Walking towards the glass observation window, the wrong impression of the situation on his mind, he felt as if it were a bad dream. The very idea that Ivan had let Yuri join him with Rosa, in that way, so when he came to the cistern window, he stared down in disbelief. There was a table with four chairs there, with food laid out for all, and even a fourth place set. Rosa was sitting next to Ivan and, wonder of wonders, she was wearing clothing, though from the look of it she wasn’t very comfortable. Ivan and Yuri were teaching her how to use utensils, and she was catching on, though she seemed terribly messy at it. For a long while Aleksei observed until suddenly Rosa’s pretty face turned towards him and she snarled a warning. In an instant, faster than Aleksei had known he could run, Yuri was up the ramp and wrapped around him as Ivan tugged at Rosa’s arm to get her attention because she was staring.
Finally, Yuri led him down into the cistern where Rosa immediately tried to retreat, but Ivan wrapped a comforting arm around her. “Nyet, Rosa, this Yuri’s mate…Alex.”
“Ah…lex.” She looked thoughtful, then her face lit up. “Doctor…Alex.”
“That…that’s right.” Aleksei beamed as Yuri heaped his plate full of salad, which was the only vegan thing on their menu. After the scant pickings in the train station and hotel anything looked good and Aleksei dug in quite rudely. When he was sated, he leaned back in his chair and stretched out his legs, careful not to bump Rosa.
“I think, if it’s okay with you Ivan…I want to take Aleksei up for the night…” Yuri said and Ivan nodded.
“Da, I imagine so.” Ivan and Yuri carried all the dishes upstairs, refusing to let Aleksei help, and loaded the dishwashing unit. Ivan grabbed a fifth of vodka out of the fridge and Yuri eyed him speculatively. “What? She has been refusing me for week now. Have to do something to dull it down so I do not push her away.”
“Refusing…but Ivan…” Yuri said and Aleksei looked as if he’d been hit by lightning.
“But…but that means she’s pregnant…right Yuri?” The doctor said, turning to Yuri, though it was hardly necessary, as Yuri was so close to him they looked to be joined at the hip.
“It…should…but…” Yuri said and Aleksei immediately went to his bag and grabbed a bottle of pills, dumping one into Ivan’s hand. “Give her this to keep her calm, get me a blood sample. I will find out tomorrow. It’s a simple test these days…and it might be more possible than you or the Russian military doctors think. Yuri, I need to talk to you, now. Ivan, I’ll need to talk to you first chance we get tomorrow.”
“Da, goodnight.” He gave them both a knowing smile and departed, walking back down the ramp to the cistern, where he spent most nights, Yuri would later explain to Aleksei as he caught him up on the goings on at the compound during Aleksei’s absence.
Now that they were in their room, though, he was all about being as physically close to Aleksei as he could get, and then some. “You want shower?” He asked, his voice a little hoarse with his need. “It has been terrible, being here, Rosa was in heat, and then I could smell sex on Ivan every morning when he would come up to shower and use workout room…”
“I…” Before Aleksei could say ‘da’ or ‘nyet’, Yuri had him pinned on the bed, sitting on him, a growl escaping him, and growling was something he had been less and less given to do of late. “Yuri…” was the last intelligible word he managed for nearly three hours.
After, as Aleksei lay with his back against the padded headboard, it was clear what Oleg designed this house and these rooms to be used for, he stared at Yuri, who was lying on his stomach, naked, across the foot of the bed. He had his head turned away from Aleksei, his long black hair falling down the tattooed skin of his back and arms in mussed up waves. For a while, Aleksei watched him without moving, so that when he finally did stir, Yuri jumped and turned to him at once.
“Come and sit beside me, Yuri-love, I need to talk to you…and it is cold in here, you will catch a fever after sweating so much.” Aleksei scolded gently and Yuri smiled at him as he obeyed.
“Yes, doctor.” He slipped under the blankets and twined himself gracefully around Aleksei. “Why are you so tense, my lover?”
“I am about to tell you…I can only hope to have my answer on at least one question this very night.”
Chapter 47
I have not been completely honest with you about my whereabouts, Yuri, but understand, there were some things I wanted to share with you before I tell Ivan. Why? Because Ivan, I suspect, is going to be furious, and I cannot speak to how he is going to behave. Let me tell the story, please, and then you can be the judge of things. I was angry and desperate, and I made a decision that will ultimately change all of our lives. Forever.
I had just flown back into Moscow, and I was at the main train hub on the north side, ready to catch a train back here. How long ago? About three weeks, to be honest. Well, give me a minute and I will explain all. I was quiet during your story, when you told it in Italy, now be quiet during mine. Thank you.
As I was saying, I was standing in the train hub when I decided to go somewhere I hadn’t been in a very long time. Home. As in, my old hometown, the place where I, no, where we were born. So, I boarded a train not back to the station that would be closest to here, but rather, a train to the poor farming village I was born and lived the first eight years of my life in. It hadn’t changed much, that old village, unless you count that it had gotten poorer and far less populated.
Most of the buildings were bombed or burned out, but not the house we lived in, no. It was still standing, as tiny and gray and drab as it had been. The door was gone, so I just walked in, not expecting to find anyone and thus, not disappointed to find it empty. In fact, it looked as if it hadn’t been occupied since my mother left her then-boyfriend and moved to Moscow to be closer to Sergei.
There were only two rooms in that house, if you can wrap your head around my living in such a place; it had my mother and Lavrov’s bedroom. Lavrov was his last name, he was from the Ukraine, an immigrant to Russia, if one can ever get used to saying that, even after a century of it being so. Of course there was my own room but that was also the den, kitchen and dining room. There wasn’t even an indoor bathroom, even in modern times. We bathed in the family room, my mother helped me and I was sent outside or to my mother’s room while she and Lavrov washed up when it was their turn.
I had a fairly happy childhood until I was about eight, when I started to give an, indication, many indications, that I was not like the other boys. By then, my little brother had arrived, a huge baby with a nasty temper and hair as black as jet. Much to Lavrov’s disapproval, I was more interested in playing nursemaid to him than I was in playing soldier with the other boys. That, they said, they being Lavrov and the other boys in the village, was what we were all born to be. I did not understand that at the time and I did not care. Finally, one night when my mother had gone off with the baby somewhere, at the time I was not sure any more than I am now where, Lavrov cornered me. And he proceeded beat me nearly senseless, convinced he could beat the girlishness out of me.
By the time my mother got back, I was unrecognizable from the swelling. She grabbed me in one arm and the baby in the other and fled, the baby, then two years old, screaming his temperamental lungs out the whole way, screeching for his papa. By some miracle, she got us all on a train to Moscow that very same night, and we never saw Lavrov again. Well, that is how I’d like it to have ended. Truthfully, I did see him again. Once.
I was sixteen at the time, and it was just before the Americans brought the war to Russian soil. Just before my mother died. Lavrov who, I at that time assumed my mother must have been secretly married to, else why she would care I had no idea, was in a car accident and seriously injured. It was that day, standing by his hospital bed, she made me vow that I would care for him until the day I found someone I wanted to marry. And so, with that, I get into my strange trip and why it took me so long to get back home.
Chapter 48
; Aleksei stood in front of the tiny house and gave a dejected sigh. He noticed locals watching him curiously and realized how oddly out of place he must seem in his designer clothing with an expensive hired car and driver. His entire tour of the house, which was now infested with rats and falling down piece-by-piece, he was looking over his shoulder, expecting someone to approach and question him. No one did, not any of the adults, anyway. It wasn’t until he departed from the house that he realized that all of the houses on this street, and the next, and from the look of it the next, too, were seemingly identical. Based on the slabs of concrete and few walls left of most, that was.
This had always perplexed him greatly, because they were placed with such precision in both position and size. For the moment, though, something else had captured his attention. His other brother, the baby that had barely been two when they fled, the more he thought about it, he realized he didn’t even know the child’s name. But he should, and he knew he should. It chewed at his mind and he felt something between guilt and a little bit of grief, for the child had died soon after he, Aleksei, had been sent to boarding school in England.
He changed his mind on leaving, and returned to the house. Once back inside, he sat on the floor, unmindful of the years of dust and other things, including broken glass and dead roaches, his head clenched in his hands. The baby. What had the baby’s name been? What had happened to that child? He noticed a small girl just then, watching him from the open back door of the house, her brown eyes almost comically wide in her young face.
“Hello there, little one.” He greeted her and she came out from behind the wall she’d been peeking around. Her worn, too-small, and filthy clothing made Aleksei wince almost as much as her bare feet in the chill morning made him shudder. “Where are your parents?”
“My mama and papa are dead, sir. I live with my grandmother, just across street.” She was still watching him warily, clearly her experiences with strangers had not been kind. “You are not supposed to be in here, sir.”
“I grew up here, well, until I was eight years old.” Aleksei confessed to her. “I wonder, your grandmother…did she know family who lived here?”
“Da, but she says they are all dead. Come with me, if you are who you say…she says she used to watch first born here from time to time…” that was all it took, Aleksei was on his feet at once, and allowed himself to be led to the adjacent house. “Is that your car, sir?”
“Nyet, is rental. I do not have car. Do not need one.” He winked at her mischievously and she led him on, though she was smiling now. As they walked up he noticed the concrete front walk was more weeds than stone anymore, but somewhere deep down he felt something tugging insistently at his brain. A memory. But what memory? The girl knocked and announced to her grandmother they were coming in and Aleksei breathed the rich smells of Russian food cooking. Now the memory was right on the surface and, when he set eyes on the little old lady, he had to fight back tears. Now he remembered. The lady had often watched him, usually when Lavrov was in one of his many drunken rages.
“He says he grew up in house across street, grandmama, I told him everyone that lived there is dead, but he insists is true.” The girl was chattering, when the old woman held up a hand, she fell silent immediately.
“Tell me, Mina, because my eyes have failed me, tell me color of this man’s eyes.” She said and Aleksei stooped immediately so that the girl could have a good look.
“Why…they are…purple! Is this boy you told me about, grandmama?” Mina began chattering again, asking questions faster than even Aleksei could think.
“Mina, guest needs to talk, I think. Is not kind of talk little girls need to be hearing. Why do you not go and play next door? There is good girl.” How she knew the girl had slipped out, Aleksei had no idea, from the look of her thick, white cataracts she was stone blind. “Sit down, Aleksandr, we have much to talk about.”
“Is Aleksei…my name is Aleksei,” He said, taking a seat on the old couch, wincing as a spring poked at him through his dress pants. “I do not remember my name being Aleksandr.”
“Da, your mother did things right when she took you and your brother away. I cannot think what he was named at time, but I think your mama must have changed it. She hated that name. Your father picked name and still I cannot remember, you know, your father was over moon with him.” She fumbled for a glass of water near her elbow but found it before Aleksei could assist her. “Your mother was very young when they picked her up on prostitution charges. Was not uncommon back then, alcoholic parents or dead, either way, pretty girl like her learned best way to make money fast, she had no other choice, you know? I think she was…fifteen maybe.”
“So young.” Aleksei said, remembering how much she had aged, by the time she passed. Even with Sergei’s kindness he had known there were some wounds his mother bore deep in her heart that had never healed. Now he understood just what they were. “Too young.”
“Da, too young. Government fattened her up little bit, made sure she was disease free and, when she was sixteen, they set her up here in breeding camp. Young women here never knew who they would be assigned to, some got decent enough young men…but not your mother. She ended up with that Vitaly Lavrov, Ukrainian bastard that he was,” She paused and spit on the dirt floor in a show of disrespect for Lavrov, then continued. “First baby came quickly, everything went well until then. You were first baby, and beautiful as baby could be. Those purple eyes and that white hair…I told your mama you were gift from God, bound to do great things for many people. But you were so small, born early, you know, Aleksei nodded, though he had not known, not even considering she could not see his gesture. Government wanted only strong, big males, and you did not fit profile, so they informed your mother you did not count. She would have to give them two more before she was free to leave program. Was not uncommon, some women had ten or more with so many men I would lose count of comings and goings.”
“My God…” Aleksei felt sick, but continued to listen, raptly.
“Then, one night when you were just wee thing, your mama came over pale as sheet and asked me to keep you for night. You were, I guess, six years old…do you not remember?” She did not wait for his answer, just continued on as if she’d been waiting all this time to tell her story. “I think entire neighborhood heard her that night, screaming for mercy, though I never knew all of what happened. I ended up caring for you for solid week before she finally came back. There were bruises on her face and she kept arms hidden from me, but I knew Lavrov had really hurt her. Even after week of recuperating, she could barely walk. Nine months later along came that brother of yours…what was his name…”
“That is what I am trying to find out…” Aleksei said, holding his breath and watching, the image of the wailing two year old with his curly, black hair as they fled this old village for Moscow. He waited, the knot in his chest so painful he was nearly in tears.
“I remember, his name was Viktor…that was it.” Whatever Aleksei had been expecting, this was not it, and he fell back hard against the back of the sofa, stunned beyond rational thought. The only thing that repeated over and over in his head was Viktor is Dmitri’s middle name. “Government came to collect him when he would have been five years old, but your mama had run off long before that. They beat Lavrov to pulp and left him to die in street for dishonoring contract he signed. I believe they had intended to deport him to Ukraine, but after that he was no good to anyone.”
“Where is he at now?” Aleksei asked, his voice quiet with his shock. How in the hell was he going to explain this nugget to Ivan? “Lavrov, I mean.”
“In nursing home he has been in since they beat him.” The old woman took another drink of water, then leaned back. “I am tired now, but I am glad you made it safely. If ever you need anything, you know where to find me.”
“Da, I know. You should know, I am doctor now.” Aleksei said, but she was already snoring. He sighed and left, nodding to Mina, who was playing with an old,
filthy half-hairless doll. She waved at him from the front stoop on which she sat, and then went back to playing. As soon as this business with Lavrov was finished he intended to get that child, and her grandmother, out of this slum.
But at least now, he knew, he would have to seek out the skeleton in his closet, his mother’s former partner, he silently thanked God she hadn’t been dumb enough to love the miserable bastard, Vitaly Lavrov. Aleksei hated the man with a passion, but this had to be handled or he would never be able to move forward in his life. Not because Lavrov would hold him back, but rather, a vow to his mother, which to him was sacred, would. He climbed into the waiting touring-sedan, hired at the local train station, and gave the driver the address of his next stop.
The building was as gray and drab as he remembered, though perhaps a little more careworn as it had been many long and glorious years since last he had been here. When he signed in at the front desk, the nurse gave him a pitying look, and he knew things had not changed even a fraction of an inch. Still Lavrov was a hateful bastard. But, his resolve was set, so he marched right to the room and stood at the foot of the bed of the man he had hated his entire life. Here, however, he found a creature to be pitied, not hated. Lavrov had only been in his early twenties when he’d been in what at the time his mother had told him, Aleksei, was a car wreck, so he was barely edging towards fifty now.
“You, bring me some water.” He croaked at Aleksei, and Aleksei complied, smoothly. He was not here for a fight. “Who are you? Do I know you? You look familiar.”
A Life Less Ordinary Page 17