Skandal

by Lindsay Smith

  “It’s only the beginning,” the general says. “Rostov has allies around the world, now. Castro, Mao, Kim. Tito and Kadar. Ho Chi Minh.” A Who’s Who of the Red Menace. Cuba, China, North Korea, Yugoslavia, Hungary, and North Vietnam. “We’ve caught their agents here and abroad, all of them carrying out the sort of marching orders we’d expect from a man like Rostov. But they’re always a step ahead. We have to learn what they’re working toward.”

  But I’m not listening. I’m padding my way through the dark tunnels of my brain, feeling the edges of bruises that’ll never fully fade. Memories my father tried to scrub out; knowledge he and Mama wanted to erase. My parents—both of them—have done awful things before, thinking it was for the greater good. What greater purpose is Mama trying to serve now?

  “I’ll do whatever I must to stop Rostov and my mother’s plan,” I say. “But if you mean to hurt my mother, you do it alone.”

  CHAPTER 2

  “LET’S GO TO DINNER TONIGHT,” Papa says in Russian, the wind shredding his words. “To celebrate your joining the team.” He twists the car’s tuner knob from static to static. “That brasserie down on M Street. You love that place.”

  Neither Valya nor I answer. We’ve learned, these past few months, that Papa prefers to talk to himself rather than carry on a genuine conversation. We will go to dinner at his French restaurant, and he will drive us home in this ridiculous British convertible, and he will probably be drunk, so we’ll park half onto the yard, and then he’ll convince Valentin to play piano duets with him, and we’ll sing all night long in the conservatory of his townhouse that’s so massive it has a conservatory. Is this what it was like for my friend Larissa when she peered into the future? Did she see life as this inevitable pantomime, this grim certainty?

  “Why is Mama helping Rostov?” I ask, screaming to be heard over the static and the wind.

  Papa settles on a fuzzy station playing “Surfin’ USA”, then throttles the stick shift to rocket us around an aquamarine Cadillac. The static scrapes at my thoughts, adding to my tension headache, but Papa’s head bobs and he whistles along. Right now he looks more like Mick Jagger than my father in his buttery leather jacket and black turtleneck. His face is too stubbly—Mama would have attacked it with a razor days ago. He’s wiry as ever, though a teensy belly peeks over his belt buckle from too many nights of rich food and drink and insomnia and cigarettes, but never smoking inside the house, no, because now his English vocabulary includes phrases like “property value” and “mortgage rates.” I wonder if Winnie taught him those.

  “Papa?” I ask again. “Why didn’t you warn me? What’s Mama’s plan?”

  “Do you want to invite Winnie to dinner?” Papa takes his hand off the stick shift just long enough to swat my knee. “I already told her to meet us there. You don’t mind, right?”

  I turn toward Valentin in the backseat, but the wind throws my dark hair into my face. When I peel it away, he’s regarding me with a sad smile on his bow lips and eyes far away behind his thick black-framed glasses. I’m relieved to see him smiling at all. Last night was one of the bad ones. I awoke to find his nightmares twisting into my ribs, driven there by his scrubber ability—he was too distraught to keep it in check. I ran into his bedroom and curled around him, wishing I could somehow cushion him from the splintered edges of his past.

  Valentin’s always kept some memories anchored firmly in the depths of his mind. I never pressed him on them; we all clung to our secrets like they were the most precious of jewels when we were controlled by the KGB. But as we were escaping East Berlin, Rostov’s scrubbing ability pierced his mind with a serrated blade. Whatever Valentin kept at bay before has washed ashore, bloated and rotten, refusing to stay forgotten. It torments him, I know, though I see him trying to fight it down. Most days, he suppresses it long enough to do his work for the PsyOps Team, and when he comes home with Papa in the evenings, he can smile and talk and cook and live with me. Today is not such a day.

  I thread my arm through the gap between Papa’s and my seats and rest my palm on Valentin’s knee. No sense shouting over the wind. The tempest of the Babi Yar symphony calms, and I push my thoughts against Valya’s musical barrier so we can speak without words. Why didn’t you warn me they’re going after my mother?

  His mouth presses into a thin line. They keep me in the dark about her, too. But I couldn’t tell you anything until they approved you. It’s classified. He manages half a smile. Believe me, I wanted to, but rules are rules.

  That’s what we’d agreed on, when Valya and I first decided to work with Papa and his new American friends. We’d follow the rules this time around; try to trust our teammates and believe in their goals. We want the same things they do, after all—Rostov stopped and the world safe from people like him, people who’d make our very thoughts a crime.

  But paranoia is a feeling, and then a habit, and then a part of me, no easier to extract than a vital organ. Easy for you to say, I tell Valya. They let you start working for them immediately.

  Because I already knew English, Valya says. They wanted to give you time to learn, to feel comfortable here—

  My comfort has nothing to do with this. I clench my teeth. They trusted you from the start, but not me. Why?

  Papa clicks off the radio and laughs—a sharp, brusque sound. Too sharp. “Because of your mother. My poor little girl. You say you’ll help them now, but are you ready to make the hard choices? I don’t know if you’ll ever be ready.”

  Oh, so now Papa wants to listen to me, when we’re having a psychic discussion that he shouldn’t be able to hear without using his scrubber skills. “This is a private conversation, and it doesn’t involve you,” I snap at him.

  Papa shrugs as we clatter off the bridge and onto solid streets. “Guess it does now.”

  Pearly granite monuments splay before us, rooted in hot green grass. Federal workers cross the street in riots of blue and orange; paisley, lace, and velvet; thick corduroy suits. To our left, cherry trees burst like pink popcorn around the rim of the Tidal Basin. Papa whistles to himself as he waits for the light to change, higher and higher, each note jabbing at my growing headache—

  “Pull over!” I shout.

  Another shrug from Papa; he swerves the car to the left and parks the wrong way along the curb, whistling while I wrestle out of my seat belt and hop from the convertible without opening the door. Bile burns at the back of my throat.

  “Yulia?” Valentin calls as I charge into the snow of shock-pink petals with my uneven gait. I wrap my arms around my chest, the long bell sleeves of my black dress hanging limp like deflated balloons. The wind snakes across my exposed thighs. Why did I let Winnie talk me into this ridiculous mod clothing again? Bozhe moi. The heel of one boot snags on a tree root as I bob toward the Tidal Basin’s edge.

  I wanted this, I tell myself, breathing deep to quiet my roiling stomach. I wanted to run away with Valentin. I wanted America with its nauseating colors and impractical clothes and people who keep one eye trained on me like I’m a communist jack-in-the-box about to spring.

  Everything has a price tag in America, and I suppose facing the truth of Mama’s work is my cost of admission.

  Shostakovich’s symphony turns sour as it batters over my thoughts. I do not hate my life here; of course not. I couldn’t endure another day enslaved to the KGB, helping General Rostov push the Cold War to its breaking point. I’m no longer his puppet, helping him overthrow Nikita Khruschev and spread his brand of communism around the world. I did not lie when I agreed to stop his newest plan, and it was always my choice to make. My choice, everything is my choice in the land of the free. But I am not gifted with Larissa’s future sight to see how unhappy even good choices can make me.

  If I’d peered into the future, would I have chosen this version of Papa—jaunty and reckless and unwilling to discuss Mama? Why didn’t he warn me they were hunting her? When I first embraced him again, after crossing over to West Berlin, it felt like we’d n
ever been apart. I knew him like I knew the hollow at the base of his ribcage where I used to rest my forehead. But the Papa who told me bedtime stories and used to be inseparable from Mama feels lost to me. He’s an unknown Papa-shaped quantity, unbalancing all my equations.

  Yulia. Unlike me, Valentin can press a thought into my head without contact. He stands under a blooming cherry tree behind me with a dusting of pink across his shoulders. I’m sorry. I should have warned you.

  I step back onto the granite edge of the basin. Please don’t keep secrets from me, I think, concealing the thought in our shared song, but placing it outside of my shield where Valentin, unconstrained by physical touch like I am, can read it. I want those days to be over.

  The little dimple on Valentin’s chin shows as he tilts his head, the one that’s a touchstone for my thumb when I stroke his cheeks. I’m sorry, Yul. I never meant to hurt you. We haven’t talked about your mother in so long, and I was afraid of how you’d handle hearing their suspicions …

  Poorly, as it turns out. I squeeze my eyes shut. We haven’t talked about a lot of things. Whatever haunting thoughts were knocked free in Valya’s mind …

  You think she has a plan, don’t you? He takes a tentative step toward me, stopping shy of the basin.

  I raise my head and step toward him.

  I’m on your side, Yul. Always. If you want my help …

  Valya … I lace my fingers through his hair. Of course I want to believe him; I want to think he’d do whatever it took to keep my mother safe. But he’s right: now is the time to play by the rules. We are the guests, the outsiders, the ones with something to prove. Once I understand her plan, then we can find some way to clear her name from these deeds.

  Valentin kisses my eyelids where I’ve clenched them shut. The tension drains out of me, replaced by that dangerous mix of hope and peacefulness. I cup his face in my hands and kiss him back. Of course he’ll help me with this, too. His soft lips linger against mine for a moment, the world completely silent around us.

  “Okay, kids, you can neck later. I’m starving,” Papa calls.

  Valya squeezes my hand and steers me back toward the car. I’ll do everything I can to help you make your family whole.

  *

  Winnie is already waiting for us on the sidewalk outside the brasserie. She’s a perfectly motionless figure in her pleated monochrome blouse and skirt, silent among the Technicolor waves of Georgetown pedestrians in frothy spring frocks, puckered cardigans, seersucker suits. “Did they not teach you how to tell time in the Soviet Union?” she asks Papa, reining in a smile.

  He fires off a sloppy salute. “Sorry, ma’am. It won’t happen again.” He extends his elbow to Winnie; she rolls her eyes and shoves past him, but her smile’s gaining ground.

  Valentin takes my arm in his as we duck into the dark wooden brasserie. “You’re right, as always,” he murmurs, lips right at my ear. His voice thrums in my veins. Particles vibrating, heating up, melting away my earlier heartache. “I should’ve told you about their suspicions. But no more secrets. Whatever you need to do, I’m here to help you.”

  I know Valya still has secrets of his own, but I smile and squeeze his hand.

  A bell over the door jangles to announce us. “Welcome to Brasserie Bonaparte.” The maître d’ looks up from his stand with a smile that quickly dissolves. “Ah. Um. I’m sorry, sir.” His gaze darts to Winnie before pinging back to Papa. “I’m afraid we can’t…” His jaw muscles work a nervous jig beneath his jowls. “Our other customers wouldn’t like—You see, it’s standard for all businesses in Georgetown—” He leans toward Papa. “I’m afraid we don’t serve her kind.”

  Winnie straightens to her full height. “And what kind might that be?” Her voice frays into the upper register. “Servicewomen? Or colored girls?”

  The maître d’ staggers back as the room shudders and shifts. A jolt of electricity stands my arm hairs on end and turns the screws in my brain. The dark wood paneling warps around me, drinking up my thoughts until I’m left with a dull, fuzzy hunger in my gut. I stumble forward, tethered only by Valentin’s grip.

  The room settles like a ship righting itself; the lights dim, then return. Winnie blinks, hand raised, index finger extended, then carefully lowers her hand as if she’s forgotten whatever she was about to say.

  The maître d’ stares through me, trying to place my face, then forces a smile to his rubbery lips. “Welcome to the Brasserie Bonaparte! May I offer you a table for four?”

  “A private dining room,” Papa says, still smiling. “Bring up a bottle of your best cognac—extra old.”

  The maître d’ grabs four menus and leads us through the restaurant. Columns of smoke and the scent of dark wines rise from each table we pass; the diners’ heads whip around to chase us as we progress through the honeycomb dining nooks. Specifically, to chase Winnie. But as soon as Papa strides past, a blanket of calm settles over them, and they turn back to their confit and coq au vin, chattering about North Vietnam or the new Elvis film.

  The maître d’ leads us into a glassed-in dining room, burgundy velvet curtains covering all the windows. “I’ll be right back with that cognac.” His nose nearly scrapes the floor as he bows.

  “Papa?” I narrow my eyes as the door clicks shut. “Was that really necessary?”

  “You’d rather Winnie not be able to eat with us? No harm done.” He settles onto the low wooden bench.

  “You’d rather I what?” Winnie asks, one eyebrow cocked. But the air ripples again and her expression wanes. “I … I’m so sorry. I forgot what I was saying.”

  “You were telling me all about your day, Sergeant.” Papa props his chin in his hands.

  I glare at him for a few moments longer, but he’s forgotten me already. I study him while he listens to Winnie—his stylish jazz club frames and sloppy crew cut and twitchy grin. The Papa I knew in Russia took no risks. He kept his mind empty and his record spotless. I remember walking through Moscow with him once and my hand, clutched in his, slipped from its too-big glove and instantly he was lost to me. I couldn’t divine his face from any of the hunkering Russian men around me, their eyes dulled and deferent, their stock boiled-wool coats upturned to guard against wind and wayward stares. He was factory-stamped, assembled on a conveyor belt; only at home with Mama and Zhenya did he expose any personality at all, and even then only after a few drinks. Is this the real Papa exposed before me, or is it another camouflage he wears?

  Rostov said Papa was a remote viewer when he was younger—like Sergei, General Rostov’s son, he could summon up a place from photographs and then move around it like a ghost. One remote viewer on our old team learned to manipulate objects like a ghastly hand reaching from the other side of the world to shuffle papers, move rocks, close doors. Sergei learned to push his thoughts into others’ heads through his viewings. I can force emotions out, now, in addition to drawing them in. And Papa—

  What chain of events turned him into a scrubber? Was it always there, and he hid it from the KGB? But Papa doesn’t merely change thoughts like other scrubbers; Papa has mastered the art of suppressing memories, and when I was younger, he erased all knowledge of my powers from my mind. Even now, there are soft patches on my brain that mask memories from our old life. Maybe Papa was always the reckless man I found in East Berlin, tossing a Molotov cocktail through a café window.

  “A toast,” Papa says, smiling at me. “The family that spies together…” He trails off and clinks his glass against mine.

  Lies together? Dies together? Convenient of him to leave out that we’re spying on our own family. I gulp down the cognac and let its fiery trail match my mood. I feel Mama’s and Zhenya’s absence around our table like phantom limbs; how can we celebrate now, when we have so far to go until we’re whole once more?

  “Cheer up, buttercup.” Papa ruffles my hair. “We need you in tip-top shape to stop whatever Rostov’s up to now.”

  And Mama, I think. Whatever Mama’s up to now. But h
er name never passes his lips; whether he thinks she’s on our side or not, he never seems to think of her at all.

  After several rounds of roasted game hens and foie gras and truffled snails, my Soviet ration-sized stomach and bladder have reached their upper limits and I excuse myself to the restroom. Only one room, for men and women both. I jiggle the handle—locked. I slouch against the wall like an American teenager while I wait. Black-and-white photographs line the wall opposite me: Marilyn Monroe and Humphrey Bogart and dozens more faces of politicians, movie stars, artists I recognize from Winnie’s tutoring, all posing with the brass Josephine Bonaparte statue at the bar. Immortalized by an impassive camera lens. If only my power were so simple—snapshots frozen in time, nothing more. No messy emotions and secrets and pain piling up without release.

  I shove my hands into my armpits and wait.

  The door swings open; the bathroom’s occupant stops himself just short of crashing into me. He reeks of wine and mothballs. His tweed jacket swallows him like a crumpled wrapper, and his shirt hangs loose from his waistband. He backs up with a grunt, then stares hard right at me.

  Sallow skin, the color of bile. Blisters at the corners of his lips and red rimming his eyes. Hair standing up every which way, except for a greasy mustache that droops down. He looks mere hours from ending up in the general’s stack of crime scene photos.

  A warning shot fires through my mind. I have to touch him—no matter how afraid I am of him, of myself, of whatever I might find. I take a step forward, reaching for the door with one hand but the other grasping for him—

  A shockwave rips through me, all my threads of thought fraying apart in the blast. The picture frames rattle against the wall and the door shakes loose from my hand. I double over as steel wool scours through my brain and creamed potatoes attempt to reach back up my throat.