Chapter 39 Vitali Who Was Vera?
Vitali: Who Was Vera?
Vera, as in faith.
It’s appropriate because I don’t actually know if she’s real—all I have to go off of is her smiling face on a pamphlet to some weight loss or soul-healing seminar called ‘Insight.’ I picked it up off the sidewalk on my way home.
It’s my eighteenth birthday, and I’m sitting alone on the bottom bunk of an otherwise empty room, picking at the skin peeling off as the tattoos heal.
I shouldn’t be picking at it, but it’s so goddamn itchy I can’t stop.
Still an improvement from my last birthday, I’m not sure I even knew when it passed by, but it’s better that way.
I stare at the pamphlet, and I’m frustrated because I hate the way it makes me feel. I just want to throw away that piece of paper, but I can’t, so instead I go to Insight on the appointed date.
Vera.
They run these meetings once a month, and it turns out they just bring in foreigners to talk about spiritual healing, then everyone gets a candle and waves it around in the dark. I take a candle, too.
Vera is in the front row nearest the podium; she has her eyes closed, and they’re twitching a little as they do when you’re in prayer.
Seeing her makes the back of my skull itch, like the tattoos, but in a way that sends zaps down my spine.
I feel as though I know her from somewhere and have for a long time, but that can’t be right.
I don’t like what happens at these things; it seems like a religious thing, and my relationship with God isn’t great. But it doesn’t matter because this isn’t God, just candles and people’s dead relatives telling them what animal their spiritual self would be.
I got to be a cat.
I followed her after, because it seemed important. I made sure not to step on cracks in the sidewalk because it might kill her somehow.
It only got worse from there.
I needed the entire picture, so I found out where she worked.
She’s a baker, so she gets up early, and this works for me because I can go straight to work after seeing her off.
Sometimes I’m late because I smoke a few cigarettes across the street and watch her at the register.
The bread smells nice, but I never go in.
My head is ticking. Kind of how bombs tick on TV. In reality, if there’s a clock on one, it’s quiet. You don’t want people to know it’s there. Most kinds don’t even have that, but if you put your ear real close, you can hear the wires settling.
At times, I’ve thought myself born a contained explosive.
The flesh and thoughts and dreams just grew around it, encasing it in something that could house the promised destruction.
But that doesn’t mean it’s safe, only hidden, and all it takes is a hit hard enough to set it off.
I’ve been hit many times, by many things, but the explosion never makes it out—only shreds and shapes the form around it until all I am is a consequence of not being handled with care.
I lose some time because my brain flashes, and suddenly there she is, and she’s looking at me, and we’re in an alley.
I panic, because I’m too close and she’s frightened.
She doesn’t know me yet like I know her, and she mouths a ‘please.’ She didn’t see my face; it’s dark.
I take off running because I don’t know how I got there, and I’m scared I’ve already said something wrong.
Sometimes I snap, and everything loses focus, and that’s how bad decisions happen but I’m not around for that.
I turn the lights off because the lights are distracting, and I sit in the dark just trying to stop the wires from shifting at the back of my brain.
I know she feels it too and it’s probably very frustrating for her.
I don’t care, she isn’t my problem, but I have to figure it out on my end or I’ll go insane.
Sergei gets me an apartment because his guys think I’m weird, and he doesn’t like the way I watch them.
I know what he’s thinking, but he can’t kill me unless the big guys in Moscow give him the go-ahead, and I’m still on trial.
I know if I wasn’t carrying, his men would try to beat the shit out of me, and my fractured ribs haven’t even healed yet.
Even if he beats the shit out of me but it doesn’t matter.
Nothing matters. That is why Vera matters.
Isolating me feels like a punishment, until it occurs to me that I can bring her there without them listening in because I don’t need those problems.
I can’t stop thinking about her and she thinks about me too.
I don’t know if this is love—but I hope not.
There are many types of love and some of them hurt so I’d rather not mess with that.
All I know is she has to be around, but I don’t have to love her.
Like a coworker you’re assigned to be around all the time.
Talking to her becomes my goal.
It’s harder than I thought. After five meetings at Insight, she stops coming. I think it’s because she noticed I get there early so I can be in one of the front rows.
The ticking is driving me nuts, it’s like a countdown until we can be together, whatever that involves. I don’t want her to touch me, and I don’t want to touch her, but this may be a problem because I don’t know how to tell her that.
I see her after work and invite her over. She doesn’t remember me from the alley, but still doesn’t want to go with me, so I have to convince her. She screams that she doesn’t know me, and she runs, and I don’t get to her in time.
The next day, I can’t risk that happening, so I bring a gag.
It’s winter, and at that hour it’s still dark outside.
She doesn’t scream this time, and I’m bigger, so she can’t run.
I want to talk about this and figure out what to do so we don’t have to feel like this, but she isn’t cooperating.
She needs time to calm down, so I take her to my place.
She’s crying and begging, and I’m getting mad because I’m trying to have a conversation, and she won’t stop blubbering. I block the door, but she runs and locks herself in the bathroom. I don’t care, I’m going to bed, she’ll be more agreeable in the morning.
It’s the middle of the night when she tries to leave again, and this time I get really mad because I made up the couch for her and she isn’t listening.
I tell her if she doesn’t stop screaming, I’ll gag her again.
I can’t go to work like that because the door opens from the inside.
If I let her leave, she’ll never come back, and I need answers. We need a plan.
Just talk to me, Vera—fuck. Stop screaming. Tell me what you fucking want with me!
I don’t know what happens, but I fade in and out, and then I’m not where I was.
Now I’m shouting her name, and she’s on the other side of the bathroom door.
I’m already kicking it, and it cracks. It flies off a hinge and hangs by the other.
She’s scrunched up underneath the sink, and she isn’t crying anymore, just sitting there, and I don’t think I can get her to talk.
I call Sergei. I’m not going to explain the situation because I can’t risk him letting her go home, but I tell him I’m not coming in.
My day is spent looking for hardware while she’s trapped in the bedroom because I need to install an outside lock so I can leave the apartment without her getting out.
She starts begging me to let her go and I tell her I’m doing my best to deal with our situation because we’re going to be together and have to figure out what that means with her job and if I have to meet her family or not.
Another flash, and the front door slams behind me—I’m flying past the stair landing, panicking, because she made it out and she’s in her underwear halfway down the first flight of stairs.
I’m faster, and I bar her across the waist, dragging her back.
Now I really can’t let her out, and I worry because the neighbors might call the police—and Sergei won’t like that.
I can’t have Sergei find out about Vera.
When she calms down we’ll have to look for a new apartment together because I don’t want the neighbors to see me as that guy.
The underwear is not my fault, I never touched her. I have to pray she doesn’t touch me because I’ve had some trouble and it’s even hard to shake hands. I don’t want to touch her, so we will just have to learn to live like that.
I learn she tried to use her jeans to climb out the window and onto a neighboring balcony, but wasn’t strong enough.
I’m tired, I don’t sleep, and I’m trying to keep my life together.
I’ve barely had time to breathe since I got back and nothing is going the way I need.
I didn’t want to be in a relationship—what kind of life is this?
I don’t even have a kettle. I’d like to make her tea, make her feel better.
More at home. But then I think about it and maybe it’s best I don’t because she might throw it in my face and that’s about the last part of me that doesn’t have any scars.
I can’t hide my face in public like I can with the other ones.
I don’t have time to get her household stuff because Sergei shows up at my door, and he’s got guys with him.
I attempt to explain, but things are crashing in the bedroom because she hears people, and she’s trying to get their attention.
I just want to talk to her, and I don’t know what to do because Sergei is shouting, and they’re going to break down the door.
Another flash.
There’s no more Vera, just a concrete floor. I’m on my knees, and I can feel the cold mouth of the barrel against the back of my head. I don’t look up because I know what’s happening, and those are Sergei’s shoes pacing back and forth.
“You motherfucker,” he’s muttering. “Are you fucking kidding me?”
I don’t try to explain because I think I’m in a nightmare. They took her somewhere, and I probably can’t find her. This is the end.
“You crazy piece of shit,” a voice at my back says. I know it’s Denis, and he’s holding the gun. I decide then that I will kill him. I’m not crazy. I don’t like him saying that.
Sergei crouches beside me and slaps me hard across the cheek. “You know how many people were out looking for her? Do you? Her whole fucking family! I don’t fucking need these problems! Hear me? I don’t fucking need you.”
If he doesn’t shoot me, I have to get my act together.
He’s right—he doesn’t need me.
So I have to become someone he needs.
I can learn… I have to learn…
“You gonna be a good boy?” Sergei asks. I’ll kill him someday too. “Because you’re not finding your bitch ever again. I made sure of that.”
I lose myself again, but I don’t die. Whatever happened, I woke up beaten to shit in the back of the warehouse with the door locked.
He kept me there for six days, and then I figured out how to read the barcodes on his stock. Whatever he needed the nitroglycerin for, I had better uses for it.
I got some shrapnel blown into my back, but what remained of the door opened, and Sergei never mentioned not needing me again.
He was right—I couldn’t find Vera.
I looked for a long time. Maybe she met someone on the internet.
Could be a foreigner, that’s why her last name doesn’t appear in any databases.
She probably married off. Because I scared her, and she had no other choice.
We have to live being apart and I have to find a way to be okay with that because I have no other choice.
I would repeat this every minute of the day until eventually the words became a truth that I could keep locked up, because thinking otherwise might set me off. Because it’s ticking, still ticking, and I can’t get it to stop.
I wish I had music loud enough to drown the sounds out.