by Maria Reva
“See? Nothing to it.” He smiled meekly, holding up his hands to prove he was unarmed.
Zaya leaned in to study his work. Her brown irises were flecked with amber, like sparks about to ignite. He cast down his eyes to avoid them. To his relief, she took the brush, but instead of using it on herself she lifted it to his left eye. Now he was the one who wanted to squirm from the brush. He willed himself to keep still, to show that he trusted her even though he didn’t, not quite.
As she worked, the heel of her hand rested on his cheek like a cool stone. He held his breath, immobilized by her touch. He tried to remember when he had last been in such proximity to another person, and his mind slid back in time, trying and failing to latch onto some distant memory.
“Your eyes are all wet,” she remarked.
“Must be mascara in them.”
“Sorry,” she said. “It’s leaking.” She pressed the back of her hand against his cheek to catch it.
“How do I look?” he asked.
“Like Miss USSR.” She handed over the brush. “Just don’t take my eye out.”
They proceeded this way, taking turns with the eye shadow—a metallic powder that clung to the mascara like mold—and the lipstick, which exuded a waxy fragrance, faintly petrochemical.
This left the foundation. He suspected he had mixed up the order of operations. He opened the jar of paste, which contained a circular sponge. When it was his turn, he dabbed it over Zaya’s face haphazardly. The color was a shade pinker than her skin, but the effect wasn’t bad—it made her face seem flushed, a tad more alive. When he passed over the thick scar below her nose, she flinched. He could see white specks where the boot maker’s needle had pierced the skin; the strokes had been quick and indelicate. Since the woman had taken the time to sew up a child’s face, he thought with a pang of anger, why not take a few extra minutes to do it well? If he had been there—
The thought went unfinished. He hadn’t been there. He wouldn’t have taken in the child, in the first place.
He and Zaya stood in front of the bathroom mirror, appraising the colors on their faces. Their shadowy eyes and smeared lips made them looked vaguely related.
* * *
—
The next day, Zaya and Konstantyn took a two-car elektrichka from Kirovka to Kiev, then an overnight train to Moscow. Zaya’s distrust of cars did not seem to extend to other forms of transportation. In fact, it was Konstantyn who was nervous, breaking out in a sweat every time the conductor made rounds to check tickets. Once or twice, on previous trips, Konstantyn had seen men asked to provide a birth certificate for an accompanying child or teenager. Yet no one questioned him. Perhaps when the conductors saw the young woman sitting beside him, long silver locks spilling from her fur hood, heeled boot pumping impatiently, they assumed she was related to him, and not by blood. When they arrived in Moscow the next morning, the arched iron and glass roof of the Kievsky Terminal slid over them like a long net.
The Yuon Palace of Culture was a granite amalgamation of angles and planes, as if a committee of architects had failed to agree on a single design and so combined several. Konstantyn and Zaya edged along the Palace’s jagged perimeter until they came to a back door. Locked, as expected. But within a few minutes a rotund middle-aged man rushed out clutching a broken stiletto, and the pair slipped inside.
Chaos greeted them in the narrow corridor. People were running about, barking commands at one another. A heavily made-up teenager in a white slip, undoubtedly one of the contestants, limped in circles, sobbing. Another girl, hair set in pink rollers, was dry-heaving over a dustbin. Konstantyn observed, with some satisfaction, that no one seemed to know what they were doing or where they should go. It was true that his pageant had been much smaller, but its lead-up had been incomparably calmer, better organized.
He kept an eye out for the Minister of Culture, for the wide-jawed, handsome face that occasionally graced television broadcasts and newspapers. Konstantyn suspected, and hoped, she wouldn’t condescend to oversee the tedious backstage details.
As they pushed through the corridor, Konstantyn caught envious glances at Zaya’s thinness. A tall blonde, who was slicking Vaseline onto the teeth of her daughter—a taller, blonder version of herself—asked Zaya which diet she kept. “The internat diet,” Zaya answered. The mother turned away, as if the girl had uttered a curse word.
A small, quick-moving woman with a glossy folder clamped under her arm intercepted Zaya and Konstantyn.
“Changing room?” he tried.
The woman shot Zaya a disapproving glance. “All contestants are accounted for.”
When Konstantyn asked if it wasn’t possible to accommodate another, the administrator said of course it wasn’t possible, these girls had been vetted in their respective republics before being sent here from all over the Union. Konstantyn probed his mind for useful people he knew, or could pretend he knew; it occurred to him that one of the judges was a composer who, according to the lore of the intelligentsia, coded his favorite granddaughter’s name into his music. Konstantyn invoked that name now, in diminutive form, as if he personally knew her. Surely the granddaughter—and by extension, her famous grandfather, and by extension, the Minister of Culture—would be crushed if the girl’s best friend was not allowed to compete? The administrator stared at Konstantyn with indignation. He knew the woman didn’t believe him, but he also knew she wouldn’t be willing to risk the chance his story was true. She pulled her folder out from under her arm and opened it. “You’re in luck,” she conceded, “we had a contestant pull out after she twisted her knee.” She unclipped a pen from her shirt collar, and turned to Zaya. “Age?”
Zaya looked blank.
“Sixteen,” Konstantyn intervened. This was Orynko’s age.
“Engaged or married?”
Zaya shook her head.
“Children?”
“What about them?”
“Do you have any, or are you expecting.”
“She’s sixteen,” Konstantyn repeated.
“If she bleeds between the legs it’s possible.”
“I don’t bleed between the legs,” said Zaya.
Both Konstantyn and the administrator turned to her in surprise. The subject had never come up, but Konstantyn had assumed it was because Zaya was tending to it on her own, stoically, the way women did.
The administrator ticked something on her page. Seeing the look on Konstantyn’s face, she said, “I don’t make the questions.” At last she asked Zaya, “Name and provenance?”
“My name is Orynko Bondar, from Kirovka, Ukraine,” the girl announced, in a stage voice Konstantyn wished she’d save for the stage. He tensed, the gravity of the moment settling on his shoulders like a lead coat. The original Orynko Bondar had been carted away hundreds of kilometers to prevent her from being here today, from uttering those simple words. Konstantyn was ready to pull out a small envelope of cash in case the administrator recognized Miss Kirovka’s name and refused to add it, but it appeared that no such directive had trickled down to her. “How about a stage name? Something a tad more”—the woman paused, choosing her words—“urban.”
Something a tad more Russian, he knew she’d meant. “We’re keeping the name.”
The administrator shrugged, recorded the name, and opened the dressing room door for the new contestant. Fumes of aerosols, eaux de toilette, and singed hair burst forth, as did the sounds of spraying, peeling, and other torturous acts. The administrator rushed down the corridor to tend to the girl with the hair rollers, who had begun retching again.
Zaya and Konstantyn stood at the doorway. He could accompany her no further. He was supposed to hand off the suitcase with the marriage-registration dress, bathing costume, makeup, crown, and sash, but found himself unable to do so. The dressing room threw a cold, cutting light on Zaya’s skin. He had an urge to yank h
er away from it, reverse his horrid plan. He could no longer convince himself that, once the face of Miss Kirovka’s double was broadcast around the Union, she would be safe. After all, he had not been able to predict Orynko’s exile.
“You don’t have to do this,” he blurted. “We can turn around, go home.”
With that last word, “home,” the future rearranged itself in a splendid vision. His home would be hers, too. He’d sleep on a cot in the corridor, give her the entire room. Never would the girl suffer again. He’d enroll her in school, a good school, where she would be surrounded by knowledgeable people—much more knowledgeable than Konstantyn—who would teach her about the dynamics of flight, planetary orbits, anything she had ever wondered about.
“Kostya,” she said softly, “I’m living out a girl’s dream.” Her face was closed to him, as though she were already gone. She took the suitcase, stepped into the dressing room.
* * *
—
The Palace of Culture lectorium dwarfed the one in Kirovka. Its four curved balconies hummed with spectators waiting for the show to begin. A red runner carpet—the catwalk—bisected the stage. To the right a television crew hustled around a nest of cables. To the left stood the judges’ table, the six brass nameplates designating the seats waiting to be filled: MINISTER OF CULTURE, CHAIRMAN OF COUNCIL OF MINISTERS, STATE COMMITTEE CHAIRMAN, PROCURATOR GENERAL, PAINTER, COMPOSER. Snatches of melody rose from the narrow orchestra pit, where the musicians were warming up.
Konstantyn sat in the second row, main level. He was so close to the stage, he could smell its newly varnished floor. He tried to let himself sink into the cheerful chatter around him. He envied the other spectators their simple motive for being here—to enjoy themselves, watch a good show.
The lights dimmed. An oboist blew a piercing note, joined by the woodwinds, brass, strings, timpani. Konstantyn had heard an orchestra tune only a handful of times in his life and, despite his nervousness, the sound of the instruments joining in a single voice made him shiver with pleasure.
A small bearded man in a burgundy suit—an actor whose name Konstantyn couldn’t remember—stepped onto the stage and the hall burst into applause. He welcomed everyone to the Miss USSR beauty competition, the first of its kind in the Union (“Second,” Konstantyn muttered), and reminded the audience of the prizes to be claimed: a victory tour around the Union, a large-screen television, and a white dress. The orchestra played the city’s anthem as the judges filed in and found their seats, solemn faces fit for a court proceeding. Irina Glebovna was the last to enter the stage. She wore a brown pantsuit with thick, armor-like shoulder pads, and her skin possessed the yellowish sheen of the embalmed. Before taking a seat, she installed herself in front of the announcer’s microphone and gave a spirited speech about the importance of a Union glued together not only by a common economy and language, but also by a common culture—three components guaranteeing peace, to be enjoyed by many generations to come.
The pageant opened with the gown round. The thirty-five contestants waited at the far end of the stage, a row of silhouettes in the dim lighting. When called, each stepped into the spotlight, and strutted down the runway holding a white paper fan labeled with a number. Unlike the hodgepodge of contestants in Konstantyn’s pageant, the young women here had a uniform look: pastel gowns, teased hairstyles, aggressive teeth-and-gums smiles.
Contestant Number 14, from Turkmenistan, bobbed a curtsy at the end of the runway.
Contestant Number 18, from Georgia, blew a kiss.
Finally the announcer called, “Orynko Bondar from Kirovka, Ukraine!”
The Minister of Culture straightened in her seat. She raised an index finger to the camera crew in warning: Be ready to cut.
Zaya marched in front of the Party members, the spotlight trailing her like a blazing eye. She wore makeup so thick it looked creamy, like something that needed refrigeration—an administrator’s doing, he assumed. Zaya’s puffy sleeves—decades out of style, Konstantyn saw now—bulged with the crown and sash. Did he still want her to put them on? He tried to catch her eye, but on she trooped, one high-heeled foot in front of the other. She appeared unshaken by the size of the audience, gazing straight ahead as if walking a tightrope. In one moment Konstantyn felt himself rising in his seat, ready to snatch her from the stage’s deep maw; the next, he egged the girl on: show them, Miss Kirovka, show them that neither you, nor your townspeople, nor your country, will be silenced.
At last she reached the end of the runway. And—nothing happened. Instead of revealing the crown and sash, she simply turned on her heel and strode back upstage, as if this had been the plan all along.
Konstantyn felt dizzy with relief. He was grateful for her disobedience. Had the spectators recognized the name? Had they caught the significance of Miss Kirovka’s presence?
Zaya rejoined the line of silhouettes. As the other contestants continued to file down the runway, domestic worries filled Konstantyn’s mind, thrilling in their newness. He thought of the shoes and coat Zaya would need for the upcoming winter, the schoolbooks he would have to procure.
His attention was wrenched back to the stage at the word “Norgorsk.” The twenty-first contestant stepped under the spotlight. Orchestral music swelled as she glided down the runway in an opal mermaid gown and a white fur shawl that glowed under the lights. Her silvery hair had been teased and crimped into a leonine mane. Konstantyn thought he had never seen someone so breathtaking, but as she approached, he realized he had.
It was Orynko Bondar. This time, the real Orynko Bondar.
Konstantyn watched in disbelief. The name the announcer had called couldn’t have been hers—Konstantyn would have caught it. She had been given a stage name, he figured, something more urban. He searched Orynko’s face for signs of trauma. She looked older, perhaps, her features settling into their adult state, but whatever trials she’d undergone during her exile seemed to have left no mark. She’d returned to her first home—the stage. She flapped her fan around her shoulders like a dove, to roaring applause. Charmingly bashful, she waved at the audience, as though she’d personally invited each one of them and couldn’t believe they’d all come.
Konstantyn turned to look at Irina Glebovna. Was this her doing? Was she using Orynko, the seasoned contestant, for some nefarious end? But Irina Glebovna seemed just as surprised as Konstantyn by the original Miss Kirovka’s reappearance. The Minister’s expression wavered between wonder and anguish as she watched her grand pageant fade away. Later that evening, Konstantyn would learn the truth from Orynko herself: the remote Norgorsk also had a Cultural Club and its director had insisted, upon discovering her, that she represent the town. The smelting factory boasted its own private airport, and the rest had fallen into place.
Konstantyn sat on his hands, trying to contain his excitement. He couldn’t imagine a happier ending to the evening. The moment the pageant ended he would seek out Orynko and Zaya, and the three of them would return to Kirovka.
It was a pretty thought. Konstantyn held on to it even when, minutes later, between the twenty-fifth and twenty-sixth contestants, Zaya kicked off her pumps and broke from the line. She crossed the stage at a slow, deliberate pace, impervious to the unease passing through the other contestants. She stopped in front of the judges’ table. As she considered the Party members one by one, they blinked back at her, shifted in their seats. The Procurator General, white-haired with opulent jowls, leaned toward the girl in the quaint yellow dress, ready to receive her message.
The audience fell silent then, ready for her message, too. The last chords of the orchestral piece hung in the air, and the conductor looked up from the pit to the announcer, unsure whether to continue. The twenty-sixth contestant, a tall Estonian in a gauzy dress, halted midstrut.
“If you could keep the runway circulation moving,” the announcer told the Estonian.
Go back, Ko
nstantyn mouthed to Zaya, his lips still curled in a frozen smile. Go back go back. She stood just a few meters away from where he sat—he could see the tip of her ear poke through her wig. If only she would turn to him.
Irina Glebovna sat very still.
Konstantyn could just make out Zaya’s words. “You never answered my letters.”
The wet lips of the Procurator General parted into a grin meant for a small child. He said something Konstantyn couldn’t hear. Zaya flicked her chin up. The Procurator General jerked back, his mouth open. He touched his cheek.
It took Konstantyn a moment to realize that she had spat on him. The hall erupted in gasps, jeers.
Irina Glebovna made a slicing motion at the camera crew.
Now the State Committee Chairman twisted back, as if slapped.
As Zaya was sucking in her cheeks, drawing up saliva for a third attack, two men in uniform entered the lectorium from a side door. For a moment Zaya watched them approach, her face slack and her eyes deadened—the way they had been back at the internat, Konstantyn remembered. She seemed ready to accept whatever punishment these men threatened; it could be no worse than the one she had already been dealt.
Konstantyn sprang to his feet. He tore down the row of seats, treading on polished shoes and pedicured toes, and bounded up the steps to the stage as the guards closed in on Zaya. When her eyes met Konstantyn’s, she jolted awake. Her lithe body slipped from the guards’ hands, and she raced to the edge of the stage, toward the audience. Konstantyn glimpsed the pink underside of her foot as she launched herself into the air, leaping over the orchestra pit. For a moment he feared she wouldn’t clear it, imagined the pit sucking her in. Her dress parachuted out as she landed—to Konstantyn’s relief—in the carpeted space between the pit and the first row of petrified spectators. She took a second or two to steady herself, before she bolted up the aisle, heading for the exit.
