Svetlana caught Michael’s eye and held up a thumb, nodding slightly, her eyebrows raised for confirmation.
He laughed with relief. “Da, we made it. We’re in orbit around the Moon!”
“Atleechna,” she told him. Excellent.
Now she needed to hear from Moscow. She’d listened to the translated briefing from the Americans, but she wanted to hear it directly from her bosses. She was certain they had separate plans for her, and it was going to take all her wits to understand what they wanted without letting on to the others what the interpreted words actually meant.
But they were here! Somehow she’d become the first Soviet to get to the Moon, and tomorrow, she was going to step onto the lunar surface!
A rush of excitement went through her. She’d watched the near--deification of Gagarin, the way he’d become one of the legendary figures of Russian history. That was going to happen to her!
But not yet. As it had been her whole life, especially as a woman, first she had to perform. This time was perhaps the hardest of all: on a strange ship, in an unfamiliar suit, surrounded by a language she didn’t understand.
What was it the first American who’d walked here below her had said? One small step?
She nodded to herself. I can do this thing. It was just one more step.
But first she needed to hear from Moscow.
39
Moscow
They were an odd-looking pair as they emerged into the Arrivals hall at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo Airport. The bearded monk wore all black, a long, buttoned vest over his floor-length robes, simple black leather shoes visible as he walked, a black veil trailing from his tall kamilavka headdress. Laboring slightly beside him with a suitcase in each hand, the church interpreter was in a two-piece brown suit, square-toed shoes and a thigh-length tan trench coat cinched around his waist. It was always colder in Moscow than Berlin, and the April weather could still bite.
Father Ilarion had been quiet and thoughtful throughout the flight, observant of the newness of everything. Alexander had made sure to give him the window seat on the Interflug Tu-134. It had been noisy, seated just ahead of the engines, but Ilarion’s face stayed glued to the round porthole window, watching East Germany give way to Poland, peering down at the Baltic Sea by Gdansk. His face filled with wonder as the view opened on the edge of the empty vastness of the Soviet Union.
When Moscow finally appeared, with the low gray shades of human history crowding on the switchback bends of the Moskva River, Alexander had leaned next to Father Ilarion to see the city, encircled by the early green of new leaves and grasses. The MKAD ring road surrounding Moscow in a near-perfect oval was a demarcation line separating natural from urban. The two men stared at the vast ranks of identical apartment blocks, the hulking cooling towers of the power plants and the concentric inner road patterns making a bullseye of Red Square and the Kremlin.
“Kremel, Sascha!” the monk had said, pointing for Alexander to see. The red of the high fortress walls stood out clearly against the dark pavement of Red Square and the glinting river. Neither man mentioned the enormous public swimming pool just to the west, built on the site where Stalin had torn down the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour—the pre-revolution home of the Orthodox Patriarchate.
No need to dwell on the past. This trip was about the future.
The driver was waiting for them in Arrivals, easily spotting the monk. He waved a hand, took the bags from Alexander and led them out to a squatty light-blue Moskvitch station wagon. He took care to set the bags down and solicitously open the rear door for the clergyman, politely lowering his head. He’d been told to make the monk feel important.
Traffic was light on the MKAD, and Father Ilarion’s eyes darted in all directions, staring out the noisy little car’s windows at the reality of Moscow, reading the overhead street signs as they flicked past. The driver took the Yaroslavl Highway to the right, towards the city center. In the distance, the Ostankino TV Tower dominated the skyline, its tapered silver bulges distinctive—the tallest tower in the world, a visual affirmation of Soviet pride and technical prowess.
As they neared Ostankino’s base, a second tower appeared—a sweeping silver scimitar with a stylized rocket at its tip. Without being asked, the driver pulled the car into the adjoining parking lot and leaned forward to look up at the sight. “Pamyatnik pokori?telyam cosmosa,” he said, simply. Monument to the conquerors of space.
“Would you like to have a look, Father?” Alexander asked.
“Da!” Ilarion craned his neck to look up through the side window. “My brother is now one of those conquerors,” he said as he climbed out of the car’s back seat.