He smells like hot tar, burning rubber. It’s the stink of the fresh Leninskoye Highway as they built it past Aunt Nadia’s block. And still, that abrasiveness, scouring my brains … He reaches out and grips my chin, tilting my head from side to side. Admiring the welt Kruzenko gave me with her slap? Or inspecting me like a cow brought to the butcher? He lets go, and my skin feels raw where he touched it, like he splashed it with bleach.
“Anyway.” He makes a little laughing noise with his mouth closed. “I know you’ll serve us well. She’d want you to, eh? Her skills are still valuable to the State, and they won’t do us much good at the bottom of a ditch. But, if she refuses to cooperate…”
If I didn’t feel like someone was scooping me hollow like a melon, I’d be taking a swing at him right now.
“I trust she’ll come around. She’ll realize how good life was when they played by our rules.” Rostov grins like a toad. “And so will you.” He turns to Larissa. “Larissa Maksimovna. I hear a rumor that your brother might be released soon for good behavior.”
Larissa flashes him a venomous smile. “Don’t worry, I know exactly how to make that come true.” She puts her arm around my shoulder and turns me gently toward the table.
Rostov and Kruzenko sit at the head of the table, but Larissa steers me to the far end, thankfully, since my nerves are shot from being near him. I wonder if it’s his way of shielding his thoughts, if he’s too much of a machine to use music, or if it’s like what Kruzenko said this morning about Valentin—he slips into your head and shreds it apart.
I’m hoping to talk to Larissa during dinner, as I’m starting to think she’s the only decent one of the bunch. Despite her ballad’s best intentions, despite Ivan at her other side leaning against her, her shield is slipping. Her arm nearly brushes mine as we eat. I see her first encounter with Rostov: tearing her down, mocking her powers, sending her brother away to work far beyond the Urals … How selfish I am, to worry about my family so much. I’m hardly alone in my suffering. I prop my elbows on the laminated tablecloth and stare down at my cabbage soup.
“Cheer up, tough girl. It’s only the first course.” Sergei, on my other side, grins at me over his steaming spoonful.
“Of how many?” I scan the table—baskets full of bread, trays of sliced kielbasa and cheeses; sardines, cucumbers, tomatoes, jams and jellies, and sugar and cream for our coffee and tea, all in tarnished silver platters and chipped chinaware … It’s probably more food than I’ve seen in the past three months combined. I don’t care if Masha calls me a ration rat—I’m going to stuff my pockets tonight.
Sergei adds a dollop of sour cream to his soup and stirs it in. “Not the best food, of course, or the freshest, but they take care of us here.” He jabs his spoon at me. “Beats splitting one ration three ways, huh?”
I imagine Aunt Nadia and Cousin Denis back at their apartment. As worried as they might be, they must be relieved to eat a whole ration for dinner tonight. Sleep in separate beds, separate rooms once more. No longer fear the KGB’s head popping out from every cupboard …
I lift a spoonful of soup, then let it dribble down into the bowl. Sure, I’m starving, but I’ve been starving for months, years even. I’m afraid of eating too quickly, filling my shriveled stomach with more than it can bear. I need this food to last. I grit my teeth and slurp up a bite, but the psychic noise from Rostov nearly makes me choke.
“How can you stand to eat around him?” I ask Sergei, glancing toward Rostov.
“Oh, you learn to tune it out.” His brow furrows. “You can’t let him get to you. He’s just like Valentin—he can scrub away thoughts, memories, whatever he needs to change, but Rostov’s not permitted to do it to us.”
“And that actually stops him?” I ask.
Sergei shrugs. “Sometimes I can tell when he’s been around. That static noise he gives off—it lingers, you know? On the people he’s been manipulating. So it’s obvious where he’s been.”
Like Mama’s necklace—that wall of noise that kept me from looking deeper into the past. Bozhe moi. “How do you do it?” I ask Sergei quietly. “Put up with this. You don’t want this life, either.”
He pushes away his empty bowl. “I’m in no hurry—Spartak will still be there next season.” He half smiles at me, revealing a dimple in his right cheek.
“But if you’re working for the KGB, how will you have time to play hockey, too?”
“We can buy our freedom in bits and pieces. I finished a major exercise, and now they let me practice at the Luzhniki Stadium rink three mornings a week. Eventually, I can live the life I want most of the time, working for them only when they need my particular skills.”
But I’m not so easily convinced. The Party only dangles enough freedom in front of us to keep us moving forward. What might they offer me, to convince me to stay? More time with my family? A chance to study at Moscow State, learning about genetics to decipher my brother’s sickness?