Domovoi

* * *

After a month, the building is completely gutted and structural work can begin. It is then that Winnie really does reappear. Ryan is alone in a room one afternoon, looking at plans, when he smells honey and steel, sweet and fleeting.

He looks up, alarmed, expecting to see her bearing down on him with the wood. But she’s just standing, looking at him, her arms crossed behind her back. She seems to have lost weight. Her ass is smaller, and her legs seem skinnier. Her skin seems smoother.

He regards her for a while, assessing danger. She’s still and solid and sullen. He flashes her a sandpaper grin.

“You’re back?” he says.

“Never left,” she says. “Never will leave. Never.”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that,” Ryan says. “The police . . .”

“The police won’t find me,” she says, looking at him. She looks paler, he notices. Slightly sick. There is a strange shimmer about her, as if he can see her bones superimposed upon her flesh, a luminous ghost-skeleton that moves as she moves. He blinks, trying to clear this odd vision from his eyes.

“What gives you the right?” she asks, softly. “What gives you the right to do this?”

His brow curdles. It is an insane question.

“I own this building,” he says slowly, reducing each word to inarguable finality.

“That is not an answer,” she says.

“What other answer is there?” Ryan blazes, sudden frustration firing him. He wants her to shut up, to do what she is told.

Winnie is silent for a few moments. She is standing at a place where a wall used to be. The wall is gone, only structural timbers remain. She stretches out a hand, strokes her fingers through the air that the wall used to occupy. He can see every bone in her hand set in angular contrast against the timbers and studs and beams. The stark intersecting lines are indescribably beautiful.

“I do not want to be what you want to make me,” she says.

Ryan says nothing, watches her stroke the ghost-wall. The moment of adoration passes, giving way to critical dissatisfaction. Her movements are crisp, clumsy, machinelike. Inelegant, he thinks. She needs curves, smooth clean curves that please the eye. He makes a mental note to work with the architect on some streamlined walls for the entrance.

“You have no right,” she gasps, and he realizes that she is crying. “You have no right to change something that does not want to be changed.”

He takes a step forward, then another, like an unwise park visitor approaching a seemingly tame bear. He reaches out a hand, and touches her face.

“There now,” he says, stroking her cheek. Her skin is smoother, he notices with satisfaction. “There now.”

Winnie reaches into her pocket for a cigarette. Her hand is trembling.

“No smoking,” Ryan says gently, prying the cigarette from between her fingers. With a ferocious snarl, she slaps his hand away. He jumps back, his heart thudding. A surprisingly pleasant thrill surges through him.

“It’s for your own good,” he adds, holding fists defensively before his chest, expecting her to rush him.

“Liar,” she spits at him, and in the time it takes him to blink she is gone.

* * *

Problems arise, one after another. Expensive problems. Seismic upgrades. Asbestos removal. Hazardous waste disposal from where old puddles of oil have polluted the ground.

It is easy to take out the first construction loan; Ryan’s bankers love him. They even love him enough to give him a second. But the third one is difficult. They shuffle their wingtips and cast glances back and forth. It is clear that they share some of Jose’s concerns.

We’re unclear on your vision here, Mr. Ceres.

The freeway’s a dozen blocks away.

To call the neighborhood transitional is being generous . . .

The infrastructure’s marginal . . . no retail component anywhere nearby . . .

Ryan bullies them and gets the third loan, but there will not be another. It should be enough. That, added to some liquidated longer-term investments . . . his broker will squeal that the money is for his future, but Ryan doesn’t care. She is his future.

The contractors finish the framing. The smell of fresh pine is one of the best smells Ryan knows. It’s the same smell that disinfectants have, and Ryan always associates new framing with cleanliness. Old ugly hidden things, invisible squirming vermin being scorched away, burned away, sterilized.

One of Ryan’s brutally efficient Russian workers, a framer, is named Sergei. He leaves behind a plate of bread and salt one night, which Ryan stumbles over. Ryan swears roughly at Sergei; while the Russian is much bigger than he is, it’s always good to look tough to one’s people.

“What the hell is this?” Ryan picks up the plate of bread and salt and shakes it in the big man’s face. “We got the rats cleared out of here months ago, you want them back?”

“This will not attract rats,” Sergei shrugs. “She will not let it.”

“She?” Ryan looks at him. “Who?”

“The building,” Sergei says. “The domovoi.” Seeing that Ryan does not understand, Sergei gently takes the plate of bread and salt from him and puts it down carefully.

“The domovoi is the spirit of the building. Its soul. This building’s soul is sad and in pain. I thought to comfort her.”

“Comfort her?” Ryan clenches his teeth, remembering Winnie bearing down on him with the wood. “I’m not paying you to comfort the goddamn building.” He kicks at the plate of bread and salt, sending it scattering across the plywood flooring.

Sergei shrugs, and turns to go. Ryan calls after him:

“Can they be killed?”

Sergei turns slowly, looks at him through narrowed eyes.

“Killed?” he says.

“Yes,” Ryan says curtly. “Killed. Eradicated. Exorcised.”

“I have heard that they can be moved,” Sergei says thoughtfully. “By carrying hearth coals to a new home. If the domovoi likes it there . . .”

“I didn’t say moved,” Ryan interrupts him sharply. “I said killed. Can they be killed?”

Sergei shrugs, looks around at the clean-smelling new pine framing.

“I suppose this is the way to do it,” he says.

* * *

Winnie does not show herself again until month four.

The contractors are putting in bamboo flooring and installing energy-efficient double-paned glass windows. The money is running thin, but Ryan will not cut corners. He runs up bills that he knows he will not pay. This does not concern him in the least.

Visitors from the bank begin showing up at the worksite, at odd hours of the day. Taking notes.

Ryan is in a room that will become the master bedroom of the most expensive loft, eight thousand square feet of exposed concrete and thick hewn beams. The room is large and airy, with wiring for a ceiling fan and arched windows that look out over the street. He’s looking down at the street, his hands clasped behind his back. On the street, there’s a man leaning against a blue Camaro, selling drugs.

“Please stop.” The words come from behind him. He turns slowly.

She looks much thinner now, her face sleek and shining. Her hair is smoothed back from a soft, placid face. She’s wearing a suit of grey silk. He looks her up and down, approvingly.

“It hurts,” she says. “Please stop.”

“I’m too far along now,” he says. The words make her wince visibly.

A vague premonition of worry crosses his mind. What is the pain in his chest, what is the ineffable regret? He doesn’t understand it; he dismisses it with a curt gesture of his hand.

“You’re just afraid of change,” he says, more harshly than he intends to.