Chapter 14 Sergei
Sergei
“These aren’t the right numbers, Viktor.
We have twenty three Ladas, the twenty fourth is a gavno Moskovic I can’t scrap because it’s rusted through, but Bolshinko won’t haul it out of the shop.
Don’t count it.” The speaker was a man with the feel of a melted wax candle about him.
He was round in a way that perfectly filled the chair behind his office desk.
The bags under his deep-set eyes had their own bags, and somehow, he had graying bangs despite being mostly bald.
“I have nine of them in the warehouse on Pravda street, all papered, but bringing Finnish imports through the city center won’t work, so we have to move the Ladas, or scrap them,” a lanky man with perfectly parted, plastic-looking hair said.
“Shame.” The man behind the desk rubbed the bridge of his nose. “I have a soft spot for those models. Nostalgic, you know? Did you talk to that doctor—the uh—the one with the wife in the licensing office? How much does he want for the lease?”
“The lease is not a problem, but Mikhail said the entrance isn’t wide enough. It’s an old building and we’d have to extend it by a meter, and there’s a curb.”
“Blyad.” The man whom I assumed to be Sergei pushed a pair of glasses up his nose and scowled at me. “I apologize, didn’t realize we had ladies present. Misha, what’s the timeline on an engineer if we move forward with that one?”
“Ehh,” Misha shrugged, “March, probably. Just for the assessment.”
“Right. And you must be Katya Petrovna.” He stood (without taking the chair with him, impressively) and walked around the desk, extending a hand.
“I’m Sergei Stepanich. Thank you for making time for me today.
I understand it’s not very convenient, being New Year’s Day and all.
As they say, business doesn’t stop moving. ”
“Nice to meet you?” I didn’t mean for it to sound like a question, but this was far from what I expected. Finding out Vitali wasn’t a warehouse manager directly contradicted the stacks of paperwork on his boss’s desk.
“I won’t keep you all day. I heard you had a long night and probably want to get some rest. Does no good to start out the year on a bad foot. Please, sit.”
The three of us took a seat around the desk, and who I assumed to be the accountant gathered his papers and settled on a low couch on the other side of the room, eyeing the numbers.
“Katya,” Sergei began, “I was surprised to hear your name come up because I’d never heard it before, but it sounded to me like you’ve known Vitali Konstantinov for a while now. How long has it been?”
“Since August… well, September, really,” I said. The circumstances of our first meeting didn’t quite fit the criteria.
Sergei turned to the man beside me. “Ah. Misha, how long has Vitali known Katya?”
“A bit longer,” Misha said, grinning. “Longer than he knew Vera.”
Who was Vera…
“I suppose that makes sense, it was around that time—to my surprise—he told me ‘no, I can’t go to Latvia, I have a date.’” Sergei steepled his hands.
“See, I thought he was joking. When I found out he wasn’t, I told him to find a bitch in Latvia and stick his cock inside, because he was going whether he liked it or not.
Even offered to give him some numbers for the clean ones.
Of venereal and heroin. Not that it matters what they’re sticking in their veins as long as they’re not sticking it in their cunts. ”
The lease is paid up. The accounts are balanced. Let me give you a number for a prostitute on heroin. Tighten up the budget for the next fiscal year.
Misha’s face twisted, but he eyed the pen and paper laid out by Sergei’s right hand.
“See, Misha here likes the girls. But he is all about supporting the local economy, aside from the free samples he gets from Ana every week. Say, Mish, was she the one who tried to blow Vitali in the driver’s seat? Never safety first with that one.”
I was sick.
…and no longer felt bad about disliking her.
“But Vitali isn’t much for that. Which is why it was so surprising to me.
I thought he was a faggot after all. Now, the question on my mind is—what do we do from here?
We’re a family here, and we are very welcoming of new members to the family.
Maybe little Maxim and Viktor’s son can even walk to school together since they go to the same one. ”
My heartbeat was choking out the air in my lungs, so unlike his even tone. What had I done… oh God, what had I done to Mama and Maxim, getting caught up in this?
“You’re being very quiet, Katya,” Sergei noted. “Would you like something to drink?”
I began to shake my head, but Misha’s foot tapped mine, and I nodded instead. “Maybe some water?”
“You like apple juice? I just picked up some great apple juice. Never tried this brand. Always saw it on the shelves, you know? The label isn’t in Russian. Viktor, get Katya some apple juice.”
The accountant got up and never took his eyes off whatever he was reading as he reached into a mini-fridge set atop a stack of file cabinets. He slid me a juice box. The same kind Maxim liked.
“You have to pierce that little foil piece with the straw,” Sergei advised me.
“We have rules here. The wives—they’re a separate club.
Everyone knows not to ask questions, just take the money, go to a restaurant, buy yourself something while you’re out.
Then, I have my girls. And they know what’s going on—to a point.
I’ll be honest with you, I don’t like bitches because they’re liars.
They aren’t loyal. So if there isn’t a service they provide, like Ana, I just don’t tend to have them around.
You don’t fit either of those categories, do you?
So we have to make a place for you, and I don’t really know what that place could be. See my issue?”
I nodded and sucked the straw harder until all that remained were the pft-pft-pft sounds of the emptiness inside.
“For now, I’ll think on it. I think we can figure something out. You watch the news, Katya?”
“Sometimes,” I said.
“You see the dirty Chechens? What they did? Brought in whole shipments of watered-down vodka, used methanol because it was cheaper. It metabolizes as formaldehyde. All those people.” He tsk’d. “Those poor families. To lose loved ones—and on New Year’s Day of all days. God forgive them.”
A door slammed somewhere, undoubtedly putting a hole through a wall.
“Vitali is here,” Viktor muttered.
“Anyone talk to him this morning?” Sergei asked, but both men shook their heads.
He tapped his fingers together, squinting in contemplation.
Then said, “Viktor, can you take Katya home? Through the loading dock, please. Emotions are high today, with the national tragedy and all. It was so nice to meet you, Katya.”
I didn’t want to go—I wanted to see Vitali.
Or, I thought I did. My brain thought I should.
But I followed Viktor out the door, only swaying a little, and not realizing how rude I was for not saying goodbye until we were already in the black Volga and pulling out of the parking lot.
Viktor held the same tranquil expression of a person who would marry numbers if he could, and didn’t try to speak.
We drove for ten minutes (or it seemed like ten?) before he took a deep breath and sighed with his entire chest. The turn signal began clicking, and he carefully pulled to the side of the road.
This was it. I was going to get shot and my body would be found in the field somewhere.
Was ‘home’ or ‘through the loading dock’ the code word to put a bullet in my head?
It was probably ‘through the loading dock.’
Viktor kept both gloved hands on the steering wheel even after we stopped and looked ahead. I was trying to figure out what he was staring at when the knock came at my window. I yelped and twisted around to see Vitali’s hand a split second before he tore open my door.
“Sergei said,” Viktor informed him immediately, “I have to take her home.”
“I can see that.” Vitali’s voice was deadly, yet even. “What else did Sergei say?”
“That he’ll think on the situation.”
“Right. I have her from here. Katya, get in the car.”
I still hadn’t said anything and my mouth hung open, but I obeyed, awkwardly squeezing past him. The Mercedes (the one with the bullet holes no less) was parked behind us with a scary-looking set of tracks at its back. It hadn’t pulled over as smoothly as the Volga.
“Sergei said I’m to do it,” the accountant insisted, but not eagerly.
“Tell him I pulled a gun on you.”
I heard the click of a gun cocking, and threw the door open to shield myself, but there was no shot.
“Thank you,” Viktor said. Then the door slammed, and he carefully got back on the road.
Vitali stood in place, the gun slack against his thigh, and just observed me. Whatever danger surrounded him a moment ago was gone.
“Why did you do it?” he asked as he got inside. “Why did you follow me there?”
I shrugged, not meeting his eyes. “I wanted to spend New Year’s Day with you.”
He ran a hand down his face, and his fingers tapped on the steering wheel. “Katya, this is no good.”
“The club or the now?”
“Does it matter?”
“…You killed people, Vitali,” I mumbled. “A lot of innocent people. Of course it matters.”
He said nothing.
“It could have been me… it could have been Elena.”
“Are you going to leave?” he asked, and there was that note again—the pained scratch at the back of his throat like a record player skipping. “It won’t be easy now, but I’ll pay for whatever you need. I didn’t want to put you in this position.”
I nodded, but I didn’t see it as agreement, only acknowledgment, and he must have misread that because he hit the steering wheel with the force of his entire body behind his fist, the horn going off as a split-second reminder to compose himself.
He didn’t look at me, just rubbed his chin and continued staring at the road.
“I’m not leaving,” I said. “I’m not. I just need… I need to sleep. And I need to process things. And I need to sober up.”
“Are you hurt?”
“No…” I said, and only at that moment did I feel the cut near my temple ache. “Just scraped up is all.”
“I’m sorry, Katya,” he said quietly.
I started to instinctively say ‘it’s not your fault,’ but this time it was, and what do you say at a moment like that? “Me too.”
“Does Mama know?”
I shook my head. We rode in silence for a while.
Neither of us tried to turn on the radio or play a CD, just listened to the crunch of winter tires and the other cars on the road.
When we stopped at my building, he didn’t move to get out.
His not opening the door for me is probably what divorce felt like.
I reached for the handle, but he firmly gripped my thigh.
“Don’t do that. Don’t ever do that,” he said. “If I ever see you try to open a door again, you’re going to lose your unlocked-car privileges. Why did you go after me?”
The day, the very worst day (so far), had been very long, and I was still buzzed, and so, so tired. Sergei was right; emotions ran high, national tragedy and all.
“Because I was jealous,” I said. “I thought you were seeing someone else, and I didn’t want you to see anyone else.”
“And did you? See me with someone else?”
“No…”
“That’s because I don’t see anyone but you, Kotik.” He gently squeezed my leg with fingers fully capable of leaving bruises.
But, I definitely was still drunk because the words ‘is it because you drank the vodka?’ still left my mouth, and were such a bad, tasteless joke that I immediately started cackling in horror. He waited for my fit to end.
“I’m not going to have a serious conversation with you like this, Katya, but we will talk about it.”
“Can you just leave me alone…”
He turned his head sharply just as he was about to get out. “What?”
“Can you just leave me alone for a while… I’m not okay…”
The moment dropped several degrees lower than the Siberian winter outside.
“Whatever you need,” he said finally, and I got the distinct feeling he was lying, but I couldn’t prove it.
Vitali didn’t end up walking me to the apartment; he ended up carrying me. The elevator seemed to be broken.
* * *
About Russia:
gavno – shit
Volga – Soviet brand car, favored by government officials in the 90s