Page 151 of Ruthless Sin

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The light from the high window moves a quarter inch on the floor.

I open my mouth.

My voice is rough. The vowels are rough. I’m not sure my voice is going to work until it does.

“Ona poyot.”She’s singing.

Nico, quieter than I’ve spoken:

“Ona pela.”She was singing.

“Tu noch’.”That night.

“Tonkuyu Ryabinu.”

I reach out my right hand.

I touch the wood frame of the canvas.

Not the painting.

The wood at the corner of the frame.

The wood is warm where the late afternoon light has been on it.

I keep my hand there.

“She was like this,” he says from the doorway. “A few nights before. We had bad wine in the safehouse. She couldn’t sleep.”

I keep my hand on the frame.

“She sang. She didn’t know I was watching.” His voice is quiet in a way that means something is still in him. “She sang your song’ She got to the middle and stopped. Lost the second verse.”

My hand tightens on the frame.

“She laughed.” He pauses. “Started over from the beginning.”

“She could never remember the second verse,” I say.

“No.”

“She always laughed.”

“Yes.”

He’s quiet for a moment.

“She talked about you that night,” he says. “She put her hand on the bottle and she said —”

His throat moves.

“Milochka. Ya pela eto yey, kogda ona ne mogla spat’.”

Milochka. I used to sing this to her when she couldn’t sleep.

The sob comes before I can stop it. One. Hard. I press my hand flat to my mouth.

“She hummed it,” he says. “At the end. When the blade was at her throat.”

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