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“No,”– he laughed, – “Naģe, you’re a Naģe.” – he said, as he
drove off waving in farewell.
Naģe is used the Kurzeme region of Latvia to mean ‘frog’,
but Nadezhda did not know that and she liked the
nickname. That day by evening she had earned twenty-five
lati and her life began to change beyond belief.
Always when a young one comes on board, she looks over
Naģe in disbelief. Client taste is incomprehensible, the
young one concludes. But their desires are like law. It’s
better for all of them that Naģe is here – she, like a
foxhound sniffs out footprints, smells evil clients a mile
away, she pities and comforts, lends money, brings home-
made delicacies and rescues the girls who have got in
trouble. She has self-respect – silently she endures the
sneers of the young johns, their repulsive curses, when they
stop to pick up a girl. Her takers are a special breed. Decent
men. Driving by, they reverently greet her.
With each successive client Nadezhda Mihailovna grew
more certain that there were no more unhappy and
misunderstood people than men. She fell in love with all of
them – like she loved the berry mounds, the tiny fists of
mushrooms in the wooded valleys eroded by ancient seas,
like the veil of white cobwebs between the fir trunks.
Perhaps God stood by her – not once was she beaten or
humiliated. There was one man, who to begin with wanted
to talk to her tenderly, but when he finally got down to