Kursed (9 page)

Safe. Unharmed. Unescorted by the Gestapo. He's returned.

I open my eyes and sit up. “You're right. You make it safely back to our rendezvous point.”

His grin cracks open. “See, what did I tell you? It's safer this way. Olga, you, Nina, and
Herr Doktor
can wait for me at the café next door to the Ministry. If luck's favoring us today, it won't take long.”

Olga scouts out the café while Andrei buttons up his jacket and watches the checkpoint outside the Ministry office building. Doctor Stokowski and I wait for Olga's all-clear sign on the street corner; no one pays any mind to his comically ill-fitting suit, billowed around his shriveled-up frame like a shroud. “I don't know how I can repay you for your kindness,” he says, keeping his voice low so his Polish-accented German doesn't carry. “It's more than I deserve, after all I've done.”

“We've all done terrible things to survive. Wouldn't be here if we hadn't.” I shake my head. “I suppose what matters now is finding a chance to make right all the wrongs my work has done.”

“And what did you set wrong?” Andrei asks.

I try to shrug it off, but regret is weighing me down.
Don't look back, Nina,
I tell myself, but I see it all so clearly now—the warning signs in the future I ignored when I joined the Party, the promises to myself I sacrificed to secure more research funding, knowing full well that the psychic powers I studied could be used to condemn those guilty of nothing more than a single dissenting thought. I've given legitimacy to men like Rostov with my research. Rather than painting him as a kook or freak, I've affirmed people like him as worthwhile tools in the State's unending quest for control.

“Everything,” I say.

Olga appears in the café doorway and jerks her chin—all clear. Doctor Stokowski claps me on the shoulder—at first I think he's trying to comfort me, but then all of his insubstantial weight falls on me, and I realize he needs the support. I take his arm and help him up the stairs and into the café.

“Nina, wait.” Andrei beckons me toward him, near the mouth of an alley that runs alongside the café. “Let me show you something. Just in case.”

Olga nods at me and holds her arm out to the doctor. “Come on, let's get a stiff drink,” she tells him. I head back down the stairs and join Andrei just inside the brick alley. In the distance, boots strike the cobblestones in perfect, machinelike rhythm—Hitler Youth or Gestapo or Berlin Defense Group on the march. I step closer toward him. My future is braided together with his—that much, I'm sure of now. The many faces of Andrei—those, I want to learn. A future in which I place my hand against his cheek, in which I feel a rush of warmth spreading through me. That, I'm willing to explore.

But we're not out of danger yet. I let my hand fall away.

Andrei removes his officer's hat and turns it around in his hands, like a wheel. “Listen, Nina … I'm afraid I wasn't completely honest with you earlier. And I want to set it right.”

My spine stiffens, guard raised. Does he mean about manipulating my mind? I take a deep breath and school my expression to one of calm. “I think we've all omitted some harsher truths, of late.”

“Maybe so. But in case anything happens to me…” He winces, eyes screwing shut behind those wiry glasses. “I want someone to know the truth. I want you to know.”

Distant memories echo under my skin. Don't look back, I don't want to look back. “Andrei … You'll be fine. I saw you—I saw you coming back. No one's going to hurt you.”

He swallows and turns his face from mine. “Please, Nina. Just in case.” He turns back toward me—and this time, the face of Andrei I'm seeing is, I think, the purest, most distilled form—scared and soft and unprepared, with just enough steel behind it to carry on anyway. “The first time I realized my power extended beyond mere viewing … was when they sent my family away.”

The humid air turns icy against my skin.

“I didn't know what I was doing. I just wanted to bring them bck, to make someone pay for what had been done. I went to the local Party office in the village where they used to live. I screamed at the man on duty, completely lost control … and before I even knew what I was doing, I was prying thoughts from his head. Erasing them. I wanted him to feel what I felt, and suddenly, I could. I could take everything from him. And even once I realized what I'd done … I had to erase myself from his mind, too.”

I touch his cheek again, with the back of my hand this time. It comes away damp. “So you haven't tried to use that part of your ability since then?” I ask.

He shakes his head. “No. This is a gift, not a curse. It can be used that way, sure, but it doesn't have to be. I knew then what I could become if I didn't learn to control it, if I let it control me, like it did that day. I want to use it to protect people, to save them. Not to make them more vulnerable to men like Rostov.”

“Andrei.” I tilt my head. Inside me, a hairline fracture is splitting through my heart—a wedge driven in my pity, by conferred anger and shame. I ache for him, I feel for him, I'm angry for him. “You did what you had to do to survive.”

“Well, I want to do better. And I know you do, too.” He reaches up and laces his fingers through mine, tentative at first, but they fit together so seamlessly. “You're a good woman, Antonina. Whatever it is you feel you must do to set right the wrongs you've allowed, I know you have the strength for it. I want to be strong, too.”

I'm not. And I know I'm not. But I want to be. For him—and for me.

I cup my other hand to his cheek and press my lips to his. He tastes of fire, sparking and hissing, answering the flames that burn inside me. A lifetime of kisses crackle as his mouth eases open, as our kiss deepens. I see us embracing on a bridge; in a snowy garden path. His hair tangling in mine and his hand brushing the small of my back as I work, tally, research. A lifetime of passion. I want it, now, more than ever. To surrender to this feeling. To forge ahead—together.

When we part, his forehead rests against mine as we gasp for the same breath. Andrei laughs, low, to himself, and slowly tilts his head back.

“Well, now you've given me extra incentive to succeed,” he says.

I roll my eyes at him and kiss him again.

He links his hand in mine. “Come on. Let's go set things right.”

Andrei tugs his hat back into place and I smooth my blouse. One fleeting glance back toward me—it lifts my stomach up into my throat—then he heads for the Reichstag administrative building.

Olga and Doctor Stokowski glance up, barely, when I enter the café but make no comment. We fetch three waters from the bar. Nothing else is available right now except for moonshine, the bartender tells us; he was promised fresh lager from up north today, but after the latest bombing runs, he doubts it'll appear. “If you want to buy something useful, might as well get yourself some coffins.” That gets a big laugh, though it's the well-trod kind of laugh, like he makes this joke often. Olga thanks him for the advice and we burrow into a booth in the café's far corner.

“LSR,” Olga says, pointing to a sign with those letters that points toward the basement doorway. “Air raid shelter—
Luftschutzraum.”

“Or ‘learn to speak Russian,'” Stokowski says. “That's what the SS officers started calling it of late.”

“Might come in handy.” I sip my water, but nothing loosens the knot in my throat. People come and go in the café in search of a stiff drink—Hitler Youths in their shabby-looking costumes, forced smiles on their faces; office clerks; mothers who cradle portraits of their slain soldier sons, the portraits always looking closer to schoolboy mementos than army snapshots. One man, in a surprisingly well-kempt fedora, keeps glancing toward our table as he nurses a dirty glass of homebrewed grain alcohol, but he makes no move toward us.

“Problem?” Olga asks. She's propped one boot against the table and leaned her chair back until it rests on the wall; her cigarette has long since burned to the filter, but she keeps it clenched in her lips.

“Not sure yet.”

I close my eyes and try to hunt for a vision of Andrei. I can see his face—a relief, to be sure—but it's like watching him through a filthy windowpane. The grime prickles and stings, getting under my skin like a badly tuned radio. The vision fades with no further clues.

The minutes drag on. Customers come and go; a pair of men come in to peddle some moonshine of their own. The fedoraed man remains as the café starts to empty.

“Don't do that,” I tell Olga in German, when she starts humming “The Internationale” in low tones.

“Do wha—oh.” She scowls. “Sorry, didn't even realize I was. Damn catchy tune, isn't it?”

I can't argue. The marching number winds itself tight around my mind and refuses to let go. Even the
Firebird
Suite
is no match for that. “Be that as it may, a communist marching tune probably isn't high on the Fuhrer's list of approved songs.”

Antonina.

I sit up straight, as Andrei's voice calls to me inside my head.

Antonina. Can you hear me? I'm in the alley behind the café. I'm not sure if this will work, I've never tried it before …

No, you're fine. I mean, yes, I can hear you
—

But he's not like Rostov; he hasn't punctured the musical shield around my thoughts. He's just tapping at the edge of my mind. Slowly, like peeling off rain-soaked clothes, I let my shield fall until I think it's faint enough for Andrei to hear me.
I can hear you. What's going on?

Andrei's thoughts unleash, all in one hasty gush.
Bozhe moi, good. Listen, I've got information on the American. But it's not what we think
—
he's not just sweet-talking the Nazis to come over to the American side. He's dangerous, Nina. He threatens them. He does things
—

What kind of things?
I ask, pulse racing.
Who is he?

Andrei hesitates—I can imagine his face already, going sallow, jaw tightening.
I think he is like us.

Another psychic. But for the Americans. It was possible, certainly; nothing in my research indicated the genes responsible were bound to any one ethnicity or strain. But if the Americans already know about people like us, if they are capable of doing what we can do—
How can you be sure?

This time I can hear the smile in Andrei's tone.
Because he doesn't know our shielding trick. I can read his thoughts.

Wait
—
you're reading them right now?
I ask.
Where is he?

In the café. And—he's heading right toward you.

I twist around in my chair, heart knocking against my ribs like a live grenade. The man in the fedora. He wears an eerie smile on his lips—like he has a secret he can't wait to share—as he approaches our table. Olga's chair legs clunk back against the floor and Doctor Stokowski raises his weary head from the table's top.

“Guten Tag, Dammen und Herr,”
the man says, plucking his hat off his head and dropping into an over exaggerated bow. “Or should I call you comrades?”

Stay calm,
Andrei says inside my head.
Engage him. Win him over. I'll keep watch
—
there are guards over here,
I'm trying to reach you
—

“Call us whatever you like,” I reply in German, panic snipping off the sharp edges of my consonants. “I'm sure you're as tired as we are of following other people's rules.”

Good,
Andrei says.
He likes that.

Can't you just make him agree to whatever we want?
I snap, as a bead of sweat rolls down my spine.

I told you
—
I'm not that strong yet. I'm trying, Nina, I promise, but there's some sort of—interference nearby.

What do you mean?
I ask. But no answer comes. The American man is staring at me, smile ratcheting into the sort of placating smile reserved for the dangerously unhinged.

“Bold talk.” He eases once he sees I've done the same. “I like a bit of boldness.”

“Oh, then you're gonna love us,” Olga drawls.

He smirks and offers Olga his right hand. “Call me Al.”

“Short for Albrecht?” she asks as they shake.

“Sure, why not.” He squints as he surveys the three of us. What a sorry sight we make—day-old clothing wrinkled and stained, hair disheveled, deep sleepless pouches under our eyes. “Normally I'm good at guessing people's names, like Friedrich here,” he glances at Doctor Stokowski, “but you two…” He points to Olga and me. “You're proving a bit challenging. Care to tell me why that is?”

“What's the matter, didn't they teach you any Russian names?” I ask, smiling too sweetly.

He snorts. “Sorry,
Fräulein,
I'm afraid we both know that's not what I mean.”

Our musical shields. “The Internationale” and the
Firebird
Suite
tangle up in my mind, intertwined like a bit of heraldry. He must be guessing that, given our skill for shielding our thoughts, we're well aware of the existence of men like him. Like us. Men and women capable of reading minds.

Olga produces her box of cigarettes and then, using only her ability, and not her hands, lets a single slender cigarette slide itself out of the box and toward her mouth. Her eyebrow cocks like a challenge.

“An interesting parlor trick,” Al says.

Olga digs around in her pockets for her lighter. “Your turn.”

Al reaches for her lighter. “May I?” he asks. Olga glowers at him for a few seconds, but finally uncurls her fingers from its smudged surface. He flips the lid open, then sparks it to life. Olga and I exchange a look—the flat-eyed look of
who the hell does this guy think he is,
the look known to every woman who's ever gone out on the town with her girlfriends, only to get cornered by some show-off at a bar.