Part 31 - Ivan: Without Burden
I sit and stare into nothing. I feel the great beast idling, its energy surrounding me, waiting. A sheet of rain drums overhead, the only sound. I breathe, inhaling the sulfur and smoke that lingers, clinging to me like death. Somewhere behind me, a memory burns, fiery flames sizzling in the night as the sky releases its bounty to strike down what the wolf has done.
The Giant is dead. I do not have to see him die to know it. The Tatianna’s, too. The wolf at the door, and me without my Kalash. How I would have buried him, my fingers icy against the glowing metal of the barrel, slow to feel the burn. The clip empty, tiny silver graves littering the floor around Father’s lifeless body. The wolf lies still, its tongue lolling from between its bared teeth.
How I would have buried him were I a young man.
Not even the Giant could finish him. My ogre, my brute, my Baba Yaga.
My knuckles are white against the leather of the wheel, and I sit amidst the ruin of my existence, alone with the stench of death and the fading echoes of violence. The wolf prowls still, but the Tatianas — lifeless husks, charred ash and bone. Their silver spider web hair, the silk of their пизда. Gone. The Giant, my loyal beast, now nothing more than a colossal carcass, fallen at the feet of the beanstalk, his great galumphing silenced. Only two burned-out sockets staring up through five thousand kilos of concrete and hissing embers.
A bitter taste of regret lingers in my mouth, like the vodka we drank in Norilsk. I glance down at my hands, stained with the blood of friends and foes alike. The Kalash, my trusted companion in times of chaos, is long lost to memory and time. I should have been faster, smarter, but in the end, I am left with nothing but deafening silence.
A spark of realization ignites within me as I sit there, lost in the ruins of what was once my world. The wolf may not be dead, but neither am I. A soulless man, a mere shadow of his former self, but alive nonetheless. The question echoes in the cavernous emptiness of my being: What now?
The rain intensifies, each droplet a reminder of the cleansing the world needs. A new beginning. A new horizon. I rise from my desolate throne and begin to wander through the scorched landscape. The fire has consumed everything, leaving only smoldering remnants of my existence. With each step, I feel the weight of the past pressing down on me. The memories of laughter, love, and warmth, of Angelina and Petyr, now replaced by the charred remains of what used to be. The world around me is a canvas of destruction, painted with the hues of sorrow and despair.
Yet, as I drift through the ruins, a flicker of something kindles within me. Perhaps this is not the end, but a new beginning. The rain washes away the grime and blood, cleansing my battered body. I may be soulless, but I am not without purpose.
The journey ahead is uncertain, the path obscured by the lingering storm. But with each step, I embrace the unknown. The wolf may have taken everything from me, but it did not take my will to survive. As I move forward into the unknown, the rain washes away the remnants of the past, leaving behind a man forged in the crucible of destruction, ready to face whatever comes next.
I blink. The engine idles. The box is there between the seats, brimming with bills, papers and passports. The safe is empty, all evidence of my existence erased from this cursed place. I’ve only to go where I will now, to a new beginning, a fresh world to batter. In St. Petersburg, they will welcome me back, and they will suffer for it. Watch them kneel before the one who bested them, made them, then left them. I would hear the bones breaking again, the whimpers of the damned. Yes, back across the sea is where I belong, where the icy waters churn and the scent of death whispers away in the wintry wind.
Wipers sweep across my windshield as a young woman crosses the street, huddled under a coat. A glint of gold, a flutter of radiant hair.
Like the girl before, the red-haired beauty whose eyes gleamed like my Angelina’s, the cage beckons to the golden goose. She was ready for her captivity, willing to give herself over, to surrender to her own desires, dark as they were. Not as dark as mine. Not as twisted, but twisted they could be. Like Gretel. Like her brother. Her handler. I close my eyes and see the cages against the wall, the fire dancing in the corner, the Tatianas in my lap, playing and pawing, panting and preening. Mewling from the shadows trips across the room, and I glance at the golden finch in her cage, right next to the betrayer, her black eyes and broken body leaving her helpless but to accept her fate. A lesson for the new bird in survival.
The Giant stands near the fire, his bare back still scarred from Norilsk, the only creature to have walked out on his own. He lumbers past the cages with the poker gleaming red hot, and the room falls silent.
If not for the wolf at the door.
He will never see the lights of St. Petersburg. I go alone. Without my giant. My Tatiana’s. I will sell the yacht, close the last deals, and — my eyes falter, the gleam of gold catches in the beams of a passing car. Not an apparition, a phantom. The bright face turns, and I find an angel descending from afar. Has she returned? The goldfinch to sing for me, to stand under the lights in the Mariinsky Theater and bathe in the олигархи’s adoration. The снобы sit and clap, fat and bulging and ready to bleed coins.
I turn in my seat, my fingers reaching for the handle. The golden-haired angel pushes back her hood and lets the rain fall over her face, like tears from the sky, as she searches my eyes. The door opens, and the wet wind sweeps in from both sides.
“I don’t envy you tonight,” she says and looks away.
I turn. A wolf at the door, his teeth bared against my cheek. Cold, hard steel that smells of sulfur and smoke. My Kalash is long gone. My Petyr. My Angelina. My giant. But not my future. I never had one. Futures are for fools. There is no happily ever after in this fairy tale, I tell him. There is only hope, and he will do well without that burden.