“I might. Do you need to get across the border?”
“I might,” Dragomirov nodded. “We have business” as he leaned into Zalmund with an alcoholic breath.
“We do?” Zalmund said coldly.
“Listen, Zalmund Hofitz. You have been successful. I have let you. Now we need your help. You can only do better. You understand?” Dragomirov raised his eyebrows in a supplicant gesture. Zalmund knew this was the last he would see of this expression.
“Yes. I can help.”
“We travel many places, me and my friends. Your passes would be very helpful to our business.” Dragomirov paused, and after an uncomfortable slack, Zalmund nodded. “It is best you help us.”
“I can help,” Zalmund said, and then turned his attention from Dragomirov’s intense stare, and surveyed the room. “Is there a party tonight?” He looked back with hooded eyes.
“Of course. Olga! Katarina!” Dragomirov barked.
This gave Zalmund some time to think. He had to deal with Dragomirov, naturally. But what? If he gave whatever was requested, who would become his enemies? What could he hold back? How much could he ask? He offered three toasts while contemplating. The assembled soldiers of the Kyiv underground gratefully saluted his recognition.
“Nostrovya!” They downed the shot glasses of biting Vodka that warmed them.
“Nostrovya!”
“Da Nostrovya!”
A young girl, with bright red lipstick and a small pimple below her lip on the left, smiled and sat on his lap. She wore a lace bodice over a black bra and a short black velvet skirt with silk fishnet stockings, and a long seam running from her heel and delectably disappearing under the skirt hem. Dragomirov smiled and patted his knee. “You can join us, you know. We need someone like you.”
Zalmund checked his breathing with a start. In a nervous gesture he patted the young girl on the hip. She put her hand over his hand on his hip, and Zalmund knew he was in deeper than he expected. She raised his hand to cover her breast.
Dragomirov was persistent. “Where do the passes come from?”
“They are real.” Zalmund said coolly. The girl on his lap looked back at him over her shoulder, annoyed. “I was Cheka.”
Dragomirov sat back in his seat, to show he was impressed. “Yes.” He grabbed another young girl that circulated among the men of the mezzanine. She smiled in recognition, sat on his lap, and put her arm around his neck. He looked at her and gave a small peck on the neck.
“You have more?” The girl began to answer, but she saw the question was directed at Zalmund. She pouted her red lips.
“General Dragomirov…” Zalmund said sarcastically, shook his head and leaned it against the back of the young girl.
“Hofitz. I treat you with respect,” he paused. “For now,” he paused again, and laughed out loud. “You are a smart man. I see that. Not like these…” He wiped his hand across the room. “Anyway, I lost three of them, this week. To the Spanish flu. Nasty.”
Zalmund looked up and nodded. He appreciated this display of vulnerability.
“Look, Hofitz. We have the same enemies, we might as well be friends. You came to Kyiv from Moscow. I don’t need to know why. We go back to Moscow, now and again. I could use your help.
Zalmund looked him in the eye with a serious face. “For a price.”
“Don’t be stupid, Zalmund. For a percentage.” Dragomirov paused. “We can do very good business and sink the Bolsheviks. You’d like that?”
“I don’t know what you have in mind,” Zalmund demurred. Yes, of course. A percentage sounded like so much more and was so much less. Expenses, losses, mistakes by his friends, betrayals by his enemies. Dragomirov would give him what he felt he was worth, which might be very little.
“My friend,” Dragomirov continued. “You make this hard. I need you in my group. I will pay you fairly for your passes, plus a percentage of what we can take across. Of course, I need your advice on the border crossings, the security, and such.”
“I could do this.”
“Will you do this?” There was a pause. “Of course, the girl has got to go.”
The girl on his lap stood up. Zalmund was taken up short.
“What girl?”
“The girl has to go. You know. We see you with her. She is of no use to you now.” He squeezed the breast of the girl on his lap. “A different one every night. Think of it.”
Zalmund lost his balance. For some stupid reason he had thought of his life in two compartments: one with Deena and one to survive. Now, in a cymbal crash, they merged.
“Why?” was all he could say.
“Why not?” Dragomirov laughed. “What do you need her for? She is a Polish kalamsavya, a dirt digger. You can do better. We do not need extra eyes, extra mouths. You will work at night, maybe not come home so often.” He smirked, then Dragomirov narrowed his eyes, and the drunken look was suddenly gone from his face. “We don’t work with our women.”
“Yes, … No?” Zalmund was desperate. “Nostrovya!” he cried, and all the glasses were filled with chilled Vodka. They drank, and his head spun.
“So?” Dragomirov raised his eyebrows to close the deal.
Zalmund smiled. What was behind his eyes? He grabbed the young girl by the shoulder, spun her back, and kissed her deeply. The place erupted in cheer.
He felt her soft skin, the lace of her bodice against his chin. He shivered. She danced for them, and for him, with her hips swinging side-to-side suspended like a hinge from her narrow waist. She sat on his lap and leaned back into him, and he inhaled. The smell of her shoulder, the dressing powder on her skin made him dizzy. She turned and leaned forward, her forehead against his. She arched her back. He felt the heat from between her breasts against his nose. He closed his eyes and the sensation imprinted on his memory. She kissed him sweetly on the top of the head, arose and danced again.
Another took her place, and more as the night went into dawn. Each squeezed Zalmund at his core, and he couldn’t think of Deena at the same time. He was off into possibilities, where endless scenes flowed. He was a warlord, an impresario, an intelligentsia. He was independent. All respected him, the Jews and the goyim.
A blond in a black lace corset filled his glass with vodka. She looked deep into his eyes. She looked like she wanted to know something, …was he true? Of course not, who was here? But her eyes asked. He shifted his gaze away nervously. He grabbed her roughly about the waist and twisted her onto his lap. In punishment he kissed her on the lips, then her neck, and then firmly on her left breast that was squeezed into a supple mound above the corset.
Dragomirov leaned around the dark-haired beauty in his lap to watch Zalmund. He saw the kisses, the caresses, the bawdy talk. He knew he had his man. Zalmund may put on a front of idealism, of dedication, of purpose. But it was a mask. Just underneath was a man who needed stroking, respect, acknowledgement from his betters, a purpose for what he wanted to do. Dragomirov understood. He gave him this, as he did for so many in his band. One more recruited to the crew.
Sometime early in the morning, Zalmund crept down a narrow, humid alley with smells from the dank gutter. His clothes and his breath stunk from the night before. The vodka, the girls, the songs, the toasts. His head was bursting. At the end of the alley leading out of the Podol he came up to a police barricade. Now he was exhausted.
“Stop! No one passes” a tall blonde solider in a rumpled uniform and wearing a mask commanded with his rifle.
“Yes!” Zalmund raised his arms. “I hear!”