I turn and walk by her side. She sighs, as if it my nearness pains her.
“You were always a little bit jealous of my English abilities, Tanechka. You thought I was so smart, the way I could think and even dream in English. It’s because the language was inside me from that time. I didn’t remember, but the pathways in my brain had been created for English. Because I was a little boy here.”
“Mmm,” she says.
Again I turn and walk backwards. I like to watch her face. “Do you want to know how you came to learn English?”
Behind her are the trees in their fall colors and Lake Shore Drive, gleaming hotels and skyscrapers soaring above.
“You don’t want to know?”
“It’s immaterial.”
I stop when I decide we’re at the perfect spot. I spread out the blanket. I sit and open the basket. “Sit.”
“Do I have a choice?”
“You prefer to stand?”
She sits stiffly, like the nun she wants me to take her for, but a small, bright lock of hair has broken free from under her scarf, flying and waving at me like a small flag. I wonder how long her hair is under there. She used to keep it long—she said it gave her a greater diversity of styles. All the better to be a chameleon. A good killer is, above all, a good chameleon.
“You learned English easily because of your obsession with rock and roll,” I say. “That’s how you came to know it. Memorizing songs.”
She frowns.
I take out the bottles of sparkling lemon water, unscrew the top of one, and set it down on a platter. She loves anything citrus. Flavors with bite. Everything with an edge, even sex. She liked to be held tight, to be held down. Make me know you’re there, she’d whisper. Make me know, Viktor.
That was code for her wanting me to be more forceful.
I remove a small box from the basket and open it, pleased to see that the honey cake I bought just a few hours ago survived the trip. I place a piece on a small painted plate and set it in front of her next to her fizzy lemon water. She used to enjoy such water with vodka.
She thanks me politely. “Spasibo.”
“Nezashto.” I take out the book, the poems of Anatoly Vartov.
“A book,” she says.
I grit my teeth. A book. This isn’t just a book; it’s her favorite collection of poems in the world. She had a fiercely personal relationship with each and every one of them, especially the poem titled “Cages.” There was a dark time in her life when she would read it and cry for the beauty of it. Like a gift to her, this poem. “I thought we would read.” I stretch out on my back. “I could read to you if you like.”
“It won’t work, Viktor.”
“Can’t we just enjoy the afternoon?”
“You won’t make me remember.”
“Then what’s the harm?”
She sighs, seeming to relax, and I think maybe Mira was right about letting her relax, surrounding her with goodness. You can’t force a flower to bloom, but you can show it the sun.
Tanechka eyes her honey cake. “I require only simple food.”
“Honey cake isn’t so complicated.”
She bites into her cake and chews without expression, as if it’s cardboard. It was one of her favorites—layers of honey-soaked cake with creamy frosting between each one. A girl’s cake. She pauses, still looking at nothing, but there’s a slight light in her eyes. Is she remembering?
I stay quiet, but my heart feels like it might explode.
Her famous focus was good for more than killing; it allowed her to enjoy beauty and pleasure more deeply than other people.
I want to tell her this is something beautiful that I loved about her very much, but I hold back. I want this moment to be for her, not for me.
She casts her gaze down at the cake. “Not bad,” she says softly.
I look away before she can catch the shine in my eyes and think me soft. “Hmm,” I say, as if bored. I’d give her anything if only she’d come back. I’d give her a blade and tell her to cut my throat.
Out the corner of my eye I see her take another bite. I school my features to look unimpressed.
“Usually it’s the Russian babies going to the West.”
“What?” I say.
“You. Sent to a Moscow orphanage.”
“Yes,” I say.
“Your enemy wanted to destroy your family. A young family.”
I try not to betray too much happiness that she’s engaged me. “Yes. My father lifted him up to make him his right-hand man, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted the power that our father possessed. He wanted the power to pass on to him, not to me and my brothers. Mira’s father is dead now, but his dangerous kumar, Bloody Lazarus, is even worse. Lazarus is the man who owns Valhalla, where you were.”
“That’s why you want to destroy it, then. To hurt Lazarus.”
“It’s not only self-interest,” I say.
“No?”
“Maybe. I don’t know. We’ll take it down all the same.” I look away. “There was a prophecy—”