Archive of Our Own ^beta

Siversky, 1936

“You can’t be serious.” Sergei Bogatyrev slams his fist against the kitchen table, hard enough to make the china rattle. Ulyana, his mother, jumps to steady the teacups. “You can’t be thinking of leaving now.” 

“If it’s not now, it’s never. We might not get another chance.” His father, Ostap, glares at him from beneath the twin thickets of his pendulous graying brows. “We should have gone to France with the rest of the family when they overturned the provisional government. But you were so small and sickly, your mother worried you might not make it. So we stayed. Like rats, climbing up to higher and higher decks, pretending they can’t hear the water splashing. Well, we’ve sunk too deep now. There are no more decks. He is out of control, Sergei,” his father says, lowering his voice to a hoarse whisper, even though there is no one in the room but the three of them. There is no need to explain who “He” is. There is only one “He,” and He lives in the Kremlin.  

“Do you know what that would do to me?” He can’t believe the selfishness of these people. You can strip away the bourgeoisie’s titles, you can take their misappropriated wealth and the lands they watered with the blood of their serfs, but nothing can take away their sense of entitlement. Nothing but a bullet to the head. “Do you know what kind of a stain that would be on my career? To have parents who fled abroad?” 

“Your career!” Ostap’s eyes flash with fury, and his neck turns purple. Another few minutes of this, and Sergei’s mother will be running for the nitroglycerin. “Your career? Working for this gang of cut-throats and grave-robbers? Your career? You’d be better off coming with us, it’s only a matter of time before your career ends with you in Siberia - or dead in a ditch!” 

“How dare you.” Sergei is shaking with rage now. “I am the only one of this family who is working for the public good. The good of our country. The good of all of us. I am the only reason you were allowed to keep living here, with three rooms for only two people -”

“This entire estate was ours, boy,” Ostap shouts, “before your friends came with their guns. I’ve been robbed on the Tsar's highway by people with more humanity -”

“Shut up!” screams Sergei. His mother gasps and begins to sob. “It’s a crime even to listen to you!” 

“So don’t listen! Get out!” Ostap bellows like a bull. The blood has flooded his face and past his hairline; it glows fuchsia through his sparse white hair. 

“Ostap, Ostapushka,” Ulyana bleats weakly, but her husband ignores her.

“Ungrateful, traitorous little shit,” his father hisses. “Not a thought for anyone but yourself. Never. Spoiled. Spoiled, is what you are. We tried so hard to spare you from everything that was terrible about this evil place, you grew up believing all the lies they told you in school. And now, you are the one spouting them. Lying, heartless piece of garbage, like all the -”

“Ostap!” cries Ulyana, frightened now. She glances nervously at their son. “I beg you. Please, stop.” 

“Fine.” Ostap leans on the table, breathing hard, trying not to show how much the fight took out of him. His hand creeps toward his chest, where Sergei knows the pain has begun to bother him, but Ostap doesn’t let himself complete the gesture, out of pride. “I’ve stopped. I’ve stopped.” 

“Don’t do it on my account,” Sergei snaps, already on his feet. “I think it’s past time for me to be getting back to Leningrad.”

“But Seryozhenka,” his mother moans, “the trains have already stopped running…”

“Even so.” 

He slams out of the room; the door bounces off the worn-out jamb and hangs ajar as shoves on his boots, his coat, his hat. Through the gap, he can still hear his parents talking in the kitchen, very quietly.

“Don’t cry,” says Ostap gruffly, “he’ll get over it. Young fires burn out fast. Better to think about practical things. I was going to ask you. Did you check that Mama's necklace is still buried in the same place?”

“Yes, under the dead cherry tree.”

“Good. Now, here is what we need to do tomorrow…” 

Without making a sound, Sergei slips out of the house. 

* * *

“Tell me again, Papa!” His daughter is sitting up in bed, jewel-like eyes shining eagerly, blond curls scattered like a halo around her angel’s face. “Tell me about Grandma’s castle.” 

“It wasn't a castle, and I’ve told you already,” Sergei says, running his hand over her sweet round head. She’s so beautiful, his little girl. So perfect. “Why do you want to hear it again?”

“Because it sounds like she was a princess ,” Yulia giggles. “Living in the big, beautiful house. Wearing ball gowns. With servants to bring her everything, a cook to make any food she wants…” 

“You have to remember, Pinkie, this was all during a very bad time,” Sergei tells her seriously. “A dark, terrible time for our country, for our people. Your grandmother realized her mistake and gave away her fancy dresses and her fancy house so others could enjoy them too…”

“I know, I know, but tell me !” Yulia bounces in her bed a little, and Sergei wavers. 

He wishes he’d never done it - spontaneously told her some of the stories his own mother used to tell him about her childhood, when he was himself a small boy. It must have been the letter he recently received from the administrative offices in Tomsk, notifying him that his mother had finally died in the exiles’ settlement of Narym. He hadn’t spoken of his parents in years, but that night, tucking Yulia in, he had decided to tell her what he remembered.

Stupid, it was. Weak. A symptom of that dark seed he had never fully eradicated, the one that came of being born into the wrong kind of family. Decades of political education and ideological uprightness, and still, the seed sometimes sends up a questing, grasping tendril of a sprout. He must tear it out immediately, at the root, without mercy. 

But this is his daughter. Asking for a story. He sighs and settles more comfortably on the edge of her bed. 

“When your grandmother was a very little girl,” he begins, “she lived in a beautiful house near a rushing river. The house had tall white columns, long sweeping staircases covered in white Turkish carpets, and dozens and dozens of great big windows…” 

After Yulia is asleep, he sweeps the stray tendrils of hair off her lily-petal forehead, and kisses the crown of her head tenderly. He leaves the night light on, even though his wife insists the child is old enough to learn to sleep without it, and closes the door very quietly, so as not to disturb his princess’s slumber. 

He walks through the hall between the rooms; through the door to his bedroom, he can see his wife, Vladlena, rubbing perfumed French cream into her neck and hands. She smiles at him, but he is not tired yet, and he proceeds into their wide, high-ceilinged great room. They live in one of the stateliest old buildings in Leningrad, dating back to the late 19th century. Some rich bloodsucker had built it for his layabout family, and, following the Revolution, the Party had restored it to the people, broken up into apartments. But Sergei and his family - owing to his position - occupy the largest and loveliest one. 

He steps out onto his balcony, shakes a cigarette out of the pack of Dunhills that he gets through a friend who goes on “business trips” to England. He lights one up, inhaling leisurely, enjoying the fragrant smoke, and observing the lights of the city below him. Yes, the bet he had made when he was barely twenty had paid off. And handsomely. He has never had cause to regret it.

He is established, respected, and safe. He married late in life, a beautiful woman from a good proletarian family. He has access to everything he could ever need. He can give his family almost anything they might want. His little girl was born when he was nearly fifty years old, and it was as though he had not truly lived until that moment; now, he has everything, everything he wants. 

But, as he slowly smokes his foreign cigarette and gazes out at a city that once glittered and fizzed for the benefit of parasites like his parents and grandparents, a tiny, atavistic, loathed sliver of him wonders what it would have been like: to take her to that house, and tell her it was hers. 

* * *

There is a new soldier. 

She is used to seeing a uniformed man on the chair in the foyer: usually smoking, sometimes reading a newspaper, more often than not staring dumbly at the wall. A couple of years ago, it was the ginger with the stutter; then, he was replaced by the gnarled, grumpy war veteran; then, the painfully skinny one with the bobbing Adam’s apple. She’s never bothered to learn their names; they are just men who guard her family, because her father is very important, and the Party can’t risk him ever getting hurt. 

There’s a new one today. 

He is younger than they usually are. She can’t tell how old; all grown-ups look more or less the same to her, either they are ancient or they are not ancient, but this one is decidedly not ancient. He is not terribly tall, but he is so broad, and stands so straight that he gives the impression of great size. Just seeing him there makes her feel safe. His shoulders make the foyer seem narrow. He has what she thinks of as a peasant face - fleshy cheeks, a flaring nose - but his jawline is firm, and his eyes are sharp, and he looks at her as though he can see her; he doesn’t simply nod while staring over the top of her head, like these men usually do. 

“Hello,” she says. “I’m Yulia Sergeyevna. I’m his daughter.” She doesn’t need to specify who “he” is. There is only one “he” in this house. 

“A pleasure, Miss.” The corners of his mouth tilt up in a smile. It reaches his eyes. God, she can’t stop looking at his eyes. Terribly bold of her, she knows, but she just can’t look away. “I’m Ivan. Sergeant Dreykov.” 

“Nice to meet you.” She stands there for a while, conscious that the conversation is over, but absolutely glued to her spot. “You know,” she finally says, “if you need any help finding anything here, I know where everything is. Like, if you want some tea. Or the bathroom. Things like that.” 

His smile widens, turns into amusement. It makes her feel embarrassed, but also, she loves that she made him smile like that. “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you, Miss.” His eyes sparkle. God, he really is so… Is that what peasants look like? “How old are you?” 

“Fifteen,” she says loftily. Fifteen is practically a woman. 

“Fifteen…” His eyes drift down her uniform. Only for a second, nothing disrespectful, nothing like the boys at school or the drunks on the street, but she can feel his gaze right through the dull black wool of her school dress, and the white cotton of her bra and panties. “I thought you were older,” he says, very gravely. “A university student, maybe.” 

She giggles, pink with pleasure. “Noooo. Ninth grade, only. It’s very boring.”

“Is it?”

“Uh-huh. The kids are so immature.” 

“Sounds awful.”

“How old are you?” She asks this while looking at him through her eyelashes. Or, what she imagines it to be, looking at someone through her eyelashes. She read that expression in a book once, she isn’t exactly sure what it means. 

“Twenty-two.” 

“Ohhh.” It’s the perfect age for a man to be. “That must be more fun.” 

His mouth twitches, but he keeps it in a serious line. “Sometimes.” 

“Yulia?” From somewhere inside the apartment, she hears her mother calling her. “Is that you?” 

“I better go,” she tells Sergeant Dreykov. “All kinds of … business to attend to.” She waves her hand in what she hopes is a glamorous gesture that suggests tasks of great importance. 

“You’d better, then. It was good speaking with you, Yulia Sergeyevna.” He tips his cap to her. God, his hands are big. 

She gives him one more glance “from beneath her eyelashes,” then flees. 

* * *

She finds any reason she can to see him after that. Whenever anyone in the family needs something from outside - a bottle of milk, a newspaper, a pack of cigarettes - she volunteers to go with such alacrity that her mother makes a comment about how good it is to see Yulia becoming less of a lazybones at last. Really, she just wants an excuse to walk through the foyer. 

Once or twice, she “forgets” to change out of her ballet clothes after practice. It’s worth enduring the disgusting stares in the street, to see Ivan’s eyes widen when he sees her in her tights and leotard. He looks away quickly, but she’s already seen it, the blush rising to his broad cheekbones, the movement in his throat above his uniform collar. She pretends to drop something, and, when she picks it up, she casually does an extra plié. When she sashays off, she hears him exhale and mutter something that might be a bad word, and it makes her glow for the rest of the evening. 

They talk, a little, when they can. About movies, books, paintings. Well - she talks about movies and books and paintings. He mostly listens, with that slightly amused smile of his. That hypnotizing curve of his narrow but pouty lips. Sometimes, he tells her things too - like what it was like to grow up in a Northern village, what kind of music they play in the underground clubs of Leningrad, the fights he has been in, what it’s like to get drunk. 

“I’ve never,” she admits, shyly. “I’ve never even tasted vodka.”

“Never?” 

“Nope. Daddy says it’s a terrible thing, and unladylike.” 

“Well, you should listen to your father.” 

But the next day, when she is slipping off her coat in the foyer, he gives her a conspiratorial wink, and extracts a small object from his pocket. It looks like a large silver egg, and she takes an embarrassingly long time to figure out it is a flask. Ivan twists off the top, and hands it to her. “Here. See what you think.”

She sniffs it and makes a face. “Is this - are you sure?”

“You don’t have to,” he shrugs. “It’s not for everybody. And you are young.” 

“No, I want to try.” She holds her breath and takes as big a gulp as she can stand. It burns her throat and her stomach, and sends a wave of nausea back up, but she pastes on a smile, and pretends her eyes aren’t tearing. “It’s really good.” 

He laughs softly, and tips the flask to his own mouth, nearly emptying it. “I knew you’d be fun.” 

Months go by. They talk, they joke. He brings other liquids in the flask: more vodka, but also homemade honey liquor, Armenian brandy, Georgian port wine. She finds she likes the sweeter ones, and he brings those more often. When they laugh together, she sometimes touches his shoulder, just a tiny tap. When he tells her an off-color limerick, he brings his mouth so close to her ear, his lips almost brush against it. She feels as though there is a line between them, and it’s a game of some kind, dancing as close to it as she can, without stepping over. 

Once, excitedly chattering about something, she takes an extra step closer to him, and he doesn’t move away. She freezes mid-gesture, her hand floating a centimeter from the buttons on his uniform coat. She can feel the heat coming off his chest. His body is a magnet. She stops talking. She forgets what she was saying. Her mouth opens slightly, her eyes drift shut, and she sways closer to him…

“Yulia Sergeyevna.” She opens her eyes. His face is almost touching hers. His eyes are very serious. “I am sorry. It’s not that I don’t want to. I do. But, it would be…” He shakes his head, although his eyes drop to her mouth. “It would be fatal.” 

“I won’t tell anyone,” she whispers. 

He shakes his head again. His arms are stiffly held at his sides, but the tips of his fingers graze her hips, and immediately retreat, as though he couldn’t help himself. “It would be fatal,” he repeats, and backs away. 

* * *

She is doing her homework on the big dining table in the great room, and her parents are quietly chatting on the couch in the living area. Mostly, she ignores them; they never talk about anything interesting anyway. They are very old, especially her father. She loves them, but, recently, they don’t understand her at all.  

“We have to talk about the guest list for your birthday party,” her mother says. “It’s getting close, we need to get the invitations out. I’m inviting Vyacheslav Maximych and his wife, right?”

“How could you even ask?” That is a name Yulia knows. Vyacheslav Maximych is the only man she knows who is more important than her father. She calls him Uncle Slava. He always brings her little presents, and he is a very sweet old man. She has no idea why her parents sometimes talk as if they are afraid of him. 

“Right, and the Vorobyaninovs…”

“Yes.”

“The Ostrovs…”

“Yes.”

“Batrakov and his fiancee…”

“No! God, no!” Her father nearly shouts that. “Don’t even mention his name anymore! Ever!”

“What happened?” Her father says nothing. “What, really?” Nothing, again. “Just like that?” Still, nothing. “Sergei. Are we…?”

“Safe,” her father says, in a cautious undertone. “Safe, I think. Probably. We haven’t seen him socially in weeks. I’ve… made a statement about him. Written. We should be safe.” 

“Then maybe we shouldn’t invite the Ostrovs either,” her mother says slowly. “They were all such good friends, all those trips to Crimea together…”

“You’re right. Cross out the Ostrovs. Let’s keep some distance for a while.” 

They mumble through a few more names as Yulia makes her way through a few more math problems. Then, her mother lowers her voice to such a discreet volume, that Yulia’s ears prick right up. 

“Have you talked to Vyacheslav Maximych?” she asks Yulia’s father. “About Dreykov?” 

“Not yet,” her father replies, just as secretively. “Tomorrow.” 

“What are you talking about?” Yulia calls out, turning around indignantly. “What was that about Iv - about Sergeant Dreykov?”

Her father tries to play it off as a joke. “Young lady, have you ever heard about not eavesdropping? Or interrupting conversations between grown-ups?”

“You’re talking right there , it’s not like I’m not going to hear you. What were you saying about talking to Uncle Slava about Sergeant Dreykov? Are you going to tell him he’s doing a great job protecting us? Because he is. I’ve never felt more safe.” 

Her parents exchange glances. “Not exactly,” her father says haltingly. “I am going to ask for a new personal guard. I think there are better things for Sergeant Dreykov to do.” 

“But why? Why would you do that to him? You know they’re not going to send him anywhere better if you say you don’t want him here anymore. It will be very bad for his career.” Even Yulia knows that. 

“This really isn’t any of your business,” her father retorts, visibly losing patience. “And if you can’t stay in this room without sticking your nose where it isn’t wanted, then you can go do your homework in your bedroom.”

“The light is dreadful there, do you want me to ruin my eyesight? No, I want to know why you want to get rid of Sergeant Dreykov, he is very good at his job, he always puts away our wet umbrellas without being asked and he doesn’t smoke inside, and-”

“Because I don’t like how he looks at you!” her father snaps. “All right? You’re a child, and he’s a grown man, and he looks at you like he’s - like you’re - ”

“Sergei,” her mother interjects softly, meaningfully.

Her father takes a deep breath. More calmly, he says, “I’ve made my decision, Yulia, and I don’t want to hear any more about it. Now do your homework, or you’ll see that new tutu like you’ll see your ears without a mirror.” Without waiting for her to reply, he stands up and strides out to the balcony. 

For a few minutes, the room is very quiet. “I’m sixteen, Mama,” Yulia says dolefully. “I’m not a child. Not even legally.” 

Her mother sighs. “You’ll understand someday,” she says, and goes off to her bedroom. 

Yulia is left alone. And furious. And helpless.

Or so they think.

* * *

Every day, Vyacheslav Maximych takes his elderly Pomeranian, Mushka, for a pre-dinner constitutional in a small park near his house. Yulia knows this, which is why she has contrived to be at this park at precisely the time when she is most likely to bump into her father’s boss. She gets bored waiting, so she buys herself an ice cream, and sits on a bench near the park entrance, listlessly eating it and watching the birds fly around. They look so free , she thinks wistfully, and sighs, feeling terribly maltreated, but hopeful that she can forestall the unhappiness her cruel parents are prepared to visit upon her young life. 

The object of her hopes enters the park, with Mushka hobbling at the end of his leash. “Yulenka!” Uncle Slava exclaims, his eyes lighting up with pleasure. “What are you doing here?” 

She jumps up, gives him a hug. “I was studying with a friend nearby. I thought I’d come and sit in the park. It’s such a beautiful day.” 

“It is, it is.” Yulia doesn’t miss the way his rheumy eyes flick up and down her body, and involuntarily follow the path of her tongue around her ice cream cone. The power - this new power she has finally begun to understand - tastes better than cream and sugar. He tears his eyes away from her mouth at last, and clears his throat, coughing up a little phlegm. “So how are you, my dear? How is school?”

“It’s good, I’m almost finished!”

“You’ll be going to university?”

“Daddy wants me to, but I don’t know, maybe I’ll take a year to go work at a kolkhoz , really see what life is like in the villages.” The kind of place Ivan is from. She has a rosy fantasy of kissing him in a hayloft at sunset. In the fantasy, he is still wearing his uniform, but also, somehow, a pair of overalls. 

“A very healthy idea! I like it!” Uncle Slava booms approvingly. “And how is your family? Your mother and father? Everyone healthy?”

“Oh, yes, everyone is just fine. My father was just talking about you earlier today!”

“Is that so?” Uncle Slava beams. “What did he say?” 

“Oh, I didn’t really hear him,” Yulia shrugs innocently, “I just overheard your name when he was talking to Grisha Batrakov in our kitchen. They had the door closed.”

Uncle Slava’s smile begins to fade. He looks concerned. “Are you sure? Batrakov was talking to your father? Today?”

“Uh-huh. They’re really good friends.” She blinks blithely at Uncle Slava. He is definitely not smiling anymore. So much for her father’s plan to get Ivan fired. No way will Uncle Slava listen to him now. 

“I see.” Uncle Slava looks more taken aback at this news than Yulia had expected. He looks terribly distracted now, almost upset. He is no longer even looking at her, even when she gives her ice cream an extra elaborate lick. “I’ve got to go now, Yulia. Some things I have to do. You go home to your mother, will you? Have a good evening.” 

Without waiting for her reply, he turns around and hastily leaves the park. He has to tug hard on Mushka’s leash, because the dog is frozen with bewilderment: what about his walk? Where is he supposed to poop now? When he finally gets the idea and resumes trotting after his master, every arthritic step is filled with existential disappointment. 

Yulia snickers to herself, throws out her ice cream, and catches a bus home. She has borrowed her friend’s lipstick today, and she can’t wait for Ivan to see it on her.

* * *

“I didn’t know,” she sobs over and over against Ivan’s chest. “I didn’t know.” 

He holds her so tenderly, his arms are so strong and his hands are so warm, but the circumstances of this, their first time really touching one another, are nothing like what she had imagined. He doesn’t ask what she didn’t know - he probably assumes that she is referring to her father’s secret work to undermine the Soviet Union. She can’t tell him that what she didn’t know is the havoc that her little white lie to Uncle Slava would wreak on her life. 

Not that she can call him Uncle Slava anymore, probably. When she rang his house in a panic, his wife picked up, and firmly told her never to call the number again. She didn’t know that would happen, either. 

She didn’t know they would come here - all the unfamiliar soldiers, and the men in suits who were far more frightening than the soldiers. That they would bang on the door, walk in without saying hello to anyone, and then tear the house apart, even her own bedroom. That they would put their hands roughly on her father - as though he was just anybody - and march him out the door, without giving him even a moment to take a coat.

She didn’t know they would take her mother, too. She didn’t know her mother’s face could get so white. 

And the apartment. She’s been told she has to vacate it immediately. 

“Where will I go?” she wails, clutching damp handfuls of Ivan’s uniform. “I don’t have anyone. My grandparents are dead. None of my parents’ friends will talk to me. I’m h - h - homeless.” The word makes it all become too real, and her chest feels so tight, she can’t even sob anymore, can only shudder and gasp for breath. 

“Hey. Hey.” Ivan pulls back, and shakes her gently. “You can stay with me.” 

“R - r - really?” She looks at him with profound gratitude, and realizes what she must look like, tears and snot running down her face. Ashamed, she hides her face, but he tips it back up, fishing out a handkerchief, and using it to clean her up. 

“Really,” he says firmly. “I’ll be glad to have the company.”

“But don’t you live in the b - b - barracks?” Even in her distress, she finds the prospect of living with no privacy absolutely horrifying. She would literally rather live under a bridge. At least you can probably hide behind a pillar. 

“They’ve given me an apartment,” Ivan says. “It’s small, but it’s all mine. You can have the bed, for as long as you need, I’ll sleep on the couch.” 

“You’re so nice,” she sighs, and dares to stroke his cheek. He turns his face into her palm. His cheek is shaven smooth, but she can feel the grain of his beard under her fingertips. “You’re so nice to me.” 

“I want to be,” he breathes hotly, and his hands tighten on her body. “I want to do anything I can to make you happy, to make you smile,” he says, and kisses the tears on her cheeks, “although, God, you really are so pretty when you cry.” He gives a self-deprecating little laugh, and keeps talking, even as he trails his lips over every bit of her face, her jawline, her neck. “I know this is a terrible time,” he murmurs, “but it's the first time we have ever been in this apartment alone, and Yulia, you have no idea how long I’ve thought about this, how much I've wanted it…”

“I’ve wanted it too,” she whispers, forgetting everything, lost in the feelings evoked by his mouth on her skin. “I’ve wanted this so much,” she moans, and, taking his face firmly between her hands, she presses her mouth, finally, finally , against his.  

***

Yulia is twenty-three years old, naked in Ivan’s bed. She still thinks of it as Ivan’s - this bed, this cramped apartment - even though she has lived here for the last seven years, sewn the curtains on the windows, nurtured the plants on the windowsills, cooked nearly every meal they have eaten together since he'd brought her here, with nothing but a suitcase and a few pillowcases stuffed with clothes. 

Her parents were gone; following their arrest, they disappeared into the system, as though they had never existed. Imprisoned, exiled, executed - no one ever gave her any information beyond a brusque referral to yet another bureau, another endless queue, another address on a slip of paper that led her to yet another windowless gray room, another queue, another gruff rejection. She stopped trying, after a while. Especially once Ivan gently pointed out that it wouldn't help her own prospects in life, to show so much interest in the fates of known enemies of the people. 

Anyway, by then, she was fully absorbed in the thrilling details of her new adult life. This humble two-room apartment, so ready to be made into a home for her and Ivan. The shopping, the cooking, the mending of his clothes. His presence in every corner of the little space. His body next to hers - in the morning, at night, every moment he could spare for her. His hands, his lips, his eyes, his smell. Why would she think of anything else - her parents, her "prospects," the ruins of what used to be her future - when she could think about him, instead? 

No university for her, of course, not after what happened. What university would want her tainted name on their student roster? No possibility of any kind of decent job, either. She managed to find a position working at a bakery, although it's awful: mind-numbing, hard on the back, and it only pays a pittance, not even enough to keep her in stockings and mascara. 

Fortunately, with her years of ballet training, she has been able to pick up some side jobs, teaching young girls - beginners who are not progressing in their classes rapidly enough for their parents' expectations. She is paid under the table, which is technically illegal, but most everyone's got a hustle of some kind, and, unless someone gets it in for her, she probably won't be turned in. 

It's a life. It isn’t a perfect life, it isn’t what she had expected, growing up in her parents' beautiful apartment, but it is a life. Best of all, it is a life she shares with Ivan. 

He is supine beside her, breathing hard from their exertions. His body, its size and heaviness and thickness, still intoxicates her, but there is no denying that the past several years of desk jobs have taken a toll on his cardiovascular endurance. Lovingly, she strokes the heaving center of his chest, where the coarse brown curls start to trail downward to the incipient mound of his softening belly. "I'll get us some water," she whispers, pressing a kiss to his sweating temple. He grunts agreement. 

She slides from the bed and takes the four steps required to enter the kitchen, fills a couple of tumblers, and brings them back. Placing them on the bedside table, her eye is caught by her own reflection in the half-mirror hanging on the wall near the bed, and she steps back, assessing herself with a critical eye. 

Usually, she can find at least one thing to displease her - a fold of flab here, a tiny pad of fat there - but just now, in the soft half-light filtering through the lampshade she made from an old silk dress of her mother’s, she admits to herself that she looks very good. Her hair has darkened only a little since childhood, and is a bright, rich gold that shades to a deeper gold where it grows between her legs. Her green eyes are innocently wide-set, but temptingly tip-tilted, like she is holding back a delicious secret. Her mouth is full and red as a carnation against the creamy, nearly-translucent skin of her face. Her body, taut with youth and years at the barre, is all delicately elongated muscles and sleek, almost adolescent lines, with the exception of her rounded hips and the tear-drop breasts that are just a touch too heavy for her to ever have ascended to the top echelons of the dance profession, even if that had been a possibility. 

She is at the peak of her feminine glory, and shameless in her vanity, because what purpose would humility serve? It isn’t like she doesn’t notice the way men react to her, it isn’t like she doesn’t hear Ivan tell her every day how beautiful she is. And she will not look like this forever, so why not enjoy it while she can? Life has little enough joy to offer her - except for Ivan - so why not take pleasure in her beauty? 

“You could at least turn around,” he growls, coming up behind her. She jumps a little, and giggles breathlessly; he rose so soundlessly from the bed, and crept so suddenly out of the shadows. “Let me watch the show, too.” 

“Mm,” she murmurs as he kisses the nape of her neck, “doesn’t seem like that’s all you want to do.” His hands are moving across her body - flanks, buttocks, belly, waist - hard and demanding, gripping just a little too tight, just the way she likes it. 

“You’re right about that,” he says, running his tongue up the vertebrae at the top of her spine. He slides his hands between her legs, tugs hard on the hair there, then presses up the firm lines of her flat stomach, her dainty rib cage, and finally takes her breasts into his palms, squeezing them hard. He looks up from where he is kissing her shoulder, and she meets his eyes in the mirror. His touch has aroused her again, and the image in the mirror arouses her more: he is so much bigger than her, the outline of his body contains all of hers. 

“Look at you,” he groans, and resumes kissing her neck. His hands knead her flesh harder, nipples bulging out between his fingers as he pushes her breasts higher up on her chest. “Mm,” he mutters against her skin, “I remember when these were up here.” 

“What?!” Squealing in half-mock outrage, she twists out of his grasp and skips away across the room, to the other side of the bed. “How dare you? Did you just tell me I’m getting old?” 

“I would never, Yulenka. I would never.” Laughing, he ambles leisurely toward her, and then closes the space between them in an instant, with that aggressiveness that thrills her so much - and frightens her, but that’s part of the thrill - spinning her around, and throwing her onto the bed before she can see him coming. His hand is on her sternum, pressing down heavily; she couldn’t move, if she wanted to. “Besides,” he drawls - his other hand is between her legs again, three fingers pushing into her so roughly that she whimpers - “to me, you’ll always be that little schoolgirl” - he curls his fingers, hard, making her gasp and writhe like a hooked fish - “who wanted nothing so much as the thing” - he moves his fingers again, scraping against that spot inside her that turns her into an animal - “she was most afraid to ask for.” The hand pressed against her chest moves up, closes briefly around her throat, and then slips farther, until he pinches the skin around her mouth, opening it up like a split plum. “But you know how to ask for it now, don’t you?” With his knee, he kicks lightly at her thigh, and she spreads her legs for him, as far as they will go. “Don’t you?”

She does.

After, when the sweat is drying on their skin, and his fingers are painting lazy circles in the dampness on her thighs, he stirs beside her - uneasily, she thinks - and says, “Yulenka, there’s something I have to tell you.” 

“What is it?” she murmurs drowsily. She can tell it will be something she will not like, and wishes he would wait until morning. She feels so good right now, so mindless and relaxed, that she doesn’t want to spoil it. 

He shifts on the bed, and clears his throat awkwardly. Looks like it’s going to get spoiled. “Well, the thing is. I’m going to have to leave the city in a few weeks.” 

“What?” This pulls her out of her lassitude immediately. She turns around, pushes his hand away. “What are you talking about? Why? For how long?” 

“In - uh. Indefinitely.” He sounds contrite, hideously so. He is not looking at her. They switched the light off some time ago, but, even in the dark, she can tell he is not looking at her. 

“Ivan,” she says, with a sharpness she almost never uses on him. “Please explain.”

“There is a program. Top secret. Something most people, even with high-level clearance, know nothing about. I’m not even sure I should tell you this much, but I would trust you with my life, of course. They run it up in the North. Not quite Siberia, but fairly… remote. Yulia,” a plaintive note enters his voice, “it’s my only chance. You know how hard it has been for me. These last few years.” He sounds bitter now. “Stuck at first lieutenant since I’m twenty-six. I’m thirty years old, God damn it, watching men younger than me getting promoted above my rank.” 

Pushing away her own surprise and pain - and her fear about no longer having a place to live - Yulia bites her lip, and strokes his shoulder compassionately. He is rigid with tension. She knows how much it has galled him, being passed over for promotion year after year. 

“This program,” he continues, “not a lot of people are interested. Not a lot are qualified, either! They don’t just invite anyone out there. You’ve got to have the right stuff. But, like I said, the post is in a very remote location, and the work is, mm, let’s say, sharply-sauced.” She wonders what that euphemism could possibly mean. After all, Ivan is no stranger to strong persuasion tactics, or covert threat removal. “I could get promoted just by going out there. Straight to Major. And they say, if I do well, it will be a quick ride to the top from there.” 

“Couldn’t you take me with you?” she asks him, pleadingly. 

“I would want nothing more, Yulenka,” he sighs, “but it’s not that kind of post. They don’t allow the officers to bring anyone but -” He stops himself, but his silence is soaked in guilt. 

“Wives,” she says dully. How often he had spoken to her of marriage in their early years; but, first, he said she was too young, and then, he was too busy climbing the ladder at work, and then … then, he found every reason in the world to avoid the subject, until she finally understood. It would be a black mark on his record, to marry the daughter of a political convict. It was one thing to live with her, to sleep with her, to keep her tucked out of sight in his little apartment. The people at the top would probably turn a blind eye to that. But a formalized connection to her? It would be fatal. To his career. 

“What if I applied for the program?” she asks. “You said it was so remote no one wants to do it, but I’m sure they need - I don’t know, secretaries, couriers? Cleaners?” She is increasingly desperate to find a way to stay with him. “There has to be something I could do.”

“It’s a military program, Yulenka,” he says, with genuine regret. “They would never hire someone with your biography.” He shakes his head sadly, and reaches for the pack of Belomor cigarettes on the nightstand. “It’s a shame, too. Not to say too much about it, but they could probably use a ballet instructor.” 

“But there has to be - something - please, Ivan, you can’t just - ” She has begun to cry, to weep like a hurt child, small heartbroken sobs and wounded-animal whimpers, and he puts his arm around her, careful to keep the lit end of the cigarette from touching the bedclothes or her skin. 

“I’m so sorry, Yulenka,” he murmurs thickly, rocking her against him, back and forth, as though she is a recalcitrant toddler fighting sleep. “But you should know, I will miss you very much.” 

* * *

It must have been years - she doesn’t know how many - since Mushka the Pomeranian has passed away, but Vyacheslav Maximych has remained true to his habit of a pre-dinner stroll in the park. If you can call it a stroll, these days. When she finds him, he is sitting on a bench, his face turned up to the early evening sun, his eyes seemingly shut, uneven gray eyelashes fluttering against the dying light. There is a cane in his hand. He didn’t used to carry a cane. 

She stops, irresolute, a few steps away from him, unsure whether she should disturb him. She decides to wait until he opens his eyes. He doesn’t, but she sees his eyelids twitch as his eyeballs move toward her. He clears his throat, coughing up a bit of phlegm, as he issues an interrogatory sort of grunt that might possibly mean “Well?” 

"Uncle S-" she starts to say, before catching herself. "Vyacheslav Maximych. Do you remember me?"

He opens his eyes and looks at her without a hint of surprise, as though he had seen her coming from a block away. For a little while, he doesn't say anything, and she understands that he is calculating whether he should pretend not to know her. 

"Yulia." He has decided in her favor, then, although there is no warmth in his voice, nor in his face. He says nothing more, and she stands there awkwardly, shuffling her feet. 

"Can I - could I sit here?" she ventures at last, and he gives the mere suggestion of a shrug, more like a twitch of his shoulders. 

"No one is going to stop you."

She sits down on the bench, as far from him as possible, so as not to inconvenience him. He doesn’t look at her. He watches the birds, clicks his tongue at nothing in particular, hums a tuneless little tune. Finally, he sighs impatiently, and clears his throat again. 

"If you're looking for information about your father, I haven't got any. If you're looking for information about Ivan Dreykov, I can't help you either."

"I'm not," she says hurriedly. "It’s not about that. It's - I am so very sorry to disturb you, but I wanted to ask you for help."

"Obviously." More long seconds of silence. Then, irritably, "If you expect me to read your mind, I’ll need to call in a friend from Lubyanka for that."

"No!" The word makes her go cold. "No, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Vyacheslav Maximych, it's just a little hard to explain. There is this program, you see," she stumbles, unsure how to explain it without getting Ivan into trouble, "a program in Siberia. I don't know anything about it, really, but -"

"The man who fucks you is about to leave you for it," Vyacheslav Maximych supplies dispassionately. "And?"

She is fighting tears. There is no information she has that he doesn't, nothing she could offer him in exchange for his help. "I love him," she whispers raggedly. “With my whole heart, Vyacheslav Maximych, I love him. He is all I have. I can’t ask him to sacrifice his career for me, I can’t, even if he would, but I beg of you - couldn’t you help me go with him? I’d do anything,” she is losing the battle now, the tears are clawing at her throat, clogging her nose, her eyes, but she will not stop, this is the only chance she has, even if it’s one in a thousand, “anything at all, I’d carry messages through the snow, clean the canteen, I’d scrub toilets, I’d - ” She stops, flustered.

Vyacheslav Maximych is shaking, and it takes her a moment to realize that he is laughing, almost silently, mucous little wheezes escaping his chest every so often. “Scrub toilets,” he chuckles, wiping his eyes. “Little Miss White-Hands, with your ballet lessons and your emerald earrings, always in your mother’s high-heeled evening shoes. Scrub toilets.” He savors the amusement, shaking his head with delight. “Scrub toilets. Ah, God. And so, we continue to build the proletariat.” 

She sits in utterly crestfallen silence while he finishes laughing, and, having done so, turns his face back toward the sun. He says nothing, and she wonders if this is how she is being dismissed. 

“My wife died three years ago,” he says out of nowhere. His tone has changed abruptly. He sounds conversational now, almost friendly. 

“I’m… very sorry,” Yulia says cautiously. She wonders whether he might possibly have dementia, if he has just suffered a break with reality. And if there is any way she can use it to her advantage. She has virtually no recollection of his wife, aside from her shrill nasal voice on the phone, telling Yulia never to call again. “She was a very fine lady.”

“Mm.” He turns around to face Yulia. His eyes are veiled by his drooping eyelids and filmed with cataracts, but piercingly sharp, when he looks directly at her. Sharp as small knives flicking open in dark rooms. Sharp as poisoned needles shooting from the tip of an umbrella. 

She holds back her shiver until, just as suddenly, he turns his terrifying gaze away from her and, again, shuts his eyes. 

“What do you say we continue this conversation,” he says, in that same benignly friendly voice, “over a cup of tea, in my apartment?” 

He doesn’t look at her at all. Doesn’t even sneak a peek. His eyes are closed, the final rays of the sunset guild his white hair and wrinkled face. Anyone watching him right now would see only a sweet old man, warming his bones in the scant Northern sunshine of a crisp Leningrad October. Yulia remembers how kind he was to her when she was a little girl, how he would dandle her on his knee, and bring her bars of chocolate, how he would break off pieces of the chocolate and feed them to her with his fingers, laughing happily as he placed them on her tongue. 

As if forming dough, she shapes her face into a smile. 

“That would be lovely, Vyacheslav Maximych.” 

* * *

She is in another windowless gray room, but this time, she is sitting in a metal chair, not standing in a queue. A door slaps open, and a tired-looking man in a wrinkled brown suit pokes his head out. 

“Bogatyreva, Yulia?” 

She steps inside his office - really, just a smaller, carpeted version of the earlier windowless gray room, but this one has a desk, a couple of threadbare padded chairs, and a mostly empty bookshelf. The man doesn’t bother introducing himself, only grunts, and points to one of the chairs in front of the desk, before seating himself in the one behind it. 

She folds her hands on her knees, leaning forward eagerly, ready to answer any question he might ask, to the very best of her ability. But he doesn’t ask her any. He grunts again, rummages through the drawers of his desk, breaks off to dig around in his nose and protractedly examine whatever he extracts, rummages around some more, and finally finds what he needs: a thin, sealed envelope. 

He places the envelope on the desk in front of him, and finally looks at Yulia.

“You know why you’re here?” he asks her, without bothering to offer any context. He manages to somehow sound both very bored and very urgent. 

“I - yes, I do. I’m here about the program in - ”

“Yes, yes, I don’t need you to tell me about it. You know who vouched for you?” 

Images flash through her head. She pushes them away. “Yes.” 

“You know what will happen to you if you tell anyone about this? What will happen to your boyfriend?” 

More images come, harder to push away this time. She swallows. “Yes.” 

“Okay, good.” He pushes the envelope across the desk toward her, and leans back in his chair. “This is your authorization to work on the project. Present it to the administrative officer once you are in situ. That’s all.” He directs his gaze toward the ceiling to the left of her head, aggressively bored again. “Close the door behind you on your way out.” 

Overcome with joy, wanting to whoop and cheer, Yulia rises from her chair, and proceeds to the door, but the man interrupts her mental celebration. 

“Oh, one more thing, Bogatyreva.”

“Yes?” Anything, he could ask her for anything right now, and she would do it, only to be allowed to keep this gift.

“Piece of friendly advice. Your last name. People have long memories. I wouldn’t use it too often, if I were you.” 

* * *

She is twenty-eight years old, bent over the desk in Ivan’s office, naked from the waist down. He is behind her, although she would have preferred to face him - she has missed him so; paradoxically, they get to see each other less often now that they are working together. He is constantly busy, flying off to meetings in classified locations or disappearing into secret underground rooms, and she spends all her days tutoring young girls in ballet. She spends her nights writing detailed reports about their performance - and about their demeanor, their personalities, their psychological tics. 

She has done well at this job; although her formal dance training was never completed, she has enough knowledge of ballet - and enough natural teaching talent - to instruct these terrified foundlings, or orphans, or whatever they are, however they got here. She does not concern herself with this overmuch. She takes them, drills them, intimidates them, praises them, and, very occasionally, reaches them - the part of them that can still appreciate beauty. This is not a job requirement, but such moments make it easier to bear the times when a girl whom Yulia has to write up as “uncooperative” or “independent-minded” disappears from her class, and from the program itself. 

She calls herself Madame B. At first, it was a sly homage to her own childhood dance teacher - Kazan-born Varvara Kramolnaya, who insisted on being addressed exclusively as Madame K - but then, it felt like a way of starting fresh, of jettisoning the heavy baggage of her old identity, and becoming someone new. Someone capable and clever, not a bauble to be toyed with, or a burden to drag around. Madame B is what Yulia aspires to become one day; and, she thinks, she is getting close. 

Ivan has done well, too. As promised, he was promoted in short order. He practically runs the whole operation now; there are only a few administrative officers above him, and they mostly let him do as he sees fit. He is happier than he has ever been. 

All of which is very good, except she only sees Ivan a few nights each week now. She understands, of course she does, but she misses him, and today, when he called her into his office and immediately locked the door behind her, she had been hoping for some of the tenderness she has been missing; but, instead, he slammed her so hard against the door that the glass pane rattled, and immediately buried his face in the opening of her blouse. 

“Ivan,” she gasped, “please- ”

“Need you now,” he muttered insistently, pushing her pencil skirt up above her waist, and ripping her panties away with one impatient tug. “Don’t have much time. Right now, Yulia, right now, on the desk.” 

“Okay…” She hurried to the desk, perched herself on top of it, leaned back against her arms, and opened her legs invitingly. “Like this?” she purred seductively, waiting for that utterly stupefied look to take over his face before he pounced on her.

But it didn’t. “No,” he said quickly, pulling her off the desk so hastily, she nearly lost her balance, “no, I want you like this,” turning her around and bending her over, already unzipping his trousers. 

“But, Ivan, that’s not how I - why do you want to do it like this?” she asks, perplexed, even as he pushes her head down until her cheek presses against wood.  

“Because,” he growls playfully, “this way I get to look at your gorgeous ass while I fuck that tight little pussy of yours.” He slaps the ass in question, so hard that she yelps, but she giggles at the same time. God, he always could bring out the animal in her. 

He starts to fuck her hard and fast, right away, hammering at her while his hands grip her thighs and force her legs farther and farther apart, until even her dancer’s muscles are trembling and aching with the strain. Still, she loves it, loves the intensity of his need for her, how much he still wants her; she moans from the pleasure of the friction, from the pain of his fingers digging into her flesh, from the outrageousness of this whole scenario: a teacher - a children’s teacher - shamelessly exposed in broad daylight, getting bent over and fucked by someone who is, probably, technically her boss. 

“You little tease,” he groans, “you little whore,” and fucks her even faster. He is getting close, he is getting right up to the edge, and he fists his hand into her hair, destroying her neat chignon as he yanks her back and forth on his cock, so fast and frantic, she can only flop around in his iron grip. 

“Yulia,” he moans, and he only says her name like this when it’s good for him, when it’s very very good, “Yulia, Yulenka…” Her own orgasm starts to approach, that velvet darkness scrolling across her eyes as she clutches the side of the desk and tries to keep her lips together, tries to keep herself from making too much noise…

“Olya…” 

The promise of sweet oblivion recedes in a flash, like a velvet curtain being ripped off a rail, so abruptly that she is shocked to find herself where she is: the scarred wooden surface in front of her face, her clothes an absolute, possibly irreparable, mess, the carved edge of the desk bruising her hip bones, and Ivan’s come shooting into her. Most of it lands on her thighs when she wriggles out from under him, desperate to get away. It’s as if his body has turned into molten lava. 

“Huh - wha - ” he bleats, blinking blearily at her. His still-tumescent red cock dribbles onto the floor. “What the hell happened?”

“You called me Olya,” she hisses, pushing her skirt down. “You bastard, you just called me by another woman’s name.” 

“Are you out of your mind?” Gradually regaining self-possession, he begins to irritably put himself back together. “Why the fuck would I call you by some other woman’s name? Who the fuck is Olya, anyway?” 

“How the hell should I know?” she shouts, and then reminds herself that this is a Soviet building; the walls are cardboard. She lowers her voice to a furious whisper. “It’s what you called me. While you were coming, you asshole, while you were fucking me!”

“I said “Yulia,” you crazy bitch!” he yells, not bothering to keep his voice down. “I said “Yulia,” it’s not my fucking fault you’re going deaf! Jesus fucking Christ!” He steps away from her, runs his hand through his hair. “You know what, this was a mistake. I should have known better. You’ve forgotten to have fun, you know? You used to be fun , Yulia! What happened to the sweet little girl I fell in love with?” 

“But I heard you say…”

He just glares at her, and tucks his shirt into his pants. 

She is so completely discombobulated, she actually feels physically unstable, like she might fall over. She puts a hand out to steady herself, and feels it bang against a sharp corner. Startled, she spins around, and catches a glimpse of her reflection in the smoked glass doors of a bookcase.

She looks insane. Her hair is standing up around her head as though she was electrocuted. Her clothes are rucked into crazy shapes, and her face, distorted by the warping of the glass, looks like it is melting off her skull. She looks twisted, haggard, grotesque. 

She looks old. 

“I’m sorry, Ivan,” she mumbles, stumbling over her words. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me. I don’t know - I heard “Olya,” I just - I went nuts, I guess, I - ” Running over to him, she wraps her arms around him from behind, trying not to get her tears on the back of his shirt. “I’m sorry, I just love you so much, I thought you were thinking of someone else, and I couldn’t bear it, I couldn’t… Please, Ivan, please. Do you forgive me?” 

Eventually, after she has reached the point of near-hysteria, he turns around, and returns her embrace. “You might be a batty old broad,” he says affectionately, “but you’re my batty old broad.” 

* * *

A few months go by. Her display of adoration and raw need must have ingratiated her with Ivan; he tries to make more time for her, and even takes her on a short trip to Moscow. True, he spends most of his time there in meetings, but they have four glorious nights in the kind of hotel she remembers staying at with her parents. She feels that she and Ivan have rekindled their passion. It’s normal, isn’t it, for couples to wax and wane in their affections? After all this time? She and Ivan have been together for nearly thirteen years. 

Work is going well. She is informed by her supervisor - who reports to Ivan, or possibly even to some other person who reports to Ivan, after all of Ivan’s promotions - that her reports are informative and thorough, that girls leave her classes with a clear sense of discipline, and that they have decided it is time for her to advance. Instead of instructing groups ages five to ten, she will be instructing girls ages eleven to fifteen. 

They can be a challenge, her supervisor warns her, but the Red Room has utmost confidence in Yulia’s ability to get them in hand. 

She is confident, too, although she modestly downplays that. Yulia remembers very well what it is like to be that age. How much it means to be treated like an adult. How easy it is to be manipulated by someone who understands that. 

She walks into the studio, on the first day of class, and raps her stick sharply against the floor. The girls stop talking immediately, and fall in line against the barre. She walks the length of the room, inspecting them sternly, letting the silence grow to fill the room, to fill the girls with trepidation, which will turn to mind-loosening relief when Yulia eventually shows them that she isn’t the ogre they expect. 

They certainly look different from her previous classes. Girls between the ages of five and ten look like children; girls sixteen and older look like women. This mix is a motley hodgepodge of both: some still have the oversized eyes and soft-bridged noses of little kids; others almost look like adults, but for the adolescent sprays of acne decorating their chins and foreheads. 

Then, there is the especially unnerving third category: these look like they were frozen mid-transformation, as though a fairytale witch was interrupted in the middle of casting a spell. They are like mythical chimerae, sometimes combining the gangly limbs of adolescents with the deep, knowing gaze of a full-grown woman. A skinny, curveless, knock-kneed body, with a pair of completely incongruous balloons attached to the chest. A symmetrical, athletic, moderately developed teenage figure, and the chubby-cheeked, buck-toothed face of a ten-year-old. 

And every single one of them is looking at her. Watchful, wary, hopeful, bleak. She might not know them yet, but they belong to her. For now. 

“I’m Madame B,” she finally says, affecting the vague, unplaceable accent she adopted soon after adopting her ambiguous name. “Today, we will learn an especially beautiful pas from Coppélia . Please observe me closely.” 

She demonstrates the steps. She has chosen a challenging combination, on the theory that these girls are older, and if they are not strong enough to keep up by now, they do not belong in the program. It occurs to her that her musical selection, which she often liked to use with her younger classes, might not resonate equally well with this audience. Little girls love the whimsical idea of a doll becoming a girl, a girl becoming a doll. Older girls might have a different response to such a story. 

She leads her pupils as they repeat the steps, practicing the moves individually, and then gradually stitching them together. Up and down the line she walks, using her stick to tap feet and legs and backs, lightly, just enough to get them focused. Balanced. Flawless. 

Near the end of the line, she spots an especially clumsy dancer. The girl is strong, but utterly graceless; her adage looks like a series of donkey kicks. She isn’t built for ballet at all, Yulia thinks critically, although it’s not her fault, poor thing. The width of those hips and the heft of those truly stupendous bosoms could only be due to cruel genetics. 

Still, it is Yulia’s responsibility to turn the sorriest of sow’s ears into silk purses, and she will not shirk it. In fact, this may serve as an example to the rest of the girls: Madame B can turn anyone into a dancer. 

“You,” she taps the girl, “show me your arabesque.” 

The girl blinks nervously, and kicks her leg into the air behind her, throwing her arms out to the sides like she is trying to stop a moving car. Her center of gravity is all wrong, thanks to her over-large bottom. Yulia restrains a sigh, corrects the girl’s form, makes her try it again, and again, and again. 

“What’s your name?” she asks gruffly, mainly to buy her time to think of advice that might possibly work. She never remembers her pupils’ names. It makes it too difficult when they … leave. 

“Olya,” the girl whispers. Her rabbit-like blue eyes dart toward Yulia’s face, and immediately dart away. 

“Olya…” 

It can’t be. No.

“Olya,” Yulia says, keeping her voice stern but casual, “how long have you been in the program?” Maybe she is new. Maybe very new. 

“Since - since I was nine, Madame B.” 

No. No. 

“How old are you, Olya?” Her heart is pounding inside her chest. She wonders that the girls can’t hear it. 

“Fourteen, Madame B.” 

She doesn’t look fourteen, Yulia thinks with sudden disgust, eyeing the girl’s figure. She looks like a mature woman, like a woman who’s had children , like a dairy cow. Those ridiculous tits. That enormous ass. 

This way I get to look at that gorgeous ass while I fuck that tight little pussy of yours.

“Olya,” she says slowly, and the steel band wrapped around her lungs is turning to ice and then fire, “please step in front of the class and demonstrate the pas I showed you.” 

The girl looks absolutely petrified. “The - the whole thing, Madame B?” she stammers. Her eyes are pleading for mercy. 

Yulia has none. “The whole thing. Right now, please.” 

Dragging her feet and staring at the floor, Olya walks into the center of the room. Yulia hits the play button on the tape deck. The music begins to play, tinny and tremulous, pretty and precise. 

Olya tries. She does. She raises her chin a little, attempting a modicum of dancer’s grace. She gets the first few steps of the combination right, if awkwardly executed. And then, she stumbles a little, which makes her lose her concentration, which makes her forget the next move. 

Yulia is watching her, but she isn’t really watching her. She is watching Ivan unzip his trousers and push her down across a desk, she is listening to him grunting behind her. 

You little tease.

You little tease. 

You little whore.

You little whore. 

Her hand cracks so quickly across Olya’s face, it takes Yulia herself by surprise. She hadn’t even realized she wanted to do it. 

Olya, in contrast, doesn’t look surprised at all. She hangs her head and stands there, like a donkey waiting for a whipping. 

“Again,” Yulia hisses. “This time, try not to look like a cow giving birth.” 

Olya tries again. This time, she gets a bit farther into the combination before she misses a step. 

Crack .

“Again.” 

Olya tries again. She gets nearly to the end of the pas before she gets slapped. Incredibly, the repetition technique does seem to be working. Even after she gets slapped, Olya looks almost pleased at having gotten so far. 

Yulia finds that infuriating. 

“Again.” 

Olya starts from the beginning; she is a bit more confident now, which infuses her gestures with a certain athletic, if not balletic, grace. It’s almost like she is enjoying herself. 

Yulia does not want her enjoying herself. 

In her head, Yulia hears Vyacheslav Maximych’s wheezing old voice. No one is going to stop you.

Olya is in the middle of a simple turn when Yulia slaps her again, much harder than before. Olya’s head snaps to the side, her form collapses completely, she only barely manages not to fall. Holding her cheek, she whimpers, “Did I do it wrong again, Madame B? I thought I was - ”

“A real dancer,” Yulia interrupts her coldly, “continues dancing no matter what. Begin again.” 

The next time, Olya takes two slaps before she stumbles. 

The next time, she takes five.

Then, only one.

Two. 

Eight. 

Three. 

The scheduled end of the class has come and gone. The girls are in a circle around Olya and Yulia, discreetly trying to stretch limbs stiff from standing in place for so long. Olya keeps dancing. 

Crack . Thump. 

“Again.” 

Crack. Crack. Crack. Thump. 

“Again.” 

It is nearly dinner time when Olya finally succeeds in completing the pas . Even Yulia has lost count of how many times she has hit her. The girl’s entire face and neck and chest, every inch of skin exposed by her leotard, is blazing red with overlapping handprints. Here and there, a few small drops of blood are crusting over, where Yulia’s fingernails have grazed her. 

Olya freezes in the final position, and holds it, wobbling only a little. Yulia considers slapping her again, hard enough to knock her off balance, but she feels, all at once, tired and hungry. 

And empty. Terribly, terribly empty. 

“Good, Olya,” she says, and hears two dozen simultaneous exhalations. She bangs her stick on the floor furiously, and wheels around to face the class. 

She can feel it. The moment they stop feeling relieved, all at the same time. She can feel it, as if she is holding their birdlike little hearts, all squeezed together in her hand. 

“That, class,” she says very quietly, so they all have to hold their breath to hear her, “is what true discipline looks like.” She nods a few times, makes sure they’ve all got the message. Then, she turns back to Olya. 

“You’re too fat,” she says flatly. “No dinner for the rest of the week.” 

Olya does not react to this, except to blink again, slowly. God, this little bitch makes everything, even torturing her, just a little less enjoyable than it could be. 

Yulia taps her stick against the floor, twice. “Class dismissed,” she says, and waits for the girls to scatter. 

But they don’t, not right away. They stay rooted to their spots, unable to take their eyes off her. 

Madame B has had many pupils’ eyes on her. She is used to the gamut of their emotions. Sometimes, her girls are shifty, and sometimes, they are confused. Sometimes, they are sad, and, occasionally, they are happy. Sometimes, they are nervous, or worried, or even scared. 

These girls are terrified. 

* * *

Two days later, Ivan calls her into his office. She is so angry at him, she almost refuses. But he outranks her by such a magnitude, that refusing this invitation might literally be a firing squad offense. 

“Madame B,” he says merrily, when she knocks on his door. He has never called her that before, not when they were alone. Not even in jest. “Come in, come in. Sit down, take a load off. Drink?” He waves a bottle of port wine at her. Her old favorite. 

She sits woodenly, accepts the glass, and clutches it in her hand without taking a sip. Lounging behind his desk, he doesn’t seem to notice her mood at all. His eyes twinkle merrily, in that way that turned her head so completely when she had been - she doesn’t want to think about what age she had been. Doesn’t want to count backward that far. 

“Hey,” he says, and tilts his head toward her, frowning a little. It makes his glasses - recently, Ivan had to get glasses - slide down his nose. He looks silly, and doesn’t realize it. And yet, he is still the only man she has ever wanted. “Yulia? Are you all right?”

“Fine,” she clips off, and takes a long swallow from the glass. It helps. 

“Look - you know what, let’s meet later, okay? After work - we’ll have dinner and we can talk about whatever is bothering you, but for now - I have fantastic news!” He beams at her. “You, my dear, have impressed some very important people.”

“I? What? How?” She feels like her thoughts are moving through water. 

“Your ballet class, the other day.” He raises and lowers his eyebrows meaningfully. “Surely you haven’t forgotten?” He slaps one hand against the other, and barks, “Again!” Claps his hands once more, and repeats, ferociously, “Again!” He laughs uproariously at his own imitation. “It was amazing.” 

“Wait.” She puts her glass down on his desk, and rubs her forehead. “How do you even know about that?”

“Yulenka, come on.” He grins. “You had to have at least guessed there are cameras everywhere? Certainly in the classrooms. How else would we know if any teachers were going … off-book?” 

“Right. Of course.” This wasn’t something she had ever really thought about. Which was stupid, she can see that now. So very, very stupid. 

“Never mind - the point is, it caught someone’s eye. And that someone sent the recording to someone else, and then it went to someone else, and finally,” he spreads his big palms with a flourish, “it made its way up to me, and I immediately showed it to my commanding officer. I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” he smiles charmingly, “but I wanted the outcome - if it was good - to be a surprise. And it is! It’s good, I mean.” 

“What? What is the outcome?” She is still trying to wrap her mind around the fact that Ivan has watched her slap the skin off the girl he’d wanted to fuck so badly that he had spoken her name while having sex with Yulia. But he doesn’t even seem aware of the connection. 

“They are giving them to you,” he announced triumphantly. “The whole class. They are giving them to you, to build a mini-program inside the program, as a pilot project. They - well, we - because, certainly, I am your most excited audience member - want to see what you can do with them, if they belong completely to you for a year.” 

“Goodness.” She is genuinely taken aback. Not happy, exactly, but also not unhappy - there is no doubting that this is a serious advancement, or at least a very good chance at one. And all despite her questionable biography, her tainted bloodline, her lack of education or connections. This, she realizes, is how she will finally complete her transformation from Yulia Bogatyreva to Madame B. 

She meets Ivan’s gaze, and finally answers his smile with her own. “I humbly accept this opportunity,” she says, sounding anything but humble, and he laughs with relish, and refills her glass to the brim. 

They clink. They drink to her success. They refill, and drink again, and again. And then, Yulia gets the courage to ask him the question that has been on her mind since he told her there were cameras in her classroom. 

“So you watched that video, right?” 

“Of course.” He cackles once more. ““Again! Again!” So good.”

“Uh-huh. Did you, um. Recognize any of the girls in the class?”

He looks right at her, his face completely devoid of any liar’s tells, his brown eyes wide and guileless. “Nope,” he says easily. “Not at all.” 

* * *

Yulia is thirty-four years old, and she has been called into Ivan’s office. He is not happy with her. She knows this, because, when he called her into his office - having come upon her reducing one of her girls to a quivering pile of sobs and bruises - he did not look happy.

It has been years since he has touched her. They never ended their relationship formally. After all, it never was a formal thing. They simply, one day, agreed that he was too busy, had too much work. She did too, by then. Her mini-program had gone wonderfully well. In the course of the pilot, she developed numerous other teaching techniques, many in tandem with other instructors: martial arts, firearms, psychological warfare. Madame B is so much more than a ballet instructor now. 

Sitting across from her, his hands grandly steepled on his desk, a deep scowl on his face, he is still so fucking handsome , she thinks despairingly. It isn’t fair. It isn’t. She has kept herself slender and supple and firm; almost daily, she slathers her face with mashed berries and dumps jars of mayonnaise on her hair - there are no commercial beauty products to be gotten for love nor money in this godforsaken corner of the Soviet Union - while he has cheerfully submitted to the predations of age, his hair turning almost entirely gray, his body grown stout and pillowlike. And yet, she still wants him. While he…

“You break them down , Madame B,” he lectures her, “you do not break them into pieces! We have no use for pieces.” 

“I use methods that I know to be effective,” she counters coolly. “You gave me this position for a reason.”

“And I can take it away for a reason, too!” he flares. “Don’t tempt me!” 

“I don’t know what you expect from me,” she returns. “The girl does not try hard enough. How else is she going to improve? Would you rather I allow her to be washed out?” 

“She will not wash out,” he snaps, before he can catch himself. 

“Oh? And why not?” Madame B leans back in her own chair, regarding her erstwhile lover with her beautiful tip-tilted green eyes. It has been so long since he has noticed their beauty. While she has never stopped observing him. Has only become better at reading his mind.

“Never mind why not,” he growls, and comes out from behind the desk. His belly bumps the lampshade as he does. “Listen. Take it easier on the girls, understand? We don’t want any spoilage coming from your overzealousness. What makes your technique so effective is fear of punishment. Not the punishment itself.”

“Such a scholar of my technique, are you,” she says mockingly. “Have you ever considered asking me if your deductions are accurate?” 

“Have you ever considered doing what you are told? Ever? Eh?” 

It’s a rhetorical question. He slams out of his office, leaving Madame B sitting in her chair, where she is, presumably, supposed to stew in her own juices while slowly coming to see his point of view. 

Fuck that. 

She waits precisely five seconds before she gets up and inches the door open. She peeks out, and only just sees his departing back, turning a familiar corner. She waits another few seconds before she follows him.

He doubles back to exactly where they came from - one of the smaller practice rooms, where Madame B had been delivering an intensive private lesson to one very unfortunate pupil. The girl is still there, still sniveling in a corner. 

Yulia watches Ivan enter the room, ostentatiously clearing his throat, as if to disavow any inclination to sneak up on anyone. She tucks herself into a part of the hallway from which she can see inside the practice room, without being too easily discoverable. 

The girl jumps up when she sees Ivan walk in, attempts a brave posture, but she is still shaking. Madame B resists the urge to scoff with irritation. She didn’t even hit the girl that hard. 

Ivan comes over to the trembling little thing, and gives her a reassuring smile, rubbing his hands up and down her arms a few times. “There, there,” he says, gruff but affectionate. “She’ll get over it. It will all be fine. There, there.” He fishes a handkerchief out of his pocket, and dabs at the girl’s face. 

The girl sniffles hard, and bites her lip to stop crying. She has the body of a woman, and the face of a child. Ivan keeps rubbing her arms. 

“How old are you?” he asks her, all kindly benign curiosity. Nothing untoward. 

The girl looks up at him. Despite his ministrations with the hankie, there are tear stains still streaking her cheeks, her smooth, unlined - damn her - skin, as dewy and fresh as a recently ripened apricot. When she speaks, her voice is a child’s voice, high and fluting.

“Fifteen.”