THE BANQUET DRAGS ON AND ON, chronicling the many successes of the Soviet space program and praising the Veter 1 scientists for designing a rocket with sufficient capacity to reach the moon. Tomorrow’s launch will be conducted in secret, we are told, but if it succeeds in circling the moon, then the subsequent Veter launches throughout the year should give us a lunar landing by 1964’s end.
“I must credit the Veter 1 engineering team for this remarkable feat,” declares Soviet Chairman Leonid Brezhnev, Secretary Khruschev’s second in command. He’s a stocky black-haired bear of a man, curled over the microphone protectively as he growls into it. “You have put our men into space. You defend us with your missile designs.” I’ve never heard someone sound so angry while giving a compliment. “The Americans are nowhere near our level of capability! Everything they create is a crude replica of our groundbreaking work! We remain unbeaten—a beacon for the workers of the world!”
Except the Americans have stolen the Veter 1 plans. Except they are lurking in the streets of Berlin right now—to spy on the launch, to steal more information, and hopefully, to help us escape, though I’m still rattled from Larissa’s vision. I crank up the Shostakovich in my head until it’s suffocating me.
When he concludes, the audience applauds politely in our eerie Russian way: all clapping in unison, as if we’re cheering on a dancer as she teeters on the edge of control, like in Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring.
I toss and turn in the matchbox bed all night, trying not to think about Larissa’s cryptic visions or Valentin’s possible betrayal. I will escape with him if I can, without him if I must.
Finally, sometime past five in the morning, my growling stomach overtakes my need for sleep, though I’m not sure my nerves will allow me to keep anything down. I stumble through the still-darkened corridors toward the elevator. I need something to drown out this terror in my gut. I need a drink. Maybe I’ll start smoking as well, unfiltered cigarettes like Papa, drawing death into me and blowing it back out. The elevator rushes to greet me, and I’m so relieved by its grinding gears that I don’t hear the boots clicking on the wood behind me.
Major General Rostov slips into the elevator behind me, and as the door closes, he locks the grate in place and pulls the emergency stop knob.
“You are keeping something from me.” His hand shoots straight to my throat and clamps down hard. “I do not enjoy being deceived.”
Dear God who lies at the bottom of unmarked mass graves, dear Saint George and Saint Sergei, my mind is slipping away from me, Rostov is siphoning it away with each bit of pressure he applies.
One. Two. One. Two. A bullet shatters my sternum and nestles into my heart like a kitten nestles into your arms. A second enters my temple. I am a KaGeBeznik. I dared to challenge the status quo. I am a puppet on Rostov’s strings, and I will pay for serving god and country, if god is Karl Marx.
“Very interesting.” Rostov’s voice is an icebreaker ship, plowing through the crust of my brain. “And I thought I’d covered my tracks so well.”
One. Two. Bang-bang: a gun firing, echoed by the double-thump of fallen bodies, ringing out over and over as he pulls the memory loose. It’s bone fragments, shrapnel, casualties of war. Bang-bang. Something I’d rather forget.
“You managed to cling to this,” he says, almost admiring. “Misha, Masha, Sergei—none of them could recall, even under extreme duress.”
He dangles the memories before my face. The Chief of the First Directorate of the KGB is struck by the first bullet and falls forward over his desk. The blood spills onto the manila folder, which Rostov snatches away. The gunman—the poor soldier—then turns his pistol on himself, and his brain matter paints a lovely picture on the office wall. Rostov storms from the office—his office, now. He sees Misha slumped against the wall, and with a snap of his fingers, Misha now dances on his strings. Lurking behind them is the silhouette of the Hound, amplifying Rostov’s power.
“How can you remember this? Why are you different, Yulia Andreevna?”
Rostov’s hatred pours into me, scraping against the raw patches in my head where scrubbed-out memories remain. My own father’s doing. I have to shove Rostov’s hatred out before it consumes me, crushes me more fiercely than the hand on my throat. I have to reverse the flow. Focus, Yulia. White heat takes root in the dark soil that’s choking me. It writhes past the worms and drinks up the moisture. And then it’s draining away, away—
The elevator lurches. Rostov drops me to the ground with a yelp and stares at his bright red hand. “What are you?” he hisses. He bashes his fist against the button panel but we continue to move, up or down, I couldn’t say.
Sharp hot blood runs down my nose.