Arkady couldn't remember snow being this hard to run on. His boots sunk in the soft white mantle over Gorky Park, his route unsteady, his legs like those of a drunk trying to find the way back home after waking up on the sidewalk, blinded by the morning sun. He kept fixing his somehow teary eyes on the back of her synthetic fur-coat, just a dark spot floating far ahead, moving effortlessly from tree to tree, graceful and light like January's icy breeze.
"Irina! Irina, wait!" and her echo was nothing but feeble, distant laughter. He himself bared his teeth in a smile, catching his breath, sunlight pouring through birch leaves, gold and white, white and gold all around. And the sound of her mocking, volatile happiness. Then nothing.
Out of breath, palms grabbing at his knees, he stopped. He kept calling, hands now cupping his mouth, "Irina, please! Irina! Irina!" But no echo met him nor his pounding heart. No tracks marked that still ocean of snow in crisp, static waves ahead of him. Everything fell desperately calm, silence almost driving him crazy. She was gone without a trace. Still calling, he started running again, but this time directionless. It burned to breathe. In a frenzy, hands scything away at every bush, he moved faster and faster, stumbling and aching, damning every birch, every bird, every pound of snow. "IRINA!"
A twitch around his ankle, a muffled muscular snap, and he was on the ground. He rolled on his back, the sun burning brighter. His face felt warm. If I were snow, Arkady thought, if I were snow I too would melt away. She's gone, but I'm almost as cold. Am I snow yet? Am I gone yet?
He woke up in a cold sweat. He followed with his mind the movement of a lazy hand hovering on his chest, pressing on it as if to try and steady his cardiac rhythm. No chance. Arkady realized that his shirt was drenched. That was the same bloodied shirt he was wearing when Yuri Stepanovich decided to test his bone resilience by slamming him into a wall, a snow angel pressed in concrete. And brass knuckles, side blows, the whole package – apparently, "Stepanovich" had taken his role quite seriously. Arkady checked his wrist-watch. That was roughly 2 hours earlier, and he was at least 50 blocks away from the Militsiya Criminal Investigation Department where it all had happened.
He didn't like this new apartment, but Bogdan suggested he'd find another accommodation for the time being. "Until you're grief sober, death sober, love sober", that's what the man had told him. Far from the melancholy-bounded furnishing of his life with Irina, away from his poetry books, her ice skates, the fresh flowers always in the vase on the living room's table, the crystal ashtray she had bought for him, their brand new TV set, more books, an inherited samovar, some of his father's guns, his neatly pressed shirts, her summer dresses, a few framed pictures of them smiling, holding hands, looking pensive, caught off-guard, looking at each other. Arkady realized how the bedroom smelled of mold and dust. As usual, and more so.
He shook his head and sat up on the bed. He couldn't indulge in the past, he couldn't plunge into what he was, not even in thought. There were days when the man he used to be seemed not only distant but unreal, a black and white photograph, front page on some old-newspaper, crumpled, teared, blurred and beaten by the rain. He was unsure whether happiness had really ever stroked him, even for a moment – much like brushing the skin of an unknown passer-by, idle knuckles against idle knuckles on a grey, busy morning. That was it. He kicked off his shoes, freed himself of the wet, tight grip of his shirt and slowly started walking to the bathroom.
Meeting his eyes in the mirror was almost painful, and light-bulb light just plain cruel. He looked away and focused on the dirty sink instead, then let water flow. Somehow, after more or less than eight months, he still had to get used to this pale man and his pale chest, covered in tattoos that meant nothing to him; some just temporary, some other permanent – once again, Bogdan's idea.
He repeated the inventory in his head: fake, fake, fake, real, real, real. The huge orthodox cross in the middle of his thorax was fake, he didn't care for that. Stalin's face on his right pectoralis major was fake as well, something Bogdan had suggested for protection, "They would never knife the bastard, the idiots", he had told him. A rose bloomed on his left pectoralis, but that was a lie – he hadn't spent his 18th birthday in prison, although the story had impressed the whole gang, or at least earned him silent nods. At 18, Arkady re-winded, he was too busy with his poetry, his studies, day-dreaming, first loves, music. The stars below his clavicles were real, he had earned them – Yannis, his assigned brat in crime, energy-crazed flat-mate and gang's ink expert, was instructed to give him those. The small Greek had completed the craft by patting Arkady on the back vigorously and yelling, "Isn't it a fine job? Don't they look great on you? Am I not a genius?" Those stars were the dark, pointy-shaped seals marking how Arkady had reached the top of the Elite Unit – he himself, the Comrade Investigator turned Russian Mob Brigadier. A real Thief in Law.
Black ink, skin deep. Weird how a bunch of vicious pictures could be enough to save a man's life on a daily basis, Arkady thought as he splashed dried blood off his face; weird how ink could change a man's present, a man's future, and his past too. Well, not everything about his past. In an alcohol-fueled impetus of recklessness, he still had given in to Yannis' stick and poke enthusiasm and asked of having Irina's name tattooed above the cross. The title of my condemn, he thought. He sunk his face in a towel.
When he raised it again to check the cabinet for some gauze, a cigarette-squeezing smirk was standing three steps behind him in the mirror. Yannis almost chewed on his Belomor, his eyes violently lighting up with surprise, "God, look at that! What the hell happened to your face? You missed breakfast, brother. I made some pretty decent eggs."
Arkady couldn't help but weakly smile back. Although the lean dark man must have been at least 6 inches shorter than he was, and by all means lighter, he both out-weighted and out-heighted him on a vitality level. Anybody in the bratva knew how Yannis Kasyenko could be stressful to be around; hot-blooded, stubborn, volatile and loud – but Arkady didn't mind. He figured someone had to play that part, and it couldn't be him. It could have never been him, so Yannis was there. Thinking back on it, he couldn't have hoped for a better brat to greet and guide him through the whole situation, even if he was now one step above him. He met Yannis' bewildered gaze for a moment in the mirror, and then opened the cabinet to resume his search for gauze.
"Not in the mood to talk, are we? So what's new!" Yannis didn't sound resentful, but sincerely entertained. He was the kind of guy who smoked his cigarette with the burning end almost stroking the skin of his palm, which was exactly how he did it, in quick and nervous puffs. "It's okay" he continued, starting to roll his shirt sleeves, "I'll just guess. You can take your time, big guy", and his grin was as wide as ever.
Arkady restrained a sigh as he finally grabbed a roll of gauze tape from the back of the cabinet, "Are we out of disinfectant?" There was no way to dodge it with this guy. "Anyway, it's nothing really. I had a minor run-in with…"
"Viktor Makarovich?" Yannis interrupted.
"No."
"Pavel Voloshin?"
"No, it was…"
"Yan Gusarov?"
"No, but you're close."
"Vasil Arsenyev? Could be, judging by the size of that bruise…"
"Alright. Yuri Stepanovich dropped by the club last night. He said we were holding out on him, that we didn't respect sharing agreements." Arkady turned to Yannis, gauze in hand. Deep down he hated lying to him, but he had known from the start how sincerity could have never been an option. He continued, "He was quite mad about us… interrupting his card game last week, said that we should pay back what we took by loosening the grip on the Presnensky District. As if."
"That fatso! I really hope his face looks worse than yours. You need stitches, Arkasha. Give me that gauze. Sit on the tub. Disinfectant… we have lots of vodka in the kitchen." Arkady didn't flinch as he watched Yannis snapping his fingers and dictating his ideas as they crossed his mind – he really went 100 kilometres per second, and then he was out of the bathroom. Calmly, Arkady leaned out of the door-frame and continued blowing up his explanation in the general direction of the hallway, "Of course I told him that there was no way we would do that. He's bluffing, he can't really mean it. His gang doesn't have any real connections around Presnensky, or anywhere else."
"Yeah, yeah!" He could hear Yannis fumbling with glasses from the kitchen.
"They've just kept losing men for years, one way or another. They can't be trusted and they can't trust anybody, with the history they have. We are their only link. Let's say their only hope not to disintegrate."
Yannis rushed back into the bathroom, holding metal scissors, sewing thread, some paper, two glasses and a bottle of vodka he then proceeded to open with his teeth and slam on the washing machine. "I just can't believe he dared to do that. They fucking know who you are. Igor Brusilov is going to be very happy about this!" Yannis slightly tilted his head back and let himself go to a loud laughter. Arkady really thought that with his strong jaw, sharp nose and wide eyes, the young man really reminded him of a baby crocodile. His outburst of joy stopped suddenly. "I mean, he probably knows by now, right? But we're going to tell him anyway."
"He probably does. We probably should."
"First thing first. Sit down now." Only slightly worried, Arkady adjusted himself on the cold edge of the tub, as Yannis handed him a full glass. "One for the wound and one for the man", he announced loudly, half-solemnly "and one for the surgeon here" he declared, proceeding to down his own dose. "Now hold your breath, sit very still. I'm kind of rusty."
