Jason Matthews - Red Sparrow

The man had thin hands, pianist’s hands. He was bald, with a dent in the side of his head, as if from a trepanning that, remarkably, also bent and distorted the yellow bubble around his head. Zheltyj, the familiar yellow of treachery and betrayal. He welcomed Dominika back to Moscow, it was always good to return to Moskva, was it not? They were pleased, he said, with her work in Scandinavia, especially with the handling of the volunteer. No, not zheltyj, but zheltizna, the man was yellowness itself. This was deception, this was danger, mortal danger, she could smell it.

She had to hit the right attitude—curious, a little puzzled, tired from the trip. Above all, for God’s sake, no hint of fear, no hint of desperation. Was there a problem? she asked. Was she permitted to know his name, rank, and directorate? She assumed he was a colleague from the Service. Colonel Digtyar, Directorate K, yes, of course, from the Center. Digtyar. Ukranian, she thought. The overhead lights cast a shadow on the hollow of his skull.

She related the timeline of the operation, from the walk-in to the hotel meeting. No, she was unaware that there had been an incident, she knew nothing about an apparent arrest after she and the rezident had departed the Kämp. Rezident Volontov had not mentioned anything was wrong. Digtyar did not take notes, did not refer to any file. They were taping it all, looking at her face, watching her hands. She resisted the urge to look for where the cameras could be. Don’t look, don’t think, no one can help you, you have to do this yourself, this is your journey to make alone.

They took her passport and let her go home that night. Her mother came to the front door in her dressing gown, initially surprised, but it took less than a second for her face to close down, her eyes to become blank.

“Dominushka, what a surprise, come in, let me look at you. I did not know you were coming home,” her mother said flatly. Caution.

“It was an unexpected trip,” said Dominika in as normal a voice as possible. “It’s good to be home, Mama, it’s good to see you again.” Danger. Mother and daughter hugged, they kissed each other’s cheeks the requisite three times, and hugged again.

Dominika did not dare clutch her, she could not break down. They might be watching, listening. Mother and daughter stayed up and Dominika prattled on about the Finns, about life abroad. She had to sleep, she had work in the morning. Another kiss, and her mother stroked her cheek, then shuffled off to bed. She knew.

They picked her up in the morning and deposited her back at Ryazanskiy, and she told the story again, this time to three men sitting at a table with the bowl of roses in front of them, probably an audio pickup tucked among the flowers. No one spoke, but they turned the pages in an unmarked file—had that pig Volontov sent in a report that quickly? They filed out and left her alone, then filed back in and she told the story again, just the same. They were looking for changes, contradictions. Dominika had never been stared at like that in her life, worse than in ballet school, worse even than the men looking at her at Sparrow School. She felt her throat constrict, felt the rage coming, but resisted and returned their stares with unflinching eyes. She did not let them near the icy secret in her breast.

All day it lasted, then she was permitted to go home. Her mother had shchi, a rich meat stew, in the oven, the smell of dacha and vegetables and memories of snowy mornings filled the apartment. Dominika’s hand shook as she ate, her mother not eating, sitting across from her, watching. She knew.

Her mother had not played professionally in fifteen years, but got up and came back to the kitchen with a case. It was a common violin, nothing like her Guarneri, but she sat close to her daughter at the table and put it under her chin and played slowly, Schumann or Schubert, Dominika didn’t know. The violin vibrated, the notes thick and rich and red-purple, like long ago in the living room with Batushka.

“Your father was always very proud of you,” said her mother as she played. Was she consciously playing to defeat any microphones? Impossible. Her mother? “He always hoped that your enthusiasms, your patriotic duty, would sustain you.” Her eyes were closed. “He was desperate to tell you how he felt, he who had succeeded in the system. But he did not dare. He did not speak because he wanted to protect you.” She opened her eyes but continued playing, as if in a trance, her fingers firm and sure on the fingerboard. “He despised them, he would tell you now, in your time of trouble.” What had she guessed, how did she know? “His whole life. He wanted to tell you. Now I will tell you,” her mother whispered. “Resist them. Fight them. Survive.” With the last word she stopped playing and laid the violin on the table, got up, kissed her daughter on the head, and walked out of the room. The music lingered in the air, the violin was warm where it had rested beneath her mother’s chin.

The next day a succession of offices, with one man or two or three, or a woman in a suit with her hair in a bun, cloudy black and evil, who came around the desk to sit close to her, or Colonel Digtyar with the yellow caved-in skull asking her to describe the pattern of the rug in the room of the Kämp Hotel, and the doors sometimes closing softly behind her, sometimes slammed with a bang that shook the frame, We don’t believe you . Then the unbelievable, the monstrous, the impossible, the inevitable.

A poisonous, swaying ride in the closed van and the echo of the underground garage and they were in a prison, it had to be Lefortovo, not Butyrka, because this was political. She was pushed down an ill-lit corridor into a stinking anteroom. A man and a woman watched her step out of her skirt, shuck off her shoes, and reach behind to unclasp her brassiere. They expected her to hang her head, to turn away from their stares, to cover her nipples and mons, but she was Sparrow-trained and a graduate of the AVR. They could go to hell. Stark naked, she stood straight and stared back at them until they tossed her a stained cotton prison smock. It rasped against the mattress ticking in the dark cell, no windows, two cots, and she thought about her mother waiting for her with dinner, and silently called out to her father and then, surprising herself, to Nate.

They walked her down the corridors, but they never let her see another prisoner, to starve her spirit. Guards clicked their stamped steel crickets, and when two crickets clicked, silver barbed click- clack, click- clack at the same time, they shoved her into a wooden closet, one at the end of each corridor, wedged tight, black and heavy with the smell of prisoners long gone, until the other prisoner went by. A skylight showed inky black, or pale yellow, night still followed day, but the overhead lights in her cell never stopped humming and the Klaxon screeched on a regular basis.

Her father walked by her side and a smiling Nate was waiting for her in each of the different rooms, some hot, some cold, some dark, some bright. She shook her hair out of her eyes when they threw water on her and turned the blowers on. Nate sat beside her and held her hand, strapped to the arm of the chair, while she shivered. They didn’t speak to her, but it was enough to know they were with her, to feel their touch.

The investigators screamed or they laughed, very close to her face, and they asked about foreign contacts—the Frenchman Delon and the American Nash. Was she working for the Americans? It was no problem these days, by the way, détente and all. They said they wanted to hear her side of the story, then slapped her to shut her up and told her Marta Yelenova was dead, that Dominika had as good as killed her, men would be sent to do the same to her mother. They slapped her so her face was mottled and sore, all little Sparrows like a bit of that, don’t they?