chapter 10

3
French, ‘
Tak-tak
… there … impossible’

4
French, ‘After … change …
tak-tak
’

5
French, ‘Oh, my love!’

6
French, ‘No! Very hot! Very hot! Change!’

7
French, ‘Jealous! Very jealous. Love! Change! Change!’

Chapter 11

8
Russian, ‘Jerks!’

Chapter 16

9
French ‘I love you’

10
French, ‘magnificent’

Chapter 17

11
Russian, ‘And as they say in Odessa, they are two huge differences.’

Chapter 21

12
Poppers: a slang term for alkyl nitrites that are often inhaled to enhance sexual pleasure

Chapter 29

13
Russian, ‘Toilet’

14
Russian, short for ‘cents’