After that, I ran as fast as I could. After all, I couldn’t have some other jackass coming around saying, “Yeah, I was the one who did him in.”
I dove for the first public telephone I found. I scrounged in a pocket until I felt the reassuring touch of my small change. Phew.
I put the kopecks in the silver case that stood silently in the middle of the box and worked the center dial. The speaker, located in the upper right, crackled, and I heard the voice of a mafia brigadier.
“Chto s toboi <Yeah, what>?” he asked.
“I killed Ivan,” I said.
“Who?”
“It’s Danya,” I said into the mic in the corner of the box, as loudly as I could. “Danila Kragin!”
“Not you, dumbass,” the voice sneered. “Who’s Ivan?”
“The vyshibala,” I elaborated. “A hundred rubles.” It seemed like enough to buy the whole world.
“Zdorovo <Good work>. Come by tomorrow to collect the money.”
Then the guy unceremoniously hung up. I was sure he would do some legwork, and by the following day, he would know I was the one who had done the job.
All right. I was getting some money tomorrow. Until then, I didn’t have any money.
—“Tsk.”
I clicked my tongue and ran out of the telephone box, the PPSh still hanging from my shoulder. Some dumb kid Janitor who’d just iced a mob enforcer wouldn’t be smart if he stuck around near the scene. I’d be lucky if the worst thing his colleagues did was beat me to death.
I zigged right, I zagged left, racing around the back alleys until I could hardly breathe. Then I pulled off my balaclava—or I tried to. I forgot that it was already in my pocket.
I let out a breath.
Neon flashed among the claustrophobic concrete buildings, and gray snow drifted through the air.
✦ ✦ ✦
Why did I have to go running around the city out of breath? I didn’t stop to consider the question until about the time I reached Gorky Street. Twilight had already pressed in on the world; it was only thanks to the neon bulbs that it wasn’t fully dark.
“Karmanniy proyektor <Pocket projection devices>, snova televizor <rotating electric telescope>, October 24, 1970—Zond VIII moon landing!”
“Hey, what the hell’s this thing someone dropped?”
“Workers, let us buy cheap bread! Every kind of bread, you can get at the Crop Processing Company Federation!”
“The Ministry of Textile Production sends word to all women! Flawless and hygienic nylon stockings are now available for you!”
“Moonshine will send you to your grave. Drink safe, legally brewed alcohol from only approved distilleries!”
“The latest LSI games! Help Captain Ilya Murometz defeat the wily schemes of the capitalists!”
“The healthiest and most delicious morozhenoe <ice cream>! GOST state standard-approved!”
“Mayonnaise—the perfect condiment for every meal! Bottles can be returned to store where purchased. Courtesy of the Ministry of Food Production.”
Announcements in grating mechanical voices created a cacophony on top of the eye-piercing neon advertisements. Although I registered the messages, the sounds were starting to make me dizzy.
This street could take you all the way to the Kremlin, and it was always packed. There was food, clothing, alcohol, and other entertainments, all right here. So the militsiya kept a close eye on it—supposedly secretly, but everybody knew.
One more step, and I would have been there, on Gorky Street. But instead, I stopped.
I just stared silently at the headache-inducing brightness and overwhelming noise.
Then I turned and rushed into the back alleys.
There was more snow than I ever wanted to see again in my life, and every breath I took pierced my lungs with the cold. But it still seemed better to me than being out there on that riotous street.
The particular back alley I chose to flee down, though, had women in it.
We were just one street removed from all the overstimulation of Gorky Street, yet it was almost unfathomably quiet back here. There were a few kvartiriy, lonely and forgotten but better than the rathole where I lived.
There were women around—some standing, some sitting—doing whatever they wanted, I guess.
Look, I was no idiot. I knew the women were engaged in a trade that, let’s say, didn’t exist on our motherland’s television broadcasts.
They were just like Janitors. Which was to say, just like me. The CRT TV broadcast could try as hard as it wanted to make us disappear, but that didn’t mean we would actually go away. It was enough for them, though, if they just didn’t see us. Real stupid.
These women had been chased off the cyber net, off the CRT, out of the written texts, away from the train stations—and now they were here.
I jammed my hands into my pockets and walked quietly past.
However I chose to spend my time until tomorrow, my last few coins were all mine. We’d blown through the rubles I’d gotten the previous day, but what was left belonged to me.
So I— Well, I hadn’t really intended to stop walking. Hadn’t really intended at all.
“Hey, um…”
—Who’d ever fall in love with a girl like her?
I remember thinking that as if it was yesterday.
I was standing under a heavy, lead-colored sky, ashen snow drifting down from the clouds.
I was walking streets that were lined with huge metal pipes like a giant’s intestines, which sang with the hot water running through them. It was like being at the bottom of a valley.
She sat at the approach to the kvartira, the numbers on the heels of her shoes on display.
She was maybe fifteen years old—about my age, I guessed.
Of course, I wasn’t one hundred percent certain of my own age.
Just glancing at her, I figured she was older and a bit more mature than the older one of my little sisters, but definitely not older than me.
Her short, unkempt hair was a pale blond, but the snow piling on top of her head soaked it through. What a waste. The same snow had turned her white skin and rose-colored lips a pale purplish color, and she was shivering in the freezing cold.
She was wearing a white one-piece; the shoulders hung loosely, and she had to use a safety pin to hold them up, yet the sleeves were too short. Once in a while—whether from embarrassment or the cold, I didn’t know—she would tug at a sleeve in a vain effort to pull it down. Her arms were as thin as twigs, but the weird thing was that they still looked luxurious and soft.
To be fair, I was no prize pig myself. I was haggard, gaunt, and starving. I hadn’t eaten in days at that point. Not since I’d used the last of our flour to make some pelmeni dumplings, and my little brother and sisters had gobbled them up. There hadn’t been so much as a bite left for me. Instead, I’d guzzled a bunch of water and tried to convince myself it had filled my belly. Then I’d spent all day today running.
The PPSh that dangled from my shoulders was very heavy. The bandolier bit into my skin even through my jacket.
It wasn’t much of a jacket, anyway—it was awfully tight, and the Tokarev pistol I kept near my chest was always whacking my ribs painfully.
In spite of all that, she kept staring at me. Frost had collected on her long eyelashes; she blinked rapidly, and I couldn’t help feeling bad when I saw how red her eyes were.
For a moment, I thought maybe she was a rabbit in the snow—not that I’d ever seen a rabbit.
“M-maybe you’d l-like to, um, w-warm yourself before you go?” she asked.
I was cold, I was hungry, and I had only a few kopecks in my pocket.
That’s why I said what I said, how I said it. I made my voice as hard as I could. “Tsk,” I snapped. “I ain’t got any money.”
“Oh, um, well…”
It didn’t stop the girl from smiling at me.
“If we pool your money and mine… I can make borscht with some actual ingredients in it…”
—That’s what she said to me.