He muttered something she didn’t quite catch. Or perhaps her French just wasn’t as thorough as his when it came to colorful phrases. But he pointed ahead. “Resting in his room. He was too near a shell the other day, when he was out looking for his brother. Reinjured his ribs. Sprained an arm.” He shrugged and ran his tongue over his teeth. “He won’t die from it. Probably.”
He took another long drag of his cigarette, then held it out to her. When she shook her head, he put it between his lips again with another shrug. “I hope you intend to explain to me what is so important that you have both come here.”
She kept her gaze straight ahead. “It is a military matter.”
“Military.” He laughed. Until he saw she didn’t. “But you are—”
“I am what?” She wasn’t wearing her uniform now. It hadn’t seemed like a good idea when traveling across lines that had once been enemy. “A comrade in the new Red Army? Yes. I am. A senior unterofitser in the First Russian Women’s Battalion of Death? Why, yes. Yes, I was, when such a ranking mattered.”
“Easy, Nadezhda.” He looked about ready to pat her on the head. If he tried it, she’d bite his hand.
Good side. She forced another smile. “I am not authorized to tell anyone the details of what Evgeni had been about. But I can say that the party deems his brother a threat.”
“I would think the party has threats enough in Russia to worry about, without traveling so far in search of one that has gone astray.”
All too true. She’d welcome the day when they could hunt down all their enemies. But that day couldn’t possibly come until they’d gotten their newly built house in better order. “He is an exceptional case.”
Paul led her toward a métro station. “Why? What makes him so special?”
“He has knowledge that could put us all at risk if he shares it with the wrong parties.”
Paul said no more about it as they approached the ticket counter, just exchanged a few quick French words with the attendant, handed over coins, and nodded Nadya down a tunnel.
She looked up at the low ceiling. “Are you certain another shell won’t strike while we’re in here?”
“Perfectly.”
Keenly aware of the bodies packed around her, both on the platform and on the train, Nadya made no attempt at further conversation during the ten-minute ride. She was far too busy counting the minutes since the last shell. It was one thing to die for a cause that mattered, but not in a train tunnel from a random German shell, thank you.
Once they were back out in the sunshine, in a section of the city that looked nearly as run-down as her neighborhood in Petrograd, Paul turned to her again. “I have put out a few queries about a room for you. I have no doubt that someone will offer something by nightfall.”
She looked behind her at the name of the métro station, then forward again to note the street signs, the buildings. “You needn’t bother.”
“It is no bother. We are soviets, we look out for one another. Besides, you are an old friend.”
A stretch, but she wasn’t going to contradict him. “I will stay with Evgeni. We have much to plan.”
Silence pounded her for three steps. Five. Ten. Paul cleared his throat. “I . . . respect that you have much to plan. But you will still need to sleep.”
Nadya shifted her bag to the other shoulder. “Must I spell this out for you, Paul? I will stay with Evgeni.”
His scoff sounded disgusted. Or jealous. Something, anyway, that made her hackles rise even before he opened his mouth again. “I’m sure your mother would be thrilled to know th—”
“My mother died a slave to the old ways. Giving birth to her tenth child, though she was too old for it. Too weak. A babe that couldn’t last more than a day anyway.” Like six of the others. Nadya shook her head, clenched her jaw. That had been the very day she’d stomped from her father’s house. From the farm. The day she’d hitched a ride all the way to the city and sought out the women’s battalion she’d heard about.
If she was going to die, it would be for something bigger than herself. Fighting an enemy she could see.
“I am sorry. About your mother. I hadn’t heard.”
Nadya didn’t look at him. “I won’t be enslaved to the same outdated institution. I won’t accept the archaic idea that a man can do what he wills, but it is a woman’s duty to stay at home and give him baby after baby in the hopes that one will survive. I will live the life I please.” She shot him a glare. “And I will sleep wherever I please.”
And in the new Russia, they could all do the same. Those women who actually liked tending squalling children could do so for them all, when they turned the children over to the state to be raised. This was a cause, a goal worth fighting for. Freedom.
Paul pointed to the right at the next intersection. “How very . . . forward-thinking of you.”
His shin may yet taste the bite of her boot. “Are you judging me, Paul?”
“Your ideals? No. Your particular choice?” He made a face. And despite her frustration with him, she relaxed. Jealousy and male petulance were easier to swallow than judgment. “I cannot approve of that smooth-faced boy. Why have you chosen him?”
That jumpy place in her stomach made itself known again. She certainly hadn’t intended to get involved with the too-handsome soldier she’d found herself serving beside in the trenches last year. It was cliché. And ill-advised.
But there was something about Evgeni she hadn’t been able to resist forever. Not the charm in his smile. No . . . it was something in his eyes when he looked at her. Something that went beyond desire. When he looked at her, he saw what she wanted. What she stood for. He saw all she railed against. He saw it, and he respected it, and he liked her all the more for it.
She wasn’t about to explain any of that to Paul, though. Instead, she tried on one of his shrugs. “Perhaps I like smooth-faced boys right now. And when I decide I do not any longer, then I’ll simply move on.”
She made no attempt to interpret his grunt. Especially not when he pointed at a particular door. “Well, he’s in there. I’ll leave you to your reunion. My lunch break is over, and I must get back to work. I’ll be back this evening.”
It was much easier to like Paul when he was leaving. Her smile was unforced this time. “Thank you for meeting my train, comrade.”
He waved that off and hurried toward the corner, where he turned to the left and out of sight.
Nadya strode up to the door, paused only long enough to drag in a deep breath, and then knocked. Through the cheap wood she could hear the sounds of a scraping chair and shuffling feet. She tried to brace herself for the feeling sure to punch her in the stomach when she saw him again—that strange weaving of want with need and the wishing that she didn’t want or need it.
The door opened, and for a moment she saw the expression on Evgeni’s pale face that she had to think he prepared for Paul. Because the second his gaze dropped to her, it shifted to something far different. The only word she had for it was something she’d had little enough experience with in her life.
Joy.
“Nadya! How did you get here so soon?”
Were she a romantic like her little sister, she would say love for him had given her wings. Had she been the family-oriented woman her mother tried to make her, she’d have said he needed her, and so here she was.