Gregori's Ghost

GREGORI’S GHOST SARAH BLACK

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GREGORI’S GHOST Copyright © SARAH BLACK, 2008 Cover art by BEVERLY MAXWELL Edited by SARAH BLACK All Romance eBooks, LLC Palm Harbor, Florida 34684 www.allromanceebooks.com

This is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or business establishments, events or locales is coincidental. All Rights Are Reserved. No part of this may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever with out written permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Sarah Black

“Alexi, Alexi, Alexi, Alexi. The camera, give him the camera. I hear you, my friend. Wait for me. I’m a ghost, I’m a ghost…” Steven’s grandfather was restless, twisting the thin hospital sheet between his legs. His face on the pillow was pale and gaunt, strong nose like a hatchet blade. His damp gray hair was standing up like a rooster’s tail, and Steven leaned over and smoothed the hair down over his scalp. Something in his touch caused the old man to settle. The intern walked over and joined him at the bedside. The hospital ID badge on her tidy white lab coat showed her name as Dr. Bakshir, and she had the lovely, musical voice and dark eyes of an immigrant from a warmer country than Southern California. “Dr Russell, thank you for coming. He’s been agitated like this for…” she checked her watch, “something like thirty or forty minutes. I’m not really sure…” Steven checked the IV infusion pump next to the bed. His grandfather’s thin hand had an IV needle, taped down with clear plastic film. “Let’s turn the morphine down. He might be getting too much.” Dr. Bakshir nodded, but he could see the doubt on her face. “In older people especially, the opiates can cause a paradoxical agitation,” he explained, smiling. Now do what I told you to do. The intern moved to the pump and dialed the dose in half. “This evening the pain was very bad in his hips and 1

Gregori’s Ghost back. It was hard for him, even lying in the bed. In fact,” her voice was reluctant, “the hospice nurse also told me that morphine could make him agitated. I just didn’t feel comfortable with his level of pain.” Steven looked at her with a little more interest. It was rare for an intern to admit she had been wrong to a senior physician. She had a tired, pretty face, and her hair was tied back in a thick, dark ponytail. Steven guessed that Charlie was enjoying having this young woman fuss over him. On his deathbed. “It’s hard to see your patients in pain,” he agreed. It was unspoken and understood between them, though, that she would have to get used to that very thing. Steven pulled up a chair. “I’ll sit with him now,” he said, reaching for Charlie’s hand. “Alexi, Alexi, Alexi…” It was an hour later when the effects of the morphine began to wear off enough that Charlie blinked open his eyes and looked around. Steven had been sitting next to the bed with a book in his hand, reading a little and enjoying the quiet. Steven couldn’t remember his grandfather mentioning anyone named Alexi before tonight. He knew Charlie had been in Europe during WWII, and he’d been a pilot after that, working for the UN’s World Food Bank. Maybe he had known someone named Alexi in that group. In truth Steven hadn’t spent that many hours in the old man’s company in the busy years since he started medical school. Medical school, internship and residency, and then practice in a teaching hospital with a neurology residency program, and Steven hadn’t made time for much of any life outside of that work. When his grandfather was diagnosed with cancer, though, he’d scaled back considerably. Everyone who didn’t know him very well praised his dedication to the old man, but Steven had been ready for a break, more than ready. His ex, a trauma-flight pilot ten 2

Sarah Black years older and a million years more experienced, had given his opinion that Steven had sunk to a new low of selfishness, to latch on to his grandfather’s dying like one of those remora fish sucking on a shark, so he could have more free time from work. Steven watched the pain come down like a hammer on Charlie’s brittle bones. The morphine levels in his blood were dropping. Charlie shook his head a couple of times like he was trying to clear the fog from his eyes. “You’re almost as pretty as my other doctor, Steven.” Steven put the bookmark between the pages and slipped the book into his pocket. “She’s got those long lashes and soft little hands. But she suffers, Steven. She suffers when I suffer.” He looked over at the IV infusion pump. “Have I got my tubing kinked off? I feel like I got a bad case of that Breakbone Fever. I knew a couple of guys who had that after the war.” “Granddad, I’ve turned the morphine down just a bit. We’ve got to be careful you don’t get too much.” The old man studied him, eyes dark against the white pillow case. “Why? Are you afraid I’m gonna get addicted? I don’t think it matters at this point, Steven.” “No, Granddad. The morphine was making you agitated. You were saying crazy stuff, about a camera, something about a ghost, calling for Alexi, like that.” He stared at Steven, his eyes wide. “I’ve been thinking about that camera. Steven…” He looked like he wanted to say something, then he shook his head, closed his eyes and turned away. “Granddad, what is it?” “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you smile, Steven.” His voice sounded a little muffled. “I thought I saw you on the TV the other day, did I tell you? It was one of those shows with the contestants, and they were making dresses or something. And the guy running the thing, he looked like you.” 3

Gregori’s Ghost “You’ve been watching Top Design?” Steven had been told before that he looked like Todd Oldham. “For a minute I thought you were on TV, but then that guy, he was smiling a lot and that’s how I knew it wasn’t you.” Steven sighed. “I’ll smile if you want me to, Charlie.” “Most people don’t have to think about it, kid.” “Well, Todd Oldham isn’t a neurologist. I mean, I have a serious mind, Granddad. I’m a scientist. I’m not putting bows on shoes for a living.” “Uh, huh. So you think he’s unhappy with his career? He seems happy, seems to be doing well. I just want you to be happy, Steven.” “Fine, I’ll be happy. I’m sure Todd is a peach. Maybe I’m not smiling all the time, but that doesn’t mean I’m not happy. What’s this about a camera?” Charlie sighed. “Yeah, okay, Steven. I’ve been meaning to talk to you about this, because…Well, just let me tell you the whole story, and then you can turn the morphine back up a little cause I feel like my bones are on fire, and I’ll just lay here and talk crazy and finish dying. You can go get the camera. I’ll just think about Gregori, my old friend. He seems to be spending some time in my head. It’s nice to talk to him again. I can’t even tell you how much I’ve missed him.” Steven looked carefully at him. “Can you actually hear something, hear someone’s voice who isn’t there?” Charlie hesitated. “Am I talking to a neurologist or my grandson? You’ve got that look on your face, like when you were a kid and you went marching out to the back yard with your field kit and magnifying glass and little notebook. More than one bug met an ugly end in the interest of science.” Steven felt a little stung by this. “You gave me that field kit, Charlie!” He’d loved it more than any other possession of his childhood, a small fishing tackle box stuffed with the tools of a budding scientist4

Sarah Black thermometers, crystal prisms, measuring tapes and rulers of various kinds, collecting jars, magnifying glasses, field guides to the trees, the birds, insects, butterflies. “Charlie, I can’t…help it.” Charlie sighed. “I know, Steven. If you have to know, I can really hear him, Gregori. His voice is right inside my head. My good friend. I didn’t know him long. It was in the closing days of the war, and the Russians were coming fast. We were trying to get there first. Nobody trusted those Russians. They were crazed, secretive, and the rumors about the famine, what had been done in the Ukraine, stories about eating human flesh…Have I told you this story before?” Steven shook his head. “Nobody trusted the Russians. So the end of the war, we were just racing across Europe, trying to occupy as much land as we could, you know? They had the same idea. Our units met on the Elbe River, in Germany. God, they were thin, Steven. Ragged, cold, and hungry. The officers were nice and fit, but the Russian soldiers, they looked worse than the Germans. Gregori was a photographer. He had one of those old cameras, you know, the ones with the bellows?” “Large format, they’re called. I’ve always wanted to look at one.” “He was taking pictures of the two groups meeting. It was like he could see. He was looking at the scene, Steven, and he was really seeing it. He was seeing the differences in their soldiers and ours. He was looking at the officers, at the way they spoke and acted. We had a negro regiment with us, and he watched them. I don’t know. It was appealing, the way he concentrated, and paid attention. He stood on that river bank, tall and thin as a scarecrow, leaning against the camera. It was set up on one of those tripods, and he had a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth. Everybody smoked back then, you know. It was easier sometimes to get cigarettes than food. 5

Gregori’s Ghost But somebody had given him an American cigarette, and he stood there, smoking and enjoying it, watching, and I knew he was fixing it in his memory the way a camera takes a picture. And he turned around and looked at me like he could feel my eyes on him, the same way I was looking at him, I guess. And everything changed for me, Steven. Later, looking back, it was like my life was cut in two, before that moment, and after. That’s what friends will do for you.” Charlie closed his eyes suddenly, his face twisted in pain. Steven reached for the infusion pump, gave him a pulse of morphine. “Granddad, here’s some pain medicine. It should work quickly.” Charlie opened his eyes. “Thanks.” “You can give it to yourself, Granddad. You remember how the nurse showed you to work the machine?” “Yeah.” He moved restlessly in the bed. “Sometimes it even hurts my arms to lift them up, Steven. Well, the cancer is in my bones and liver and brain now. It won’t be much longer.” Steven felt an unexpected burn in his eyes, a catch somewhere in his throat, and he had a sudden picture of himself, sitting next to this bed, the white hospital sheets rumpled, but the bed was empty, and Charlie was gone. “Steven, I want you to do something for me.” “Sure, Granddad. What is it?” “I want you to go get Gregori’s camera. It’s in my room, under the bed in the black leather case.” “You mean the Russian’s guy’s camera? The guy you met by the river?” “Yeah.” “How did you end up with his camera, Granddad?” The pain in Charlie’s eyes was easing up now. “He gave it to me to keep for him, right before they took him away.” Charlie turned and looked at the infusion pump. “Maybe just a little more, Steven. I keep thinking 6

Sarah Black about that nursery rhyme, something about…what is it? The blood of an Englishman! I’ll grind his bones to make my bread! Someone’s grinding my bones, Steven.” “Okay, Granddad.” He pulsed two more milligrams into the IV tubing. “That should hold you until I can get back with the camera, but if you need it, give yourself more. The machine won’t let you give too much.” “Steven, Steven, wait.” Charlie was reaching for his hand now, and his eyes looked more feverish. “Wait, I need to tell you… I never could get him out, Steven. You’ve got to watch over him, help him. He’s stubborn, worse than you, even. Alexi, Steven. He’s Gregori’s grandson. I promised Gregori I would watch over them, and I couldn’t. I couldn’t find them for a long time.” Charlie’s grip tightened, but his hand was so thin and frail Steven thought he could feel it around his heart, squeezing. “I promised, Steven. It was my responsibility, my obligation. Now I’m passing it on to you.” His hand went slack, and he closed his eyes. “That’s really what grandfathers pass on to their grandsons, obligations. Promise me you’ll help Alexi, Steven.” “Yes, I’ll help him, Granddad.” “Good, Steven. That’s good.” Charlie’s eyes were drowsy now, and Steven could hear the morphine in his voice. “Good. Alexi, he knows how to smile. Maybe he can even teach a hard case like you. Go get the camera, okay? Then I’ll tell you the rest of the story.” ~ Charlie had a studio apartment above the big steel garage where he kept the old planes he restored. Steven opened the door with Charlie’s key. His own key ring felt suddenly strange and heavy with Charlie’s big, old fashioned keys attached. Charlie’s last project, an old P51 Mustang, was neatly covered with a dark green tarp. The garage was quiet, dust motes floating drowsy in the light coming through the high bay windows. Charlie hadn’t worked on the mustang for six months now, and 7

Gregori’s Ghost had left Steven detailed instructions on how to send the old plane to a friend of his who had agreed to finish the restoration. After he died. Steven climbed up the stairs in the back of the garage and pushed open Charlie’s door. His little studio was neat the way a submarine was neat, with built in storage drawers and cabinets, and the room was tidy, with only a thin layer of dust. Next to the kitchen sink was a dish drainer, holding a coffee cup, a soup bowl, and a spoon. Steven opened the cabinet and put the dishes away. Charlie didn’t have much food here- a couple of cans of chicken noodle soup and a can of tomato, some fruit cocktail. Charlie’s bed was a twin made up with a beautiful old Pendleton Indian Blanket, bright with jewel colors, and Steven knelt down and pulled the blanket aside to look under the bed. There was a small, olive green metal foot locker, considerably banged up, and next to that was a black leather case, oval shaped, with a strap on the top. Steven pulled the case out from under the bed. It was bigger than he expected, heavy and bulky. He was surprised to find the top fairly dust free, just a thin layer, like on the rest of the furniture in the studio. Steven opened the latch and looked inside. There was a heavy black cloth on top, designed to cover the photographer’s head and block stray light from entering. The camera was underneath the cloth, and Steven lifted it carefully out of the case. The wooden body was golden brown with brass hinges. The bellows between the front lens plate and the back film plate was heavy and black, and appeared to be intact, without any pinholes or tears. The camera looked like it had been used recently, the brass rubbed and shiny. Had Charlie been taking his friend’s camera out and cleaning it, polishing the wood and brass, peeking through the lens? Steven had messed around with photography a bit, had read something about these large format cameras. 8

Sarah Black They were supposed to be the most difficult cameras to use successfully, because they were the simplest. You had lens, film, light. Everything was done by hand. The quality of the picture, if the photographer didn’t screw it up, was the very best that could be made by man, clearer than the same picture seen by a human eye. Steven carried the case and the camera to the table and looked at it more carefully. The lens was clear, carefully polished, not fogged or scratched. Charlie had been taking good care of his friend’s camera. Had he been cleaning this lens since 1945, when he came home from the war? Steven extended the bellows, then went back to Charlie’s bed, bent down and looked for the tripod. There it was. The tripod was considerable newer than the camera, maybe ten years old. Charlie must have been using the camera. I’ll have to ask him where the pictures are. Someone had attached a small metal plate so the camera could be screwed onto the tripod. When he had it settled, he adjusted it with the spirit level. He opened the blinds, let light flood into the little apartment. Then he threw the black cloth over the camera and ducked under the edge, letting the dark fabric pool around his shoulders. He could see Charlie’s Indian blanket in bright colors through the lens, grass green and pure orange, cerulean blue and a lovely blood red, umber brown. Then the light faded a bit and a voice he had never heard before spoke inside his head. Charlie, my old friend. The accent wasn’t exactly Russian, but something close, Eastern European, maybe. Steven closed his eyes, opened them again. He could see Charlie’s bed still, the Indian blanket, but with the color leached out, a sepia tone over his vision, and then he could see pictures, one after the other, still pictures like photographs. Charlie’s face, impossibly young, a cigarette clamped between his grinning teeth. Soldiers, dressed in frayed and filthy olive 9

Gregori’s Ghost green uniforms, their wrists bony, faces gaunt and filthy and bearded. It was just like Charlie had said, the Americans were healthier, better fed, a little cleaner, a lot happier. The young Russians had a guarded look, a trace of fear, maybe, or caution, like they knew they were being watched. The pictures went through his mind like flipping through the pages of an album, or a deck of cards, one after the other. There they were, the Russian officers. Charlie was right, they were much better fed than the troops. One of them moved then, turned his head and stared straight into the photographer’s face, straight into Steven’s face, and Steven felt his heart stutter and freeze in his chest. Then Steven could see Charlie again, his young face lit by the glow of a little campfire, hands gesturing, like he was telling a story. He looked so young. What had he been, nineteen or twenty? Then Charlie was staring right into his face, into Gregori’s face, his eyes tender, and he reached out, took the other man’s feet in his hands. Steven could see the boots, pieces of boots, really, the sole wrapped around with string. “Your feet are probably the same size as mine,” he said. “I’ve got an extra pair.” The boots fell apart, no socks, Gregori’s feet bare and bloody and freezing, cold and numb and miserable. Steven could feel it in his own feet, needle sharp cold and pain, and Charlie pulled Gregori’s feet against his belly, held them there. “We’ve got to get these warmed up a bit,” he said, and Steven could feel the warmth seeping in around his heart, and with a jerk the word hallucination appeared in bright yellow in his mind. “What the fuck is going on?” The scene faded fast, the smells of the campfire, Charlie’s young voice, his face faded, the pain in his feet faded, and Steven jerked away, tore the cloth off and blinked in the bright light, taking harsh gulping breaths of air. 10

Sarah Black “What was that?” He didn’t realize he had spoken out loud, but his neurologist’s brain answered him. That was a hallucination. A complex hallucination involving auditory and visual components, smell, touch… “No, it wasn’t. Hallucinations don’t work that way. If part of the brain is triggered by a sm…” He stopped speaking with an effort. Who was he talking to? That wasn’t a hallucination. And he should know, hallucinations were his bread and butter. If he had to take a guess, just off the top of his head, he’d say that was a small seizure. Shit. He unscrewed the camera from the tripod, carefully closed the bellows and the wooden camera body, and repacked the camera in the case. He folded the tripod, too, and hauled all of it down the stairs, packed it in the back of his Jeep. Food, right. He needed to get Charlie some food for when he came out of the hospital, a couple more cans of that tomato soup. That was Charlie’s favorite. He needed to eat himself. Maybe he was just hungry, some low blood glucose level, his electrolytes were screwed up, and that’s… “Not right now,” he said into the silence in the car. “I can’t think about this now.” He felt a sick, hollow clutch in his stomach. Charlie had brain cancer with mets- a wide spread tumor would do it, something weirdly invasive, something…Prominent Local Neurologist diagnosed with Rare, Deadly Brain Cancer… Well, if he was losing his brain, he didn’t really give a shit about his heart. He made a right turn into McDonalds, got a Quarterpounder with Cheese at the drive-through window. The burger was utterly greasy. He got grease everywhere, all over the car, the steering wheel was slick in his hands and after he finished it he felt a little nauseated. Had he ever eaten a Quarterpounder with Cheese before? How much salt did they put in those 11

Gregori’s Ghost things? He might as well just go back to the hospital. Somebody would have some Pepto Bismol. He got off the elevator on Charlie’s floor, started walking down to his room, but the young doctor, what was her name again? The one Charlie said had soft hands. Dr. Bakshir. She reached for his sleeve. “Dr. Russell. I was just about to call you. I’m so sorry, sir, for your loss. Your grandfather…” Steven closed his eyes. Of course Charlie was gone. ~ It was a week before Steven opened the camera case again. He had temporarily moved into Charlie’s little studio, liking the smallness of the space, the quiet and simplicity. Charlie had left his papers in good order, but there was still so much to do, too much to worry about hallucinating, seizure-inducing cameras. Because the anomaly, as he had started to call the vision he saw in Gregori’s camera, had not returned. And Steven found himself reluctant to pick up the pace of his flagging patient practice. There were a million things to do, other than seeing patients and working as a doctor. He’d have to go back to work eventually, because he didn’t have enough money to just stop working, but…Prominent Local Neurologist found Living under a Bridge… Stop thinking so much. Just take the camera out and try it again. Then it’s either a yes or a no. Steven opened the windows, flooded the little studio with light and fresh air, spring flowers and cut grass and a whiff of gasoline from somebody’s lawnmower. He screwed the camera onto the tripod, attached the black drape, and ducked his head under. Everything was beautifully clear and in color, thank God. It was the depth-of-field sharpness that made the large format pictures so extraordinary. From the front to the back of the picture, no matter how deep, miles even, the focus was crystal clear. He ought to take the 12

Sarah Black camera up the coast to Big Sur, spend the day…Oh, shit. Here it comes… The light faded first, no longer the brilliant sunshine of a California spring morning but the dappled gray light of a forest, dense green and gray, foggy and cold. Steven could smell the ground fog, felt the chill go through him, a deep shiver down into his guts. It didn’t start with still pictures this time, Steven noted clinically. They went straight to action, and that action made him gulp in horror and squeeze his eyes shut. Gregori was set up with the camera on a hill, and he was looking down at groups of men, prisoners, and they were digging what could only be a mass grave. The officers stood at attention for the photograph, a large group of prisoners in formation behind them. Many of the prisoners were in uniforms, or pieces of uniforms, but the officers, holding their rifles on the prisoners, the ones Gregori was photographing…They weren’t German, Steven realized with a jolt, shock like ice in his stomach. The officers were Russian. Gregori was taking pictures of a massacre, committed by his own people. ~ Steven went to see the neurologist he had the least respect for. He didn’t know why, exactly, other than he didn’t want to sound like a fool in front of people whose opinion mattered to him. Charlie’s young Dr. Bakshir had reminded him that he also knew a Dr. Bakshir. Rami Bakshir. There was something about her warmth, her generous and open-armed approach to healing that caused patients to adore her. She didn’t even call it medicine. She called it healing, and Steven for one would not have been surprised to find her laying on hands or shoving in the acupuncture needles. She had a willingness to open her mind to any possibility, even those that science did not embrace, and that caused Steven’s backbone to snap ramrod straight, his mind, trained to the rigors and restraints of the scientific method, to sneer and turn coldly 13

Gregori’s Ghost away. She probably believed in the healing powers of hugs, for God’s sake. Which was why Steven was being even more of an arrogant tight-ass than usual when he sat in the chair across from her desk, refusing to get comfortable on the couch. She studied him with very bright dark eyes, compassionate, but also wary. “My niece told me she took care of your grandfather before he died. She also told me you hardly left his side. I admit I was a bit surprised.” Steven blinked. “I didn’t realize she was your niece. Does she want to be a neurologist? Is she trying to get into the residency program?” Rami shook her head. “She wants to be a dermatologist, can you imagine?” Steven shook his head in dismay, the same way she was shaking hers. At least they could agree on this. “What a waste. Charlie liked her very much.” Rami waved a hand, and Steven noticed absently the beautiful, square-cut emerald on her finger. “She’s very sensitive, has been since she was a little girl. She loves beauty, and pain bothers her a great deal.” She sat back. “Do you wish to consult about a patient, Dr. Russell?” She was offering him a graceful out. Steven considered taking it, too, but he wasn’t that much of a coward. “No, I’m here for myself. As a patient.” She nodded and picked up a pen, listened carefully as he described the two incidents. She asked him all the questions that he would have asked a patient bringing such an idiotic story to him, including his history of drug and alcohol abuse. I wish. And she asked him a few questions that surprised him, like the date of his last HIV test. And did he feel as if he was the photographer, or did he remain a separate person? Steven considered this. “I was a separate person, but it was like I was inside his skin. I could, just barely, feel some of what he was feeling. I could feel cold and pain in 14

Sarah Black my feet, for instance, similar to peripheral neuropathy caused by chronic traumatic injury.” She smiled at him, a bit distracted, as if she was thinking hard. “No one describes the sensation of pain like a neurologist. Frankly, I am surprised. You can believe in pain without feeling it yourself. I wouldn’t have guessed you to be empathetic enough to another person’s pain to actually feel it.” Steven scowled at her. She stood up and came around the desk, shaking her head a bit as if she was reading his thoughts on his face. “Come on.” The physical exam was detailed, but brief. “I’m doing it more to satisfy myself,” she explained. “I’m sure you’ve examined yourself. We’ll go down to radiology shortly.” Naturally Steven studied the CT scan and MRI results with Dr. Bakshir, but they could both see a structurally normal brain. It did not, Steven noted clinically, appear larger than normal. She touched the edge of the X-Ray viewing machine. “I don’t see your ghost here, Steven.” “My ghost?” Steven stared into the warm green fire on her finger. “The ghost in the camera.” ~ Steven was finding lots of reasons to not clear Charlie’s things out of the little studio apartment. Moving the P-51 to the pilot down outside Monterey took a bit of organizing, and Steven took the opportunity to take the camera and hike through beautiful redwood forests, scramble up the cliffs overlooking Big Sur. Gregori’s camera and the heavy tripod felt like some monkish burden he was forced to carry, penance, maybe, for being such a selfish asshole. The Pacific Ocean was so tortured and blue, the cliffs cold and gray, and the helpless-looking little strip of white beach-- Steven’s heart ached at the beauty of the 15

Gregori’s Ghost scene. Gregori, just look at this, he pleaded in his mind. Photographers come from all over the world to see this view. But Gregori was still looking back, and Steven had to look with him, had to watch ragged, proud-faced men in tattered, filthy uniforms dig their own graves, stand on the edge of the pits as the guns rattled, watch the next group of prisoners step up and throw their brothers down. What do you want me to do, Gregori? Back at Charlie’s apartment, with the camera polished and carefully put back in the case, Steven woke up from a nap to find an email from someone named Alexi Temchanko that read, How is Charlie? Steven could hear Charlie’s voice again, the night he had died, Alexi, Alexi, Alexi, Alexi…. Hello, Steven. Charlie gave me your email address in case I didn’t hear from him. Is he still in hospital? Do you know which one? Alexi, my grandfather Charlie Russell died in the hospital two weeks ago. He told me he knew your grandfather during the war, and he made me promise to look after you. Steven looked at the last sentence, deleted it. He knew your grandfather during the war. Gregori, right? I have his camera. Could he be that much of a sleazy bastard? Apparently so. If you would like, I would be happy to return it to you. The ghost is still intact. Charlie told me about the camera. I’m not in a safe place right now, Steven. Can you just shove it under the bed? Gregori gave it to Charlie to get it out of Russia, out of Ukraine, and I don’t think it’s safe yet to bring it back. Steven lay back down on Charlie’s bed, carefully thought through several ethical issues involving death bed promises to beloved grandfathers and cameras possessed by ghosts. The key issue, Steven thought, was this: did Charlie know Gregori’s ghost was in the camera? If so, and Charlie hadn’t warned him, then Steven thought that should really cancel out any death bed promises to take care of Alexi, who appeared to be a grown man. Because 16

Sarah Black if there was an intent to deceive…Oh, wait. Shit. Charlie’s voice was in his head now, as if he was listening in on this debate. I asked you to go get the camera, Steven. Nobody asked you to open it up and stick your head inside. Charlie didn’t say one word about Steven trying to weasel out of his promise to look after Alexi. He didn’t need to. Steven sighed. Guilt was eternal. A promise was a promise was a promise. Alexi, what kind of trouble are you in? Charlie left you a little bit of money in his will. Do you want me to wire it to you? Do you need some other kind of help? Thank you, but no, Steven. As powerful as American dollars are to bend the world to your will, I don’t think they can help right now. I’m a journalist. I work for the political opposition newspaper in Ukraine. My colleagues and I have been under surveillance, some of us under house arrest, some of us disappeared or dead. We are publishing over the internet- that’s the only reason we haven’t all disappeared. But freedom of the press is rapidly disappearing here, and we could in short time be facing a civil war. Alexi left the URL of the paper he worked for, Ukrayinska Pravda, and Steven clicked on the link with interest. He wasn’t sure what a political opposition newspaper would look like. Despite Alexi sounding a bit like a selfimportant prick, Ukrayinska Pravda was very professional, very well-written, nothing like the hysterical rantings of a bunch of beret-wearing revolutionaries working away in blackout conditions, hiding their manuscripts under the floor boards while the KGB battered down the gates. This one carried advertising in English and Russian for Infiniti, blogs on art and popular culture, and articles of political analysis so balanced and well written they made Anderson Cooper sound like he was writing fanfic. Steven kept reading. Did anybody know about this? The president of Ukraine had dissolved Parliament. 17

Gregori’s Ghost Steven thought that George W. had probably thought about dissolving the House of Representatives a couple of times. But what if he had actually done it? What was this? Secret tapes? The former president talking to his staff on secret tapes about the murder of journalist Georgiy Gongadze. The journalist who had started Ukrayinska Pravda. Sensation like cold fingers digging into his spine. Charlie’s worried, dying voice in his head, Alexi, Alexi, the images from Gregori’s camera, soldiers digging a mass grave, the bodies tumbling over each other. Ukraine, Jesus. Did anyone know about this? What did Gregori want him to do, anyway? And why had Charlie got him involved in this mess? Steven read Alexi’s article in the current issue-- an assessment of one of the political opposition leaders-then he clicked on the thumbnail picture. Alexi was at least his age, shaggy brown hair with streaks of gray, sad, dark eyes, and he had a…He had a cigarette stuck in the corner of his mouth! He looked like a depressed Ukrainian bloodhound. He must be some heavy smoker, too, if they couldn’t get a picture of him without a cigarette in his mouth. Steven put his hands behind his head and thought hard. In truth, he felt little or no obligation to Alexi. Alexi was a grown man, a smoker and a journalist and a smartass. Charlie and Gregori, though. Steven felt a little nudge in the belly, thinking about them. They were something different. If they were even real. No, Steven believed in Gregori and Charlie. He believed in them like he believed in his own mind. They were real, and they obviously needed something. From him. And why couldn’t they just tell him? A secret, ghostly letter written in lemon juice, and he could heat it over a candle and the words would magically appear in brown. Charlie never doubted that Steven would take up his enthusiasms and obligations. But Charlie had spent his 18

Sarah Black life doing good. He delivered food for the UN into war zones, refugee camps, regions with famine. One year when Steven was very small, Charlie was going to miss his birthday because he was flying into Africa. When Steven asked him why he had to go, Charlie had explained in detail about the famine in Ukraine, the reasons it had happened and how the people had died, and he explained that it was happening again in Africa, right on that day, at that very minute, and he, Charlie, of course had to go and help. He remembered listening to Charlie, the seven year old voice in his head asking, what does this have to do with me? He didn’t want Charlie to be disappointed in him, but he still wasn’t very sure what this had to do with him. And Gregori- he was something different again. What did it even mean to be a ghost? How would a scientist approach this investigation? Quietly, so his colleagues wouldn’t laugh him out of the world of academic medicine and try to have him committed. Steven had a sudden picture of himself, dressed up like a county-fair Tarot card reader, purple turban teetering on his head. I can see your brain getting smaller and smaller… But Steven had to admit the beginnings of a powerful scientific fascination with Gregori’s mind, a neurologist’s fascination with a consciousness so brilliant that he had managed to project- what? His mind? His consciousness? Project his consciousness into the camera, separate his mind from his brain. That was the great scientific work of his generation of neurologists, after all, to distinguish the mind from the brain. Naturally Steven was fascinated. Prominent Local Neurologist Discovers the MindBrain…Nobel Talk for Dr. Steven Russell, Prominent Local Neurologist… The whole idea of Gregori being a ghost was hard to swallow. Ghosts, as a separate category of being, were hard to swallow. He was dead, there seemed to be no 19

Gregori’s Ghost question about that, but otherwise his mind seemed perfectly alive and well, and able to communicate. How restricted was he? Steven stuck his head under the camera drape- he’d left the camera set up, so he could visit with Gregori whenever he wanted, in the interest of gathering data- Gregori, why do you have to stay in the camera? A startled question in his mind, then he felt Gregori smile at him. I don’t know. Maybe I don’t. Maybe I’ll come out and see you. So naturally Steven wanted to investigate a little further. But when he ducked under the drape with a handful of bright blue wire electrodes, explained to Gregori that he was going to perform an EEG on himself while he interacted with his ghostly mind, Gregori gave a great shout of laughter, fell right through the walls of the camera, and Steven felt a laughing mouth pressed warm against his own. Maybe he was developing a bit of empathy, after all. He had been spending quite a bit of time under the camera drape, actually, and it felt like taking a nip of bright clear whiskey, letting Gregori’s pictures come into his mind, because he was starting to feel something else, as if Gregori’s mind and his were dancing closer and closer to each other, bodies sliding near, thoughts like skin damp with semen and sweat pressed together, sticking to each other. It was something he’d never felt before, and it was deeply intimate. He was very careful not to articulate in words his idea that they were falling for each other, because he knew he was in love with the intimacy, the idea of an intimacy so powerful their minds could meld together. Because once their minds came together, the body wouldn’t matter. All sensation came from the brain, after all. But that wasn’t all, and he admitted to himself that he wanted Gregori to like him. People not liking him had cropped up as an issue before in his life, and it seemed important suddenly that he be the kind of person Gregori would like. 20

Sarah Black But it didn’t seem to be two-way radio traffic, this thing with Gregori. Most of the time all he could do was watch, and feel Gregori’s inchoate desire, echoes of horror, his urgent call for help. What to do, what to do. Well, if he were to fly to Ukraine, help out Alexi, then he wouldn’t have to go back to work just yet. Steven sat up, felt a bit of a lift at this thought. He’d been getting lots of emails from the hospital about his plans: when was he coming back? He was on leave without pay from his university appointment, but he had enough money for awhile. Maybe six months. And then what? Gregori came into his head while he slept, and his body felt stronger to Steven, as if this was Gregori before the war, before the hunger and marches and horrible photographs. It was just nerve impulses, Steven knew that even in sleep, biochemistry spitting and crackling along his nerves, and he could even name the nerves, but it didn’t matter to him. He would take it, this wonderful feeling of skin against skin, a man lying over him, pressure on his chest and belly, a nudge of feeling like a kiss at his neck. You’re Charlie’s grandson? Surprise, and a little dismay, disbelief, maybe, and Steven began to feel anxious, as if he didn’t measure up to the expectations of this man who could fall through his skin and stroke his mind. Gregori must have felt it, because he became liquid hot and silky, spreading across Steven’s skin like honey, heat gathering deep in his belly, twisting itself like a hand around a snake. Oh, you are going to love Alexi. It was Gregori’s voice in his head. The touch of the sheet on his cock became unbearable and he reached down between his legs in his sleep, spilling into his hands. No, Steven thought. I’m going to love you. And it was only later that Steven realized that Gregori seemed to have come out of the camera, and slid into his bed. ~ 21

Gregori’s Ghost April felt like a dream. Steven would run in the morning, when the air was sweet and cool, sometimes down to the beach, sometimes through Charlie’s old neighborhood of tidy small lawns with their bright, showy flowerbeds. The TV and radio stayed turned off, and every couple of days he would go through his email, deleting anything from work, and striking up conversations with Alexi, when he was around and felt like talking. Alexi had a nasty tongue and wicked sense of humor, but there was nothing funny about being a journalist for an opposition paper in a country one generation out from the secret police and the gulags. It was a place where journalists ended up in shallow graves. But Steven was starting to suspect Alexi of finding some dark Russian pleasure in his misery. His complaints had the epic, grand scope of Dostoevsky spinning a tale. The whole Ukrainian thing seemed so far away and unreal, like global warming, less real, certainly, than Gregori’s powerful mind. In the bright April sunshine Steven found it impossible to believe Alexi was in any real danger. He told Alexi he was a doctor, but that he was taking a bit of time off work. Alexi asked him if he had ever considered working for Medecins San Frontiers. Doctors Without Borders were running a treatment program in Odessa, the Crimean hotbed of HIV infection. Steven explained carefully about his work as a neurologist, but even to himself he sounded pathetic, an American with an overblown ego and an overblown bank account, responsible only for pleasing himself. He didn’t hear from Alexi for a week after that conversation, but Steven hardly noticed. He was slipping deeper into Gregori’s mind, into his world, with very little tethering him to his own. He spent a beautiful Earth Day morning running at the beach, and when he got back to Charlie’s place he showered and slid between the sheets and thought about 22

Sarah Black the benefits of ghost sex. His cock filled and stiffened in his hand. The biggest benefit, of course, was the no-stringsattached nature of the sex. There was no risk of sexually transmitted disease; no risk of the psycho-stalker ex syndrome; you didn’t have to go through that painful, awkward, getting to know you friendship business; the sex was mind-blowing, and he could say that as a person with a considerable expertise in the mind. Sometimes he felt like Gregori was giving his cock and his brain blow jobs simultaneously, it was fucking awesome, sex of the mind and sex of the body. Prominent Local Neurologist Reinvents Sex, Saves World. Ghost sex didn’t get into all those commitment issues, though Steven knew he was actually ready to dive off that cliff at any moment. With Gregori. And ghost sex didn’t carry the risk of rejection the way human sex did. People might not like you, or they might think they liked you, and once they got to know you, they didn’t like you anymore. And people, Steven could think of a few specific people here, people were not shy about telling you your every character flaw, the ones that would keep you sleeping cold and alone well into your old age. Steven thought about his ex here, who had in fact been his only human relationship that had lasted more than a couple of nights. With humans, he had to admit, he had not been entirely successful. Steven leaned back and closed his eyes, let his mind open to Gregori, and soon he felt Gregori’s lean body slide in next to his, a quick hand wrapping around his mind, a friendly squeeze around his cock. Steven kept his eyes closed, because he could feel Gregori better that way, could feel him and almost smell him, like the smells of an early April morning. Gregori pushed his thighs apart with a knee, lifted his hips, Steven could feel Gregori’s fingers digging into his skin, that voice in his head, give it to me, Steven, rough hands rolling him over, and he was on his hands and knees, and 23

Gregori’s Ghost Gregori was between his thighs. Pressure at his anus, Gregori rocking against him, give it to me, Steven, then he was pierced, sharp as an arrow, Gregori shoving deeper, desperately sweet and aching and Gregori reached around his hip, wrapped his fingers around Steven’s cock. They came together, Gregori’s mind flowing out from his, rainbow colors in Steven’s mind, a smell like barbecue chicken on a backyard grill, which Steven had smelled the very first time he’d ever had sex, and still smelled when the sex was really good. His mind and Gregori’s wrapped around each other like a double helix, a strand of DNA in neon colors, twisting, untwining, the slow, elegant dance of a pair of mating sea creatures. And that’s when Steven made a mistake, because he let the thought slide into his mind that this was better than it could ever be with a flesh and blood man, he never wanted to be with a man again, and Gregori heard him. Steven felt him withdraw, horrified, and then he disappeared. ~ Prominent Local Neurologist Voted Biggest Fool in the Universe. Steven felt like an angel who’d had his wings clipped, and was stuck forever traveling on foot, when he’d only just learned to fly. He had two dreams of Gregori, but the walls, whatever they were, were firmly back up. In one dream they were back in the forest again. Gregori was moving, adjusting the focus, sliding the sheets of film into the back of the camera. Gregori knew that Steven was there, but he was being very careful and quiet, as if he didn’t want to attract attention from the men below. Forgive me. The words were actinic, crystal blue in his mind. You must forgive me, because I need you. I need your help, Steven. Can you get the pictures to Alexi? Gregori ducked underneath the hood again and Steven could follow his eye, see what he was seeing through the camera lens, feel the jolt shudder through him when the rifles were aimed 24

Sarah Black and fired, and the young men fell. It’s not over, Steven. Gregori hesitated. It’s not over. I just wanted to…I just wanted you, Steven, and I never had the chance before. You were too beautiful to resist… And Steven felt Gregori’s hand again, soft as a kitten’s fur, stroking something inside his mind that he felt down into his fingers and toes. The second dream was even worse, as far as Steven’s hopes that Gregori would abandon whatever quest he was on to save the future and come back into his bed for the rest of eternity. In the dream, Gregori and Charlie were sitting at the little table in Charlie’s studio, having lunch together. They were eating tomato soup and buttered saltines, and Charlie stood up and poured them a couple of glasses of milk. They both looked so young, and they were talking as if they had a lifetime together still to come. “He’s so hardheaded, Gregori. He won’t listen to anyone.” Gregori laughed. “They both are, Charlie. Listen, my friend. We can’t interfere anymore. We have to trust them, let them try.” Charlie sat down and slurped some soup from his spoon. “They could love each other one day, Gregori. I can feel it, so much possibility. But if they’re not careful their chance will slip away. And if it does, our chance will slip away, too.” ~ Rami Bakshir made a surprise visit on a Sunday afternoon, between lunch and Steven’s naptime. Steven was surprised, mostly at the concern on her face and the gentle hug she gave him. The Hugging Neurologist. “Steven, I have been worried about you. Why haven’t you come back to work?” He didn’t know what to say. He didn’t know why, to tell the truth, and even worse, he didn’t care. So he just stared at her like his tongue had turned to lead in his 25

Gregori’s Ghost mouth. She took charge with mom-like efficiency, and before long he was sitting at the table, a cup of Earl Grey at his elbow and the camera on the table between them. “It is beautiful, isn’t it?” Rami stroked the polished golden wood. “But it is the tool, Steven. The camera is just the tool. Where are the pictures?” He shrugged. “In his head, I guess. In my head, now.” “But Steven, wouldn’t he have given your grandfather the pictures? The negatives, or whatever they were? I mean, it doesn’t make sense. Charlie said they took him away. Gregori gave him the camera right before they took him away. Wouldn’t he have given him the pictures, too?” Steven sat like stone, then he got up suddenly, knocking the chair over, and he pushed Charlie’s Indian blanket to the side and reached under the bed for the battered, olive green footlocker. “I am such a fool. It’s been sitting under there the whole time,” Steven said. “I saw it the first time I came for the camera, the night Charlie died. I don’t know what I was thinking.” He repacked the camera, then lifted the footlocker onto the kitchen table. It was square and deep, just the right size, he realized, to hold the large negatives from Gregori’s camera. They were carefully packed in individual envelopes, marked on the outside archival photographic materialacid free. Charlie had repacked the negatives recently. “We need an X-ray light box,” Rami said. “Charlie has a light box. I’ll get it.” Steven opened the bottom drawer in the built-in closet. “He’s got a light box, a photographer’s loupe, everything we need.” Rami plugged the light box in, and they put the first photographic negative on the light box and stared down into the faces of massacre. Rami became more pale and shaken the longer they looked, her hand pressed to her mouth as if she was going 26

Sarah Black to be sick. “Is this what you’ve seen, Steven? Inside the camera?” He nodded. “But I’m not just seeing still photographs. It’s more like I’m really there, watching it happen. I can hear the guns, smell that burning smell. I guess it’s gunpowder or something. Every time the guns go off, Gregori flinches, like he’s feeling it in his guts. I can feel it, too.” “Oh, my dear friend. I am so sorry.” She put both hands flat on the table top, as if she needed to calm herself. “Steven, you must be very careful. The photographer, he saw so much, so many disturbing things. You mentioned to me the famine in Ukraine? Maybe his parents, or when he was a little boy… Then the war, and they took him away- I hope not to the gulags, Steven. It would drive many men insane, to have to live with so much pain and grief. Do you think…?” Steven shook his head. “Gregori’s not insane. Charlie’s looking after him,” he said. “They’re looking after each other. But Gregori still needs something. I feel like he needs me to do something. Something with the pictures, or Alexi. I don’t know…” “You must figure it out, and quickly. It can’t be good for you, to have these images running through your head.” She drummed her fingers against the tabletop. “Tell me about Alexi?” “He’s Gregori’s grandson, and a real wise-ass.” Rami laughed. “You two should get along well, then!” “Huh?” Steven shook his head. “Charlie found him. He’s a journalist in Ukraine.” “Things are bad in that part of the world.” She leaned back over one of the photographs. “These uniforms, they aren’t German. Soviet, I think.” She moved the loupe carefully over the negative. “They’re Soviet. I wonder…Steven, have you ever heard of Katyn? The massacres there of the Polish officers? The Soviets didn’t 27

Gregori’s Ghost admit responsibility until 1990, even though the Germans found the mass graves in 1943, if I remember correctly. I wonder if that’s what Gregori photographed. A dangerous job. Maybe still dangerous today, to have these pictures.” Steven looked at her in surprise. “Why? They must all be dead now, right? I mean, people know about stuff that happened during the war. And what does this have to do with Alexi, in Ukraine?” “Charlie only died last month, Steven, and these photographs are so clear, you can easily see the faces. The faces of the men in charge, the men doing this horrible killing. The faces of the boys dying.” She tapped the tabletop again, a look of consternation growing on her face. “Steven, do you have any idea where Ukraine is?” ~ Alexi was in full rant over the email, in what Steven had started calling the Eastern European Political Opposition Martyr Syndrome. He guessed it was fueled by lots of vodka and disgusting little brown cigarettes, and all Steven had done was ask Alexi if he had ever heard of the Katyn Forest Massacre. “Yeah, Steven, I think I’ve heard of it since they are still uncovering the graves and they are still trying to identify the bodies as of today, and a lawsuit has been filed by a group of Polish family members seeking reparations from the Soviet Union, which, of course, doesn’t exist anymore, and no one knows how to classify this crime- genocide? War crimes? Stalinist Purge? There arguments are important and continue every day because of the issues of reparation and responsibility and this is, after all, my backyard and these are my cousins so of course I’ve heard of Katyn! This is what bothers me about you Americans. You race in at the last minute like a bunch of fucking cowboys, don’t even notice that we’ve already been fighting and dying for years and years, and you tidy up and dust off your hands and go home, all fixed, all forgotten. But it’s 28

Sarah Black not over, it’s never over, Steven. We’re still fighting that same war. So are you, and you just haven’t noticed. Why do you ask about Katyn? Have you been watching a show on the History Channel?” How much of this was he going to have to put up with? A picture of Gregori and Charlie flashed into his mind, sharing a can of tomato soup. He sent an email back. “Gregori was there. Taking pictures.” “Why do you think that, Steven?” Why was Alexi still up? It was four in the morning in Kiev, and even political opposition journalists should be tucked up in their beds, asleep. “What are you doing, Alexi? Why aren’t you in bed?” “I’m trying to fix this shitty coal fire before I freeze to death and I’m drinking vodka to keep warm. What are you doing, Steven? Surfing? What makes you think Gregori was at Katyn?” Coal fires? God, between the cigarettes and the coal, he could just imagine what the inside of Alexi’s lungs looked like. Why had he brought up Katyn? What was he going to say, a little ghostly pillow talk? “It might not have been Katyn. There were other massacres.” “Did you find some photographs, Steven?” At least Alexi was quick. “So what does it mean to be a political opposition journalist? If your guy wins the elections, does that mean you have to start supporting the loser?” “What makes you think we have elections?” A smiley face appeared, its middle finger raised in a universal salute. He sent Alexi the iconic photograph of Che Guevera, the revolutionary’s revolutionary. “Do you need a beret? To keep warm? I could send you one by Express Mail.” Alexi didn’t reply. Political Opposition Martyr Takes Himself Off to Bed. 29

Gregori’s Ghost ~ Steven took one of the negatives to a photo lab downtown. They told him over the telephone that they were experienced in pulling prints off old, large format negatives, that they could do it without harming the negative. Steven’s plan was to make a print, scan it into his computer, and email it to Alexi. Then…whatever. Steven didn’t know. Then whatever was going to happen would happen. Brendan leaned over the polished wooden counter and slid the negative onto a light box. He touched the edges carefully wearing white cotton gloves. “Awesome, man. Where’d you get this?” “My grandfather,” Steven said. “Probably from WWII.” “Cool.” Brendan looked like a surfer, sun-bleached blonde hair cut shaggy down to his shoulders, and a deep tan that looked great on him, despite its precancerous nature. The photo was cool, and Brendan could pull an awesome print. Steven could almost hear Alexi’s barbed comments in his ear. Well, Alexi just didn’t understand. American photographers were steeped in sunshine and salt water, not the gray stone walls and cold drizzle of Kiev. The photographic print was even more disturbing than Steven was expecting. Brendan whistled through his teeth. “Wow. These old large formats, the quality can’t be matched. How many negatives like this do you have?” Steven shrugged. “Just a couple.” “You don’t still have the camera, do you? I’d love to see it.” Steven looked at him, slid the photo into an envelope. He thought he caught a whiff of coconut oil. Brendan had a couple of freckles on his nose, eyes like brown sugar. He leaned forward across the counter, touched Steven’s 30

Sarah Black forearm with a playful light hand. “You hungry? We could get a couple of fish tacos, go back to your place. I’d love to see your old camera.” “I like fish tacos,” Steven said. Sure, why the hell not? This kid could hardly wait to start taking his clothes off. Gregori could watch, see what he was missing by being so stubborn. They walked down to the beach, ate tacos and drank a couple of beers, and Steven could feel himself relax a bit, feel something tight in his chest start to loosen. Sunshine and good food and admiring glances, and Brendan was touching him, little fingertip touches on his forearm, his shoulder, his lower back. Steven finally grabbed his wrist, wrapped his fingers around and let his touch bite into Brendan’s skin a little bit. “Why don’t we go look at the camera, and then you can bend over and I’ll fuck you.” Brendan’s pupils were huge and dark, and he was breathing fast. “Yeah, you’re good with that. I thought you might be.” He kept Brendan’s wrist in his hand, tugged him along until they got back to where they’d parked the Jeep. On the way to Charlie’s place Brendan eased his fingers up Steven’s thigh, then unbuttoned his Levi’s with a quick twist and slid the zipper down. Steven eased back a little in the seat, kept his eyes on the road. Brendan pulled Steven’s cock out just enough he could scrape his thumb across the head, circle around and smear the slick fluid across the sensitive skin, his fist discreetly covering anything that might cause a trucker to swerve an eighteen wheeler off the road. It was a practiced technique. When they got back to Charlie’s place Steven went up the stairs first, pointed to the camera case on the little table. Brendan lifted it out, ooing and aahing, checked the lens and brass and bellows. Steven folded Charlie’s Pendleton blanket and moved it off the bed. “Steven , this is cherry, man. Have you ever thought about selling it? I mean, you could get a thousand bucks for it on Ebay.” 31

Gregori’s Ghost Steven shook his head. “It isn’t mine. It belongs to the grandson of the man who took those pictures.” He touched Brendan on the shoulder. “Take your clothes off.” He packed the camera away, then turned around and watched as Brendan unbuttoned his shirt, pulled it off, then slid his jeans down his hips. No underwear. Steven was wearing his stone face. He wasn’t really sure why. He just liked the feeling, the cruelty and power, liked the way Brendan shivered and came erect under his gaze. “Bathroom’s through there,” he said, gesturing with his chin, and Brendan went without a murmur of protest. When he came back out Steven was naked, rolling a condom up his erect cock. “Get on the bed, Brendan.” His pupils were huge and black, and Steven wondered if he’d taken a snort of something in the bathroom. It didn’t matter. He could read this kid, read what he liked, and just now, on a sunny April afternoon, that’s what Steven liked, too. Brendan was on his hands and knees, arms stretched wide and head hanging between them. He couldn’t hold still, moving his ass a bit, thighs spread, and Steven could see his balls pulled up tight, his cock hard and dark against his belly, and his asshole, like a hungry little flower, or a mouth, opening and closing as he stretched back and opened himself as wide as he could to be plundered. And Steven obliged, and took him rough, not saying anything, no sweet touches, just fucked him blind like he said he would, let Brendan scream out and shoot his spunk all over the sheets. When the kid tumbled down, sprawled out next to him, Steven used the top sheet to wipe the semen off Brendan’s belly, then fell onto the small bed next to him, pulled him close into his chest and fell asleep. Now that, Steven thought, that you could say was awesome. Fucking was cool. Not photographs of men’s faces as they killed, and died. The smell of coconut oil and spunk filled the little room. 32

Sarah Black After a little while Brendan stirred and slid quietly out of bed. Steven didn’t move until Brendan opened up the camera case and looked inside. “I moved it. While you were in the bathroom.” Brendan turned around and stared at him, his eyes hurt, and then they turned hard as brown pebbles. “Jesus, Steven. I just wanted to look at it again.” “Right. Get dressed. I’ll take you back to your car.” They didn’t speak in the car, not until Steven was idling in the parking lot, waiting for Brendan to climb out. “I think you must have to work hard, Steven, to be such a heartless bastard. You’re gonna spend your life alone, my friend, cold and alone unless you learn how to trust a little.” Steven just stared back at him, not a crack in his stone face, and he slipped the clutch in and glided quietly away when Brendan slammed the door and stalked off. Why had he just been such an asshole? Steven wasn’t really sure. Maybe because the kid was really asking for it? He swung by Comp USA, picked up a good scanner so he could send a copy of the photo to Alexi. ~ That night Steven changed the sheets and lay back down on Charlie’s bed. Those goddamn fish tacos. It felt like he had a beaver gnawing at his guts. He reached down and wrapped his cock up in his fist, but it lay there like a slug, pretending it was dead. No one would come into his head and talk to him, and he was getting definite vibes of disapproval from Gregori and Charlie. Yeah, great. What did they know? He knew a lot more than they did about pretty hustlers. And maybe Brendan wasn’t a hustler, but just a nice photographer boy out for something easy, looking for the good life, willing to take his clothes off and offer up his ass like a sacrifice in exchange for…what? What did he see that he wanted? The camera? Steven couldn’t imagine what Brendan could possibly want, other than the camera. 33

Gregori’s Ghost Did the kid know he was a neurologist? Everybody wanted to marry a doctor, and Brendan was soft and brown and easy, a pretty trap baited with honey. Steven rolled over to his belly, shoved his face into the pillow. “Would you please just shut the fuck up?” He was an insufferable bastard. Maybe Brendan had been a chance, and now he was a lost chance that would never come around again. Because he, Steven, was a complete and utter waste of DNA. And that’s why Gregori had abandoned him and Charlie, who had always loved him no matter what, wasn’t going to waste any more time on him now that he was free of the mortal coil. Brendan had it right about him being a heartless bastard and also he was right about that cold and alone thing. Fuck. Steven got up and turned on the computer. Maybe Alexi would talk to him if he’d swallowed enough cheap Russian vodka with his borscht and black bread. Alexi, when did Charlie find you? Maybe five, six years ago. They’d relocated most of the Ukrainians who survived the famine to the interior. Gregori’s mother went to the Urals, so Charlie looked there first. But after the war Irinya, that was my grandmother, Gregori’s wife, she took my father and they went back to Ukraine. I don’t know if she ever knew what happened to Gregori. So many people just didn’t come home from the war, Steven. I don’t think she was waiting for him. But Charlie, he wasted a long time looking all over Russia. That’s where Gregori told him the family was. What are you doing awake, Steven? Isn’t it the middle of the night? Or has the US suspended night-time altogether, so you busy little capitalists can increase your work output? I just fucked some pretty boy who fed me fish tacos and was after Gregori’s camera. When I ran him off, he told me I was a heartless bastard. I probably am. 34

Sarah Black Yeah, that’s what I like about you, Steven. But don’t let anyone get our camera. Next time, I’ll fuck the pretty American boy. Did he see one of the pictures? Is that how he knew about the camera? Yeah. The photo lab pulled a print. He said it was ‘cool.’ Steven, before you said Gregori was at Katyn. You didn’t say you found photos that you think he took at Katyn. Why did you say it that way? Gregori was at Katyn. Like you knew. Why is the camera so important? What do you see when you look through the lens? Steven sat back, shocked. What had he said? Was Alexi really that smart? Gregori gave him a little nudge in the ribs. He’s really that smart. You can trust him, Steven, please. Trust me and Charlie. Tell him about the camera. When I look through the lens I see your grandfather, and mine. I can talk to Gregori. I see Katyn, the massacres, like I’m looking through Gregori’s eyes. Steven waited a moment for Alexi to write back, his stomach in a knot. How does he seem, Steven? How is Charlie? Are they well? Do you think they need anything? Steven couldn’t stop the tears that filled his eyes. Alexi believed him. He wanted to know if they were okay. Alexi, they seem okay except they need me to do something. Us, maybe. Something about the pictures. I think Gregori wants me to bring you the pictures, then…I don’t know. Then you have to figure out what comes next. Alexi, let me send you the picture I pulled off the negative. You tell me what you think, what it means. Steven scanned the photo into the computer, then sent it off. The resolution was painfully clear. The next email from Alexi was nearly an hour later. He was drinking a cup of green tea, his feet propped up on the edge of Charlie’s bed. He was waiting, but it felt good, Zen-like, meditation in the calm before the 35

Gregori’s Ghost storm. Later Steven wondered how he had known that the shit was about to hit the Ukrainian fan. Steven, there’s trouble. Don’t make any more prints. Don’t show the negatives to anyone. I’m going to encrypt the email so I can talk to you, but for God’s sake don’t send any more pictures. It’s Katyn. ~ Encrypted email. He’d heard something about this on NPR, but it make Alexi sound like he was dashing around Kiev in a 1964 Austin Martin, Q riding shotgun with a trunk full of high explosives and trick fountain pens. Actually…actually, he felt a little worried. Three days, and no word from Alexi. Steven had been doing a bit of research. There were several men in the Katyn photographs who appeared older, the epaulets on their uniforms indicating officer ranking. Steven was particularly struck by one officer’s face. He was older than the others, and appeared to be the senior officer in the pictures Gregori took, if their shoulder boards were anything to go on. His expression chilled Steven’s heart, manic glee, almost a sexual hunger, as the exhausted young prisoners were shot, their bodies tumbled and piled in the graves. They were so young, teenagers, no older than twenty-five, most of them. What were they doing in the woods, starving and dressed in rags, while these men with guns stood over them and enjoyed their murder? They should have been at school, at the beach or on a picnic or checking out a girl. Or a boy. Steven read everything he could find about Katyn, even saw the text of the execution order online. It was written by Beria, signed by Stalin, Voroshilov, Molotov, Mikoyan, Kalinin, Kaganovich. He felt sick, totting up the numbers of people dead from Katyn Forest, from Kalinin and Kharkov prisons, from Kozelsk and Starobelsk and Ostashkov camps, political prisoners in Belarus and Ukraine. Surely this couldn’t be right? 21, 36

Sarah Black 857 dead. Twenty-one thousand, eight hundred and fifty seven. He lay down on the bed, stared up at the ceiling. Gregori, what did they do to you? Were you number 21, 858? Where are your bones, Gregori? Do you want me to find you, and bring you home? I will if you want me to. Just tell me. I’ll do anything you want. Just talk to me. Deep in the night he felt Gregori’s voice in his head. He didn’t wake up. Gregori lay down with him, stroked his belly and soothed him like he was a baby. Don’t waste your time worrying about my bones. Alexi is alive and he’s in trouble, Steven. I count on you. He is counting on you, too, though don’t expect him to admit it. I know you will do everything, Steven. Everything Charlie would have done, everything you can do. And just for a moment Gregori fell through his skin, fell into his arms and his heart and mind, and he could taste him, the clean bright taste of clams boiled in salty ocean water, eaten on the beach. Gregori, feel how much I love you. And Gregori smiled inside his head, crystal blue like the endless horizon, water and sky stretching to the end of the world. Steven went to the public health department the next morning to get a typhoid shot and it made him sick as a dog. He managed to pull the paperwork off the computer between the fever and chills to apply for a visa to Ukraine, hunted down his passport, made plane reservations. It was dirt-cheap to fly from Los Angeles to Kiev, which certainly tells you something, he thought, lying in bed shivering and staring at the ceiling. He was interested to read that a visitor should not eat the wild berries or mushrooms, or go swimming in the Dnipro River- the river was still polluted. Charming. Radiation from Chernobyl. He studied Alexi’s writing as well, and he had to concede that he was an excellent journalist. He wrote mostly about politics, mostly about money, and his 37

Gregori’s Ghost interviews showed a mind sharp as a diamond. But he wasn’t a propagandist, trying to shove his candidate into the president’s seat. He seemed to Steven like the kind of journalist who would piss off everyone, clearly a man destined to get knocked on the head with a bottle of vodka, dragged off and left for dead under a bridge if Steven didn’t manage to get him out of that Eastern European hell-hole. Prominent Local Neurologist brings western medicine to Ukraine in the form of an ice pack and a bottle of Tylenol. But what had Alexi seen on the photograph that had caused a four alarm fire? Steven played the podcast for his last interview, Dr. Viktor Cherikov. The interview was in Ukrainian, but there was a running translation provided in English and Russian. Cherikov sounded like a decent presidential candidate, maybe a little short on military experience to handle the second largest cache of nuclear weapons in the world. Originally a doctor, (oh, please, a pediatrician? He would get the mommy vote for sure, if they even had a mommy vote in Ukraine), Cherikov headed Kiev’s Taras Shevchenko University, and was the Chairman of the Board of a European Union think tank, dedicated to developing democratic political structures on a foundation of economic stability in Eastern European, in the former Soviet Bloc countries. Alexi’s voice sounded like dark honey, rough and sweet. In the interview, Alexi had said almost exactly what Steven had been thinking: “That sounds very nice, Dr. Cherikov. What the hell does it mean?” And the good doctor had laughed. Steven liked him. He sounded like…sort of like Rami Bakshir, he thought, feeling a little dismayed. Alexi apparently understood the econobabble, because the interview was buffeted by references to the World Bank and venture capital and technology infrastructure and pending membership in the WTO and the EU. 38

Sarah Black Steven didn’t care about any of that. It was the picture that pulled him up short, a strong face older than his own, kind gray eyes, blond hair fading to gray, a strong jaw. Except for the eyes, he could have been the twin to the officer in the Katyn Forest Massacre photos. Alexi could not possibly have missed it. ~ A message from hushmail, and Steven clicked on the link to find a secret question. What was in Charlie’s Garage? Steven typed in, P-51 Mustang, and he was able to read the encrypted message from Alexi. Steven, sign up for an email account with hushmail. We need secure fax and encrypted attachments. Steven got his secured account, [email protected], and emailed Alexi back. What’s the secret Ukrainian password, 007? Aren’t you over-reacting? Surely the good doctor is what he seems? Steven, it is good you are smart. Listen, my friend. I wasn’t alone when you sent the photo. Someone else saw it. I didn’t realize just how clear it would be. Gregori was a good photographer. And yes, I do believe the good doctor is who he seems to be, a good man with a bad grandfather. We were luckier that way, Steven, you and I. Who else saw the photo? I don’t want to bring this trouble to your house. I think I’m going into hiding for a few weeks, then I’ll try to leave the country. I’ll get in touch with you in, say, six months from now and tell you I’m okay. No fucking way, Alexi. Who were you with? Who saw the photo? Just a good-looking kid. A blond from Belarus, Steven. Cherry. You would have loved him. Steven couldn’t figure out how to send an emoticon through the hushmail. Did you happen to catch his name? Or did he just clean out your wallet and split? 39

Gregori’s Ghost I thought he was a friend, Steven. But I seemed to have picked up a bullet in my arm since I wrote to you last. Who the fuck knows who wants to shoot me? It could be anybody. I think I need to keep my head down. Have you seen a doctor? Not yet. Is the bullet still in your arm, Alexi? I think so, Steven. Listen, we need a code phrase of some kind, so we know we are talking to each other, not the bad guys. Use mustang. Then we’ll know who we’re talking to. Encrypted email and secret passwords? Aren’t you being a little melodramatic? Steven could almost see him tipping the bottle up to his mouth. Pour the vodka on the bullet wound, Alexi. Jesus, are you trying to kill me? That hurts! I have a bullet in my arm. I think that is melodramatic enough. Steven, I don’t suspect I will do very well standing up to torture. But if you get an email from me, and I don’t mention that you are hung like a mustang, is that the phrase? Then you can assume the bad guys have me. Steven rolled his eyes. Hung like a horse. I think you’ve got a high fever. I bet you haven’t had a tetanus shot since you were a baby. I make a house call, it will cost you big, my friend. Don’t come, Steven. It’s dangerous here. I’ll be there in two or three days. Five minutes on the internet, and Steven had a room in downtown Kiev. Alexi, go to this room and wait for me. #1167 Bolshaya Zhitomirshaya. The apartment’s downtown, on the metro. I told them your name was Charlie and that you were my cousin. You’re going to stay with me until I figure out what to do. I’m attaching the forms so you can show the concierge. Alexi, is the wound still bleeding? It is now I poured the vodka on it. I’ll get there as soon as I can get there, little mustang. ~ 40

Sarah Black Immunizations, visa, passport, reservations, medical kit with enough antibiotics to knock a good-sized hole in an epidemic. A laptop and a couple of books. What else did he need? Steven thought about Charlie, how he’d go flying around in his restored WWII planes. He’d still been flying a year ago. Charlie would never go anywhere without filing a flight plan. Rami Bakshir met him for a seafood lunch and agreed to be his backup. The squid salad was drenched in lemon juice and olive oil, and the restaurant’s patio was bathed in sunshine and the raucous noise of California birds. But Steven’s mind was already walking the gray streets of Kiev, going after Alexi. He felt forces moving beyond his consciousness, as if there was some gathering up of good and evil, angels and demons, all about to descend on Kiev and tear a hole in the fabric of the universe. Which was so utterly fucking dramatic and over the top that Steven stopped thinking and slugged down his glass of Riesling. She refused to look at pictures until after they finished eating, and when the dishes were cleared she poured another couple of glasses of wine and moved her chair around to his side of the table. Steven powered up the laptop, showed her the scanned photo from Katyn, then split the screen so they could see the picture of Dr. Cherikov. “Alexi interviewed him. He’s a leading presidential candidate.” “I’ve heard something about him, Steven. He’s the president of Taras Shevchenko University, right? Running on a platform of developing new economic paradigms? I think there was a profile in The Economist.” Steven shrugged. “I don’t even want to know what an economic paradigm is, Rami.” She tutted at him. “Steven, where I am from, and Dr. Cherikov, educated people have a social responsibility. It 41

Gregori’s Ghost is assumed that your education mandates you will work for the good of society. And if society needs economic reform, you learn economic reform.” Prominent Local Neurologist diagnosed as selfish, narrow-minded. “Is he a neurologist?” Steven shook his head. “Pediatrician.” Rami’s eyebrows flew up. “Oh, dear. What a shame.” She lifted her wineglass, admired the delicate wine, and took a sip. “He’s close to my age, Steven. Maybe a year or two younger. I wonder where he went to university? I don’t remember him being at Oxford, but there were very many young men and women from the Soviet Bloc countries coming up for school after the wall fell.” She glanced at him briefly, a flutter of dark lashes. “The Berlin Wall, Steven. I will ask around, see if anyone knows him. But there is no question about the photographs.” “And there is no question Alexi is on the run with a bullet in his arm.” “But, Steven, Dr. Cherikov must be surrounded by organizations. Several, in fact. His family, the university, the political associations- there is no way to know who it trying to suppress this information, if indeed that is what is happening. All together more assumptions that I am comfortable making, especially about a matter with this degree of…” she hesitated, then began again. “With this many human repercussions. Where will you begin?” “The immediate need is to get the bullet out of Alexi’s arm, get some tetanus into him. He probably needs hepatitis immunizations, measles, all of them.” “And then what, Steven?” Her voice was patient. “Then I don’t know!” He threw up his hands. “Gregori is directing this rescue operation, and he is currently missing in action. I just don’t know!” “Gregori?” 42

Sarah Black Steven hesitated. “My ghost. The ghost in the camera.” “Ah. I see.” She put her napkin down on the table. “Then I think, Steven, that you need a good medical kit, lots of cash, dried food, and equipment for purifying water, in case you have to run. Maybe your job is Alexi. I will think on what we can do about this.” She gestured toward the laptop. “Let’s get a sat phone, Steven. We need secure communications. That way you can call for help if something goes wrong.” He looked away from her, out across the bright, sunny patio. “So you believe me about Gregori?” She patted his hand gently. “Steven. Of course I believe. In your ghost and in you.” ~ He picked up a tail during the lay-over in the Munich Airport. Gregori nudged him, whispered a warning in his mind. Steven, be careful. Someone’s watching you. Steven stood and stretched, glanced up and down the causeway, but only the girl leaning over the counter at the sausage kiosk seemed interested in him. He strolled over to her, ready to investigate, pointed to the picture of a sausage roll and held up one finger. She gave him a pretty smile and picked up a hard roll from a stack. She had fine gold glitter across both cheekbones and flat black hair in two perky pigtails that stuck out like exclamation points from the sides of her head. She cut open the roll and stuck a greasy sausage in the cut, squirted mustard in a wiggly line and wrapped it up in a napkin. “Tank you, Todd.” Her accent was charming, and Steven stopped, his wallet in his hand. “Oh, sorry. I’m not Todd Oldham. I just look like him.” “I’m designer!” 43

Gregori’s Ghost “Really? Sorry, I’m not…” He gave it up, handed her some dollars. “Come beck soon, Todd.” He took his sausage back to his seat. You want it? He tried to hand it off to Gregori, but designer girl was watching him so he saluted her with the dog and took a big bite. Very good it was, too. Those Germans knew how to make sausage. He could feel Gregori next to him, looking with interest around the airport, studying the people walking back and forth so urgently, sitting up in his ragged uniform with his skinny wrists and bloody feet. Steven could almost see him out of the corner of his eye, like if he turned his head very quickly, he could meet Gregori’s warm brown eyes. He didn’t try. Gregori, he thought, and sent a wave of love his way, a pulse of thought and feeling that was deep evergreen. Gregori wrapped his arms around Steven’s mind, put his head down on his shoulder. That’s right, Steven. That’s how. The mind, it is stronger than you can possibly imagine. I am a neurologist, G r e g o r i . It must be consciousness. Do you want to have sex? We’ve got an hour until they start boarding. His laughter fell through Steven’s mind like a shower of gold stars. Then happiness filled his head, pushed out the edge of suspicion that should have kept him more carefully on his toes. He didn’t think about Gregori’s warning again until he’d taken his exhausting turn at customs and immigration in Kiev. His skin was grimy, armpits sticky, more beard than seemed quite normal sprouting from his chin. Steven slung the backpack with the medical gear over his shoulder and went into the men’s room. The bathroom was lit with a single bulb, tiled in Soviet-era white. He bent over the sink, filled his hands 44

Sarah Black with a trickle of blood-warm water. The porcelain sinks were cracked and rusty. There were no paper towels, just one of those old-fashioned cloth towels on a roller that each person pulled down and used. He stared at it, then dried his face on his shirt sleeve. The man pushed open the door and came straight for him, put a hand on his lower back. “Steven!” The whisper was urgent, a sexy Boris-n-Natasha accent. “Steven, hurry, we’ve got to get out of here. They’re watching you.” Steven turned around, blinking water out of his eyes. The man was handsome, a little shorter and a little younger than he was expecting, with pretty hazel eyes, one a little more green, one a little more blue. His arm was in a sling. “Steven, I’m Alexi!” His voice was urgent, then he let his eyes go warm and liquid. “We’ll have lots of time to get to know each other, Steven. But we need to go now.” He leaned in close. “Hurry. They’re watching, Steven.” He was considerably more fit than Steven was expecting, trim and slender and smelling like Old Spice Red Zone. He held his hand out. “Alexi, give me a smoke.” Alexi blinked at him. “Steven, I don’t…Oh, I mean, I quit, my friend, I…” Steven reached for him, grabbed his shirt-front and flung him harder than he meant to across the bathroom floor. He slid, arms flailing, and slammed into the tile wall. Face first. He lay still, didn’t move. Steven kicked at one of the beautifully shod feet. “Idiot! Now you’ve got a concussion! And you don’t need any more cognitive dysfunction, you stupid fuck!” His hands were shaking so badly he knew he would spill the gear if he tried to find an ice pack for the creep’s head, so he just bolted for the door. Fuck, fuck, fuck! Stay calm, stay calm. I’m an American neurologist. He smoothed his hair back, walked 45

Gregori’s Ghost as slowly as he could stand to out the door. There was a line of taxis, a dirty gray haze hanging in the damp, cold air. It was dusk. The driver of the first taxi approached him, a greasy plaid wool cap on his gray head, a lit cigarette clenched between his teeth. “You need taxi? I speak English.” Steven shook his head. “Metro?” The man looked confused, gestured toward the taxi. Steven pulled the map of the metro station out of his pocket, pointed to the airport station at the end of the green line. “Ah! Yes, yes.” He gestured down the street and Steven started running. “Wait! Wait, my friend!” There was no sidewalk. He was running along the edge of the road, cars beeping as they skidded past him with inches to spare. God. Did they use leaded gasoline? The smog was unbelievable. The signs were in Cyrillic. Uh, oh. He knew what the metro should read in English, but the internet had fooled him into thinking this would be easier that it was. On the street, in the cold gray drizzle, he didn’t have any idea where he was or where he was going, and his little map was not helping. The taxi pulled up next to him, beeped the horn. The driver leaned over and waved at him. “My friend! Come, I will take you!” Oh, hell. Screw the internet research. The fake Alexi was maybe two minutes behind him, if that. Probably with a whole gang of confederate cutie-pie bad guys. He reached for the door and opened it, slid the backpack across the seat and climbed in. “Thank you,” he said. “You go to Independence Square? Sofievsky Cathedral? That’s where the tourists stay, downtown. Lots of hotels, lots of apartments.” “Yeah, okay.” Steven sighed. His apartment was, in fact, located within walking distance of the cathedral. Gregori? Where are you? Stealth Neurologist Loses His Ghostly Guide. 46

Sarah Black They drove into town in the dark gray rain, but downtown was lit up like a party girl, tall apartment buildings colored with sandstone and granite, flashy urban-funk billboards, lights and people thronging the squares. The taxi driver pointed out the shining green and gold domes of the cathedral, and they passed by a beautiful gate topped by a golden angel with wings spread wide in welcome. “Yes, Josef, it is beautiful.” Steven’s appreciation of Kiev’s glories wasn’t very heartfelt even to his own ear, but he was trying. Josef wanted to give him a tour, show him where to eat, maybe take him home to the family. He had mentioned several times that his wife and daughter watched Top Design. Steven couldn’t think of anything to say. How did they find him? Did they follow him from California, or had they found Alexi? Had they found Alexi and hurt him? Had Alexi gone to the apartment, or did they still have him? “Josef, listen, thanks for the tour. Really is a beautiful downtown, but I need to get to my apartment. My cousin, Charlie? He’s supposed to meet me there.” “You have Ukrainian cousin? I knew it, I knew you had Ukrainian blood. Your people, they left the country before the trouble started?” “Uh…” Which people? Which trouble? “Your cousin Charlie, does he know where to get the special food?” “I don’t know, Josef. I’ll ask him when I see him.” Steven felt his mind reeling with tiredness, and he couldn’t remember the last water he’d had to drink. He pulled the paper out of his pocket and showed it to Josef, who squinted against the smoke drifting into his eyes and studied the address. “I know where this is.” Five minutes later Josef pulled the taxi up in front of a tall apartment building, six or seven stories, faced with gold-colored marble. “I’ll go in with you, my friend. 47

Gregori’s Ghost Make sure concierge speaks English, has your key ready. He can tell us if your cousin has been.” Steven was shaking with fatigue and reaction, and didn’t know what to say. “Thanks, Josef.” He opened the door, then ducked out of the rain under the building’s portico. “You need a cap like mine!” Josef took his cap off, showed Steven the silk lining, dark with sweat, and a maker’s label. “London, my friend. The best. Virgin lambswool.” He nodded and fitted the cap back on his head. The lobby was tiled in gold marble, veined through with darker red, the color of clay, or old blood. The concierge’s cage was to the left of the door, and had a gold filigree grill that matched the old-fashioned elevator across the lobby. Steven dug the papers out of the backpack, got his passport and Visa card out. Josef was talking to the concierge, a tall, older man with a worried face and a fringe of thin gray curls around a bald crown. He took the papers, waved away the passport and credit card. “He says your cousin is here, nearly a day, and he’s hurt. Your cousin Charlie, he said for you to say the code word before you get the key, but this man here, he says he doesn’t like to play games with Americans when people are hurt.” The man’s eyes were dark and worried, his face somber. Steven could read it in his face, that he was uncomfortable with whatever had happened to Alexi, and he was afraid it was dangerous, that this American was going to bring him trouble. “Code word mustang,” Steven said. “I’m a doctor. I’m here to help him.” Josef translated, eyebrows lifting until they disappeared under the brim of his cap. “Mustang? Like the cowboys?” Steven nodded, and the concierge handed over a big, old-fashioned silver key. “You’re up on the sixth floor.” 48

Sarah Black “Josef, ask him not to tell anyone that I am here, or my cousin. Tell him if he says nothing, that we will leave very soon, as soon as he can travel.” Josef nodded, spoke a few quiet words. They both looked worried now. “I’ll go up with you.” Steven looked at him in surprise. “It’s okay, Josef. I really am a doctor. I know what to do.” “Not Top Design?” Seven shook his head. “Afraid not.” “Ah, well. I thought Kiev would be beautiful for show. Is he another cousin? You could tell him.” “I’ll tell him if I see him,” Steven promised. “These fancy apartments, they don’t come with food or water. I’ll look and see what you need, bring you some tea, some water. Okay?” Steven looked at him and smiled, really seeing his kind, tired face. One eye seemed to be in a permanent squint, even when the cigarette wasn’t clamped in the corner of his mouth. “The reason I ran out of the airport, Josef, was that a man was chasing me. His eyes were strange, like one was green and one was blue. He was young and very handsome. You be careful if you see this man. He knew I was at the airport. He pretended to be my cousin.” Josef nodded. “I’ll watch. I’ll tell the concierge, as well.” “Do you think it’s safe to trust him?” He shrugged. “There is no way to know, my friend. Anyone can be trusted until you threaten what they love the most in the world. Then no one can.” Steven unlocked the door and pushed it open. It was dark inside, and when he flipped the light switch next to the door, a kitchen light came on. The apartment was a studio, very small, about the size of a modern American hotel room. They were standing in a galley kitchen to the right, with bright white tile and a white cook stove and half-refrigerator. A round table with two chairs was on 49

Gregori’s Ghost the left, and beyond was a small loveseat and chair, beyond that a Queen-sized bed. The bed was next to the French doors and a balcony that overlooked the square. Alexi was lying across the bed. He’d managed to kick his shoes off before he passed out. Josef went to the French doors and pulled the long curtains across it, then turned on the light in the tiny bathroom opposite the bed. Alexi was breathing, so Steven started breathing again, too. His face was mangled. He’d been beaten, one eye and the side of his mouth was swollen and purple and cut, as if someone wearing a ring, or brass knuckles, had hit him. Seven pulled open the collar of his white shirt. His skin was hot to the touch, pulse steady and strong, faster than it should have been. His sleeve was torn and crusted with blood. Okay, priorities. Josef was in the kitchen, looking through the cabinets. “You’ve got an electric kettle, some teabags, and some sugar in the sugar bowl.” Steven reached for his wallet. “Josef, I only have American money. Is that okay?” “Sure, sure.” How much for the fare? He counted out three twenties into Josef’s hand. “Okay, that’s for the taxi fare.” He counted out another sixty dollars. “Will you get us some food? Something like…” He turned to look at Alexi, who was beginning to stir on the bed. “Just something, Josef. Something he can eat.” Josef filled the kettle. “I’ll just make some tea first, then I’ll go find food.” Steven sank to his knees next to the bed, and Alexi turned his head and looked at him. He was a mess, brown hair tangled and damp with sweat across his forehead, dirt streaked across his face, lips cracked. He looked at Steven and smiled, and Steven felt it down into his guts, like tumblers turning and locking into place. Steven reached for his face, put his palm flat against the side of Alexi’s 50

Sarah Black head, the side that hadn’t taken such a bad pounding. “Sorry I didn’t get here fast enough.” “I thought they would find you, Steven.” “They did, in the airport. But the guy pretending to be you was too charming and too good-looking.” Alexi winced. “I know that guy.” Josef tiptoed over to the bed. “The tea will be ready in a moment. I’m going now. I’ll be back with food.” He spoke a few words in Ukrainian to Alexi, who opened his mouth, closed it again, then blinked at Josef in shock. Steven thought he heard the words ‘Top Design,’ but he couldn’t be sure. When he had gone Steven carefully locked the door, then poured sugar into the tea and brought it back to Alexi. “Okay, I sort of understand the part about Todd Oldham being Ukrainian, but why does he think we’re Jewish?” His hand crept toward his crotch. “I’m not getting cut, Steven. Even if it blows our cover. Is that how you say it, blows our cover?” “No one asked you to get cut, 007. Drink the tea and don’t talk like a fool.” Steven lifted him around the shoulder, watched him sip. He winced when the cut next to his mouth opened up. “I don’t want to put an IV in you, but I will if I have to.” Alexi lay back down, and Steven was alarmed at the sudden pallor of his skin. “I don’t feel well, Steven.” “Where else are you hurt?” He ran his hands down over Alexi’s chest, pulled the shirt open to find purple bruising over the ribs. Somebody had kicked him, and it felt like his ribs were broken. He pressed gently into the abdomen, but the spleen and liver felt normal. “You aren’t in very good shape,” he said, digging through the back pack and pulling out his stethoscope. “I think we need those IVs.” 51

Gregori’s Ghost “I promise I’ll start jogging just as soon as I can breathe again.” “I didn’t mean it like that,” and Alexi gave him a smart-ass grin. Steven put the stethoscope down over his chest and heard the strong, steady beat of his heart. This is for me, something said in his head, and it wasn’t Gregori, it was his own voice, listening to Alexi’s heart beat. He could feel the change, and knew this was the moment he would remember. Charlie had tried to explain to him what it had meant to him, to meet Gregori by the Elbe River in Germany. He’d said, and everything changed for me, Steven. Later, looking back, it was like my life was cut in two, before that moment, and after. Temperature 103, BP 96/40. He pulled out the bag of IV fluids and ran it through the tubing, hung it on a wire coat hanger hooked onto a nail that had recently held a lovely watercolor print of the Dnipro River at sunset. He only had two bags of IV fluids, and antibiotics were the first priority. He mixed up two grams of Ancef, bolused it into the line. He injected the tetanus booster into Alexi’s good arm. He had to cut the shirt off- Alexi’s arm was too swollen to pull it off. No bullet, but the tract had left a deep gouge that was dirty and already infected. Fluids, get the temp down and the BP up, then morphine for the pain, then he could scrub the wound and dress it. Right now trying to clean the wound would be too much. Alexi opened his good eye and looked at Steven. “Did you have some tea? Something to eat?” Steven shook his head. “Get something to eat, Steven. Then sit with me.” He hesitated, his voice weaker than Steven liked. “Tell me a story. Tell me about you and Gregori.” He was suddenly exhausted, his hands shaking with fatigue and hunger. “Yeah, maybe I will have some tea.” He got the teacup, held it up to Alexi’s mouth, then went back to the kitchen and made another cup. He drank it with a couple of spoons of sugar, and felt better. He was 52

Sarah Black drowsing in the chair next to the bed, watching Alexi breathe, when he heard a soft knock on the door. “Who is it?” “It’s Josef, my friend. My daughter, too.” Steven opened the door for him. He was carrying a couple of bags, and the girl held a plastic bowl with a lid. She was a teenager, eighteen or nineteen, with curly dark hair and big eyes. She followed Josef into the kitchen. “This is Antonia. She’s at the university.” Maybe she was older than she looked. “What are you studying, Antonia?” “Journalism,” she said. Her English was very good. Steven froze, the bag suspended in his hands. “Antonia…This is confidential, you understand? You can’t talk about my being here, where we are staying, anything. My cousin, it isn’t safe for me to move him.” She waved her hands like she was brushing flies away. “Sure, sure. Off the record. I will not say anything. So. I’m the editor of the student newspaper at the university.” She stepped closer. “Can I interview you before you leave?” “About what?” “I’ll think of something.” “Maybe.” “My mother sent soup, chicken soup for your cousin.” Josef had finished unloading the groceries into the small refrigerator and cabinet. Steven looked at him, then at the girl. “You must be very careful, and not come here again. They might be watching the apartment.” He looked down at Antonia, then back at Alexi. “This is Ukrainian trouble. Political trouble. You understand? You must be careful.” The girl was looking mulish, and Steven guessed that her stubborn chin had caused Josef and his wife some worry over the years. “Come on, we go now.” He had her by the arm. “I will come tomorrow, Steven, just one more time. Then after that you will not be my fare anymore.” 53

Gregori’s Ghost Steven grinned and held out his hand. “Thanks, Josef.” When they were out the door, he opened up the plastic bowl of soup, feeling nearly faint from hunger. He couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten- was it the sausage in the Munich airport? It was the most delicious chicken soup, deep, golden yellow with pieces of celery and green onion, with a couple of, what were they, dumplings? He laughed in surprise when he lifted a matzo ball. He ate out of the bowl, feeling very sure he had never eaten chicken soup this good in his life. Josef’s wife must have given them the supper she was cooking for her own family. Well, Steven would take it, and be grateful. He poured some of the broth into a cup and took it to the bed. Alexi’s mouth was still dry and cracked, so he got a washcloth wet with water that had boiled in the electric kettle, pressed it up against his lips. Alexi opened his eyes. “No more shots!” “Sorry, big guy. No can do. You’ve got at least two more coming. Ready for some soup?” Steven helped him sit up, tucked a folded blanket behind his shoulders. Alexi leaned his head back against the headboard. His chin was dark, three or four days worth of whiskers. There was still dried blood on his face. Steven got the washcloth wet again and bathed his face, and Alexi watched him through his one good eye. “I can smell soup,” Alexi said, and Steven put the washcloth down. “I already had mine.” He held the cup up to Alexi’s mouth, and when he had finished drinking the soup, Steven leaned in and kissed him on the part of his mouth that wasn’t swollen and cut. Half soft, and sweetly smiling, half prickly as a beaver. Alexi raised his arm, the one with the IV in the back, and touched Steven on the shoulder. 54

Sarah Black “Thanks for coming to help me, little mustang.” His eyes were closing in fatigue, and Steven lifted him back down, turned the IV fluids to low. He put a tiny bit of morphine in the IV- Steven could almost hear the squeak as the broken pieces of Alexi’s ribs rubbed against each other. The bathroom was tiny, but the water was warm and Steven ducked under the showerhead with relief. He ran the electric razor over his chin, brushed his teeth, checked the lock on the door one more time. Then he shoved a chair under the door handle. He crawled, exhausted, between the sheets with Alexi. “You smell good,” Alexi said, voice full of sleep and pain, and he scooted his foot over and pressed his toes into Steven’s calf. This is how we’ll sleep, Steven thought, exhaustion falling down on him like a hammer. He tried to concentrate, remember if everything was done, but his thoughts were tangling up like a ball of yarn between a kitten’s paws. And just before he fell asleep he called out to Gregori. Watch him for me so I can sleep. ~ Alexi touched his arm just before dawn. “Steven, wake up. This bag, it’s almost empty.” Steven blinked up at it, hanging so bizarrely from a picture hook on the wall. “Yeah, okay. I’ve got it.” He climbed out of bed, rummaged through the backpack for the other bag of IV fluids. Steven looked down into Alexi’s face. His jaw was clenched tightly, the skin around his good eye fragile and pale. Alexi watched him switch the bags, then mix up the bottle of antibiotic and bolus it into the line. “That isn’t morphine, is it? I can’t feel anything.” “No, it’s an antibiotic. You arm’s infected.” Alexi reached out, ran his hand up Steven’s thigh, up under the edge of his boxers. “I’ll give you a blow job if you give me some morphine.” 55

Gregori’s Ghost “Oh, really?” Steven injected the rest of the Ancef, then dug a small memo book out of his bag. “I’m not sure you can do a decent job in your present condition. I’ll just make a note that you owe me one.” “Very well,” Alexi said, watching him with a smile tugging at his eyes. “I’ll initial your memo book when I can move my arm. Will you remember?” Steven made a note, showed him the entry. IOU 1BJ. “I’ll remember.” He got the morphine out of the backpack, injected a couple of milligrams, then went into the kitchen and filled the kettle with water. He watched Alexi from the kitchen, and he could feel Gregori watching him, too, feel the sharp edge of his fear, like the taste of metal in his mouth. What is it? He’s hurt, Steven. Gregori, I’m a doctor. I know what to do. He’ll be fine. You can relax now. I’m here. No, Steven! No, you can’t relax! I can feel it, I can feel the danger everywhere, coming from every side. He’s hurt and you’re in danger. Steven, you don’t know what it was like, the fear, the watching, always suspicion. Alexi doesn’t know, either. We only had three days, Charlie and me. Before they took me away. Three days, that’s all. I don’t want that for you. Steven closed his eyes, reached for Gregori with his mind, pulled him into his chest and wrapped his arms around him. He was so thin again, bony and shaking with cold. That time is gone, Gregori. You’ve got to trust me. Trust us. Alexi and me, it isn’t going to be just three days. “What are you doing, Steven?” He opened his eyes and walked back to the bed. “Talking to Gregori.” Alexi blinked up at him. “What, you mean really talking to him? Like you’re talking to me?” “Yeah.” Steven pulled a chair up, propped his feet on the edge of the bed. 56

Sarah Black “I believed you when you told me about it, Steven, that you could talk to him. It seems stranger, I guess, to see it. How is he?” “Worried.” “So am I, Steven.” “You want some tea?” “Thanks. Can I get into the shower with this bag of IV fluids?” He shook his head. “Not yet. We let it run in over a couple of hours, I give you some more morphine, then we take it out and you get into the shower. And I’m gonna put the hot water right over the bullet wound, clean it out good.” Alexi was silent, his face as pale as buttermilk against the bruises. Steven watched him some more, then went into the kitchen and fixed the tea. He brought the cup back to the bed and helped Alexi sit up. “You okay?” “Just girding my loins, Steven.” Alexi fell back asleep after the tea, and Steven walked over to the French doors that lead to the balcony. It wasn’t dawn yet, but the square was brightly lit against the waning darkness. He stood there, watching, thinking about Gregori and Charlie. Three days before they took Gregori away, and what had that been like? When had he given Charlie the camera, and the film? He must have known by then that they were coming for him. What had they done to him? Did they march him through that cold, gray forest, hand him a shovel? Had he looked up the hill, and seen someone taking pictures of his murder? Or was it worse? What had happened to him? Steven pressed a hand flat against his stomach, felt an ache deep in his guts. Charlie and Gregori, they had felt enough about each other in three days that it had changed both of them forever. He looked back at the bed. Alexi turned his head and looked at him. “I want more than three days.” 57

Gregori’s Ghost ~ Antonia brought pastries, coffee, newspapers, and a laptop in a backpack a couple of hours later. The shower had not gone well, and there had been some harsh language on both sides before Alexi ended the argument by passing out. Steven was still not completely convinced about the veracity of the faint, but Alexi’s blood pressure dipped low enough Steven wasn’t quite prepared to accuse him of faking it. Alexi sat up when she came in, and she carried a stack of newspapers back to the bed and dumped them on his legs. They stared at each other for a long moment. “Everyone thinks you’re dead.” Antonia pulled the laptop out of the backpack and opened it up on the table next to the kitchen. She tucked her hair behind her ears and hooked into the room’s internet connection, and a moment later pulled up the daily paper for Ukrayinska Pravda. Journalist Missing after Interview with Viktor Cherikov! The headline screamed anxiety, and the picture of Alexi managed to look both seedy and vulnerable. Steven scanned the story- police had no leads, his apartment was searched and there were signs of a struggle, traces of blood were found, colleagues were concerned. Dr. Cherikov was concerned. The rest of the article was about the presidential candidate, his thoughts about freedom of the press and disappearing civil liberties. The usual. Antonia had pulled the chair up next to the bed and they were speaking together in rapid Ukrainian. She flung her arms up, sat back in the chair. Obviously his first story wasn’t very impressive to the editor of the student newspaper at Taras Shevchenko University. Alexi tried again, his voice wheedling. Would you buy a used car from this man? Her face was stone. She leaned forward, spoke quietly. Pointed to his arm. Pointed to his face. 58

Sarah Black Alexi raised his good hand, rubbed wearily across his forehead. Whatever he told her next she must have believed, because her face was shading several degrees more pale than usual. He nodded, spoke a few quiet and intense words, clearly a warning of sorts, and whatever he said she agreed to. Antonia folded the laptop back into the backpack, handed Steven a card with her email address and cell phone number, instructed him that she was standing ready anytime day or night to assist. She sidled out the door with a last worshipful look back at Alexi. “If you were Jesus Christ, I would say you’ve just found your first disciple.” “Kids are so cynical these days. They don’t trust anybody.” Steven broke a piece of cherry strudel in half. “Here.” He handed half to Alexi, sat down in the chair next to the bed. “You ready to tell me?” Alexi was wedging pastry into the side of his mouth. “I don’t want to,” he admitted, “because it makes me look like a fool.” Steven reached for his chin, wiped a smear of cherry filling. “That doesn’t sound hard.” Alexi bared his teeth in a snarl. “The man at the airport who approached you, he was young? Goodlooking?” Steven nodded. “With unusual eyes, one more green, one more blue?” “Yeah.” “He’s a new journalist at Ukrayinska Pravda. I was supposed to be his trainer. I don’t know now if he was really a journalist. He was never that interested, and he couldn’t write for shit. Maybe they put him on me because of the interview with Cherikov. I don’t know.” Alexi was staring at the ceiling now, wouldn’t meet Steven’s eyes. “I think I was more desperate that usual, 59

Gregori’s Ghost Steven. For a man who would listen to me talk, and at least pretend he wasn’t an idiot. I ignored all the signs that seem so obvious now. He saw the pictures of Cherikov when you sent them over the internet. He told me to let him destroy it. If I loved him I would destroy it and all sorts of bullshit like that. That’s when I knew he wasn’t a journalist. The thing is, Steven, that I still don’t know who he’s working for. It could be Cherikov’s people, but I don’t think so.” “What do you think?” Alexi stared at the ceiling again. “I think it was someone at the paper. My own people, Steven. The paper, it’s supporting Cherikov for president, even though I believe strongly that newspapers don’t have any business supporting politicians. Everyone knows my views. I think they put that little shit to watch me, and they told him to find out something they could use to keep me quiet. He wanted to know about the pictures, where they came from, how many more. And when he couldn’t fuck it out of me, he got a couple of friends and they tried to beat it out of me.” He lay quietly for a moment, breathing. “I’m sorry, Steven. I wish I could have been like John Wayne, what do they say, chew the bullet? I didn’t mean to say anything, but I think I said your name. I must have, because one minute they were kicking me in the face, and the next minute they knew your name.” Steven could see tears falling down the side of his face, dripping into his ear. “I fell in love with Gregori,” Steven said. “And I pretended we were having sex.” Gregori gave him a sharp ghost pinch on the arm. “Ouch! He just pinched me. He doesn’t want me to tell you what a fool I was.” Alexi was grinning at him. “You pretended to have sex with my grandfather’s ghost? That’s… Well, sex with a ghost has a lot going for it. No condoms.” “No pubic hairs on the tongue.” “No getting kicked in the face.” 60

Sarah Black “Yeah, it’s all positive, no question. But it’s not…quite all there. I don’t know how to say it.” “You don’t have to say it, Steven.” Alexi took his hand, and Steven got up and crawled into bed with him, held as much of him as he could without hurting him, let their legs tangle together. “Maybe I’ll fall for you. I think you will be better than loving a ghost,” Steven said, and mentally crossed his fingers in his mind. When Gregori gave him another little pinch, he laughed and pulled Alexi into his arms. “You won’t be easier, though.” ~ Steven woke up about noon, hungry and feeling more like his usual self. He ran his hands down Alexi’s flank. “You need some exercise. You’ve got a belly like a potato dumpling.” Alexi glared at him in disbelief from his one good eye, muttered what sounded like Ukrainian curses into the pillow. “I think I’m going out for a run,” Steven said. “I’m gonna go stir crazy stuck in here.” Alexi rolled over, and they looked at each other for a long moment, Steven standing next to the bed with his hands on his hips. Then he turned around and started hunting around for his running shoes. “This is the problem with Americans,” Alexi said, his voice silky. “You decide what you want to do, and then you just convince yourselves it’s safe and right and justified. That way you get to do what you want.” Steven sat down on the side of the bed and started tying his shoes. “What’s your plan to get us out of here?” Alexi rolled over, ran his hand up the back of Steven’s T-shirt. “You’re the American cowboy. You mean you rode in here like Clint Eastwood to save the day, and you didn’t have any idea how to get yourself out?” Steven turned until he could look down into Alexi’s face. “I said us, not me. I didn’t come to save the day. I 61

Gregori’s Ghost came to save you. Why are you being such an ass? Are you in pain?” “Yes, I’m in pain.” He fell back against the pillows and put the good arm up over his face, winced when he made contact with the abrasions over his forehead. “And I’m worried. I can see you’re too hard-headed to listen to me. You know they’re probably looking for you. They could follow you or pull you off the street or do anything they wanted to, Steven.” Not to me, they couldn’t. He suspected Alexi could read the thought in his face, since he was snarling at him again. “Listen, I’m a neurologist. I can examine your head and in a pinch I can clean a bullet wound in your arm, but whatever is going on here is your world, 007, not mine. You’re gonna have to figure out what to do next. But one of us needs to go find out if they’re watching us, and yes, I want a run.” He climbed back on the bed, straddled Alexi’s hips. “Hey.” Alexi wouldn’t look at him. “You know you want me.” “Actually I want a cigarette.” He rocked against Alexi’s hips. “Gregori told me I would be crazy about you. I’m still reserving judgment. I usually like nice boys.” “Really? Like fish-tacos? That’s what Charlie told me, too. That I’d fall for you one day. So naturally I decided that hell would freeze over first.” “You don’t have to leave the country with me, Alexi. But I wish you would. If you don’t want to leave here, I guess I’ll stay with you. Keep an eye on you. You are going to need a personal physician if you don’t improve your dating habits. Or you can pick another country.” He hesitated. “But what?” Alexi reached for Steven’s hip, let his fingers press into the warm skin. 62

Sarah Black “I think we need to take care of Gregori. I don’t know what to do, though, and I don’t think he does, either. But I feel like we need to lay it to rest. Or help him lay the burden down somehow. Something. But he doesn’t look good. I’m getting worried.” “Okay, Steven. I’ll think how to get us out of here. You think about Gregori, about what he needs. My grandfather’s ghost. Huh. I’m not sleeping with you if you’re sleeping with him, too.” “Of course I’m not sleeping with him! He’s a ghost, for God’s sake.” “Uh, huh. Like that would stop you. You’re very stubborn, Steven. Pigheaded, that’s what you call it, right?” He leaned forward, kissed the side of Alexi’s mouth, his soft lips and prickly beard. “If we ever decide to fuck I get to be on top.” “The hell you say! I’m on top.” ~ Steven pounded around the square, huge stone blocks under his feet. This was rough surface for running, a guarantee of shin splints, not the soft grass paths of Southern California. And there was so much stuff everywhere. Light poles, columns, tables and chairs. He couldn’t get a decent rhythm going. But that was okay. He’d keep running around in circles until the bed guys had plenty of time to see him. Because a strange thought had bloomed in his mind- what if Alexi was wrong? Alexi was smart and a deep thinker. And most assholes, like pretty Brendan and the guy with the eyes, were not smart and were not deep thinkers. They relied on their fists, not their brains. What if Alexi was wrong, and these were not political idealists carried away by their hopes of bringing about Ukrainian political reform? What if they were just Ukrainian scumbags, out for whatever they could get? And what did they want, anyway? Dollars to donuts they wanted money. 63

Gregori’s Ghost So Steven was going to let them find him, and just ask the dumb fuckers what they wanted. And on his third slow trip across Independence Square, he spotted a goodlooking face he recognized, beautiful hazel eyes in two different colors, with a nice purple lump on the forehead. Steven stopped next to the table. “You can put an ice pack on that if it’s hurting you too much.” “You are being watched. We know where you’re staying. We know where Alexi is, too.” “Yeah? So what?” The man fingered the lump on his forehead. “I am looking forward to repaying you in kind, my American friend.” Steven wondered if he was an actor- that sibilant hiss, the narrowed eyes and glare. Steven glanced around, then circled the table until the sun was in the man’s eyes. “Where’s your buddy?” “Who?” “Your buddy, your pal. Your boyfriend, Mary.” “Mary? My name’s not Mary. I’m Anatole.” His face was shading to pink, and Steven grinned, showing his teeth, and watched his face get redder. Oh, this was fun. Alexi must have had a good time with this little peach before he got the shit kicked out of him. “Why’d you shoot him? You might have fucked up there. Now he’s too sick to tell me what you wanted. Money, I assume?” “Alexi doesn’t have any money. But Cherikov does. He’ll pay well to keep those pictures off the internet, he wants to be president.” He sat back and stroked his chin thoughtfully and smiled with very white teeth. “Of course, you’re a rich American, aren’t you? A doctor. You came over to share a little money with the poor hungry Ukrainians?” Steven looked around the square again. He didn’t see the friends, the ones who had helped beat up Alexi, and that worried him a bit. He looked back at the charming young face in front of him. What a waste. 64

Sarah Black Steven turned and started running, ignored the shouts to stop, come back, circled quickly through the square and then through the streets until he was sure he’d lost them. He nodded at the gloomy concierge, then took the stairs two at a time. He was breathing hard when he came through the door. Alexi was sitting up next to the balcony, the French doors open and a cool breeze stirring the curtains. “What’s wrong?” He was halfway out of his chair. “Why are you breathing like that? Are they coming?” “It’s called exercise.” Steven walked over and stood next to Alexi’s chair. “Why did pretty Anatole shoot you in the arm?” Alexi leaned back in the chair. “You mean generally or specifically?” “I mean what smart-assed comment did you make in the thirty seconds before he pulled the trigger?” “I might have mentioned something about his cock being smaller than his brain, something like that. I don’t recall the exact words.” Steven stood next to his chair. “Alexi, I don’t think they were working for your people at the paper or for Cherikov. I think they were just your basic, shallow, materialistic weasels.” “Weasels? What do you mean weasels, Steven?” “I think Anatole saw the picture and decided to enter a new profession as a blackmailer. He wanted to blackmail Cherikov with the pictures. And maybe the paper, too.” Alexi whistled tunelessly through his teeth, then he started cursing, a Ukrainian monotone under his breath. “Any you just figured this out, Steven? Because you went out running and you ran around the square until he saw you. What did you think?” “A peach.” “I talked to a friend of yours this morning. Rami Bakshir. She called on the sat phone.” 65

Gregori’s Ghost “Did she say anything interesting?” Alexi stood and stretched. “No, but when I said you weren’t here, she asked me if I’d killed you yet.” Alexi reached for him, ran the flat of his hand up under Steven’s T-shirt, against his belly. “I don’t want to get you killed, Steven. I believe I would like to save the pleasure of killing you for myself.” Steven couldn’t hide his response, the thump and jerk that filled his cock when Alexi ran his hand down over his stomach. He didn’t want to try, either. He didn’t really know Alexi, didn’t know what he was feeling. But he trusted it. He didn’t want to be with someone who needed him to pretend. Alexi could be completely himself, he could be completely himself. And they would probably muddle along, irritate each other, be bad-tempered and asinine, but they would never have to worry about being themselves. Alexi slid his hand down Steven’s belly. His skin was slick with sweat, extra sensitive, and Alexi looked up at him, tugged on the elastic waistband of Steven’s running shorts. “You know I’m just pissed off you had to come save me, my honey.” “Yeah, I know.” Alexi reached behind him, pulled the chair up. “I may have to sit down for this. I’m still feeling a little weak.” And as he sat down, he pulled Steven’s running shorts down, slid his fingers under the elastic edge of the jock. “You’re all sweaty,” he observed, pulling Steven closer by the hips. “Don’t forget to make a note in the memo book.” Steven had his hands on Alexi’s head before he could stop himself, sliding through his hair, and Alexi smiled up at him, dipped his fingers under the jock, pulled Steven’s cock out and gave it a long, full-tongue lap like he was licking an ice cream cone. The shock rolled through his system, a sucker-punch of erotic feeling. Steven spread 66

Sarah Black his legs to keep his balance, the throbbing in his cock coming faster and faster. Alexi didn’t waste time, not with a sweaty straining cock nudging his cheek. His tongue was everywhere, his face touching between Steven’s legs, murmuring beautiful Ukrainian words of love around a mouthful of cock, and Steven clutched him to keep himself from falling over, to keep himself from falling in love, too late, too late, Alexi, Alexi, Alexi, Alexi, and he was pumping his mouth full, something deep in his pelvis ripping, or healing, opening or closing, and Alexi’s fingers dug into his ass hard enough to leave marks. Steven didn’t remember getting onto the bed, but when his head stopped spinning he was on his back, and Alexi was lying next to him, his head nestled in Steven’s pelvis. “I like the way you smell when you’ve been running. You taste sweet and dark, like that dark honey.” Steven reached for him, ran his fingers back through Alexi’s damp hair. “I thought that about you, that your voice sounded like dark honey. I’ve tasted mesquite honey before. That’s dark, sweet and sour at the same time.” “What’s mesquite?” “This tree that grows in the southwest, in Texas. It’s short and prickly and very tough, impossible to kill. Like you, I think.” Alexi was silent for a moment, his eyes closed. “So you don’t think this is political?” Steven thought about that. “Maybe not political now, but it could become a political shitstorm. You go to the police, they see the photo, and it ends up in the paper, or someone else gets the same brilliant scheme to blackmail Cherikov. What do you think he would do?” Alexi hesitated. “I’m not sure. I’ve only met him, Steven, when everything was going right for him. I haven’t seen him when he’s in the middle of a, what did 67

Gregori’s Ghost you call it? A shitstorm? That’s when you learn the measure of a man. Your friend Rami. She said she found someone who knows him. That’s what she wanted to talk to you about.” “Okay, but first you tell me what you think. What would Cherikov do if he saw the photos?” Alexi was silent again, thinking. “Steven, I think he might do something noble and stupid, like resigning from the university and removing himself from politics and going off on some sort of mission of reparation. Stupid.” “Why stupid?” “There is no reparation, Steven. There is no way to fix what has been done. The only thing we can do ourselves is not repeat the horrors.” Seven thought about all of this, thought hard with Alexi’s warm breath tickling the inside of his thigh. “And you decided for him. You didn’t tell him, or show him the picture, because you like him and want him to stay in the presidential race.” It wasn’t a question. There was no other possible explanation. Alexi sighed again, warm breath blowing across his cock, an erotic feeling that Steven wanted to repeat many times over the years to come. “Where are the pictures?” “I downloaded everything to an encrypted file on hushmail. We can let him access the pictures from any email. The originals are in the bank, in a safety deposit box with the camera. Rami has the keys, and she’ll bring them over here when we tell her to come.” “And Gregori?” Steven realized with a jolt that he hadn’t thought about Gregori for an hour, not with Alexi’s mouth and tongue and fingers moving over his body. Where was he? Gregori, are you there? Steven, we’re here. It was Charlie’s voice in his head. They were back next to the Elbe River, where Gregori and Charlie had met in 1945. Gregori was curled on a green wool blanket, folded in half on the ground. He was 68

Sarah Black so thin and frail, dangerously thin, and his feet were bandaged and bloody. Charlie was sitting next to him, and he had a coffeepot steaming on a little grill over a campfire. You need to work harder, Steven. Charlie’s voice was shaking a little. I’m going to lose him again if you can’t figure it out. He’s very weak, and very tired, and I think he’s at the end of his rope. You and Alexi come soon, Steven. Please. I think all you have to do is come. “What is it?” Alexi was sitting up, looking alarmed. “Gregori’s dying.” “Steven…Gregori died during the war.” “No, Alexi. I mean his spirit is dying. His soul, his mind. Shit, I don’t know what it is. But we have to do something. Charlie is with him, but he’s dying, Alexi.” “What did Charlie say?” “You and Alexi come soon. That’s what he…That’s what he said to me before, too. You and Alexi come. Come where? Not Katyn?” “The Elbe, where they met? Charlie told me all about it when he found me, Steven. He was so happy and excited, told me all these details, what it smelled like, the way the coffee tasted, like he remembered every minute, like every second they had been together was precious in a way I couldn’t really understand. What are they, Steven? Ghosts?” “I don’t know what that means, to be a ghost. They’re something…some brilliant consciousness, is the only way I can describe it.” “What does Gregori look like to you?” “He looks like the horizon over the ocean. Endless blue, cool and salty and peaceful.” “You’re in love with him.” “Maybe. He thinks I’m going to fall in love with you. Maybe I will. So where do we need to go? Katyn? The Elbe? Do we go toward the darkness, or toward the light?” 69

Gregori’s Ghost ~ “Dr. Bakshir.” Her voice was sleepy, but she answered on the first ring. She must be on call. “Rami, I woke you. I’m sorry. This is Steven Russell.” “Steven! You know, this is the first time I believe I’ve ever heard you introduce yourself by your first name. Normally it’s a very formal ‘Dr. Russell.’ Maybe this is Alexi’s influence?” “Maybe.” His voice was repressive. Why did she always make his spine snap straight and his molars start to grind? “Steven, I spoke to two colleagues who know Dr. Cherikov, and both give him highest marks as a humanist and as an ethical leader. I think it is worth approaching him on this issue.” “Okay, Rami. Thank you. Are you ready?” “Yes, Steven, I’m ready. I’m leaving in a few hours.” “There has been some trouble here.” Alexi was asleep again, his fever climbing. “You don’t hear from me every twenty-four hours, you can assume I’ve got trouble, and you get the pictures where they need to go.” “I understand, Steven. Be careful, my friend.” He was shaking his head when he put the phone away. Alexi stirred on the bed. “What’s the matter? You look like you’ve eaten a sour apple.” “That woman drives me crazy.” “Hmm.” “She’s like the Dalai Lama or something. Evolved into a higher life form. She doesn’t even get angry when I call her The Hugging Neurologist.” “That must be maddening.” Seven hunched one shoulder. “She thinks I’m cynical, wait till she meets you.” Alexi pulled out his cell, called a number from the card Josef’s daughter had left for him. The conversation was short and in Ukrainian. He hung up and rubbed 70

Sarah Black across his forehead. “Okay, Rami is standing by with a passport, a plane ticket, the photos and the camera. Antonia is bringing me some cigarettes and some lunch in exchange for hanging around. It was a good deal, Steven, otherwise who knows what she would try on her own. We need to be ready to move. I think we’ll need to take care of Gregori and Charlie very soon.” “Are you ready to move? You don’t look very strong.” “That’s because I don’t have any cigarettes and I’m so fucking miserable.” He pronounced each word carefully, as if he were speaking around a mouthful of sore teeth. Steven threw his hands up and went into the kitchen. There was no arguing with a man in the middle of nicotine withdrawal. Alexi went to the laptop, started working on a message. “Do you have his email?” “Of course I do. I am a professional journalist, Steven.” “Fine.” He typed in silence for a few minutes, then called Steven over. “How does this sound?” Dr. Cherikov, I’m Alexi Temchanko, the journalist who interviewed you for Ukrayinska Pravda two weeks ago. I have recently come into possession of some photographs that appear to have been taken at Katyn Forest during the massacre of the Polish officers. These photographs belonged to my grandfather. He was the photographer. Sir, there is a senior Red Army officer clear and visible in these photographs who looks a great deal like you. I am attaching a copy of one of the photographs. Dr. Cherikov, I am at a loss how to proceed, and would like to have your input before making a decision. 71

Gregori’s Ghost Steven nodded. “That looks good, Alexi. Let’s send it on and see what happens next.” After Alexi rewrote the email into Ukrainian and hit send, he eased himself back down on the bed and got another shot of antibiotics into his hip. “Last shot,” Steven promised. “After this you can take the pills.” Alexi shoved his face in the pillow, stayed there until Antonia and Josef knocked softly on the door. Faster than Steven had seen him move yet, he had the balcony doors open, a cigarette stuck in the corners of his mouth, and was striking madly at the book of matches. Steven knew what was about to happen but he wasn’t going to say a word. The first deep inhalation, and Alexi began to cough. He screamed and grabbed for his chest, right over the purple bruise that marked where one of Anatole’s friends had kicked him and broken a rib. Apparently that hurt so badly he couldn’t breathe or speak, and he would have fallen to his knees but Antonia rushed to his side, snatched the burning cigarette from his mouth and glared back at Steven. “Aren’t you going to do anything? Can’t you see how he is suffering?” “Nope.” He wandered back into the kitchen with Josef, listened to the wheezes and coughs and the Ukrainian curses. Antonia gave him a big-eyed glare when she left, and Josef grinned and slapped him on the back. Alexi moved back to the computer without saying a word. “Steven, look. He’s written back.” My friend, I am shocked and very sad at the picture. Are there more I should see? I recognize the trust you have shown me in contacting me directly. I can come to you if you so wish. Alexi looked up. “Do we so wish?” Steven chewed on his bottom lip, then nodded. “Yeah. Let’s see him. If he shoots us both, Rami will go with the back-up plan and send some of the pictures to the 72

Sarah Black New York Times and some to the London Times. She’ll be in Munich airport in six or seven hours, and she’ll wait there until we figure out what to do. When I set up this back-up plan, I didn’t know if we could trust Ukrayinska Pravda.” “I’m still not sure,” Alexi admitted, tapping on the keyboard. “But I know one woman there, Irinya Constantin. I trust her. Antonia has a copy of a disc with the one photo we already showed to Cherikov. She’s going to take it to Irinya if anything goes wrong.” “Can Cherikov travel without his guards?” “No,” Alexi said, reading the email. “It looks like he’s coming with his security detachment.” “He’s going to want to know about your face.” Alexi looked back down at the laptop, pecked at the keyboard. “I know. I’ll tell him the truth.” He turned his head and looked at Steven, his eyes narrowing. “Did you think I wouldn’t? Or that I would make up a story that put myself in a better light?” Steven laughed at him. “Don’t try and start a fight with me. I just don’t want you to tell him that I did it.” And Alexi laughed in spite of himself, and clutched his broken ribs again. “The university is fifteen minutes from here, Steven. Are you planning to get dressed?” Steven looked down at his bare legs. He was still in running shorts and sweaty T-shirt. “Oh, shit!” “He’s going to be president of Ukraine, my honey, if we don’t ruin it for him. At least put on some jeans.” Steven put his hand on Alexi’s face. “This is your call. You’ve met him. If you say so, we give him the photographs, and all the copies, and walk away, and never look back. This decision is yours.” Alexi stared up at him, and Steven could see the strong mind behind his eyes, thinking, working. Steven reached out with his mind, almost without thinking, the way he had with Gregori at the airport, and was startled to 73

Gregori’s Ghost find his mind wrapping like fingers around a consciousness that was beautiful and strong and brilliant as a diamond. When he blinked and looked down again Alexi was looking at him, a smile behind narrowed eyes. “What was that, Steven?” “Gregori showed me how to do it.” Steven could hear the roughness in his voice, a shocking weakness like lust filling his belly. “We’ll have to try that again when we’re making love, Steven. We have no time now. Let’s just stick with the plan. We will let Cherikov show us what he’s made of.” Steven had to step away, remember the question he had asked. Alexi was still watching him, his face still and inward-looking, and Steven couldn’t take his eyes right then. He went into the tiny bathroom and ducked naked under the showerhead, cursing all ridiculously short showers, and he decided right then that he was going to get Alexi back to Southern California to at least shower once, in a shower built for human-sized men, and then he could decide where they were going to live. Steven bent his knees and ducked his head under the lukewarm water and felt like he was being baptized. By the time he got dressed in jeans and a wrinkled polo, Alexi had made the bed and picked up the kitchen. He ducked into the bathroom after Steven and brushed his teeth, groaned and muttered when he saw his battered face in the mirror. Then Dr. Cherikov was shaking Steven’s hand. He was a big man, taller than Steven with a heft across his shoulders and belly and a kindly, Santa-like face that must have been able to stop a toddler’s tantrum in its tracks. Pediatrician. Alexi was introducing him in Ukrainian, but Cherikov stopped him with a raised hand. “Shall we all speak in English? Dr. Russell doesn’t speak Ukrainian, I believe.” 74

Sarah Black And his security men, four granite-faced guys dressed in gray fatigues, probably didn’t speak English. “Dr. Russell’s grandfather, Charlie Russell, and my grandfather, Gregori Temchanko, met at the Elbe River in 1945, when the American and Red armies met, moving west and east across Europe in the aftermath of the war. They met and became intimate friends very quickly, and just before my grandfather was arrested by the Reds, he gave his camera and the photographs he had taken at Katyn Forest to Charlie. We don’t know that the photographs were the reason he was arrested, but they are so disturbing that it is a reasonable assumption that someone recognized how dangerous they were. “When Dr. Russell sent me one of the pictures from California, he did not know who you were or who was in the photograph. Someone was with me when I saw the photograph on my computer. I believe that person intended to use the photo to attempt to blackmail you.” Cherikov’s eyes roamed over Alexi’s battered face. Alexi moved to the computer, opened up the encrypted file of the Katyn photographs. Cherikov took a seat at the table, angled the screen on his laptop so his security men couldn’t see the images. He studied the pictures slowly, one after the other, and by the fourth or fifth photograph, he asked his security detachment to wait outside the apartment door. “How many photographs all together?” “About forty-five.” Steven waited, tense. Surely he wasn’t going to shoot them himself? But Dr. Cherikov wasn’t shooting anyone. He was crying, silent tears streaming down his big, kind face as he looked at Gregori’s photos. “My God, my God! It is so much worse, isn’t it? Knowing what happened at Katyn isn’t the same as watching it unfold in front of you. Your grandfather, Alexi? It must have hurt him badly to take these photographs.” 75

Gregori’s Ghost “I never knew him,” Alexi said. “He disappeared in 1945.” “Yes, it hurt him,” Steven said, and Cherikov’s clear gray eyes sharpened on him. He looked carefully between Alexi and Steven. “What do you want to do now?” Alexi glanced at Steven just for a moment. “We want to give the photographs to you.” Cherikov sat back, then pulled out a clean, pressed handkerchief and mopped his face. “Why, Alexi?” Alexi studied him carefully, and Steven was aware again of a massive consciousness at work. “Because I believe you will make a good choice for them.” “Isn’t there a Memorial at Katyn? A Foundation?” Steven nodded. “A park, a small museum, a garden with a walking path, some granite walls with names. Rather small, really.” “The photographs should go back to Katyn, to the museum there. The faces of the boys, they’re so clear. Families will be able to identify…” His voice broke again, and he buried his face in his handkerchief. “I will apologize for the actions of my grandfather. Yes, Alexi, that is my grandfather. There is no question. I will take responsibility, ask for forgiveness. Then maybe these wound will begin to heal.” Alexi stood up and shook his hand. “You’ll have to go on your own, Dr. Cherikov. We go with you to Munich. The photographs are coming in from America. You take the photographs back to Katyn, and you do there what has to be done. Dr. Russell and I have other business that cannot wait.” “I can leave in an hour. Are there any loose ends? Can we pick up your blackmailing friends, hold them until the pictures are safely in the public domain?” Alexi hesitated, so Steven spoke up. “Please do. They are stupid, but quite dangerous.” 76

Sarah Black “And one other small thing,” Alexi said. “Do you know the girl who is the editor of the student newspaper at Taras Shevchenko University?” Cherikov shook his head. “No, I’m afraid I do not.” “I want her to go with you to Katyn, to cover events for the student newspaper.” Alexi grinned. “I promised her an interview with you.” “You promised her an interview? In exchange for what?” “A pack of cigarettes.” He glanced at Steven from under his lashes. “But I’ve quit smoking now.” ~ They were down to three security men, and Steven devoutly hoped that the fourth was busy kicking Anatole in the nuts on the floor of some dank cell. He kept his face turned out the window of Josef’s cab, though, because Alexi was staring at him, eyes narrowed in concentration, and he was starting to wonder if Alexi could read his mind. Cherikov was behind them in a steelgray Mercedes, but he, Alexi, and Antonia were riding with Josef. Josef was giving his daughter last-minute instructions on how to behave and she was ignoring him from the backseat. Steven put his hand on Josef’s shoulder. “We will stay with her until Munich, Josef. Any boys get near her, I will kick their asses myself.” “Thank you, my friend.” He mopped his forehead with a handkerchief, then replaced his wool cap. “I trust Dr. Cherikov. He is a great man! He will be a good president for Ukraine.” “I think so, too, Josef.” Antonia was staring out the backseat window, her arms crossed over her chest. Steven thought she looked about four years old. ~ The Munich airport, and Rami Bakshir was gorgeous and composed in a camel-hair Chanel suit, trimmed in 77

Gregori’s Ghost black with glorious black pumps. Dr. Cherikov bowed low over her hand, and they were soon chatting away about mutual friends, their heads so close together they were touching. Alexi nudged him. “She looks good. Her hair is perfect. How does she look so well-groomed coming off a plane from California, and you rolled in looking like you’d been stuffed in the carry-on luggage?” Steven raised his middle finger in Alexi’s direction, but Alexi just laughed. Antonia was still in a snit, having been assigned a personal security person by Cherikov. Steven could tell her plans of sneaking off for a little shopping in Munich were doomed. Rami excused herself and came over to them. “Let’s speak privately for a moment, shall we?” They walked away from the others, and she looked expectantly at Steven , then Alexi. “Well?” “Rami, can you go with him to Katyn? We want to give him the pictures, but it will be very hard. This will be very hard for him, what he has planned. I think he’ll need a friend with him.” She nodded. “Very well, Steven. He’s going to go public with the photographs?” He nodded. “I think donate them to the museum. That’s what he told us he was going to do.” “Very brave and wise decision. And what about Gregori?” Steven felt a tightening in his chest, a clenched fist of anxiety. “He’s in trouble, Rami.” Steven had not been able to communicate with Charlie or Gregori, but he didn’t think he was too late yet. He felt a tiny, bright blue spot of consciousness somewhere, somewhere still present, and he decided to believe it was them. “We’re going from here to the Elbe. You’ve got the camera?” She nodded, brought them over to a cart that was loaded with luggage. She extracted the camera case and handed it to him. Steven spotted the battered, olive green 78

Sarah Black foot locker among her beautiful luggage, but she gave him a tiny shake of her head. Rami wasn’t naïve about what was at stake here. She’d moved the photos in case they had all been wrong about Cherikov. She enfolded him in a Chanel-scented hug, kissed Alexi on the cheek and murmured something that made him laugh out loud. Alexi pulled Antonia aside for a quick word. She was giving him that worshipful look again, and Steven guessed her first son would be called Alexi, and maybe her first daughter, too. Dr. Cherikov came up to Alexi as well, his face very solemn, and they spoke together for a moment before they shook hands and parted. Then he and Alexi were out in the bright Munich sunshine, making their way to the rental car kiosk. “What did Cherikov say?” “He asked me if you were seeing anyone. I told him you belonged to me.” Steven was starting to feel a touch of exhaustion, jetlag, something. Maybe he was just overwhelmed by participating in world events. Being involved was exhausting. “What?” “Nothing, my honey. I’m making the joke. Cherikov’s a politician, Steven. He was telling me he would do the right thing, at whatever the personal cost to himself blah blah blah. He makes me tired, he’s so good and noble. You don’t start being too noble and good, Steven. Just this one time for Gregori and Charlie.” “I don’t think it will be a problem.” He was happy to let Alexi arrange things, and all he had to do was pull out a credit card. Alexi got them a battered white Land Rover and a map, and after a grueling hour lost in city traffic, they were out in the countryside, surrounded by the beautiful green of a spring day, the air as crisp and golden as German wine. Steven put his head against the door and fell asleep. It was late afternoon when Alexi woke him, and they were near the banks of the Elbe. It was a pretty scene, 79

Gregori’s Ghost pastoral, with a footbridge over the river with coppercolored metal work that looked like vines and leaves twining together. “Where should we go?” Steven looked around and shrugged. “Across the river? I’m not sure, Alexi. Let’s go across the river. Set up the camera.” “Okay.” Alexi locked up the car. He was looking tired again, and when Steven put his hand against his face to check for fever, Alexi closed his eyes and leaned into him for a moment. “We need a long rest after this, Steven.” Steven put the camera case over his shoulder and they walked across the bridge, and on the other side they wandered through a grassy park, past people on blankets leaning against the trees reading, or napping in the sun. “This sort of looks like the place. I’m going to hold the camera,” Steven said. “And you look through it. I don’t know, Alexi.” He looked around at the sunshine on the river, at the people walking and picnicking, so happy and oblivious. “I don’t know what to do. Charlie just said for us to come.” Alexi wrapped an arm around his waist. “No one could have done more than you, Steven.” Steven looked at him, surprised. Charlie had been known to give him a pat on the back now and again. But it had been a long time since another man had complimented him, told him he’d done well. It was a nice feeling. “Thanks.” He reached for the camera case, unsnapped the top and lifted the dark fabric drape out. “Hold this, Alexi.” He lifted the camera out of the case, and the brass fastenings gleamed in the sun. “It’s beautiful, Steven. Look at that wood.” Alexi ran his hand flat across the golden camera body. “You see there on the front? Attach the fabric drape there.” 80

Sarah Black Alexi held the camera body, and Seven opened the brass latches. The bellows came open, and he and Alexi held it together, ducked their heads under the drape. In the darkness Alexi rubbed his cheek against Steven’s face. “Go ahead, Alexi. You look first.” Alexi bent his eye to the camera. “You change the focus by moving the bellows.” Alexi looked, then jerked his head back. “I can see them. Steven, they’re… Are they in the camera?” His voice was a whisper. Steven leaned over and looked. 1945, and he could see Alexi and Charlie next to the campfire, surrounded by darkness and cold, the only light the yellow glow from the fire. They were talking together, passing something to each other. A cup? Charlie was putting sugar in a cup of coffee. And Steven felt a great wrenching sob of relief in his chest that Gregori was still alive. He reached out to them with his mind. Gregori, Charlie, we’re here. We’ve got the camera. What do you want us to do? Steven. Alexi. Just watch. Something will happen. Bright blue sky was starting to leak around the edges of the picture, golden sunlight sparkling on the river, spring air, people walking together, laughing, talking, touching. “Steven. Maybe they can see it. Maybe they need to see this. See how…normal everything is now. How happy. Want to do your Vulcan mind thing on me, Dr. Spock? Let them feel our minds. Feel what it is like for us. They’ll be happy for us, Steven. That we are...whatever we are. Together. Falling for each other.” Lovers. Falling in love. I can say it, even if you can’t. Steven stretched out his mind to Alexi’s, felt something trembling in his belly when Alexi wrapped that hard bright mind around him. God, it was unbelievable, he was so brilliant, so strong and sexy… “Not here. Too much, Alexi, please…” 81

Gregori’s Ghost And Alexi eased off, stroked his brain like a kitten, murmuring sweet Ukrainian words of love into his mind. “You’re such a neurologist. Steven, look.” “Do you see it? It’s changing.” The sunshine was blowing the darkness and the cold out of the camera, and the picture was fading. He couldn’t see Charlie and Gregori anymore. “Where are they? I can’t see them.” “Look over there. On the far river bank. Doesn’t that look like Charlie?” “Where? I…” There they were. A couple of elderly men in baggy khaki trousers were strolling along the river bank. Charlie had his hands in his pockets, and Gregori was carrying a folded newspaper. He turned and waved at them, and his smile was so sweet it made Steven’s throat ache for a moment. “Do you see them, Alexi? Are they really there?” The mists from 1945 were almost gone from the camera, fresh German air flooding the lens. “Wow, Gregori. He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?” Alexi reached over and gave him a little pinch. “You better stop it.” Steven laughed, and when they came up from under the hood he scanned the river bank, but he didn’t see them anymore. “I can’t believe it. Charlie said for us to come. I just didn’t realize that was…all we needed to do. To come here together and be with them.” They got some dinner at a Bavarian restaurant near their hotel, and both staggered out so stuffed with dumplings and sausage and everything smothered with cheese and cream sauce that they barely made it to their hotel bed before collapsing for a three hour nap. Steven woke up feeling lost and a bit overwhelmed, like things were spinning out of control faster that he could deal with. He couldn’t quite believe that Gregori and Charlie were safe. He wasn’t sure that he hadn’t let Rami walk blind into a situation that could turn dangerous. What had they done? What did they still need to do? 82

Sarah Black He held Alexi so tightly in his arms that he woke him up. And this. A man in his bed who knew him. Who knew him and was still planning to stay. What the hell was wrong with Alexi, anyway? Why was he here? Was he just here because he needed Steven’s help? No, he wasn’t. They were some sort of an oddly matched pair, somehow, immediately comfortable together, and Steven felt a little ball of cold panic at the idea. Because if you really really loved something, and you lost it, well, that could kill a person. He felt too needy, too desperate, too full of some wordless longing, or some fear. Fear it wouldn’t last. That this wasn’t real. That it wasn’t what he thought it was. Because Steven thought this was love as wide and strong as the ocean, this feeling he had for Alexi, and he could feel himself drown in it, cold salt water filling his mouth, flowing over his head. And so he clutched Alexi in his arms, felt his warm skin, the rocking of his chest with each breath, the steady double thump of his heartbeat. Alexi’s skin tasted like something warm and sweet, grandmother’s food, vanilla custard with cinnamon on top. Steven moved his mouth over Alexi’s shoulder, let his tongue trace the skin. “What’s wrong?” Alexi’s hands moved down his back, tucked into the curve where Steven’s back dipped into his hip. “Bad dream? You can’t sleep, my honey?” Steven reached for him, hungry suddenly for the sleepy sweet taste of Alexi’s mouth. Alexi couldn’t hold still, not with Steven’s mouth on his, and Steven traced down the lines of his body, tasting warmth and wiry hair. “I could wake up like this every morning, Steven,” he said, rubbing his hands across his face. “But is anything wrong?” “No, nothing’s wrong.” Steven rested his head on Alexi’s belly. “I thought I heard Gregori while I was falling asleep. His voice, I mean. It wasn’t him, though. It was just a memory, I think.” 83

Gregori’s Ghost Alexi was quiet, stroking Steven’s hair. “You miss him already. I wonder why? Why do you feel so strongly for him? When you have been with other men, Steven, what has it been like?” “I get to be on top.” Alexi snorted through his nose, a crude, funny sound that made Steven laugh out loud. “You are so fucked up.” “It’s just been physical, I think. Pretty boys ready to take their clothes off, get down on their knees, bend over and offer up their asses like a piece of cake on a silver platter. I don’t think I ever hurt anyone, Alexi. But I didn’t really care. They were strangers to me.” “I can see you, Steven.” Alexi’s eyes were dark and sweet as molasses, looking into his. “When I look at you I can see you. And I’m sorry you are so beautiful no one listens to you or takes you seriously. I’m not surprised when everyone desires you, Steven. Because you are very beautiful. But not everyone sees you.” He rolled over and stretched, pushed Steven gently to his back. “It’s funny to me. Is this an American thing? I get to be on top. Is it important? Is that why you say it like that?” Steven tried to roll away. Alexi made him feel like a fool sometimes. “Wait, Steven. Where are you going?” Alexi’s voice was deep, a rumble of sleepy laughter in his throat. He threw a heavy leg over Steven’s body and pinned him to the bed. “I think you need to stay still, let me think about this. So how is it, my honey, that you keep ending up on top, when you need a man on top of you so much?” Steven was silent. There would be no talking to Alexi when he was in this mood. Alexi rolled to his side, slid his knee over Steven’s pelvis, reached for his cock and held it in a gentle fist. “So how do you decide? What does it mean to you, Steven? If you’re on top, you’re in charge? No one can hurt you? You’re on top, that means you can leave first?” 84

Sarah Black “Alexi…” Steven could feel pressure, heaviness in his chest like anxiety. “It’s hard to explain. I’m smart, Alexi. I have money.” “Money? Charlie didn’t have money, did he?” “No, I don’t mean that kind of money. I mean I’m a doctor. I make a lot of money with my work.” Alexi was silent, thinking about what he’d said, and Steven felt his acceptance in the hand stroking his skin so gently. He had worried about sounding like an ass, about Alexi thinking he was a jerk, but he didn’t, and his anxiety was blown away like someone had opened a window, and let some fresh air into the room. “But then no one has understood you at all, Steven.” Alexi’s fist was strong around his cock, and Steven felt his legs and belly go liquid and hollow, energy flowing into his cock, filling Alexi’s fist, and Alexi squeezed him gently, stroked him until Steven moaned and thrust up against his fist. “Please, Alexi.” He turned his face away. “Please.” “Yes, okay, my honey.” Alexi pulled Steven’s wrists tightly above his head, and he moved his heavy body over Steven’s. Alexi’s thick chest pressed down, his heavy cock thrust up next to Steven’s cock. He took Steven’s mouth then, and he didn’t need to force it. Steven opened to him, let Alexi push his tongue in between his teeth. “You don’t understand.” Alexi had him by the hips now, pulling his legs apart, spreading him open. “It just means you can love me, Steven. You can open yourself, you can need me, and love me. That’s all. It’s powerful, Steven, what you have. The open mouth, the open heart. Maybe you’ve enslaved me with the way you open to me.” And Alexi had Steven’s cock in his fist again, a rough thumb sliding across the slippery head. He stuck his thumb into his mouth, then reached again for Steven’s 85

Gregori’s Ghost cock, stroked him. “Come for me, Steven. I need you to come so I don’t hurt you.” Steven couldn’t breathe right, helpless longing and love like a fist tightening inside his chest, and Alexi controlling him, owning his body, owning his feelings, his nerves the strings and Alexi the artist, playing music on his body. “Help me, Alexi,” he said, his voice a whisper above the roar of need in his ears. “I’m going to take all of you.” Alexi leaned over and pressed his mouth to Steven’s. “Breathe with me,” and kissed him sweetly. Steven started coming into Alexi’s clenched fist, great waves of inchoate longing, and Alexi took his semen, slid it up to his ass. Alexi shoved Steven’s knees up and apart, crouched over him as huge and menacing as a mountain, his cock a heavy dark truncheon. Alexi paused, staring down into Steven’s face. “Trust me. Open for me now.” And Steven relaxed, pushed back against him, let him shove inside. Alexi was looming above him, I’m going to take all of you, and it was too much, too much, too much, then his face was changing, twisting with pain and joy, and he was thrusting hard into Steven over and over, the rough voice torn from his chest, his body out of control. When he was still he let his head fall on Steven’s shoulder, put his palm flat against Steven’s face. “See what you do to me? I’m like a tiny bird in your hand.” ~ It was midnight when Steven woke again. Alexi had made tea, and was swallowing a handful of pills, his antibiotics and a couple of pain pills. “You need some food on your stomach before you take that ibuprophen.” Alexi groaned. “No more food. Next time we eat in Bavaria let’s get one and split it.” “Sounds good to me. You ready for me to take a look at your arm?” 86

Sarah Black “Not yet.” Alexi sat on the end of the bed with the television’s remote control in his hands. He turned the TV on to the news, looked back at Steven. “Our friend Dr. Cherikov is a politician, as well as a pediatrician. I am interested to see what he does, how he handles this.” He turned back to the TV, and the commercial for Swiss butter, complete with a dancing cow and a pretty milkmaid in dirndl and blonde braids, ended, and they were left looking into the scene of a bloody disaster. The Katyn Memorial Garden was overrun with blue lights and police. There was an on-scene reporter, speaking in German, and a picture rolled in the background, Cherikov speaking at a lectern, Rami elegant in a brilliant scarlet dress by his side, and then he was falling backward, blood spurting from his face. The tape switched to a picture of a young man holding a rifle being wrestled to the ground by bystanders. Alexi started flipping through the channels. “Oh, my God, Steven. Get the sat phone. Here it is, the BBC…” The broadcaster was in the middle of her report. “...The assassination attempt today on Ukrainian presidential candidate Viktor Cherikov had its roots in the past, not in the current political crisis rocking Ukraine.” “Steven, she said assassination attempt. He’s still alive.” The sat phone was buzzing in his ear. “It’s busy. Alexi, what did we do?” The broadcast continued. “Dr. Cherikov came to Katyn Memorial today to lay a wreath to honor the dead, and to present to the Polish people some of the most remarkable photographs to ever come to light of the Katyn Forest Massacres.” The broadcast flipped to Dr. Cherikov’s speech. “We can never heal these wounds until there is an acknowledgement of responsibility and forgiveness by the families of the victims. Boris Yeltsin refused to attend, representing the Soviet people, when this memorial was 87

Gregori’s Ghost built. I come today representing only myself. We all knew that the Red Army was responsible for the massacres. Today I bring you proof of my own family’s complicity in this genocide. My grandfather was a Red Army Colonel at Katyn. I acknowledge my guilt through his blood, and I ask the Polish people to accept the gift of these terrible, beautiful photographs, and begin to forgive. Come to Katyn Forest. See the photographs. Remember the victims. Remember, so it can never happen again. Remember and forgi…” And his head jerked back, blood spurting from his eye. Rami turned to him, reaching out, and the camera moved to the picture of a young man with a rifle being wrestled to the ground. He was screaming, screaming words Steven couldn’t understand. Steven dialed the sat phone again. Still busy. “Hook up the computer, Steven. When you get an internet connection, pull up Ukrayinska Pravda’s site.” Alexi kept flipping through the channels, looking for another news report, and when Steven got the paper up on the screen he sat back in dismay. “Oh, my God! That’s why the sat phone is busy. She’s gonna cost me a fortune!” Antonia had rigged up some sort of real time feed using the satellite phone, and was giving a live report, sounding very serious and very young. Another reporter was asking her questions. “Irinya,” Alexi said. “At least Josef knows where Antonia is. Look, her guard is still there.” Sure enough, Cherikov’s iron man was standing at attention behind her, gray-clad legs at parade rest. When the real time feed ended, Steven punched the buttons on the sat phone, but Alexi took the phone out of his hand and spoke to Antonia in his most charming voice-- Uncle Vanya was so proud of his cub reporter. When he finally got Rami on the phone, he handed the phone to Steven. “Where is he? Where’d the bullet go?” 88

Sarah Black “It was a small caliber bullet, a twenty-two. Steven, it went into his left eye. It only very slightly penetrated his frontal lobe. No hematoma at this time. I’ll stay with him. He’s in a neuro ICU in Warsaw.” “Did you see the CT yourself, Rami? Do you know the neurosurgeon?” “Yes, Steven. And no. But he seems quite competent.” Her voice was tired, but still patient. “Who was it? Do the police know?” She hesitated. “Steven, they said he was a young man, just nineteen. The police said that his great-grandfather had been murdered at Katyn. They had shown one of the photographs on the television, and he recognized the picture. It just never ends, Steven, never. The pain just keeps rolling on through the years, like the wind, and the rain...” “Rami, I had no idea…When I asked you to help, I never meant for…” She tutted at him. “Steven, the world is hard. It is the way we respond to the world that makes all the difference. It is my great privilege, my friend, to participate in the world. And frankly, Steven, if you are going to get shot in the head, it is a good idea to do it with a neurologist standing next to you. Viktor will look very dashing with an eye patch.” He grinned, relief spreading out through his stomach like cool water. Viktor? “We saw them, Rami. Charlie and Gregori. They were out taking a walk along the river, and they waved to us. But I don’t think we’ll see them again.” Steven felt the sudden burn of tears behind his eyes. “I am so relieved, Steven. So relieved. I should go. Antonia is going back to Kiev right away.” “I am also very relieved to hear that,” he said, and Rami laughed and hung up the phone. Steven fell back across the bed, and Alexi took the phone out of his hand and lay down next to him. 89

Gregori’s Ghost “You know Cherikov is a widower?” “He is?” Steven leaned up on an elbow. “How about that. You think Rami knows?” Alexi raised his eyebrows. “Of course she knows. She flew from California to Germany in a Chanel suit and pumps.” He reached over and put his hand over Steven’s eyes. “You want to go for a walk?” “Yeah, that sounds good.” “Maybe I’ll let you talk me into Southern California.” Steven rolled over until they were nose to nose. “I’ll go anywhere you want to go.” And he watched Alexi’s eyes go wide and dark, and love steal over his face.

The End

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About the Author: This summer I finished a locum job up in Alaska, and my son and I drove around Alaska, then down through Canada on the Alcan — The Alaska-Canada Highway. I love camping, and the wild places, even though I have a great fear of bears. Of course I'm afraid of bears! Bears are killers! Up in Denali I saw a brown smudge in the distance that I suspected was a bear's butt, sticking out of a thicket of berry brambles, but even more exciting was a wolf peering at us out of the woods — his eyes really did glow like amber. The wolf disappeared like smoke, and I had to believe it let me see it as a gift. Alaska was crowded with people, and my only other bear sighting was actually a sleeping hiker who popped up out of the tall grass, (bear country) and scared me nearly into hysterics. It wasn't until we got into Canada, the Yukon Territory, with those astounding mountains and remote glacial lakes, that we started seeing lots of wildlife. Herds of bison, big horn sheep, bald eagles, and bears, a big mom-bear with a couple of roly-poly little cubs bouncing behind her. The black bear didn't look quite so scary, though we did lock the doors of the truck when she crossed the road in front of us. The animals looked just like they did on the Nature Channel, only bigger. When we drove back into the US, though, into Glacier National Park, my bear-fear reasserted itself. My son and I are people who read all the notices from the park rangers. We study the bulletin boards next to the bathrooms. We were given to understand that Glacier belonged to the grizzlies; we were guests, and the bears liked hot dogs. The ranger who visited our campsite instructed us to lock up our water, our food, our toothpaste, our combs and brushes, anything, in fact, that suggested human

presence. (ourselves?) It was clear after our briefing that if we roasted our wienies and marshmallows over the campfire, then in the night we could plan on smelling the snuffling grunting breath of a carnivore, right before the mighty claws shredded our pathetic nylon tent. We slept with a hot dog roasting fork (cleaned with antibacterial gel) between us. My plan was, when the grizzly opened her mouth and roared, prior to eating us, I would shove the fork into her upper palate, into her brain, which would give the kid time to escape out of the tattered remains of the tent. Somehow, though, the bright stars decorated the sky above us (we slept with the mesh top of the tent uncovered, to better hear the bear's approach) with the deep purple night sky over us, the color of blackberries; we smelled wood smoke from campfires, and the cold breeze off the lake that just kissed our faces, snug in our sleeping bags, and the bears must have decided to let us stay, and they kept themselves busy somewhere else. Sarah Black's Books:_ Fearless, (3 story anthology) MLR Press in print Fearless , Liquid Silver Books in ebook_ Border Roads, Loose ID_ The Lincoln County Wars, Loose ID_ Colorado Gold, Loose ID_ Slow Fires, Loose ID_ St. Sebastian and the Ravioli of Love, Amazon Shorts_ Wolf, Torquere Press_ Memories of a Colorado Sky, Torquere Press_ Animal Attraction, ("White Mountain"), Torquere Press Partners in Crime 1- print MLR press Partners in Crime 1- ebook, Loose ID Partners in Crime 2- print MLR Press Death of a Blues Angel- ebook, Aspen Mountain Press