Somewhere in the building at my back, a window slid open and the sound of a nasally talk radio host began announcing the news.
Then—
I smelled him in the same instant his hands dug into my purse. Pungent vodka-marinated skin and unwashed clothes were amplified by the cold air as they hit my nostrils. He didn’t tug—he ripped the bag off my shoulder.
I knew better. I always held it protectively trapped under my arm and close to my body, but the man didn’t care because he meant for me to struggle. It only slowed him for five seconds. Long enough for me to scream, but not long enough for anyone to come running out of the tram stop shelter.
And then the world flashed white and blasted my ears with a deafening pop as I went flying backwards and onto my butt.
The man who fired the gun kept walking. Just like that. One moment I could only see my attacker, then a passerby with his head down reached into his jacket without so much as slowing, andbang. I was splattered in a stranger’s blood with bits of what used to be him clinging to my frost-covered coat. The sweet iron overtook the smell of vodka. The body buckled, still clutching the purse strap he’d torn off. I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t scream, just stared at the stranger’s back.
It was the same man who’d followed me to work—the one in that wide coat and the ushanka.
People shrieked, and someone bellowed for the police, but it sounded far away. My ears rang. The sense overcame me that I shouldn’t wait—I shouldn’t be there when they arrived—so I slapped away the people trying to help me, and I ran, all the way home.
That night was sleepless. My drumming heartbeats woke me every time I nodded off.
I had never seen someone murdered before. I hadn’t seen a dead body up close, and even from afar it was of natural causes and guns weren’t natural.
By morning, my head pounded and I called work saying I wouldn’t be coming in. I lied to Mama and said I was sick just so I could stay in my room. Of course, this was wildly counterproductive because she took it as her civic duty to check on me every fifteen minutes from then on.
‘Katya let’s check your temperature.’
‘Katya here is a pot of potatoes—put your head over it.’
‘Katya wrap this scarf around your head and soak your feet.’
Finally, I told her it was just a headache and got smacked on the back of the head, although that was probably not one of the remedies.
The phone didn’t ring that day, but by evening, someone leaned in on the keypad downstairs, sending a buzz throughout the apartment that rattled the dishes. Maxim was the first to the receiver. He pressed the key to open the downstairs door, shrugging at Mama and I when questioned.
“Some guy is here.”
“You buzzed a stranger in?” I hissed, rushing to the door and all but slamming against the peephole. “Maxim!”
At my back, Mama began her lecture as she ushered him away, and I waited, holding my breath.
The police. It had to be the police. I washed blood out of my clothes the night prior, and now I stood on my tippy toes with my cheek to the metal, waiting to be arrested.
The elevator opened, and the peephole was immediately blacked out. The rapid knocks vibrated through my skull before I could jerk back from the door.
“Who is it?” I asked tightly. I wasn’t about to open it, possibly ever again in my life.
“Katya, it’s Mikhail,” the voice boomed and I blinked dumbly, then squinted as if that’d make me see through the steel.
“Misha?”
“I’m not staying, just dropping off something for Vitali.”
I swung the door open to Misha awkwardly holding a bouquet of red roses. He gripped them like a snow shovel.
“Oh…” I said.
“Don’t cry about it,” Misha said. “You know how hard it is to find roses in November?Blyad.”
“Who is it?” Mama yelled from the other room.
Misha’s face went pale even in the jaundiced light of the stair landing. “Katya, hate to do this, but I gotta interview you,” he said, careful not to get Mama’s attention.
