Many thanks for the return visit. We voyage ahead on this journey into Peter's past...
Voskresenie
2
Verkhoturye, Russia… 1999
The hallway outside his door becomes more constricted each time the Peter passes, litter mounting at the edges of the concrete floor. Every step stirs up leftover soot from the small blaze. Clean up has been non-existent as the building's owner is apparently relying on the brisk draft from a broken hall window to push along the entrenched debris. No matter how slowly the door is opened, fragments of discarded life find a way inside.
Peter's own window is filthy again, refusing entrance to moonlight as a thin girl, long of leg and fairer than cream, lays on the wobbly bed and comments on its roominess. At least he thinks that's what she meant when she purrs about impressive size. Her hair is gold spun from inexpensive dye but it feels real in his hands.
Real is a ghost he's always chasing.
The scream she emits over the next hour is something to admire, finer on her tongue than a widow's. Her name is riddled with unnecessary syllables and when he christens her Lucy for the sake of expediency, she laughs in hiccups. Too young for him and possibly not legal in the states. Lucy doesn't allow him to walk her home, a reminder that chivalry is dead, even in the old world. For a moment he's forgotten that her gauge of success is the sum of clients.
The grizzly hadn't stopped at his above-the-brothel residence earlier tonight but Peter had put out word of potential work, assuming by the residence that the man might enjoy ready cash. Carefully flashing the rest of his winnings had pulled the desk clerk's attention away from her fashion magazine. The madam, it turns out and previously profitable in her craft. Peter played the role of a reputable employer in need of brawn and since the madam and her mascara couldn't produce the man he'd come for, she'd given him Lucy for his trouble.
New to the game, the girl is sated before him.
Peter leaves his room after midnight, stirring more than a little debris with the walk of a shackled prisoner. He intends to sit outside the brothel and wait for signs of Mirand. It's a play in patience, a task made difficult by the knowledge that it's a whisker above zero degrees outside and benches aren't known for warmth. Locking the door seems pointless since a decent sneeze would blow the thin slat over but Peter's a slave to habit. Jiggling the handle, he takes four steps down the hall and the Screamer's door cracks open, setting free the odor of boiled carrots. Closing his nostrils to the nausea, he stops and tosses a glance over his shoulder. Sleep-caked eyes peer around the doorframe, suspicious, afraid. Charm, the old fallback, rarely fails and Peter lets his face assemble a smile. Her kerchiefed head slides back as she closes the door without a sound. Something in that accusing stare makes him uncomfortable but he mustn't ponder it.
He'll be paid for making Mirand uncomfortable and the sooner that's accomplished, the faster he can leave Russia and its freezing wind, grimy windows and odd widows behind.
…….
There is a smell in Russia that drifts down from the Ural Mountains and mingles in the village. A ripe scent, like fresh-turned earth and smoldering compost. That the ground has been frozen for weeks by a vengeful winter cannot deter the aroma of farm and field. Of the many things to dislike about an inhospitable land, the aroma is not among them. But only on the right wind. It's a taunt that declares the land will go on even if its people should falter. Pride leaks into the rivers, heritage sprouts from every rugged hill.
Peter is a product of the city where high-rises compete with historic buildings for a crowded skyline. Congestion has its own smell; exhaust fumes, crumbling asphalt and the fraternal twins of brick and steel. Foundations speak to a permanency he wants not in life but will accept in his surroundings. But when he stands on foreign soil, America feels like an upstart he should be apologizing for. And it's hard to miss the land of capitalism and celebrity when immersed in a grey interpretation of Middle Earth.
He can't wait to leave.
The strip isn't Vegas but it's got its own liveliness. The late hour, soaking the scene in rich shades of black, brings out more color in the inhabitants. From the pavement Peter can see outlines through Mirand's third floor window. It's two am and in the last three hours of Peter's vigil there have been no signs of life. Legs are fusing to the wooden bench as a thin layer of frost settles on exposed surfaces. Including him. The eatery on the corner is hosting a funeral party and while the attendants are few, the liquor must be vast. Shades of an Irish wake. Stumbling out the doors at sporadic intervals, the passersby greet Peter with varied degrees of politeness. A monster exits the diner with his fur-lined hat on sideways, an ear flap covering one eye. The impaired vision disrupts his locomotion, sending him tumbling into the working girl striving for decent posture despite wrestling with the uneven sway of the man's bulk.
Like a shaved bear indeed.
Peter's nose is tender, undoubtedly red from its battle with the cold but it's outshined by the smile he has drafted into service. The denim encasing his numb legs is nearly crunchy as he straightens from the bench and heads toward the unfortunate couple.
"I know you?" The grizzly asks in a voice burned by alcohol.
"Only if you want work," Peter tells him, maintaining a disinterest in the young lady who appears desperate to change partners.
"I hear you look for me." The bear grins, a frightful thing. "I here now."
The difficulty in understanding the man isn't born of an especially thick accent, not a lack of English aptitude. Rather it's the manner in which his words are spat past comically fat lips.
"It's a two man job," Peter warns. "Cash after completion to split anyway you decide. You have a friend?"
"Own some," he announces, arms thrown wide to the detriment of his stability. "E'erybody owes me. Maybe you too, eh?"
"Maybe." Peter's grin is no longer forced. Talkative thugs are a favorite because they're easier to predict. "What you I call you?"
The job prospect rubs his wiry whiskers as the thought process works to dissolve the bite of his stupor. His girl gets impatient, which is understandable considering the low temperature and the high skirt.
"Clive. Dat sound gentile, yes? Clive own dis friend dat need job. You like. He a stater too."
"And what are we calling him?"
More thought and more sobering. The hooker chews her nails, determined to stay by Clive's side until the unlikely event that he pays her. Her handbag is pretty but Peter notices an old burgundy stain on one side. Like everything else about her, it seems to be stolen, perhaps straight out of a dead woman's grasp.
"Moses," Clive christens the man Peter hopes is possessed of a severe face.
Taking his new comrade by the arm, Peter leads him toward the brothel, a painstaking trek that includes grand gestures by the tripping man. Halting them outside the main doors, Peter squares his shoulders and looks up into the man's glistening eye, the one not covered by a furry flap.
"Tell me Moses is mean and ugly and you're hired."
"Dat one got devil face for scare de kids, dat one. Ugly like Bojani's mother."
The girl pushes away from the man, yanks open the door and stalks to the counter with enough huff to put out yesterday's fire. She points out the massive offender to the madam, who spots Peter and brushes the girl away. With a sickening slap across the face.
Clive's upstairs accommodations are more palatial than Peter's by the simple fact that the paint is peeling in thin strips instead of poster-sized chunks. The heat from the cast iron radiator is only a few degrees cooler than hell and Peter thinks he made a miscalculation in his housing selection because his teeth have ended their tap dance and there's a bevy of passable women downstairs.
Time for a change of address form.
A home distiller of spirits, Clive brings out jars of pungent liquid and indicates by his own sizable swig that Peter should sample what was mixed in the bathroom. It's a fine use of a steel tub, Clive assures him, though one sip and Peter considers eating the tub to banish the taste. Mirand puts in an appearance just as the sun does, wearing what could best be described as the devil's face and little else. Pockmarks dig into sunken cheeks, giving him all the distinction of a leper. The boxer shorts suggest he's lost his pants and when he mentions a hooker calling herself Lucy, Peter has to cough away the dry heaves. Sitting on the floor, Mirand scrutinizes the fellow American through early cataracts.
"How'd you find me?"
Most criminals know how to play interrogation, gleaning the answers by asking around the subject. But the bright boy with the looming debt skips the formalities in favor of giveaway.
"You walked in?" Peter takes a cautious sip of the disturbing liquid he's been nursing since dusk. "I was looking for Clive, not you. But he's made you part of the package."
"You think I need money?"
"I think you need pants," Peter mumbles into his jar because Mirand's cross-legged position shows why Lucy is likely griping downstairs.
Clive, standing at a large window with shoulders tense enough to crack walnuts, tilts his head just a fraction.
"We want de job, don't we Moses?" It's not a question and Mirand wisely lets his silence suffice. Addressing Peter, Clive snaps his fingers. "What's dat saying? Hard to know good help, eh mister?"
When the overheated space has him drinking far more gin than he needs at seven am, Peter heads back to his room. And trips over his high-powered fire extinguisher. Dialing a long series of numbers, his employer is informed of successful contact. Peter runs a hand through his hair, longer now than he prefers and replays the morning in his fogged head.
And then vomits away the phantom taste of a farm girl.