“Cliff,” Miki said.
I peered through the blinds of the roadside diner, watched Clara climb into her rental. She didn’t start the engine, though. She sat there for a long while until I finally got up from the table, went outside, and knocked on her car window.
“I love you,” I said, cracking open the door. “Stay safe.”
“I’m sorry this is the way things need to be,” she said.
Back in Clara’s sleeping pod, I tucked the photo in my wallet and picked up the two-inch dogū figurine I’d found wrapped in the sock. It was a squat stone humanoid with a bulbous torso and globular eyes occupying most of its head. I had bought her this replica as a junior high graduation gift at a museum of ancient Japanese history, explained that it was likely a form of magic for the Jōmon people, capable of absorbing negative energy, evil, and illness. I told her to keep it close, that it would keep her safe in the world. I ran my fingers across the crevices and contours, feeling for some last shred of my daughter—a bad day at work, the distance between her and Yumi, a final breath.
From across the dome, I heard someone sprinting closer, their footsteps echoing through the aluminum halls. I slipped the dogū into my pants pocket as Yulia entered the room, glancing at her wrist health tracker.
“Phew. Moscow Marathon, here I come. So, I’m not sure if you’re hungry or just want to rest,” she said, still catching her breath. Yulia had changed from workout clothes to the unofficial uniform of the station: faded jeans and a hoodie. “But we made fish tacos and we’re about to watch The Princess Bride.”
“So, you’re the one who named Annie,” I said. “The Eurythmics fan.”
“Maksim wanted to name her after a Beatles song,” Yulia said. “Like how Lucy was named after ‘Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds’ when they found her in Ethiopia. Our girl would have been Jude or Penny. I beat him at chess for the naming rights.”
I followed Yulia to the main area and made myself at home on a recliner that was patched in several places with duct tape. The aroma of grilled trout filled the facility, and I realized I hadn’t eaten a real meal since my first layover in Vladivostok nearly ten hours ago. Four of the researchers huddled on the sofa. Another used a supply chest as a stool. They all formally introduced themselves and the one on the chest, Dave, offered me a glass of vodka, which he said was mandatory for initiation. He lingered on the edges of his words and wore an Occidental College shirt, so I assumed he, too, was from California.
“Santa Cruz,” he said. The bottle he tipped over my glass looked like a mammoth tusk. One of the other researchers noted this particular vodka was a true Siberian drink from the oldest distillery, made with local water, wheat, and cedar nuts. “You’ll learn to hold your own soon enough,” Dave continued. “Keeps us warm, keeps things interesting. Helps us forget that we’re flying by the seat of our pants here.” My face began to flush after the first few sips.
I sat on my pleather perch like a gargoyle, cradling my shot glass, observing the room like an awkward schoolboy, figuring out how I might fit in here. A few researchers clustered in the halls, dancing; most crammed onto torn furniture, either heckling the movie or asking me questions, including my thoughts on live-action role-playing games. Eventually I let Maksim create a Dungeons & Dragons character for me, an elf rogue named Kalask, a name that sounded like IKEA furniture. Dave snatched the character sheet away from him.
“This nerd has been trying to get a game started for over a year,” Dave said.
“I’m building the perfect campaign,” Maksim said.
“Forget that shit. I know a good initiation game,” one of the mechanics said. His name was Alexei. He was a frequent staffer at Bellingshausen Station in Antarctica. “It’s important that new guys like this don’t keep to themselves.”
“His father was at Bellingshausen in 2018, during the first attempted murder in Antarctica,” Yulia explained. “So he’s a bit sensitive to cabin fever. Alexei is our unofficial counselor. If he sees one of us acting weird, isolating, getting too caught up in work, he’ll give us our medicine.”
“Medicine?”
“Bear Claw!” Alexei yelled.
“You don’t have to,” Yulia said, sitting next to me. She explained the rules of Bear Claw: a full glass of beer is passed around the room and with each drink, vodka is poured in to refill the glass.
The entire room was chanting my name now— Cliff, Cliff, Cliff, Cliff. These kids understood I needed to forget, even for a moment, that Clara’s presence still resided here. The station started to spin beneath me as the glass made the rounds. The laughter and conversation around the television seemed miles away when Yulia finally tapped my shoulder to check on me; the end credits of the film were scrolling and a glass half-full of vodka had landed in front of passed-out Alexei. In the newfound silence, we could hear the wind and hail pelting the outpost. Maksim rushed outside to protect the solar panels. Some of the others dispersed to their pods or labs. Yulia lingered. She was probably close to Clara’s age, early thirties, maybe a little younger. She had studied at Moscow State University and completed a fellowship at Cambridge, where she continued her work on native flora, particularly lowlying shrubs as crucial carbon sinks.