The Sin Collector

KATYA

First she rang the doorbell. Not much chance that Natasha would be home, but it was best to be sure. Then Katya used her key to unlock the door, took a deep breath, and crossed the threshold, smiling at the familiar smells. While she was taking off her boots, she thought she heard someone in the kitchen.

“Natasha?” she called. But there was nobody there. Only a clock ticking, and the washing machine spinning in the bathroom.

Katya paused before the mirror just inside the door. She liked to look at herself in this mirror, as if she were the lady of the house. It felt totally natural. The soft golden light from the chandelier had the same magical effect she remembered from childhood. She was a princess again, not some poor shepherd girl, and everyone else could get out of her damn way. Katya tiptoed farther into the apartment. There was a new blanket on the sofa in the living room. Soft. Probably cashmere.

A new bottle of lotion sat on the shelf in the bathroom. Must be Natasha’s. Masha never cared about things like that. Katya mentally put the lotion aside for later.

In Masha’s room, everything seemed frozen in time. The summer sun beat through the window.

“So stuffy in here,” Katya said out loud, and she opened the window to air things out.

She spent a bit longer in Natasha’s room, standing in front of her closet. She took note of the chocolate-brown strappy heels and the businesslike pinstripe suit with its surprising leopard-print lining. Katya took a deep sniff. Natasha had switched perfumes again. Masha’s mother could never stay loyal to just one. She was always experimenting. Katya liked that. She played a game with Natasha’s perfumes, trying to decide which one would be best for her, and concluded they would all work nicely.

She moved on into the kitchen and peeked inside the fridge. But that always ruined her fun. There was no way, here, to pretend this was her own place, because the real-life lady of the house might notice if half a wheel of cheese disappeared (Katya adored this Dutch cheese, and it was crazy expensive), or a bunch of grapes went missing. So Katya devoured the contents of that enormous refrigerator with her eyes only, like a poor idiot visiting from the provinces might look at a fancy still life at the Hermitage.

Katya desperately wanted to take a bath, but it was too risky. It would be too hard to explain if they caught her lounging in a tub full of bubbles and aromatic oils. A shower, maybe. Katya had her alibi ready. “Oh, Natasha, I fell in a puddle, I got caught under a downspout, a Mercedes flew by and splashed me!” Katya knew Natasha would allow it. They’d even have some tea afterward, and Natasha would grill her about Masha’s many admirers. She always wanted to hear about that. Sometimes, when there were clues that Masha had her eye on someone (bold but amateurish attempts at makeup, for example), Natasha even sent Katya out to spy for her.

And Katya performed well. One time she found out that the “someone” was in Masha’s class, and his name was Petya, a respectable son of wealthy parents. He drove a Porsche, and when Katya caught sight of that Porsche, she practically jumped out of her skin. But silly Masha said she wasn’t impressed—with all the huge SUVs on the road, you couldn’t see a thing from a little sports car. It was never clear what Petya saw in Masha. Katya would have said there wasn’t much to see. Her thick hair, she supposed, or her eyes, maybe. She had even said something about them to Masha once. Masha had laughed and shocked Katya by quoting something in French about how people compliment a woman’s eyes when the woman herself isn’t very pretty. And she was smart, sure, but for guys that was more of a drawback. So what had Petya fallen for? Must have been her last name: Karavay. Real elegant, and pretty famous in some circles. The dead lawyer and all.

Katya remembered how much everyone fussed over Masha after he died, even Katya’s own mother, as if she didn’t have anyone better to pity. Oh, the poor child, losing her father so young! What a tragedy!

Katya had spoken up then. “What about me? Don’t you ever feel sorry for me?” she objected. “My father deserted me before I was even born!”

Her mother said she did feel sorry for her, really. She patted Katya’s head and told her not to be jealous, that it wasn’t nice. But Katya was jealous. She thought she must have been born with that feeling inside of her, the feeling she felt when she looked out their first-floor window at the girl in the colorful jacket, riding high on her father’s shoulders as he laughed, when she heard the old women praising him from their benches. What a good father that Fyodor Karavay is, they used to say. And a big shot, too! And she felt it when she saw Fyodor with Natasha, who looked so young and who dressed in the sort of clothes Katya’s own mother had never even dreamed of owning, and every time she saw his picture in the paper with an article about some high-profile trial. Katya desperately wanted to be friends with Masha, but she also wanted to claw her eyes out. It was a strange, worrying, terrible feeling, one that Katya’s mother correctly identified only ten years later.

The year that both girls turned thirteen, Katya’s mother, Rita, was offered an enormous amount of money for their one-bedroom apartment downtown. They could use it to buy one twice as big in a less trendy neighborhood. Her mother was happy. The buyer made all the arrangements for them, even helped them move, and Rita was so grateful, knowing she never could have handled it on her own. She gushed to Katya about how they’d have their own bedrooms now, not to mention an extra room, an actual living room (“And maybe, Katya, it could be a nursery someday!”).

“It won’t be,” Katya had snapped. She was determined to marry a rich guy.

Katya was glad about moving, though. She could finally get away from Masha’s ugly face. Only months later Katya realized she was dying of loneliness in their dull new neighborhood. Life without Masha was boring. It was as if some sort of engine had been removed from her mind, one that had given emotional tone and tension to Katya’s life. And Katya was no idiot. She knew she couldn’t talk with her new neighbors the way she had with Masha. All these girls talked about was boys, makeup, and clothes—the three subjects she and Masha had never, ever discussed.

At first, she got a kick out of looking through their dog-eared issues of Vogue. Then she felt lonely again, remembering the guys from Masha’s special math and physics school who used to come over. She didn’t always understand the things they talked about, but those boys were a whole lot more interesting than the ones her new neighbors were always drooling over. Katya dreamed of eventually marrying one of those math-and-physics boys—provided, of course, that he made a lot of money, and didn’t work as just a boring old researcher somewhere like her mother.

So Katya decided to get back in touch with Masha, despite the ten metro stops between them. She knew, deep down, that her jealousy was pointing the way like a compass, that Masha would continue rising up into the cream of society, and that Katya needed to hitch a ride.

And so, a year after moving away, Katya had dialed the Karavays’ number, as nervous as she’d ever been. Masha was surprised to hear from her—but pleasantly surprised, thank God. She invited Katya to come visit.

When Katya had emerged from the metro station at Bolshaya Polyanka and breathed in the gasoline-infused air, she’d felt as if she had finally come home. That feeling only got stronger in Masha’s apartment, so strong she didn’t know what to do with herself. This was the apartment of her dreams, the apartment where she had spent half her childhood, the place she thought of as her real home. She sat down across from Masha at the kitchen table and felt the tears welling up in her throat.

“What’s wrong?” Masha asked.

“I missed you,” Katya said, and she wasn’t lying at all.

Katya had wanted to impress her old friend. Getting ready for that visit, she had put on her makeup very carefully. But now, looking at Masha’s bare face and embarrassed by her own tears (after all, Masha hadn’t missed Katya enough to cry!), Katya realized the truth: she had lost again. Simply because Masha existed on a completely different level.

An awkward silence settled over the table. Masha and Katya drank their tea quickly, pretending not to notice the obvious: they had nothing to talk about. Katya was devastated. Friendship with Masha was her only excuse for being in this apartment.

“Know what?” Katya finally blurted out, desperate to break the silence. “There’s a guy with a Harley who likes me!”

“A Harley?” Masha asked, confused.

“You know, a motorcycle, the really cool kind? He’s already been in jail for stealing, can you believe it? He told me I don’t look any older than sixteen. So I said, ‘Well, I am sixteen!’ And he said, ‘Don’t tempt me, baby girl!’” Katya jabbered on, her eyes growing bigger and bigger as she continued the story, holding Masha’s gaze the whole time.

After the guy with the Harley, Katya talked about Sveta, who lived in her new apartment building and whose mother beat her up for wearing eye shadow and lipstick, even though she was already fifteen, can you believe it? Then there was the “Great Silk Road” that ran in front of their building, always filled with the people who sold things at the cheap marketplace next door. And a soldier who had come back from Chechnya sick in the head, who sat in the bushes until his mom came out and told him everyone was gone, the ambush was over, and it was safe to come inside for dinner.

Katya was turning out to have a real gift for storytelling. She played the part of the terrified vet peering out from behind the bushes, then the self-satisfied dude on the Harley, then Sveta’s mother, cursing her out so loud everyone could hear. Masha laughed till she cried, wiping the tears from her eyes, and when Natasha came home from work, Masha told her mom she had to sit down and listen, too. Katya gave an encore performance of the best parts of her story, perfecting them as she went, and now she felt awesome, triumphant. She had won! It was working!

It went on like that for years. Katya sort of became Masha’s personal court jester. With other people, Masha held very intellectual conversations. With Katya, she relaxed, and sometimes she would even gossip. That didn’t bother Katya. Neither did the sideways looks Masha’s school friends gave her: Who are you? Where do you study? They could see right away Katya wasn’t one of them. But Katya knew that herself, and she didn’t mind, just went right on playing the fool. Masha always introduced Katya as her oldest friend. Oldest friend. It was like an honorary title. Anyway, she’d be one of them, someday. Maybe even be better than them. There was no rush, she had time—that’s what Katya thought.

Until Innokenty. Yes. Until Katya noticed Innokenty.