13

When they arrived at the market, Chervyak led Mitya to the entrance. Mitya was not sure if he had been to the Cheremushki market before, but it looked familiar. Chervyak told him to wait next to the honey stall and went to talk to the Asian-looking man who sold nuts. Then, the two disappeared into the depth of the market rows. Mitya looked at the honey for sale, gooey, thick, of various shades of amber. He noticed a few plastic jars with what looked like the bodies of dead bees inside, and it fascinated him: Why would anyone want to buy a bunch of dead bees? The woman who was selling them noticed his interest and explained that it was called “podmore,” you diluted it with hot water, and it was good for a long list of afflictions but cost 10,000 rubles per jar. Mitya said he didn’t have any money.

“I’ll give you a sample, and you can bring it to your parents, have them try it out. Tell your father it’s good with manly might. He’ll know what it means.” With those words, she shook a few shrunken bodies onto a napkin and folded it into an envelope. Mitya received the gift and thanked the woman. He put the napkin into the inner pocket of his jacket.

Chervyak returned with a plastic bag, which Mitya immediately recognized had two bottles inside. Mitya did not think they’d be selling vodka at the farmers market, but then again, he also had not realized that boys lived there. Chervyak brought him to the rear of the market and through a door leading into the warehouse. It wasn’t as well lit or as well cared for as the market hall, and the stench bordered on the unbearable. The stink of rotting vegetables commingled with some suffocating sweetness and the crisp, provoking mouse smell that reminded Mitya of Zhenya’s hangout in their building’s basement. Chervyak showed no sign of noticing the smells. Mitya thought that from living at the market he had become desensitized to it, as sanitation workers and plumbers become indifferent to the stench of their workplace.

After a long walk, they reached a remote corner with a pile of mattresses and clothes, shoes, toys, bottles, and scraps haphazardly thrown around them. This must be the nest for the homeless boys, Mitya thought, as he noticed that one of the mattresses, dirty and without linen, was occupied by a tiny figure covered by what looked like a burlap sack: a small boy, sleeping. There were also a few boys sitting on mattresses arranged in a square, playing cards. They looked older than Chervyak.

“Why aren’t you at work?” Chervyak asked them, as one of the boys laid a card, a jack of spades, over a five of spades, clicked his tongue, called out, “Beat,” and put the two cards away into a deck of used cards.

“We’re waiting for Uncle Misha to figure something out with the Solntsevskiye, so we’re off today,” the boy who had beaten the card said. He had big eroded teeth.

Mitya knew that the Solntsevskiye, the Solntsevo bratva, was a mafia that controlled the majority of the south of Moscow. Sometimes when Mitya was eating breakfast, Alyssa Vitalyevna liked to turn on the small TV in the kitchen and watch “Road Patrol.” It was a short, fifteen-minute segment on the morning news, in which the program’s correspondents rushed to crime scenes. The crew filmed apprehensions of perpetrators, the scenes of car crashes, and, if Mitya was lucky, an occasional corpse splayed across a staircase, the sweater raised above the swell of the gut, blood seeping out. As he thought about it, he realized that they sometimes showed markets on the program too. That was where raids on counterfeit alcohol and drug busts were conducted. Did they link them to the bratva? Mitya wasn’t sure. He even remembered hearing something about a brothel backed by the bratva. What could these boys, just a bit older than he was, be doing for the bratva?

“Who nakhuy is that?” a boy with a pitiful mustache asked Chervyak, stubbing out his cigarette. “Chervyak, we’ve told you to stop bringing random people to our headquarters, haven’t we?”

“He’s with me. Look, I’ve got us some vodka.” He produced the bottles that he’d purchased earlier from the bag.

“Blya, Chervyak, you should have less vodka, not more,” the boy with the teeth said. “You will get your ass whooped one day.”

“Who’s the mamenkin synok?” the boy with the mustache asked again. Mitya wanted to answer that he wasn’t a mother’s boy and had an important mission, but he couldn’t think of a convincing way to say it.

“We’re solving a crime,” Chervyak said earnestly.

“You’re an ebaniy clown. Your luck he looks harmless enough,” said a third boy, who had a hat on, nodding to Mitya. “Slysh, Chervyak, give some vodka to Tsypa. Kostyl here tried to wake him up earlier, but he refused. Must be some awful hangover.”

Tsypa did indeed look like a small chicken. Kostyl was thin and straight like a crutch. Mitya wondered what his name would be if he were to live among these boys. Would they get close enough for him to start dressing as a woman in front of them, for them to start calling him Devchonka? He couldn’t see it all together: boys living in the market and working with the bratva, and the tenderness he strived for did not mix.

Chervyak got a cup and poured some vodka into it. He took it to the mattress with the body under the blanket. Mitya followed him because he felt awkward staying next to these bigger guys. Chervyak pushed the body awake, and a boy no older than seven emerged from the cocoon of the sack.

“Na, opokhmelis,” Chervyak said, giving the boy the vodka to drink. Mitya was flabbergasted. The little boy took the cup and emptied it in one gulp, as if he were a professional drinker, and then smiled widely. Some of his teeth were missing, and there was an uncanny air about him. Did he look like a regular elementary-school-age kid, or did he resemble a down-on-his-luck alcoholic who’d lost his teeth? Mitya could not tell.

They went back to where the bigger boys were playing cards. Chervyak poured vodka into more cups and served everyone, including Mitya. He then pulled two plastic crates to the table so that the two of them could sit. Mitya understood that if he didn’t drink the vodka and clink his glass with the older boys, he would not have their respect. It was the same old refrain, repeated by Dmitriy Fyodorovich when he tried to talk some sense into Vovka. Or cited by actors on TV: if you don’t drink with someone, you don’t respect them.

He took the stopka and emulated the movement he had seen so often: flipped it over into his mouth and swallowed the liquid in one gulp. It was acrid; it burned, and yet it was like someone hugged his insides from within. Another kind of warmth.

“So, Chervyak, will you explain why you’re bringing outsiders here?” the boy with the eroded teeth asked.

Chervyak clapped his palm against the table so loudly that Mitya almost jumped out of his seat.

“Hey, don’t be so loud,” Tsypa whined from his bed.

“Patsany, my friend here is looking for a homeless guy with birds from the Old Arbat,” Chervyak said.

“Why the khuy should we know anything about that guy?” asked the boy in the hat.

“He was a friend of my pal Dlinniy, remember, the crippled kid? So, a good guy. But he died too. Ego uebashili. And this guy wants justice.”

“Admirable,” the boy with the mustache said.

“But blya, he’s hit a dead end,” Chervyak continued. “I thought maybe some of the middles would know. They hang out in the Old Arbat sometimes, right? So I wanted to know if you’d mind.”

The boy with the mustache scratched his head.

“Sure, yeah,” he said, looking at Mitya. “I wouldn’t have helped you—you’re too clean. But justice is justice. You guys go talk to the middles. They’re upstairs with the smalls, helping the rich tyotkas. With their groceries, but mostly to get rid of their wallets.” He laughed uproariously. “Maybe you should join them too, Chervyak. Get yourself a titty to suck for a change.”

Chervyak blushed, and Mitya saw clearly that he was below the older boys in the hierarchy. This must be what “middles” and “smalls” meant. Was Chervyak a middle? He wanted to see the other middles, to see if Chervyak fit. It was apparent that he was not in the top tier. If the older boys were even the top tier. They had to answer to some bratva men above them, didn’t they?

Mitya quickly realized that this was also why they called Solntsevo and the other gangs “organized crime outfits.” Everything was, indeed, implemented in a precise, organizational manner.

“Get the khuy out now,” the boy in the hat said. “And blya, Chervyak, get a grip. You’ll run into trouble being this careless.” Chervyak and Mitya headed to the market’s main area again. The vodka he had drunk untied Mitya’s tongue, and he now felt brave enough to ask Chervyak some additional questions.

“So, this market is controlled by the Solntsevo?” he asked, casually, as if he knew all about it.

“No. This is Dagestan bratva territory,” Chervyak said. “You notice that I’m Dagestani too? None of the other boys are. I’m hoping that Maga will recognize it. He runs things here. My papa was Dagestani. I didn’t know him, but who cares. I think I might run this place one day. But now I’m still too young even to sell travka.”

“Travka?” Mitya knew what it meant, but he wanted to clarify. Did they sell marijuana at the market? Or did Chervyak merely mean dill and parsley?

“Yeah. Only some middles do it. Not me, I think they’re keeping me for more important things.” He sighed as if talking about not getting a toy he wanted. “There’s always some problem with the Solntsevo bratva, but it’s good the bosses are away today. They wouldn’t like me bringing you. I didn’t think about it, though.” He giggled. “Hey, I got some glue too,” Chervyak said as he procured a tube of Moment glue from his pocket. “The older boys don’t do it, say it’s dirty and the kayf—the buzz ain’t as nice. So they freak out when I bring some, but I know it will make the middles talk better. You want some? Us Dagestanis are a hospitable people.”

Mitya shook his head. He wasn’t sure whether the same etiquette that governed drinking also applied to sniffing glue, but he did not want to try it. “You can do it after,” he said, trying to sound affirmative and solid. Oddly enough, it worked, and Chervyak nodded and put the tube away. It was always better to take care of business first and have fun later.

They left the market through the front door, the same way they’d entered, and then walked around the corner. There, Mitya saw a group of boys standing next to a pile of hand trucks that customers could rent. All of them were Chervyak’s age or younger, some even younger than Mitya, and almost all were smoking cigarettes. Mitya had never seen so many children smoking, and it looked a bit surreal. In contrast to his earlier behavior, Chervyak once again looked more sage and confident. It seemed that among the middles and smalls, he held a respectable position.

“Patsany, this is Mitya. He has made a generous contribution to our well-being.” Chervyak took the Moment tube out of his pocket and shook it in front of them. The boys cheered. “But before we can enjoy it, we have to help him. Which of you have ever hung around the Old Arbat?”

A few boys buzzed in response.

Chervyak tried to remember the situation but couldn’t think of anything coherent to say, so he let Mitya talk. “He’ll tell you,” Chervyak said. Mitya started describing Valerka, and as soon as he mentioned his name and the existence of his crows, some of the boys became agitated.

“Valerka!” one of them squealed from the back. He was so short that Mitya saw him only when the other boys moved away. “Valerka always gave me money.”

“He was the one who offered me a place to sleep my first winter,” an older boy in a tracksuit and a beanie said and sniffled. “It wasn’t in the Old Arbat though, but on Komsomolskaya square. I didn’t realize he moved to Arbat.”

“He was a cool guy for a grown-up,” said a stick-thin boy with hair so fair and wispy, it almost looked like an old man’s. He was slightly older than Chervyak, around fourteen, or maybe he looked older because of his height and hair color.

The boys around him, all those who had any idea who Valerka was, nodded in unison.

“I met him when I lived in the Kurskiy train station,” the boy continued. “The militsionery always kicked him around because he was feeding the birds, and you can’t have birds inside. But he never said a bad word to them. He planned on finding an abandoned attic somewhere to build a house for the crows.”

Mitya was amazed by the feedback and by how little he knew Valerka. He was not sure what he had expected. Perhaps to meet boys who had become so wild and savage that they had killed Valerka. Perhaps he had expected to see one who had not yet reached a balance between milk and acid, who still clung to his innocence, and could tell him where to look for the murderer. But this—such unflinching respect for Valerka from a ragtag crew of boys who stole women’s wallets and sold weed—this left him dumbfounded.

“Does he have an attic in the Old Arbat?” the elderly boy asked.

“He died two weeks ago,” Mitya sighed.

The boys, again unanimously, gasped.

“Somebody killed him, and I’m trying to find out who. Maybe you know someone who had a bad relationship with him? Like some bratva people?” Mitya asked.

“No one in the bratva would touch him,” the elderly boy said. It was now him answering Mitya’s questions, the rest of the boys nodding along. “It’s bad luck to hurt ‘god’s fools.’ They know that much.”

“Maybe some other boys? Older ones?” Mitya offered.

“What do you think we do here? We’re all free; we don’t need to mess with lives.” The elderly boy seemed offended, and Mitya felt ashamed of the way he had asked his question.

“That’s not what I mean. I want to find out who did it.” He felt another stab of loss, and this time let the tears spill. He didn’t feel comfortable crying in front of all these boys, who probably already thought him a total wimp, but at least it would show them the remorse he felt.

“That’s okay.” The elderly boy came up to him and patted him on the shoulder reassuringly. “Look, none of us know anything. Right, patsany?” He looked around him, and the boys all shook their heads. “Let’s go get some hot tea from Auntie Tamara, and we can chat about this.”

The elderly boy steered Mitya toward the entrance.

“Zolotoy, you don’t want some glue?” Chervyak asked him.

“I’m good,” the elderly boy said. His nickname meant Golden, and Mitya could see that, as his hair shone in the twilight. He followed Zolotoy, leaving the rest of the boys, including Chervyak, behind.

They got two glasses in metal holders from an older woman with a mustache who was selling pirozhki and weak, urine-colored tea. Mitya took his 1,000-ruble bill out of his pocket and tried to give it to Auntie Tamara, but Zolotoy gestured for him to put it away.

“We’re all good with each other here,” Zolotoy said.

“Except when your Dagestani friend steals my pies,” Auntie Tamara said.

“He stole again?” Zolotoy asked, his forehead wrinkling in concern. “I’ll cover it. How much?”

“Forget it, Ignatushka,” Auntie Tamara said warmly. “Not your fault.”

“I’ll talk to him, though. Meanwhile, Auntie Tamarochka, can we sit down beside your stand? My friend and I need to discuss an urgent matter.”

“Of course, Ignatushka.” She smiled warmly and let the two of them sit down on the nearby crates.

“You are moya krasavitsa, Auntie,” Zolotoy said, and being called beautiful made Auntie Tamara blush.

As she went back to her trade, announcing fresh pies and hot tea every once in a while, Zolotoy asked Mitya to tell him everything he knew about Valerka’s death. Mitya did, while watching the boy’s delicate, pale face that looked on in concentration, and his thin fingers that were resting around the cup, warming up. Zolotoy did not look like a street kid. His clothes were clean; his skin was untarnished; his teeth were decent and more or less white. His face reminded Mitya of the portraits of saints in their youth that he saw when Alyssa Vitalyevna took him to the Tretyakov Gallery.

When Mitya finished telling him the few details of Valerka’s death that he knew, Zolotoy was silent for a while and sipped his tea. The longer he lived on the streets, the less impact he felt from sadness, but this affected him, especially because Valerka was one of the few blameless people he had ever met. Him and some of the younger boys.

“Listen, I don’t know anything about what happens in the Old Arbat other than what you’ve told me. I’ve never lived there; I don’t know anyone. But if I know how this all works, I’ll tell you: it must have been the menty.”

“Menty? Militsionery? But why would they kill a homeless man?”

“That’s what they do. They clean the streets. Do you know how many they offed in preparation for the 850th anniversary? We’re small, we’re fast, worst-case scenario, they put us into orphanages. Some of us have relatives. So we, patsany, made it. But the older ones, the crazy ones, the drunks—especially someone like Valerka—they’re doomed. He was too trusting. Perhaps someone from your building told them that they didn’t like him sleeping there. So what do they do? Take him into their perpetual care? His wife didn’t want him. He had nowhere to go. There are no orphanages for old drunks. So they offed him, and that’s that. Blamed it one someone else. If you’re off the books, no one cares.”

Mitya drank his tea. It had cooled down enough that he could swallow it without burning his throat, but now Zolotoy’s words stuck there. He had never thought particularly well of the militsia. Just men in uniform, like Zhenya’s father. But the realization that they could be the ones committing the crimes was such an attack on his view of the world that he had to try hard to swallow it. He didn’t say anything: whatever he said would show Zolotoy how sheltered, pampered, privileged Mitya was, in comparison with him, navigating the hard truth of life.

“Is there anything I could do in this case?”

“No,” Zolotoy said with a faint smile of sympathy on his lips. “But you’re good for wanting to. It’s rare. Especially among the tsivilniye.”

Mitya wanted to hug him right then and there and to cry long and hard about the things that were unfair in life. Zolotoy was a boy of charm and eloquence, and yet he was homeless, making a living in the market run by the bratva. Why did Mitya deserve more than him to live in a warm home? Why did Vovka and Dmitriy Fyodorovich, brutes that they were, deserve to be safe from the militsia, while Valerka, the kind and wonderful, magical Valerka, got killed?

As if he’d read his thoughts, Zolotoy said to him:

“Life is not fair. You have to make it fair. My mother beat me with the leg of a stool all the time. When I did something wrong, or when I did something right. There was no method to her beatings; I soon understood. I thought I could behave better and make her stop, but it didn’t work. That’s when I left. Now she doesn’t know where I live and she can’t beat me.”

Mitya wanted to say that he understood what it felt like, but he didn’t want to make Zolotoy’s story smaller by his commiseration.

“Is living here better than at home?” Mitya said. He wanted to know all about it, and Zolotoy with his confessions made him feel like it was fine to ask him anything.

“In a sense. It’s safer. It’s never boring. And here in the market, we always have food. I’m not happy with the people who run it, but at least they have a code they follow.”

“And you all have to work for them?”

“Yes. It’s not bad until you’re one of the older ones, and then they make you do some things that aren’t nice. But I will run away before that.”

“What will you do when you run away?”

“I’ll tell you, but please don’t tell Chervyak and all these guys. They won’t understand.” He lowered his voice. “There’s this place, the pleshka, near the Kitay-Gorod metro station, where a boy can work with older men. You know what I mean?”

Mitya didn’t, but he nodded.

“I’m going to go there soon. I’ll have to figure out where to sleep. But I have to before they decide I’m too old for the middles. I’m tall as it is. I’ve been planning to go check the pleshka out for a while. I’m a bit afraid. What if there are menty? But I have to make a decision.”

Mitya resolved to look up what it was, maybe go and see for himself. He wanted to know that everything would work out fine for Zolotoy, that he had a future ahead of him outside of becoming a member of the bratva. Whatever work there was in Kitay-Gorod, it had to be better than this.

“You come and see me there one day, okay?” Zolotoy told him when Mitya stood up to go and grasped two of Mitya’s fingers, gently, lightly, as if in a half handshake. Mitya felt as if a bolt of electricity had gone through his hand, and then he looked into Zolotoy’s eyes of the most radiant bright blue and promised that he would. He felt like it would be possible to follow him anywhere.

They gave the glasses back to Auntie Tamara and left the market. Zolotoy went around the corner to see if there were boys outside. Mitya walked past the fence surrounded by parked cars and made a turn, too, so that he could take one last glance at Zolotoy and his beguiling beauty. He saw Zolotoy join a few others and put some Moment glue into a plastic bag. He then held it to his face and inhaled deeply.