A tall man in a civilian coat, but with a military bearing, approached me.
“Pasha, are you alive?”
“Gena…” I exhaled and slumped against the hood. My legs gave out.
Gennady Viktorovich, my old friend with whom I had worked at the factory in the 80s on things that are not spoken of, hugged me.
“You’re something else, Petrovich. Staged an action movie. Nadya called just in time. We’re guarding a facility nearby. Flight time—two minutes.”
I watched as they loaded Vitalik into the van. He wasn’t screaming anymore. He was crying, smearing snot across the snow.
“What will happen to him?” I asked.
Gena smirked.
“To him? Nothing good. They say they found more than just bats in his car. Some white powder in the glove compartment. A large quantity. He’ll be gone for fifteen years. And there, in prison, they quickly explain to businessmen like him what’s what.”
I went to the Niva, opened the door. Nadya was sitting, clutching her hands to her chest, looking at me with huge eyes.
“It’s over, daughter,” I said. “It’s all over.”
Three months have passed. The snow has melted. April was warm this year. We are sitting on the veranda of a wooden house. Not in the village with Aunt Valya, but in a small town near Cherkasy. We bought a good house, a log cabin with a plot of land by the Dnieper River. With the money that was left. We put five million in an account in Nadya’s name, but with the condition that she can only withdraw it after a year. Let it sit, let it cool down. We spent the rest on the house and on treatment.
Nadya walks with a slight limp. Ligaments take a long time to heal. But her eyes are different. Alive. She found a remote job. She does accounting for some IT firm.
Vitalik was convicted. Quickly and harshly. They found both illegal substances on him (whether they were really there or if Gena helped—I didn’t ask), and his land scams came to light. He was given eight years in a high-security prison. Nadya divorced him in absentia, in a single hearing.
I look at the river. The ice has already passed, the water is dark, fast. A cat is lying on my lap. A ginger, impudent one. He took a liking to us a week ago. We named him Chubais.
“Dad, want some tea?” Nadya calls from the kitchen. It smells of pies. With cabbage. Almost like Galya’s.
“Yes, daughter, bring it.”
I take an old photograph out of my pocket. Galya is laughing, squinting in the Odessa sun.
“You see, Galochka?” I whisper. “We managed. I got our girl out. And I’ll get myself out too.”
Life is a strange thing. Sometimes it hits you over the head with a bag of trash. And sometimes it turns out that in that bag is your salvation. The main thing is not to walk past it. The main thing is to open it and see what’s inside. And the main thing is to know that even in the most hopeless darkness, in the deepest winter night, there is someone who will write to you on a sheet of notebook paper: “I love you, Dad. Run.”
And that is worth living for.
Comments are closed.