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Even now, so late in the night that the only ones left on the docks were nightguards, fat-pursed with bribes, dogs, and lunatics, the smell of the canneries clung in the air. The clack of Katya's heels carried, and knowing that she moved quickly, purposefully.
The sheet-metal door had already been pulled up when she arrived, though blessedly, the lights remained off. Though anyone could have opened the door, the one she was looking for knew better than to turn the lights on, so long after any excusable workers had gone home, and so hope found itself still flickering within her chest.
The smell was stronger inside. One would be excused for considering it a stench, but Katya had grown up here, running half-wild amidst the sardines and the machinery, and as much as she'd fought to move away from that, the smell of the cannery was one she still found unpleasantly appealing. It was familiar, if uncomfortable, like running into a disliked relative while on the other side of the world.
Still, she was not here for the past. She was here for her.
She found her on the second floor, by the foreman's office, smoking and looking over the walkway's rail onto the still machines below.
Sofia did not turn to acknowledge Katya, and Katya did not speak to announce herself. It was only after Katya had pulled out a cigarette of her own that either woman spoke.
"So now we know."
The way English sounded in Sofia's mouth broke Katya's heart still, reminding her of the self she had bartered away so long ago. Still, she knew better than to show it, and it was with an affected easiness that she answered.
"Didn't you already?"
Sofia looked at her then. Her eyes were dark, but there was an unusual lightness to the space around them. It took Katya a moment to put a finger to it. Sofia's lashes, usually meticulously coated in black mascara, were bare. They were blonder than Katya would have expected given Sofia's hair, and they made her eyes all the darker by comparison.
"I pride myself for what I know. Men? Their business? That's easy. But you..."
Sofia looked away again, pulling the dying cigarette from her mouth with long, sure fingers, before dropping it and crushing it underheel.
"You, I thought I knew. Then I knew I didn't. And now, now I ask and find out."
Katya breathed out, louder than she wanted to.
She reached her unlit cigarette to Sofia so as to keep herself from reaching for her hands. Sofia plucked it from her fingers without touching her, then pulled out another for herself. Katya watched as she held both in one hand while fishing in her pocket with the other.
"Who told you? Joe?"
Sofia shook her head, pulling out her silver lighter as she did. She put both cigarettes to her lips before lighting them.
"Thought you'd heard. That little bird's tweeting days are over." With that, she handed one lipstick-stained cigarette back to Katya.
It didn't surprise her. Joe had always been short, short of stature, fuse, and time. But still, knowing felt like a stone sinking in her chest.
She took a pull and exhaled.
"You know, I'd send his mother a casserole, but I think she'd shoot me before I made it off the porch."
Sofia didn't smile. Her dark hair shaded her face as she tilted her head up. With the lights off, the metal roof deepened into a dark so deep that it could have been the sky. Katya used to imagine it was. Now she wondered what Sofia was thinking as she looked up at it.
Silence, smoke, and the smell of sardines hung in the space between them.
"So, not Joe then. Who?"
Sofia continued to look at the ceiling, frowning slightly.
"You should call home more often."
Rage coloring her face, Katya spat. It barely missed Sofia's heel, thought that had not been her intent.
"Pah. That sonofabitch needs to learn to mind his business."
Sofia finally, finally looked at her.
"Valery might have his flaws, but he's an honest man. It's true then? I am your second choice."
It was with a pain that Katya had been carrying for as long as she could remember that she answered.
"Sofia, you are the first choice I have made."
Both women looked at each other. The world would wake soon, but what if it didn't? Or better yet, what if it did and they simply did not care to notice? Still, there was still the problem that had always lay between them.
"But Katya... What about him? What about Goncharov?"
"Goncharov... he..."
Katya faced away from Sofia. In that moment, the world started waking, and Goncharov, Goncharov would not.
"He got Gonched."