The night of the second of July, she had her first recurring dream of being lost in a flower garden, the flowers growing not from soil but flesh. The giant from Ruslan and Lyudmila pursued her. In the morning, the radio announcer, a woman, shared a sombre bulletin: Amelia Earhart and Fred Noonan had disappeared.
Efim worried more each day, each week. He and Kostya continued to use a laundry service, yet Nadezhda Ivanovna washed her clothes by hand. Efim and Kostya continued to come and go for work almost every day; Nadezhda remained in the flat. Efim could hear almost everything in that flat, every little whimper and thrust. What he could not hear: the words in those urgent whispers.
Who is she?
So Efim spent more and more time at the lab. A breakthrough, he’d say, we’re near a breakthrough.
Sometimes, when Kostya worked a night shift, Efim and Temerity sat up late, talking. He told her funny stories from his time in medical school, and he told her about courting Olga. He even told her about some of his time on the armoured train during the civil war, omitting the coercion. Sometimes he described a deathbed vigil. He called it medicine’s brittle privilege.
Had Olga’s first pregnancy gone to term, the child would be about Nadezhda’s age.
— Thank you, Nadezhda Ivanovna. I’ve always found it easier to talk to women.
Temerity smiled, said nothing.
Near mid-July, Efim confessed a great unhappiness: no letters from Olga, over a month now. His restless fingers hid his mouth as he spoke.
Temerity felt chilled, and her Russian pronunciation slipped. She sounded like an foreigner. —I’m so sorry.
Sighing, Efim shut his eyes and refused to remember the first morning, when Nadezhda Ivanovna asked for something in what sounded like English. I heard no such thing.
Temerity took his hand in both of hers, and he flinched.
She smiled. —Tell me about your wedding.
Efim looked away. He should refuse, at least demur, yet in that moment he wanted to think of nothing else, and she still held his hand. The wedding. All the food. The funny drunken guests. The joy. —You’ve not got the time to listen me ramble.
She let go of his hand and sat back, gesturing to the walls. —I’m not going anywhere.
He blinked several times. Then he started the story, this time entering it sidelong with observations of Olga’s maiden aunt. —Of course, she’s dead now, but Valentina Vladmirovna, like most women I know, had more backbone and fire than twenty young men…
Then he grimaced, as if in pain.
— Efim?
— I don’t deserve this.
— Sometimes letters get lost.
— I mean, you. I don’t merit your kindness. At the lab, we…test things. Compounds. Drugs. People die. It’s no hospital. They’re prisoners. They suffer, and they die. And then I tell myself that compared to Kolyma’s slow death by hunger and cold, it’s a mercy.
He waited for Temerity to sneer, to cry out in revulsion.
Instead, she took his hand again.
Efim sobbed. —I never wanted this. How can you even look at me? How can I do these things?
After a long moment, she answered him. —You’re trapped. You want to survive, Efim Antonovich, and you’re trapped.
He placed his other hand over hers. —If your parents had not named you for hope, Nadezhda, then they could have named you for mercy.
Temerity looked toward the door. —Thank you.
Kostya woke Efim later that evening to ask for a higher dose of morphine. —Target practice. It always hurts after target practice.
— Where is Balakirev?
— I told you, out of town.
— Perhaps you can go without a dose tonight.
Kostya shut his eyes. —It hurts.
— Will you be speaking with Balakirev anytime soon?
— How many times do I have to say it? He’s out of town.
— The moment he’s back, then.
Kostya studied Efim a moment. Tell him? Confess his stark fears that Arkady might not return?
Efim held the morphine ampoule to the light. —I write Olga twice a week, yet I’ve gotten nothing back. It’s been too long. Surely someone else can approve my leave?
— If Balakirev’s your case officer, then you simply must wait for Balakirev. I can’t help you. I’m sorry.
Efim stared at him.
Kostya looked to the floor. —I can make inquiries here at the Moscow office, have them passed on to Leningrad.
— You’d do that?
— Of course.
— Won’t that cause you trouble?
— I’ll handle it.
After a moment, Efim lashed the tourniquet to Kostya’s arm. —Make a fist. Good, good. And you’ll tell Balakirev I need to see him?
— The moment I see him myself, yes.
Efim gave Kostya the injection.
Temerity overheard, and once Kostya closed the bedroom door, she took a breath to ask him about her papers.
Kostya placed his gymnastyorka and portupeya in the closet. He tucked the holster and gun beneath his pillow. —I am so tired. What is it, Nadia?
— Nothing.
Taking care not to jostle his shoulder, he lay on the bed. Soon, he dozed.
Too hot to sleep, the open window letting in only noise and not fresh air, Temerity stared at the ceiling and listened to nightingales. Other voices interfered: memories of Kostya and Misha at the clinic, the desperate parents in Bilbao, Cristobal Zapatero.
Freckles on your eyelids.
Can she speak Russian?
Kneel. Now!
Señorita Inglesa, Señorita Inglesa…
I like strawberries.
Sweating, she sat up, got her breath, listened.
Kostya snored; nightingales sang; the ceiling squeaked as a neighbour on the floor above paced his flat.
She hid her face in her hands.
The following night, after assuring Efim he’d made the enquiries to Leningrad, lying, Kostya spoke of his grandfather. —I don’t know why I’ve been thinking about him so much. Today someone mentioned Koshchei the Deathless, and I almost got lost in remembering how my grandfather told that story. Every time he told it, he added something new. He said that we need to hear stories again and again, stories, especially the scary ones, because stories are how we rehearse for our lives. I always told the boys that.
Efim welcomed the distraction from his consideration of Nadezhda. Her manner of speech, the gentle accent at once suggesting Leningrad and also some other land, her bare legs and feet, all so easy to dismiss, and yet…He forced himself to look at Kostya. —Which boys?
— At one of the children’s homes. I would visit and read them books, tell them stories.
Efim peered at him. —Really?
— Yes. Why not?
— I just don’t picture NKVD officers doing that sort of thing.
Kostya inclined his head, acknowledging this. —Well, it has been a while. I spend most of my time listening to stories now. Confessions, I mean.
Efim raised his eyebrows.
Smile strained, Kostya took Temerity’s hand as though inviting her to dance. He kissed her fingertips, and she did not pull away.
Later, Temerity turned around on the bed, got up on her knees, and faced the tiny open window. Birdsong pierced the rattle of the city. —So many nightingales?
Ignoring his memory of the coded messages in Spain, the phrase from Turgenev to signal liquidation, even nightingales can’t live by song alone, Kostya knelt up beside Temerity. He wrapped his left arm around her shoulders, wincing. —Ilya Muromets fought Solovei, the thief who hid in the forest. When Solovei whistled like a nightingale, the woods fell flat. Ilya fought him, bound him, dragged him back to the tsar. You’re trembling. Hush, hush, you’re safe.