by Bauer, Tal
* * *
Iftar gatherings were some of the best nights at the mosque. The breaking of the fast was a celebration, another day’s victory of prayer and devotion behind everyone. Mangoes and dates and nuts passed on trays, along with yogurt and seared lamb. Music played, Arabic and Hindi dance numbers that had all the children spinning and twirling and chasing each other around the masjid, laughing at the top of their lungs.
Kris sat between Dawood and Behroze, plucking at the food on Dawood’s plate as Behroze launched into another story of his and Imam Youssef’s lessons, and the youth group he’d joined at the mosque, and what he was learning with his private tutor, trying to catch up on years of education. Suddenly, Behroze was a geyser of emotion, of conversation, wanting to share everything with Kris, all of his thoughts and all of his daily happenings. Some wall had been breached in Behroze’s defenses, and Kris was now firmly centered inside Behroze’s heart it seemed.
It was overwhelming, the change. And how intensely Behroze shifted, how vivacious he suddenly was. Here was the boy Dawood always talked about, the one who wandered to another mountain following a butterfly and who befriended a goat for a summer. The mischievous boy, the wondering boy. The boy who toddled after Dawood everywhere, and because of his penchant for wanderings, the only boy who survived when his family’s house was bombed to ash.
It was like meeting him for the first time all over again.
“Behroze!” A gaggle of girls, three in headscarves, two without, giggled their way across the masjid. They were from every corner of the world. Kris could pick out Somali features, Arabian, and Pakistani. They were teenagers, older like Behroze, and also refugees. “We’re setting up games over there.” One of the girls pointed to the far side of the masjid. “Come join us?”
Behroze looked to Dawood for permission. “If you’d like.” Dawood grinned. “Go have fun.”
He scrambled to his feet, his gangly limbs sticking out at odd angles under his thobe, like a stick figure come to life. A blush stretched across his cheeks, and he couldn’t smother the shy grin that split his face. Behroze trailed after the group, stumbling when one of the gorgeous Somali girls, her hair swept up in a purple headscarf that matched her lilac sweater and purple argyle socks peeking from beneath her jeans, turned back to grin at him.
“Yallah,” Dawood chuckled. “Are we already going to have to deal with crushes and girlfriends?”
Behroze nearly walked into the wall across the masjid, his gaze fixed on the purple-wrapped beauty. Kris snorted. “Looks like.”
“Bismillah.” Dawood laughed again, but it was warm and full of joy. “I sometimes worried he’d never smile again. There were years where all he did was cry himself to sleep.”
Kris, already leaning into Dawood’s chest and within his arms, kissed his cheek. He laid his hand over Dawood’s on the carpet. “He had an amazing father to guide him through the pain. You gave him everything. You saved his life.”
“He has an amazing family,” Dawood gently corrected. He took Kris’s hand and laced their fingers together. “And what you did today did more for his soul and his heart than I’ve done in years. He’s desperately wanted to be closer to you.”
Kris bit his lip. Panic welled within him, suddenly. “I don’t want to lead him on—"
“What’s in your heart is in your heart, habibi,” Dawood interrupted. His voice was kind. “You’re letting him share his life with you in a way he’s always wanted. If nothing else, know that. It is a selfless gift you’ve given him. I know your history. I know your past. I know what today meant to both of you.”
“It wasn’t about my past.” Years rolled by in his mind, snapshots out of time, memories and sights and sounds and smells. Blood and gunpowder and fire, sand and sun and jasmine, jungle nights and Afghanistan winters and Dawood’s smile at the end of every day. “This was about the future. Our future. And our family.”
Across the masjid, Behroze’s crush was trying to teach him how to hula hoop. Behroze looked like a telephone pole in a hurricane, his skinny body jerking back and forth as the hoop fell from his hips and crashed to the floor. She laughed and tried to show him again. Behroze was grinning so hard Kris could practically see his molars. Even from across the room, their joy, their effortless happiness, was a pulsing thing, like the heat of the sun on a summer’s day. Something that was true.
“I love you.” Dawood kissed his temple as the iftar celebration continued around them, as couples and families laughed and shared stories. Imam Youssef moved between the groups, shaking hands and kissing cheeks. His husband walked beside him.
Who can ever predict the paths our lives will take? Almost two decades before, he’d watched his world come undone. And today, he’d stepped forward and embraced a future he chose, for the next twenty years or more. Kris smiled as he turned into Dawood’s kiss. He pressed their lips together, murmuring into the lip lock, “I love you more.”
* * *
10
Houston, Texas
NASA Johnson Space Center
Sasha tapped the eraser end of his pencil against CAPCOM’s desk as the International Space Station flew by on the massive front display. The station swept up its parabolic curve over Africa, halfway through it’s ninety-minute orbit over Earth.
The lone other member of the skeleton crew on duty at Mission Control had stepped out to grab a coffee refill and take a walk with her phone.
Tap tap tap tap tap. He was hopelessly, aimlessly, bored.
There was nothing happening on the ISS on Christmas Day, the astronauts all celebrating together and calling home on their private lines. The few experiments that needed daily checking were checked and logged, and all other advanced mission directives and maneuvers were put on hold until tomorrow.
Even NASA took time off. Or at least, almost all of NASA.
There still had to be a skeleton crew monitoring the ISS from Houston’s Mission Control, a CAPCOM astronaut and a Flight Director overseeing everything. Other Mission Control crew members were on-call, ready to be at their flight stations within forty-five minutes. Commander Keating, chief of the astronaut corps, usually had the junior astronauts and the senior trainees draw straws for Christmas Day duty at the CAPCOM station.
But not this year. “Sir,” Sasha had said, “I volunteer for this duty.”
Commander Keating had stared at him, eyebrows slowly rising. “I thought you were heading back to Moscow. It’s a break in the training rotation. All the other international trainees are flying home.”
“The other trainees celebrate Christmas on the twenty-fifth,” he’d said. “But not in Russia.”
Keating had blinked. He grinned and launched into one of his infamous “you see, comrade” jokes. He put on a horrible Count Dracula accent and poked fun at Russia whenever Sasha surprised him. “You see, comrade,” he’d started with his drawling vampire voice. “In Russia, Christmas does not support the Communist agenda and must be abolished.”
“Maybe fifty years ago this was true. We celebrate it now, a bit. But even when we celebrate, Christmas isn’t on the twenty-fifth in Russia.”
Keating had blinked again and said, “I got nothing for that. What do you mean it’s not on the twenty-fifth?”
“We use the Julian calendar. Americans use the Gregorian calendar. Christmas for us is on January seventh.”
“Huh. You keep surprising me, Red.”
“And you keep using that terrible accent.”
“Vat do vu mean? Zis accent is just vike zours!”
Sasha had barked out a single laugh. “It is terrible.”
Keating seemed to know, of course, and he’d laughed with Sasha. “So, you’re serious? You wanna take the Christmas shift? Well, the American Christmas shift?”
“Yes sir. Everyone here has families. I do not.”
“When will you go back to Moscow? You’re entitled to your two weeks’ leave and you have people there you want to see.”
Sasha’s stomach had tw
isted, that pleasure-pain knot that tightened whenever he thought of home. “New Year’s is what we celebrate in Russia. A little of Christmas. I’d like to go back for New Year’s, and then I will return for the start of training on the eighth—"
“But you just said your Christmas was on the seventh. And if you come back early, you’re not getting your full two weeks of leave.”
Sasha stayed silent. He blinked. “January eighth is when training resumes.”
Keating smiled. “You’ve done exceptionally well so far, Andreyev. You can miss a few days, and I have a feeling you’ll still be fighting Petra for first rank in your class.”
Sasha flushed. “I work hard, sir.”
“Yes. You do.” Keating extended his hand. “Thank you for volunteering for Christmas duty. That means a lot to everyone and it means a lot to me. Let me know when you want to fly home for your two weeks’ leave and I’ll clear it. Don’t worry about any missed classes.”
“Thank you, sir.”
And that was that. A handful of people stopped by his shared office to thank him for volunteering once the word got out. As the American holiday approached, people peeled off the Johnson Space Center campus, heading home to their families or home to their mother countries.
Sasha kept to his routine, spending twelve hours a day at the JSC campus. Morning workouts, training flights, either in the simulator or out in the T-38s, studying the SLS systems diagrams, putting in hours in the labs, more studying and memorizing the flight and avionics systems, and then his evening workout before heading back to his simple apartment.
He'd already spent time learning the ropes at the CAPCOM desk, the one seat in Mission Control always filled by a member of the astronaut corps. He’d shadowed behind Commander Keating himself, and then took a week of graveyard shifts before moving into the day rotation of astronauts and trainees.
Usually Mission Control, while often sedate and filled with a practiced, professional calm, wasn’t boring. There was enough going on between all the different stations and the activities on board the ISS that Sasha could focus in and out, from Surgeon to ELINT to Guido to the Mission Specialists and then back to the Flight Director and the communications passing back and forth from JSC to the ISS. Outside of private medical calls, it was CAPCOM who was the only station to speak to the astronauts on mission, unless there was a critical situation.
Christmas Day, with the ISS effectively shut down and in party mode, and Mission Control a ghost town, Sasha was bored.
His cell phone buzzed, lying on the desk at the CAPCOM station. Throughout the day, his fellow trainees had traded Merry Christmas texts, and he’d received a personal text from Keating on top of the blast message Keating had sent to all the members of the astronaut corps. Thanks again for today, Keating had texted. You’re a team player and a great guy, Red.
His heart did a double thump when he picked up his phone. This text wasn’t from a fellow astronaut. It was from Sergey.
Zvezda moya, how are you? How is NASA today?
[Boring.] He snapped a selfie of himself, chin propped in his hand and slumped over the desk, lower lip pushed out. [There is nothing going on.]
LOL. The life of an astronaut, full of excitement, no?
[I should have kept my mouth shut. I could be flying my T-38 right now.] The T-38s were NASA’s training jets, supersonic jets similar to fighters but stripped of any weapons systems. Pilots and crews used them to practice advanced flight maneuvers and the physical effects of space flight, of launching, lift off, orbital maneuvers, and return to Earth.
“Or at least, that’s the company line,” Keating had said. He’d winked at the pilots in the trainee group and smiled at Sasha. “Military fighters, you and I know the real reason NASA keeps them around. They’re bitching sweet rides.”
And they were. If it weren’t for the G-forces, Sasha surely would have had the biggest erection of his life the first time he’d piloted the T-38 on his own. A perfectly functioning jet, nothing rattling, no fear that the engine was going to drop out from beneath him, or the landing gear wouldn’t deploy, or he’d have to eject when his coolant failed and everything caught fire. No leaking oil, no broken seals. The T-38 hummed around him, a perfect machine in harmony with his body, responding almost as soon as he thought his next maneuver. Like he could slip through gravity’s fingers, launch himself into orbit with a little more power, a little more oomph. Aside from kissing Sergey, it was the closest to perfect freedom he’d ever felt in his life.
Sergey sent him a picture of his socked feet stretched out in front of his fire, a glass of whiskey on his thigh. Or you could be here.
Sasha sent a scowling emoji.
When do you arrive? I want to count down the hours like a school boy.
Sasha chuckled. He had a surprise for Sergey, something he’d only gotten approval for the day before. [I will arrive on the 29th. At Ramenskoye airfield.]
The air base? Why? Are you not taking a commercial flight?
[I’m not telling you. It’s a surprise.]
This makes it difficult to calculate the hours like a school boy if you don’t tell me when you’ll be arriving.
He wouldn’t be able to tell Sergey his definitive arrival time until he was in the air. His arrival window was two days wide, accounting for potential weather delays. But he couldn’t tell Sergey that. Besides, no matter what weather he’d run into, he’d push the envelope as far as he could. Maybe even farther.
He was Russian. He’d flown a jet fighter through a blizzard before.
He’d crashed an airplane in the snow and the Arctic before, too.
Sergey texted a long string of Hmmmmmm. Then, Three days, plus or minus 24 hours. It’s the best I can calculate with the limited information you’ve given me.
He laughed, right as Sandra, the Christmas Day Flight Director in Mission Control, walked back in. She stared at him, eyes wide. He’d never laughed in front of her before, or in front of nearly anyone. He was focused. Serious. He’d heard the rumors. There was a decently-sized betting pool going that he wasn’t actually human: he was an advanced Russian robot that had to be tuned up in Moscow every six weeks.
His cheeks burned, and he hunched over his phone. [I will see you soon. As soon as humanly and earthly possible. Nothing will keep me away.]
He got a short video clip of Sergey, his tie loose and the top button of his shirt undone, smiling and blowing him a slow kiss. He played it again. And again.
Your home is waiting for you, zvezda moya. As am I.
* * *
The next few days, he watched the weather over Greenland with knots tangling his intestines, watching the snow pile up on runways and warnings about icing, about Arctic gales billowing south, blanketing Norway. He looked into backup options, commercial flights to Moscow that flew different routes, that didn’t have to land for refueling on grueling Arctic runways. Even commercial airlines were warning of possible delays.
Midnight on December 29, the weather broke and the snow stopped falling over Greenland, and Thule Air Base announced they were deicing the runways. Norway’s airfields went back to green status.
Sasha grabbed his bag and headed for NASA’s Ellington Field… and his T-38.
Commander Keating thought he was insane, but also said Sasha’s idea had balls. The hardest part, he said, would be getting approval beyond Keating with the higher ups and pushing through the still-prevalent fear of letting a Russian have his unlimited way with American tech. “I mean, it’s not like you don’t already have complete access to the T-38s right here, right now. What would it matter if you took it to Moscow? I’m certain the Russians already know everything about that flight system anyway. It’s not classified.” Keating went on, rattling off different Russian jets that were nearly identical to the T-38 and possibly based off stolen data from the way back years anyway. Sasha nodded along, his jaw glued shut. “I’ll push for it,” Keating finally said, clapping him on the shoulder. “You’ve got balls, Andreyev. I like
it.”
Whatever Keating did worked, and Sasha was granted official clearance from four different government agencies to fly his T-38 to Moscow for his Christmas leave. NASA wanted him to do some media relations events in Moscow, maybe show off the T-38, build goodwill between the nations and the resumption of the United States and Russia’s space cooperation.
He’d nodded along and agreed, wholly focused on getting home, barely listening to what they were telling him about required procedures and clearances and secured transfer of the T-38 to an assigned private aviation company under the auspices of the State Department once on the ground in Russia. Fueling procedures, where and how frequently. It would take five refuels to complete the trip from Houston to Moscow. Ohio, Nova Scotia, Greenland, Iceland, Norway, and then, finally, home.
Keeping his plans secret from the president of Russia—that was harder. Yuri and Ilya helped with that.
He texted Sergey as he completed his preflight checks. The sun hadn’t risen, and it was still pitch black, a heavy darkness weighed down with Houston’s oppressively sticky humidity, even now, even in winter. He wore a t-shirt with his flight suit tied around his waist, and still, he was sweating before dawn. To him, any weather over fifty degrees in winter was unnatural. Where was the feet-deep snow and ice?
It was early afternoon in Moscow, and Sergey texted back in between his meetings and his phone calls. When will you be arriving? When do I come to pick you up?
He’d checked and rechecked and triple checked his flight plan, the weather, the wind and the currents and the predictions for the next fifteen hours. Clear skies. A pilot’s dream. He could push the envelope, shave an hour off the flight. Or more. [Midnight. I’ll be landing at midnight.]
Perfect! A clandestine meeting at an old Russian air base. Nothing is more fitting for us!