Kill Cupid: Internet dating just got dangerous (4 page)

Zhana stared out the window of the Aeroflot jet as it taxied on a foreboding and windy Domodedovo runway. Staring at the inexhaustible supply of snow flakes whipped into whirling frenzies from wingtips and the runway, her mind raced across images and subjects at the speed of a 737. So much had happened so quickly the past week that sitting there in the plane watching the snowy melee outside, she was unsure how to arrange all the pieces. Her time with Willy had left her with feelings she had never expected. He may not have been Brad Pitt, but that was not important. Anyway, Antonio Banderas was more handsome, and Willy had Banderas’ mouth. She found herself missing him already.

Most amazing, they’d just spent one week together without so much as a quarrel. Zhana hadn’t known that was even possible. Her mum used to say that no man could live with her and lately, she had started to believe mum was right. She was the life of the party, the face in the crowd, the one with the witty comment, the confident look at me, listen to what I say type. She also knew she could talk too much. But doting Willy sat and smiled absently.
How does he do it
? She’d often thought. She’d have wanted to strangle herself if she was in his shoes.

This exuberant lust for life and an alpha personality was Zhana’s strength and her weakness. Now, her thoughts wandered to her recent appointment to manager of the clothing and accessory store that employed her. Not that the manager title had meant more money. She only received 3500 roubles each month, or about US $140. She wanted to decline the position at the time and now she found herself still deliberating whether she’d made a right decision. She didn’t like making decisions. When it came to making them for other people it was easy – but when it was about her, she hated it. The only thing she could confidently decide was her clothing. And even that was easier when choosing for someone else. She caught herself picking at the nail polish on her ring finger and hoped she’d made the right decisions with Willy.

She reminded herself the manager title gave her small privileges, like setting work schedules, hiring and firing, and wholesale discounts on merchandise. It also gave her the chance to exercise her talents at organising others and boss people around. Thinking of the advantages made her feel better about her decision than thinking about the pay. ‘
Why am I thinking of this rubbish now’,
she thought? Her mind was all over the shop. ‘
O my god, did I boss Willy around’?

The sudden announcement they were ready for take off dropped her back in the plane and she reached for the in-flight magazine from the seat pocket in front. The cover showed a tropical beach with blue skies, ocean and palm trees.
Looks like my Australian postcard
she thought for a moment,
so colourful
.
Wait
! She shouldn’t even be thinking about the Australian. When Willy asked her if she wrote to any other men she replied with a confident ‘no’, knowing she hadn’t written or heard from Bronte for two months or more. But now that her week of bliss was over and she was on her way home, she longed to be somewhere full of colour, her life to be a dazzling array of warm, elegant and sunny events. As the plane lifted off she closed her eyes, held her breath and made a wish. Looking out the window again and down on a shrinking Moscow, she noticed for possibly the first time in her life how so much of her Russia was monotonously grey and colourless. A thin white blanket covered the wintry landscape, black runways contrasting like dark ties on large white shirts. Did her life have colour now, she wondered? It had become tediously mundane, boring and grey. Work, child, home, eat, sleep, a repetitive cycle of grey events.

She’d had no relationship, no fun, and no sex. God she had missed sex! She smiled when she thought of herself and Willy going to town on each other for the first time, the first night.
We probably looked like a pair of nymphos,
she laughed. It had been so long she could barely remember the last time, and judging from Willy’s reaction during and after orgasm, she guessed he’d missed sex for at least as long too. But her life was moving in a positive direction, or at least changing from grey to black and white. They had made plans to reunite in June and it would be hard for her to back down. Just that morning she had agreed to marry him in the summer. And just now she’d made a wish that it was the right decision.

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

The damn flight from Australia had been altogether too long. Bronte was tired and fed up. Confining someone in an airline seat for more than eight hours smacked of a blatant breach of human rights and dignity. Sure, in one hour the plane could travel eight hundred kilometres, but it still had to travel twenty thousand of them! By his reckoning, it needed to travel at ten thousand k/ph. It seemed incredulous that some airline couldn’t find a use for derelict space shuttles capable of low earth orbit.

From the moment Bronte stepped off the plane, there was that smell – that unique, Russian smell. Not unpleasant but certainly distinct, he could only imagine a cross between musty soil and Martian fruit, or something almost alien-like. True that the unique aroma of a place draws the most powerful associations, he thought if he was blind folded and dropped in that place he’d already recognise Russia by the smell. After herding through Sheremetyevo immigration, Bronte found himself in a circus when he exited arrivals. Had there been more cameras with flashlights, his mauling by the throng of taxi drivers could have been mistaken for a movie star or rock idol’s arrival. The cabbies were piranha in jeans and jackets, woollen beanies and taxi uniforms.

Attitude and turmoil presided over everyone and everything. After a verbal wrestling match with some aging driver over the intended cab charge he was on his way to domestic terminal 1, the last leg before the 1000 kilometres trip to Krasnodar. Struggling with his damned luggage, Bronte passed through the glass doors and found a departure board, located his flight and waited to check in. The place resembled Times Square during peak hour. He bumped into a couple of tall mafia-types, both dressed in fur coats. For a moment they all tangled suitcases and while trying to solve the shambles, Bronte couldn’t help thinking the man looked like a black bear with a shaved scalp wearing a human mask. Evidently these Russian bears were wealthy enough to fund their own wild life protection campaign. Between them they wore a ton of bling that’d rival any Lebanese gang back home in Sydney. He guessed their Louis Vouitton cases were probably stuffed full of roubles, almost disappointed he hadn’t walked off with their bags in the pile up.

At a security gate, young officers stood talking to two attractive young women, providing ample opportunity for wannabe smugglers, hijackers and suspicious characters to wander past unnoticed with cases of contraband. Some middle aged executive who’d forgotten to take the tissue paper from his face after a shaving accident argued with customs officials at the adjacent gate. He couldn’t see the need for inconveniencing himself with a security check of his briefcase. Apparently he was running late for his flight and judging by his face, must’ve tried to shave with a razor in the taxi or bus on the way.

When an office door opened and a Kim Bassinger look-a-like in a tight airline skirt appeared, every head in the place followed her as she crossed the floor. Either all were surprised to the see the Hollywood actress working for a Russian airline or attractive, striking women have the same effect worldwide. Sheremetyevo domestic is old and looking at the place, he couldn’t imagine how they could possibly renovate it without seriously disrupting the constant tide of passengers. There were people everywhere. And this was the low tide of the post soviet era, when tickets for flights around Russia were no longer ten or twenty dollars each for every party member but now two or three hundred dollars. How busy it must have been only ten years before was difficult to comprehend. But now they may as well demolish the place for a new one. The lack of any gangways to and from departures meant passengers still had to take crammed buses across the runways to their flights - a long way from five star comfort and convenience when it was minus twenty out.

At the top of the stairs above the departure gate sat the bar, the holy Russian shrine. The bartender displayed typical friendly Russian service with a grunt and a frown that said, Tell me why I don’t like Mondays through to Sundays. Ask me why and I’ll kill you. The tables scattered throughout the room had stools too small. Feeling like a tall dwarf, he sat back to savour his beer, thankful it at least was chilled. Completely uncertain how things would transpire in Krasnodar, he couldn’t help feeling he was about to become the feature act at a circus. He would be blown straight out of a blind date cannon and deep into the tunnel of romantic uncertainty, without a helmet. He was even unsure of whom he was meeting, not confident he really knew what Zhana looked like or that he could recognize her. The request for new photos he made as a precondition for sending the $1500 for the nose job had been met with two head-shots taken while working as a model for hair and makeup. God did she look different! Same colour eyes, hair and petite features, but with new, cute button nose which changed her entire appearance. ‘But who wouldn’t look different with a new nose? Michael Jackson?’ he asked himself. She looked beautiful, but unmistakably different.

Consoling himself with her appearance, he took another drink and threw his mind into fast forward, thinking about the possibilities for the evening and the sleeping arrangements. Would she have her hands all over him? Would they take one look at each other and try to tear each other’s clothes off? Would they hit it off so well that they’d have sex the first night? Do Russian girls even have sex on the first night? Do good girls in any country have sex on the first night? He hoped he could return with tales hot enough to justify the ridiculous distance to his brother.
‘Dear God, can she please be a sex maniac?’
he thought, conscious of the paradox to ask God for a pernicious favour
.
Around him, people started to leave for the gate. Time had flown and now his plane was about to do the same. Suddenly, he missed Lena.

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

‘Guten morgen, I have an appointment with Herr Weiss, name’s Willy.’

The young woman wearing long hair coiled like a python on top of her head smiled courteously from behind the glass display counter before replying,

              ‘Guten morgen Willy… Ya, of course, one moment please. He is just out in the workshop.’ She slipped out the back, concealed behind a heavy white curtain while Willy took time to peruse the stock on display in a nearby cabinet, locked sturdily. When he caught a glimpse of some of the tiny attached price tags, he hoped this would be the right place for him. He was in a small jeweller’s shop in Frankfurt’s retail district on the recommendation of a friend. Leaving nothing to chance, he’d decided to make an appointment the day before. Time would be of the essence as he would be off the radar from work.

              ‘Ah, guten morgen William, Herr Weiss at your service.’

              ‘Guten morgen, wie gehen Sie Herr Weiss, …we spoke on the phone yesterday.’ The men shook hands.

              ‘Ja, ja… alles gut… bitte schon Willy, you have the fiancée who can not choose the ring herself, ya? It is a surprise?’

              ‘I can answer yes and no to that. She is in Russia so she has no idea what I will select, and I plan to surprise her with it… but of course she knows about the engagement… and has agreed to my proposal.’

              ‘Sehr gut, sehr gut!! Congratulations Willy!’ The grey haired old jeweller rubbed his hands together as he looked to spread the good news. ‘Eva, Willy has made his proposal and his fiancée has accepted.’ Eva gave a delighted look as the old man added, ‘And the ring will be a surprise for his lovely bride in Russia.’

              ‘I am sure she is a very lucky woman,’ Eva replied cordially, unsure whether or not Willy could’ve been a serial killer. She might have had a python in her hair but she was far from being a German Medusa.

              ‘Lucky indeed,’ agreed Herr Weiss, as he took Willy by the arm. ‘Now, let’s see what we can put together for your little lady… and your budget of course.’

‘Bitte schon,’ Willy looked nervous, lucky indeed he hoped.

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

Viewing the lights of Krasnodar growing brighter and more distinct through his window, Bronte felt like a big kid about to embark on the wildest ride of his life.
The things men will do to meet a woman!
Cross oceans and rivers, mountains and frozen deserts
. His mum had told him that all women wished to meet their knight in shining armour. Now the only thing missing was the white horse in the cargo hold. Suddenly the plane bumped and bounced onto the runway. He held his breath as the antique aircraft shuddered and swayed, struggling not to leave a trail of broken bits and fuselage rivets behind. As it settled down and overcame its pitching from side to side, the passengers all performed the standard arrival practice from the third world and clapped.
Bloody idiots!
He thought
,
wondering whether it was a symptom of first time fliers, or whether they were just genuinely grateful they weren’t killed. After all, there was no way any sensible person would applaud the pilot. He was simply doing his job when he put the thing on the tarmac and besides, would they have had time to “boo” him if it crashed? Anyway, the knight’s horse would’ve died long before it made it this far and the brave knight would have tarnished his armour shacked up with some other wench.