The Troika Dolls

by Miranda Darling

  Iacopo and Diego arrived with a burst of energy. Iacopo launched into a ridiculous tale of a recent trip to Kazakhstan, involving deep fog, a frozen Kazakh forest and a skidoo running out of petrol. He and Diego worked for a large Italian company that distributed ceramic products all over the former Soviet Union. Basically, their job was to go to the ends of the earth and sell toilet bowls. A sense of humour was vital to the work.

  The two spoke absolutely no Russian. They would just speak Italian, gesture as they would among friends, and they made themselves perfectly understood—most of the time.

  As she suspected, Diego and Iacopo knew everything there was to know about the model competition run by Zima.

  ‘Every month they do big promotion night.’ Diego spoke in his waterfall English for Vadim’s benefit. ‘It bring all the girls from everywhere who want to be a model—Almaty, San Pietroburgo, Nizny Novgorod—’

  ‘And all the men to see them. It is always so so full model night,’ Iacopo added.

  ‘They take a spotlight. They have these guys who look at the faces—’

  ‘—All the girl dancing, laughing—’

  ‘—and they pick them. They put the spotlight like this,’ Diego made a startled face, the girl caught by the light, ‘and they take pictures and the girls go up on palco scenico—’

  ‘—the stage. They do the walking, then they pick the ten best girls. Everyone is taking pictures for promotion.’

  ‘Then they pick the winning girl, the most beautiful.’

  ‘What does the girl win?’ Stevie took a sip of her warm sake.

  ‘She goes with Top Faces agency to New York.’ Iacopo took charge of the sake bottle and refilled everyone’s cups. ‘They have an agent here.

  He goes to the club to choose the girls.’

  ‘The girls are desperate to win. They are very beautiful—il viso della Madonna—the face of a Madonna—but no expression. So cold.’ Diego shivered theatrically. ‘They are good for looking.’

  ‘Do they keep pictures of the girls anywhere?’

  ‘Ah si. They have a big wall in the VIP room, all the photos of the girls.’

  ‘So,’ Stevie downed her sake and smiled. ‘When are we going?’

  The crowd outside Zima was huge, a bustling black mass. To get from the car to the entrance, they had to trudge along a wide alleyway of trees, through knee-deep snow. It would not do for the face control—as bouncers are called in Moscow—to see them arrive in their shoddy car. Fortunately Diego and Iacopo had made quite an impression on the head face control (their company employed his sister) and a wait in the freezing night was averted.

  Security guards were as thick as a wood inside. Between general drunkenness, organised crime, disorganised crime, and the threat of Chechen rebels, the possibility for mayhem was big. Stevie’s handbag was searched; they passed through metal detectors; no one even considered smiling.

  They walked through the heavy felt curtains that kept out the cold and into the club. The space was enormous. The ceiling was five storeys high and four galleries ran along the edges of the room, stepping up to the vaulted ceiling. They were all packed with people, their faces tiny with distance.

  Heavy house music pumped through the space. Just to the right of the entrance was a round bed covered in velvet cushions and vaguely veiled by white gauze curtains. On it, four semi-naked girls were romping— romping wasn’t quite the right word . . . it suggested a little too much innocence, a little too much joy . . .

  The girls were ‘playing’ very well, rehearsed, with perfect moves drawing eyes to perfect bottoms, perfect breasts, perfectly blank faces on which an audience could project their desires.

  Stevie stopped to watch. Men surrounded the round bed, staring. Mostly their expressions were dispassionate, the flames of their fantasy hidden deep enough not to show on their faces. One man, a good-looking guy, young and eager, moved forward to the front of the circle and was drawn in by the nymphs. He rolled about with the girls, taking pleasure from their bodies and from being the envy of the watching men.

  Pleasure strips you naked as much as pain. The young stud—Stevie saw it in his face—suddenly realised that he had become part of the show. He became uncomfortable and pulled himself quickly away, out of the circle.

  Scanning the faces, Stevie noticed one man, chubby and pale. His desire was right there in his face, on his mouth, his shiny lips. He was videotaping the girls, right up close. He stuck out his tongue—too far, too fat, too pink—in appreciation.

  The tongue, his open lust, made Stevie feel a little sick. She had seen dancers and strippers before. It wasn’t that. But this man’s desire and his arrogance were more naked than the bodies of the writhing girls. She had to turn away, plunge deeper into the crowd. It was time to find some answers.

  Vadim drew her to a bar. Young girls in tiny tight jeans, little singlets, designer handbags and skeleton heels, were clustered about. Stevie pulled the photo of Vadim’s sister from her handbag. It was a copy of the two of them in front of the birch wood.

  The girls stared at Stevie blankly when she spoke to them. They didn’t smile, didn’t reply. They were not interested in Stevie nor what she wanted. She was not a Russian man flush with cash.

  The girls didn’t recognise Anya from the photo—but then, they probably wouldn’t. She looked natural, young, on a summer holiday. They might have met her here, in a dark club. She would have been wearing makeup and heels. Stevie needed to get to the VIP room where the photos of the model competition contestants were. She was sure Anya would be among them.

  Where is Henning?

  ‘I’m right here.’ Henning placed his hand lightly on her shoulder, reassuring her. So he had been keeping his promise. He was a good man.

  ‘Henning, no one is going to talk to me,’ Stevie said, touching his hand lightly with her own, just for a second. ‘We need you. How do we get into that VIP area? I don’t think me going up and shaking my tail feathers and smiling at security is going to work in this place.’

  ‘Where is it?’ Henning glanced over his shoulder, searching for the room.

  Stevie pointed up towards the first gallery. Rather brutal looking men were visible, lithe women, sparkling crystal, bubbles, diamonds on a backdrop of smoke. Henning scanned the crowd for what seemed like a very long time.

  ‘Maxim Krutchik,’ he said finally. ‘The bald one standing with the blonde.’

  ‘That doesn’t really narrow it . . .’ Stevie squinted up into the darkness. ‘Oh, yes. I see him.’ A huge man with a perfectly bald pink head and a beautiful blonde on his arm was staring down onto the dance floor below.

  ‘He’s the head of a logistical services company,’ Henning explained, ‘specialising in Iran, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of Congo.’

  ‘You mean an arms dealer . . .’ Stevie raised a sceptical eyebrow.

  Henning nodded. ‘Unpleasant man, but he doesn’t know I think so. He thinks we’re great friends. He’s our way in.’

  They headed up the stairs towards the VIP gallery. The host of the VIP room went to Maxim’s table and whispered Henning’s message in his ear, not daring to lay even a chummy hand on his shoulder.

  ‘Henning,’ Stevie whispered as they were let in, with beaming smiles this time, ‘I’m very suspicious of you now. There are places where a gentleman should not be well known.’

  Henning chuckled. ‘Stevie, you sound like my grandmother.’

  ‘Well, I am sure she was a very sensible woman.’

  When Maxim stood to greet them, Stevie realised he was twice as big as she had originally thought, and he had not one but three blondes on his big arms. He gave Henning a bear hug and they were offered a seat at his table.

  Maxim pulled a wildly expensive bottle of vodka from amongst twenty or so bottles clustered in the centre of the table. He began filling shot glasses, insisting everyone drink. Stevie was rather glad to down her shot. She was not sure she could face a man like Maxim without a proper drink.r />
  When she saw that Henning and Maxim were deep in conversation, Stevie leaned back into the sofa and became invisible.

  Good. Now, where’s that photo wall . . .

  She scanned the gallery. The back wall was covered with the faces of girls who had been plucked from the crowd to compete for the modelling contract. All very young, most stunning, others a little stunned by the flash. Many of the photos had phone numbers written on them, the girls maybe hoping they would take some VIP man’s fancy and be called up and swept off their feet.

  It did not take Stevie long to find Anya’s face. She had definitely been here and she had been singled out. She would have been very happy. The photographer had taken three photos: her wide-set eyes were huge in her face, her wavy blonde hair almost angelic in the harsh light of the flash. In two pictures, she was standing beside a dark-haired girl with beautiful dark eyes and a strong nose.

  We should have brought Vadim up here with us, Stevie thought. He would surely recognise the girl. Stevie would have to steal a photo. Her mild kleptomania—usually triggered by bouts of stress—had been useful more than once. Not even the wall noticed as Stevie stepped up, removed a photo and slipped it into her purse.

  Back at the table, she sat down and caught Henning’s eye. He rose, Maxim hugging him, kissing him on the lips in the Russian way. Stevie was a little horrified for Henning. Maxim looked like a man who would certainly have ghastly breath.

  ‘Are you sure you’ve told me the truth, Henning?’ Stevie took his arm as they headed back downstairs to find Vadim. ‘I find it hard to believe that a humble librarian would know people like Maxim Krutchik.’

  Henning sighed. ‘I’m not exactly a librarian, Stevie. I’ve explained it to you before: I’m a cataloguer of rare books. The former Soviet Union is full of them, forgotten pieces of odd literature. Many items are instant collectibles. Worth a fortune to some people.’

  ‘People like Maxim?’ she asked in disbelief.

  ‘You’d be surprised.’

  Vadim stood out on account of his stillness amongst the heaving mass of bodies. He was leaning on the bar, still smoking, still staring at another rum and coke. His pallor, his white hair, his lashless eyes were lit for a moment by a roving spotlight that came to rest on him. For those three seconds, he was incandescent.

  Seeing the photo distressed him, reminded him of Anya—as if she was ever far from his mind. But he recognised Petra straightaway.

  Stevie put the photo back in her bag. ‘Let’s see if she’s here.’ They split up and set off.

  In the centre of the club was a raised stage. On it, a floorshow was in full swing. Three girls in fluorescent bikinis—one with tassels, another with feathers, another with not much on at all—were dancing and gyrating like rubber bands. Diego appeared at Stevie’s side.

  ‘This is where all the main strippers dance.’ He gestured happily. ‘I am going with Iacopo to the bar. We get you vodka.’

  ‘Thank you, Diego,’ she called after him, but he had already been swallowed by the crowd.

  They were good dancers, quality girls with perfect legs and pretty faces. More expensive than the other girls, Stevie assumed. Petra was not among them. Nor did she appear to be any of the women in tight jeans dotted around the stage, many twisting to the music in a way that suggested they too had spent time on a podium. Smoke machines fed with apple tobacco were pumping out mist like a narghile. It made it hard to see.

  Suddenly there was an explosion—somewhere up in the roof. Stevie scanned the gallery, looking for danger. But the faces were upturned in expectation, not fear.

  A man was standing on a railing, five floors up. His arms were raised and Stevie saw there were copper wings strapped to his back. Leaning out, he allowed his body to arc through the air and plummet earthwards, a bungee cord spooling out behind him.

  Before he could hit the dancers on the stage, he bounced, flying backwards through the air like Icarus rewound. He tumbled and somersaulted through the foggy air with extraordinary grace.

  That’s what I need in life, thought Stevie, a bungee cord.

  A shower of glitter rained down as if from some invisible silver cloud. Strobe lights kicked in like flak. The winged man flew, the dancers gyrated with even more energy, and the whole club became a snow-dome of male pleasure.

  The Icarus landed gently on the stage and was unhooked from his umbilical cords. He was a small man, almost dwarfish, a hump deforming the upper part of his spine. He climbed quickly down from the podium and pushed his way roughly through the crowd. Stevie thought about how tall and graceful he had looked in the air; how small and constricted on the ground.

  She scanned the galleries. The men stared down at the women below, confident in the invisibility of vertical distance. Henning and Vadim were hunting up on levels three and four.

  Diego and Iacopo reappeared. ‘We couldn’t see you!’

  ‘You look like a tiny bambi—big eyes,’ Iacopo gestured, ‘like this!’

  ‘All minuscola—like un foglio di musica, a piece of sheet music,’ added Diego.

  Stevie smiled. ‘That is so I can slip in and out of people’s thoughts unnoticed.’

  ‘We brought you a drink—’

  ‘Russian Standard vodka. If you drink only this—’ ‘—you get no hangover. Now you see is three am and is a new show.’

  ‘The three o’clock show is much more erotica.’

  ‘Come to dance with us!’

  Stevie shook her head. The house music was getting heavier.

  Stevie pushed through to the other side of the stage. Nobody took any notice of her. It was impossible to find Petra. The place was enormous.

  Fresh girls were taking up their positions on the stage. The promoter was clicking his fingers at them, herding them like fowl. These ones looked very young, probably still in their teens. They wore only g-strings and leather caps, backsides swinging, lifting up to the waiting, watching crowd.

  The chubby man with the enormous tongue that had so disgusted Stevie was right up front. A tender honey-blonde was waving her buttocks in his face. He was stuffing money into her garter, slowly, making her beg, owning her.

  Stevie was mesmerised, not by their bodies but by their faces. They had developed an armour of expression, impenetrable. She thought of the love that must have once been invested by the parents in the future of each dancing girl. That it had come to this.

  Stevie finished off the vodka with a deep swallow. It had been a large glass. She knew she was a little drunk. Sadness—or was it anger, despair?—rushed through her. Perhaps it was the stabbing of the pain the faces of the girls could not, would not show . . . did not feel?

  What would Anya have felt when she saw them?

  Dancing was a good job for girls in Moscow. There was so very little else—for anyone. These girls would be earning, but that their hopes for the future lay in proffering their bottoms to an indifferent crowd seemed like a symptom that the world was off-kilter. No human—no heart—should be so utterly expendable.

  Out of nowhere, American dollar bills began to rain down. Stevie raised her eyes to the invisible ceiling, saw the counterfeit fortune in the air, but thought—actually felt; she was no longer thinking—only of the girls, all with mothers, all with dreams. She left her face turned skyward. She didn’t want to see any more dancing babies.

  A large bearded man in a leather vest pushed his way through the crowd holding his camera over his head, over the crowd, and started firing. His flashes mixed with the strobe lights and for a second Stevie didn’t notice he was shooting her.

  Too late, she spun around. She turned back but the man had disappeared. Ice crackled through her veins. Why had the man photographed her? Who was he? Was he just a Moscow society snapper, or were the kidnappers watching the Kozkovs’ building? Whoever the man was, it was too late to stop him.

  You’re a fool to let your guard down like that.

  She wondered if he would notice, when he printed the pictures, the two
fat tears that were tumbling out of her eyes.

  5

  The phone rang far too shrilly for the morning after a visit to a club. It took Stevie a long time to swim to the surface from her sleep.

  ‘Hello?’ The phone rang again, startling her. The receiver was in her hand . . .

  Oh. The button.

  It was Vadim. ‘Prostite—sorry for waking you, but I know where Petra is.’

  ‘Oh, well done, Vadim.’ Her voice was croaking. Dreadfully embarrassing. In the mirror opposite, Stevie caught sight of her tangled hair, her eyes swollen to the shape of almonds.

  ‘I talked to Anya’s music teacher.’ Vadim’s voice was excited, urgent. ‘Petra and Anya have the same one. She told me Petra hadn’t come to her lesson because she is in hospital for a small operation.’

  ‘Well done,’ she repeated. ‘Get visiting hours and we’ll go as soon as we can.’ Stevie struggled to disentangle herself from the heavy bedclothes.

  ‘Also, Henning left a message for you, Stevie. But he asked me to tell you as well, in case you didn’t check.’

  Stevie thanked Vadim and hung up with a groan. She pressed the flashing message button on the hotel phone.

  I’m sorry, Stevie, but some manuscripts have been discovered between the walls of a sultan’s palace. They could possibly date from the Ottoman empire. Or they could be some naughty child’s homework. Anyway, it may be a huge find. The museum has gone berserk and they’ll have my head if I don’t get down there immediately, before the treasure hunters do.

  A headache began to pound through Stevie’s temples like the cavalry. So much for Diego and Iacopo’s Russian Standard vodka theory . . . Or it could have been the nightcap glass of champagne she had drunk in bed before going to sleep.

  She had been too emotional to go right to sleep. The dancing girls, Anya’s photo, the girls on the park bench in London, the primrose in Joss’ bed, Norah Wolfe and her hungry smile, all mixed in together, going round and round in her mind, keeping her wide awake. The champagne had seemed like a good idea at the time.