The Counterpart

“Guess who!”

“I’m very sick, I might infect you...”

“What?” She opened the door and came in. Aleksey spun around so that his back was facing her. “What’s the matter with you?” she said. He grabbed a page from his desk and covered his face in it.

“I don’t know, maybe you do,” he said. It was the page, he couldn’t help noticing, on which the Confederate soldier explains his reasons for going into battle. “I like to keep what’s mine,” the soldier says. Aleksey said, “Did you perhaps take something from the apartment?”

“Take something? Are you drunk?”

“Part of my face. I’m just asking, did you perhaps cut off part of my face and take it with you? Perhaps by accident?”

Aleksey turned slowly around, the page still over the bottom half of his face.

“What’s happened to you? Are you playing bandit now?” Tatiana was impatient. She’d been quick to immigrate from Byelorussia, quick to change from engineer to real estate agent, quick to marry Professor Todd, and would be quick to drop the noseless mutant he’d become.

“Just a little accident, baby,” he said in Russian. “Nothing terrible.”

“Show me!” She pulled the paper out of his hands and threw it on the floor. She stared at his face and crossed herself – nipple, nipple, belly button. She hadn’t taken it, he knew that instantly. How could he have been so crazy as to suspect her?