Daria Desombre: The Sin Collector

“Papa wasn’t confused!” Masha screamed, her eyes full of tears. And she jutted her chin forward determinedly. What was she doing talking to him, defending her father to a monster? But she couldn’t help it. She had been waiting for this conversation since she was twelve years old.

“No, your father was not confused,” Nick-Nick agreed, and his face twisted painfully. “Fyodor always had that moral compass. But I only discovered mine later, when I found God. I found peace, Masha. I became a different man.”

“A different man?” Masha’s voice was getting higher, and as she spoke, another voice rang out, just like in a bad movie.

“Freeze!”

Andrey was five steps away, his gun pointed at Katyshev’s head.

Nick-Nick grabbed Masha by one shoulder and yanked her toward him. She felt the cold gun against her temple.

“Not so fast!” said Katyshev. “We haven’t come to terms yet, young man. Put your gun down. Put it down!” he bellowed, and Masha saw Andrey slowly laying his pistol on the ground. “Hands behind your head!” Katyshev ordered. Masha heard his voice changing. She knew every intonation of his speech by heart, but these new tones, with the hysteria that ran through them, were completely unfamiliar. A wave of horror washed over her.

“Now then,” said Katyshev, and Masha felt the steel trembling against her forehead. “Where were we? I became a judge. I could no longer tolerate the licentious or bear the sight of their lawlessness. I could not! They were all liars! Both the ones who pretended to be running away and the ones who chased after them. Yes, I have sinned! And no earthly court can ever serve justice!”

Now his voice was soaring even higher. It howled and vibrated in the crystal-cold air. Katyshev licked his lips.

“The only just court is the court of heavenly judgment. An angel and a demon exist inside each of us! In their names, I sentenced the guilty to be cast at once to perdition.” He laughed good-naturedly, making Masha shudder all over. “But I would be a poor judge, indeed, if I could not judge myself. I will not pass through the ninth tollhouse, the Torment of Injustice. Here are punished the unjust judges who acquit the guilty and condemn the innocent for their own selfish ends. My place is in hell, and I shall die here, on Vasilevsky Slope, symbol of the fiery mouth of hell!”

In a burst of strength, the old man who had once been her father’s closest friend shoved Masha forward. She stumbled and fell directly into Andrey’s arms. Katyshev pulled a small vial out of his ragged pocket, and while Andrey rushed at him, slowly, oh so slowly, his teeth crunched through the fragile glass that held death. He fell to the pavement, his body spasming uncontrollably. He saw Masha bent over him, and he spent his last second staring, focused, at those light eyes, so like Fyodor’s. In their depths, he saw only pity without measure.

Then silence fell. The shouting stopped, and so did the hum of passing cars, and the nearing sirens, and some distant music. The smell of the wet asphalt slipped away, and the scent of the fallen leaves and the gasoline. The new penthouses vanished from the opposite bank of the river, and the river itself disappeared, along with the tall brick towers of the Kremlin. But along with them all the trouble disappeared, too, all the blemishes, all the suffering. All human moaning and lamentation.

And it seemed to him that out of the crystalline nothingness around him, new, high walls were rising, slowly, triumphantly, gleaming with a cold fire.

I would like to thank my family for their infinite support, my friends Anastasia Piatakhina and Anastasia Golotyk for their always-positive critiques, producer Yury Moroz for giving me the very idea of writing the novel, my agent and my friend Thomasin Chinnery for all her hard work, my editor Gabriella Page-Fort for believing in my book, and my translator Shelley Fairweather-Vega for allowing Masha and Andrey to express themselves in English.

Daria Desombre was born in St. Petersburg, Russia, where she studied at the Hermitage Art School and received a master’s in English and Spanish from Saint Petersburg State University. In 2000, she moved to Paris, where she completed an MBA in fashion marketing and management and was head of advertising for the jeweler house Mauboussin before devoting herself full-time to scriptwriting. She writes for leading film companies in Russia and Ukraine. She also adapts American and European television programs for the Russian market. Desombre lives in Brussels with her husband and two children.

Shelley Fairweather-Vega lives with her supportive American family and skeptical Russian cat in Seattle, Washington. Her academic background is in international politics, and that, plus a passion for puzzles, led her naturally to a career in translation. Since 2006, she has worked as a freelance translator for attorneys, academics, authors, and activists around the world.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Text copyright © 2015 Daria Desombre

Translation copyright © 2017 Shelley Fairweather-Vega

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

Previously published as Prizrak Nebesnogo Ierusalima / Призрак Небесного Иерусалима by Eksmo Publishing House in Russia in 2014. Translated from Russian by Shelley Fairweather-Vega. First published in English by AmazonCrossing in 2017.

Published by AmazonCrossing, Seattle

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ISBN-13: 9781542047203

ISBN-10: 154204720X

Cover design by M.S. Corley