Perfect Opposite (21 page)

“You remind me of a housecat, all sleepy and lazy,” I heard Alex's voice and slowly opened my eyes.

With his hands folded behind the back of his chair and his legs stretched out in front, he was watching me expectantly.

Not far from us,
some elderly lady was passing along the sidewalk close to our table, walking a proud, white poodle. As she approached, her pace slowed and she took a double take at Alex. Her expression, as she studied him more closely, might best be described as shock, as she continued to look aghast at his palimpsest of tattoos and gravity-defying mohawk.

I was already so used to Alex’s
unconventional appearance that I’d forgotten how scary he could look to other people. Bringing my hand up to cover my mouth, I felt my lips spread into a smile, then motioned with my eyes for Alex to take a look behind him at the woman, who just went on staring.

I watched as he turned in her direction, summoned a crafty, seductive grin to his face and stood up. In a most theatrical performance, he bowed deeply to the befuddled woman, moving his arm gracefully in the process to mimic a gentleman removing his top hat.

“Ma'am,” he offered cordially and winked at her without a trace of shame.

It was hard to believe my own eyes, but the woman’s countenance changed completely. Her troubled expression gave way to something else as a shy smile flicked across her made up lips. Almost immediately, she turned and hurried away at a fast pace, yanking a very surprised little dog behind her that had been happily peeing against a car
tyre.

“I can’t believe you did that!” I buried my face in my hands and burst into laughter.

“I was only showing due respect to one of our older fellow citizens. I see that as my civic duty, being a responsible citizen and all…”

“You mean, besides the fact she almost had a heart attack?”

“You’re exaggerating…” he waved away the idea and flicked open his brass Zippo to light a cigarette.

I couldn’t quite tell whether Alex really was oblivious to the effect he had on women, or whether that was a pretense, but one thing was very clear
- when he wanted to turn on the charm, he could be totally irresistible.

“Alex...”

“Mhm?”

“
Is there anything you regret in your life?”

Noticeably snapping out of the lightened mood that had descended on
us, he stared at me silently, then turned his face to the street and the cars that were passing there.

“Whatever you do in life, Princess, it always comes down to the same thing in the end – repentance. To a greater or lesser extent, we all regret some of the things we’ve done. When it comes down to the wire, people always find a way of justifying their actions, or they chalk things down to experience, or they let their brains work some magic on that slippery thing called memory, and in the end they find a way to let themselves off the hook. It’s more difficult to forgive ourselves for the things we didn’t do in life, and when it comes to that, people end up fumbling around for excuses most of the time. When the time comes to settle our accounts, it’s those missed opportunities that are
gonna haunt you.”

A long silence followed, the only sounds coming from footfalls on the sidewalk and the occasional purr of an engine. Alex finally drank what was left in his coffee cup and set it down
on the saucer with a clatter, then sat back in his chair, blowing a single, perfect smoke ring that hung in the air for a long moment before blending with the sky.

“But that's not the answer you wanted, is it?” he asked.

“Not really...”

“That’s because the question you asked isn’t the question you wanted to ask.”

He smiled, leaned across the table and took my hands in his, gently squeezing mine together.

“If you could turn back
time, would you maybe... go down some different road? Maybe stay on the right side of the tracks?” I asked quietly.

I lowered my eyes to look at the table top, feeling sure he’d spot desperation in my eyes if I kept looking at him. It must have been obvious, nonetheless, that it was an affirmative answer I was looking for.

“I'm sorry, sweetheart,” he sighed, “but however this may sound to you, I found my vocation and I’m good at what I do. If I had the chance to go back, I’d make the same choices over again.

As he finished the sentence, the sun must have disappeared behind a passing cloud, because the street looked a lot darker, and I felt sure the temper
ature dropped by a few degrees.

Goosebumps appeared on my arms, but however much I’d been hoping for a different answer, it seemed like somewhere inside I’d already known the truth.

Chapter 1
1 - Till Death Do Us Part

One month later

During the month we were stuck together, we spent most of the time in Alex’s apartment. Just as I was starting to think we’d watched all the movies we had on DVD or the computer, Alex produced a cardboard box with a PlayStation and a bunch of games inside, so we passed the hours down on the rug, blasting the enemies on the screen. Sometimes, I caught him acting like a kid, usually when I started winning at one of the more macho titles.

We quarreled several times a day, of course. The rate at which he issued sarcastic jibes and cutting remarks hadn’t abated, one result being a current shortage of unbroken plates and cups in his kitchen. It was probably for the best that I couldn’t aim well, because he still knew how to push my buttons like no one else.

Alex was still the same sullen mule, but I enjoyed being so close to him, and I started dreading the moment when we’d have to rejoin the human race. However, even though we were essentially trapped in the apartment for that period, the “complication”, as he called it, never happened again.

I was staring at a puffed up bag of frozen vegetables squeezed tightly between my fingers, studying it closely from all angles in the hope of deciphering some formula for turning it into real food.

After just a month in my
exclusive company, Alex had evidently given up on life and opted for suicide by chef, since he’d decided against ordering lunch that day and instead that I should prepare food. All attempts to explain that my culinary skills were limited to plain scrambled eggs had fallen on deaf ears, so there I was in the kitchen, his few final words of encouragement ringing in my mind: “I’m sure you’ll manage…”.

Carefully, I took a sharp pair of scissors and cut the corner
of the bag along the dotted line, then went ahead and poured its contents into a large, shiny pan. Having emptied it completely, I was left to examine the food of the future before me. Not being any kind of gourmet, I’d never paid much attention to what was on my plate, and couldn’t imagine what these tiny, frosted jewels might have been in past life. Especially disturbing were the tiny, ruffled green balls, like cabbages from a land full of little people. Maybe that’s what they were, since they had to be around a hundred times smaller than ours here on Earth.

“This won’t end well,” I muttered as I got down to work.

After filling the pan with water, I started to add the other items I’d found while exploring the refrigerator. Some white carrots – they looked pretty weird – a dollop of mustard, some oil, some sun dried tomatoes, and after some consideration, two fat, pink sausages. In my mind it seemed like I might be on the right track to turning those original frozen gems into a hearty meal. Watching the whole thing simmer away as steam rose to the mist up the kitchen windows, I decided it was time to leave the fate of lunch in the hands of the gods, and sat down at the table to leaf through a magazine from the top of the pile.

I didn’t even notice when Alex walked in some time later, absorbed as I was in solving the crossword, so I almost fell off my chair when his low growl brought me back to reality.

“What sort of strange experiment is this?” he was standing next to the stove, pointing an accusatory finger at my simmering creation.

“Lunch,” I tossed back flatly.

“I was afraid you’d say that.”, his eyebrows creased severely in the middle ,” I mean, I know you hate my guts, but this... And what the fuck are those nasty looking brownish things? You sure you didn’t chop off a finger or two while you were preparing this?

“Those are sausages.”

“Sausages?”, he shrieked, horror showing on his face, “ You boiled sausages? Holy Mother of God!”

“Well I tried to tell you that I can’t cook, but you didn’t seem to be lis
tening,” I shrugged .

“But I counted on you knowing the basics, at least. I didn’t expect you to be totally incapable. How’s that even possible, anyway? You’re a girl, for
cryin’ out loud!”

“
Don’t act like such a drama queen. It’s not my fault you got the wrong end of the stick. Besides, how bad it could be?”

Unfortunately, the term ‘bad’ took on a whole new dimension a little later when I found myself sitting at the kitchen table, examining the food in my bowl. The withered, lifeless ghosts of vegetables floated up to the surface, then disappeared again into the depths of the steaming red gloop, which gave off an odor something like grampa’s old socks. Not to mention the huge, shriveled pink beast that lurked somewhere deep beneath the surface.

I stole a glance at Alex, who was holding his spoon in front of his face, a look of disbelief in his eyes as he stared down at the burnt offering before him. Finally, he spooned up some of the liquid and looked both disgusted and determined as he thrust it into his mouth.

”And?” I asked.

“
Mmmm... delicious. I’ve never tasted anything more unusual. You have to try it.”

Arching my eyebrows in surprise, I followed his example, dipped my spoon into the bowl and brought it up to my lips. The taste was something like the bottom of a hen coop.

“Holy crap! ” I cried and almost puked right there, on the table.

“Why? What's wrong with it?” he feigned innocence but started to chuckle in spite of himself.

I grabbed a cloth from the table and took aim it at his head letting it fly only to watch him dodge it deftly, so that it landed with a squelch in the sink. It seemed I’d only succeeded in amusing him even more as he doubled over in laughter. The sight of Alex in fits of giggles wasn’t anything I was used to and watching him, I found that I wasn’t so upset about my kitchen fiasco after all.

I was getting up to see if there was anything in the cupboards we might actually eat, when Alex’s phone rang noisily on the table, its vibration causing it to move around like some kind of creature provoked. As Alex reached for it and brought it closer to his face, he regained his composure almost immediately and moved out onto the balcony without a word, pulling its heavy glass doors closed behind him.

At first his voice was too quiet for me to make out what he was saying, but after a while the serious expression on his face gave way to one of anger and he spoke louder, so that some fragments of the conversation could be heard inside the room.

“...that wasn’t the deal…”

“...I don’t know for how long. I need more time...”

“...ten goddamn days? After all I did?”

”...What? That’s bullshit and you know it...”

He was silent for a moment
and then raised his eyes, shocked disbelief registering across his features, his eyes finding mine in an instant. Looking away almost immediately, he started to pace up and down the length of the balcony, his free hand rubbing the side of his head nervously.

“...Aw, shit...”

“...I get it!”

Clearly irate, he hung up, walked back into the kitchen and stared at me pointedly for a few
seconds before finally opening his mouth.

“Get dressed. We’re going out for a few hours.”

“What's going on?”

“Be ready in ten minutes. I just need to make some calls and then we’re on the move.”

With these words left hanging in the air, he moved back onto the balcony and again slid the door closed with a dull thud. I stood where I was for a couple of seconds before moving quickly to the bedroom to get dressed. Hurriedly, I pulled on the soft, pink sweats, all the while trying to imagine where we might be going and what might be so important as to risk sending me out in the open where I might be recognized.

When I left the room urgently, Alex was already waiting in the hall with a set of keys in his hand,
methodically tapping the edge of one against the dresser table. As soon as he saw me, he reached to take my hand in his own and all but swept me out of the apartment.

“Do you plan on telling me what's going on?” I asked when we got into the elevator, but he ignored me completely.

From the apartment door to the underground garage, he stayed silent, and when we finally approached the black Jeep, he only opened the passenger door and motioned for me to get in. I snorted, but did as he wanted, and sat heavily in the deep seat. Alex went around and got in behind the wheel, reaching in front of my face to do up my seatbelt for me. Annoyed, I snatched it from him and did it myself.

I’d had it up to here with
his erratic behavior and went on staring quietly out through the windshield, side streets flying in and out of view.

After around twenty minutes had passed, according to the clock on the dashboard – my internal chronometer had registered at least an hour – Alex turned sharply into a side street somewhere near the heart of downtown and pulled over abruptly, turning his head to look at me as I kept on staring blankly out in front.

“Sasha. Don’t fool around.”

“What?
You’ve remembered I exist, is that right?”

“I had to think carefully about a few things and… the consequences before I said anything to you.”

“Well gosh. I hope you didn’t wear out any gears up there with all that thinking.”

“You act like a kid sometimes.”

“Screw you!”

“Don’t talk to me like that!”

“Why not? You think it’s OK for you to drag me along behind you and ignore me when I ask what’s going on?”

Shaking his head, Alex took a deep breath and grabbed his pack of cigarettes from the dashboard.

“This is a bad idea,” he muttered, lighting a cigarette, “A fucking bad idea.”

“Are you finally going tell me what the hell we’re doing here
? “

“If you stopped hissing and let me get a word in, maybe I’d manage to tell you…” he looked me full in the face, “...that we have a serious problem.”

“Tell me something I don’t know. If this whole situation isn’t totally fucked up, then I don’t know what it is…”

Alex turned his head and gazed out through the windshield, and though he didn’t look majorly perturbed, my stomach flipped just a little.

“It looks like our friend Khalil got impatient. He put a bounty on your head.”

There was a pregnant pause, during which I stared at him vaguely, trying to process this new information and wh
at it might mean in real terms.

“I don’t understand. His people are already looking for me. What’s the difference?”

“Well, yeah, but we now have an army of underworld roughnecks on our back too, and believe me when I tell you these aren’t the kind of people you ever want to meet.”

“So... what’re we
gonna do? Get out of town, or what?” I asked when I found my own voice again.

“We're safe in my apartment for now, but we have to be ready. As soon as the call comes, we have to get out of the country.”

“But... my passport, papers... I left everything at home.”

“No, you didn’t,” he flicked the end of his cigarette through a crack in the window and leaned over me to open the glove box.

“Everything’s here, but they’re no good to us yet. The minute you show those documents at check in or anywhere else, Khalil will know where you are and where you’re heading. After that, it’s a matter of hours before someone finds us.”

“Can’t we get
fakes, or something like that? If anyone knows people who can forge papers, that’s you. Right?”

“Right, but the problem is we need time for a workable forgery. Two weeks minimum. And you need
them right away.”

“Just me?”

“I always have a few in reserve,” he said in a quiet voice, as if he was stating the obvious.

“Of course... Why’d I even ask?”

“So we’re left with one option, to get you a passport that’s not fake, but shows a different name.”

“
Well, Sasha’s not such a rare name. I could go to the town hall and fill out some forms to change my surname. I’ve done it before. It’s not such a normal thing to do, but it’s possible.”

“Yeah, but that would all be on record.
Khalil would be expecting it and someone’s for sure hacked into the system watching for it.”

“So, what then?”

“There’s another way to change your surname. That change would show up on another system, one Khalil won’t be monitoring, I’m sure of it.”

“What way’s that?”

“I’ll use some fake documents, so the whole process won’t count for real, but this way you’ll be able to get a legal passport under a new name. I have a guy ready to take care of it in a matter of hours.”

“I still don’t understand
. What process?”

There was silence. Alex lit another cigarette and breathed smoke through the side of his mouth, then turned his eyes to me. Slipping his free hand into the pocket of his loose jeans, he drew out a wad of documents and handed me one ID from among many.

“Oleg Andreyev,” I read as I turned the small ID.

Examining it more closely, I found myself looking at a photo of Alex in which he looked a few years younger.