held out his hand and her narrow palm got lost in his paw – a huge, hard one, with perceptible corns of the kind that come from weight-lifting. Apparently, t'ai chi was not the only practice Samsonov was into.
“Gradbank’s fate is in your hands now.” He smiled broadly, looking her straight in the eye. “And my fate is, too.”
Again, despite his facetious tone, Nina felt that he was not really in a joking mood.
The director left. Nina sat at her new desk and buried her face in her hands. It had happened. Her vengeful plot – the one for which she had come to that hateful bank – was working itself out in the most incredible way. She had occupied a super-advantageous strategic position and was now only one step from her objective.
Chapter 2
That night Nina had a celebration, all by herself in her one-room apartment. For the celebration, she had two causes. First, she had every reason to congratulate herself on a major breakthrough in her subversive plans against Gradbank. The other cause was not a worthy one in her eyes – the day happened to be her twenty-seventh birthday.
She was sitting, with her legs tucked under her, in her favorite armchair. A standard lamp was casting around a soft, cozy light. On a small table by the armchair was a one-third empty bottle of Merlot and a plate with some cheese and cookies. What else does a single businesswoman need to celebrate her special occasions? In addition, there was the twinkling of the TV set in the corner – from an old habit Nina kept it turned on, but with sound off. The flashing of silent pictures helped her relax by keeping her eyes thoughtlessly occupied.
Her father had called to wish her a happy birthday. His voice on the phone struck her as tense and coarse. Could it be that he was drinking again? Her heart ached at the thought.
Also, her two girl friends had called – the only two she had left from her university years. Both were steadily married, with children. They updated Nina on their family life and chided her for living like an oyster. “It’s a crime we’re not seeing each other more often. Let’s get together!” Nina agreed but no real gathering was ever arranged. In recent years, her girl friends had been trying hard to fix her up – so that Nina had even reduced her visits to them in the fear of having to maintain an agonizing conversation with yet another ‘colleague of my husband’ or ‘friend of ours who chanced to drop by’. Quite possibly, those eligible bachelors were not all that bad, but the problem was that Nina was horrified by the mere thought of having any relationship with them.
On the screen, the president of the country was delivering a mute speech, gesticulating vigorously. “That’s who I’d like to meet,” Nina said aloud to the TV set. “I’m sure he’s not anything like those characters I’ve known. That’s me – give me the president, I’m not going for less.” She refilled her glass and clinked it against the bottle. “All right, first lady, happy birthday to you once again!”
The wine took effect – the TV picture became fuzzy, and her mind wandered. As always in such cases, she remembered her mother and her school days.
Nina was born into a good, city family. Her father, Yevgeniy Borisovich, was a builder, chief engineer in a construction syndicate, her mother a French teacher in a college. They lived in a spacious three-room apartment which was considered enviable at the time.
An able girl, Nina was breezing through her school studies. Mathematics was her favorite. “That’s my genes working,” her father would say complacently. He taught Nina how to play chess and for some time, the two of them had a game every evening. However, her father soon ceased to enjoy their chess sessions as Nina began winning, and he had a hard time even making a draw. Her father planned to sign her up for serious chess lessons but her mother vetoed the idea. “What kind of occupation is that for a girl? I won’t let Nina become a bluestocking!” Instead, Nina was offered to choose between figure skating and tennis. Nina picked out tennis.
The choice was a fortunate one – the game came easily to Nina, and she was running to her tennis classes eagerly. Very thin, with a figure like a grasshopper’s, she was darting around the court almost always getting in the right place at the right moment. The coach took notice of her, and she was entered into the regional junior tournament. It soon became apparent what made her different from the others – she played a calculated game, figuring it out two strokes ahead and often baffling those obviously stronger than her.
Nina’s tennis career came to an end abruptly. Accidentally, she overheard a conversation between two girls one of whom she had just smashed up on the court. They were talking about her, Nina. “That’s what I call crazy, breaking her neck so!” said the defeated one. “Who wants that stupid cup, anyway? … Me, I didn’t come to tennis for any cups.” They giggled. Nina guessed vaguely why the other girls played tennis. On the court, there were always boys around, and tennis provided lots of opportunities for ‘gluing’, as boys called it, and some girls did, too. The one whom Nina had overheard was pretty, her neat legs under a short white skirt acted like a magnet, and she was a constant object of ‘gluing’ – not only by boys of her age but older guys, too. Yet nobody had tried to ‘glue’ Nina. Ever. “Well, what do you expect of a freak like that?” heard Nina. “Winning cups, that’s all she has. Who will ever look at her? Did you see her knees? Horrible!”
They left, and Nina was still sitting, dumbfounded, trying to take in what she had just heard. That was true, she was a freak. She went up to a mirror and inspected her knees. On her disproportionately long, skin-and-bone legs, her knees looked huge, alien. Horrible, indeed. On her way home, she hurled her tennis racket into the nearest garbage can. At home, she told her parents, without giving any reasons, that she was not going to play tennis ever again.
And she did not, not for over ten years. Then, after her graduation from the university, she once found herself near a stadium and heard familiar noises – the thumping of tennis balls and players’ voices – coming to her through the green hedge. On impulse, she went in, hired a racket and practiced some strokes at the wall. Since then, she came regularly to the court where she played with accidental partners. Surprisingly, her hand and body had not forgotten the tennis lessons she had received in her school years. Her figure had improved since her early teens – it was no longer scraggy or angular, and nobody would think of laughing at her knees. From time to time, men approached her trying to strike up an acquaintance but, faced with blunt indifference on her part, they retreated. However, she had no problems getting taken into a game as she played well – in a committed, concentrated, and powerful way. Rather like a man.
When Nina finished school, the country was being swept by the reforms. Her father said, “Honestly, Ninok, I don’t know what advice to give you. In the former times, I would say, ‘Go into science, you’re totally cut out for that,’ but who wants science now?” Nina applied to the financial university which boasted a huge competition for entry and got admitted without pulling any strings or bribing.
Her university studies were a child’s play to her. Her concerns lay in a totally different area. The problem was, she had never had anyone. No specimen of the male race had ever asked her out for a walk, let alone anything bigger. Meanwhile, girls of her age were dating like crazy and actually getting married. The most advanced ones had even got divorced already. Her mother, who was aware of Nina’s problem, was reassuring her, “Don’t you worry, Ninusya, you’re not missing anything, believe me. Just wait, your time will come.” Nina waited, but her time did not show any signs of coming.
She was no longer the plain little thing that she had been at school, but deep inside, she was still a grasshopper with ugly knees. The boys felt it and kept clear of her. Besides, she was smart – much smarter than all those immature males – and whoever fancied that in a girl?
Everything changed in her life
