I ducked under a branch dipping over the path that barely deserved the name. “We’re only in town another week or so.”
“But this is just beginning for you, surely. You were approved by the Boss himself. That means there could be more trips overseas, more travel, more privileges . . . the wages of fame showering down on our family.”
“Fame’s fleeting.” I ignored the our, still swinging my shopping bag at my side. “I intend to go back to the front. What are the odds I’ll survive another year? My family will be the only ones to remember my name when I’m gone, and that’s enough for me.”
“The Party might have bigger plans for you.” Alexei didn’t seem fazed by the overhanging trees, he scrambled surefooted as a mountain goat up a slope toward a jutting rock. “Now that’s a view!”
I scrambled up, ignoring his outstretched hand, and stood for a moment looking out over a steeper ridge below, all tangles of mountain laurel and the fluttering wing beats of thrushes. What a perfect place for a stakeout, I couldn’t help thinking. You could lie flat up here with a rifle and pick anyone off on the slope below.
“How is Slavka?” Alexei asked, turning back his pristine cuffs.
“You have never once asked me how your son is doing.” I turned to scramble back down from the rock, feeling all my senses tense at Slavka’s name.
“I still have a right to know.”
“Debatable.” I resumed my brisk pace along the bending path. “He’s healthy, if you must know. Excelling in his studies.”
“It’s been so long since I’ve seen him, but I’m sure he’s growing up handsome. I always thought he had my eyes.”
“I remember a time you said he looked nothing like you, and you asked me whether he was your son at all.”
“I was an ass back then.” Alexei gave a rueful grin, but I could hear the edge creeping into his voice. “Can you entirely blame me? Your father strong-armed me into a wedding I wasn’t ready for; it was a choice between marrying you or worrying he’d send someone to cut my thumbs off. You wonder why I was just a little resentful about that? Having my hand forced?”
“No one forced you to seduce a girl barely fifteen years old.” I heard my own voice scaling up.
“I’m saying I’m sorry, Mila.” He made one of those little calm down gestures that made me want to hit him with the nearest blunt cement object. Right now, that would be Comrade Yuri Yuripov, trudging along behind doing his NKVD best to ensure that we didn’t start divulging state secrets to the nearest elm. “I’m not here to quarrel with you,” Alexei continued. “I’m here to make amends. I want to see our son when we return home.”
I resumed my brisk pace. “No.”
“Mila, a man can admit he’s made mistakes. I wasn’t a good husband and father then; let me make it up to you now. When all’s said and done, Slavka’s still my son.”
Suddenly I was regretting this walk among the trees. There weren’t the kind of crowds I’d envisioned, children playing, women with baby carriages, students with picnic lunches. Just a few hikers in the distance, spots of color in bright jackets, and a gangly birdwatcher with binoculars . . . but otherwise, not a soul among these sound-swallowing woods except Yuri. And I didn’t think he’d interfere if Alexei tried to put hands on me. His directive was to stop me misbehaving, not get in between a husband and wife. I heard the babble of a creek somewhere close and pressed toward it. Running water meant open banks, and suddenly I wanted room to maneuver.
“Even you have to admit every boy needs a father,” Alexei coaxed, seemingly unaware of my unease. “Someone to teach him how to play hockey, help him with his lessons—”
Lyonya would have shown Slavka how to do all that. It was so easy to see the future we’d never have, the three of us ice-skating on the pond at Gorky Park in winter . . . I gave a hard blink, willing the tears out of my eyes as I came out onto the creek bed. Not a deep current, more a winding stream littered with rocks, but there was a bridge spanning it to my left, ancient-looking arches slabbed together out of massive chunks of stone, and I made for it.