The Tool & the Butterflies

by Dmitry Lipskerov

  With her wretched transcript, she didn’t even apply to college; she could have bribed her way in, but she preferred to spend that money paying off the cops at the big hotels where she paraded her firm ass around the bars and restaurants to pick up men on business trips. Iseult acquired foreign currency, said a brief goodbye to her mother, and rented an apartment right by Patriarch Ponds, where she was visited by a pair of cultural attachés, one consul, and the ambassador of one of the smallest African countries, who wore a big gold buckle on a sash across his chest. Iseult wasn’t like her mother at all. She didn’t hate her country, and thus had inherited very little of Masha’s spite. She was perfectly happy with her life in Moscow. All the brand-name foreign products that speculators once traded could now be sold openly, and there was plenty of food in the stores; Iseult even tried crocodile at a reception with her African ambassador. It tasted like chicken. You could even fly to America … if you had the money. But what would she do over there with no English or other skills? Turn tricks? She was already offering paid admission to her loveless temple in Moscow and receiving an embarrassment of riches from her clients. Iseult grew more beautiful with time; she got thinner without any fancy diets and her cheeks burned with a natural pomegranate glow. She had a steady customer base, her own foreign car parked out in front of her building, and a fully stocked refrigerator—she couldn’t complain. It was just that she was feeling tired more and more often, and not just on the job; it was happening at home, too. Iseult didn’t pay any attention to those trifles, though. She was planning to go to Italy in the summer and spend two whole weeks not working, just soaking up the Neapolitan sun.

  During one of their rare phone calls, Iseult’s mother advised her to go in for a checkup.

  “Regular physical examinations are key for girls in our profession!”

  “Are you still in the business?”

  “Yeah, but now I have some girls working for me. I only see clients when I feel like it.”

  “Maybe I should come on board?”

  “What kind of mother would sell her daughter?! Keep working on your own.”

  “How come you’re still in Russia?”

  “I’m saving up to buy a house in Spain, then …”

  Iseult went to the gynecologist and was surprised to learn that she was pregnant.

  “But how? I always use—”

  “You’re nearing four months.” The specialist clearly was not interested in a lengthy conversation. “You will have to register, undergo a series of tests, and take vitamins.”

  Iseult was such a mess on the drive home that she almost crashed into a fire truck. She kept wondering who could have caused this misfortune, where she had slipped up, whose flesh was swelling in her leavening dough. All the evidence pointed to one of her clients, the ambassador from the small African country … Iseult had no intention to profit by this conclusion, however; she didn’t plan to blackmail the ambassador or anything. She kept receiving visitors, just significantly less often.

  Then men came to her apartment. A full squad of cops, the district officer, and a man in a wrinkled white coat. The district officer pressed himself against the wall as if she were a leper, while the man in the white coat identified himself as a doctor from the public health department and asked her to come with them to the hospital at Sokolina Gora.

  “Why?” Iseult asked, startled.

  “You’ll find out at the hospital,” the policeman replied.

  It turned out that the hospital specialized in infectious diseases. Iseult was no fool; she realized that meant she had picked up syphilis or something. If it was just gonorrhea, they wouldn’t have dragged her all the way out there. Now she was in for a heap of trouble. She’d really put her foot in it … but when, with who?! They’d try to preach to her at the hospital, but who cares? And the pregnancy on top of everything else … She was taken from office to office. They probed every orifice, shined a light in her eyes, and did ultrasounds. They wouldn’t even give her a towel to wipe off the gel. They did tell her it was a girl inside her, though. She figured it had to be syphilis; that was why they kept giving her those scornful looks. They stuck her in an MRI machine bearing a label with the peculiar name “Image 1.” The doctors chatted among themselves, mentioning that this imported machine had been sitting in the basement for a year. Nobody even knew how to set it up, much less use it. They had planned to bring in some Americans to teach them, but the money had apparently gone toward the foundation for a little country home. A mere ten thousand square feet.

  A woman general practitioner listened to her heart and asked her questions.

  “How’s your weight?”

  “I’ve lost a little recently.”

  “How much?”

  “I don’t really weigh myself, but I can tell by my clothes.”

  “Weakness? Sweating?”

  “Well, I am pregnant. The sweating is mostly at night.”

  After all the examinations, she had to sit in a chair out in the hallway for four hours, driving herself to the brink of madness. How had she gotten pregnant? How had she gotten the syph? She’d get through it, one way or another.

  What Iseult heard in the chief physician’s office first drove her into perplexity, then plunged her into a primal whirlpool of indescribable fear.

  “You have contracted the human immunodeficiency virus!” the department head said, pointing to her MRI scans for some reason.

  “What’s that?”

  “AIDS.”

  Iseult lost consciousness and slid down the wall on to the chlorine-smelling floor. Nobody picked her up or tried to wake her.

  “Dirty tramp,” the department head stated simply.

  “Yeah,” said the resident.

  “You have a daughter, right?”

  “I’d kill her!”

  “But she isn’t even in school yet.”

  “Yeah, but just thinking about it … I’d kill her!”

  “How’d the tramp let it happen? She’s a professional …” the department head said, thinking out loud. “Anal sex,” he answered himself. “Those airheads think only one hole needs protection! He went in a little low and spurted too fast. That’s how she got HIV, and it probably explains the pregnancy, too.”

  “Serves her right for doing anal!” the resident declared.

  Iseult regained consciousness and instantly remembered the sentence the doctor had passed on her. She was about to slip into unreason again, eyes rolling back in her head, when the resident gruffly interrupted the process.

  “Hello! This isn’t a brothel. Quit lying around!” She managed to get up, breaking the false nails on her right hand, then breathed deeply, moved to an armchair like a somnambulist, and sat down without asking permission.

  “What is your name?” the department head asked. “Never mind, I have it here.” He flipped through his papers and informed her that the first order of business would be getting rid of the child.

  “But it’s already been four months!” Iseult forced out, her voice hoarse.

  “Induced labor then. We’ll shove him out!” the resident announced. “You’ll pop out yet another AIDS gremlin!”

  “Doctor, please!”

  “Why … why ‘AIDS gremlin?’” She was moving her tongue with difficulty, as if her mouth were full of modeling clay. “And it’s a girl. They told me—”

  “Because the chances that he will be born healthy are almost nonexistent,” the department head said, agreeing with his colleague. “And even if he’s lucky enough to be HIV-negative, who would take care of him? And what if he isn’t lucky?”

  Running on autopilot, Iseult repeated that it was a “she” not a “he,” a girl, and she had a mother. Then she snapped out a question.

  “How long do I ha—” The department head rose from his desk, picked up a pointer, and began to poke at the MRI images.

  “Do you see this? And this?”

  “What?” She was barely holding herself together, mechanically licking up th
e tears rolling down her face.

  “This! Your lungs! No, those are hardly lungs anymore! Your liver? Nope, not what I’d call a liver. Same goes for your kidneys, and you have the heart of a dwarf!”

  “Yes, yes, I understand …”

  “Oh, you understand, do you?” Then the department head suddenly seemed to see this sick, pregnant, utterly lost woman for the first time, and he felt pity for her. “We all die sooner or later …”

  “Sooner, in your case,” the resident noted.

  “Leave the room immediately, Doctor!”

  “Huh?”

  “Get out of here, close the door behind you, and go see your patients!”

  The resident’s face turned as purple as potassium permanganate mouthwash. He got up and left, deliberately jostling Iseult’s shoulder along the way, firmly convinced that forced euthanasia was the way to handle people like her …

  “What’s your name, honey?” the doctor asked again when the door had closed behind his colleague.

  “Iseult …

  “My name is Vasily, Vasily Stepanov … Listen, you waited an awfully long time to seek medical help …”

  “How much longer, Doctor Stepanov?”

  “You’re a professional, I’ll give it to you straight. Up to a year, but that’s if you are under strict medical supervision and you take all of the necessary foreign medications. Without the medications, you may not last that long. They cost thousands, though.”

  “I have a little saved up,” she said, wondering why he had called her a professional. Was it her professional attitude toward death?

  “It will cost tens of thousands of American dollars!”

  “I have the money …”

  “Thank God! Really, that does my heart good.” He went back to his desk and sat down. “I will oversee your case.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let’s get ready for induced labor. The proper authorities will deal with your … let’s just say ‘sexual partners.’ We have to track all of them down … I just can’t believe you managed to get infected from heterosexual contact.”

  “No induced labor. I’m keeping the baby,” Iseult fired off, and she instantly felt better, as if someone had freed her from an immeasurable load. She breathed in deeply and wiped away her tears. “I will not give my partners up. They are all foreign citizens and are protected by diplomatic immunity.”

  “But who will you leave him wi—”

  “It’s a girl. Try to do everything the way I want it done and I will be very grateful, Doctor Stepanov.”

  The department head looked at her, internally dismissing her as an idiot, but simultaneously feeling sorry for this woman struggling under the weight of the name Iseult. He also understood perfectly well that she had just offered him money.

  “The decision is yours, naturally! Ten thousand dollars for me to set everything up for you.”

  “Agreed.”

  “Terrific. You won’t be staying at our hospital, of course. Anonymity cannot be guaranteed here. I’m afraid our specialists are rather untutored when it comes to such matters … I will give you the address of a gynecologist. He’s also a urologist, in case that proves necessary. He will prolong your life as much as possible. He has a private department affiliated with the hospital for employees of the Ministry of Transportation. He has grand plans, too—building his own clinic! I’ll write it all down for you … the doctor’s name is Eldar Edgarovich Sytin … He’s actually a descendent of the famous Sytin, the publisher!”

  “Okay.”

  Stepanov could see that she had never heard of Sytin, and she didn’t give a damn about anything at that moment.

  “They will take you home in an ambulance. Give my guy the money. He’ll drive back with the siren on. I’ll whisper your instructions right in the doctor’s ear. You can have the baby at his department, by the way. He has private suites that are up to Western standards.”

  Then Iseult lay in bed for two days, her face burrowed into the wall. She wasn’t depressed, but what fear there was seemed to be splashing around at the bottom of her stomach, letting her breathe free. She disappeared into herself, trying to feel her tiny little girl down below her heart. The girl didn’t make her mother wait and responded to her summons with faint, nearly imperceptible movement. That ethereal movement awakened the whole of her soul into a smile, as if she expected tremendous happiness in the time left to her.

  She even managed to eat a little something, and by evening, she felt able to call her mother. Masha was as strong as marble when she instructed Iseult to keep it together. A whole year to live! She would help with the money.

  “It’ll be a lot!”

  “We have enough.”

  “What about your house in Spain?”

  “We have enough for that, too! Don’t you worry. Ask your foreigners for help. They knocked you up and infected you. They owe you!”

  “Masha, you know our profession. Nobody owes anybody anything. They all paid me …”

  “You’re right …”

  Iseult visited Doctor Sytin, and they drew up a plan, one centered around giving birth soon and getting the right HIV treatment. Sytin showed her his private suites and invited her to die there if it struck her fancy.

  “That’s not for a while, of course,” Sytin said with a wave of his hand.

  Iseult bought all sorts of prenatal vitamins, spent everything she had on medicine, and shed her indifference for the first time in her life. She loved her little girl madly and had long conversations with her, apologizing for her recklessness. In return, her daughter projected astounding dreams for her: there was always an endless table covered in a white cloth, beginning on earth and ending in the heavens. Righteous people sat at the table, clearly celebrating. Iseult struggled to understand the reason for this perpetual feast, but she couldn’t figure it out. She had a place at that table, and there was an old man with a patchy beard who looked Greek sitting to her right. He never said anything but always looked up there, into the endlessness of the celebration, paying no attention to Iseult. Then one Friday night, he suddenly turned toward her.

  “I will take care of everything!”

  She often got calls from her former clients, but she would tell them that she had retired because of an injury. Iseult’s sympathetic foreigners stopped disturbing her. The ambassador from the small African country was nowhere to be found, though. Only after a full month had elapsed did she receive a precious parcel containing his golden buckle and a little note, in which the envoy imparted to her that he had been compelled to return to his homeland because of his faltering health.

  “I hope you’ll forgive your father, too,” she uttered aloud for her daughter to hear.

  In her next dream, the silent old man addressed himself to her again, nearly ordering her to devote more attention to her mother the following week.

  “Be gentler with her!”

  Iseult went to visit her mother at work, and the sight of her brought home the fact that they had not been together for many years. Iseult embraced her mother, pregnancy belt pressing against the latter’s withering body.

  “I love you, Masha!”

  Masha found this display of daughterly affection off-putting, but she attributed it to Iseult’s illness and perhaps a hormone imbalance. Untangling herself from the embrace, she showed her daughter a private enterprise consisting of eight rooms and four large halls, where hetaerae of every trade and every tribe of the collapsed Soviet Union toiled away indefatigably.

  “It’s all legal. This is a strip club, it’s called the ‘Gabon.’”

  “Why ‘Gabon’?”

  “I don’t know. It’s a cool word.”

  “It isn’t a word, it’s the name of a country.”

  “Yeah, I know …”

  Of course she knew. The ambassador from that small African nation with the golden buckle on his chest had frequented her enterprise when it was still illegal. He invested some serious money into the place to turn it into a strip
club—obviously, it was all in her name, though. In addition to honoring him by calling the place the “Gabon,” the grateful hostess had passed on her daughter’s contact information. That’s where the ambassador with the golden buckle came from, the man who would become the father of Iseult’s daughter.

  “What was his name again?”

  “Who?”

  “The black guy.”

  “Adio. Why?”

  “It’s nothing, never mind.”

  “By the way, I gave him your phone number, but he got attached to this place … sorry …”

  “So does that mean everything’s okay, Masha?”

  “Yeah, you can see that …”

  Iseult was happy that the baby would have a grandmother to take care of her after her mother passed on. She made Masha give her word that she would never encourage her granddaughter to follow in their footsteps and extend their dynasty of currency whores. Masha promised that she would raise her with the mores of Chekhov’s time and send her away to an international school in Switzerland when she was fourteen. At home later that evening, Iseult, contented and draped in a comforter, was half collapsed in an armchair, devouring sour-cream-and-mushroom chips, when she suddenly heard the voice of a television anchor through the wall, from the next apartment over. A Chechen man whose identity had not yet been established, apparently unsatisfied with the service at the Gabon strip club, had produced an automatic weapon of foreign manufacture from his bag and shot the owner of the establishment dead, along with seven other people: four strippers and three clients. A manhunt was underway in Moscow and an investigation had been launched.