Russia Girl

by Kenneth Rosenberg

  “Come on, we’re leaving.” Natalia took Alina by the hand.

  Zigic lunged at the cage again and then grabbed the bars, rattling them back and forth. “I will get you for this!”

  “Your threats are hollow now.” Natalia led Alina back up the stairs and into the kitchen. At the first stove, Natalia lifted the cover and leaned close to blow out the pilot. She did the same for the oven and then followed these steps on the second oven and stove. She turned all of the knobs to full and held her breath as the room began filling with gas.

  “Let’s go,” she gasped to Alina, leading her quickly into the entryway. Sticking up from a small hole the floor beside the fireplace was a metal key. Natalia turned it to the left until she heard an unmistakable hissing sound. She and Alina ran out the front door and across the yard. Near the gate, Natalia stopped and turned to face the house. It was over. She’d done it. Almost. Lifting her gun once more, she fired a grenade it into the window of the SUV. The car blew up into a ball of flames, waves of heat licking at their faces. Natalia did the same to the Mercedes and then turned toward the house.

  “We should go,” said Alina, the first words she’d managed.

  “In a minute,” said Natalia. By now the gas would be making its way through the open basement door and down the stairs, filling the space where Zigic sat trapped like a rat in a cage, breathing the fumes, desperate to escape. Only this time, there was no escape. Natalia loaded her last grenade and fired it through a kitchen window. Seconds later the entire house erupted in a massive explosion, orange and yellow flames leaping through shattered glass, a concussive shockwave knocking them both to the ground as debris rained down around them.

  Head ringing, Natalia climbed back up. “Are you all right?” she asked Alina, who managed a furtive nod as Natalia helped her to her feet. Natalia took off her long grey coat and draped it over Alina’s shoulders. “Now we can go.” She paused to take one last look at the house. Thick black smoke poured from every door and window. If anybody inside could have survived the explosion, there was no way they would live through the fire. At long last, Natalia was free. She threw her gun to the ground and they ducked through the shattered gate. Natalia tore off her bulletproof vest as they walked off down the street, back toward lives left behind.

  Chapter Forty-One

  The farm lay sprawled before them as they came over the rise, smoke wafting upwards from the chimney of the main house. It all looked the same, tucked in below rolling hills, as though nothing at all had changed. When the Lada drew close, the children’s faces appeared in one window. Moments later they raced outside with Olga in tow. Ivanka pulled the car to a stop. As soon as Natalia climbed out she found a child clinging to each leg. “Natalia! Natalia! Natalia!” they cried out in unison.

  “What about me?” Rita emerged from the passenger door.

  “Rita! Rita!” shouted the children, rushing around to greet her next.

  Olga stood by with a look of joyous disbelief. “You made it.”

  “Yes, we made it,” said Natalia.

  “And we brought a friend with us, too!” said Rita.

  In the back seat, Marina sat wrapped in a blanket with a soft smile on her face. “Hello,” she nodded to Olga through an open door. “I’m Marina.”

  “Marina is going to stay with us,” said Rita.

  “Come, let’s get her into the house!” said Ivanka. She helped Marina out of the car and up the steps as Natalia took their bags from the trunk. Before they were unloaded, another familiar face emerged from the barn. Natalia froze where she was, hardly able to believe her eyes. It was her long-lost brother Leon. Hair trimmed and neat, face clean shaven. He walked across the yard and stopped to face Natalia just a few feet away.

  “It’s really you.” Natalia couldn’t hide her astonishment. She turned to her mother. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “I thought it would be a nice surprise,” Ivanka replied.

  “But how...?” Natalia was practically speechless.

  “I heard about father.”

  “Are you’re going to stay?” Rita asked.

  “Yes. I’m going to stay.” He pulled the last bag from the trunk.

  Natalia dropped her own bag and grabbed him in an embrace. She had so many questions for him. Leon was home, he was sober and he seemed to be at peace. That in itself was miracle enough. Questions could come later.

  “What did you bring us, what did you bring us?” sang the children.

  “Come now, that’s not polite!” Olga scolded them, though Natalia had never seen her sister-in-law so happy. She had her husband back.

  “I brought you a kick in the pants!” Natalia said to the children as she let her brother go.

  “Aw, that’s no fun,” Valery pouted.

  “I’ll tell you what; I’ll bake a nice big cake. How does that sound?” said Rita.

  “Yay! Cake!” said Valery, skipping up the stairs and into the house.

  When they’d cleared the dinner dishes from the table, the early evening sun still shone through the windows. Natalia paused near the kitchen sill to look outside. The snow was long gone and the hills were covered in a carpet of fresh green grass. Spring had arrived in earnest. The planting season. She saw fresh furrows in the fields. Beside the barn, the tractor was hitched to the plow. “Where is father?” Natalia turned to her mother at the sink.

  “At the top of the hill,” answered Ivanka as she washed the dishes. “So he could be near us.”

  “That’s good,” said Natalia. “He’d prefer it that way.”

  “Your friend Gregor came to the service. I was wrong about that man. I tried to give his money back, but he told me to keep it. He said it was for you.”

  “I’ll take it back to him tomorrow,” said Natalia.

  “No. He is gone,” said Ivanka.

  “Gone, where?!”

  “I don’t know. He packed his truck and drove away. I don’t think he’s coming back. That’s what people are saying.”

  Natalia looked back out the window. She never even got to tell him that she made it. He’d have been so proud of her…

  “Where is the cake? We want cake!” cried the children, crowding in the kitchen doorway.

  “Only good little girls and boys get cake!” shouted Rita, chasing them through the door and around the house as they giggled with glee.

  Natalia moved to the sink and picked up a towel, drying the dishes one by one and then stacking them on the counter. When she was finished, she moved back to the dining area and lifted an orange flower from a vase on the table. “I’d like to go see father.” Without another word, she walked on out the door.

  The sky was pale yellow as Natalia climbed the hill behind the house in the cool evening air, the temperature dropping as the sun dipped below the horizon. She’d walked this path countless times over the course of her life, to sit on the knoll and reflect, or read a book, or smoke her very first cigarette. This time she felt a hollowness inside. She was weak in the knees, afraid to face her father. Afraid that he might blame her somehow for everything that had happened. She felt him there, before she’d even crested the hill, as though he’d been waiting, his presence heavy around her. At the very top, amid the green shoots of spring, a fresh mound of dirt touched up against a headstone, carved in wood and bearing her father’s name. Natalia knelt low, placed her flower on the grave and then sat down beside it. From here she could see the entire farm stretching off into the distance. She inhaled earth and manure and grass; smells her father knew so well. She picked up a handful of soil from his grave and squeezed it tightly, letting the dirt fall through her fingers.

  Surveying the scene below, the house, the barns, the animals, Natalia thought back to the girl she was before; so full of passion yet afraid to leave this familiarity behind. Indeed, her heart would always be anchored in this place, yet she’d changed in these last twelve months. Natalia knew that she could no longer stay here. It really was too small to contain her. Gregor was right abo
ut that. It was why he’d left the money behind, to give her a head start. At what, she couldn’t quite say, but she’d have plenty of time to think about that. For now it didn’t matter. For now, Natalia was home.

  About the Author

  Kenneth Rosenberg is a California writer and UCLA graduate in English Literature who has worked as a journalist, merchant seaman, photographer, dive master and snowboarding instructor. Kenneth spends his free time surfing, snowboarding and traveling the world on a shoestring.

  You can find Kenneth online at www.kennethrosenberg.com or drop him an email at kenneth@kennethrosenberg.com.

  Please read on for a sample of the next book in the Natalia Nicolaeva series. Vendetta Girl finds Natalia in St. Petersburg, Russia, where she must go toe-to-toe with mob hit men, corrupt government officials and the state security services. Can she possibly make it out alive again?

  Vendetta Girl - Chapter One

  Natalia Nicolaeva sat in the middle of a crowded auditorium, typing notes into her laptop. At a lectern far below, her history professor held forth on the Battle of Grunwald. The man wore dark brown pants and a frayed blue sweater. His mildly unkempt gray hair matched an unruly salt-and-pepper beard. “Who can tell me which country was the largest in Europe during this period?” When he bellowed the question, most his students sank further in their seats.

  At 21-years-old, Natalia wore jeans and a loose gray sweatshirt, with faded green canvas high-tops on her feet. Her long brown hair was tied back into a pony tail. Natalia was tall, with the athletic build of a hard-working country girl. She carried herself with confidence, though she couldn’t help but feel like an impostor in this place. She’d never planned to go to university. All her life she’d felt destined to be farmer, married and raising a family amongst the wheat fields of her native Moldova. Yet here she was, attending Saint Petersburg State University, in a city the size of which she never could have imagined living in beforehand. Natalia was still was not quite used to the idea.

  “None of you have the courage to answer my simple question?” the professor continued, though his cowering students shuffled their feet and averted their eyes. Only one brave hand shot into the air, from the seat just beside Natalia. “Yes?” the professor asked.

  “Russia!” came the eager reply. Sasha Antov was one of the few students on campus who Natalia considered to be a friend. He was a jokester, always fooling around, with a lighthearted merriment in his eyes. His thin, wiry body was clothed in faded blue jeans, a rumpled green t-shirt and red cotton jacket. The young man was below average in stature, with light-colored hair cut short, but he made up for his diminutive size with an extra-large personality. Scraggly facial hair highlighted his casual attitude. Sasha carried a tattered notebook wherever he went, but never actually took notes. Not for this class, anyway. That duty he left for Natalia. From what glimpses she was afforded, his pages seemed filled with nothing more than doodles and drawings.

  “No!” the professor shouted back. “Not Russia!”

  “Are you sure?!”

  “I am quite sure!”

  “But do the authorities know what you are teaching us? Russia is the greatest country on earth!”

  The professor took a small step backwards, apparently shocked at his student’s impertinence. “The answer is not Russia.”

  Natalia felt her own arm rising, as if under its own volition.

  “You there! Can you please tell us the correct answer?” the professor pressed.

  “Lithuania,” Natalia said in a clear, even tone.

  “Very good,” the professor conceded. “And what present-day countries did Lithuania encompass?”

  Natalia cleared her throat and continued, her nerves slightly rattled. “Modern-day Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine, parts of Poland…”

  “Yes, and?” he pestered.

  “Part of Russia,” she answered.

  “I knew it!” Sasha replied with a sly smile. “I was right!”

  The professor turned his attention to the rest of the class. “From 1316 to 1430 the Grand Duchy of Lithuania controlled an area that encompasses the present states of Lithuania, Belarus, Ukraine and parts of Poland and Russia. In 1401 they joined forces with the Kingdom of Poland to face off against the Knights of the Teutonic Order in the Battle of Grunwald, considered the largest battle in medieval Europe.”

  Natalia saw Sasha jot a few words into his notebook, tear out the page and slide it onto her desk. “Show off!” read the note. A look of consternation crossed Natalia’s face. She considered a response, but in the end merely shook her head.

  “The battle marked the beginning of the decline of the Knights, a Germanic order born during the crusades in the Middle East…”

  As class broke for the day, Natalia saved her notes and then copied them onto a small flash drive. She ejected the drive and handed it to Sasha, who slid it into his pocket. “Why do you need my notes, anyway?” Natalia asked. “I can’t believe you’ll ever look at them.”

  “Of course I will! How else do you expect me to pass my exams?”

  “Why don’t you just take your own?”

  “You’re much smarter than me, Natalia,” he answered. “I trust you!”

  “And what do I get out of this arrangement?!”

  “My eternal gratitude.”

  Natalia put her laptop into a brown leather backpack by her feet. Sasha quickly slid his paper notebook in on top. “You can hold onto this for me,” he said. “Bring it to the next class.”

  “What if I don’t make it?”

  “Are you kidding? You always make it! Just don’t go trying to sell it off in the meantime!”

  “A bunch of doodles? I’d be lucky to get five rubles.”

  “They said the same about Picasso in his early days.”

  Natalia shook her head. She zipped the backpack shut and stood to leave. From the back of her chair, she lifted a green army surplus jacket and slid it on. Sasha followed her out of the auditorium where they emerged into a chilly late-October afternoon, with puffy white clouds scattered across a blue sky.

  “I told you the answer was Russia,” Sasha said.

  “Part of Russia.”

  “What else matters?”

  “Why do you bother to say anything at all if you don’t know the answer?”

  “What do I care? It’s all a waste of time. Why live in the past when you can live in the present?”

  “If you don’t watch out, you’re going to get expelled.”

  “I wish. Maybe that would finally get my parents off my case. Then I could put my energies into the important things in life, like making money!”

  “If you want a good job, you’ll get your degree.” The pair walked toward the dormitories.

  “You think too small, Natalia. The employers in my line of work don’t care about university degrees. All they care about is whether you’re up to the task. And they pay a lot of money. Did I tell you that?”

  “I think you’ve mentioned it.”

  “I can earn more on one job than our professor Grunwald makes in a year.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “You could do the same, if you wanted to. I could teach you plenty that you’ll never learn in school.”

  Natalia shook her head. “Sitting in front of a computer screen all day is not how I plan to spend my life.”

  “But come on, it’s fun!”

  “You can’t mean that.”

  “What is it that you study? History? What will you do with that?”

  “I’ve thought I might transfer to the law school.”

  “Oh, yes, and what do lawyers do all day? They sit at their desks, in front of a computer!”

  “At least good lawyer can make a difference in the world.”

  “So can a good programmer.”

  “Is that what you’re after?”

  “No, the world can take care of itself. Did I tell you about the money?” He flashed a bright smile.

  “You better not get yourse
lf into trouble.”

  “Trouble? Forget it. The people I’m dealing with don’t know their asses from a hole in the ground.” Sasha sounded bold as he said the words, though something about his demeanor suggested that he was trying to convince himself as much as Natalia.

  “All I’m saying is, be careful.”

  “Sure, sure, I’m careful.” They continued up the block and on through a large courtyard, finally arriving at Natalia’s dormitory, a towering concrete block twelve stories high. “What will you do now?” Sasha asked.

  “Study, of course. Some of us still care about our marks.”

  “But come on, live a little bit! I’m meeting a friend for a beer. Why don’t you join us?”

  Natalia crossed her arms. “Who has time for a beer?”

  “Are you joking?! When was the last time you enjoyed yourself at all?”

  For Natalia, the question struck home. It was true, she rarely allowed herself any distractions, but that was for good reason. As the first member of her family to attend university, Natalia felt added pressure. Maybe Sasha wouldn’t mind dropping out of school. To Natalia, failure to graduate was not an option. After this taste of the wider world, the life of a farm girl would never suffice. If hard work was what it took to reach her goals, then so be it. She would work as hard as she could. And yet... sharing a beer with classmates once in while couldn’t hurt all that much. Perhaps Sasha was right. It might even be good for her. “Where are you going, exactly?” Her resolve wavered.

  “It’s a little bar, not too far from here. Come on, you’ll like it! I promise.”

  Natalia gave it a bit more thought before nodding in acquiescence. “I suppose one beer couldn’t hurt. Let me drop off my bag first.”

  “I’ll meet you back here in ten minutes.”

  “Fine.”

  Natalia pulled out her student ID card and swiped it across an electronic reader to let herself into the building. Walking across the foyer to the bank of elevators, she had a slight spring in her step. She could study later. In the meantime, life was for living. She would enjoy this night out as a typical university student. Who could begrudge her that? When Natalia got to her room, she found her roommate Julia sitting at one of two desks. “Hello!” Natalia called out.