by Tessi, Zoya
“Tell me something I don’t know. If this whole situation isn’t totally fucked up, then I don’t know what it is…”
Alex turned his head and gazed out through the windshield, and though he didn’t look majorly perturbed, my stomach flipped just a little.
“It looks like our friend Khalil got impatient. He put a bounty on your head.”
There was a pregnant pause, during which I stared at him vaguely, trying to process this new information and what it might mean in real terms.
“I don’t understand. His people are already looking for me. What’s the difference?”
“Well, yeah, but we now have an army of underworld roughnecks on our back too, and believe me when I tell you these aren’t the kind of people you ever want to meet.”
“So... what’re we gonna do? Get out of town, or what?” I asked when I found my own voice again.
“We're safe in my apartment for now, but we have to be ready. As soon as the call comes, we have to get out of the country.”
“But... my passport, papers... I left everything at home.”
“No, you didn’t,” he flicked the end of his cigarette through a crack in the window and leaned over me to open the glove box.
“Everything’s here, but they’re no good to us yet. The minute you show those documents at check in or anywhere else, Khalil will know where you are and where you’re heading. After that, it’s a matter of hours before someone finds us.”
“Can’t we get fakes, or something like that? If anyone knows people who can forge papers, that’s you. Right?”
“Right, but the problem is we need time for a workable forgery. Two weeks minimum. And you need them right away.”
“Just me?”
“I always have a few in reserve,” he said in a quiet voice, as if he was stating the obvious.
“Of course... Why’d I even ask?”
“So we’re left with one option, to get you a passport that’s not fake, but shows a different name.”
“ Well, Sasha’s not such a rare name. I could go to the town hall and fill out some forms to change my surname. I’ve done it before. It’s not such a normal thing to do, but it’s possible.”
“Yeah, but that would all be on record. Khalil would be expecting it and someone’s for sure hacked into the system watching for it.”
“So, what then?”
“There’s another way to change your surname. That change would show up on another system, one Khalil won’t be monitoring, I’m sure of it.”
“What way’s that?”
“I’ll use some fake documents, so the whole process won’t count for real, but this way you’ll be able to get a legal passport under a new name. I have a guy ready to take care of it in a matter of hours.”
“I still don’t understand. What process?”
There was silence. Alex lit another cigarette and breathed smoke through the side of his mouth, then turned his eyes to me. Slipping his free hand into the pocket of his loose jeans, he drew out a wad of documents and handed me one ID from among many.
“Oleg Andreyev,” I read as I turned the small ID.
Examining it more closely, I found myself looking at a photo of Alex in which he looked a few years younger.
“Are you really twenty-three years old, or is that a false date of birth?”
“No. Just the name.”
“Hmm...” I went on studying the card, “it looks pretty real to me. My compliments to the master forger who made it.”
“I hope you like that surname...because you’re gonna use it for a while.”
I raised my head and looked at him, confused, “What do you mean?”
“It’s the only thing we can do,” he sighed and pointed a finger towards the jewelry store next to where we’d parked, “We came for the wedding rings, Princess.”
For a moment I thought I must be hallucinating. Surely I couldn’t have heard right. Wedding rings?
“I'm sorry, what did you say?”
“You heard.”
“If you’re screwing around Alex, this really isn’t the time,” I shook my head, genuinely shocked.
“I’m afraid I’m deadly serious, Princess. We need to get you documents under another name, and there’s no other way.”
“Did you start using drugs?”
“Don’t worry. Since I’m gonna sign under a fake name, you can just annul the marriage when the whole problem’s over. It makes sense. We’ll have a good cover and that’s essential since we have to be real careful from now on, even more than we have been. And I’m afraid we’ll have to work on your look, too.”
“I’m nineteen, for God’s sake! I can’t even entertain the thought of getting married. Especially not to you. False documents or not…”
“You know, you are really hurting my feelings. This is the first time I ask a girl to marry me and see how she reacts?”
“You’re breaking my heart…” I breathed out, exasperated, “and there’s nothing wrong with how I look, so I don’t plan on having any kind of makeover, thanks.”
“I'm sorry, sweetheart, you don’t have any choice... not on either count.”
***
As we left the town registry office, the whole thing still seemed like a drug inducted dream to me. It was like I was watching all this happening to someone else. As if things hadn’t been mixed up enough, I was married to a man who didn’t exist.
I looked down, not for the first time, at the gold band around my finger, wondering why Alex had even bothered with the formality of a ring when it was all such a sham in the first place. One of those plastic rings from a candy egg would have been more appropriate.
My life story had taken a turn towards the tragi-comic, that was for sure. On the one hand, I was married to a hardened criminal, on the other it was contract written in invisible ink. I’d made a big show of hating the guy, then slept with him, and worst of all I’d fallen for him big time, even though it seemed distinctly possible that he would be gone soon, and for good. A complete disaster, if ever there was one.
I slowed my pace and took in the measure of the man who’d become my ‘husband’ a matter of minutes before. With his hands in his pockets, he gave every appearance of being indifferent to the world, yet people still moved out of his way as he walked down the street, trying hard not to catch his eye.
“It's time for phase two,” he muttered over his shoulder and came to a stop in front of a hair salon.
Realizing what he meant, I opened my eyes wide in consternation. “No!”
“I'm sorry, Princess. You have to do something with that hair. It’s too easy for these people to get a handle on what you look like. We have to avoid you getting recognized, at all costs. Otherwise, we might as well give up.”
“No way,” I shouted hysterically, before stepping back a pace. “What’s so recognizable about it anyway? It’s not dyed green or anything. I’m not exactly drawing attention to myself.”
Taking a deep breath, Alex took hold of my hand and pulled me round the corner. Drawing out the hairpin that was holding my ponytail in place, he ran the fingers of his other hand through my light brown hair, his nails stroking my scalp, as loose strands shook free and tickled the back of my neck. Grabbing his shirt, I squeezed desperately, shaking my head.
“Even without that long hair hanging down to your waist, men are still breathless when they’re near you. It's like having a target drawn on your head. I'm sorry...”
For a few moments I could only stare into his eyes, until finally I found myself nodding and walked into the bright salon feeling like a condemned man stepping up to the gallows.
Sitting uncomfortably in the chair, I took the measure of my reflection in the mirror, hypnotized as Alex issued some instructions to the stylist behind me. I blocked out his exact words on purpose, afraid of getting cold feet and letting my legs carry me back out onto the street.
As the executioner approached with his scissors glinting in the light, I felt a sick feel
ing rise in my stomach, but all I could manage by way of protest was an angry look in his direction, and a pointed finger that showed underneath the shroud now covering my body.
“If it’s anything less than shoulder length, I'll strangle you myself!” I whispered.
Taking in a deep breath, I closed my eyes tight and resolved not to open them until the whole ordeal was over.
I was aware of movement around me and the loud house music pumping through my ears, which was not quite loud enough to drown out the snipping of the scissors as they glanced against my skin, flicking this way and that, doing their damage without mercy. When a strong smell of peroxide drifted to my nose I bit back a cry and surrendered myself to my fate.
When the stylist eventually took me by the shoulders and let me know that I should get up and go over to the sink, I had to open my eyes, but I looked down at the floor rather than towards the mirror.
I couldn’t catch the sight of Alex, so I quickly scanned the room and saw him, his back turned, staring out through the door towards the street. Just then, the stylist drew a curtain between us and the room, and started rinsing the dye from my hair with warm water from a shower head.
“It’s a crying shame to cut such beautiful hair, my dear,” the bouncing voice apparently belonged to my stylist, “but don’t you worry. Once you see how fine Jo-Jo fixed you up, you’ll fairly faint. It’s not for no reason I’m called a master in the art.”
“I can hardly wait,”.
“It's all in the eye, you see,” he went on in his sing-song voice, not paying any attention to my pursed lips.
“And with talent, of course, comes attention to every detail. Creating a perfect hairstyle, well it's like an art. Visualization, my dear, visualization. That’s the bottom line. First you look at the shape of the face...”
I rolled my eyes and stopped listening to him. That was all I needed... to be brainwashed by some stupid hairdresser who fancied himself as the next Vidal Sassoon.
“...will kill me, I swear.”
“Who?” I asked when I got back to his chit chat and somehow heard his last words with full clarity.
“Your boyfriend, darling. Who else? I mean, I didn’t understand why, ‘cause I got the impression he was the one who insisted on you cutting your hair.”
“He was.”
“There! I knew it! But, when I took the scissors in hand, I swear he looked at me like he wanted to kill me and my whole family. And then he just turned, marched to the door and started staring out onto the street. Since then,” he whispered softly in my ear, “he hasn’t looked in our direction, not even once.”
“Maybe he’s been afraid I'll look like a scarecrow.”
”Whatever he thinks, when he turns, he’ll be speechless. Trust me,” he let out a shrill laugh and started to dry my hair.
“Voila!” Jo-Jo fairly shrieked a little later and clapped his hands, “Now, you may open your eyes.“
I did as he said, but it took me a few seconds to realize that the person sitting opposite was, in fact, me. Getting up out of the chair, I moved my face closer to the mirror and stood entirely stunned as I took in my reflection. My hair cascaded in soft kiss-curls to just below my shoulders, slightly shorter for the bangs at the front, but the drastic change in its length wasn’t what shocked me.
Oh, brother! Is this for real?
I was blonde! And not an inconspicuous kind of blonde, but a peroxide Pamela.
“I never thought of myself as a blonde,” I managed.
“I supposed not,” Jo-Jo laughed through his nose, “but if you’d known how good it would look, you’d never think of doing anything else. I knew from the very moment you walked in, and I set eyes on those features of yours, and those eyes. Visualization, that’s all there is to it. I told you.”
“Yeah. Visualization...” I still couldn’t pull myself together.
“But, you know... if Dracula asks...” he cocked his head to one side to indicate Alex, who was still standing at the door , “... can you say that you chose the color... You know, he told me to dye it jet black, but I just couldn’t... so I wouldn’t risk it... you know...”
“Don’t you worry,” I smiled, ran my fingers through my hair a few times and stood up, “It looks amazing...”
I walked quietly to the reception desk and stopped three feet behind Alex. It seemed hard to believe that he’d spent more than an hour just staring out at the street. Placing my hands on my hips and shaking my head, I arrived at the conclusion that I’d never truly understand him.
“I'm done. Pay the executioner.”
He hesitated a few seconds before turning slowly, and I watched as concern, disbelief and then total bewilderment took turns in playing across his features.
With gritted teeth and a curse clearly hanging on his tongue, he rushed past me and made straight for my distraught hairdresser, who was shaking like a leaf by this point. Seemingly frozen in place, I could only watch as Alex tugged down hard on the guy’s shirt and pressed him against the wall, positioning his face to glare at him darkly.
“I said black. Does that look like black to you?” he yelled and pointed in my direction, while Jo-Jo just opened and closed his mouth, like a fresh catch in a fisherman’s basket.
And then, finally, I snapped. I'd had enough of everything - running away, fake marriages, Alex's incendiary temper. I marched up to Alex and grabbed the waistband of his jeans angrily, then started to drag him away from the poor guy with the scissors.
“Leave him alone! I told him to dye it in blond.”
Alex turned his head towards me, shot me a menacing look and then let Jo-Jo free from his grasp. Taking a clean, crisp bill from his wallet, he placed it in Jo-Jo’s shirt pocket before taking hold of my arm and leading me out onto the street, where he kept on walking.
After that, we didn’t talk, not when we went to deliver my passport documents and not in the car on the way back to his place. When we got through the front door of the apartment, I went straight to the bedroom and slammed the door behind me, still feeling as angry as hell.
“I'm going out for an hour,” Alex’s voice came from the other side of the door.
Though it wouldn’t have seemed possible just minutes before, his statement enraged me even more.
“I’ll collect your passport on my way back,” I heard his steps heading down the hall and the front door closing loudly.
“Dickhead!” the whole apartment reverberated with the sound of my yelling as I went through the living room towards the kitchen area.
I opened one cupboard door after another until I finally found an unopened bottle of wine underneath the sink, feeling so relieved that I kissed the label. Taking a single glass out of the cabinet, I made my way back towards the couch and rummaged around in a box of CD’s until I found a collection of punk rock classics, which I put on right away, turning the volume right up. Sitting down heavily on the couch, I poured some wine into a glass and raised it high in the air, toasting my luck before knocking it back and shaking off the goosebumps that immediately showed on my arms.
Half wine bottle later, I was standing next to the sound system with the TV remote in my hand, pretending it was a microphone. At that precise moment I was singing along to ‘White Wedding’ by Billy Idol and its lyrics seemed to be speaking to me alone.
“Hey little sister what have you done...”
I tried to add some hip-twisting to the mix, but my legs weren’t cooperating, and I had to catch hold of a shelf to avoid falling flat on my nose.
“Hey little sister who’s the only one
Hey little sister who’s your superman
Hey little sister who’s the one you want
Hey little sister shot gun!
It’s a nice day to start again
It’s a nice day for a white wedding…”
I shouted at the top of my lungs when the hook line came, putting my heart and soul into the performance but stumbling over the exact words. I was bending down to reach t
he bottle up off the floor when I found myself face to face with Alex, though of course I only reached as high as his chest.
“Give me that!” he grabbed the bottle out of my hand and unplugged the stereo in a hurry.
“Hey! Why’d you do that?” I protested and tried to take the bottle from his hand.
“What the hell is this?”
“This? Isn’t it obvious? I'm celebrating.”
“What, exactly?”
“Our wedding, of course. It’s not every day a girl lands such a wonderful catch as you,” I pinched his right cheek between my fingers, laughing in short, hysterical bursts, “I’m so glad you came back to the party.”
I moved to power up the stereo once more, but half way towards it I tripped over my own feet and would have spilled my wine if Alex hadn’t caught me.
“My my… Thank you my dear. You always were such a gentleman,” I fluttered my eyelashes theatrically and then burst into more laughter.
“You're making a fool of yourself,” he snapped.
“Is that so? And I thought I was way past that. Let me think about it for a second,“ I raised one finger in the air as if testing the direction of the wind, “... First, I let a criminal move into my place, control my every move and follow me like a stalker. Then – and this is the best part – I slept with the guy! I’m not sure whether I was officially inaugurated into the fools’ hall of fame right then…”
Since Alex just kept quiet, I took it that he understood my predicament and went on.
“And then, pay attention now, I let the same control freak, who by the way has a serious anger management problem, convince me to marry him. Or at least, his alter ego, since he used false documents. I don’t know of course, but I suspect that might be against the law. And that’s not all, oh no… I have to note that he didn’t even see fit to kiss the bride at the ceremony when the registrar invited him to, even though he’d gone to the trouble of buying the rings!” the room started to spin at that point and I closed my eyes against it.
“Ah... sorry, I feel a little dizzy... where was I anyway?”