Chapter 13
[12:28pm]
“ANDREY!”
Bolkonsky yelled from his bedroom, laying on the ruffled sheets of his bed. He shielded his eyes away from the afternoon sunlight with the palm of his hand. It beamed down on him through the open curtain of the window.
Andrey paused the video game he was very much enthralled in, and set his controller down. Surprisingly, there was not one beer can in sight. After him and Mary’s little feud yesterday, it became clear to Andrey that something had to change with his habits. Yes, he has hurt other people in the past, but Mary? His own sister? Never. And even though he rarely ever showed it, and rarely let her know, he truly did love Mary - and still does. Hurting her is where he drew the line. Afternoons were now beer-less, and Andrey was fine with that… But it would take some getting used to. He was so used to that buzzed feeling.
He slowly walked into the old man's room. The room looked foreign to him. There were empty medicine bottles scattered about on the dresser, clothes tossed on the floor with hangers thrown on the bed. To say the least, the room was a mess. It was evident that Bolkonsky had another one of his fits again.
“Papa, what did you do?”
Andrey began to pick up the clothes on the floor while Bolkonsky sat upright in his bed.
“Well, Mary isn’t here to bring me lunch, so I guess you’ll have to today….Where is Mary by the way? Usually she comes to bring me soup.”
He scoffed, turning his head accidentally towards the sunlight. He shielded his eyes again.
“That still doesn’t explain the mess.”
Andrey took a hanger from off the bed and slid it through the sleeve of a blue pajama gown.
“It does explain it boy!... You are just like your mother...Anyway, I was hungry but Mary is not here to cook for me. And would you close these damn curtains?!”
He tossed the shirt on the bed and trudged over to the curtains with a slight smirk on his face.
“Isn’t it 12:30 something? You should be sleeping. Mary is always at school at this time.”
“Maybe I could sleep if I had something to eat and those curtains were closed!”
As the light faded out of the room, Bolkonsky laid his head back again on the pillow. His bed creaked underneath him as he shifted his weight - trying to become more comfortable.
“You could have closed them yourself instead of throwing your clothes like a child. And you could’ve gotten something from the fridge… I swear, Mary baby’s you too much.”
Andrey walked back over to the bed and grabbed the shirt. He hung it on the rod in the closet, with the other array of clothing.
Just then, there was a knock at the door followed by the ringing of the doorbell.
Andrey jerked his head over to the doorway.
“Who is that?! I did not invite any guests.”
Bolkonsky sat upright again.
“I’ll go see. You stay here.”
He exited the room and walked to the front door. Looking through the small window of the door, he could see a face he hadn’t seen in months. He swung open the door.
“Vassily Kuragina. Nice to see you old friend. You’ve been distant lately.”
Andrey studied the man. Beard grown out, hair disheveled. He held a small clutch in his hand. Andrey knew what that was.
“Do you have something for me?”
The boy reached his hand out to the tired man, who began to open the clutch.
“It isn’t for you, it is for your father.”
He pulled out the wad of green paper and placed it into Andrey’s hand.
Eyeing the money, he thumbed through it, like a deck of cards. Mentally calculating the total.
“This isn’t all of it. Where’s the rest?”
Andrey waved the money in the man's face.
“I - I don’t have it right now, but please of you’d just give me some more time, I can -”
Vassily begged, tripping over his words.
“To my understanding, the agreement was that you were to pay off $100 thousand dollars to my father. Four years ago, you paid $50 thousand. Three years ago you paid $30 thousand. Two years ago you paid $20 thousand. And last year, you paid ten. This is only $5,000… Where is the rest?”
Andrey stood face to face with the man. He knew Kuragina was at least somewhat frightened of him, otherwise he wouldn’t have begged the way he did.
“The treatments for my wife… I had to use the money for that. I can come up with the rest if you just give me more time, please.”
Andrey gritted his teeth, growing more and more frustrated with the man on his doorstep.
“My father is currently dying as we speak. His condition gets worse every single day, and you can’t even come up with $5,000 to pay off your dead wife’s mistakes. Every minute you waste not paying what you owe, is every minute wasted of his deteriorating life. If he wasn’t dealing with dementia, he would've gotten your sorry ass sent back to Russia by now.”
Andrey slid the money into his back pocket and began to close the door, when Kuragina placed his foot in the way.
Stepping closer to the teenager, he balled his hands in a fist.
“You got a lot of nerve to be talking to me like that, boy.”
“Says the man who yearned for his wife’s love while she was on her deathbed. Isn’t she the entire reason you’re in this predicament in the first place? She hated you so much that in her final years she chose to love my father and not her own husband. Don’t you see how pathetic you look?”
“That wasn’t love. That was a delusion. Thalia loved me, and I loved her. You don’t know what you’re talking about. I suggest you don't involve yourself with grown people’s business young man. The waters can get high if you don’t know how to swim.”
The veins on Vassily’s forehead nearly looked like they were ready to burst. His knuckles were white from squeezing his hands.
“Looks like you're the one sinking Kuragina.”
Through Vassily’s attempts at looking threatening, Andrey was not fazed one bit. If Kuragina punched him in the face right now, the man’s reputation would be over. His son, Anatole already did that, and Andrey was being kind not letting the public get a hold of that information. He had so many social status ruining accounts against Kuragina and his family that they’d better be thankful to him, cause the wealth could all be over if Andrey just let slip a few small details.
“You’re one nasty son of a bitch. Worse than your father. Now I understand why Sasha left all those years ago. You probably gave her a hard time.”
Vassily felt a smirk come across his face after seeing a tinge of hurt in Andrey’s eyes. He knew his words cut deep, which is exactly why Andrey needed to hear them.
“Bring me the $5,000 by Wednesday. If you don’t show up by midnight, I will find a way to ruin you. Your status, your friends, your gala’s… it’ll all be gone. I’ll expose you as the fraud you are. You’ll go to jail and nothing you own will be yours anymore. Believe me on that. Step off of my property.”
Andrey watched as he turned to leave. He watched as he stepped into his car and drove down the long driveway, disappearing down the street. Did he feel threatened by Kuragina? Not at all. Now that he was on the other side of the hostile words, something didn’t feel right with him.
He closed the door and trudged back to Bolkonsky’s room.
“Vassily Kuragina came by, and he brought a gift.”
He took out the wad of cash from his back pocket and displayed it to Bolkonsky.
“Is that the final payment?”
Bolkonsky reached out for the money and Andrey set it in his hands.
“Not quite. The man still has to pay $5,000. I made it clear to him that if I don’t have the money by Wednesday, I will destroy his life.”
Said Andrey as his father gave him back the money.
“That’s my boy. Y’know Mary might've gotten your mother's genes but I can tell you, you’ve definitely got mine. Strong willed. Determined. No backing down.”
Bolkonsky leaned back in his bed.
“You are none of those things Father.”
Andrey deadpaned, picking up more of the thrown clothes.
“Whatever.”
Bolkonsky murmured something in Russian, which Andrey could not understand.
“Put that money in the safe with the rest and do not bother me again! I’ll be sleeping.”
He grabbed the heavy blanket and pulled it over himself, turning on his side.
“Okay dad.”
Andrey huffed, closing the door behind him. Realizing something, he stopped short and turned back around, opening the door to pop his head in the doorway.
“I thought I said ‘Do not bother me’! I know I forget things, but I clearly stated-”
Bolkonsky began to say before Andrey interrupted him.
“I don’t have the code. Where's the picture?”
Andrey poked his head through the doorway.
“Last time I had it, I was going to the Kuragina gala. I was going to rub it in that bastard's face.”
“You didn't go to the gala. You can’t be seen like this remember? That’s why we need Kuragina to give us the rest of the money. So we can find world class treatment for you.”
This was the lie Andrey told his father to give him solace, and his father was ignorant enough to believe him. Dementia didn’t even have a cure! What kind of world class treatment did he think Andrey would provide?! It was better to let Bolkonsky pass so he could inherit the money as dictated in his will.
He walked over to the closet door and hung up some more clothes. He found the tuxedo Bolkonsky was planning to wear and checked the pockets.
“It’s not in here dad. I’m checking the pockets and nothing is in here. Are you sure you left it in your tux?”
Andrey looked all around the tuxedo jacket. He couldn’t find the photograph anywhere.
“I am sure of it. I put it in there right after I put my medicine in my pocket. Now, can you please leave. I have to get some sleep.”
Bolkonsky grew more and more irritated in every breath.
‘Medicine?...’
“Father, was this the same medicine that was missing a few days ago?”
Andrey turned to look at him.
“Yes, but it's okay. Mary found it. Now leave me be Andrey!”
Andrey stepped out of the room with his mind racing. He was never meant to get Mary involved in this. She couldn't know! She would definitely leave the family if she found out the whole truth, and with the way she’s been feeling towards Andrey lately, she's hanging on by a thread.
This would be the incident to cut the wire.
If Mary left, Andrey would truly be alone. Nowhere to go. Alone with his father who’s days were numbered. He didn’t have Helene, he surely won’t have Natasha… He was alone.
====
[6:58pm]
“Great everyone’s here! So let's start at the beginning. Last week, Natasha was abducted by An-”
Helene began, standing in front of the group of eight. They were all huddled in Helene’s room. Natasha, Fedya, and Anatole sat on the couch while Sonya and Mary laid on her bed. Pierre found a spot on the bed bench at the end of the bed and seeing as though there were no other available spots, Marya was forced to sit next to Pierre.
“Wait a minute, if we're going to be starting from the very beginning, I think you should talk about that discussion you and Andrey had at the gala.”
Pierre rose up his hand.
Helene shot Marya a quick look before looking down at the ground.
“She doesn’t have to talk about it if she doesn't want to, Pierre.”
She elbowed the boy in his side, causing him to wince in pain.
“It’s not relevant to what we’re here to discuss anyway. So, about last week. Natasha…”
She gestured over to where Natasha was sitting. Natasha lowered her head in slight embarrassment.
“Was abducted by Andrey Bolkonsky, Mary’s brother. Most of us were all there when it happened. I was at Marya’s house sleeping. Sonya, you were on your way home right?”
“Yeah, it would've taken me longer just to turn right back around and go back.”
Sonya explained.
“Yes, and that's when I messaged Marya and told her what happened.”
Mary added to Sonya’s sentence.
“Okay fast forward, you’re all at Mary’s - except Sonya and I -”
She turned to Anatole.
“You punch Andrey in the face.”
“He deserved it though!”
Fedya chimed in.
“He deserved it! And he was going to hurt Fedya. He needed to be punched.”
Anatole leaned back on the sofa.
“Look, we know that whatever is happening with dad is connected to Nikolai Bolkonsky. So punching his son in the face - probably not the best idea in retrospect Anatole.”
Helene said to Anatole.
“It was a good punch though. Really socked him.”
Pierre gave an impressed look towards Anatole, who simply smiled proudly.
“Anyway, you saved Natasha. She gets home safe. After that, Anatole finds this.”
She grabbed the photo from off her dresser.
“The burned, one half photo of my mom, my dad, and Nikolai Bolkonsky. Russia 1996.”
Helene holds out the photo so everyone can see.
“Excuse me? Nikolai Bolkonsky? How did you figure that out? It’s just an arm.”
Fedya asked Helene.
“I went to the library, did some research. Anatole and I found an article that basically confirmed that this arm belongs to none other than Nikolai Bolkonsky.”
She gave the photograph to Marya so it could be passed around the room.
“Why does it look like that?”
Natasha turned her head to the photo as Pierre was holding it in his hands.
“You mean why is it torn? I don’t know.”
Anatole shrugged.
“No, why is it burned?”
Natasha asked, inquisitively.
“I don’t know.”
Helene responded to her.
“Well do we know who has the other half?”
Fedya said as he passed the photograph to Natasha.
“That's where I come in.”
Mary pulled out the other half of the photo from her bag and everyone leaned in closer to see. Natasha brought the half she was holding next to Mary’s half. They fit almost perfectly with each other.
“I found this in my dad's suit pocket. And, it even has some weird code on the back.”
She flipped the photograph over to reveal the backside of it.
“Mary, what happened to your arm?”
Natasha dropped the photograph in her hand, and reached out to grab Mary’s wrist, wanting to inspect it. The girl had adhered white gauze to the mark, so it wouldn’t infect. It was really hard not to notice, but somehow Natasha was the only one who managed to spot it, besides Sonya of course.
“Oh, it's nothing. I just bumped it, that's all…”
She hid the gauze under the cuff of her sleeve.
“I’m fine.”
Mary felt Sonya’s hand on her arm tense up a little.
She could tell Natasha didn’t fully believe her, but she just nodded and smiled anyway.
A small silence lingered in the room before Fedya spoke up.
“So what’s the code?”
“2-0-8-1-1-2-9-1”
Marya read off the numbers she scribbled onto her hand earlier that day.
“What’s it for?”
Pierre asked Marya, but Marya just shrugged her shoulders, saying ‘I don’t know’
“But wait, we’re getting ahead of ourselves… Turns out the charity my dad supposedly donates the earnings to is a charity that doesn’t even exist anymore. It’s all a scam.”
Helene plopped down on the side of the bed, forcing Sonya and Mary to scoot over.
“Anastasia Tech?”
Anatole said in astonishment.
“Yeah. Marya did some research and found out they shut down in 2016. So whatever Dad is doing with this money must be for something big.”
Natasha handed back the photograph to Helene, and Helene shook her head staring back at it.
“This is so ridiculous. We’re just a bunch of kids, possibly uncovering a crime. Like, why does it have to be us? Why can’t we just deal with regular teenage issues like crushes or college? Mom dying was already enough, and now this…. I just want a break.”
Helene felt a tear roll down her cheek, and quickly swiped it away.
Marya came up beside her, placing a hand on hers.
“We can take a break, Helene. We don’t have to keep solving everyone else’s mysteries. You know that right?”
Marya said, gazing into Helene’s eyes. Helene sniffled, breathing out a bated breath.
“Yeah Helene, it's okay if this is too overwhelming for you. We don’t have to figure anything out even if we want to. You can’t let this eat you up though.”
Anatole said to his sister, who simply smiled back at him and nodded.
“Okay, yeah. We should take a break. It’s been a rough couple of days, so maybe for the next few days, we just... take it easy.”
Helene wiped away another tear that somehow managed to fall.
“Meeting adjourned then?”
Sonya asked from behind Helene.
“Meeting adjourned.”
Helene responded back. Marya gave Helene a small hug, and Helene rested her head on her shoulder.
Everyone else started shuffling around, getting up from their seats and grabbing their jackets. Pierre grabbed his, but very much like Pierre, was unable to find the sleeves. Thankfully, Natasha was there to help assist.
“Thank you, Natasha.”
Pierre beamed a small smile at the girl.
“Call me Natalie. Natasha’s so formal.”
Natasha smiled back at him, almost blushing.
“Okay then, Natalie.”
Pierre said just before walking to the door of Helene’s bedroom and slipping out.
Natasha watched longingly as he did.
“Oooo someone’s crushing I see.”
A voice, who could only be Sonya, said from behind her.
“I am not crushing. I just find his dorky-ness behavior charming.”
Natasha said to her as she was pulling on her white jacket.
“Mhmm, that's exactly what Mary told me before we started dating.”
Sonya crossed her arms with a slight smirk on her face.
“Hm? I heard my name.”
Mary walked over to where Sonya was standing.
“Oh, just telling Natasha that her crush on Pierre is very obvious.”
“It's not a crush Sonya.”
Natasha zipped up her jacket.
“What? Natasha has a crush?”
Fedya said from across the room, waltzing over to the group of three.
“I do not!”
Natasha stomped her foot on the ground in annoyance, which garnered a snicker from Sonya.
“Is it Pierre? I bet it's Pierre.”
Fedya not so secretly whispered in Sonya’s ear.
“It is.”
She, not so secretly, whispered back.
“You two are the worst.”
Natasha rolled her eyes at the duo.
“I support it. You and Pierre.”
Mary chimed in, speaking in her soft voice as always.
“Thank you Mary, but Pierre and I will not nor will we ever be a thing because I do not have a crush on Pierre. And that’s a fact.”
Natasha walked towards the bedroom door and exited, walked down the hallway and down the stairs. The front door opened and closed behind her.
“She has a crush on Pierre.”
Helene turned to say after watching Natasha make her grand exit.
“She definitely does.”
Marya added on.
Sonya, Anatole, and Fedya laughed in amusement.
====
After about ten minutes or so, everyone left the Kuragina residence to go back home. Marya didn’t really want to leave, but she remembered she had homework to attend to, and it wasn’t going to get done if she stayed at Helene’s.
She turned the key to her house and walked in. The cool air of the air conditioner met her face. She forgot to turn it off when she left for school this morning. She walked over to the thermostat and adjusted the temperature.
Grabbing a few snacks (the chips and salsa; Helene excluded unfortunately) from the cabinet, she poured herself a bowl and set it down on the coffee table. Then, she opened her bag and pulled out her homework. Of course it was calculus.
She groaned.
Maybe she should have stayed at Helene’s house… The girl’s a freakin’ Math God.
She was about to tackle the first problem when her phone started to ring. Without thinking she grabbed it, not bothering to look at the Caller ID.
‘Yes! Helene! Save me from this math work please.’
She answered the phone.
“Helene, thank God. I have this math homework sheet and it would be a great help if you came over and helped me with it.”
Marya said with her shoulder holding up the side of the phone, as she held her pencil in one hand and a salsa dipped tortilla chip in the other.
“Helene? Marya, this is your mother! Who’s Helene?”
The woman on the other end spoke through the phone.
Marya froze in her place.
“M-mom?”
Marya dropped the pencil on the table and went to hold the cell phone, bringing it closer to her ear.
“Yes, Marya. I got some call in the middle of the night from your calculus teacher, Mr. Bronstein. He says you cheated on your math test and earned a detention. That just doesn’t sound like you, Marya.”
Marya began to furrow her brows at the woman on the phone.
“Like you're supposed to know right?”
She spat back at her.
“Excuse me?”
“You’re never here. How are you supposed to know who I am?! You’re gone all the time.”
She aggressively waved the chip around in the air as she spoke, dropping bits of salsa on the floor.
“I know you enough to know that you’re not a troublemaker and you wouldn’t ever do anything to earn yourself a detention. You are better than that. Smarter than that!”
“Says the woman who’s always out somewhere else instead of at home with her daughter. You're supposed to be better Mom, not me!”
A trickle of a tear came down Marya’s face as she yelled through the phone.
“I’ll be home Wednesday. Guess you’ll see me then.”
Marya heard the beep on the other end. A small silence grew on.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
She mumbled into the phone before looking at it to see her mother was no longer on the line.
A sigh escaped her mouth. She plopped back down on the couch - (she didn't even realize she was standing). She put her head in her hands and began to burst into tears.
After five minutes of crying she received another buzz from her phone, but this time, it was a text message.
Helene: Hey, Question 7 on the Calc hw is kinda difficult. You need help on it?
Marya sniffed and began to type back.
Marya: Yeah. Wanna come over? I have chips and salsa
====
[1:26am]
Mary laid in her bed, reading more of her favorite book ‘Pride and Prejudice’. A smile spread across her face as she read. Her feet kicking up and down, bouncing on the bed.
She knew it was well past midnight, and that her light shouldn’t even be on. But she was the one who paid for the electricity in the house, surely she could scrape up her savings to pay a little extra this month.
When she got home a few hours ago, she made sure she replaced the photograph back into her father's suit pocket. Thankfully, he was sleeping when she walked into the room. She made sure the hallway was clear, even though Andrey is always in the basement and rarely ever comes up to the first floor.
As she was about to flip to the next page, she heard a knock at the door. This wasn’t an unusual occurrence. Her father had a tendency to sleepwalk at night. And if he wasn’t sleepwalking, he was hungry and came to Mary’s door to demand food.
Mary placed the bookmark on the page and set the book down on the bed.
“Yes Father?”
She opened the door to see Andrey’s face, much to her surprise.
“Oh, Andrey. Hi. What’re you doing awake?”
She tried to strike up a conversation, only he did not respond. Instead he glanced over at the bandage on her wrist.
Mary took her other hand and held the bandage, shielding it away from Andrey’s view.
“It’s healing.”
She said to him and he nodded back at her.
A few seconds went by, where they did not say anything to each other. They just stared. Quietly.
“Well… I should probably head to bed now. I’ve been reading for most of the -”
Mary began before Andrey cut her off and said,
“I’m sorry… For hurting you.”
He spoke low, and steady.
Mary could tell it was genuine. He didn’t smell of beer, cigarettes, or anything.
“I - Okay.”
Mary nodded.
“I didn’t drink at all today.”
He cleared his throat.
It’s been a while since the two siblings actually had a conversation that didn’t involve yelling, or cursing, or alcohol. He didn’t know how to talk to her, and surely Mary didn’t know how to talk to him either. But she could appreciate the effort.
“That’s a start.”
Mary half smiled at him and he smiled back.
“Hey, uh did you ever find that medicine that you were looking for a couple days ago?”
Andrey said to his sister.
“Oh, um yeah, it was in the medicine cabinet.”
Mary cooked up a lie. She couldn’t tell him about the photo, it was too risky. That's like giving a house robber a pair of keys to the house! She had to stay quiet.
“You told me it wasn’t in there when you looked.”
He tilted his head at Mary, who began to sweat trying to cover up her lie.
“Oh right because when I looked it wasn’t but then I took a closer look and found it. It was behind a hairbrush.”
She laughed off at the end.
“Uh huh… Alright. Goodnight then.”
He walked away and disappeared into the dark hallway.
“Night, Andrey…”
Mary said softly, not even sure if Andrey even heard her. What does it matter anyway? He was onto her. Does he know something about the photograph? Helene even said she thought the photograph and Andrey were connected somehow… maybe she could be right?
She slowly closed the door and switched off the light.
====
Andrey walked down the stairs, and into the basement. The stairs creaked under his weight.
On the table sat the $5,000 dollars, Vassily Kuragina gave to him earlier the previous day.
In his hand, he held the photograph, with the code faced upwards.
20811291
He carefully pushed the couch out from the wall, revealing a hatch in the floor, underneath the carpet. It was wooden and heavy, but that wasn’t a problem for Andrey. He lifted the hatch with ease.
He swiped the money from off the table and climbed down into the hole, pulling the hatch back over him.
It was cold. There was no heat down here, and the cement flooring and walls only added to the issue. The cold bars of the ladder stung Andrey’s hands.
Once he reached the ground, he walked over to the small black vault in the middle of the floor.
Taking the picture out once more, he looked at it and punched in the numbers on the keypad.
20 - 8- 1 - 12 - 9- 1
The safe opened and he slid the money in, placing it among the rest of the $90 thousand.
Andrey always knew his father was a smart guy, and yes the dementia very much took that title away from him, but before then he was a professor at Moscow University - one of Russia’s top colleges.
Even when his mind was dwindling, his father still retained some part of his cleverness.
And that cleverness must have been passed down to Andrey, because just from looking at the code. He knew exactly what it meant.
The numbers correspond to the letters in the alphabet.
And sure enough, the code he typed in translated to:
“THALIA”
Thalia Kuragina. His Father’s former flame before Vassily Kuragina stole her away from him.
That bastard man.
He shut the door of the safe and it locked into place, clicking like gears. He then turned around, and made his way up the ladder.