by Greg Smith
He got as far as San Francisco. Before aiming the Land Cruiser east on Interstate 80 for the 2,900-mile drive home. He stopped only for gas and restroom breaks. Completed the trek in a little under forty-four hours. The Land Cruiser was almost eight thousand miles closer to its next life as a family sedan for a household of five living in the Bronx.
Aleks had been gone nearly three-quarters of the year. Just under eight months.
Though he’d purged some demons, he was emotionally bankrupt and spiritually insolvent upon his return. He felt he’d reached a critical juncture in his life. Like the bird of legend, he’d fallen, only to rise from the ashes of despair. It wasn’t the legendary Phoenix that emerged from the residue, however. It was the two-headed Albanian eagle. The sign the twin brothers had immortalized in ink on their forearms. The sign of their formidability.
The twin eagle.
With their thirtieth birthday approaching, Aleks believed the time was right for the brothers to embark on their dream journey. Open the business they’d always fantasized about. He needed something to focus on. Something to fill his time. A reason to get up and get dressed every morning. He was certain he could convince Step the time was ripe.
Then Connie Stanton came along and fucked up both their lives.
• • • • •
CHAPTER 40
Monday, October 15: Day 34 post-9/11
Alex continued to wake up with his memory partially intact. The anterograde amnesia seemed to have lapsed. He could make new memories. He remembered Nadia and Griggor from one day to the next. When he recalled something from his past, it stayed with him. Though slow in coming, he retained any memories he had of his parents and Binyak.
His identity, however, remained a mystery. Other than believing his name was Alex, he had yet to remember who he was, where he came from, what had happened to him. He realized he’d been injured, that he’d sustained a head injury that had caused amnesia. But he didn’t know where, or how, he’d been hurt.
He knew he had a twin brother he referred to as Binyak, though that wasn’t the brother’s actual name. “Binyak” was an Albanian word meaning “twin.” He was worried Binyak was dead. That he’d been killed when the Twin Towers were destroyed on 9/11.
He remembered his parents. Nene and Baba. Like Binyak, their names were Albanian words. “Nene” and “baba” meaning “mother” and “father,” respectively. He didn’t know if Nene and Baba were alive.
He didn’t know if he was married. If he had a child. Or children. He had no idea whether or not he had any other family. Siblings other than Binyak. Aunts. Uncles. Cousins.
He didn’t know where he’d lived. Only that he was American. That he lived somewhere in Manhattan. And that he’d been in the care of two Romanians for the past month.
His life was an enigma.
After existing for several weeks in a near-catatonic state of total amnesia, however, he’d begun to remember. His memories frequently came in dreamlike visions. Often first thing in the morning, before he woke up. More than four weeks after his accident, on a day of no other significance, he remembered something of considerable significance. He remembered Jills.
˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜
“She’s gone Binyak. We’ll never see her again. Never hear her voice. Her laugh. Never see her smile. That fucking Russian should burn in hell!”
“Along with the father. He bought the son’s freedom.”
He was looking into a mirror, was not surprised to hear his reflection respond. He also wasn’t surprised his reflection didn’t replicate his every move. Or that neither he, nor his reflection, moved their lips when they spoke.
“The Bear,” he said, or, perhaps, merely thought.
His reflection shook his head.
“No. The Boar. Like a wild pig. He’s from Omsk. They call him ‘The Omsk Boar.’”
“I thought Russia is The Bear?” he argued.
“That’s true. But the father is The Boar,” his reflection insisted. “It fits him. He’s very short. And very thick. Like a wrestler. Or a boar. If he was a larger man, maybe then they’d call him ‘The Bear.’”
“The Boar,” he affirmed. “And Sergei. The Fucking Snake! The Fucking Snake who killed Jills!”
Glancing down at his tattoo he watched in horror as the two-headed eagle transformed into a dragon, the two heads becoming one. The dragon slowly metamorphosed into a cobra, with hooded head, needle-sharp fangs. The cobra coiled, sprang at him, mouth wide, tongue curling out between the fangs.
˜ ˜ ˜ ˜ ˜
Alex snapped awake, flailing his arms to ward off the snake attack from his dream. He sat up, his heart beating rapidly. He calmed down when he realized the snake had been a mirage, that he wasn’t in danger.
He closed his eyes, tried to visualize the woman he’d never see again. The woman he’d planned to marry. The woman Sergei Muskolov had run down in the street.
“Jills,” he whispered.
A tear ran down his face as he remembered how much he’d loved the auburn-haired woman. How much they’d loved each other. He felt a strong sense of longing. To see her again. To be with her. The emotions associated with her death still lurked just beneath the surface of his psyche. Jills had been his soul mate. No one could ever take her place. Certainly not Connie, he thought, finally putting a name to the dead blond.
“First, there was Nikki. We both loved her. And she loved both of us. We were a trio.”
Alex was sitting at the usual booth in the restaurant. Nadia shuttled back and forth from the kitchen. Serving lunch. Bringing coffee. Griggor listened, said nothing, let the tall stranger ramble. Alex had begun the morning remembering Jills. Before his memory had taken an abrupt detour. Had glitched. For a while, he unknowingly mixed memories of the woman he’d planned to marry with the girl he and Binyak had spent their high school years with. Eventually, he’d sorted it out. It wasn’t easy. Explaining how two brothers could love the same girl. How that girl could love both brothers.
“We weren’t in love. We were like the Three Musketeers. All for one and one for all. We were just kids. We just wanted to have fun.”
“When is this, Alex? When do you and Binyak love this Nikki, hey?”
“In high school. We went everywhere together for four years.”
“And where is this? Where do you go to high school?”
Alex paused, realized he had no idea what high school they’d attended.
“I dunno.”
“Do you remember what year this is?”
Again, Alex drew a blank.
“Let’s say you are aged maybe thirty and five, thirty and six today, hey? Puts you in high school seven and ten, eight and ten years before. Class is maybe one-nine and eight-three? Maybe one-nine and eight-four, hey? Ring some bells?”
Alex shook his head.
“You maybe remember school mascota? You say you and Binyak, you play basketball, nu?”
Alex had a fleeting memory of shooting a basketball, watching it go neatly through a hoop several feet away, clenching his fist with satisfaction, looking over to see Binyak, dressed in a navy blue basketball uniform with white numbers, pumping his fist in the air.
“I’m…I’m pretty sure we did. Yes. I…uh…I don’t remember what team though. Or what school.”
“So, what becomes of this Nikki, hey? To make you so sad.”
“Nikki? Oh, she moved somewhere out west with her parents right after we graduated. We never saw her again.”
Though the memory of Nikki moving away aroused feelings of loss, nothing compared to the distress of...
“Then there was Jills.”
Jills was the reason for Alex’s melancholy. He remembered seeing her for the first time. How refreshingly genuine she was. How she’d subtly reminded him of Nikki. But with a womanly sensuality Nikki had yet to mature to. He remembered thinking Jills could have been Nikki all grown up. The teenage Brooklyn confidence ripened into a womanly poise.
<
br /> His love for Jills had been so much deeper. So much more sophisticated. Refined with the maturity and experience of adulthood.
“Jills and…uh, and I…we met at NYU.”
“So, you and Binyak and this Jules, you are together at N, Y and U, hey?”
“Jills. Short ‘i’. Like Griggor. Actually, it was Jill, singular, no ‘s’. Nene was the one who kept calling her ‘Jills.’ So we all did.”
Another memory. They were flowing like a snow melt-off in the spring. Slow, arduous, at first. Then too rapid to keep up with.
“Yes. We were at NYU. In the graduate program. No. I mean…we were undergrads. Binyak and I were still living at home. We, uh, we met Jills our junior year. Then, after we all graduated, we…Binyak and I…we went immediately into the grad program. Jills went to work downtown. We spent a lot of time together.”
“Ah, you are Three Musketeers again, hey? But Jills, she does not move west with parents.”
Alex stared past the old man. The sadness had returned. Tears pooled in his eyes.
“Jills was murdered,” he snuffled.
“Masacrat? Dumnezeule!”
The revelation was unexpected. In the kitchen, Nadia stopped what she was doing, listened closely.
“When does this happen, Alex? Hey? How does this happen?”
As painful as those memories may be, Griggor believed they would continue to leak out if he could keep the tall man talking. Alex erupted.
“Christ, old man! Do your questions never stop?”
Hearing his outburst, Nadia prepared to interfere on her stranger’s behalf. Griggor peered over his glasses at the irate tall man.
“I am sorry. Truly, I am sorry, Alex. About asking too many questions, hey? Scuzati-ma. I just try to help you to remember, da?”
“It’s one thing I wish I could not remember,” Aleks mumbled, embarrassed by his outburst.
“I understand. If you do not wish to–”
“It was that fucking Russian! Sergei! That fucking snake! Sergei Muskolov! He killed Jills!”
Griggor was startled by Alex’s outburst. Not by his anger, but by the name he’d spoken.
Sergei Muskolov? Is not possible.
Alex slowly related the details of Jill’s murder, the tears coming easily as he spoke. Nadia remained in the kitchen doorway, listening as her gift related the heart-wrenching story of how the woman he loved was murdered.
“She was so young. Twenty-four or twenty-five. We were all young. We had our MBAs. Binyak was working at Merrill Lynch. I…uh…I was at Strattmont Oakwood. Jills and… uh, Jills and I…we had an apartment. In the Village.”
“Whoa, hey? Stop, Alex. Please. Hey? Jills, she is wife to you now?”
Griggor thought Alex’s look of confusion was because he didn’t know whether or not he and Jills were married. It was actually because he didn’t understand why the old man would think they were married just because they lived together.
Can the old guy be that old-fashioned?
“No, Griggor. Jills and,…uh…and I…we were engaged. We weren’t married.”
“So, she is fiancée to you, hey?”
“Yes.”
“And you are fiancé to her, hey?”
“That’s right.”
“I do not see difference with this word.”
The old Romanian had always struggled with the noun and verb neutrality of English.
“Anyways, scuzati-ma. So, you are done with schooling when this happens, hey? You are working?”
“Yes. We’d graduated. We had our MBAs.”
“Do you have years for this?”
Aleks deliberated before answering.
“No.”
“And you are not married,” Griggor reminded him. “But you are living in apartment. Here in Village, hey?”
Alex was getting perturbed with the old man. It seemed the old Romanian was chastising him for living with a woman who was not his wife. What he didn’t realize was that Griggor was employing an old interrogator’s tactic of making the respondent repeat information several times. A trick for confirming the accuracy of facts. Or catching someone in a lie.
“Yes. I said that already. Jills and I weren’t married. We were living together. Here in–”
He stopped suddenly, stared off into space, repeated Griggor’s words hypnotically.
“…here in the Village.”
He gaped at the old man.
“Is that where we are, Griggor? Now? In the Village?”
“Da. Nadia’s, it is on Bleecker Street. Near 7th Avenue.”
The tall man wondered if he still lived in the Village. If his place was nearby. If that was where he’d been heading when Nadia found him.
“I am just trying to put pieces together, Alex. Please. Continue. With Jills.”
Alex had been speaking without stopping to think. Just letting the words flow. He didn’t even realize he was recalling new information. He spoke in a slow, dreamy manner as he recounted the details of that evening when Jills had been run down in Shubert Alley.
“We…uh…we went to see The Phantom that night. Jills was on Cloud Nine. She’d loved it Afterward, we were walking. We were on a narrow street. Like an alley. That fucking rat-bastard came out of nowhere. He was driving too fast. His car was out of control.”
In the days afterward, he and Binyak had discussed the events of that fateful evening in detail over and over. One appalling detail could never be forgotten. Never forgiven. That the driver had accelerated before…
“He hit us. Jills was killed.”
His eyes had filled with tears, which now staggered down his gaunt cheeks like a parade of drunken sailors.
“The doctor said she died instantly. I, uh… Somehow, I managed to get out of the way.”
His sorrow quickly turned to anger.
“That fucking Russian punk ran her down, Griggor! Like a…a dog!”
He swiped at his tears. Griggor was solemn.
“This Sergei, Alex. This Russian who drives car. What do you know of him, hey?”
“He’s a fucking coward! He was high. On drugs. His father bought the goddamn judge!”
Viktor, Griggor immediately thought at mention of the father.
“And this father? What of him, hey?”
“I don’t know, Griggor. Fucking Russian son-of-a-bitch! They called him ‘The Bear.’”
Nu. Not bear, Griggor reflected. Boar. Viktor Muskolov. Omsk Boar. And Sergei. His son. Dracu bou! (Fucking castrated bull!)
He knew of the Muskolovs. Had had dealings with them. He knew, too, what had become of them.
“Listen to me, Alex. Listen to Griggor, hey? I am sorry to make you live this all over. But you remember much, hey? As you speak more, you remember. So I make you talk.”
Alex wouldn’t look at Griggor, continued to stare at his hands as he wrung them nervously.
“You go to N, Y and U, hey? You get M, B and A. You are living in Village. You are working. You have fiancée. All pieces to puzzle, hey? To past life.”
Alex wiped away the last of his tears. He noticed a growing animosity in the old man’s voice when he spoke of the Muskolovs.
“I tell you this. Sergei Muskolov. Viktor Muskolov. I know of them, hey? Viktor? He is called ‘Boar,’ not ‘Bear.’ Omsk Boar. He is Roosa. Viktor. Sergei. They are father and son, as you say. They do not leave this world so easy. Believe Griggor when he tells you this, hey? Death, it is not so nice for them.”
Griggor’s attitude toward the Muskolovs prompted Alex to consider that the old Romanian had had something to do with their deaths.
“They die at hands of each other, hey? Father, he kills son. Son, he kills father.”
The statement puzzled Alex.
“But…how…?”
Nadia appeared with coffee, interrupting their conversation. She’d heard the entire story, had decided Griggor had aroused enough memories from her stranger for the time being.
“Maybe Griggor should save that story for
another time.”
She poured a fresh cup for Alex, refilled Griggor’s cup, as well.
“Eh, maybe Nadia, she has good idea.”
The old man took several sips of his coffee, nodded his approval. He quickly stored the new information about the stranger in a mental information system that was as thorough, organized and compartmentalized as any manual or electronic filing system. He then easily shifted gears, asked Alex what he would like to do with the rest of the day.
What Alex really wanted was to hear the story of Sergei Muskolov and his father. “The Snake and “The Boar.” It sounded as though Justice may have been served after all. That Karma may have righted the scales. He wanted details, but knew he’d have to wait.
As he’d improved, he’d been considering how he could follow up on the few memories he’d had. What he could do to find out more about himself, his past. He needed access to a computer. He doubted there was one in the restaurant, hadn’t seen either Nadia or Griggor use one. They were too old-school. Technological dinosaurs. He thought a trip to a local library to use a public computer might prove fruitful.
“If you aren’t going to tell me about the Russians, Griggor, what I’d really like to do is log onto a computer. You don’t happen to have a laptop I could borrow, do you?”
Griggor’s response confirmed Alex’s assumptions about the old man’s computer illiteracy.
“Ah, nu. Unfortunately, I am not so savvy with technology, hey?”
Right. A technosaur. On the verge of extinction, Alex thought.
“Well, you can’t teach an old dog new tricks, hey, Griggor?” he kidded the self-acknowledged fossil.
Griggor simply smiled.
“I’m thinking I’d like to venture out. Find a library. Use the public information system,” Alex announced.
Throw the old dog a bone, he thought. Invite him along.
“Of course, you’re welcome to come with me. If you’d like.”
“Ah, you throw bone at this old dog, hey? You maybe do teach Griggor some new tricks anyways then. Thank you. For invite. I maybe play tag with you, hey?”