The Sin Collector

MASHA

Masha held her mother in her arms, but her arms were clearly not enough. Maybe they were too short, or maybe Masha was simply the wrong person for the job. But there was nobody else. No Papa, no UnPapa. Natasha was slipping away, falling like Alice down the deep, dark rabbit hole. And Masha knew what she would find at the bottom: Papa’s death, and pain and terror, and her own aloneness. It had only been five minutes since Andrey’s call, but all that morning, as she’d telephoned every place she could think of, Masha had known. She’d felt it in her bones, the same way you can feel someone else breathing in a dark room: it was hopeless. He wasn’t with friends, he wasn’t with colleagues, he wasn’t in any hospital. It was too late. He was somewhere his wife’s gentle pleading could never reach him.

At long last, Masha realized what Belov, and his unobtrusive presence in her life, had meant to her. The perfectly brewed coffee in the mornings, the gentle gaze that restrained her mother’s urge to badger Masha with too many personal questions. Even his kindly therapist act, as she thought of it, had helped to keep her afloat. She had been genuinely and tightly attached to this big, gentle man. Her customary annoyance about him was gone.

Meanwhile Natasha’s whole body was trembling, despite the emergency double dose of Valocordin, and her fingers, digging painfully into Masha’s forearm, were cold as ice. Masha made a decision. She dialed the number of an old medical-school friend of her mother’s who worked a few blocks away, and tried to give her the short version of everything that had happened: her stepfather was dead, her mother was apparently suffering from nervous shock, and Masha didn’t know what to do.

“Masha!” the friend exclaimed, her voice trembling with worry. “Hold on, dear, I’ll be right there. You stay with her, all right? Get her into bed if you can.”

Masha hung up and turned to her mother.

“Let’s go, Mama. You’re going to go lie down. Nadya is coming soon.” Her mother looked right through her, and Masha felt a flash of terror. She grabbed Natasha by the hand and tried to stand up, pulling her mother after her. “Come on,” she repeated, gently. “I’m going to put you in bed.”

Natasha stood up, and with tiny steps, like a truck pulling a trailer, they inched out into the hallway. It occurred to Masha that it would be a mistake to take her mother into the room she had shared with her second husband, so she pushed open the door to her own room.

Natasha stopped short in the doorway, and her eyes came alive when they focused on something right in her line of vision. Masha craned her neck to get a glimpse of what her mother was staring at so intently, and swore to herself. Her room wasn’t a safe option, either. The black-and-white photo of her father regarded his wife and daughter from the opposite wall. He seemed more alive than both of them put together. The standoff lasted maybe ten seconds, until Natasha turned to her daughter and said, very quietly, “This is all your fault.” Then she clutched at her heart and, as if she were in a movie, slowly crumpled to the floor.

“Mama, what’s wrong? Is it your heart?” Masha shouted.

That same instant the doorbell rang, and Masha ran to answer it. She slipped on the rug and pulled the door open almost in midflight.

“Nadya!” She was no longer trying to act as if she were in control. Masha felt like she had shot back in time eleven years, and she was standing there, small and lost, over her father’s dead body. “There’s something wrong with Mama. I think it’s her heart!”

“All right, all right,” Nadya told her reassuringly and hurried inside. “Natasha!” Nadya squatted down on the floor next to her friend, and in one quick gesture took some sort of tablet out of her purse and slid it under Natasha’s tongue. She wrapped her long fingers around the patient’s wrist and felt her pulse. “Natasha, you need to be strong now. You need to pull yourself together, Natasha,” she was saying in a quiet, almost sing-song voice, while Masha stood by silently behind her and tried not to cry. “I’m going to give you a shot and bring you in to my clinic. My car’s outside. You’ll have a few days of rest. Masha can pack your things.”

She nodded back at Masha, who obediently turned around and walked to the bathroom, where she forced her trembling hands to gather up her mother’s makeup and the bathrobe hanging on the door. What else? A change of underwear? Masha hurried down the hallway toward the master bedroom, catching a glimpse of Nadya expertly inserting a needle into her mother’s arm, still talking soothingly.

“Wonderful! I’ve always been jealous of your veins, nice and big!”

Natasha was staring straight up at the ceiling.

Masha grabbed the first pair of underwear she found, and was turning to leave when she caught the scent of her mother’s perfume. Her throat tightened. She must not cry! She also saw, out of the corner of one eye, an empty silver picture frame. But she didn’t stop to look closer. Masha ran back into the hallway. Her mother was on her feet now with her coat on, standing at the door. Nadya took the bag Masha had packed and patted her on the cheek.

“I’m going to take care of her for a few days. Will you be all right?”

Masha nodded.

“Wonderful. You can come visit when she’s feeling better.”

Masha nodded again. She couldn’t take her eyes off her mother’s pale, frozen face. Nadya was opening the front door now, taking Natasha by the arm and steering her toward the elevator. Masha waved good-bye, the elevator door clanged shut, and she slowly retreated back into the apartment. She gave the lock four full turns, and turned away to look at her own reflection in the mirror.

The play of artificial and natural light made Masha look like a ghost, belonging to neither this world nor any other. Only now did she realize what her mother had said before collapsing on the parquet floor. It was all her fault. For some reason, Masha was not at all surprised. As always, Natasha was right.

Everything that had happened to their family was her fault. Hers and nobody else’s.