The City

by London Miller

  And with the alcohol came the anger, anger in which he aimed at Galina, blaming her for his troubles. He did not shy away from using his fists to make his point, sometimes brandishing the small pistol that he still owned, a token of the past he still clung to. If Valon had the misfortune of crossing his path while he was in the throes of his anger, then he suffered under the onslaught as well, though his mother did her best to shield him.

  Valon was quite small for his age, a fact that Ahmeti constantly reminded him of, and he didn’t have to be told this to know how weak he was. He wished he could protect his mother as she protected him, but when he tried, he was batted away like a pest, making him feel all the more ashamed of what he couldn’t do.

  To say the least, the last year of his life had been filled with agony, and most days Valon wished he and his mother could steal away into the night. But he knew that without the resources, that day would never come.

  Resigning himself to another night of hell, Valon headed upstairs, stopping by old lady Baton’s apartment first to speak, accepting the pastry she shoved into his hands as she complained about how thin he was. When he reached his own home, fully expecting Ahmeti’s booming voice to echo into the hall—as it did many days and nights—he was surprised to find it quiet.

  Walking inside, he found his mother scrubbing dishes in the kitchen, singing an old Russian song she was fond of. Since the time he was a child, she had taught him her native tongue, always the patient one as he stumbled over words and meanings. Now, he was as fluent in Russian as he was in Albanian, a fact that made her proud.

  Hearing him enter, she turned with a ready smile, her blond hair pulled into a bun at the nape of her neck. She wiped her damp hands on the front of her apron, coming to him with open arms. While she might have been smiling, even Valon could see something was off in her eyes.

  “You’re home early, then,” she said in smooth Russian, never speaking in anything else unless Ahmeti was around—when she spoke it, it only set him off.

  “Yes.”

  He hugged her tightly, inhaling the familiar scent of her skin. What Valon lacked in strength, he made up for in height, as he was nearly as tall as she was.

  “Come,” she said turning him toward her bedroom, taking his bag along the way and setting it on the couch as they went.

  In the room, she set him down at her vanity, a place that was a comfort to her. Despite her less than ideal life, and even the one she had left behind, Galina was rather fond of her various makeups, not to mention the vintage pair of hair combs that she’d managed to hold onto after all these years. Valon could not be sure what they were worth—though he assumed they were worth a lot. He doubted the monetary value was more than how much his mother cherished them.

  Picking up one of her brushes, she smiled at him through the mirror, slowly moving the bristles through his hair gently, as though she were afraid she might hurt him. Though he normally only washed his hair and let it fall how it wanted—never putting forth much effort when it came to it—Galina always enjoyed brushing out his hair, humming softly as she did it. Most days it made him feel like a girl, oftentimes reminding him of the hateful words Ahmeti spewed at him whenever he was around. But for his mother, he would endure her ministrations, if only because she took such great joy in it.

  “My sweet boy,” she murmured, using her fingers to sift through his hair once the brush passed. “I wish great things for you. One day you will not know this life of pain. You will have everything you ever want, I promise.”

  Valon didn’t like the defeated sound of Galina’s voice and only wanted to cheer her up. “I will buy you a house one day, Nënë, when I am not so small.”

  She laughed, the usual light and airy sound seeming more forced. “Not for me, but for the girl you give your heart to.” She crouched to his level, turning him around so that he was facing her. “And as you are honest with me, always be honest with her, yes? Show her the real you even if you hide from everyone else.”

  “Nënë, what bothers you?”

  He knew, without her having to say, that something was wrong. She was speaking of a future as though she would not be in it with him. He did not intend to leave her with Ahmeti, not if he could help it.

  “I love you, Valon, my precious boy. No matter what your father says, you were the best thing to ever happen to me.”

  Valon didn’t respond. He just watched Galina as she climbed back to her feet, smoothing out the front of her apron. Years had passed, he thought, since the last time he’d returned that sentiment, always finding it too soft for him to acknowledge his emotions, something that Ahmeti always told him was important.

  “Never reveal your hand,” he would say during one of his short bouts of lucidity, “lest someone cuts it off.”

  With Galina back in the kitchen, Valon retrieved his book bag, reaching inside for a comic book that he’d been able to buy from a vendor on his way home from school many years ago. Before Ahmeti came back into their lives and used every spare cent to buy booze.

  It was American, the words written in foreign letters that his mother had told him was English. She’d translated as best she could, and what she couldn’t, Valon had made up.

  Valon was so absorbed with the pictures, imagining a life outside of his own personal Asgardian hell, that he hadn’t heard Ahmeti’s return. At least, not until he heard plates smashing in the kitchen.

  Galina had always told him to stay in his room if he ever heard them arguing, always wanting to protect him, but there was something different about this time. He could tell from the steely calmness in his father’s voice as he spoke to her. Though she wouldn’t like it, Valon cracked open his bedroom door, peering through the slight space to the kitchen where he could just make out his father, his back turned in his direction.

  He was drunk, that much was clear from the way he swayed, but when he moved, Valon could see his mother on the floor, surrounded by the broken shards of plates, her hands up as though to ward off blows.

  Except…this time she feared the small silver pistol that his father had aimed at her, not his fists.

  Valon hadn’t seen him with that gun in a while, and just like then, he refused to stand idly by.

  Valon swung the door open, preparing to run to his mother’s side to protect her when he saw Ahmeti’s hand tighten around the gun, his arm no longer shaking.

  “Look!” he shouted down at her, his voice rising. “Look what you made me do!”

  In slow, excruciating seconds, Valon watched helplessly as his father squeezed the trigger, a bullet speeding from the chamber. It hit Galina in the chest and blood instantly spilled from the wound.

  With blood rushing in his ears, Valon did not register that he was screaming, his feet bringing him closer to the chaos before him. Ahmeti turned, glaring down at him with hate in his cold black eyes as he once again raised the gun. Valon was ready for it, had anticipated the day that his father would kill him.

  He had longed for it, knowing that it would be a mercy to finally be away from him.

  But even now, with rage in his heart, Ahmeti would not give even that peace to Valon.

  Ahmeti, eyes bloodshot, stared him down as he turned the gun on himself and said, “I’ll see you in hell.”

  With the barrel tucked beneath his chin, Ahmeti once again pulled the trigger, sending this new bullet up through the bottom of his jaw. It exploded out the top of his skull, brain matter splattering the walls, some chunks hanging. He crumpled to the floor and didn’t move again.

  Valon was too shell-shocked to move, to do anything at all besides stare at his father’s dead body. He watched the blood seep into the carpet and drift over the old hardwood floors. He stood frozen there until he heard the slightest of noises, then his eyes cut to the side, seeing his mother fighting to live.

  The spell of death broken, Valon rushed to her side, kneeling in her blood as he tried to cover the wound on her chest as he had seen people do on television. He wanted to push the b
lood back inside of her, knowing that she needed it to live, but she grabbed hold of his hands, squeezing them with what little strength she had left.

  “Be free of this place, Luka,” she whispered, a river of blood spilling past her lips, painting them red. “Be free.”

  That was only a name she called him when they were alone, just the two of them. A special name she had always reserved for when she was telling him something important.

  “Nënë, I don’t know how to do that.”

  Her lips turned up at the corners as she reached up with one hand to cup his cheek. “You will.”

  Valon could not know then what he was witnessing, though the haunting scene was already plaguing his young mind. Galina’s hand fell away as her eyes lost their shine, her lips parting on a single gasp as she stopped moving entirely. He did not want to believe that she was dead, even as he continued to kneel by her side, his knees aching with the effort as he shook her gently.

  He called her name repeatedly, tears falling down his cheeks as he continued to try to rouse her.

  No, he did not want her to be dead because, in her last moments, he had never gotten to tell her that he loved her.

  Chapter 2

  Hours passed, maybe an entire day, as Valon sat beside his mother, his arms wrapped around his knees as he stared out at nothing. He refused to look at the frozen, haunted look on her face. Despite the gunshots heard, in his neighborhood, it took the police a while to respond, if anyone had bothered to call. Valon knew, though he was fighting an internal war, that he would have to be gone by that time.

  No matter that he knew the truth of the dead bodies in his home, he would be treated cruelly, and would probably end up in one of the homes that were so prevalent in this part of the country. That, he felt, would be worse than anything the police could do to him.

  He didn’t have anywhere else he could go. There wasn’t anyone left in the Ahmeti family who had not moved away or been murdered, and Valon knew next to nothing about his mother’s family.

  But there was one place that he hadn’t yet considered while he sat there, and the longer he did, blood soaking into his jeans, the more he knew it was his only option.

  Climbing to his feet, stumbling a bit, Valon headed for the front door, but not before a sudden, undeniable urge struck him. He couldn’t do much for Galina, not with his limited strength, but he didn’t just want to leave without anything of hers. He knew, even with his limited knowledge, that memories faded. Though he could still recall good times with his mother if he tried hard enough, his father’s fury replaced most of them.

  He needed something good to cling to so, even in his darkest hour, he could conjure an image of Galina.

  Turning back to her bedroom, he went back to her vanity, his eyes sweeping over the surface, taking in everything resting on top. Sad to leave the rest behind, Valon knew he couldn’t take it all, though finally decided on just the combs. He wrapped them as best he could in an old piece of cloth and pocketed them.

  Without looking back, he left the building with only the clothes on his back, knowing that he would never be able to return.

  Barefoot, wearing filthy clothes, his stomach rumbling after going so long without food, Valon finally reached the address that he had seen once in Ahmeti’s book of contacts. He knew Ahmeti had burned many bridges after his release, but Valon had no choice but to go to these people for help, even if it meant he was nothing more than a glorified maid.

  As he started toward the house, Valon tried his best to school the anxiety he knew was written all over his face. They were only men after all, and the worst thing they could do was turn him away…or kill him. He had contemplated that thought his entire journey there, and while he might not have been strong enough to take his own life, maybe they could put him out of his misery.

  Maybe death wouldn’t be such a terrible thing.

  He knocked, gritting his teeth as he heard how timid it had sounded. He hit the door harder. Seconds later, it swung open, a gun immediately appearing in the crack of the door. It was aimed directly at his face, the owner of it glaring down at him from an impressive height.

  “Who are you?” the man asked, not caring that Valon was no more than a child. He kept his weapon in place.

  Valon cleared his throat, building the courage to speak. His eyes darted past the man, taking in the interior of the house, though there was not much to see from what he could tell. A stuffed chair, a coffee table with two ashtrays filled with cigarette butts and ash sitting on top of it, and a shotgun off to the side, leaning against a wall.

  Crumpling the delicate paper that had the address on it in his hand, Valon spoke for the first time, his voice hoarse. “Here to see Bastian.”

  The man scoffed, looking Valon over as though he couldn’t see why. That made Valon wonder how many others had come here and encountered this man with the same inquiry.

  Glancing around, as though he was checking whether Valon had been followed, he fisted the front of his shirt and yanked him into the house. He stumbled before righting himself, the wood flooring a relief to his aching feet.

  The man—who Luka would call Gjarper for the snake tattoo that curled around his ear and over his bald head—slammed the door shut, turning each of the seven deadbolts. He gestured for Valon to walk ahead of him, his distrust of him quite clear.

  He instructed him on which hallways to take and which doorways to go through. Despite the rather modest and crumbling exterior, the inside was much bigger. Just like the sparse living room where Gjarper had been sitting, the rest of the house didn’t fare much better. There was hardly any furniture—only an old card table with a couple of folding chairs in the kitchen, a couch that looked like it was being eaten slowly by insects, and an old bed with a stripped, moldy mattress. But after spending the better part of the day traveling through heavy woods and the streets of Berat, Valon would have happily slept there.

  Gjarper stopped him when they reached another door, this one opening to a staircase that led down into a shadowed basement. Even from where he stood, Valon could just hear the voices carrying up from the bottom, and he couldn’t explain it, but another healthy dose of fear worked its way through him.

  With a slight shove from his escort, Valon walked down the stairs, resisting the urge to reach out for the handrail on his way down. He continued, following the sound of voices without having to be told. The basement was sweltering. The air smelled strongly of must and mildew. Eventually, he came to a room where two more men were standing outside the door, rifles in hand, sleeping hounds at their feet.

  At Valon’s appearance, the dogs’ ears perked up, their lips pulling back from their teeth as they went on alert, snarling as he got closer. They calmed, just enough, when Gjarper brushed by him, pushing the door open to what looked like an office.

  Sitting behind a desk of dark oak, his pants around his ankles, was the man known as Bastian, a lieutenant in The Organization, and once a friend of Valon’s father. Valon had never met the man in person, only recognized his image from newspaper articles.

  He had a very familiar face.

  At only thirty-eight, Bastian had made a name for himself, claiming enough territory for himself through money and bloodshed that he had become a rather untouchable figure.

  Even seated, Bastian was a rather heavy-set man with a large head and a prominent brow. His hands were large and meaty, his fingers currently gripping the strands of a woman’s dull brown hair, her face hidden in his lap.

  At their entrance, his gaze shot over to them, his eyes narrowing on Valon for several moments before grunting out a command to the girl on her knees, and she was just that. A girl. Barely as old as Valon.

  She pulled away from him, wiping her mouth with the back of her forearm, sparing Valon a single glance as she hurried out of the room. Bastian tucked himself back into his pants, not ashamed at all that Valon had just witnessed him with that girl.

  “Ahmeti’s boy, no?”

  Not knowing
whether that was a question or a statement, Valon remained silent.

  His eyes narrowing on him, Bastian asked, “Why are you here?”

  How could he explain that he’d watched his father murder his mother then take his own life? And furthermore, would he even care? It wasn’t as if he and Ahmeti were on the best of terms, and now that he was there, Valon was beginning to regret his decision, but he doubted he would just be able to walk out again.

  Bastian laughed. “Do you speak?”

  “I have lost my mother,” Valon said softly though he’d intended to keep his voice firm.

  “And you thought what? That you could come to me for help? That I offer charity?”

  Valon was realizing very quickly that it was not going to be as easy as he expected. “I can clean—”

  “Clean? I have maids for that. Cooking? Plenty of women. What can you offer me that I don’t already have?”

  The silence stretched between them as Valon tried to think of a response, anything that would help him. He drew a blank, knowing he didn’t have anything nor was he of any value.

  Bastian spared him. “The answer you’re looking for is whatever I want…”

  Even with his limited knowledge, Valon knew that the possibilities that that statement entailed were endless, but even as dread filled his heart, he had no choice but to nod.

  A part of him knew he’d just signed his life away.

  Another part of him hoped that it would be worth it.

  Some time had passed since Bastian had sent Valon away, having Gjarper take him to a place he referred to as “the kennels.” Valon didn’t know what to think of this place, at least until he was walked outside and through the heavily wooded area behind the house to a rather mundane looking barn. The closer they came, the more the sound of barking became clearer.