POETRY | Evgeny Kissin

The smoke from the cigarette was beginning to mix with the emanations from the Indian aromatic sticks. There was no ashtray in the house, so the cigarette ash fell to the floor immediately after each light tap of her finger.

She kept slowly and deeply inhaling the smoke, filling her entire body with the mild poison; oh well--the deed is already done, so relax and calm down. Three thoughts kept drilling into her mind: “Sasha, my darling”… “I’ll get the money as fast as I can!”…and “Now I’ve really become a whore—I’ve lived to see the day!”

“Man proposes and God disposes,” her wise grandmother Chana used to say. Her grandmother’s words had sounded convincing to her even then, though she was still a child and of course couldn’t understand what they meant. Now, in the past few days, she somehow understood them with her whole being, from the tips of her fingers to the depths of her soul, perhaps as never before in her life. When she was still a young girl and had just begun to discover the world of pleasure, she used to fantasize about taking money for love. For instance, a nice man she liked would come to her and propose to spend time with her, and she would answer him playfully: “If you pay!” Now, however, she didn’t get to choose only nice clients.