Christian Kiefer - The Infinite Tides

“Yes,” Luda said. Her eyes were downcast, not as if ashamed but as if embarrassed by Keith’s attention.

“Not like me, though,” Peter said. “In Pechersk. Very nice in Pechersk.”

“Yes, it is nice there,” Luda said.

“Very nice,” Peter said.

“You were wealthy?” Keith said.

“It is long time ago,” Luda said.

“Not so long,” Peter said.

“My grandfather and father worked in Russian government. Many government workers lived in Pechersk. By river. It is very nice there.”

The feeling of Quinn was fading now, the fear and terror of loss drifting out and away from him as Luda spoke, as if the story, someone else’s story, was enough to press that secret gravity away from him.

“When Ukraine is independent we must leave. My father was good man and people like him and so we stay in Pechersk for years but then he has the cancer and is buried. Then not very good anymore.”

“They kicked them out to street,” Peter said with obvious disgust.

“Not so bad as that.” She looked up at Keith, their eyes locking together.

“Bah.” Peter waved his hands in the air.

“Where did you go?” Keith said.

“To university,” Luda said. “For job, not for student.”

“Is that where you met Peter?”

“Yes, that is where I met Peter.” She did not break the eye contact, instead continuing to stare at Keith, her complete attention focused on him. “He is very different from those people I knew before.”

“I was poor,” Peter said.

And now Luda did look at her husband and when she spoke her tone was quiet and lilting, like a beautiful, sad bird: “Yes, but not like poor. Not … how do you say … not stupid.”

Peter did not say anything, instead shaking his head, his eyes half closed in thought.

“He is very smart man,” Luda said.

Keith nodded. “I know.”

“Bah,” Peter said again. “This talk is embarrassing to me. We talk more about job so I know what to do tomorrow for interview.”

Keith looked over at him, and at Luda.

“We were married quickly,” she said as he met her eyes once again.

“Quickly?”

“Yes,” she said. “Quickly.”

“Ah,” Peter said. “You embarrass me now even more.” A hush fell and Keith sat and wondered what she meant and then Peter said, “You do not understand. She was to have baby Marko.”

“Oh,” Keith said. Nothing more. He glanced at Luda and her eyes were cast to the table again.

“It was very fast wedding,” she said. “My mother was very embarrassing. There was no money left then.”

“Yes, I know I dragged you down with me,” Peter said.

“Petruso!” she said abruptly. Her voice was sharp and Peter actually cringed when she said his name. She cast out a quick sentence in Ukrainian with obvious anger and Peter was immediately silent.

The table awkward and quiet. Then Peter lifted his wineglass ostentatiously and said, “I apologize to my wife and to my guest, Astronaut Keith Corcoran. She is correct. I should not speak these things.” He nodded and continued to hold his glass and Keith lifted his as well. “To our American friend, who is great man and famous astronaut.”

“To new friends,” Keith said.

Luda had lifted her own wineglass and she smiled at Keith’s words, her irritation apparently over.

They continued eating. Peter asked questions about Dreyfuss and about Tom Chen and Keith answered as best he could, offering detail when it was possible to do so. Luda periodically cautioned her husband on his aggressive questioning but Keith did not mind, perhaps an effect of the wine or simply of the good spirits the dinner had put him in.

“This Mr. Tom Chen is good man, maybe?” Peter said.

“I don’t know him well, but I think so.”

“It will be fair,” Luda said. It might have been a question.

“Yes. Don’t forget, though, that it’s still very competitive. I can’t say that enough.”

Peter waved his hands in the air, a gesture that had become familiar. “Yes, yes,” he said.

“OK, but I’m just telling you, even with the interview you still might not get the job.”

“I know,” Peter said. “Difficult to get job.”

There was a long silence. Luda began clearing the plates and then Peter rose and spoke in Ukrainian and Luda sat again and Peter took over the task. A moment later Keith moved to help and Peter told him to sit and continued to clear the table.

“Maybe you tell us story about being famous astronaut?” Luda said at last.

“I’m not too good at that.”

“I would like to hear.”

Keith thought for a moment. “I don’t know what to say,” he said. “There’s a lot.”

“Every day you must be pinching yourself,” Luda said.

“What?”

“She means you are excited,” Peter said. He had returned to the table with a teapot and cups and filled each of them as Luda continued to speak.

“No, not excited,” she said, paused, and then said something to Peter that Keith could not understand and Peter answered her, nodding. Then she said, “Knowing you are there in space. Like you are finally there.”

“Yeah, there was that. Especially in the beginning.”

“You must have been feeling great then.”

“Yes. I can’t even describe it. Just … amazing.”

“Like in a dream maybe.”

“Yes, like in a dream. Better than a dream.”

“You were waiting for that day.”

“Yes.”

“How much waiting?”

“How much? My whole life.” He did not think before answering, his response automatic, and he almost immediately felt awkward about his words, even though he knew it to be true.

“Waiting to be astronaut a long time, then.”

“As long as I can remember.”

“For adventure maybe?”

“Not really,” he said. “That might have been part of it but really it was … it’s hard to explain. I wanted to do something real and useful. But also … I don’t know … I wanted to see it, I guess.”

“See what you made?”

“Yes, see it out there in space. And I wanted to be there to see it.” He paused a moment and then added, “I guess that doesn’t really make much sense.”

“Yes, it makes sense,” Luda said simply. “Very beautiful.”

“So beautiful. Unbelievable.”

“Like seeing God.”

He did not know how to respond to this and so he merely smiled and nodded.

“Now we have dessert,” Peter said. He was carrying something from the kitchen. A cheesecake of some kind.

“I don’t know how much more good food I can take,” Keith said.

Peter brought plates and forks and a knife and cut the cheesecake into slices and they ate and sipped at their tea for a time and when Luda’s voice came from the opposite side of the table it was quiet: “Forgive,” she said. “You must want to be in space again?”

“Oh, every day.”

“Then you go back to astronaut soon?”

“It’s complicated,” Keith said.

“Complicated?”

“Yeah.”

“How complicated?”

Then Peter: “This is not something our guest wants to speak of, I think.”

“No, it’s fine,” Keith said. “Really. It’s just that it’s …” He paused and tried to find a better word but then said, again, “complicated.” Luda did not respond and after a moment he said: “I got sick on the mission.”

“Sick? How sick?”

“I started getting headaches. Really bad headaches.”

“Now you are better?”

“Not really.”

“What happens then for astronaut work?”

“I don’t know. I don’t think I can be an astronaut anymore.”

“Because of headaches.”

“Yes.”

It was quiet then and he took a bite of the cheesecake. They all did. He had never said such a thing, had hardly even thought it through, but it was the truth.