Icing on the Cake Chapter 24

A man who had come back from the dead was quick to change his mood, and he seemed to have had such thoughts before falling asleep. When he got angry, he looked dignified; when he acted foolishly, he made you want to punch him; yet when he clung to you affectionately and poured out tender words, this man possessed a colorful range of facets that Yuri had never seen in his life. Like a ruby-red cherry that, once bitten into, released a medley of flavors.

∞ ∞ ∞

Yura, my little Yuri bead.

Yuri’s mother called him by many pet names. There were so many terms she used to address him at once that, as a child, Yuri often got confused about what his own name actually was.

Even the Kiselov family had their happy days. Their happiness was not as grand or materially impressive as the world might describe it, but it carried enough gratitude to give them a reason to live through each day. They were happy because they had a loving family. No matter how wretched and exhausting life outside was, coming home to a mother who welcomed them gently gave them the strength to go on.

Thinking back, Yuri’s family hadn’t been unhappy from the start. After Katya and Vasya exchanged their vows to each other and became husband and wife, they both held hopes for their own household—like every newlywed couple starting out.

Their marriage began alongside Gorbachev’s reforms. The two young people, who had quietly carried out their assigned tasks and lived their lives, were suddenly swept up in a tide of change. A coup broke out and ended, and while they were being tossed about in confusion, a new world emerged. It was a harsh world for people like Katya and Vasya, who had lived with diligence.

Rations were completely cut off, and there was nothing they could buy with the money they had. Even after scraping together all their savings, in a price index that had soared hundreds of times over, the only things they could afford were a few kilograms of sausage and some bread. Those who had nothing took to the streets to sell themselves, while in the meantime, only smugglers and a privileged few amassed wealth.

The two of them saw no future in this country. Days when they could manage one meal were considered lucky, and everything was accomplished through personal connections. In the midst of this, Katya conceived a precious life.

Vasily thought he could not stay here for the sake of his wife. Just the other day, he had seen a drunken vagrant seize a passing woman and commit outrages upon her, and word went around that the local orphanage was overflowing with abandoned children and that a newborn had frozen to death. Every night on his way home, he feared that his wife might fall victim to some misfortune, and he dreaded living in such constant anxiety.

That was not all. Every other day came news that a neighbor had ended their own life, unable to endure the bleak future ahead; reports piled up that new criminal organizations had appeared in the city, preying on people.

Believing that no hope could be found on such soil, Vasily decided to leave the country. For Katya and for his child, to become a good father.

For several months, the two deliberated and looked into where they might go. They saved money and gathered information, wanting to choose the best option for their child. They heard that many people were going to America. There, they said, you could earn as much as you worked, do whatever you pleased freely, and it was even rumored that among the neighbors who had gone over, some had already bought houses.

Katya took Vasya’s hand and said they should go to America. She was excited by the prospect of working hard and buying a car instead of waiting in line for years, and she sang of a future where they would buy their own house, plant flowers in the backyard, and make jam with their child. The black-haired woman, smiling and showing her white teeth, was so beautiful that Vasya swore upon his soul he would do anything for her.

Enduring even a slap across the face from his father, Vasily scraped together the money. Katya’s parents opposed her leaving, so everything had to be done solely by Vasily’s own efforts. The money Katya had saved working as a nurse was meant to be used as settlement funds. Thus they prepared for emigration, and with all their possessions, the two arrived in America.

There, Vasily met Mikhail, Alexei’s father. Mikhail and his wife Nina, who were several years older than Vasily, had come over before the collapse of the Soviet Union and thus possessed forged identities, but having arrived earlier, they knew of a few job opportunities. Thanks to meeting him, Vasily found work at a butcher shop.

By coincidence, Nina had just given birth and was caring for an infant. Katya, whose delivery was imminent, quickly felt a bond with Nina, who had a child of the same age, and the two families became close friends. For a while, everything seemed to be going well. They had met a compatriot from the old country on new soil, and Mikhail, older than Vasily, helped him like an elder brother. At this rate, it seemed they would settle down in New York, become an ordinary family that could buy rations with money, and live well.

“Have you decided on a name yet, Katya?”

“I’m still thinking. I’m not sure what my little bead would like.”

“You shouldn’t make a child’s name too unusual. If you do, God will take notice, and they won’t live long.”

On the day Yuri’s name was chosen, Katya sat on the stairs in front of Nina’s house. Because the Kiselovs rented the first floor of a small two-story Brooklyn house and the Nikitins the second, the two women often sat on the stairs and chatted.

The house, squeezed right against the bustling street, left no room for anything like a garden. Watching little Alexei, who was cradled in Nina’s arms and giggling, Katya fell into deep thought upon hearing Nina’s words. Gazing blankly outside, Katya suddenly clapped her hands as if struck by realization.

“I’ll name him Yuri. Vasya’s family were originally farmers.”

“Oh my, are you so certain it’ll be a boy?”

“Whether it’s a daughter or a son doesn’t matter. America doesn’t draw such strict distinctions between names, does it? If it’s a daughter, I’ll raise her strong so no one dares treat her lightly; if it’s a son, I’ll raise him gentle and kind to everyone.”

Nina seemed to find that way of thinking unusual, but she did not argue with Katya’s words. She only wanted to bestow blessings upon the expectant mother about to give birth.

Katya smiled brightly and carefully stroked her rounded belly with her hand. The baby moved often enough, but had never once kicked her belly violently. Later, Katya would tell Yuri that he had been a very good child. She said he had never even had so much as morning sickness, and that even on the day of his birth, he had come out quickly without causing trouble—a quiet and well-behaved child, just as he had been in the womb.

“Yuri, you are going to be the seed that guides us to start a new life on this land.”

Yekaterina conveyed this news to Vasily when he returned from work that day. The man who was soon to become a father beamed with joy at the name his wife had chosen for their child. Bending down to kiss his wife’s belly, he whispered in his heart to the unborn child.

For you and your mother, this father will do anything.

A few months later, under the state government’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, all the migrants near Brooklyn were forced to leave under Igor’s direction for Saratov. Those who had owed debts to Igor Volkov since arriving in America, frightened of deportation, followed him; those isolated in Saratov soon became Igor’s slaves, shackled by the chains of money.

Vasily, who had been employed at the butcher shop run by Igor through Mikhail’s introduction, also became entangled in illegal funds. Igor told him that if he made this known, Vasily would become a criminal, and so, absurdly, the man entered into the service of a criminal in order not to become one.

People with something to protect fall into traps all too easily. Vasily was diligent but not shrewd, and thus he strayed down the wrong path. It was the same for Mikhail. The world treated lack of cleverness as a sin, and in practice, it did.

A man of conscience would have willingly risked danger and fled, but this man could not. Beside him now were a newborn son and a wife who had just given birth, and he had a duty to keep them alive by any means.

The man kept the promise he had made to his child. He stained his hands with human blood instead of beast’s blood, clinging to life. To preserve his last shred of conscience, the man said he did not want to deal with ordinary people, and from then on, Vasily became Igor’s hound.