A History of What Comes Next

by Sylvain Neuvel

  46

  Songs and Dances of Death: Lullaby

  I wanted to cut his throat, but this had to look like an accident, death by bad luck or natural causes. I had to know his routine: what he ate, where he ate, whom he ate with. I followed him. I set up camp in the thicket behind his house. On the first night, Beria brought home another girl—she could not have been more than eighteen. I saw her walk out of the house with her bouquet of flowers, full of hate and shame.

  I followed her. It felt wrong, but I followed her. It took two days before I found the nerve to approach her in a café. Her name is Natalia. She is a student, though she misses school a lot to help her ailing mother. She had never met Beria before that night. She did not know he was the one who had her father arrested and sent to the gulag. When he took her to his office, he promised her he would set her father free. The next day, she asked the secret police when her father would be released. They told her he had died weeks before. Beria must have known. He had her arrested a week later. I do not know if she is alive or not. If she is, she will die alone in a cell somewhere.

  Last week, Beria brought home another one. There was nothing special about her, nothing to set her apart from all the others. Except this one never left. I waited all night for her to come out, then I waited all day. Then I waited all night again. Finally, two MGB officers came out the back door carrying a large bag. They got a pair of shovels out of the shed and started digging in the yard. He killed her.

  I killed her, too. I was a coward, looking for excuses. I was afraid and I let more people suffer. More people who will live with the guilt. More people who will convince themselves they did something to deserve this. I should have killed Beria the moment Mia came home that night. I should have reached inside his chest, plucked his heart out, and had him watch as it came to a stop.

  Beria will die. He will feel his insides break apart and know it is the end.

  I know how. The government just approved a new blood thinner called warfarin. Warfarin is also very good at killing rats, which seems fitting. In large enough doses, it will cause severe internal bleeding, including a hemorrhagic stroke. If the circumstances of his death are not suspect, a less than zealous doctor should conclude that a stroke did Beria in. The question then becomes: How do I get someone to ingest large amounts of warfarin?

  I cannot force-feed it to him, he has to consume it willingly. Wine would be perfect—it is dark and strong enough to mask the taste of just about anything—but Beria opens a bottle for each of his victims. I do not want to be responsible for another woman’s death. Fortunately, for me at least, Beria keeps the good wine for himself. What he serves his guests as pricy Bordeaux is actually plonk from Ukraine. When he is alone and not destroying lives, he has a penchant for Saperavi wines from Georgia.

  That is it. I will lace a case of his favorite with warfarin and send it to him as a gift. With any luck, he will be dead within the week.

  47

  Jock-A-Mo

  1953

  I have to tell Mia. There is no way to know if I am responsible or not but I cannot hide this from my daughter. I just need to find the words.

  —What are you working on, Mia?

  —The perfect rocket.

  —Perfect is a strong word.

  —Oh, it has plenty of flaws. I just think they’re the right ones.

  —How so?

  —It’ll have a range of nine thousand kilometers. As it is, it will carry a payload of over six thousand pounds, but I think I can get it to ten. That means we can put a manned capsule on top of it and send people into space.

  —Or a very large nuclear warhead.

  —That’s how we get the development approved. It’s also going to be over a hundred feet long and weigh close to three hundred metric tons. The launchpad for it will need to be gigantic, insanely expensive. The engine runs on kerosene and supercooled liquid oxygen. It’ll take a long time to set up, and they won’t be able to keep it on standby for long before the fuel starts eating at the seals.

  —Those are serious limitations, Mia.

  —YES! What I’m designing isn’t a viable weapons system at all. It can’t be used as a deterrent because it won’t stay on alert for more than a day. The launchpads will cost so much, they’ll never build more than a handful of them. This thing … well, it will be completely obsolete as a missile by the time we build it. Its only future is as a space vehicle. It’s sturdy, powerful. You could base a whole space program on it.

  —What do you call it?

  —Semyorka.

  —Seven. How poetic. I am proud of you, Mia, always. I am grateful for all that you are doing.

  —You can thank Stalin for dying. Khrushchev is a smart man. He and Korolev get along for now. That’s the only reason we were able to drop the R-3 for good.

  Now is probably a good a time to tell her.… Somehow it feels as if our roles were reversed. I am the child about to confess I broke a vase.

  —Wonderful. Speaking of Stalin’s demise, I—

  —You what?

  —… Are you aware that Lavrentiy Beria died yesterday?

  —Yeah. The little rat went to his knees and begged for mercy. I heard they had to stuff a rag into his mouth to stop the wailing before they shot him.

  —Indeed. You should know that I tried to kill him last year.

  —Mother, no! We talked about this. If I wanted him gone, I would have killed him myself.

  —I know, but—

  —There’s no but. You said it yourself. We kill to survive, like every other living thing. We don’t hunt people.

  —I did not hunt … I gave him a dozen bottles of Georgian wine laced with rat poison. Warfarin.

  —Mother!

  —It did not work.

  —That’s not the point!

  —I know, the point is …

  —You mean there’s more?

  —Perhaps.… I did not give it a thought when they announced Stalin’s death in March. The papers said he watched a movie at the Kremlin on that Saturday with Khrushchev, Malenkov, Bulganin, and Beria. They all went to the dacha afterwards and drank all night. Stalin had a stroke. They found him in a coma the next morning. Four days later, he was dead. End of story.

  —So?

  —So I never saw the autopsy report but I heard they also found intestinal bleeding, which is not all that common with a stroke.

  —I don’t like where this is going.

  —It could be nothing.

  —Or …

  —A hefty dose of warfarin would account for both the stroke and the intestinal bleeding. Many things would, really, but perhaps Beria brought a bottle as a gift that night and Stalin had a nightcap before going to bed. I heard Georgian wines were a favorite of his.

  —You fucking killed Stalin?!

  —Language, Mia. And no. I mean … there is a very remote possibility that I did, but perhaps Beria found out the wine I sent him was poisoned and he gave it to Stalin on purpose. They say that after Stalin died, he bragged to members of the Politburo that he had done it and saved them all.

  —A remote possibility?

  —Very remote.

  —You fucking killed Stalin!

  —I did not.

  —You keep telling yourself that. I’ve got to go, Mother. Korolev and I are having dinner with friends.

  Mia is not nearly as mad as I thought she would be. I do not know why this surprises me. It was always I who thought the rules could not be bent. Mia chose her own path. She wanted a normal life, and I wanted it for her. We broke every rule to get her there. She will not condemn me for breaking one more. My daughter is happy. She has a husband, a lover. She is passionate about her work, and we are making great progress towards our goal.

  I did not think this was something we could have. Perhaps I, too, could have the life I want, see my granddaughter born and watch her become us one day at a time. I could tend a garden, do the small things other people do while they watch the years go by. I would love to
grow old. None of us ever have.

  48

  Earth Angel

  1954

  Shit. I’m late for lunch. Billie’s going to give me a mouthful. Where the hell is it?!

  —Sergei! Did you see my necklace?

  Where did I go? Nowhere. I was here all day yesterday. I took it off the night before. I remember that.

  —SERGEI!

  —WHAT? WHAT?

  —My necklace! Have you seen it?

  —Green jacket. I am coming.

  —Your dress uniform? Wh—Oh there you are. What’s my necklace doing in—

  —I took it to an expert like we had talked about. Get dressed!

  —I am dressed. I have to go. Why are you out of breath?

  He’s sweating like he just ran a marathon.

  —I ran downstairs. I—

  —You ran—

  —I meant you should put on a dress. I will open some champagne.

  —It’s eleven, Sergei.

  I think my husband is broken.

  —That is perfect, because at ten forty-five, the USSR Council of Ministers officially approved our draft for the R-7 intercontinental ballistic missile.

  —They said yes?

  —You have your rocket, Nina. You did it. Whoa! No! You are too heavy!

  I don’t want to let go and let him see me crying. I worked— We worked so hard on this. It’s …

  —It’s your project, Sergei. You did it.

  —Nina, I do not know exactly why you agreed to marry me but I—

  —I—

  —Let me talk. But I hope … I like to believe it was in part because you think of me as a fairly intelligent human being. I see you working, Nina, always. You jot down equations on napkins when I am not looking. My office is full of them. I pick them up from the trash can when you leave. When the car windows get foggy, I see the math you last did with your finger and I cannot understand the half of it.

  —Sergei, that’s—

  —I am not an idiot, Nina. I read all those papers. Unlike you, I actually know Mikhail Tikhonravov, personally. He is a smart man but he could not write a coherent sentence to save his life. He also cannot do what you do. No one can. I do not ask because I assume you would say something if you wanted to. That and you make me look incredibly smart. The rest of us helped when we could but this is your rocket, even if you and I are the only ones who know it. You did an amazing thing, Mrs. Korolev. I think you should celebrate, and I would be honored if you let me celebrate with you.

  I absolutely adore this man, but this is so not helping with the crying. I suppose if I’m going to sob like a child, I might as well do it over champagne. I’m a couple of days late, but one glass can’t hurt, can it?

  —I’ll get the glasses. You said you had someone look at my necklace?

  —I did.

  I hate it when he does that.

  —… And?!

  —He could not tell me anything about the metal, but the gem in the middle comes from a meteorite. Fitting, don’t you think? You dream of sending things into outer space and you are wearing a piece of it.

  —He said it was a piece of meteorite?

  —Well, not exactly. He said that mineral was not from Earth. It had to come from somewhere, right?

  Shit.

  49

  Mr. Sandman

  I better hold on to something. I can’t feel my fingers it’s so cold up here. I don’t know why I agreed to this. Well, I know why. Korol—My husband asked me to and I said yes. I must be losing my mind, like the last manager did. They wouldn’t tell the excavation crew what they were building. They told them it was a “stadium.” Typical Russian nonsense, we’re in Nowhere, Kazakhstan. Their surveys said there was nothing but sand here, but they hit some heavy clay right from the start and they fell behind. The generals in Moscow were quick to blame the manager, a kid from the Academy of Military Engineering. He went crazy, literally. He’s in a mental institution now. Maybe that’s where I should be. Instead I’m … fighting the wind a hundred and fifty feet above ground, watching tiny people below pour concrete into a giant hole.

  We have to work through winter now if we’re going to make it in time. The pad itself is a forty-meter-square block of concrete, about the width of a football field, so they’ll be pouring for a while. Still, that’s where my rocket will launch from. I’m here to inspect the gigantic steel platform hanging above it. Me. My husband is scared of heights. I told him it was ironic, building rockets, scared of heights. He doesn’t get it. Russian humor is its own thing.

  I wanted to use the alone time to think. Hard to do in thirty-mile-an-hour winds. I haven’t told anyone yet but I’m beginning to show. I’m not sure I’m ready. I could wait. There are places that take care of this sort of thing. There’s so much to do still. I don’t know if I can do all of it and raise a—WHOA! Big gust of wind!

  If the R-7 flies like it’s supposed to twice, we can go ahead with my satellite project. I’m sure there’ll be some setbacks, but we’ll get it done in a year or two. I can’t wait to—Shit. That truck will hit the power line if it keeps backing up. I need someone with a radio.

  —You! Hand me that walkie-talkie, will you?

  —…

  Nothing. I guess he didn’t hear.

  —Hey! Can you hand me your radio?

  He’s not in uniform. I wonder—I’ve never seen him before but there’s something—

  —Hello, Nina!

  —Fuuuuuu—

  UGH! Straight kick to the stomach. I can’t breathe. I’m in midair, falling backwards. I’m staring at the sky, but I know there’s no platform beneath me. A hundred-and-fifty-foot drop. I’ll hit the ground at seventy miles an hour. Inelastic collision with a concrete slab. At that speed, even I won’t survive.

  …

  …

  Sharp pain. I should have hit concrete by now. I haven’t. I stopped. I … There’s a …

  There’s a piece of rebar sticking out of me. I don’t— There’s a fucking steel rod coming out of my stomach. I impaled myself midway down on the platform frame.

  I have to stay conscious. I’m dangling in midair eighty feet above ground. I need to get down.

  Both hands around the steel rod, I can pull … myself … up.

  —AAAAHHHHH!

  I can’t. It’s no use. They’ll need to take me down but I’ll be long dead by then.

  That’s not how I imagined it would end. It doesn’t matter, I suppose. I wonder what kind of mother I’d have been.

  It’s getting dark. It won’t be long now.

  50

  The Great Pretender

  My dear Sarah,

  I am writing to tell you that I am returning to China.

  I have spent the last five years under house arrest, scheduled for a deportation that would never come. They would not let me stay because of what I am, and they would not let me leave because of what I know. I was denied access to sensitive information but permitted to teach. My colleagues tried to convince me that it would all work out and, for a while, I even believed them.

  I wanted to stay. I wanted to build a life in America but they found a document from the American Communist Party with my name on it. They accused me of lying about who I was and what I believed in. It took me two years to realize they were right. I had been lying all along, though it was me and not the government I had been deceiving.

  I convinced myself I could belong, that I could be as American as anyone else. All it took was hard work, the belief in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I realized how wrong I was when the prosecutors asked me where my allegiance lies. What they really wanted to know is whether I would build weapons to kill my people.

  We cannot change who we are. I am Chinese. I wanted to be American. I believed I could be both, but they showed me time and time again that there is no such thing in these United States. I chose not to listen and I lied to myself. I pretended I could be something I’m not and everyone I loved paid the price.
>
  I do not know what the future holds for me back home. I may be imprisoned or executed, but if I am, at least I will die knowing who I am.

  Sincerely,

  Your friend,

  Qian Xuesen

  ENTR’ACTE

  Rule #1: Preserve the Knowledge

  825 BC

  King Shalmaneser III of Assyria invaded Anatolia to expand his empire. One by one, the states fell, but the small kingdom of Quwê refused to surrender. Perhaps it was the sense of pride she found in Quwê that attracted Ishtar, the tenth woman to call herself the Kibsu.

  Ishtar’s mother had been killed on their way to their new home. The Tracker had ambushed them, and her mother stayed behind to ensure Ishtar and her daughter Nourah got away. The Tracker tortured Ishtar’s mother for days hoping to lure Ishtar back into reach. Ishtar covered her daughter’s ears until the screams faded into silence.

  Ishtar had learned everything there was to know about horses from her mother. Horses had taken her from Scythia to Anatolia. Breeding those same horses would put a roof over her head and feed her family. When Nourah was five, King Jehu of Israel sent emissaries to Quwê to procure some horses for himself and his family. The king’s envoy spent days examining every mount in the capital. When it was all over, he settled on five stallions and two mares from Ishtar’s stable. The king paid a premium price for his horses, and that one trade would change their lives forever.

  That evening, Ishtar prepared a sumptuous meal: fish with her garlic sauce, maza, asparagus. She even bought some figs, Nourah’s favorite. Mother and daughter ate together, and for a brief moment, Nourah felt like a princess.

  The next morning, Nourah was awoken by a voice she did not know. There was a man standing next to her bed. Nourah flinched, thinking this might be the one who killed her grandmother, the one they called Rādi Kibsi. The man smiled and told her she had nothing to fear from him, that they had met the day before when he examined their horses.