I stroked his hand, and his fingers curled.
“God… Vitali…”
“It’s alright Kotik. The full story, and we don’t have to talk about it again.” He tugged at the top two buttons of his shirt, and they came open, revealing the tattoo and his hard swallows. “I did what I could, but I was fifteen and spent most nights sleeping under the heating pipes between buildings, because they didn’t freeze over. I hardly ever went home. But my parents got hold of the baby, and I came back. For her. I thought they’d wait to hurt her until she was older. Maybe I could figure out a solution by then—get a job, my own apartment. Naive, but I was a kid.And then I saw my mother knock her out of the way when she was hauling laundry. I knew how hard the kick was because I’d been on the receiving end of it so many times.”
This wasn’t the story Misha told me. It would hurt less if it was.
“I lost it. I was used to getting the hell beaten out of me; I was a scrawny kid. But then, I saw that—and I went to Yevgeny whose papa served in WWII. I borrowed a gun, and I shot them.”
“You were just fifteen…” I whispered to myself, and tears I held back spilled.
“I’d never shot a gun before that day,” he admitted, rubbing the back of his neck where the tight collar left red spots across his skin. “Dasha cried because it was deafening. I didn’t know it would be so loud. We always heard shots nearby and they echoed through the apartment—but these moved the air. They changed the world around me. At that moment, they were fireworks, but the silence after did not feel like justice—because it’d been too fast. Speed is mercy. Still, their blood was my rage seeping out, and that was enough.”
He still hadn’t looked at me, and I scooted closer, between his knees. He hung his head, and I tried to lift his chin and look at him, but he gently took my hand and held it in his, not letting me see his eyes.
“I hadn’t seen Maria for months at that point. Yevgeny said she was dead, but we couldn’t prove it. Girls disappeared all the time; all it took was going to one wrong house. There are a lot of wrong houses,” he said. “I wasn’t in a position to take care of Dasha then. She was so little.”
“What did you do?”
“I bought paper off a girl I knew at the hospital and figured out a way to lift the name and write in another. She wasn’t myniece anymore; she became my sister. And we had no need to prove her mother was dead because I killed her. Dasha stayed with some neighbors for a time, and then the state came and got her because some Americans in Moscow read the article and wanted to take her when they left. I didn’t know where they took her for many years. And then, well, you know what happened then.”
The tears were streaming, and I sobbed, and only then did he look up. His eyes were clear. His cold knuckles brushed away my tears.
“No tears, Kotik. Not for me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I sobbed. “I’m so sorry… I should have asked earlier…”
“I’m certain whatever version you got of that was far more to the point. But life is complicated, isn’t it? Does knowing this justify me in your eyes?” He smiled to himself. “What else do you want to know, Kotik?”
I wanted to know about New Zealand, but God… I didn’t think I could handle any more. Slow… I needed to go slow. That’s what I kept telling myself. Every day after Elit.
In the end, I didn’t need to ask.
“I suppose this means you’re also aware of New Zealand,” he said. “How much did they tell you?”
“Just the tattoo…” I squeezed out. “But you don’t have to tell me…”
“The tattoo it is then. I didn’t lie,” he said. “It really is a noose, just in different handwriting. You see the result. You called Misha my right-hand man, yet I have a feeling he’s the person who told you. So what loyalty do you think there is between us? If they didn’t think me a psychopath, I’d be a joke to them. It could be that I am, still.”
“Can you just explain to them..?”
“If they thought otherwise, I’d have a lot more problems.” Vitali laughed unhappily. “They might as well have hung me in New Zealand, as far as my homeland is concerned. A lot of things are closed to me now. I know you want to understand, but I don’t want you to. It is a hard world, Katya. I was lucky to have made it out. I wasn’t the only kid there, but I was the only one to leave.” He took a long, thoughtful exhale. “Blyad, I couldn’t even kiss you for three months, and trust me Katya, I was dying to. But I’m broken, Kotik.” He cradled my wet face and lifted my chin. “You knew what happened to me, or at least suspected, and you stayed. So why don’t you tell me if this changes anything?”
I shook my head and had to blink away the drops collecting on my eyelashes. “No…”
But it did. It changed everything.
His thumb lightly pressed my bottom lip, parting my mouth. He clicked appreciatively.
“You look so pretty with your mascara smeared like that.”
I let out another sob, but still smiled up at him.
“Come here,” he said, and lifted me easily, like a doll, and set me in his lap with my knees at his sides, straddling him. One hand slid under my thigh, and the dress rode up, leaving me exposed. His eyes did not leave mine. “Don’t cry, Katya. Such is life.”
I traced the edge of his shirt collar with a fingertip, and for the first time dreaded seeing him up close.
“May I?” I whispered, and he gave me a shallow nod, tilting his head to expose his throat. My fingers trembled as I folded down the collar against his collarbones.
