I squirted my nose and pulled out the brown bottle, which somehow was almost empty. The label didn’t indicate how much you should take in a day. I couldn’t even find the little pictogram Norwegian medicine bottles have to warn you not to drive while taking it. I took a little sip, and then one more.
I thought about the icon.
Maybe it would be wise to check if it was still there. If someone had followed me earlier in the evening, they might have removed it from its hiding place. Was it still up there radiating light and hope?
I pushed myself off the bed, forced my feet to climb up two flights of stairs, ordered a glass of Georgian wine, and sat down on the corner sofa. There was hardly anyone there. Two men in silk shirts focused intently on their conversation at a window table, and a woman sat at the bar looking bored. I wondered if she might be a prostitute. In movies prostitutes always sat at the bar and waited for men to pick them up.
I regretted not having brought a book with me. Now people would probably assume I was a prostitute. But then I remembered that I wasn’t wearing any makeup and hadn’t brushed my hair or changed my clothes. Plus I was sick. All things considered I should be pretty safe.
The cough syrup was still working well, and the little fairies had come back, too. I reached out my hand to touch them, but they eluded me every time. They were too fast, way too fast.
As fast as Pretty Putin, who was suddenly sitting in the chair in front of me with a glass of whiskey in his hand. I stretched my hand out again to see if he was real. He was.
I giggled, while at the same time carefully creating a magic shield between him and the duct-taped icon.
“I thought we put you to bed?” he said tiredly.
“But now I’m awake.”
He rubbed his eyes.
“Did you take that whole bottle of cough syrup?”
“Maybe, maybe not.”
He opened his mouth, but was interrupted by Peter, who entered the room huffing and puffing. He didn’t seem to see me, because he ran straight over to Pretty Putin.
“There you are,” he said. “I can’t find Irina anywhere! Where could she be?”
“I don’t know.”
“She said to meet her in the bar by the lobby.”
“It’ll be fine,” Pretty Putin said. “Your colleague is sick.”
“Ingvill is sick?”
Pretty Putin nodded at me.
“You!” Peter said, as if he’d forgotten I existed. “I thought we put you to bed?”
“I’m fine,” I said. “I slept a little. And then I took some medicine. Oh, and here’s a glass of wine. So, I’m doing fine. No need for concern.”
I raised my glass in a kind of cheers, which made Peter raise his eyebrows.
“Why are you raising your eyebrows?”
“No reason.”
“Should I raise my eyebrows at how you’re running around chasing all the women you can find here in Russia? At how you’re acting like we’re not on the same team, even though you’ve always said we are?”
“Did you know that—”
“Maybe you should go look for Irina,” Pretty Putin interjected, “if she said she would meet you? She’s usually quite punctual.”
“Of course,” Peter said with a little bow. “Of course.”
And before I could say another word, he was out the door.
“He’s an idiot,” I said.
Pretty Putin didn’t say anything. I didn’t even know if he’d heard me. He glanced out the window at the snow, which was doing its usual blowing thing. He looked like he was far away. I wondered how far away he was. If he was all the way out at that sinkhole.
“You’re coming on too strong,” he finally said. “Russian women are subtle. They know what men like.”
“What do men like?”
“A certain mystique, coyness. Men like to take the lead. There needs to be a sort of dynamic in the relationship—one who gives and one who receives. Otherwise it’s like a head-on collision.”
“But I’m not trying to hit on Peter. Sure, he does have a Bill Nighy–esque quality, but I’m not interested in him. Absolutely not. And besides, he is an idiot. It’s only right that someone tell him that.”
“You’re coming on too strong,” he repeated. “There’s nothing left. Everything’s been said. It’s like I said before. You’re like a parrot.”
“Well, this parrot has to go to the bathroom,” I said.
The little fairies parted politely as I got up. I was still a little hesitant for fear that the invisible shield between Pretty Putin and the icon would disappear with me when I went. But they must have kept it going for me, because when I glanced back, he wasn’t showing any interest at all in the sofa. He was staring blankly out at the snow again. He looked lonely. I longed for Bj?rnar so much my chest ached.
Luckily some cough syrup helped.
Although now there was less than a quarter of the bottle left, and a small wave of panic started to build in me.
I decided to ask Pretty Putin to get me some more. Maybe I could even use the icon as a bargaining chip to get more bottles? Enough to bring home so that I could hold on to this numbness forever. And never have to give up the little fairies. They could hover over the road ahead of me, no matter which way I decided to go.
I giggled at the thought and walked out into the hallway on unsteady legs.
Just then Peter came walking toward me.
“Hi,” I said smoothly. “What’s up?”
“She threatened to kill me!”
Only now did I notice how pale and haggard he looked.
“Who?”
“Irina. She said that if I don’t bring the icon back within twenty-four hours, she’s going to shove my testicles so far up my body they would come out my nose.”
He put his hand up to his nose, looking like he could imagine how just such a maneuver would feel.
There was a faint whooshing in my head, while at the same time I was having trouble processing what he had said. But I couldn’t deny that the idea of shoving Peter’s testicles out his nose had occurred to me as well, several times.
“You’re an idiot,” I said.
He stared at me without answering.
“We have to return the icon,” he said.
Images of myself on the floor of a small cell flickered through my head. Drugged and brain dead. Lobotomized and ugly. And what about Peter? He wouldn’t last one week in the gulag.
I started to cry.