Stomach acid burns at my throat. Bozhe moi. She saw, she must have seen. I toss her a condescending grin and keep Shostakovich level, but I’m burning up inside. Valentin snakes his hand into mine—does he know I’m panicking? I clench his hand with all I can, trying to drain this terror away.
Suddenly, the sounds of chair seats flapping upward ripples across the observation deck. The military officers are standing, ripping off their hats and tucking them under one arm as they strike a salute. We straighten and salute, twisting toward the back door. Comrade Secretary Nikita Khruschev enters, surrounded by several scowling men in his orbit, a blob of flesh and tweed, concealed by his entourage. So this is our fearless leader. The man who condemns Stalin with one hand while the other condemns thousands more to die. Mama said he’s better than Stalin; more progressive. Papa said that even Hitler fit that description.
He approaches a microphone at the front of the railing that peers down into the control room. The microphone shrieks as he leans in. “I trust that today will be a great day for Soviet scientists. For the workers of the world!” He pounds both fists against the railing. “You may begin!”
The operations room beneath us buzzes with men shouting back and forth in clipped Russian syllables: technical terms like “parallax” and compacted acronyms I couldn’t possibly untangle, calling these terms back and forth in a musical round. Orange lights glow beneath the cylindrical rockets under the capsule; the airstrip tarmac shimmers from the sudden heat. The rocket itself quivers on its launchpad like a dog straining at its leash, shedding chunks of ice and paint. The metal scaffolding around it folds open like a flower.
“Five.”
The Party officials and military officers around us lean forward, just a fraction in their seat. The air goes still with collective held breaths. I lean forward, fear and excitement buzzing under my skin.
“Four.”
Valentin’s hand tightens around mine. We’re meeting my father this afternoon, I tell him, concealing the thought in our songs. Café Mozart, by the hotel. My pulse patters fiercely in my ears as the rocket’s rumble reaches us.
“Three.”
Three notes, waltzing around in my head in three/four time. Papa’s sad smile as he glanced over his shoulder before vanishing from our lives. How will it feel to see him again? Will he melt away my fears and doubts, or try to scrub them away like a monster?
“Two.”
The technicians lined up on the tarmac fold their hands behind their backs. One man glances backward, just for a moment—the American. He’s too far away to see clearly, but I’m sure he’s smiling.
“One.”
Larissa gurgles beside me, strangling off a scream. Her whole body radiates terror. That inevitability whipping toward us like a tundra wind. I am petrified, unable to look away.
“Null.”
Fire billows from the thrusters. The rocket lurches upward. The applause is already starting as the rocket clatters up its track.
Then the second gout of flame bursts out of the capsule window.
Metal screams against metal, audible through the quadruple-plated observation window, as the rocket tips over, fire blazing from both ends, hungering to meet in the middle. The cheers melt into screams. Fireman charge onto the tarmac, bundled into bubbly bomb suits, but they’re too late. The flames grow fatter on the fresh winter air, the whole rocket shaking with explosive potential—
The metal slats clatter shut, submerging us in darkness, though the blossoming explosion is seared into my eyes. I blink it away madly, staggering toward the door, but it’s blocked by the guards. The overhead lights flicker on to reveal the room in chaos.
Cold sweat runs down my back. Either the rocket was flawed from the beginning, or my father and his friends have just killed our cosmonauts. I search that snapshot in my mind of the American on the tarmac, smiling back at me. Bozhe moi, what have they done?
“Stand back!”
“Secretary! Quickly, this way!”
Khruschev’s guards all but carry him out the door, then seal it back up, leaving us in the panicked dark. His second-in-command Brezhnev raises his hands. “I will ask you all to please calm down. There has been a slight technical problem, but I assure you—”
“Sabotage,” Rostov growls. I didn’t even notice him approach me. “The bastards got through somehow. And Khruschev is too much of a coward to confront them.”
But the plodding brass of the national anthem swallows up his words. Everyone snaps to attention and crosses their hearts—everyone but Rostov.
An unbreakable Union of free republics,
Long live the will of the free people,
The united, the mighty, the Soviet Union!
Rostov is a generator about to fry. His hat crumples in his fist.
The great Lenin has lit our path,
Stalin taught us faithfulness,
To labor! To greatness and beyond!
The air around us sizzles with Rostov’s rage. He was looking for Papa—a scrubber, like him. But he didn’t see the real saboteur, just like Sergei said—because he wasn’t looking for him.
Workers of the world, unite:
Flag of the Soviets, flag of the people,