Mistress

Chapter 89

Two hours pass. I watch helplessly from the police barricade as emergency medics treat patients feverishly, as they haul some others away silently, with less urgency. Buildings adjacent to the explosion have suffered damage-broken windows and collapsed storefronts.

There’s no reason for me to stay. I’m not providing any help. I’m not solving any problems. But maybe it’s time I did.

I get on my bike and pedal away from the pandemonium. Rescue vehicles are speeding past me in both directions. I pray that they will succeed in their mission. But contrary to the hope that strangles my heart, that burns through my chest, I know that innocent people have died back there. More deaths attributable to me. I brought the Russians to that barricade. I caused that barricade.

I find the house easily, burned into my memory. There were many visits over the years, but one in particular sticks out, less than a month after Mother died. It was just a simple lunch out on Andrei’s back patio, sausages and kebabs on the grill. It was the first time, other than Mother’s funeral, that I had smelled fresh air since her death.

I remember standing by the garden, counting the petals on these beautiful flowers in a kaleidoscope of colors, wondering how something so vibrant and beautiful could exist in a world that was so cold and dark. I remember him coming up behind me and putting a hand on my shoulder. At first I thought it was Father, but of course Father would never have laid a tender hand on me like that. Father didn’t like physical contact.

Anyway, there I was by the garden, and he came over and smiled at me and looked over his shoulder, to be sure that Father was a good distance away. Then he said to me, If you ever feel that you’re in danger, you can call me, Benjamin. I will help you.

But what did an eight-year-old kid know about danger? Your parents tell you something and you accept it. Your father tells you that your mother killed herself and you say, Yes, Father. He tells you not to talk to the police and you say, Yes, Father. He tells you he’ll protect you and you say, Yes, Father. You don’t listen to what is rumbling inside you, those wicked, incomprehensible fears. You don’t tell yourself that your father killed your mother and, for good measure, set you up as the fall guy just in case.

I carry my bike up the steps and ring the doorbell. I don’t know if he’s home, but if he is, it will take him a while to answer.

He finally does. “Benjamin,” he says. He always called me by my full name.

“Andrei,” I say. “I think it’s time we had another talk.”