Anger percolates in my mind like the onset of timpani drums. I wasn’t thinking that at you.
His head hangs; he looks like a beaten dog. Outwardly, I roll my eyes, but I do feel bad. The feeling only lasts until I remember what he can do. You were saying?
Please don’t try to run just yet. You aren’t ready. I promise, I’ll help you find a way, but you’re not strong enough yet to keep them from catching you—
I dare to let the light of optimism flicker through my thoughts. What do you mean, you’ll help? Do you know a way out of here?
There’s a lot you need to know, but we can’t discuss it right now. The low bass line creeps up on his words. We’ll talk later.
“Yulia?”
I jerk my attention back to the front of the room. Major Kruzenko watches me with one eyebrow curved. “I asked you to come up here.”
“No, thank you,” I say, pulling the strains of Shostakovich back around me. I am present and accounted for—isn’t that cooperation enough?
Misha snickers; Ivan and Larissa lean apart from each other enough that they can stare at me. Kruzenko folds her hands behind her back. “You will join us now, Yulia Andreevna.”
“Please—not today.” I will endure their demonstrations, but it’s all too much. Valentin’s words are a storm within my skull. What more does he know? Why shouldn’t I run?
Her low heels click on the wood as she marches toward me. She rears back. Strikes me across the cheek with a hot, fearsome crack. The sound of the slap scares me more than the slap itself; I hear it ringing in my skull. “You will join us at the front.”
Pain burns on my cheek, as though I’ve been scalded, but I won’t give her the satisfaction of seeing me rub the wound. “No,” I say.
Kruzenko lifts her head to catch the attention of a guard in the back. “Vasily. Place a call to the colonel.” Larissa whimpers at the mention of a colonel. “Tell him that the Chernins are to be transferred.”
Death would be a mercy, Sergei’s voice echoes in my head. It is not a whispery psychic thought, but a physical presence, echoing against my thoughts over and over, demanding to be heard.
I spring to my feet. “No! Leave them alone.” I’m shaking; my mouth tastes like ash. Mama’s tired face flashes in front of my eyes. The spider called Vasily looks from Kruzenko to me. “I’ll do it,” I say. “But please—”
“The telephone call will not be necessary.” Kruzenko walks back to Sergei and Masha, and Vasily retreats into his shadows. My heart is still racing; I’m too terrified to move. Is that all it takes to lose my grip on Mama and Zhenya? Only a few words of disobedience? “Quickly, quickly, Maria and Sergei are already growing tired.”
Valentin is watching me as I move to the front of the room, but I can’t look back at him. My stinging cheek is punishment enough without his skewering gaze. Kruzenko drags a third chair next to Sergei and motions for me to sit. “Take Sergei’s hand. I want you to practice watching the scene through someone else’s eyes. You won’t have to call on your own abilities for this part.”
Sergei grins at me—crookedly, but he’s too clever not to know he’s got such an endearing crooked grin. He’s even missing a front tooth. How hockey of him. I tremble as we join hands.
It’s like a jolt of electricity. A new room unfolds before me with wooden floors, elegant lighting sconces, high-backed dining booths. But there are gaps in the room—foggy, blurred segments where there are sometimes chairs or windows, but sometimes not.
“There will always be uncertainties in a viewing, especially with inexperienced viewers like Masha and Sergei,” Kruzenko says. “Just do the best you can.”
A table has been abandoned by the window, a wadded-up napkin dumped into a bowl of soup. Someone has fled here in a hurry. Tucked into Masha’s famous blue drapes is a leather attaché case.
“Once you are stronger, you will be able to use your powers inside their vision to remotely gather information from the attaché,” Kruzenko says. “For now, though, I have a prop for you to work with.”
She places the case in my lap. I run my fingers over the stiff, shiny leather. It still smells of the tannery.
“Trace the spy’s footsteps. Show us where he’s been.”
I plunge into the case’s memories.
A man in oversized sunglasses with a ridiculous, false curlicue mustache sets down the attaché by his table. This is the KGB’s impression of an American secret agent? No matter. I need to go further back. My fingers press deeper into the leather. He runs backward out of the Ukraina Hotel, backward down the street, on the Metro, to the train station, the ticket counter—there. He is buying a ticket. What did the ticket girl say?