The Sinner

****

Sergey came and almost immediately fell asleep. Tanya, still feeling inside herself an unfinished, unsatisfied throbbing, sat up on the bed and lowered her feet to the floor.

The cold linoleum unpleasantly burned her bare heels. The small, peeling radiator wasn’t enough to warm the spacious living room of the Stalin‑era apartment, and goosebumps rose on Tanya’s sensitive skin. Sergey’s snoring finally sobered her from the intimacy that had ended too quickly, and the far‑from‑room temperature drove the alcohol out of her head. Shivering, she looked around.

The only source of light was a streetlamp outside the window, and its smeared yellow glow turned the room into a hospital ward devoid of any coziness. All the furniture consisted of a bed and a chair dragged in from the kitchen—and the bed stood not against a wall, but right in the center of the room.

As a child, Tanya would never have fallen asleep on a bed like that. She always pressed herself up against the wall carpet so that her arm wouldn’t hang off the bed into the place where the creatures living underneath could reach her. And now, at twenty‑three, she hardly thought she could fall asleep here without a hundred grams of vodka. But the vodka was gone, Sergey was snoring, and now she would have to come to terms with this little apartment.

Tanya groped in the darkness for a man’s T‑shirt and pulled it on. She felt around with her feet for her slippers. Her foot struck the chair, and it almost tipped over with everything on it: an empty bottle of Khortytsia, a plate with rust‑spotted apples, a jar of half‑eaten sprats. She managed to catch the tilting bottle and, by her own reaction, convinced herself she was sober.

And what was she to do, sober, lonely, and freezing, in this place?

Sergey had certainly lied when he said he’d moved here after his grandmother’s death. He didn’t live here at all—how else could one explain the absence of a wardrobe with his clothes, a computer or TV, and in general half the things a normal person needs? Tanya guessed that since the day they’d carried the grandmother out feet first, the apartment had stood empty, and Sergey used it only for dates with girls. A bed for brief sex and a chair to set the vodka on—what more does a twenty‑eight‑year‑old guy living with his parents need?

She’d met Sergey at a club a month and a half earlier. Everything as usual: dancing, cocktails, walking her home. She hadn’t planned to continue seeing him, but something unexpected happened: right by her building, Sergey got a call from home telling him his grandmother had died. He didn’t look particularly upset, but Tanya decided to call him a few days later to ask how he was. Since then they’d been meeting three times a week. Mostly they walked silently through the streets—Sergey wasn’t much of a talker. When it got cold, he invited her to his place—that is, to his late grandmother’s apartment. Several times she drank vodka with him on that bed, and then, tipsy, they had sex, but each time she went home for the night. Today she decided to stay over and immediately regretted it: the Stalin‑era place, ominous even in daylight, inspired genuine fear in her under the dim glow of the streetlamp.

Deciding she wouldn’t fall asleep anyway, Tanya got up and pulled the slippers out from under the chair. Her toes, sinking into the worn fur of the house shoes, sent a thought to her brain: in these slippers, Sergey’s grandmother had probably shuffled across the linoleum. Her gaze fell on a little square of paper pinned to the bare wall: someone—likely that same tormented old woman—had cut an image of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker out of a newspaper. Tanya believed in both God and mysticism, though she lived a thoroughly down‑to‑earth life, in which clubs, alcopops mixed with vodka, and guys like Sergey took up far more space than thoughts of religion. But many Jehovah’s Witnesses worked with her at the sewing factory, and they talked about the Lord’s grace and what would happen if the Lord turned away from a person. According to them, the devil walks after sinners day and night, counting their sins. Clicking enormous bone abacuses and muttering: “Aha, Tanya drank some vodka! Aha, she gave herself to Sergey before marriage! Put on a dead woman’s slippers!”

And when enough sins pile up, then the devil gets to a person, and—!

Tanya didn’t know what would happen then, but she knew for sure that Sergey’s Stalin‑era apartment depressed her and gave rise to all kinds of delirious thoughts.

In the half‑darkness, under the gaze of the black‑and‑white Saint Nicholas, Tanya seemed to herself dirty, smeared with the dark yellow varnish of the streetlamp. She wanted to take a shower and wash off not only the bad thoughts but also Sergey’s semen clinging to the folds of her stomach.

She stepped into the hallway. The bathroom was straight ahead, but between her and it lay thick darkness, unbroken even by the streetlamp.

She cast a wary glance at Sergey, and he gave an encouraging snort in his sleep. Taking a deep breath, she moved forward, cutting through the unexpectedly dense gloom. One step, two, three. The bedroom door and the switch by the jamb should be here. She stretched out her hand to hit the button before her feet carried her there. But her fingers slid over loose wallpaper—the bedroom was still far away. Tanya quickened her pace; she wanted to turn around, to look at peacefully sleeping Sergey, to make sure no one was following her—but she didn’t turn, afraid of seeing the opposite. The bathroom door gleamed ahead, yet did not come closer; the corridor stretched like an endless intestine. Tanya automatically folded her fingers and crossed herself. On the left appeared the bedroom door, and, slipping inside with relief, she clicked the switch. Even light poured from the grimy ceiling shade.

For some reason, Tanya thought that religion and electricity were the things that stood in the way of the creatures under the bed—the things that kept them from clawing their way out and killing everyone in the house.

Sergey’s grandmother’s bedroom was no more lived‑in than the living room. A sofa with a mattress and an empty cabinet—nothing else. From behind the unwashed glass of the cabinet, a small icon of Jesus stared out, but there were no porcelain plates, no wooden boxes with semi‑precious stones and plastic beads, no embroidered tablecloths, no marble elephants, each smaller than the last. In short, none of the things one expects in an average grandmother’s apartment.

“Was it all already taken out, thrown away, sold?” Tanya thought. She generally liked old people and missed her own grandmother terribly—she’d died five years earlier and had baked the best pies in the world. It was unlikely Sergey’s grandmother had baked such pies, judging by the state of her apartment.

Leaving the light on, Tanya returned to the hallway and reached the bathroom in three steps. The light here was very bright, soothing. Locking herself off from the outer rooms, Tanya felt as if she’d left the Stalin‑era apartment altogether; at least her soul felt lighter, and normal thoughts came—about Sergey, about their future together. She still didn’t know how he felt about her. With men like Sergey, you had to pull everything out with pincers—talk of love, of marriage. One thing she was sure of: before moving in here, they’d need to buy furniture and invite a priest.

Taking off Sergey’s T‑shirt, Tanya scrutinized herself in the mirror. From the vodka her cheeks were flushed, her lips swollen from kissing, her bobbed hair disheveled. Blowing her reflection an air kiss, she turned on the shower and thoroughly rinsed the tub. It was cleaner than one might expect, but she feared that the cast‑iron walls still bore the fingerprints of the dead old woman.

Standing under the shower and rubbing herself with a skinny bar of strawberry soap, Tanya softly hummed: “I’ll bite you lovingly till you bleed, you won’t find any traces in the morning.”

The water warmed and relaxed her; it felt as though the dissipated buzz had returned and made her head spin.

Out of nowhere, the bathroom door began to open, emitting a grating squeal. Frowning in annoyance, Tanya broke off from her pleasant task, lowered one foot to the floor, and reached for the handle. By then the door was half open, and the hallway and the living room beyond were visible through the opening. The bed stood directly opposite the bathroom, and Tanya saw the sleeping Sergey, with something dark rising on his chest. She thought it was a pillow, but the “something” suddenly moved, and her jaw involuntarily dropped. Sitting right on Sergey was some creature the size of a Rottweiler. In the light spilling from the bedroom it was clearly visible how it pressed its muzzle tightly to the sleeping man’s face. Or perhaps he was no longer sleeping. With a clang, the showerhead slipped from Tanya’s hands.

The creature whipped its head around, and two red embers flared in the half‑dark.

It was as if an icy block grew in Tanya’s chest, making it hard to breathe, to scream, to think. She simply stared at what was staring at her—and then at what leapt off Sergey and rushed toward her with the speed of a greyhound. Only when it crossed half the corridor did Tanya snap out of it and, beside herself with terror, slam the door shut, then try to slide the latch—but her fingers wouldn’t obey. Something heavy slammed into the wooden panel from the other side, and she let out a thin squeal—the first sound since the song under the shower to escape her lips. The old latch stubbornly refused to move and cut into her fingers. The door was struck again—or rather, raked. Like with a rake. Or with claws.

At last Tanya managed to turn the latch, and the door closed. Understanding it was too early to rejoice, she jumped into the tub and stood pressed against the tile, not noticing the hot water still lashing her shin. All her attention was on the door.

“What was that?” she frantically thought. “A dog got into the apartment? But how—the place is on the third floor? Some kind of prank? Maybe Sergey decided to mess with me?”

She forced herself to move, turned off the water, and listened. The Stalin‑era apartment was silent. No barking dog, no giggling prankster Sergey. Only the thudding of her heart and the drip of water on cast iron—only a growing whistle, quiet but insistent, at first almost ultrasonic, now distinctly audible, close.

The hair on Tanya’s head stood on end when she realized that something was happening—and not in the corridor behind the locked door, but inside, right beside her. She pressed herself into the wall and stared with glassy eyes into the corner under the sink, where the whistling came from.

The whistle turned into a hiss, then into an unexpected, jolting “pshhh!” that abruptly cut off—and the very same creature appeared beneath the sink. It arose out of nowhere, simply materializing in midair. A moment ago there had been only cobwebs and peeling tile, and now something crouched there, about a meter tall, covered head to toe in silvery fur. And before Tanya could scream, the creature suddenly spoke:

“Quiet, granddaughter, quiet! You’ll wake Sergey—he’ll think you’re mad and stop loving you. No one loves madwomen.”

This was not a growl, not a howl, not what an uninvited guest materialized in the middle of the night ought to produce. It was an ordinary human voice—female, elderly. Then Tanya noticed, with her crazed eyes, that the guest was not covered in fur at all, but in hair hanging from its head—and it wasn’t silvery, but gray. The creature tossed back its long locks, freeing its face. Sitting before Tanya was an ordinary old woman—except tiny, and having appeared in a completely unnatural way.

There was nothing frightening about the old woman’s appearance; on the contrary, she evoked a strange sense of pity. She wore nothing, and tried to hide her decrepit nakedness with her hair. At a height of one meter she didn’t seem like a dwarf—her body was proportionate, ordinary, aside from puffy cheeks that didn’t match her overall thinness. The skin on her arms and legs was wet and pink, but her face was covered with an unhealthy gray flush, as if the woman were gravely ill. Tanya finally realized whom the guest resembled: elderly female alcoholics. That’s whom. Only those are taller—and if they appear out of nowhere, it’s exclusively in their feverish visions.

Still, the guest spoke soberly, and looked at Tanya with pleading light‑blue eyes (not red, as she’d first imagined).

“Who are you?” Tanya asked, stunned.

“Don’t be afraid of me, granddaughter,” the old woman said without moving. “Put on my grandson’s T‑shirt—it’s cold here.”

Tanya automatically reached for the T‑shirt and quickly pulled it on, trying not to take her eyes off the old woman.

“My grandson’s T‑shirt,” she repeated to herself—and understood everything. Strangely, that understanding calmed her.

“You’re Sergey’s grandmother?” she asked.

“That’s right,” the old woman nodded.

“Are you… a ghost?”

The guest looked at her hands, at her tangled hair, and shrugged.

“I don’t know. Who I am now—they didn’t tell me.”

“Do you live here?”

“I don’t live,” the old woman replied sadly. “I’m… here. I need to leave, but I can’t.”

Tanya shifted her weight in the tub and asked anxiously:

“What did you do to Sergey?”

“Nothing!” the old woman exclaimed sincerely. “I’d never do anything to him! He’s just sleeping—you can go check. He was the only one who took care of me before. My daughter wanted nothing to do with me. Called me a drunk. Was ashamed of me. But he—now and then he’d bring some bread, some milk. Sometimes even a little bottle. We’d sit together, drink some moonshine, talk about life.”

Listening, Tanya understood why the apartment didn’t look like a typical grandmother’s place. In life, Sergey’s grandmother had been an alcoholic, and apparently embroidery and porcelain elephants hadn’t concerned her. Fear finally left Tanya, replaced by sadness—pity for this woman with the puffy face, who had destroyed herself and even after death couldn’t find peace because no one had told her who she was or where to go.

“Were you kissing sleeping Sergey?” Tanya asked, her chest tightening with sorrow.

“Not exactly,” the grandmother sighed. “If I tell you, you’ll be frightened and leave him. And he loves you. You know how he looks at you!”

“I love him too!” Tanya blurted out, though she’d never really thought about whether she loved Sergey or not. “Tell me!”

The old woman lowered her nearly transparent eyes and said guiltily:

“I drank terribly before, granddaughter. And now I want a drink. My soul is burning for it—burning! Worse than the torments of hell, do you understand?”

“I’ll buy it!” Tanya cried without thinking.

“You will,” the old woman smiled gratefully, then added with a kind of longing: “Only how will I drink it? It’s here, the cursed thing, and I’m not.”

Tanya nodded in horror—but not the kind that comes from unexpected zombies; rather the kind that pierces you when you encounter a person fallen to the very bottom.

Abandoned. Unneeded.

“I’m sorry,” she said for no reason.

“You forgive me for frightening you. I didn’t want you to see me. Tomorrow it’ll be forty days since I died, and no one will remember me. And the Lord won’t notice me. And won’t tell me who I am now.”

“We’ll remember you,” Tanya promised sincerely. “We’ll go to church, light a candle for you.”

The old woman looked at the girl with eyes full of pain and tears.

“Go,” she whispered. “Sleep and don’t be afraid. Tomorrow I’ll go somewhere. I don’t know where, but I know it will be tomorrow.”

Tanya climbed out of the tub and approached the wretched old woman, wanting somehow to comfort her, and said:

“Everything will be all right. I promise.”

It was the first time she had ever promised anything to a ghost, and she understood how foolish it sounded—but the words escaped her anyway.

“You’re a good one,” the old woman said. “I hope Sergey doesn’t hurt you.”

Having said that, the guest began to melt into the air as swiftly as she had appeared. First came a hiss, then a fading whistle. Just before vanishing completely, she asked:

“Could you take the icons off the walls? They make it even hotter. The saints look at me and see what a sinner I am. It hurts…”

Tanya slowly left the bathroom. The Stalin‑era apartment was quiet; only Sergey’s faint snoring could be heard. The corridor no longer seemed gloomy, and she thought she’d found a guy with decent living space. A little renovation—and the apartment would shine. Feeling at home, she went into the bedroom, took the icon of Jesus from the shelf, and, after thinking, slid it under the sofa mattress. Then she went to the kitchen and took the darkened icon of the Holy Trinity off the wall, hid it behind the gas stove, and, shuffling in the grandmother’s slippers, returned to Sergey. She had already lain down when she suddenly remembered the newspaper clipping of Saint Nicholas the Wonderworker. She got up, found the clipping in the yellow streetlight, and tore it off the pin. Hesitating, she crumpled the paper into a ball and tossed it under the radiator. Smiling involuntarily, she settled beside Sergey and felt with her shoulder his warm, evenly breathing back.

“Everything will be all right,” Tanya thought as she fell asleep. “Everyone has the right to be noticed, no matter what they did earlier in life. Everyone has the right to a candle in church.”

---

She woke in the middle of the night to smacking sounds. The old woman was sitting on Sergey and devouring his face. His head was turned to the side, and everything looked yellow: the thick mass flowing from the eye socket, the torn cheek with bared incisors, the nose bitten halfway off. The old woman tore herself from her bloody work and looked at Tanya with red eyes. The girl didn’t even have time to move: a paw with four yellow claws, each the size of a penknife blade, pinned her to the bed. Another paw yanked off the blanket. Tanya tried to scream, but the old woman clamped her mouth shut; a rough claw slid between her teeth and split her tongue. Her mouth filled with a salty, oyster‑like taste.

Crazed, Tanya watched as the old woman stretched her talon toward her stomach. The claws carved deep gashes in her skin, and the bed began to swell with red.

Suddenly the paw turned into a horrifying parody of a shower: claws and fingers intertwined and took on a metallic sheen; from the yellow flesh emerged a nozzle covered with a steel mesh.

“For it is said!” the old woman roared through a mouthful. “Do not believe the deceitful demons, do not believe the pleading demons, do not believe the weeping demons, do not believe the demons lurking in the corner of your bedroom, watching you as you sleep—do not believe demons!”

Hundreds of glittering needles burst from the shower’s holes, and for some reason Tanya thought that she would not die as quickly as Sergey had. In her ears, again and again, rang the half‑chewed words: “Do not believe, do not believe, do not believe!”