by Sergey
The doorbell rang again. Aspirin stood on tiptoes rummaging on the top shelf of the closet. Where was it? Here it was, the dusty handle of his gun . . . Aspirin hadn’t touched it in a long time, had never had a chance to practice. Not to mention he was kind of scared—the gun was illegal, a compulsive purchase . . .
Or not so compulsive after all?
“Don’t open it,” the girl said to Aspirin’s back. He suddenly realized that the girl stood right behind him, watching his fumbling around for the weapon, which meant she could easily tell the cops at the first opportunity:
“Mister policeman, sir, he’s hiding a gun in his closet!”
He jerked his hand away and wiped it on his pants. The girl was obviously street-smart—she must have figured it out by now.
“Mister policeman, look at the top shelf!”
Those words, unspoken, scared the hell out of him.
The doorbell rang for the third time, and this time it was long and insistent. What happened to me in the last twenty-four hours? Aspirin wondered. I have totally lost it. Maybe it is a postman. Or Sveta the concierge. What is it about this girl that makes me so dumb in her presence? Instead of digging myself out of this situation, I keep burying myself further and further.
He lifted the steel tongue covering the spyhole and immediately imagined himself staring into the barrel of a gun. He blinked; he saw the distorted corridor and the figure of a man standing in front of his door. At least the spyhole was not covered from the outside, and the lightbulb was not removed—that much was good.
The man at his door was a stranger, though. That was about all Aspirin could determine.
“Who is it?” Aspirin said, trying to sound like someone who was bothered for no reason whatsoever.
“I am here for your guest,” the man said. “Are you sick of her yet?”
Aspirin looked behind him.
“Don’t open the door!” The girl stood by the kitchen door, clutching her teddy bear to her chest, looking up at Aspirin. She was not scared of dark corners, or street gangs, or Whiskas with his threats, and she definitely was not afraid of Aspirin.
Now, though, her blue eyes brimmed with terror.
“I am here to pick up Alyona,” the man said from behind the door. “She’s being completely ridiculous, and I apologize for her behavior.”
“Don’t open the door.” The girl hunched over by the kitchen door. “It’s him. He found me.”
That’s it, Aspirin thought with grim relief. Whoever this visitor was, whatever sort of relationship he had with the girl—this adventure has finally come to its end, and tomorrow I will convince myself that this Alyona had never even happened.
He pushed the dead bolt aside.
“Alexey,” the girl said thickly, “please don’t open the door. Not just for my sake. Please—he can’t come in unless you ask him to.”
Aspirin undid the top lock. He was worried that the girl would cling to him, weeping and begging, but she remained, still, by the kitchen door; gradually, she bent farther and farther down, as if in pain.
Could it be a trick? he wondered. They could be in cahoots. They could be lying in wait until I opened the door.
“Who are you?” he asked in the most authoritative voice he could muster.
“You want to see my passport?” the man chuckled.
“Sure,” Aspirin said. “I want to know who you are, who are you in relation to this girl, and why you haven’t been watching your child. Are you her father?”
“Alexey Igorevich, do you really care about that?”
Aspirin took another look through the spyhole. The man grinned at him.
“Don’t open the door,” Alyona whispered, sliding down the door frame. “Please.”
She looked terrible, blood-covered nose and lips on a pale face, dark circles under her eyes, panic-filled gaze. No one could be that good at pretending.
“How do you know me?” Aspirin asked. “Never mind—it does not matter. The girl does not want to come with you. I am calling the police.”
“Aren’t you tired of your own nonsense?” the man asked, sounding weary himself. “If you thought it would help, you would have called them a long time ago.”
He was right, and Aspirin felt guilty.
I am the man of my own house, he said to himself and stood up straighter. Why the hell should I feel guilty, scared, embarrassed, or whatever else I am feeling right now? I am a man, and I have rights. My neighbors are on this floor, the concierge is right downstairs, and the police are just a call away.
But he was sure he wasn’t about to involve any of them, and the frustration boiled over.
“What are you so worried about?” he barked at the girl. “If you don’t want to go with him, you don’t have to. Just tell me who he is.”
She shook her head.
“So are we going to continue chatting through the closed door?” the man asked.
Aspirin ground his teeth and unlocked the bottom lock. He opened the door—jerked it open, really, in an attempt to demonstrate his complete and utter lack of fear.
The man stood by the door. If he was impressed by Aspirin’s display, he didn’t show it. He was tall, taller than Aspirin, and was clad in a gray hand-knit sweater and camouflage pants. A second later, when the guest stepped over the threshold, Aspirin saw that he was not wearing shoes. His narrow bare feet left wet prints on the tile.
“Peace to this home,” the guest said casually, looking around and pretending not to notice either Aspirin or the girl crouching on the floor.
In support of his greeting, another sharp, loud crack of thunder followed another bright flash outside. Aspirin flinched.
His guest turned his head, finally acknowledging Aspirin’s existence. Federal Security Service, Aspirin thought. Or some sort of mafia dude. The uninvited guest had eyes of greenish-blue, cold, indifferent and yet piercing. Nineteenth-century vivisectionists must have had eyes like his. I am not giving him the girl, Aspirin thought, and his abdominal muscles contracted involuntarily. I would rather give her to the police, or leave her at the train station to fend for herself. But I am not letting him take her. Having made the decision, Aspirin suddenly realized that the pool of excrement he’d been swimming in for the past day was rising way over his head.
Meanwhile, his guest gazed at the girl. Alyona sat on the floor, and her glassy eyes resembled the guest’s own stare. They are related, Aspirin realized. Good God almighty.
Alyona spoke. Staring into the face of the barefoot stranger, she spoke in a harsh, fierce voice full of threat. Aspirin did not understand a single word. Moreover, he could have sworn he’d never heard this language before in his life.
Yet whatever she said was clear to their guest; the man listened. Aspirin observed him some more, and was surprised to see the man’s sweater looked perfectly dry, while his camouflage pants were wet up to the knee, and his feet were clean and wet, as if he’d driven right up to Aspirin’s door with his legs resting in a basin of water.
The girl spoke louder. When she started shouting, the guest snapped at her in the same language. She took a deep breath and continued speaking, now in a softer, calmer voice, her lips a thin line.
They are not Gypsies, Aspirin mused. Not Arabs, either. Central Asia? No way . . . but what was that language? Who are they? More important, what are they doing in my apartment?
“Just a minute,” he began, but no one paid him any attention. The girl went on speaking, burning the stranger with her eyes, or rather, freezing him on the spot, because her eyes now looked like two icicles. The guest listened. Aspirin felt the hallway growing cold, as if a very powerful air conditioner had suddenly switched on—sixty-four degrees . . . sixty-two . . . sixty . . .
The stranger then said something curt and imperative. He took a step forward, clearly intending to grab the collar of the girl’s dirty T-shirt. The girl recoiled and looked at Aspirin. He looked back at her.
“Hold on,” Aspirin said (by then the temperature in the apartment
had plunged down to just above freezing). “You have yet to explain to me who you are to her, and where you are taking her. And I haven’t seen your passport. And . . .”
His guest turned to face him, and the yet unsaid words froze in Aspirin’s throat.
“He beat you up,” the stranger said.
“He brought me here! I spent the night here!”
“He made a mistake.” The stranger continued to stare at Aspirin, and Aspirin felt a strong desire to turn into a cockroach and hide under the molding. “Wouldn’t you say you made a mistake, Alexey Igorevich?”
“I . . .” Aspirin managed.
The girl spoke again in the same language. The guest took his eyes off Aspirin (much relieved, Aspirin took a step back into the dark living room) and moved closer to the mirror. Aspirin thought he saw ice crystals forming on the surface of the mirror.
The guest adjusted a cord on his neck—a red and yellow cord under his collar. An outline of an elongated object larger than a cell phone was noticeable under his sweater.
“Turn on the light, Alexey Igorevich.”
“What?”
“I said, turn on the light in the living room. Since we’re going to have a talk after all.”
The light was switched on. A crumpled throw, an empty bottle of brandy, and random magazines and CDs strewn on the floor came into view, and Aspirin cringed at the state of his apartment, only to be upset—it wasn’t like I invited these guests!—only to then feel fear once more.
The antique clock made one last sound and stopped. Its pendulum slowed down, the shorter amplitude coming as no surprise to Aspirin.
“May I sit down on the sofa?” the barefoot guest said with a smirk, already moving toward the couch. He clearly never bothered to ask for permission. Aspirin made a feeble attempt to fold the throw, but the guest took control by tossing the plaid fabric into the corner of the sofa. He sat down, crossing his legs.
The girl did not come into the living room, but instead lowered herself on the floor by the door.
“Did she really spend the night here?”
“What are you trying to say?” Aspirin scowled.
“I am trying to say that the morning came, and the girl was still here, under this roof. Nothing else was implied, so don’t look at me like that. Alexey Igorevich, why did you do this?”
“What exactly have I done?”
“Why would you bring someone else’s child into your house in the middle of the night?”
“Because there were druggies out there!” Aspirin snapped. “And alcos! And all sorts of hoodlums! Is that not clear to you?”
“It is not clear to me,” the stranger confirmed ruefully.
Aspirin noticed that the stranger spoke without a trace of an accent. Just like Alyona.
“Helping a child is a normal human reaction,” he said, cringing inside and wondering if the blood had dried on her shirt.
The stranger sighed, pursed his lips, then asked something of the girl. She responded curtly, almost rudely.
“My dear friend.” The stranger moved his bare foot, glancing first at Aspirin, then at Alyona in the corner. “Do you realize how many children are shaking in the freezing rain just about now? Some of them are beaten up. Or raped. Does that bother you at all?”
“Of course it does! But why does it matter—who are you to moralize and preach to me?” Aspirin desperately wanted to reach for the blanket. Or at least to wrap his arms around himself—the room was freezing cold now. However, he restrained himself, unwilling to show his weakness. “I didn’t invite you here tonight. Either you tell me who you are and then take the girl, or . . .”
“Don’t let him take me!” Alyona shouted.
“Or?” the stranger asked curiously.
“Or just leave,” Aspirin finished softly.
Deep in thought, the guest reached for the empty bottle with his bare foot. For one crazy second, Aspirin expected him to use his toes to unscrew the top; instead, the stranger pushed the bottle over like a bowling pin.
“This is getting rather complicated,” the stranger said. “Fine, I will tell you. I am the director of an orphanage, and this little brat ran away from us without any warning. And now I have come to bring her back. Do you have any questions?”
“I have many, but they are irrelevant—you’re lying,” Aspirin said. “You are not a director of an orphanage.”
“Then who am I?”
I would love to know that, Aspirin thought.
“Grimalsky, you don’t care about her,” the stranger said. “Where I would take her, whether it would be good or bad for her . . . she would never bother you or make you do things you do not want to do. Doesn’t that sound good?”
Aspirin said nothing.
“Weren’t you going to kick her out just before I showed up? Hmm?”
“I will deal with her myself,” Aspirin said softly. “Wherever I am going to take her, whether it would be good or bad for her . . .”
“He said it!” The girl jumped. “Did you hear that?”
Another clap of thunder outside.
“Grimalsky, you are so screwed,” the man on the sofa said sadly. “I really wanted to help you, but even good intentions in your execution end up in . . . ahem. Here, take this.” He reached inside his shirt and pulled out a leather cord with a document holder and an elongated leather case attached. He took out a laminated stamped document and dropped it on the sofa.
“Birth certificate of Grimalsky, Alyona Alexeyevna, born in 1995, mother—Kalchenko, Luba, father—Grimalsky, Alexey. I am not offering you money, since you’re well off, and Alyona is a modest, unspoiled little girl.”
“How . . .” Aspirin exhaled.
His guest rose from the sofa, putting away the document holder along with the leather case.
“It’s simple, Alexey Igorevich. I gave you an out, but you refused. So you are very, very much in it now. And so good-bye, hopefully, for a while.”
“This is a fake!” Aspirin flung himself to the sofa and grabbed the document. The names and dates were not written in longhand, like on Aspirin’s own birth certificate, but typed on what appeared to be a defective typewriter. Only the signature of the head of the Office of Vital Records was in longhand. In his opinion it was such a poor forgery, Aspirin had to laugh.
“This is a fake. It’s ridiculous.”
“It’s not ridiculous.” His guest stopped in front of the opened piano, with the head of a porcelain doll still resting on the keys. “Because the document is real—at least, it matches the appropriate entry in the Registry of Vital Records of the town of Pervomaysk.”
“I haven’t . . .” Aspirin choked with indignation. “I have never been to Pervomaysk.”
“You certainly have been to Crimea. With Luba.”
“It’s a lie! It’s a trick! I have not . . .” Aspirin turned his head in search of the girl, but she’d already left the room. “I don’t want her—take her! Get out of here, both of you!”
“I am certainly leaving,” his guest said, placing his hands on the keys. A chord hung in the air. Aspirin flinched. The guest’s fingers, long and tan, with white knuckles, flew over the keys, and Aspirin stopped speaking because those random sounds made his skin crawl.
“I did warn you,” his guest said softly. “She’s not exactly God’s gift to mankind. However, if you ever upset the newly born Alyona Alexeyevna . . . ‘Tis a vile thing to die, my gracious lord.’”
He touched the keys again. Another chord. The antique clock’s pendulum twitched and moved faster than usual, as if trying to show off its efforts.
“You can’t leave her here!” Aspirin shouted. “Do you understand? I am going to leave this apartment to a . . . children’s fund! In my will! You can’t have it!”
“Shut up,” the barefoot man said tiredly, stepping away from the piano, out the door, and into the hallway.
The girl stood with her back to the mirror, still deathly pale, still wearing the blood-spattered T-shirt. Her li
ps moved, but Aspirin could not understand the words.
“Yes,” the barefoot man said. “Here you go.”
Again he reached under his shirt and took out a small clear package. He gave it to the girl. A long pause hung in the air. Aspirin saw a set of strings through the plastic. He saw that the girl wanted the strings, but was for some reason afraid of approaching the man and taking the package out of his hand.
The barefoot man opened his hand. The package slowly (or so it seemed to Aspirin) floated onto the tiled floor.
“See you later, kid,” the barefoot man said. “Have fun crashing your dreams.”
He left, closing the door behind him; the temperature inside the apartment went up a few degrees.
Even if it hadn’t, Aspirin was sure he’d be sweating anyway.
“I had to wash everything,” Alyona said. “My T-shirt . . . and my pants. I hung them up to dry—do you mind?”
She stood in front of Aspirin, wrapped in a white towel, looking a lot younger than her real age.
“That’s fine,” Aspirin said with no particular interest. He sat on the floor sorting out his CDs. The stereo system waited patiently, its empty tongue at the ready.
“I can sleep in the chair, like last night,” Alyona mumbled.
“There is no need for that,” Aspirin said just as indifferently. “Go ahead, choose the best bed in the house. It’s all yours, no need to be shy.” He waved his hand around the room. “The apartment is yours. Well, rather, it belongs to your masters. You will probably be sent to your next assignment soon.”
“You didn’t understand anything at all,” Alyona whispered.
He looked at her. The girl wrapped the towel tighter around her body.
“I am a little hungry,” she said softly. “May I take some bread and butter? There is some in the kitchen, I bought it today.”
“Alyona.” Aspirin dropped the CDs and reached for the girl; he almost touched her shoulder, but at the last minute stopped himself. “Let’s play nice.”
“I’d like that,” she said and smiled, as if she had been waiting for those words.
“I am sorry I hit you,” Aspirin managed.
“No worries.” The girl nodded. “I understand. You were frightened.”