I was begging on the streets – beggar by daylight, criminal by night tended to be my mode of operation. The California sun seared my eyes as I looked up at the passing crowds with despondency and desperation. I was ignored by almost everyone: a few strangers dropped a coin or two in a hat I'd set out in front of me, but it was fuck all compared to what I'd rake in from cash registers and anyone foolish enough to go out alone at night. I'll mention at this point that my views on the ethics of my livelihood were essentially amoral; I'd long since come to terms with the fact that others needed to suffer so I could survive, and I didn't care. As far as I was concerned, they were Americans and therefore deserved worse than whatever I could do to them. When I found a flag in a store I was robbing, I burned it.

Presumably you're also wondering if I'd ever killed someone – other than the rapist in my old apartment. And it's a point I've strayed away from, because if there's one thing that pulls at my guilt it's that. I couldn't give a fuck if some prick comes into his store and finds himself a hundred bucks lighter. But I've never felt good about killing innocent people, American or otherwise. Sometimes, though, it's necessary.

It's November, and the Pacific sun has disappeared behind a veil of clouds and ice for weeks. In Russia, we'd call this 'outdoors weather'. But unfortunately I'd acclimatised to warmer conditions – and to having shelter during its cold months – and so when Winter did come around I realised I was going to die. Squatting wasn't an option, because every abandoned lot was routinely torched and razed by nationalists trying to kill the immigrants residing there. Their job was one of purification, and, from their point of view at least, it was extremely effective. I don't like to think of how many people like me were bereft of shelter that one freezing Winter, and how many of them didn't make it to the other side. But I digress.

I'd been working on my accent and my appearance, like I said, and so unlike the others I had the advantage of appealing to the American desire to do his or her duty to his or her fellow Americans. It was cynical, but it worked: I threw my charms at a naïve-looking girl in a bar one night, and when she learned of my situation she unhesitatingly offered her apartment for as long as I needed it. This apartment was nothing fancy, but compared to everywhere I'd lived up to this point it was paradise. It had three rooms, including a spare one they weren't using that I had entirely to myself; every window was intact and secured; the halls outside the door weren't plagued by whores and violence. I thought I could get used to it, but unfortunately it wasn't to be so.

Her father, with whom she shared the place, was one of the nationalists I've mentioned before. When the girl went out to work and I stayed in, I had him for company, and it was the biggest test of my performance as an American I've ever had to endure. One slip out of my fabricated accent, one lapse into Russian, and he'd lynch me like a Salem witch. So I had to be careful – and perhaps even worse, I had to endure his opinions.

Nothing I'd heard before or since disgusted me as much as the things this man said to me. He'd make Goebbels cringe. Amongst other things, he said that every non-American, but especially Russians, were inferior and needed to be cleansed off the face of the Earth. Like any good American, he thought that nuclear fire was the best solution to this problem. I pointed out, as detached as I could, that Russia had nukes stockpiled just like America, and they'd retaliate immediately; he laughed, and said their nukes couldn't even reach us because they were poorly-made Soviet crap. He had no basis for this argument, but he was quite certain that the craftsmanship of Soviet engineers was too much lacking to make a proper ICBM. I don't know what he thought the Cold War was.

For the remainder of winter I endured his company and enjoyed his home, and entered a pleasant domestic relationship with the girl, who I found quite admirable after a time. She was a barmaid part time, and a dancer the rest. Not the kind you throw notes at; ballet was her craft. It didn't turn a profit, or in fact make any money at all, but that was what the bar gig was for and she had big hopes of performing in ballets across the world. She told me how much she loved the Russian ballerinas, how she looked up to them as the finest on the planet, and how it was such a shame that the war had soured Russo-American relations so much. That endeared her to me a lot: she seemed, amongst a nation of monsters, to be a perfectly decent and reasonable human being.

I don't need to tell you that this story turns sour.

It was cool evening when she left for her dance class. I gave her a long kiss before she went. At first, my affection had been as much of an act as the rest of it, but over Winter the ice on my heart had thawed enough to let her in, and now I held a considerable attachment to her. I liked her. We laughed together, knew each other as well as circumstances would allow, slept together (after a time I moved from the spare room into hers), went out when she had the night off and enjoyed what the city had to offer. On this evening, though, she had a late shift at the bar and so I was left in the miserable company of her father. I had the option to go out, of course – I was no prisoner – but there was nothing to do but be cold outside, and besides I always ran the risk of someone recognising me from one of my many narrow escapes as a criminal. So I stayed in, and tried to make as little contact and conversation as possible. However, it was a small apartment.

I reluctantly took a seat in the living room and settled down to watch TV with the girl's father. The smell of whiskey and beer poured off him; I could almost see a fog of belched and vapourised alcohol clouding the air where he sat. His eyes half-open, he watched the TV attentively. It was a news piece about a sleight of gang-related killings: some kind of Russian mafia was apparently taking root on the East Coast and spreading from city to city out of Miami. The news report showed a few blurry clips and shots of white-suited men bludgeoning people to death with clubs and bats. The videos were evidently recorded by them: they were tripod-mounted, and filmed in dingy rooms. As the reporter warned us of images that were unsuitable for those of a sensitive disposition, the TV cut to a stocky man fastened by his hands and feet to a chair. His head was flung back, his mouth agape, and there were wide gaps in his two rows of teeth. Blood covered his chin like he'd been feasting on a live animal, and a man in the background approached the camera and held up a pair of pliers to the lens, grinning: clasped between them was a bloody molar. The rest I didn't see, because my host chose that moment to throw one of the many empty bottles around him at the screen.

I think he expected the bottle to break, but instead it simply went all the way through the glass; a shower of sparks and glass erupted from the bulky television as a cacophonous ksssshhh, BANG sounded all through the apartment. Smoke rose from behind the shattered screen. I gripped the chair arms in shock.

"God damn FUCKING RUSSIANS!" he bellowed, pounding his chair arms and knocking bottles to the floor. I wanted to leave, but who knows what he would have done then? And besides, I couldn't risk anything suspicious. I muttered agreement as sincerely as possible, which wasn't much. Anyone would have known it was half-hearted. And I knew I'd made a mistake. I knew I should have said nothing.

"You a fucking commie, Eddie? That it?" He heaved himself out of his chair, wiping foamy spittle off his mouth with the back of a big, hairy hand. In my head, behind my eyes, I saw those hands wrapped around my throat, saw myself in his eyes choking to death with shards of glass twisted into my face. I stuttered.

"No! Of course not, I'm an American like you, aren't I?!" He grunted, and I knew it was too late for that.

"I don't know that. I don't know shit about you. Where do you even come from, huh? Where did your dad work? What state were you even born in?"

I had answers to these questions – fake ones I'd memorised a long time ago – but I knew they'd do me no good here. Standing up, I backed away cautiously, pained by the sensation of being prey.

"I think you're a fucking commie. That right? You part of this mafia they were talking about?"

"No!"

"You fucking liar!" he roared, grabbing a bottle and smashing it against the wall. The action made him unsteady, and he rocked for half a second before regaining his balance. Suddenly, he was charging me, and I threw myself to the side, dodging a downward slash. I caught myself on my chair, though, and fell to the floor face down. I had to defend myself. But he was massive, and I had nothing. So what, then?

He fell upon me, grabbed my shirt in a fierce grip, and plunged the bottle into my shoulder. I screamed, felt shards of glass cutting me under my skin as I contorted in pain, screamed again. I jerked an elbow backwards into his gut and rolled away through the space he left when he recoiled. I scrambled to my feet, my shoulder feeling like it was being devoured by insects with each and every movement. I wrestled my shirt off as I moved away from him, not eager to be ensnared again, and looked for the kitchen. There. I moved around the counter, putting it between us (he was up now, and headed my way) as I searched. The knife draw. I pulled it open, stuck my trembling hand in, came out with a fish knife. But he was already upon me by then, and he tackled me against the counter as I grabbed the knife. His shoulder was pinning me firmly, and my head took a hard hit on the way down. Everything was blurry and static rang in my ear as he reared up like a bull. His bottle was raised.

I threw my arm in a wide arc at his neck, and blood followed.

It showered me. He dropped the bottle and clasped his hands to his slashed throat, fruitlessly striving to stem the flow of blood that leaked through his chubby fingers. I pushed him back and stood up. I could call an ambulance but he'd be bone dry by the time they got here. He was dead, and vainly struggling to deny the fact. I stuffed the knife in my shoe (couldn't afford to leave it here, after all) and moved to the bedroom to begin packing the few things I'd acquired since moving in. I did so hastily, stuffing shirts and shorts into a sports bag, and prayed I wouldn't hear the click of the lock opening. I listened carefully, but nothing more than the wheezing, gurgling death rattle of my would-be murderer came. Zipping the bag closed, I thought I'd got lucky. I could leave, change my appearance, name, get out of the city – I knew that this was a step too far. There was no getting away with this without drastic measures, especially when his daughter knew me so closely. I would disappear, one more racist dead at my hands and the world slightly better off for it, as far as I was concerned.

But fate doesn't smile on us. Fate sneers and shits.

The door had been unlocked the whole time. I'd heard nothing as she came into the apartment, and emerging from our room I now saw the girl I'd come to love stood over her father's corpse, silent. She began to cry, and I tried to move to the door as stealthily as I could, hoping she'd be too distracted to notice me.

But if there's one thing our encounter had left in abundance, it was broken glass.

I stepped on a shard of the TV screen and it cracked under my weight. She spun around, her eyes glistening with tears and her brow twisting downwards with rage with every millisecond that she looked at me.

"You bastard!" she screeched as she rushed at me, "you bastard, you killed him! You fucking killed him!" I pleaded with her to calm down while I explained, but I don't think she was even capable of listening right then. Or maybe that's just me justifying my actions. Who can say?

"I'll kill you, I'll kill you! I hate you!" She kept screaming and shouting as she cried and hit me, hard punches across my face. Then she grabbed me by the neck, and I fought to prise her hands away but her grip was too strong, and the longer she held on the weaker I became. The edges of my vision went black as, second my second, she squeezed the life out of me. This was the closest I had come to death. And I had to do something.

She pushed me to the floor and down I went, on my knees, helpless to push back. I grabbed the knife in my shoe, jerked it loose, and flicked my arm upwards into her stomach.

I told you it went sour.

I apologised to her as she died on the floor next to me, rolling away and spluttering blood from the mouth I'd kissed so many times. I said sorry hundreds of times until I was saying it in Russian. It was just automatic, and my brain was still oxygen-deprived. And after she was dead, I kept on laying there, and kept on saying it.

Here's something interesting you might not know. 'Do svidanya' is Russian for 'goodbye'. But it more properly translates as 'until we meet again'.

So when I left, I just said goodbye.