“Good girl, Kasha,” he said.
The reply came in the form of another retch from Byelka. Kasha growled, just a short sound to express her discontent.
“I’m sorry for your traveling companion, Kasha. You’ll have better company soon enough.”
A bottle of vodka passed between Mishin and Bushuyev and then to the Chief Designer. He gulped back a mouthful. He felt the burn in the empty sockets of his gums, in his veins, up and along the jagged scar on his head. He thought of himself as a rocket being fueled, that when he pressed the button, it would not be Nadya but himself, the human spaceship, lifting through the white wisps of clouds, over the Kazakh steppe’s singular unscenic-ness.
The Chief Designer took the bottle of vodka to Leonid. Leonid had been standing in the darkened corner since before the first launch, not speaking once, refusing with dismissive waves every offer to take a look through the periscope.
Leonid took the bottle and drank from it, first one swallow and then another and then another. Throwing his head back, he trickled the last drops straight into his throat.
“So much for the vodka,” said the Chief Designer.
Mishin and Bushuyev laughed, and one of them pulled a fresh bottle from under the console. “Ignatius left extras.”
They popped the cork, and the fresh bottle began its rounds. Ignatius had been there as the final preparations were made, but she left before the first launch. She even said goodbye. The Chief Designer could not recall her ever announcing her departure before. He wondered if it meant something. He would be relieved to never see her again. But without knowing if she would return, he would never be able to relax to that idea. What was worse, her actual presence or her looming one?
Leonid slouched. They had trained him to always stand tall. When he was a boy, it seemed like half of everything they said to him was some version of Straighten up. The Chief Designer wondered if this was the type of man Leonid would be if Tsiolkovski had never found him. The Chief Designer leaned on the wall next to Leonid in the darkened corner.
“When you were gone, it felt like we’d lost another cosmonaut in space,” said the Chief Designer. “I know you don’t want my thanks, but you have it. For returning and for having been here in the first place.”
Leonid gazed up at the gray ceiling, eyes focused on a point beyond it. “Do you know what I realized? While you may have given a choice to our siblings, you never gave a choice to us, those who stayed behind. You just assumed we were all right with it. I don’t mind so much being a part of this, as long as I have the option not to be. Even now, I don’t know if the choice was actually mine, but if Nadya and Kasha both fly and return, I guess that’s good enough for me. That’s as close as I’ll get to accomplishment. I didn’t choose to return. I chose to stay with them, wherever they went.”
“Don’t underestimate yourself, Leonid,” said the Chief Designer.
“Of course not,” said Leonid. “I’m a Soviet hero.” He ran his fingers across the bottom of the medals on his chest—a new set to replace those he had abandoned in Kharkiv—as if sounding chimes.
Nadya’s voice sparked from the radio, not words but humming, and not her usual atonal tune. This song was different but familiar. Leonid found himself humming along. So was the Chief Designer. And Mishin and Bushuyev. The song was one of Giorgi’s, one he had always sung to the plucked accompaniment of the balalaika. Leonid and the Chief Designer smiled first at the radio and then at each other.
“Sometimes,” said the Chief Designer, “I feel that she’s the hero of my very own life. I felt that way before her first launch, and again now. I’m just watching from the side.”
“Now who’s the one underestimating?”
The Chief Designer walked to the radio and Leonid followed.
“Hello, Nadya,” said the Chief Designer. “Just a little longer.”
“Let’s go already,” said Nadya.
“You’ve waited years,” said Leonid. “Another minute won’t kill you.”
Leonid cringed at his choice of phrase.
The Chief Designer placed his hand on Leonid’s shoulder and squeezed.
“It’s time,” he said. And then into the microphone, “It’s time.”
The final countdown passed in silence. The Chief Designer pushed a button, conspicuously red, and the rocket ignited. The petals of the launchpad folded away as the flames leapt up to consume them. The rocket reached the sky and kept climbing.
Epilogue
After the launch, all the technicians filed out. Only the Chief Designer, Leonid, Mars, and Mishin and Bushuyev remained. Someone had shut off the sickly fluorescent lights overhead. Leonid’s face was lit only by the glow of the buttons on the console.
“Leonid, can you hear me?” he asked.
“Who is it?”
“It’s your brother.”
“Oh, good. I was concerned that I wouldn’t get to speak with you again.”
“Nadya is up there with you. And Kasha, too.”
“Ah! I thought I saw them.”
“That’s unlikely. There’s more space than you imagine.”
“What’s there to imagine? I’ve seen it all. I have nothing to do but look out this window. Can you tell the Chief Designer to add a larger window on his next spacecraft?”
“I’m here,” said the Chief Designer. “I’ll add more and larger windows.”
“Good, good.”
There was a long moment of only static.
“Will they come back?” asked Leonid from the capsule.
“Who?” asked his brother.
“Nadya and Kasha.”
“We’ll bring them home,” said the Chief Designer.
“Thank god,” said Leonid.
“Did you see him?” asked the other Leonid. “Is god up there, after all?”
“Don’t be ridiculous. There’s no such thing as heaven. All around me is literally nothing. But you know, I like the idea of that. I like that what I have now is the only important thing. Even if it’s not much.”
“Thank you,” said Leonid, the one on the ground. “You’ve always been a good brother to me.”
“I’m very thirsty. Of the things I don’t have here, water is what I miss the most. I’m very, very thirsty.”
A loud click came through the speaker.
“What was that?” asked the Chief Designer.
“It’s time,” said Leonid, his voice distorted. He was not talking directly into the microphone. “I’m going outside to stretch.”
“You can’t,” said Leonid. “You’ll die.”
“Do you still believe I’m really alive? It’s time to go. I’m opening the door.”
The hiss of rushing air, a whine of feedback, the stark silence of space. At first like falling, and then you float.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
My deepest gratitude goes to the real cosmonauts, engineers, scientists, staff, and dogs of the Soviet space program, who inspire me to strive for big, impossible things.
Thanks to my agent, Annie Bomke. The people at Putnam have been outstanding to work with, especially my editor Sara Minnich, Patricja Okuniewska, and all the editors, designers, marketers, publicists, and administrators who’ve been part of the book-making process.
Christopher Berinato, Gino Orlandi, and Joseph Schwartzburt read the first draft of this book and gave me the feedback I needed to complete it.
Love and thanks to Catherine Killingsworth, Gino (again), and Kakashi the dog for letting me use Kakashi’s description for my little space dog, Kasha.
Thanks to the staff at Gallery Espresso in Savannah, Georgia, where most of this book was written. Thanks to Joni and Chris at The Book Lady Bookstore for being champions of local writers. Love to the whole Savannah coterie: Brian Dean, Sarah Lasseter, Erika Jo Brown, B.J. Love, Alexis Orgera, Ariel Felton, Jenny Dunn, Alison Niebanck, Billie Stirewalt, Brennen Arkins, Beverly Willett, Traci Lombardo, Blake “Allfather” Patrick, Danon Jade McConnell, Chike Cole, Adam Davies, Morgan Harrison, Chad Faries, Maria Dixon, Jason Kendall, Patricia Lockwood, Josh Peacock, Sarah Bates Murray, Christy Hahn, Jessi-Lyn Curry, Insley Smullen, Harrison Scott Key, Shea Caruso, and too many more to name. Thanks to Justin Gary and old friends from my long-ago Atlanta days.