Butterfly Skin (41 page)

THE PLANE GAINS HEIGHT AND THE AIRPORT
terminal building, the meandering ribbon of the Vltava, the gothic spires, the narrow little streets, the statues on the Charles Bridge, the crowds on the Old Town Square, the spring flowers on the slopes of the Castle Hill are left behind down below. March, and everything is green already, no snow, would you believe it. Ksenia smiles.

Olya was right, a week in Prague was the best medicine. If you thought this thing through, it was no more than a failed virtual love affair, almost like Marina’s. A wonderful lover on ICQ, but a monster in real life. That was almost poetry.

The ghosts of Prague had scattered the phantoms of Moscow. Dead girls, flayed skin, severed hands… Ksenia jiggles her shoulders. It’s not hard at all to teach yourself not to think about it, shove it into a dusty corner and forget about it forever. I guess that’s what everybody does. There’s too much suffering and pain in the world already, what’s the point of thinking about it all. You have to live without letting the phantoms into your cozy little world. That’s the way everybody lives. There’s Marina, raising her son without thinking about how the boy will live his life, turn into an old man with white hair and then be a handful of dust in a rectangular box with a name on a plaque.

Thank you, Olya: she bought Ksenia’s ticket, booked the hotel, arranged for friends who lived in Prague to meet her, make her welcome and show her the city. Olya’s friends – a man with the funny surname Karmodi and a girl with the amusing first name Allena –
not pronounced
“
Allyona
,”
in the Russian fashion
,
don’t get them mixed up
– led Ksenia round the narrow streets, bought her beer, gave her hash, did the rounds of the tourist spots and concerts, and gradually Ksenia thawed out, the nagging pain passed off, as if someone had pulled out the nail stuck in her throat and taken away the knife sticking out of her belly. On the second day she got drunk and told them the latest Moscow jokes, disregarding the fact that her kindly hosts had also read them on the internet at Anecdote.ru. They drank beer in Žižkov – at Plato’s Cave, Amsterdam, and The Seven Wolves, they played table soccer in a beer garden, tried to spit into the Vltava from the giant metronome in Letná Park, bought grass at the Château, smoked it in the basements of the Barrel Wine Bar and went to watch a movie at a multiplex in the Andêl district.

On Friday they attached themselves to an international group in the Central Lounge – three Americans, one Frenchman, a couple from Germany, two girls from Austria. When it was getting near morning, lanky Jean-Pierre with the flaxen hair tried to hug her and puckered up his lips, and she recoiled so sharply that she even frightened herself: a few moments longer and she would have hit him. “You can just say no,” he said in English, pale-faced.

“I’m sorry,” said Ksenia, “I have problems with my sex life, Jean-Pierre, I’m really sorry.” How easy it is to say in English, how ludicrous it sounds in Russian – “I have certain problems with my sexual life.” Problems? Why problems? Maybe everything’s perfectly normal, in fact. Look for yourself: you had an affair, you split up, you’re suffering. You’re not ready for a new relationship, and so, hmmm, well… And then, you can’t even masturbate either, and nothing arouses you, and in general, doctor, I think I’m frigid now.

Ksenia reaches out for a glass of apple juice: “Can I have some water as well? Thank you.” I guess I should be glad it’s all over now. I guess it’s better to have no fantasies than that kind. Maya told me masochism was something you had to get over in order to start living a normal life. Get married, have children, one boy and one girl, no, better two girls, call them Marina and Olya, live a happy life. Make a good career, then get married and have two girls. Right, now it’s clear how we’re going to live from here on. Very good.

Or I could become a lesbian, thinks Ksenia. I have no memories connected with women, women have never tied my hands together with a clothesline or dripped wax onto my bare stomach. How repulsive it is, really. She puts her empty glass on the tray and smiles at the air hostess: snub nose, broad cheekbones, bright-painted lips, she gives a well-practiced smile, but Ksenia thinks it seems warm and sincere. Right then, marry a woman, be the wife, she thinks. Or, on the contrary, be the husband. Marry Marina, say. But no, better not Marina, Marina would be unfaithful, screw with their mutual female friends and bring men home. Better marry Olya. Olya’s grownup, independent, experienced. She would be a mother to her, sometimes a daughter, or a sister – for an instant the word “brother” flares up in her brain, triggering a sharp pain in her neck, stop, Ksenia tells herself, no more brothers, enough… right then, instead of a sister, instead of a husband, instead of a wife. She tries to imagine Olya and herself making love. There probably wouldn’t be any point in pretending, you can’t fool a girl. If I don’t feel like it, I’ll simply say: “Sorry, I’m not getting it on,” Olya will understand. Olya’s beautiful, Ksyusha likes the way Olya leans her head sideways in conversation, draws on her cigarette through a long holder, smiles with the corners of her mouth and swings her well-groomed hand smoothly through the air. She drove Ksyusha to Sheremetyevo and kissed her before she checked in. When they said goodbye, Ksyusha stuck her face between her breasts, Olya stroked her hair and whispered in a low voice:
Don’t worry, Ksyusha, everything will be all right, you know it will
, and it’s come true, everything is all right, thank you for Prague, thank you for Einstürzende Neubauten at the Archa Theater, thank you for this week, for pulling the knife out of my wound, getting rid of the nagging pain in my neck, for the goodbye kiss, for not sleeping that night when I came out of the bathroom, sitting beside me until morning, stroking my hair without saying a word.

“Yes, MK, please.” The newspaper rustles, she looks through the window at the clouds, as yellowish-gray as the Moscow snow. Thinks: it will be spring at home soon. Just why were we born in such a cold country? We fly into Moscow and tomorrow I go to work, I wonder how they’re getting on there? The site, oh, I don’t even want to think about the site. Olya’s right, we ought to close it down. Or give it to Alexei, not take any money, just take our names off it? But what if they’ve already caught him? thinks Ksenia. Then I could just forget the whole business completely. She leafs through the newspaper, looking for the crime section: that would be a real welcome home present. “Moscow Psycho captured.” And not think about the fact that I loved that man, not think about it. That isn’t what I went to Prague for.

She turns a page – and instantly, as if all the pain that had gone has suddenly come back, as if someone has hit her in the face with a hatchet, chopped off her hands, ripped open her breasts, smashed her ribcage, taken out her heart, she screams, screams, the apple juice gushes out of her throat in pink foam, the startled man next to her recoils, the air hostess comes running, Ksyusha squeezes the sheet of newsprint between her bitten fingers, clutching it as if she’s still hoping to wake up, scream, scream, howl like an animal, anything not to see the small print right down at the bottom:
Another victim for the Moscow Psycho? The body of a young woman with indications of sexual violence and torture has been found in the Bitsevo forest park. From the nature of the wounds and the location of the body, experts believe this could be the latest victim of the psychotic killer who has been terrorizing the capital for the last six months. The dead woman has been identified from her documents as thirty-five-year-old Olga K.
Scream, scream, choking on your sobs, writhe in the arms of the air hostess, cry, cry.

But no – Ksenia sits there without moving, reading it over and over again, no longer hoping for anything, not believing it’s just coincidence – there must be plenty of girls in Moscow called Olya, with a surname starting with K, thirty-five, the director of a well-known internet shop! – she sits there without moving, not a single tear, the sky above Europe, clouds as dirty as the Moscow snow.

I’M TRYING TO THINK UP A HAPPY ENDING FOR THIS
story – but I’m not getting anywhere.

Even when I was killing Olga, I didn’t get aroused at all. The first time in my life.

She was an interesting woman, I used to like working with women like that. Beautiful breasts, eyes filled with sadness, delicate skin on her hands.

I kissed her on the palm before I chopped off her hands.

I hacked, burned and sliced, but I didn’t feel a thing. When I killed before, it felt like I was using a woman’s body and my own skill to create genuine works of art. This time I felt like a crude artisan.

Usually the time passes quickly when I work, but I tired quickly – maybe because Olga failed to arouse any feelings in me – no sympathy, no admiration, no pity.

She simply did not interest me.

I took a drink of water, splashed some on my face and went back into the basement. Olga was lying on the table with her hands severed, skin hanging in tatters from her lacerated thighs, her right breast transformed into bloody pulp, blood oozing from her left nipple. Leather straps held her body on the table, her widely parted legs were tied to rings set into the wall: between them I could see a pool of blood. The instruments were scattered in disorder on the table beside her – scalpel, pruning knife, several whips. There was a blowtorch lying on the floor, rope nooses caked with blood hanging from the ceiling. The walls and the floor were covered in blood too – I used to make my prisoners tidy up the basement, but the last couple of times I haven’t bothered with that. There are probably severed body parts still lying around here, forgotten: there’s an oppressive smell of rotting offal. Strange, I’ve only just noticed that.

Olga was lying on the table, her mouth lacerated by the gag, her eyes closed. She looked like a broken toy dumped on a garbage heap, not a work of art. I thought of how she was Ksenia’s closest friend, a woman whom Ksenia loved. I walked over to the table, took the gag out of her mouth and lay down beside her. It was only then I noticed I was still clutching the hatchet in my hand. I put my arms round Olga and tried to kiss her. Suddenly she jerked her head up and sank her teeth into my lip. I pulled back sharply and hit her in the face with the hatchet.

My blood gushed out onto my chest. I dashed to the handbasin, and washed the wound, crying.

I’ve been afraid of pain ever since I was little.

I didn’t know what to do with Olga after that. My penis was impotently limp, my imagination was exhausted.

What I really felt like doing was leaving her to die from hunger and her wounds, and collect the dead body after a couple of weeks. But I didn’t want to wait: I had to send a signal to Ksenia.

I suddenly realized what I should do. I gathered up the instruments, gagged Olga again and set to work. I don’t usually feel tired when the work is approaching its conclusion, but this time I sat down to rest twice. Afterward I realized I’d broken my usual habit and not even checked whether she was still alive or not. So, to be quite honest, I don’t know at what moment Olga died.

Finally the job was done: I tossed the remnants of the shattered ribs out of the wound, hacked off the scraps of flesh and skin round the edges – and tore out Olga’s heart.

It was the very death that Ksenia had wished for herself.

A CLOSED COFFIN, YES, OF COURSE… THEY SAY HER
face was disfigured, almost unrecognizable… and is it true what they wrote, her ribcage was broken open and her heart had been removed…? yes of course, it’s him all right, who else…? she made the site about him, didn’t she…? yes, as if she had a premonition, an incredible coincidence… it must have been fated… thirty-five years old, still young, really… I think she’s the first person in our business to be killed… yes, this business we’re in isn’t really serious: the first killing, at this stage…! and even then it’s some psycho, not some adult problem, like restructuring the market…

The sound of voices, they move from table to table, the official funeral banquet “Olya always loved this restaurant.” Really? I didn’t know that, I never came here with her, well, that doesn’t matter anymore. They walk up, express their condolences, as if she’s the closest relative – a daughter, a sister – as if they really had got married and lived in loving harmony for many years, lived happily for years and years, had children, two girls, with each other. She didn’t need to have the abortion, thinks Ksenia, she wouldn’t have had to raise the child alone anyway, she didn’t need to be afraid. But maybe it’s a good thing there was nothing but clots of blood left in the darkness of her womb. Just imagine what that’s like: dying together with your child, even if it hasn’t been born yet! She can’t imagine it, she can’t even imagine that Olya’s gone, a closed coffin, she didn’t even see her one last time, she can’t imagine, she can’t think about how she died. She always used to say she was afraid of pain, she said: “I’m a terrible coward, I’m so afraid of pain, not like you,” not like me, yes, it would probably have been fairer if it was me, not her.

Pasha walks up, squeezes her arm just above the elbow: “Ksenia, please accept my condolences, I know that you were very close.” It’s the first time he’s spoken so formally to her, as if Olya’s death has made Ksenia older, as if some of Olya’s years have been transferred to her. She answers: “Thank you, yes, very close.” Not a single tear in two days in Moscow, not a single tear in her whole life.

She’s a strong girl, thinks Pasha, she won’t break down, I know. Pasha only needs to see a person who has lost dear ones, and he knows all about them. After all, didn’t almost all his childhood friends lose someone? the statistical base is more than adequate. He’s still holding Ksenia’s elbow, he says: “Can I talk to you for a moment?”

“Yes, of course, but what is it?” They move off into a corner, sit down at an empty table, Pasha glances back over his shoulder, takes a small pistol out of his inside pocket, puts it on the table.