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“Destined? Since when have you believed in destiny?”
“I’ll tell you about it tomorrow, I don’t want to jinx the experience.”
“I’ll ring tomorrow morning and I expect the phone to be off the hook.”
“I don’t believe in sex on the first date.”
“Darling, if you don’t, some other woman will—it’s a jungle out there.”
“If he wants me, he’ll wait. I’ve got to rush, I’m expected at eight.”
“Be bad, and if you can’t be bad be worse.”
Deidre stared at the phone, suddenly regretting not asking Zoe about how to seduce or at least how to appear seductive. This was what Zoe was best at: she presented herself as a dizzy cloud of blond hair, scent and swaying slim hips that triggered immediate conquistadorial reactions in any man she happened to want that night. What she was bad at was maintaining enough cool, enough emotional objectivity to keep them interested post-orgasm. Dramatic by nature, she immediately sought reassurance that they were committed to her utterly and forever. They naturally left as soon as they could. And she was terribly frightened of growing old alone. This anxiety rose up in that little silence just after sex and overwhelmed Zoe. She needed to be needed, and until Zoe overcame that fear, Deidre philosophized, she would always be alone.
Deidre checked her watch. She had half an hour. Sick with nerves, she tried chanting to herself in the hope that it would relax her. It didn’t.
Mischa stands nervously by the Manly ferry terminal. He adjusts his collar. It feels tight, uncomfortable. He is wearing the only suit he possesses, bought on the black market in St. Petersburg three years ago. Mischa is painfully aware of its broad lapels and baggy trousers. He’s only been in Australia for five months and it hasn’t been an easy transition. A political history lecturer faced by increasing corruption, he had been forced to give up the country he loved, in spite of its utterly humiliating poverty and a native despair that was neither romantic nor intellectually uplifting.
Here he has found a different kind of poverty—one of experience. Everyone takes everything for granted but complains anyway. For Mischa it is a strange utopia. The bright sunlight that is reflected off the buildings, all new and so modern. The birdsong that at first he’d found so discordant and alien. The endless warmth and indistinguishable seasons which mean you can walk around practically naked all year. The ever-present water, which peeps out at the end of every street, like a shimmering horizon just beyond reach. But for Mischa it lacks sadness, a sense of nostalgia.
He tried to talk about this to his uncle, but he refused to hear anything negative about his beloved city. He attempted to comfort his bewildered nephew by suggesting that it was a lack of history, and that, after a while, the sandstone, the parks, the small terrace houses would org
anically take on meaning for Mischa, once the young man started to love in this gaudy city. Mischa listened but couldn’t imagine this happening—the metropolis was too bright, too elusive in its ever-changing faces.
“Like all Russians, you think too much. For once, just live in your heart. What have you got to lose except worry?” the elder Gretchka had muttered, smiling, pulling on the beard of the younger. He loved this son of his sister. Mischa was the nearest he had to his own flesh and, with poignancy, he recognized many of the dilemmas this tall, vehement twenty-eight-year-old was going through.
“Get yourself a woman. She will tie you to this city before you have time to put your clothes back on.”
His nephew was too serious, and old Mr. Gretchka worried that perhaps the Australian women would be put off by his intensity, his habit of avoiding small talk altogether, his Russian metaphors spoken in broken English with that learnt American accent of his. God knows, he was handsome enough. Like a Russian angel, the old man observed. A shrewd businessman—he’d also observed the number of women who, attracted by the natural grace of his nephew, crossed the square toward the stall. They all left with flowers, but not yet with his nephew’s heart.
Mischa rocks on his heels and puts his hand into his pocket. The thought of her has given him an erection. It’s then that he sees her walking around the corner. She looks utterly beautiful. He has never seen her out of her work clothes, and the apparition of this tall woman, in her expensive and elegant clothes, makes him pitifully aware of the shameful condition of his own suit. They meet shyly, neither knowing what to do with the moment, but both recognizing the intense attraction between them. He takes her hand like a child’s and leads her to the Manly ferry.
From the boat they watch the city transform from a brazen masquerade of advertising and office space into an insect maze of gleaming lights and mirrored windows reflecting the sunset. Overwhelmed by this crystal city, with the blue of the harbor and the foreshore between them, Mischa suddenly loses all his English. This illusion of beauty and wealth was the reason for his migration. The modern splendor of the future, technological and man-made, not like the historical grandeur he’d left behind.
He tries to find the right words but finds himself speaking Russian to this strange woman he’s found himself wanting. She replies carefully, having picked up a few Russian words from a colleague.
They stand next to each other, pressed against the rail of the ferry, watching the seagulls riding the air currents and diving down to catch the bread thrown by the passengers. She is acutely aware of the warmth of his body. Taller than her, his hip presses into the hollow of her waist as he vainly tries to shelter her from the wind. They haven’t touched deliberately yet, and delicious tremors keep running up Deidre’s body. She’s been celibate for so long, not just physically but in attitude too, consciously dismissing the possibility of any sexual contact. Now the touch, scent and presence of this vital young man set her hormones into complete revolution. Several times she has to turn away from him.
They find themselves sharing memories and ideas about economies, magic, elderly parents and even the beauty of insects. He doesn’t have to hide his eccentricities and quirks, which is his usual way of dealing with women, who are often frightened off by his lateral imagination.
As they talk, every detail of his face, their surroundings, their conversation is intensified to mythic proportions. Deidre feels like she is on drugs or in some weird dream. She sees the city through his eyes as he points out architectural features she’d never noticed before, his long, elegant hands gesturing into the wind. She tries to concentrate on what he is saying, but the beauty of the idiosyncratic details his character has etched into his mannerisms, his slightly crooked smile, the gap between his front teeth, the heaviness of his eyebrows—all distract her. She is thankful when the ferry ride is over and they finally reach the comparative privacy of the restaurant.
He asks her to order for him—Thai food is not something he is familiar with. She asks for honey prawns, crab in green curry and sweet and sour fish balls. She wants to watch him eat. Zoe’s comment about how you can tell what kind of lover a man’s going to be by the way he eats comes back to her. “Never trust those who are in a hurry to finish; if they don’t linger over the entrée, it’s wham, bam, thank you ma’am, and one sore pussy—those are the ones who are interested in their orgasm, and not in yours.”
Deidre looks across at Mischa; he smiles at her. She looks away. Her vulnerability frightens her. She watches him pick up a prawn and slowly begin to tear off its shell. She hopes he’d be tender and slow; his gestures suggest the touch of a sensualist. She’s always found hands the most erotic part of a man. They are like a microcosm of the rest of his body. He’s probably got a beautiful penis, she thinks, and blushes. She can’t remember the last time she saw or even held one up close. She’d had a disastrous one-night stand with a sculptor. His proficiency as a lover had intimidated her and she’d spent the whole night apologizing for her clumsiness. She couldn’t remember much about that night, certainly nothing as specific as the touch, taste or feel of his cock. She’d consciously dismissed any thoughts about the desirability of men. It was a useful ploy, as she was surrounded by men day in and day out at work. Not that any licentious thought ever passed through her mind while she was there. God forbid! She saw too much of their conniving stratagems. But Mischa was different.
“What are you thinking about?”
“About my work.”
“You’re a banker, yes?”
“A merchant banker. I help people invest. A lot of the skill is in the timing. But it’s all so transient. A deal you’ve worked on for months comes off and then you’re onto the next thing; it’s all dependent on the mood of the market place. Sometimes I think I secretly long for something that has a little more permanence.”
“You should become a gardener, like me!” He licks the honey off one of the prawns. Deidre can’t help notice the sudden pinkness and length of his tongue.
“That way you get to experience real time, plants are good that way. They are dependable. You plant them, you make sure the environment is right, you love, fertilize and water them, then presto! They grow flowers and bear fruit. People and life, this is far more unpredictable. Were you ever married?”
