‘Economics must be economical,’ Viktoriya quoted the general secretary.
Antyuhin looked impressed. ‘You know about Khozraschet?’
He reminded Viktoriya of Brezhnev and his official portrait that littered the walls and offices of every municipal building: the familiar dark, bushy eyebrows and permanent facial expression somewhere between surprise and a frown.
‘Viktoriya is an economics undergraduate at Leningrad State,’ interrupted Roman.
‘Maybe you should come and work for us when you have graduated?’
‘Maybe,’ she answered, only too familiar with the pick-up line. ‘And what would you like to drink?’ she said, smiling back.
‘A beer… Baltika,’ he said, pointing at Roman’s bottle.
By the time she returned with his order, he had pushed back his hair and rearranged his tie.
‘Are you free later for dinner… or tomorrow evening?’ he asked before she could make a retreat. ‘There is a new restaurant off Dumskaya. We could talk about your future opportunity.’
Viktoriya had heard of the new dining room reserved for party members.
‘Perhaps another time.’
She did not want to offend him, nor did she want to spend an evening with some mid-level bureaucrat trying to get her into bed with the tenuous promise of a job.
Antyuhin looked disappointed, a little put out, as though he had expected her to say yes without hesitation.
‘I go back to Moscow in a couple of days. I’m staying at the Baltic Hotel off the Griboedova Canal,’ he added to impress her.
‘I’ve got a lot on… exams coming up,’ she replied, trying to be final.
Another customer signalled her across the room; it was the excuse she needed to make her exit.
By midnight most tables had emptied. Antyuhin had left half an hour before, making a big deal of slowly putting on his fur-trimmed Arctic parka and stuffing a cigarette packet back in his pocket, studiously ignoring her as the regulars waved her goodbye.
Just after one, the Muzey closed. Viktoriya threw on her short padded frock coat and headed out into the cold night air. She paused. Once elegant façades lingered sooted and mutinous over a deserted prospect, trembling in the flicker of a faulty street lamp. A mouse scurried by, leaving only the telltale trail of its tiny feet in the fresh snow.
At the next junction, Viktoriya vaulted a rusted pedestrian railing and crossed into Yusupovsky Park. A distant basilica, ice-capped, blinked and vanished. Snow, she thought, on its way. She could not remember the park being so perfect. Frosted willow and larch, skeletal against the moonlight, peppered a perfect white pedestal; park benches, once populated in summer, lay dormant and untenanted. A wedge of snow slid from a nearby branch and landed with a muffled thump.
Sticking out her tongue, she tasted the icy nothingness of winter. A lonely flake melted on her cheek. Viktoriya closed her eyes and remembered her mother’s hand tightly clasped around her own, of scooping fresh snow and gingerly extending her tongue towards it until she encountered that numbing prickle.
Snow fell heavily now; what had started as a sprinkling blotted out most of the park. She squinted at a solid shape two hundred metres ahead. At first she wasn’t sure if it was moving, or what it was, but as it passed under a park light she recognised the silhouette of a man, head down against the cold, hands thrust into his coat pockets. She pulled her coat tighter; maybe he was a road maintenance worker returning after a night shift, or a bar worker like herself making his way home. Hesitant at first, Viktoriya started down the footpath towards the approaching figure, telling herself that this was no different to any other encounter, two night-travellers bent on an opposite path. With each long stride, her confidence returned.
A few feet apart, the man looked up from the barely discernible footpath and stared her directly in the face. The words good evening died on her lips. She couldn’t remember the name at first, only the fur-trimmed coat and that he worked for Khozraschet. She stopped, confused: wasn’t his hotel in the opposite direction?
‘Good evening, Viktoriya.’
He stepped sideways, directly in front of her, blocking her path.
‘You really should have accepted my invitation. A pity… You remember me?’ he said, grinning.
Her mouth went dry. She struggled to find her voice.
‘Get out of my way,’ she said as calmly as she could.
Snow swallowed her words; they dropped frozen into the soft white powder thickening around her feet.
She turned to run and slipped, only managing momentarily to regain her balance before he threw his powerful arms around her, crushing her ribs, squeezing out all the air. Viktoriya screamed with the breath she had left, struggling desperately to free herself. She kicked him hard on the shin bone. He let out a muffled cry. Furious, her attacker released his grip and swung his fist hard into her solar plexus. Winded, unable to draw breath, she fell to her knees, frantically trying to find air before he was on her again. She managed a lungful before she felt his strong hands clench her feet and begin dragging her away from the path towards the towering yew border. She screamed, clawing at him with her free hands.
‘Be quiet!’ he whispered loudly. With that, he jumped on top of her, pinning her down as his fingers found her belt and worked their way round to the buckle. Recovering her breath, she attempted to push him off. This time he punched her in the ribs. For a moment she lost consciousness; the rough pulling off of her jeans jolted her awake. Violently, he entered her, one hand clawing her breasts while the other covered her mouth. Inert, shocked, fearful of another blow, she tipped her head back and stared up blankly at the snow-laden branches of an overhanging tree.
When he had finished he stood up. Terrified, she watched him zip up his trousers and extract a small wad of roubles from his back pocket. Counting out several, he paused, seeming to change his mind, and roughly stuffed the whole bundle into the pocket of her ripped and abandoned coat that he found at his feet.
He turned to leave, took three steps and stopped.
‘You deserve a tip,’ he said, and kicked her hard in the stomach, knocking the wind out of her a third time. ‘And don’t try anything when I’m gone, like going to the police, not unless you want your next job in Siberia.’
When Viktoriya found the courage to look up again, he was gone. Clutching her jeans, she crawled an agonising ten metres into the shrubbery behind a park bench. Wet snow forced its way up under her torn T-shirt, her bare legs and hands numb from the cold. Terrified he might return at any moment, she lay there motionless, struggling to garner her thoughts, to understand what had just happened, deciding what to do next. She couldn’t stay there, not in those freezing conditions. A thousand thoughts crowded in. She willed herself to calm down, focus. She took a deep breath and held it before slowly exhaling, watching a steady stream of vapour condense and freeze into a small cloud. Gently, she stroked her bruised and aching abdomen. Blue with cold, she gingery pulled on her jeans and wrestled on her coat. With the back of her scratched and blooded hand, Viktoriya wiped away the tears that had begun to freeze on her cheeks. Going to the police, she knew, would be worse than useless. They would only say she asked for it. After all, what was she doing in Yusupovsky Park so late at night? Picking up customers? Wasn’t Yusupovsky famous for it? They weren’t going to arrest some party member whose connections might consign them to a posting in the Far East, and certainly not for an inconsequential young student. She had seen it happen before: the accuser becomes the accused, a university place revoked, a family member’s job threatened.