“It’s complicated. If anyone comes to the door asking for Miles, would you say he’s not here? It’s important. If the baron comes here, say … say … I don’t know what you should say.” I felt tears welling up. All of a sudden, it was too much.
Osip patted my arm and smiled. “Don’t worry, little sister. I will say you’ve all taken ill with some horrible disease the doctor can’t diagnose and the baron should come in to make sure I’m telling the truth, even though the doctor also said everyone who comes into contact with you might die. And then I will get very close to him and cough in his face. Is that good enough?”
Osip had been around my brothers too long. “I don’t know what we’d do without you,” I said. “Thank you. That would be perfect. If my stepfather comes back, tell him I need to see him right away. It’s urgent.”
I found Hap and Miles eating breakfast. Miles looked so calm I wanted to shriek at him like a banshee for acting as if he’d never even thought of going out to more meetings with revolutionaries. When I told him what had happened at number 28 after he’d left, he finally seemed to understand the danger he was in.
“What do I do?” he asked, his face ashen.
“You and Hap need to leave the country as soon as we can get everything organized. I’m going to the bank this morning to get you some money. You can go to Grandmother’s house in Philadelphia and then … and then…” I hadn’t thought beyond that. I couldn’t picture them in the United States. I felt my eyes starting to water. I was not going to cry.
Miles didn’t say a word as he got up and went to the window.
Hap continued to eat, nodding his head. “I won’t mind visiting the United States.” He stuffed a large piece of bread in his mouth.
The sight of him sitting there so unconcerned that his entire life was about to be upended should have annoyed me, but instead it made me feel better. They’d be all right. Hap would be there. His easygoing nature would help on a long, difficult trip.
Miles turned back to face me. “Hap doesn’t need to go with me. I’ll be fine by myself. I don’t need a nursemaid.”
Once again I stopped myself from shrieking at him, this time by actually biting my lip. “We don’t have time to argue about this. It’s not that you need a nursemaid. If someone comes looking for you, we can say both of you have gone because you’re going to school in the United States. It will be more believable that you are both traveling.”
That argument worked. Miles sat back down and rubbed his face with his hands, his expression grim. He seemed years older, and I realized what he was thinking. I knew he loved Russia as much as I did, and I’d just told him he had to leave as soon as he could.
I sat down beside him and put my hand over his, intending to say he wouldn’t be gone forever, but he looked over at me and gave a slight shake of his head. “Let’s talk about details,” he said.
I knew how he felt. I’d play along. “The first problem is the passports,” I said. I explained about Dmitri’s ideas on the passport approvals. “I told Dmitri everything. And we can trust him.”
“What about Peet?” Miles asked.
I’d forgotten about Peet. He’d be in as much danger as Miles. I closed my eyes. It was always one more thing. I could feel the tears trying to spill out again.
“Lottie? Are you all right?” Hap asked.
I don’t know why, but I thought of our mother. I could hear her voice after she’d found me crying at my father’s funeral. We’ll be sad, but we’ll always go on. You’re strong like me. Bad things happen that you can’t control, but we strong ones face up to them and keep going.
I knew I had no choice. I had to be all right. I had to keep going. I could take care of one more thing.
I opened my eyes. “Hap, you have to go see the Tamms. I don’t have time. I’ll write a note—no, I shouldn’t put something in writing. Tell them the situation is bad and Peet needs to get away too. They can send him to Estonia. I know they still have family there. They’ll have heard about the raid on the apartment by now, and if Peet hasn’t told them he was there, you tell them. And then come home and pack, but don’t pack much. We can send most of your things later.”
“Got it,” Hap said. “Elder Red, here we come, ready or not.” He punched Miles on the arm.
The faintest of smiles crossed Miles’s face. They’d be all right, the two of them together.
Chapter Thirteen
I GRABBED A piece of bread and ate it as I went upstairs to change my clothes.
When I came back down, Osip wasn’t at the door, but he appeared as I was opening it to leave.
“Wait, Lottie! You shouldn’t go out now,” he said, hurrying toward me. “It’s not safe. Vladislav says there is going to be a general strike and everyone will be out on the streets.”
“Don’t worry. I’m sure it won’t be any worse than yesterday,” I said as I pulled on my gloves.
He moved so that he was in front of the door, as if he wasn’t going to let me out. “It could be much worse. The workers at one of the munitions factories are already on strike, and there is a rumor that the government is mounting machine guns on rooftops to fire on any crowds.”
The words machine guns gave me pause. That had to be mere rumor. “I don’t believe they’d do that,” I said. “The people just want to get out and protest. I have to go out. I won’t be gone for long, and I’ll avoid the crowds. You remember what I told you about the baron? We’re in real danger from him. I need to do something to make us safer.” I didn’t want to tell Osip about our plans. If the baron came to the house, it would be better for Osip not to know what was going on. “If the baron or anyone else comes who wants to know where Miles is, say he isn’t home.”
Osip nodded and sighed, then moved away from the door.
No one was out on our block, but that wasn’t so unusual. The air was frigid even for Petrograd, the type of cold that Miles had labeled dagger breath because it hurt so much to breathe in.
When I got to the end of the block and turned the corner, a gust of wind stirred up the snow and blew it into my face. I blinked and brushed it off my eyelashes so I could see. I blinked a few more times until I could understand what I was seeing, or rather what I wasn’t seeing. This street was empty too, and that was unusual. I felt a little prickle on the back of my neck that wasn’t due to the cold. There was a tram, but it wasn’t moving, and the windows were covered with snow. As I got closer, I saw that some of the windows had been smashed.
The prickling spread down my back. Snow was drifting across the sidewalks. Petrograd normally had so many street cleaners; they were out every day clearing off enough of the new snow to get around, and packing down the lower layers enough for the sleighs to operate. From the depth of the snow in front of me, no one had cleared them for many hours.
The city seemed abandoned. I shivered, feeling the cold cutting into me. A voice in my head told me to turn around and go home, back to the warmth, where it was safe.
I made myself go on, slogging through the snow, watching and hoping for some sign that the city hadn’t emptied out overnight.