The Mountain Shadow

‘Your Karla,’ he said, taking a sip of beer. ‘I know what you’re feeling, because I have my Karlesha, back in Moscow.’

‘Why aren’t you back in Moscow?’

‘I don’t like Moscow,’ he said, taking another sip. ‘I’m a St Petersburg boy.’

‘But you love the girl.’

‘Yes. But she hates me.’

‘She hates you?’

‘Hates me.’

‘How do you know?’

‘She paid her father to have me killed.’

‘She had to pay him? What is he, a banker?’

‘No, he’s a cop. A pretty big cop.’

‘What happened?’

‘It’s a long story,’ he sighed, looking toward the breeze of white curtains, fluttering on the sunlit balcony.

‘Fuck you, Oleg. You killed my short story. You can fill the space with your long story.’

He laughed bitterly. One of our purest expressions, a thing of our human kind: the bitter laugh.

‘I slept with her sister,’ he said, staring at his beer.

‘Okay. Not classy, but there are worse things that people do to people’s sisters.’

‘No, it’s complicated. They’re twins. Non-identical twins.’

‘Where are you going with this, Oleg?’

There was a call from the hallway. It was Didier.

‘Hello? Are you home, Lin?’ he said, as he walked through the open door.

‘Didier!’ I said happily. ‘Grab a seat, and have a beer. Oleg is venturing into territory beyond my couch, and you’re just the man to guide the way.’

‘Lin, I am afraid that I have many appointments, and –’

‘My girlfriend in Moscow hates me,’ Oleg said flatly, helplessly, ‘because she’s a non-identical twin, and I slept with her and her non-identical sister, at the same time.’

‘Fascinating,’ Didier said, settling himself into a chair. ‘If it is not an indelicate question, Oleg, did they have the same . . . aroma?’

‘Indelicate?’ I mocked. ‘You, Didier?’

‘Funny you should say that,’ Oleg muttered, searching Didier’s face. ‘They did have the same smell. Exactly the same smell. I mean, the same smell . . . everywhere.’

‘That is indeed a rare phenomenon,’ Didier mused. ‘Exceedingly rare. Did you happen to notice the length of their ring fingers, compared to their index fingers?’

‘Can we get to the part where her father tried to kill you?’ I suggested, thinking that I had writing to do.

‘Marvellous,’ Didier said. ‘Tried to kill you, eh?’

‘Sure. See, it happened this way. I was in love with Elena, and nothing ever happened between me and her sister, Irina, until one night, when I was very drunk, totally razbit.’

‘Razbit?’ Didier asked.

‘Smashed, man, I was totally smashed, and Irina sneaked into my bed, naked, while Elena was at the neighbour’s place.’

‘Wonderful,’ Didier enthused.

‘It was completely dark,’ Oleg continued. ‘Very dark. We had blackout blinds on the windows. She smelled like Elena. She felt like Elena.’

‘Did she kiss you?’ Didier asked, a master of sexual forensics.

‘No. And she didn’t speak.’

‘Precisely. That would have given her away. She’s a clever girl.’

‘Elena didn’t think so, when she came back, switched the light on, and found us making love.’

‘No talking your way out of that one,’ I said.

‘She threw me out of my own apartment,’ he said. ‘I’m not sure that’s even legal. I mean, I’m still paying the rent from here. And her father put up the threat of prison bars, between me and the woman I love.’

‘I don’t think Elena felt very loved, Oleg.’

‘No,’ he said. ‘I mean Irina. When we made love, drunk and all as I was, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. She was a maniac, in all the right ways. I was mad for her. I still am.’

‘Marvellous,’ Didier smiled. ‘But what happened?’

‘I managed to get a message to Irina, asking her to run away with me. She agreed, and we planned to meet at midnight, at Paveletsky Terminal. But she told Elena our plans, and Elena came to see me, asking me not to take Irina away. I talked to her, but I refused. I met Irina at the station, and we were running away together, then she stopped me and asked me if I was really sure that it was her I loved, and not her twin.’

He paused, searching for the right way through his hedge of recollection.

‘Yes?’ Didier asked, stamping his foot a little. ‘What happened?’

‘We were standing together, in the shadows. She asked me how I could be so sure that it was really her and not Elena that I loved. And, you know that moment when a woman asks you for the truth? And you know, you really, clearly know that it’s the last thing you should do?’

‘Yeah,’ we both agreed.

‘I told the truth.’

‘How bad?’ I asked.

‘I told her that I was absolutely sure that it was her I loved, because just to be completely certain, I had slept with Elena again, when she’d come to see me, two hours before. And it was nothing, with Elena. I hardly enjoyed it at all. So, I was certain that Irina was the one for me, and it wasn’t just the fact that I was pretty drunk that night, and I kind of hallucinated how good she was.’

‘Oh, shit.’

‘Merde,’ Didier agreed.

‘She took a swing at me,’ he said.

‘I want to swing at you myself,’ Didier said. ‘It is a disgrace to tell any woman the unembellished truth.’

‘You dug that grave yourself, Oleg,’ I laughed. ‘And neither one forgave you?’