Sekret (16 page)

I can’t hear Mama’s thoughts. No static, no shield, just a great emptiness. “Mama, I need you to listen to me. You’ve been brainwashed—Colonel Rostov, he’s—” I take a deep breath. How to begin? “I don’t know how to explain this to you, but I’ve been … I’m a psychic. You know, a mind reader. I can pull memories off of people and places.”

She laughs. I’d already forgotten how beautiful her laugh is, swimming and sinking like an arpeggio. “Yulia, darling, I know. I’m proud of you. Really.”

I stagger backward as if shot. “You’re
proud
?”

“It’s a good, solid future for you. What we should have done from the start. Much better than hiding, begging, and trading for food … I’ve been a terrible mother, Yulia. I’m so sorry.”

“No, Mama, you don’t understand. Put your hand to the glass—”

“No touching!” barks the guard from behind me. I grimace and take a step back.

“I spoke with my old lab director,” Mama says. “They’re going to let me resume our research. I never should have quit. Your father left his notes with them before he ran. We were so close to breaking through.”

“You quit for a reason, Mama. You and Papa ran away from something—from what?”

She shakes her head, a stray lock of hair sticking to her embarrassed grin. “Your father had such foolish ideas. Running for help, as if anyone in the West might care about our plight. Leaving me with this mess. He didn’t know how dangerous it would be for us over there. And you—you have no idea how much more dangerous it is for you, with this power. There are people who would kill you for what you can do, when all the State wants is for you to be happily employed—”

“Happy?
Happy?
” I screech. “Mama, what have they done to you? Why are they making you say these things?” Memories bubble up to the surface through my exhausted haze. “How do you know Colonel Rostov? What does he want with you?”

“He and our old research academy and Khruschev want what everyone wants: a better Russia. I was on the right path, once, before your father got his dangerous ideas.” For one flame-flicker second, she looks remorseful. But she blinks it away. “And now I’ve found it again.”

“Time’s up.” The guard snatches at my arm again.

“Please, wait!” Tears run down my cheeks as I pull against him. “Mama, you have to listen to me—”

“No, Yulia. I beg you—listen.” Her tone freezes me where I stand. There’s pleading in her words that belies her placid smile. “It’s not safe for you beyond the Colonel’s grasp. I know this is all very confusing.” She squeezes her eyes shut. “But promise me you won’t run away again.”

The guard stands, waiting, his grip still on my arm. Mama stares right through me.

I hang my head. I can’t even look at her as I mutter, “I won’t.”

*   *   *

I sit across from Rostov in the back of the van. He hasn’t stopped grinning. I want to punch him, shatter that smug look. He’s waiting for me to say something, give him some hint of acquiescence. But just because he’s the safest choice for me right now doesn’t make me his ally. I heard Natalya Gruzova’s screams—I won’t forget what he’s capable of.

“It is for the best that you went through this,” he finally says, picking at his fingernails. “Sometimes we need to learn our limitations. Open our eyes to the reality of why things must be the way they are.”

“You didn’t have to kill Gruzova,” I say to my feet.

The back of my head strikes the hard metal wall. My legs kick out from under me, and my wrists lock up, sealed to my sides. I try to turn my head, try to look away from his boiling face, bright red like a scar, but my head won’t obey. My thoughts scatter like a flock of birds, flapping in terror.

“What do you think the CIA team would have done to her, if I let her live? Would they continue to work with her, knowing they’d been betrayed? Would they keep poking holes into her thoughts until her brain crumbled?” The words hiss through the gap in his teeth. “She was not living. She was a walking shadow.”

I hate him—every nerve ending on my skin burns with hatred for him—but I stay locked in place. I can’t push this hatred out of me. I am too weak. I soak up his fury, letting him fill me with his emotions, his control, his contempt. Why can’t I push these feelings out? I’m like a waterskin stretched to bursting.

And the worst of it is I know he’s right.

“Traitors, dissidents, cowards like your father have the luxury of looking down on our Soviet way. They have never known true suffering, and therefore don’t see its purpose. They cannot fathom why we must resort to such measures because they’ve never witnessed the consequences of too much liberty.”

Again, that pain in my heart at knowing he’s right. Our family was always privileged, we always had plenty—food, soft toilet paper, clothing, holidays on the Black Sea—until the day Papa ran for help and left us to live off the streets.

“He infected your mother with these foul ideas. He would have us be like America. But why?” Rostov sneers. “We have no orphans, no mentally ill living under bridges. Everyone who wishes a job has one. Our artists are celebrated, not shunned. University education for all who wish it, food on every plate. We do not segregate our people by race, by gender. Look at the top women scientists, like your mother, unhindered by their sex. And we are winning the race to the moon! Our
Sputnik
satellites peer down on the Americans, where they are helpless to stop them.

“She had forgotten the importance of her work. Lost herself in his fanciful dreams. But she remembers now. We can be forgiving, when one deserves forgiveness. The Academy has forgiven her for abandoning her important work. And so I forgive you, too, for the impulsiveness of your youth.”

Forgiveness? The very word, from him, tastes like rancid meat. Maybe he’s right about Papa, about the cost we pay to live in a country like ours. Maybe, in time, I will not despise my gift and the work it has led me to.

But I will never bow to him.

“She knew,” I say. “About my ability.” I don’t expect him to answer me honestly, but even lies have a way of peeling a few layers back on the truth.

Rostov smiles like he’s savoring this moment. “They both did. We monitor all Party members’ children for the markers of psychic abilities. As scientists themselves, it appears they were able to suppress those results from reaching us, but nothing stays hidden forever.”

His words strike at a tender spot in my mind, like an old bruise. My thoughts edge around it, trying to imagine Mama and Papa keeping such a secret from me. It’s as if, because I didn’t know what I was capable of, it stayed hidden just under my skin until there was nowhere left to hide.

“Those records,” I say. “What if the CIA got access to them? And that’s why they’re hunting us now.”

Rostov nods. “It is possible. We are conducting an internal investigation on the matter. Our top priority is keeping you and your teammates safe from whatever foul plans the CIA has.”

“But it’s not just our team.” My voice sounds thick. I’d only glimpsed a few photographs, that day in Gruzova’s apartment; but perhaps Rostov has salvaged memories of the rest from her shredded brain. “There are others they’re hunting. These wildlings.” I swallow hard. “I want to protect them, too.” At least I can sense the scrubber coming for me, screaming like a tornado or a falling missile. The wildlings, with no control over their powers, don’t have that luxury.

“So you will continue your work for us?” I know it’s not a question, but he pretends it is. “We will keep you safe from this scrubber, and you may lead our efforts to protect these wildlings from the Americans. The less you fight us, the happier we are to accommodate your wishes. A place of your own, in time; visits with your brother.”

He relinquishes his physical control of me. I slump down on the bench. My rage is gone, crushed under its own weight. I think of the fire that smolders behind Valentin’s eyes. Now I understand that he has not given up, but he knows there is no other choice.

“I’ll do it,” I say, my voice rough as burlap.

Someday, I promise myself, I will be strong enough that Rostov can’t pull my strings. I can no longer despise myself for this power. I must make it my own.

CHAPTER 20

MASHA WASTES NO TIME
in seeking me out to gloat. “Look at the ration rat, caught in the mousetrap again.” She flops onto the cot next to mine and crosses her arms behind her head. “You know, most rats learn not to get caught twice.”

“Most rats don’t survive the first time,” I reply.

Masha sucks in a deep breath, then lets it out, a blissful smile overtaking her face. “If only you could have seen your face when Rostov walked into Gruzova’s apartment. I bet you thought you’d been so careful. But you can’t trust a traitor, especially not one as screwed up in the head as that.”

Larissa catches my eye from the far end of the room. It hurts to look at her—I really believed she was different from Misha and Masha, and even Sergei. Masha, I’d expect to stop me at every opportunity. And Sergei—I ignore the pang in my gut. I don’t want to contemplate why he helped them. But Larissa, who must have seen my plans to seek the Americans’ help in her visions of the future, stings in an entirely new way. She has no loyalty to our captors, none that I can discern, or the slightest hint of interest in playing their games. She must have had a good reason for doing this to me. That, or she’s the most devious spy of us all.

Which means—I shake my head—of all people, the one who didn’t betray me was Valentin. I’d been so worried about the dangers he posed that I didn’t see he’s my only ally.

Larissa raises one finger to her lips:
Shh
. I glance down at Masha on the extra cot, eyes still closed, humming boisterously to herself as she basks in victory. Larissa slowly raises her other hand, dangling a dead mouse by the tail. Easy, Shostakovich. Larissa moves slowly, deftly enough to keep the floorboards from squeaking, and tucks the mouse into Masha’s bed.

Masha’s ear-bursting screams after dinner, ringing throughout the house and rattling the windowpanes, almost make me grin. Larissa may not be my ally, but there’s clearly more to her motives than I’d first guessed.

*   *   *

“Check.” Ivan knocks Valentin’s pawn with a heavy click. “Again. Stick to your jazz music, Valya.”

Valentin fiddles with his black frames and studies the board for a long moment, then finally claims Ivan’s bishop with his knight.

“You’ve fallen into my trap!” Ivan slides his rook across the board, sending the knight flying. “Check and mate. You’re really terrible at this game.”

Valentin shrugs. “I never trust people who are good at chess.”

Sergei nudges Ivan. “Move over, it’s my turn.” Ivan lopes off to join Larissa on the couch, and Sergei plops down at the chess board. My chest tightens at the sight of him. He’d been carefully avoiding me since I’d returned yesterday. “Yulia, want to play?”

He flashes me that half-formed grin, hair glittering gold in the afternoon light, but where it might have made me smile before, now it leaves a taste in my mouth like ash. I narrow my eyes at Sergei and point to the textbook in my lap. Valentin’s gaze flicks from Sergei to me.

Sergei’s smile falters. “All right,” he says, “your loss. Let’s play, Valya.”

The book is
An Introduction to the History of Genetics
, my “welcome home” present from Major Kruzenko. She’d given it to me along with a list of the dates for Moscow State’s entrance exams this spring. “You’d better start studying now,” she’d said. As if like that, my escape had been erased and the conclusion foregone: I
would
continue my work with the KGB. I
would
be permitted to attend courses at Moscow State. And just like that, Kruzenko ties onto me a puppet string of her own. As if Rostov hadn’t attached enough.

“You should have forced Ivan to lose,” Misha says to Valentin, as he heads toward the doorway.

“Get in Ivan’s head and force him to make a bad move,” Masha adds. Her delicate legs are slung over her chair arm as she flips through a newspaper.

“I wouldn’t use my powers like that.” Valentin shakes down his rolled-up sleeves. His eyes catch Sergei’s, and my heart twists when he speaks again—“It would set a bad precedent.”

Sergei jumps up from the table, chess pieces scattering everywhere. “Do you have something to say, Valya?”

Valentin’s eyes dart toward mine, then away again. “No. It isn’t worth it.”

“Oh, let me guess,” Masha says, voice reeking with sarcasm. “He thinks you owe his little girlfriend an apology.”

My cheeks sting like they’ve been slapped. I’m frozen, uncertain whether I should deck Masha across the face with this heavy textbook or shout a refutation of what she’s just said, but neither seems like a good option just now. Fortunately, Valentin leaps in for me. “It’s nothing of the sort.” I’m relieved I don’t have to speak, but a sick, vile part of me, one I wish I could smother, feels disappointment at his words.

“I don’t owe anyone an apology,” Sergei says, words whistling through gritted teeth. “I was trying to help her. Save her from far worse. Better than end up like old whats-er-name, right, Valya?”

One of the spider-guards crawls out of the shadows. “Sergei Antonovich.” A look passes between them, then Sergei shrugs them off and storms from the room without so much as a glance toward me. Valentin watches me for a moment, head lowered like he’s embarrassed by the whole affair, then shuffles off. I expect to hear him banging around on the piano within minutes, but silence hangs thick as fog in the mansion.

I turn back to my textbook. A chapter on eugenics—the practice of selectively breeding a human population for desirable qualities and keeping those with undesirable qualities from procreating. Americans and Germans have long taken part in eugenics programs, the book claims. But it says nothing of the perks given to obedient little children like us, or to couples who meet in the Komsomol, the youth members’ group of the Communist Party. Lavish apartments on Kutuzovsky, healthier rations, prompt medical services—I wonder if it’s really so different.