One Minute

Chapter Ten- Russian Tales

I sat on the couch, waiting for you. Eric and Nikolay said that you were going to be back in a couple of hours, but it had already been four. It was already noon, and you were nowhere to be seen. There was no call, no message, nothing. My legs dangled over one of the armrests, my head resting on the other one. The picture of you was inside cupped hands, and I stared at your laugh for a long time.

The door open and I jerked up.

            “Roivas?” I called out.

            “Sorry to burst your bubble. It’s only me.” Nikolay squatted down to look at me and I went back to my former position, heart sinking.

            “Why are you here?” I muttered.

            “I’m supposed to watch over you. As you Americans call it, babysitting?” he said with a honeyed tone. I had just noticed that his I’s sometimes sounded like E’s and his B’s sounded like V’s. His accent was  more noticeable than I remembered.

            “Well then, what do you want to do?” I asked, sitting up a little.

            “How about… we talk? Like… tell me a little more about yourself.” He whispered.

            “I don’t know.” I frowned, “I’d rather not…”

            “I understand. How about I tell you a story?”

            “Uhm… okay.” My voice trailed off.

            Nikolay sat down in front of the sofa, taking off his fedora. His thick eyebrows were nicely plucked and his goatee had been trimmed. He looked very clean and professional as always.

            “Now where to start… Ah,” He rose his index finger as if to say that he had an idea, “let me take you to my hometown, Gorno-Altaysk, Russia.” He smiled at this remembrance, “It’s said that a million years ago, a lake used to be there, but the feeding river Maima had changed its position and the lake disappeared. It’s pretty large, but at the same time, you see cows walking the street. The place was gorgeous, but freezing!”

            “How cold would it get?” I asked.

            Nikolay rubbed his arms and shook. “It’d get freezing! But that’s not the point. I lived with my Mama, Papa, and little sister, Kira. We lived in a little house before we decided to move to the New Americas, as our family would call it. My parents were idiotic enough to believe the old tale that the streets were ‘paved with gold’.”

            I smiled softly, sitting straighter now, listening to his memory.

            Nikolay licked his lips, making hand gestures that fit with his story, depending on what it was. “My family was poor, and we lived in the middle of nowhere pretty much, where there were no gold paved streets or even technology. We lived in the countryside, where it was hot, and our home was small.” He swallowed, “My dad was a shoemaker, but… something had been very odd about that because he always came home with hundred dollar bills stacked upon one another and a Cuban cigar stuffed in his fat mouth. He always told Mama and Kira that it was just another thriving day in the business industry, but I knew better.

            “One day I followed Papa into the city where he commuted to and found out that he was actually part of the mob. They were saying something about someone owing them a ‘debt’. At the time, I was probably a young boy, 6 or 7 at the most, and I knew what that meant. Either they get paid, or the person gets killed. I never told Papa that I knew, and he never told us what he really did when he went into the city. He always hid his money though, and threatened to give us a good beating if we even neared the safe that he kept behind his coats.

            “Papa died later that year after getting into some trouble with another group of mobsters. Mama and Kira were devastated—Mama stopped eating for four months, and she lost ten pounds at the least from it. Kira was still young, and so we told her a story that Papa had to go back home to support us, but on the way there, he got lost, and so he was trying to find his way back to us. She believed it up until she was eleven, when I finally told her the real story.”

            I listened intensely, intrigued by how much he was telling me—as if he was trusting me with his very soul.

            “Mama got sick after a while, but by then I was seventeen about to turn eighteen, ready to start a new life of my own. Kira had just turned sixteen, ready to be married off to another man. She didn’t want to do it, but it was required of her and so she was sold in the Black Market to a man who was probably twenty five. I don’t know what happened to her after that.

            “Mama died the day after I turned eighteen, and I lived in a house all alone… until I had met Nastasia. Oh my, she was the most heavenly woman I had ever laid my eyes upon. Beautiful sandy colored hair and silver eyes, I fell to my knees for her practically. She was the one for me.

            “We were together for about three years before she told me that she had to go back home. She had promised she’d be back,” His jaw clenched as he began to tremble softly, “but she met another man back in Russia, and she married him instead. That’s when I decided to get a job, and do something of my own. I took all my dad’s zoot suits and fled to Texas. That’s where I met your friend, Roivas. He treated me like a brother, and though it may not seem like it, he still does. He’s always been there for me, and so that’s why I’m here. You’re his friend, and I need to protect you, in order to protect him.”

            “Protect me from what?” I asked, quirking a brow.

            “Anything.” He answered calmly. “There are many dangers out there in the world, sometimes they’re far away, and sometimes, they’re really close.”

            I looked at the clock; it was already five. “Do you think he’ll be back soon…? The sun will set in a couple of hours.” I frowned a little, and Nikolay pinched my cheek playfully.

            “I’m sure he will Zora, he’ll always come back. It just takes some time.”

            “Yeah, I guess so.” I bit my lip, trying not to worry anymore.