“You know why you are here.” She steps toward me, close enough that I could punch her if my hands weren’t tied.
I hold her gaze and don’t answer. Anything I might say could be used as an admission of guilt. I’m better off saying nothing and thinking even less. Whatever happens, I must play this like the market game: carefully, controlled.
“Your parents are Andrei and Antonina Chernin.” Air whistles through her front teeth, which I notice are bent inward, when she says our last name. “Both are wanted for political subversion and theft of state property.”
The theft part is news to me, but I don’t let it show. She lifts one eyebrow. Icy fingers of panic worm into my lungs. Why is she looking at me that way? A wisp of weepy gypsy music runs through my mind. In my foggy logic, I suppose she wears that music like others wear perfume.
“You are not troubled by these crimes? Perhaps you do not understand their seriousness.”
“I understand what you do to people who commit them,” I say.
She tightens her lips and hmms. “Your family is already in my custody. It would be so easy, very easy, for you to help them out of this unfortunate situation. I only need for you to cooperate.”
“You don’t have all my family.”
I clamp my teeth down on my tongue. I shouldn’t have revealed that. But Papa is safe, Mama swears it; she just won’t tell me where. An empty mind is a safe mind, he would say. I can’t help thinking of the last time I saw him. Scarf wrapped tight at his throat; steel-rimmed glasses fogging as he steps into the cold.
“Do you know this for a fact?” she asks, pacing away from me.
We’re both fighting to keep our faces blank. Like the market, it’s a game of getting what you want without paying a price that can’t be counted in rubles. But she’s had her whole career to master this art.
Think, Yulia. Everything is a system, and systems can be learned. Figure out the rules for her game. She’s not asking any questions. Isn’t that the whole point of interrogation? She mentioned cooperation—
“I’m not asking questions because I know everything I need to know from you. You are not here for what you know, but what you can do.” Her hands curl into fists, making her leather gloves creak.
I stare at her, shock momentarily numbing my resolve to keep quiet. “Did you just—”
“—read your mind?” she asks, and her smug smile is like a liter of vinegar in my gut. “Did I? You tell me.”
“I’m not telling you anything until I see my family.” I try to sound confident, casual. But I can’t erase the memory of the empty apartment, their coats still hanging up.
“I will offer you the next best thing.” She reaches into her pocket and pulls out a necklace, dangling it before me by its chain. The clasp is broken and bits of black hair are snarled in the links, as if it were ripped from someone’s neck. I recognize the medallion spinning at the end of the chain: an emblem of Saint George slaying the dragon.
My mother’s necklace.
“It could be anyone’s.” I tilt my head away. “Lots of Russians pray to Saint George.”
She holds the necklace in front of my bound left hand. “But you can prove that it is hers. Go on—touch it.”
Does she mean what I think she does? The medallion spins back and forth, the image on one side flickering like a zoetrope. She can’t possibly mean my little trick, my market strategy. My funny extra sense that shows what I shouldn’t see. I stretch my fingers toward the pendant.
No, no, this is my secret. I can’t possibly share it with the KGB.
“What do you want from me?” I ask, my fear making the words soupy.
“You want to keep her safe, yes?” Her eyes narrow. “Your brother Yevgenni. I know he has some … mental concerns. His condition requires extra attention, I am told. I will need to justify such care to my superiors.”
“You can’t hold him in a cell. I need to be with him.” I strain at the bindings. “He needs to follow his routine—”
“Why do you think they are in prison cells?” She waves her hand before her face as if waving away the very words. Or her bad breath. “They are cared for. But you want this care to continue, do you not? And so I require something in return. Come now, Yulia.” She sighs. “You barter all the time. You know how this works.”
I grind my teeth together because they’re the only thing between her face and a wad of spit right now. This isn’t an interrogation—it’s a sales pitch. “What could you possibly want from me? I’m not a political criminal or—or any of those things you say my parents are. I’m just a girl.”