Babayaga

Inside his lobby, he found a small card tucked into the corner of his letterbox. The message was simple and concise: Je voudrais vous voir. Rencontrez-moi au Novy à 20:00. —Zoya. As he looked down at it, the raindrops dripping down off his brim blurred the ink. He stood wondering in disbelief. How did she find his address? And why? What did she want with him? A warm vigor pulsed in his blood and he smiled to himself, at that moment especially delighted not to be playing bridge with Oliver, Aga Kahn, and his Hollywood friend.

XV

The owner of the Novy loved to work the crowd. He would come out from the kitchen belting out old folk songs from Little Russia, energetically coaxing the diners to sing along with his happy choruses about love and spring. Zoya liked it here; it felt sentimental. She drank a glass of water and waited. He would come, she was certain of that. The plan was working like clockwork, for after so many years she knew all the mechanics of this sort of clock. There were plenty of times when she did not use what Elga called “the decoy duck,” when she simply went home with a Leon, or stayed with the soldier who grabbed at her ass, or let the bookseller have her in the shadowed back stalls; she judged each man as he came. But this Will was one who needed a rival like Oliver to make the gears mesh. She had already jarred him out of his ordinary rhythm of going drink to drink and girl to girl, and now she would be more to him than simply another catch.

She knew too she would have to be careful that he did not fall too hard. Overly devoted men could be trouble, often the worst. She always sought to be kept, but never owned. It was a fine line, and at times tricky to navigate. But if their hearts became too enflamed or driven to obsession, well, a carriage accident or cholera could take care of that.

She came out of her thoughts when she saw Will come into the restaurant. She found herself happily waving to him, surprised at how pleased she was to see his face. She knew a kernel of absurdity lay at the center of this cycle—fascination, flirtation, enticement, passion, satisfaction, and then, well, the wheel always turned. But there was no reason to be restrained in her joy: knowing winter is returning only makes the spring that much more wonderful. But she knew too that it was not quite so simple, her pattern was more like that of the soldiers of the great armies lusting for the green, fertile lands of conquest, who then took those fields they had pined for and scorched them down to char, poisoning them until they were nothing more than barren acres of death. Yes, that was the cycle she had always followed, as she would ever and again, yet still here she was now, grinning, flush-cheeked like a little schoolgirl.

“Am I late?” he asked, bright-eyed, kissing her cheeks twice.

“No, do not be silly, you are on time. Please, have a drink.” He wanted scotch but she said, “No, no,” and made him order vodka. “I like this place, they let you have the whole bottle. We’ll start with two shots each, one right after the other, the way it is supposed to be done,” she said, “and then we can talk.” Zoya cut the owner off before he could break out in song and sent him scurrying off to bring them a bottle. She wanted Will to talk tonight, though she liked the fact that he didn’t always fill the air with unnecessary words. He reminded her a little of other taciturn men she had known, including her father. They were instinctively reticent and always careful with their phrases, for they believed the words they said mattered. Now, with the telegraph and telephone and newspaper presses going all the time, words spewed out relentlessly, in the form of facts, gossip, and endless opinions. She remembered the hope and idealism with which people greeted each of these chattering new innovations, as if more words had ever solved anything. Sure enough, the words poured out and the wars grew worse, the corpses stacking up until they were as high as the silent mountains.

“I thought you’d be with Oliver,” said Will.

Zoya shook her head. “Oh, he does not need me tonight, he has his friends. In any case, Oliver likes Oliver, he really does not ever need other people.”

Will smiled at this. The bottle came to the table and Zoya poured. They downed the shots fast. Will seemed to get comfortable. She sat at the table, her legs set wide apart, her shoulders hunched over, as if she were an old friend about to tell him a secret.

“So tell me,” she asked, “what are you doing here in Paris?”

“I work in advertising.”

“Oh yes.” She nodded. “You mean those posters, and the pictures in magazines?”

“Yes, those.” Will smiled.

“Of course I see the posters everywhere, all those smiling girls with nice round bottoms holding out champagne or cold cream. But I don’t pay much attention to them. Do they work?”

Will shrugged. “Research shows they can work very well.”

She was intrigued. “Really? How so?”