Snow: Chapter 13

I’m not sure why I told the doctor I was going to the Aurora. I’m even less sure why I let her come along with me. As soon as I agree, she links her arm through mine like I’m a fucking gentleman, escorting her along.

She’s so odd and impulsive.

Tender-hearted, too. I know she chased after me because she felt bad about snubbing me on the street.

Compassion is dangerous in our world. And it is her world now, the same as mine. She needs to close herself up, or she’ll be torn apart like a fawn in the woods.

I meant to walk all the way to the permanent mooring point of the cruiser, but it’s a long way. Sasha doesn’t strike me as someone used to tramping all over the city.

Plus, I don’t like all the people looking at us. Sasha is dressed like the innocent she is, and I look like a thug. Shoppers eye us suspiciously, like I might be taking her somewhere to mug her. Sasha doesn’t seem to care about the stares, but I don’t want to run into any more of her friends. I hail a cab to take us the rest of the way.

The dock where the ship moors are crowded with people. Even though it’s still winter, the air carries the first hint of spring. The sun is shining, without a single cloud in a dome of sky so clear that it looks like a painted ceiling.

I buy our tickets.

“I can get my own,” Sasha says quickly.

I just shake my head.

We wait in line to board the ship, walking along the rickety gangplank onto the cruiser itself. It’s a long, sleek ship, with three tall smokestacks. The hull is painted dull gray, with a stripe of green along the waterline. It’s so large that we can hardly feel the movement of the water once we’re aboard.

I can tell that Sasha’s still curious why I wanted to come here. She isn’t questioning me, though. She’s just waiting to see.

She follows me around a bit. Then she gets sucked into all the plaques and exhibits inside the ship. She’s studying and reading and running her fingertips along anything not roped off or enclosed in glass.

I’ve been all over the ship before, so I let her take the lead on what she wants to see. She starts running around like a kid, poking into the captain’s quarters, then trying to lift one of the massive artillery shells up on the deck. She’s grinning and pointing things out to me.

Like the night before, her emotions are contagious. I start feeling excited and curious myself. I don’t know why she has this effect on me. I don’t mind it.

I can’t help looking at Sasha more than at the displays. She’s dressed differently than at the fights. There, she tries to make herself invisible, not that it works. She can’t hide how beautiful she is.

Today, she looks much more relaxed.

She’s wearing a long dove-gray coat with wooden buttons. Beneath that, suede boots of the same color that come up just over her knee. When she walks, I can see the tiniest sliver of bare skin between the top of the boots and the bottom of the coat. It keeps drawing my eyes when it flashes into view. Somehow, it’s much more tantalizing than completely bare legs.

She’s not wearing her glasses today, which makes her look even younger. Her white-blonde hair is loose from its braid, spilling out around her shoulders from under a knitted cap. In the dim light inside the ship, her hair looks almost silver.

I wonder if she didn’t want me to pay for her because this might seem like a date.

Have I ever taken a girl on a real date?

Usually I just fuck them after parties or fights.

Not that I don’t want to fuck Sasha. Of course I do, I wanted to the minute I laid eyes on her. You can’t see a girl that gorgeous without picturing what she looks like naked. Especially when she’s trying so hard to conceal the kind of figure men write songs about.

But there’s something about Sasha that makes me want to do more than just fuck her.

I actually want to talk to her. When usually I don’t like talking to anybody.

I want to know what she’s doing, working for Krupin. I want to know why she ran after me on the street. I want to know why she’s a doctor at all, when she obviously comes from money. I recognized one of those kids outside the cafe—he’s the son of the Minister of Culture. None of that lot will end up working in a state hospital, that’s for sure.

I like watching Sasha wander around the ship. It’s funny—I’ve spent more time studying how men move than I have women. Sasha has her own rhythm, her own timing. She’s not jabbing and punching, but she does have a pattern in the way she tilts her head to the right as she reads a placard, then combs her hair with her fingers, lost in thought.

I know what she’s reading without looking over her shoulder.

It’s propaganda about the October Revolution. That’s why the Aurora is famous—it fired the first shot signaling the attack on the Winter Palace. I don’t care about that, though. There’s only one reason I come back here again and again.

Eventually, we make our way to a small, dark hallway below deck, where pictures of previous crews are posted. Crews from the Russo-Japanese War, then both World Wars.

Dozens of young men, some uniformed and serious, others laughing and talking or doing their work. The pictures were taken in the calm before the storm, when the men were trained but not fighting yet. Who knows which ones survived and which were shot or drowned.

“There,” I say to Sasha, pointing to a picture hung on the wall.

It’s a young man, sixteen or seventeen, wearing the flat cap and the long blue coat of the Soviet naval infantry, with the red star on his sleeve. He’s smoking a cigarette, the cigarette pinched between his index finger and thumb. He squints and grins up at the camera. Though the photograph is black and white, you can still tell he has pale blue eyes and dimples on either side of his mouth.

Sasha looks between the photograph and me, her eyes wide.

“Are you a vampire?” she says.

I laugh.

“That’s my uncle.”

He’s my great-uncle, actually—my mother’s uncle.

Sasha examines his face, and mine. He wasn’t big like me, but otherwise we could be twins.

“Did you know him well?” Sasha says.

She knows that if I come all the way out here to see his picture, he must mean something to me. More than the average uncle.

“I lived with him for a while,” I tell her.

“Where were your parents?” Sasha asks.

“Wherever junkie trash goes,” I say.

I don’t actually remember what my mom and dad look like. I only have my mother’s word on who my father actually was, and her word was worth a lot less than a dime bag. So his face is a mystery to me. As for my mother, I never saw her again after my fourth birthday.

I lived with Igor for five years. When he died, the neighbors packed me off to the orphanage and ransacked his house.

Sasha looks pained. I didn’t bring her here to try to get sympathy. I hate sympathy, generally speaking.

“Is that . . . the only picture you have of him?” she asks me.

I nod.

They didn’t let us keep any personal belongings at the orphanage.

Everything my uncle owned was thrown away or sold long before I saw his house again.

Sasha glances around quickly. The ship as a whole is full of people—visitors, and the active officers who live on-site, maintaining the cruiser and running it as a museum. However, this corridor is one of the least-trafficked areas, remote and not containing any artifacts besides the photos. It’s dark and it stinks like gasoline and paint.

“We could take it,” Sasha whispers.

“What?”

“There’s nobody around. You could take the picture home. Then you wouldn’t have to come all the way out here to see it.”

I raise an eyebrow.

“I thought you were a good girl,” I say.

Sasha blushes.

“It sort of belongs to you anyway,” she says.

“Sort of,” I say.

It’s not a terrible idea. My uncle was a good man—patient. Hard-working. Not kind, exactly, but always fair. I’d like to have something of his.

On the other hand, he loved his time in the Navy. He talked about it often, especially in his last year or two. I like seeing him grinning up there with the other officers around him. If I take his photo down, there will just be an empty space.

“I think it belongs here,” I say to Sasha.

“Alright,” she says, not offended that I didn’t take her suggestion. “You’re probably right.”

Now Sasha knows more about me than most people. But I still don’t know anything about her.

As we disembark the ship, I ask her, “Are you hungry?”

She smiles.

“I could eat.”

I take her to a little restaurant close to my apartment. I can see she’s nervous, coming to this part of town. It’s a far cry from the tourist district outside the Buzz cafe. Once she tries the pelmeni though, she becomes a lot more enthusiastic.

“This is amazing!” she says.

“It’s the real deal.”

“I thought our chef Lyosha made the best pelmeni. These might be even better, though I’d never tell him that.”

“Your chef?” I assume she means a private chef at her parents’ house.

“My father owned a restaurant,” she says. “He still runs it. But it belongs to Krupin now.”

Without any prodding from me, she tells me the whole story. I’m honestly amazed when she gets to the part about her showing up at Krupin’s house, all alone and late at night. I didn’t realize she had that kind of grit in her. I’m not surprised at all at her willingness to sacrifice herself for her family. She has a warm heart and she’s loyal, that’s obvious.

She loves with all of herself, not holding anything back.

What would it be like, to be loved by a woman like that?

A guy like me is never gonna know.

“Why’d you go to medical school anyway?” I ask her. “Why didn’t you just marry some minister or banker, one of your friends from school or one of the rich men that come into your father’s restaurant?”

“Because I don’t want to!” Sasha says angrily.

“Why not?” I say. “You want romance?”

The question sounds mocking, though I don’t mean it to be.

Sasha doesn’t care.

“Yes, I want romance!” she says, unashamed. “I want passion and love and connection. I want ambition and goals, too. I want struggle and experience. Failure, then success. I want it all, every last drop of it. I don’t want to live and die for nothing.”

The people I know don’t talk like this. They talk about survival, not dreams.

Sasha leans forward across the table. Her deep blue eyes look up at me, her expression so sincere that it hurts.

“You must have something too,” she says. “Something you want, or even just imagine . . .”

I do have something.

I’ve never said it out loud, not once. Not to anybody.

Deeds, not words. My uncle used to say that.

Meyer has a similar motto, phrased in his own way: Don’t expect a fucking attaboy for a plan. I’ll pat you on the back when you have the trophy in your hands.

Still, I want to say it once. To hear how crazy it sounds.

“I want to go to America,” I tell her. “I want to fight for the heavyweight belt in the WBC championship.”

Sasha doesn’t laugh. She doesn’t even scoff.

“Where is it?” she says. “Where’s the championship?”

“This year it’s in Las Vegas,” I tell her. “Sometimes it’s other places.“

“What’s the WBC?” she asks. “Explain it all to me.”

“Well, there’s not just one world heavyweight title,” I tell her. “There’s the Russian Boxing Federation here, and then on an international scale, you’ve got the World Boxing Association, the World Boxing Council, the International Boxing Federation, and the World Boxing Organization, all with their own belts. If you really wanted to call yourself the champion, you’d have to take all four titles.”

“So what’s special about the WBC championship?” she asks.

I shrug.

“It’s classic. When I picture it, that’s what I see: me fighting for the WBC belt at Madison Square Gardens, like Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier did.”

She sits quietly, as if she’s picturing the same thing in her mind. Weighing my chances. Is it a dream, or just a fantasy?

After a moment, she nods her head, slowly.

“I can see it,” she says. “But then, why are you fighting underground?”

“I need the money,” I tell her. “If I win this whole tournament with Krupin, that’ll be enough cash to get me to New York. I could train there, get my licensure, start working my way up through the legitimate leagues.”

Sasha nods again, biting her lip.

“I used to think I might like to go to America, too,” she says. “Doctors are like celebrities there. Have you ever seen Doctor Oz?”

I shake my head.

Sasha laughs.

“Don’t you ever watch TV?” she says.

“Not much,” I admit. “I like movies, though.”

We talk for a while about our favorite movies. Sasha tells me how her sister would take the train to Moscow to visit her during the Film Festival, and I tell her how Boom Boom and I first bonded over sports movies, since I childishly love the triumph of the underdog, and Boom Boom loves all things American.

Our plates are empty. The waiter is starting to hover, wondering if we’re ever going to pay our bill.

I don’t want to, because then this afternoon will be over, and I don’t think it could ever happen again. The spell will break. Sasha will go back to whatever posh house she lives in, in whatever fancy neighborhood. We’ll be back to how we were.

“How did you know about this place?” Sasha asks me, pushing aside her plate at last.

“I live right there.”

I point to my apartment building across the street, visible through the front window of the restaurant.

“Oh,” Sasha says.

It’s an ugly building: stained brown brick, with shops on the lower level, and a jumble of tiny flats above. This whole neighborhood is ugly. Kupchino is like an island, stranded between an industrial zone, railway lines, and the ring road in the south. It’s got no underground station, barely any amenities at all. Just a lot of hideous block buildings from the 70s, and a legacy of violence and crime.

Sasha is right to avoid it. I probably shouldn’t have brought her here at all.

She’s still looking out the window, though. Peering up at my building.

“Could I . . . see it?” Sasha asks hesitantly.

With any other girl, I’d take it as an invitation. But I don’t think she’s even considering that. She’s curious about me, just as I am about her.

We’re like citizens of two different countries, able to speak the same language, but still foreign to each other.

Sasha insists on paying for the food, since I bought the tickets for the museum. I watch her count out the bills from her wallet, coming up short, then hunting for change in her purse.

“Just a moment,” she says to the waiter, red-faced. “I’m sure I have another ten.”

“Sasha,” I say gently, “please let me pay.”

I pay the whole of the bill, shoving her rubles back into her purse before she can argue.

“I won my fights, remember,” I tell her. “I’m practically rich.”

I guess from a certain perspective, I am richer than Sasha’s family. They owe Krupin a staggering sum of money. I may not have much, but at least I don’t owe anybody anything.

I’ve made a lot of stupid choices over the years, but the one thing I swore I’d never do is go into debt to the Bratva. Once they own you, you might as well kill yourself, because your life as a free man is over.

Of course, I don’t like looking at it that callously when it comes to Sasha. I don’t want her life to be over.

Sasha follows me across the street. Now she’s the one who stands out, drawing looks for her expensive coat, boots, and bag. She looks as out of place as I did on Sadovaya. I see a couple of street toughs eyeing her. While I’m walking along beside her, they don’t dare try to snatch her purse, or even catcall her.

We have to climb six flights of stairs up to my flat—there’s no elevator. I’m conscious of how musty and dank the stairwell is. When I’m alone, I don’t pay attention to these things. But with Sasha, I can’t help but see how ugly and run-down it must look to her eyes. I unlock the door to my apartment, letting her walk inside first.

The flat is tiny and dark, its sole window looking out into the narrow alleyway. The walls are bare. I don’t have books or artwork or rugs or any of the things I’m sure Sasha is used to. It probably looks like a prison cell.

She glances around, taking it in. This doesn’t take long, because it’s so small.

“You’re so tidy,” she says, turning to smile at me. “Not like my sister. Her room’s like one of those Where’s Waldo books—have you ever seen those?”

I shake my head.

“They’re a big jumble of objects and people, and you’re supposed to find this little man called Waldo . . . anyway, Mila’s room looks like that. Like it could be hiding a whole person in it,” Sasha laughs.

“You’re not messy, though,” I say.

“How do you know?”

I shrug.

“You’re the responsible one. Always taking care of everyone else.”

“That’s right,” Sasha says, surprised.

She sighs.

“It’s tiring . . . sometimes I wish somebody else would take a turn.”

Unlike Sasha, I don’t have a nurturing bone in my body.

But in that moment, looking at her pale face, her large blue eyes with the smudge of dark circles under them from all her late nights working for Krupin, I think that could change. I feel a strong desire to take care of her. To protect her.

She deserves to have a champion.

Without meaning to, we’ve drawn closer to each other in the center of the room. My flat is just a studio—the living room and bedroom are one space, with a low divider closing off the kitchenette. My bed is only a few feet away, the covers pulled tight and turned back, as we were taught to do at the orphanage.

I can see Sasha’s eyes widen as she realizes that we’re all alone now. All the time we’ve been together today, she forgot to be frightened of me. Now she remembers how much bigger and stronger I am than her, and that she doesn’t really know me at all.

I don’t want to scare her.

But I’m aching to touch her.

I take one step closer.

Now I can smell that delicate perfume rising up off her skin—like lilac blossoms in the spring, when the rain falls on them. Something I’ve only smelled a few times, living deep in the city. You don’t forget it, though.

Just like I don’t think I could ever forget the soft pink color of Sasha’s lips and cheeks, next to the deep blue of her eyes.

I’d like to burn more images into my brain . . .

Specifically, I want to see what she looks like under that coat . . .

Sasha’s lips part. She takes a deep breath, as if she’s about to dive into the ocean.

It’s all the invitation I need.

I bend my head to kiss those soft, full lips.

I intend to be gentle. I really do. But the moment my lips meet hers, and my tongue slips between her lips to taste her mouth, my lust inflames ten-fold.

It’s like how the first bite of food can ignite your hunger. As soon as I taste her, I want to devour her.

I grab her by the shoulders and pull her body tight against mine. I kiss her harder and deeper, forcing my tongue all the way into her mouth. I thrust my right hand into her silver-blonde hair. It wraps around my fingers, fine as spider’s silk.

With my left hand, I start to undo the wooden buttons of her coat.

I want to rip the clothes off of her. I would, if that coat weren’t so damned expensive. Instead, I force myself to undo each button in turn.

When I come to the third one down from the neck, Sasha lays her hand over mine.

“Wait,” she gasps. “I . . . I should tell you something . . .”

Her hand is tight on mine, almost trembling. She’s nervous . . .

I realize the truth without Sasha even saying it.

She’s a virgin. It’s obvious from her timidness, from the way she touches me, then draws back her hands, then touches me again. She doesn’t know quite what to do.

She really is a good girl, like I said.

It’s probably the only thing that could give me pause. This is no back-alley blowjob, not for her.

Not for me, either.

“Do you want to stop?” I ask her.

She hesitates. I see her flushed cheeks, her quick breath. She wants this as much as I do.

“No,” she says. “Don’t stop.”

She stands on tiptoe to kiss me again.

I unbutton her coat the rest of the way and slip it down off her shoulders. Underneath, she has on a wool dress. This, too, has buttons. If I were going to be tortured for eternity, the demons of hell would wrap Sasha up in endless layers of clothing with hundreds of buttons.

The only consolation is that each one I undo reveals another inch of her creamy skin. First her throat, then her delicate breastbone, then the swells of her breasts, larger than I would have guessed. I come to the lacy cups of her bra—a dusty rose color, a little darker than her lips.

Three more buttons and I’m following down the centerline of her navel, to her bellybutton, and then to the matching lace panties that are paper-thin, but probably pricier than anything I own. How do upper-class women learn to dress themselves so perfectly, all the way down to their underwear? It’s a far cry from the cheap, bright nylon thongs I usually see. If the girls are wearing underwear at all.

Everything about Sasha is perfectly groomed and classy, from her hair down to her pedicure. Everything she owns looks brand new—not a single scuff on her purse or boots. Her soap and perfume smell expensive. Her skin is flawless.

By contrast, when I strip off her dress at last and put my hands around her waist, I see how much darker and rougher my own skin is, not to mention covered in tattoos. I’m a library book that’s been drawn all over, while Sasha’s spine has never even been cracked.

Maybe I should be ashamed of the differences between us.

Sasha isn’t. She’s examining me just the same, pulling off my coat and hoodie, running her hands over my chest and arms. Her fingertips linger over my tattoos, like she’s never seen one up close before. She traces their lines, then she bends her head to my chest and trails her tongue across my skin.

That flushes away any last bit of hesitation I might have had.

I can’t just stand here next to this gorgeous girl in her skimpy lingerie, her body lush and ripe for the picking, wondering whether I actually deserve to touch her or not.

Instinct takes over. I lift her up and carry her to my bed.