“The more minds out there searching, the better,” I say.
“Exactly. And between you and me, Rostov has always had one big problem. He never sees what he’s not looking for.”
I tuck that ripe little morsel away. Stamp it, seal it, wrap it in Shostakovich.
“Yulia…” Sergei stares at a tacky headless cherub sculpture for a long, heavy moment. The longer it takes for him to speak, the more his music swells. “I know you think there’s a better life out there, somewhere, but it’s safer here. I’m lucky—my parents always prepared me for what I was. I know it’s harder for you, but won’t you trust me?”
His music is suffocating me, crowding out my own music and thoughts until nothing is left. “It’s not my parents’ fault. They didn’t know. I—I’m a wildling. Like Larissa.”
“They didn’t tell you,” he corrects me.
“They didn’t know!” I cry. “They would have told me. They couldn’t have known.”
A phantom dreamscape: Mama and Papa, bickering at the kitchen table. They’re talking about monitoring someone. About me.
“Fine, so they didn’t know. Is that what you want to hear?”
“No. I want to be rid of this,” I say. “I don’t want this power. All it’s good for is hurting other people.”
He tilts his head at me, studying me with the vacant, yet all-knowing stare of the saints on old Russian religious icons. “Is this about what happened with that woman in Red Square?”
I jam my fisted hands into my thighs, kneading away the static haze surrounding her memories. “She had a chance to escape, and I’ve ruined it for her.”
“Yul. She’s a traitor. It was the risk she took when she decided to break the law. At least this way, you get to look like a hero for the KGB, right?” He twists toward me, reaching for my knee. “You can’t be afraid of what you are. You’ll end up like Valentin, barely talking to anyone because you’re afraid of yourself. That’s no way to go through life.”
“You told them,” I say quietly. I want rage to flood my veins, but I feel nothing. I’m all hollowed out. “You told them that we saw her.”
He winces and scoots back. “Rostov would have found out one way or another. I didn’t want him to hurt you.”
“Maybe that’s not for you to choose,” I snap.
“I only reported what I saw, all right? Nothing more. It’s not like you asked me to lie.” He scrubs a hand through his hair. “You’ve got to make peace with what you are, Yul. People with our abilities … we aren’t fit for life outside of here. Can you imagine working at the factory, surrounded by the noise of machinery and everyone’s dumb thoughts? What good would it do? You’d go mad like Anastasia did.”
I slump back onto the sofa beside him, and a memory pricks me like a hidden straight pin. Images of women huddling in this room; the stifling pain of a corset packed with jewels, rubles, fine silverware. Panic constricts their chests tighter than the corset lacing.
I close my eyes and suck down a deep breath. He has a point. I don’t want to be so vulnerable, waiting for the memories to overtake me, waiting for Rostov to pry them out of me.
“Those aren’t my only choices. There has to be another way.” I stand up. The narrow walls of the room are closing in. This isn’t a hiding place. It’s a morgue.
“Bozhe moi. Forget it. You want to be miserable, you go right ahead. Just thought you might like to have a friend.”
“I don’t need friends.” I shove off the couch toward the concrete hallway. With the light on, I can see the mouse droppings lining the floor, the dead insects in stagnant puddles of water around the leaking pipes. I squeeze my way through the half-open panel into the back of the closet. I don’t need anyone. When our livelihood is prying away secrets, I have to cling to every last scrap of me that I have left.
CHAPTER 14
“YULIA? YULIA, DARLING, wake up.”
Mama shakes me out of a milky haze. Her face is only light and shadow at first; slowly, my eyes focus on her plump lips, her narrow nose, her sparkling diamond necklace like a smear of stars between her collarbones. I’m dreaming again, I tell myself, but it feels like a memory, just out of reach. We are still Party members. I glance down at my hands, punctuated with knobby little wrists and the countless phantom scars and bruises accumulated from playing childhood games with Zhenya. I can’t be older than twelve.
“I’m awake.” I force a smile through my stupor. But she doesn’t smile back. That wrinkle appears between her eyebrows, hitching my heartbeat. “Mama? What’s wrong?”