“Surely Irkutsk will have what you’re looking for?” asked Eva.
A low frantic buzz started to gather at the base of her skull. Zofia didn’t know the Siberian city of Irkutsk. She didn’t knowhow many trees grew next to the sidewalks. She had not prepared for how it would smell, whether there would be crowds or nobody at all.
“I’ll come with you,” said Enrique. “If that suits you?”
Zofia nodded, grateful. She’d seen Enrique walk into a crowd of strangers and walk out with a group of friends. It was one of the things she liked about him. She also liked how the light played across his skin and seemed, somehow, to get caught in his dark eyes. She liked how the panic in her chest eased when he was near. Although sometimes, in his company, she felt as if she’d been turned around blindfolded in a room. It made her head feel a little light, but it wasn’t unpleasant.
Enrique glanced at her quizzically, and she realized she hadn’t answered him out loud:
“Yes,” she said. “That suits me.”
THE CITY OF IRKUTSKwas nothing like Paris.
Here, the buildings looked as if they had been cut from lace. Homes painted in shades of cream, blue, and yellow and bearing intricate wooden carvings crowded the wintry streets. Sunlight bounced off the gilded domes of cathedrals, and beyond the city’s borders, Zofia caught sight of the snow-dusted taiga with its pine and spruce trees dotting the slopes of the surrounding Ural Mountains. Her footsteps crunched on the ice, and when she breathed deep, the air carried familiar scents—warm honey cake and smoked fish, berries mixed with malt, and even the earthen, sugary scent of borscht, a rich sweet-and-sour soup made from beets that her mother used to serve over mushroom-filled dumplings. There was a bluntness to Irkutsk that reminded Zofia of her home in Glowno.If she returned home, she would find nothing: no family, friends, job, or even home. Besides, she couldn’t leave Goliath behind. It was too cold in Poland for tarantulas.
“Do you think Laila and Eva have killed each other yet?” asked Enrique.
“Why would they do that?”
Enrique made an exasperated sound. “You wererightthere! I could have cut through that tension with a butter knife!”
“That’s not physically possible.”
“What’s going through your head, then, phoenix?”
“Tarantula environmental preferences.”
“I regret asking.”
“Poland would be too cold for Goliath.”
“All of Poland mourns.”
Zofia hoped the caretakers at L’Eden were looking after him. Goliath reminded her of different times. Happier times. And even if they no longer existed, she liked the reminders that they had ever been there in the first place.
“I miss him,” said Enrique.
Zofia suspected he wasn’t talking about Goliath.
“So do I.”
Up ahead, Zofia caught sight of an alchemical and pharmacy store painted a pale green. Crouched beside a broken window was a man wearing akippah. Her father, who had not been Jewish, had never worn one, but many of the men and boys in Glowno had. The fabric stretched over the top of the man’s skull, a gesture of his faith.
“Gutn tog,” said Zofia.
The man looked up, startled. His eyes darted across the street before looking at her.
“Gutn tog.” He rose to a stand, before pointing at his broken window and saying tiredly, “Third time this year… You’d think Alexander II was only just murdered.” He sighed. “How may I help you?”
“I need saltpeter,” said Zofia.
The man frowned and hesitated, but then he gestured her inside. Enrique, he said, had to wait outside. Alone in the store, Zofia counted the neat wooden rows and the shining, green bottles lined up:twenty-one, twenty-two, twenty-three.When the shopkeeper refilled her bag, he lowered his voice as he slid the bag across the counter. “It’s not safe for us,” he said. “Every year it is getting harder.”
“I am safe.”
The man shook his head sadly. “We never are, my dear. The pogroms may have stopped for now, but the hate has not.Kol tuv.”
Zofia took the package uneasily.The hate has not.Her mother had lost family in those pogroms, the anti-Jewish riots that trampled homes and families, blaming them for the assassination of Tsar Alexander II. When she was thirteen years old, she found her mother kneeling in their home before the cold fire, sobbing. Zofia had gone still. Her sister and father always knew how to comfort, but they were asleep. And so, Zofia had done the only thing she could do—make light. She had crouched by the dead fire, reached for some flint, and coaxed the metal to blaze with heat. Only then did her mother look up and smile, before pulling her close and saying: “Be a light in this world, my Zosia, for it can be very dark.”
