It's March 1953 and Stalin rules the Soviet Union with an iron fist. To weaken potential usurpers he has splintered the fearsome NKVD into rival agencies and appointed his own officers to undermine every authority that isn't his own, leaving the Soviet intelligence agencies in disarray and at war with themselves. Into the mists of this war a promising young officer-cadet from special orphanage 'Red' is thrust at the age of sixteen.
Trust Nobody [Marvel/Black Widow AU]
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1953-1: Deadly Weapon
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
"This is a real mission, not a test," Koldan Grigorovich Kovalev tells her as she exits his car, carrying a weapon that will kill a man.
She nods and heads off down a Moscow street and joins a group of girls, all dressed like her in white blouses with red scarves. She blends in with the crowd, one Young Pioneer among the many, indistinguishable from the bright young faces who don't conceal under their uniforms a weapon that will kill a man.
"Hi, you can call me Masha," a younger girl says to her, "are you new?"
"I'm Tanya. I think I lost my group, I'm from Troitsk." she lies. Her name is not Tanya, she's not lost, and she's not from Troitsk, but it's far enough from central Moscow that nobody here can say she's not.
"Tanya from Troitsk. Tatiana from Troitsk. " the girl sings. Another lie about having seen someone from her group, and the woman who isn't Tanya is off to mingle with other children. She finds a clique of older girls who seem to take a liking to her. Half an hour of smiling and jokes later, she's part of the clique.
They pass by a fire station, where a massive banner is emblazoned with Stalin's head in profile atop Lenin's. The Chairman ignores them as he stares into the future. At ground level, a kindly-faced adult starts calling out names. The woman who isn't Tanya has to keep herself from mouthing the names before they're spoken aloud. The seventh name is her cue:
"Veronika Ivanovna Petrova?"
She raises her hand and recites her line: "I'm sorry, but Veronika couldn't be here today. I'm her deputy, Tatiana Novikova Smirnova."
The kindly-faced adult looks down at her list of names, shrugs her shoulders, and says "You'll do. Come over here."
The woman who is not Tatiana Novikova Smirnova follows the six other girls who were called, and another three called afterwards, towards an old brick building that predates the Revolution. To the Young Pioneers, it's the home of Yulian Sokolovitch Lebedev, Komsomol administrative functionary, who will serve them cakes and hear about their work. To her, it's the home of Yulian Sokolovitch Lebedev, the man she will kill.
She does not know why she will kill Yulian Lebedev, because she knows better than to ask. If she were to make a politically hazardous guess, it's because Yulian Lebedev—like the guards pretending to be Komsomol functionaries—is loyal to Lavrenty Beria, the only man who could threaten Stalin.
After an amount of cake and tea not unexpected for a growing teen, she excuses herself from the party and asks about the toilet. The man who is going to die says it's to the left and right at the end of the hall, just like on the blueprints she's spent hours studying. No guards follow her, because she is a Young Pioneer, who couldn't be carrying a weapon that will kill a man.
Once she has drawn the weapon, she darts out of the toilet. She has a minute before anyone will be suspicious. Careful steps along a path she's practiced many times take her to Lebedev's study. Forty-five seconds left. The door's locked. There's a hairpin hidden close to her scalp. It should take only five seconds to rake the lock, but it's stiff and takes fifteen. Twenty-seven seconds left. There's going to be a book-case on her left. She looks for the right kind of book. Big, not read often. Twenty seconds. She flips it open and puts three typewritten notes between the pages before replacing the book. The weapon that will kill a man has been used, with fifteen seconds to spare.
Having just killed a man, she returns to his living room to talk with him about her dreams of working in a tractor factory.
She leaves with the Young Pioneers a few minutes before four in the evening. None of them know each other: they're all from different districts, so they split up quickly and all head in different directions. She heads into a bakery, where she leaves behind the Young Pioneer uniform in exchange for an innocuous blouse and skirt more appropriate for a fifteen-year-old woman.
Heading out the bakery's back door, she finds Koldan Grigorovich Kovalev waiting with his car. She barely has time to get in the back seat before Kovalev grills her:
"Did you do it?" he asks, tense and skittish through the rear view mirror.
"I completed my task, sir." she reports "Nobody saw me do it."
"Good…" Kovalev mumbles to himself and says nothing further.
After half an hour, she can't take it anymore.
"Sir!"
"Yes?"
"I completed my first mission." she prompts. Kovalev seems surprised to hear it.
"Oh, right, yes you did. Congratulations, officer-candidate. You will have a bright future ahead of you in the MGB." he recites absentmindedly.
After six hours of driving they arrive at OKB Krasny, somewhere east of Nizhny Novgorod. Having just spent those hours wondering if Kovalev will kill her and dump her body in the forest to tie up loose ends, she's exhausted and really just wants to crawl in the direction of the barrack she calls home, but he stops her.
"Remember, tell nobody ," he stares her right in the eyes.
"Yes, sir!" she salutes.
He dismisses her, and she finds her way to the barrack, where she stumbles into her bed, asleep before she hits the mattress.
"Hey, wake up!" a familiar voice calls.
She groans. Why can't Ksenija leave her alone? She just got to bed, it's—
"Natalka, wake up, you have to listen to the radio!"
Ksenija shakes Natasha out of her bed. The rays of late morning burn her eyes. The rest of the girls of barrack 507 sit around their contraband radio, huddling together under their sheets for warmth.
"It's horrible," Ksenija says, "he's dead!"
"Who's dead?" Natasha asks, and all Ksenija does is point at the radio. Alyona turns the volume up.
"We repeat: Last Night, due to bad health and without regaining consciousness, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin passed away in his sleep—"
She nods and heads off down a Moscow street and joins a group of girls, all dressed like her in white blouses with red scarves. She blends in with the crowd, one Young Pioneer among the many, indistinguishable from the bright young faces who don't conceal under their uniforms a weapon that will kill a man.
"Hi, you can call me Masha," a younger girl says to her, "are you new?"
"I'm Tanya. I think I lost my group, I'm from Troitsk." she lies. Her name is not Tanya, she's not lost, and she's not from Troitsk, but it's far enough from central Moscow that nobody here can say she's not.
"Tanya from Troitsk. Tatiana from Troitsk. " the girl sings. Another lie about having seen someone from her group, and the woman who isn't Tanya is off to mingle with other children. She finds a clique of older girls who seem to take a liking to her. Half an hour of smiling and jokes later, she's part of the clique.
They pass by a fire station, where a massive banner is emblazoned with Stalin's head in profile atop Lenin's. The Chairman ignores them as he stares into the future. At ground level, a kindly-faced adult starts calling out names. The woman who isn't Tanya has to keep herself from mouthing the names before they're spoken aloud. The seventh name is her cue:
"Veronika Ivanovna Petrova?"
She raises her hand and recites her line: "I'm sorry, but Veronika couldn't be here today. I'm her deputy, Tatiana Novikova Smirnova."
The kindly-faced adult looks down at her list of names, shrugs her shoulders, and says "You'll do. Come over here."
The woman who is not Tatiana Novikova Smirnova follows the six other girls who were called, and another three called afterwards, towards an old brick building that predates the Revolution. To the Young Pioneers, it's the home of Yulian Sokolovitch Lebedev, Komsomol administrative functionary, who will serve them cakes and hear about their work. To her, it's the home of Yulian Sokolovitch Lebedev, the man she will kill.
She does not know why she will kill Yulian Lebedev, because she knows better than to ask. If she were to make a politically hazardous guess, it's because Yulian Lebedev—like the guards pretending to be Komsomol functionaries—is loyal to Lavrenty Beria, the only man who could threaten Stalin.
After an amount of cake and tea not unexpected for a growing teen, she excuses herself from the party and asks about the toilet. The man who is going to die says it's to the left and right at the end of the hall, just like on the blueprints she's spent hours studying. No guards follow her, because she is a Young Pioneer, who couldn't be carrying a weapon that will kill a man.
Once she has drawn the weapon, she darts out of the toilet. She has a minute before anyone will be suspicious. Careful steps along a path she's practiced many times take her to Lebedev's study. Forty-five seconds left. The door's locked. There's a hairpin hidden close to her scalp. It should take only five seconds to rake the lock, but it's stiff and takes fifteen. Twenty-seven seconds left. There's going to be a book-case on her left. She looks for the right kind of book. Big, not read often. Twenty seconds. She flips it open and puts three typewritten notes between the pages before replacing the book. The weapon that will kill a man has been used, with fifteen seconds to spare.
Having just killed a man, she returns to his living room to talk with him about her dreams of working in a tractor factory.
She leaves with the Young Pioneers a few minutes before four in the evening. None of them know each other: they're all from different districts, so they split up quickly and all head in different directions. She heads into a bakery, where she leaves behind the Young Pioneer uniform in exchange for an innocuous blouse and skirt more appropriate for a fifteen-year-old woman.
Heading out the bakery's back door, she finds Koldan Grigorovich Kovalev waiting with his car. She barely has time to get in the back seat before Kovalev grills her:
"Did you do it?" he asks, tense and skittish through the rear view mirror.
"I completed my task, sir." she reports "Nobody saw me do it."
"Good…" Kovalev mumbles to himself and says nothing further.
After half an hour, she can't take it anymore.
"Sir!"
"Yes?"
"I completed my first mission." she prompts. Kovalev seems surprised to hear it.
"Oh, right, yes you did. Congratulations, officer-candidate. You will have a bright future ahead of you in the MGB." he recites absentmindedly.
After six hours of driving they arrive at OKB Krasny, somewhere east of Nizhny Novgorod. Having just spent those hours wondering if Kovalev will kill her and dump her body in the forest to tie up loose ends, she's exhausted and really just wants to crawl in the direction of the barrack she calls home, but he stops her.
"Remember, tell nobody ," he stares her right in the eyes.
"Yes, sir!" she salutes.
He dismisses her, and she finds her way to the barrack, where she stumbles into her bed, asleep before she hits the mattress.
"Hey, wake up!" a familiar voice calls.
She groans. Why can't Ksenija leave her alone? She just got to bed, it's—
"Natalka, wake up, you have to listen to the radio!"
Ksenija shakes Natasha out of her bed. The rays of late morning burn her eyes. The rest of the girls of barrack 507 sit around their contraband radio, huddling together under their sheets for warmth.
"It's horrible," Ksenija says, "he's dead!"
"Who's dead?" Natasha asks, and all Ksenija does is point at the radio. Alyona turns the volume up.
"We repeat: Last Night, due to bad health and without regaining consciousness, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin passed away in his sleep—"
1953-2: OKB Krasny
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
The MVD came for her in the middle of the night and dragged her behind the ammunition shed. Two guards hold her arms and force her to kneel in front of a shallow hole in the ground. The tribunal commences and the charges are read out: conspiracy to fabricate charges against Yulian Lebedev. Ksenija takes the witness stand and reports Natasha was gone the day before Stalin died. Katya, with a black eye, recounts the whole story of how they stole a bottle of vodka from Dr Fedorov's office. Natasha screams as they read out her sentence and press the pistol against the back of her head, when Ksenija shakes her awake.
"Are you OK, Natasha?" she asks. "I can't sleep when you're thrashing around like that."
Natasha sits up as a gust of wind blows through the barrack. She's covered in cold sweat and the wind bites. Ksenija wraps the blanket around her.
"Just a nightmare," Natasha whispers. "about the war."
It's a believable lie: Everyone in barrack 507 was a child when the fascists invaded. There's a reason none of them have parents. Ksenija seems to believe it and gives Natasha a hug before going back to sleep. Natasha tries not to shiver in the pool of her own sweat, waiting for the first rays of the morning sun to pierce the window. Now that she's awake, her dream seems more and more ridiculous by the second. She wasn't important enough to bother with an expedited night-time trial, and why would they care about the time she, Katya, and Ksenija stole Dr Fedorov's vodka? She just has to keep her head down and she'll be safe. Probably.
After morning reveille they're running laps on the training ground. Running as a group is boring: Natasha feels like she could pull ahead of the whole group, and only Katya and maybe the Polish girl from barrack 502 would be able to keep up. Instead, she has to settle for keeping at the front.
"Hey, have you heard about Alonya's latest crush?" Ksenija wheezes from behind her.
"Don't waste your energy talking!" Sergeant Petrova, their gymnastics teacher, yells.
"Dear god, who is it this time?" Natasha asks.
"You know the guard by the admin building? The one who's always wearing his Order of Glory?"
"She has a crush on scarface? " Katya almost stumbles.
"Yeah. She says the scars make him look handsome. She has this whole thing about how he must have…" Ksenija has to stop for a moment to gather energy to stay at the front. "Must have gotten them fighting fascists in the war.
"He probably got them in his village fighting some guy over a goat." Katya scoffs.
"And he was an anti-aircraft gunner, he only has a medal because his dad's a Party member or something." Natasha rolls her eyes.
"I said that! But then she said he must have fought some scoundrel over a girl's honour to win her heart and called it 'romantic'."
"Fucking Alonya," Katya mumbles.
Then Sergeant Petrova has the entire group come to a halt. She calls out "Cadet Ksenija Ilushova!" and before Ksenija can react she's given a resounding slap that almost makes her fall over.
"And if I see you two encourage her one more time—" Sergeant Petrova points at Natasha and Katya "—you'll lose your chocolate ration for a month, understood?"
"Yes, Comrade Sergeant!" they say in unison.
After finishing the rest of their laps in total silence, the girls salute and jog over to the washing stations to clean up. As usual, they've fired up the heaters late and the water is still icy as Natasha upends the basin over her head. To get the warmth back in their body, Natasha leads the girls from 507 in a brisk jog back to their barrack. While changing into their MGB-issue uniforms, Ksenija stares at the empty space that follows barrack 507's state-issue portrait of Stalin.
"Lenin. Stalin. Malenkov." She tries, then again. "Marx. Engels. Lenin. Stalin. Malenkov.
"Which one's Malenkov?" Katya says, "Is he the one with you know… the mustache."
She leans in conspiratorially and indicates a small mustache.
""You're thinking of Molotov." Ksenija explains, and smiles coyly, "Don't you know what our Premier looks like, Yekaterina?"
"Don't give me that zampolit crap," Katya shoves Ksenija away. "It's only been a week. We don't even have a picture."
"There's got to be one in the Party yearbook." Natasha says.
"We can't hang the yearbook on the wall, Natasha." Katya scoffs at her.
Natasha shrugs and gets back to the task of making sure her uniform is presentable. A few seconds later, Alyona's curiosity gets the better of her:
"But don't you want to know what he looks like?"
Ksenija and a few of the other girls nod. Katya smiles conspiratorially and pulls Natasha and Ksenija aside for a private chat:
"Let's find out what Malenkov looks like." She looks over her shoulder to make sure Snooping Olga isn't snooping.
"Are you trying to get us in trouble?" Natasha says.
"It'll be easy. At lunch, when everyone is out of their offices. Remember when we stole Dr. Fedorov's vodka?"
Natasha's not even sure if Katya knows when she makes threats, or if she just does it reflexively—but now she and Ksenija have to help, or they'll be reported and lose their chocolate rations.
But first they have to make it through the morning lessons. Radio operation, languages and a three-hour cross-country skiing exercise that takes them outside the camp. It's not the best weather for cross-country, but their instructors are pushing hard to get in as much winter sports as possible before April melts the snow off the ground. The final part of the exercise involves trying to keep up with the lead truck of guards as they head back. As she dismounts her skis and salutes the instructor, her body feels worn like a wrung rag, and it's good to get inside a warm classroom. The lesson in self-criticism passes quickly, and Natasha feels revitalized and ready to beat Katya's score at the firing range.
"Fall in!"
Lieutenant Lobskovkaya had been a sniper during the patriotic war. Probably: As she tells it she must have lost about five husbands in three different cities before she joined up, the timelines don't always add up, and she insists she shot 23 fascists but has stories of killing about three times as many.
"First: The MGB has been dissolved and its functions assumed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. You will therefore repaint the barracks, replacing sports on Wednesday and Friday."
Nobody says anything, but everyone's thinking the same thing: they're giving up ice hockey just to paint over the 'MGB' on the barracks walls with 'MVD'?
"Furthermore," Lobskovkaya continues, "all portr—yes Comrade Cadet Wiśniewska
"Do we have to repaint the whole wall, or can we just paint over the 'G' and 'B'?" the Polish girl from 502 asks.
"Very funny, Comrade Cadet Wiśniewska. All portraits of Comrade Semyon Ignatiyev should be returned to the main office. Form up!"
After warming up with pistol shooting, both regular and Macedonian style, they were handed Simonov carbines. For automatic fire they had a limited number of Kalashnikovs, and Katya had made sure to be first in line.
"I'll give you this week's chocolate ration if I get to use it first," Natasha whispers.
"Not on your life!" Katya says. A moment later she has a counter-offer: "Two weeks."
"A week and the rest of the…" Natasha mimes taking a drag from a cigarette.
"Sold." Katya says and they trade rifles. Under her breath she mutters "Capitalist parasite."
Before she has a chance to fire a shot, an MGB guard calls her name:
"Comrade Cadets Yekaterina Kuznetsova, Natalia Romanova, Radomila Wiśniewska…" he calls ten names in all. "Come with me."
Natasha looks at Ksenija and the other girls of barrack 507 and wonders if she'll ever see them again.The guard takes them to the Pavlov building, a towering monolith of concrete and red bricks that gives OKB Krasny its name. The girls enter its beating red heart, where they are ordered to undress and let the Soviet Union's finest physiologists and pedagogues wire them into a nest of scientific machinery. The room is filled with the stringent smell of the cigarettes Dr. Fedorov smokes while supervising the tests. Kovalev is present, which is unusual. Natasha drags a trail of electrodes behind her as she gets onto a treadmill for the first test. A heavy silence weighs on the room, cutting through the whir of machinery and the staccato beat of feet on treadmills. Kovalev breaks it:
"Only ten viable candidates?"
"It's difficult to tell. Maybe ten, maybe two, maybe fifty." Fedorov responds, his voice cracking like a radio broadcast. "I will know more after blood analysis."
"Comrade Beria expects results." Kovalev says.
"Creating a higher social biologic type is not child's play." Fedorov counters. "Already we have Stakhanovites on command."
"He expects supermen ," Kovalev looks like he's about to get on his knees and beg for his life, which Natasha supposes, in a way, he is. "Shock workers in Young Pioneer skirts aren't going to impress him."
"Have them grab coals out of a fire." Fedorov tears a sheet off the paper roll fed through the electrocardiographer and studies it. "Show him discipline allows the test subject to ignore pain. Mastery of a rational, socialist mind over its vessel."
"Circus tricks…" Kovalev says weakly. "You want me to entertain the Minister of Internal Affairs with circus tricks."
He wanders off, looking ten years older. A few minutes later the tests are over, and the girls line up to let a nurse draw their blood. At random, Fedorov grabs a vial and holds it up against a lamp, as if he can see the changes socialist pedagogy effects on their bodies in a blood sample. He hums to himself and starts looking through the pile of electroencephalograms. One has a big splotch of ink in place of the waves and saw-toothed lines.
"Piece of kraut garbage!" he grumbles. "Nurse, prep subject 7-6 again. And get me Ivan, the inkjet is clogged again. Should have dumped all this Hitlerite trash in the sea…"
"That's you, dear," the nurse tells Natasha.
As Natasha is wired back into the scientific instruments, the other girls are marched out. Katya spins around to mime hip-firing an AK and sticks her tongue out. Knowing her, she'd insist she's still owed the cigarettes too.
When she returns to the firing range her classmates are all standing in a columns, finished for the day. They look like they've fought a fascist battalion, with mud everywhere, even under their scarves. Even Katya and the Polish girl, who've only been at the range for twenty minutes, have scuffed cheeks and traces of the blood on their cheeks. After Lobskovkaya dismisses them, Natasha ducks over to Ksenija.
"What happened?" Natasha asks.
"I overheard one of the camp leaders. They're getting ready for a visit from the top."
"The top? "
"Yeah." Ksenija mimes putting on a pair of glasses and leers at her. "The top ."
"When?"
"Right now, can't you hear the cars?"
"Why didn't you tell me, I don't have time to get my makeup done!?"
"I didn't know where you were, there wasn't time."
"Crap." Natasha sighs. "You're going to have to make this look good."
She braces herself. Then she's on the ground, her face screaming with pain. Above her, Ksenija massages the worn skin on her knuckles.
"Fucking hell, Ksenija, I said 'make it look good', not 'break my nose'."
"Is it broken? Let me see?"
Natasha mixes spit with the cold soil, leaving her fingers filthy with mud. She drags it over her uniform while Ksenija takes a closer look.
"Your nose looks fine,"
"Well," Natasha said, standing up and presenting herself, "How do I look?"
"Completely un-fuckable."
The inspection from the top put a halt to their plans to steal a Party yearbook. Instead of lunch, the girls of OKB Krasny presented in columns as an armoured Packard limousine rolled through the gates, followed by a pair of GAZ trucks. The paramilitary discipline formed a focus that allowed Natasha to will her pain away, until all that she could feel of her bloody nose and freezing body was a distant numbness. MVD guards piled out of the trucks with an officer directing small teams to search the camp. Natasha could feel the entire column tense up, aware they were surrounded. A guard opened the door to the limousine and a man stepped out: his too small head was balding, and his shoulders seemed half again as wide as a normal man. Lavrentiy Beria, head of the MVD. Natasha held her breath.
He gave one look at the dirty, beat-up girls, shrugged angrily, and headed towards the sweaty palms of Kovalev and Dr Fedorov. When he was out of sight, swallowed by the door to the admin building, a wave of relief swept through the columns of cadets.
At that point, Natasha started wondering if Kovalev was the kind of man who burnt all evidence of his misdoings when Stalin died, or the kind who'd make sure he was blameless because he had triplicate copies of the orders signed by Stalin himself in his safe—and if Katya's plan to sneak into the offices wasn't such a bad idea.
"Are you OK, Natasha?" she asks. "I can't sleep when you're thrashing around like that."
Natasha sits up as a gust of wind blows through the barrack. She's covered in cold sweat and the wind bites. Ksenija wraps the blanket around her.
"Just a nightmare," Natasha whispers. "about the war."
It's a believable lie: Everyone in barrack 507 was a child when the fascists invaded. There's a reason none of them have parents. Ksenija seems to believe it and gives Natasha a hug before going back to sleep. Natasha tries not to shiver in the pool of her own sweat, waiting for the first rays of the morning sun to pierce the window. Now that she's awake, her dream seems more and more ridiculous by the second. She wasn't important enough to bother with an expedited night-time trial, and why would they care about the time she, Katya, and Ksenija stole Dr Fedorov's vodka? She just has to keep her head down and she'll be safe. Probably.
After morning reveille they're running laps on the training ground. Running as a group is boring: Natasha feels like she could pull ahead of the whole group, and only Katya and maybe the Polish girl from barrack 502 would be able to keep up. Instead, she has to settle for keeping at the front.
"Hey, have you heard about Alonya's latest crush?" Ksenija wheezes from behind her.
"Don't waste your energy talking!" Sergeant Petrova, their gymnastics teacher, yells.
"Dear god, who is it this time?" Natasha asks.
"You know the guard by the admin building? The one who's always wearing his Order of Glory?"
"She has a crush on scarface? " Katya almost stumbles.
"Yeah. She says the scars make him look handsome. She has this whole thing about how he must have…" Ksenija has to stop for a moment to gather energy to stay at the front. "Must have gotten them fighting fascists in the war.
"He probably got them in his village fighting some guy over a goat." Katya scoffs.
"And he was an anti-aircraft gunner, he only has a medal because his dad's a Party member or something." Natasha rolls her eyes.
"I said that! But then she said he must have fought some scoundrel over a girl's honour to win her heart and called it 'romantic'."
"Fucking Alonya," Katya mumbles.
Then Sergeant Petrova has the entire group come to a halt. She calls out "Cadet Ksenija Ilushova!" and before Ksenija can react she's given a resounding slap that almost makes her fall over.
"And if I see you two encourage her one more time—" Sergeant Petrova points at Natasha and Katya "—you'll lose your chocolate ration for a month, understood?"
"Yes, Comrade Sergeant!" they say in unison.
After finishing the rest of their laps in total silence, the girls salute and jog over to the washing stations to clean up. As usual, they've fired up the heaters late and the water is still icy as Natasha upends the basin over her head. To get the warmth back in their body, Natasha leads the girls from 507 in a brisk jog back to their barrack. While changing into their MGB-issue uniforms, Ksenija stares at the empty space that follows barrack 507's state-issue portrait of Stalin.
"Lenin. Stalin. Malenkov." She tries, then again. "Marx. Engels. Lenin. Stalin. Malenkov.
"Which one's Malenkov?" Katya says, "Is he the one with you know… the mustache."
She leans in conspiratorially and indicates a small mustache.
""You're thinking of Molotov." Ksenija explains, and smiles coyly, "Don't you know what our Premier looks like, Yekaterina?"
"Don't give me that zampolit crap," Katya shoves Ksenija away. "It's only been a week. We don't even have a picture."
"There's got to be one in the Party yearbook." Natasha says.
"We can't hang the yearbook on the wall, Natasha." Katya scoffs at her.
Natasha shrugs and gets back to the task of making sure her uniform is presentable. A few seconds later, Alyona's curiosity gets the better of her:
"But don't you want to know what he looks like?"
Ksenija and a few of the other girls nod. Katya smiles conspiratorially and pulls Natasha and Ksenija aside for a private chat:
"Let's find out what Malenkov looks like." She looks over her shoulder to make sure Snooping Olga isn't snooping.
"Are you trying to get us in trouble?" Natasha says.
"It'll be easy. At lunch, when everyone is out of their offices. Remember when we stole Dr. Fedorov's vodka?"
Natasha's not even sure if Katya knows when she makes threats, or if she just does it reflexively—but now she and Ksenija have to help, or they'll be reported and lose their chocolate rations.
But first they have to make it through the morning lessons. Radio operation, languages and a three-hour cross-country skiing exercise that takes them outside the camp. It's not the best weather for cross-country, but their instructors are pushing hard to get in as much winter sports as possible before April melts the snow off the ground. The final part of the exercise involves trying to keep up with the lead truck of guards as they head back. As she dismounts her skis and salutes the instructor, her body feels worn like a wrung rag, and it's good to get inside a warm classroom. The lesson in self-criticism passes quickly, and Natasha feels revitalized and ready to beat Katya's score at the firing range.
"Fall in!"
Lieutenant Lobskovkaya had been a sniper during the patriotic war. Probably: As she tells it she must have lost about five husbands in three different cities before she joined up, the timelines don't always add up, and she insists she shot 23 fascists but has stories of killing about three times as many.
"First: The MGB has been dissolved and its functions assumed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs. You will therefore repaint the barracks, replacing sports on Wednesday and Friday."
Nobody says anything, but everyone's thinking the same thing: they're giving up ice hockey just to paint over the 'MGB' on the barracks walls with 'MVD'?
"Furthermore," Lobskovkaya continues, "all portr—yes Comrade Cadet Wiśniewska
"Do we have to repaint the whole wall, or can we just paint over the 'G' and 'B'?" the Polish girl from 502 asks.
"Very funny, Comrade Cadet Wiśniewska. All portraits of Comrade Semyon Ignatiyev should be returned to the main office. Form up!"
After warming up with pistol shooting, both regular and Macedonian style, they were handed Simonov carbines. For automatic fire they had a limited number of Kalashnikovs, and Katya had made sure to be first in line.
"I'll give you this week's chocolate ration if I get to use it first," Natasha whispers.
"Not on your life!" Katya says. A moment later she has a counter-offer: "Two weeks."
"A week and the rest of the…" Natasha mimes taking a drag from a cigarette.
"Sold." Katya says and they trade rifles. Under her breath she mutters "Capitalist parasite."
Before she has a chance to fire a shot, an MGB guard calls her name:
"Comrade Cadets Yekaterina Kuznetsova, Natalia Romanova, Radomila Wiśniewska…" he calls ten names in all. "Come with me."
Natasha looks at Ksenija and the other girls of barrack 507 and wonders if she'll ever see them again.The guard takes them to the Pavlov building, a towering monolith of concrete and red bricks that gives OKB Krasny its name. The girls enter its beating red heart, where they are ordered to undress and let the Soviet Union's finest physiologists and pedagogues wire them into a nest of scientific machinery. The room is filled with the stringent smell of the cigarettes Dr. Fedorov smokes while supervising the tests. Kovalev is present, which is unusual. Natasha drags a trail of electrodes behind her as she gets onto a treadmill for the first test. A heavy silence weighs on the room, cutting through the whir of machinery and the staccato beat of feet on treadmills. Kovalev breaks it:
"Only ten viable candidates?"
"It's difficult to tell. Maybe ten, maybe two, maybe fifty." Fedorov responds, his voice cracking like a radio broadcast. "I will know more after blood analysis."
"Comrade Beria expects results." Kovalev says.
"Creating a higher social biologic type is not child's play." Fedorov counters. "Already we have Stakhanovites on command."
"He expects supermen ," Kovalev looks like he's about to get on his knees and beg for his life, which Natasha supposes, in a way, he is. "Shock workers in Young Pioneer skirts aren't going to impress him."
"Have them grab coals out of a fire." Fedorov tears a sheet off the paper roll fed through the electrocardiographer and studies it. "Show him discipline allows the test subject to ignore pain. Mastery of a rational, socialist mind over its vessel."
"Circus tricks…" Kovalev says weakly. "You want me to entertain the Minister of Internal Affairs with circus tricks."
He wanders off, looking ten years older. A few minutes later the tests are over, and the girls line up to let a nurse draw their blood. At random, Fedorov grabs a vial and holds it up against a lamp, as if he can see the changes socialist pedagogy effects on their bodies in a blood sample. He hums to himself and starts looking through the pile of electroencephalograms. One has a big splotch of ink in place of the waves and saw-toothed lines.
"Piece of kraut garbage!" he grumbles. "Nurse, prep subject 7-6 again. And get me Ivan, the inkjet is clogged again. Should have dumped all this Hitlerite trash in the sea…"
"That's you, dear," the nurse tells Natasha.
As Natasha is wired back into the scientific instruments, the other girls are marched out. Katya spins around to mime hip-firing an AK and sticks her tongue out. Knowing her, she'd insist she's still owed the cigarettes too.
When she returns to the firing range her classmates are all standing in a columns, finished for the day. They look like they've fought a fascist battalion, with mud everywhere, even under their scarves. Even Katya and the Polish girl, who've only been at the range for twenty minutes, have scuffed cheeks and traces of the blood on their cheeks. After Lobskovkaya dismisses them, Natasha ducks over to Ksenija.
"What happened?" Natasha asks.
"I overheard one of the camp leaders. They're getting ready for a visit from the top."
"The top? "
"Yeah." Ksenija mimes putting on a pair of glasses and leers at her. "The top ."
"When?"
"Right now, can't you hear the cars?"
"Why didn't you tell me, I don't have time to get my makeup done!?"
"I didn't know where you were, there wasn't time."
"Crap." Natasha sighs. "You're going to have to make this look good."
She braces herself. Then she's on the ground, her face screaming with pain. Above her, Ksenija massages the worn skin on her knuckles.
"Fucking hell, Ksenija, I said 'make it look good', not 'break my nose'."
"Is it broken? Let me see?"
Natasha mixes spit with the cold soil, leaving her fingers filthy with mud. She drags it over her uniform while Ksenija takes a closer look.
"Your nose looks fine,"
"Well," Natasha said, standing up and presenting herself, "How do I look?"
"Completely un-fuckable."
The inspection from the top put a halt to their plans to steal a Party yearbook. Instead of lunch, the girls of OKB Krasny presented in columns as an armoured Packard limousine rolled through the gates, followed by a pair of GAZ trucks. The paramilitary discipline formed a focus that allowed Natasha to will her pain away, until all that she could feel of her bloody nose and freezing body was a distant numbness. MVD guards piled out of the trucks with an officer directing small teams to search the camp. Natasha could feel the entire column tense up, aware they were surrounded. A guard opened the door to the limousine and a man stepped out: his too small head was balding, and his shoulders seemed half again as wide as a normal man. Lavrentiy Beria, head of the MVD. Natasha held her breath.
He gave one look at the dirty, beat-up girls, shrugged angrily, and headed towards the sweaty palms of Kovalev and Dr Fedorov. When he was out of sight, swallowed by the door to the admin building, a wave of relief swept through the columns of cadets.
At that point, Natasha started wondering if Kovalev was the kind of man who burnt all evidence of his misdoings when Stalin died, or the kind who'd make sure he was blameless because he had triplicate copies of the orders signed by Stalin himself in his safe—and if Katya's plan to sneak into the offices wasn't such a bad idea.
1953-3: Safe
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
The April sun had taken most of the snow off the ground, replacing cross-country skiing and Olympic figure skating with foot marches and combat exercises. Natasha crawls on her stomach through mud with a Beretta submachine gun on her back, approaching the Stalinist housing block standing in for traditional north Italian architecture. Behind her, Katya is covering their rear with a PPSh. The Polish girl from 502 is pretending to be an Italian communist, hunkered down by a brick wall with an American self-loading rifle. As Natasha makes her way over to the wall, Wiśniewska asks for orders.
"Forward!" Natasha yells over the sound of machine gun blanks, pointing at the housing block.
Wiśniewska gives her a daft look.
" Avanti! " Natasha catches herself.
That's enough for Wiśniewska, who vaults the wall and tosses a grenade through the door. An impotent 'paff!' of training explosives later, and all three of them are through the door, shooting blanks at men in Italian uniforms. A couple of grenades fly in every doorway, and room by room they make it to the other side. Natasha pokes the door ajar with the muzzle of her gun and identifies a way to the next objective, across a street and into a shellhole that'll give cover. She explains her plan in hasty Italian, then kicks open the door.
" Avanti! "
The three of them leap across the street and fall flat in the pit. Katya slams into Natasha and shoves her headfirst into wet soil. She gets it in her eyes and tries wiping it off with her sleeve, when a terrible burst of machine gun blanks opens up over their heads. An observer, Major Plotnikov, points at all three in turn:
"You're dead, and you're dead, and you're dead."
He points out a machine gun nest manned by two 'Italians' that has the shellhole in defilade, but can't be seen from the housing block. Reaching out a hand, he helps Natasha out of the shellhole, then tosses her to the ground with enough force to knock the air out of her lungs.
"Comrade-cadet Yekaterina Kuznetsova, tell me how cadet Natalia Romanova got you all killed." he orders.
While Natasha tries to figure up from down, Katya explains:
"By choosing to lead the assault herself, comrade-cadet Natalia Romanova cut herself off from contact with comrade-cadet Ksenija Ilushova"—who Natasha had assigned to the radio—"and narrowed her view of the situation to her immediate vicinity rather than her whole area of responsibility, comrade major!"
"I told Ksenjia to keep me informed of the situation by runner." Natasha explains wheezily while getting to her feet. "Comrade major."
"Comrade-cadet Radomila Wiśniewska, can you tell me what Romanova's runner is doing right now?" Plotnikov says and points at an open bit of field Natasha had crossed earlier.
"The runner is playing dead, comrade major."
"All because comrade-cadet Natalia Romanova wanted in on the action instead of prioritizing the needs of the Italian communist movement," Plotnikov concludes.
He orders them to hand in their weapons and sit next to the other 'dead' he's pulled off the battlefield so they don't get trampled. Katya gives Natasha a shove and rolls her eyes.
Watching Ksenija get the remainder of the platoon killed from indecision gets boring fast, and Natasha's eyes drift to look at the massive concrete monolith in the centre of the camp. She shudders, thinking about the evidence of her crimes against the state that may or may not exist in a safe inside the Pavlov building.
That night, Natasha sits in the courtroom, flanked by two guards with orders to shoot her. The charges are wrecking, sabotage, and suspicion of espionage. She has intentionally and for personal gain sabotaged the efforts of the Italian communist movement and colluded with the west to spy on OKB Krasny. Her instructors take the witness stand to present the evidence: she compromised the training of her fellow cadets and illegally obtained state secrets. While more evidence is presented, a loud weeping rises from another courtroom, and the muffled voices of a different tribunal reads out a sentence. Natasha can't make out the words, but the MVD never fails to pronounce someone guilty. The stern faces of her own tribunal reach the inescapable conclusion: she knows too much. Her tears flow as she begs them not to have her executed. From the other room the terrible sobbing lament grows in intensity, enveloping her as she falls to her knees, waiting for the inevitable.
She opens her eyes to the worn planks of barrack 507's ceiling. The weeping continues: Lena-the-German is crying for her sister again. Moonlight shines in the eyes of her comrades, propped up on their elbows and staring daggers at Lena: it's going to be one of those nights again.
The morning run helps Natasha push through her drowsiness and after showering under a bucket of water she feels wide awake. From the wall of barrack 507, the searching eyes of Premier Malenkov's portrait—now finally arrived—watches her dress.
"Why does he have to look like such a creep?" Katya mumbles, as she buttons her uniform.
"Who looks like such a creep, Yekatarina?" Ksenija wraps an arm around Katya's neck and smiles mischievously.
"Nobody is." Katya says, then adds in a whisper: "And we're all thinking it."
Natasha elbows her lightly and nods towards Lena-the-German. Whenever Lena Neustädt has nightmares about being back in the gulags she gets really antsy about political jokes. Katya scoffs and finishes putting on her uniform. She joins Natasha in walking outside to stand in line with the other girls who've finished early, ready for a day of Italian lessons and close combat training.
Captain Babanin is the smallest adult Natasha has ever seen. She could pass under Natasha's outstretched arm and taught all-union freestyle wrestling—samoz—to partisans during the war, many of whom were no older than Natasha is. She complains about not being as limber as she used to be, but still tosses unlucky MVD guards twice her weight into the mud during demonstrations.
Babanin has them pair off for sparring. Natasha ends up face to face with Wiśniewska, who is about her skill level.
"I'm going to shove your smug face in the dirt, princess," she says while they're getting ready.
"Bring it on, Polish."
After slowly going through the motions while Babanin corrects their stances, they speed up, trading off on who gets to throw the other to the ground. Unlike bayonet drill and sambo—self-defence without weapons—samoz is about turning the enemy's strength against them. Wiśniewska grabs at Natasha's hand. She lets her have it, then locks the Polish girl's hand against her own with her left. Natasha curls her body, twisting the Polish girl's arm and sending her into the ground. From this position, with Wiśniewska's dominant arm in a secure grip, she can stamp down on the other woman's face until she stops moving. Instead she helps her up. Now it's Natasha's turn to fall, which she does easily by committing to a right hook that Wiśniewska narrowly ducks. The Polish girl combines it with a small step to the side, which puts her practically behind Natasha, and gives her punching arm a shove. Natasha overbalances and falls supine to the ground. In a blink, Wiśniewska has her knee on Natasha's chest, and her arm raised to punch at her face. They continue like that for what feels like hours, until they're so tired they can barely stand—which Babanin thinks is a perfect moment to switch over to ground fighting.
At last they're given five minutes to sit while Babanin gives Ksenija and a few other stragglers closer instructions on the throw from a grabbed hand. Then she checks her wristwatch and realises it's not long until lunch.:
"Fall in!" Her voice is sharp like a violin string.
The cadets stand up, straight as ramrods. Except for Wiśniewska, who only makes it halfway up before she trips forward and plants her face in the dirt with a wet 'thump'. Nobody moves, but Natasha knows instinctively that she's not the only one looking at Radomila's limp body out of the corner of her eye. Somewhere in the middle of Babanin's summary of the lesson, Radomila pushes herself off the ground and staggers to her feet. She looks about to fall again, and when Babanin isn't looking a hand darts out to steady her.
When Babanin yells "Fall out!" Natasha turns to the Polish girl, who's steadying herself on another cadet.
"Hey Wiśniewska, what's wrong?" she asks.
"Nothing's wrong," Radomila snaps. "I just… got up very fast."
"Feeling dizzy?" Katya asks. "Maybe you should see the doctor?"
"Fuck off Kat'ka, I don't get dizzy," the Polish girl says and shoves the girl she's leaning on away. "I'm not weak like you."
Katya scoffs and says something about the reward for being nice. Wiśniewska scowls at her, but when she looks away her eyes are wide with fear: dizziness is a weakness, and weaknesses get you removed from the programme.
In the middle of the night they drag her from her bed. She's handcuffed to a table inside the Pavlov building. She's accused of fabricating evidence against a member of the polibureau for personal gain. Beria personally attends the proceedings as the safe from Kovalev's office is rolled out. Her guilt is unquestionable: the tribunal makes its recommendation to the presidium. Beria looks at her, his glasses two black voids in his face. His lips form a soundless word—execution—and Natasha is behind the Pavlov building, watching as Katya and Ksenija are shot. Limp bodies flop into the shallow graves, and she begs not to die as cold metal presses against the back of her skull.
"Natasha, I can't sleep when you scream," Ksenija says next to her.
Natasha opens her eyes to the moon casting pale shadows about the barrack. Her heart races like a great locomotive. She's hyperventilating and drenched in sweat.
"I'm trying to sleep, you fucking moron," Lena-the-German hisses from the bunk beneath her.
"I need to piss," Natasha whispers.
She crawls over Ksenija. Her legs can barely carry her and she nearly falls off the ladder. Lena-the-German gestures to her to shove it up her ass, then covers her head with the sheet. Walking on tip-toes, Natasha makes it to Katya's bunk.
"Katya, where do you keep your knife?" She shoves Katya awake.
"I'm trying to sleep." Katya groans.
"I need your knife." Natasha implores.
"To take a piss?" Katya eyes her drowsily.
"I just need it, okay?"
"Fine." Katya mumbles.
She produces a dull table knife from her mattress, then goes back to sleep. Natasha slips it into her pajamas and slides over to the window. She vaults the windowsill and lies flat against the ground. What little snow remains quickly melts and soaks into her pajamas.
No alarm, no sound of boots against the gravel. Good. Darting from cover to cover, she traces a long path around the guard posts. Step by step, she draws closer to the towering concrete monolith in the centre of the camp. The moon is on her side tonight, shrouding the back of the building in pitch darkness. She reaches the back wall and takes a moment to breathe. The building's basement is partly exposed, putting the first floor half a storey above ground level. Well over two meters up, almost three, the first window gouges a hole in the smooth concrete. Natasha puts Katya's knife between her teeth and backs off from the wall. With a running start, she makes it—almost. Her fingers slap against the rough, grey surface and she hits the soft ground with a wet 'thump'.
Almost. She can do this.
On the third try she gets high enough, but her fingertips brush off the concrete ledge. She tries again, and this time she gets a grip on the windowsill. She has to suppress a scream of joy. Tensing the muscles in her arm, she manages to get a grip with her other hand and pulls herself up on the windowsill. Through the window she can see a dark office. A small beam of light pierces the room, shining in from the heavily patrolled hallways of the first floor. She looks up at the dark outline of a second storey windowsill.
Kovalev's office is on the third floor.
To make efficient use of the concrete, the ceiling in the Pavlov building isn't particularly high, but it's still a meter from her fingertips to the second storey window if she raises her arms. A meter, and she doesn't have the luxury of a running start. It's tempting to jump down and climb back to bed, but just thinking of sleeping makes her chest tense and her pulse race. She has to figure out what Kovalev has on her.
Getting back to it, she forms a plan. There's no way to get a running start, but the window sits in an alcove. She can kick off against the side of the recess and get a few more centimeters that way. A few practice jumps lands her back on the sill, but gives her an idea of how to move. She puts the knife between her teeth and leaps, her right foot kicking hard against the rough concrete.
It's as if she can feel the presence of the sill brush over her fingers before she lands back on the first storey windowsill. Just a few more centimeters. She can do this. She's top of her class at OKB Krasny. She jumps at the alcove and kicks off hard. Her fingers catch the sill—
—and slip off sideways. She hangs in the air between the rows of windows just long enough to realise just how high two and a half storeys look. Then she plummets.
She slams into the ground with a crunch. Her ankles burn while she lies still, holding her breath while listening for guards. Despite being pretty sure she woke the entire camp, nobody comes. She gets back on her feet, picks up Katya's knife, and looks back up at the third storey window.
On the second try, she makes it. Her ankles ache and her feet are raw from scraping against bare concrete, but she's made it to the second storey window. Just one left.
Natasha looks down to make sure her feet are in the right position, and the world seems to spin. Suddenly her centre of balance is off the ledge. She clings to the recessed window for dear life, about to fall. Then it passes: her centre of balance is well clear of the edge.
Fuck, what was that? Vertigo? Is she getting the dizziness too?
Sitting in the alcove, she has a moment to think: If she falls from this height, she will die. Or shatter both legs, which is the same thing, because OKB Krasny has no use for cripples. Instead, she slips Katya's knife in between the stiles and undoes the latch. The second-storey window slips open, and Natasha slips in. The room is pitch black, and she takes a few minutes listening for guards. None so far. She steps into the hallway and makes it to the secondary stairwell. It's a hollow tube of cast concrete, amplifying every noise into a resounding echo. Natatsha holds her breath as she tip-toes up the stairs to the third floor. She sneaks along the corridor, squinting at the doors to make out the text in the dim lighting.
K.G. Kovalev, Director of Project.
Katya's knife helps her unlatch the door. She heads straight for the safe while wrapping her hand in the sleeve of her pajamas. Like her instructors taught her, she spins the dial carefully, feeling for the changes in tension that tell her when a tumbler has found a gate. It takes a few minutes, but eventually she has the combination and the safe springs open.
Romanova, Romanova, Romanova… there's her file! She pulls the manilla folder out and flips it open to 'Operations'.
CADET NOT CLEARED FOR OPERATIONS AT THIS POINT
That's worrying. Either Kovalev has covered up that she's cleared for operations to keep her mission against Lebedev secret, or… no. There's three different signatures on this thing. Far too many people to rope into something that secret. She's not cleared for missions, but Kovalev sent her on one anyway.
Natasha sinks into Kovalev's chair. She's relieved, but also disappointed. Nothing except Kovalev's testimony could connect her to the attempt to frame Lebedev, but she's also not an agent. She's just another cadet.
"Forward!" Natasha yells over the sound of machine gun blanks, pointing at the housing block.
Wiśniewska gives her a daft look.
" Avanti! " Natasha catches herself.
That's enough for Wiśniewska, who vaults the wall and tosses a grenade through the door. An impotent 'paff!' of training explosives later, and all three of them are through the door, shooting blanks at men in Italian uniforms. A couple of grenades fly in every doorway, and room by room they make it to the other side. Natasha pokes the door ajar with the muzzle of her gun and identifies a way to the next objective, across a street and into a shellhole that'll give cover. She explains her plan in hasty Italian, then kicks open the door.
" Avanti! "
The three of them leap across the street and fall flat in the pit. Katya slams into Natasha and shoves her headfirst into wet soil. She gets it in her eyes and tries wiping it off with her sleeve, when a terrible burst of machine gun blanks opens up over their heads. An observer, Major Plotnikov, points at all three in turn:
"You're dead, and you're dead, and you're dead."
He points out a machine gun nest manned by two 'Italians' that has the shellhole in defilade, but can't be seen from the housing block. Reaching out a hand, he helps Natasha out of the shellhole, then tosses her to the ground with enough force to knock the air out of her lungs.
"Comrade-cadet Yekaterina Kuznetsova, tell me how cadet Natalia Romanova got you all killed." he orders.
While Natasha tries to figure up from down, Katya explains:
"By choosing to lead the assault herself, comrade-cadet Natalia Romanova cut herself off from contact with comrade-cadet Ksenija Ilushova"—who Natasha had assigned to the radio—"and narrowed her view of the situation to her immediate vicinity rather than her whole area of responsibility, comrade major!"
"I told Ksenjia to keep me informed of the situation by runner." Natasha explains wheezily while getting to her feet. "Comrade major."
"Comrade-cadet Radomila Wiśniewska, can you tell me what Romanova's runner is doing right now?" Plotnikov says and points at an open bit of field Natasha had crossed earlier.
"The runner is playing dead, comrade major."
"All because comrade-cadet Natalia Romanova wanted in on the action instead of prioritizing the needs of the Italian communist movement," Plotnikov concludes.
He orders them to hand in their weapons and sit next to the other 'dead' he's pulled off the battlefield so they don't get trampled. Katya gives Natasha a shove and rolls her eyes.
Watching Ksenija get the remainder of the platoon killed from indecision gets boring fast, and Natasha's eyes drift to look at the massive concrete monolith in the centre of the camp. She shudders, thinking about the evidence of her crimes against the state that may or may not exist in a safe inside the Pavlov building.
That night, Natasha sits in the courtroom, flanked by two guards with orders to shoot her. The charges are wrecking, sabotage, and suspicion of espionage. She has intentionally and for personal gain sabotaged the efforts of the Italian communist movement and colluded with the west to spy on OKB Krasny. Her instructors take the witness stand to present the evidence: she compromised the training of her fellow cadets and illegally obtained state secrets. While more evidence is presented, a loud weeping rises from another courtroom, and the muffled voices of a different tribunal reads out a sentence. Natasha can't make out the words, but the MVD never fails to pronounce someone guilty. The stern faces of her own tribunal reach the inescapable conclusion: she knows too much. Her tears flow as she begs them not to have her executed. From the other room the terrible sobbing lament grows in intensity, enveloping her as she falls to her knees, waiting for the inevitable.
She opens her eyes to the worn planks of barrack 507's ceiling. The weeping continues: Lena-the-German is crying for her sister again. Moonlight shines in the eyes of her comrades, propped up on their elbows and staring daggers at Lena: it's going to be one of those nights again.
The morning run helps Natasha push through her drowsiness and after showering under a bucket of water she feels wide awake. From the wall of barrack 507, the searching eyes of Premier Malenkov's portrait—now finally arrived—watches her dress.
"Why does he have to look like such a creep?" Katya mumbles, as she buttons her uniform.
"Who looks like such a creep, Yekatarina?" Ksenija wraps an arm around Katya's neck and smiles mischievously.
"Nobody is." Katya says, then adds in a whisper: "And we're all thinking it."
Natasha elbows her lightly and nods towards Lena-the-German. Whenever Lena Neustädt has nightmares about being back in the gulags she gets really antsy about political jokes. Katya scoffs and finishes putting on her uniform. She joins Natasha in walking outside to stand in line with the other girls who've finished early, ready for a day of Italian lessons and close combat training.
Captain Babanin is the smallest adult Natasha has ever seen. She could pass under Natasha's outstretched arm and taught all-union freestyle wrestling—samoz—to partisans during the war, many of whom were no older than Natasha is. She complains about not being as limber as she used to be, but still tosses unlucky MVD guards twice her weight into the mud during demonstrations.
Babanin has them pair off for sparring. Natasha ends up face to face with Wiśniewska, who is about her skill level.
"I'm going to shove your smug face in the dirt, princess," she says while they're getting ready.
"Bring it on, Polish."
After slowly going through the motions while Babanin corrects their stances, they speed up, trading off on who gets to throw the other to the ground. Unlike bayonet drill and sambo—self-defence without weapons—samoz is about turning the enemy's strength against them. Wiśniewska grabs at Natasha's hand. She lets her have it, then locks the Polish girl's hand against her own with her left. Natasha curls her body, twisting the Polish girl's arm and sending her into the ground. From this position, with Wiśniewska's dominant arm in a secure grip, she can stamp down on the other woman's face until she stops moving. Instead she helps her up. Now it's Natasha's turn to fall, which she does easily by committing to a right hook that Wiśniewska narrowly ducks. The Polish girl combines it with a small step to the side, which puts her practically behind Natasha, and gives her punching arm a shove. Natasha overbalances and falls supine to the ground. In a blink, Wiśniewska has her knee on Natasha's chest, and her arm raised to punch at her face. They continue like that for what feels like hours, until they're so tired they can barely stand—which Babanin thinks is a perfect moment to switch over to ground fighting.
At last they're given five minutes to sit while Babanin gives Ksenija and a few other stragglers closer instructions on the throw from a grabbed hand. Then she checks her wristwatch and realises it's not long until lunch.:
"Fall in!" Her voice is sharp like a violin string.
The cadets stand up, straight as ramrods. Except for Wiśniewska, who only makes it halfway up before she trips forward and plants her face in the dirt with a wet 'thump'. Nobody moves, but Natasha knows instinctively that she's not the only one looking at Radomila's limp body out of the corner of her eye. Somewhere in the middle of Babanin's summary of the lesson, Radomila pushes herself off the ground and staggers to her feet. She looks about to fall again, and when Babanin isn't looking a hand darts out to steady her.
When Babanin yells "Fall out!" Natasha turns to the Polish girl, who's steadying herself on another cadet.
"Hey Wiśniewska, what's wrong?" she asks.
"Nothing's wrong," Radomila snaps. "I just… got up very fast."
"Feeling dizzy?" Katya asks. "Maybe you should see the doctor?"
"Fuck off Kat'ka, I don't get dizzy," the Polish girl says and shoves the girl she's leaning on away. "I'm not weak like you."
Katya scoffs and says something about the reward for being nice. Wiśniewska scowls at her, but when she looks away her eyes are wide with fear: dizziness is a weakness, and weaknesses get you removed from the programme.
In the middle of the night they drag her from her bed. She's handcuffed to a table inside the Pavlov building. She's accused of fabricating evidence against a member of the polibureau for personal gain. Beria personally attends the proceedings as the safe from Kovalev's office is rolled out. Her guilt is unquestionable: the tribunal makes its recommendation to the presidium. Beria looks at her, his glasses two black voids in his face. His lips form a soundless word—execution—and Natasha is behind the Pavlov building, watching as Katya and Ksenija are shot. Limp bodies flop into the shallow graves, and she begs not to die as cold metal presses against the back of her skull.
"Natasha, I can't sleep when you scream," Ksenija says next to her.
Natasha opens her eyes to the moon casting pale shadows about the barrack. Her heart races like a great locomotive. She's hyperventilating and drenched in sweat.
"I'm trying to sleep, you fucking moron," Lena-the-German hisses from the bunk beneath her.
"I need to piss," Natasha whispers.
She crawls over Ksenija. Her legs can barely carry her and she nearly falls off the ladder. Lena-the-German gestures to her to shove it up her ass, then covers her head with the sheet. Walking on tip-toes, Natasha makes it to Katya's bunk.
"Katya, where do you keep your knife?" She shoves Katya awake.
"I'm trying to sleep." Katya groans.
"I need your knife." Natasha implores.
"To take a piss?" Katya eyes her drowsily.
"I just need it, okay?"
"Fine." Katya mumbles.
She produces a dull table knife from her mattress, then goes back to sleep. Natasha slips it into her pajamas and slides over to the window. She vaults the windowsill and lies flat against the ground. What little snow remains quickly melts and soaks into her pajamas.
No alarm, no sound of boots against the gravel. Good. Darting from cover to cover, she traces a long path around the guard posts. Step by step, she draws closer to the towering concrete monolith in the centre of the camp. The moon is on her side tonight, shrouding the back of the building in pitch darkness. She reaches the back wall and takes a moment to breathe. The building's basement is partly exposed, putting the first floor half a storey above ground level. Well over two meters up, almost three, the first window gouges a hole in the smooth concrete. Natasha puts Katya's knife between her teeth and backs off from the wall. With a running start, she makes it—almost. Her fingers slap against the rough, grey surface and she hits the soft ground with a wet 'thump'.
Almost. She can do this.
On the third try she gets high enough, but her fingertips brush off the concrete ledge. She tries again, and this time she gets a grip on the windowsill. She has to suppress a scream of joy. Tensing the muscles in her arm, she manages to get a grip with her other hand and pulls herself up on the windowsill. Through the window she can see a dark office. A small beam of light pierces the room, shining in from the heavily patrolled hallways of the first floor. She looks up at the dark outline of a second storey windowsill.
Kovalev's office is on the third floor.
To make efficient use of the concrete, the ceiling in the Pavlov building isn't particularly high, but it's still a meter from her fingertips to the second storey window if she raises her arms. A meter, and she doesn't have the luxury of a running start. It's tempting to jump down and climb back to bed, but just thinking of sleeping makes her chest tense and her pulse race. She has to figure out what Kovalev has on her.
Getting back to it, she forms a plan. There's no way to get a running start, but the window sits in an alcove. She can kick off against the side of the recess and get a few more centimeters that way. A few practice jumps lands her back on the sill, but gives her an idea of how to move. She puts the knife between her teeth and leaps, her right foot kicking hard against the rough concrete.
It's as if she can feel the presence of the sill brush over her fingers before she lands back on the first storey windowsill. Just a few more centimeters. She can do this. She's top of her class at OKB Krasny. She jumps at the alcove and kicks off hard. Her fingers catch the sill—
—and slip off sideways. She hangs in the air between the rows of windows just long enough to realise just how high two and a half storeys look. Then she plummets.
She slams into the ground with a crunch. Her ankles burn while she lies still, holding her breath while listening for guards. Despite being pretty sure she woke the entire camp, nobody comes. She gets back on her feet, picks up Katya's knife, and looks back up at the third storey window.
On the second try, she makes it. Her ankles ache and her feet are raw from scraping against bare concrete, but she's made it to the second storey window. Just one left.
Natasha looks down to make sure her feet are in the right position, and the world seems to spin. Suddenly her centre of balance is off the ledge. She clings to the recessed window for dear life, about to fall. Then it passes: her centre of balance is well clear of the edge.
Fuck, what was that? Vertigo? Is she getting the dizziness too?
Sitting in the alcove, she has a moment to think: If she falls from this height, she will die. Or shatter both legs, which is the same thing, because OKB Krasny has no use for cripples. Instead, she slips Katya's knife in between the stiles and undoes the latch. The second-storey window slips open, and Natasha slips in. The room is pitch black, and she takes a few minutes listening for guards. None so far. She steps into the hallway and makes it to the secondary stairwell. It's a hollow tube of cast concrete, amplifying every noise into a resounding echo. Natatsha holds her breath as she tip-toes up the stairs to the third floor. She sneaks along the corridor, squinting at the doors to make out the text in the dim lighting.
K.G. Kovalev, Director of Project.
Katya's knife helps her unlatch the door. She heads straight for the safe while wrapping her hand in the sleeve of her pajamas. Like her instructors taught her, she spins the dial carefully, feeling for the changes in tension that tell her when a tumbler has found a gate. It takes a few minutes, but eventually she has the combination and the safe springs open.
Romanova, Romanova, Romanova… there's her file! She pulls the manilla folder out and flips it open to 'Operations'.
CADET NOT CLEARED FOR OPERATIONS AT THIS POINT
That's worrying. Either Kovalev has covered up that she's cleared for operations to keep her mission against Lebedev secret, or… no. There's three different signatures on this thing. Far too many people to rope into something that secret. She's not cleared for missions, but Kovalev sent her on one anyway.
Natasha sinks into Kovalev's chair. She's relieved, but also disappointed. Nothing except Kovalev's testimony could connect her to the attempt to frame Lebedev, but she's also not an agent. She's just another cadet.
1953-4: Second Best
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
As dusk threatens to turn to night, Natasha lays flat on the floor of barrack 507, aching in every muscle. The International Workers' Day celebrations at OKB Krasny had been a blast, with good food and games, and lieutenant Vagin had made the film projector--which usually played grainy educational films--play a movie. The drab, stern faces of American imperialist soldiers had been replaced with the colourful smiles of beautiful actors, and Natasha had found herself humming tunes from the Die Frau Meiner Träume for the rest of the day. It was so good! Maybe one day they'd finally kick the capitalists out of Austria and have all the Viennese cinema for themselves. She giggles at the thought, and gets back up. Around her, her comrades sit, talking excitedly while sipping from bottles of vodka. Not the good stuff from Fedorov's office, but the cheap stuff that tasted like it was distilled from dead rats and seemed to appear as if by magic whenever the guards had reason to celebrate. Natasha grabs her bottle and takes another sip. Everyone's pretty buzzed and Kseinja is half asleep with her head in Katya's lap.
"What do you want to do," Ivanova asks, "when you graduate I mean?"
"SVR, obviously." Snooping Olga says.
Heads around the room nod. It's what they've been preparing for their entire lives: graduate the programme, maybe a few years at a military-technical school, and then the SVR--the Higher Intelligence School of the MVD.
"SVR…" Natasha says loudly and finishes the rest of her bottle. "...top of my class."
She balances it perfectly on the mouth of another bottle.
"I want to go to the Winter Olympics," Alonya says, cheeks bright red.
"We're probably all going… except those who fall behind," Ivanova says and punches Katya lightly in the arm.
"No," Alonya says, the vodka bringing out her defiance, "I want to go to the Olympics to compete. I want to represent the Soviet Union and socialism and take gold in women's downhill."
"'Typical individualist impulses of the criminally insane'", Samyonova slurs.
She's quoting an instructor who hadn't survived the last round of purges and Natasha can't help but laugh, joining the rest of the room in a giggle.
"What about you, Kat'ka?"
"Fuck off," Katya says and takes a sip from her bottle. "Unlike the rest of your cowards, I'm going to the Conservatory."
"You want to join the army? "
There's a collective round of mock disgust. Someone boos.
"Those sodomites can't even piss straight."
"Nah, you'll see," Katya says calmly, "when the Americans attack I'll be on the frontlines and you'll be analysing my reports."
She looks down at Ksenija.
"What are your plans?"
"I want to see a rev… revy… revue in Vienna!" Ksenija bursts out.
She gets up and grabs Katya's arms.
"Julia!" she calls in a dramatic voice.
"Peter." Katya plays along.
" Nur dieser eine Frage, wahl ich hätte Sie nicht mehr belasten. Liebe Sie mich? " Ksenija quotes from Die Frau Meiner Träume:
" Nein. " Katya continues.
Shock. Everyone makes disappointed noises: Peter doesn't get the girl! Oh tragedy!
Ksenija quotes the next bit gravely, about leaving forever and loving Julia above all, then tries to get up to storm off. Instead she trips on her own legs and Katya has to grab her before she smashes her head into a pile of empty vodka bottles.
"Off I go! Forever! Ever ever ever!" Ksenija slurs.
"Peter!" Katya says and makes her best haughty face at Ksenjia while holding up by her arms. " Ich wollte nur sagen, dass ich auch Sie lieben über Alles. Jetzt können Sie zur Hölle vergehen! "
Peter is supposed to run after Julia and kiss her, but Katya pulls back and Ksenija bumps her head into Katya's shoulder. Katya slowly eases her back in her lap, where she's fast asleep.
"That's the worst German I've ever heard," Lena says. "I ought to throw rotten tomatoes."
"What do you want to do, Lena?" Ivanova asks.
Lena looks into her bottle, then out the window.
"I want to fly a MiG." she says decisively.
"You can't do espionage from a MiG," Natasha smiles smugly.
"Are you slandering the brave photo-reconnaissance of our air forces, comrade cadet Natalia Romanova?" Lena shoots back, her stare grave but her lips unable to contain a grin.
"To our futures!" Alonya toasts.
A little later Lieutenant Lobkovskaya knocks on the door and shambles in, bottle in hand. Natasha dives for the pile of empty glass bottles. Lena has had the same thought, and their heads slam together.
"Don't even try to hide the bottles, girls," Lieutenant Lobkovskaya laughs. "I know what cadets your age are like. But it is lights out time, so get to bed now."
On her way out she grabs a nearly empty bottle from a dresser and gives it a taste. She spits it out almost immediately.
"My god, this is Petrov's piss. I guess you don't really know any better."
She slams the door shut and wobbles off in the direction of the next barrack-room.
"I thought we were so dead," Snooping Olga says, after a moment of complete silence.
"Which one of you fucks left a bottle on the dresser?" Ivanova hisses.
Ksenija is already snoring on Katya's lap. Natasha grabs her under the arms and pulls her off, and Katya grabs the legs. The entire room spins while they try to get her over to Natasha's bunk. Then they just have to lift her into the top bunk and…
"I think I'm gonna drop her," Katya says when Natasha has pulled Ksenija halfway up the ladder.
"Well don't—" Natasha says, then almost loses her grip. "I think I'm going to drop her."
"We can't both drop her. What if we throw her? Heave, ho, heave…"
Katya starts swinging Ksenija's legs side to side.
"That's a terrible idea."
Natasha climbs back down.
"What if we put her in the bottom one for the night?"
"That's a good idea," Natasha nods.
They slide Ksenija into the bottom bunk, next to Ivanova.
"Hey," Lena taps Natasha's shoulder, "what do you think you're doing? That's my bed."
In the end they negotiate it so Natasha takes Katya's bunk and Katya and Lena bunk together in Natasha and Ksenija's bed. It all makes sense somehow.
Summer training has begun. The morning exercises left Natasha with a cramp in her legs and now she's vaulting barriers and crawling under barbed wire while live rounds fly over her head. At the pistol range, her hands shake and it's a challenge to keep the sights on target. After five hours of running and shooting, she spends an hour going cross-eyed at grainy photos of western military equipment: "Centurion" medium tank, B-26 night bomber, AEC divisional command post, B-29 nuclear-capable heavy bomber…Then it's lunch, which she wolfs down voraciously. After a short nap 507 are hauled off to political education. Natasha spends the next three hours learning about the moral degeneration caused by capitalist society and the Americans' use of biological warfare in Korea. Their teacher, Senior Lieutenant Vlasov, speaks in a droning monotone, like someone reading the Moscow telephone directory on the radio: Natasha struggles not to slip into another nap. She's not the only one: Ivanova has her chocolate ration withdrawn for the rest of the month when Vlasov catches her snoring. The tiredness continues into the hour of self-study, and Natasha struggles to do her homework: her handwriting comes out as a shaky mess, and her friends chatter seems distant:
"What do we have tomorrow?" Ivanova asks out loud.
"Equipment repair. Like we do every Tuesday." someone answers.
"Thank god it's not team sports." Ivanova says. "If it was more exercise I'd rather they just shoot me."
"Are they trying to kill us off before summer training?" Snooping Olga mumbles.
"This is summer training," Katya notes.
"But we haven't had Labour Day celebrations yet," Olga objects.
"Uh, Olga, we did." Natasha says. "Last Friday. You won the quiz about Karl Marx's life, remember?"
"Oh yeah, I did," Olga says, looking surprised. "I forgot."
"Forgot Labour Day ," Katya says, rolling her eyes.
Snooping Olga says something, but Natasha isn't really paying attention. Sne nods off and wakes up when Katya elbows her in the shoulder.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty, there's an officer here, get up."
They're not supposed to sleep during self-study. Natasha tries to force herself to write a paragraph about partisan warfare in mountainous terrain, but it comes out as unreadable nonsense and she tears the page out of her notebook. When they're served supper some of her energy returns, but it's gone again just as quick and after roll call she's asleep before she hits the pillow.
After a month of summer training Natasha is tired to the bone and it's a welcome change when three hours of Wednesday sports becomes three hours of waiting for her report card inside the Pavlov building. After sitting on a stone bench for an hour, that relief is replaced with a sense of dread. None of the girls like receiving their report cards. They enter the offices tense and pale. When they come out there's a mix of relief and further terror. Some, like Ivanova, hold back tears. Nathasha is called, and she steps into Kovalev's office.
"Comrade colonel."
"Sit, comrade cadet." Kovalev says.
Natasha takes the chair in front of his desk and tries hard not to look at the safe. She swallows, and steels herself for what comes next.
"All fives, again." Kovalev says. "You are an exceptional student."
It's the highest possible grade. Excellent mastery of the subject–every subject. But five is not perfect , which means…
Kovalev continues: "You are deficient in several fields."
It makes Natasha want to cry and scream. She's answered every question correctly on every test. She can hold a conversation in English, German, French, and Italian. She's the strongest and fastest girl in her cohort. Isn't that enough?
"'Takes individual initiative too often'," Kovalev reads from a report. "'Deficient in teamwork.', 'takes unnecessary risks.', 'quick to overrule comrades', 'arrogant', 'believes herself superior'... and your physical metrics…"
Kovalev reaches for a form that bears her name.
"Hundred metre sprint. Twelve point three seconds. At the last meeting you were told the standard for category A cadets is a hundred metres in no more than eleven seconds. Three kilometre run in nine minutes forty seconds when the standard for you is eight forty… you are failing by a whole minute, comrade-cadet. I can go on. You have a duty to meet the standards we set."
He raises his voice.
"This programme has no room for mediocre mavericks who can memorise books. Do you want to fail this programme?"
"No, comrade-colonel."
"Do you want to serve the Soviet Union?"
"Yes, comrade-colonel."
"Then stop being a waste of state resources."
She tastes blood. She's been biting her tongue to keep herself from crying. Kovalev picks a stamp off his desk and slams it down on her report card: 'no credit'. Then he dismisses her.
Seeing her face as steps out of the office, Ksenija rushes up and hugs her tightly. Natasha sobs softly into her shoulder. Soon Katya also holds her.
"I'm sorry you have to have Kovalev," Ksenija whispers.
"He's a fucking asshole," Katya nods.
Kovalev calls Katya's name from his office. She runs off, leaving Ksenija to comfort Natasha.
"Are you doing OK?" Natasha asks, once her tears have dried up. "I mean, have you gotten your report?"
Ksenija nods.
"Just now. My grades are good, I got a five in radio/technical, and major Kozlov says that if I keep improving my metrics like I have been they can move me from V to B."
"That's great!" Natasha says, and hugs Ksenija tightly. "I'm so happy for you!"
The metrics for physical and social fitness are ranked from A to G. Natasha's category, A, is the one they're all supposed to aim for to complete the programme. B is for good candidates. V and G mean remedial training may be necessary. If they're thinking of moving Ksenija from V to B, then that means she's safe. They're not going to drop her from the programme. A sense of relief spreads through Natasha, and she doesn't feel like crying any more.
When Katya leaves Kovalev's office, her eyes are red and her face swollen. Ksenija runs over, arms open for a hug. Natasha runs after to be another shoulder to cry on, but Katya brushes her off:
"Fuck off."
"What's wrong?" Natasha asks.
"Fuck off you fucking bitch," Katya groans into Ksenija's shoulder.
Natasha is halfway to telling Katya where she can shove that attitude when Ksenija gives her a very serious look. Don't , it says, and Natasha keeps her mouth shut. Kseinja mouths 'later'. So it's something Ksenija doesn't even want Katya to know she's telling her. Natasha decides to make herself scarce and walks off in the direction of the toilet. Kovalev obviously told Katya much the same he told her: that she's underperforming and needs to devote herself to the Soviet Union. But why is Katya angry with her? Ksenija seemed to have it figured out, so what has Katya told her when Natasha wasn't around?
"Later" doesn't seem to be anytime that evening. Katya seems to have gotten over it anyway, and at supper all three of them sit together, laughing at the gossip about Alonya's latest hopeless crush. (This time it's a young doctor in the Pavlov building. Didn't she already have a crush on that guy? It's a different young doctor this time.) Katya makes a crass joke about what kind of man Alonya is going to end up marrying, and it makes Natasha think of the future. Kovalev's words echo in her mind. She can't stop thinking about what he said, about failing. After supper they have ninety minutes of supervised free time, and Natasha finds herself wandering aimlessly. She looks up at the bust of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya that overlooks the square between the barracks. Zoya Kosodemyanskaya wasn't much older than Natasha when she volunteered for saboteur-reconnaissance training and fought the fascist invader. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Hero of the Soviet Union.
That night, as she lays down in her bunk, Natasha feels for the awl Ksenija has hidden under the mattress for self defence. Gripping it, she begins to carve words into the frame of the bed: It's category A or nothing. She stares at the words. She is going to meet category A standards. She is going to graduate.
"What do you want to do," Ivanova asks, "when you graduate I mean?"
"SVR, obviously." Snooping Olga says.
Heads around the room nod. It's what they've been preparing for their entire lives: graduate the programme, maybe a few years at a military-technical school, and then the SVR--the Higher Intelligence School of the MVD.
"SVR…" Natasha says loudly and finishes the rest of her bottle. "...top of my class."
She balances it perfectly on the mouth of another bottle.
"I want to go to the Winter Olympics," Alonya says, cheeks bright red.
"We're probably all going… except those who fall behind," Ivanova says and punches Katya lightly in the arm.
"No," Alonya says, the vodka bringing out her defiance, "I want to go to the Olympics to compete. I want to represent the Soviet Union and socialism and take gold in women's downhill."
"'Typical individualist impulses of the criminally insane'", Samyonova slurs.
She's quoting an instructor who hadn't survived the last round of purges and Natasha can't help but laugh, joining the rest of the room in a giggle.
"What about you, Kat'ka?"
"Fuck off," Katya says and takes a sip from her bottle. "Unlike the rest of your cowards, I'm going to the Conservatory."
"You want to join the army? "
There's a collective round of mock disgust. Someone boos.
"Those sodomites can't even piss straight."
"Nah, you'll see," Katya says calmly, "when the Americans attack I'll be on the frontlines and you'll be analysing my reports."
She looks down at Ksenija.
"What are your plans?"
"I want to see a rev… revy… revue in Vienna!" Ksenija bursts out.
She gets up and grabs Katya's arms.
"Julia!" she calls in a dramatic voice.
"Peter." Katya plays along.
" Nur dieser eine Frage, wahl ich hätte Sie nicht mehr belasten. Liebe Sie mich? " Ksenija quotes from Die Frau Meiner Träume:
" Nein. " Katya continues.
Shock. Everyone makes disappointed noises: Peter doesn't get the girl! Oh tragedy!
Ksenija quotes the next bit gravely, about leaving forever and loving Julia above all, then tries to get up to storm off. Instead she trips on her own legs and Katya has to grab her before she smashes her head into a pile of empty vodka bottles.
"Off I go! Forever! Ever ever ever!" Ksenija slurs.
"Peter!" Katya says and makes her best haughty face at Ksenjia while holding up by her arms. " Ich wollte nur sagen, dass ich auch Sie lieben über Alles. Jetzt können Sie zur Hölle vergehen! "
Peter is supposed to run after Julia and kiss her, but Katya pulls back and Ksenija bumps her head into Katya's shoulder. Katya slowly eases her back in her lap, where she's fast asleep.
"That's the worst German I've ever heard," Lena says. "I ought to throw rotten tomatoes."
"What do you want to do, Lena?" Ivanova asks.
Lena looks into her bottle, then out the window.
"I want to fly a MiG." she says decisively.
"You can't do espionage from a MiG," Natasha smiles smugly.
"Are you slandering the brave photo-reconnaissance of our air forces, comrade cadet Natalia Romanova?" Lena shoots back, her stare grave but her lips unable to contain a grin.
"To our futures!" Alonya toasts.
A little later Lieutenant Lobkovskaya knocks on the door and shambles in, bottle in hand. Natasha dives for the pile of empty glass bottles. Lena has had the same thought, and their heads slam together.
"Don't even try to hide the bottles, girls," Lieutenant Lobkovskaya laughs. "I know what cadets your age are like. But it is lights out time, so get to bed now."
On her way out she grabs a nearly empty bottle from a dresser and gives it a taste. She spits it out almost immediately.
"My god, this is Petrov's piss. I guess you don't really know any better."
She slams the door shut and wobbles off in the direction of the next barrack-room.
"I thought we were so dead," Snooping Olga says, after a moment of complete silence.
"Which one of you fucks left a bottle on the dresser?" Ivanova hisses.
Ksenija is already snoring on Katya's lap. Natasha grabs her under the arms and pulls her off, and Katya grabs the legs. The entire room spins while they try to get her over to Natasha's bunk. Then they just have to lift her into the top bunk and…
"I think I'm gonna drop her," Katya says when Natasha has pulled Ksenija halfway up the ladder.
"Well don't—" Natasha says, then almost loses her grip. "I think I'm going to drop her."
"We can't both drop her. What if we throw her? Heave, ho, heave…"
Katya starts swinging Ksenija's legs side to side.
"That's a terrible idea."
Natasha climbs back down.
"What if we put her in the bottom one for the night?"
"That's a good idea," Natasha nods.
They slide Ksenija into the bottom bunk, next to Ivanova.
"Hey," Lena taps Natasha's shoulder, "what do you think you're doing? That's my bed."
In the end they negotiate it so Natasha takes Katya's bunk and Katya and Lena bunk together in Natasha and Ksenija's bed. It all makes sense somehow.
Summer training has begun. The morning exercises left Natasha with a cramp in her legs and now she's vaulting barriers and crawling under barbed wire while live rounds fly over her head. At the pistol range, her hands shake and it's a challenge to keep the sights on target. After five hours of running and shooting, she spends an hour going cross-eyed at grainy photos of western military equipment: "Centurion" medium tank, B-26 night bomber, AEC divisional command post, B-29 nuclear-capable heavy bomber…Then it's lunch, which she wolfs down voraciously. After a short nap 507 are hauled off to political education. Natasha spends the next three hours learning about the moral degeneration caused by capitalist society and the Americans' use of biological warfare in Korea. Their teacher, Senior Lieutenant Vlasov, speaks in a droning monotone, like someone reading the Moscow telephone directory on the radio: Natasha struggles not to slip into another nap. She's not the only one: Ivanova has her chocolate ration withdrawn for the rest of the month when Vlasov catches her snoring. The tiredness continues into the hour of self-study, and Natasha struggles to do her homework: her handwriting comes out as a shaky mess, and her friends chatter seems distant:
"What do we have tomorrow?" Ivanova asks out loud.
"Equipment repair. Like we do every Tuesday." someone answers.
"Thank god it's not team sports." Ivanova says. "If it was more exercise I'd rather they just shoot me."
"Are they trying to kill us off before summer training?" Snooping Olga mumbles.
"This is summer training," Katya notes.
"But we haven't had Labour Day celebrations yet," Olga objects.
"Uh, Olga, we did." Natasha says. "Last Friday. You won the quiz about Karl Marx's life, remember?"
"Oh yeah, I did," Olga says, looking surprised. "I forgot."
"Forgot Labour Day ," Katya says, rolling her eyes.
Snooping Olga says something, but Natasha isn't really paying attention. Sne nods off and wakes up when Katya elbows her in the shoulder.
"Hey, Sleeping Beauty, there's an officer here, get up."
They're not supposed to sleep during self-study. Natasha tries to force herself to write a paragraph about partisan warfare in mountainous terrain, but it comes out as unreadable nonsense and she tears the page out of her notebook. When they're served supper some of her energy returns, but it's gone again just as quick and after roll call she's asleep before she hits the pillow.
After a month of summer training Natasha is tired to the bone and it's a welcome change when three hours of Wednesday sports becomes three hours of waiting for her report card inside the Pavlov building. After sitting on a stone bench for an hour, that relief is replaced with a sense of dread. None of the girls like receiving their report cards. They enter the offices tense and pale. When they come out there's a mix of relief and further terror. Some, like Ivanova, hold back tears. Nathasha is called, and she steps into Kovalev's office.
"Comrade colonel."
"Sit, comrade cadet." Kovalev says.
Natasha takes the chair in front of his desk and tries hard not to look at the safe. She swallows, and steels herself for what comes next.
"All fives, again." Kovalev says. "You are an exceptional student."
It's the highest possible grade. Excellent mastery of the subject–every subject. But five is not perfect , which means…
Kovalev continues: "You are deficient in several fields."
It makes Natasha want to cry and scream. She's answered every question correctly on every test. She can hold a conversation in English, German, French, and Italian. She's the strongest and fastest girl in her cohort. Isn't that enough?
"'Takes individual initiative too often'," Kovalev reads from a report. "'Deficient in teamwork.', 'takes unnecessary risks.', 'quick to overrule comrades', 'arrogant', 'believes herself superior'... and your physical metrics…"
Kovalev reaches for a form that bears her name.
"Hundred metre sprint. Twelve point three seconds. At the last meeting you were told the standard for category A cadets is a hundred metres in no more than eleven seconds. Three kilometre run in nine minutes forty seconds when the standard for you is eight forty… you are failing by a whole minute, comrade-cadet. I can go on. You have a duty to meet the standards we set."
He raises his voice.
"This programme has no room for mediocre mavericks who can memorise books. Do you want to fail this programme?"
"No, comrade-colonel."
"Do you want to serve the Soviet Union?"
"Yes, comrade-colonel."
"Then stop being a waste of state resources."
She tastes blood. She's been biting her tongue to keep herself from crying. Kovalev picks a stamp off his desk and slams it down on her report card: 'no credit'. Then he dismisses her.
Seeing her face as steps out of the office, Ksenija rushes up and hugs her tightly. Natasha sobs softly into her shoulder. Soon Katya also holds her.
"I'm sorry you have to have Kovalev," Ksenija whispers.
"He's a fucking asshole," Katya nods.
Kovalev calls Katya's name from his office. She runs off, leaving Ksenija to comfort Natasha.
"Are you doing OK?" Natasha asks, once her tears have dried up. "I mean, have you gotten your report?"
Ksenija nods.
"Just now. My grades are good, I got a five in radio/technical, and major Kozlov says that if I keep improving my metrics like I have been they can move me from V to B."
"That's great!" Natasha says, and hugs Ksenija tightly. "I'm so happy for you!"
The metrics for physical and social fitness are ranked from A to G. Natasha's category, A, is the one they're all supposed to aim for to complete the programme. B is for good candidates. V and G mean remedial training may be necessary. If they're thinking of moving Ksenija from V to B, then that means she's safe. They're not going to drop her from the programme. A sense of relief spreads through Natasha, and she doesn't feel like crying any more.
When Katya leaves Kovalev's office, her eyes are red and her face swollen. Ksenija runs over, arms open for a hug. Natasha runs after to be another shoulder to cry on, but Katya brushes her off:
"Fuck off."
"What's wrong?" Natasha asks.
"Fuck off you fucking bitch," Katya groans into Ksenija's shoulder.
Natasha is halfway to telling Katya where she can shove that attitude when Ksenija gives her a very serious look. Don't , it says, and Natasha keeps her mouth shut. Kseinja mouths 'later'. So it's something Ksenija doesn't even want Katya to know she's telling her. Natasha decides to make herself scarce and walks off in the direction of the toilet. Kovalev obviously told Katya much the same he told her: that she's underperforming and needs to devote herself to the Soviet Union. But why is Katya angry with her? Ksenija seemed to have it figured out, so what has Katya told her when Natasha wasn't around?
"Later" doesn't seem to be anytime that evening. Katya seems to have gotten over it anyway, and at supper all three of them sit together, laughing at the gossip about Alonya's latest hopeless crush. (This time it's a young doctor in the Pavlov building. Didn't she already have a crush on that guy? It's a different young doctor this time.) Katya makes a crass joke about what kind of man Alonya is going to end up marrying, and it makes Natasha think of the future. Kovalev's words echo in her mind. She can't stop thinking about what he said, about failing. After supper they have ninety minutes of supervised free time, and Natasha finds herself wandering aimlessly. She looks up at the bust of Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya that overlooks the square between the barracks. Zoya Kosodemyanskaya wasn't much older than Natasha when she volunteered for saboteur-reconnaissance training and fought the fascist invader. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya, Hero of the Soviet Union.
That night, as she lays down in her bunk, Natasha feels for the awl Ksenija has hidden under the mattress for self defence. Gripping it, she begins to carve words into the frame of the bed: It's category A or nothing. She stares at the words. She is going to meet category A standards. She is going to graduate.
1953-5: Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
Natasha opens her eyes at reveille and stares at the bedframe. Reading the words she carved has become an integral part of her morning. She mouths the words as her eyes trace the outline of her handiwork: It's category A or nothing . Today she will do everything she can to serve the Soviet Union.
At the training ground Natasha's muscles ache in anticipation of morning exercise. She's ready for sergeant Petrova to blow her whistle, but instead she starts listing off names:
"Comrade-cadets Yekaterina Kurznetsova, Natalia Romanova, Radomila Wiśniewska, Lena Neustädt, report to track five."
There's already a handful of other girls at track five. Natasha doesn't know them very well, but she recognises them quickly: they're other cadets she gets taken aside to be tested with. More tests, then? One of the girls, Vera Kuzmila, crosses her arms.
"Oh great, the Pole and the German too." she says.
"What of it, cunt?" Wiśniewska spits back. Lena says nothing.
Katya elbows Natasha lightly.
"If it comes to a fight, a chocolate ration on Polish." she whispers.
"I'm not betting against her." Natasha says and gives Katya a daft look.
"Sensible."
It doesn't come to a fight, as another dozen cadets and an instructor join them. They're told to line up for a run and the whistle is blown. It's unusual for a morning run: every girl here is used to staying at the front of the pack, and jostling for the lead has them run faster than normal. The instructor, Sergeant Voro-something, follows along. After half a lap, she motions for them to go faster. Natasha feels the ache in her muscles make itself known, but she ignores it: finally, a chance to work out.
After the second lap sergeant Vorobeva increased the pace again. The jostling for the lead eases up as some of the girls have to focus on just keeping up. Natasha catches Wiśniewska flashing a grin as she pulls ahead of Kuzmila. Vorobeva comes to a stop once the lap completes, and hoarsely yells for the girls to stop being so slow. The pace the sergeant demands is exhausting, and jolts of pain run up Natasha's legs every time her feet strike the ground. To her left, she can hear Katya hiss with each breath, no doubt feeling the same pain. The pain is the body's natural work-shy tendencies. By focusing on her duties to the Soviet people, she can master it and force it to become dull and distant. It's not easy to do before she's had anything to eat, but she's not going to let Katya pull ahead of her. The words carved into her bed echo in her head: It's category A or nothing . She won't fail. She'll be what the state needs her to be.
It's enough to keep Katya and the Polish girl from passing her. As she runs, the echo turns to ' A or nothing ' and then just ' A ', punctuating the rhythmic beat of shoes on gravel. It's hypnotic, and time seems to lose meaning as she loops around the track again and again. The only thing grounding her is some instinct of her body telling her she's supposed to keep this pace for three kilometres.
Eventually, after what could be an eternity or a fraction of a second, she can feel the end of the three kilometre run coming up. There's the two marks on either side of the track, and Vorobeva off to one side, stopwatch in hand. Natasha passes her, and lets her momentum carry her forward, mustering just enough strength to not fall over. Behind her, she can hear the intense running pace turn to an undisciplined cacophony of kicked gravel.
"Why are you slowing down, girls?" Vorobeva yells. "This isn't a three K run. Keep going!"
But… but… that was the pace for a three kilometre run. She's out of energy. Just moving her legs hurt, and she wants to scream every time her beaten soles hit the ground. What she wants to do is beg Vorobeva to be reasonable. To consider that they haven't eaten yet. Instead, she keeps running, forcing her legs to kick off against the ground. Pain is radiating up her body, and instead of forcing it to become dull and distant, it's as if the pain is forcing her out of her own body. She's the engineman of a runaway train, watching in silence as the fireman shovels nothing into the firebox to keep her body going.
At some point she realises Katya has been running in front of her for a while. It feels almost reassuring. A little later she's in the lead again. Vorobeva blows her whistle and Natasha comes to, back in charge of her own body as it slows to a halt. She's aching from her butt down, and slimy saliva has run from her mouth, down her neck, and started pooling in the neck opening. She tries wiping it off with her sleeve, but it's already soaked through with sweat.
"Well done, girls!" Sergeant Vorobeva says. "And well done, comrade-cadet Romanova. You are exemplary."
Before Natasha can ask what she's done, her body takes charge again: she straightens up and salutes sergeant Vorobeva.
"What did I do?" she asks Katya, on the way to the showers.
Katya is staring daggers.
"You came in first." she says. "Fucking ass-kisser."
At breakfast, Natasha wolfs down her porridge and bread as fast as she can. It makes her stomach hurt, but she forces herself to ignore it so she can focus on a handbook on field telephone repair. Beside her, Ksenija lays with her head on the table and pokes her spoon in her bowl with disinterest.
"I don't feel like eating," she mumbles. "They made us run so much and I just feel sick."
Natasha pats her reassuringly on the back. Katya hugs Ksenija tightly and tries to straighten her up.
"You have to have breakfast." she says. "Otherwise you'll pass out."
"Yeah, I just…" Ksenija swallows a spoonful. "Why are they pushing us so hard?"
"So that we can best serve the peop–" Natasha and Katya say in unison.
"No, I meant, us."
Ksenija waves her spoon around in a circle that doesn't include Natasha, Katya, or Lena.
"You're what they want. Smart, strong, tireless, beautiful… perfect spies. The rest of us can't keep up."
"Don't for a second believe you're not smart!" Katya says.
"Or beautiful. A few more years and you'll seduce western imperialists with the best of them." Natasha adds.
Katya nods in agreement, but Ksenija's blush at the compliment quickly turns to a frown.
"Besides," Natasha says, "the most important thing is being brave and standing up for the Soviet worker. Tatyana Baramzina was a telephone operator when she became Hero of the Soviet Union. That's something you're good at."
Natasha leaves out that Baramzina was also trained as a sniper.
"Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya had only three days of training before her heroic actions."
"Yeah," Katya says, "and Leah Moldagulova was one of the shortest in her battalion, but she was also a Hero of the Soviet Union."
Ksenija just stirs her porridge.
"Yeah, I guess you're right…"
The next morning Natasha is sent off to do exercises with sergeant Vorobeva again. It leaves her light-headed and nauseous. Her blood pumps loudly in her ears, every beat feeling like it's about to crush her skull. She drags herself to the showers. For once the icy water is welcome, extinguishing the fire burning in her muscles. It only lasts long enough to wash the sweat off, but for Natasha it feels like taking a swim in the Volga. Once she's dried off she heads for the changing area. Lost in thought while she puts her uniform on, it takes her a while to notice the sounds of soft sobbing. They seem to come from the back, among the laundry baskets. Natasha's eyes are still adjusting to being inside, but she can see a shape hugged over between the baskets. It's Ivanova, sitting with her gym trousers around her ankles, crying into her knees.
"Did a guard do this?" Natasha asks.
"No." Ivanova sobs. "Go away."
"A doctor?"
"No." Ivanova snaps.
"Then who–" Natasha begins, but Ivanova interrupts her:
"Nobody did anything, Nat'ka. I'm just…"
She turns to face Natasha, then turns away in shame.
"I'm not a woman anymore."
She shifts, and Natasha sees what Ivanova has balled up in her fists: a once-white rag, now grimy and grey with sweat and dead skin, and nothing else. It happens sometimes. For her part, Natasha has always found being a woman a bit of a hassle: It gets in the way of peak performance, and distracts from her studies. That might not be the best way to comfort Ivanova, though.
"I'm sorry," she tries. "That doesn't mean you're not a woman. It's…"
She's at a loss for words. She tries to put a reassuring hand on Ivanova's shoulder, but she flinches away from it. Neither of them say anything for a while, until Ivanova mumbles something:
"I don't want this."
"What is it you don't want?" Natasha asks.
"I don't want to be here." Ivanova mumbles. "I want to leave."
"But this is the best way to get into the SVR–"
"I don't want to go to the SVR!" Ivanova yells sharply.
"How can you say that? We've been granted an amazing opportunity to serve the Soviet people. We get to be soldiers protecting com–"
"I can't do it. I'm going to fail." Ivanova interrupts her.
She's stopped crying. She's tensed up and is fixing Natasha with a flat stare.
"And then they're going to kill me."
Natasha goes cold and tense in an instant.
"Don't even say things like that." she hisses. "Just…"
She tries to calm down and get the situation back under control.
"You can't think like that," she says. "It's not about skill, it's about willpower. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya–"
"Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya died ." Ivanova says.
Her eyes are wide with fear and her knuckles white.
"The Germans captured her and then they… they beat her with belts, they made her stand in the snow, they ripped her fingernails out, they burned her lips with kerosene–" Ivanova seems almost manic as she repeats every detail of the torture they've been taught at Young Pioneer meetings.
"–they probably violated her too, and then they hanged her and one of the soldiers took a bayonet and cut her breast off. And they make us look at that picture over and over and over again and maybe you see a hero, Natalia, but I just see what's going to happen to me when I'm killed." she says, speaking faster and faster without breathing until she's done.
Natasha could throttle her.
"If you're actually afraid they're going to execute you," she says, her mouth dry, "don't go around saying things like that."
She adjusts her uniform and leaves Ivanova behind.
Natasha hasn't drunk enough water for breakfast, and hours of assault courses under the baking sun has given her a thunderous headache. When she comes to a climbing net she lets her momentum carry her into it, wishing she could just fall asleep in its embrace. Instead, reminds herself she's here for A's and starts climbing. The net sways under the writhing weight of half a dozen cadets, but she forces herself up the rungs, one by one. Once she's rolled herself over the top she reflexively reaches an arm back over the net and grabs an arm, hauling some girl–Olga?–to the top. Once Olga's passed she reaches her hand down for the next girl.
It's Katya, and she flicks Natasha's hand aside.
"I don't need your help, Nat'ka." she spits.
Fine. Be that way, Natasha thinks, and helps the rest of her group over the net before returning to the front.
After lunch the headache is still there and when she's dismissed she makes her way to the physician's office to find someone who's willing to give her some aspirin. Dr. Fedorov insists that cadets should only be given pharmaceuticals in emergencies, but Natasha has learned over the years which junior pharmacists are vulnerable to sob stories, lies, or bribery at a price she's willing to pay. She gets her aspirin and a glass of water, then has to go lie down in the barracks.
Laying in her bed, the minutes drag out. She keeps staring at her wristwatch, watching the minute arm crawl forward. It was too much to hope that the aspirin would work after just five minutes, but that's five minutes she's not getting back: five minutes she could have spent studying.
Ten minutes she's not getting back. The words carved into the bedframe feel like a persistent itch: she has to be category A, or she'll fail, and if she fails, then… She looks at the watch again: eleven minutes she's not getting back. Eleven minutes of studying lost.
Fifteen minutes she's not getting back. By now the aspirin should be taking effect, she still can't concentrate. Natasha buries her head in her pillow and waits for it to pass. Eventually she falls asleep.
When Lt. Lobkovskaya comes by to announce it's time for personal equipment repair, Natasha wakes up tired and tense. She finishes mending the few scratches on her uniforms quickly: she has no other personal equipment, which leaves about fifteen minutes to do other things. She wants to lie down on the floor and get another nap, but she already rested through the afternoon rest: thirty minutes she's not getting back. Thirty minutes lost to carless truancy. She needs to be focused and alert. And there are ways to do that. Hidden in her rolled-up civilian clothes there's a bar of guards chocolate.
Guards chocolate is a rare treat in OKB Krasny. It's strong, not for children, and only handed out during night-time exercises. The veterans say pilots and submarines used it on long-distance missions during the war. Eating it is like downing an entire thermos bottle of black coffee at once. Natasha is about to break off a piece when Ksenija pokes herself in with a needle and yells out.
She pulls Ksenija aside.
"Take this," she says, handing the chocolate over.
"Chocolate? It's not my birth–oh, Kola ." she says, using the name on the label.
Ksenija looks at the bar, and Natasha can see the way she tenses up, her eyes narrowing a little. Just looking at a pack of Kola seems to drain some of the tiredness from her face.
"This is a lot of chocolate." Ksenija whispers.
"I was going to trade it for cigarettes," Natasha admits. "but you need it more."
"I need it more, huh?" Ksenija says, smiling awkwardly.
Natasha envelopes her in a hug and holds her tightly.
"You're one of my best friends."
After a few moments, Ksenija pushes a bit against Natasha, indicating she wants to be let loose. Natasha lets go, and Ksenija pushes the chocolate bar back at her.
"Thank you, but I don't wa–I can't afford it." she says.
Natasha is about to insist: it's a gift–but Ksenija interrupts her.
"I still have some work left on my uniform. See you later."
She bounces over to her spot on the floor, and before Natasha has time to ask Ksenija why she doesn't want guards chocolates, it's time to play football against barrack 505.
At supper, Ksenija is back to her cheerful self, sitting between Katya and Natasha and gossiping about Alonya's latest crush: another soldier.
"Probably gives her cigarettes to sleep with her." Katya whispers.
Ksenija punches her in the shoulder.
"Gross!"
Katya smiles coyly.
"You wouldn't sleep with a guard for a pack of cigarettes?" she asks.
"Never!" Ksenija declares.
"So who would you sleep with for a pack of cigarettes?" Katya says, and pokes her tongue out.
"Oh fuck off!" Ksenija says, not unkindly, and pokes Katya repeatedly in the shoulder.
She wraps her arms around Katya and Natasha's shoulders and hangs on them, almost pulling them off balance.
"I have room in my heart for only one thing," she declares. "The state!"
"And the Soviet people." Katya needles her.
"I have room in my heart for two things!" Ksenija says, "The state and the Soviet people!"
"All at once?" Natasha fires off. "The men and the women?"
Ksenija goes quiet for a second, then looks back up with a warm smile.
"Gross, Natasha! Really gross!"
Ksenija announces she's getting another portion. When she gets back, she looks deep in thought.
"So who'd you want to marry, Natasha?" she asks. "Or sleep with for a pack of cigarettes."
"I mean, I could probably bag a test pilot." Natasha says.
"You're so full of it," Kayta says, giving her a flat stare.
"No, it'd be easy." Natasha explains. "Lena would be trying to chat up some guy so she can get a ride in his MiG–"
"–ride on his joystick, more like it–"
"–and then I'd just snatch him up from her." Natasha finishes.
She turns to Katya:
"Pack of cigarettes. Who'd you sleep with?"
Katya pauses for a moment.
"Yeah, test pilot is about where I'd aim too." she says unenthusiastically, then perks up: "Bet you I could steal Lena's boyfriend before you."
"Would you–no." Ksenija begins.
Natasha and Katya make inquisitive noises at her.
"I was just thinking of something Lena said once. It's not important."
"What are you talking about," says Lena, who's passing by with a portion of soup in her hands.
Ksenija grabs Natasha and turns her to face Lena like she's behind exhibited.
"Natasha here is going to seduce your boyfriend!" she declares. "You better watch out."
"I don't have a boyfriend." Lena says, rolling her eyes.
"That's what makes it extra exciting," Ksenija says.
Lena just shrugs her shoulders and gets back to her spot. The laughter seems to have exhausted Ksenija for now, and Natasha gets a moment to finish her soup, which has gone lukewarm. About ten minutes later, Lieutenant Mikhaylov steps in and there's a shuffle as everyone rises and salutes.
"Starting tomorrow, there will be a new schedule for training subjects," he reads from a piece of paper.
"The schedule will be posted in all barracks by roll call at the latest. Cadets are to prepare for night-time training in the block previously known as 'free time'."
He lifts his arm in a sloppy salute, and Natasha can finally let her arm down.
"As you were, comrades." Mikhaylov says and leaves as quickly as he arrived.
To her right, Natasha can hear soft sobbing from Ksenija.
Another gunshot wakes Natasha from her dreams, but this time it's a real one. She's suddenly wide awake. Some part of her is frantically trying to figure out the direction the shot came from, like she's been taught, but she knows it doesn't really matter. Everyone knows what that sound means. She bites her lip and can hear herself whispering: Thousand-and-one, thousand-and-two, thousand-and…
The alarm sounds. Throughout her life, she and every girl in OKB Krasny have known two alarms: the air raid siren, which no longer sounds, and the escape alarm.
On autopilot, she's already patting the other side of the bed, trying to find Ksenija. She has to be there. She has to.
"Ow, stop it!" Ksenija's voice sounds. "Stop hitting me!"
Natasha breathes out, trying to control herself. Katya, on the other side of the room, is poking her head up. She's fine too. Good. Natasha hauls Ksenija up so Katya can see her. Even though it's dark, she can see Katya relax. She leans over the side of her bunk and checks for the other girls: Olga, Alonya, Samyonova, Zina, Marianna…
"I can't find her," Lena whispers from the bunk below. "I can't find Ivanova."
Suddenly everyone is searching. Natasha and Ksenija climb down to help, though they end up sitting on the edge of the bottom bunk with Lena, trying to calm her down. She's curled up in a ball, and even in the pale moonlight Natasha can tell the blood has drained from the German girl's face.
"I can't go back," she sobs into her knees. "I can't go back."
"We don't know for sure," Ksenija says. "Maybe she just went to the outhouse."
A second shot rings out. It's the same sound, probably from the same rifle. The first shot didn't do the job, and a second was needed to stop Ivanova–don't even think that–from crawling away. Aside from Lena's sobbing, barrack 507 has gone completely quiet. Nobody's moving, while guards' boots beat the gravel in dirt in the direction the shot came from.
"I can't have been in this bunk," Lena whispers. "Please. You have to tell them I'd moved to your bunk. Please. I can't–"
Lena struggles to breathe through her panic. Natasha gives her a reassuring hug and tells her to breathe in and out at a slow pace. Lena clings to Natasha and cries like she does when she's sad about her sister. Natasha tries to comfort her, but every reassurance she could give would be a lie, and Lena would know it. She looks at Ksenija, who makes an awkward, resigned grimace.
After what feels like hours in the dark, there's a knock on the door and they are ordered to form a line and walk out. When Natasha walks through the door she steps into a semi-circle of armed guards with sub-machine guns held ready. In the cluster of girls near the door she drags her sleeve across Lena's face, wiping off as much snot and tears as she can. Ksenija tries to get her to straighten up, to look as surprised and confused as everyone else. They don't dare whisper anything to her.
She spots director Kovalev, who's barking orders at the guards in his pyjamas. He gives one furious look at the girls of barrack 507, then orders them taken to the cells.
At the training ground Natasha's muscles ache in anticipation of morning exercise. She's ready for sergeant Petrova to blow her whistle, but instead she starts listing off names:
"Comrade-cadets Yekaterina Kurznetsova, Natalia Romanova, Radomila Wiśniewska, Lena Neustädt, report to track five."
There's already a handful of other girls at track five. Natasha doesn't know them very well, but she recognises them quickly: they're other cadets she gets taken aside to be tested with. More tests, then? One of the girls, Vera Kuzmila, crosses her arms.
"Oh great, the Pole and the German too." she says.
"What of it, cunt?" Wiśniewska spits back. Lena says nothing.
Katya elbows Natasha lightly.
"If it comes to a fight, a chocolate ration on Polish." she whispers.
"I'm not betting against her." Natasha says and gives Katya a daft look.
"Sensible."
It doesn't come to a fight, as another dozen cadets and an instructor join them. They're told to line up for a run and the whistle is blown. It's unusual for a morning run: every girl here is used to staying at the front of the pack, and jostling for the lead has them run faster than normal. The instructor, Sergeant Voro-something, follows along. After half a lap, she motions for them to go faster. Natasha feels the ache in her muscles make itself known, but she ignores it: finally, a chance to work out.
After the second lap sergeant Vorobeva increased the pace again. The jostling for the lead eases up as some of the girls have to focus on just keeping up. Natasha catches Wiśniewska flashing a grin as she pulls ahead of Kuzmila. Vorobeva comes to a stop once the lap completes, and hoarsely yells for the girls to stop being so slow. The pace the sergeant demands is exhausting, and jolts of pain run up Natasha's legs every time her feet strike the ground. To her left, she can hear Katya hiss with each breath, no doubt feeling the same pain. The pain is the body's natural work-shy tendencies. By focusing on her duties to the Soviet people, she can master it and force it to become dull and distant. It's not easy to do before she's had anything to eat, but she's not going to let Katya pull ahead of her. The words carved into her bed echo in her head: It's category A or nothing . She won't fail. She'll be what the state needs her to be.
It's enough to keep Katya and the Polish girl from passing her. As she runs, the echo turns to ' A or nothing ' and then just ' A ', punctuating the rhythmic beat of shoes on gravel. It's hypnotic, and time seems to lose meaning as she loops around the track again and again. The only thing grounding her is some instinct of her body telling her she's supposed to keep this pace for three kilometres.
Eventually, after what could be an eternity or a fraction of a second, she can feel the end of the three kilometre run coming up. There's the two marks on either side of the track, and Vorobeva off to one side, stopwatch in hand. Natasha passes her, and lets her momentum carry her forward, mustering just enough strength to not fall over. Behind her, she can hear the intense running pace turn to an undisciplined cacophony of kicked gravel.
"Why are you slowing down, girls?" Vorobeva yells. "This isn't a three K run. Keep going!"
But… but… that was the pace for a three kilometre run. She's out of energy. Just moving her legs hurt, and she wants to scream every time her beaten soles hit the ground. What she wants to do is beg Vorobeva to be reasonable. To consider that they haven't eaten yet. Instead, she keeps running, forcing her legs to kick off against the ground. Pain is radiating up her body, and instead of forcing it to become dull and distant, it's as if the pain is forcing her out of her own body. She's the engineman of a runaway train, watching in silence as the fireman shovels nothing into the firebox to keep her body going.
At some point she realises Katya has been running in front of her for a while. It feels almost reassuring. A little later she's in the lead again. Vorobeva blows her whistle and Natasha comes to, back in charge of her own body as it slows to a halt. She's aching from her butt down, and slimy saliva has run from her mouth, down her neck, and started pooling in the neck opening. She tries wiping it off with her sleeve, but it's already soaked through with sweat.
"Well done, girls!" Sergeant Vorobeva says. "And well done, comrade-cadet Romanova. You are exemplary."
Before Natasha can ask what she's done, her body takes charge again: she straightens up and salutes sergeant Vorobeva.
"What did I do?" she asks Katya, on the way to the showers.
Katya is staring daggers.
"You came in first." she says. "Fucking ass-kisser."
At breakfast, Natasha wolfs down her porridge and bread as fast as she can. It makes her stomach hurt, but she forces herself to ignore it so she can focus on a handbook on field telephone repair. Beside her, Ksenija lays with her head on the table and pokes her spoon in her bowl with disinterest.
"I don't feel like eating," she mumbles. "They made us run so much and I just feel sick."
Natasha pats her reassuringly on the back. Katya hugs Ksenija tightly and tries to straighten her up.
"You have to have breakfast." she says. "Otherwise you'll pass out."
"Yeah, I just…" Ksenija swallows a spoonful. "Why are they pushing us so hard?"
"So that we can best serve the peop–" Natasha and Katya say in unison.
"No, I meant, us."
Ksenija waves her spoon around in a circle that doesn't include Natasha, Katya, or Lena.
"You're what they want. Smart, strong, tireless, beautiful… perfect spies. The rest of us can't keep up."
"Don't for a second believe you're not smart!" Katya says.
"Or beautiful. A few more years and you'll seduce western imperialists with the best of them." Natasha adds.
Katya nods in agreement, but Ksenija's blush at the compliment quickly turns to a frown.
"Besides," Natasha says, "the most important thing is being brave and standing up for the Soviet worker. Tatyana Baramzina was a telephone operator when she became Hero of the Soviet Union. That's something you're good at."
Natasha leaves out that Baramzina was also trained as a sniper.
"Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya had only three days of training before her heroic actions."
"Yeah," Katya says, "and Leah Moldagulova was one of the shortest in her battalion, but she was also a Hero of the Soviet Union."
Ksenija just stirs her porridge.
"Yeah, I guess you're right…"
The next morning Natasha is sent off to do exercises with sergeant Vorobeva again. It leaves her light-headed and nauseous. Her blood pumps loudly in her ears, every beat feeling like it's about to crush her skull. She drags herself to the showers. For once the icy water is welcome, extinguishing the fire burning in her muscles. It only lasts long enough to wash the sweat off, but for Natasha it feels like taking a swim in the Volga. Once she's dried off she heads for the changing area. Lost in thought while she puts her uniform on, it takes her a while to notice the sounds of soft sobbing. They seem to come from the back, among the laundry baskets. Natasha's eyes are still adjusting to being inside, but she can see a shape hugged over between the baskets. It's Ivanova, sitting with her gym trousers around her ankles, crying into her knees.
"Did a guard do this?" Natasha asks.
"No." Ivanova sobs. "Go away."
"A doctor?"
"No." Ivanova snaps.
"Then who–" Natasha begins, but Ivanova interrupts her:
"Nobody did anything, Nat'ka. I'm just…"
She turns to face Natasha, then turns away in shame.
"I'm not a woman anymore."
She shifts, and Natasha sees what Ivanova has balled up in her fists: a once-white rag, now grimy and grey with sweat and dead skin, and nothing else. It happens sometimes. For her part, Natasha has always found being a woman a bit of a hassle: It gets in the way of peak performance, and distracts from her studies. That might not be the best way to comfort Ivanova, though.
"I'm sorry," she tries. "That doesn't mean you're not a woman. It's…"
She's at a loss for words. She tries to put a reassuring hand on Ivanova's shoulder, but she flinches away from it. Neither of them say anything for a while, until Ivanova mumbles something:
"I don't want this."
"What is it you don't want?" Natasha asks.
"I don't want to be here." Ivanova mumbles. "I want to leave."
"But this is the best way to get into the SVR–"
"I don't want to go to the SVR!" Ivanova yells sharply.
"How can you say that? We've been granted an amazing opportunity to serve the Soviet people. We get to be soldiers protecting com–"
"I can't do it. I'm going to fail." Ivanova interrupts her.
She's stopped crying. She's tensed up and is fixing Natasha with a flat stare.
"And then they're going to kill me."
Natasha goes cold and tense in an instant.
"Don't even say things like that." she hisses. "Just…"
She tries to calm down and get the situation back under control.
"You can't think like that," she says. "It's not about skill, it's about willpower. Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya–"
"Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya died ." Ivanova says.
Her eyes are wide with fear and her knuckles white.
"The Germans captured her and then they… they beat her with belts, they made her stand in the snow, they ripped her fingernails out, they burned her lips with kerosene–" Ivanova seems almost manic as she repeats every detail of the torture they've been taught at Young Pioneer meetings.
"–they probably violated her too, and then they hanged her and one of the soldiers took a bayonet and cut her breast off. And they make us look at that picture over and over and over again and maybe you see a hero, Natalia, but I just see what's going to happen to me when I'm killed." she says, speaking faster and faster without breathing until she's done.
Natasha could throttle her.
"If you're actually afraid they're going to execute you," she says, her mouth dry, "don't go around saying things like that."
She adjusts her uniform and leaves Ivanova behind.
Natasha hasn't drunk enough water for breakfast, and hours of assault courses under the baking sun has given her a thunderous headache. When she comes to a climbing net she lets her momentum carry her into it, wishing she could just fall asleep in its embrace. Instead, reminds herself she's here for A's and starts climbing. The net sways under the writhing weight of half a dozen cadets, but she forces herself up the rungs, one by one. Once she's rolled herself over the top she reflexively reaches an arm back over the net and grabs an arm, hauling some girl–Olga?–to the top. Once Olga's passed she reaches her hand down for the next girl.
It's Katya, and she flicks Natasha's hand aside.
"I don't need your help, Nat'ka." she spits.
Fine. Be that way, Natasha thinks, and helps the rest of her group over the net before returning to the front.
After lunch the headache is still there and when she's dismissed she makes her way to the physician's office to find someone who's willing to give her some aspirin. Dr. Fedorov insists that cadets should only be given pharmaceuticals in emergencies, but Natasha has learned over the years which junior pharmacists are vulnerable to sob stories, lies, or bribery at a price she's willing to pay. She gets her aspirin and a glass of water, then has to go lie down in the barracks.
Laying in her bed, the minutes drag out. She keeps staring at her wristwatch, watching the minute arm crawl forward. It was too much to hope that the aspirin would work after just five minutes, but that's five minutes she's not getting back: five minutes she could have spent studying.
Ten minutes she's not getting back. The words carved into the bedframe feel like a persistent itch: she has to be category A, or she'll fail, and if she fails, then… She looks at the watch again: eleven minutes she's not getting back. Eleven minutes of studying lost.
Fifteen minutes she's not getting back. By now the aspirin should be taking effect, she still can't concentrate. Natasha buries her head in her pillow and waits for it to pass. Eventually she falls asleep.
When Lt. Lobkovskaya comes by to announce it's time for personal equipment repair, Natasha wakes up tired and tense. She finishes mending the few scratches on her uniforms quickly: she has no other personal equipment, which leaves about fifteen minutes to do other things. She wants to lie down on the floor and get another nap, but she already rested through the afternoon rest: thirty minutes she's not getting back. Thirty minutes lost to carless truancy. She needs to be focused and alert. And there are ways to do that. Hidden in her rolled-up civilian clothes there's a bar of guards chocolate.
Guards chocolate is a rare treat in OKB Krasny. It's strong, not for children, and only handed out during night-time exercises. The veterans say pilots and submarines used it on long-distance missions during the war. Eating it is like downing an entire thermos bottle of black coffee at once. Natasha is about to break off a piece when Ksenija pokes herself in with a needle and yells out.
She pulls Ksenija aside.
"Take this," she says, handing the chocolate over.
"Chocolate? It's not my birth–oh, Kola ." she says, using the name on the label.
Ksenija looks at the bar, and Natasha can see the way she tenses up, her eyes narrowing a little. Just looking at a pack of Kola seems to drain some of the tiredness from her face.
"This is a lot of chocolate." Ksenija whispers.
"I was going to trade it for cigarettes," Natasha admits. "but you need it more."
"I need it more, huh?" Ksenija says, smiling awkwardly.
Natasha envelopes her in a hug and holds her tightly.
"You're one of my best friends."
After a few moments, Ksenija pushes a bit against Natasha, indicating she wants to be let loose. Natasha lets go, and Ksenija pushes the chocolate bar back at her.
"Thank you, but I don't wa–I can't afford it." she says.
Natasha is about to insist: it's a gift–but Ksenija interrupts her.
"I still have some work left on my uniform. See you later."
She bounces over to her spot on the floor, and before Natasha has time to ask Ksenija why she doesn't want guards chocolates, it's time to play football against barrack 505.
At supper, Ksenija is back to her cheerful self, sitting between Katya and Natasha and gossiping about Alonya's latest crush: another soldier.
"Probably gives her cigarettes to sleep with her." Katya whispers.
Ksenija punches her in the shoulder.
"Gross!"
Katya smiles coyly.
"You wouldn't sleep with a guard for a pack of cigarettes?" she asks.
"Never!" Ksenija declares.
"So who would you sleep with for a pack of cigarettes?" Katya says, and pokes her tongue out.
"Oh fuck off!" Ksenija says, not unkindly, and pokes Katya repeatedly in the shoulder.
She wraps her arms around Katya and Natasha's shoulders and hangs on them, almost pulling them off balance.
"I have room in my heart for only one thing," she declares. "The state!"
"And the Soviet people." Katya needles her.
"I have room in my heart for two things!" Ksenija says, "The state and the Soviet people!"
"All at once?" Natasha fires off. "The men and the women?"
Ksenija goes quiet for a second, then looks back up with a warm smile.
"Gross, Natasha! Really gross!"
Ksenija announces she's getting another portion. When she gets back, she looks deep in thought.
"So who'd you want to marry, Natasha?" she asks. "Or sleep with for a pack of cigarettes."
"I mean, I could probably bag a test pilot." Natasha says.
"You're so full of it," Kayta says, giving her a flat stare.
"No, it'd be easy." Natasha explains. "Lena would be trying to chat up some guy so she can get a ride in his MiG–"
"–ride on his joystick, more like it–"
"–and then I'd just snatch him up from her." Natasha finishes.
She turns to Katya:
"Pack of cigarettes. Who'd you sleep with?"
Katya pauses for a moment.
"Yeah, test pilot is about where I'd aim too." she says unenthusiastically, then perks up: "Bet you I could steal Lena's boyfriend before you."
"Would you–no." Ksenija begins.
Natasha and Katya make inquisitive noises at her.
"I was just thinking of something Lena said once. It's not important."
"What are you talking about," says Lena, who's passing by with a portion of soup in her hands.
Ksenija grabs Natasha and turns her to face Lena like she's behind exhibited.
"Natasha here is going to seduce your boyfriend!" she declares. "You better watch out."
"I don't have a boyfriend." Lena says, rolling her eyes.
"That's what makes it extra exciting," Ksenija says.
Lena just shrugs her shoulders and gets back to her spot. The laughter seems to have exhausted Ksenija for now, and Natasha gets a moment to finish her soup, which has gone lukewarm. About ten minutes later, Lieutenant Mikhaylov steps in and there's a shuffle as everyone rises and salutes.
"Starting tomorrow, there will be a new schedule for training subjects," he reads from a piece of paper.
"The schedule will be posted in all barracks by roll call at the latest. Cadets are to prepare for night-time training in the block previously known as 'free time'."
He lifts his arm in a sloppy salute, and Natasha can finally let her arm down.
"As you were, comrades." Mikhaylov says and leaves as quickly as he arrived.
To her right, Natasha can hear soft sobbing from Ksenija.
Another gunshot wakes Natasha from her dreams, but this time it's a real one. She's suddenly wide awake. Some part of her is frantically trying to figure out the direction the shot came from, like she's been taught, but she knows it doesn't really matter. Everyone knows what that sound means. She bites her lip and can hear herself whispering: Thousand-and-one, thousand-and-two, thousand-and…
The alarm sounds. Throughout her life, she and every girl in OKB Krasny have known two alarms: the air raid siren, which no longer sounds, and the escape alarm.
On autopilot, she's already patting the other side of the bed, trying to find Ksenija. She has to be there. She has to.
"Ow, stop it!" Ksenija's voice sounds. "Stop hitting me!"
Natasha breathes out, trying to control herself. Katya, on the other side of the room, is poking her head up. She's fine too. Good. Natasha hauls Ksenija up so Katya can see her. Even though it's dark, she can see Katya relax. She leans over the side of her bunk and checks for the other girls: Olga, Alonya, Samyonova, Zina, Marianna…
"I can't find her," Lena whispers from the bunk below. "I can't find Ivanova."
Suddenly everyone is searching. Natasha and Ksenija climb down to help, though they end up sitting on the edge of the bottom bunk with Lena, trying to calm her down. She's curled up in a ball, and even in the pale moonlight Natasha can tell the blood has drained from the German girl's face.
"I can't go back," she sobs into her knees. "I can't go back."
"We don't know for sure," Ksenija says. "Maybe she just went to the outhouse."
A second shot rings out. It's the same sound, probably from the same rifle. The first shot didn't do the job, and a second was needed to stop Ivanova–don't even think that–from crawling away. Aside from Lena's sobbing, barrack 507 has gone completely quiet. Nobody's moving, while guards' boots beat the gravel in dirt in the direction the shot came from.
"I can't have been in this bunk," Lena whispers. "Please. You have to tell them I'd moved to your bunk. Please. I can't–"
Lena struggles to breathe through her panic. Natasha gives her a reassuring hug and tells her to breathe in and out at a slow pace. Lena clings to Natasha and cries like she does when she's sad about her sister. Natasha tries to comfort her, but every reassurance she could give would be a lie, and Lena would know it. She looks at Ksenija, who makes an awkward, resigned grimace.
After what feels like hours in the dark, there's a knock on the door and they are ordered to form a line and walk out. When Natasha walks through the door she steps into a semi-circle of armed guards with sub-machine guns held ready. In the cluster of girls near the door she drags her sleeve across Lena's face, wiping off as much snot and tears as she can. Ksenija tries to get her to straighten up, to look as surprised and confused as everyone else. They don't dare whisper anything to her.
She spots director Kovalev, who's barking orders at the guards in his pyjamas. He gives one furious look at the girls of barrack 507, then orders them taken to the cells.
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
I needed to find some way to farm more likes out of my extremely niche appeal fanfic.
- Location
- Australia
I am so very glad I started reading this fic. The realism, the characterization... it's beautiful and spot-on. To be honest, this is how I wish they'd treated Natasha's storyline in the MCU. I get why they didn't but I felt they kinda chickened out there. They kind pointed vaguely in that direction but flinched away from really exploring it. This is delving deep into just how horrific things were in Soviet Russia, in all its blatancy and more subtle psychological twists, along with building up that extra layer of Marvel crazy on top.
I'm afraid I don't have any concrit to give you because you've done an amazing job. Please keep it coming.
Don't mind my mindless gushing but thank you for writing this fantastic story!
I'm afraid I don't have any concrit to give you because you've done an amazing job. Please keep it coming.
Don't mind my mindless gushing but thank you for writing this fantastic story!
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
Thanks. Knowing other people appreciate my writing really makes me smile. I have a love of spy thrillers and female-led action movies
1953-6: The Red Room
Eukie
Powered by furious Canadian redheads
She sits under a sharp light in a dark basement room, across from the silhouette of a stone-faced MVD officer, but it's not a dream this time. She recognizes the dark shapes as Sergei Grigorev. It's been a few years since Natasha saw him last, but he always crawls out of the woodwork whenever the camp administration fears an intelligence leak.
"When did you first think about betraying the Soviet Union?" he asks her.
It's the typical way these interrogations start.
"I have never thought about betraying the motherland–" Natasha replies.
"Lies," Grigorev cuts her off sharply "When did you first betray the Soviet Union?"
"I have not–"
"Spare me your lies." Grigorev says. "You're a traitor and more lies will not help you."
The word 'traitor' makes her skin crawl. There is a knot in her stomach and she wants to purge herself of every doubt. Her entire body keeps pushing at her to do as ordered, to vomit up the truth. She needs to be a good soldier and debrief. She needs to be helpful.
She also needs to be a good agent, and good agents do not spill their guts.
"When did you first betray the Soviet Union? We already know of your reactionary tendencies. This will be much easier if you don't make up lies."
He's fishing for a response, hoping to rattle her enough that something falls out. There's some naive part of her that wants to admit to something small, like stealing Dr. Fedorov's cognac, just so Grigorev will get off her back. But it doesn't work that way. Instead, he'll just throw it back at her. All she can really do is tell him the truth until he decides to switch to some other poor girl:
"I'm not a reactionary, comrad–"
Grigorev slams his fist on the table.
"We are not comrades, citizen Romanova."
The word 'citizen' opens up a gnawing void in her chest, pain and despair flowing outwards. She's a comrade, not a citizen: she has to be. She's a good socialist, not a criminal or traitor. With the glare of the lamp in her eyes, she can't see Grigorev's face, but she can tell that he's smelled blood in the water.
"Stop feigning innocence. Your were raised by counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs–"
"I was raised in a state orphanage!" she snaps.
She regrets instantly. Grigorev slams her off her seat, then tells her to get back up. As soon as she's seated, he continues:
"Your parents were counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs and got what they deserved. The state put you in an orphanage and gave you a chance to prove yourself and you have betrayed it. Let me ask you, citizen Romanova, do you want to be a good comrade?"
Sullenly, she nods.
"Then, without any more lies, tell us when you first started cooperating with reactionary elements among the cadets…"
She's not sure how much time has passed when Grigorev has her hauled back to her cell. It must be daytime, because she's not allowed to lie down. It might be morning: she's itching to go running with Wiśniewska and the other category A cadets. She tries to get some exercise, but the cell is too narrow to even run circles in, and she ends up pacing about. After the long, numbing hours with Grigorev it gets blood flowing to her brain again, and her thoughts drift to Ivanova. It's a really bad path to go down, but she can't help herself.
The first shot echoes in her ears, and she thinks about Ivanova's body going limp… except it hadn't. That was the job of the second shot. How long was it between the two? Too long for the first shot to have been a miss. Instead, Ivanova would have laid there, in pain, some animal instinct trying to make her crawl away. Like that escaped lab rat in the Pavlov building, with its neck caught in a trap, tossing and screaming as it lay dying, until one of the guards crushed its skull with his boot. Natasha wipes her tears on her sleeve. Nobody can see her cry here, at least.
Eventually a guard orders her to sleep. Ten minutes later the cell door is flung open and a stone-faced man in uniform drags her back to the interrogation room. She catches a glimpse of Grigorev before the lamp is shone in her eyes: he's clean shaven and showered. Bastard.
He picks up where he left off:
"We already know you have been in contact with traitors, citizen Romanova. You're only making it worse for yourself by withholding details."
"No." she whispers.
Grigorev tells her to speak up.
"No, I haven't." Natasha says, "I haven't spoken to anyone."
"On the day of the escape attempt you were seen communicating in secret with ex-cadet Ivanova." Grigorev says.
It's a lie. There wasn't anyone else in the changing room with them. It's just something he's saying to make her think he already knows anything. To make her think a confession won't make anything worse. Which, of course, it would. But… What if it's true? What if someone saw them and told Grigorev? If she says didn't speak with Ivanova, then Grigorev would know she's lying and he'd never let up.
"We have signed confessions," Grigorev says before she can decide on what to say.
"I didn't speak with Ivanova," she manages.
She just has to keep denying it until he gives up. No matter how much he tries to make it seem like the right thing, she has to be. Grigorev continues the questioning, accusing Natasha of conspiracy against the state. It goes on for hours, the same questions over and over again, until she struggles to stay awake. When Grigorev at last sends her back to her cell she falls asleep the moment she lies down.
The banging on the cell door wakes her up and she drags herself out of the bed. She wonders groggily whether a beating from the guards would be worth ten extra minutes of sleep. Probably not. Without Ksenija next to her, the bed is frightfully cold. A guard makes the rounds with breakfast: a porridge so dry it makes Natasha's stomach hurt. She thinks about the other girls getting their morning exercise in and tries to do some sit-ups, but the floor sucks all the heat out of her and she has to pace around the cell to get her warmth back.
That night the beatings start. When Natasha refuses to admit conspiring with Ivanova, Grigroev hits her in the face with a truncheon. It takes all her strength to not scream, more from fear than the pain. She tries to suppress the pain, but another strike to the brow breaks her concentration.
"Don't think that being the star pupil means you can get away with conspiracy, citizen Romanova." Grigorev says. "There is no favouritism here. We know you are guilty. You will not be permitted to return to service after conspiracy against the state."
It's a lie. It has to be. If they actually believed she was guilty they'd beat her a lot harder than this. It hurts, but it's not debilitating. She can still return to duty. They need her. She can still serve the Soviet people. She can still be a category A graduate. It's a lie.
"When did you first begin conspiring with former cadet Ivanova, citizen?"
The word 'citizen' still makes her skin crawl.
"I never conspi–"
He strikes her again.
Her brow is numb and swollen when Grigorev is done with her for the night. To drive home that she's in trouble, the guards throw her in one of the punishment cells. It's narrower and colder than the previous one, somehow. The guards shove her inside and order her to sleep. She stifles a bitter laugh. Where the bed should be there's just three raised planks, with gaps between them wider than her outstretched hand. There's a trick to sleeping on them. As she lies down she tries to lie with her body at an angle, to distribute her weight. The boards cut into her back, but it seems like her last growth spurt has made it a little easier to lie across all three of them. It's uncomfortable enough without the thundering pain of Grigorev's beating.
She doesn't get much sleep. She can't stop thinking about Ksenija. Is Grigorev beating her too? Ksenija is kind and sensitive. Grigorev would bring her to tears. The thought makes Natasha feel like she's failed. Ksenija is her friend. She should protect her and keep her safe.
Easier said than done, from a prison cell.
The guards order her out of her cell. Mindlessly her legs take a turn towards the interrogation rooms, but the guards shove her on. Where are they taking her? Paint on the wall reads 'boiler room'. Her heart skips a beat: are the rumours actually true, that failed cadets end up in the furnace? Are they really going to kill her now, after all the work she's put in for them? She tenses up and feels a scream well up in her stomach, but one of the guards points into a steam tunnel.
"Go through the tunnel. Do not stop until you are on the other side."
The breath she'd been holding in comes out as a nervous laughter. The other side of the narrow tunnel holds another boiler room and another guard. He escorts her out and into a familiar corridor of grey concrete and polished rock: the basement of the Pavlov building. The Pavlov building basement has never put her at east, but there's a cold comfort in it: she can't imagine the scientists putting up with blood splatter on their walls.
The guard takes her to the red room. Dr Fedorov's there, as usual, but so is Colonel Kovalev, Grigorev, and a tall and skinny woman with icy eyes and her hair pulled back severely. Dr Kudrin, from the tag on her lab coat.
"You're sure she is the one?" Kovalev asks.
He looks like he hasn't slept in days.
"She is your top student." Dr Kudrin says.
Kovalev fixes Natasha with an intense, searching glare.
"I hope for both our sakes that you haven't done anything really stupid, cadet." he says.
"No, comrade colonel." she replies.
He orders her to sit. Fedorov guides her to the cushioned chair he makes the cadets sit in during tests. Fedorov stands ready with enough cables to wire her up like a telephone exchange. Tests now–why?
"What's this all about, comrade colonel?" she dares to ask.
They seem to ignore her. Fedorov is busy connecting her to his polygraph. Kudrin rummages through a cabinet for a variety of little vials. Kovalev paces frantically about the room. Except for Grigorev, they're all tense.
"Will this work?" Kovalev asks.
"Of course." says Dr Kudrin.
"Maybe." says Dr Fedorov.
"It will work." Dr Kudrin says. "The theory is sound."
Kovalev doesn't look convinced, but turns his attention back to Natasha. Dr Kudrin prepares a syringe of something from one of the vials and orders Natasha to present her arm. The thick needle hurts, but before she can distance herself from the pain the normal way, she drifts into unconsciousness.
A strong smell tears at her nose. She jolts back into consciousness. She's still in the red room. Dr Kudrin stands over her with a bottle of smelling salts. Dr Fedorov is checking his watch and making notes. Something's not entirely right. Everything seems too sharp, like she's looking through uncalibrated binoculars. It's like having a panic attack. She needs something to focus on, something to do, so she can relax again.
"Name." Kudrin orders.
An order. She can do those.
"Natalia Alianovna Romanova." The words flow out of her mouth.
"Residence?"
"I live in barracks 507 at OKB Krasnya, in Gorky oblast." she says.
Kudrin checks her clipboard and shoots Dr Fedorov a small glare.
"Did you steal a bottle of cognac from Dr Fedorov last year?" Kudrin asks.
"Yes." Natasha answers.
Wait. That's not–
"Who else helped steal the bottle?"
"Ksenija Ilushova and Yekaterina Kurznetsova." she says, the words flowing from her mouth as easily as she gave her name.
No! Why is she saying this? That was a secret.
"She's all yours, colonel." Kudrin says, satisfied.
Kovalev leans over her.
"Do you recognise who I am?" he asks.
"You're colonel Koldan Grigorovich Kovalev, comrade colonel. You're my superior officer."
"Good." he says. "Cadet Romanova, did you help cadet Ivanova escape from this facility?"
"No, comrade colonel."
"Did anyone else help cadet Ivanova escape?" he asks.
"I… don't know. Not to my knowledge. Comrade colonel."
Is that the answer he wants? She has to give him the answer he wants.
"Good. Were you aware that cadet Ivanova planned to escape?"
"No, comrade colonel."
Kovalev seems to relax a bit. He wipes his brow and sits back.
"Try a more open-ended question," Fedorov suggests.
Kovalev thinks for a bit.
"Why did cadet Ivanova try to escape?"
"Ivanova was afraid." Natasha says. "She said she was afraid she would be killed for failing to meet the standards. She didn't want to go to the SVR, comrade colonel."
The words pour out of her, despite the protests in the back of her mind. She's being useful this way, but this is incriminating: now Kovalev knows she talked with Ivanova! Kovalev sits back and thinks about this, and Natasha's mind fills up with ways to be helpful:
"I think the trigger was when the schedule replaced free time with more exercises. Ivanova had already stopped having her period because she was exercising so mu–"
"Stop!" Kovalev says, looking disgusted. "That's… just stop."
Stopping is she can do. It's very easy to stop. Her overly sharp focus all commits to not saying anything more.
Kovalev massages his brow.
"Are we all convinced then?" he says, looking at nobody in particular. "That cadet Ivanova planned her escape alone and on an impulse. That there's no conspiracy of children here?"
"You ordered this investigation, comrade colonel." Grigorev says.
"And it has taken too long!" Kovalev shouts. "If there are no spies there are no spies."
"I haven't seen any spies," Natasha adds, and Kovalev scowls at her.
"Can you close your investigation now?" he asks Grigorev.
"There's the matter of the contraband."
"Newspaper clippings and alcohol aren't proof of a conspiracy, they're normal things to find in a boarding school. Can we end this now?"
"Just one more loose end," Grigorev says, and turns to Natasha.
"Romanova, have you ever left this facility recently?" he asks. "Outside of manoeuvre training."
"Yes, comrade captain," she says "I left this facility in early March, with colonel Kovalev."
Grigorev turns to look at Kovalev.
"That's…" Kovalev says. "It was a reward for exemplary marks in her tests. She wanted to go stargazing away from the lights of the camp. I figured she deserved it. Tell him that's what you did, cadet Natasha."
"We went stargazing," she lies, like Kovalev wants her to.
Kudzin snorts.
"That's not in my records, comrade colonel," Grigorev notes.
"It wouldn't be. Are we satisfied now? Can I return the cadets to service, or would you like to explain to comrade Beria why half the agents we promised him are in prison?"
Grigorev doesn't look satisfied, but he nods in agreement, slowly.
Natasha has to return to her cell, but it doesn't feel quite so cold now that she knows Kovalev plans to release her and her comrades. A guard comes by with her uniform and tells her to change. She can't help but press the uniform against her skin: the khaki tunic and the blue skirt feel wonderful against her cheeks. She changes out of her ratty nightwear. If they're giving back her uniform they must be letting her out soon. She can't wait to get back to training. She's lost track of how many days she's been away, but it's too many. A guard escorts her outside, into the warm midday sun.
As she steps out, she can hear Olga call her name. Other cadets from her barrack are milling around the courtyard and cheer when they see her. They drag her aside and pass her around for hugs.
"I'm so glad you're safe!"
"I'm so glad you're safe!"
Natasha tries to find Ksenija and Katya in the crowd, but they don't seem to be there. Someone calls out "Lena" and it's cause for celebration: like Natasha, Lena gets shoved around until she's gotten a hug from everyone. When it's Natasha's turn she can see the bruises on Lena's face, and the haunted look in her eyes.
"They said they were going to send me back." she whispers, and sobs into Natasha's shoulder.
Eventually it's Ksenija's turn. Natasha storms over to hug her on the prison steps, but she's forced to let the other girls hug her too. When Ksenija is done, Natasha grabs her hand. Ksenija is as bright as always, with only a few scuff marks on her face. Natasha is about to say how she's going to try harder to keep Ksenija safe from now on, but she's interrupted by a shout of "Katya!". The crowd quickly surrounds her, and Natasha and Ksenija have to elbow their way to the front to get a proper look at her: bruised, one eye swollen half shut, with a triumphant, smug look on her face that says 'I won'.
Natasha and Ksenija get their turn, and Katya is swallowed up in a double hug.
"I'm sorry I couldn't do anything for you," Katya says to Ksenija.
"It's fine," Ksenija brushes off.
"I'm sorry too," Natasha adds.
"Come on, I'm not…" Ksenija protests.
Natasha wraps her arms around Ksenija again.
"We should have tried harder to protect you," Natasha adds.
Ksenija struggles in their embrace. Suddenly she slips out. There's an angry look on her face.
"I'm fine," she says. "I don't need your help. You're the ones that got beat up! You two can be such fucking… man-lesbians sometimes."
Natasha freezes. Still half in her arms, Katya is frozen too. Ksenija looks horrified for a moment: had she really said that? Then the anger returns to her face, and she storms off.
"When did you first think about betraying the Soviet Union?" he asks her.
It's the typical way these interrogations start.
"I have never thought about betraying the motherland–" Natasha replies.
"Lies," Grigorev cuts her off sharply "When did you first betray the Soviet Union?"
"I have not–"
"Spare me your lies." Grigorev says. "You're a traitor and more lies will not help you."
The word 'traitor' makes her skin crawl. There is a knot in her stomach and she wants to purge herself of every doubt. Her entire body keeps pushing at her to do as ordered, to vomit up the truth. She needs to be a good soldier and debrief. She needs to be helpful.
She also needs to be a good agent, and good agents do not spill their guts.
"When did you first betray the Soviet Union? We already know of your reactionary tendencies. This will be much easier if you don't make up lies."
He's fishing for a response, hoping to rattle her enough that something falls out. There's some naive part of her that wants to admit to something small, like stealing Dr. Fedorov's cognac, just so Grigorev will get off her back. But it doesn't work that way. Instead, he'll just throw it back at her. All she can really do is tell him the truth until he decides to switch to some other poor girl:
"I'm not a reactionary, comrad–"
Grigorev slams his fist on the table.
"We are not comrades, citizen Romanova."
The word 'citizen' opens up a gnawing void in her chest, pain and despair flowing outwards. She's a comrade, not a citizen: she has to be. She's a good socialist, not a criminal or traitor. With the glare of the lamp in her eyes, she can't see Grigorev's face, but she can tell that he's smelled blood in the water.
"Stop feigning innocence. Your were raised by counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs–"
"I was raised in a state orphanage!" she snaps.
She regrets instantly. Grigorev slams her off her seat, then tells her to get back up. As soon as she's seated, he continues:
"Your parents were counter-revolutionaries and saboteurs and got what they deserved. The state put you in an orphanage and gave you a chance to prove yourself and you have betrayed it. Let me ask you, citizen Romanova, do you want to be a good comrade?"
Sullenly, she nods.
"Then, without any more lies, tell us when you first started cooperating with reactionary elements among the cadets…"
She's not sure how much time has passed when Grigorev has her hauled back to her cell. It must be daytime, because she's not allowed to lie down. It might be morning: she's itching to go running with Wiśniewska and the other category A cadets. She tries to get some exercise, but the cell is too narrow to even run circles in, and she ends up pacing about. After the long, numbing hours with Grigorev it gets blood flowing to her brain again, and her thoughts drift to Ivanova. It's a really bad path to go down, but she can't help herself.
The first shot echoes in her ears, and she thinks about Ivanova's body going limp… except it hadn't. That was the job of the second shot. How long was it between the two? Too long for the first shot to have been a miss. Instead, Ivanova would have laid there, in pain, some animal instinct trying to make her crawl away. Like that escaped lab rat in the Pavlov building, with its neck caught in a trap, tossing and screaming as it lay dying, until one of the guards crushed its skull with his boot. Natasha wipes her tears on her sleeve. Nobody can see her cry here, at least.
Eventually a guard orders her to sleep. Ten minutes later the cell door is flung open and a stone-faced man in uniform drags her back to the interrogation room. She catches a glimpse of Grigorev before the lamp is shone in her eyes: he's clean shaven and showered. Bastard.
He picks up where he left off:
"We already know you have been in contact with traitors, citizen Romanova. You're only making it worse for yourself by withholding details."
"No." she whispers.
Grigorev tells her to speak up.
"No, I haven't." Natasha says, "I haven't spoken to anyone."
"On the day of the escape attempt you were seen communicating in secret with ex-cadet Ivanova." Grigorev says.
It's a lie. There wasn't anyone else in the changing room with them. It's just something he's saying to make her think he already knows anything. To make her think a confession won't make anything worse. Which, of course, it would. But… What if it's true? What if someone saw them and told Grigorev? If she says didn't speak with Ivanova, then Grigorev would know she's lying and he'd never let up.
"We have signed confessions," Grigorev says before she can decide on what to say.
"I didn't speak with Ivanova," she manages.
She just has to keep denying it until he gives up. No matter how much he tries to make it seem like the right thing, she has to be. Grigorev continues the questioning, accusing Natasha of conspiracy against the state. It goes on for hours, the same questions over and over again, until she struggles to stay awake. When Grigorev at last sends her back to her cell she falls asleep the moment she lies down.
The banging on the cell door wakes her up and she drags herself out of the bed. She wonders groggily whether a beating from the guards would be worth ten extra minutes of sleep. Probably not. Without Ksenija next to her, the bed is frightfully cold. A guard makes the rounds with breakfast: a porridge so dry it makes Natasha's stomach hurt. She thinks about the other girls getting their morning exercise in and tries to do some sit-ups, but the floor sucks all the heat out of her and she has to pace around the cell to get her warmth back.
That night the beatings start. When Natasha refuses to admit conspiring with Ivanova, Grigroev hits her in the face with a truncheon. It takes all her strength to not scream, more from fear than the pain. She tries to suppress the pain, but another strike to the brow breaks her concentration.
"Don't think that being the star pupil means you can get away with conspiracy, citizen Romanova." Grigorev says. "There is no favouritism here. We know you are guilty. You will not be permitted to return to service after conspiracy against the state."
It's a lie. It has to be. If they actually believed she was guilty they'd beat her a lot harder than this. It hurts, but it's not debilitating. She can still return to duty. They need her. She can still serve the Soviet people. She can still be a category A graduate. It's a lie.
"When did you first begin conspiring with former cadet Ivanova, citizen?"
The word 'citizen' still makes her skin crawl.
"I never conspi–"
He strikes her again.
Her brow is numb and swollen when Grigorev is done with her for the night. To drive home that she's in trouble, the guards throw her in one of the punishment cells. It's narrower and colder than the previous one, somehow. The guards shove her inside and order her to sleep. She stifles a bitter laugh. Where the bed should be there's just three raised planks, with gaps between them wider than her outstretched hand. There's a trick to sleeping on them. As she lies down she tries to lie with her body at an angle, to distribute her weight. The boards cut into her back, but it seems like her last growth spurt has made it a little easier to lie across all three of them. It's uncomfortable enough without the thundering pain of Grigorev's beating.
She doesn't get much sleep. She can't stop thinking about Ksenija. Is Grigorev beating her too? Ksenija is kind and sensitive. Grigorev would bring her to tears. The thought makes Natasha feel like she's failed. Ksenija is her friend. She should protect her and keep her safe.
Easier said than done, from a prison cell.
The guards order her out of her cell. Mindlessly her legs take a turn towards the interrogation rooms, but the guards shove her on. Where are they taking her? Paint on the wall reads 'boiler room'. Her heart skips a beat: are the rumours actually true, that failed cadets end up in the furnace? Are they really going to kill her now, after all the work she's put in for them? She tenses up and feels a scream well up in her stomach, but one of the guards points into a steam tunnel.
"Go through the tunnel. Do not stop until you are on the other side."
The breath she'd been holding in comes out as a nervous laughter. The other side of the narrow tunnel holds another boiler room and another guard. He escorts her out and into a familiar corridor of grey concrete and polished rock: the basement of the Pavlov building. The Pavlov building basement has never put her at east, but there's a cold comfort in it: she can't imagine the scientists putting up with blood splatter on their walls.
The guard takes her to the red room. Dr Fedorov's there, as usual, but so is Colonel Kovalev, Grigorev, and a tall and skinny woman with icy eyes and her hair pulled back severely. Dr Kudrin, from the tag on her lab coat.
"You're sure she is the one?" Kovalev asks.
He looks like he hasn't slept in days.
"She is your top student." Dr Kudrin says.
Kovalev fixes Natasha with an intense, searching glare.
"I hope for both our sakes that you haven't done anything really stupid, cadet." he says.
"No, comrade colonel." she replies.
He orders her to sit. Fedorov guides her to the cushioned chair he makes the cadets sit in during tests. Fedorov stands ready with enough cables to wire her up like a telephone exchange. Tests now–why?
"What's this all about, comrade colonel?" she dares to ask.
They seem to ignore her. Fedorov is busy connecting her to his polygraph. Kudrin rummages through a cabinet for a variety of little vials. Kovalev paces frantically about the room. Except for Grigorev, they're all tense.
"Will this work?" Kovalev asks.
"Of course." says Dr Kudrin.
"Maybe." says Dr Fedorov.
"It will work." Dr Kudrin says. "The theory is sound."
Kovalev doesn't look convinced, but turns his attention back to Natasha. Dr Kudrin prepares a syringe of something from one of the vials and orders Natasha to present her arm. The thick needle hurts, but before she can distance herself from the pain the normal way, she drifts into unconsciousness.
A strong smell tears at her nose. She jolts back into consciousness. She's still in the red room. Dr Kudrin stands over her with a bottle of smelling salts. Dr Fedorov is checking his watch and making notes. Something's not entirely right. Everything seems too sharp, like she's looking through uncalibrated binoculars. It's like having a panic attack. She needs something to focus on, something to do, so she can relax again.
"Name." Kudrin orders.
An order. She can do those.
"Natalia Alianovna Romanova." The words flow out of her mouth.
"Residence?"
"I live in barracks 507 at OKB Krasnya, in Gorky oblast." she says.
Kudrin checks her clipboard and shoots Dr Fedorov a small glare.
"Did you steal a bottle of cognac from Dr Fedorov last year?" Kudrin asks.
"Yes." Natasha answers.
Wait. That's not–
"Who else helped steal the bottle?"
"Ksenija Ilushova and Yekaterina Kurznetsova." she says, the words flowing from her mouth as easily as she gave her name.
No! Why is she saying this? That was a secret.
"She's all yours, colonel." Kudrin says, satisfied.
Kovalev leans over her.
"Do you recognise who I am?" he asks.
"You're colonel Koldan Grigorovich Kovalev, comrade colonel. You're my superior officer."
"Good." he says. "Cadet Romanova, did you help cadet Ivanova escape from this facility?"
"No, comrade colonel."
"Did anyone else help cadet Ivanova escape?" he asks.
"I… don't know. Not to my knowledge. Comrade colonel."
Is that the answer he wants? She has to give him the answer he wants.
"Good. Were you aware that cadet Ivanova planned to escape?"
"No, comrade colonel."
Kovalev seems to relax a bit. He wipes his brow and sits back.
"Try a more open-ended question," Fedorov suggests.
Kovalev thinks for a bit.
"Why did cadet Ivanova try to escape?"
"Ivanova was afraid." Natasha says. "She said she was afraid she would be killed for failing to meet the standards. She didn't want to go to the SVR, comrade colonel."
The words pour out of her, despite the protests in the back of her mind. She's being useful this way, but this is incriminating: now Kovalev knows she talked with Ivanova! Kovalev sits back and thinks about this, and Natasha's mind fills up with ways to be helpful:
"I think the trigger was when the schedule replaced free time with more exercises. Ivanova had already stopped having her period because she was exercising so mu–"
"Stop!" Kovalev says, looking disgusted. "That's… just stop."
Stopping is she can do. It's very easy to stop. Her overly sharp focus all commits to not saying anything more.
Kovalev massages his brow.
"Are we all convinced then?" he says, looking at nobody in particular. "That cadet Ivanova planned her escape alone and on an impulse. That there's no conspiracy of children here?"
"You ordered this investigation, comrade colonel." Grigorev says.
"And it has taken too long!" Kovalev shouts. "If there are no spies there are no spies."
"I haven't seen any spies," Natasha adds, and Kovalev scowls at her.
"Can you close your investigation now?" he asks Grigorev.
"There's the matter of the contraband."
"Newspaper clippings and alcohol aren't proof of a conspiracy, they're normal things to find in a boarding school. Can we end this now?"
"Just one more loose end," Grigorev says, and turns to Natasha.
"Romanova, have you ever left this facility recently?" he asks. "Outside of manoeuvre training."
"Yes, comrade captain," she says "I left this facility in early March, with colonel Kovalev."
Grigorev turns to look at Kovalev.
"That's…" Kovalev says. "It was a reward for exemplary marks in her tests. She wanted to go stargazing away from the lights of the camp. I figured she deserved it. Tell him that's what you did, cadet Natasha."
"We went stargazing," she lies, like Kovalev wants her to.
Kudzin snorts.
"That's not in my records, comrade colonel," Grigorev notes.
"It wouldn't be. Are we satisfied now? Can I return the cadets to service, or would you like to explain to comrade Beria why half the agents we promised him are in prison?"
Grigorev doesn't look satisfied, but he nods in agreement, slowly.
Natasha has to return to her cell, but it doesn't feel quite so cold now that she knows Kovalev plans to release her and her comrades. A guard comes by with her uniform and tells her to change. She can't help but press the uniform against her skin: the khaki tunic and the blue skirt feel wonderful against her cheeks. She changes out of her ratty nightwear. If they're giving back her uniform they must be letting her out soon. She can't wait to get back to training. She's lost track of how many days she's been away, but it's too many. A guard escorts her outside, into the warm midday sun.
As she steps out, she can hear Olga call her name. Other cadets from her barrack are milling around the courtyard and cheer when they see her. They drag her aside and pass her around for hugs.
"I'm so glad you're safe!"
"I'm so glad you're safe!"
Natasha tries to find Ksenija and Katya in the crowd, but they don't seem to be there. Someone calls out "Lena" and it's cause for celebration: like Natasha, Lena gets shoved around until she's gotten a hug from everyone. When it's Natasha's turn she can see the bruises on Lena's face, and the haunted look in her eyes.
"They said they were going to send me back." she whispers, and sobs into Natasha's shoulder.
Eventually it's Ksenija's turn. Natasha storms over to hug her on the prison steps, but she's forced to let the other girls hug her too. When Ksenija is done, Natasha grabs her hand. Ksenija is as bright as always, with only a few scuff marks on her face. Natasha is about to say how she's going to try harder to keep Ksenija safe from now on, but she's interrupted by a shout of "Katya!". The crowd quickly surrounds her, and Natasha and Ksenija have to elbow their way to the front to get a proper look at her: bruised, one eye swollen half shut, with a triumphant, smug look on her face that says 'I won'.
Natasha and Ksenija get their turn, and Katya is swallowed up in a double hug.
"I'm sorry I couldn't do anything for you," Katya says to Ksenija.
"It's fine," Ksenija brushes off.
"I'm sorry too," Natasha adds.
"Come on, I'm not…" Ksenija protests.
Natasha wraps her arms around Ksenija again.
"We should have tried harder to protect you," Natasha adds.
Ksenija struggles in their embrace. Suddenly she slips out. There's an angry look on her face.
"I'm fine," she says. "I don't need your help. You're the ones that got beat up! You two can be such fucking… man-lesbians sometimes."
Natasha freezes. Still half in her arms, Katya is frozen too. Ksenija looks horrified for a moment: had she really said that? Then the anger returns to her face, and she storms off.