 Natasha By James MACKINTOSH |
Natasha was her name. Deneil met her at a private party he had been invited to on Khreschatyk.
In the crumbling Russian Empire there are so many Natashas, that the name, ennobled by Tolstoy's Natasha Rostova in "War and Peace", has today become synonymous with girls of easy virtue. 'There were a few "Natashas" on the prowl,' is a phrase that emerged from modern-day thrillers set in Russia. And apparently "Natashas" are a growing social problem in some Turkish towns on the border with Russia, where men abandon their wives to spend all their money and time on these painted blonde sex bombs.
But attachment to a name always depends on whom you know by that name. It is true that the name Natasha, like Tanya belongs to hundreds of thousands of the fairer sex in the Russian empire, and what a bewildering range of women from the commonplace to the most fascinating women on this earth. But when you have glimpsed that special person, however aloof or remote, what wonderful warmth, beauty and mystery is bestowed on even the most common of names. "Tanya" takes on an obsessive mystique and "Natasha" softens the hardest heart.
Natasha was a tall, attractive woman in her late thirties. She was one of those women who, although almost a good-sized man's height, has a certain delicacy of movement and an elegance and a yielding quality that instinctively made you feel she would be putty in the hands of the right man. In short she was sensuous and alluring without intentionally being so.
Deneil invited Natasha to the newly opened Irish Bar in Kyiv, O'Brien's. She came dressed in an obviously inexpensive, slightly shabby coat, a short skirt more suitable for a teenager, with hair crudely pomaded, lipstick applied in a huge gash around her mouth and lashings of cheap perfume. It was this contradiction between Natasha's highly cultured, well-educated mind and a body, dressed up like a tart ready for action, which was so puzzling and different. In the West she would have been a decent, bourgeois product - here she was flirtatious, exciting, sexy. Deneil was overcome with a desire for her and yet could not fail to notice how poor she was. It was obvious from the clothes she wore and it came out in her excitement at going out to a Western bar with prices way beyond her budget. For too long she had been cooped up inside a limited world.
Deneil met Natasha again a week later on a Sunday afternoon in early February. They walked along the banks of the river Dnepr, down through the pine trees to the beaches with snow on them. They could see the shimmering blue and green and gold gilded domes of the Lavra monastery complex across the vast, white expanse of the frozen river, uneven with drifted snow on it. They walked past old men doing gymnastics, past huddles of people fishing through holes in the ice on the river. The sun had a wan strength to it. Natasha looked very Russian in her large fur hat, which made her even taller, her high cheekbones surrounding lively, brown eyes and a generous, sensuous mouth. She was the real article, intelligent, sensitive and gorgeous. On an impulse Deneil took her hand. She disengaged it gently and looked at him.
'Deneil, let me tell you honestly what I think, if I may... I like you - it's true we are about the same age but you are single and free. I have two teenage sons. I carry a baggage of life with me. If we were to start an affair where would it lead? There are so many younger, wonderfully attractive, available girls you can choose from here - find the one for you.'
And with that she sighed and took his arm.
'Come on," she said, "let's have a drink,' and she led him to one of the riverside cafes. They ordered coffee and Crimean cognacs and Natasha began to talk about her life.
She had grown up in Kyiv and spent her teenage and student years during the seventies inside the bosom of the Soviet empire, when life was simple, ordered and conventional. There was a wistful note in Natasha's voice describing the nostalgia of the old days. Entertainment was innocent and simple, going out with a group of friends into the forest on summer evenings with some bottles of Soviet champagne and playing guitar and singing songs.
'Student life was amazingly cheap,' she said. 'You didn't think twice about getting on an airplane to fly to Moscow for a party or a concert. Everybody had some kind of work, you know. We were secure. People like my parents, who had lived through the horror of the war and Stalin's regime, mostly craved stability. No news was good news for them. Life wasn't bad. As long as we didn't ask too many questions, or show too much independence - or turn our heads towards the evil, capitalist West.' She grinned.
'It was a very conventional society. All us girls were encouraged to marry young. Twenty-four was already too late! How were we to know what the future would bring?'
So Natasha married at an early age and embarked upon a secure and standard married life with her husband. Two sons were born in quick succession and Natasha found a relatively good position as an economist. The years drifted serenely by until the middle of the eighties. But history intrudes on all our lives and the city of Kyiv has probably been more affected by historical events than any other city in Europe in the last hundred years. German occupation in the First World War, the cataclysm of the revolution, the horror of the Stalin-induced famine, the terror years, the abyss of the second German occupation and the bloodbath of the Second World War. And then a nearly forty-year period of relative peace and stability, when the city patched itself up and started functioning again, until the Chernobyl disaster signaled the beginning of the end. By nineteen eighty-nine Natasha and her contemporaries were embarking upon another wrenching, soul-bursting life change. All the certainty of the old order crumbled inexorably from within and there was nothing positive to replace it.
'Our economy started to collapse, Deneil. You, as an American, just cannot imagine how it was - the utter precariousness of our lives. During one week the currency crashed completely and our life savings became worthless. Our state companies ran out of money and closed their doors and literally millions of people lost their jobs. Some of them became desperate. Some even thought they were facing starvation. But in this part of the word we've seen worse, much worse this century, and not so long ago. As a people we're very adaptable and we're very tough. We know how to survive almost anything. It's in our blood. Just about every family I know was getting by - growing potatoes and vegetables and fruit on the tiny pieces of land allocated to them. Can you imagine it? Professors, doctors, scientists, surgeons, musicians, artists, ballerinas - people who's hands had never touched the soil - living from the food they could cultivate with their own hands.'
She paused for breath.
'Of course it wasn't all bad. We were free for the first time in our lives. Absolutely free. There is something wonderful about having no limitations. We could do what we wanted if we had money. We could buy modern clothes, listen to the latest music, travel, get the latest computers or super drugs or whatever, from the west. That was a real revolution. But it was too much freedom for most of us. You see suddenly we were free also to lose our jobs, or free to have no medical care, or just to slide downhill to the very bottom of society, with no disapproving Communist state to control us. That kind of freedom was terrifying. It wasn't freedom it was chaos.
Natasha stopped talking. They ordered a second cognac and two plates of vareniki with sour cream. The sun started to go down over the river until only the streaks of light of the fading day flashed across the ice and the last remaining ice fishermen packed their bags and headed for home. She sighed.
'My husband and I weren't able to prevent our marriage from falling apart. He lost his job and became very bitter and he was drinking heavily. To be honest we had stopped loving each other some years before. We were held together by convention and for the sake of our children. And now everything was falling apart anyway, there didn't seem to be any more reason for being conventional. My husband couldn't even support himself, let alone provide for the children. We argued and fought and then one day he just left me. I have hardly ever seen him since.'
The waiter brought them two plates of steaming vareniki served with lashings of smetana, thick, clotted sour cream. They started to eat. 'Ah well', she smiled. 'As we say in Russian - "Love comes and goes, but you will always want to eat!" Delicious isn't it!'
Natasha told Deneil how she had decided to learn English to try and improve her future prospects. During the early nineties Kyiv was seeing the beginnings of foreign investment but they seemed like pinpricks of light in the desolation of economic depression that changed little or nothing. The economy continued to slip and the city became deathly quiet as if under a huge siege, as if in a state of war. Men turned to drink, depression and abuse. Natasha joined the ranks of thousands of other women, whose material and emotional lives were a disaster.
The logical conclusion was to find a better man to look after her and now she was free to travel, who better than a Westerner, a gentle, foreign prince who would come on a white charger and sweep her off her feet and she would become a devoted and loyal wife until the end of her days - yes she seriously thought she might fall in love with a foreign man.
Natasha, who was computer literate and inquisitive by nature, experimented with meeting foreign men through the Internet, a new craze that was sweeping through the crumbling Russian empire on the back of the explosion of Internet access. Soon she struck up an e-mail correspondence with a Dutchman called Albert. He was a successful banker, rich, refined - late forties to her mid thirties, divorced. They seemed to share the same interests. 'Perhaps he might be the right type of man for her,' she thought, 'and of course he was from the 'exotic West.'
'I decided to invite Albert to Kyiv,' Natasha told Deneil, 'and he wrote me that, as his bank had some affiliation with one of our finance groups, he was able to combine business with pleasure, and could come immediately. So I arranged everything for him, his visa, his hotel and when he arrived I met him at the airport and showed him round the city and acted like his unofficial guide and interpreter. I even organized a trip to the Crimea, to Yalta where he spoke at a financial forum. He was one of the first Western bankers our people had ever met there and they treated him like an absolute celebrity. It was a wonderful time and he loved it in Crimea.' She paused. 'It was obvious from the beginning that Albert wanted more than just a guide. He looked slightly older than I had expected. His hair was completely gray and he had a little moustache, which was also gray. I didn't like the moustache. He reminded me a bit of a fox terrier, the way he kept darting about, so inquisitive, putting his nose into everything,' she laughed. 'But he was dynamic and charming and he was definitely used to getting his own way. In Crimea he insisted we share the marital suite in the Hotel Oreanda. It's the best hotel in Yalta, on the promenade looking out onto the bay. Do you know Yalta?' Deneil nodded.
'It was a rather romantic time,' she added. Wistfully.
They drained their cognac glasses and ordered more.
'After Yalta, Albert immediately invited me to Holland. He seemed to be very keen on me, which was rather flattering. He offered to pay all my expenses; otherwise I could not have come. I had a holiday coming up so I decided - why not. He was the first man I had met from Western Europe and I found him dynamic and exciting - and I was so curious to see the 'fairy tale' West.'
Natasha flew to Rotterdam and spent some quiet days with Albert. She found she was very attracted by the unostentatious ease and comfort of the Dutch way of life, the expensive and luxurious town flat that Albert lived in, the bright cafes, the colourful supermarkets, and the friendly Dutch people. She even liked the cold blustery days and the proximity of the North Sea. Albert was busier at the bank than she had expected starting work at eight and coming back sometimes later than seven in the evening. So Natasha set out to explore the city by herself. She enjoyed walking along the Koolsingel in downtown Rotterdam gazing at the array of fashion shops. She liked strolling through the peaceful, tree-lined residential streets. She was amazed by how clean and organized and prosperous the Dutch city was, each street with a separate bicycle track paved in asphalt painted brick red. She went to the port area and watched the huge ships load and unload their cargoes. She walked along the city canals and visited the city harbours with the hundreds of traditional and historic vessels berthed there. She was charmed by the traditional aspects of Dutch life, the windmills, clogs, the round, red cheeses, and the kind simplicity of the people she met. 'Life here is so nice, so comfortable,' she thought comparing it to what she knew back home. 'I could stay here for ever.'
Nearly every evening Albert took her out somewhere different. She enjoyed the prestige of going to social events with this important man. He carefully chose and bought her an expensive off the shoulder, burgundy-coloured, silk evening dress and shawl. The dress accentuated her natural attractiveness and showed off to full advantage her tall, voluptuous figure. One evening Albert was invited to an exhibition opening at the prestigious Art Museum Boijmans van Beuningen. They went together. There she mingled with the cream of Rotterdam society and was a great success. She was clearly one of the best-looking women at the party and the Dutch women showered her with compliments and invited her to dinner parties and cultural events. One or two tall, handsome Dutch men flirted with her in a light-hearted fashion. She was thoroughly enjoying herself. Life in the west was living up to all her expectations. Albert seemed proud to be accompanied by her though he showed more than a passing interest in the other attractive girls at the party.
That weekend they went to the city of Utrecht together. They visited the remains of the massive cathedral and climbed to the top of the four hundred foot high bell tower. They stayed there for a while silently admiring the view of the mediaeval town spread out below them and the surrounding countryside. It could have - should have been a romantic moment, the highlight of her stay in Holland. Natasha felt poised to deepen her feelings for this gray-haired man beside her. But Albert was not a romantic. He noticed nothing different. The moment passed.
'You know, Deneil,' Natasha said, 'there was something a little bit cold and impersonal about Albert. I thought maybe that was what some Western men were like. They weren't used to revealing their feelings. They were less sentimental than our Russian men. He was quite kind and generous; he didn't drink, unlike my former husband, thank God. But he was so controlled. I tried to get closer to him but I just couldn't guess what he was really thinking. Also I could not help noticing that he constantly looked at other women. Of course he was intelligent and dynamic but we didn't find so much in common to talk about. He wasn't really interested in culture. He knew almost nothing about Vermeer, or Rembrandt for example. I mean for a Dutchman to know so little about their greatest artists is a bit like a Russian knowing nothing about Tolstoy. Mostly he wanted to talk about his work at the bank. He would tell me stories about how he had concealed his motives from such a person or had removed another person suddenly from his position, or how he had demoted someone and promoted someone else, like pawns to be manipulated. In his work he seemed to take a delight in being downright treacherous. I could see what he really enjoyed was power. To be honest he was a bit condescending to me. And I thought there was something a bit shifty about him.'
Deneil sipped his cognac fascinated by Natasha's story.
'After I had been staying with Albert for about ten days he got a phone call. He took it in his study but he seemed to lose his temper and he raised his voice and I couldn't help overhearing him. He was saying, "Tanya! Please Tanya!" Immediately after the phone conversation he sat down at his computer and I heard hear him tapping away furiously, at an e-mail - I supposed.
'She smiled a little guiltily.
The next day, curiosity got the better of Natasha. She went to Albert's computer. After all he had said she could connect to the Internet at any time if she wished. Timidly she opened the e-mail menu. She could not help looking at the latest e-mails he had received. There was nothing out of the ordinary except one folder called RW. With a sudden intuition, she imagined RW could stand for Russian Women. She was unable to resist opening the folder and there before her were hundred's of e-mails from all over the Russian Empire. There was Tanya from Riga, Svetlana from St Petersburg, Katya from Minsk, and countless, nameless other girls - all had sent photos, some with sexy see-through clothes - and all were staring out with the same innocent yet guilty looks of those who try to short-cut a culture gap.
And there she was. Natasha from Kyiv, pinned down like an animal, to be bought and sold, to be prodded and analyzed. And Tanya from Riga had been in Albert's flat only two months before and he had visited her one month ago. His latest e-mail, written yesterday suggested another meeting in two weeks time - soon after Natasha was supposed to go back to Kyiv.
'How many affairs had he been conducting at the same time,' she thought. 'Five, ten, twenty?
'What did you do then?' Deneil asked her a bit shocked.
Natasha smiled wryly at him. She had an engaging smile.
'I wasn't altogether surprised. I realized that I had been rather naive like most of the other girls. I mean there is an element of business about the whole thing isn't there? He paid for my airfare, and all my holiday expenses. He bought me that wonderful evening dress. What was I supposed to do in return? Just not ask too many questions.' She laughed a little bitterly. 'I realized I couldn't trust a man like that, and I think I had already found out I wasn't going to fall in love with him. It would probably have been very attractive and easy being a partner of a rich, western man but those e-mails showed me how artificial and superficial it was, at least with him.' She sighed. 'No, I decided I must go back and face the problems of my own country. I understood clearly that I must find my own way to support my parents and my children however difficult the future seemed, and that I should not put my fate in the hands of some affluent, selfish foreigner.
So Natasha packed her bags; telephoned to change the date of her return ticket, wrote an explanation for Albert and left the same afternoon. Albert came home to an empty flat and a gaping void. All those Eastern European women. They had been so easy, so naive, so desperate. He had enjoyed them but they had left no mark, no impression on his character. Natasha had been different. He was essentially lonely and she had filled his home like no other woman since the early days of his marriage. Perhaps this one, he wondered, had the quality of a woman worth loving. He was too egoistic to realize it was he, who was no longer able to love.
"What happened next?" Deneil asked quietly.
'Albert kept calling me and saying he desperately wanted to see me. He insisted on coming to Kyiv. You know how it is. When a woman becomes unattainable, she becomes very desirable. Finally I agreed and he came and spent two days here last month. We walked together by the river just as you and I did today and he offered me money, lots of money to go back to Holland with him. He even offered to buy a flat for my parents, and God knows they need that security for their old age. But I refused him. I understood clearly that I wouldn't fall in love with him and what is the point of compromising. It is far better to believe and hope that things will get better in our lives.'
They stared through the cafe window at the night sky with winter stars clearly outlined by a waning moon and they were both silent. Then Natasha looked at her watch.
'Deneil, it's late. It's time to go home. Wish me the best of luck for tomorrow. I have an interview for a position of Financial Manager and the salary is really very good.'
As Natasha had predicted, Deneil soon started to get involved with younger, dynamic attractive women. He didn't see Natasha for many months but one evening on an impulse he called her and they arranged to meet up the next day. When she arrived, she looked subtly different, less attractive as if a hard life had taken its toll on her, and yet also more settled.
'I managed to get that position of Financial Manager,' she said proudly. 'I was rather at a low ebb when I met you but things are far, far better now. I am able to support all my family and I'm beginning to save some money for the future. And what is more important, I believe in our future. Things are getting better here.' She paused. 'You remember that Dutch man I told you about?'
'Albert.' said Deneil. 'Yes of course I do.'
'Well he still telephones me from time to time. He still wants to come and see me. He says he misses me. I'm polite with him. It is difficult to explain that I am happy with my life the way it is. Also,' she hesitated, 'I am in a relationship now, and somehow it fulfils me. It is what I was looking for.' She flushed at her admission.
Natasha had fallen in love with a divorced man of her own age, a talented but troubled artist who had literally nothing - a man of great sensitivity, near collapse under the stress of the ongoing economic crisis. She had taken him in, cared for him, nurtured him and given him the strength to continue - and fulfilled a profound principle that happiness springs from being able to give and not from taking.
Albert, for all his social success, his material advantages and his intelligence was unable to win her heart. He still calls her. He has various adventures with other girls from Eastern Europe but they have lost their flavour because he cannot find the love he seeks but is unable to give.
Deneil never saw Natasha again but he will always remember her. She had a singular quality.
And under a lowering winter sky, the crowds in the city mingled in confusion, shame and horror at their uncertain future - and yet in their hearts shone the bright flame of freedom.
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Read also previous issue' articles:
Cows and Parachutists
Vietnam, Cobra-laced rice moonshine and those smiles
Gambling on the Slope
Manners Cost Nothing
A Roger By Any Other Name
Never Underestimate the Mark!
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