‘Yes, I did.’ Natalia was not planning to give up. ‘But we both know that with the shameless corruption here, the salon will never do better than fine. Just yesterday we had a guest with a badge again. Apparently, there is a new regional tax inspection chief, so they’re looking for bribes for the chief to make back the bribes he had paid for his appointment to the new position. You know how things are done here. They’re not even afraid to talk about it openly. The complicity between these corrupt fuckers is unbreakable. All of them – the police, judges, fire and tax inspectors – are one big freaking mafia that won’t let our business survive. They’ll milk us like there is no tomorrow, until we’ll simply have to close down.’
‘Bloodsuckers,’ sighed Lena. ‘It will never end…’
‘I don’t see a future. No business opportunities. Not even a chance of finding a decent man. What if Michel never proposes? You’ll wait until it’s too late.’ A skillful pause to let Lena take the bait. ‘I know it’s a risk, but I have a feeling we’ll never regret it. It’s time to move on.’
Lena bit her bottom lip, but couldn’t find anything to say.
‘Look,’ Natalia played her last trump card. ‘If you still believe in the seriousness of Michel’s intentions, let’s check. Send him a text explaining that you’ve received an offer to work in South Africa and that you are considering it. It’s simple. If he loves you and is afraid to lose you, he will try to talk you out of it. If not – your dedication is unfortunately ex parte and you’ll end up an old maid forever.’
What a crafty bitch! She knew which pressure points would win Lena over. Bloody acupuncturist!
Shortly after Michel failed the test with his ‘Wow! Good for you!’ answer, Natalia moved on to converting me, making sure Lena and I would not have a chance to strengthen our positions.
The minute I heard her, ‘Jul? We need to talk’, I tried to leave the kitchen. ‘No, no, and no! I am not going anywhere. Don’t even start with me.’ But Natalia stepped into the doorway, cutting off my only retreat. ‘Just think of it as another chance, a chance to make things right, to make good money and to enjoy it, unlike the previous times.’
Argh… her drama pause, with annoying concern on her face.
I rolled my eyes, and turned towards the window. My gaze fell on the dismal playground, covered with grey, melting snow, where a boy was pulling two others on a sled. Despite the greyness of the surroundings, and the puller failing to move the sled, falling onto his knees in the wet snow, all three of them were laughing like crazy. I focused on the boys in my childish ostrich game of hiding my mind from Natalia’s reasoning.
‘Besides, it’s a different system. No drinking required to make money, only dancing,’ she exclaimed, as if she’d finally answered the question of whether the chicken or the egg came first.
‘You don’t think Irina is just bullshitting you? She was the one who introduced us to paradise in Luxembourg! I don’t believe in these “come, there are no drugs or prostitution, and you’ll make millions” stories. Istanbul was another proof of this…’
I sat at the kitchen table, rubbing my neck.
‘You’re right, Jul, but if you’d come with us to France you’d know that places like that exist.’ She sat next to me and leaned forward, making sure I couldn’t avoid her face. ‘Do you think I trust Irina? Hell no! But I’ve done some research on the internet and found a forum where girls from all over the world discuss the places they’ve worked. The comments about this club confirm what Irina says. It’s all legitimate.’
I closed my eyes and slowly shook my head. Natalia, like a beagle that had scented a trace of a rabbit, jumped in, describing how I could spend all the money I hadn’t made yet, planting appealing images in my weakening resistance, until…
… It’s two months later and we are off on our new adventure.
Or, to put it this way: we are going to the bottom of the world, because we’ve been all around Europe and have gone through every kind of crap possible, but it wasn’t enough! We are looking for new trouble to get into… Yeah, that’s definitely more accurate than ‘new adventure’.
It’s already six in the morning. My ass is burning. In just two hours our plane is going to hit the ground in Cape Town. The flight has been endless. I knew it wasn’t going to be easy… but seriously?
Every time I shift, trying to find a more comfortable position, stretch, or free myself from Lena’s head, which keeps detecting me as some sort of pillow, the light from Natalia’s TV screen hits my eyes. She hasn’t slept – she is watching some comedy with a face that looks like it’s the end of Titanic.
Now you are worried sister?
Our journey had started a week ago. First we’d gone to Kiev to apply for visas. Unlike our previous embassy experiences, the South African embassy was a pleasure. The staff were friendly and competent. Five days after our application, we’d received a phone call notifying us that our visas were ready.
Then, we’d confirmed our pre-booked itinerary, and another three days later we’d started the first leg to London. The flight had been smooth and we’d disembarked excited.
Of course, according to Natalia, we were about to kick off a new life full of happiness and wealth!
We’d gone through the shops energetically, eyeballing the Prada and Valentino highway robbery, cheerfully smelling some Armani and Chanel, then coming down for a yummy cappuccino. The café was full, but we’d found a table, ordered and started killing time with sprightly chit-chat until our next flight.
‘Ooh! Such a pleasure to meet beautiful ladies! And our compatriots!’ The tipsy Russian had boomed from the next table. Three men had been relishing a pint of stout, disregarding the early hour. ‘We are sailors from Novorossiysk, heading to Singapore. You?’
Natalia and I had looked at each other, affirming that just because we spoke the same language, there was no way we were going to let these men gatecrash our coffee break. But Lena, in her innocence, had jumped in. ‘We are from Ukraine, and we are going to Cape Town.’
All three of them had fallen silent, drunken smiles frozen on their faces.
Then, ‘Why in hell would you girls go there?’ the one with beer foam on his thick, red moustache had exclaimed. ‘It’s dangerous there!’
The other two had been of the same mind. ‘They shoot on the streets… It’s civil war! The blacks kill the whites!’
What we’d heard had swallowed up our excitement and burped out nervous smiles and growing distress. Hotel Rwanda images started shooting through my head even more brightly than they had been on the screen when we’d watched it a few weeks ago.
Here we go... we’ve spent a ton of money on tickets to some we-have-no-idea-where-it-is country, and now we are stuck in London with the news that we are going to die in a war we know nothing about! What the f...?
‘What should we do?’ Lena had whispered as soon as the sailors had left, her voice trembling as she clung to the table.
‘Damn Irina and her second never-never land. Has she set us up?’ Natalia had muttered, stunned, while staring into her empty coffee cup.
‘Girls, calm down!’ I’d tried to reason, not so calm myself. ‘We can always catch the next flight back, if it’s true. It would be very stupid to cancel our,’ I turned my acid stare to Natalia, ‘life-changing trip because of a bunch of drunks. Despite truly believing that this whole trip is a big mistake, we’ve spent way too much money on it to quit without even trying.’
Lena let go of the table and nodded, looking more relaxed. ‘Yeah, we don’t even know them. We can’t trust these people!’
‘I agree.’ Natalia finally had spoken. ‘The right thing to do would be to stop worrying and deal with problems as they come.’
The absence of alternatives had simmered our useless hysteria down. Nevertheless, all the rest of the way to Cape Town, Natalia hadn’t lost her nerve-racking expression.
Yeah, Nata. You’re going to be responsible for our deaths on the streets of Cape Town!
4
As we push our trolleys piled with luggage out of the terminal, the heat shrouds us. Yesterday’s -20°C in snowbound Kiev versus today’s 30°C in Cape Town is hard to comprehend.
Agitated, Irina is waiting for us at arrivals. She has put on a few kilograms since I last saw her, but it hasn’t spoiled her. Her rounded ass still looks hot in her linen knee-length pencil skirt, while her light-blue linen jacket with three-quarter sleeves makes her look like a real lady.
‘Oh my God, girls! So happy to see you again!’ she shouts genuinely, but hugs only Natalia.
‘So good to see you too! You…’ Natalia lifts one eyebrow in surprise, ‘look great.’ Lena and I nod in agreement – the compliment is well placed, considering that the motto for Irina’s previous dress style would always be ‘many-sizes-too-small-animal-print’.
She pays for parking and walks us to her car. The silver Mini Cooper with automatic transmission draws a silent ‘Wow’ that freezes our faces.
‘Well done, it’s beautiful!’ Natalia caresses the shiny hood and fakes a smile.
‘Thanks, a wedding gift from my hubby.’ Irina swings the car’s key in the air. ‘Isn’t he a sweetheart?’
‘You must tell us where they sell those…’ I pause and pull my bag into the trunk, ‘those husbands.’
The girls giggle. We get into the car. Irina puts on her huge Prada sunglasses, lights a long, extra thin cigarette and steers out of the airport.
‘Who told you this nonsense?’ Irina laughs out loud as soon as she hears the sailors’ story. ‘Cape Town is wonderful. South African people are friendly.’
‘But someone told us about outbreaks of violence because of racial discrimination?’ Lena frowns, her voice is suspicious.
‘Yeah.’ Irina knits her brows. ‘Something happened a long time ago. I don’t remember if it was a civil war or some kind of revolution.’
‘Yeah, it was a struggle of the black youth movements against apartheid.’ Natalia glues on another smile, this time without much effort to camouflage the fakeness. ‘We know that. And it didn’t happen that long ago, some twenty years? We heard that the violence is still out there… on the streets.’
‘Girls, there is no violence on the streets. All in the past.’ Irina blows the smoke and shakes her head. ‘I promise you – Cape Town is a beautiful and peaceful place.’
She continues her praise-singing of all the benefits of life in the Mother City even when we drive past shockingly poor areas. We fall silent. Thousands of shacks, built of sheets of metal, cover the land like the inflammation on the skin of a leprosy sufferer. People walking here and there reflect the poverty of all poverty. This hopelessness hits us harder than the tipsy sailors’ warning in Heathrow.
At last, Irina stops her tour guide oration and glances at us.
‘Don’t worry, girls. You will be living in a good area.’ She smiles without taking her eyes off the road. ‘But never visit these places. They can be very dangerous,’ she jibes, adding conspiracy notes that ridicule the scene, transforming the people’s tragic living conditions into a surreal, ugly wallpaper.
Our faces relax as, further on, the view becomes more beautiful and the conversation returns to unconcerned chit-chat. The second we drive into the residence, and the tall, wrought-iron double gates close importantly behind the car, our worry about the poverty of Khayelitsha evaporates completely.
Yeah… what can I say? Selfish and shallow bitches!
My first thought is that Irina has brought us to her house. It simply can’t be true. Strippers don’t get to stay in huge, double-storey residences with gardens and pools.
We walk slowly, holding our breath, fearing that the house will turn ugly and dirty just like the places we’ve stayed at before. But unlike Cinderella’s carriage, our mansion doesn’t turn into a pumpkin.
Inside, it’s deadly quiet. Only the maid mopping the floor in the hallway, and the drying rack, draped with multicolored G-strings, suggest that the house is inhabited.
‘The girls are still sleeping,’ Irina whispers, and tiptoes in her trendy high-heeled sandals towards the passage to the right. ‘The kitchen and dining room are that way,’ she waves in the opposite direction. ‘All the bedrooms except for yours are upstairs.’
We drag our bags into a bright, fair-sized bedroom with three single beds and a white built-in cupboard.
‘It’s amazing!’ Lena flings the cupboard doors open, with an expression as if behind them hides a miracle cure to all the sicknesses in the world. ‘I love this place!’
‘Hmmm,’ Irina looks at our suitcases, ‘it’ll be a bit tight, but don’t worry – I’ll get you a free-standing rail as well.’ She turns and heads for the door.
‘Let’s go to the kitchen,’ she adds, ‘grab a cup of tea and run through your questions. I’m sure you’ve got plenty by now. Then I’ll leave you to rest. You have a long night ahead of you.’
As we sit down in the spacious dining room with scalding cups, Irina takes a dark leather A4 folder out of her bag, unzips it, pulls out a file and begins, businesslike.
‘Here are the basics, which, knowing you girls,’ she glances with approval at Natalia, ‘it goes without saying that you will follow. Mainly – be polite, dress well, be on the floor in time, etc.’ Her voice takes on bossier notes and she shakes the file over the table. ‘Go through this first. I’ll be in the club tonight and will answer your questions if you have any. What I wanted to discuss is…’
The door slams and we all turn. A naked blonde walks in and disappears into the kitchen. We stay silent, listening to the fridge door and other kitchen noises. She comes back with a pinkish bottle of some sort of drinkable yogurt and finally notices us.
‘Hi,’ she waves, and her sleepy face warms with a smile.
‘Hi,’ we reply in chorus, awkward, trying not to stare.
Irina shakes her head. ‘God, Misty! It’s the kitchen. Can’t you cover up where people eat, at least?’
‘The new girls?’ It seems Misty doesn’t give a shit about Irina’s appreciation of good manners. ‘When you’re done here,’ she points at Irina without looking at her and then turns to leave, ‘come out to the pool. It’s going to be a hot day.’
Lena beckons with her head towards the door, ‘What was that about?’
‘Whatever she is on,’ I lean forward and whisper, ‘it works!’
My sisters grin.
‘Never mind.’ Irina stays serious and fidgets in her chair. ‘Where were we?’ She pauses, making sure she has our full attention.
‘The club opens at seven. Every night the taxi fetches you here at quarter past six. There is usually no traffic. At quarter to seven you should be in the club. Just enough time to change so I suggest you do your make-up here.’
Doors slam more frequently, and the voices and laughter get louder. Another two girls walk in talking to each other. Both are naked, just like Misty, but have beach towels in their hands.
‘Okay, I need to run, girls.’ Irina bites her lip and gets up. ‘We’ll discuss the rest at the club tonight.’
We walk her outside and stop on the porch. There are at least a dozen girls… each one more impressive than the other… all naked. Some drift in the water, others tan while reading or checking their phones.
‘The Playboy Mansion pales in comparison!’ I look at the pool area, dazed.
‘Unbelievable…’ Lena waves to Irina, who is steering out of the gates, but her gaze is pinned to the pool area too.
‘Hey!’ Natalia snaps her fingers in front of our faces. ‘Stop looking like that.’ She pokes our shoulders playfully. ‘Seriously… you are like some freaking sapıklar!’[1]
We stay a little longer, exchanging observations and jokes, then Natalia yawns. ‘While that pool looks so tempting, I am going to pass and get some sleep.’ She turns and heads inside.
‘I’ll pass too.’ Lena turns to me. ‘You?’
‘I’ll join the girls,’ I say, taking a long look around, still in dis
belief that we’ll be living in this place. My eyes stop at the neighbor’s balcony.
‘Len? Do you see what I see?’ I point.
‘Holy crap!’ she exclaims as soon as she follows my finger.
‘Is he holding binoculars?’ Lena’s half-question, half-statement is high-pitched.
‘Yeah… and he is naked too!’ I shake my head. ‘Do you think they have problems with the clothing industry here in South Africa?’
Lena ignores my joke. ‘Shall we warn the girls?’
‘Good morning neighbor!’ We both turn towards the vibrant greeting. One of the girls waves at the stalker, then all of them look up and wave at him too. Then they all giggle and return to what they were doing without bothering to cover themselves up. The stalker licks his smiling lips and waves back, without lowering the binoculars.
‘Well…’ Lena looks at me, amused, ‘are you still planning to sunbathe?’
‘Yeah,’ I wrinkle my nose and head inside the house, ‘but first let me unpack my bikini.’
5
I freeze in front of the wall-sized mirror placed usefully at the dressing room exit. I let the girls, who stop for a final check or touch-up of their make-up before they hit the floor, pass me. The shift is about to start and I can’t make myself walk out of this door.
How am I going to do it sober? I know nothing about being sexy and funny if I am not charged with something.
I know the first days are always shaky. But before, I’d swallow a few tequilas and the world didn’t seem so harsh any more. What am I going to do now? I’ve never been a good actress. How am I going to play cool and confident when I’m shaking inside?
When we entered the club half an hour ago, my heart sank into my stomach. The place was impressive – a huge, factory-type building. The three-storey-high open space has been modernized with two considerably sized loft levels on each side, a massive modern bar, and extravagant furnishings and booths. The round center stage, connected to the back of the club by a long runway, has a shiny, ceiling-high pole and funky lighting that accentuates its significance, even when no dancers are in action.
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