a bad hangover. However, Nina realized why she had brought him to her place – as at the party the night before, she felt at ease and relaxed with that man as if they had known each other for a long time.
When they had finished their coffee, Nina saw him out. They did not as much as kiss goodbye, but on Saturday that same week he came to her place again and they became lovers.
Nina asked herself afterwards whether her relationship with Igor could be called love. In fact, she had nothing to compare it with – her marriage to Dima did not count, and she did not believe in love as depicted in movies and novels. Every weekend, Igor came over and stayed overnight. Nina got used to his visits and anticipated them. While normally managing with ready meals from the microwave, she did real cooking for Igor. She would serve him and then watch him eat with her head rested on her knuckles. Having made some tea the way he liked it, she filled a large cup which she had bought specially for him. As he was drinking his tea, she listened to his stories. Igor was great at telling stories – he remembered lots of funny episodes, and showed admirably their colleagues, the company’s bosses, and the clients. Often there was more to his stories than just empty fun – Nina learned from them the backstage ways of business, something that one did not read about in books or articles.
In the company, they were hiding their relationship – Igor wanted it to be that way, and she did, too. As a rule, things like that get out soon, but it is usually because the woman who is having an affair with a colleague babbles it out to some friend herself. Nina did not share her personal life with anyone – neither had she any friends in the company – so her intimacy with Igor remained secret.
Igor was an experienced man – there was no need to slip him brochures on sex. In bed, he employed a wide range of techniques, and Nina allowed him to do anything, although what she really liked was the prelude – their first hugs and caresses, as they were dressed yet and he was her good friend Igor rather than an expert male. Also, she liked going to sleep by his side when, having accomplished all his feats, he became human again. “Sleep well, kid,” he would say, kissing her. “Well, I guess, ‘kid’ is better than ‘pet’,” she smiled to herself, breathing in his agreeable and already so familiar smell.
Nina and her father once arranged to have a meeting after work – Yevgeniy Borisovich started to take his daughter seriously as a specialist and meant to ask her advice on some bank loan matter. Having arrived at the office building where she worked, he waited for her in the street. When Nina came out to meet him, Igor happened to be around, too. Embarrassed, Nina introduced the two men to each other, and as they were shaking hands, was struck by their semblance – close in height and hair color, they had the same voice quality, the same type of starting baldness and the same manner of smiling.
An educated girl, Nina had read about Freud’s teaching. She shuddered at the thought: could it be that, being unconsciously attracted to her father, she had found a substitute for him in Igor? She rejected the thought with indignation but was never able to put it out of her head. One evening, after a hard working day, they were sitting at table in her kitchen, drinking tea. The TV set in the corner was on, in mute mode. It showed a beatnik-looking guy who was singing to his own guitar accompaniment. “Turn the sound on, please. I want to listen,” Igor asked. “You know, in my younger days I did some singing in an amateur way, even wrote songs of my own. If you like, I’ll bring a guitar next time and sing a couple for you.” “No!” Nina cried out frightened by the discovery that Igor was like her father in that, too. Igor was surprised and clearly hurt.
Those freudist fears made it more difficult for her to make love to Igor. The inward clenching that had possessed her in her marriage to Dima was back again – as she got in bed with Igor, she involuntarily thought of her father, and her trying to drive those thoughts away only made it worse. Apparently feeling something, Igor reduced his male program – gave up his attempts to inflame her with his skill. They would sit in the kitchen chatting until late at night and then, after a brief sex, go to sleep. Nina liked it that way.
Chapter 4
A year passed. They never discussed their relationship or made any plans for the future, but gradually, Nina came to believe that Igor had always been there and always would be – how could it be otherwise? Besides weekends, Igor started coming over on weekdays. He was clearly in need of a home, and she liked having him about – washing and ironing his shirts, giving him massage for his beginning osteochondrosis, treating his colds. Gradually, his stuff accumulated in her apartment: toothbrush, razor, slippers, bathrobe, books. Then Igor brought a pair of trainers and a tracksuit – trying to lose weight, he was running every morning and would not break his routine when he stayed overnight at her place.
Imagining her future life with Igor, Nina tried to listen to the woman inside her. The woman kept silent, but rather in an approving way – she did not seem to mind.
It all ended on the very day of their anniversary. Preparing to celebrate, Nina made a special dinner and laid the table nicely for the occasion. She had a plan for that night – she was going to make Igor a proposal. Her idea was to sell her apartment so that then they could buy jointly a new one that was larger and located closer to work – a place for them to settle down together. She was sure that Igor would agree – she did not imagine what objections he could have against such a sensible scheme. Nina did not insist on getting married. According to Igor, he was not seeing his wife – the woman would not let him cross her threshold, not even in order to see his son, – but they were not formally divorced, and Nina did not mean to rush things. She was sure that everything was going to sort out with time.
On hearing her out, Igor remained silent for a while, and then spoke in a thick voice, with his head down. “Well, it’s just as well… It’s for the better, I guess. You see, I’ve been meaning to talk to you, too.”
Nina listened to him unable to grasp the meaning of what he was saying. It took her some time to realize that Igor with whom she had grown so close was going to leave her and was telling her so. “But why?” she cried out. From his confused explanations, it appeared that actually he had been seeing his wife all that time. According to Igor, it was all for the sake of his son. The boy was to go to school that year, and Igor wanted to be there for him – wanted his son to have a father.
Nina kept silent. Logically, she admitted that everything was fair – that she had no claim on Igor, and so she should accept his leaving with good grace – but she was paralyzed. Nobody had dumped her like that before, and she had not known how hurtful it was. When Igor had collected his things and was already standing in the doorway, he said something else. “Excuse me, but I don’t think it’s so very important to you. You don’t feel anything in bed, do you? … I can see it, I’m not an idiot. I’m not saying you’re frigid – maybe, you just need another man, I don’t know.” Nina thrust the door open furiously: “Go away!” And he did.
That night, Nina did not have a wink of sleep, agonizing over Igor’s treason and her own humiliation. For some time, her logical mind tried to reason with her, arguing that Igor had not made any promises to her and thus, had not betrayed her – that there was nothing especially humiliating to her in that whole story – but soon her logical mind had to shut up overridden by the wounded, indignant woman. Together with billions of other women on this planet, Nina delivered the verdict that all men were swine – and cursed the stupid skirt whom she had never met and who had managed to get her husband back in spite of all her flaws. To be sure, that skirt was not frigid, oh no. She was probably doing all sorts of dirty tricks in bed – everything that males, those lewd apes, were so crazy about. Nina, who had never uttered a bad word in her life, cursed the woman in the meanest possible expressions.
The next day Nina phoned in sick and then even wangled a two weeks’ leave. She could not imagine running into Igor at work.
It was her first proper leave since she had come to work in the company. For a young employee, she was drawing a good
