by Tessi, Zoya
When I’d gone a little way, I stopped next to a yard surrounded by high concrete walls and looked around. I was pretty sure I hadn’t come that way, which meant I was going in the wrong direction.
Turning around, I saw Alex running towards me, signaling something with his hand. He was only a few feet away and I wondered why he was gesturing instead of calling out, but then I caught sight of a man’s silhouette on the wall across the street. The moonlight didn’t reveal much, so it was hard to make out any of his features, but I was pretty sure he was looking at me.
All of a sudden, my line of sight was broken entirely by Alex's body, which moved swiftly in front of me just a split second before a strange hissing sound pierced the air. I found myself shoved down to the ground with force, gasping for air with Alex’s weight on top of me. He was squeezing me hard between his arms, covering me completely with his body, his face buried in my hair. Immediately, the night air resounded with gunfire.
“You’ll never learn to do what you're told, Princess,” he murmured, his voice somehow disconnected from the scene unfolding around us.
I felt his breath on my neck and thought I heard an indistinct whisper, but in all the chaos I couldn’t tell what he was trying to say, if anything. Closing my eyes, I could only stay pinned beneath him, fear flickering behind my eyes.
Car engines soon roared into life nearby, moving off at a frightening speed, followed by several police cars with their sirens wailing. A last crack of gunfire split the night from a distance, and then it was over; the blitzkrieg had ended as abruptly as it began. Loud but indistinct shouting was all that was left, coming from somewhere up the street.
“Looks like it's over,” I whispered and opened my eyes cautiously.
The way I was lying, with one cheek pressed against the ground, I had a sideways angle on the street and could see two cops in the distance, running towards us. I was grateful for the warmth of Alex’s body because it offered me some measure of reassurance, but it was getting harder and harder to breathe as I lay beneath his weight.
“Alex, you are crushing me.”
Breathing heavily, he pushed himself up a little and I used my hands to drag myself out from under him, deeply inhaling the cool night air. I looked up through the treetops to see a sky now full of stars, how many thousand pinpricks of light I couldn’t begin to guess.
“It’s beautiful, huh?” I sighed, and rising slowly to my feet, turned around.
Alex stayed where he was, lying face down on the grass, motionless.
“Alex?”
Startled by the lack of any reaction, I bent down and jerked his arm towards me, hard. When I loosened my grip on his hand it slipped from my own and landed with a thud on the sidewalk.
“Quit fooling around and get up!”
I grabbed him by the shirt and started to shake him forcefully, seeing but not registering the red marks that were already staining my fingers.
“Alex! I’m serious!”
Air was escaping my lungs in broken gasps, which slowly turned to sobs.
“Get up! Please, get up!”
My eyes had come to rest on a patch of wetness that was slowly spreading over his T-shirt, glistening now in the starlight. More shouts and sirens came from the distance, but I went on tugging at his shirt.
“You idiot!” I screamed, “Why did you step in front of me?”
Someone grabbed me by the arm and started to drag me away, but I managed to get free and throw myself down next to Alex.
“Don’t you dare! Don’t you dare do this to me!” I yelled, shaking him with all my might. “Please, please, open your eyes!”
A firm pair of hands took me by the waist and lifted me off my feet, dragging me away. I kicked out violently, not taking my eyes off Alex and a man kneeling now next to him, my vision blurred entirely by tears.
“Where’s that goddamn medic?” the man shouted into the transmitter, “Andreyev is shot! I think he caught a sniper bullet!
“No! No! Let go of me!” I screamed, but the hands gripped me more painfully.
“Stop it, now!” said the sharp voice next to me, “You can’t do anything for him.”
No! It’s not true! It can’t be true! He’s lying!
“NOOOO!” I screamed into the night and my vision blurred completely, just before a thousand stars went out.
***
I lay curled up on the bed, looking at the same narrow crack in the wall that had held my gaze for days. It began at one corner of the room and spread out like a cobweb, branching out into several thinner, less distinct lines. I heard the door screech closed at the far side of the room and footsteps approach, but paid no attention to who entered, preferring to go on staring at the wall.
“Good morning!” came the familiar, chirpy voice, “How are we today?”
The same useless phrases were repeated day after day after day, whenever one of the nurses paid me a visit. As I had every time before, I only closed my eyes in response and hoped they’d soon see fit to leave again. There seemed no reason to reply to the inane questions they rained down on me every time they did their rounds.
When I’d woken up a few days earlier to a haze of delirium, brought on by the cocktail of tranquilizers they’d pumped into me, I had no idea where I even was. Groggy and disoriented, I thought I might still be in Alex’s apartment and that all the scenes of horror I remembered might be flashbacks from an awful nightmare. My resistance to the facts didn’t last too long, because the room that came into focus was clearly part of a hospital and the infusion wire trailing from a needle in the back of my hand sealed it. And then, it hit me. He’s dead.
I wasn’t sure what happened after that, but I remember an impression of great commotion, with people in white coats clamoring to shine lights in my eyes or check my pulse. It was probably because I started to scream.
After the first morning of wakefulness, memories of that bloody night haunted my every waking hour, never allowing me a moment’s respite or escape. Every time I woke from a drug-induced sleep, there’d be the briefest moment, just a fraction of a second before I remembered, and then everything would come crashing down, as though my mind were filling with shards of broken glass.
“Something’s gotta change around here girl.” the nurse leaned over the bed to look at me with a worried face and sad eyes, a tray of untouched food held in her hand.
“The doctor’s signed the discharge papers, which means you’re going home today. You’ve been here for ten days already, which is nine days more than we intended.”
Ten days? Was it really that long?
I took a deep breath and focused again on the wall in front of me. It could have been ten years for all I knew at that moment, and in truth it didn’t seem to make any difference one way or the other.
The door opened again and someone else entered. More footsteps approached, and I felt the bed sink down on one side as someone sat close to my back, a warm hand settling on my own.
“Baby girl...” was Nikolai’s hushed voice.
I pulled my hand away from his and tucked it under the pillow, staring at one of the faintest cracks, a tendril that veered off in a different direction to the others, only to disappear behind a threadbare curtain.
“I don’t know what to do with her. Maybe you’ll have better luck in bringing her to her senses,” the nurse waved a hand dismissively and shuffled out of the room clacking her wooden clogs.
Nikolai came every day and each time he seemed to have contrived a novel tactic to bring me back to my old self. He’d already tried gentle encouragement, cold-blooded reverse psychology and offers of lavish rewards if I might just take a few steps back towards the land of the living. Inevitably, he’d end up slumped in the armchair in the corner for most of the time, waiting for visiting hours to be over, looking thoroughly deflated and dismayed. He couldn’t seem to fathom the reasons for my behavior. Maybe he really thought I’d finally lost my mind.
If Nikolai did fear for my sanity, he pro
bably had good reason, because even I couldn’t offer a rational explanation for my current state. I knew what I was supposed to feel; sorrow, pain and rage would have been elements of a normal reaction. I should have cried, but tears hadn’t come, not since that fateful night when it seemed like I’d stopped feeling anything at all. The emptiness I felt was absolute, like the vacuum of space, and I was grateful for it. If the floodgates of emotion did open, I had no doubt that I’d be swept out to sea.
“Bethany was asking about you. You should give her a call.”
I thought about it for a second, but then dismissed the idea. I knew she was probably sick with worry, but I wasn’t ready to talk to anyone.
“I talked to the lawyer today. Things are moving along faster than any of us expected. The only thing they have against me is a signed statement by a protected witness, but since they have no solid evidence, the whole case goes up in smoke. Of course, they’ll try to get something out of it. The case will probably linger in the courts for a few months, but it won’t amount to anything,” he was looking at me curiously, as if he wasn’t sure whether I could even hear him.
“I haven’t mentioned it to you before, because I wasn’t sure how you’d react, but I think you should know... charges were filed against you as well, as an accomplice.” he paused for a moment, anticipating a reaction.
“That charge was thrown out of court yesterday, thank God. The reason why it was dismissed is something of a mystery, though,” he got up from the bed and paced over to the window, staring out towards the drab parking lot.
From my position in bed, I could clearly make out his profile against the bright morning sunlight that shone into the room. Looking exhausted, with dark circles under his eyes and several days’ growth around his chin, he seemed to have aged twenty years in the last few days.
“I’ve decided to retire,” he said softly, running a hand through his hair.
For a couple of minutes, the ticking of the wall clock was the only sound in the room. I pulled a sheet closer to me and wrapped it around my shoulders. It may have been a bright summer’s morning, but I felt a chill that I couldn’t shake off. Perhaps it came from inside.
“I still can’t understand what the hell the two of you were doing there, or how you even knew where we’d meet. I’ve been trying to figure it out for days, but I can’t,” he shook his head and turned to me, his eyes begging me again for an answer.
I had no intention of explaining anything. And anyway, it didn't seem to matter much any more.
“If anything had happened to you, I... If the police hadn’t shot the goon down who tried to get you, I would have done it myself. When I only think... If it wasn’t for...”
I closed my eyes determinedly and forced myself to switch off, refusing to hear the rest of his sentence. I knew that a single word was enough to break the high wire I was balancing on, enough to break that fine line between inertia and the flood.
“ ...and I’m glad it wasn’t you, that’s all.”
I sighed very deeply and kept my eyes closed, holding up my mental barrier with all my energy, as if it were a real thing I’d erected to protect me. Behind that wall there was his name, and all the feelings and memories that went along with it.
I was standing in front of the door to my apartment, staring at the keys in my hand, hesitating over the act of actually going inside. It had been an hour since Nikolai had driven me back from the hospital. He’d dropped me off and ordered me to pack my stuff.
All the way he’d talked of nothing but his retirement and how things were going to be different now. He was focused on my wellbeing, he said, and was going to do anything necessary to help me take a break and enjoy some healing time. His plan was to whisk me off to one of his more remote ranches, where I could ‘come around in my own time’. It wasn’t long before that such a plan would have made me very angry. I’d have kicked up a storm and told him to go to hell, but this time I acquiesced without protest. I guess I was glad not to have to make any decisions for myself. It was easier not to think at all.
Taking a deep breath, I turned the key in the lock, opened the door and took a first, hesitant step into my apartment.
The air was stale and it was obvious that no one had been in there for a long time, especially since everything was exactly as I’d left it. Feeling like some kind of ghost returning to haunt an old family home, I passed through the living room and then the kitchen, looking around me at all the objects that had once been part of my life.
It was hard to believe that only two months had passed since this had been my home; everything now seemed so strange, so foreign. Like years had passed since I’d made coffee in the kitchen, quarreled with Beth over whose turn it was to wash the dishes or fallen asleep on the couch in the living room. All those rituals belonged to a past life now.
Taking slow steps, I headed towards the bedrooms, keeping my eyes fixed down on the wooden floors, counting the steps. When I reached the narrow hallway, I stopped, raised my head slowly and looked towards the door at the far end.
This was where I’d stood, watching as he emerged in the mornings, frowning and grumbling to himself. This was where he’d leaned against the doorframe watching me and commented on my cleaning skills. And... this was where I stood, wishing he would go out of my life.
Seconds passed and turned to minutes, but I kept my eyes fixed on the door at the end of the hallway, the bar he installed on the doorframe still there. Even though I knew no one was behind it, I wished with all my heart it would open.
As time went by, the light coming from the living room gradually faded, until eventually I found myself standing in pitch darkness. Still, I went on staring at the door, with only memory to assure me it was still there, a few feet from my face.
My hands suddenly started to shake and my breathing changed drastically as panic set in. I couldn’t stand another moment in there; I turned and almost flew from the apartment. I kept running even when I got outside, and didn’t stop until my legs started to give way beneath me. Within seconds I’d flagged down a cab headed in my direction and clambered in, half stumbling in the process. When the driver asked me where I wanted to go, I could only stare at the reflection of his eyes in the mirror. And when the words finally spilled out of my mouth, I was amazed to find the address still there in my head.
It was a little over an hour before the taxi stopped in front of a small single-story house on the outskirts of the city. I was on some kind of autopilot setting as I paid the driver then got out of the car to trudge up the narrow gravel driveway, not stopping once to consider the rationale behind my actions.
I rang the bell twice in quick succession and had to wait a while before it opened.
“Sasha?” Mike gasped.
He was obviously shocked to discover me on his doorstep. Without meeting his eyes, I passed around him and moved into hallway, looking through a doorway into a room off to the left, where a dog was lying still on a large metal table, whimpering forlornly. A little late, I noticed that her belly was swollen and looked at Mike in the hope of an answer.
“Well, she’s about to give birth.”
“Do you need any help?” I said hoarsely, probably because it was only the second time I’d used my vocal cords in more than a week.
Apparently bemused by my suggestion, as well as my unannounced appearance, he looked me up and down, and then concentrated seriously on my face. I was expecting him to be surprised when I turned up on his doorstep, not least because I’d found it hard to believe my own reflection in the mirror that morning.
Looking gaunt and pale, dark shadows lingered around my eyes, and the T-shirt and jeans Nikolai had brought for me hung off my body, as though they were already two sizes too large. Even the thick, gold wedding band, which I clung to for dear life, was now in my pocket, since it felt loose and I was afraid of it falling off my finger.
Mike started to say something, probably wanting to ask what exactly I was doing there, but when our eyes met h
e closed his mouth and looked away.
“Sure,” he nodded and pointed to the faucet in the corner, “just wash your hands real well first, and put on the white coat that’s on the hanger over there.”
Chapter 14 – Eight
Eight months later.
I closed the front door behind me and sniffed the air, setting my keys down on the wooden dresser. After a week spent at the dig, which had meant unearthing dusty relics from dawn till dusk, boxing them up and then sleeping in a cramped tent, I’d been looking forward to getting home. To my dismay, I realized as soon as I walked through the door that the archaeological site was a more inviting place than what awaited me here.
I heaved off my heavy backpack and let it drop with a thud on the kitchen floor, following my nose and the odor of stale food through to the kitchen.
“Dear God...”
I stopped at the door and surveyed the scene in awe. The sink and all the surfaces were obscured beneath dirty dishes, empty noodle boxes and other kinds of junk food. Beneath a pile of papers on the table there was a plate with the remains of something like a half-eaten meatball sandwich on it, well on its way to becoming penicillin. A fat, striped ginger tomcat lay curled up asleep in the big metal colander. As I watched, he opened one eye ruefully and gave a lazy yawn.
“Get down!”
I marched over and tipped him out. He let out a cry to show his consternation before landing deftly on his feet, evidently giving this unexpected turn of events some consideration before stretching and shaking his tail in the air.
I shook my head despairingly and moved through the living room, picking up many articles of clothing on my way before coming to an eventual stop in front of bedroom door. Turning the knob a little more loudly than necessary, I entered and quickly kicked the door shut behind me.
Letting the bundle of clothes I was carrying fall into a messy heap on the floor, hands planted firmly on my hips, I glared down at the man lying on the bed, his arms and legs sticking out of the twisted sheets at unlikely angles. From somewhere under the mess his snoring stopped for a second, but then continued louder than before.