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i.
A kiss here, a touch there. Always stolen, always in the middle of the night. To be just Walter, just Sasha, the sky must be black and the moonlight bleak. There are days — nights — in which Alexander Molokov permits himself a fantasy. A could-have-been he imagines as a still-could-be that won’t amount to anything, but it isn’t a sin to want.
To reframe: to be with Walter is to be in heaven, which means Alexander’s wants can’t be sins. Silkiness, Walter’s long hair, tangles in his fingers. The evening is celestial and eternal and nothing will ever stop them. This is no sin, Alexander dazedly thinks, drunk on Walter and the night, because this is paradise. Walter’s lips are soft even when his tongue is sharp. Tonight, nothing’s rehearsed or repressed. Walter and Sasha, Sasha and Walter, and heaven and the night and eternity.
But the sunrise does not respect eternity, because it breaks them apart. Now they are exposed. There’s that shameful realization: something as beautiful and brilliant as the sun should not be damned to shine on such wretchedness. Sasha is dead, Sasha is gone, Sasha is a distant memory that never was and never will be, and Alexander is… Alexander. The magic’s passed. Walter affixes a tie in front of a mirror. Alexander combs back his hair. Walter, businesslike, says they’ll keep in touch with all the transactional affection of someone handing over a business card that reads Walter de Courcey, United States Department of State. He gives Alexander a nod. The corner of his mouth tugs upwards in what could be a smile to any passerby and is certainly a smile to Alexander. But then Walter leaves and Alexander, too, leaves the hotel room thirty minutes later. He returns to his home, which is to say he returns to one of the KGB’s campuses.
A pearl awaits.
ii.
Freddie numbly follows Florence, because that’s all he knows and all he’s ever done. Someone real evil-looking stamps his passport. They clear customs. The whole time he’s convinced they’ll be detained, but Florence finds a taxi with ease. They climb inside. Florence tries to take his hand and he allows her to, because he hasn’t got an ounce of resistance left in his body. She whispers at him, rubs circles on the back of his hand with her thumb, and he keeps a steely gaze on the window. Raindrops slide down. He picks a winner and this offers him just enough distraction to avoid breaking down.
At the hotel, Florence checks them in. He ignores the way she flirts with the receptionist, the way she tosses her hair behind her shoulders and smiles too sweetly. If only everybody knew that Florence flirts and appears to love indiscriminately. He doesn’t bother warning the receptionist, or the bellhop, or the concierge, or the maid walking down the hall who’s obviously dazzled as Florence walks down towards their room.
They step inside. Florence tips the bellhop. Freddie collapses at the edge of one of the beds. His feet lie flat on the ground. His hands are drenched with cold sweat. A sob builds up and doesn’t manifest.
He drops his face into his hands and takes a deep, deep breath in lieu of a howl. He’s too drained to do anything but.
“Oh, Freddie. You’re not still upset with me, are you?”
He has no words. But because Florence is Florence, she’s sitting beside him in seconds, wrapping her arms around him the way she always used to when he was upset and the way a boa constrictor curls lovingly around its prey. But today he refuses to melt. He considers pulling away sharply or shoving her away. That never works. His comfort, he’s learning, doesn’t matter and never has to Florence and he should have learned that years ago.
“It’ll be alright,” she says in that supposedly sincere voice that fools anyone who doesn’t know she’s a boa constrictor and rattlesnake combined. He’s let her fool him how many times now? She holds his head close. He smells her lavender lotion. Her fingers thread gently through his dreadlocks like he’s a small bird in her care.
He knows she’d crush him in an instant then throw the feathers in the air in celebration.
“It’s just…” She shifts, she sighs. There’s always that hint of exhaustion in everything she does. She’s led him to believe he’s the perpetrator. “You’re difficult when you stop taking your medication. You know that.”
He hasn’t the strength to pull away. He wants to yell at her. You accuse me of not taking my medication at your convenience! But his words mean nothing to her. Just another day of inconsequence.
Just another day of allowing her to bury daggers all over and shielding himself the only way he can: he goes limp and offers no resistance, lest she become vicious.
“Everything I do is for you.” She kisses his cheek. He wonders if she leaves a red stain. It might as well be blood. “I care so very much for you.”
His own silence chokes him. Only Florence can steal his breath. He used to be so good at arguing. He wants to say, If we’re friends, why do you do this to me?
But Florence releases him. She says she’ll shower. Freddie sits paralyzed. The moment the bathroom door closes behind her, he springs to his feet.
iii.
“Walter.” Freddie presses the phone tightly against his ear. The shower’s running. “Help me, please.”
“Freddie…”
“No, I’m dead serious.” His heart has never beat to this tune before. The room seems to tilt. Beads of sweat bud above his lip. “Please. Please help me. I’ve got to get out of here. She…”
“Listen,” Walter says in that practical way of his. Freddie can picture him clearly: he tucks his hair behind his ears and tilts his head an inch. He’s ready to talk in that way he thinks is reasonable but is really just fucking condescending. “You’re alright. Nothing’s happened to you and nothing will happen. You’ll play and you’ll—”
“Bullshit. She set me up. I’m not playing.”
“Freddie.”
“Don’t ‘Freddie’ me. I need to get out of here.”
“And you will. But now you’re there…”
A bottomless pit in Freddie’s stomach. He can handle betrayals spread over a lifetime. But he can’t handle this after this after this after this.
His voice goes flat. Dreading the answer, he asks, “Did you know?”
“No,” Walter evenly says, and it’s so difficult to determine whether he's honest. He, like Florence, is the expert liar. Freddie is only ever at the mercy of what everyone around him tells him. He wonders at which point he began to expect lies as a default.
He hangs up and Florence finishes her shower.
She gets pretty, which isn’t an accurate description. Florence is always pretty and she knows it. But tonight she gets pretty in the way someone might tenderly load bullets into a pistol. She exits the restroom. Her curls are perfectly styled; her lipstick is a venomous ruby reapplied; she wears a golden blush that glimmers against her dark skin.
He wonders who’ll be the unlucky man or woman tonight as Florence steps in front of the vanity and puts large violet earrings on. She tosses her perfect head. Her curls bounce. She meets his eyes from the mirror.
His own eyes are wide with tears and panic, dark with despair. His lips are chapped white. Florence never cares.
“I’m going out,” she innocently says, “and you better be normal by the time I come back.” She says it so devastatingly gently and that’s the threat in and of itself, because he knows how Florence is when she isn’t so sweet.
“What time are you coming back?” he croaks out.
“We’ll see.” She adjusts the medical bracelet on her wrist. “Behave, Freddie. Don’t let me find out you didn’t.”
She doesn’t need to spell out what’ll happen if he doesn’t. So he watches her go in silence. It’s only after she’s gone that he falls back into the bed, clutching his head, and wails out loud. Isn’t he pathetic?
There’s no one else he knows he can call. He’s utterly alone. So he digs a crumpled pamphlet a seedy man handed him at the airport. It’s written in poor English, but he gets the gist. And he wildly dials the number.
iv.
He’s reviewing something.
“Hello.” Svetlana steps inside and closes the door behind her. Her curly hair is bunched up in a bun. “It’s quite late. I was already sleeping.”
“It’s just after nine.”
“And I was up at three this morning.”
He doesn’t care. She’s sleeping at headquarters this week for a reason. He rests both hands on the table and captures her full attention.
“We’re moving forward.”
Confusion flashes across her face. He sees her processing his words and sifting through implications. Gears turn behind her eyes. Her head tilts. She doesn’t need to ask her question; he already senses it.
“The American is here.” He leans in. “He’s really here.”
This wakes her up. Her eyes grow alert. One of her eyebrows twitches. “But they said there was no way he would come."
“And I said I had faith in the second.” And he gambled well. Florence Vassy has not let him down thus far.
But Svetlana’s too quick. She’s already moved on. She peers at him with furrowed brows. “You could have told me this information tomorrow. Why call me in now, Mr. Molokov?”
She’s right. Ordinarily, he’d celebrate — and he is — and they’d launch their campaign the following day. There are, of course, limits to what he can do tonight, at this hour, when Freddie Trumper has no reason to do much of anything besides sulk. The hotel room he shares with his second is already bugged. Agents are pre-positioned at the hotel to watch him. But through a couple of miracles, tonight’s the perfect time to strike.
“We have something." He taps the file on the table and pushes it across to her. She doesn’t acknowledge it. “Two things, actually. First, we’ve just been informed that the American has made a request for company tonight.”
Svetlana looks at him with large, unblinking eyes. She doesn’t understand. He sighs.
“The American,” he slowly says, as if speaking to a child, “has called an escort agency. He is looking for someone to spend the night with.”
Now she blinks. “Huh? I thought…”
“What did you think?”
Svetlana fidgets. “I didn’t realize he was interested in women.”
“Our records suggest he isn’t interested in anyone.” That’s exactly the thing. “We thought for some time he was sleeping with his second. It doesn’t seem to be the case.”
“So you think he’s suddenly interested in someone?”
“Don’t be daft,” he snaps. “No, he did not suddenly develop an interest in having an escort visit the hotel room he’s sharing with his second for sexual purposes.”
“So why did he call an escort?”
Incredible how this girl understands some things so quickly and is at a loss for others.
“That’s precisely what we need to find out.”
She looks troubled. “And how?”
“We’re sending someone.”
She speaks before thinking, as she often does. “Can I take it?”
“No. I need you for something else.”
The center of her lips surge upwards. She’s approaching a wounded frown. “How come you never let me—?”
“Because that is not your job.” Tonight’s not a night for patience. Every second is a wasted opportunity. “Leave it to the pearls.”
“But I like men. I like everyone.”
“You would desecrate a corpse if we let you,” he says with a grimace. “I’ve already decided who’ll be meeting him.”
A pause. She knows exactly who he means. She tilts her head slowly.
“Sveta doesn’t like men.”
“It doesn’t matter,” he says simply and impatiently. “She does her job.”
“Yes, and she does it well. With women.”
“Have you forgotten that she is currently assigned to a man?”
“How could I forget?”
“I am not arguing with you, Svetochka.” Whatever feelings she’s harbouring, let her. “I’m summoning her immediately.”
She opens her mouth to argue and he dares her to with a lift of his eyebrows. Indescribable emotions cross through her eyes. After a brief reclaiming of control, she says, “What’s the second thing you wanted me to attend to?”
He grimaces. “That’ll require both of our attentions. Give me a moment.”
He leaves the secure room and places a simple phone call. She answers at the second ring.
“Hello?”
“Sveta.”
“Sasha.” She doesn’t say, It’s late, but he hears the curiosity in her voice.
“I need you. Can you be here in fifteen minutes?”
“I can. I’m with Anatoly. Should I…?”
“Make up an excuse.”
“Okay.”
This is how their conversations go. He instructs, she accepts. There is no question.
v.
Anatoly lies alone in his bedroom.
Minutes ago, Sveta lay with him. Her side of the bed is still warm. He stretches his hand and rests it where she was. He imagines she’s reaching back for him. She’d been in her pajamas already, always long-sleeved, hiding a constellation of scars and fading bruises.
One of her friends called. She needed help. Sveta said, I have to go. I’m sorry. And what was he supposed to say besides, I understand. (He didn’t.) I’ll see you tomorrow. (Would he?) I love you.
He said that last part in Kazakh. She repeated it in Kazakh. He watched her go until she took the light with her.
Isn’t it pathetic, lying alone on an empty bed that slowly grows cold? He could try to sleep. It’s the last thing he feels like doing. His mind’s racing. His heart’s begging for something he can’t name. His spirit’s following his Sveta.
Shadows on the walls grow oppressive. He feels them closing in. Isn’t this how it’s always been? The world goes on turning and Anatoly Sergievsky is utterly inconsequential. Anatoly Sergievsky is forgotten, scrapped. He is left alone in the dark and no one looks back.
In a snap decision, he stands and dresses. Then he grabs his warmest jacket and heads out for the night.
The thing about saying I love you in Kazakh is that the direct translation is I see you clearly. He doesn’t know if Sveta knows that.
It’s funny. There are times he thinks he sees Sveta clearly. With her, there’s a perfect clarity he’s never felt before, like his life before her was muddy and… inconsequential. There’s that word again.
But there are times when he thinks he can’t see Sveta at all, desperate and searching for her as he always is.
Like tonight. He doesn’t think she sees him clearly either.
vi.
She’s here.
He was waiting.
“You came as fast as you could?” Alexander asks, a hint of irritation in his voice. Svetlana nods immediately and casts her eyes downward. He’d press — he loathes tardiness and she knows it — but there’s no time to waste.
He leads her to the secure room. The other Svetlana sits there, waiting. She smiles and waves at Svetlana, who does not return the acknowledgment.
“We have an assignment for you, Sveta,” he curtly says.
She swallows but nods. It’s why he trusts her completely. She never questions; he tells her, you do this, and she does.
“Yes. Tonight?”
“Tonight. As soon as I finish briefing you, in fact.”
She nods. The three of them sit straight and stiff.
“The American is here,” Alexander says. Unlike the other Svetlana, she does not react. He’s taught her well. “Frederick Trumper.”
Her dark eyes await further instruction. Here, he’s allowed a split-second of hesitation — a hesitation he never shows. He holds it close to his chest. But that split-second passes mercilessly and he looks her directly in the eyes.
“He is requesting company tonight. There’s no one better suited than you.”
He gets two reactions. Svetlana, already very pale, turns white. No expression flashes across her face, however. By contrast, the other Svetlana withdraws as if stung, but she says nothing. Her hands are clasped together. He sees her fingernails digging into her skin.
“He’s a man,” Svetlana says when she is able.
“Yes. Anatoly is also a man. Is there a problem?”
She rapidly shakes her head, which is tilted downwards and her eyes are now averted. Nevertheless, he sees apprehension in her shoulders. A shame: he thought he’d taken care of that already.
“Are you going to do your job?” he asks in a velvety voice he reserves only for her. She nods and there is a tremor in her jaw. She’s already pale and still pales further. “You will go to the American, and you will see what he wants. If he wants you, then you know what to do.”
He doesn’t add that he thinks it’s unlikely the American wants her.
“Should I go now?”
He nods. She stands. She’s dressed more casually than she usually is, likely a result of the late hour at which he’s called her.
“Suit,” he instructs, “and then be on your way.”
He and the other Svetlana watch her go.
“You didn’t have to do that.” Her fingernails are now opening up her skin. “She has an active assignment already.”
“It’s long-term,” he dismisses. “Tonight’s will last a few hours at most. If there were anybody capable of matching her talent, Svetochka, I assure you I’d send her.”
vii.
Reception calls the room. Someone is here to see him. A Miss Sokolova.
Freddie’s heart leaps out of his chest. But he wets his lips and clears his throat and says, “Please send her up.”
Funny, he often regrets things but there’s nothing to regret this evening. Florence has stolen all his regrets. He paces the room at unmatchable speeds, discomfort at staggering levels, but he doesn’t consider leaving the call unanswered. His resolve, the same one he feels when he plays chess, sees him through.
A knock at the door. He takes it.
There she is, his escort. Impossible things have always happened to Freddie Trumper.
She isn’t what he expected — but he asks himself, What was I expecting? Painted red lips, maybe, like Florence’s, and an expression so alive it might’ve revived him. As it is, he’s looking into the deadest eyes he’s ever seen. When she smiles, it’s solely a function of her mouth. He doesn’t think a frown would meet her eyes either. His escort is a walking corpse.
And… he firmly truncates that line of inquiry before his brain latches to the idea that the KGB is reanimating corpses. It’s the sort of thing that’ll leave him inconsolable and Florence will physically shove pills down his throat.
“Hi,” he says. He assumes she speaks English, because he made his request in English and his accent’s a giveaway. She does not respond immediately and he worries they’ll have to resort to some sort of demented, cross-cultural charades, but then she enters and brings death with her and offers a Hello so gentle he wonders if this really is his escort and not some random Russian woman who got lost on her way to a different room.
He’s not a good host. He isn’t a host, period. That’s Florence’s job. So he doesn’t offer her a drink from the mini-fridge. He sits at the edge of his bed and gestures for her to sit on the other side. She does. Despite her expressionless face, there’s something deeply apprehensive about the way she moves.
Their positions aren’t comfortable. They twist their upper bodies to face each other.
“What’s your name?” What had the receptionist said? Solo-Soko-something-or-other?
“Svetlana.”
Oh. Duh. “Nice to meet you, Svetlana.” The words feel foreign on his tongue. “I’m Freddie.”
“A pleasure.”
“Is it?”
She eyes him with those eyes so dark they resemble inky wells. They’re like Florence’s but softer. “It is.”
He nods without necessarily accepting the answer. Then he cuts to it, sans tact, sans strategy. Again, that’s Florence’s job. He gets to the fuckin’ point without massaging things through.
“You work for the KGB.”
And like a perfect KGB agent, she offers the perfect KGB response. Her eyebrows furrow in just the right amount of confusion. “What?”
“Come on.”
“I don’t understand.”
“You work for the KGB.”
“I… don’t.” To her credit, she blinks in a way that suggests genuine surprise. But those eyes are still too dead to fool him. “I’m an escort.”
“An escort for the KGB.”
“I’m not, dear.”
“Yeah, okay.” He’s tired of women and their constant lying. But at that thought, it occurs to him that she’s dressed like a man. Others might have noticed already, but he was too busy thinking about how much she resembled a reanimated corpse (he has got to stop thinking about that) to consider her clothing.
He wonders what she sees when she looks at him.
He turns towards the clock ticking on the wall. Oh, thank fuck Russian numbers are the same as American numbers. The second hand tick forward at a leisurely pace. His escort Svetlana offers a simple denial. He wishes she’d offered stronger pushback, because then he could’ve pressed. Her quiet deflection leaves little room for argument.
He lets the second hand march forward a quarter. “D’you know why you’re here?”
She shakes her head.
“I knew the KGB would be watching the moment we landed.” It’s better to keep his eyes on the clock. The clock’s safe. “I thought if I invited you to meet me, I might…. I thought I might be less afraid.”
She says nothing. Through the corner of his eyes, he sees her watching. He turns back to her and notices a splash of freckles across her nose and cheeks.
“I thought if I asked you here, I might meet you under my conditions.” His quest for explanation is hopelessly lost. He keeps trying. “I thought… I thought…”
What did he really think? He had a seizure that morning. Was it this morning? Was it last? Exhaustion. The airport. Florence smiling too much, as always. Landing. His thoughts weren’t rational then and they aren’t rational now. He’d only wanted…
The clocks keeps ticking. They still sit on opposite sides of the bed. Nothing’s changed and he’s suddenly terrified nothing will. Neither of them say anything, because he doesn’t have his Florence to speak for him and ground him, and because his escort is a shell of a person. The best of the best, the person at the agency had promised him an hour ago.
“What do you want from me?” Svetlana asks after the second hand finishes a revolution. He cranes his neck back, allows himself another look. The shadows under her eyes are darker than he originally saw. Those bruised eyes will haunt him through the rest of his nights.
“Nothing,” Freddie says. His throat goes dry. He thought — he thought — but he no longer knows what he thought. He thought something would click when she came and it would all make sense. He thought she’d be a scheming, evil woman, like Florence. He thought she’d be hiding a poison dart or she’d be slipping microphone bugs when he turned his back. Instead he sees a depleted woman sent by someone with much more power than either of them.
“I don’t want to sleep with you,” he then clarifies, in case that wasn’t already clear. Some of the tension leaves her shoulders. That seems to be the only indicator for her emotions — her posture, the hidden movements of her body. That’s what always betrays people. It’s how he reads Florence when her face constantly lies.
But the clarification resolves nothing. There’s still an unbearable tension in the air. The problem is… the problem is he’s been waiting for an aha! moment. He expected something to come to pass: the moment where he’d break through the right barrier and she’d confess she’s with the KGB and he’d feel triumphant and vindicated, if horrified, and he’d be able to prove to Florence that all of his ‘paranoia’ was based on legitimacy and. And. And anything to take back a shred of power. But she hasn’t an ounce of it herself; how could he possibly derive any from her?
“Tell me something about yourself,” he suddenly says. Maybe it’s what he’s been waiting for. “Show me you’re real. Svetlana. Show me I’m not imagining you.”
If she was stiff before, his words strike her still. His escort could be a statue, which is to say she could be anyone. All it takes is for someone to assign a personality to her. It’s what she’s waiting for, isn’t it? She’s an agent. She is no one, which means she can be anyone. She’ll be whoever Freddie wants her to be, but Freddie doesn’t want her to be anyone.
“You were someone before you joined the KGB, weren’t you?” Nothing. Nothing. Not one single reaction. “Fine. I’ll pretend to stick to your story that you’re an honest-to-God escort with no agenda tonight. You were someone before you became an escort, weren’t you?”
Florence was his friend before she turned into a monster, wasn’t she? She was his friend once. She had to be. He can’t accept otherwise.
But Svetlana seems to have retreated into herself entirely. Her empty gaze has dropped to the comforter. She looks at it blankly and doesn’t see. He suspects he could yell at her and she wouldn’t hear. His eyes burn with frustration.
He doesn’t know what he wants.
“Please. Svetlana.” Her name is bitter and sweet on his tongue, and it’s poison. “What’s something about you? Anything? Your favorite colour. Your favorite hobby.”
Still nothing. He tugs on his hair and bites his lips until he feels blood. Finally, he slams his fist down on the bed in the space between them. That gets a reaction. Svetlana immediately cowers into herself, her shoulders rolling forward and her neck tending down and her arms wrapping around herself. The guilt washes over him, hot and fresh, and he hates the feeling but it’s something. He feels like his father. He wonders if that’s better than feeling nothing at all.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers and the worst part is he might not be. He doesn’t know. Tonight, he doesn’t know a damn thing about himself or anybody else. Does he bring attention to the fact he’s scared her? Hurt her? Does it feel good knowing he did, because Florence hurt him so terribly today and he knows he could never scare her the way she scares him? “Did you have parents who never loved you?” He asks because of her reaction. She is his mother. She is him when he was younger. Did they hit you?, he almost asks, but he already knows.
“They loved me.” Her voice is only a whisper but it washes over him like a salve. Underneath the harsh hotel lightning, she’s nearly translucent. He waits for her to suggest something else, like, They loved me but not enough or They loved me but still hit me, but it seems that’s a mystery that’ll go unresolved.
He swallows past the lump in his throat. He doesn’t know if it’s guilt or triumph. “You can’t hide behind kisses tonight.”
She only lowers her head. She sags. She’s limp. She’s empty the way he often is around Florence.
“Why did the KGB send you?” he presses again, though he’s losing his steam. He’s just as depleted. “Why you? Do you even like men? What if I’d really wanted a fuck? You woulda done it just to please your higher-ups?”
She’s dangerously pale. The thought brings no satisfaction. Her silence, he supposes, is his answer. Yes, she would have done it, because she needs somebody to tell her what to do.
Tonight will go nowhere. A tear rolls down his cheek. All his panic and regret and fury is packed into it. He wipes it and turns away from her. Now he faces the room’s wall. It doesn’t have anything to tell him either.
“You know why I’m here?” It’s the confession he’s been dreading all evening. It’s time to share it. And he has no one to share it with except for Svetlana. “My second told me we were going to Italy. She always handles everything for me. When we were at the airport and I realized she was really bringing me here, I told her no fuckin’ way. Except she...” He inhales sharply. It hurts to say out loud. It hurts to remember Florence. “She told me she’d have me committed if I tried to walk out on her at the airport. She had the phone number ready to go and she said she’d tell the authorities I’d hurt her and myself and she asked me if I could feel the bugs crawling over my skin.”
And when Florence tells you something, you believe it. Because you’ve known her for years and you’ve adored her and she saved your life once and she picked up your pieces and put you back together and she loved you. And he has to reconcile that Florence from the airport is the same Florence who’d swore they’d conquer the world together once.
Svetlana doesn’t seem to react, though he isn’t looking at her. She must’ve had reactions conditioned out of her. That’s what the KGB does, doesn’t it? He doesn’t know what he expected — shock, pity. But how can she give him any when she has none for herself?
His confession inspired nothing. It’s that same pattern: he was waiting for something to happen and it didn’t. Everything leaves him at once. His body sags, too, and he suddenly wants nothing more than to sleep and forget he’s in fucking Moscow.
He really had just wanted company. The idea of spending tonight alone in the country of his nightmares was too much. That’s why he made the call.
“I only wanted a friend,” he mutters. His shoulders sink. He’s ashamed. And when their eyes meet this time, there’s finally an emotion. Freddie can’t detect it, but there’s something there. Potential, he decides. It’s potential that they’ll never see through, and it’s also the knowledge of the potential of what could have been.
The second hand advances on the clock and he watches. In that minute, he thinks, Let’s run away together, Svetlana. He doesn’t know her and she doesn’t know him, but wouldn’t that be nice? They’d leave this horrible place and Florence and the people who hurt Svetlana behind. They’d be friends and they’d be free. Wouldn’t that be nice?, he thinks again.
But it’s an impossibility. Florence has taken his passport. Svetlana can’t run away.
“I should get back to the agency,” she finally says. He turns back to her. Her eyes are dry and hard and the emotion he briefly saw is gone. She stands and he doesn’t stop her.
“I thought something would change,” he merely says.
“Nothing was ever going to change,” she corrects him in a whisper.
viii.
A foreigner sits beside him.
Anatoly chides himself for assuming she’s a foreigner.
“Good evening,” she tells him with a perfect Russian accent and he stands corrected.
“Good evening.”
Is it? Loneliness drove him to a bar. When Sveta left that evening, she took the sun and the moon with her and he hadn’t the words to tell her how he felt nor the courage to ask her to stay. He’d known, deep down, she’d leave anyway. So why would he torture himself by asking? He sits forlornly with a glass of alcohol he is not enjoying.
“Is it?”
It’s like she’s read his mind. Her eyebrows crease in concern. In that moment, he wants to say, I only ever have good mornings when I’m with her. Before that, I didn’t know good mornings. Tonight’s the worst evening because she left. But he can’t say that, and he can’t explain why he feels the sudden need to tell a stranger. Maybe her look of concern means something. Maybe he feels seen.
“It’s fine.” Even fine is an overstatement. He’d told himself, while lying on his empty bed, that it really was fine and now the feelings hiding behind fine are threatening to break through. That feeling of being out of control is deeply unpleasant.
“You’re drinking alone,” she notes. He’d take offence under other circumstances. As it is, she’s stating a fact and he’s properly miserable.
“So are you.”
“I sat next to you for a reason. So neither of us would be drinking alone.” He hadn’t noticed her order a drink, but the bartender brings her something he can’t identify. He doesn’t know his liquors. “But maybe it’s a fine night for me too.”
Oh. So she is a foreigner. There’s a hint of an accent he identifies now. But her accent is far better than his; he’s never been able to shake off a hint that shows where he’s, as so many say, really from.
He finally gets a good look at her. He thinks he’s seen her before.
“Quiet night,” she says, and she smiles.
“It is.” He sips his alcohol he isn’t enjoying. “My name is Anatoly.”
“Florence.”
That’s when it hits him. He does know her. Not personally, but how could he have missed it? She’s Florence Vassy, Freddie Trumper’s second. And she wouldn’t know who he is, because while he’s known within the Soviet Union, he hasn’t risen to international acclaim.
If Florence Vassy is here, does that mean—?
“I was meeting some friends tonight.” She yawns. “I thought they might be able to help me.”
He blinks. “Did they?”
“We’ll see.” She taps her perfect nails on the bar. “If anyone can help me, it’s them.”
“What do you need help with?” What he really means is, Could I help? But he doesn’t have the courage to ask. And he has even less of a reason.
She tilts her head. There’s a secret in her smile.
“You might be able to help me.” She sips her drink, too. But before he can decipher what she means, she follows by asking, “Why are you here tonight?” She glances at his hand. There’s no ring on it, but there might be soon. He need only gather the courage. That’s quite the ask for somebody like him.
He takes a while to answer, as he always does.
“It gets lonely.” It’s the unadulterated truth. And in a moment of daring (those are exceedingly rare for him), he asks, “And why are you here?”
“It gets loud,” she says without much trouble. “And quiet. But it’s never the right balance.”
Somehow he understands exactly what she means. He tells her this, followed by, Мен сені жақсы көремін. But she doesn't know what that means and he doesn't tell her.
After that, he kills the conversation. She says a few more things, gently prods. He answers in a way that makes even him cringe. She politely excuses herself for the evening. Their eyes meet and he wonders if he’ll ever see her again.
Then she’s off and he misses Svetlana more than before. Мен сені жақсы көремін.
ix.
Alexander holds his breath. His heart beats quickly. He turns towards Svetlana.
“What do you think?”
“She really believes her father is alive,” she says in amazement. She lets her hair out of its ponytail and runs her fingers through mounds of curls, her mouth open in the perfect shape of an o.
“That was my assessment too.”
“And she really believes we have him.”
“We convinced her.”
They marvel. Alexander sees gears turning behind her eyes. In turn, he taps his foot.
“She already did the impossible," Svetlana slowly says. "She brought the American to Moscow. No one else could have accomplished that.”
“If she can do that, she can get him to lose.”
“And when she finds out we don’t have her father?”
He pinches his nose. “Then she’ll learn that that’s life.”
x.
Florence seems utterly unsurprised when she walks in just as a handsome stranger is about to leave their room. She smiles that poisonous smile at Svetlana and Freddie wants to scream, Get away from her. Can’t you see she’s hurt enough?
“Oh. Freddie. I see you’ve made a friend.”
But she doesn’t look at him once.
“Where were you?” he asks in a low voice, and the last thing he wants to do is to have it out with Florence in front of Svetlana. But he needn’t have worried, because Florence evades him entirely.
“Out,” she says, her eyes still fixed on Svetlana’s. She tosses her hair and he swears she bats her eyes. “Were you on your way out?”
And Svetlana wordlessly nods.
“Then let me walk you out,” Florence tells her, and she holds the door open. Freddie stands, because he’s going to interfere, but Florence shoots him a dangerous look behind Svetlana’s back and they both disappear into the hallway.
Freddie numbly collapses back onto the bed.
It hurts more than ever.
xi.
“Sasha.”
It’s only a phone call, but the sound of his voice sets Alexander’s heart aflame. Sometimes a year or two passes and they don’t see each other. It’s the nature of the job, he supposes.
But something warranted a call tonight. He’s gone home and both Svetlanas have fulfilled their duties and he doesn’t know what tomorrow will bring.
“Walter.” He can’t betray his affection. He can’t say, It’s been too long.
But Walter isn’t calling for him. He never does. “Whatever Florence Vassy is up to, don’t engage. Please.”
And here Alexander could scream, I thought you were calling for me. But he didn’t think that and he knew any phone call would relate strictly to business. His heart had hoped, though his mind had ordered it not to.
“Florence Vassy is a fascinating individual,” he says as evenly as possible.
“Florence Vassy,” Walter counters, “does as she pleases and acts without reason.”
“She has her reasons. They are not based on reality.”
“I am not here to discuss semantics,” Walter tiredly says. And Alexander isn’t either.
He leans back and closes his eyes. The wall meets a cut on his back that has not been allowed to heal. The pain feels good now.
“You left,” he bitterly says. “I thought you’d come back.”
But Walter inhales a sharp breath. “Nothing was ever going to happen.”
I just want to see you? Or, I know?
Memories, like waves, threaten him. He focuses on the grounding pain. It doesn’t take away from the rest of his hurt, but it drowns it out. It augments it in precisely the way he needs.
He knows his answer. It’ll never be, Holding you meant the world to me.
“I know,” he heavily says, and the night and phone call ends.
xii.
The crisp night air stings. Svetlana isn’t rushing anywhere.
Beside her, Florence Vassy matches her pace. This is the woman who did something unspeakable to bring her best friend to the Soviet Union. She knows she should walk away. Everything about her training is urging her to throw up her shields and leave.
And yet.
“I’m very sorry about Freddie,” Florence says. There’s an exhaustion and sadness to her tone she can’t place. “He isn’t well.”
She doesn’t ask why he isn’t well. A breeze rushes past them and ruffles Florence’s beautiful hair and—
She stops in her tracks.
There’s a very faint whiff of Florence’s perfume. It’s floral. It’s the same kind Anatoly’s mother used to wear.
Surely it’s a coincidence.
But that specific perfume was manufactured only for a brief time in one of the Kazakh republic’s southern oblasts. Svetlana knows this because she tried to seek out a replacement bottle as a gift for Anatoly when his was running low.
She covers up her sudden pause and resumes walking beside Florence, who appears not to have noticed. In fact, she yawns. Her eyes are half-closed and she turns to Svetlana with a smile that would fool even her.
“I met the Anatoly Sergievsky tonight. The chess player. Can you believe it?”
Svetlana shifts her face into one of pleasant surprise even as her heart thuds against her chest, then clinks, metallic and cold and hollow, towards the pits of her stomach.
“Really, dear?”
“I recognized him immediately. I sat next to him and made small talk. Pretended not to know who he was.”
“I see.” She hesitates. “What… was he like?”
“Very quiet,” Florence thoughtfully says. “Yet really sweet. Like someone full of so much potential. Have you — sorry, does that sound silly? Or have you ever met anyone like that?”
Now Florence stops walking. Svetlana follows her lead. They face each other underneath the moonlight. Florence’s breath smells like alcohol and cherries. She has a face anybody could wake up to and worship. She understands, now, why Freddie Trumper fell so hard and so fast. Svetlana herself would get on her knees.
Florence raises her hand and gently sets it on Svetlana’s cheek. Svetlana shudders and tries to contain the tremor in her jaw. The idiot she is, she leans into the heavenly touch. She craves and takes any legitimate intimacy and scraps from Florence Vassy is enough. Even knowing what kind of person she really is. Maybe especially knowing what kind of person she really is.
“I’ve met someone like that,” Svetlana murmurs.
Their lips meet.
For an instant, Svetlana explodes. Color rushes back into her life; vibrant shades she’d forgotten and hues she never imagined before. The world is a kaleidoscope and it shines through Florence’s face and it courses through Svetlana’s veins. Florence kisses her desperately and their souls touch and maybe Svetlana is finally losing her mind. She wonders if Florence looks at her face and sees as much beauty — or handsomeness — as she sees in Florence. She wonders if Florence would kiss every freckle and hold her and tell her everything would be okay. They’d hold hands and the sky would be beautiful, wouldn’t it? The world would never touch them there. The earth sings; the trees sway; magic descends over Moscow. The world will NEVER hurt them again.
Then Florence pulls away and the moment dies. But she cups Svetlana’s face and her eyes ghost over Svetlana’s freckles. When Florence pulls away, Svetlana reaches forward in a plea and grabs both of her hands.
They press their foreheads together. Svetlana wonders what she’s doing. But logic seems to have defied her.
She doesn’t know how long they stand in the cold, their eyes closed, spreading a moment into eternity. Svetlana burns the sensation into her mind. She can’t ever forget.
Then Florence pulls away. This time, Svetlana doesn’t try to stop her.
“I hope I see you again,” Florence quietly says. Her eyes are dangerous and they are love.
“I hope so, too,” she breathes. She doesn’t see how they ever will.
And Florence smiles one more time, a dozen emotions bursting through her eyes and her lips, but she turns and returns to her hotel. She leaves Svetlana in the dark and in the cold and all alone. She watches Florence disappear through the doors of the lobby.
Florence doesn’t turn back, but Svetlana was watching the whole time.
She touches her lips. With those, she kissed Florence Vassy, orchestrator of Freddie Trumper’s torment. With those same lips, she’ll kiss Anatoly Sergievsky, her soon-to-be fiancé. And Florence smelled like flowers. She smelled like Anatoly…
Out of everything that’s happened tonight, this is the biggest could-have-been. She gets ahold of herself and straightens her back. She’s about to leave when she catches a window above.
Freddie Trumper is gazing down at her from his hotel room. His face is resigned. She doesn’t know what drives her to do it, but she lifts a hand and offers a little wave.
He does the same. Then he closes the curtains and he’s gone and she’s alone.