Sekret (21 page)

And then a nest of bees is in my brain, buzzing, scrubbing away what I’ve just seen. Has Rostov done this before? Sleep opens her warm, cozy arms to me, and I stagger into them. Consciousness seeps away from me, but I fight that emptiness. I must not … lose my …

The fired shots are land mines beneath my skin. I cannot let Rostov know that I have seen this, or they will detonate and tear me apart. I cannot ever think about this. Rostov must believe I didn’t see it.
An empty mind is a safe mind,
my memories of Papa claim.

Bang-bang.
Buzzing drowns out the gunfire. I can’t hold on.
Sleep
, my mind calls out.
Forget.

I throw up right into someone’s lap—in the creeping black of sleep, I hope it’s Masha’s—and my forehead strikes the metal floor as soft as a pillow, as deep as the Black Sea.

CHAPTER 26

I’M AT THE HIGHEST POINT
in Moscow—the upper tiers of the central skyscraper at Moscow State University. The grandest of Stalin’s Seven Sisters. I’ve dreamed all my life of standing here, in the red granite hallways, unlocking the mysteries of life. The code inside our DNA; the pattern in the noise of my brother’s head. But I never could have imagined the path that brought me here—not a university exam, but a thin smile from Rostov, opening the door for me as he thanked me for a job well done.

The head doctor marches toward me, checking his charts. A scream drifts toward us from the far corridor; it’s like a shard of ice in my heart. He utters something to the pretty nurse at his side, and she scurries toward the corridor.

“Please, pay no mind to that. Many of our patients suffer from afflictions more … severe than Yevgenni Andreevich’s,” he says. He smiles at me with suspiciously white, parallel teeth. “Your brother will be out momentarily.” He gestures toward a row of wooden chairs, set along the window bank that peers out over the Moscow skyline.

“I prefer to stand,” I say.

“I understand you are interested in research yourself. We are all great fans of your mother’s work—her techniques for educating the mentally infirm have greatly enhanced the level of care we provide. It would be an honor to add another Chernina to our ranks, you know.”

I take a deep breath, despite the fear constricting my chest.
This is what you’ve always wanted, Yulia.
A normal girl would jump at this opportunity. Kruzenko is helping me prepare for the admissions test in March, even bringing in a tutor to help me with the advanced mathematics I never learned when I missed four years of school. A cleverer girl than me would be turning this conversation to her favor, securing an internship spot on the research team.

My head tells me to listen to Mama’s pleas and Sergei’s reasoning. Surround myself in the safety of the thick wool of the Soviet system, far from the scrubber’s reach. Embrace my gift, use it well, and live the life I’ve dreamed of, working within the structure, playing the games until the day I die.

So why do my feet still itch to run, run, run?

Two figures appear at the end of the hall, the tallest leaning on the other for support.
Bozhe moi
, my Zhenya. I swear he’s grown half a foot in these past few months.
Smile at me, Zhenya. Run toward me.
Doesn’t he remember me?

“We are working with him on proper socialization,” the doctor explains, as if the rejection I’m feeling stings him, too. “But you must understand that he does not respond to new situations as you or I would.”

I swallow down the lump in my throat. Sometimes Zhenya would panic if I left the room for more than five minutes, but he could pass entire weeks without acknowledging my presence at all. I cannot take offense. I love him, quirks and all.

He reaches us, still leaning on the petite nurse for support. His face is fuller. We share the same dark features, but his chin juts like Papa’s, instead of pointing as Mama’s and mine does. That mischievous sparkle in his eyes—I’d nearly forgotten it.

“It’s too cold for our walk,” he tells me.

I try to smile. Does he mean the daily stroll we used to take? Or am I a random observer to him?

“Have you been working on your symphony?” I ask, as the nurse disentangles herself from him. “I was very impressed with your progress on it.” But he jerks his head away from me. All right, he doesn’t want to talk about music today, fine. Already I’m slipping back into the game rules of Zhenya, easy as hopping back onto a bike.

“Now, Yevgenni, what do we say when someone compliments us?” the doctor prompts him.

“We don’t call them a liar. Even if they are.”

I wince. “You know I’d never lie to you, Zhenya. You know who I am, don’t you?”

He shrugs. “Mama says you shouldn’t come here.” His face screws up. “‘She doesn’t need distractions.’”

“Zhenya.” I reach for his arm, then pull back, remembering that he hates to be touched unless he initiates it. “Zhenya. You’ve spoken to Mama? Are they letting you stay with her?”

He rolls his eyes at me, but it’s answer enough. He hates stating the obvious.

“What does Mama say? Does she really want me to—” I swallow. I’ve been trying so hard to comply with Mama’s wish for me, though it pains me to. “Is this what she wants for us?”

“Bzz, bzz.”
Zhenya pushes past me and heads to the window, making mosquito noises. He stares out the window, at the pepper flakes of people on the promenade thirty stories below.

“The stress of encountering elements of his old life—like you—can occasionally revert a participant to their previous state,” the doctor says hastily, as if he knows my brother’s behavior better than I do. “I assure you, he’s made substantial progress—”

“Spare me.” The doctor falls back, blinking rapidly. I move to Zhenya’s side. “Please, Zhenya. What’s happening with Mama?”

“She’s working hard.
Bzz, bzz.
Says we can’t go outside. It’s too cold. It isn’t safe. Bad things.” He swipes his fingers on the window pane, sketching out a musical phrase. “Said to tell you, but I think it’s better not to say it in words. Music is better. Music is math, just like codes.”

Bzz, bzz.
Like a fan belt whining. Like a swarm of bees.

Like a scrubber, purging his mind.

“I’d like to hear your music.” I hold my hand out to Zhenya for inspection. “Is it all right if I touch you?”

He regards my hand, studies all the angles, scrunches up his face. Finally, he nods. “But only because you’re my sister.”

I laugh bitterly to myself. He does remember me. “I promise this won’t hurt. But will you let me see what you’re thinking?”

My heart shatters in my chest when he answers. “I wish you always would.”

Oh, Zhenya. I wish I only knew how to decipher your thoughts.
I twist my fingers in his, and with a jolt, a fractured landscape unfolds. His thoughts are alive and vibrant, like a Kandinsky painting, with great slashes of color and heavy strokes of disparate thoughts. I find myself wanting to reach out and reorder the jumbled-up brush strokes, make sense from the chaos.

But I am not Rostov. I am not a scrubber, out to change his mind. Look, I tell myself, but don’t touch.

“Mama,” I whisper to Zhenya. “Think about Mama.”

Mama dashes between the windswept brushstroke trees. The buzzing chases her, cutting through her, soaking her up when it catches her. It looks like how it feels to be near the scrubbers; Rostov must have done this, desperate to stay in control even when he’s granted me this small concession. But if Zhenya knew how to lock away his memories of Mama in his music, there must be some way to bring it back—

“I think that’s enough exertion for one day,” the doctor says. “We don’t want to undo all his progress.”

I wave him off and plunge back in. Zhenya’s thoughts shift to accommodate the hunt for Mama, and dark colors cut through the bright. He’s leading me into the heart of his brushstroke thoughts as his symphony fills the space around us. Trumpets bursting like the rays of dawn as a dart of red paint jags the sky. We spiral deep into the color and noise where Rostov couldn’t have possibly seen.
Oh, Zhenya. For once, I’m grateful your mind isn’t structured like anyone else’s.

I remember now what Sergei said: Rostov can’t see what he isn’t looking for.

A memory of Mama, lurking between two walls of knotted-up color. Even as she flickers, she seizes me by the shoulders and refuses to let go. “Tell Yulia,” she pleads. “Tell her I was wrong.”

“Come on, Yevgenni, it’s time for class.” They’re prying my hand off of him. Please, one more second. I fight to keep contact, to keep Mama’s disintegrating face looming in front of mine.

But she lets go, enveloped in a fresh jolt of color and a whirlwind melody as Zhenya’s mind covers her up once more. “Tell her,” Mama whispers, “to run.”

CHAPTER 27

“WE KNOW THE AMERICANS
are desperate to best us in the cosmos,” Major Kruzenko says to the dining hall at large. “We have a satellite. A man in space. And soon, the
Veter 1
will pave the way for a moon landing! Surely they have not given up their attempts to steal the design. But they have all but vanished from us. Why? Where are they going?”

We’ve spent a long day beating our heads against various walls: Sergei and Masha attempted to remotely view various suspected safe houses of the CIA team, I wandered the neighborhoods of the two remaining wildlings, Ivan and Misha scanned the thoughts of their neighbors, and Larissa scrounged up a report on the CIA team’s plans that was vaguer than a horoscope. To Kruzenko’s credit, she didn’t berate us, yell at us, or say anything harsh. She masked her disappointment with a grimace and is now drowning it with an extra helping of vodka. Her gypsy music grows louder, more cacophonous as she drinks.

My head has throbbed all week. Perhaps I’ve inherited Mama’s headaches. The thought of vodka or—my stomach whimpers—Soviet champagne brings bitter bile to my throat. My head pounds.
Bang-bang.
A gunshot; a heart throbbing angrily. And Mama’s words, her chilling plea for me locked inside Zhenya’s head, echoes with every pulse. She wants me to run, but is there anywhere safe for me to run to?

Ivan points to Kruzenko as he leans conspiratorially toward Larissa and me. “I heard the other day that she and Rostov used to … you know.” He makes a circle with his thumb and index finger, then jams his other index finger in and out.

Larissa wrinkles her nose. “That’s disgusting.”

Ivan grins. “It would explain why she drinks so much.”

“How are we so incompetent?” Kruzenko bellows. “How are they stopping us? We must find them before they have another chance to act.”

“They have more than just the scrubber,” Valentin says, to his plate of Chicken Kiev. “They know what we’re doing, and they’re blocking us. It’s another useless game, another useless race. Space, weapons, psychics. Arms races, all of them, going nowhere.”

The doors to the dining room fly open and one of the house guards storms in. “Telephone for you, Comrade Major. Urgent—from headquarters.”

She wipes her mouth and stands. “I’ll take it in my office.”

“No need. Major General Rostov says to turn on the state news channel.”

I choke on my sip of tea at the reminder of Rostov’s new title—Chief of the First Directorate of the KGB, following the previous chief’s bizarre murder-suicide.
Bang-bang.
The vein throbs deep in my brain, smothering a memory that’s trying to rise up.

Fathomless exhaustion washes over Kruzenko’s face, slipping into her wrinkles and anchoring them. But the sharp tone of her mind hints at dread as well. She hurries out the door to the main parlor, and we all follow her in tacit agreement. We have just as much right to see whatever’s making the news.

The colors on the screen are harsh; pastel in that uniquely Western way. Hot green grass, pink dress, a car so black it radiates blue. The American president holds one hand in greeting while his wife gapes at us. She is perpetually frozen in that fake, wide-mouthed laugh you make for people you have to impress.

And then his head whips back. Her laugh morphs to a soundless scream. The picture freezes. It’s fuzzy, but on the side of his face is a glimmer of gore—like a wink, a promise. The air around us thins as we all suck in our breath.

“Less than one hour ago, the American president John Kennedy was shot in the state of Texas,” the announcer intones in Russian. “Secretary Khruschev has warned the united workers of the world that we will be blamed for this incident. But it is probably the work of restless Westerners, acting on their own accord, in response to the indignities of the capitalist system. The Soviet Union does not believe in murder as a political tool.”

I have to bite down on my hand to kill the—the what? Cry? Laugh?—that rattles in my throat. No, we would never murder our dissidents. We send them to freeze in Siberia; we send them to houses like these and turn them into weapons. We seize control of their minds and train their guns on our enemies, then dispose of them like torn paper bags.

No, Yulia. Bang-bang. You must forget.

The clip repeats on the screen, over and over. It has been less than an hour, the announcer continues. He says they do not know if he will live, but with that terrible smear, I can’t imagine he would survive. I find myself staring, not at the glisten of blood, brain matter, missing face, but at the pink woman. Her mask as it disintegrates. That false happiness that she can show no more. Her husband breaks, and she breaks apart with him.

“How did we not see this?” Major Kruzenko cries suddenly, after about the eighth loop. “How could we miss this?”

She lobs her vodka to the floor, jerking us from our hypnosis. Glass and sharp, stinging alcohol spray across the room. Kruzenko’s red face shimmers with a trail of tears.

“I am trying to protect you all. Keep you from burning out like all the rest. I know you’re not ready to take on their responsibility, but how could you not see this?” A gurgle rises from her throat like she’s being choked by her own tears. “How can I show you’re ready when you can’t even sense something like
this
?”