—I don’t want to lose you.
—Then don’t!
I wish it were that simple.
—I’m afraid, Billie.
—Of what? What are you so afraid of, Nina?
—I’m afraid you’ll grow tired of me.
—I will.
—…
—But not before I figure out what’s in that big head of yours.
And just like that, I’m not afraid anymore.
27
La Vie en Rose
It hasn’t been a year, but Germany is a different country. The bombs have stopped. The nightmare has ended, but it feels as though no one is fully awake. The Germans are in shock, stunned, stripped of who they were and everything that held their world together. It doesn’t matter what they believed in, it’s gone. They were promised the world and lost everything. Those who believed feel cheated, robbed by one man’s stupidity. Those who didn’t are defeated just the same. There’s no prize for having been ashamed early.
The real healing won’t begin until the occupation ends. Half the men are dead. The other half are crippled, hollow. Women will face the cold and famine like everyone else, but their war began when the fighting stopped. Allied soldiers defeated the men but they won’t leave it at that. I hear the Red Army is the worst. War means rape—it always has—and this was the biggest war of all.
Me, well, the uniforms are different but the stares are the same. I’m scared shitless everywhere I go. I see shadows that aren’t there, hear footsteps no one is taking. I tell myself I don’t believe in the Tracker, but he is everywhere around me. He’s not alone. Dieter, the SS. I see their faces everywhere, in everyone. I’m haunted by the ones I killed and the ones who would kill me.
I swear every waiter in this café was an SS officer. I’m only half imagining things. Most of them couldn’t find a job anywhere but working tables. Breathe, Mia. Just do your job and get the hell out. If this is what it takes to keep my mother alive… I’ll do what needs to be done. Send a man to space. Shit, I’ll send everyone to space. There’ll be no one left here but Mother and me. And Billie. I’ll keep Billie. I wish she could see me now. I’m a different person when I’m around her. That’s funny. I am a different person around her. I wonder what she’d think of me if she knew what I am. She’d probably run away screaming. Maybe not. Billie doesn’t scare easy.
I can’t think about her now. I have to focus, for real. I have some ideas, some designs I’ve been working on, but I need help. I need the Soviets, or von Braun. They’ll get it done. I just have to… motivate them enough. Mother says Moscow will have nuclear weapons in a couple of years. They’ll want a rocket to put it on. Point a hundred of those at the US, there’s your motivation. I have another idea. If it works, it’ll scare the hell out of the Americans. It’ll put the fear of God into them. I want a Soviet threat hanging over their head, literally. I want—Oh, I think my date’s here. Colonel Sergei Korolev.
—Over here, Colonel! Please, sit down.
God, I hate my accent in Russian. I sound… I don’t know how I sound. Weird, mostly.
—I am here to meet with General Kuznetsov.
I might have mentioned the general. I’m not exactly at the top of the food chain in this Soviet mess. I’m not really in the food chain, or a citizen for that matter.
—I know, sir.
—Sergei.
—What?
—Call me Sergei. They made me a colonel so I could work in military installations, but I am not a soldier.
He doesn’t look like one. Big eyes, big chin, with an even bigger grin stapled above it. He looks like a boxer, or a baseball player. He must be near forty, but it’s like he forgot to grow out of his baby face. I like him. Even the way he carries himself is endearing. He seems… curious, not as pretentious as the others. Humble is a bit of a stretch, but he might not be as big an ass as the other geniuses I ran into.
—I apologize, sir. The general couldn’t make it, but I can speak for him. Please sit, you and I can talk.
—Why would I talk to you? Who are you?
So much for that. Of all the people who could judge me, this one’s a fucking criminal! He’s a decorated genius criminal, but still. Someday, I swear, I’ll have actual power and people will have to listen to me. It would be so much easier, not to mention faster, than this degrading show I have to put on every time. Here we go again. Puppy eyes.
—I’m terribly sorry, sir. My name is Nina.
—Your accent, it’s—
I know. I know.
—I’m an English interpreter. I work in the Podlipki office. I realize you were expecting someone else. I know how frustrating that can be, but if you give me a few minutes of your time, I think you’ll like what I have to say.
—I meant no disrespect, ma’am. It’s just that you are not in uniform, and I cannot discuss what I am doing with a civilian. I could get in trouble.
Maybe not a dick. He’s hard to size. He is handsome, though. Quite the flutter bum, actually. I don’t know why I’m just noticing.
—Oh. I don’t need you to tell me anything. I’m here to ask you if you’d like to be in charge of a rocket program.
Come on, Mia. You can do better than that. You sound like a traveling salesman. Would you like to buy an encyclopedia?
—What program?
—The… Your program. You’d have your own team. You’d run the research.
—I hate to be the bearer of bad news, Nina—can I call you Nina?—but no one is going to put me in charge of anything.
I am! I’m going to put him in charge because… Because I want to. Also because Stalin doesn’t pay his people and I found someone at the Politburo who owes a shit ton of money to the Russian mafia. Maybe I need to rephrase that.
—What if they did?
—…
He’s just staring at me, smiling. Is he thinking or is he flirting with me? Still staring. This is awkward.
—Sir?
—Why me?
—The work you did at the Jet Propulsion Research Institute was phenomenal. You’re… good. That’s why.
He is good, but I picked him because he wants to go to space.
—There were plenty of smart people at the research institute, plenty who were not arrested for treason. What makes you think they would like my help, or that I would want to help them?
—You’re here, sir, extracting German technology.
—They did not leave me a choice. All I want now is to go home to my family.
—Well, you have a choice now. This is your choice.
Except I really need you to do what I want. It’s like a choice, but with fewer options.
—Do you know what they did to me? What the government did to me?
—I know enough.
He and most of his colleagues were arrested during the Great Purge. They said he was slowing down work at the research institute. Stalin labeled them “members of an anti-Soviet counterrevolutionary organization.” Korolev was tortured for days until he “confessed.” The charges against him were eventually reduced to sabotage. He got a new trial. Only he didn’t know. He was already on his way to the gulag. He went to a gold-mine prison with six hundred people. Six months later, when they found him, there weren’t even two hundred of them left. Now he has to work for the people who did that to him.
—I’m not sure you do. Look.
—EWWWWW. GROSS!