Chapter 2 #2
“Tea, no sugar,” Vitali told the girl studying him from behind the counter, “and one with two cubes, and lemon.”
“We don’t have change for that large of a banknote,” she said as he slipped her the money.
“Keep it,” he said, and grabbed the tea she’d set out just past a plastic door. All he was missing to be a flashy New Russian was a bright red jacket.
Vitali didn’t break eye contact with me as he handed me the paper cup, and didn’t hide his fingers brushing mine. All I wanted was to see him get nervous, but it seemed he was the exception to the anxiety that plagued the rest of humankind.
“Thank you,” I said, and tried to take a sip just to have something in my mouth, but it was scalding and did not come to my rescue. “It didn’t look like you enjoyed the party very much the last time I saw you.”
There was that flicker of hesitation, but he recovered quickly.
“Just a bad day. Hoped to see someone there, but they didn’t make it.”
“A girl?” I asked and bit my cheek, very close to running into traffic. My crazy was showing in the seams of the evening, and I couldn’t let it be exposed. Especially because I didn’t like him, and therefore didn’t care if it was a girl.
He chuckled. “Do you think I meant to meet another woman there, and chose you as second best? That is a very interesting thought, Kotik, but you don’t know me yet, so I will forgive it.”
I lowered my eyes. The pet name sent shivers down my spine. Highly inappropriate shivers, because he was essentially a stranger.
But I didn’t want him to stop.
“Who, then?”
“A friend. How long have you and Elena known each other?”
Why was he constantly asking about her?
“Since we were very young,” I said. “You know Elena?”
“We have friends in common.”
Odd, because Elena didn’t know him.
“She does have a lot of friends,” I mumbled. “Tell me something about yourself. Do you like your job?”
“It has its good days. Gives me the freedom to pursue my interests.” He paused, taking a sparing sip. “Lots of downtime.”
“Which are?”
“A bit of everything. I like to learn. What is it that you do in your free time, Katya?”
“I read a lot. Unfortunately, there isn’t much time for anything else between work and Mama. Maybe when Maxim gets older, he can take some things over, but right now it’s just me.”
“What would you do then?”
I grinned. “Write, I think. I enjoyed it in primary school. But it’s one of those things that doesn’t make it into adulthood unless you can make some money off of it.”
“So you don’t write at all?”
“Well… here and there, I suppose. I can’t help it. I’ll read one of the greats, like Chekhov, and I get these ideas, but there is never time for more than a short story.”
“Chekhov,” he repeated, sounding it out. “I am not a reader, but I am familiar with ‘the Black Monk.’ I can’t say I know any other of his works.”
An entirely new person walked beside me. This wasn’t the same man I met days ago who gave me bits and pieces of a conversation like ransom notes cut out of magazines.
“And what did you think of that one?” I asked.
“I like the idea that things are not black and white. Kovrin understood himself, even if he was maddened. It was the world that didn’t understand him.”
“Maddened? He was completely insane.”
“And those around him thought it best that he be cured. Which in turn led to his death.”
I smiled to myself, because his one story was my least read and I couldn’t remember who I sided with when I read it. All I had in mind was the man pacing and yelling at a chair throughout the whole thing until his wife got sick of it.
“What else interests you?” he asked, catching me off guard.
I took a second to answer, because these questions brought on whimsical thoughts that I wasn’t sure I liked to share with people.
Talking about dreams was wonderful, but every dream I had was from a time I was free to pursue them, and didn’t.
I might have been young still, but it wasn’t about me.
It was about the world around me, and all the opportunity I would never have.
“I enjoyed ballet,” I said, then quickly added, “Enjoy, that is. I like to take Mama sometimes and watch it on TV.”
“What do you like about it?”
“It takes strength to create something beautiful.”
He nodded thoughtfully. “It does. You danced?”
I chuckled. “I did, for a while. I trained constantly. I liked that it wasn’t easy—it took sacrifice.
You should have seen how beat up I was afterwards.
There was no time my feet didn’t hurt, but it was a good hurt.
” Before he could ask more questions about me and avoid answering his own, I added, “What is it that you like to learn about, if you don’t read? ”
He sipped, but his tea was just as hot. He took the burn with more dignity than I did. “Electronics. It takes patience to create something beautiful.”
Neither of us looked at each other, but I knew he grinned too. I had to give him that; it didn’t take him many words to melt a girl’s heart. Not mine, of course, but someone’s.
Lights began coming on across the windows in the apartment buildings along the road.
“It’s getting dark,” I noted, and clutched my tea tighter to warm my palms.
He stopped me with a hand on my shoulder, guiding me to face him. “Katya, I want to take you on a real date.”
I hoped the soft light of the setting sun hid the coloring on my cheeks. There was no reason to say no, now. No reason but the little voice at the back of my head still telling me that this was too good to be true, and truth wasn’t this good.
“Why did you hurt that man on the bus?” I asked, the words already formed by the time I realized why I was asking.
When I was drunk, the memory seemed like some romantic gesture, but having Vitali be real and in front of me changed the way I saw it.
The man screamed. He screamed. I was sure I heard the bones crunch, and the clawed mess moving under the still-unbroken skin would never be whole again. It was the hand he used to touch me.
“Why did you tell me you had no phone, Katya? You’re not going to lie to me.”
It was an audacious almost-question, but I buckled anyway.
“I won’t,” I said quietly, and the next thing I felt was the leather glove under my chin, pushing it higher with the gentleness of a wound spring. He made me look him in the eyes.
“What won’t you do, Katya?”
“I will not lie to you.”
“Then we will go somewhere on Saturday, and it won’t be pizza, because you don’t like pizza,” he said, gently giving my chin slack so I could nod in agreement. “Let’s find out what you do like.”
He had me at the podyezd the moment the street lamps turned on. Darkening, but not dark. This time, he typed in the code. He took me as far as the elevator, but did not go up. Instead, he leaned on the open doors that had no chance of closing on him.
“I’ll see you Saturday, Kotik,” he said, and reached over to tuck a strand of hair behind my ear. My nerves screamed, knowing he was about to lean in and kiss me.
But he didn’t. He grinned and allowed the doors to fall closed. Just before the elevator took off, I heard the click of his lighter.
When Saturday came, Vitali did not show up.
* * *
About Russia
babushka — a grandmother
podyezd - an entrance to the stairwell in apartment buildings. Normally, these are metal doors and they are locked, only accessible via key or keypad. There is a button for guests to buzz the needed apartment to get let in
Fun fact about the double door system: Most Russian apartments had two doors installed, although the steel outside one was expensive at the time.
The inner door would usually be wooden and padded for insulation and noise reduction.
The outer door could be wooden as well (if you couldn’t afford the steel security door) and provide an extra layer of insulation as warm air got trapped between the two.
Fun fact about the first McDonalds: it opened in Moscow, Russia in 1990. Having one in a mid-sized city was very rare.