nadezhda & ruslan iv.

Ruslan

Another two weeks before he hears from Comrade Kuznetsova.

It would be convenient if he'd forgotten all about her by then, but he hasn't. Thinks of her, actually, at the strangest moments. Remembers her ridiculous little transistor-radio and her illegal smokes and the look on her face, pure determination, that night he discovered she was much more than a bureaucrat's spoiled daughter.

What a strange creature of contradictions she is. What a strange and memorable creature.

--

Perhaps Minister Kuznetsov has his own private phone line that his daughter might commandeer. Comrade Voloshyn decidedly does not. His entire building -- an ugly, purely utilitarian thing of square edges and nonexistent flair -- shares a single phone located in the allocator's office on the first floor.

The night watchman who answers the call is not yet old enough to enlist in the Red Army, but he barks profanities like the best and -- being the captain of his small corps -- carries a loaded pistol at his hip. He is immensely proud of this. More convinced of his own importance than anyone else, he is quite stern when he answers, though courteous. He asks for her name and the person she is trying to reach. Upon obtaining these pieces of information, he instructs Nadezdha to wait, please, and then sets the receiver down.

In the ensuing moments she can hear him commanding some underling to go get Ruslan Arkadyevich, quickly. She can hear footsteps starting off at a brisk pace. Then the prosaic, scattered conversation of the office, continuing on for several minutes on end before footsteps again approach. Two sets this time. A scuffle as the receiver is picked up.

Then a voice:

"Yes, this is Voloshyn."

Nadezhda

The name she gives him is not her name.

The name she asks for is, of course, Ruslan's. Perhaps he receives so few phone calls from women that he knows that 'Irina Vadimovna' is someone else. Perhaps he thinks it is some blonde girl, one of many from his nights off. Certainly the night watchman thinks this must be some sort of slut. Does not sound like a great-aunt, the only sort of acceptable woman who might be phoning this late at night.

Noise. Then his voice.

Her mouth twitches.

"Gorky Park. Morning. Yes?"

Ruslan

There is a strange anonymity afforded by these grey-block buildings. No more the camaraderie of good hearty peasant folk, if ever that was a thing; Lenin brought the peasants into the cities, made them the backbone of a new society. That new society has long since lost whatever bloody luster it began. It is a machine now, tired, squalid, creaking, unstoppable.

None of the young men who staff the allocator's office at night know Ruslan well. None of them even know what he does for a living, only that he lives on the seventh floor where his window faces another window in another building. They also know he does not receive very many phone calls, and almost none from women. None of them know who Irina Vadimovna is, and judging by the rather blank look on his face when the name is first provided, neither does he.

The voice over the line changes his expression, though. His shoulders round down and his voice lowers.

"Yes, that is good. Eight o' clock?"

Nadezhda

The hm he receives in response is noncommittal, but is brief enough that it could perhaps be taken in the affirmative. There is a click, and the line goes dead.

--

In another part of town, in buildings old enough that they retain some vestige of beauty beyond the harsh, dominant lines of brutalism, Nadezdha hangs up the phone in her father's study. He is observing her from across his desk, his hands folded. His suit is dark, though his eyes are a piercing blue. She meets them with her own, so like her mother's. His eyebrows lift slightly. She gives him a wan, slightly aching smile.

He puts the phone back to the corner of the desk where he likes it. She rises, skirts the desk to give him a small peck on the top of his head, then exits the room, closing the heavy door behind her.

--

Morning. Gorky Park. The sun rose some hours ago, and has burned away the dew and chill of night. It is almost eight o'clock. No one is feeding ducks, because no one can spare the bread. But Nadezdha sits on a bench, a steel thermos beside her. She is dressed more plainly than he's ever seen her: a narrow calf-length skirt, a pair of simple brown shoes, a sweater with three-quarter sleeves. It is not brightly colored or patterned, and her hair is held at the nape of her neck with a rather plain, dark bow. She looks more like other girls, other Russians, who seem to live in a time unrecognizable to the Western world, a time decades prior to the 1960s. They all pretend not to know what it is like elsewhere, but almost everyone knows. They've heard stories of America, of England, of other places not lost somewhere in the 1930s.

She is not smoking this morning. Nor is she drinking the coffee she has with her. She's waiting, you see.

Ruslan

After he hangs up, the night watchmen are curious. They want to know who that was; she had a delicious voice. They rib him about the call. They ask all sorts of probing and suggestive questions.

He dodges the questions. He mutters excuses and he leaves, only to regret it later. He should have made light of it all. Fired back a few ribald jokes, give them something to chew on. They would've grow bored quickly enough and moved on. Now, they might be curious. He doesn't want anyone to be curious. It's not as though he's done anything wrong, but he does not want attention. He does not want others prying into his personal affairs.

--

So: morning. Gorky Park. It is the middle of the week and the park is relatively empty. Moscow's summer is brief, and already the nights feel like autumn, but the days are still warm and the skating rinks are still months away from freezing over. Some old babushkas are out with their grandchildren. There are very few men and women of Voloshyn's age, or Kuznetsova's.

Thus it is relatively easy to spot her. And the bench creaks lightly as Voloshyn sits beside her, still that polite and proper foot away.

"Irina Vadimovna," he muses.

Nadezhda

"Ruslan Arkadyevich," she responds, steadily. For once, she does not seem amused. Not angry, not disturbed, but just... subdued, somehow.

She picks up the thermos that sits between them. "Coffee?"

Ruslan

He smiles a little, wry. "So Western," he says. "I prefer tea. But yes, I will share your coffee."

And while she pours:

"Are they training you to go out? Is that why the skirts, the cigarettes, the coffee?"

Nadezhda

The top of the thermos is a small mug. She only has the one. But she pours the coffee into it, black and thick. It is like her cigarettes, though perhaps less illegal: the coffee is Cuban, a gift from an ally.

The cup is filled. She holds it by the little handle, staring at it after he questions her. Her brow has furrowed slightly, as if pained. He knows the look; he saw it every time she opened her lungs to breathe, that night in the taiga.

"You must know I cannot tell you anything," she says quietly. "Even now I am not sure that you are not a test."

Ruslan

He considers this in silence for a moment.

"I suppose it is futile to assure you that I am not," he notes at length. "But, I am not a test. I am merely a footsoldier of the same organization you serve. Assigned to different missions, of course, and likely less important than whatever it is they are training you for. Our paths crossing is only coincidence."

He holds his hand out. For the little cup of coffee, one expects.

Nadezhda

She looks at him. Hands him the coffee. There is only the one cup. Perhaps she means to share it.

"Then why did you want to meet with me?" she asks, her brow furrowed.

Ruslan

He has to scoff a little. "Has it become so odd to be interested in another human being?"

Nadezhda

Her stare is unflinching. "When you ask for a meeting at a secret KGB training facility, yes. It is very odd."

Ruslan

He is the first to look away: down, at the little cup of coffee. Which he samples. It is not entirely foreign to him, nor entirely unpleasant. There is no cream or sugar in it, if only because such things are prohibitively expensive -- yet it allows the native flavors of the coffee to take center stage. He sips, swallows. Hands the cap-mug back.

"That is fair," he admits. "But before that, I thought I had you figured out. At the training facility was where you defied my expectations. And where I became interested."

Beat.

"More interested." It is another admission. "And then there was what you said. About those who are born to extraordinariness. And those who must work hard to achieve it."

Nadezhda

She takes the mug, and sips, and savors it. She's had it before, but rarely. Perhaps it is special. Surely her family only has it because of her father's position in government.

There's an ache in the center of her chest, and she cannot name it. She takes another drink of the coffee, then sets it on the stone bench between them, her hand still lightly resting on the handle.

She is looking at the water as he answers her. Reminds her of her words, which makes her look at him again.

"Why did that strike you?"

Ruslan

His eyes meet hers for a moment; then turn to the water. The day is bright, the sunlight direct. There is a touch of red in his hair, some barbarian trait from some barbarian ancestor. Officially, of course, such viewpoints are frowned upon. They are all Soviet now.

"We are both part of the same organization, yes? But perhaps we are also both part of another ... group. Even more secret. And much, much older."

He casts her a brief glance.

"Do you know of what I speak?"

Nadezhda

The ache in her breast tightens. He can see it in her eyes when he looks at her again, that quick glance. Perhaps he can see it because she is that shocked. Perhaps he can see it because she wants him to.

"I think I do," she answers, a moment later, as the shadow in her eyes begins to clear, as she regains her footing a bit.

She sips her coffee, if only to give her hands and her attention something to occupy them. She decides something, before she passes him the little cup of coffee again.

"You are like me then, yes? We are... kinfolk."

Ruslan

He accepts that little cup of coffee. The taste is growing on him. He savors it. His smile is a touch wistful as he regards the rippled, opaque surface of the liquid.

"Yes," softly, "we are. And both of us, I think, are trying."

Nadezhda

She thinks for a time. The wind ripples the coffee, and the water before them. It's cool this morning, at least for the start of August. They trade the coffee back and forth; she pours from the thermos again.

Sighs, a slow exhale. She makes another decision.

"My father does not have to try," she tells him, continuing what is clearly a euphemism between the two of them. "He is... quietly, and through many proxies... arranging for the partner assigned to me to be... one of them. For when I leave."

Ruslan

Somehow,

something deep inside Ruslan suddenly feels hollowed out. He couldn't explain it if he tried, and so he makes no attempt. He notes it. Experiences it. Allows the sensation to wash through him, all the while looking at the coffee in his hand.

Drinks. Passes the mug back.

"When?"

Nadezhda

Of course he does not tell her what he feels then. A yawning, howling sensation, like wind through a chasm. If he did tell her, surely she would scoff at him. It's a mad feeling to have, completely frivolous.

There is no way for him to know that if he did tell her, she might tell him she understands. That she has felt an unsettling and inappropriate curiosity since she met him on the street. That she has felt a weight on her chest since they sat together in the garden at the banquet. That it only grows heavier now, that now it hurts.

Both of them stay silent. They sip coffee and watch the water, neither one acknowledging that they do so because they cannot look at one another.

She takes the coffee back.

He asks when, and she sips. She hears a ringing in her ears, though muffled. It reminds her of being struck in the head.

Her throat moves as she swallows the coffee down. Takes a breath.

"Six weeks."

Ruslan

"Ah."

Such a small sound. Such a mild acknowledgment. They are both watching the water. Ruslan is squinting slightly, the morning light bright in his eyes. He does not protest.

They are both patriots. And both trying: which is at once a euphemism and the stark, cruel truth.

"And when do you return?"

Nadezhda

Nadezdha sips her coffee again. She holds herself very still.

"When our war is won," she finally tells him. It is another way of telling him she does not expect to return. It is another way of saying never.

Ruslan

He turns toward her, ever so slightly. Little more than a tip of the head. His eyes are not on the water now, though, but on her hands in her lap. The coffee cup between them.

"That is a pity," he says quietly. "I had hoped ... well. It hardly matters now."

Nadezhda

He sees her in profile now. Her lifted chin, the almost aristocratic lines of her jaw, the fullness of her mouth. She is not wearing those mirrored sunglasses from the West. Her hair is not blown out to perfection. There's a distant, numb sort of sadness in her eyes.

"Say it," she answers him.

Ruslan

As though compelled by her voice, he turns. Looks at her. That profile; the light -- it strikes an odd sense of deja vu in him, as though he has been here before. Seen her before.

"I had hoped we could see more of each other," he says. "I had hoped we would be friends and companions, sharing as much as we do."

Nadezhda

For a while now, since all those stolen glances, she has not been able to look at him. His face seems familiar, and more dangerous: trustworthy. She was only half-acting like the spoiled bureaucrat's daughter he thought she was when she was smirking at him on the street or trying to get him into trouble with her at a party. Looking at him makes her want to do things like smile and laugh and tell subtle jokes.

And, again more dangerous that this: to tell secrets. Stories. Her life story. Her everything.

So she goes on looking forward, and he looks at her face finally. Her voice tried to sound like an order but it came out less firm and less demanding than she intended; it sounded surprisingly soft, imploring, maybe even teasing a little: say it. And he does. He says it, looking at half her face, and so he can see her take a slow breath,

exhale a short, quiet sigh.

Her eyes slide in his direction before she turns her head, slowly, to look at him again. She smiles with half her mouth, not quite enough energy behind it to be a smirk again.

"You should have stolen that vodka with me," she tells him, and it's meant to be funny, and perhaps it is. It is also a little sad.

Ruslan

His smile, too, is a wince.

"I should have," he admits. "I did not know."

There may have been more. Did not know who she was. What she was. That she could be trusted. That she would not land him in a world of trouble and saunter away laughing. Where she was going. How long she would be gone, which is simply: forever. He says none of it though; it makes no difference.

A breath of his own, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders. "Well," he says. "Six weeks. I would like to see you again. Perhaps dinner. Perhaps vodka."

Nadezhda

The weight on her chest twists. It digs like a knife.

"Six weeks until I leave," she says, a whisper now, even though the park is not filled with listening ears. "Two, until I go dark."

There is a silence.

"Ruslan, I am so sorry."

Ruslan

A flare of undirected anger: "What, so we never see each other again? Why did you even bother to come to the park today?"

Nadezhda

That, at least, has an answer that takes no thought at all. She does not even pause to wonder where it came from, or to hesitate to say it.

"You asked it of me."

Ruslan

What can he say to that? He turns away, facing the pond again, his features tight with anger. Something else, too. Inexplicable pain. It makes no sense at all. They hardly know each other.

This makes no sense at all. He knows better: "Tell me where you are going. Write me when you get there. If I can -- if it is at all possible -- I will find some way to follow."

Nadezhda

Everything he says is impossible. She will not be told where she is going until she is on her way there. She cannot write to him without damn good reason. If he follows her, both of them will be in danger, they may all end up killed, tortured, put in prison for the rest of their lives.

She does not say any of this to him. She moves her hand on the bench between them, next to the thermos cup, which now holds only a bit of brown liquid, a few loose grounds.

Her palm turns up.

Ruslan

That slight motion catches his eye. It is as though somewhere in his bones, in the very marrow of his soul, he has some memory of other lives. He knows what it is to be a wolf, a predator, a thing whose eye moves immediately to motion.

Or perhaps it is only her. So familiar, though he's only seen her a handful of times in his life. So close to his heart somehow, though he hardly knows her at all.

He reaches over. His fingers lace with hers, his palm presses to hers. Tightly.

Nadezhda

Tightly, then. Their fingers lace and they hold each other's hands against the cool stone, and she takes a breath like she's winded, though she couldn't be. He saw how she ran with bruised ribs. He saw how she dealt with pain, and how she flipped over someone twice her size, and the look on her face when she saw him in the woods.

"I should go," she says, but

does not let go of his hand.

Does not move, at all.

Ruslan

That she has not told him where she is going, that she has not promised him she would write -- it does not escape him. He knows what it means. As with so many other things, it hardly seems worth mentioning anymore. Why bother, when it changes nothing?

Neither of them let go. Or move. And after some time he says, "I live not far from here. I do not expect anything. But I would like to spend some time with you, and not in front of so many eyes."

Nadezhda

not far from he--

"Yes."

It's quiet, and so unconsidered that he can see the flash of unease that follows it in her eyes: why did she say that. Why didn't she even think about it?

But her hand doesn't release his, even now. And he says what he says. About expectations, about time. About eyes.

She lifts hers to meet his.

"Yes."

Ruslan

So he does not say the rest of it.

Not until her eyes meet his, at least. That is when he adds, softly: "I do not expect anything."

As though she needs to know. Or at least: as though he needs her to know. And then he stands, his hand at last releasing hers. He looks about to get his bearings, then leads the way.