He didn’t seem real. It was impossible that Adam was now standing in front of Daria. He looked too big for the doorway, too big for their tiny room. Daria was embarrassed at how small her life was. He sucked the air out of her lungs. Gosha looked at Adam curiously, then went back to his play. He still had the duckie pull toy.
Edward stretched his hand for Adam to shake, drew him in, and closed the door. “Thank you for coming.”
Adam ignored the formality, eyes shifting from Gosha to Daria, but when Adam spoke, it was to Edward. “You wrote they were in danger.”
Daria wasn’t sure which shocked her more, the fact that her husband had told such a blatant lie, or that he’d taken the initiative to do so. “Why would you tell him that, Edward?”
Edward didn’t take his own eyes off Adam. “The Germans, they’ll be here any day now. By end of summer, most likely.”
“No!” Daria objected. “I was listening to the radio. They said it’s only Poland and the other territories. Hitler would never be so foolish as to attack the USSR. The pact—”
“Let them come!” Isaak Israelevitch interrupted. “The Germans are civilized people. Not like these Cossack barbarians. We’ll greet them as liberators.”
“You weren’t there, Papa.” The words came tumbling out of Edward. Daria was reminded of how Anya had nearly thrown a tantrum after weeks of being good and keeping it all penned up, and of how frequently Daria herself had ached to blurt out the forbidden. She’d never imagined it might also be true of her now taciturn Edward. But, then again, why wouldn’t it be? Why should he be different from the rest of them? Why couldn’t Edward be suppressing his authentic voice just as strenuously, and for the same reasons? “You didn’t see. I was in Germany. In 1933, in 1936. I saw. There’s an evil there. It’s festering, it’s growing. They’re coming for us next.”
Daria didn’t understand. “The Germans aren’t bad people. We lived with so many of them, in the camp. Those families were as falsely accused as we were; they didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Those are not the Germans who are coming,” Edward said. “You don’t know what they’re doing to Jews in Germany. I saw their leaflets, I watched them burn synagogues, ransack stores, attack old men in the streets.”
“Ridiculous,” Isaak Israelevitch spoke up. “You didn’t see this. You’ve been listening to capitalist propaganda. That’s all this is, like during the Great War. The West claimed German soldiers were bayoneting babies, drinking their blood! No such atrocities happened—we know that now. It was deliberate disinformation to convince us the Germans were our enemies and the Soviets our saviors. I tell you, compared to what we’re enduring under their rule—”
“The Germans,” Edward hissed, “will make the Communists appear like benign occupiers. Adam, you must get them out of here. Daria and Gosha, Alyssa, too. Take them east. The Germans will never advance that far. The cold will stop them, like it did Napoleon. Daria and the children will be safe. Please.” His voice broke and, for a moment, Daria thought Edward would sink to his knees. “Please.”
“No.” Daria piped up before Adam had a chance to answer. “We’re not going anywhere.”
“You must.” Daria would have said she was seeing glimpses of the old Edward, except he had never been this forceful, this decisive before. “You’ll die if you stay here. We’ll all die.”
“Then we’ll leave together.” The decision seemed simple to Daria.
“We can’t just ask for permission to leave. No one will grant us that. We don’t have the political capital. Besides, you need someone who can take care of you and the children, someone who can protect you no matter which side is in power.”
Edward knew that person could never be him.
And thanks to her afternoon spent lurking at the ballet academy’s door, Daria knew who had made him feel that way. Just because it was true didn’t mean she wasn’t to blame.
“You’re my husband,” Daria said, although that didn’t address Edward’s argument. She could never leave him. Precisely because what he’d said was true.
“I’ll take them,” Adam cut in brusquely. The strength holding Edward upright left him as he all but collapsed in gratitude. Except then Adam said, “If Daria wants me to.”
If Daria wants me to . . . The words swam in her brain. What the hell did Daria’s wants have to do with anything? Daria’s wants and actions were what had brought about this situation. Daria’s wants were of no relevance. As Comrade Stalin loved to distort Tolstoy and remind his citizens, “You have no rights, only obligations.”
“Thank you,” Daria told Adam, letting a fraction of the emotion that she felt for him come spilling out, even as she was already pulling herself back together. “You were kind to come. But this is where I belong.”
“At least take the boy.” Edward swung Gosha up off the floor and thrust him into Adam’s arms. “He’s your son; you can take him—you have the right. Then Daria will have to come, too.” He looked at her desperately. “She’d never choose me over him.”
Gosha looked questioningly at Edward before turning his attentions to Adam. Or rather, to the sole gold button of Adam’s coat. He twisted it curiously in both directions, paying no attention to the man staring longingly at him. Daria waited for Adam to contradict Edward, to reveal that Daria had already chosen her husband over her son once before. That should be enough to convince Edward. It should be enough to send Adam on his way. Before Daria’s resolve began to waver.
“No.” Adam peered over Gosha’s head at Daria. “I’m afraid I cannot do that.”
“Let me talk to her,” Edward pleaded. “Reason with her. Give me until tomorrow morning.”
“I won’t change my mind,” Daria said, as much to herself as to either of the men. “I won’t leave you.”
“I’ll come back in the morning,” Adam said.
Edward begged, Edward cajoled, Edward wept. The latter disgusted his father, terrified Alyssa, and prompted Gosha to toddle over and pat Edward on the head, the way Edward did when Gosha hurt himself. It was that last move that solidified the resolve Daria earlier feared shattering. After everything she’d put Edward through, after the way he’d taken her back and accepted Gosha, treating the boy like his own no matter how cruel the derision from Isaak, Daria couldn’t abandon Edward—not for anything, not for anyone, and that included her children. She’d done it once before. Staying with Edward now would be her penance for that betrayal.
Daria tried to convince him they would be fine. Their families had weathered the previous German occupation and, as his father kept insisting, even thrived! They would manage whatever came next. Daria possessed skills now. She couldn’t imagine a future she couldn’t handle, one that would prove more cataclysmic than her recent past.
But Edward kept talking. He talked through most of the evening and, after everyone else had gone to bed, he whispered. He embraced Daria; he shook her. She kept expecting him to grow weary, but the more she resisted, the more fervent he became. Daria found it impossible to keep wrangling, especially when she was determined to keep her true argument hidden from him at all costs. Finally, Daria collapsed into an exhausted sleep, Edward’s words still buzzing in her ears.
She thought she woke because he’d at long last stopped, and it was the silence that roused her. Edward had, at some point, collapsed on the bed beside her, twitching and mumbling with his eyes closed. Yet what she’d actually heard were Adam’s footsteps outside their room. She could still pick them out, even while asleep. Daria slipped out of bed and hurried to the door, opening it and darting outside before Adam could knock. It was dark, barely dawn. Daria hadn’t realized that when Adam said he’d be back in the morning, he’d meant at first light.
“I wanted to get you alone.” Had he anticipated her hearing him and dashing out before anyone else? Did he know her that well?
“I haven’t changed my mind,” she said.
Adam sighed. “We can take him with us. Your husband. His father, too. I can try to arrange the papers. It may take a while.”
“And what would happen to me?” Daria demanded.
“Whatever you want.”
“I want to stay with my husband,” she declared, then wavered. “I need to stay with my husband.”
“And he needs to know you and your children are safe.”
“Gosha,” Daria prompted, as if Adam needed reminding. “He’s been so good to him.” Her next thought may not have made sense coming directly after to Adam, but it did to Daria. “I can’t leave Edward.”
“He wants you to.”
“He doesn’t know what he wants. He needs me to look after him.”
“And you need to play martyr. Again.”
She knew what he meant. That didn’t mean she had to like it. “Go to hell.”
“I plan to. It’s still frozen over.”
Despite herself, Daria smiled.
“I missed you,” she confessed, locking her hands behind her back again, to keep herself from rushing to him. This conversation couldn’t be happening. How could this conversation be happening? How could Adam be standing in front of her, close enough to touch? Close enough that he shouldn’t, under any circumstances, be touched?
Adam followed her lead, keeping his distance, though Daria had no way of knowing if it was for the same reason. Was he feeling it, too, this irresistible pull? This unacceptable pull? She understood no more about what Adam was thinking or feeling now than she ever had.
Voice devoid of judgment, he observed, “When you’re with him, you miss me. When you were with me, you missed him.”
What was there to say to that but . . . “Yes.”
“And I’m the one who should go to hell?” Was that amusement or fury Daria was seeing? “You’ve reserved yourself the main room!”
She sighed. “Good thing we’re so used to living in crowded quarters.”
To hell with distance, to hell with following her lead. Adam grabbed Daria and kissed her. It felt so much like the first time, the urgency, the unrestrained passion, the need, and the release. But Daria also knew it was the last time for them both. So she didn’t rush. Yes, they could be seen; yes, they could be caught; yes, they could be reported. But once again, Daria couldn’t find it within herself to be scared of anything that might happen in preference over what currently was. She raised her arms to wrap around his neck, then slid her palms until they were cradling his cheeks. Adam’s hands went around her waist as he lifted her off the ground. He broke his mouth away from hers and buried his lips in her neck, moving around to the crest of her throat, then up to her chin, her jaw, and back to her lips, her tongue, anything and everything, greedy and demanding and giving, remembering and memorizing her at the same time.
They couldn’t have stood as they were that long, because it was still barely day outside when they heard Alyssa’s frantic screaming from the other side of the door.
Adam and Daria broke apart. She tore back into their room, where Daria encountered a hysterical Alyssa, Isaak Israelevitch beside her, Gosha right behind, tugging frantically at what it took Daria a stupefied moment to comprehend were Edward’s legs, hanging limply from the ceiling.