In which life is short and death is cruel.
Lucya…
Two months later…
“Girls! Come and meet an old friend.” Uncle Rurik shouts across the room, drink in hand and a big grin on his face.
At my father’s funeral.
A gargantuan man is standing next to him, looking like a cross between a human and a wild boar. I can almost picture his tusks. He’s looking behind me at Inessa and he licks his slobbery lips.
My dress is itchy and too tight around my waist and stomach, and I put my arm over the stretched fabric. Inessa grabs my hand. “Come, sestra. Let’s get this over with.” My hand is sweaty in hers, but she squeezes my fingers encouragingly.
“This is Inessa and Lucya, my beloved brother’s daughters,” Uncle Rurik says, waving his hand expansively and slopping his vodka on the floor. I notice he doesn’t bother to introduce the man to us.
“A delight to meet such beautiful ladies,” the man rumbles, eyes still on Inessa. “I am Szymon Wozniak. I will be doing business with your family.”
“Oh?” Inessa smiles weakly, “Well, a pleasure to meet you, sir.” To our enormous relief, our mother is beckoning us, her lips in a tight line. “Well, Mat’, Mother, is calling, we will leave you men to your talks.”
“We’ll meet again,” Wozniak says, not bothering to hide how his attention is focused on Inessa’s breasts.
“What was that man saying to you?” Mat’ grabs our arms, pulling us out into the hall. Her beautiful face is gaunt, all the fine wrinkles around her eyes and lips seem to have deepened in the last few days.
“That creepy old man?” Inessa shudders elaborately. “He told us he’s going to be doing business with the Dubrovin Bratva now.”
“He wouldn’t take his eyes off Inessa,” I say acidly. “Well, her chest anyway. So disrespectful. Who is he?”
“Someone we should not be aligned with.” Mat’s beautiful eyes narrow. “Keep away from him and tell me immediately if he approaches you.”
“It’s sick, trying to make business deals at Otet’s funeral,” I snap, throat tight. I still can’t accept my father’s gone. He was laughing, full of life as we took a horseback ride last week.
The next day he was gone.
Five days ago…
“Almost there, Otets!”
It’s a sunny day in St. Petersburg, the kind of miraculous sunshine that makes the frost melt off the grass of the equestrian park, allowing my horse Natalya to really lean into a run, streaking across the grounds.
For the first time, I’ll beat my father back to the stables, I laugh breathlessly, looking over my shoulder… just to see him overtake me on the left. He pulls on the reins, stopping his horse Uragan just short of the gate.
“Ah ah, milaya doch’, my sweet daughter, you know better than to claim victory before you’ve truly won.” He chuckles at my aggrieved expression. “But it was very close.”
“You’d think I’d know better than to gloat by now.” I’m a little sulky, I know it. “I just thought today was the day.”
“To win the race?”
“Well…” I rub my forehead, “to win anything, I guess. Just once, I want to be the best at something.”
“You should be using that excellent intellect to branch out into more interests and activities,” he says, “give yourself room to discover where you can shine.”
“That’s not possible,” I say, patting my horse’s flank. “I’m too busy using my intellect to alienate people and isolate myself.” That startles him into a laugh and I bask in it. It seems like my father has less and less to laugh at these days.
He offers a hand to help me dismount, and we walk the horses back into the stables. “Your mother and I have always raised you and Inessa to be competitive, but sometimes, I suspect you’re running some endless race that only you can see, trying to catch up.”
Entering the quiet of the stables, I take a deep breath. “It doesn’t feel that way. It’s more like I know I can’t win this race, so I run in the opposite direction.”
“Then you are running in the wrong race,” he says, kissing the top of my head. “I never wanted you to be a pampered Bratva princess. You have fire and ambition. I could easily see you taking a powerful position in our Bratva. Becoming a champion shopper like other members of this family is not a skill you need for leadership.”
I know my mother is the great beauty in our family, but I’ve always loved my father’s green eyes more, proud that I look like him. I want to be as tall as him, too, to have his confidence and strength.
“I thought Bratva princesses were supposed to do nothing but shop and get their nails done?” I tease him.
He lifts the saddle off my horse and drops it next to her stall. “I’m going to tell you something, my dorogoy, my dear one, and you will never repeat it.”
“Of course, Otets.”
He puts his hands on my shoulders, the fine lines around his mouth carve deeper furrows when he smiles. “You are my strongest child, my most beloved. I know that whatever happens, you will take care of our family, and I’m at peace, knowing this.”
It’s odd, the way he says it, but all I can focus on is what he’s said to me. I’m his favorite, I’m strong. For the first time in my life, I don’t feel like I’m losing the race.
It feels like I’ve already won it.
“I promise, Otets, no matter what, I’ll look after Mat’ and Inessa.” Wrapping my arms around him, I sigh with gratitude when he hugs me back as we stand in the darkened stable, with the soft snorts from the horses and the smell of straw and hay.
He looks over my shoulder and raises a hand. “Alexi, how is your family?”
My stomach twists like origami. Of course, of course it had to be Alexi fucking Turgenev overhearing my father’s pep talk. I’d forgotten the Turgenevs boarded their horses here, too.
“They’re well, thank you. Will you be at the meeting of the Six Families next month?” Alexi’s deep voice sends a vibration through me, I never knew I could feel humiliated and turned on at the same time.
“Of course,” my father says, “there are some important decisions on the agenda.”
“Otets, I need to run back to the car for something,” I whisper, and he pats my shoulder.
“Go ahead, I’ll have the groom brush your horse.”
I wouldn’t characterize my speedy exit as a run, it’s more of a half-trot, half-scamper that I’m sure is making my butt jiggle in my riding trousers. At least I don’t have to look at Alexi. I’ve kept my distance since that night when I found him carving that line into his arm. He’s ignored me, too. No reason to re-live that humiliation now.
Present day…
The mortician did his best to make my father look presentable. Open caskets are a Russian funeral tradition, our last chance to see our loved ones before they’re gone forever. I’d seen the ruin of my father’s body the night they carried him into the house. A group of men opened fire on him as he left his favorite restaurant. By the time they got him home, he was dead.
My handsome, strong father is gone, I know that, but I kiss his forehead and smooth his hair, black, like mine. They put something in it, it’s all stiff. He would hate that.
“Come, malen’kiy dorogoy, little dear.” Uncle Rurik pulls on my arm, “This is not good for you. Come eat, the pominki is ready. Food always makes you feel better, eh?”
I want to rip my arm out of his grasp, scream that he knows nothing about what’s good for me. That he’s not my father and he has no right to tell me what to do. But I’m a coward.
“Da, uncle.”
The table is groaning under the weight of dozens of different dishes: blini, fish pie, kolyva. Our guests are eating and chatting with each other as my father lies cold and still in his casket.
Nausea surges through me and I barely make it to my bedroom suite in time, violently retching until there’s nothing left inside me. The cold tile feels good against my sweaty forehead and I sit there until the strength returns to my legs.
“There you are! Uncle Rurik sent me to look-” Inessa kneels, pulling a hand towel off the rack. “You poor thing.” She wipes my face like I’m a toddler, tossing the soiled cloth in a corner. “Did you catch something?”
“No.” I manage. “It was just seeing everyone eating like this is a party and Otets is…”
Putting a clean towel under her Dior dress, Inessa sits next to me. “It still doesn’t seem real, does it?”
“Now Uncle Rurick is strutting around, giving orders, and doing business at his own brother’s funeral,” I say, “how could he?”
Inessa laughs sardonically, “Because the Bratva always comes first. Did you know he already moved into Otet’s office?”
“I hate him. I hate him, the bastard.” Tears spill down my cheeks but I’m too tired to wipe them away. “What if he was…?”
Her eyes widen, “Hush! Not a word.” We both look at the open door. “You can never say that out loud,” she whispers, “not ever. He’s going to be Pakhan of the Dubrovin Bratva and what you’re thinking would be considered an act of treason. Not a fucking word, do you hear me?”
We endure weeks of uncomfortable meetings after Uncle Rurik becomes Pakhan. Strange men come and go as he sits in state in our father’s study, a seat of power that isn’t his. He isn’t worthy of it.
One night, I find my mother standing outside the study, the door is open, just slightly, and the low rumble of men talking and laughing is barely audible. Her face is sheet white, and I know she’s heard something bad. Something horrible.
“Mat’,” I barely whisper as I pull her away, around the corner to the sitting room she’s taken as her office. “What’s wrong? What did you hear?”
She pulls away from me and heads for her desk, opening her laptop and typing quickly. “Go pack. Just an overnight bag. You’ll be visiting your Aunt Polina for the weekend. Send Inessa in to see me, please.”
I still her frantic typing with my hands over hers. “Please. Tell me. What did you hear? You’re shaking.”
Her huge, dark eyes are wide with terror, then she blinks and her face smooths out into her usual serene expression. “YA tebya lyublyu, I love you my sweet one. Do as I say.”
We leave at midnight. Uncle Rurik and his guests are still in the study, the stench of cigar smoke drifting though the hallways as the maids run back and forth with food and more bottles of vodka. Inessa and I are hustled down the back stairs and out into the garage.
The Dubrovin mansion is in the middle of the most beautiful part of St. Petersburg; the Golden Triangle, filled with homes hundreds of years old with exquisite architecture, surrounded by some of the most elaborate gardens in Russia. The lights blaze from nearly every window in our three-story house and I see the silhouette of our mother standing in the window of the master bedroom and for a moment, I could swear I see our father’s shadow standing next to her.
