Answering God's Call - Chapter 29

Ruslan, as if used to it, ignored Hawkins’s scolding mixed with concern. With a displeased expression, he silently stared at the photos of the penal unit spread across the table. Branch Chief Hawkins gave him a passing glance as Ruslan couldn’t easily take his eyes off the photos, where it was impossible to tell who was who.

Tatyana, who had been contacting Svetlana in Lubyanka for assistance and hadn’t noticed that gaze, straightened her head belatedly. As she absentmindedly looked down at the photo Ruslan had been looking at just moments ago, her brow furrowed.

Slowly lowering the receiver, Tatyana asked, “…These photos are said to be of a penal unit from the Cherkubo Gulag. Do you happen to know anything more?”

“If it weren’t sensitive, I wouldn’t mind telling you what I know, but this is the first time I’ve received anything related to Lubyanka’s gulags as well.”

As expected, even an operations officer didn’t know much.

“…I just thought that knowing anything at all might give us an advantage in negotiating with Makarov.”

“That would be ideal, but the only thing we can use is her identity as a Lubyanka agent acting on her own.”

“I understand.”

After answering cleanly, Tatyana hesitated slightly, then soon asked another question.

“…By the way, is it difficult to defect from Lubyanka to Lytton? Including special conditions like mine as an operative, or the preparations defectors have to make.”

“As you said, it depends on who is defecting. The situation can change at any time. Why do you ask?”

“It’s nothing. Please forget it. I’ll prepare for tomorrow’s contact.”

With an unshaken expression, Tatyana only shook her head lightly. Unable to discern the intent behind the question, neither Ruslan nor Branch Chief Hawkins met her gaze; they simply stared blankly at her for a moment before finally averting their eyes.

***

“Isn’t this just as expected?

“….”

After the evening mass. Tatyana, who had attended mass and communion with another nun, was nowhere to be seen. After organizing the donation box alone, Ruslan wandered around the church as if on patrol and found Tatyana behind the bushes, eating an egg.

Squatting down, Tatyana, who had been about to put a freshly peeled egg into her mouth in one bite, looked at him with an indifferent gaze without a trace of surprise. As if asking why he had come all the way here just to interrupt her eating.

Ruslan stared at Tatyana, who had somehow hidden herself well among the bushes, and asked, “Why are you hiding and eating like that?”

“I’m not hiding. I don’t have a private office like someone, so this place is nice and out of sight. It’s also easy to run out if someone calls.”

“Most people would call that hiding.”

“Fine. Then I’m hiding and eating.”

That was a quick shift. Letting out a short laugh, Ruslan tilted his head toward the darkened church.

“You’ll stain your clothes with grass. Get up.”

“I still have eggs left.”

“I’ll lend you my office, so eat the rest there.”

Tatyana glanced up at Ruslan, who stood alone among the bushes, then got up as if she couldn’t help it. She had thought it wasn’t a place she could hide for long, but finding her this easily was a bit anticlimactic.

“…They said you’re not supposed to eat before mass, so I held back and ate after. Mass is over now.”

“Who said anything?”

Saying he hadn’t said anything, Ruslan gave another short laugh and tilted his head loosely as if telling her to go up.

***

Tatyana cast a sidelong glance at Ruslan, who sat at the desk and stared intently at the documents. He had seemed to be looking at them the whole time since they entered the office. Only after eating the eggs she had secretly saved and the bread Ruslan had handed her to her fill did he come into view.

“What are you looking at so intently?”

“Documents on an agent with the codename ‘Mor.’”

“…That’s me.”

“Yes, it is.”

“They said there’s nothing to see because so much is redacted. And you remember everything after seeing it once, so why are you looking at it again?”

“Just because. I want to see even the redacted parts, but I can’t right now, so I’m settling for this.”

Tatyana, who had taken off her veil and cap and was arranging her hair, frowned as if she couldn’t understand.

“What else are you curious about?”

“From this alone, it doesn’t look like there’s any connection to the Cherkubo Gulag. Do you have any ties to it?”

“….”

So he finally asks that. Tatyana’s expression tightened further as she organized her thoughts, as if deciding how much to say. It didn’t sit well with her that she had almost answered without thinking.

She didn’t want to tell him so readily, but if he became an operations officer again someday, it wouldn’t be hard for him to learn the redacted parts and even information not written in the file. Rolling her tongue as if choosing her words, Tatyana slowly parted her lips.

“…It’s not like I have any particular ties. My parents were inmates at the Cherkubo Gulag. Not a penal unit. They died of an infectious disease inside the gulag.”

She didn’t know the exact name of the disease. All she got was a visit from the secret police who delivered the news of their deaths. Ruslan, lowering his eyes slightly as if it was unexpected, asked again.

“So that’s why you want the survivor’s name and the evidence of war crimes?”

“That’s right. I don’t want much. I just want to know where the prisoners who died, including my parents, are buried.”

She didn’t dare expect that they had been given graves. Since they died of an infectious disease, the bodies were probably gathered with others who died of similar causes and burned. She wouldn’t be able to find their remains, but she wanted to know where even the ashes had been discarded.

Even if it was Lubyanka, it didn’t matter. There was so little known that she thought if she saw the war crime evidence that the survivor had, she might at least learn indirectly how her parents lived and how harsh it had been.

After saying it, it felt like nothing much, and it was embarrassing. There was more she wanted to know, but this was enough to say out loud. Tatyana, putting on a calm face, smiled as if nothing was wrong.

“What does the codename mean?”

As if it was only natural, Ruslan’s question followed as he studied her unreadable expression. Tatyana, now used to his barrage of questions, answered shortly without objection.

“It’s from ‘Holodomor’ (Голодомор).”

Holodomor.

The great famine that struck Tatyana’s hometown thirteen years ago.

After her parents were taken to the gulag on false charges, the severe famine that followed destroyed everything, all of it, the life Tatyana and her parents had built over generations.

Leaving nothing behind, leaving nothing that could be saved.

Strictly speaking, ‘Holodomor’ isn’t Lubyanka’s pronunciation, so she didn’t know whether Ruslan understood its meaning, famine and death….

As if she had nothing more to say about the codename, Tatyana pressed her lips together tightly. The mood was noticeably different from when she spoke about the Cherkubo Gulag and her parents, so Ruslan didn’t ask further.

Watching him fall silent on his own, Tatyana asked abruptly, “Are you going to report it?”

“To Branch Chief Hawkins? What?”

“Not about getting Gilmore out, but that I want to meet that Cherkubo survivor.”

“Why would I?”

“Because you’re not assigned as my bodyguard, and if the tribunal accepts a request for witness protection, in principle, we won’t be able to meet?”

“I see. What do principles matter? We can bend the rules and meet.”

For someone who doesn’t look the part, he takes everything lightly and answers as if it’s nothing. At Ruslan’s reply, as if he wouldn’t stop her if she insisted on meeting, Tatyana felt relieved… relieved?

At the word she herself had thought of, Tatyana blinked rapidly as if she couldn’t believe it. How long had she even known him, how much did she know about him, that a few words anyone could put on were enough to set her at ease? Was her guard really only this much? She pressed her lips together.

While Tatyana pulled herself together and steadied her mind amid a surge of self-disgust, Ruslan, unaware of any of it, muttered casually, “As if I’d stop someone who knows my secret. Aside from stabbing me in the back, I support you unconditionally.”

“….”

Whether it was a joke or serious was hard to tell, and if that was a skill, it was a skill. Or was that also a grudge? When she suddenly stared at Ruslan with a suspicious look, he smiled and set down the documents he had been reading.

“Well, you’ll realize it once this is all over, but you don’t plan to go around talking about my secret either, Sister. Think of me the same way.”

“….”

“Or do I look dangerous?”

“No.”

She didn’t know what standard defined danger, but if it was whether she could overpower him or not, then not at all.

“Then why? You’re too on guard, it’s a bit disappointing.”

Did it look like this level of caution was enough to be disappointing? Meanwhile, inside, she was unsettled by a vigilance that had blurred without her noticing.

“You held a grudge.”

“That much is something you can find cute, isn’t it?”