nadezhda & ruslan iii.

Nadezhda

Weeks go by. Summer peaks, and with the rising heat, rising tensions. The Cold War, many days, does not feel so cold at all.

He does not see her again. This is not unusual: he has been a secret policeman long enough to be trotted out like a show stallion at events, as he said, but he did not meet her before this summer. And she has been the daughter of a deputy minister for -- one imagines -- most if not all of her life, and she has never seen him before that day on the street. Yet they met twice within the same month.

It is the gambler's fallacy, to believe that when one has hit a streak, it will keep going. This is proved here: they do not run into each other by accident, and they could hardly ask for one another by name without significant risk.

But then there is the day when he is at another event, some other dinner, and her father is there, he sees him at the head table, but his daughter is not with him this time.

More time then, and one day he is called to his superior's office. They go for a short walk together, alone. There are no closed doors, but there are also no bugs to overhear them. Even so, his superior speaks quietly.

Due to unavoidable complications, one of his comrades will not be able to perform scheduled duties that very night. It is urgent that they have a full report of trusted, discreet members of the KGB. The absolute confidentiality of his assignment is impressed upon him in a way that his normal duties -- also strictly confidential, also of grave national importance -- are not. He is given very little information other than the time and place to report, and the nature of the work, which does not seem to warrant such pressure:

he is on patrol duty around a facility some distance from Moscow. As far as he knows, it is a pasteurization plant. And yet there is a vibration in the air on his trip to the location, as evening falls. The duty shift does, after all, start at dusk.

--

He and several others are on patrol duty, as proscribed. They are stationed, dozens of them, in a broad perimeter around the facility, which indeed looks like a pasteurization plant but certainly does not smell like one. There are few lights. He is far from most of his compatriots.

It is well after ten at night when the drills taking place at the plant move outdoors. So it is a military operation, after all: a small handful of recruits, all young and fresh-faced, all in the same grey shorts and shirts, all being run through the same brutal physical drills. And they are, indeed, brutal: the recruits, male and female alike, are sparring. No mats, no gear, and there are no punches being pulled in the hand-to-hand training. And even after that, they are sent on runs.

One figure is approached where she is standing, bent double and heaving for breath after being punched repeatedly in the ribs and gut before she managed to flip her opponent to the ground. She stands as straight as she can, which is not very straight, when her superior approaches. From his assigned patrol route in the woods surrounding the plant, Ruslan can see the officer point into the woods.

The young woman nods. And with a deep breath that clearly must be painful, she takes off running -- clearly as fast as she can -- towards the treeline. Towards him.

But it is still several yards before he recognizes her. Her hair is pulled back in a tight, fashionless bun that is, all the same, fraying around her temples. She is drenched with sweat, her body and her gym clothes turned from heather to charcoal with the moisture. The look in her eyes as she runs is not impudent or cheeky, but nor is it afraid or even pained.

She simply looks determined.

Ruslan

Why would the secret police be called to guard a secret training facility?

For obvious reasons, of course: to keep the public away. To keep state secrets secret. To protect the trainees against infiltrators and saboteurs. But also: for less obvious, more brutal reasons. The training is beyond strenuous. The hours are inhumane. The trainees are hand-selected, every one, but even the most rigorous selection process can sometimes miss those tiny fractures in the psyche, those tiny flaws that might open into chasms under pressure.

Sometimes people try to run. Half-sane, half-trained, half-cracked already: easy pickings for foreign enemies looking for a source.

So that is why they are deployed here, Comrade Voloshyn and his ilk. That is why they surround the facility, dressed in dark colors that do not show in the shadows, assault rifles in their hands. Those too weak to succeed cannot be permitted to escape.

--

His finger is on the trigger as the trainee runs for the treeline. She has been commanded to do so, but one never knows. The determination in her gait keeps him from taking aim, though. Someone always tries to run, but he does not think it will be this one. He watches her come closer from his hidden vantage point, and then all of a sudden, with a surge of surprise that feels rather like a punch to his own gut, he recognizes her.

An instinct he does not quite understand compels him to stand. He steps out of the shadows, into the wan light shed from the now-distant compound. He is in tactical gear, all black. As he lowers his rifle he raises his balaclava, rolling it up like a hat to show his face.

Nadezhda

He stands. She sees him, her eyes darting right to him like she somehow heard him, somehow sees him even before he hits the light. One might think she'd skid to a stop, turn and run, but no: she looks ready to fight. She looks like this is what she was expecting.

Truth be told: she looks like she's about to lunge at him.

But he lowers his rifle. Even that doesn't slow her, but him showing her his face does. She doesn't trip over her feet as she pulls up short; she's too agile for that, no longer in tottering heels or a flouncy skirt but cutoff sweatpants and a sweat-stained t-shirt and a pair of grungy athletic shoes. She is breathing hard, and each breath causes a spark to go off in her eyes from the pain of what are likely bruised ribs. She stares at him, uncertain.

She knows what he is. Why he's here. She knows that if he is here and showing himself, he is likely part of the training. Everything is part of the training. But it is him. And it feels like a portent, like it has meaning. She knows that is foolishness.

She calculates. He can see it in her eyes, how fast her thoughts are moving. But she has stopped moving. She is taking a few moments to be still, to breathe, watching him, waiting for him to show her why he has revealed himself.

Ruslan

She may be waiting some time. He isn't certain why he's shown himself, only that he has. He is breaking rules. He is defying orders. But he has.

And for what? Simply to stare at her for a time, baffled by her presence, by this new information in his calculation of who and what she is.

Then to step closer. His voice lowered and hurried, he tells her this:

"There are boundaries marked in the woods. They are very visible by day, but at night you must pay close attention and look for them, or you may pass one accidentally. We have been given orders regarding trainees who are out of bounds -- orders none of us want to have to follow."

Nadezhda

Several long seconds pass between them. She catches her breath, staring at him, occasionally flicking her eyes around to make sure they are still alone. She is thinking about attacking him. He must know that. He must see the intensity to her, the dynamic energy through every limb.

He comes closer and she tenses. She doesn't back away, but she shifts her footing; he has enough training to notice it, and to understand its purpose.

Then he tells her what he does, and she laughs. It's breathless, huffed more than voiced, but it's there. "I know," she says, when she can, her voice still hushed. "Of course I know. What are you doing here?"

Ruslan

He makes a disbelieving sound, halfway between a laugh and a breath out.

"What am I doing here? I am assigned here. What are you doing here?"

Nadezhda

This time, she does not laugh. She has relaxed somewhat. It is him, and he is not here to lure her away, trick her, test her. He is trying to warn her against trying to run away, which -- it appears -- could not be further from her intent.

She just looks at him for a few seconds. "You know why."

Ruslan

"I know why," he admits, "but I don't understand. With all your privilege. Your connections. Your father's name. You could have chosen anything."

Nadezhda

Her focus is as intense as her running once was. She doesn't even bother nodding. She only says:

"Precisely."

She glances over her shoulder, then back to him. "Some among us are called, even at birth, to serve something greater than themselves. They are chosen. Others, like me, must seek it out. Must prove ourselves worthy. You understand this?"

Ruslan

Something she says -- some turn of phrase, some not-quite-spoken notion -- narrows his eyes, piques his attention. As her eyes go over her shoulder, so do his. Sallow lights bathe the cleared land near the compound. Shadows stretch away from it, lengthening as they approach the treeline. Here, in the dense foliage of the nearly-untouched taiga, there is nothing but darkness and the scent of conifers.

"I understand," he says quietly, "better than you might imagine."

He steps back from her, reaching up to pull the balaclava back down. "You should go," his voice muffled now, "finish whatever task it is they have given you. On your next day off, perhaps ... perhaps we might meet at Filevskiy Park."

Nadezhda

Not for the first time, Nadezhda feels something like her memory thickening around her, like heavy cobwebs or a dense fog. It is not quite the duplication of memory that is deja vu, but something more like similar memories collecting themselves according to their similarities. It has happened every time she's seen him. Before, it was strongest when he sat beside her overlooking the river. But now, when he steps out of the darkness of the woods, she is flooded with the sensation, overpowered by it. This -- standing with him in a dark wood -- feels as though it has happened a dozen times before, a hundred.

She says nothing. She only watches him, taking him at his word.

Realizing she is taking him at his word a moment after she does, and not knowing why. She shakes her head a bit, as though to clear it.

The truth is, she knows that even on her 'days off' she is probably being watched. But the other truth is this: she has been in the program for some years now. Her training has only intensified. Her time away from the program has gotten less and less.

"It will be a while," she tells him. "But I will try to send you word. Yes?"

Ruslan

He thinks a moment; not whether or not to agree, but how.

"The allocator's office in my building," he remembers. "There is a telephone there. Ask the operator for Zamoskvorechye District, Novokuznetskaya Street, number two-two-one. Most nights I am home after eight."

Nadezhda

She repeats it back to him. Zamoskvorechye District, Novokusnetskaya Street, number two-two-one. After eight.

And then she looks at him. Gives him a nod that, somehow, he knows means to cover his face again, knows that it means she is leaving. There is precious little she can say to him. The risk of being caught talking to him is not worth it, especially when she does not know why they both seem to think -- both seem to know -- that they should speak with one another. Again. Perhaps at length.

She only licks her lips, takes a breath, and then goes on running. There is a course, such as it is, in these woods. There is something she was sent to find, and she has to find it before she can go back.

This, too, seems worth it. But at least with her training, she knows exactly why.