Chapter 6 The Leather Pants #2
“Ah. So for sure stupid, Katya.” Elena allowed us to keep walking, but linked her arm with mine, assumedly so I couldn’t bolt from her questions. We passed a round, balding man who smacked his lips at us from behind a stand stacked with dusty pots and pans.
“Mama likes him.”
She nodded knowingly. “That’s important. I’m surprised he met her already. Usually, men like that don’t want anything to do with your family. Makes it feel too real.”
“I don’t think he is like that.”
“They don’t always come out and show you, just be careful. Only a portion of them are idiots, and even the idiots can still ruin your life.”
“Yeah…”
There was quiet between us, and I took the opportunity to slip in the question that’d been pecking at my mind. “So, he said you know each other through mutual acquaintances?”
“Not that I recall.” She shrugged. “But I see a lot of people when we go out—mostly the same ones, they hover around this city like flies. But I feel I’d recognize a good-looker like him.”
I believed her. Elena was the first to nose out a party and made it a point to meet anyone of interest.
The gross feeling in my chest bitterly gloated that I saw him first, and she never had the chance to talk to him. Not that I thought she’d be in my shoes now… of course not. That would mean I was insecure and I was not insecure.
It took us seven rows to find the leather stalls, and an honorable five minutes of fighting through the crowds to reach the ones from Turkey—with the good lining.
Every merchant tried to lure us over to their tables, but I couldn’t afford to be cheap and have the seams come apart on me at an inopportune time.
The image of those pants ripping as Vitali had me against the wall with his face buried in my neck sent shivers up my spine and clouded my vision.
God—but we hadn’t even kissed, and yet in my mind, he’d ravaged me on every surface known to mankind.
He probably wouldn’t care who was watching.
We’d do it on the windowsill with my butt cheeks pressed against the glass. He’d tell me when to—
“What color?” Elena asked. The Turkish salesman had his arms crossed, watching me from underneath bushy brows with one finger impatiently tap-tapping.
“Black,” I said. “They have to be black.”
He pulled an absurdly small pair out of a box and offered them up for my inspection. I didn’t want to—but still had him hold up a makeshift curtain while I balanced on a piece of cardboard at the back of the stall to try them on. Miracles happen, they fit, but not without damaging my self-esteem.
I didn’t think he spoke Russian, but knew enough to haggle with me for five minutes before we settled on a small discount and an addition of a black, leather choker like I’d seen the girls wear.
Elena grabbed it out of my hands just as I handed the money over.
“Why do you need this?” she hissed.
“It was a part of the outfit…”
“Katya, this is for whores.”
“Don’t be prude, they’re all over MTV.”
“Prude?” She let out an exasperated ‘ha.’ “Yekaterina Petrovna is telling me not to be a prude. Oh, so what, you go out with a man in Italian shoes and suddenly you’re the bad girl crawling toward the camera on national TV?”
I let out a growl that tapered off into a sigh. “Maybe it’s better if you tell me about work. Have you been paid yet?”
“Something’s gone wrong with the budget; they’re fixing it next week,” she said, matching pace with me.
“But we keep coming up short on everything. The doctors are cramming their bags with morphine before they leave for the day. We all know it—but who is going to stop them? I’d sneak some away myself if there was anything left.
I’ll have to make do with bandages. Maybe I’ll use them to make a nice scarf. ”
“Budget,” I repeated. What budget? The Senator’s paperwork came through my desk as if on an assembly line, and I knew the word ‘budget’ was a fictional term used to buy time.
“They’ll always pay the hospitals, right?” Elena asked as I stared down at my muddy shoes. “People need us. We have more patients than we can deal with—they have to pay the medical staff.”
“They’ll pay the hospitals,” I assured her. “I think our offices will be the first to go, so you’ll have ample warning.”
I tried to laugh but couldn’t muster the least bit of reassurance for her.
I didn’t want to think about it either; I was the only one supporting Mama and Maxim.
Contrary to what I told Elena, the government offices would never take away our jobs because it would make dealing with Moscow impossible, and everyone knew that the political powers would be the only ones spared if the rest of the public sector went down.
Whatever side the bread is buttered on, right?
I flexed my fingers on the precious plastic bag containing the new pants that I’d spent so much of my savings on. It wouldn’t be long until I’d regret the decision.
My office wouldn’t be spared. The hospitals wouldn’t be spared. The schools wouldn’t be spared. The police, already outgunned and outnumbered, wouldn’t be spared.
No one would receive a kopek for the next six months.
* * *
About Russia
Ararat - Armenian brandy, very popular in Russia to this day
brat - “brother”
shchi - cabbage soup
About shopping: Outdoor markets in Russia were the only way goods were available for a very long time. “Malls” started springing up under a different name in early 2000s, although indoor shopping centers were available in large cities earlier than that.
About wage withholding: Wage withholding happened mostly from 1993 to 1998.
The public sector was affected the most, and some people went as long as 3-9 months without being paid.
Some of the hardest hit were hospitals, schools, and the military.
Many stayed in these jobs out of a sense of duty to their country and to their neighbors.
Pensions continued to be paid out, and families relied on the eldest family members to survive during this time.