Page 108 of Violent Possession

When I enter, the little bell on the door is so faint and out of place that I feel sorry for it. The smell hits me head-on: a mixture of mothballs, aged wool, and the slightly sweet steam from an iron. It’s an aroma that provokes involuntary memories—school uniforms and the few times my mother took me to buy normal people’s clothes.

An old man is hunched behind the counter. He has something of an old owl about him: enormous eyes, translucent skin, rebellious white hair. He doesn’t notice me at first, but when he becomes aware of my presence, he just raises his head.

His gaze lingers on the prosthesis, then on my face, but there’s no judgment, just a kind of recognition. It makes me think he’s sewn up scars like these before.

“Can I help you, my son?” he asks with a thick German accent.

I approach the counter. I need an excuse. “I have a coat. The lining is torn.”

“Of course, of course. Bring it in. Mr. Schmidt fixes anything,” he says. His smile is a comforting cliché, paternal. “I am Mr. Schmidt.”

He’s exactly what Alexei would never understand. Intimidating him is out of the question. It would be like kicking a puppy.

“It’s not with me today. Actually, I need some information. I’m looking for a friend. A guy who helped people in this neighborhood.”

Schmidt’s smile doesn’t waver, but his eyes become more attentive. “Many good people help each other, my son.”

“But not all of them solve problems with Albanian loan sharks.”

Schmidt swallows hard. I notice because I’ve seen this gesture in others, when the memory is so heavy it suffocates them.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Yes, you do,” I insist. “Karpov paid your debt because someone paid his first. An angel.” I lean over the counter. “I knew this angel when he didn’t have wings yet. When they called himLucian.”

The name hits him. I see the recognition and the protective wall that rises in his eyes.

“I don’t know anyone by that name,” he lies, firmly.

“Alright,” I back off. “I understand. But maybe you know mine.” I look at him and offer a piece of my own soul as proof. “He used to call meMyrddin. At St. Gabriel’s orphanage. Before the nuns started calling him Seraphim.”

Schmidt’s chin trembles. The facade breaks. His pale blue eyes fill with an emotion I can’t decipher. “You... you’re one of his boys?”

“I’m the first,” I whisper, and the truth in those words hurts.

He slowly comes around the counter and stops in front of me. He’s small, fragile. His trembling hand comes up and touches the prosthesis. His wrinkled fingers trace a line over the carbon fiber.

“He would be sad to see this,” he says. “He always wanted to get you boys out of the violence.”

He’s the one who did this. I bite my tongue.

“...I know.”

Schmidt senses something bitter. He makes a small gesture, a nod of his chin toward a corner of the shop where twoupholstered chairs in faded fabric hold the warmth of some previous century. Beside them, a patched-up electric heater hisses and burps ozone vapor.

“Sit down, boy. You’re trembling,” he says, with a kindness that disconcerts me. “I’ll make some tea. Chamomile tea. It calms the nerves.”

I want to refuse. I want to keep my distance, but my body is exhausted. The pain in my thigh throbs. I sit down, sinking into the worn chair. As he turns to fiddle with the electric kettle that is probably older than me, I watch him. Only when the smell of chamomile fills my senses do I realize how tense I am.

Schmidt places the cup in my hands and closes my fingers around it.

The steam from the tea mixes with the hum of the heater, and I’m suspended in a childhood I never had.

Schmidt sits in the other chair, with a creak of old joints, and looks at the wall with his eyes lost in a memory.

“Do you know what it’s like to lose someone, my son?”

I find myself wanting to say ‘no’, because that’s what you do in these conversations, but I can only nod. Yes.