WHEN MY DAD was really young, like, right out of high school, he joined the navy. He thought it would be a good way to be of service to his new country, and to learn, get some training.
He was stationed on a nuclear sub. He doesn’t talk about it too often—I don’t think he liked it all that much.
But one weekend, after Cal and I had been bugging him, asking a lot of questions about what being on a sub was like, he drove us downtown to visit the Maritime Museum. They have a Soviet sub from the 1970s there. It’s not like the one my dad was on—it’s ancient, a piece of history. But still, going down there and visiting that sub was pretty cool.
My dad said there was a nickname for those old Foxtrot B-class Soviet subs—and if he remembered correctly, they were called Black Widows.
“Who knows this stuff? You’re a trivia master, Stanley!” says Liberty as we walk up to the roped-off museum entry dock.
At the ticket window, a pale, skinny woman with red hair, bright red lipstick, and extremely blue eyes is sitting behind the desk. Something about her seems familiar.
I freeze in my tracks. “Wait,” I murmur. “Wait. I think I know her. But I’m not sure.”
Liberty rolls her eyes at me and sighs. Then she steps up.
“Excuse me, ma’am. Um, are you supposed to be the Black Widow? I mean, Natasha?”
“Could be. Who wants to know?” The lady stares at us, eyes wide, and loudly pops a chewing gum bubble.
I know who she is now. I’ve just never seen her without her wraparound sunglasses and trucker hat.
“Black Widow,” Liberty repeats. “As in, ‘Natasha’s other name’? Did we get the clue?”
I step forward. “Wait—are you—Olga? Is that you?”
My bus driver breaks into a grin. “Aha! Stanley! The keed from Canyon Rim, with the loud big brother.” She gives me a thumbs-up. “But I am not Olga today. I am as you have guessed: Natasha. My boyfriend, he is organizer. I go to Comic Fest every year as Black Widow. It’s fun!” Then she slides two slips of paper under the glass. “Good guessing job, keeds! Here are your entry tickets!”
“Thanks, but aren’t you supposed to give us a golden coin? And the next clue?” Liberty asks.
But Olga—I mean Natasha—only winks and opens the gate. “Tickets good for submarine only,” she says in her thick accent.
“I can’t believe you know her!” whispers Liberty as we walk down the dock to the boats. Which makes me feel weirdly proud, although I’m not sure what for exactly.
We walk past several ships on display. There’s the old-fashioned H.M.S. Surprise, with its tall masts and furled sails, and a little tugboat with rubber-tire bumpers all around it, to keep it from crunching into the dock. And finally, there it is, just as I remember: that Black Widow sub. Half submerged in the water, with a gangplank leading to its big black metal hull. A piece of history. A Soviet relic.
A museum attendant—or maybe it’s just some old guy in a yachting cap—smiles and waves us up the gangplank.
We make our way to the open hatch, and I start down some steep metal steps. It quickly becomes dark and enclosed. The smell of machine oil and fuel reminds me of the bus.
At the bottom of the stairs, if I remember right, is the torpedo room. “Liberty?” I peer back up to where she’s still hesitating on the top step. “Come on down!” The sunny sky behind her head makes me squint.
“What if I just wait for you up here?” she says in a wavering voice.
“Seriously? After all this, you’re telling me you’re afraid? Of the sub?” I climb halfway back up, and find her backing away from the hatch.
“It’s too . . . small down there. Too closed in.”
“You made me get on the bus. So now you can do this,” I say firmly.
We stare each other down, until she finally sighs and inches toward the stairs.
I guess we all have different things that set us off.
The large, red-and-white-painted torpedoes are the first things you notice as you step into the hold. I put my hand on their cold, hard surface. It doesn’t feel dangerous. “Imagine you’re deep underwater for months at a time, ready to kill or be killed at any moment,” I say to her, going for high drama.
“Shut up.” Liberty is breathing funny but she is inching forward with me now, through the series of hatches.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “You can do this. You’re perfectly safe.”
“So you’re just loving this, right?” she snarls.
When we get to the kitchen, or mess, or whatever you call it on a submarine, we’re surprised by two sailors, sitting still as statues at a tiny table. For a quick moment, I think they’re dummies, part of the exhibit. They’re wearing navy jackets with brass name tags: Anton Vanko, and Ivan Petrovitch.
Liberty jumps in nervous surprise—hits her head on the low ceiling of the sub. “Ouch! Wait!” she says. “They’re real!”
I try not to laugh.
Their names sound like they are from the Black Widow comics, but I can’t quite place them.
Anton Vanko, the Russian sailor on the left, lifts his heavy black eyebrows, waiting for us to approach.
“So, we’re doing the Trivia Quest,” Liberty says as I fish the clue envelope out of my pocket. “And Natasha at the ticket window, she’s the Black Widow, right? Just like the sub. So . . . did we get it?”
Ivan Petrovitch smiles at her. “Wery good! You have half of it down. But here is part two of the clue: Which of us is the Black Widow’s friend . . .”
“ . . . And,” Anton Vanko adds, “which of us is her foe?”
Which is friend and which is foe?
Liberty throws up her hands. “Don’t look at me. This is totally your wheelhouse, Stanley.” She waits. “Speak, Stanley!” She turns to the two men. “He doesn’t talk much, but he knows his stuff.”
The two men stare at me expectantly. I fixate on their name tags. Friend and foe . . .
“Can he ask you hints?” suggests Liberty. “Like twenty questions?”
“Nyet,” says Ivan Petrovitch, a steely blue glint in his eye.
“I bet Natasha back at the entrance would let us ask. She’s Stanley’s bus driver, you know. And she seems way nicer than you guys,” Liberty says, stalling for time.
“Nyet,” Ivan says. “My Natasha doesn’t play games.”
Suddenly, it clicks.
“Your Natasha? Okay, Ivan Petrovitch. Then you must be the Russian soldier who rescued baby Natasha Romanova after her mother died in a fire, and raised her like your own. Your Natasha. Raised her to be a KGB agent. That was you, right? So that means you, Anton Vanko, must be the foe.” I grin. I’ve got this! “Later,” I add, “when she came to the Avengers, which is the series where most people start to know about her, you—”
Ivan Petrovitch stops me, just as I’m getting warmed up. Oh well. Then Anton Vanko reaches into a briefcase on the bench and hands Liberty a golden token—our third! And a new clue envelope!
We did it!
Liberty doesn’t even say thanks, or spasibo, or whatever. She launches herself back through that submarine so fast she’s like a human torpedo. I salute the two men, then follow her.
On the surface, the fresh ocean air smells so good. So much better than that dark, cramped space below us. Liberty clutches at my arm, gasping.
“I think—I know—a little better—how you feel sometimes, Stanley,” she says.
I pat her on the back. “Name your favorite color, Liberty,” I say. “I know a little breathing trick.”