Konstantin Dmitrievich Medvedev was driving from the regional clinic down Central Avenue, having deliberately dismissed his driver. He wanted to be alone, to process the cardiologist’s words about his high blood pressure, to think about the suppliers delaying parts for the service center in Tulak, the equipment needing replacement, and how everything had piled up at once. Though he was used to clearing up messes, ever since he started with a single garage back in ’92.
At the “Aquarelle” shopping center, the light turned red, and Konstantin’s gaze mechanically drifted over the figures between the rows of cars. The usual silhouettes with cardboard signs and plastic cups – people who had long learned to ignore being ignored.
A woman with a baby carrier on her chest was moving from the next car toward his Land Cruiser. At first, Konstantin felt the usual, almost reflexive pity. Thin, disheveled, her bare feet on the scorching asphalt. And then something shifted in his chest, as if someone had punched him hard under the ribs.
Yulya.
He lowered the window, not believing his own eyes, hoping he was mistaken, that it was some other woman with a similar oval face, with the same dark hair, only dirty, tangled, and sticking out in all directions.
— Yulya?
She flinched, raised her head, and the first thing he saw in her eyes was not horror, not relief, but shame. A sharp, animalistic shame of someone caught doing something disgraceful. She instinctively covered her face with her hand, as if trying to disappear, to dissolve into the July haze. This movement, this victim’s gesture, hit Konstantin harder than any words could.
— Dad, don’t, — she whispered, backing away. — Please, just drive away.
— Get in the car.
— I can’t, you don’t understand…
— Yulya, get in the car!
A car honked behind them. Someone impatient, someone running late. Someone for whom this scene was just an obstacle on their way home. Konstantin didn’t turn around. He looked at his daughter’s sunken cheeks, her chapped lips, at Bogdan in the carrier. His grandson lay with his head lolling limply, his cheeks red from the heat.
Yulya got into the back seat, clutching her son to her chest, still clenching a handful of coins. Money, pennies — someone’s random charity. Konstantin raised the window, shutting out the city’s heat and the honking of strangers, turned the air conditioning to full blast, and pulled away.
— Where’s the apartment? — he asked, trying to keep his voice steady, though it treacherously cracked. — Where’s the Tucson? Where’s the money I transferred to your account?
Yulya was silent, looking out the window, and Konstantin could see a tear rolling down her cheek in the mirror. Slowly, tiredly, as if she didn’t even have the strength for a proper cry.
— Maxim took it, — she finally forced out. — And Emma Yakovlevna. They took everything. The car, the apartment, the money. They threw us out, Bogdan and me. They said if I resisted, they’d take the child.
— How did they throw you out? The apartment is registered in your name…
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