A Deeper, Calmer Rift (Chapter 2)

Nights like these Timofey thought of his mother. As Mark, who’d fallen deathly asleep on the fourth flight of stairs, snored and grunted, Timofey watched the man’s stomach rumbling on the bed.

His mother had been a thin woman with large hands. He could remember her voice, a husky alto that always sung songs in Russian. Although he lived in the country for two years, his mother never taught him the language. Instead he learned the English spoken in his home in California. Nothing of Russia ever stayed with him very long, and he had never felt like an outsider. If not for his mother singing in the kitchen, Timofey would have no heritage to recall.

Mark turned, but Timofey flipped him back onto his side. These nights he had a sense of peace. The next day, Saturday, he wouldn’t need to be at the stations checking bags. He had until Monday to rest and think.

Forgetting the sleeping body heavily taking in air, Timofey stared out the sixth floor window. The East coast had a very unsettling feel at night. The darkness always stole quickly over the horizon, where in California it had taken hours for the sun to finally hide. The night had a slight haze to it—either city lights blurring the stars or a light fog. Timofey missed the stars more than anything else.

As a child, young and quiet, his mother had always sat him down at night beneath the single window in their West coast home.

“Those stars,” she would smile, her dry lips striped with deep red lines. “They shine on your father.”

Sleeping in the wool blankets she’d been given by the family she worked for, his mother would stay up watching the sky. It was strange to think something so distant could really connect people, but Timofey still looked. ‘Is she still looking,’ he wondered, putting a finger against the glass.

As Mark began to quiet down into still sleep, Timofey slipped out of the apartment. Across the hall, he entered room 64. Inside the door, he slipped off of his shoes, the scuff still staining the left shoe in black lines. Taking the shoe to the sink, he scrubbed with a towel at the blemish. With water, it quickly left, and his hands finally warmed to the heat of his own rooms.

Walking into the kitchen, a slight wall barricaded off from the rest of the apartment, Timofey always found himself in the refrigerator. The chill tickled his arms. Removing the only solid food he could see, a half-eaten pizza, he steadied all of the stacked bottles of water. He remembered in California, how he could just drink from a faucet. Everything had been clean then.

Before long, a glass of whiskey and three slices of old pizza, Timofey passed out on his bed, reading a tearing copy of Pride and Prejudice. Although he never liked the book much, he found himself trying to understand it. More and more, the problems seemed so mundane and separate from the world. Were these people allowed to live so well because of slavery abroad? He laughed at the thought of a love story, but he only ever read romances.

Five loud knocks woke Timofey to cold sunlight. Standing quickly, he found the closest pair of jeans from his floor and loosely pulled them around his waist. Tightening the cloth belt with a swift tug, he tripped and jogged to the door. Three more knocks pounded before he could turn the handle.

“Hey, Timmy!” Mark, with brown hair combed down and complexion softened by sleep, stood in the doorway.

“What is it this time?”

“One in the afternoon,” Mark laughed. Timofey looked back over his shoulder at the bare window.

“And what are you looking for?”

“You, because I still have a story for you Timmy.” Stretching his arm into the apartment in a welcoming manner, he stood to the side and let Mark saunter inside. Mark’s eyes darted from the small kitchen table, bare and stripping, to the curtainless window. “I met a man, Tim.”

Sitting at the table, he folded his hands softly on the surface.

“I’ve met plenty of men, but I don’t wake people up to tell them about it.”

“Hold on,” Mark smiled. “I’m thinking.” He continued looking around the small apartment, like a thief sizing up a mark. Timofey felt uncomfortable, as he always did when other people came into his world. Most times he carried the two of them into Mark’s apartment rather than this sober friend coming over to his room.

“I met a man yesterday at a bar. I was in one of the foreign sections down below 5^th Street. He told me he was looking for some workers, and that he has a job tomorrow night.” Timofey walked to the fridge, taking out two bottles of clean water.

“I have a job at the train station.”

“Not that kind of job, Timmy.” He gulped one third of the bottle, setting it back down with a relieved sigh. “He needs workers who can stay under the radar. He said he needed a few foreign men that didn’t draw too much attention. Since I was in Maria’s, you know the Spanish bar on 5^th, he just assumed I was a foreign. I didn’t fight it, because I need a job, and I live with you guys anyway.”

“So you talk to a man looking for foreigners even though you’re natural born. Where does this bring me in?” Timofey regretted letting the small man into his apartment. Mark’s eyes kept darting around the room.

“You really aren’t living too well, are you? You don’t even have a phone or a TV in here.”

“I don’t need them. I wouldn’t use them.”

“How about a nice air conditioner or some space heaters for this place? We both know how cold it gets.”

“I don’t need any of that, Mark. Please, get to the point.”

“Don’t you have that cousin, the girl living in California? I bet she could use some help.” Timofey fell back in his seat, thinking of Natya. He hadn’t seen her in over a year, and wondered if she had been doing well. Without a phone, they barely communicated.

“This isn’t about her, Mark. What kind of job did you take?”

“Transportation,” he said. The movement of his lips, a mix of malice and grimace, sent an uneasy quiver up Timofey’s back.

“A driver? Great for you.” Mark laughed, leaning back in the chair. Chugging the rest of his water down, he stood from the chair. At once, Timofey was overpowered by how tall a standing man could feel.

“He has arrangements with the foreign underground, but he needs small jobs done back and forth. While he doesn’t want his natural born men working with the underground jobs, because they stand out too much, he also doesn’t want a foreigner around his house who draws attention. He wants a few good men with the look and feel like shadows.”

“He’s a mob man. Is he working with the Gallos? Did you get involved with those people?” Timofey stood from the table, the force throwing Mark’s empty water bottle with rattling clunks. The two stared nose to nose. After a moment, Mark dropped back into his car with a hard crash, laughing.

“Don’t be so angry with me, Timmy. He pays well. A few hundred a job, he told me. We’re not going to be the people doing killing or anything.”

“I can’t have any type of record. They’ll ship me out.”

“No, he told me they can keep us from being shipped. They have connections, Timmy.”

“You don’t need help from being shipping, and what does that matter. No one can stop the registration allowances. I’ve been lucky to stay this long. It’s only because I stay under the radar. I can’t risk it.”

“You just passed inspection. That gives you six months to get in good with the Gallos. You can stay and live well. Do it for yourself. Or is working at a train station carting other people’s shit too good to pass up?”

Timofey returned to his chair, dropping his face into his hands.

“Let me think about it.”

“He wants to see us tonight. He said we had to meet a few other men before getting into anything. Kind of like an interview. I’ll be over at six.”

Mark left quietly, shutting the door with a soft tap. Standing, Timofey walked back to his bed and cleaned up the few sheets. The sun had arched over the distant center of the sky. The traffic on the streets below him swung in and out of the same chaotic patterns.

Slipping on his clean shoes, he walked down the six flights of stairs to the mailboxes. He knew the answer would promptly come in about his allowance. Although he always knew his record had been clean, something irked him extra this time. ‘It is just Mark and his stupid ideas,’ he thought, trying to ease the crawling feeling. Turning his key into box 64, he opened it to see two letters and a small newspaper. Taking the lump and holding it under his arm, he walked silently back up the stairs. A few Spanish children were playing on the stairs with a bouncy ball, watching it travel from banister to floor.

“Sorry sir,” a small girl chimed, running across his path.

“Be careful,” he smiled, walking away. He wondered if they were here with a parent, or just lost.

Walking into his door, Timofey peaked over his shoulder at Mark’s unchanging apartment. ‘What would happen if I just reported him,’ he thought. Quickly dismissing it, and understanding the police would blame Timofey before considering Mark would be working for a crime organization. Sometimes Timofey forgot how an unnatural citizen was treated anymore.

Sitting at his table, he recognized the blue envelope very quickly. “The Registration Association of America to a Mr. Timofey Kuznetsov.” Tearing across the top, he slid out the few documents inside. Officers hadn’t come for him, which meant the best. They didn’t warn people they were shipping out. A letter was always good news:

We are pleased to inform you that your request for additional allowance in the United States of America has been granted, however, you will only be granted three months more. In efforts to continue removing the country from all global affairs, we must release all citizens of foreign birth within a certain timeframe to adhere to already set goals. Please be understanding, and thank you for your continued cooperation.

Further information will come within the next few weeks. Please return the signed form below, showing you received this letter, to your nearest Registration center. Make sure to put the updated sticker into your book before heading outside again.

Thank you, and we look forward to working with you.

Three months never processed to Timofey, just the fact he would be leaving. Folding the letter back up, he slipped it into the blue envelope. Walking back into his bedroom, he laid down. The sun still rested on the horizon, languishing over the building tops.

“I will write a letter to Natya,” he said aloud. Instead, he fell asleep thinking about Russia, what little he knew of the country. His only memories were his mother singing while washing dishes in the California heat. Timofey dreamed of a warm place with soft music, the only bit of Russia he knew.