by SR Jones
The idea isn’t so farfetched. A lot of the street-level gangs use kids to do that kind of thing, as the police don’t stop us as much. My uncle, though, is proper Bratva. It makes me proud. Only street level, maybe, but actual Bratva, unlike my father who was so low level as to not count. Uncle Roman spent time in prison, and he has many tattoos. Ever since my father left, he took me under his wing, gave me work to do, money when I helped, and social status. Now my father is back, and he still does those things.
All the kids around here fear me to a degree. They don’t always show it, fronting up to me sometimes, trying to look like someone big, but they are scared. They’d be crazy not to be. My uncle, he could have them killed. It’s not an exaggeration; he has done this before.
I wish he’d kill my father, but for that to happen, I’d have to tell him what my father does to me. What his friends do to me. Uncle Roman probably would kill my father if he knew the man let fat old men touch me.
Sighing, I blow out a breath and watch it turn white in the frigid air.
I hate this place. The cold and the dark, it seeps into your bones. I long for heat, and sun. I once found a pile of magazines on the floor. The boys took the ones with women in them. I didn’t. I took the ones that were travel brochures. They were in English, and I was learning it at school, so I could read and understand the descriptions of the places.
My favorites were Greece and Italy. They look so beautiful. What must it be like to swim in warm, clear blue water as the sun shines down on you? I’d lie on my back and float and look back at the olive grove covered hills, and I think I’d be happy.
I’m not happy now.
Everything is so grey. So dark.
A door bangs from a few floors above, and girl’s voices drift into the foyer. Things can get out of hand when the girls get here. People say boys are bad, but I know girls are worse. They get so angry with one another and hold such grudges. They can also target a person’s biggest weakness with deadly accuracy. They are merciless when they want to be.
I prefer them, though. They don’t always want to be touching you the way men do. Men are sick. Some men anyway.
The girls arrive outside, a clamor of loud voices, giggles, and scents. I carry on talking with Abram, but at some point, I glance over to the girls, and my gaze lands on someone new. She’s not from around here. I’d remember her.
She’s beautiful.
I don’t think of her as sexual in any way. It’s not like when I see the models in the catalogues and get certain feelings. No, she’s just beautiful, the way the pictures in the travel brochures I have hidden under my mattress are.
She’s a flash of color in a grey world. White skin, porcelain and unblemished. Red hair, which glows under the harsh color of the streetlamps. It’s her eyes which truly capture my attention, though. They’re so blue they sparkle like pale jewels in her face. Her lips are deep pink, and her cheeks pale pink. She’s nothing but color.
The girls are jostling, fighting over something in the way girls do, which is better than the way we boys do because they tend not to break bones and other things.
Someone pushes the girl with the red hair and she falls down, her knees hitting the hard concrete floor as she lets out a cry.
“Hey,” I say to the girl who did it. She turns cool grey eyes on me.
“What? I’m not scared of you.”
“You should be,” Abram says. “His uncle kills people for the Bratva.”
The pretty jewel looks up at me from where she is kneeling on the floor, her eyes wide.
The bitch, though, the one who pushed the jewel, sneers, “I call bullshit.” She says the world bullshit in English.
“It’s true,” I answer with a shrug. “He’s Roman Vasilyevich Kuradan.”
Her face pales as she looks at me. Yeah, she knows his name alright. Should, as he killed ten men according to local lore. It’s probably, truthfully, more.
My uncle is a scary man if you don’t know him. If you’re like me, you’re family, then he’s jovial and kind.
I reach down to the jewel still on her knees on the floor and offer her my hand. She takes it, and I pull her to her feet.
“Thank you,” she mumbles. Her voice is so soft it’s like the breeze brushing past my ears.
“Thank you,” the bitch mimics.
One of the other girls pushes her, and then they’re off, squabbling, pushing, and shouting.
“Want to get out of here?” I ask Abram.
He nods, and the jewel glances at me then back to the girls, then at me with big eyes.
“What’s your name?” I ask her.
“Dasha,” she says softly.
“You want to come too, Dasha?” I ask.
She nods and grins.
We set off out from under the shadow of the looming tower block. They’re everywhere, these buildings. Behind our block are another three. They stand in a straight line, one after the other like sentinels.
Why they didn’t place them at angles when they built these places, I don’t understand. The way they line up one after the other for rows of up to ten or more buildings is oppressive. They’re so big compared to us humans, and sometimes I imagine them coming alive, waking from a deep slumber and striding away like giant concrete monsters.
We walk in silence past the small empty parking lots. The wind blows a plastic bag toward me, and I kick it away, but it gets stuck to my shoe, and I try to kick it again, but it doesn’t move. I glance at Dasha, somehow embarrassed by this bag stuck to my foot.
Dasha doesn’t fit here. She looks like one of the Russian Princesses we learned about in history. The Tsar’s daughters. She’s refined and delicate. You don’t see many delicate things around here; they get stamped out, or they turn into something hard in order to survive.
We reach the destination after a five-minute walk. It’s a big old garage that no one seems to use anymore, on a plot of wasteland between yet more huge blocks of apartments. The garage has a light that works inside, and we found an old gas heater and brought it here, which wasn’t too difficult as it had wheels underneath.
We pull the stiff door open, and Abram slips through first. I gesture for Dasha to follow him, and she does. I enter last, and Abram clicks on the light switch as I close the door. We head straight to the heater and put it on. We sit ourselves down on one of the worn mattresses lined up on the floor. These we didn’t bring; they were already here.
To the side of the mattress is an old bureau with many drawers in it. I open the top drawer and take out some rolling paper, a packet of tobacco, and some matches. Methodically I roll two cigarettes. One I pass to Abram, and one I keep.
Lighting his first, I then light mine and take a drag.
“You smoke?” Dasha asks. She sounds worried.
“Yeah, sometimes, why?”
“It’s not good for you,” she says. “My momma told me it’s very bad. It puts gunk into your lungs.”
Then she screws her face up as the smoke reaches her. “You could die early if you keep this up.”
I don’t tell her that we’re all probably headed for an early death. People don’t live long around here. It’s just a fact of life.
“It isn’t good for a fit and healthy body,” she says primly,
I suck in some smoke and blow a perfect smoke ring, and her eyes go wide. “Oh wow; do that again.”
I smirk, liking how impressed she is by me and the things I can do.
“What do you know about being healthy; you’re only little,” Abram says.
“I’m in training,” she announces importantly. “I’m going to be a prima ballerina when I grow up.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“A lead dancer in the ballet.”
Oh, of course. The ballet. I know what that is; I just hadn’t heard of a prima ballerina before. I don’t like the ballet. It’s weird. Lots of people in odd costumes doing strange things with their arms and legs.
I suppose I don’t like muc
h. I read a lot, and I enjoy drawing, although I kind of suck at it. But I don’t have things I love doing, not like Dasha loves her ballet. Maybe being outdoors? I love being in nature and out of the city. Not that I get to go often. However, on a few occasions either my mother or my uncle have taken me to a park or to the area outside the city where there is grass, trees, and rivers. You can breathe there in a way you can’t here.
There’s a tiny patch of trees nearby, and a small lake, but it’s surrounded by the concrete giants on all sides. Still, if you use your imagination you can pretend you’re in a giant forest. I do that quite often.
“Show me,” Abram says, and for a moment I don’t know what he means. I realize he’s staring at Dasha. “Show me how you dance.”
She shakes her head.
He laughs. “I don’t believe you. You’re not a prima ballerina.”
She scowls at him, tiny but fierce. “Of course not. I said I will be one day, silly.”
“So, show us.” Abram gestures between us.
She sighs, but to my surprise stands. Her arms raise above her head, and she looks exactly like the doll in the music box my mum has. You open the box and this tune plays, and the doll raises her arms slow and jerky, then spins around.
Dasha looks like the doll, except more graceful. She rises onto her toes and begins to step and twirl, step and twirl. I don’t like the ballet I see on TV, but this I like. It’s a strange, magical moment in our mundane world.
As I watch Dasha dance, something occurs to me. Her name and my name mean almost the same thing. We are god given, or gifts of god.
Maybe she is a gift from God? My very own precious jewel. I decide there and then that Dasha is going to be my new best friend.
Abram just got demoted.
Chapter Seven
Dasha
We reach the theater, and my heart is still pounding. I may be many things. I may be weak. I may be scared. I may be lost. What I am not is stupid. Bohdan isn’t here by accident.
He says he’s here to save me. He saved me before. When I was little. He became my best friend. The comfort in a harsh, cold world. We would go into the tiny copse of trees near a lake, an oasis of nature amongst never-ending concrete, and we’d play games. Magical games. I’d be the princess, and he’d be the knight. Sometimes I would be the swan in Swan Lake, and I would dance around Bohdan as he laughed.
He even drew me the story because unlike Cinderella or The Nutcracker, I didn’t have a story book of Swan Lake. He gave me the pages, stapled together, full of quite terrible drawings. I still have those pages, tucked away deep in a chest full of my most precious memories. Including my childish diaries from those days. I don’t look at them anymore. It is too painful, but I won’t get rid of them either. I need to know they are there, waiting for me when I feel ready to return.
I glance at Bohdan as he parks the car and take in his new profile. His nose might be broken and slightly crooked now with a bump, but he’s still handsome. More than handsome; he has a beauty to him. Full lips. Those blue eyes of his are so striking.
A memory comes to me of one time when we were playing in the woods. I’d fallen and scraped my knee. Bohdan had cleaned it up for me with a leaf that he’d dipped in the water of a puddle. The woods were our escape, but they also held danger. Used needles for one. Sometimes vagrants slept under the protection the trees offered in summer from the elements.
On this occasion it had been a simple rock which had been my undoing.
The cut had made me cry, and a short time after Bohdan had picked up a handful of autumn leaves and thrown them over me, telling me to twirl around. I asked him what he was doing, and he said he was covering me in magical, healing pixie dust. Those leaves became pixie dust, a twig became a wand, and the tiny copse of scraggy woods became a magical forest.
He made everything shine.
Then, years later, he broke me. Only a few days after he did, my mother said we had to leave for a new life in London, and I was so hurt and angry I went without speaking to him.
We get out of the car, and I avoid looking at him in the small space of the elevator as we ride to the main floor. Doesn’t mean I can avoid feeling his presence, smelling his delicious scent, and what is that cologne?
Jasper always smells expensive, like old soap, leather, and fresh citrus. Bohdan smells of the ocean somehow. His scent is fresh but complex. I bet it’s expensive too, but his scent reminds me of the first time I saw the sea. Jasper’s scent reminds me of stuffy living rooms, pipes, leather, soap, and pain.
Bohdan’s gaze is on me. I can feel it searing everywhere it touches. I won’t look at him. I won’t.
We get out of the elevator and walk along the hallway to my changing room. Curious eyes follow us, as well they might. I usually only come here alone, or with Jasper. They must all be wondering who the handsome man is with me.
When we reach my changing room, he tries to come in with me, but I put my hand on his chest, push, and shake my head. He does not get to see me change.
“Let me check it out, at least,” he says.
I nod once and stand back. He saunters in, curiosity evident in his gaze. He’s a contradiction. His gaze is hungry, but his stance is laid back.
Bohdan is here. My Bohdan. This is surreal.
I watch as he prowls my space, eyes taking everything in. He reaches out and trails one finger over a dress hanging on the rack of clothes. The way his hand caresses the fabric makes me shiver.
I remember the second time he came into my life. We weren’t children any longer and though, at first, I’d been glad to see my old friend, I soon wanted more from him. I was full of hormones then. Desperate for things I couldn’t even articulate.
Young women now live in a different world. They face pressures, of course. Of the kind we didn’t so much back in the noughties. They need to look good on social media. They grow up to find they’re expected to list all the sexual things they’re willing to do on their hook-up profiles, where people choose one another by a swipe. As if they’re picking something off the shelf to buy.
Back then we didn’t have those pressures, but also we young women, certainly in Russia, didn’t have access to much education about sex. Boys like Bohdan, they knew what they wanted. They had access to plenty of things that told them what their bodies were craving. I didn’t. All I knew was my insane love for Justin Timberlake took the brunt of these new feelings and desires.
Until we moved back to St. Petersburg and Bohdan entered my life once more.
This time around, he hadn’t sprinkled me with magical pixie dust; instead, he’d touched me and made me shiver. He’d looked at me in a way to make me melt. He soon replaced Justin in my affections, and I fell hard into first love.
Then he broke my heart.
“Don’t touch my things,” I snap.
He looks at me, raises one brow, but drops the fabric. A small smirk twitches at one side of his mouth, but he tamps it down.
Walking to my desk where I do my make-up and prepare myself before a show, he looks at the photographs. There’s one of me with Jasper, and a couple of me and Mom on holidays, but mostly they are of my animals.
He’s digging into my life, and I don’t like it. He has no right to do this.
“Please, will you go and wait outside?” I ask. “I need to get changed.”
I make my request polite, even meek. It’s not the way it should be. He works for me. I’m the one holding the purse strings that pay him, or rather Jasper is. But Bohdan? He’s always had this air about him that somehow elevates him above most of the people around him.
I don’t mean that he’s superior or pompous, only that he somehow seems not of this world. Not only because of his looks but his demeanor too.
“Okay,” he says easily, and then adds in damn good French. “I will do as you ask, Dasha.” Where did he learn to speak French?
“I’ll be right outside the door,” he tells me.
I wait until he’s closed it b
ehind him, and then I collapse on the sofa by the back wall.
God help me, but having him as my bodyguard simply isn’t going to work for me. I need to tell Jasper to find someone else. Bohdan says there’s a threat against me, but he doesn’t have to be the one to protect me from it.
I feel untethered. Lost somehow. Emotions are stirring in me, and I don’t like emotions. I mostly refuse to feel them anymore unless I’m dancing. I think it’s why I’m so good at it. I feel every single movement soul deep. I know the stories behind each performance back to front, and when I dance lead swan, which is the role I’m currently preparing for, I channel her emotions into my dance.
It’s the way I deal with the shit life has thrown at me. All the anger, rage, sorrow, and yes, hate, I feel I put into my swan. The white swan with her heavy arms and her more fluid movements, and then the black swan with more rigid, sharp movements. It’s all in the arms when it comes to displaying their differences.
Realizing I’m lolling around when I need to get going, I head over to my desk. I change quickly into practice clothes, which consist of black leotard and white tights. I pause, and because of Bohdan, I add a small wrap skirt around the outfit. I feel too exposed in my usual practice attire. It shows my body off in minute detail, which is the whole point. There’s nothing sexual about it. I need to see it well in the mirror so I can make tiny adjustments to the movements. Today, though, I know I don’t want his laser-like gaze on me wearing nothing but that.
Dressed, I head to the table in front of the mirror. I pull my hair onto the top of my head in a tight bun. Then, I reach for the make-up I normally only use for a performance. I look wan. Not liking the fact, I add a sweep of blush to my cheekbones and a tiny bit of mascara. There, I look more awake now.
Finally, I add my pointe shoes. They are customized to my feet as I do with every pair, the ribbons and the elastic sewn on to my liking. Caressing the shoes for a moment, loving them as they are the tools that enable me to truly express myself, I carefully slip them on.
Once I’m ready, I sling my bag over my shoulder. It holds a bottle of water, a protein bar, a banana, and I add my wallet and my phone. Then I take a deep breath, open the door, and prepare to face Bohdan.