The Secret Speech

  Malysh whispered to Zoya:

  —We’re going to run away, tonight. I don’t know where we’ll go. But 0we’ll survive. I’m good at surviving: it’s the only thing I am good at, except maybe killing.

  Zoya considered for a moment, asking:

  —Fraera?

  —We can’t tell her. We wait until everyone is at the party and then we go. What do you say? Will you come with me?

  ZOYA DRIFTED IN AND OUT OF SLEEP. In her dreams she imagined the place where they’d live, somewhere far away, a remote farm, in a free country, hidden by forests. They didn’t have much land: just enough to feed themselves. There was a river, not too wide or fast or deep, where they swam and fished. She opened her eyes. The apartment was dark. Unsure how long she’d been asleep, she looked at Malysh. He raised a finger to his lips. She noticed the bundle he’d prepared and guessed that it contained clothes, food, and money. He must have readied it while she was sleeping. Leaving the kitchen, they saw no one in the main room. Everyone was at the party. They hurried out, down the stairs, into the courtyard. Zoya lingered, remembering Leo and Raisa, locked in the top-floor apartment.

  A voice called out from the dark passageway:

  —They’ll be touched when I tell them how you hesitated, sparing them a thought, before running away.

  Fraera stepped out from the shadows. Quick-witted, Zoya lied:

  —We’re coming to the party.

  —So what’s in the bundle?

  Fraera shook her head. Malysh stepped forward:

  —You don’t need us anymore.

  Zoya added:

  —You talk about freedom. Then allow us to go.

  Fraera nodded:

  —Freedoms are fought for. I will give you that chance. Draw blood and I’ll let you both go—a single graze, a cut, a knick, nothing more. Spill a drop of blood.

  Malysh hesitated, unsure. Fraera began walking toward them:

  —You can’t cut me without a knife.

  Malysh drew his knife, ushering Zoya back. Unarmed, Fraera continued walking toward them. Malysh crouched low, ready to strike.

  —Malysh, I thought you understood. Relationships are a weakness. Look at how nervous you are. Why? Because there’s too much at stake, her life and your life—your dream of being together, it makes you fearful. It makes you vulnerable.

  Malysh attacked. Fraera sidestepped his blade, grabbing his wrist and punching him in the face. He fell to the ground, the knife now in her hand. She stood over him:

  —You’re such a disappointment to me.

  LEO TURNED TO THE DOOR. Malysh entered first, Zoya followed, a knife pressed against her neck. Fraera lowered the blade, pushing Zoya inside:

  —I wouldn’t get too excited. I caught them trying to run off together, happy to leave you behind without so much as a good-bye.

  Raisa stepped forward:

  —Nothing you say makes any difference to the way we feel about Zoya.

  Fraera retorted with mock sincerity:

  —That does seem to be true. No matter what Zoya does, whether she holds a knife over your bed, whether she runs away, pretends to be dead, you still believe there’s a chance she’ll love you. It’s a kind of sentimental fanaticism. You’re right: there’s nothing I can say. However, there might be something I can say which will change the way you feel about Malysh.

  She paused:

  —Raisa, he is your son.

  SAME DAY

  LEO WAITED FOR RAISA TO DISMISS the notion. When Raisa finally spoke her voice was subdued:

  —My son is dead.

  Fraera turned to Leo, smug with secrets, gesturing with her knife:

  —Raisa gave birth to a son. Conceived during the war, the result of soldiers rewarded for risking their lives and being allowed to take whomever they pleased. They took her, over and over, producing a bastard child of the Soviet army.

  Raisa’s words were washed out, drained, but they were steady and calm:

  —I didn’t care who the father was. The child was mine, not his. I swore I would love him even though he’d been conceived in the most hateful circumstances.

  —Except that you then abandoned the boy in an orphanage.

  —I was sick and homeless. I had nothing. I couldn’t feed myself.

  Raisa had not yet made eye contact with Malysh. Fraera shook her head in disgust:

  —I would never have given up my child, no matter how dire my circumstances. They had to take my son from me while I was sleeping.

  Raisa seemed exhausted, unable to defend herself:

  —I vowed to go back. Once I was well, once the war was over, once I had a home.

  —When you returned to the orphanage they told you that your son had died. And like a fool, you believed them. Typhus, they told you?

  —Yes.

  —Having had some experience of the lies told by orphanages, I double-checked their story. A typhus epidemic killed a large number of children. However, many survived by running away. Those escapees had been covered up as fatalities. Children who run away from orphanages often become pickpockets in train stations.

  His past rewritten with every word, Malysh reacted for the first time:

  —When I stole money from you, in the station that time?

  Fraera nodded:

  —I’d been looking for you. I wanted you to believe our meeting was accidental. I had planned to use you in my revenge, against the woman who’d fallen in love with the man I hated. However, I grew fond of you. I quickly came to see you as a son. I adapted my plans. I would keep you as my own. In the same way, I grew fond of Zoya and decided to keep her by my side. Today both of you threw that love away. With only the thinnest of provocations, you drew a knife on me. The truth is that had you refused to draw that knife, I would’ve allowed both of you to go free.

  Fraera moved to the door, pausing, turning back to face Leo:

  —You always wanted a family, Leo. Now you have one. You’re welcome to it. They are a crueler revenge than anything I could have imagined.

  SAME DAY

  RAISA TURNED AND FACED THE ROOM. Malysh was standing before her, his chest and arms covered in tattoos. His expression was cautious, defensive, guarded against denial or disinterest. Zoya spoke first:

  —It doesn’t matter if he’s your son. Because he’s not, not really, not anymore, you gave him up, which means you’re not his mother. And I’m not your daughter. There’s nothing to talk about. We’re not a family.

  Malysh touched her arm. Zoya understood it as a reproach:

  —But she’s not your mother.

  Zoya was close to tears:

  —We can still escape.

  Malysh nodded:

  —Nothing has changed.

  —You promise?

  —I promise.

  Malysh stepped toward Raisa, keeping his eyes on the ground:

  —I don’t care either way. I just want to know.

  His question was offhand, childlike in its attempt to conceal the vulnerability. He didn’t wait for Raisa to answer, adding:

  —At the orphanage I was called Feliks. But the orphanage gave me that name. They renamed everyone, names they could remember. I don’t know my real name.

  Malysh counted on his fingers:

  —I’m fourteen years old. Or I might be thirteen. I don’t know when I was born. So, am I your son, or not?

  Raisa asked:

  —What do you remember of your orphanage?

  —There was a tree in the courtyard. We used to play in it. The orphanage was near Leningrad, not in the town, in the country. Was that the place, with the tree in the courtyard? Was that where you took your son?

  Raisa replied:

  —Yes.

  Raisa stepped closer to Malysh:

  —What did the orphanage tell you about your parents?

  —That they were dead. You’ve always been dead to me.

  Zoya added by way of conclusion:

  —There’s nothing more to talk about.

&nb
sp; Zoya guided Malysh into the far corner, sitting him down. Raisa and Leo remained standing near the window. Leo didn’t press for information, allowing Raisa to take her time. Finally, she whispered, turning her face away from Malysh’s view:

  —Leo, I gave up my child. It is the greatest shame in my life. I never wanted to speak about it again, although I think about it almost every day.

  Leo paused:

  —Is Malysh…?

  Raisa lowered her voice even further:

  —Fraera was right. There was a typhus epidemic. Many children had died. But when I went back my son was still there. He was dying. He didn’t recognize me. He didn’t know who I was. But I stayed with him until he died. I buried him. Leo, Malysh is not my son.

  Raisa crossed her arms, lost in her thoughts. Working through the events, she speculated:

  —Fraera must have gone back, looking for my son in 1953 or 1954, after she was released. The records would have been shambolic. There was no way she could have found the truth about my son. She wouldn’t have known I was there when he died. She found someone close in age to him: maybe she planned to use him against me. Maybe she didn’t because she did love Malysh. Maybe she didn’t because she couldn’t be sure I’d believe her lie.

  —It might be nothing more than a desperate attempt to hurt us?

  —And him.

  Leo considered:

  —Why not tell Malysh the truth? Fraera is playing with him too.

  —What will the truth sound like? He might not take it as a matter of fact. He might feel that I’m rejecting him, devising reasons why he couldn’t be my son. Leo, if he wants me to love him, if he’s looking for a mother…

  WITH HER CHARACTERISTIC KNACK for manipulation, Fraera brought a single, oversized plate of hot stew. There was no option but to sit around, cross-legged, eating together. Zoya refused, at first, to join in, remaining apart. However, the food was turning cold, and heat being its sole redeeming quality, reluctantly she joined in, eating with them side by side, metal forks clattering as they spiked chunks of vegetable and meat. Malysh asked:

  —Zoya told me that you’re a teacher.

  Raisa nodded:

  —Yes.

  —I can’t read or write. I’d like to, though.

  —I’ll help you learn, if you want.

  Zoya shook her head, ignoring Raisa and addressing Malysh:

  —I can teach you. You don’t need her.

  The plate of food was nearly finished. Soon they’d split off and return to their separate corners of the room. Exploiting the moment, Leo said to Zoya:

  —Elena wants you to come home.

  Zoya stopped eating. She said nothing. Leo continued:

  —I don’t want to upset you. Elena loves you. She wants you to come home.

  Leo added no more details, softening the truth.

  Zoya stood up, dropping her fork, walking away. She remained standing, facing the wall, before lying down on the bedding, in the corner, her back to the room. Malysh followed, sitting beside her, resting his arm on her back.

  LEO AWOKE, SHIVERING. It was early in the morning. He and Raisa were huddled on one side of the room, Malysh and Zoya on the other side. Yesterday Fraera had been absent: food had been brought by a Hungarian freedom fighter. Leo had noticed a change. A solemnity had fallen across the apartment. There were no more drunk cheers and no more celebrations.

  Standing up, he approached the small window. He rubbed a patch of condensation from the glass. Outside, snow was falling. What should have sealed the impression of a city at peace, clean white and tranquil, only compounded Leo’s sense of unease. He could see no children playing, no snowball fights. The year’s first snowfall, in a liberated city, but there was no excitement and no delight. There was no one on the streets at all.

  4 NOVEMBER

  SOMEWHERE IN THE SKY above the apartment a faint whining noise climaxed in a high-pitched boom. A jet plane had flown overhead. Leo sat bolt upright. The room was dark. He stood, walking to the window. Raisa woke immediately, asking:

  —What is it?

  Before Leo could answer, explosions sounded out across the city, several in rapid sequence, in many locations. In an instant Raisa, Malysh, and Zoya were up, by his side, peering out the window. Addressing them, Leo said:

  —They’re back.

  There was panic in the adjacent rooms, footsteps on the roof, insurgents caught off guard, scrambling into position. Leo could see a tank on the street. Its turret pointed this way and that, before aiming directly at the rooftop snipers.

  —Move away!

  Shooing the others to the far side of the room, there was a split second of stillness, then an explosion. They were knocked off their feet, the roof collapsed, and the back wall fell away, beams tumbling down. Only a small portion of the room remained, closed by the sloping wreckage. Leo covered his face with the bottom of his shirt, struggling to breathe, checking on the others.

  Raisa grabbed the remains of a smashed timber beam, battering at the door. Leo joined her, trying to break out. Malysh called out:

  —This way!

  There was a gap ripped through the base of the wall into the adjoining room. Flat on their stomachs, with the danger of the roof collapsing completely, they crawled through, tunneling out of the debris, reaching the corridor. There were no guards, no vory. The apartment was empty. Opening the door to the courtyard balcony, they saw occupants fleeing their homes, many huddled, unable to decide whether to brave the streets or whether they were safer staying where they were.

  Malysh bolted back inside. Leo shouted:

  —Malysh!

  He returned, holding a belt of ammunition, grenades, and a gun. Raisa tried to disarm him, shaking her head:

  —They’ll kill you.

  —They’ll kill us anyway.

  —I don’t want you to take them.

  —If we’re going to get out of the city, we need them.

  Raisa looked to Leo. He said:

  —Give me the gun.

  Malysh reluctantly handed it to him. A nearby explosion ended the debate:

  —We don’t have much time.

  Leo looked up at the dark sky. Hearing the drone of jet engines, he hurried them toward the stairs. There was no sign of any vory: he reasoned they must be fighting or they’d fled. Reaching the bottom of the stairs, moving through the terrified crowd, toward the passageway:

  —Maxim!

  Leo turned, looking up. Fraera was standing on the roof, machine gun in her arms. Trapped in the middle of the courtyard, they had no chance of reaching the passageway before she gunned them down. He called out:

  —It’s over, Fraera! This was never a fight you could win!

  —Maxim, I’ve already won!

  —Look around you!

  —I didn’t win it with a gun. I won it with this.

  Around her neck was a camera.

  —Panin was always going to use the full force of his army. I wanted him to. I want him to smash this city to rubble and fill it with dead citizens! I want the world to see the true nature of our country. No more secrets! No one is ever going to believe in the benevolence of our motherland again! That’s my revenge.

  —Let us go.

  —Maxim, you still don’t understand. I could’ve killed you a hundred times. Your life is more of a punishment than death. Go back to Moscow, the four of you, with a son wanted for murder, in love with a hate-filled daughter. Just try and be a family.

  Leo separated from the group:

  —Fraera, I am sorry for what I did to you.

  —The truth is, Maxim… I was nothing until I hated you.

  Leo turned around, facing the passageway, expecting a bullet in the back. No bullets were fired. At the exit onto the street he paused, looking back. Fraera was gone.

  SAME DAY

  INSIDE THE REMAINS of an abandoned café with tablecloths wrapped around his hands to protect himself from the glass, Leo lay flat, waiting for the tanks to pass. He lifted his head, p
eering out of the broken window. There were three tanks, their turrets swiveling from side to side, examining the buildings—searching out targets. The Red Army was no longer deploying isolated units of clumsy, vulnerable T-34s. These were the larger, heavily armored T-54s. From what Leo had seen so far, the Soviet strategy had changed. Deployed in columns, they responded with disproportionate force—a single bullet would be answered with the destruction of the entire building. The tanks moved on only after the devastation was complete.

  It had taken two hours to travel less than one kilometer, forced to seek refuge at almost every junction. Now, at dawn, they were no longer sheltered by darkness and their progress had slowed yet further, trapped in a city being systematically destroyed. Staying indoors was no longer any guarantee of safety. The tanks were equipped with armor-piercing shells that traveled three rooms deep before detonating in the very center of the house, causing the structure to collapse.

  Witnessing the display of military might, Leo could only speculate as to whether the initial failure to regain control had been deliberate. Not only did it undercut the moderate position of restraint, it illustrated the ineffectiveness of the older armor, defeated by a mere mob. Now the latest hardware strutted on the streets of Budapest like a military propaganda reel. A Moscow audience could draw only one conclusion: plans to scale back the conventional army were flawed. More money was needed, not less, more weapons development—the strength of the Union depended upon it.

  Out of the corner of his eye Leo saw a flicker of bright orange, startling among the gray stone rubble and gray morning light. Three young men across the street were readying Molotov cocktails. Leo tried to get their attention, waving at them. The homemade bombs wouldn’t work since the cooling units on the T-54s didn’t suffer from the same weakness as the T-34s. They were fighting an entirely different generation of weapons. Their crude devices were useless. One of the men saw him and, misunderstanding his wave, made a defiant fist.