—Billie, we talked about this.
—I know! I know! I’m not being jealous. I’m just… How long has it been since he proposed?
—Billie! No! I don’t want to fight!
—We’re not fighting! How long?
We’re not fighting. That’s good to know. It still sounds like a trap, though. It sure as hell feels like a trap.
—I don’t know. A little over a year. Why?
One smile and I walked right into it. I deserve whatever comes next.
—I think you should say yes.
I didn’t see that one coming. It’ll take more than an orgasm to make me agree to that. What the hell is wrong with her? Did I say that out loud? No, I didn’t.
—Billie! What the hell is wrong with you?
—You should! I know you like him.
—I like him, but I don’t like him like him. I want to be with you!
—But you also want to be with him. It’s okay. I get it.
What is there to get? Yes, I like him. He’s brilliant. He’s moderately romantic and most of the time he makes me feel like a regular human being. I like that, but I’m not going to lose Billie for it.
—No you don’t. I said I want to be with you. I choose you! I. CHOOSE. YOU!
—Shhh. You’ll wake up the neighbors. It’s not a choice, Mia. You’re not going to marry me. You can’t. We have to hide to see each other. You can marry him.
—But I want to see you.
—Then see me! Why is this so hard to understand? I must not be saying it right. I don’t own you, Mia. I don’t want to. You say you want to see me, so see me. No one’s stopping you. But I know you also want some sort of normal life, at least a part of you does. Holding hands in public. Dinner with the neighbors, that sort of thing. You’ll never get that with me, not here. Get it with him.
I love that woman with every fiber in my being. I look at people, couples, and all I see is selfishness. People stick together for how it makes them feel. Keeping the other happy is just a way to make it last. Not her. She sees me.
—It doesn’t bother you?
—Why would it bother me? Those are different things. A steak is great if you’re hungry but it doesn’t do you much good if you’re cold. You need a jacket. Get yourself a jacket.
—Billie, I don’t—Wait. Are you a steak in this story?
—All right, bad example. My point is I’m not jealous of your doctor, or the person who fixes your car. I want you to be healthy and have a working car. I want you to get married because I want you to be happy.
—What about you?
—I can be the sultry mistress. I know things have been… difficult at times but I can still be sultry, can’t I? Please say yes, even if it’s a lie.
—Like a movie star.
—Thank you.
—You do know that I love you, don’t you?
—You keep coming back, so I kind of figured as much.
—Good…
Billie?
—What?
—We never talked about that night.
—What night?
—You know what night, Billie. You know what I did.
—You came for me. You risked your life for me, Nina. No one’s ever done that. I was falling and you caught me. Everything else… it doesn’t matter.
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
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.