Kill Cupid: Internet dating just got dangerous (5 page)

Inside, the terminal was not what he was accustomed to back home, or any other developed country for that matter. Run down wouldn’t describe it in sufficient detail. It may have been nice and modern in the 1950’s, but now it too was in dire need of renovation or renewal. A diesel Caterpillar would have been of greater benefit than a bucket of paint. Some man flicked a switch on the wall and an old wooden conveyor belt groaned into life. Two disinterested looking airline men began throwing the passengers luggage from a trolley onto the labouring giant, moving snake. Some men struggled by with a box big enough to ship the mother in law along with the kitchen sink. The freight cost alone would’ve been more than the air tickets. And always that distinct, Russian smell. Maybe it was the old grey buildings, old heaters, old routines, and old ways? Was it the lingering odour from the communist party the night before; the left over of soviet living; a musty, thawing residue of the former cold war? Maybe it’s what grey smells like?

Bronte had no problem finding Zhana. Instead, she found him. He hadn’t yet considered that it really wasn’t difficult. His suntan alone said he was obviously a foreigner from a warm climate. He’d also forgotten he had his sunglasses on top of his head, and dark glasses weren’t popular attire for mainstream Russia, especially at night; unless you owned a tanning salon.

‘Hello…’

‘Hi Zhana! …How did you know me?’ They kissed on the cheeks.

‘You look just like photos…’

‘Obviously not the one on the beach where I’m holding the fish…’ he replied.

‘Sorry… what?’

‘You look different to your photos… but beautiful … how is your nose?’ he asked.

‘Thank you… my nose is fine now… ‘

              ‘That’s good, I’m glad… forgive me but you look very different to your photos… and not just your nose’. Bronte sounded awkward.

              ‘Excuse me… sorry?’ And with that her friend jumped in to rescue the conversation.

‘My name is Oly,’ shaking his hand. ‘Welcome to Krasnodar. I hope you had a good flight…’ She was slim and fit and brandished a professional smile. She spoke confidently, with beautiful azure blue eyes which glimmered in a hint of mischief. She’d run a henna rinse through her hair so that her entire outfit and makeup seemed to be colour coded to match perfectly. At least five to ten years older than Zhana, she spoke English well.

              ‘Nice to meet you Oly, I’m Bronte… and the flight was torture, thanks.’

              ‘Yes it is very far to Australia… how far is it from Krasnodar?’

              ‘The entire journey took about… 36 hours.’ The impact of meeting the two women standing in front of him and his utter lack of preparedness for initial greetings made him sweat. He felt tongue-tied. How could he have better prepared for meeting a girl he’d committed to via a computer screen?

‘The flight took thirty six hours?’ Oly replied. ‘That’s much too far… too long for me. I could not stay on a plane so long.’

‘That makes two of us…’ Bronte answered, wishing he could think of something to say which might engage Zhana. But she was surprisingly quiet and preferred to smile rather than attempt conversation. She was also taller than her photos suggested, slim with long black hair and big black eyes. Her skin was flawless, white porcelain just as he recalled.

‘You are taller than I imagined,’ Bronte said to Zhana but thinking he may as well talk about the weather. ‘And you look younger than I imagined.’ He caught himself running fingers through his hair, recalling the father and daughter image of meeting a younger woman. And in that moment of self consciousness, he knocked his glasses flying from his head.

‘You must be hungry… we have not eaten…’ Oly jumped in again, organising the two lost strangers flung together by a modem.

‘Well I was thinking…’

‘Good… let’s go eat and drink something’ she said before Bronte could request taking a shower. Her English was proving good enough to be a tour guide.

Crammed with luggage and three passengers, he wondered whether his life would end that night in the back seat of the taxi. They were headed for a restaurant of what type and location he had no idea. That had all been discussed and decided in rapid fire Russian. The driver had a dark complexion and Bronte guessed he was about his age. He was tall and looked Turkish and the large black and grey moustache he sported was untrimmed and untidy and it hung in his mouth. While he drove he sucked and chewed on it and seeing that, Bronte couldn’t imagine how any woman ever kissed him. The photo of the wife and kids on the dash must have been a picture of his latest accident victims. He drove like a maniac and might have hit a pedestrian given the way the guy yelled abuse at the disappearing cab.

All the while the driver chain smoked and said nothing. He had a definite death wish and was bent on taking them all to hell with him in his terrible Russian cab.
It would be very easy to die in one of these old Russian cars
, Bronte thought. Just getting in the thing gave new meaning to “one foot in the grave”. The seat belts were for kids and pussies according to this lunatic. An air bag would have been an old woman flatulating, or a kid with balloons on his way to a party. And to add misery to danger, the roads looked like they’d last seen maintenance when President Khrushchev shook his fist at JFK. It was impossible for Bronte to simply relax and chat with Zhana. Together in the back seat, they were being flung from side to side as the cab dodged and swerved to miss pedestrians, dogs and other cars by what could’ve only been millimetres at most.

They swung through another turn and Bronte collided heads with Zhana.
We used to drive like this in our teens, trying to throw interested boys and girls together in the car,
he thought. But if the driver was attempting to do that, his efforts were ridiculous. When Bronte thought about it he shivered for a moment.
No one, not even my brother knows I am here. What if something does happen?
The sound of another honking motorist distracted him. They were pulling into a drive way at last. At least this time he had made it.  

Oly said her goodbyes, mostly in Russian and left Bronte and Zhana on the curb to themselves. She had mentioned something about her mother and son and then left in the cab of death. Bronte expected it would be routine to learn of her tragic passing in a motor accident the next day. He had no doubt that world’s worst cabbie would be dead soon and if not, he’d probably be struck by lightning. Surely he had an expiry date on his birth certificate so he knew the precise time of his death. Anyway, he drove like it. On the other hand, the girls had not appeared frightened by the real life big dipper ride straight out of Disneyland. In fact at different times, each had taken calls on their phones without a hiccup. Bronte considered that maybe at his age he was getting too old for these wild excursions. Maybe it was a typical taxi ride in east Europe? He escorted Zhana up the stairs and into the restaurant.

‘At least it’s not cold’ he said with Zhana on his arm, finally resorting to the weather in an attempt to incarnate conversation.

‘What?’ came the reply.

‘Tonight, not cold’. Bronte repeated, rephrased and slower.

              ‘Da, not cold.’ At this rate, it would take a week to discuss his address. He marvelled when he thought about his friend from Holland who got through an entire course at Music College with an English vocabulary consisting of a mere five four-letter-words.

Inside, the interior decoration and atmosphere impressed immediately. They were in a Mexican restaurant complete with swinging bar doors and a mock saloon layout. There were electric copies of gas lanterns, slung low over the tables to give a half light, less than bright and somewhat seedy ambience. The place was arranged with booths around the walls and tables laid throughout the centre of the room. All manner of western paraphernalia hung on walls or was mounted somewhere, including a giant buffalo head. They were no less intimidating in Russia he noticed but even more intriguing was how they got most of the stuff.
Russian eBay?

Everything; tables, chairs, wall panelling, floors, was in old western style rough-cut timber. At the head of the dining hall was an authentic looking American bar with a small stage for some local Madonna look alike to sing her sultry cowboy routine – in English of course. Bronte took off his jacket then helped Zhana with hers. As she slid into the booth to sit opposite, he realized how much more beautiful she actually was than her photos indicated. In fact, the most appropriate word he could find was perfect. Hair, makeup, skin, lips, clothes and coordinated colours, shoes, nails and teeth, all immaculate. Looking at her, she could have stepped straight from a fashion magazine. As another couple walked passed, he couldn’t help notice the woman striding arm in arm with her male companion. She’d just stepped out of a magazine too.

‘I like this place,’ he said reading a list of symbols with numbers from a book he guessed was the menu.

‘What? You like?’

‘This place… It is very interesting. It looks like something from the Alamo.’ He lit a cigarette and passed the book of hieroglyph to Zhana, wondering about the smoke signals he was sending the Indians.

‘Sorry? What?’ The familiar reply again.

‘I am speaking about the décor…… the furniture…’

‘Sorry? I not understand. You want I will order you fish, yes?’ Zhana played with her phone and looked tense, completely lost in a foreign sea. He thought how he would explain in the most simplistic way that it wasn’t a fish he had referred to, but that the restaurant reminded him of a set from the Alamo movie.
She probably thinks the Alamo is a washing powder.

‘Never mind, it’s not important and fish will be fine’, wondering how on earth he could explain beef Chimichanga in Russian, and how many kilometres they were from fresh seafood.

‘Please excuse, my English is bad.’ Zhana had been sitting with an erect back but she seemed to sink an inch or two, as though embarrassed.

‘That’s okay. Excuse my bad Russian’ Bronte offered feebly. Her manner was so charming, she could’ve been asking him to excuse that she was a murderer and he’d have consented.

‘So you write much better than you speak? Your letters were very good’. Zhana looked at him rather blankly, though he was sure she had understood. He was learning to speak slowly and precisely if he was to have a chance at any reasonable childlike conversation.

‘Oly wrote the letters. I can not write in English’. If she’d been asking his forgiveness for murder, as the plot thickened, it was becoming a serial killing.

‘Oly… she wrote your letters? You told her what you wanted to say?’

‘No… I not need to explain what to say…’ He was beginning to wonder exactly which enchantress had lured him into this Russian version of a spaghetti western.

‘So you are saying OLY wrote my letters?’

‘She is my very good friend, like my sister. She knows what I want to say’. Zhana looked straight at Bronte then turned away, not wanting to hold his gaze. In the twitch of a smile an unwelcome tension cast its net across the table. He wondered if while fiddling with her phone, she had pressed the wrong mood button.

‘Will I meet more with her…Oly I mean? I’d like to chat about our correspondence.’

‘You already have met with her’ replied Zhana. ‘That is Oly at airport and in taxi.’ She looked away again as if that was the easiest way to avoid the subject further.

‘Yes, I realise that was Oly… but will we meet again?’

‘You like Oly? You wish to meet with Oly?’

Bronte was driving up a dead end street at a hundred miles an hour. He decided to lighten things up with a change of subject.

‘Zhana, do you know the tradition from Ukraine for couples thinking of married life?’ The best red-herring he could think to throw on the table in a hurry, he almost bit his lip worried she might think he was suggesting betrothal.

‘Nyet’, replied a surprised looking Zhana. Bronte continued,

‘They must complete three tasks together. First, they must drink alcohol. Second, they should play cards and last, go shopping.’ He was eager to hear her reaction, sensing his change of tack had brought Zhana a returning ease and a straight back.

‘Nyet, I never heard of such things. That is silly things to do, you agree? It is not interesting to do such things and anyway Ukraine people are stupid.’ Completely disinterested, Zhana glanced away again, definitely the easiest way to avoid further exchange. Bronte had his tyres let down on that story, and she hadn’t even asked to hear the reasons for these three cultural acts of immense sanity. Then reaching across the table for her handbag she added,

‘I’m going to the ladies room,’ and with that, she slid from the booth. He watched as with hips swaying in a catwalk like strut and high heels clipping on the wooden floor, she disappeared up the hallway.

----------  * * --------------------- * * * ------------------------ * * -----------

Zhana looked at the screen on her phone showing
number not listed,
but even before she answered she knew exactly who the caller would be.

‘Hi my Willy, Kak dela?’

‘I am well thanks my love, how are you?’ Willy called every other night from Frankfurt and although not as far away as Siberia, it was still expensive to call Russia from Germany.

‘Do you miss me?’ She sighed, almost moaning. Zhana could ask the simplest question and make it a seductive plea of great passion. When she’d seen his call she’d made herself more comfortable.

‘I want to be with you now. I miss you terribly’ Willy said, sitting in the kitchen with a cognac and some German liverwurst.

‘I miss you more. It is cold here alone… and I don’t like to be alone’, Zhana said dreamily, lying on her bed with a glass of Russian wine and a German cigarette. It had only been 2 weeks since Willy had left her after their time together in Moscow. ‘And I want you now’ she whispered.

‘I want you more’ was Willy’s reply, ‘and I love you and miss you.’

‘I miss you too’.

She still couldn’t find a way to say she loved him. Just why, she couldn’t say or wasn’t sure. Perhaps it was a defence that would take a little time to break down? Maybe there was still an empty room she’d been hiding in her heart for someone else and she’d simply neglected to hang out the
No Vacancy
sign?

Meanwhile Willy wanted to explode with excitement and tell Zhana he’d ordered the diamond and gold wedding bands, but the timing didn’t feel right, and he chickened out after the not so romantic proposal he made while she lay in a bath in Moscow. A quick telephone call was not the appropriate way, not at least until he had the rings in his hot little hands. After only a brief chat about nothing in particular, they blew kisses goodbye. That was much easier for them both to manage just yet.

----------  * * --------------------- * * * ------------------------ * * -----------

Bronte watched Zhana return from the bathroom, hair brushed, lips re-enhanced, clothes straightened and God knows what else she had done. He could only fantasize about that, but whatever it was, it sure took a while. Only a woman can devise an alternate night out from a trip to the ladies restroom.

‘Shall we go?’ she asked. ‘I’ll get the check.’ He was about to answer when her phone rang and he noticed she looked before she answered. The conversation was brief and appeared to be little more than a lot of ‘
da
’ or Russian yeses, the occasional ‘
nyet
’ or no and the odd ‘
horosho
’ or okay. When she finished, as if the call never happened or Bronte had been invisible, Zhana said officiously,

‘Okay, now we’ll go to your apartment’. She handed the money he had given her to the waiter who’d never spoken a word. Instead, he probably changed the ashtray forty times. Madonna sang Patsy Kline “I fall to pieces” and looking at the way she was bulging out of her strapless dress, it was a real possibility. As they left the restaurant, he wondered if he should re-tell the Ukraine story with the three traditions, revised to become four and include mating passionately. Either way, he was sure he’d find out real soon.