Chapter Text
This is the truth:
Katya’s name was not always Katya.
That was what her husband gave her, and everyone follows Goncharov in all things, so Katya she became and Katya she remained.
This is the truth:
When her father had died, Goncharov had spent hours holding her in his arms, pressing her against the lean sturdiness of his body, as if the wall he normally held against her had opened a door and now she stood inside his heart, sobbing like a child. He had never shushed her, had never asked her to stop her crying.
That was one of the good things about Goncharov: he knows what it is to grieve.
This is the truth:
When Katya finds herself, years later, outside the clock room where her husband takes his coffee, she remembers something she hadn’t before.
(Had she remembered, before?)
(Or did she just not want to see it?)
Goncharov had held her, pressed her into his body, and he smelled of cigarettes, and lilacs, and gasoline.
Her head was tucked into his arm, and his sleeves had been rolled to his elbow, where her nose caught the scent of gasoline. It burned her senses until her eyes watered, and she wanted to cough but she knew she mustn’t. Somehow, she knew she mustn’t.
Goncharov must have noticed her stiffness, because he laid a hand against her head and pressed his lips against her hair, whispering the one thing she never thought she’d hear: “I love you, Katya.”
This is the truth:
Goncharov lies.
Goncharov lies and he knows he lies and Katya knows he lies and if her husband is a liar then so is she. They have built a nest of lies, dragging in corpses that lose their meaning under the other’s gaze. Goncharov uses his tongue and his tender looks to lie and Katya uses her round eyes and the way her arms curve around waists in a pliable, doll-like way to lie, and they both see each other as liars and accept that fact.
But when Joe dies, struck to death outside the cathedral with his own ice-pick, Katya is afraid. She is afraid, and despite being a woman married, she is an orphan, so she turns to her husband for comfort.
“Did you mean it, that day?” she asks, and she knows it’s not the time or place, but she has to know. She needs to know.
“That day,” she repeats. “When you told me you loved me.”
Goncharov doesn’t respond for a long moment. If he is busy grieving Joe, Katya does not see it in his face.
“Come,” he says, and draws Katya closer, as if she is young again and they are just married and unsure of each other. He points to the distance. “Do you see those birds?”
Katya blinks against the setting sun. She sees them, yes, though they look more like shadows than birds.
“Your heart and my heart,” he says, “we’re like two birds on the same wire.” His fingers remain, outstretched, like a benediction over Naples, for all that what he does damns it.
Katya doesn’t want a lesson, however. She wants someone close to her, someone who will not leave her alone in this world.
She leans her body against his, and Goncharov pauses. Then, slowly, his arm crosses over her body, pressing her close as if that same door has opened and she is standing in his heart, only this time she thinks he is unmoored, struck by inevitability.
“We may fly away,” Goncharov whispers, and his voice is soft, tight—like he’s going to cry. “But here we are, Katya. Tethered for this moment.”
Katya watches the birds. She watches the sun set, and the world darken around her. She feels Goncharov’s breath behind her.
Katya, just once, believes him.
She turns around and pulls him in, letting it be him who is held for a moment.
Goncharov hesitates. Then he slowly, gently, wraps his arms her, letting his head hang.
That’s all right. She can hold him.
This is the truth:
Goncharov killed her father.
This is the truth:
She will betray her husband.
This is the truth:
Hate and love are not these everlasting feelings. They come and go, like baker’s batches, bought with whatever fare you bring with you.
A moment of hate can mean the end of everything.
A moment of love can mean nothing.
But sometimes moments don’t have to mean anything, or disappear simply because another feeling follows it. Katya’s hatred does not erase the love.
This is the truth:
Katya and Goncharov are birds on a wire.
Someday, one of them will fly away.
This is the truth:
Katya believes it’s better this way.
This is the truth:
Katya is a liar.