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There’s not much left for him here.
“Forgive my son.” His father had said, hand heavy on his shoulder. His hand was never not heavy. “He is lazy. But he will work hard for you.”
There’s not much left for him here.
The apartment, lavish and gaudy, is a coffin. All those inside it were drowning in grief, viscous and heavy, sticking to their hair, their shoulders, to their dreams at night.
If there’s not much left here, did it mean that there was never much in the first place? That there was never anything to begin with, never anything but Mama?
Grigori Afanasyev Rozanov speaks not of his second wife. Or his first. There is already a third. Grigori Afanasyev does not speak of anything that he deems a failure. He does not speak of anything he does not deem worth his time. If you know what is good for you, you do not speak about it in front of him yourself.
Should Ilya be grateful, then? That Father still utters his name? Still takes responsibility for him? That he is still a son, and not a failed project to be filed away, never to be gazed upon again?
Like Alyosha?
Ilya’s brother came home coked up the other night. Looked Ilya in the eyes and called him Ilya, like he was a stranger. Like he was an enemy.
What happened to you, Brother? Ilya had wanted to ask. He does not think he would’ve received an answer. We used to be friends.
It should not fall to Ilya, Ilya dares to think sometimes, to stay at Alyosha’s bedside, to wait for him to wake up in the morning. To make sure he wakes up at all.
Father does not speak about Mama. Alyosha does not speak with Ilya at all.
There is not much left for him here.
It is a rebellion. It is a rebellion to go to her grave as often as he does. It is a rebellion to speak her name even in his own head. It is a rebellion to think about her, to love her still. Ilya’s hands are still shaking from prying her cross off her cold neck four years ago.
It is not a rebellion to kiss, and fuck, and drink, and party. All of that makes him a man. There is not a chance in hell that Father does not hear about Ilya pastimes. That he approves is the only reason that Ilya can do the stupid shit he gets away with.
Ilya’s oldest memory is from when he was six years old. Well. It is an impression of a memory. It is winter sun on his face. It is laughing, and laughing, and laughing, and running in a grass field. His mother’s voice is behind him, far in the distance. In front of him, where Ilya’s small, uncertain hands grab on tight, is Lyosha.
Ilya could not tell you, for the life of him, where this field is. He could not point it on a map. But Alexei had been kind, once. Ilya needs to remember that. He needs to believe, even if it is a child’s summer dream, that Alexei can be good again. Ilya needs to know that there is not a corrupting seed in their blood, that all that is good in the Rozanov Men does not bleed out of them by adulthood.
If they make it to adulthood.
There is not much left for him here, in Russia. There is Hockey, but there is hockey in America. There are women, but there are women in America. There is vodka. Svetochka says that the vodka in America is shit.
There is a pattern to Ilya's life. He fucks, and drinks, and they party and speed Dima’s imported Mitsubishi. He snorts a line if Sveta needles him into it. They are young, and Russia is young. When Sveta, Ilya, and Sasha were born the Union collapsed.
Ilya is afraid that Father will not let him go in the MLH Draft. There is nothing in it, for Russia, if Ilya plays for the Major Hockey League in North America.
But this is not a life.
Ilya is not supposed to do a lot of things he does. He knows he’s out of place here, in a way he can never say out loud, because he does not want to find out what happens if he does. People like him live by unspoken agreements and wordless truths. They live by instinct and toe the line between bravery and stupidity. Sasha is brave. Ilya is stupid.
If this was a life that was meant to be lived, Alyosha would not be Alexei now, would not consider Ilya a thief, who stole away the time that Alyosha has been entitled to, from the only mother he had ever known. If this was a life meant to be lived, Mama would—
There must be a secret to living it, this life. Grigori Afanasyev still does. Happiness is a beating heart and Grigori Afanasyev has a hand on its pulse. Contentment is a baby bird and Grigori Afanasyev will make it his or snap its neck.
Ilya will escape this apartment. He will escape Moscow. Russia will become a good, old, distant friend when Ilya is in America, the best hockey player they have ever seen. They will lick his boots, and Ilya will have fame and money, and he will no longer be swimming in this grief that this apartment is trapped in since Mama made it her coffin.
-
Moscow is always cold, but cold is not always bad. Ilya was born in this cold. There is warmth to be made in cold.
Moscow is not cold when Sveta is there. She spends half the year in Boston, but when she is here, she makes Moscow beautiful. Sveta finds the coolest haunts, always knows what to do with her hands, with her body, with her words.
Sveta is beyond humanity. She is kinder than he deserves, and hotter than anyone else has ever been, and she hates when Ilya decides to be a ‘fucking stupid idiot boy’ and defend her. She can defend herself. But Ilya is too small for his lanky body, his anger is coiled too tightly into every cell of his hot blood, and he is always geared up to jump forward to break limbs when someone calls her a bullshit name because they know they can never be her. Ilya is only a teenage boy.
Sasha is brave and stupid. He likes the thrill of fucking Ilya, the blasphemy, the secrecy, the knowledge that he is doing something wrong.
Sasha is stupid for fucking Ilya, who is barbed wire, who will snag on Sasha’s silk and pull. Ilya is stupid for fucking Sasha, who does not want to be careful of Ilya’s soft underbelly, who does all of this for the sake of being stupid.
Sasha is brave, because he will escape to France, and fuck men, and make from his indiscretion a life.
-
This is one of many secrets Ilya will lay down his bones but will not tell: he cried when he first got his jersey in the mail. 81, Розанов. August 8th. Mama’s birthday.
-
Ilya’s team for the prospect cup is a fucking dream. There is no choice but to win, and they know this. They have made Ilya captain, all because of his skill, but Ilya is not cocky about it. There will be time to be cocky in America.
Instead, Ilya puts in the work. He studies the idiots on his team so he is not covered with dicks, he makes himself seem like the only captain there can be, so that the captain is not chosen purely on the basis of who has the most rippling muscles. He is lucky that Demidov knows that brute strength does not a winning team make.
Ilya will be untouchable if this is what he needs to be.
Father is hyperfixated on the Canadian team’s Captain. He will ruin you Ilyusha.
Ilyusha. Ilyusha indicates familiarity. It is what a father should call his son. Grigori Afanasyev is of course, well-versed in should and should nots.
Ilya is, by his primal, instinctual need to sink his teeth into the thread by which he is hanging on, also well-versed in what should and should not be done to make sure that Grigori Afanasyev is not displeased. There is, of course, no way to please him. Not-displeased is an achievement all on its own.
Or, not an achievement. A duty. His duty.
'Ilyusha' does not sound right when Father says it. And why Canada, anyway?
Ilya has always thought Canada is boring. They have never even been in a war.
But Ilya has to focus. He has to prove himself; he has to make Hockey his ticket out of Russia. For this, to bend hockey under his will, he will watch tape, a thousand times over, even if it is the most boring thing in the world. Preparing in advance is like pulling teeth for Ilya, but he will gladly issue himself a pair of dentures at the ripe age of 17, so long as it is in America that he does it.
-
Shane Hollander is the most beautiful skater Ilya Rozanov has ever seen. The ice itself, solid and strong, bends to his will. No one has belonged to a rink more.
-
The Prospect Cup ends up being in fucking Canada.
-
Saskatchewan is cold, but not Russian cold. Biting cold, like it knows that Ilya is cheating on it with the more sexy Russian winter. Fucking windy, too. Ilya can barely light a cigarette before he is told off for it.
-
Shane Hollander is even more beautiful off the ice. Господи.
He’s stuck up, but he’s not an asshole. Perfectly Canadian, with веснушки dotting the bridge of his nose. Ilya does not know the word in English, but he wishes, with a crystal-clear certainty that pierces through the semi-permanent fog in his brain like Shane Hollander’s skates cut through ice, that it was Spring.
Shane Hollander shakes Ilya’s hand twice and pronounces Ilya’s name wrong and Ilya keeps his mouth shut, spending the whole interaction putting together a sentence so that he does not say something stupid.
“You will not be so nice when we beat you.”
The chirp is thrown, and Ilya watches with bated breath as it lands, as Shane Hollander laughs because of something Ilya has said.
“That’s not happening.”
Of course Shane Hollander has teeth. He has earned them, after all.
“See you in final,” Ilya says, and he knows he’s probably fucked up the grammar, but the mocking tone makes up for it. It usually does.
In the wake of the warmth made by Shane Hollander in the cold of the country he was born, the warmth clinging onto Ilya’s hand, Ilya lets himself smile around his cigarette.
Shane Hollander. Are you brave, or are you stupid?
-
Ilya comes home to a cold apartment with one gold medal tucked safely into his travel bag.
In a few hours he will be met with his father’s brief approval. A nod. If he’s unlucky, a speech on how it was his duty, so he shouldn’t let it get to his head.
Right now, he comes home to Alexei, passed out on the couch.
Partying all night again, probably. He doesn’t have anything better to do.
Alyosha used to call it freedom when he still called Ilya Ilyusha, when he still looked him in the eyes. This is how you become free, Ilyusha: you do whatever you want.
There must be more to it, Ilya thinks, this freedom that once upon a time Ilya was so sure that Alyosha knew like the back of his own hand. He could go wherever he wanted, do what he liked.
Now Ilya looks at Alyosha, eyes permanently red, nose fucked up from snorting shit, breathing so silently in his sleep that Ilya is not sure if he is breathing at all.
Schrodinger’s brother. Ilya will find out if he is dead or alive in the morning.