Chapter 33 Gone
Gone
Afternoon light reflected softly off the dust particles floating without fuss through the room scented with yesterday’s perfume, sex, and old plaster.
The pipes groaned in the bathroom with no door where I lost my virginity the night before to a man who cooked a gangster in front of me as a birthday present.
Despite everything that led to it, at that moment, feeling the debilitating ache between my legs, and the bend of the mattress under the heavy, naked body still asleep beside me, I had never been happier.
It was already past noon, but I didn’t want to look at how far past. These minutes were my own, and I could bask in them forever. Or at least until the thoughts I’d been pushing away floated to the top of my mind.
There were things I needed to know. More than I found out last night.
I couldn’t ignore Misha’s words. He was a friend—a true friend, even if rough around the edges.
But jumping to conclusions never worked out well, so I tried to keep my composure until I could bring it up with Vitali.
Up to that point, he’d been upfront about things I asked…
but I didn’t know what questions to ask, did I?
I also hadn’t expected him to do what he did the night prior…
and it would take some time to work my way through what happened.
I didn’t blame him, but that didn’t make it alright.
It seemed that with each new day, a spotlight shone on Vitali Konstantinov from an entirely different angle, and all of them were blinding me rather than revealing truths.
For now, I had to focus on what was in his control.
He didn’t have to. That’s what it came down to.
He didn’t have to do what he did last night, and didn’t have to break the man’s hand on the bus.
But he did both. For me.
The responsibility of more lives lost on Katya Petrovna’s shoulders. Just because I refused to fire that Makarov didn’t mean I didn’t cause them. Just because I refused to do it once didn’t mean I would the second time. That, I had to accept.
But I didn’t have to be the one things happened to. I could make things happen; Vitali gifted me that. Being a bystander in this world was a cheap way to spend your life. I could make it better. I only had to ask.
I slowly lifted the blankets and let my feet down onto the freezing floor, careful not to wake him, but quickly failed when the hard bar of his arm stopped me from sliding off the bed.
“No,” he groaned into the pillow, and pulled me down, tucking me partially beneath his shoulder. I waited for a minute to make sure he’d gone back to sleep, then made another (much sneakier) attempt.
I got the water warming in the kitchen and perched on the window seat above the radiator covered with a wool blanket. It would be hard not to think of radiators for a while…
The sunny day after such a long, sharp winter felt like the seasons were shifting. Soon, the ice would thin into crystalline layers atop snowmelt, and then the rains would bring wildflowers to the unpaved courtyards. Russia would wake from deep, weighty sleep.
All the ugliness of humanity could not shut out the coming of spring, but it wasn’t spring yet. We had some time to go, bundled up against the cold.
I needed to find Elena. Call Mama. See how Maxim is doing in school.
Figure out what to do about work, because there was no doubt my job was gone, and it didn’t matter how much money Vitali was funneling through his secret channels, I wasn’t going to be the black and white wife on TV mopping to the tune of Soviet cartoons.
But I did need to pick out wallpaper for our new home…
That giddiness silenced everything else. A blank slate to do with as I wished, and I didn’t even know where to start. Granted, it would still be some time before it was ready for that but… I had always been one for daydreams. You have to be when life is cold and gray most of the year.
The kettle murmur grew into a piercing whistle rattling the burner, but just as I turned around, it stopped.
Vitali held it up, still squinty-eyed with hair pressed down in different directions. He was shirtless and infinitely distracting with the low-riding sweatpants resting on his hips.
“Good morning…” he mumbled, voice scratchy with sleep.
“Afternoon.” I smiled and hung my legs off the edge, not quite touching the floor.
“You realize I have an electric kettle…” he said, grabbing for the instant coffee on a shelf I could only dream of reaching. “I don’t know why you never use it.”
“I’m old-fashioned.”
He grunted, clearly in no mood.
“Oh, I’m just going to have tea—” I started as he scooped a spoonful into a second mug.
He stared at it, then shoved the whole thing toward me to figure out.
“Are you alright?” I asked, a knot forming in my stomach. The morning after losing my virginity was not an ideal time for relationship anxieties.
He rolled a shoulder, focusing on the swirling steam. “Not good thoughts this morning, Kotik.”
“Did I do something wrong?” A stupid question, but instinctual. I would grow out of the habit later on.
“No.” He faced me, leaning against the counter with his fingers tapping the cup. “I have to go in to work soon.”
“Today?”
“I told you, there are parts of my job that aren’t in my control.”
“Vitali…”
He studied me, dragging his gaze from my bare feet to the braless sweater, and finally to my face. “Maybe you can go shopping today. Go see Mama. Take Mama shopping.”
“That’s not the point.”
“Katya.” He rubbed his brow and sighed, then opened his arms. “Come here.”
There was no pride in how fast I slipped off the window seat and tiptoed across the cold, cracked linoleum. He lifted me off the ground and plopped me right onto the counter, remaining between my legs. Having them open at that angle was a stark reminder of how sore I was.
“Best night of my life,” the mighty mind-reader Vitali said, “but it doesn’t change the world around us…
” He glanced down and grinned at how I squirmed.
“Mostly. And I would like nothing more than to continue it into tomorrow, but I have to go, and I don’t know when I’ll be back, so I don’t want you waiting. ”
It was the ‘I don’t know when I’ll be back’ that tipped me over. I didn’t want to bring any of it up that morning, but for all I knew, he might disappear for weeks, and I could coach myself through it all I wanted, but this couldn’t wait. “Can we talk first?”
“Depends. About what?”
“You said that you could get me anything, as long as I asked and gave you time, right?”
“Yes.”
“I want you to get Mama and Maxim foreign passports.”
He frowned, searching my face. “Why?”
“I don’t want them to be a part of this—this thing. I’ve placed them in enough danger. I need to know that if anything happens, they can leave.”
“And you want to leave with them…”
The small kitchen had a draft, but I hadn’t noticed it until right then.
“No. That’s why I want them to have the passports. Because I know I’m not leaving, but if I’m not leaving, it means they will always be a part of this Russia, and I don’t want that for them.”
He didn’t believe me, because his grip tightened, as if his fingers were the only thing keeping me from getting on a plane.
“They’ll be far better off somewhere else than they could be here…” I whispered and stroked his disheveled hair. “You want that for Dasha—and I for Mama and Maxim.”
It was the right thing to say, so why didn’t it feel like it?
“Alright… It will take a few weeks, but I’ll get that for them. There is more paperwork if they are to remain out of the country, and it’s harder to secure, but I’ll do that for you, Kotik.”
I kissed him. He leaned his forehead against my shoulder, and I felt the tremor of his hard gulp, sharing in the pain of the agreement. This wasn’t just me sending my family away.
“Thank you.”
“Let’s get some food. It’s been a long day already, and I just woke up.”
We did, and I had beet salad before he dropped me off. Then, I checked on Mama and helped her clean out my once-briefly-occupied room. I stopped outside the apartments and gave Pavel and Roman the meat pies she baked. And then I came home to a small vase with three red roses.
I cried because it was too soon to sleep in an empty bed.
And then I received a call from Elena’s mama saying she’d gone missing.