nadezhda & ruslan vii.

Nadezhda

For a CPA and a homemaker, it's interesting that the Bakers live just fifteen minutes from the Pentagon. But as it turns out, Jane isn't the only community volunteer in the marriage. They're just volunteers for a community that is far, far away from the suburbs surrounding Washington, DC.

Tonight they're farther from the Pentagon than that, though. Jane is, at least. And not too far: she's driving alone with a restless child this morning, a child who is asking forgetful questions about where they are going and why.

They are going to visit mommy's friend. They are going to a park. Mommy doesn't know if there is a playground at the park, but she knows there is a pond. No, we can't go swimming; the water will be too cold. Maybe there will still be ducks. Maybe we can feed the ducks. Maybe Lisa is right and mommy's friend will want to go find a playground. Yes, if you ask him nicely he will probably push you on the swingset, but you have to say thank you.

--

It isn't Gorky Park. It's smaller, but even at this time of year it isn't quite as cold as it would be in that famed spot. There is a pond, though no ducks. It's a bit of a walk from the parking lot to the picnic area. It's all right, though. Lisa wiggles and fidgets as she's buttoned up into her coat, but is quite happy to walk herself alongside her mother, who gets a blanket and picnic basket out of the trunk of their car.

The park is lonely right now; children are in school, the elderly have already finished their morning walks. There are a few people here and there having lunches alone or in pairs or small groups, but it's not a popular destination. It is lovely, though: the pond's water is dark blue, the grass a gradually lightening green, the leaves already golden and scattering every time the wind comes through.

Jane is not wearing a disguise. Not with Lisa in tow. She is Jane Baker today, and Jane Baker is almost indistinguishable in many ways from Nadezhda Grigoryovna Kuznetzova. She wears her dark, thick hair down, loose, tousled by the breeze. She wears makeup, but not very much: pale lips, a dusting of eye shadow, a bit of eyeliner. She's allowing her freckles to show; things are getting more natural, all the magazines say so. She keeps up with trends. She keeps up with the Joneses, the Smiths, the Millers. She is a young, fashionable mother who, according to the murmurs and too-helpful her neighbors, ought to be giving her dear husband a son soon, or at least trying.

Nadezhda is walking a bit ahead of Lisa, who has no other name, no other identity, that the one she is growing into. She has dark hair like her mother, bright eyes like her real father, rosy cheeks from the autumn wind and running around. Her coat is a plaid of silvery grey and bright blue and thin stripes of black, with big round buttons up the middle. Beneath that is a skirt and thick, warm tights, sturdy shoes that her mother doesn't mind getting dirty at the park.

Occasionally her mother glances back, checks on her. She doesn't rush her along or hurry her up; Lisa keeps straying off the path to investigate copses of weeds or what she is certain is a bunny (there is no bunny, there are only many squirrels), but she always wanders back, running along after her mommy, keeping her clear eyes wide and alert for any hint of a playground.

Nadezhda's heart is pounding. She's not sure how much of it is excitement, how much is worry. She thinks it is mostly excitement; something approaching a joy so intense it somehow resembles terror. She hasn't seen him more than once or twice since they got to Richmond. She's barely touched him since he came to the United States.

All he has is the photograph he saw of Lisa the night he arrived. And Nadezhda told him he should destroy it, to be safe. She doesn't know if he did, though.

She keeps her eyes open and alert, too: they set this meeting carefully over a few different communications, in secret, even from their partners. She hopes he knows where to meet them. She hopes nothing bad happened in the meantime.

Ruslan

There is no playground.

There is a pond, however. It is large enough to almost outgrow the name of pond; not so large that one might be tempted to label it a lake. It is placid and spotted with waterlilies, and here and there the dark water flickers as a fish surfaces and swims away again.

There are ducks as well. Some are drifting peacefully on the pond, but a growing and noisy number have flocked around a man who is feeding them from a paper bag full of breadcrumbs. He is sitting on a park bench wearing a light jacket in tan, and since the last time Nadezhda saw him he has grown a closely trimmed beard -- or possibly wears one as a disguise, however thin.

As she nears, he turns. The bench is angled such that he looks at her over his shoulder. Seeing her, he lifts an arm over the back of the bench. Lifts that hand, too, in a wave.

Then his eyes shift past her. He looks at the little girl running along behind her, catching up from her latest jaunt.

Nadezhda

Her heart stops, caught mid-leap, when she sees him and realizes the bearded man is him. So she turns, and calls: "Lisa! Come on, sweetheart!"

So it is that she misses his wave, but he still sees the little girl perk her head up and trot along obediently, holding her arms bent tight like some miniature version of an Olympic runner. When she comes alongside Nadezhda, she is reaching up at the same moment that her mother is reaching down, taking her hand. They leave the path, heading onto the grass, walking towards the bench where Ruslan sits.

The little girl -- clearly bold and curious when it comes to squirrels and potential bunnies and whatever else she might find in the brush -- gets more shy as they come closer. She doesn't exactly hang back, pull on her mother's arm, and cry to go home. That curiosity is still bright in her eyes, which stare with only the occasional blink. But she does hesitate, because he's a stranger, and she doesn't know him, and she's waiting to see what her mommy does.

She looks a great deal like Nadezhda. He's there in her eyes, though. Hard to tell what else will develop over time. Right now she's all chubby, rosy cheeks and dark waves of hair, tied into pigtails with thin ribbons.

"Hi," Nadezhda breathes, standing beside the bench, holding the picnic basket and her purse, looking down at him. She doesn't seem to know what to say. Lisa looks from Ruslan up at her, then at Ruslan again, then at her mommy again.

"Is that your friend, mommy?" she wants to know, her sentence clear but her pronunciation... well. Immature. She doesn't quite hit the d at the end of 'friend'. Also, 'is that' is more like izzat. But still. Clear.

Nadezhda breaks into a broad, bright smile. "Yes."

Lisa is not done: "Whatsis name?" But her mother is useless. Lisa looks at him, still holding tight to her mother's hand. "What's your name?"

Ruslan

As mother and daughter approach, Ruslan gets up from the bench. Perhaps his sudden height and strangeness cause the girl to hesitate. She is brave, though. She stares, the unsparing curiosity of children and animals. His heart is beating hard in his chest. He feels something, looking at her. Some sense of pride, or amazement, or affinity.

"Hi," he replies. It's been months since the night Nadezhda picked him up at the port. A month or more since the last time he saw her at all, which was so brief an encounter they hardly had time to speak. His eyes linger on her for a beat longer, then return to the little girl. He goes down to one knee, eye-level with her.

"Hello," he says, very gently. "I'm Michael." He holds the bag of bread crumbs out. "Do you want to feed the ducks with me?"

Nadezhda

Nadezhda doesn't mind at all. That Ruslan keeps looking at Lisa and not at her. She remembers doing the same, years ago, when Lisa was born. She couldn't take her eyes off of her. She touched her fingertip to every miniscule fingernail, lightly, amazed. She traced her baby's facial features until Lisa wrinkled up her nose and fussed. She was obsessed with Lisa's tiny mouth, the way her eyes never darkened after she started to grow up, the dimples that appeared in her cheeks when she learned to smile. She still sometimes cannot do anything but look at the child, staring, both awed and aching,

so she understands why Ruslan looks at Lisa now, and not at Nadezhda. It doesn't matter. She wants him to see as much as he can, in what time he has. What time they have.

He tells Lisa his name is Michael, and Nadezhda -- who is, in fact, still looking at him -- notes that. She didn't give Lisa a name. Just 'mommy's friend', which is the truest thing she could say of him. It is at the core of what she feels for him, the ember that never cools, the root so deep it cannot be excavated: he is her friend. Her oldest, dearest, closest friend.

And, in truth, he was her friend before he was ever anything else. The first time they met, or some version of the two of them met, he became her friend.

He has always become her friend.

--

Michael introduces himself to Lisa, and offers breadcrumbs. She's only a child; he can see the craving for this pasttime flare in her eyes, arguing with her uncertainty of a stranger. Then there's her manners. She looks up at her mommy, who looks down at her with a smile and little nod.

Then, quite bravely, she looks up at him again, having to crane her neck to do so, and says with surprising determination and careful politeness: "Hello Michael it's good to meet you my name is Lisa." She knows she is supposed to offer her hand to shake, but she doesn't want to let go of her mom yet.

She presses her lips together, wanting to feed the ducks very badly but feeling wariness still. In the end, she gives a fierce little nod. "Yes, please. Mommy --"

Nadezhda is grinning at her. "Go ahead." Squeezes Lisa's hand and then gently lets go. "I'll set out our picnic, all right? Just be careful around the water."

Her eyes move to Ruslan. He's not practiced being a father; not yet. She gives him a little nod, too, her hand subtly wafting Lisa's hand towards him, though it seems meant to encourage Ruslan to take the lead.

Ruslan

In truth, it's not the name he wanted to give the little girl. He wanted to tell her the truth: that his name is Ruslan, that her mother's name is Nadezhda, that together, miraculously, they made her -- their daughter. But she is so small, and her world is safe only because she believes it to be, and because her mother protects her from danger the best she can. He cannot bring himself to jeopardize that.

So the name he gives her is the false name of a nonexistent man. And he offers her breadcrumbs for the ducks, and she is so eager, and his heart wants to implode on itself. He holds his hand out for hers instead, letting the little girl take the lead. Her hand is so small that two of his fingers fill her entire palm.

"Let's go down by the pond," he suggests. And, to Nadezhda, "I'll keep her out of the water."

--

So they're down by the pond for a while. Ruslan gives his daughter breadcrumbs handful by handful at first and she feeds them to the ducks. Eventually he gives her the entire bag, and by then every duck in the pond knows there is food here, free food, good food, safe food. They cluster and flock, quacking, splashing, a few of them fanning their wings as they chase the breadcrumbs to and fro.

Nadezhda sees Ruslan lean down, then. He says something to Lisa -- a question -- and he waits for the answer patiently while Lisa considers. Then she sees him holding his arms out, scooping their daughter up, holding her comfortably on one hip while she empties the last of the breadcrumbs onto the banks of the pond.

The ducks are still feasting when they come back to the little picnic. Ruslan lets Lisa back down when they're within a few yards, and she runs the rest of the way back to her mother. He follows, smiling to see the spread.

Nadezhda

There is certainly still some hesitation on Lisa's part before she takes Ruslan's hand, wrapping her tiny fingers around his larger ones. She keeps an eye on her mommy, looking over her shoulder as she walks off with Ruslan, a bit of fretfulness in her eyes but determination in the way she stomps through the grass.

"I know," is all Nadezhda says to him, smiling, as he assures her that he won't let their daughter fall in the duck pond. She seems so amused, but it isn't at anyone's expense. She's so happy, seeing Lisa holding his hand, seeing the way he looks at her, being in a park together for a picnic, which is somehow the essence of everything she's wanted for the past four years.

She watches them for a little while, the picnic basket set on the bench, her eyes on her Ruslan, her Lisa. She watches Lisa throwing whole handfuls of crumbs at the water. Throwing is still a relatively new skill for her, and her movements are unnecessarily but delightfully energetic, intense. She keeps yelling at the ducks to get the crumbs, hurry, hurry, duckies! The ducks, unafraid of humans, pay her no mind, gobbling up the food. She shrieks happily as they splash.

Nadezhda picks up the basket and moved to a grassy area in the sun after a while. Lays out the blanket. Puts a few rocks on the corners to hold it down against the breeze. Takes out thermos, sandwiches, the like. She looks over again to see Ruslan lifting Lisa into his arms, and Lisa... looks all right with this. Unafraid, no longer wary, because she's having fun and Michael is nice and he tells her she can dump the whole bag out and she cannot wait to see the ducks go crazy. So she turns it over, shaking it ferociously, emptying the bag onto the water as the ducks loose their tiny duck brains, flapping and squawking.

Lisa is laughing, her cheeks bright, clapping her hands together just like she was in the photo he saw of her. Only this is different. This is so much more: she's in motion, she's in color, she's laughing out loud and she's this warm, living being next to his heart. And she is his. She has always been his. He and Nadezhda made her. Miraculous.

She's a big enough girl now, no longer a baby, that being put down to run across the grass is not seen as a bad thing. She is clearly an active child, not the sort to sit still often, and hits the ground running. She is still holding on to the paper bag that most recently held breadcrumbs, yelling

"I fed the ducks, mommy!"

"I know!" Nadezhda says, opening her arms so that Lisa can fly into them. "I watched you," she says fondly, unconsciously rocking the girl for a moment as the now-winded child leans on her shoulder. "Are you hungry? Ready for lunch?"

Lisa just nods, and kisses her cheek, and goes to flop down on a bit of blanket. She wiggles an sorts herself into place, and then leans over, patting the blanket near her. Well: more smacking the blanket than patting it. Every gesture she makes is emphatic. "Michael, you sit here, okay?" Looks at Nadezhda. "Can Michael sit by me, please?"

Nadezhda is laughing. There are also tears in her eyes. "Yes!" she says, and exhaling, overcome: "Yes, sweetheart. Of course."

Lisa doesn't notice that her mother is in a bliss that rides the edge of pain, a joy so intense she doesn't seem quite able to handle it. She just beams at Ruslan. "Sit here. Mommy and me made sandwiches for you."

Ruslan

Obligingly, mommy's friend 'Michael' sits next to Lisa, crossing his legs. There's a hint of humor -- a little joke shared between grown-ups -- as he pats the blanket on his other side with a glance at Nadezhda.

"Sandwiches!" he exclaims, turning back to his daughter. "What kind?"

Nadezhda

Nadezhda, already triangulated a bit between her daughter and her friend, scoots a bit closer to Ruslan. She doesn't think Lisa will mind. She bites back laughter at his overblown excitement about the sandwiches.

Lisa freezes. Looks at her mother.

"Roast beef for us," she coaxes, "and for Lisa --"

"Peanut butter!" the child exclaims, grinning, remembering. "And jelly."

Of course then, she wants to know if Ruslan likes peanut butter and jelly, and she'll share hers with him if he wants. That does turn out to be a false promise, though not intentionally so: once Lisa begins eating, she wolfs her food down, clearly hungry from running around the park and the long drive. She only gets a little bit of peanut butter on her cheek, and wipes it off with a napkin she gets for herself, making a yecch face. She also eats a banana, and drinks greedily from a canteen of water, while the adults eat their beef sandwiches and apples. The thermos has some hot chocolate. It's no longer steaming, but it's still quite warm when Nadezhda passes cups around.

Mostly they watch her. She doesn't seem to notice, or find it unusual. She gets a small chocolate mustache that Nadezhda helps her wipe away, and by then she almost looks tired, but not the way a baby would. It's a lull, before she is looking around, looking for something else to do, looking for somewhere to burn off these new calories.

The adults are still working on their sandwiches. She looks restless. "Can I go play?"

There is no playground, but this is 1966: Lisa is a different breed of child, experiencing a different sort of childhood, than generations to come. Already it's so far removed from the way her parents grew up to be like that of an alien species. She will find something. A stick. A garter snake to follow around. A puddle. Another child.

Nadezhda nods to her. "Make sure you stay where you can see us and we can see you. Yell if you need me."

"Okay, mommy," Lisa says, too young to seem put-upon. She scrambles up, kissing Nadezhda's cheek again, and then -- as though she thinks it would be rude to do otherwise -- she turns to Ruslan and gives him a quick hug, a rest of her head on his shoulder, a squeeze, before she runs off, her coat unbuttoned now, off to explore this park she's never seen before.

Nadezhda watches her for a while.

Says quietly, after Lisa is out of earshot: "I wasn't sure what name you wanted to give her. I thought I should let you choose."

Ruslan

It's been months since Ruslan arrived in America, half-starved and discombobulated. Since then he's moved into a cute little two-bedroom in the Baltimore suburbs. He's started a day job as a draftsman in an architectural firm downtown. When he isn't actively undermining the global and domestic interests of the United States, he lives a privileged little life where roast beef is not a special holiday treat and picnics are not a rarity.

Even so, he savors the lunch they share. He can't remember the last time he had meat so perfectly spiced, or bread so wonderfully textured. He certainly can't remember the last time he saw a child so beautiful or perfect as Lisa, chocolate-moustached, peanut butter on her fingers.

"Don't chase the ducks," he can't help but say when she gets up to play, afraid that she might fall in the water, afraid she might be attacked by an angry flock. She hugs him, and he's startled, uncertain, hugs her back belatedly and gratefully.

They both watch her for a while. Her dark hair bouncing as she runs. Her little feet pitterpattering.

He turns back as Nadezhda speaks. He moves a little closer. "A Russian name, you mean?" He considers. "I like Lisa. It fits her. Maybe something similar. Vasilisa. Alisa."

His attention drifts back toward the child. He watches her a little longer.

"She's perfect."

Nadezhda

"I WON'T!" Lisa yells back to Ruslan, when told not to chase ducks. Her arms are out for balance as she hurtles along, as though that hug she gave her new friend, her mommy's friend, was not a thunderclap, an earthquake, an upheaval of the world as it was

and will never be again.

Nadezhda was watching Lisa, too. And looks at him again, as he moves nearer. She sighs, as though even without touching she can feel him closer to her. "I meant... your name. What to tell her about you."

Her hand moves to the blanket between them. She leaves it there, but says nothing of it.

As he tells her that their daughter is perfect, she smiles. "She is," she says, somewhat confessionally. "I try to be strict with her. She's... smart and willful and charming. Dangerous girl," she adds, smiling wryly with a little shake of her head. Turns to look at him. "It is very hard to be strict with her. But I want her to behave, and not be spoiled. I want her to have... some of your restraint. Your quiet way."

Ruslan

He laughs a little. "I'm sure in spite of it all she'll be rebelling like her mother soon enough."

His hand moves over a little more. His little finger overlaps her thumb. It is barely any contact at all, but every last nerve ending is suddenly sparking. He looks over to see where their daughter is, and then he reaches into his coat.

Pulls out a little flask. Passes it to her with a wry smirk. "From the motherland," he says, with only a touch of irony.

Nadezhda

He laughs. Promises that Lisa will rebel. She smiles to him. She thinks of telling him about Lisa at age two, and the rebellion that happened then. But she doesn't want to say it. She doesn't want to remind him how much he missed.

Their hands touch. Her finger strokes his. She breathes in, her spine straightening a bit.

They watch Lisa. Until he produces a flask. She huffs a laugh. "We shouldn't," she whispers. Not that it matters. There's that look in her eyes. The same look that was there when she suggested they steal the chairman's vodka.

Ruslan

There is wryness and fondness and -- something like recognition, something like knowledge in the sidelong glance he gives her.

And then he offers the flask again, a few inches closer.

Nadezhda

Finally she purses her lips, fighting a grin, but that's what gets her to move. To take what she wants.

First: the flash from his hand.

Second: her hand, covering his hand.

"Tvoyo zdorov'ye," she whispers, carefully, and takes a sip.

Ruslan

"Same to you," he whispers back, taking a sip of his own.

They pass the vodka a few times. Perhaps only one or two. They can't be drunk when Lisa comes back, after all. There are some leftover beef slices left; he eats one with his hands. Takes another sip.

This too is a whisper: "Should we tell her one day?"

Nadezhda

Small sips of vodka. A hand warm in her own. And a whisper.

She pauses. Her brow furrows. "I... have no idea. I don't even know yet who she will become." She looks to him again, with a faint ache. "She's only four. I can't... think of that, yet."

Ruslan

The breath he takes and releases is something of a sigh. The next question he asks is no easier:

"Should we run away together one day?"

Nadezhda

It is easier. Still makes her pause. Still makes her furrow her brow. But it makes her go back to the last question, too. It makes that one easier to answer as well. She swallows.

"Yes."

She takes a drink of vodka. Not a sip.

Ruslan

Somehow, after everything, he wasn't sure she would say that. He didn't dare look at her, even, when he asked.

But she does say what she says. And he does look at her, quickly, inexorably.

They have no room for anything here. He can't reach over. He can't take her face between his hands. He can't kiss her. Not because he fears what would happen to her, or him, or any of them should her husband find out. She doesn't really have a husband; she has a partner, and he knows. But he does fear what would happen to Lisa, their little daughter, if she should see her mother kissing a strange man. What she would think. How confused and frightened she would be.

He fears for his daughter, too, when they run away together. He fears for what that upheaval might do to her. He regrets all the time he missed, all the lies she's had to live.

He doesn't fear the retribution of his country. He doesn't even feel bad. Look at what they've all sacrificed already.

"I'll start laying plans," he whispers. "It might take months. Maybe even years. Be patient with me, Nadyuishka."

Nadezhda

Plans, he says. Patience, he begs.

Nadezhda laughs at him. "What makes you think you will be doing it alone?"

She shakes her head, amused with him. "The older she gets, the harder it will be for her. I will not let it take years."

The flask is offered back to him. A few sips is all she dares. "Be ready for us, Ruslan."

Ruslan

He laughs, taking the flask. A last sip and then he caps it, tucking it back in his jacket. Mustn't let little Lisa think her mommy's friend is some sort of drunken slob.

"I love you, Nadyuishka," he says softly. "You're bold as a lion. Always were."

Nadezhda

He keeps calling her the wrong name. Sharing Russian vodka with her. Talking about running away together. And she should tell him to stop. She should insist that he stop. He's Michael. She's Jane. They are red-blooded, patriotic Americans, born and bred, through and through. She should tell him that she is not ever going to run away with him, uproot their daughter, never go home again, never stop looking over their shoulders. And there is, in fact, a part of her that wonders if they could ever have any life one could call worth living.

But she doesn't say any of that. She doesn't want to live without him. Four years has been enough. She wants Lisa to know him, and grow up with him, and be told one day that Ruslan is her real father. She knows it won't be perfect. It won't be idyllic at all, nothing like the life she's been performing all this time in her little suburb.

Which has been a lie. All of it has been a lie. And that is what sticks in her throat: she is a good liar, but that does not mean it does not chip away at her, a little at a time.

"And I love you," she whispers. Her brow furrows with tenderness, but she is keeping an eye on Lisa, who is observing a tree with far too much curiosity to be thinking of anything but climbing it.

"Always, she adds, softly, looking at him again.

Ruslan

His eyes on hers. That momentary, intense regard. That is what they have in lieu of touching, kissing. In lieu of hours and days together, waking up in the same bed, breakfast over the same table, lives intertwined.

It's all they've had since she dropped him off in Richmond. It's more than they've had in the four years before that. And the lifetime before that: it seems almost a dream at this point, distant and surreal. Those cinderblock tenements, the frigidity of those Russian winters.

"Always," he replies, and repeats, and vows. And his hand squeezes her, and then

he gets up. "I'll go get her," he says. And then, with a crooked little smile, "See. Trouble's in her blood."

Nadezhda

When she looks at him, she thinks -- at least for once -- not of what they've lost. What they gave up. How, when whe learned she was pregnant, all her wants changed, and she wished she had left the program, stayed with him. She remembers her idealism, her committment to the cause, the fulfillment it gave her. What a scant reward, she thinks now, for such a high price. But they can't go back. And anyway: right now she looks at him, stares into his eyes, and thinks of something else.

The warmth of the vodka in her belly, clouding her thoughts just a little, softening her regard. She thinks of how different his eyes are from Lisa's, not quite the same blue, not quite the same shape, and this pleases her somehow, even though all this time those blue eyes were almost all that could comfort her for the loss of him. She thinks of how it was to see him pick Lisa up, or see Lisa hug him, or just watching how he looked at her.

She thinks not of the future, or the past. Just now. Just today. Just their picnic. Just their daughter.

She smiles softly, and nods. He lets go of her and teases her wild youth, the traits she has given to their child. She thinks: he knew, from just an hour or so, what Lisa was thinking about that tree. She is watching him jog off down the green to sweep Lisa up from the ground, listening to Lisa shriek with laughter, watching him spin the girl around once before setting her down again. She is watching Lisa take off running, looking over her shoulder, obviously wanting to be chased, letting out peals of delight as Ruslan goes after her.

This is all they have, for now.

And -- for now, for this moment, for these brief hours -- it is enough.