I imagined her, also, in Lev’s arms. So small she would disappear into him as he grinned all hot and mad. His face carrying so much aristocracy in the length of the nose, the sullen, heavy eyelids. As she reduced the flame so our chowder wouldn’t boil, I watched him unbuttoning her skirt. As she turned to find two clean bowls in the cupboard, I saw him take her from the back, his chin lifting in ecstasy, both of them flushing with the fever of their union. He would bite her lip, as he had sometimes bitten mine; I once bit back, too. His blood tasted different from my own, though they comingled soon enough. (And what was Vera’s flavor? Cinnamon sticks grated onto pine? Pennies dipped in tea? If I pricked her finger and swallowed a drop, would she change the essence of me?)
Using her spoon as a baton, Vera directed me to sit down, and I did. Obedient as always. I was also very afraid. Was there a right thing to say now? Was that possible? She placed a bowl of soup before me, and shook the crackers farther down their sleeve so we could pick them out with ease. She nibbled the corner of one, and tested a bite of chowder: still too hot.
“So,” she said. “You must be wondering.”
“What in god’s name you meant? It’s crossed my mind.” I burned my tongue and throat with one great spoonful, and it took all I had not to gag. Vera was smooth and in her element.
“Let me ask: what did Lev tell you about his trip?”
“Hmm?” I tried to play coy while also nursing my burn. The teatime plan could still work out, if I just got up in the middle of the night to adulterate the sugar bowl. “I barely know him.”
“Oh please. It wafts off you like perfume.”
I regarded her. Not what Lev and I had expected, but I’d known that would be the case before I set foot on the train. It occurred to me, too late, that I shouldn’t have eaten anything she set before me, but my stomach wasn’t cramping, and I wasn’t shaking, vomiting, passing out. Which seemed like a gesture of good faith. My face dropped some ounce of pretence. “Alright. He told me he went to find the last copy of his book. The one you stole, and burned.”
“Stole? That’s putting it rather—incorrectly.”
“Well, he didn’t give it to you to destroy. What would you call it?”
“Saving him.” She frowned and blew into her soup. “From himself. God, what a fool.”
“Me?”
“That remains to be seen. Tell me this: did you ever read any of the book?”
“How could I?”
“No re-creations? Little bits he’d saved in a journal, or maybe a chapter he’d rewritten?”
I shook my head. I hadn’t known any such pieces existed.
“Of course not,” Vera said. “Because he understands, deep down, that the book’s no good. I’m sure”—and here she raised an eyebrow at me—“he never told you, either, about the times he’s thanked me—on his knees—for getting rid of it the first time around? No, of course not. It’s become too big of a symbol in his head.” She put down her spoon in disgust, fidgeting it back and forth on the placemat. “Flag of freedom, bluebird of unhappiness. Never mind that getting rid of that awful book was what let him write real books. That loss, it gave him a career.” She exhaled. “My god. He’d ruin us all if given an inch of leash, just to say he ran to hell on his own feet.”
I must’ve looked struck. I opened my mouth, and shut it again as Vera composed herself, tucking a strand of hair behind her ear and then licking her lips. She rarely let much emotion show, but I could see that she was genuinely perturbed from the slight twitch of her mouth, and the way she moved to crack her back as a surreptitious correction to her posture. As if she were just stretching, and not tense, uncoiling and recoiling her muscles. There had been so many moments when I feared losing my nerve, crumbling to basic cowardice. Or perhaps worried about Vera suspecting, and shooting me down with a spell from her eyes, snapping her fingers and pinching shut my windpipe. Magic death. What I hadn’t counted on was this: the possibility that Vera would say she was acting for Lev’s own good, and that I would think she might be telling the truth.
How did I get here? I suddenly wondered. Then thought, Maybe all of this is crazy. A little too late. I tried to remember Lev, reassuring me in bed. What it felt like when his fingers were in my hair, one leg sprawled lazily over mine. But instead my mind conjured Vera taking a sip of tea. Skipping a breath. Her hand going up to her throat and her lips turning purple as her pretty eyes bulged. Vomit, maybe, but not enough to make a difference.
“Are you listening?” she asked, and I nodded. “Good. I told you I had an offer, and I do. Better than anything Lev could promise you, one hundred percent guaranteed, because”—this, crisply—“my promises mean something. They are permanent. And I’ll make you comfortable as long as you live, just so long as you do as I say.” Vera perched her fingertips together in a tent, and rested her chin on the edge of them. Her voice grew quieter, but more focused, like a hose with the nozzle twisted to direct the spray.
“He thinks now that he can escape me, move on. That he needs to. And he’s roped you in to the whole endeavor, because god forbid he carry a plan through on his own.” She looked at me, noticing my face fall. Didn’t quite smirk, but still gave a cool smile. “And I’m sure he’s fond of you, too, little bee, why not. But listen. He’s going to change his mind. Do you really believe he’ll thank you for hurting me? He’s nothing without me, and he knows it.”
There was, to this, the terrible ring of truth. Her reassurance so pale: I’m sure he’s fond. Why had I ever believed I could make her afraid of me, take anything from her? This woman who had kept Lev at heel for a decade, this girl who had played every game by her own rules for as long as she’d been alive. Lev traced my jawbone with his fingers, with his tongue. Took me to out-of-town operas and symphony performances where the strength of the music pushed me back in my seat and stunned me into letting his hand creep up my thighs. He told me stories of his wife sweeping into meetings and turning monolithic, dark-suited executives into her playthings. Why had I not noticed, or cared quite enough, how impressed she left him, how helpless? He didn’t do anything on his own, anymore, if he ever had: a childhood of riches, a career made golden by the maneuvering of his wife.
But Vera’s face was still serious; she wasn’t triumphant. If I thought her goal was just to humiliate me, I’d misunderstood what was at stake.
“Do you see what I’m saying?” she asked. “There’s something more important here than either you or me. More important than Lev, in a certain sense. Only Leo Orlov matters, really: the writer, and his public face. That’s who I’ve built my life around, god knows. That’s who I’ve built.” Her fingers curled into a fist, in spite of themselves, which she set down hard on the table to emphasize her point. “Let me tell you.”
The truth, according to Vera, was that Lev’s beloved first novel was an atrocious failure. It showed promise in its prose, its psychological underpinnings. But there was nothing in it to take the reader by the hand. He attached to it a romantic importance that it absolutely did not deserve. I felt sick, and said so. She shrugged. “It’s juvenilia. And worse than that, it doesn’t take any chances. People love Lev’s work for its bold moves, and this book—well. It doesn’t tell the story about him that we need to tell.”
“We, then?”
“Could be we.” Vera sipped her soup, which had finally cooled, and crumbled a few crackers in. “I was being sincere, you know, at the beach. I don’t have any interest in being remembered. In fact, I’d prefer not to be.” She stirred, creating a little gyre in the bowl, and stared into the thick, spinning liquid. “It never did any favors to anyone, being picked over and kept as a memento. History’s unkind in that way. Once your life leaves your hands you become—mutable. Susceptible, I suppose you might say, to anyone with an axe to grind or a tale to tell. I’d rather stay myself.”