The Right to Choose

by Andrey Vasilyev

  “This is great,” Shelestova said to everyone. She started dancing something that looked like the twist, her cheeks flushed with color. “I don’t like it when it’s boring for New Year’s. Back when I was still living with my dad, I remember, we used to think up all kinds of games. One year, I drew a pirate map and sent everyone running through the house and out into the garden to find some fireworks I’d hidden. It was so much fun!”

  “And we’re—” Zhilin started, but the senior bodyguard interrupted him.

  “Harriton, I’m sorry, but we need to go,” he said tactfully, though firmly. “This is an open area, and it’s getting late, so…”

  “The trumpet sounds,” Shelestova said understandingly. “Like clockwork. That’s a shame.”

  “I agree,” I replied. “Guys, thanks for a fantastic night. Really, it’s been great. I can’t remember the last time I had such a good time.”

  “There are a lot of things you only understand once you’ve lost them,” Elena said as she waved a sleeve at me and chirped on. “Happy New Year and Merry Christmas, everyone! Be ready; I may still call you.”

  “Don’t worry about coming into work tomorrow,” Vika said to the group. “I’ll clean everything up and close shop. Kif, you don’t mind, do you?”

  “Me?” Yep, she always has to have the last word. Fine, let her. “Good with me. I’m staying at home!”

  It didn’t look like Vika got why everyone was laughing.

  Oddly enough, we were taken to the main entrance rather than through the garage. I wonder why that is.

  The main hall looked even more festive than it had earlier. There were lots of different lights, balls that were lit up in all the colors of the rainbow, and a bunch of other decorations. To my surprise, I started to feel the holiday spirit for the first time in years, something I’d lost as I’d gotten older.

  An apprehensive glance at the front desk told me that Dasha wasn’t there. I was afraid to come across her on my own as it was, but with Vika on my arm… I didn’t need that; it was already a marvel that she hadn’t tried to tell me off in the car. Although to be fair, she probably just didn’t want to do it in front of the bodyguards. Her behavior had started to change recently, and I even had the sneaking suspicion that she was reading Cosmopolitan.

  “Who’s this?” Valyaev called, appearing out of nowhere. “Hey, Vika.”

  He kissed her on the cheek.

  “Impressive,” Vika said. “There’s so much of everything!”

  “There you go, somebody with some taste,” he replied with a finger pointed in her direction. “Not like some people.”

  Zimin walked up. “He’s talking about me. I was dumb enough to say that it looked kind of gaudy, and now he won’t let it go. Good evening, Vika.”

  Vika got a kiss on her other cheek and looked over at the reception desk proudly.

  “What do you think, Kif?” Zimin asked.

  I looked around, scanning the open area from one end to the other, and was about to open my mouth and praise the designer when the words stuck in my throat—I’d noticed someone walking through the glass doors.

  Chapter Six

  In which some systematizing takes place.

  To be fair, it was more of a “what” that walked through the doors. It looked like a woman, judging by the slender legs in ragged stockings and once-attractive but now filthy half boots. That’s where the clarity ended, however. A stock of tangled, dirty hair covered her face entirely, and the expensive, white fur coat she was wearing was torn and stained.

  The creature wobbled, took a few steps, and hiccupped.

  “Wait, what?” Valyaev rubbed his eyes.

  “What’s that?” Vika asked. “Why isn’t security doing anything?”

  “A Snow Maiden tramp?” I chimed in. “People can go anywhere with the social programs they have these days, but who could she be here to see? Could she have mixed something up? Walked into the wrong building?”

  She shook some dirt off her hands, pulled her hair away from her face, and looked around.

  “Niech mnie djabeł porwie,” she announced loudly. “Ty diabła warta!”

  “We can call off the search,” Zimin said quietly to Valyaev. “But I’ll be damned if I have any idea what’s going on.”

  Valyaev shook his head. “Drank herself half to death. I haven’t seen anything like that in years. You know how bad it is when she starts speaking Polish.”

  “Get her out of here,” Zimin said, his face dead serious. “Quickly, before she says or does something she shouldn’t. We’ll figure out what’s going on later.”

  “Right, that’s my job,” Valyaev snorted, though he ran over to the drunk and filthy woman.

  “Yadviga, sweetie, where did you do this to yourself? Come on, let’s go. We’ll get you cleaned up, make you some tea, and put you to bed.”

  “Skurvel!” Yadviga’s fist just missed Valyaev’s nose. “With you? Jesteś chory umysłowo? Murderer!”

  Zimin’s cheek twitched, he snapped his fingers, and two of the guards who had come with us moved quickly toward the woman. Her voice was intensifying into a shriek.

  “Yadviga, baby girl, what are you talking about?” Valyaev dodged flying fists with admirable agility. The dirt that flew everywhere told us that she must have been wallowing around in it just before she stepped into the building. “You know me top to bottom. What could I have done? And how am I possibly a murderer?”

  “Niech cię piorun trzaśni!” Yadviga squealed as Edward’s people closed in on her. “Pies ci mordę lizał!”

  “Grab her and follow me,” Valyaev barked to the guards. “Hurry!”

  He trotted off toward the service elevator, his face pale and focused.

  “You should be ashamed of yourself,” Vika said to Yadviga as she was carried past us. “With your position, and—”

  “Jesteś tanią kurwą,” Yadviga shot back, spitting in Vika’s direction. Happily, she missed. “Masz dupę jak szafę!”

  “What?” Vika looked at me. “I have no idea what that was. What did she say?”

  “It was Polish,” said a familiar voice from behind us. “She said you’re a cheap…umm…woman, put it that way. And that you have—I’m sorry—an ass like a cupboard, big and ugly.”

  “Wha-at?” Vika howled and turned to Dasha, who was standing there with a guilty look on her face, eyes on the floor.

  “She said it, not me.” Dasha pointed at the guards and the drunk Polish woman heading off in the direction of the elevator, still not looking up. And I knew why she wasn’t, too. There was, I was sure, an impish glint in her green eyes. “You asked what she said, and I just translated it…”

  “Vika, she’s drunk, so don’t take what she says seriously.” Zimin put a hand on her shoulder and turned her toward him. “She could have said anything, after all. Don’t forget how emotional Yadviga can be, so—”

  “I have a butt like a cupboard?” Vika shot back, throwing her arms up in the air. “Me? How could anyone say that, even when they’re drunk?”

  I glanced over at Dasha and noticed her shoulders twitching, but I doubted she was shedding a tear in sympathy for Vika’s frustration. Feeling my eyes on her, the prankster from the reception desk looked up, and I saw a crazy mirth in her clear green eyes. My heart started beating through my chest.

  “Vika, really,” I added, shaking a fist in Dasha’s direction without Vika noticing. “She got all the holiday finery in here dirty, and I think it was fantastic. Just look at the five plasma screens!”

  “Bitch,” Vika muttered as her nose twitched. “Polish camel.”

  “Head upstairs,” Zimin said, his voice telling us that it was more an order than a request. “Get some rest; you’ve had a hard day.”

  “It’s been long for all of us,” I replied. “You should take a load off, too, Maxim. You’re practically superhuman, but you’re not made of stone!”

  “I still need to talk with the girls over there. Okay, have a good night!�
�

  He nodded to the last of the three bodyguards we’d walked in with, letting him know that his job was to accompany us to our apartment, and stepped off toward the reception desk. On the way, he grabbed Dasha.

  ***

  “I have a fat ass,” Vika grumbled, pulling her fur coat up and turning to look at her backside in the elevator mirrors. She paid no attention to the bodyguard. “She’s all shriveled like a lemon, her hair looks like hemp, and her neck is pale. What a bitch!”

  What intrigued me was that Yadviga, as drunk as she was, had let everyone in the room have it except for me. Why the ambivalence? At our previous meeting, she’d held back neither in emotion nor in word, and that was when she was sober. But coming in, off her rocker, it was like I didn’t exist. Curioser and curioser…

  As we got closer to our floor, Vika calmed down, to the point where she gave the concierge, who, apparently, wasn’t worth an actual greeting, a lofty nod as we walked past.

  ***

  Back in our apartment, she turned to me. “I talked with my mom today and told her to expect us for Christmas. Have you discussed that with Zimin, yet?”

  “No, not yet.” I accepted the coat she tossed elegantly in my direction as she turned away. “He’s been too busy. You saw him today—tons to do, running around like a busy bee. I couldn’t exactly bother him with little details.”

  “Sorry, dear, but I wouldn’t say my parents are little details,” Vika replied, her voice incredibly even.

  Only women can speak that smoothly, with that lack of intonation. Men can’t. We’re driven, emotional creatures, so we’re always putting feeling of one sort or another into everything we say. Women, on the other hand, can give entire monologues in a dead, cold voice.

  “I wouldn’t, either.” I sighed, still holding her coat. “Especially, since I haven’t even met them. You have to find the right time and place for the questions you want to ask, though, and you know that just as well as I do. Maybe, even better.”

  Vika eyed me. “Some things you can’t put off for later. What are you just standing there with the coat for? Hang it up. No, not on a hook. What do you think we have hangers for? Ah, you can’t do anything; give it to me.”

  Her voice had livened up, and that was a good thing, but the entire scene had me on edge. Coats, hooks, mom and dad… I’d been through all that before, and it had only ever been the starting point for something that got much worse. It looked like history was repeating itself, and it felt pretty real. She’s copying the last one. And everything started so well…

  “I’m jumping into the shower and heading to bed,” Vika announced, having somehow decided that I needed to know her plans. “Oh, right, I forgot to ask you—did they just decorate everything downstairs for fun or—”

  “No, everyone living in the building is going to listen to the president together, have some drinks, do some dancing.”

  “Including us?”

  “Including us,” I replied as I pulled my coat off. “What choice do we have? We’re locals now, too, so the neighbors won’t understand it if we blow them off.”

  “Skip the sarcasm,” she called from the other room. “There are some events people in our circle just have to go to. They’re just as important as showing up for work and taking a shower. You need to get used to that.”

  Our circle, huh?

  “I am, I am.”

  “Again, easy on the sarcasm.” Vika stepped out into the corridor wearing her robe. “There’s a time and a place for everything. What’s taking so long? I’m already changed, and you haven’t taken your shoes off, yet.”

  “I’m not in a hurry,” I shrugged. “Everything’s done for today, right?”

  “Oh, I have to work on you and work on you,” Vika complained to herself. She ruffled my hair and walked off in the direction of the bathroom.

  Work on me? Whatever she tried, she was just going to blunt and break her tools. I was already as polished as I was going to get.

  Grabbing the box with the pistol, I headed toward the kitchen, placed it on the table, and happily flipped the latch open.

  As I pulled the action back, I had to admit that it was an elegant little piece. It clicked into the loaded position until I pressed the slide stop and let slip back into place.

  All the different sounds guns make are music to any man’s ears—the steel on steel, the safety clicking off, the removable magazines. It’s simple and universal.

  I stroked the ivory cheeks on the grip, my fingers feeling their way along the interwoven lines.

  What does that mean? They weren’t there just because they looked good. Shelestova was a chatterbox, but she always had a reason for what she said. There had to have been one for her gift, too.

  I peered closer at the symbols wrapping their way around the circle. What are those letters? Wait, are they letters? They could have been some kind of Scandinavian runes for all I knew. I definitely hadn’t seen them before, and the work was flawless. Everything was cut just so.

  If it hadn’t been for my house arrest, I would have gone to see the Elephant. She knew all that mystical stuff like the back of her hand, and it was possible she would have recognized the squiggles.

  The Elephant, Anna Zlatnova, and I had studied together at the institute. It wasn’t a large body or long nose that earned her the nickname, either; it was the adoration she’d had since she was a child for the big, gentle beasts, and all the clothes she was always wearing with pictures of them. A typical day with her included something like, “Hey, look at the elephant socks I bought yesterday!”

  With her mild, peaceful, and flexible personality, she quickly became a group favorite, and she only earned her other nickname when her girlfriends found out about her tarot hobby. She was great with the cards, and her predictions even came true, sometimes. Needless to say, I’d always figured that was just a coincidence. Believing in tarot is like believing in horoscopes. I’d seen first-hand how Zhenya wrote them for our paper. She’d wander the halls asking anyone she came across for pearls of wisdom. If you’re a Sagittarius, be careful driving cars. Obviously, her imagination wasn’t limitless, and a year and a half into the job, she stopped going around asking people; she just reused old material, and nobody noticed a thing.

  But, back to Zlatnova, after tarot, she moved on to the Vedas, a path that took her either into the Mayans or the debris of numerology. One way or another, she found her way well into the depths of the esoteric. That not-so-healthy pursuit even found her a job. Once she’d built up enough weight in the Moscow mystical circles, she got an offer from a popular glossy magazine and spent six years writing a column there. It was named something like Find Your Destiny or Seeress Anna Sees. She’d been invited on some TV shows as a local expert, where she uttered wisdom and knowledge in her soothing voice. I knew her well enough to assert with complete confidence that she was having the time of her life mocking the entire process. She loved the process of spitting out complete nonsense and giving it an air of absolute truth.

  Long story short, I would have sworn she could shed light on the symbols. The only problem was that there was no way anyone was going to let me go see her. Hypothetically, I could have sent her a picture, but there were two buts there. First, I didn’t know what the symbols meant or how whoever was monitoring my communications would react to them (certainly, there were people monitoring them). Second, to get any kind of timely, well-formed answer out of the Elephant, you had to stay on her, occasionally giving her a jab in the back. Otherwise, you were up a creek without a paddle. She'd go make herself some tea, lose herself online, and eventually forget what she was supposed to do.

  And so, the only way to pull it off was to go see her in person, but I wasn’t going to be allowed out for that. I had Kasimov coming up, too, complete with Vika’s parents and her crazy sister. I didn’t have the least desire to go; I knew how that type of thing would turn out. There would be vodka with her dad as he eyed me unpleasantly, as well as chattering mindlessly with
her mom as her eyes gleamed. Oh, Harriton, what does your mother do? You’re an only child? How big is your apartment? It’s been so long since we were last in Moscow! And on and on…

  There were her friends, too—school friends, kindergarten friends, neighbors—and all of them with their laughter and either suspicious or flirty glances cast sideways. Of course, none of them would actually want me. They’d all just want to stick it to Vika and stroke their own egos. What a mess.

  It would be worse still if she had a disconsolate admirer she’d left behind, someone who’d probably forgotten her with the passing of years but would have everything come rushing back when he saw her again.

  The alpha male of Kasimov would start by breaking three of my ribs to prove whose turf I was on. It would be good if he kept it to just three ribs, too—those heal. Vitaly Boyarinov had gone to visit his girlfriend’s parents in Pokhvistnevo a couple years before. It was New Year’s then, too, and it was a great little city on the Bolshoy Kinel River, complete with fishing, sledding, snow-covered fir trees, and everything else. As a bonus, his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend was there, coming around with some big friends of his to play sweet love songs on accordions because it was Pokhvistnevo, and not Europe with its lyres.

  Vitaly only got back to Moscow a month later since the doctors there wouldn’t release him any sooner. The variety of injuries he’d sustained was too significant. How can you even break someone’s leg in three places? Of course, he’d mumbled something about slipping off a bridge and falling onto the ice, but his speech was incoherent, his eye twitched, and he couldn’t find his mouth.

  For the next six months, he went from hospital to hospital, nearly died because he didn’t realize that he was allergic to some medicine or other, and picked up two new phobias: leaving Moscow and provincial girls. There was nothing wrong with them; it’s just that you have to visit where they’re from sooner or later.

  My prospects weren’t good, in a word, and I wasn’t even sure how I was going to get there. Of course, there was the option of asking Zimin to make a point of not letting me go anywhere. He could invite us both in and pound away at the table. He could yell his No! at me. Uh-uh, that isn’t strong enough. No, you’re not going anywhere! That was better. I wasn’t my own man, and I would have been forced to tell Vika that I couldn’t go. You’re welcome to, though. Stay for the whole holiday! Parents are parents; I get it. I could get along by myself.