It was hardly as if everything started going great after that. I made good use of my hundred rubles. Maybe it wasn’t enough to buy the world, but for me, it was big.
I started with some adjustments to make our rathole a bit more livable. Stasia, who for some reason had followed me home to deliver the borscht, narrowed her eyes when she saw where I was living. “Nyet, this won’t do!” she said.
The same word again, but how could the effect be so profoundly different? I was starting to seriously believe she was a witch and that every word that came out of her mouth was a magic spell.
“You have young women living here—you have to consider their needs!”
With that, we cleaned out one of the nearby earthen pipes, chased out the rats, and arranged things to make four improvised rooms. In other words, one for me, one for Valery, and one for each of my little sisters.
That meant the next thing we were going to need was furniture, but that problem was practically solved. When I went to see the mobster about the money, I asked him to introduce me to a good pawnshop—a place that didn’t ask why you were selling what you were selling. There was a middleman’s fee, of course. The junk dealer had taught me about that a long time ago.
“Capitalism is a cliff,” he’d said. “And people who don’t pay their money are right on the edge.”
The mobster chuckled about me being just a kid, but then he smiled and jotted an address on a piece of paper.
The pawnbroker he introduced me to looked sterner than my old junk dealer; he didn’t have much to say to the likes of me, but he knew how to make money. Thanks to that, I was able to resume my junk-collection activities. I had my brother and sisters begin taking on work as well. Between us, we made some money. Our rooms got warmer, more pleasant, more livable. We started to have food on a regular basis.
Funny how much bigger the world looked on a full stomach.
Mariya wanted a watch. My little sister really liked machines, apparently. I hadn’t known.
Valery…he was crazy about cars. I would bring home pulp magazines, and the little bastard would clip out all the car pictures.
As for Nora, she liked cute things, clothes and accessories, and she would go gaga for snacks. Tartlets, say.
Learn to read and write, I’d told them. And then learn some numbers.
I’d find them a textbook the next time I was out. When I said that, they were all shocked, or that’s how I remember it.
“Do you really mean that, Danya?” Mariya asked shyly, concern written across her usually inexpressive features as she tugged on my sleeve. “We don’t really need… I mean, we have enough.”
“Don’t argue,” I said. “Just let your big brother handle it.”
Frankly, I was sort of embarrassed to call myself that.
Mariya was a smart girl, but I couldn’t send her to school. We didn’t have passports—domestic travel certificates—so on paper, we technically didn’t exist. I guess I sort of saw it as my duty to help her study all she wanted just the same.
To my surprise, having a new goal put a spring in my step. I felt like I was moving forward.
A goal.
Stasia.
“Oh! Danya, you’re going to Stasia’s place again, aren’t you?!” Nora said, catching on immediately, after which she teased me mercilessly. Among us siblings, to be found out by Nora was as good as to be found out by everyone. Mariya gave me a cold look, while Valery just stared stupidly, not sure what to do.
I couldn’t let go of Stasia. I started visiting her before and after each job.
Visiting Stasia took money. It was only right that I bring her some cash. Natural, really.
I wanted to keep my brother and sisters full and fed. I wanted them to have clothing. And to buy them all the things they desired.
“I’ll help you, Big Brother,” Valery said with a serious look on his face. “I’m a man, too, you know.”
“Dumbass,” I said, grinning and elbowing him. I was surprised to find his words somehow gave me a rush of happiness. “You’re just a kid.”
I continued to earn money. I’d never dreamed there would come a time when I could earn more money than just what I needed to secure food for the day. The price on Ivan had been bigger than anything I would have dreamed of in my young days.
So I made my way as a Janitor, taking every job anyone would give me. I ran, I shot, I nearly got killed, I killed instead, I got my money, and then the next day came.
The grind was always the same. But although it never changed, it did get better.
It wasn’t that it was never dangerous. I’d come really close to dying plenty of times. But it was sure a lot better than the time I set Nora and Mariya shouting and crying because I came home a bloody mess.
Valery and I had gone to Stasia for help, feeling like a nuclear warhead had fallen on us.
Stasia.
—Who’d ever fall in love with a girl like her?
I remember thinking that as if it was yesterday.
But hey, a person could fall in love with a goat, if the time and place were right.
So let me correct myself.
Who’d ever fall in love with a girl like her? Except me. Except my family.
And so…
It wasn’t like stuff suddenly started to go our way, miraculously or magically or whatever. We made it go our way, by hook or by crook. And I intended to keep making it.
Thanks to that, I was alive. We were alive.
Which tells you what kind of story this is.