“Tanechka doesn’t like potato pirozhki,” Viktor says.
“Not true.” I put my hand to my chest. “I like potatoes…”
“You don’t like potato pirozhki, though, trust me. You always say it’s the scam of the pirozhki world.” He turns to his brother. “No potato pirozhki.”
“Okay, man,” the brother says.
And like that we’re alone. In Russian, he says, “You don’t like it. I’m saving you the trouble.”
“I’m not her.”
“I’m going to light a fire,” Viktor says. “Don’t try to leave. You won’t get far.”
I nod.
“I don’t have to tell you that, do I? You probably marked exactly how many guys were out there when you came in. You always track your environment like that. You knew the camera was there in that room—I could tell. You notice and avoid cameras as easily as a fish swims.”
It feels strange to have him know this. He wads up a handful of paper and shoves it under a log in the fireplace. “We have to get you out of that outfit.”
My pulse races. “This is what I wear,” I say. “I don’t take it off.”
He stills, seeming to bite back hard words. Softly, he says, “You’re not a nun.”
“I’m a novice, hoping to be a nun. I wish you would contact my sisters in the monastery and tell them that I’m all right. It’s near Donetsk.”
He turns. “You got all the way to Donetsk?”
“The countryside, in Donetsk Oblast. Not the city.” I tell him the story, the short version. The hospital. Meeting Mother Olga. Nothing of the icon. I don’t want to hear him denigrate my experience.
“You must have been so frightened.”
“I was,” I say. “I was mostly thirsty, and in so much pain.”
“Tanechka—”
I hold up a hand. “I don’t tell you for pity.” I don’t want his pity or his passion. All of his emotions are too large. “I don’t want to talk about it. Okay?”
“Okay. But I wish you’d change into your normal clothes. I’ve collected them for you. You would be more comfortable.”
“I’m comfortable now. This is who I am.”
“It’s exactly the opposite of who you are. You would never want this.” He turns away and sets a smaller log on top, concentrating fiercely.
“You don’t know what I want or who I am.”
“You never did take shit from anyone.”
“Stop speaking as though you know me! You knew me once, but you don’t know me now.”
He turns. “You don’t know you, that’s the problem.” He shoves at the logs and then flicks a long match. Some paper catches. The light kisses his cheekbones, causes his short inky hair to glow brown. He shoves in a poker, and the fire roars to life. It’s nice. “You don’t know you,” he says again.
The flames dance, lighting the room. It is all the cozier for the gray day outside. I draw near.
“You used to love fires,” he says.
I sniff. It seems everything I do stokes his hope like the fire warming the room.
“We’d speak in English like this. Always English to practice. We had the best English skills of all our gang.”
That explains some things. “The English I still remember.”
“I bought this place for you. When I saw you on the website, Tanechka, you can’t imagine what it did to me.” The fire burns brightly behind him now, lighting the edges of him. “Everything stopped for me when…you were gone. And then seeing you…I couldn’t believe it. You’d never turn to the camera, of course, but I knew it was you—just like you know me. You can’t fool me. You’re confused, but I think your heart knows me.”
“Viktor,” I say, his name a familiar shape on my lips, my tongue. “I can’t be who you want.”
“You’re always who I want.” He looks around. “I was going to rent some crash pad, but when I saw you, saw we had this chance, I vowed to do this right. Make this beautiful home… Do you recognize any of this furniture? I had this chair sent over from Moscow. That’s where you’re from.” He moves to a gold chair with a carved wood frame. “You remember it?”
The hope in his eyes is so intense, it breaks my heart a little bit. “I do not.”
“We got it at that flea market in Omsk. And the spring inside? I always said to throw it away because the spring made it uncomfortable to sit on, and guests would complain, but you loved this thing. You said, ‘It’s one little piece of wire!’”
Dimples deepen on his cheeks as he smiles at the memory. The dimples do something strange to my belly.
“You said, ‘One little piece of wire won’t get the best of me.’” He looks so happy. Talking about the chair makes him live in that other time.
He kneels in front of the chair, running his hand over part of the cushion, then he looks up at me, face raw with hope. “You can still see the place where you ripped up the cushion so you could get under there. Come. Look.”
I stay where I am.