Yelena melted at once, as Nina had hoped she would. “I didn’t mean to bite your head off.” She unwrapped her arms from her knees, reached for Nina’s hand. “I’m so tired, that’s all. We’ve been flying such long nights. Fourteen runs, fifteen runs. They’re moving us soon, did you know? Somewhere near Krasnodar.” A sigh. “They say it will be even worse there.”
She looked exhausted, tar-black circles under her eyes, the dried rose at her collar her only flash of color. My Moscow rose, Nina thought. “Is the Rusalka fighting fit again?”
“Yes, the mechanics finally cleared her.” They talked easily then of the Rusalka, of flying, of the things they loved. Is that why we never quarreled before? Nina wondered. Because we only talked of war and flying and each other?
Well, they weren’t going to quarrel again. It wasn’t like Nina wanted to come back into the shed and talk Party politics. All she wanted to do was cuddle and laugh and make love. Just give me Yelena and the Rusalka, she thought. That’s all I need in this world.
So which of you is next? came Comrade Stalin’s amused voice. Yelena? The Rusalka? Or you, little eaglet?
Nina shivered as if a rusalka’s webbed green hand had wrapped wetly around her heart. What did you see? she wondered in the direction of the General Secretary, even as she and Yelena bundled up to creep out of the shed back to their beds. What did you see?
Maybe nothing. Maybe it was just the Coca-Cola pills, making her fearful.
Or maybe he saw that the last of Marina Raskova’s eaglets didn’t believe the horse-shit stories he wove for girls like Yelena, the stories about how the Motherland was on its way to a glorious future. Did he see that? Nina always wondered. He must have seen something, enough to remember her name. Maybe he’d jotted it as an afterthought into his notebook beside the running wolves. Because the investigation came within the year.
Chapter 28
Jordan
June 1950
Boston
Jordan’s father sat holding a piece of sandpaper, looking over one shoulder. The image shimmered through the fixer bath, ghostly in the red light. Jordan heard his voice from that afternoon, as clearly as if he were standing here in the darkroom. What are you up to, missy?
Pretend I’m not here, Jordan remembered answering. I want a picture of you in the workshop.
These were some of the last pictures of her dad she’d taken. Jordan felt a tear slide down her chin, wiped it away. She’d been crying on and off for the last hour, since she’d come banging down into the darkroom at eleven at night to develop the prints. Why not? She couldn’t stand the thought of lying in bed staring at the ceiling. Couldn’t bear to think about tomorrow, another day working in the shop now that it was open again, helping train the new clerk and coming home to one of the funeral casseroles Anneliese had pulled out for them to eat in total silence. Just three of them around the table, not four . . . Jordan blinked hard, standing back from her row of prints.
“That one.” A low-angle shot of her father peering down at a tarnished card tray. “That’s the real you.” Daniel Sean McBride at work, the essential Daniel Sean McBride. It was him. It was good.
Jordan realized the tears were coming fast now. She let them fall, going on to the roll of shots she’d taken at the tiny airfield the day Garrett took her flying. She knew she should call Garrett; he’d been leaving messages. So had his mother, gentle hints about springtime dates for the rescheduled wedding. The thought of plunging back into wedding plans made Jordan want to shriek.
“I’ll call you tomorrow.” She sighed as she cleaned up her chemicals and trays.
As Jordan let herself back into the house, a slim pale figure moved out of the darkness at the foot of the hall stairs. “You couldn’t sleep either?”
Jordan started violently at Anneliese’s voice. “You scared me!”
“I’m sorry.” Anneliese pulled the sash tighter on her pale blue dressing gown. “I was going to make some cocoa. Would you like some?”
“Sure. Did Ruth wake you up again?”
“Her night frights are getting worse.” Anneliese moved into the kitchen on those soundless feet, pulling down two mugs. Taro padded in, keeping a watchful eye for any food that might hit the floor; Anneliese scratched her black ears fondly. “I don’t know how to deal with Ruth when she’s in such a state. She’s always been so biddable, I don’t know what to do with her when she’s not.”
“She just misses Dad.” Jordan sighed. “Is she asleep now?”
“Yes, finally. Now I’m the one tossing and turning.” Jordan’s stepmother looked fragile in the bright kitchen light, dark hair loose for once, face naked without its smoothing of powder and lipstick. “No, sit down,” she said as Jordan began to help with the stove. “You must be so tired, all those shifts you’ve been working at the shop.”
“The new clerk will be ready to manage on his own soon. That will be a help.” Jordan managed a smile, pulling out a chair at the kitchen table. “He told me he could sell ice to Eskimos, and he can.”
“What’s his name again?”
“Tony Rodomovsky.” Jordan had thought she’d find it embarrassing, working with a man after he’d first encountered her sobbing into a lemon meringue pie, but it hadn’t been. The new clerk had taken his handkerchief back the following week with light good humor, made no reference to her fit of weeping, and treated Jordan exactly as he treated everything else female he encountered in the shop—namely, he flirted with her. The kind of meaningless undemanding flirtation that was soothing. How pretty you are, his smile said. Please, let me take care of the customers. In fact, let me take care of everything. The female customers certainly responded to that smile. He knew next to nothing about antiques but he was so rueful about his own ignorance, it didn’t seem to matter. “You know he actually got Mrs. Wills to buy something, not just spend an hour criticizing every piece?”
“That is a charmer. Have I met him?” Anneliese massaged her forehead. “It’s all been such a whirl, I can’t remember.”
“Not yet. His references were excellent. Do you want to meet him before his trial period is up?”
“I’ll look in soon.” Anneliese sighed. “I don’t even want to set foot in the shop. I had my little ideas here and there to help sales, but your father was so proud that his wife didn’t have to work . . . Going there now seems like going against his wishes.”
“I can take care of the shop, truly. You have Dad’s other things to sort out.” What to do with his clothes, his shoes, his belongings. Whether to move his shaving brush and razor in the bathroom. All the things to be decided after a death.
“He was very organized, thank goodness.” Anneliese began warming the milk. “I don’t want you to think we have to worry about money. There was insurance; we won’t have to scrimp to make ends meet. I’m meeting with the lawyer about the will.”
Jordan couldn’t even begin to contemplate the official details. “If I can help . . .”
“Between the two of us, we can handle everything.” Anneliese smiled over her shoulder, stirring the milk. “I’m so lucky you’re such a capable girl, Jordan. More than a girl, really—I shouldn’t keep calling you that. Having a grown woman at my side is a great comfort at a time like this.”