Chapter 1: Хиджаб как пенюар
The doorbell didn't ring so much as it buzzed, a low, ugly sound that crawled under the skin and stayed there. Donier had been awake for hours, staring at the ceiling of his narrow room, tracing the same water stain that looked like a broken hand. He'd heard the floorboards creak in his mother's room before dawn—the soft shuffle of her feet on the carpet, the whisper of fabric, the muted clink of the kettle in the kitchen.
She hadn't come out to greet him.
He knew why.
His phone told him it was 8:47 when he finally swung his legs off the mattress. The apartment smelled of last night's remnants—stale cigarette smoke that had seeped under the door, something sharper underneath, something he refused to name. He pulled on a hoodie, zipped it to his throat despite the warmth already bleeding through the thin curtains.
The bell buzzed again. Impatient.
Donier's feet carried him to the door before his mind caught up. His hand hovered over the lock. Through the peephole, the hallway light caught the figure on the other side—broad shoulders, a leather jacket despite the heat, dark stubble shadowing a jaw that never smiled unless it was at someone else's expense.
He opened the door.
Sergey stood there with his hands in his pockets, rocking back on his heels like a man who owned the building. Maybe he did, in the ways that mattered now. His pale eyes swept over Donier with the same lazy contempt he'd worn since the first day they'd met—when Donier had helped him carry groceries up the stairs, smiling, naive, thinking this was what neighbors did.
"Morning, little man." Sergey's voice was gravel and cheap vodka. "Your mother up?"
Donier nodded. His throat felt like it was lined with sandpaper.
"Good." Sergey stepped inside without waiting for an invitation. His shoulder brushed Donier's chest, a deliberate shove disguised as proximity. He smelled of cologne and cigarettes and something animal underneath. "You know where she's at?"
"The bedroom," Donier said. The words came out flat, mechanical.
Sergey grinned. It wasn't a nice expression. It was the kind of grin that preceded cruelty, that announced it was coming and dared you to do something about it. "And you got what I asked for?"
Donier's hand moved to the small table by the door. He'd placed it there last night, after Sergey's text. After the message that made his stomach turn inside out and his fingers shake so badly he'd dropped his phone twice.
The fabric was thin, translucent, the color of watered-down wine. It was supposed to be a hijab—a garment meant for modesty, for prayer, for Allah's eyes only on a woman's devotion. Someone had sewn it into something else entirely: a negligee, sheer and short, with delicate lace along the edges. Donier had found it in his mother's drawer two days ago, hidden under her winter sweaters, and he'd known immediately that Sergey had put it there.
Or that she had, at his command.
He handed it over without looking. Sergey took it, rubbing the fabric between his thumb and forefinger. He brought it to his nose and inhaled.
"Still smells like her," he said. "Faint, though. We'll fix that."
Donier's jaw tightened. He stared at the floor—the cheap linoleum peeling at the edges, the dark scuff marks from years of shoes, the shadow of the doorframe cutting across it like a blade.
Sergey laughed. It was a wet, nasty sound. "What's wrong, Doni? You look like someone pissed in your pilaf."
"Nothing."
"That's right. Nothing." Sergey clapped him on the shoulder—hard enough to sting, hard enough to make Donier's knees lock. "You're a good boy. A good son. Taking care of your mother like this."
The words hit like a slap. Donier wanted to scream. He wanted to grab Sergey by that leather jacket and throw him down the stairs, watch his head crack against every step until he stopped moving. He wanted to call someone—anyone—and tell them what was happening in this apartment, what had been happening for weeks now, ever since the night he'd come home early and heard sounds through his mother's door that didn't make sense.
But he didn't do any of that.
He just stood there, hands limp at his sides, while Sergey sauntered toward the bedroom. The door was already slightly ajar. A thin strip of light bled through, and with it, the smell of incense—bakhoor, the kind his mother burned on Fridays before prayer. The sweet, smoky scent curled through the hallway and mixed with Sergey's cologne, creating something obscene.
Sergey pushed the door open without knocking.
Donier followed. He didn't want to. His legs moved on their own, pulled by a gravity he couldn't resist, a need to witness, to punish himself, to make sure it was real.
The room had changed.
The prayer rug was still there—it was always there, always spread facing Mecca, the intricate patterns of blue and gold now tangled with something else. The bed had been moved. It sat directly on top of the rug now, its black satin sheets gleaming under the dim light that filtered through the heavy curtains. On the pillows, the hijab's twin lay crumpled—the one Nargiza had worn for years, the one she'd wrapped around her head every morning before dawn prayers, now discarded like a prop that had outlived its use.
And there, on the edge of the bed, sat his mother.
Nargiza didn't look up when they entered. Her hands were folded in her lap, fingers interlaced so tightly the knuckles had gone white. She wore a simple housedress, floral print, faded at the hem. Her hair—dark, streaked with grey she usually dyed with henna—fell loose around her shoulders, uncombed.
She looked smaller than Donier remembered. Shrunken. Like someone had reached inside her and pulled out the bones.
Sergey crossed the room in three strides. He dropped the negligee onto the bed beside her, then grabbed her chin with his thumb and forefinger, tilting her face up. She didn't resist. Her eyes stayed down, fixed on some point near his belt buckle.
"Look at me," Sergey said.
She didn't move.
He squeezed harder. "I said, look at me."
Slowly, like a dying man lifting his head, Nargiza raised her eyes. They were red-rimmed, glassy. Donier had seen her cry only twice in his life—once when his father died, once when they'd received the deportation letter from Moscow that sent them scrambling to this country, this cramped apartment, this living nightmare.
She wasn't crying now. Maybe she'd run out of tears.
"There she is," Sergey said softly. He released her chin, then traced a finger down her cheek, her neck, the curve of her collarbone. She shivered. He smiled. "You look tired, Nargi. Didn't sleep well?"
She shook her head. A tiny movement.
"Don't worry. I'll help you relax." He turned to Donier, who stood frozen in the doorway like a statue carved from shame. "You can go now, little man. Unless you want to stay and watch?"
The question hung in the air. Donier felt his face burn. His hands clenched into fists at his sides, nails digging crescents into his palms.
"No," he managed. The word came out cracked.
Sergey laughed again. "Smart boy." He reached for the negligee, held it up against Nargiza's chest, measuring. "Before you go—what do you think? Red's her color, right? Or should I have gotten black? Something more...mourning-appropriate?"
Donier couldn't speak. His throat had closed entirely.
"Eh, red's fine." Sergey tossed the garment aside and grabbed Nargiza's shoulders, pushing her back onto the black satin sheets. She didn't resist. She didn't make a sound. Her body moved like it belonged to someone else, someone who had already left this room a long time ago. "Go on, then. We'll be busy for a while."
Donier turned. His legs carried him out of the room, down the hallway, to his own door. He closed it behind him and leaned against it, sliding down until he sat on the floor, knees drawn to his chest.
Through the wall, he heard Sergey's voice, low and mocking. He heard his mother's silence. He heard the creak of the bed and the rustle of fabric and then, at last, a sound that broke something inside him—a small, stifled gasp, barely audible, swallowed almost before it was born.
He pressed his hands over his ears.
It didn't help.
In the other room, Sergey was laughing again, telling Nargiza how beautiful she looked, how lucky she was to have a son who understood, who took care of her, who made sure she got exactly what she deserved. His voice carried through the thin walls like smoke, filling every corner of the apartment, invading every cell of Donier's body.
And then, sharp and clear, Sergey called out: "Doni! Come say goodbye to your mother before I get started!"
Donier didn't move.
"Doni!" Louder now. Demanding. "Don't make me come get you!"
He rose. His legs felt foreign, like they belonged to someone else's body. He walked back to the bedroom door, which was still open, and looked inside.
His mother lay on the bed, the negligee now draped over her like a shroud. Sergey knelt beside her, one hand on her stomach, the other holding her wrist like he was checking her pulse. She stared at the ceiling. There was no expression on her face at all.
"Good boy," Sergey said when he saw Donier. "Just wanted to make sure you know what's happening. You should know. You're the man of the house now, right?"
He grinned, then turned back to Nargiza. He lifted the negligee, exposing her thighs, her stomach, the thin cotton of her underwear. She didn't move. She didn't blink.
"Today," Sergey said, his voice dropping to a murmur, intimate and obscene, "I'm going to fill your mother until she can't remember her own name. Until she forgets she ever had a son, ever had a husband, ever had a god. And you're going to hear every second of it, don't you worry. The walls here are thin."
He lowered his mouth to Nargiza's ear and whispered something Donier couldn't hear. What he could see was the way his mother's eyes finally closed, the way her hands unclenched, the way her body went completely still, like a corpse already.
Sergey's free hand found the hem of the negligee and pulled it up higher.
"Shut the door on your way out, Donya."
Donier closed his eyes. He closed the door. He walked back to his room and sat on his bed and stared at the same water stain on the ceiling, the one that looked like a broken hand, the one that had been there since they moved in.
The sounds started a few minutes later.
He didn't cry. He didn't scream. He didn't pray. He just sat there, listening, memorizing, letting it carve itself into his bones so he would never forget—not just what Sergey was doing, but what he himself had done.
He had opened the door.
He had handed over the garment.
He had stepped aside.
The morning sun crept across the floor, indifferent.