‘Weird guy,’ Darya exhaled.
‘Looks like a gangbanger,’ Helenka remarked. Then raising an eyebrow, ‘Weird, how?’
‘Probably just nervous,’ Darya said shortly. She wanted to take her seat before someone else took it. ‘Did you get me something to drink?’
‘I thought you were abstaining,’ Helenka remarked.
Darya made a face.
‘He’s hot,’ Helenka observed with a casual glance back.
Hot was not what came to Darya’s mind when she saw Oleg. He had all the attributes, yes, but collectively, they didn’t quite impress. He was tall, about 5’11’’ and of athletic build. His face was deeply set and built of hard lines; his lips were thin, his nose sharp like a beak. His peroxide blonde hair was severely brushed back, making his face appear gaunter and causing his cold eyes to pop. That night, he was dressed in all-black, from head to toe, his socks being the only hint of colour, a bright emerald blue, with which he wore black canvas shoes.
Striking, but definitely not hot. If anything, COLD.
His act had been a disaster from the word ‘go’.
‘Guys, you know I’m a Jew, right?’ he announced as soon as he stepped on stage.
They knew. Daniel had introduced Oleg as twenty-seven, Jewish-Polish-Romanian, who’d started performing ‘professionally’ two years ago, worked as a part-time guide, and was on his way to becoming a movie star; the last eliciting an exchange of glances between Darya and Helenka. Oleg, Daniel claimed, had already featured in a couple of local television shows and those hadn’t been owing to his rich media-mogul daddy whose help, Daniel added with a wink, Oleg refused to take. He was going to make his own way up to the top.
Give it up for Oleg Shamir, ladies and gentlemen!
‘And you won’t believe this, right,’ Oleg continued, ‘My girlfriend … well … she’s neo-Nazi.’
He paused for effect.
A few in the audience produced polite sniggers.
Inexplicably, Darya’s heart began to pump harder.
Something bad was coming their way.
‘My mum was like, why son, why?’ He mimed a horrified face. ‘Why SHE of all people? You’re so good-looking! Can’t you find someone else?’ His head moved from side to side in a theatrical pretense of surveying his audience. The overhead lights made his pale skin shimmer. His head appeared shorn of all hair. ‘You have to see my girlfriend, right? Ya all of you would want her. The way I did. You won’t judge me then. Ya all of you would covet her.’ He made a move with his balled-up fists. ‘She is tall, has butts this big,’ he rounded his hands. Darya suppressed a sigh. ‘Boobs the size of cannon balls … oops.’ He gave a sheepish grin. ‘Wrong analogy, you know, given the context.’
Polite titters.
‘So … coming back … my mum really doesn’t understand why I needed to do it,’ he said. ‘But … you guys are smart. Maybe you do?’
No one spoke.
Oleg released a large guffaw. Darya wondered if Oleg was on something. Just moments earlier he’d seemed cold, withdrawn, and now he was all energy, prancing up and down the stage, ready to burst. A line of coke, maybe?
Meanwhile, silence had fallen over the audience.
Oleg delivered the punch line.
‘I told my Ma, Ma … why you don’t understand? Do you know what it is like when I fuck her?’ He asked the audience. ‘Do you?’ His face grew animated. The words came out big and strong. ‘It’s a JEW fucking a NEO NAZI. Every time we DO IT, I’m redeeming my ancestors.’ He topped it off with pelvic thrusts at the mic. ‘Gotta tell you man, choose your partner wisely. It helps. Release all your anger inside them.’
Darya cringed. She flashed a glance at Helenka who parodied a jaw drop.
It was all downhill from there.
As the night progressed, the jokes grew cruder, and as the laughs dried up, Oleg grew more and more agitated.
Why don’t the Jewish cannibals like eating Germans? Because they give them gas.
A rabbi addresses a group of Jews in a Nazi concentration camp. The rabbi says: ‘My fellow Jews, I have some good news and some bad news: The good news is, we are all going to America ... but the bad news is we are all going as wallets!’
You know, the other day, I went to buy a hammer at the supermarket. My old one was broken. This time I wanted a good, sturdy one. So, I asked the old lady stacking dog food on the shelves, milady, where can I get a sturdy hammer? She looked me up and down and said, you don’t look like a working man to me. What do you need a hammer for? I told her, yeah, you probably need the hammer more than I do. Just to make yourself work.
And this time Darya looked away disgusted when Oleg mimicked a hammer moving in between his legs.
‘Why’s he not feeling the vibe in the room?’ Helenka whispered. She was teetering at the end of their bench, as if readying to flee.
‘Don’t you dare,’ Darya motioned to the door.
‘Oh, your loss, friend,’ Helenka said.
‘Shh …’ Darya warned. She didn’t want to be singled out by Oleg who was now jumping around the stage, probably hoping his antics might elicit a laugh or two from the weary spectators. Surprisingly, no one had left the room yet, and Darya definitely did not want to bring attention to herself by leaving prematurely.
Oleg stopped moving.
Another heavy silence had fallen over the audience after his last joke.
‘That’s our cue,’ Darya said, looking longingly at the door. ‘We should go now.’
‘Hey …’ Oleg cried.
Frightened, both Helenka and Darya turned to the stage.
But he was addressing the audience …
… who waited as if for a death blow.
‘You see this?’ he asked, pointing to his crotch.
Darya let out a soft sigh. Helenka clucked her tongue.
‘Tonight is not going to end, is it?’ she whispered.
‘Hey, people,’ he yelled and waved his hands over his head, as if to get their attention, but all eyes were on him anyway. The action had made the edges of his shirt come off his pants and Darya got a quick glimpse of blistered skin and bandage taped over his belly button before he quickly tucked the shirt back in.
‘Was that a Swastika on his stomach?’ Helenka whispered. ‘He’s so twisted, I wouldn’t be surprised…’
‘Shh,’ Darya scolded, keeping her head low.
Meanwhile, Oleg had finished his joke.
‘I could tell you more penis jokes,’ he offered smugly. ‘But I don’t want to sound cocky.’
‘That’s the best one yet,’ Helenka said under her breath.
Darya turned her head once again to check if anyone had left or seemed like they were planning to. It was going to be 10 p.m. soon and Darya prayed Daniel would come up on stage and put an end to the torture. Had he really thought Oleg was going to be good for the club, in which Daniel was also part-investor? He must be ruing the day he’d invited Oleg to perform. At least, Darya hoped he was.
It was then that Darya saw her, on the last bench, hidden amidst the shadows, her cherubic face like a blob of dull gold under the muted lights. She was sitting stiff as a handrail, in a pale-yellow blouse and matching headscarf.
Irina.
What was she doing here? This was not her kind of a place at all.
As if aware of Darya’s eyes on her, Irina looked her way.
Their eyes met.
Even from that afar, Darya saw the disgust writ plainly on her face. Perhaps this was a one-off outing for her and now she was regretting wasting her one night off on this shit-show.
‘And do you know what it feels like to be circumcised as a child?’ Oleg’s voice rang through her thoughts. Reluctantly, Darya turned to face the stage again.
‘To have a knife cut through your most precious part?’
Someone whispered at the back. And he said no more penis jokes. This sucks.
He heard.
‘Hey!’
When was this ni
ght going to end?
‘You there,’ he hollered. ‘Do you know why this night sucks so bad?’
‘Is he going to diss us all again?’ Helenka whispered wearily.
Darya did not reply. There was a commotion at the back. She turned to see Irina get up from the bench, wade over a row of feet, and walk towards the door.
‘You there,’ Oleg shouted, addressing Irina, ‘Don’t you want to know what makes this night suck so bad?’
‘Hello!’ Helenka said, sounding shocked. ‘But that’s Irina.’
‘Hey!’ Oleg called. ‘Leaving lady! Don’t you want to know?’
But Irina had already walked out.
Addressing the rest of the audience, who waited as if at the guillotine, he declared, ‘This night sucks so bad because of me … I SUCK so bad.’ He gave a deep-throated self-pitying laugh. ‘Did you think I was going to talk about you again? Guys … you’re not so important.’ And with that, he did a pirouette and disappeared backstage.
Daniel appeared on stage to thank everyone. He looked ashen and exhausted.
On their way back, Helenka broke the silence. ‘Whew! That was something.’
‘Maybe we should have a few pálinkas to drown that out,’ Darya suggested.
‘But you’re not …’
‘Fuck it.’
Helenka wasn’t as upbeat when they talked again a day later. Darya had been watering the plants in the backyard of Alina’s modest ground floor flat when Helenka appeared from the back door. Darya hadn’t even known she’d spent the night there.
‘Hello,’ Darya called to her cheerily. Immediately, the water hose slipped from her hands (and not for the first time that morning) and soaked the top of her pants. ‘Gosh, stop!’ she muttered irritably. After she’d adjusted her position and held the hose away from her, she addressed Helenka again, ‘Where did you spring from?’
‘Ali’s cheap,’ Helenka commented. A lit cigarette dangled in between her fingers. ‘Why does she make you do her dirty work? Why do you agree to?’
‘I missed a day at the café. She suggested this to make up for it,’ Darya said. ‘I don’t really mind. You stayed over?’
Helenka grunted a ‘yes’ and sat down on the porch. Snuffing out her cigarette, although she’d hardly had a few puffs, ‘Where’s Ali?’ she asked.
‘I don’t know,’ Darya muttered. A bee buzzed in her ears and she swayed her head from side to side to ward it off. ‘She said she’d to go meet with her uncle or aunt or someone.’ Come to think of it, Alina should’ve told Darya that Helenka was in the house before she’d left. ‘You left the windows open,’ Darya remarked, rocking the hose up and down and flashing a grin at Helenka. The two of them habitually ribbed about the Romanian obsession with ‘the draft’—more than one window open in a room at a time let in a draft which was the cause for every ill known to mankind: common cold, headache, upset stomach, bad luck in business, you name it. But Helenka did not rise to the quip this time, appearing not to have even heard it.
Darya gave Helenka a sideward look and noted she looked like shit: hair dry like straw, her eyes red and swollen. She was wearing Alina’s jumper and calf-length blue tights. ‘What happened to you?’ Darya asked. ‘Hangover?’
Helenka lit another cigarette. Then, casually, as if it were merely a passing thought, ‘Do you know if Alina is seeing someone?’ she asked quietly.
‘What?’ Darya said, swatting flies off her forearm.
‘Is she seeing someone?’ Helenka repeated.
‘Who?’
‘Alina.’
A sharp edge to her voice made Darya look up. She let the hose go and stepped forward, squinting her eyes into the sun which had grown brighter now. She walked to the tap and turned it off. ‘You mean like a boyfriend?’ she asked.
Helenka nodded.
The question was not a causal one. Helenka was unsmiling; she’d effected an air of nonchalance, but her body was tense, her cigarette puffs long-drawn and meditative.
Darya did not judge her; she knew how jealousy could rear its head, even amongst friends, when lifelong friendships were threatened by the advent of romantic love. She’d felt that pang before, when her best friend Veda had hooked up with her then boyfriend and now-ex, Rishabh.
Therefore, she was sympathetic when, after having taken a seat next to Helenka, she said gently, ‘Why? Has she been ignoring you?’
‘I just want to know if you know something,’ she said, staring skywards, dragging on her cigarette.
‘She hasn’t told me anything.’
‘Maybe at the café … you saw someone with her?’
Darya thought back. ‘Not really.’
Helenka turned to face her. Her eyes were fierce, probing.
‘She said she met someone recently,’ Helenka said. ‘Someone from out of town. She said she was going to meet him now.’
‘Okay,’ Darya said slowly. ‘What else?’
‘That’s all I know,’ Helenka muttered. ‘That’s why I’m asking you.’
Darya got to the point. ‘But why does it matter so much? Is something wrong?’
Helenka shook her head and snuffed out her cigarette. ‘She’s acting cagey, that’s all,’ she said, her voice tight. ‘She tells me everything. If there’s a man in her life, I don’t know what …’ She stopped and dug her heels to the ground. ‘Whatever it is, she’s being mighty mysterious about it.’
They heard the blast of horns first, followed by a flurry of curses. Alina went out to look; Darya followed closely behind.
The cafés’ supply cab had arrived, but it was unable to come close to the door; a dirt bike was blocking its path. The driver seemed to have attempted manoeuvring around it several times and now the van was stuck at an odd angle. The bike seemed as if placed solely for the purpose of obstructing entry to the café.
Alina threw Darya a dark look.
‘It isn’t mine,’ Darya mouthed.
‘I know,’ Alina muttered. ‘I know whose it is.’
Thirty minutes later, when Darya returned with some supplies from the storeroom, she saw that the van had left, and the bike had been moved. How long was I gone? she mused, placing the boxes on the floor. She threw a cursory glance at the high-schoolers lounging outside. Barely fourteen, they were smoking up a racket and guzzling cups of coffee, with not a care in the world. She scanned their tables to see if they needed clearing up or a cup needed a refill.
Nope, all good.
Inside the café it had grown uncomfortably warm. Darya rolled up the sleeves of her T-shirt and tugged at her collars. Alina really needed to get air-conditioning. Sibiu usually experienced balmy summers and severe winters, but over the years, the summers had grown severe too. It often touched 35 degrees in the afternoons, and for some reason, locals were happy sweltering outside in the heat than getting air conditioners for their homes.
‘Where’s she?’ Darya asked Bogdan. He gestured with his chin.
Alina was at Mihai’s table. Irina was next to him, to his right, as usual. And standing to his left … Darya gawked … was Oleg!
What was he doing there?
Except for Irina, the remaining three were huddled close together. Alina and Oleg were talking seriously.
‘There was some shouting,’ Bogdan added helpfully.
‘Between whom?’
‘That weird blonde chap and that religious chick.’
‘Oleg and Irina?’
‘Yeah.’
‘What about?’
He shrugged. Stuffed ground coffee into the portafilter. ‘Kid on table 2 wants another cup because the one before wasn’t hot enough.’ He gave a derisive grunt and turned his back to her to make the coffee. ‘Will you take this outside and serve his majesty?’
‘Aye, aye, sir,’ Darya said, putting on her apron. ‘That’s what I was born for, no? Serving rich kids.’
Bogdan smirked. They’d had this exchange often and it felt nice to share a brief moment of solidarity every now and then, even though
the quips got repetitive.
From the corner of her eyes, Darya watched as Alina walked away from the group. The rest stayed where they were. Oleg was talking to Mihai now, head lowered, leaning on the wheelchair’s armrest.
‘What’s going on?’ Darya asked Alina as soon as the latter reached the counter.
‘What do you mean?’ Alina asked. Picking up a stack of menus that had flipped over, she gathered them back and placed them neatly to one side.
‘What happened there?’ Darya asked. ‘Was that Oleg’s bike outside?’
‘You know him?’
‘We saw his show.’
‘Yes, it was his bike.’
‘So, what’s he doing now?’
‘With them?’ Alina asked.
Darya nodded, chewing on her lip. She was sure Alina knew what she was enquiring about; she was merely toying with her. Was it because of Darya’s not-so-subtle questioning of Alina earlier, when she’d asked her if she was seeing anyone? Alina hadn’t answered then, telling Darya, in no uncertain terms, to stop meddling in their friendship. Helenka has an overactive imagination, she’d said. And you’re new here. Don’t try to understand everything. There are things you don’t know. Cannot know.
‘Oleg works as a tour guide at one of the Rosetti hotels,’ she said. ‘The Grande.’
‘But what’s he doing …?’
Alina interrupted. ‘You tell the Rosettis things, not the other way around.’
Darya stopped, upset by Alina’s tone. What did she mean by that? Should Darya not have asked Alina? Or Alina did not know because she could not ask Mihai?
‘Coffee’s ready,’ Bogdan said.
Darya hurried to take the cup from him.
Then it happened. Like the thrilling climax of a boring movie. They hadn’t expected it, and when it happened, they wondered how it was that they hadn’t seen it coming.
They heard the sounds first: a clattering of cups, the sharp crunch of bone meeting bone. Instinctively, they knew where to look and moved closer to see better.
Darya watched in horror as Irina landed a punch at Oleg, clearly not her first. He ducked. She swung it again and Oleg grabbed her fist this time and pulled it over his head. His face wore a sneer and he shouted something. Irina struggled to free herself. They continued to exchange hot words.
The Darya Nandkarni Misadventures Omnibus: Books 1-3 Page 57