Chapter 40
Athos left early the next morning. After the argument he had with Meg, the grey fox slept on the floor of the living room that night. Alexei found him there when he went to take his shower, blinking sleepily in the light Alexei’d turned on. Not knowing what to say, discomfited by the unexpected shape in his living room, Alexei said only, “You could sleep on the couch,” and when Athos mumbled a reply he couldn’t hear, the red fox hurried to his shower.
Later, when Sol was showering, Athos had folded up the mess of blankets he’d slept on and stood when Alexei emerged from the bedroom dressed. “Sorry if I startled you,” he said.
Alexei looked at Meg’s bedroom door, still closed, and flattened his ears. “It is not a problem. I am sorry as well.”
The grey fox extended a paw. “Thank you for allowing me to share in this experience. It has been…indescribable.”
“I do not believe I had much choice in the matter.” Alexei took the proffered paw. He was still burdened with thoughts of Cat and Konstantin, but he had slept an entire night without dreams, and the implacable reality of the world had begun its work of reassuring him with its solidity and constancy. There was heat that made him pant, dust that washed off with a shower, smells of earth but also of frying fish and automobiles and best friends. And there were the letters from Cat.
“Regardless,” Athos insisted. “It changed my life. I have so much to think about now. I want to go back and reread all of my books, and talk to people. Not about your story,” he added hurriedly. “Unless you would want…”
Alexei shook his head. “Not now, no,” he said.
“But can I stay in touch with you?”
“Yes, certainly. You can get my e-mail from…well, here, let me give it to you.” He wrote it out on a slip of paper while Athos did the same, and they exchanged the papers.
Sol came out of the bathroom. “Ready in a minute,” he told Alexei, and held out a paw to Athos. “Taking off?”
“I think I’d better.” The grey fox shook Sol’s paw and looked down, pointedly not at the closed bedroom door. “Tell her…well, just take care of her, okay? I think someday she’ll want to believe.”
“Don’t know about that,” Sol said. “Hey, why aren’t you wearing your cape?”
Athos looked down and flicked his ears back. “Seems silly now, doesn’t it? I mean, I don’t think they’re real, but…”
“Vampires,” Alexei said, “are completely make-believe.”
The other two stared at him, and only when he smiled did they get that he was joking and laugh. He could not quite laugh with them, but he was glad to hear the sound. It was another brick of reality, a reassurance that the world was not cold, grey stone, but also joy and friendship and love. He was beginning to wake to this world again; he could move through it, and it could touch him.
They walked out with Athos. Sol wanted to bang on Meg’s door, but Alexei told him it wouldn’t do any good, and Athos said it didn’t matter. Even though Sol and Alexei could both tell it was a lie, they left the apartment and closed the door without another word.
“She could probably hear everything we were saying,” Sol said on the bus after they’d seen Athos off. “She could’ve come out anytime.”
“She chose not to,” Alexei said. “It was her choice to make.”
“Selfish.” Sol folded his arms.
Alexei stared past him. “Sometimes when people are not who we want…”
Sol turned toward him, ears perked, when he didn’t finish. “What? We just turn our backs on them and leave them?”
“No, of course not.” The fox looked into the wolf’s bright eyes. “But it is difficult. I think they will still be friends. Meg is not…old and set in her ways.”
Sol searched his eyes. “What did Konstantin say to you?” he asked in a low voice.
Alexei braced himself as the bus lurched to a halt. “This is your stop,” he said.
Sol got up. “You don’t have to talk to me about it if you don’t want to.”
“I do.” Alexei forced a smile. “But not now.”
He walked slowly to the warehouse, but before he could punch in, Vlad called to him from his office down the hall. Alexei padded down and stood before the large tiger’s desk. “We did not expect you in today.” Vlad handed Alexei his shift assignment. “Have already called temporary worker.”
Alexei held the paper and met Vlad’s eyes. “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t call…”
“Liza called. She said you are having difficult times. I think, poor boy, new town. I remember how it is when I come from Siberia. You are going to keep up with the football?”
Alexei shook his head slowly. “I don’t think I can. I got in a fight.”
“Ha.” Vlad leaned across the table. “Did you win?”
“Yes,” and here Alexei switched to Siberian, which they did not usually use in the office, “
he bit me and then complained to the team about it.
” He pointed to his ear.
“
You complain as well. In States, they listen to both sides. Unless he is the son of a judge.
” The tiger tapped his claws on the table. “
Is he a son of a judge?
”
“
He is a son of a something
.” He cut off Vlad’s protests. “
But if I want to get a visa, the scout for the team would have to see me and recommend me, and he saw the fight. He thinks I am a troublemaker…
”
“
You are no troublemaker. I know troublemakers. Back in Siberia I knock heads together.
” He demonstrated on two imaginary heads. “
But yes, they see this…so what do you do?
”
He hadn’t before thought to wonder whether Vlad knew about Liza. Of course they knew each other, but that didn’t mean she told him everything. Still, she had spoken to him about soccer, and therefore maybe about the league they were in…Vlad’s golden eyes gleamed in the light of the office, and Alexei took a breath. “
For some people…like me…there is political asylum.
”
The tiger nodded. “
It is difficult in Vidalia, I understand.
”
“
Perhaps
.” He forced a smile, because Vlad seemed to understand right away. “
I have hope.
”
“
If you need a character reference…
” The tiger pounded his chest with a fist.
Alexei’s chest tightened. He had to swallow twice before he could form the words, “
Thank you.
”
“
Da.
” Vlad looked away, and then waved abruptly with a paw and switched back to English. “Go work. I will deal with temporary worker.”
On the way to his station, Alexei thought impulsively that he would like Cat to have met Vlad, and his eyes blurred with tears. Liza, Vlad, neither of them knew about Cat. Weakness buckled his knees, sent him clutching at the wall to brace himself. He could go back, he could tell Vlad that his sister had died, he could go home.
But home held more memories of Cat than his workplace did; it was no escape. He fought away the image of his sister receding from him like the shadow of a train, squeezed his eyes shut, and took a breath. He stood upright. Grief no longer weighed down on him, but the ache centered in his chest spread through him.
The monotonous work did its job. He checked zip codes, moved parcels, checked zip codes, lifted boxes. After some time, one of his co-workers punched him on the shoulder and told him it was time for lunch. Alexei followed, though he could have sworn that only an hour had passed since he’d come in. He ate in silence, except to say, “Yes, I feel better,” when asked, and returned to his work.
On the bus ride home, he stared out the window without seeing the houses as they passed. To avoid thinking about Cat, he wondered if Meg would be out of her room, how she would talk about the things that had happened. He would have thought that Sol’s eyes would be incontrovertible proof of supernatural events, but Meg had discounted that, and had even manufactured a story to explain the appearance and disappearance of Konstantin.
He would be able to talk to Sol, though. His ears did perk up at the end of the bus ride, as he walked down the street toward his apartment building. If nothing else, he would be able to talk to Sol.
When he entered the apartment, there was no smell of cooking, no fried fish or boiling pasta water or tomato sauce. No noise came from behind Meg’s closed door. He sighed and walked to the bathroom.
Washing his paws, he looked up into the mirror. Sol had his green eyes, but what did Alexei have to remind him of his time? Not that he would have wanted Konstantin’s scarred ear, or grey muzzle, but it would have been nice to have a reassurance that the experience he’d had was real. He searched the mirror for any trace of Konstantin, but his eyes were the same, his ears were the same, his whiskers were the same. Everything about him was the same as it had been before…
He turned his head and the light caught it a certain way, and Alexei froze, staring at his reflection. With his ears tilted that way, the left side of his muzzle showing, and his lips curled… He stretched them into more of a smile.
That completed the image. He stared into the mirror, and Caterina smiled back at him.
When he let his smile fade, the likeness disappeared. He smiled, and it returned. The thought that she might be there in the other side of the mirror looking at him brought warmth and joy, and as his smile stretched wider, her likeness shone out of his reflection like the sun.
Chapter 41
Meg came out of her room later that night, when Sol and Alexei were sitting at the table in the kitchen talking quietly. She looked around and then sat down at the table with them.
“You doing okay?” she asked Alexei. “Holding up?”
He nodded. “Work was good.” He and Sol exchanged glances, and then he said, “How are you?”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Just been working all day. Didn’t stop for dinner. You guys eaten yet?”
And that was that. She asked Alexei about his sister, but didn’t want to talk about Athos or Konstantin, other than to say that maybe she should start carrying around pepper spray if there were going to be homeless Siberian foxes lurking around their building. Alexei told her she wouldn’t have to worry about that, and that closed the subject.
With Sol, though, he talked that night, and the next, and the next. Sol was only too happy to relive his dreams with Niki, if in somewhat more of a rosy wash than Alexei remembered the wolf feeling about them. He could understand that; the memory of his dreams with Konstantin still terrified him, but in the manner of a scary movie he’d seen rather than an imminent threat.
Still, there were moments during which he’d jump at shadows; or when a scent would float to him on the breeze and he’d whip his head around to find nothing there; or he would hear a word whispered in Siberian and his ears would perk straight up. But nobody lurked behind him, no shadows visited his dreams, and after a surprisingly short time, he even lost the little shiver of trepidation when he lay down at night.
He talked with Liza, too, the night of the VLGA soccer game (she and Alice had both quit when Alexei was removed, despite his plea). She told him frankly that being granted asylum would not be easy. “If you go to Port City, yes, better chance. There is community of Siberian refugees, and I can give you names for places to stay. Six months average, maybe more, maybe less. Here, it depends on the person. But you know who knows laws, who knows people in Millenport office?” Her eyes sparkled. “Mike.”
“Oh.” Alexei nodded. “I should ask him.”
Alexei did not know if Mike would talk to him. But he did not want to go to Port City, where he would not know anyone. He had already moved to a strange new town one year ago, and now that he had friends, he did not want to give them up.
So he sent Mike a text asking if he could call him, because he didn’t want to call out of the blue, and Mike replied when he was done with the soccer game saying sure, and so Alexei sat in the bus shelter while busses pulled up and left, and he thought about Mike’s warmth, the comforting pressure of the sheep’s hand on his shoulder, and he closed his eyes.
“Liza said I should talk to you about getting asylum in Millenport,” he said when Mike picked up.
“Oh. Sure, I can help with that.” Mike paused. “I’m sorry about Kendall and the team. I tried to talk him out of it, but…”
“I appreciate the sympathy.” Alexei’s tail twitched, the beginning of a wag, at Mike’s friendly tone. “It is my fault. I should not have fought him.”
“Well, no, but…” The sheep sighed. “You guys just won’t ever get along.”
“I do not think so.” Alexei paused, and then said, “Thank you for talking to me.”
“Hey, I told you I still like you.” Mike’s voice softened. “Are you doing better? I mean, are you okay?”
He considered that. “I am not better,” he said, “but I am okay.”
“Well, you don’t have to talk about it. I mean, I don’t have any right to ask, I know, but if you need someone to listen…”
Alexei took a breath. “I found out that my sister died.”
“Oh my God. Oh God, Alexei, I’m sorry. I didn’t know—I’m so sorry. How—I mean, what happened?”
Another bus pulled up. Deer, ermine, coyotes, and wolves looked out the windows through the reflections of the shops, the bustling crowds, and the lively neon signs. The bus’s doors hissed and folded back, but only a portly vixen in a broad floppy hat came out. No darkness, no Cat.
Alexei closed his eyes and uncurled his tail into the warmth of a sunbeam. “Do you have a little longer?”
*
He talked to Mike for almost an hour, and at the end of it Mike had asked him to coffee, ostensibly to discuss his asylum, but Alexei knew that it was more than that. The fox felt confident that he could navigate this almost-date without yelling at Mike now that Konstantin was gone. Telling him about Cat had been easy, comfortable, and almost as though he were introducing the two of them. If Cat were watching him, he hoped she would approve of Mike. He hoped that perhaps even Konstantin would, in time.
At home that evening, he found an envelope from Samorodka and a package from Moskva. The envelope was addressed in the handwriting of Cat’s friend Kisha, and held the letter Cat had mentioned on the phone, a one-page note in which she said that if Bogdan did not contact her, she would simply take a bus to Moskva and save up money until she could take a train to one of the western countries. Kisha had attached a note saying she was sending it along even though Cat was gone because she did not know what else to do.
Alexei folded the letter and carefully replaced it. He did not want to think about what might have been, but as painful as the letter was, he could not bring himself to part with it. He turned to the package, reluctant to touch it. But he would have to sooner or later, so with the shadow of the letter still on him, he ripped the paper open and pulled out the contents.
Inside, there was a short letter, an envelope, and a burst of familiar scent: no particular person, but a uniquely Siberian mix of paper and dust and air.
The letter read:
Dear Mister Tsarev,
Accept our condolences on the death of your sister Caterina. Her effects have been returned to your mother and father, except for the enclosed letter, which was addressed to you. If you have any questions, you may contact us for assistance.
Yours sincerely,
Captain Vasily Petrovich Lukashenko
The envelope, unfamiliar paper and glue, bore his name in his sister’s script. He teased a claw under the flap as he turned it over, and only then noticed the brownish stain in one corner.
His paws jerked back, and the letter fluttered to the floor; fortunately it landed face-up, so he didn’t have to look at the stain or think any more about what it might be. Quickly, holding it gingerly by the opposite corner, he pushed it back into the larger envelope with the policeman’s letter. He left the whole thing lying on the kitchen table and then walked into his room.
He couldn’t sit down or lie down, though. His tail swung from side to side as he paced, and he came to rest staring at the portrait of Niki. “I can’t read it!” he said. “I don’t want to remember her like that!”
The green eye of the fox watched him steadily. Niki, the last time Sol had seen him, had been drowned at the bottom of a river, and yet Sol kept this picture. Alexei’s tail stilled, and he knelt on Sol’s bed, careful to keep his paws away from the actual painting. He could know his sister and yet remember the essence of who she was. He had her other letters, and he had her smile.
“
Thank you
,” he said to the painted fox, smiling, and then leaned closer. In Niki’s features, for the first time, he saw the traces of Konstantin’s. Not the eyes, but the shape of the muzzle, the ears, and even the proud posture. He was his father’s son and yet something different, something he himself had fashioned from the life he’d been given. He had taken Konstantin’s inflexible devotion to an ideal and turned it to another end; so, perhaps, could Alexei take his sister’s love and Konstantin’s strength and build his own life. Someday he would read her last letter, but he would need more of Konstantin’s strength for that, would need the shock and the tragedy to recede.
Sol walked in, and Alexei hurried backwards off the bed, ears down. “I was only looking,” he said. He hadn’t even heard the front door.
The wolf smiled. “It’s okay. You can look. If you want a copy, I can send you the scan.”
“Yes, I think so,” Alexei said.
Sol pulled off his red polo shirt and searched for a t-shirt in his dresser. “Meg wants to go to dinner, just the three of us, to celebrate you staying here. You are staying, right?”
Alexei sat back on his bed. “Yes. I have made the decision to stay.” An old, harsh voice in his head added,
for today
, and he said, yes, tomorrow is another decision, and the day after yet another, and every day after that another one, but those days are not here yet.
“How are you going to work the legal stuff?”
“I talked to Mike.”
The wolf turned, a t-shirt in his paw. “And?”
“He is going to help me.” Alexei could not restrain a smile. “We are having coffee together.”
Sol grinned widely. “Good luck,” he said, and pulled the shirt over his head. “If it goes well, y’know…” He kept his ears up, though his tail was curled down and he tapped his paws on the dresser drawer. Alexei waited patiently. “Maybe you could invite him over sometime.”
“Yes,” Alexei said. “I would like that very much.”
*
The next morning, Alexei woke disoriented, sitting quickly up in bed with the vanishing feeling of having been sitting with his sister in some strange place—a church, perhaps, but one with people shuffling regularly through it. She had been talking about the letter she’d written him, but he could not remember what she’d said. The scent of old stone and his sister faded into the smells of construction haze seeping through the cracked-open window, and his own vulpine scent strong on his sheets.
Cat’s last letter, he thought, and with foreboding, he walked out to the living room to pick it up. But when he lifted the envelope from the couch, only the letter from the police was inside. Cat’s envelope had vanished.
Sol came out of the bathroom then, with a towel wrapped around him. Alexei held up the envelope. “Do you know where the envelope that was in this envelope is?”
Sol blinked and shook his head. “I just put it on the couch. I didn’t take anything out of it. Maybe Meg did.”
Alexei set the envelope down slowly. He did not think Meg had taken Cat’s letter. So when he walked into the bathroom, the first thing he did was look into the mirror and turn his face to the left. When he pulled his lips into a smile, there was Cat, smiling at him.
“Did you not want me to read it?” he asked softly.
The more he stared at his reflection, the more he felt it was a silly question. Cat had wanted him to be happy, he knew that, and reading her last letter would only have made him sad. He would grieve for her, but she would always be with him, and he had many other reasons to be thankful. Happiness, too, seemed not so far away.
He turned to face the mirror. Cat disappeared, but his smile remained.