My head has throbbed all week. Perhaps I’ve inherited Mama’s headaches. The thought of vodka or—my stomach whimpers—Soviet champagne brings bitter bile to my throat. My head pounds. Bang-bang. A gunshot; a heart throbbing angrily. And Mama’s words, her chilling plea for me locked inside Zhenya’s head, echoes with every pulse. She wants me to run, but is there anywhere safe for me to run to?
Ivan points to Kruzenko as he leans conspiratorially toward Larissa and me. “I heard the other day that she and Rostov used to … you know.” He makes a circle with his thumb and index finger, then jams his other index finger in and out.
Larissa wrinkles her nose. “That’s disgusting.”
Ivan grins. “It would explain why she drinks so much.”
“How are we so incompetent?” Kruzenko bellows. “How are they stopping us? We must find them before they have another chance to act.”
“They have more than just the scrubber,” Valentin says, to his plate of Chicken Kiev. “They know what we’re doing, and they’re blocking us. It’s another useless game, another useless race. Space, weapons, psychics. Arms races, all of them, going nowhere.”
The doors to the dining room fly open and one of the house guards storms in. “Telephone for you, Comrade Major. Urgent—from headquarters.”
She wipes her mouth and stands. “I’ll take it in my office.”
“No need. Major General Rostov says to turn on the state news channel.”
I choke on my sip of tea at the reminder of Rostov’s new title—Chief of the First Directorate of the KGB, following the previous chief’s bizarre murder-suicide. Bang-bang. The vein throbs deep in my brain, smothering a memory that’s trying to rise up.
Fathomless exhaustion washes over Kruzenko’s face, slipping into her wrinkles and anchoring them. But the sharp tone of her mind hints at dread as well. She hurries out the door to the main parlor, and we all follow her in tacit agreement. We have just as much right to see whatever’s making the news.
The colors on the screen are harsh; pastel in that uniquely Western way. Hot green grass, pink dress, a car so black it radiates blue. The American president holds one hand in greeting while his wife gapes at us. She is perpetually frozen in that fake, wide-mouthed laugh you make for people you have to impress.
And then his head whips back. Her laugh morphs to a soundless scream. The picture freezes. It’s fuzzy, but on the side of his face is a glimmer of gore—like a wink, a promise. The air around us thins as we all suck in our breath.
“Less than one hour ago, the American president John Kennedy was shot in the state of Texas,” the announcer intones in Russian. “Secretary Khruschev has warned the united workers of the world that we will be blamed for this incident. But it is probably the work of restless Westerners, acting on their own accord, in response to the indignities of the capitalist system. The Soviet Union does not believe in murder as a political tool.”
I have to bite down on my hand to kill the—the what? Cry? Laugh?—that rattles in my throat. No, we would never murder our dissidents. We send them to freeze in Siberia; we send them to houses like these and turn them into weapons. We seize control of their minds and train their guns on our enemies, then dispose of them like torn paper bags.
No, Yulia. Bang-bang. You must forget.
The clip repeats on the screen, over and over. It has been less than an hour, the announcer continues. He says they do not know if he will live, but with that terrible smear, I can’t imagine he would survive. I find myself staring, not at the glisten of blood, brain matter, missing face, but at the pink woman. Her mask as it disintegrates. That false happiness that she can show no more. Her husband breaks, and she breaks apart with him.
“How did we not see this?” Major Kruzenko cries suddenly, after about the eighth loop. “How could we miss this?”
She lobs her vodka to the floor, jerking us from our hypnosis. Glass and sharp, stinging alcohol spray across the room. Kruzenko’s red face shimmers with a trail of tears.
“I am trying to protect you all. Keep you from burning out like all the rest. I know you’re not ready to take on their responsibility, but how could you not see this?” A gurgle rises from her throat like she’s being choked by her own tears. “How can I show you’re ready when you can’t even sense something like this?”
Valentin shifts beside me, eyes smoldering behind his glasses. “What happened to all the rest, Comrade Major?”
Big, fat, unbearable tears pour down Major Kruzenko’s face. “We have been trying and trying so hard and it’s just too much,” she says to herself, as the American president’s head deflates over and over. She turns on us and jabs her finger at the screen. “Do not let this happen again. For all our sakes.”