We, the Drowned - Carsten Jensen [308]
Or was she simply so callous that she could inhabit two separate worlds at once, that of killing and that of love? He couldn't. He knew it for certain, but his body reacted when she pressed herself against him, as though a part of him still possessed a hope that the rest of him had lost.
They left the club together some hours later. They hadn't spoken. Unlike the others on board, he hadn't bothered learning the Russian for those few words that pave the way: yes, no, thank you, hello, good night, goodbye, you beautiful, we make love, I never forget. She'd tried exchanging a few words with him, but each time he'd shaken his head.
It was light outside, the smoldering, dying, yet powerful light that fills the summer nights north of the Arctic Circle. She rested her head on his shoulder. All he knew about her was her name, Irina, though he'd have preferred to go without even this basic information. He wondered if Irina was the equivalent of Irene. He'd never met a girl with that name, in Russian or Danish, but he'd always thought it embodied feminine refinement and fragility. Now he was walking beside one, and she was a cold-blooded murderess.
They walked in the direction of the sooty, tarpaulin-roofed huts. He supposed that they must be barracks, but there were no guards or blockades. He'd heard a story about a sailor smuggled into such a barracks by a girl. They'd lain down on a bed in a large dark dormitory, and he'd just got his trousers off and was ready for action when the lights came on. And there he lay with a proud erection and a circle of women standing around the bed, gawking.
These barracks turned out to be empty. They stopped in front of a cubbyhole with a padlocked door. She found a key and unlocked it. Then she rolled down the blackout blind and lit a petroleum lamp. A bed and a table were all she had. On the table stood a photograph of a woman he thought must be her. She stood in a clearing among some trees, with a man in uniform; they held the hands of a girl about five years old. The sunlight dappled the ground, and the man and woman were smiling at the photographer. The soldier had taken off his cap and put his free arm around Irina's shoulder. She was wearing a white shirt just like the one she was wearing tonight.
Where were they now? The man had to be at the front or dead. God only knew where the girl was. She certainly wasn't in Molotovsk. Perhaps she'd been evacuated to a safer place, deep in this vast country?
Irina looked away when she saw his eyes linger on the photograph. Her averted face gave him the feeling that both the man and the child had died. She lay down on the bed and waited for him. He slipped in and put his arm around her. He touched her breasts with his hands. How soft and warm her skin felt. He wanted nothing but this softness and warmth. It was need, more than desire, that welled up in him—bestial but without violence. All he wanted was to touch living, breathing skin, even if its warmth came from a woman who was used to killing and did so without so much as blinking.
What had she thought when she'd looked at him after firing her machine gun? Had she sought forgiveness, understanding? Had she asked herself, and perhaps him too, if he could still look at her and see a human being?
He felt the warmth of her skin under his palm, its infinitely pliable softness, and he placed his cheek against her naked breast like a shipwrecked man who has got himself out of icy waters and presses his face against the beach and feels solid ground. He wanted to lie like this forever, never stir again, merely exist on a continent of naked, warm female skin that stretched endlessly in every direction.
Then she started to cry. She hugged him tightly, her hands ran through his hair, she