I drop my glass. I can hear them. The raven croaks and repeatedly pecks on the horsefly. It bucks beneath it, buzzing. The sound is like that of hammering, something sharp on something soft. They fly around the apartment, bump into walls. I listen, greedy for more. The horsefly tangles itself in what must be some wires and jitters, unable to flee, and the raven strikes and strikes and—
“Irina, what’s wrong? Are you afraid of the fireworks?”
I shake my head.
“Come on.” Pavlik pulls me to the window where Yulia, Anton, and Margarita already stand, watching the sky burst with flashes of silver and red and blue.
I brush him off and whisk out of the room and into the hallway, fumbling with unfamiliar locks. My head swims, my hands shake, and my fingers are clammy and slippery.
It’s killing it, it’s killing it.
I bang the door open. Biting cold hits my face, hot from champagne and the cozy warmth of Margarita’s apartment. Hurried footfalls skid down the stairs several floors below.
The raven!
A woman of undeterminable age appears in the door across the landing. She could be twenty, or she could be forty. A shabby lurex dress is stretched over her bony frame. Her eyes roll up to their whites on her peaked little face. Her hands reach into her bleached hair, her mouth opens, and she screams.
I cover my ears.
She runs out of air, takes a shuddering breath, and screams again. The echo pogoes up and down the staircase.
A rat, high on some shit, I bet.
Calls drift out behind me.
“Irina!”
“What is happening over there?”
“Who is that screaming?”
I walk up to her.
She regards me with a milky, unseeing gaze and folds on my chest. I stagger under her weight, edge in. The apartment is dim and squalid. A narrow corridor with stripped-off wallpaper, in places showing bare concrete. A crooked woodworm-eaten wardrobe. Cardboard boxes filled with all kinds of junk stacked against the walls. Soiled rags strewn about, pots and shoes and empty liquor bottles.
The woman sobs into the hollow of my neck. Her face is wet and her breath stinks of bootleg, garlic, and cheap cigarettes.
“Roma,” she wheezes. “My Roma...”
Roma. One second I’m cold all over; in another, boiling fury overwhelms me. Fucking uncle Roma.
“Irina, what are you doing here?” Pavlik warily steps inside. “What is going on?”
Yulia seizes his arm. “Pavlusha, leave it. Get her away from this woman and this nasty place. Oh, the smell.” She waves a hand in front of her face.
On the landing, doors open and feet sally out, voices asking for the source of the noise. Someone says that it must be Svetka’s friends engaging in debauchery again and it’s nothing to worry about. Someone suggests calling militia.
“Mama, please stop. Excuse me.” Pavlik taps on Svetka’s shoulder. “We heard you screaming. Can we help you somehow?”
The woman unglues from me, stares at him uncomprehendingly. Black trails of mascara run down her cheeks. Her thin chest seesaws and she points to the double doors ajar in the middle of the corridor, the paint on them chipped, the glass panels replaced with warped plywood. “Roma...my Roma...”
YOU ARE READING
Irkadura
Fantasy"My mama became a catfish when I was two, on the day I stopped talking." Neglected since birth by her mother, Irina Myshko hasn't spoken a word for most of her short Soviet life. Outcast as a mute idiot and abused by her mother's boyfriends, she esc...
