Voroshilovgrad (43 page)

She lay down next to me, exhausted, and I ran my fingers through her hair for a while, not knowing what to say. More precisely, not knowing what she wanted to hear. She fell asleep after a bit, breathing warm air onto my shoulders, but when I let my fingers graze her cheeks, she quivered and sat up in the bed, looking fearfully at my face, as though trying to figure out who I was. She sprang out of her bed, dashed toward the door. Her panties were still dangling on her leg, but she didn't seem to notice.

“Tamara.” I got up and followed her.

She ran through the living room and disappeared into the bathroom. I tried going in after her, but the door was locked from the inside. I leaned against it to listen and heard her turn on the water, sit down on the floor—her back against the door—and start crying. “Tamara,” I called, “open the door.”

She didn't reply. The running water made her crying sound far away, made it almost inaudible.

“Hey,” I said, leaning in toward the gap between the door and its frame. “What's going on? Just tell me. Did I hurt your feelings somehow?”

But she flatly refused to answer my question, so I started banging on the door, because I didn't want to leave her all alone in there. Leaving a woman in that kind of state all alone in a room by herself would have been an irrational and short-sighted decision; she was probably pretty lonely in there, so I was convinced I was doing the right thing by continuing to bang on the door. Suddenly, she turned off the faucet.

“Herman, everything's fine,” she said firmly. She wasn't opening up the door, though. “Go to bed. I'll be out soon.”

“Okay,” I answered, taking a seat on the floor to wait.

She turned the faucet on again, rearranged some things, rattling around for a while, muttering to herself, then turned off the faucet a second time, opened the door quietly, saw me sitting there, and took a seat next to me without saying another word.

“I hope your feelings aren't hurt,” she said, touching my knee. “I just get emotional sometimes.”

“You all right now?” I asked.

“Yep. I'm all right. You okay?”

“Let's go to bed,” I said.

“Give me a sec.” She took a pack of cigarettes out of her coat pocket, lit one of them, and started kissing me, and her kisses tasted like tobacco and toothpaste; her skin was salty from her tears and her hair was as wet as a fisherman's net.

“I didn't want to tell you,” she said. “You'll probably leave if I tell you.”

“What happened?”

“Are you going to leave?” she asked.

“I won't, don't worry,” I assured her.

“I just know you'll leave,” she said. “Well, I'll tell you anyway.”

“Could ya just tell me already?”

“Your accountant . . . something happened to her.”

“You mean Olga?”

“Yeah. Injured called me and told me to tell you. Now you're going to leave. I just know it.”

“What happened to her?”

“I don't know. She's in the hospital.”

“Is it serious?”

“I don't know,” Tamara said quietly. “I don't think so.”

“Could you be a bit more specific?” I asked anxiously.

“What are you yelling at me for? All I know is that she's in the hospital. Injured told me to tell you. He said he's gonna pick you up in the morning.”

“Let me have your phone. I'm gonna give him a call.”

“Don't call him at this hour,” Tamara protested wearily. “Wait till morning. He'll come by and give you all the details.”

“Well, what if it was something really serious?”

“Wait till morning,” Tamara repeated.

“That's easy for you to say.”

“Why do you say that?” Tamara asked.

“Well, your accountant isn't in the hospital.”

“I just knew you'd ditch me for her. She's young and you like her.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Well, I can tell,” Tamara said. “I really thought you'd stick around, you know? Since you're already here and all. But now I can see that's just not going to happen. I'm too old for you, isn't that right?”

“What are you talking about? You're crazy.”

“Yep, I'm way over the hill,” Tamara said. “No need to make any excuses. I'm doing just fine. I wasn't really counting on anything. Do what you want to do, okay?”

“Okay.”

Still distraught, though calmer, Tamara finished her cigarette and put it out right on the floor.

“I wanted to ask you. That tall, dark-skinned guy in the photographs. Who is he?”

“The tall guy?”

“Yeah, the tall one.”

“Arthur,” Tamara answered. “Tamila's husband.”

“Tamila's?” I asked, surprised. “I thought he was your husband.”

“Well, then he was my husband. At first he lived with Tamila, and then with me. He loved me a lot.”

“Where's he now?”

“He was murdered,” Tamara explained. “About ten years ago. They wanted to take his business away from him, but he wouldn't give it up. So, they blew up his car with him in it.”

“Oh, man.”

“But that was so long ago,” Tamara said.

“What about your cousin?” I inquired. “Are you on speaking terms?”

“Yeah, she forgave me. She loved him a lot too. We only truly bonded after he died. It's funny how things work out. So,” she asked after a long pause. “Are you going to see her?”

“I don't know.”

I didn't want to lie, but telling the truth would have been even worse.

6

The sun blinded us awake and Injured was charging through the apartment like a guy who knew exactly what his time was worth and exactly what he could accomplish with it. There was fresh
air nestled into his leather jacket as though he had come carrying scraps of an October morning in his pockets. He gave me a hearty good morning, as if to say, “I'm glad to see you still in one piece,” then went over to the kitchen, filling the tiny space with his body, moving between the table and dishwasher, so tight a squeeze that his jacket squeaked, and peered out the window.

He had called Tamara a little past midnight, asking if I was at her place, if everything was all right, and said he would be stopping by in the morning. Now he was sitting down at the kitchen table with me, letting the wide, crooked rays of sunlight tint his skin gold and copper. He looked us over, first taking in Tamara, who was still half asleep, standing in the corner, before getting down to business with me:

“You know,” he said, “it's a good thing you didn't wind up going all the way to Donetsk. They picked my brother up a few days ago. I had no fucking idea what was going on. I kept calling him, see? And some cop kept picking up. At first I thought maybe my brother had dumped his phone on someone again, or that he'd lost it somewhere, or something like that. But actually, they've been keeping him at the station for three days now. His wife called me yesterday and said everything was fine, that I had nothing to worry about, that he's doing all right . . . he's still got a healthy appetite, his own lawyer, and they'll be letting him out soon.”

“What'd they get him on?” I asked.

“I couldn't tell ya,” said Injured. “Last year they got him on his annual tax return—he wanted to file it a year early to save time. Before that they got him on bribing a government official. He's in the cell phone business, you know.”

“He works for a carrier?”

“No, he sells phones,” Injured explained. “Used ones.”

“Stolen ones, too?”

“Sure, that comes with the territory.”

“Maybe you should pay him a visit?”

“Nah,” Injured said, “He'll figure it all out. He's a big boy. I've got enough problems of my own. Isn't that right, Tamara?”

But Tamara too had problems of her own. She'd been up practically the entire night, worrying, wondering whether she had said too much, thinking about how she didn't know what to expect from me now. She stood there, dejected and engrossed in her thoughts, nodding her head and agreeing with everything Injured said. I don't think Injured picked up on the fact that something was up between Tamara and I, but he still looked uneasy, and this quickly rubbed off on me. I immediately started bombarding him with questions about what was going on; it's not like I could ask about Olga directly while Tamara was around . . . Still, it would've been nice for Injured to take the hint and tell me what had happened to her. I guess he didn't consider the matter pressing. He mainly seemed to want to tell old stories.

Soon, Tamara realized that we were just killing time until we could get back on the road; she made us some strong and hopelessly bitter tea, then disappeared into her room, visibly distressed.

“Hey Herman,” Injured said, “what kind of job did you have back in Kharkiv, again?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Ah, it's nothing. Just that some folks from up there have been looking for you, asking about you back at the station. And you
know what I think?”

“What's that?”

“It'd be best if they found you.”

“How come?”

“The way I hear it, you weren't actually the one who screwed up. They probably only need you as a witness.”

“A witness? What for?”

“I couldn't tell ya. You got anyone back there in your pocket?” he asked hopefully. “I mean, you ever bribe any government officials?”

“Damn it, Injured, I would have, but I didn't have the money.”

“All right,” Injured said. “Well, it's probably fine either way. It's just that those guys came by again yesterday. There were two of them. They want a word with you. They said you had nothing to be scared of.”

“Well, I'm not scared anyway. Did they talk to you?”

“They talked to Olga.”

“Did they stop by her office or something?”

“Yeah. At first she wanted to kick them out, but then she wound up listening to what they had to say.
Then
she kicked them out.”

“Who are they?”

“Well, all they said was that they wanted to talk to you. Some loose ends they want to tie up, or something. They didn't give any specifics, but they said it'd be better for you if you met up with them, and Olga more or less told me she agreed.”

“You really don't have any idea what it's all about?”

“If you meet with them, you can find out. It's not like they came out here to strangle you, right?”

“That's the question. But where do I find them?”

“It's pretty damn simple. They're staying at the hotel. You'll find them there.”

“At the hotel? Maybe it'd be easier just to call them?”

“They didn't leave their number,” Injured said, after a moment's thought. “These are some shady dudes. They stopped by and sniffed around like they were trying to find something.”

“Like what?”

“I really don't know. Like I keep saying, it'd be best for you to talk to them yourself.”

“Okay, I'll stop by the hotel today.”

“Go for it,” Injured said encouragingly. “Don't be scared.”

“I'm still not scared.”

“You've got nothing to lose.”

“You've got that right.” Taking a quick look around to be sure Tamara hadn't snuck back into the kitchen, I asked, “How's Olga doing?”

“Bad,” Injured replied, without even a moment's thought, as though he'd been ready with the answer all along, and had just been waiting for me to ask. “She's in the hospital.”

“And how the hell did she manage that?”

“It happened yesterday, when she was trying to kick those two guys out.”

“
Trying
to kick them out?”

“Well, yeah. She didn't even listen to their whole spiel, you know? She showed them the door, and when she was slamming it after them, she got her foot caught, somehow, and broke her toe.”

“She broke her
toe
?”

s“Yeah, her toe. Now she's in a cast. I mean, you have to think about what you're doing when you do it!” he added, nonsensically.

“Maybe they said something that pissed her off?”

“Herman,” Injured said, now sounding a bit anxious, “I don't know what they said to her, okay? All I know is that Olga told me to tell you to meet up with them. She seemed concerned, was asking all sorts of questions about you.”

“She's worried about me?”

“Maybe.”

“I guess I'd better stop by and visit her.”

“Yeah, pay her a visit,” Injured said. He struggled to his feet, casting a suspicious glance at the dishes on the shelves before heading for the front door.

“Hold up,” I said, getting up too. “I'm gonna go with you.”

“You know what? Why don't you sort out your own stuff first, all right?”

“Injured,” I said, “you're acting pretty cagey, even for you . . . what's on your mind, anyway? Is there something else going on?”