The Russian

by Saul Herzog

  Larissa Chipovskaya,

  It is with regret that I rescind our offer to you to attend Vaganova Academy.

  Thank you for your interest in our institution.

  It was signed by the secretary of the office of administrative affairs, someone named Hilde Freindlich, a woman Larissa had never heard of before or since.

  “That was connected to my father’s death?” Larissa said.

  “I don’t know everything,” Tatyana said, “but I do know some paper-pusher in Moscow made a connection somewhere.”

  Larissa shook her head. “And that meant I couldn’t attend the academy?”

  Tatyana nodded. “Your mother died soon afterward, didn’t she?”

  Larissa looked down at the table. Her mother died from an overdose of sleeping pills not long after that. Larissa had been the one to find the body, splayed on her bed, her clothing soiled, a copy of a Solzhenitsyn novella still in her hand.

  “She never recovered from the ordeal with the academy,” Larissa said.

  Tatyana nodded. “They got to my mother too,” she said.

  “Who did?”

  “The paper-pushers.”

  “How?”

  “She got sick.”

  “With what?”

  “Tuberculosis. It’s curable, but they refused to approve the medication in my mother’s case. She died when I was four.”

  “I’m sorry,” Larissa said.

  Losing her own mother had been devastating, but to lose her at four, that would have been unimaginable. She wondered how Tatyana had managed to survive at all.

  “Larissa,” Tatyana said, “do you know the lockers on the Khimki platform at Leningradsky Station?”

  “You know I do,” Larissa said.

  Larissa and her mother went to Leningradsky every time they traveled to Saint Petersburg for the dance recitals. She’d been there dozens of times.

  Tatyana nodded. “Locker fifty,” she said. “The code is 4422.”

  “The submarine’s number.”

  “Yes.”

  “What’s in the locker?”

  “A pen and a notebook. If I have something to tell you, I’ll write it in the notebook. If you have something to tell me, you do the same.”

  “What if I don’t want to?”

  “I won’t force you.”

  Larissa nodded.

  “But if you do come, Larissa,” Tatyana said, “you have to be careful. If anyone ever finds out about this, we’ll both be dead.”

  Larissa thought about that for a minute, then said, “What do you want me to do?”

  “You know the type of men that visit your club.”

  “Yes, I do,” Larissa said.

  “You can find things out for me. Things I can use. To resist.”

  12

  Larissa looked across the street, where the Moscow Hilton glowed like a lamp, spilling warm light onto the sidewalk.

  A girl didn’t end up in Larissa’s line of work by accident. Certain things had to happen in her life.

  Those things had happened to Larissa, and they’d changed her. They’d given her a sixth sense, an ability to read situations, to tell when people meant her harm, to smell the difference between the truth and a lie.

  It was that sensibility that had made her so valuable to Tatyana.

  And she knew that Tatyana had been through similar things. Those wounds that had carved her so painfully into the person she was, she saw them in Tatyana.

  They truly were two of a kind.

  She remembered how she felt when she looked at Tatyana that night, sitting at her kitchen table. She’d felt like she was no longer alone.

  “When was the first time you saw my photo?” she’d said.

  Tatyana shrugged. “A few months ago.”

  “How did you find it?”

  “I was looking for my mother’s file.”

  “And that’s when you found the connection with my mother?”

  Tatyana nodded.

  “What was the photo?”

  “You were in a ballerina’s outfit. A little girl. You couldn’t have been more than six or seven.”

  “And you weren’t taken aback by the resemblance?”

  Tatyana smiled. “Yes, I was.”

  “Did you ever wonder why we looked so similar?”

  Tatyana nodded. “Of course I did.”

  “Did you ever wonder if our mothers were more than just friends.”

  “I wondered,” Tatyana said, “if maybe they’d both been in love with the same man.”

  Larissa nodded. Her heart pulsed. She’d never met her father. He’d died before she was born. All she had of him was a grainy, black and white photo of a man in a sailor’s uniform.

  “Tell me what you found?” she said.

  Tatyana let out a short laugh.

  “What’s so funny?”

  “There’s no beating around the bush with you, is there?”

  “This is important,” Larissa said. “You don’t need to be a detective to see there’s a resemblance between us that can’t be a coincidence.”

  Tatyana nodded. “All right,” she said. “I pulled up both our birth certificates.”

  “And?”

  “Our mothers are our mothers,” she said. “That much is clear.”

  “But our fathers?”

  Tatyana smiled. “You’re good at this.”

  “I have an instinct,” Larissa said.

  Tatyana held up the photograph. “My mother was married to this man,” she said, pointing to the man she’d said was her father. Then she pointed to Larissa’s father. “Your mother was married to this man.”

  “Being married doesn’t make them fathers,” Larissa said.

  Tatyana shook her head. “No, it doesn’t.”

  Larissa looked at Tatyana intently. The resemblance was just too clear to ignore. “We’re half-sisters then?” she said.

  Tatyana stared back at her for a long moment. Neither of them said anything.

  Eventually, Tatyana let out a heavy sigh and looked away. “You know,” she said, getting up from the table, “our jobs aren’t so very different.”

  “I’ll believe that when I’ve got a pair of shoes like those,” Larissa said, nodding toward Tatyana’s feet.

  Tatyana smiled. She put on her coat. “You can keep the photo,” she said.

  Larissa looked at her. “Are you sure?”

  “It’s safer with you.”

  Larissa nodded. “Do you have any idea which one’s our father?”

  Tatyana shook her head. “If I find our mother’s files, I’ll know more.”

  Larissa nodded. “I have one last question,” she said.

  Tatyana looked at her. “Yes?”

  “If our files were tainted, if we were under suspicion, how did you get into the GRU?”

  “Good question,” Tatyana said.

  “And?”

  “I haven’t gotten to the bottom of that yet,” she said.

  “Maybe someone made a mistake,” Larissa said.

  “They do make a lot of mistakes,” Tatyana said, “but I don’t think this was one of them.”

  “You think someone pulled a string for you?”

  “I think someone must have made sure my file was clean.”

  “Why would someone do that?”

  “Because they had an interest in seeing me on the inside.”

  Larissa nodded. She watched Tatyana throw her purse over her shoulder and walk her Prada shoes to the door.

  Larissa watched the way she moved. Even the way they walked was similar. Tatyana stopped at the door and turned. “Eventually, this game will get us,” she said. “It always does. There’s only one way it ends.”

  “I’m all right with that,” Larissa said.

  “Are you sure, Larissa?”

  Larissa looked at her, her expensive clothes, her perfect hair, her gloved hand already on the handle of the door, ready to walk out and disappear.

  “When did you know you wan
ted to fight back?” she said. “What was the moment you decided?”

  “I’m not sure,” Tatyana said.

  Larissa shook her head. “Sure you are,” she said.

  “I remember when my mother died.”

  Larissa nodded.

  “I was only four, but I was trapped in the apartment with her. Days passed before anyone came.”

  “Do you think it’s possible to make a decision like that so young?” Larissa said.

  “I don’t know,” Tatyana said, “but I know that was the beginning for me.”

  Larissa nodded.

  “Whoever our parents were,” Tatyana said, “they were fighting against something. When I find our father’s file, I’ll know what it was.”

  Larissa nodded. “I don’t care if this fight ends up costing my life,” she said. “I’m ready.”

  Tatyana opened the door. She was about to leave and then stopped.

  “If I ever get burned,” she said, “I’ll put a matchbook in the locker. If you see that, don’t wait, don’t look for me, run.”

  “Run?”

  Tatyana nodded. “Run for your life.”

  Tatyana left, shutting the door behind her.

  Larissa went to the window and watched her cross the street and get into her car. That night was the first and last time she ever set eyes on her sister. Or her half-sister. She’d thought she was alone in the world. The idea she had family made her head spin.

  And from that day on, Larissa fed information back to Tatyana with the diligence and courage of a true fighter. Whatever she heard, she went to the locker and wrote it in the notebook. It took her time to learn what was valuable, she made reports about foreigners, businessmen, Russian politicians, and gradually, Tatyana directed her toward what she needed most.

  Most of it was trivial. She couldn’t imagine how Tatyana would make use of any of it. But she always knew that eventually, something really big would come her way.

  And when it did, she would be ready.

  She hadn’t figured on something happening to Tatyana first. She realized now that she’d always refused to allow herself to even think of the possibility of Tatyana’s being burned. It wasn’t logical. Tatyana was playing an even more dangerous game than Larissa was. They both knew something would happen to one of them eventually. Larissa had only ever allowed for the possibility that her turn would come first.

  The thought of being without Tatyana was worse than the idea of being caught by the GRU.

  She stopped walking and took the matchbook from her pocket. The word Europa was written on it, and inside, written in pen, a Moscow phone number.

  She knew what the matchbox meant. It meant run.

  But the phone number. Tatyana had never mentioned that.

  She crossed the street to the hotel, and a doorman in a black coat and top hat opened the door for her.

  The warmth of the lobby hit her. She took a deep breath and looked around. There was a fancy bar, but it was closed. To her right was the check-in desk and concierge, and across the lobby were the elevators. Just before the elevators were some old-fashioned payphones, and Larissa walked over to them and inserted a coin. She dialed the number on the matchbook and waited.

  A recorded voice told her to wait while her call was directed, and she heard the clicks and tones of an analog connection being made. The dial tone changed to a steady beep, like a line that had gone dead, and Larissa waited, holding her breath.

  If this didn’t work, she would be alone. She would have to flee the country, never to look back. She would never know what had happened to Tatyana. She wouldn’t even know if she was alive.

  This was her last chance, the last thin thread connecting her to the only family she had in the world.

  And then a voice answered.

  13

  Tatyana heard rustling by her bedroom door and walked over, opening it suddenly. The Pushkin scholar was standing there, in his socks and briefs, the top few buttons of his shirt open.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Tatyana said, taken aback.

  “I … I don’t know.”

  “Who are you?”

  “I told you at dinner.”

  She looked at him. It didn’t make sense that anyone could have followed her from Moscow. She’d been too careful. And besides, this wasn’t how GRU assassins operated.

  “I told you I was a married woman,” she said.

  “I thought I might be able to help you prepare for your interview tomorrow.”

  “The best preparation is sleep,” Tatyana said.

  She didn’t want to kill this man, but she would do it if he kept this up.

  “I know,” the man said. “I’m sorry.”

  “I’m going to close this door,” Tatyana said, “and you better find someone else to bother.”

  The man nodded.

  “If I see you again tonight, I’m going to cause trouble.”

  He seemed to have gotten the message.

  She shut the door and went back to her bed. She was unsettled. The man bothered her. He was weird. Creepy. Men like that were the reason women didn’t travel alone. She went to the window and pulled back the curtain. A single bulb on a streetlamp lit the narrow street. There was a bar across the street, and a few men still seemed to be inside. Two decrepit taxis waited outside, the drivers smoking in their seats, engines running, talking to each other through their open windows.

  Tatyana closed the curtain and lit a cigarette. She sat by the window and watched a drunk stumble out of the bar and get into a taxi. In the morning, she would be leaving this country behind, maybe forever. It was her home, her Motherland, the land of her birth. She thought about the things she would miss. Small things. And there weren’t that many of them.

  She was about to go back to bed when she heard a beep from her backpack. She froze instantly, her cigarette an inch from her mouth.

  When it beeped a second time, she stood up and grabbed the backpack. She found the phone and looked at the screen. She went to the door and checked to see if the man was gone. He was. She went to the window and looked outside. Everything was the same as it had been before.

  Nervously, she answered the phone.

  “Tatyana,” a worried voice said.

  It was Larissa. She was breathing rapidly. “Tatyana,” she gasped again, bursting into tears.

  “Larissa, it’s me.”

  “Oh, thank God.”

  “Are you all right?”

  “I’ve got information,” Larissa said, her voice trembling.

  She was speaking under her breath, and Tatyana feared she was in danger.

  “Where are you, Larissa?”

  “I’m in a hotel lobby. Close to the station.”

  “Are you all right? Are you safe?”

  “Yes, I’m all right.”

  “Were there men at the train station?”

  “No. No one. I was at work. I went to the train station to leave you a note, and I found the matchbook.”

  “I’ve been compromised, Larissa. You must never go back to the locker again. It’s not safe.”

  “What happened?”

  “You must never call me again, Larissa. Do you hear me? Throw away the matchbook and forget you ever knew me. I’m burned.”

  “But Tatyana.”

  “They’re coming after me, Larissa. I’ve been found out. I’ve got to escape the country. You’re on your own now, and you have to make sure no one ever connects you to me. You have to forget about me and never mention what we did to anyone.”

  “But I have information, Tatyana.”

  “Forget it, Larissa. Do you hear me? Forget it. It’s over. Forget all of it. Forget you ever met me.”

  “I can’t, Tatyana. We’re… blood.”

  “They’ll kill you, Larissa. Do you hear me? For the sake of your life, burn this number and never contact me again.”

  “There’s going to be an attack on the US embassy in Moscow,” Larissa said.

  Tatyana
paused. She made to speak and stopped. She didn’t know what to say.

  “I was with a Chinese diplomat,” Larissa said. “He was drunk. He said there’s going to be an attack, and someone called the Polar Bear is behind it.”

  “The Polar Bear?”

  “Yes. From the Lubyanka. He must be a Russian agent. He’s a large man. An albino, Tatyana. He wants to start a war with the Americans.”

  “Larissa, you can still walk away from all this.”

  “No, Tatyana. I told you I want to fight.”

  “We’re burned, Larissa. It’s over for us. Someone else will have to take up the fight.”

  “You can’t just drop me like this,” Larissa said. “You can’t, Tatyana. You have no right. We’re…”.

  “We’re what?” Tatyana said.

  “I thought we were family.”

  “If anyone ever hears you say that, they’ll kill you, Larissa.”

  “Don’t do this, Tatyana. Don’t just hang me out to dry. You can’t.”

  Tatyana was about to hang up but stopped herself. It was the second time in as many days she was going against her instincts, breaking her own rules.

  “You’re sure you want to fight on without me?” she said.

  “I’ve never been so sure of anything in my life, Tatyana.”

  Tatyana didn’t know what to do. She felt something for Larissa she didn’t feel for anyone else on earth. They were blood. They were family. They were sisters.

  “This might cost you your life, Larissa.”

  “You’d do the same thing,” Larissa said.

  Tatyana nodded. That much was true. She shook her head. She couldn’t believe she was doing this, sending Larissa into the fray with no protection. “Larissa, what I’m about to tell you, don’t write it down.”

  “I won’t,” Larissa said.

  Tatyana sighed. “There’s an apartment in Kapotnya,” she said. “Remember this address.”

  She gave Larissa the address of Lance’s apartment, and her voice quivered with emotion when she thought of what might happen to Larissa if she went there.

  “What’s there?” Larissa said. “What will I find?”