CHAPTER 3
Moscow, March 1996
Katya Sinitsyna was woken up by the long and persistent doorbell. She discovered she was lying on the rug in the living room, wearing a raggedy robe thrown over her naked body.
“Mitya!” she called out loudly. “Have you gone deaf or something? Can’t you open the door?”
She stood up and staggered into the front hall. The bell kept ringing. Without turning on the light or asking who it was, Katya opened the front door wide. It was unlocked.
“Why all the racket? Can’t you see it’s open?” Katya, displeased, asked the man standing on the threshold.
Entering and shutting the door behind him, the man flicked the light switch, took Katya’s face into his hands, and looked carefully into her eyes.
“Katya, child, you shouldn’t be alone right now,” he said gently. “Go get washed and dressed and come to our place.”
Only then did Katya wholly wake up, stare at her unexpected visitor, recognize her father-in-law, Mitya’s father, Mikhail Filippovich Sinitsyn, and burst into tears.
“Yes, child, you cry.” He stroked her cropped reddish hair. “That will help. Olga can’t cry at all, neither can his mama or grandmother, and I still can’t. My insides are burning up, they’re on fire, but the tears just won’t come.”
“Just a minute.” Katya freed herself from his hands, sniffed, and wiped her tears with her fist. “If you’ll wait here, I’ll go get dressed.” She pointed to the low bench in the front hall, slipped into her room, and slammed the door behind her, right under Mikhail Filippovich’s nose.
He wasn’t offended. The front hall was fine with him. How could he expect civility from this poor little girl after what she’d been through? You could see she was in a dreadful state. Everyone was in a dreadful state. Did those niceties amount to anything?
Mikhail Filippovich tried as hard as he could not to think about his son. What had happened seemed like an absurd, impossible nightmare. He still hadn’t seen his son’s body. He drove the image of it from his mind. The brief sentence, “Mitya hanged himself,” seemed like a prank, someone’s evil joke.
He’d gone to get Katya because he didn’t know what to do with himself, didn’t know how to be, how to fill the time until the funeral. More than that, he truly felt very sorry for the girl. She was practically an orphan, a fragile, defenseless creature. There wasn’t anyone to think about her, to care for her. Olga had taken on all the details of the cremation. His wife and mother-in-law were wandering around the house like shadows, cleaning, since they’d decided to hold the wake at their place rather than here, in Vykhino. His grandsons were at school all day.
A cremation, a wake—who was it all for? Not for his Mitya, his handsome, talented, kind little boy. They couldn’t even have a church funeral. No priest would read the service for a suicide.
His Mitya was gone. He’d killed himself. But why? Why had he done this to himself and all of them? How had they wronged him—his parents, his sister, his wife Katya?
Mikhail Filippovich believed he knew his son and had a fairly good sense of him. Since early childhood, Mitya had been an open and sincere boy. He’d had none of those emotional black holes that might help explain this inconceivable act.
Pulling on jeans and a sweater, Katya wondered whether she should shoot up now, beforehand, or if it would be better to bring a few pills to take later. Lately, the pills had had practically no effect. No high, but coming down was easier. On pills she could hold out, make it through to the next needle. At this moment, she didn’t care; she could shoot up there, too, without even hiding in the bathroom. What difference did it make now? Sooner or later, they were going to find out. The cops or someone else would tell them. Not Olga, of course. But what was the point in hiding it now? If Mitya was gone, did it matter that his wife was an addict? Katya didn’t even notice she was thinking about herself in the past tense, as if she too were gone.
She remembered six months ago when her husband’s sister had turned up without warning. Mitya had gone somewhere for a few days. Katya no longer cared where he went. He’d told her, of course, but she forgot instantly. He’s gone. Fine.
Naturally, the apartment was a disaster: dirt, bottles lying on the floor, cigarette butts floating in the sink, music blaring. And Katya staggered around in the same raggedy, soiled robe, high.
There were only two bottles, Privet and Absolut, but both were empty. Katya had decided to have a one-woman party. She hadn’t stepped foot out of the house for three days, shooting up and drinking, drinking and shooting up. When Mitya was around, she wouldn’t let herself unwind like that. It wasn’t until later that she stopped caring altogether, but then she had still kept up appearances around him, trying to let him hold on to the hope that she wasn’t entirely on the needle, just partly so, as if that were even possible. But the minute he left, she was off on a bender.
And now—holy shit! Olga the businesswoman, as large as life, the Fury in a business suit was in her home. She dragged Katya into the bathroom, put her under the shower, and, sadist that she was, turned on the icy-cold water. Then she forced her to drink two cups of strong coffee.
“How long has this been going on?”
“A year,” Katya admitted.
“What are you shooting up?”
“Whatever I can get.”
“Show me what you have.”
Katya showed her the ampoules, but only the empty, used ones. There wasn’t anything written on them, but Olga wrapped them up neatly in a plastic bag, and then a handkerchief, and put them in her purse.
“You buy it from whoever you can, yes? On the Arbat and in the subway at Pushkin Square? Any debts?”
“No,” Katya said with something like pride.
“Of course.” Olga nodded. “I give Mitya money, and you take it from him. It turns out I’m working for your drugs. Any pills?”
Katya went into the bedroom and returned with an empty Haldol pack. Olga put it straight into her purse.
“Tomorrow I’m taking you to a doctor. You’ll check into the hospital. Don’t be afraid, it’s a good hospital, not like the one before. You’ll stay as long as it takes, until you’re completely well.”
“There’s no such thing as completely well,” Katya noted cautiously. “That doesn’t happen.”
“Yes, it does. So far you’re still doing this alone, you’re not on the streets, you haven’t picked up AIDS. Or have you?”
“Olga, stop it!”
“Well, let’s just say you’ve been going in that direction for a long time. Anyway, this isn’t about you, it’s about Mitya.”
“Olga, I do love him very much.”
“I know you love him. Lord, if I’d found you here with a guy, this would be much easier for me, I can promise you!”
“No, I’m not cheating on him!” Katya was offended. “I don’t need anyone but him. Mitya’s all I think about, all the time. I feel like garbage and I’m so ashamed for you to see me like this. You have to forgive me, Olga!”
“We’ll talk about forgiveness another time. For now, remember this. My parents, to say nothing of my grandmother and my sons, can’t know anything about this. You’re going to the hospital for female troubles.” Olga grinned bitterly. “We’ll tell them this is the last hope for curing your infertility. Don’t worry, I’ll take responsibility for the lying. Right now, you’re going to put this pigpen in order so that you’re ready tomorrow. I’ll come by and take you to the hospital myself. Understand?”