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Chapter Five

Dimitri

T he train groaned to a stop like it hated me. I stepped off with the rest of the evening crowd and started the walk toward home, hands shoved deep into my coat pockets. The air was sharp enough to bite, and the sidewalks were slick with the kind of snow that never quite melts, just smears.

My boots thudded in a steady rhythm, but my thoughts kept swirling.

Petyr.

It was ridiculous. I’d known him for what—six hours? Less?

And still, there he was. In my mind, flashing that crooked smile, eyes too blue to be trusted, hair like something out of an American movie. A man you don’t meet in real life. Or if you do, you keep walking and don’t look back.

Except I had looked back, more than once.

The strange man made me laugh.

That was the part I couldn’t shake. I never laughed. Not at strangers, not at jokes, not at anything really. Laughter was for people who didn’t know better. But Petyr had chipped away at me throughout lunch, like he knew just where to strike.

It had startled me when it came out of my mouth. The sound. Like something I’d forgotten how to do. And the way he’d looked at me when I laughed—it had made my chest feel strange. Too tight, and too warm, like I’d swallowed a hot piece of coal.

I pulled my coat tighter as the surrounding buildings grew familiar. Papa always said friends were dangerous.

“Don’t get too close,” he’d say. “A friend today is an informant tomorrow.”

He wasn’t wrong. I’d seen what happened to boys who trusted the wrong people. Rumors spread. Names on lists. One day, they didn’t come to school, or they stopped coming home. And everyone pretended not to notice.

I should know better.

But still, I couldn’t stop thinking about Petyr’s voice when he explained the looms. The way his hand had rested lightly on mine when he corrected the way I held the thread. His fingers had been warm and calloused.

I shook my head and climbed the stairs of my parent’s building, my heart doing a strange hiccup when I smelled food wafting from the hallway. Something tomato-based, with a hint of bay leaf. My mother always cooked when she was worried, which meant dinner would be excellent.

I opened the door, stepped inside, and immediately bent to unlace my boots.

“Dimitri!” my mother called from the kitchen, and I walked in to find her stirring something red and steaming on the stove.

She wiped her hands and kissed me on the cheek, eyes already scanning me like she expected bullet holes.

“Well? How was your first day at the factory?”

“Beats shooting strangers in Afghanistan,” I said with a shrug.

Her hand flew to her chest. “Bozhe moy, don’t say things like that. You’re not a fighter, Dimitri. You have always been so loving.”

That word landed like a slap I wasn’t expecting.

Loving.

I looked down at the floor, at the ancient tiles with the chipped corner near the table leg, and all I could see was Petyr’s face. Laughing. Smirking. Watching me like he knew I’d crack eventually and wasn’t in any kind of rush.

“Did you meet anyone nice?” she asked, turning back to the pot.

I hesitated.

“There’s a man—Petyr. He’s married, and his wife works there too.”

My mother smiled over her shoulder. “A friendly one, I hope? Someone to show you the ropes?”

“Something like that,” I breathed.

She ladled soup into bowls as she spoke. “Do you think you’ll like the work?”

“It’s repetitive,” I replied. “But not difficult. And they seem... organized.”

“Good. You need structure.” She set the bowls down and fussed with a basket of bread like we were hosting important guests. “Did your hands hold up all right?”

“They’ll be sore tomorrow.”

She finally sat across from me. “Well, as long as your heart is strong.”

Another word that hit harder than it should’ve. My heart was strong, but that wasn’t the problem.

I didn’t know what to say, so I broke off a piece of bread and dipped it into the soup.

“Where’s Papa?” I asked instead.

Something shifted in her eyes.

“He’s working late,” she muttered.

Mama didn’t look at me, just picked up her spoon and stirred her soup without tasting it. She didn’t ask if I wanted to wait for Papa. Just stirred her soup like it might give her the answers she wasn’t saying out loud.

I watched her for a moment. Something about the way her shoulders curled inward made the kitchen feel smaller. Or maybe I’d just never noticed how quiet it got when Papa was gone.

I wasn’t the kind of son who asked personal questions. Not because I didn’t care, but because it always felt like opening a curtain I wasn’t supposed to look behind.

Still, I asked, “How did you and Papa meet?”

She blinked. Then actually laughed, soft and surprised, like the question had come from someone else. A little blush rose in her cheeks as she finally took a spoonful of her soup.

“Oh, that was a long time ago,” she said, chewing slowly. “Your babushka and his mother arranged it.”

I stared at her. “Arranged?”

She nodded, brushing her bangs back from her forehead.

“It was normal, back then. He had excellent prospects. Joined the Party when he was nineteen. Had a decent job—he was laying concrete for a housing project at the edge of the city. This was, oh... ’63?

The war wasn’t long behind us, and there was so much to rebuild. ”

I tried to picture Papa laying concrete. Laughing. Young.

“He was so handsome,” she sighed. “All the girls liked him. Tall, quiet, serious. But he never flirted back. Never paid attention to any of them. He wasn’t like the others.”

Something in her voice tightened, but she kept smiling.

“We were happy,” she murmured. “In our own way.”

Her voice trailed off after that. Her eyes drifted toward the window like she could see something past the frost.

I waited for her to say more, but instead, she stood up and pressed a hand to her temple.

“Dimitri, will you clean up? I think I’m going to lie down. I’m getting a headache.”

I watched her leave, her steps soft but deliberate.

And then I was alone.

I cleared the bowls, washed them slowly under the weak stream of hot water, and stacked them neatly on the drying rack. My mother had always been particular about the dishes. She said how a man treated his kitchen showed how he treated his wife.

As I wiped the counter, my thoughts drifted back to Petyr.

That silly smile of his, and that voice cutting through the noise of the factory like it belonged somewhere better. The way he made people laugh—made me laugh. The way he’d looked at me when I did.

And then I thought of the way Mama had sighed about Papa. He was so handsome, she’d said, like it still hurt to remember.

I pictured Petyr’s eyes, clear and cutting, like they were always looking for the truth in you. And for a second, I wondered—why was I comparing the two? Why did I feel anything at all when I thought about Petyr?

The question flickered, warm and uncomfortable, in the back of my mind.

I turned off the kitchen light and stood in the doorway, listening to the silence in our apartment.

Maybe I’ll get to work next to Petyr again tomorrow?

* * *

Papa didn’t speak when I got in the car the next morning. Just nodded once, started the engine, and pulled onto the icy road with that same blank stare he wore like armor. It was early, still gray out, the kind of morning that made your joints ache just from existing.

I leaned my head against the window and exhaled a foggy patch onto the glass. Neither of us said anything for the first ten minutes.

Then, somewhere between two streetcar crossings, he asked, “Did you sleep?”

I nodded. “A little.”

Which was a lie. I’d tossed around all night like a dog dreaming of bones.

Petyr’s face kept popping into my thoughts—grinning, teasing, bright as a match in a gas leak.

Even when I shut my eyes, it was like he was still in the room, perched on the edge of my bed, cracking some joke just to see if I’d finally laugh again.

Papa said nothing in response. I turned my head and studied him out of the corner of my eye.

His skin looked sallow. There was a heaviness behind his eyes, the kind that no sleep would fix. His jaw clenched when we hit a bump in the road. I caught a faint whiff of something sharp—vodka, maybe, or that god-awful cologne he occasionally wore.

I remembered hearing the front door creak open after midnight. I’d been lying awake, staring at the ceiling, when it happened. The sound of his boots being carefully removed. The slow exhale of someone trying not to wake anyone up.

I opened my mouth. “Where were you la—?”

But we were pulling up to the factory.

Papa parked the car with a grunt and stared at the entrance like it personally offended him.

“You remember what I told you,” he said, voice low and clipped. “Work hard. Don’t run your mouth. Keep your head down. Don’t give anyone a reason to notice you.”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “I remember.”

He didn’t say goodbye. Just nodded once again and lit a cigarette like the conversation had never happened.

I got out and slammed the door a little harder than necessary.

The air hit me like a fist, and I smelled wet wool, oil, and metal.

I stepped into the tide of bodies moving toward the entrance, men bundled in coats and hats, half of them yawning, the other half already complaining about the line, the cold, the smell, the quotas.

One guy tripped and cursed loud enough to draw a laugh.

Another lit a cigarette and got smacked for it.

And then, just as I stepped through the enormous steel doors, I saw him.

Petyr.

He was standing a few meters in, coat undone like the cold didn’t touch him, talking to some guy I didn’t recognize. His hands moved when he spoke—he talked like he was narrating an invisible opera. And then, like he sensed me watching him, he turned.

And smiled.

No—grinned.

Without thinking, my face did something I hadn’t asked it to.

It smiled back.

Not the forced kind I gave to Mama when she asked how my day was. Not the tight-lipped nod I offered to coworkers or neighbors.

An actual smile. The kind that cracked open something inside my chest and let the morning air in.

Petyr jogged a couple steps forward like he couldn’t wait to get to me.

And just like that, the factory didn’t feel so gray anymore.