I pull off one glove and concentrate on drawing out the memories dormant on the trees, the street signposts, but it’s so crowded and noisy in the recent history of this sidewalk. How will I ever find Natalya Gruzova in this crowd? I try to envision her blond hair bound in a scarf: not with the full, healthy cheeks of her passport photograph, but the worn-away face in Red Square, her thoughts strung together with crimped wire after the scrubber interfered.
There. A trail of her scattershot thoughts; it runs from the apartments the next block down to the station we just left. “This way,” I say to Valentin, and as I usher him to the crosswalk, our four little shadows follow.
It’s Stalinist architecture, same as the rest, a five-story structure that runs flush with the Ukraina skyscraper—one of the Seven Sisters. A quaint grocery store sits in the bottom floor. No rations, no lines. I peer through the glass, and its shelves are actually stocked. They have white toilet paper, real toilet paper, not the standard-issue sandpaper brown.
We pass through the red and gold building’s entrance under a stained-glass blue globe. The foyer is flawless. The gleaming granite floor, columns, and ceiling are all full of shadows; our figures play across them as dark blobs with no distinct edge. The Metro stations may be the palace of the people, but this is truly the palace of the Party. The door latches shut behind us, as satisfying as Gagarin’s space capsule sealing shut. Kk-ssshhhhsss. We are as safe from the rest of Moscow here as we would be from the vacuum of space.
A head appears from behind one of the columns, ant-sized against the massive portrait of Lenin at the far end of the foyer. “May I help you?”
Doormen? I push my thoughts against Valentin’s. They have doormen here?
“I’m Igor Gruzov, Natalya Gruzova’s brother,” Valentin says. “She asked me to fetch some things from her apartment.”
I look at Valentin, and in a fuzzy, glowing moment, even I can believe he is this brother, and not the meek, silent boy who hides behind his glasses with a head full of painful noise.
I force my eyes away, strip off my gloves, and run one hand along the smooth column, smearing its glistening surface. Where are you, Natalya? Let me glimpse at your secrets. Tell me why you need my help.
“No, you aren’t. I’ve met her brother, and you don’t look like him.” The man darts back behind his desk. “Show me your papers or I’ll call security.”
Natalya’s curly hair gleams in a glamorously lit memory, her back to me, facing a man in a suit and hat. They converse in the foyer—this morning? Yesterday? Recently. I lean into their words. They speak Russian, but there is something off about the man’s voice, the slightest clip to his words. They’re too formal. Too stiff: I can see him practicing in the mirror, stretching his lips into those awkward Russian oos, those deep guttural churns. She calls him “little brother,” but if she’s working with the CIA, he must be one of them.
“What do you mean, you do not know about his orders?” She’s hysterical in the memory. She won’t let her voice pass a certain volume, but it hisses and crackles. “He said the documents weren’t enough to buy my way out. He said you wanted me to find these people!”
“Calm down, Natalya. This is all just a misunderstanding. We’re gonna get you out of here, okay?”
“I found the girl in Red Square, like he said she would be. I know she saw me. And I found two more. One works at the ZiL auto factory—”
The man looks over his shoulder. There—narrow, long nose, bushy brows—I have him. I let go of the column and toss the man’s image to Valentin. This man poses as her brother, but he must be one of the Americans. The doorman’s already suspicious. We must go.
Come to my side, Valentin murmurs, and I’m startled by how seductive the words sound in my head, inviting as a stretch of sunny beach. My cheeks smolder. I replay it in my head with a tingle along my spine; yes, I want to hear him say this again. But logic intervenes. This isn’t really Valentin; it’s just a role he’s stepped into. I sidle up alongside him, on guard, questioning my sudden craving for this gorgeous, dark mystery whose eyes hold mine gingerly as if he’s afraid they’ll break. Through our thick coats, I feel an electric crackle in the quickly vanishing space between us.
“You don’t recall? I told you I’d come back. Here, you remember my wife, Svetlana—you gave her those mints.”
I creak back my lips in an awful sturgeon smile as Valentin lopes his arm around my shoulder. I’m liquid Yulia, hopelessly lost like I’ve never been lost before. His touch is suave, but not overly so. The only boy I’ve ever kissed—Vovan, such a terrible plodding name—was too bland a kisser, lips factory-stamped to fit with anyone else’s. If Valentin’s careful touch is any indication, his lips were tailored just for mine.
My face burns crimson. What am I thinking? And bozhe moi, do I ever want to think it some more.