Kursed (7 page)

I reach for Doctor Stokowski's hand and squeeze, gently, mindful of his papery skin and bones too close to the surface. “But what of your research before the war?” I ask. “Who were you then?”

His face shrinks on itself, slowly, struggling. “I—I don't know.” He sinks back into the seat, hands falling to his sides, and lines up his legs. “I don't remember. It's been so long that I just … I didn't … I never thought I'd escape.”

I close my eyes and invite my vision of this man in once more—his cheeks fleshy and full, face softened by age, standing before a sun-dappled classroom. “You'll find him again.”

*   *   *

Olga claims the narrow bed against one wall of the cabin, while Stokowski bundles up on the couch. Andrei and I make pallets on the floor with the rest of the blankets we find, and roll our jackets up to put under our heads. I burrow deep into the blankets, but there's a chill in my bones that refuses to thaw. When I try to fall asleep, the futures loom out at me. Berlin, bombed into nothingness, chimneys poking from shattered wreckage like accusing fingers, and bodies scattered like matches. Olga screaming as flames lick at a doorframe. And everywhere—a scratchy, prickly sound, scrubbing at the world like bleach to eat it away.

I open my eyes and roll over, once again, to my other side. Andrei is staring at me—I can see the dull moonlight glinting off his eyes. I start to turn away, but there's something so familiar in the way he's watching me. Not cold, not calculating, not the look of a man who has a use for me—whether as a scientist or a warm body or anything else. Like a friend, waiting for me to tell him to go or stay.

“Can't sleep,” I whisper, low enough that only he should be able to hear. Not that Olga's snores leave much doubt as to how she's faring.

Andrei nods, but is quiet for a while. He looks more vulnerable without his glasses, or maybe it's the way he has of softening, of letting the camouflage drop. I still can't put my finger on what the real difference is—between the moments when he's dazzling, commanding, confident Andrei and when he fades into the background. “Step outside?” he asks.

I start to nod, then hesitate. “Is it safe?”

He closes his eyes, then nods and rises slowly, silently, to his feet.

We exit the cabin and circle around to a windowless wall, then settle onto the stoop. The cold, wet air pricks at my flesh. The blouse I've been wearing since we reached Mittelbau-Dora feels clammy against me, like a bathing suit that refuses to dry out, but unless we get lucky, even luckier than we did in our escape, I'll be wearing it for far longer. Better it than the uniform Andrei's wearing. Even without the hat, with the jacket peeled away, he has no choice but to present himself as much of anything besides an officer of the SS. I curl my arms around my chest and hunch into a tight ball on the stoop.

“All right,” Andrei says, “let's hear it.”

I raise one eyebrow. “Hear what?”

“Whatever caused that … that look on your face, back there.
Bozhe moi
, how it hurt to see you look so sad.” He smiles, lopsided. “What can I do to ensure you never look that way again?”

I shake my head. “It was nothing. Just … thinking about the past. Regrets.” The dimple in his cheek calls to me; maybe it's just exhaustion, but I find myself reaching for it, brushing my fingertips against it. “What about you? What's keeping you awake tonight?”

His smile fades, and the shift happens. “Speaking about loss,” he says.

I look down at my hands. “I'm sorry. If you'd rather not say—”

“It was my mother. My father. My sister.” Andrei's voice is right beside me, but his expression looks thousands of miles away. “I'd been away at university for not even a year when they were deported.”

“From Georgia?” I ask.

He nods. “Stalin's work. The Georgian people are unclean, don't you know. Bourgeois. Soft from our sunny life by the sea.”

“But Stalin himself comes from Georgia.”

“The exception to the rule.” Andrei laughs, dry and brittle. “No one sent me a letter, any sort of proclamation or explanation as to where they'd gone or why, but as soon as I returned during that first break in studies, as soon as I saw three new families crammed into our old family home, I knew.”

I cup one of his knees—so wiry and lean—with my hand. He startles at first, but then eases into my touch. “I'm so sorry, Andrei. It's not your fault.” My mouth tastes like ash; it's hard to speak. “There's nothing you could have done.”

“Maybe not then. Now, though…”

Leaves crunch in the distance, and we both sit up straight as if pulled up by string. Andrei shuts his eyes. I hold my breath, lungs aching, every cell in me leaning forward and eager to bolt.

Andrei exhales, opens his eyes, and shakes his head. “Only a deer.”

I slump forward with a weary grin. “I'm sorry … it's just…”

“A long day,” Andrei says.

A long life. The past four years—between the war, catching the attention of the NKVD with my research, and everything else … But no matter how I study and dissect it, I can't fight that primitive instinct in me. Fight or flight. Self-preservation. My ability seems to be an extension of that—a glimpse of the future designed to help me survive at all costs.

“What were they like?” I ask Andrei, trying to shake my mind off of the rumination. “Your parents, your sister. You said something about musicians, right?”

“Ah.” He reddens, a deep shade of gray in the moonlight. “You remember.”

I smile in spite of myself. “Music was important in our family, too.” Don't look back, Antonina. Never look back. I keep the smile fixed in place, pinning it there like a tailor.

“My parents played for the local opera house, back before the Revolution. Before it was declared too bourgeois—that music was for the masses, the people. I suppose the Party thought that meant performances should be for everyone, but there was no budget for that. So soon enough, they were performing for no one. Except for my sister and me.”

“And your sister?” I ask.

Andrei rubs at the stubble along his jaw. “She was—well, she's the reason I became interested in developmental psychology. She'd always had cognitive difficulties.” He slips into the jargon of our specialty; I recognize the tactic well. Distance yourself from the truth with cool clinical labels, with case studies and experiments conducted in the safe remove of a laboratory. “Brilliant in many ways, challenged in others. I thought maybe if I knew more about it, I could help her more. If she wished it. But now…”

He doesn't have to finish. I know this story well. Now they are on the far side of Russia, in a resettlement village, or worse. Hard labor, the sort designed to burn off every ounce of bourgeois softness and convert it to fuel for the Revolution, for the spread of Russia's glory, for just another five-year plan.

“But—but your gift.” I tilt my head. “Do you ever use it? To—to check on them. To see what's happened, or know that they're okay—”

“No.” The word falls like a gavel. “No. I refuse.”

“Why not?” I ask. “If I could, if I could know that—”

“I can't.” Andrei shakes his head, again and again. “It's not possible.”

There's something too tight in his expression, throbbing like a headache. I can't place it. “What do you mean?”

“Because I've forgotten what they look like.”

Something in his tone makes it clear to me that he chose to forget. “I'm afraid that if I look at them again … I won't ever want to stop.”

My hand falls away from his knee, from this all too familiar sentiment, and I grip my shins tight. I'm not the only one who refuses to look back.

The air crackles, static, anxious; for a moment, I think it's another vision, pressing up against me like a soap bubble ready to burst. But it's gone as quickly as it came. Andrei hoists himself to his feet and holds out a hand to me. “Tomorrow, we'll have to find another way to Berlin. Is this still what you want to do?” he asks.

“Herr Trammel said the Americans were waiting for him there.”

Andrei nods. “He showed Rostov the place they were to meet, and I saw it, too.” Andrei reaches for my hand; he cradles it between both of his, running his fingers against my palm like he's divining the future.

“We'll find them, then,” I say, lacing my fingers in his. “The Americans found a way in; Trammel isn't the first scientist they've smuggled out. They must know a way out of Germany. Safely.”

“You're a bold woman, Antonina Vasilievna.” Andrei smiles. “If it's a way out you want, then I'll find it with you. If this is what you want, then I'll follow you. I trust you.”

I let the warmth of his skin spread across mine, just for a few moments' time. If a man like him can put his trust in me, then maybe it's time I tried trusting me, too.

Chapter Five

I wake to the sound of voices—distant ones, muffled by hisses and pops and a metronomic click. The shortwave radio. Olga and Andrei are huddled around a sheet of paper, jotting down the numbers that the Russian voice is reading out in steady doses. The numbers station Rostov had told us about. The NKVD broadcasts orders to its agents all over the world, encrypted with numbers, and only the agents who know the code can decipher the message.

“No, no, that was a nine,” Olga mutters, jamming her finger toward where Andrei's writing. He scratches it out and rewrites the number.

In the gaps between each sequence of numbers, a Russian orchestra surges forth, blaring “The Internationale.” Subconsciously, I find myself humming along, the chorus bubbling into my head:
This is our final and decisive battle—with “The Internationale,” humanity will rise up.

The transmission completes, and “The Internationale” fills the airwave, drumming its catchy beat right into our heads. I spot Olga and Andrei swaying back and forth, humming along, then realize I'm doing it, too. We hum along through the next verse, then stop and shake our heads as the transmission dissolves into scratchy silence.

“Sorry.” Andrei's pencil glides quickly over the scratch paper as Olga helps him along. “Let's see what our message is…”

Olga leans over his shoulder. “All agents … report to Berlin. Extraction imminent … 0800 April Five. Fifth. Berlin will fall.”

“April fifth. That's tomorrow morning, right?” I ask. “So we have a day to get there and … do what we need to do … before Rostov expects to find us there.”

Olga scoots her chair back and twists so she's facing me. “Antonina Vasilievna.” She scratches at the stump of her leg. “I know your standing at the university. Everyone knows you. The model Party member in training, the tireless researcher for the good of the State.”

My jaw clamps up like I'm bracing for a blow. “It's really not like that. I'm only doing—”

“What you're told. Yeah, I know.” Olga rolls her eyes. “Why the change of heart? Why should we trust your newfound wish to leave your cushy Party life behind?”

Progress—isn't it the guiding tenet of every good Party
apparatchik
? Onward toward progress, toward advancement, experimentation. It's time for a new approach. I square my shoulders and look at Olga and Andrei head-on.

“I don't want to be a part of Rostov's plans anymore. Of Stalin's. I've done everything they've asked, and it's kept me alive, but the cost—who knows how many lives the psychics I've found will endanger? When all I'm doing is giving a new platform to men like Rostov … it's not worth the scientific advancements I've been able to make.”

Andrei's mouth wavers, as if he's fighting off something—a smile or a frown, I can't tell. Olga arches a single eyebrow.

“If you want to find Rostov, I won't stop you. I don't expect you to risk your lives to join me. But I'm going to find these Americans who are supposed to meet with Herr Trammel, and I'm going to offer my services to them.”

“What makes you think they'll be any better?” Olga asks.

I let the vision wash over me, gentle as waves lapping at a beach. Sun trickling through high windows, across a classroom, gilding the walls. The dark-haired girl turns her attention to the professor. She doesn't see me, but I see her, I know her, I know this place—it is home. A home I've never seen before. A home far, far away from everything I've done, everything more that Rostov and all the rest might ask me to do. The lack of tightness in my chest, the lightness in my step like I've cast off a thousand lies.

“Because I can see it,” I say.

Andrei rears back, like a snake preparing to strike. Then he propels himself to his feet. “All right. I'll join you. We'll make our case to these Americans who were supposed to be extracting Trammel. Offer our services, instead.” He taps his temple. “With what we're capable of, they'd have a real tough time turning us down.”

I glance toward Olga. “Again—I understand completely if you don't wish to join us, but—”

“I got no allegiance.” She pulls a lighter from her pocket and flicks it to life. “To you, to Rostov, to anyone.”

My throat constricts; I force myself to nod.

“But I think you're right. Anything's got to be better than this. The way we live now. Fear, uncertainty, never knowing who's peering inside your head … and that's even before the war started up. Don't worry.” She puffs a cigarette to life. “If I don't join you, I'll at least help you on your way.”

The world flickers like a hazy film projector. Again, I see the doorway of flames, Olga standing nearby, pointing, shouting with no noise. But it's gone before I can examine it, replaced by another image. Andrei, this time. His face looms just in front of mine and the warmth of his skin radiates against my cheek. “Nina,” he whispers—my nickname—with flushed, ripe lips. “Nina. We can find a way.”