Informality
By Laura Schiller
Based on: Anna Karenina
Copyright: Leo Tolstoy's estate
The room at the inn was small, hot and stuffy, lit by a single candle that flickered across the tangled bedding and the tightly shuttered window. The air smelled of sweat, vodka and other fluids, but Masha was used to that. Her attention was absorbed by the man lying next to her, half asleep, his red hair gleaming in the candlelight. He was rail-thin, but surprisingly strong; he had the accent of a gentleman and the clothes of a peasant. He had been rough with her, intense, but not cruel; she wasn't bruised or scratched anywhere, which at this point in her career, she considered a mercy. She wondered what his story was, and what in Heaven's name could have brought him to a place like this.
"They call you Masha," he said slowly.
"Yes, sir."
"What is your real name? Your full name, I mean?"
"Marya Nikolayevna," she said shortly. "Never knew my last name. Why?"
He propped himself up on one elbow and looked down at her with a bright, almost boyish twinkle in his eyes. It was a look she didn't expect from someone who had clung to her like a drowning man to a life buoy only moments ago, and it confused her. She stared back at him with narrowed eyes.
"Then, Marya Nikolayevna," he said, holding out one hand with absurd formality, "Allow me to introduce myself. Nikolai Dmitrievitch Levin, at your service."
Masha recoiled. At your service – that was how those smirking men in uniforms introduced themselves, just before they dragged you off into a jail cell for lifting a man's wallet or, God forbid, striking back when he beat you. Some of her best friends had disappeared like that, never to be heard from again. Instinctively, she sat bolt upright and pulled her blanket tight around herself.
"If you're here to arrest me - "
The client, Nikolai Dmitrievitch, interrupted her with a burst of wide-eyed, incredulous laughter. "Arrest you?" he exclaimed. "Why on Earth would I do that?"
"Well, if you're not a magistrate, don't talk like one," she snapped, blushing furiously, more embarrassed by this blunder than by sitting here without a stitch of clothing. "I'm not used to those fancy words. It frightens me half to death."
"Don't be ridiculous, girl," said the client, rolling his eyes up to the ceiling, in a tone which reassured her more than she would admit. "Why would I bed you first and then arrest you for it?"
"You'd be surprised how often I've seen it done," she retorted.
Nikolai Dmitrievitch whistled through his teeth, shook his head, and leaned back heavily against the mattress. "My God," he murmured, staring up at the raftered ceiling. "What manner of life have you led, that common courtesy is so foreign to you?"
"A life that needs no pity, sir."
He smiled again, that startling smile which transformed his wasted face into something almost beautiful. "I don't pity you," he said, still without looking at her, "Believe it or not. I admire you."
Masha gripped her blanket tighter. She had known the man was drunk, but was he insane as well?
"When I was young" – he said this as if his thirty-odd years were closer to sixty – "I would have done anything for the respect of those around me. Especially my cold-blooded bastard of a half-brother. They never thought I'd amount to much. They were right, you see?" He flung his arm out to gesture around his rented room, presenting it as evidence to just how little he'd amounted, then gestured to Masha with one pointing finger. "But you – you! Still alive, still handsome, still holding up your head with pride, after a life I cannot even begin to imagine. If that's not worth admiring, I don't know what is."
He snatched her side of the blanket away, threw his arm around her, and pulled her close to him as if she were a child's plush toy. She could feel his ribs, hear the faint rattle of breath inside his chest. But she could also feel the strength of his hold, secure without being confining, and the way their bodies fit together as if they had been doing this for years.
"Here now, Masha," he met her eyes at last, red-rimmed brown eyes burning like coals. "I have an idea. Why don't you stay with me? Come with me to Moscow, eh? Give both my respectable brothers the shock of their lives."
She giggled. "A fine idea, sir. Next you'll want to buy me a golden chariot with horses that fly."
"I'm not joking," he said. "I mean it."
She fell silent in mid-laugh. Could it be true? Was this the chance she had hoped and wept for as a child, the one she had so slowly begun to realize was never coming true? Was this frail, moody, drunken character the answer to her prayers?
"Could you afford to keep me?" she asked bluntly, surveyind the scattered pile of clothes and other belongings on the floor.
"Honestly," he said, echoing her flat tone, "I don't know. Sometimes I can barely afford to keep myself."
"Hmm." Strangely, this discouraging fact had the opposite effect on her. It was an honest man who told people what they were afraid to hear.
"I drink too much," he added, with a sigh like a schoolboy confessing to a teacher. "I also have the devil's own temper, especially when I'm drinking. I may hurt you."
That did give her pause, but not for long. This man hadn't hurt her yet. Even if he did someday, at least there would only be one of him, as opposed to several different ones every night.
"I'm not easily hurt, sir. Besides," she shrugged, "I've nothing much to lose, do I?"
"That's the spirit!" He clapped her on the back, then – in one of the sudden mood swings she was to learn ran in his bloodline – kissed her on the forehead.
"I'm glad," he said quietly. "I do detest the thought of … travelling alone."
Something about his voice told her he meant more than the journey to Moscow. The same something warned her not to ask.
"Oh, and one more thing?"
"Yes, sir?"
"Exactly." He snapped his fingers. "That. There will be no more 'sir'-ing me on this journey, do you understand that?"
"Even though I'm a whore and you're a gentleman?"
He snorted. "To hell with being a gentleman! Titles and formalities are nothing but hot air to puff up the empty souls of the rich. We both know that. I call you Masha, you call me Kolya, is that clear? One more 'sir' out of you and I'll tan that pretty backside."
He winked at her, letting her know he was joking, even as he lightly smacked the body part in question.
"All right – Kolya." He beamed, lighting up the room better than any candle could have done. "But I'll hold you to that."
"I hope you do, my darling. I hope you do."