“It’s all I want.”
He looks away. “The good news is that your frame worked. Out at Valhalla. They don’t suspect you were anyone.”
We focus on Valhalla, going over what our tech guys have gleaned from their computer files so far. They’ve identified pipelines and intermediaries. Aleksio shows me a chart he has begun. Like something the police might make.
Yuri, Tito, and Nikki arrive along with the rich scent of stroganoff, followed soon after by Pityr, Mischa, and a few others. We set out the feast.
Yuri admires the rich red tablecloth, embroidered with black folk designs. “So Tanechka.”
Aleksio sets the ten-serving to-go pan onto the table. I tell him to use a serving dish, perhaps too fiercely. Tanechka always wanted to use proper dishes.
Aleksio regards me strangely, because it’s not something I would normally care about. “Okay, brother.”
“Tanechka would always try to make things nice,” I say to Mira. “She came up poor. She always said she would never be pushed down by poverty, something she got from her proud mother, I think. Even once we were rich in the Bratva, she would insist on such ceremony. One of her few concessions to polite society.”
“She would get so angry when one of us would throw a plate,” Yuri says. “Though she was the one to throw them half the time.”
“You Russians are so fucking dramatic,” Aleksio says. “Is she up there?”
“Yes. Locked herself in the bedroom.”
Yuri looks at me sadly. I set out the candles and light them.
“She’ll come. She’ll remember.” I serve our guests vodka, belt back one of my own.
“A nun,” Mischa says. “She never did anything halfway. Neither did you. Both of you, intensity junkies.”
“Remember her wildcat stare?” Yuri says.
I laugh.
“Blyad,” Mischa says. “That stare. That temper.”
Yuri turns to Aleksio and Mira. “She has a stare of hate that can cut a man. She would line her eyes in black makeup, and they would be like two lasers burning at you. When you were on her good side, there was nothing she wouldn’t do for you, but get on her bad side…”
“It starts with the stare. Ends in blood,” Mischa says. “Tanechka was never one to let a slight pass.”
“The girl could hold a grudge,” Yuri says. “And you always knew.”
I smile.
Mischa exchanges glances with Yuri.
“What?” I demand.
“Do you have a plan for when she remembers?” Yuri asks.
I shrug.
“She is not always so reasonable,” Yuri says. “She was a…how do you say…a ‘rip out your intestines, ask questions later’ sort of girl.”
“It’ll be fine,” I say.
“You don’t want her armed when she remembers,” Mischa says.
“You think I don’t know how to manage Tanechka?” I leave the table and go upstairs to get her.
Tanechka doesn’t stir when I knock at the door.
“Tanechka,” I say. “It is dinnertime.”
“Will you allow me to contact my sisters in Ukraine?”
I tell her no, but I will break the door open if she doesn’t unlock it.
She comes and flings it open. She still wears the severe black robe, buttoned up to the neck, and the black scarf tied around her chin.
Behind her I see that she has cleared off a bookshelf and placed the icon of Jesus on a cloth on one of the low shelves. I cringe to think of her praying to it. Kissing the feet of Jesus.
“Dinner,” I say.
She just stares at me with those deep blue eyes. Wary, but hungry, I think.
“With friends. Please.”
Reluctantly she comes down. Everybody stands when I lead her in. Tanechka is gorgeous in the candlelight, and the wisps of blond hair that sneak out from her scarf glow like white gold. She greets her old bratki politely but without recognition.
Tanechka. It feels dangerous to hope. Still I hope with every fiber of myself. I pour her a vodka.
“Thank you, no,” she says. “Water, please.”
Nikki rolls her eyes.
Water with dinner is not her way, but I pour her a water. My Tanechka does not like to be told what to do. She turns to questioning Nikki about contacting her family. She seems to know a lot about it. I gather Nikki’s a runaway.
“Yeah, I’m good as is,” Nikki says.
Back in Russia we loved to have wild dinner parties, but this Tanechka will not drink vodka, and she wears a nun’s robe and head scarf to dinner.
She’s here in body at least. And the place looks so much like our old place. We sit around the long table, and I serve. The men start to eat.
“Aren’t we going to give thanks?” she asks.
“No,” I say. “We don’t do that.”
I pass Mira’s plate, find her glaring at me. She thinks I should play along? Hell no.
Tanechka gives thanks on her own, silently, head bowed.
Her prayer grates on me. The article on amnesia I read said to surround her with familiarity, and prayer is not a familiar part of our old life.