Jackson had it bad for a Russian girl named Olenka. She spoke hardly a word of English and he spoke hardly a word of Russian. Jackson figured this was probably a good arrangement. His last girl had left him because she understood too much of his English. He had said to her: “Look, honey. I’m not saying you’re heavy, but I do feel sorry for your shoes.” She had said “fuck you” and walked out the door in those burdened shoes of hers. Sometimes there can be too much communication in a relationship. With Olenka, things were simple. Because they had nothing to say to one another, they spent most of their time touching, and most of that touching happened in bed. Jackson never had so much sex as he had with Olenka.
It would be inaccurate to say that Olenka spoke no English. Sometimes, while they were going at it under the covers, she would say: “I have a thing for gospel music.” Jackson had no idea why she said this. It wasn’t an orgasmic declaration; it was quieter. She would nestle in close, nibble on a lobe, and whisper: “I have a thing for gospel music.” Sometimes she even said it with a southern twang.
As far as Jackson could tell, Olenka wasn’t a religious girl. She never went to church. She never wore crosses or hung pictures of Jesus on the wall. She drank. She smoked. She fucked like a rabbit in heat. There was nothing in her habits to suggest a religious upbringing.
Jackson wondered if it was just a mistake. What she really liked was country and western music, but had the wrong word for it. There’s a lot of gospel music that comes from the same place as country and western music; it’s easy to see how a person could confuse the two. But Olenka seemed pretty sure about her music. One night, while she was playing rodeo clown to Jackson’s buckaroo, she turned on the radio she had stuck on the floor beside the bed. She twisted the knob past the hurtin’ songs and the line dancing and went straight on to the freaks who wail their love of Jesus like wolves howling at the moon. Then, with their coitus interrupted thanks to the good lord and savior of all tarnation, they lay back onto their pillows and Olenka whispered: “I have a thing for gospel music.”
Jackson couldn’t stand it. He leapt naked from the bed and paced, sometimes pointing an accusing finger at the radio, as if it was the radio’s fault for filling the room with gospel music. “Do you even know what this shit means?” he shouted.
Olenka knew what the word “shit” means. It’s a cold blunt word and it made her cry.
Jackson tried to touch her on the shoulder, but she drew away from him. That only made him angrier.
A tinny wail came up from the floor:
Oh, I gave myself to Jesus,
Yes, I gave myself to Jesus.
Oh, I gave myself to Jesus.
Now I’m washed in the blood of the Lamb.
“Do you even know what this means?”
Olenka smiled between the tears: “Varsht.”
“Washed.”
“Varsht inta blud ofta lamp.”
“Washed.” Jackson made a scrubbing motion with his hands. Olenka didn’t get it, so Jackson went to the bathroom and turned on the tap. “Look at me,” he called. “I’m washing.” His voice rang from the porcelain tiles. “I’m washing my hands.”
“Blud.”
“Yes, blood.” Jackson pulled a tampon from Olenka’s purse and stuck it between his legs. “In the blood.” Again, Olenka gave no indication that she understood Jackson’s charade. Richard took cuticle scissors from his night table and pricked his arm. “Blood.” Jackson smeared the blood on his arm. “Washed in the blood.”
“Ofta lamp?”
“Of the lamb.” Jackson looked around for something he could use to illustrate a lamb going to the slaughter. He called up Google images on his computer and found a picture of Little Bo-Peep with a lamb. He pointed to the lamb, then mimed a lamb between his legs and made a crosswise motion as if he was slitting its throat. “Washed in the blood of the lamb.” In quick succession, he washed his hands, rubbed blood around on his arm, then slit an imaginary lamb’s throat.
“Varsht…”
“Washed…” Jackson smiled at Olenka.
An expression of horror filled Olenka’s eyes. She screamed and ran naked from the apartment.
The next morning, Dmitri and Sergei showed up with a van. They said they were Olenka’s brother and uncle and had come to pick up her things.
“But she didn’t live here,” Jackson said. “She didn’t leave any things. She had her own place.”
“She had things.” Dmitri spoke it like a command.
Both men were big and Jackson didn’t want any trouble. He went inside and returned with a box of tampons and a radio set to the local gospel music station. That seemed to satisfy the men.
“Did she tell you anything?”
Sergei didn’t understand, but Dmitri spoke pretty good English. He smiled at Jackson. “You shock her.”
“Me?”
“She say something about animal sacrifice.”
“Oh, no. No. That’s just religious shit.”
“She say you American boys all a bunch of savages.”