A Place Far Away

by Vahan Zanoyan

  The third day in Moscow they brought another young woman to the apartment and introduced her as Anastasia. Anastasia was from the Ukraine, in her mid-twenties, and had been working as a prostitute in Moscow for the Ayvazians for around four years. She had short blond hair, with bangs reaching her eyebrows, an attractive body that was thin and small, but with slightly pronounced chest and behind, and seductive, fashionable clothes. She too had entered the profession under false pretenses. But she had been older and took to her new environment much more easily. In a few weeks, prostitution felt so natural to her that she did not even remember what she had been like before.

  Anastasia was brought in to help Lara accept her new life. So the men left Lara alone another day and night. She needed to recuperate, both physically and emotionally, and, in doing so, she had to accept her new life. Anastasia took her out and talked almost non-stop. Lara’s silence did not seem to bother her. She took her first to her own apartment, a small studio in one of the poorer sections of Moscow, and explained that place was entirely hers. She paid the rent herself.

  She worked on her own, but for Viktor. She still had debts to Viktor, she explained, which she was paying off every day. Once the debts were covered, she said, she would be entirely on her own, and would have young girls working for her. “Yes,” she said, “don’t look so surprised. We can do what these men do better than them. We can run our own business and be bosses just like them, even better than them. How can they know our business better than we do?”

  They were talking mostly in Russian, with some Armenian thrown in here and there. Having worked with the Ayvazians for several years, Anastasia had learned a few rudimentary Armenian words and phrases, about as much Russian as Lara knew. They talked about birth control and Anastasia was amazed to hear that Lara was not on the pill.

  “Did they use any protection?” she asked.

  Lara was not sure.

  “Did they use condoms?” she asked, hoping that Lara would understand what she was asking. But Lara did not. Anastasia then opened her purse and took out a condom, tore open the package and rolled it out.

  “You see this?” she asked, losing her patience. “Did you see them use this? Did you see them put this on themselves before entering you?”

  Lara hesitated again. “I think Viktor’s bodyguard did. But I’m not sure about Viktor. I have no idea about Ayvazian.” Lara was feeling guilty that the whole thing might have been her fault.

  So Anastasia started from the beginning, patiently giving her a lecture, almost like a mother would do. Seeing Lara’s worried looks, she decided to turn the situation into more fun, and taught Lara how to use make up, how to approach men, what men were really all about, and how to make the most of a sexual situation and take care for her own body.

  “Look,” she said, “they will fuck you and abuse you everyday anyway, whether you like it or not. You might as well get paid for it, no? It is not going to stop, I assure you. In fact, unless you learn to cope with it now, it will only get worse for you. Much worse. There will be new men every day. Some terrible, some nicer, but still bad. Let me tell you that some will smell so bad you’ll hold your breath longer than you ever thought possible. Some will force you to do things that you never could even imagine. There will be indignities. It is not you who decides these things. They will just happen. So what do you want to do? Just let it happen and act sore, or let it happen and benefit?”

  “But why should we let it happen at all?” asked Lara. “Why should it happen in the first place?”

  “Because we are women and they are men, and they need sex, and thank God for that! We can give them something they need. Very simple. There is no deep philosophy here, Lara, so stop being so serious. You are young, beautiful, and extremely desirable. If you do not mess this up you can be big, very big, and you can own an empire! I am not kidding.”

  “I’ll write off a third of your debt if you bring her around in two days,” Viktor had told Anastasia. That was incentive enough for her, even though she actually believed what she was telling Lara.

  Then they had gone shopping, and Anastasia had introduced Lara to the special wardrobe of her new profession. She showed Lara heels, miniskirts, low-cut shirts, lingerie, all with an unending energy and enthusiasm, and non-stop chatter and laughter. “You know,” she told Lara as she was trying on a new blouse in one of the discount stores, “you remind me of my baby sister. To tell the truth, she’s the only one in my family that I liked, and the only one that I miss.”

  That may have been the right time for Lara to open up a bit also, but she found herself resisting getting close to Anastasia. Anastasia could be contagious; her laughter, her smile, her apparent happiness, the lightness with which she seemed to accept her reality, all were potentially tempting. But at the same time, they disturbed Lara deeply. She missed home so much that it caused her physical pain. She longed to be held by her father, to hug her mother, to be in their kitchen and feel the warmth and smell the familiar scents. She did not want to be tempted into adopting Anastasia’s attitude, no matter how comfortable it looked. This was Lara’s inner struggle. I want the happiness I left behind, not yours, she thought as she stared past Anastasia’s radiant face.

  Anastasia was developing a liking for Lara. She loved her looks, her innocence, her gradual, cautious but stubborn struggle against her new circumstances. Anastasia had not made any real friends in the profession, and she needed one, one that depended on her and that she could nurture. Lara was perfect. In the early years working in Moscow under Viktor she was so scared of him that she sometimes froze in his presence. He had slapped her around a few times, until she understood how to handle him. Now she practically managed herself, with no interference from Viktor as long as she made regular payments to him. She called Viktor and told him that he should leave Lara with her that night. “Just leave her with me,” she said. “We will soon reach a turning point.”

  Ayvazian arrived in Moscow the next evening and met with his team. They had their business apartment in Moscow a few blocks from the building where Lara had been dropped off.

  “What’s the play on the Galian girl?” he asked.

  “I think once we get all her papers in order we should send her to Dubai,” said Viktor. “Ano can run her there. Or maybe we can sell her contract to Ano up front.”

  Ano was one of the pimps who worked for them in Dubai. She managed about twenty-five prostitutes there, who were mostly from Armenia but included a few Russians and Ukrainians.

  “Ano cannot afford her contract, even for a year, and we can’t get her full value in Dubai,” said Ayvazian. “She’s a cut above Dubai for sure.”

  “But she is only sixteen,” said Viktor. “Dubai would be a great initiation for her. We’ll bring her to the higher market in Moscow in a year or two. She is not ready for Moscow.”

  “What is she going to make in Dubai?” asked Ayvazian, a bit annoyed at his nephew. “$400 a night? $600 tops? Don’t you think that would be a waste of this sixteen-year-old beauty?”

  “Of course, uncle, of course. But only a few days ago she was milking sheep in Saralandj! We cannot take a chance by bringing her into the high street Moscow scene right now; she just doesn’t have the style. She needs to develop and get into it properly. Anastasia is a great initiator, but she needs firsthand experience.”

  “Why not Turkey?” asked Ayvazian.

  “I think Turkey would be too rough on her. Let her go experience the Dubai scene first, you know, the Iranians, Pakistanis and Arabs for a year. Let her turn seventeen, and then we’ll do the big cash out.”

  “Unless of course we can sell her contract now in Moscow for a fortune, as an un-initiated virgin prize,” said Ayvazian.

  “If we can, great,” said Viktor. “But this is not the right market for it. Even that type of sale is more likely with an Arab Shaikh than here in Moscow. I agree that Ano cannot afford her, but some local big shot could.”

  And, of course, Lara was no longer a vi
rgin, but Viktor did not want to bring that up and upset his uncle. Someone like Lara, while still a virgin, would command the highest price of all. But Ayvazian had insisted on having that prize himself.

  “How long before the papers can be finalized?” asked Ayvazian, giving the first clear indication that he was beginning to concede to his nephew. He was sitting in his usual large armchair by the window and as he lit a new cigarette, he sensed a slight hesitation in Viktor.

  “Here’s the problem,” said Viktor, becoming aware of his voice quality again, wanting it to come out as measured and convincing. “There is no way we can make it believable that she is thirty-one. The UAE government will no longer issue visas to any woman under thirty-one unless she is accompanied by a husband or a father. And even they cannot turn a blind eye when they see Lara holding a passport showing she’s thirty-one. No way.”

  “So what’s the solution?”

  “I’ll have to marry her.”

  Ayvazian burst out laughing, his faith in his nephew somewhat restored.

  “Marry her?” he roared amid bursts of laughter. “Marry her? Aren’t you already married? And who will believe that you married a sixteen-year-old?”

  “First,” replied Viktor, “remember that Viktor Ayvazian is married, but Viktor Arakelyan is not. Second, we will get Lara a passport that shows she is twenty-one. That we can sell; she’s tall enough, and with the right clothing and makeup, we can make her pass for that age. But thirty-one, we cannot.”

  A year earlier Viktor had been deported from Dubai. His legal violations were far too many, but in the end that was not the real problem. The problem was that he had violated the ultimate unwritten law, namely, offending the system itself by his carelessness and reckless behavior. He had flouted his girls publically far too often, argued with their key protectors in Dubai and once even refused to make payments to them on time. His deportation orders had come suddenly and were executed even more hurriedly. He was physically forced to leave Dubai within an hour of the order. He had left everything behind, in the able hands of Madame Ano, and vowed to return.

  Ayvazian had been furious. How could this young reckless adventurer be allowed to jeopardize everything that he had painstakingly built in Dubai over the past several years? He disciplined his nephew very harshly. He made him pay all that was due to the bosses in Dubai from his own pocket, plus he penalized him heftily for the indiscretion, by taking the Moscow portfolio from his control. That was a heavy blow indeed, but Viktor accepted it and vowed to regain it within the year.

  In two months Viktor had a new passport with a new last name. He made his first trip with the new passport to Dubai soon thereafter. He zoomed through the airport passport control and customs without any problems, but once in Dubai, it became known to all that Viktor was back. The authorities turned a blind eye, considering that the young man had already paid his dues before arriving. It is always easier to forgive indiscretions if the debts are paid—at least for the men in the system. With women, it was different, as always.

  In the end Ayvazian agreed to the plan. Lara would go to Dubai for a year and be handed over for Ano to manage, while they looked for a good opportunity to sell her to a local dignitary for a year or two. After that, Lara would have to return and join the big leagues in Moscow. One year in Dubai would generate between sixty and seventy thousand dollars. Someone of Lara’s caliber could average that much in two or three months in Moscow, if she was ready. “If she is ready,” repeated Ayvazian, putting the entire burden on Viktor.

  It took two weeks to get her a fake passport, according to which she was Lara Galianova, a Russian citizen, born in 1983, twenty-one years old. In another week they had secured the marriage certificate. They did not tell Lara that she would be officially married to Viktor, until the papers arrived.

  “Congratulations,” Viktor said to her. “You are now officially Mrs. Viktor Arakelyan,” even though they had not changed her last name in her documents.

  Given everything else that had happened, Viktor’s announcement of her new marital status did not shock Lara. Nor was she surprised by her total lack of emotion regarding the news. Back in her village, marriage would be the single most significant event in a girl’s life. Birth, marriage and death—those are the key milestones of the cycle of life. Even children, which change the whole rhythm of life drastically, were considered a consequence, not a main event. And here was Lara staring at a piece of paper showing that she was married, as if it was an old document with no relevance to her whatsoever.

  Lara spent most of the time in those weeks with Anastasia. She rarely went back to the Ayvazian’s apartment in Moscow, preferring to spend the nights in Anastasia’s tiny apartment. Viktor’s men were never absent and made sure that both girls were constantly aware that they were being watched. In the first few days Lara had thought of escape several times. She thought of getting her hands on a cell phone and calling home. But she had no idea of how to go about any of this. She had no number to call, even if she could steal or borrow Anastasia’s phone. And then the scariest thought of all occurred to her: even if she managed to get in touch with her family, what would she tell them? What would she tell her mother? What would she tell Avo? How could she possibly tell them what had happened to her?

  With Anastasia’s help and encouragement, she eventually got into the nightly scene of the prostitutes, and had her very first paying customer. Viktor was following all this from a distance, but let Anastasia handle her. The customer was an American businessman. Anastasia negotiated $200 for an hour with Lara. That was more than the going rate for the older prostitutes, but Lara was clearly different. The American was taken by her youthful beauty and freshness. She had provocative clothes, but very light and understated make-up. It was not obvious from her appearance that she was a professional; she looked more like a loose teenager out for mischief. She was quiet, unrushed, and almost passive in her calm, and the middle-aged American found that attractive. They went to his hotel, Anastasia in tow like a protective mother taking her daughter to school for the first time, and waited downstairs in the lobby. “See you in an hour, dear,” she said in Armenian. “And remember to take the money first.”

  Lara surveyed the room quickly, and waited for the American to make the first move. The room was impressive and imposing. It had a king-size bed that looked enormous to Lara. There were six pillows, lined up in two rows of three against the headboard, and two smaller cushions in front of them; she wondered what they were for. There were also cushions on the couch and two more on the chairs in the other corner of the room. That’s over a dozen pillows, she thought, more than they had in their house in Saralandj where ten people used to sleep. She remembered how her mother would fold old jackets and rags to use as a pillow one winter when they had to sell the wool stuffed in some of their pillows.

  The American approached her and gave her a gentle kiss on the forehead. He then produced two green bills from his wallet and handed them to Lara. Anastasia had shown Lara various currencies and explained the value of each; dollars, Russian rubles, even Japanese yen, so she would know the amount was right. She put the money in a small purse, which contained Araxi Dadik’s ring. She rubbed the ring with her thumb for a second before the American took her hand and led her towards the bed.

  Until then, Lara’s only sexual experiences had been rapes. But now she was here voluntarily, if one could call it that considering how she had ended up in this situation in the first place. But still, at that moment, no one had physically forced her to be in that room and to undress for that man. She was doing it herself, mechanically, calmly. That thought both scared and pleased Lara. I am actually doing this, she thought. Have I let them win, then? Or have I done the only logical thing? Will I still win in the end? Forgive me, Mama jan, she thought, as she got into bed with nothing on except the skimpy underwear that Anastasia had bought for her. For Lara, none of the rapes of the past few days were as dramatic as this moment. The total inevitability of the moment
was lost to her. Short of committing suicide and ending it all, she really had little choice about being here and acting the way she was acting. She was simply too entangled in the moment to understand that.

  But in a strange and paradoxical way, she began to feel that she would have to take control of this side of her life from now on. “This is going to happen regardless,” Anoush, Nono and Anastasia had constantly told her. This was like a force of nature and, back home, she had learned very early in life that one did not fight nature. Neither fear nor anger had any useful purpose in Saralandj, where one went along with nature in order to survive. Even morality and honor, which were very big in Saralandj and even bigger in her home, had no useful purpose in nature. Nature was amoral. When a calf was stillborn or the wolves slaughtered a few sheep, there was no point in blaming and even less in judging. You controlled as much as you could, such as feeding your livestock in the spring and summer, preserving as much food for winter as you could, planting as much as possible and harvesting in the fall. But when winter came, you withdrew indoors and survived with what you had. You managed nature. You never fought it, and you could never judge it either.

  And now, Lara thought, I face another force of nature that I need to manage; that really is all there is to it. In the beginning was neither the word nor action, nor darkness nor light, nor spirits floating over waters, she thought. In the beginning was innocence. Then someone said let there be reality. And there was reality. For Lara, there was nothing in between.

  The American was incredibly nice, or so it seemed to Lara. He was gentle to such an extent that Lara thought nothing was going to happen. But it did happen. And it happened gently. She was surprised. Sex was not pure violence, after all. There was no pain. Granted, not much pleasure either, but at least there was no pain. And there were no insults, no forced indignities. The American put on a condom, just like the one Anastasia had shown her. She watched him with detached curiosity as he discarded it afterwards. She found herself doing everything as if it was meant to be, almost as if she wanted to. But she did not know what she wanted, except that she had to manage this new force of nature.