Page 5 of Sin Wager
3
VERA
The envelope burns in my hand as I count the rubles again in the apartment hallway. Twenty-three thousand this time—more than I've ever carried at once, more than my father makes in two months laying concrete for construction crews that pay Ukrainian immigrants half what they pay Russians. The bills feel thick between my fingers. Each one represents another day of treatment for Elvin, another small victory against the cancer eating him alive from the inside.
Sonya handed me the envelope after I placed the final bet, with no congratulations for another successful day. No acknowledgment that I'd just helped her people extract thousands more from the track's coffers. She looked at me the way someone might examine a useful tool before returning it to storage, already calculating its next application. It felt dirty.
I unlock the apartment door and step into the familiar smells of boiled cabbage and disinfectant. The tiny space holds too many years of struggle, too many nights when we counted kopecks to pay for electricity and heat. The walls are thin enough that I can hear our neighbor's television through the plaster, theendless drone of game shows and advertisements for products we'll never afford.
My father sits at the kitchen table with his evening tea, still wearing the work clothes that mark him as manual labor in a city that views physical work as evidence of failure. Concrete dust clings to his boots despite his attempts to clean them before entering the apartment. His hands bear the permanent stains and scars that come from decades of building other people's dreams while his own family struggles to survive.
"You're late," he says without looking up from his newspaper. The headlines speak of economic prosperity and rising wages, lies that mock the reality of our existence. "Elvin's been asking for you."
I set the envelope on the table beside his tea glass. The money spills out across the scarred wood surface, more cash than this apartment has seen since we arrived in Russia eight years ago. My father's eyes widen, his newspaper forgotten as he processes the implications of such wealth in his daughter's possession.
"Where did this come from?" Batya's voice lowers to almost a whisper and his brow furrows. "Vera, what have you done?"
"It's honest money, Batya. I've been helping people at the track, doing favors that pay well. Nothing illegal, nothing dangerous. I told you." I have to avoid his eyes, but the lies flow easier now than they did six months ago. I've had practice crafting explanations that sound plausible while revealing nothing of substance. My father wants to believe me because the alternative—that his daughter has become involved with people who trade in violence and corruption—is too terrible to contemplate.
"What kind of favors require this much payment?" He picks up several bills, examining them as if they might reveal their source through close inspection. "Stable hands don't earn money handling horses. What aren't you telling me?"
"Some of the owners need help placing bets when they can't get to the windows themselves. They pay me a percentage for the service. It's perfectly legal."
"This much money comes with expectations, Vera. Rich men don't hand out fortunes to stable girls without wanting returns that go beyond placing their bets." I hear the fear in his tone and it makes me want to run out of here crying.
His concern carries the bitter wisdom of a man who has watched his homeland consume itself through corruption and violence. He fled Ukraine to escape the chaos that turns ordinary people into casualties, only to discover that Moscow operates by many of the same rules with greater sophistication.
"I can handle myself, Batya. I know what I'm doing." I lean down and kiss him on the forehead, hoping to reassure him.
"Do you? Or do you think you know while forces beyond your understanding pull strings that will eventually strangle you?"
The conversation could continue for hours, circling through the same arguments and fears without resolution. My father suspects the truth but lacks the courage to confront it directly. I continue lying because the alternative is watching my brother die while we maintain our moral superiority.
"Use the money for Elvin's treatments," I say, gathering the bills and placing them back in the envelope. "The new medication is working. The doctors say his numbers are improving."
My father's resistance crumbles at the mention of his son's condition. Elvin represents everything we came to Russia seeking—opportunity, hope, the chance for a better life than the one we left behind. The cancer threatens to destroy those dreams along with his young body, turning our struggle for survival into a race against time that we're losing.
"The treatments are expensive, Vera. More expensive than your betting commissions should cover."
"I've been careful with money. Living simply, saving everything I can."
"And when the treatments end? When Elvin recovers, what happens to your generous employers? Do they simply disappear, leaving you to return to mucking stalls for subsistence wages?"
The question cuts deep because I have no answer. I exist in a state of perpetual present tense, focused entirely on maintaining the flow of money that keeps my brother alive. The future—what comes after recovery, what price I'll eventually pay for this devil's bargain—remains deliberately unconsidered.
"We'll manage when the time comes."
I leave him at the kitchen table, counting the money with trembling fingers, and head back to see Elvin. The bedroom I share with my brother feels smaller each time I enter it. Two narrow beds are separated by a nightstand that holds his medications in neat rows—pills that cost more than we could ever afford, treatments that insurance companies refuse to cover because they remain experimental despite their proven effectiveness.
Elvin lies propped against pillows that make his thinness more apparent. The cancer has carved away the healthy weight he carried before diagnosis, leaving behind sharp angles and hollow spaces on his body that look unnatural. His skin carries a gray pallor from months of chemotherapy, the toxic cure that kills indiscriminately in hopes of destroying malignant cells before healthy ones.
But his eyes remain bright, alert, filled with the determination that has carried him through treatments that would break stronger men. At seventeen, he possesses wisdom and courage that shame adults who complain about minor inconveniences.
"How was work?" he asks, and he tries to sit up, but I press a hand to his shoulder and he relaxes.
"Good. Quiet day at the stables." I sit on the edge of his bed, taking his hand in mine. The bones feel fragile beneath skin that seems too thin to contain them. "The horses were restless. Storm coming, probably."
"You look different tonight. Happy, maybe? Or nervous."
