I skid down three flights of stairs and cling to the garbage chute, faint with panic. DON’T THROW BURNING MATCHES AND CIGARETTES INTO THE GARBAGE CHUTE is stenciled on the shaft in big letters. The receptacle shutter yawns open. Rank odor issues from its depth. I retch. Puppies. Dead puppies. Grandma used to throw them down the chute after she drowned them in a bucket of freezing water. 

The flapping of slippers above. The groan of rusty hinges and the echo of the garbage thudding past me and then a crash somewhere below. Slippers walk up and the door bangs shut.

I wait for a couple of minutes, then ascend and ring the bell. 

An eye peers into the spy-hole. 

I brush my bangs aside and smile. 

Locks click and the door opens to the length of the chain. There’s a warm smell of food, and then Yulia’s unblinking eye studies me as if she hasn’t seen me before. 

“Excuse me, but who are you?”

I go through the pantomime.

“Ah, you’re that girl from the hospital.” She talks so quietly I can barely hear her.

I nod.

“Well, this is unexpected. Has Pavlik invited you?”

I shake my head.

“No? Then why did you come? And how do you know our address?”

“Mama, who is it?” says Pavlik from inside the apartment.

My face heats up. I hate it but I can’t stop it and I’m blushing. 

“It’s the neighbor, Tatiana,” says Yulia over her shoulder. “Asking for butter.” She turns her unblinking eye at me. “What do you want?”

My backpack is gone and with it my notepad and pen. I take a step forward.

She shuts the door to a crack. “Don’t come closer. Stay where you are.”

Anton’s voice says from behind her, “Who is it?”

“It’s that mute girl from the hospital.”

“She probably came to visit Pavlusha.” There is an interest in his voice that I don’t understand.

“But how does she know our address?”

“Well, they work together.”

“So? How do we know she’s not a scam artist?”

“Yulechka, calm down. Pavlusha said—”

“Pavlusha likes to tell stories.”

“What is going on?” It’s Pavlik’s voice again. “Mama, who are you talking to?” 

“Oh, it’s nothing, nothing.” Yulia shuts the door.

My heart cracks over the concrete floor. I stand like this for a few minutes, lost and unsure about what to do. Then the chain rattles and the door opens. 

It takes me a moment before I can lift my head.

Pavlik leans on a pair of crutches, peaked, alert, and impeccably dressed. Black sweater over a light-blue shirt, jeans, and brown leather slippers. 

“Irina!” His eyes light up. “How did you find me? Please, come in. I’m so happy to see you.”

Are you? My stomach lurches.

“I’m sorry we left in a hurry, Papa had to—” He frowns. “Why aren’t you wearing a jacket? You’re freezing!”

He gently pushes me in. 

It’s so warm that my fingers tingle. The small narrow hallway and what I can glimpse of the parlor is spotless and organized to precision. Everything looks new and expensive. Embossed wallpaper, polished mahogany furniture, Turkish rugs, satin lampshades, and Gzhel plates on the wall. 

I could eat off the floor here.

In the door to the parlor stands Anton in a coarse wool sweater, and next to him Yulia is in a green dress, her arms crossed and her face a mask of politeness.

“Irina, is that right?” she says.

I nod.

“Well, Irina. I’d like for you to explain to us the goal of your unexpected visit. Pavlusha, can you bring my notebook and pen from the kitchen?”

“Mama, please.”

“Yulechka, they’re friends. It’s natural for friends to visit each other, don’t you think?” Anton’s smile is forced. 

“Natural. Since when is visiting people unannounced natural? She could’ve at least called and warned us in advance. We had to interrupt our dinner.”

“But how could she call? She doesn’t talk! Pavlusha said—”

“I know what Pavlusha said, you don’t need to remind me.” Her unblinking eyes scorch me. “How old are you?”

I show with my fingers.

“Sixteen? And you’re wandering alone, at night, after all this shooting? Do your parents know you’re here?” 

My parents? I smirk. Well, my papa ditched me before I was born and I have no idea where he is. My mama is drunk most of the time, and Lyosha Kabansky, her current boyfriend, is no parent to me because he raped me every night for over a year. So no, my parents don’t know I’m here because they don’t give a shit about where I am or whether I’m alive or dead.

“Mama, how about we continue at the table?” Pavlik grimaces. “It’s uncomfortable for me to stand on the crutches for so long.” 

“Are you sure about this?” 

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t complain once this morning when we were buying you clothes.” She spins on her heel and enters the kitchen. Anton follows. 

I let out compressed air. Never mind my folks. At least they stab in the open.

Pavlik’s grimace is gone. “Do you like dumplings?”

I could eat a fried snake right now. Hell, I could eat one raw. 

He points to the wardrobe. “There should be extra slippers in there.” He says something else, but I don’t hear it. 

Suddenly, I’m wary. The warmth around me melts the polished surfaces to sticky glue. I know that if I take a step I will get stuck here like a helpless mouse in a viper’s lair. 

Come on, Irina Myshko, it’s what you wanted. It’s better than the boar’s shithole, is it not?

Pavlik gives me a pair of Yulia’s slippers and I put them on.

. . .

I stay at Pavlik’s place for two months. 

He convinces his parents that my company is therapeutic and that I help him heal faster. Anton agrees on the account of life debt that needs to be repaid and I can see that it makes him feel good about himself for providing charity to a mute homeless girl. Yulia at first is reluctant and suspicious, then gets impressed with my mopping and scrubbing and cleaning. She even sends me grocery shopping. 

I sleep on a mattress on the floor in the kitchen and it’s the first time I have had my own room. It’s packed with food, the perfect mouse cage.

Rain has long given way to snow. It covers dirt and coats Moscow with a white blanket.

I slowly gain weight. My breasts swell up and my belly bulbs out and I’m terrified to death of being discovered, dressing in layers of Yulia’s hand-me-downs. Nobody has noticed a thing except Pavlik.

He gives me wondering looks but keeps mum.

. . .

It’s the first Saturday of December. I’ve felt Pavlik’s stares since he woke up and I sense he’s going to ask me today.

We’re eating breakfast alone in the kitchen. Yulia and Anton have gone to prepare their store for some jewelry exhibition. Behind the window, snowbanks glisten in the sun, their slopes bored with yellow doggy pissholes. Pedestrians wade through slush strewn with salt by the snowblowers. 

The clock strikes ten. 

I sip tea, waiting.

Pavlik sits across the table in the dappled shadow, his eyes distant. He forks up the last of the sunny-side up egg and finishes his coffee. There are no crutches leaning at the wall by his side, gone since last week. He gets up.

“Coming?”

Always. 

I follow him to the heated covered balcony the width and the length of a daybed. Pine walls, a folding table, padded stools, cardboard boxes in the corner, and a pulley clothesline under the ceiling.

Pavlik cracks open the window. Freezing air drifts in. 

My skin erupts in goose bumps.

He pulls out a pack of Davidoff’s from his secret stash behind a loose panel, lights a cigarette, and takes a drag. It’s been two months since Kostya’s funeral and since he started smoking, but he’s still awkward with it, holding the cigarette like a spoon. He puffs out ringlets of smoke and coughs.

There is no wind, only frigid sunshine. The inner court is spread below us like a bleached hanky.

“So,” he says to the ground, “I wanted to ask you something. If you don’t mind.”

I think I know what it is. I sit on a stool next to him. My shoulder touches his thigh and I don’t dare to breathe or to move. I want to press closer.

 “Listen,” he says, “you can’t hide it forever, you know. Look, it’s already—oh, dammit, it’s not how I wanted to tell you. I’m sorry.”

I look up.

His hand is in his hair. “Irina, I know you’re pregnant.”

I know that you know and I know that I’m suffering from denial. But for once, I’m so comfortable that I don’t want to dredge up the past, to be reminded of him for as long as I can. Is that so bad?

“Irina.”

I know I’m sitting in shit, okay? And if you stir it, it will stink and spoil everything. Please, it’s such a nice morning.

“I talked to mama yesterday.” He looks away. 

I get cold all over.

“I think she suspects something. We can’t continue pretending like it’s not there. At some point, you’ll get too large to hide it and then what? How will you explain it, tell them you have a hernia?”

I curl and uncurl my fists. A hernia sounds about right.

“This is what I don’t understand. Why did you go to the hospital for an abortion if you knew you wouldn’t go through with it?” He flicks out the stub and pulls up a stool and sits next to me.

“Why did you keep it?”

Do you really want to know?

He takes my hands. “Can I ask who the father is?”

There is no father, there is only the boar. 

“Look, I’m sorry if I seem too forward about this. I couldn’t help but notice how you sometimes look at your stomach and touch it and all these layers you wear and how you stoop on purpose and, well, it was easy to figure it out from there. I called the hospital to confirm. I’m sorry. I promise I won’t tell anyone. Please. I just want to help. In case you wanted to talk.”

Talk, I want to laugh. I’ve forgotten how to want it.

“Whatever it is, you can tell me. It’ll die with me. I promise.”

Don’t say it.

His face hardens. “And I wish you’d stop giving yourself bruises. Yes, I’ve noticed.” He tugs at his hair. “Please, Irina. I wouldn’t be sitting here talking to you if not for you, don’t you understand? I wish I could help you somehow in return, don’t you get it?”

I shrink.

In the next moment he holds me and puts his cheek on mine and rocks me a little. My heart drums in my ears. I wanted this for so long, that now that it’s happening I can’t move. 

And I know I’m in love.

Dura. Mute, stupid, dura. He said there is nothing between you, don’t you remember? 

But it’s too late.

I don’t care anymore. I just love him. 

“Something wrong?” Pavlik lets go.

My face is wet. Everything? 

He frowns. “Did I hurt you?”

Hurt me? No, I hurt myself.

He pulls out another cigarette. His hand shakes. “Can I ask something else?”

I wipe my face with a sleeve and nod.

Outside kids call to each other. A dog barks.

“I know you’ve explained it before, but...why is it that you don’t talk? I mean, what’s the real reason? I don’t believe that you have a disability. Did something happen? Something that made you mute?” 

I stare at the knots in the pine paneling.

He pulls out a notebook and a pen from under the stool. “Please?”

I flip through crinkly pages filled with my crooked writing—empty, elusive answers to his questions. I find a clean sheet and hold the pen to the paper, the tip almost touching it. 

Okay. After this, I’ll know if you really care.