— Arkady Dmitrievich—
— You will turn your back on your home, yes, your home, because however fucked up this country is, it’s still home, and you’d abandon it for a bit of cunt—
— No.
— And you’ll abandon yourself. Kostya, you’re a Chekist. You’re NKVD.
— I am more!
— Everything you are is tangled up in the NKVD, and you’ll run to the British? They’ll interrogate you for weeks, and then they’ll fucking kill you.
— And if I stay, my own friends and colleagues will interrogate and torture me for weeks and then kill me. Oh, sorry, fucking kill me.
— No. No, Kostya, please.
— Arkady Dmitrievich…
Temerity got to her feet and crept around the edge of the room until she stood outside Arkady’s line of sight.
Unaware of this, Arkady drew his Nagant and pointed it at Kostya. —Don’t. Not after everything I…no.
Working to ignore the gun, Kostya took a shaky breath. —Then just give me her passport and papers. I’ll drive her there, and I’ll come right back and turn myself in.
The Nagant trembled. —Do that, and you’ve killed me, too.
— A British passport and travel papers. The name is Margaret Bush. She lost them here, at the dessert party.
— I don’t know what you’re yapping about.
— Yes, you do!
— Tatar, Tatar, listen to me.
Kostya perceived two forms moving around the edge of the room: Nadia, and Gavriil. Not got time for either of you right now. Please stand by. —Arkady Dmitrievich, please. I’ve torn holes in this house looking for that passport.
— That was you? I thought…I heard you in here one night. You scared me.
— I thought you’d gone out.
A glow distracted Kostya: the two small fiery holes of Gavriil’s eyes.
The ikons on Grandfather’s beauty wall.
This time the Angel Gavriil’s NKVD uniform bore a senior lieutenant’s insignia.
As Kostya raised his hands in surrender, a shadow changed. Arkady lifted his Nagant from Kostya and whirled to face Temerity.
She seized his arm, broke his grip on the Nagant, and flipped him.
The crash of Arkady’s heavy body on the floor seemed to rattle the whole house. His spectacles landed near Temerity’s feet, and the lenses shattered. Breathing hard, Arkady shifted his weight to rise. As he looked up, he saw Temerity aiming the Nagant at his forehead.
Kostya took a step back. —Nadia.
She kept her gaze on her prisoner.
— Nadia. Don’t. Please, don’t.
She kicked Arkady’s spectacles away. —Balakirev, where are my papers?
— I don’t answer whores.
— You may address me as Nadezhda Ivanovna Solovyova, or as Margaret Bush. Pick one. And then you may tell me the location of my papers and passport. After that, I will decide whether to shoot you.
Kostya paled. —Nadia.
She refused to look at him. —Kostya, I can’t rely on you.
— No, no, please, please understand. Arkady Dmitrievich can fix this. He knows people. He can fix it all.
Eyes still on Temerity, Arkady shook his head. —Kostya, Kuznets knows you took a woman home from the party in Yury Stepanov’s car. Peeked out a window at just the right moment, he told me, then put the rest together when Stepanov couldn’t find his car and you, of all people, signed it back in.
Kostya blinked a few times, then stared at Arkady.
Arkady could not meet his gaze. —He’s been saving the knowledge for just the right moment. But that’s all he knows about her.
A floorboard squeaked beneath Temerity. —Kostya, who is Kuznets?
Arkady answered. —Captain Boris Aleksandrovich Kuznets, Kostya’s immediate commander, and one of my party guests. He’d recognize you on sight.
Temerity held the Nagant steady.
Arkady admired her nerve. —Kostya, he came to me with a basic corruption charge against you, except, as I pointed out to him, any investigation into my last party would compromise him, too. He nodded and apologized for his folly, and I knew then he wanted more. He pressed me. I’m sure he pressed Vadym. I gave Kuznets the handbag, with the perfume and the cash in it, a mirrored compact, too, I think. Oh, and a cloisonné cigarette case, very pretty. Then he gave you the perfume and probably sloughed off the rest to a mistress. It wasn’t enough. He wanted you. He wanted to destroy you the way a perverse child wants to smash fine china. And while I was gone, he tore this house apart. He found nothing. Do you know why he found nothing, Tatar?
— Wait. Dima? He hurt Dima?
— The steppe gives up in patches to forest, and the forest gives up in patches to tundra.
Kostya said it with him. —Yet in places where you see no change, all the differences blend. Survive. Nadia, I want to kneel. Don’t shoot. I want to kneel down, next to Arkady Dmitrievich, yes?
Sweat shining on her forehead, Temerity nodded.
Click and swish of the flap: a cat arrived. Grind and squeak of the brakes: a car parked. Chatter and trill of the whistle: birds sang.
Kostya heard only his own voice, much the way he heard it in a Lubyanka cell, not always certain who spoke. —Arkady Dmitrievich, no more lies. No more games to distract me. Tell me why.
— Duty. Duty and compulsion
Duty and compulsion? Is that why I hurt Misha? —Tell me why!
— Why, what?
— Why did you save me in Odessa?
Cheeks burning red, Arkady looked from Kostya to the floor, then to Temerity. He could no longer ignore the sight of his own Nagant pointed at him, and when his voice broke, he sounded defeated, craven. —I don’t know. I don’t know. I don’t know!
Each man closed his eyes.
Arkady’s voice cracked again, leaving him hoarse. —Kuznets found nothing because I’ve got her passport and papers. I carried them with me. Kuznets searched my house, but no one searched my clothes. I outplayed him there, at least, and I kept you both safe.
— What the barrelling fuck? Arkady Dmitrievich, if anyone had found them on you—
— No one found them.
— Then just give them to me.
— I expect Kuznets is in the car outside. He’s had a surveillance detail on you. You did notice them, right, your little followers? Katelnikov in the flower bed? He might get a promotion for it.
Kostya stared at the worn edges of Arkady’s gymastyorka cuffs and the black hairs peeking out beneath them.
— You should have kept going, Tatar. You could be halfway across the bridge by now.
A clock ticked. Kostya’s heart pounded. He looked up.
Temerity had lifted the Nagant away from Arkady and toward herself.
Kostya leapt. The Nagant fired.
Efim ran in from the study, and Boris, Yury, and Matvei ran in from outside. As Arkady sobbed, Matvei and Yury wrestled Kostya from Temerity, and Efim shouted for better light. Boris knelt near Arkady and took his pulse, urged him to sit up. Yury and Matvei shoved Kostya into the big armchair. One of the cats, crouched and ready to retreat, watched the blood pool.
Eyes shut, Kostya heard much.
Train tracks rattled in the fever dream from 1918, and the rattle became laughter as Baba Yaga said, Welcome home, bezprizornik, welcome home.
Efim murmured, shouted. —God, she’s still breathing. Ambulance, now! I can’t see, too much blood. Stepanov, get over here, help me.
Boris’s deep voice rumbled into the telephone as he ordered the operator to send an ambulance, then almost sang as he asked Arkady the terrible question. —Who is she?
Arkady whispered. —Nobody. Nobody. No one at all.
Clothing rustled as Matvei pinned Kostya to the chair by his shoulders, leaning his full weight into his hands. —Keep still.