They chat every day, several times in the course of the day. This is probably the first time in Ksenia’s life that a chance encounter in the internet has lasted for so long. Alien really is good company. He’s interesting to talk to.
“How did you choose me?” Ksenia asks.
“I liked your name,” alien replies. “It means the same as mine does.”
“We can think of ourselves as brother and sister .”
“Then I’ll be your big brother,” he replies, “do you have a big brother?”
“Yes, but he’s in America.”
“Were you friends when you were children?”
“There was a difference of six years. I was too little for him . He pushed me around.”
“Did he hit you?”
“Sometimes.”
“Well then,” replies alien, “clearly, as your virtual big brother, I shall have to beat you virtually too.”
“ ,” Ksenia replies guardedly and waits to see what will come next.
“Don’t worry, I’m not going to beat you today,” writes alien, “but I shall demand that you obey me. Like a good little sister.”
“And what do I have to do for you, big brother?” asks Ksenia, joining in the game and looking anxiously at the clock in the bottom corner of her monitor: it’s almost midday, and the work isn’t getting done.
“Dial 0804 on your cell phone and write to me what they tell you.”
Ksenia obediently picks up her phone. A pleasant woman’s voice offers to tell her about the weather. Ksenia types that.
“Well done, little sister,” alien replies, “now go and work.”
Ksenia smiles. She likes the way this man always knows when it’s time to stop.
* * *
Two days later she’s sitting on Marina’s white rug again. Gleb is standing up, laughing, holding on to the bar stool on which the computer used to stand. Now there is a big plush rabbit sitting on the bar stool, a distant relative of the one that Ksenia sleeps with. Marina is still wearing the same robe with a dragon on it, they’re eating Chinese fast food out of small bowls with chopsticks, it was bought from the Huáng-Hé River kiosk and heated up in the microwave.
“They say the Chinese food in China is completely different from anywhere else in the world,” Marina says through her sweet and sour pork, with her cheeks bulging out and looking funny.
“They eat snakes and dogs,” says Ksenia, “and grasshoppers, rats and absolutely anything that moves.”
“Now I understand,” Marina replies, “why that Chinese chose me. Back then I was interested in anything that moved too, although from a slightly different angle. And now there’s only one member of the opposite sex I’m interested in. Gleb, want yum-yum?” – and she takes a piece of pork out of her mouth.
“Is that all right – straight out of your mouth?” asks Ksenia.
“I think so,” Marina replies, “after all, it’s my mouth, not yours. Go figure, kisses are all right, but a piece of meat, like, isn’t? Especially from his own mother. That’s the only way vixens bring food back: they eat something, then regurgitate it for the cubs, half-digested, so it’s easier for them. It doesn’t bother them any.”
“Yuck,” says Ksenia, “I hope my mom never did that.”
“Your mom,” says Marina, putting the pork that Gleb didn’t eat back in her own mouth, “never did love you very much.”
“How do you mean?” asks Ksenia, almost choking.
“You figure it out. You liked the dance studio – she stopped you going.”
“Oh no, she wanted me to do better at school.”
“Sure, sure.” Marina gets up and puts her bowl and chopsticks on the windowsill, out of Gleb’s reach. “It was your dad who liked the way you danced, and she divorced him. And you were the one who suffered for it.”
“How do you make that out?” Ksenia asks testily.
“Why, everybody knew,” Marina says with a shrug. “The dance studio’s just a detail, of course. You can always see if a mother loves a child or not.”
“I don’t think that story has anything to do with love. On the contrary, the fact that Mom made me study is the best possible proof that she did love me.”
“Poor Gleb,” says Marina, “how is he going to know I love him if I don’t give him proofs like that? Well now, come to Momma, my darling little fox cub,” and Marina crawls across the room on all fours toward Gleb. The infant is sitting in the middle of the rug and laughing.
“Marina,” Ksenia begins in an icy voice, “you know, I’ve never taken the liberty…”
“All right, all right, I’m sorry,” Marina says quickly. “I’ve been acting a bit dumb just recently.” She picks Gleb up and goes back to her friend. “Don’t get uptight, I really shouldn’t have said that. Of course your mom loved you, who could ever doubt it?”
“All right, drop it,” Ksenia says dourly. “Why don’t you tell me if you’ve ever had any virtual affairs.”
“How do you mean? Cybersex? In a special suit?”
“No, without any suit. You know, when you chat to a man you don’t know on ICQ, and suddenly you realize you’re thinking about him all the time, fantasizing… and so on.”
“No, not with anyone I didn’t know at all,” says Marina, “but, you know, there was this one young guy from the East Coast. I saw him once at Vika’s farewell party, if you remember, a tall guy in glasses, with beautifully shaped ears?”
“No,” says Ksenia, “Vika and I happened to have a falling-out a week before she went away.”
“Ah, sorry,” says Marina, remembering. “Well, anyway, I danced with him and this and that, I was all set to go, but he was obviously feeling nervous, especially since I think there was some girlfriend or other of his there. And he was going away too, a week after Vika, he was in the same group. The farewell party was for both of them. Well anyway, Vika was going to Germany to marry a German, and Mishka was going to graduate school at MIT. Go figure, all we did was exchange emails, and I’d forgotten all about him, then suddenly a few a months later he pops up – hi, here I am, remember me?”
“And then what?”
“Well, one thing led to another, and he turned out to be a genuine sex addict. You know, absolutely great. He could go on about it for hours, like those novels in the pink covers. My powerful hands embrace your trembling body… well, and so on. I laughed at first, then I started getting turned on. Once I answered him something like ‘my weak hands grab your trembling prick’ – and then the floodgates opened. Go figure, it’s their night, he’s sitting there on his campus, everyone’s asleep, and he’s writing to me about how he undresses me tenderly, licks me passionately and screws me savagely. But go figure, there I am sitting in the studio like a fool, trying to work, with my hands literally shaking. I can’t jack off at my desk, in front of everyone. I had to say, I tell you what darling, slow down. Why don’t you get back in touch when it’s our morning? And then, go figure, I set the alarm clock for eight, and go straight to the computer. And there he is already, all set for action. I use one hand on the keyboard and the other to work myself off – Gleb, don’t you listen to this, by the way, you’re still too young – well, after ten minutes, that was it! I don’t know what he was doing all the time, probably the same thing. Well, I send him a tender kiss, hop in the shower, have breakfast, this and that – and by twelve I’m at work, fresh and relaxed after the morning.”
“And where did it all lead?”
“Nowhere really, you know. He came to Moscow for the winter vacations. I met him in some café the very first evening, we talked, had a coffee, and I see – there’s no way, he doesn’t do a thing for me. Well, I’m not a little girl anymore, I have to finish what I’ve started: we caught a taxi, went to my place, got undressed, lay down and screwed. You know, all pretty average. A definite C plus. To be quite honest, I was expecting more. I could have been ‘Like a Virgin’ with him. He knew where to stroke, where to kiss, well you know. Well anyway, in the morni
ng I wake up as usual when the alarm clock goes off – and go straight to the computer. And, of course, as you realize, there’s nothing in the computer, because my virtual lover has devirtualized himself and he’s sleeping just two yards away from me. What I really wanted to do was shake him awake and send him out to the nearest internet café. So, in short, that was how it all ended: while he was in Moscow I got out of the habit of getting up early. Now we meet occasionally on the internet and send each other greetings on public holidays.
9.38 alien
Are you there already?
9.38 Ksenia
Yes.
9.39 alien
Is there anyone else in the room?
9.39 Ksenia
No.
9.39 alien
Have you got any pencils on your desk?
9.40 Ksenia
Yes.
9.40 alien
Take the sharpest one, take out your breast and stick it into the nipple. But not very hard.
9.40 Ksenia
Hey, this isn’t a very brotherly game!
9.41 alien
It’s called a mammogram, little sister. So you won’t get breast cancer. Do as I tell you, but don’t make it bleed, or you’ll stain your underwear.
9.42 Ksenia
All right. The left breast or the right?
9.42 alien
The left.
Pull up the sweater, pull down the cup of the bra, take out the breast, jab the pencil into the nipple that is already hard, then again, and again. How does he know, how can he feel what I need? A wave of warmth runs right through my body. Once again, just a little harder.
9.45 alien
Hey, I said once.
9.45 Ksenia
Sorry, I got carried away. You can punish me if you like.
9.46 alien
Don’t get skittish. I don’t need to punish you. You have to obey me anyway, I’m your big brother.
9.47 Ksenia
Yes, I’ll obey you
9.47 alien
Good. Put your breast away, put the pencil back where it belongs.
9.47 Ksenia
I never thought pencils had so much potential.
9.48 alien
There is no object that cannot serve as a source of pain
9.48 Ksenia
And pleasure.
9.48 alien
I’m not interested in your pleasure. Tell me what happened to you today in the subway.
9.48 Ksenia
Nothing interesting happened. Ah but yes, there was something. Two girls overtook me in the passage, one said to the other: “We’ll be all right,” and the other one said, just as seriously: “I hope we’ll be all right.” I remembered that for some reason.
9.49 alien
Maybe they were talking about a test or an exam.
9.49 Ksenia
Yes, or about some kind of reorganization. But I imagined they were talking about the psycho.
9.49 alien
It’s not very likely. I’ve noticed that when girls talk about psychos they speak in a skittish, affected, jolly kind of way. I’ve never heard anyone talk about psychos seriously.
9.50 Ksenia
You haven’t heard me.
9.50 alien
I hear you every day.
9.50 Ksenia
But there’s no intonation here.
9.51 alien
I can guess it. But you’re right. You’re a serious girl. By the way, tell me something funny that has happened to you in the last few days.
9.52 Ksenia
Funny?
9.53 Ksenia
Well, yesterday I was at Marina’s place, and she was playing vixen and cub with her son. Chewing up food and feeding him mouth-to-mouth. I don’t know if that’s funny, but at least it’s strange.
9.54 alien
Is that the Marina who’s turning herself into a Chinese woman?
9.54 Ksenia
Yes
9.55 alien
Tell her not to get carried away with the fox business. In China they think foxes are like werewolves. She doesn’t want to turn into a Chinese werefox instead of a Chinese woman, does she?
9.55 Ksenia
Wow! I’ll tell her that.
9.56 alien
A great story. Now go and work.
35
You think it’s easy – being a man like me?
You watched too many fashionable nineties movies, I guess
Natural Born Killers and Curdled
And heaps of other B- and even Z-movies
For eight dollars they tell you
That being a serial killer is cool
Famous killers of the nineteen fifties
Charlie Starkweather and Caril Fugate
Were the models
For Mickey and Malory in Natural Born Killers
Charlie said when he was caught that he had no regrets
That he still hated everybody
This is easy to believe:
He made love
To fourteen-year-old Caril on the sofa
Where he raped her mother an hour earlier
With the father’s body lying in room
And when they were done
He went upstairs and put the barrel of his gun
To two-year-old Betty Jane’s throat and –
No, he didn’t fire – he waited
Until the little girl choked to death
He was real scum,
Theories of childhood trauma
Work perfectly in his case
But even after he said: “I still hate everybody,”
He still added: “and myself too”
Although, as you can guess
Introspection was never his strong point
Living is very hard when you hate yourself
And I had a happy childhood
I was a good little boy
From a decent Moscow family
I was afraid to watch the news, because
They talked about things too frightening for me
When I heard about the stadium in Santiago de Chile
Where they tortured and killed thousands of people in 1973
I was shattered for two weeks
I looked into people’s faces passing by,
Trying to understand how they could carry on living
If they knew about this thing too
I still don’t understand, to be quite honest.
Dostoyevsky said the harmony of the world
Is not worth a single tear shed by a tormented child
But a world in which there is no harmony
Is not worth anything at all
And this is the world I have lived in all my life
I have never believed in God,
Perhaps because I sensed
That Christ was not alone in dying for our sins
But every drop of blood, every groan of hunger
Every raped woman’s scream
(once every fifteen minutes, remember that?),
Well, that all of this concerns each one of us
Chikatilo’s wife also said
Her husband fainted at the sight of blood
How well I understand him.
I was a good little boy, you hear?
I was kind, and I still am kind
I love people, my pity for them brings a lump to my throat
And when I squeeze a newly cut-out heart in my hand
My own heart contracts too, in tenderness and pain
A lump in my throat
How can a man like this live, when I know
The blood has eaten into my hands like coal into a miner’s hands
How can I live when my memory
Is like a torture chamber
In which every object –
Even the most innocent –
Can only inflict pain?
Once I woke up in the night
In my Moscow apartment
And suddenly realized none of them had exi
sted
Not that teenager, the one with plump lips
That were torn to shreds when she screamed
Not that one whose eyes were burned out by the magnifying glass,
Eyes so blue they looked like shards of broken sky
Not that one with the breasts so large
That I cut them off in thin slices for several days
Nor all the many others I recall so well
I realized none of them had existed
A wet and bloody dream
A masturbation fantasy, to make me come quicker
A murderous one-man play
I lay in bed, weeping tears of happiness
Repeating like an incantation:
“I haven’t killed anyone”
Still weeping, I went to the kitchen
Objects lay on the table, no longer reminders of torture and torment,
The fork on which I never wound the entrails from the slashed abdomen
Of a living seventeen-year-old girl
Who screamed so loud, I was afraid
The insulation of the basement would not save us
The knife with which I never carved words of tenderness and love
On the yellowish skin of a thin Kazakh girl
Whose breasts were so small, they both fitted in one hand
The cigarettes that I never stubbed out on the flat stomach
Of a professional swimmer, tracing out the constellation of the Great Bear
(I’m still embarrassed by that incident:
Stubbing out cigarettes on women is terribly vulgar,
Something only young street punks would do)
I stood and wept, repeating: