Dragonfly Girl

by Marti Leimbach

  He shrugs.

  “It was a gift from my friend. Another friend, not the one you killed. Or tried to kill, anyway. Can he even see?”

  “No English.”

  “You probably gave my watch to your girlfriend. Maybe you sold it.”

  I wait for him to get angry, but he shows no response. Either he really doesn’t understand English or he doesn’t care what I say. I notice he pays no attention to my big red lipstick sign either. Nothing I do, other than bring back the dead, matters to these people.

  We go out to the cold staircase once again. It feels weird to be wearing shoes again. I clomp along the dark halls, then down the stairs, out the door, and into the van where days ago Will and I crouched together.

  I keep thinking he’ll be around the next corner. But he’s not.

  We ride the car elevator up to the street level, then head out. The guy with the sweatshirt drives, the one with the scalp tattoos beside him. My visibility through the front windows is limited. We could be anywhere in Russia, anywhere in the world really, and I wouldn’t know.

  “Where are we?” I ask. But there’s no response.

  We ride in silence. When eventually the van stops and they let me out, I’m in front of a pale building with fat pillars and grand windows. The house, if it is a house, is giant. As I’m taken through an iron gate and up a set of steps to a wide wooden door, I think it must belong to the man Vasiliev works for. The one he described back in Stockholm as a man of great power.

  “You want me to go in there?” I say to the guy with the scalp tattoos.

  He rings the bell, then returns to the van, leaving me on the doorstep. I’m nervous as hell, but what can I do? The guy with the sweatshirt leans out the open window, smoking and glaring at me with an expression that says running will be futile. The front door opens and he begins waving the gun, signaling me to go through. I’m terrified to move, but I do it, wondering how on earth the door opened with nobody there.

  Once inside, I see that there is someone there. A small, stout woman in a black dress and a long, white apron. She looks like an actor from a living history museum. I’m half expecting a man in a frock coat and top hat to arrive behind her, announcing the prince’s ball.

  “Where am I?” I say. “Whose house is this?”

  The woman says nothing, but ducks her head in greeting.

  I step onto a gleaming wooden floor in a hall, vast and elaborate, with giant chandeliers and gold-leaf ornamentation along the walls. My mind flashes back to the Grand Hôtel and all the gold and crystal of the Hall of Mirrors.

  That was a lifetime ago.

  I hold my hand to the side of my head as though on the phone. “Can I use your phone?” I say. “Phone?” I point to the imaginary phone in my hand. If only I could call someone, call Munn. If not him, then Lauren. She’d tell her dad or the police or someone. She’d figure it out.

  But the woman only gestures for me to follow. We climb one side of a double staircase that arches upward toward the floors above. I stare at walls of oil paintings in overwrought frames, intricate molding, a huge decorated ceiling. Through a set of wide doors is a room with a giant ugly chandelier. It hangs from the center of a ceiling rose with a pattern of leaves that snake toward the walls. A set of tall windows frame the branches of the flowering trees outside. The sparkling lights of the city ignite in the slow dusk of evening. I wouldn’t have thought I’d recognize the skyline, but I do. I’m in Moscow.

  A man stands at the window, his hands behind his back. He turns as I enter the room and comes toward me, smiling.

  “I am Mikhail Petrovich Volkov,” he says. His English is good, less accented than Vasiliev’s, and he guesses correctly that a Russian name is difficult for me and that he needs to speak slowly. “You may know me as Volkov,” he says. He pauses as though his name ought to mean something to me, but of course it doesn’t.

  I nod and smile and shy away, not wanting him too close.

  “What? You are afraid of me? I’m not going to hurt you,” he says. He seems to find this amusing. When I say nothing he adds, “I understand you had a rather thrilling day, Kira.”

  He knows my name. He also knows what we were doing in the laboratory.

  “Is Will still blind?” I say.

  He ignores my question. “Vasiliev told me of this person who can make the dead live again. I thought, who could do such a thing? A magician? Then into my house walks a young woman little more than a child. My dear Kira, you are magnificent.”

  It pains me to hear him speak like this, as though I’ve done something great. I’ve done nothing great. And when I cannot join him in his blithe description of the day’s events, his mood changes as though a curtain has been drawn. He frowns. “Come here,” he says after a moment. “Let me look at your hands.”

  I try not to shake as Volkov takes my hands and turns them over gently in his own as though getting ready to tell my fortune. He looks hard at the rough skin, the bitten nails. “Your hands reveal that you are full of worries,” he says, noticing the chew marks. “But also, that you work hard. There is a Russian saying, ‘The man who does not work, does not eat.’”

  A warning.

  He points to a patch of skin above my knuckles. “But I suspect you have been doing too much of the wrong kind of work,” he says. “See this? The red, rough skin? I understand you have been used in that American laboratory only to wash chemicals from laboratory glass?”

  So he knows about Mellin, too.

  He points to a shiny patch of skin in the shape of a crescent moon. A burn I received, like so many others, from working in kitchens. My hands and forearms are full of such tiny scars.

  “You should protect your hands,” he says. “They are going to be very important. You are going to be very important.”

  Volkov loosens his grip and takes a crystal decanter from a tray set on a table beside us. He fills two small ornate glasses and then offers me one.

  “To your health,” he says. He downs his shot, then holds up the empty glass as though saluting me with it before placing it once again onto the tray.

  “Drink!” he instructs.

  I look at the little glass of clear liquid in my fingers. Then I hold my breath and force myself to throw back the shot, trying not to wince.

  “And now,” he says, holding a plate in front of me with pieces of toast and pickle.

  I can feel the warmth of the vodka radiating outward inside me as though I’ve lit a small furnace in my belly. I’m so nervous, I’m afraid I’m going to bring it all back up. But I’m hungry, too, so I take one of the miniature toasts from the plate.

  “Another,” says Volkov, offering a second shot. I don’t want it. But this is not a man who will be told no. So I steady myself for the jolt that is coming, then feel the liquid burn a trail down my throat.

  Suddenly, I’m light-headed, as though I could float across the room. But I’m still scared; the alcohol has done nothing for that. One time, when I was a child, I sat down on the forest floor and discovered too late a rattlesnake near my foot. My mother, a few feet away, had calmly but sternly instructed me not to move, not a leg, not even a finger. We waited like that for what had felt like an eternity, silently observing the rattlesnake until, eventually, it unwound itself from its fist of coils and slithered off into the brush.

  I feel the same now with Volkov, as though I better be still.

  “May I show you something?” he asks. “It’s only a flower, but it is a very special flower.” He goes to one of the enormous windows and takes a small plant in an ornate pot, placing it on the coffee table. We sit down, and he says, “Let me tell you the story of this flower. One day, a team of scientists were digging below the permafrost in Siberia. They found all sorts of things—woolly rhinoceros bones, hooves of mammoths. And then they found, entirely encased by ice, something like what you see before you.”

  “They found a potted plant?” The words slip out, a result no doubt of too much vodka. I slap my hand over
my mouth.

  Volkov looks at me stonily, then laughs. But it is a strange, unnatural laugh, as though he’s trained himself to make the noise, as this is what Americans do, they laugh like fools. “No, my lovely, the scientists found a treasure of seeds stored some thirty-two thousand years ago by one of Earth’s prehistoric squirrels. This very plant was born of those seeds.”

  I study the flowers, delicate white blossoms with robust stamens.

  “Imagine!” says Volkov. “They came back to life after such an age. It’s a miracle, don’t you think? But your miracle is even greater.” He leans toward me now, whispering. “You can bring human beings back to life. You can cure death. I cannot imagine what it is to feel that power.”

  “Will can’t see.” I know I shouldn’t speak like this, but I can’t stop myself. “Is anyone going to help him?”

  Volkov’s expression changes at once. He’s grown tired of me spoiling this important moment, a moment he’s paid dearly for and wishes to enjoy.

  “You have an unfortunate habit of dwelling on details,” he says coldly.

  It’s clear that the effort he makes to appear congratulatory thinly veils a great well of anger. Also, that he’s a man who makes people afraid. I saw as much in the behavior of the housekeeper, or whoever she is, when she escorted me up to the grand living room to see him. She stood at the entryway, unwilling to enter, her hands folded across the front of her apron, her head bowed, eyes cast down, as though she did not wish to provoke him with so much as an unwelcome glance.

  I do the same now, staring down at the silk carpet beneath our feet.

  “It has been a long day. You are tired,” he says finally.

  An enormous growl from my belly sounds, and I automatically press my hand against my stomach. “Excuse me,” I mutter. “I worked through lunch.”

  An understatement if ever there was one.

  He lets out a long breath. “My dear girl!” he exclaims, his role as host in full sail once again. “How can you be expected to enjoy the evening if you are hungry? Did Vasiliev not feed you? What is the matter with that man, anyway?” He laughs again, making us into a friendly duo with a common foe in Vasiliev, whose great crime had not been to kill a man but to forget to order in sandwiches. “Let me get you something right away.”

  He moves to the staircase, calling down. Ten minutes later, the housekeeper appears with a tray of caviar and deviled eggs, slivers of bread and smoked salmon, and tiny warm pastries filled with pureed olives and cheese. I try not to be too greedy, but I eat like I’ve been starved, which I suppose I have been.

  “In a little while we’ll have a proper dinner,” Volkov says. “I hope that is acceptable to you.”

  It’s clear he is used to people being charmed by his invitations. While I am anything but charmed by him, I could use some food.

  Volkov shows me more of the grand house, telling stories about the artifacts he’s collected: fossils, dinosaur bones, pieces of meteorites, a medieval medicine chest, a microscope with sapphire and diamond lenses.

  “Of course, you have heard of Fabergé eggs,” he says, stopping at a sculpture of gold and emeralds in its own glass display case. “Did you know that the nephew of Alfred Nobel had one commissioned? The family was very wealthy, you see. Science is expensive business. And it is becoming more so.”

  “Did you have this one commissioned?” I ask, peering through the case at the egg, covered in jewels and with a whimsical beauty.

  “Oh no,” he laughs. “This egg is far older than I am. It was tracked down for me by a fellow who knows that I like such things. I have a few people who look after my interests in this way.”

  “Are you a collector, then?” I say.

  He considers this. “Yes, I suppose I am. But I am far more excited about the future than the past. And you are the future.”

  I don’t understand what he means. I’m exhausted, and the vodka is still swimming in my head. At last we enter the dining room. At the end of a banquet table are two place settings, elaborate and detailed like every aspect of the giant house. There are several wineglasses and a complete set of silverware, including a tiny fork and a knife with a weird edge. Enormous red-and-gold plates are whisked away and replaced with warm ones when the food arrives.

  If you have been fed only sausages and sandwiches for days on end, there is nothing more appealing than crisp green beans, roasted carrots, and grilled peppers. I want it all. I want the tomato, the bright lemon, the pieces of garlic, the herbs. The food is beautifully presented, abundant, and delicious. Perhaps it is the vodka, but everything tastes richer and deeper than I’m used to; even the lemon seems more fragrant.

  After a little while, Volkov clears his throat and says, “Vasiliev forgets how much young people need to eat.” He pauses, his face registering mock disgust, as though Vasiliev really needs a good telling-off for having fed me so infrequently. “However, he has been useful in finding you, so we can thank him for that. Only occasionally, a person of great potential is brought to my attention, someone worthy of investment.”

  I freeze, mid-bite. “What do you mean?” I say.

  “I would like to see you enriched. Many people are interested, very interested, in developing our work. Since the pandemics that have swept our globe, we search for the best people, not just from Russia but from the ends of the earth. And we need them young so that the investment is worthwhile.”

  I recall something Dmitry said the first time I met him, that the Americans had Silicon Valley and the Russians had Silicon Forest. “Is it true you have whole cities devoted to science?” I say. “Tucked away in forests?”

  He leans back in his chair, lacing his fingers together. “The first was Akademgorodok, a science park in Siberia. At its peak, it housed sixty-five thousand scientists. But Brezhnev was not so keen. After the breakup of the Soviet Union, we lost many of our great scientists.” He makes a gesture with his hand as though the scientists had vaporized like ghosts. “Now it is coming back, the science. At last, politicians understand its value. We have many hubs. Skolkovo is only twenty kilometers away, for example.”

  I nod. I have a feeling it is only a matter of time before he tells me I am to work in one of these “hubs.”

  “You are remarkable—and very young,” he says. “Given the right guidance and opportunities you can accomplish great things. Why not pursue post-death recovery here in Russia? I could make this very easy for you.”

  When I say nothing, he adds, “The type of education you require is expensive. Of course, you already know this. I am aware that you don’t have many resources. I mean, of course, money.”

  I wonder how he knows so much about my circumstances. But, of course, Dmitry warned me about the Russians. They know everything, he’d said.

  Volkov takes my wineglass and places it in my hand. “Think of me as Uncle Misha. I can provide all you need to become a great scientist. I run an academy of my own, you see,” he says, clinking his glass with mine.

  I watch him carefully. “Why would you do that for me?” I say.

  Volkov gives a mock jolt of surprise, then says, “You can bring people back from the dead and yet you are asking why? Work for me and you will have opportunities you never imagined. No strings!” he says, pulling his hands back, palms up, to show he has no expectations.

  I don’t believe him for a minute. I’m willing to bet that a man like Volkov has nothing but strings.

  “Can you think of me as your benefactor?” he says. “It would be such a pleasure for me.”

  A benefactor. A patron. It sounds like something from centuries past. But then, the entire house and all the beautiful things around me—the Fabergé egg, the works by great artists, the meteorites and asteroids and ancient bones—are all part of a collection of antiquities. He collects scientific things, and he wants to own the girl who brings the dead back to life.

  “That plant you showed me, the one grown from prehistoric seeds?” I wait for Volkov to nod. “Well, who told you
that the seeds existed?”

  Volkov shrugs. “There are people who know I am curious about such things.”

  “What people?” I say.

  “Friends,” he says.

  I remember what Vasiliev told me, that he has science scouts. And that one of those scouts is related to Biba.

  The pieces all fall into place now: Vasiliev brought me to Volkov to consider for his collection. If I pass this “interview” I will be kept. To what end, I am uncertain. And if I fail the interview?

  Volkov looks at me fondly. “You love science, don’t you, Kira?”

  I nod.

  “This is all I ask,” he says.

  As though I’d be stupid enough to believe that.

  We have coffee and chocolate in a room that overlooks a large courtyard, beautifully spotlit to show off the trees and flowerbeds. A fountain, illuminated from below, sparkles with silvery water. Nothing inside Volkov’s palatial house can rival the trees through the windows, the flutelike song of the thrushes, the comforting coos of wood pigeons. I wish I could go into the garden. I want to take off my shoes and feel the grass between my toes.

  Volkov pours the coffee. “I hope you will accept our arrangement,” he says, offering me chocolate from an ornate box. “I will finance everything you need, make sure you are working with the best people, and you will have a comfortable life. How does that sound?”

  “You want me to work for the Russian government?”

  He lets out a single bark of laughter, then says, “The government? Of course not! This is nothing to do with the government. I have my own laboratories. A private enterprise, I can assure you.”

  I’m scared to death of him, of Vasiliev, of everything around me right now. The house is supposed to be beautiful and interesting, but it reminds me of a mausoleum, a great tribute to dead science. Volkov himself possesses a kind of darkness that he masks, playing the cheery host. I want to run out of here, but where would I go? Outside are Vasiliev’s men. I have no choice but to play along.

  “What would you want me to do?” I say.

  He smiles, conveying a warm, avuncular air. “I wouldn’t presume to tell you what to do,” he says, as though it is me who controls him and not the other way around.