Taylor #2
Applause rises around me, and I clap too, though more slowly.
The speech could be sincere. That’s the problem.
Before this week, I would have assumed the story about the teacher who bought classroom supplies herself or the school that waited months for heating repairs was selected because it made wealthy people open their wallets.
Maybe it was. Mikhail knows exactly when to pause.
He knows when to lower his voice and when to make people laugh.
He knows precisely how long to look at a person before they feel as though he’s speaking only to them.
But the little girl’s bracelet is still around his wrist. The elderly woman didn’t look impressed by the governor.
She looked fond of Mikhail. The factory worker looked relieved.
A lie is easier to recognize when every part of it is false.
Mikhail’s lies are built from real things.
Real people. Real suffering. Real emotion.
Maybe that’s what bothers me. I can’t tell anymore where the performance ends.
After the speech, guests begin moving toward dinner.
I’m checking table assignments and helping a couple who have somehow managed to lose both their seating cards when a man stops in front of me.
He is broad, red-faced, and old enough to have learned manners before apparently deciding they were optional.
His card identifies him as Lev Aaronovich Belov, and I recognize Belov from the benefit sponsor paperwork.
His development company contributed enough money that Viktoriya made me double-check the amount twice.
“You are in the wrong place,” he says in English.
I glance behind me. “Am I?”
“The staff entrance is through the kitchen.”
“I work for Governor Korolev’s office. I do not work for the conservatory.”
He stares at me, then smiles. It’s not a pleasant smile.
It’s the expression of a man whose furniture has started speaking to him.
He holds out his champagne glass, and for a second I think he’s offering it.
Out of instinct, I hold out my hand even though I do not want his half-finished champagne, and then I realize the glass is empty. “Oh, that is not—”
He releases it before I have a proper grip. I catch it awkwardly against my chest and huff in relief when it doesn’t shatter on the floor. “Take this,” he says. “And find me another.”
I look at the glass, then at him. “Let me find you a waiter.”
“And when you have done that, find my table.” He pulls out his phone as though the conversation has concluded.
“Your table is listed by surname.”
Lev whirls around—as much as he can, a rotund man—to find Mikhail standing a few feet away with a pleasant smile on his face that doesn’t reach his eyes. He’s still wearing the paper bracelet the little girl gave him.
“Belov,” Mikhail says. “That puts you quite a few tables away from me. Pity. I was so looking forward to hearing about, what was it?”
Lev clears his throat. “Women’s professional advancement.”
I stifle a laugh, and Mikhail cuts his eyes at me. “He was telling me only last month that more women should hold leadership roles in regional development.”
Lev stands straighter. “I mean that.”
“I am certain you would never disrespect a female member of my staff on purpose. Did you feel that way, Miss Hayes?” Mikhail asks, finally addressing me.
It feels like a trap. I realize for the first time in this interaction that there are eyes on us, that people have begun to pay attention.
I look behind Lev at Viktoriya, who nods at me.
I realize that this isn’t my trap. It closed so smoothly that I missed it.
“I—” My voice cracks.
“Speak up,” Mikhail says, his voice flat, annoyed.
The sharpness in his voice makes irritation flash through me immediately. “I did, but—”
Lev turns toward me, but Mikhail doesn’t let him speak. “Perhaps you would like to apologize, Lev.”
Lev. Not Lev Belov. I don’t know enough about Russian social etiquette to understand every degree of insult available here, but I know that one.
Lev’s jaw tightens. “Of course.” He looks at me. “I apologize.”
“For?” Mikhail asks.
Lev’s eyes flash. “For speaking disrespectfully.”
I hold his gaze. “Thank you.”
Mikhail turns slightly toward the people openly watching now. “There. A misunderstanding resolved.” Conversation starts again almost immediately. A few people laugh with relief. Someone approaches Mikhail with a question about the dinner program. The room moves on.
Lev does not. He stands rigid beside me, humiliated without being permitted to behave as though he has been humiliated.
Mikhail leans toward him. I can’t hear what he says.
Whatever it is drains the remaining color from Lev’s face.
Then Mikhail claps him once on the shoulder and walks toward me.
By the time he reaches my side, he’s smiling again.
“You tell me the next time someone speaks to you like that.”
I set Lev’s abandoned champagne glass onto a passing tray. “First you threaten me, now you defend me. It seems like you just get off on putting people in their place.”
“Perhaps I protected you both times.”
I stare at him. “You scared me.”
“Yes.”
The answer catches me off guard. “That is not protection.”
“Sometimes it is.”
“That is an insane thing to say.”
“You have mentioned that before.”
I fold my arms. His gaze moves over my face.
“Who is the real Mikhail?” The question slips out before I decide to ask it. His expression changes slightly. “Is there even a real Mikhail?”
For once, he doesn’t have an immediate answer. A few feet away, someone calls his name, but Mikhail ignores them.
“The real Mikhail,” he says finally, “wants you to enjoy the dinner you helped plan without men bothering you.” I narrow my eyes. He glances toward the tables. “Go. Eat.”
Then he walks away before I can answer. A sponsor intercepts him near the stage.
Mikhail greets the man like an old friend, and within seconds they are laughing.
The little girl who made his bracelet waves at him from across the room.
Mikhail lifts his hand and waves back, the pink paper bracelet rattling around his wrist beneath the cuff of his tuxedo.
It looks completely genuine. I’m starting to think it is. That’s somehow more frightening than discovering it was fake.
I have been trying to decide which version of Mikhail Korolev is the performance.
The man who frightened me against his office door.
The man whose security adviser brings him photographs of his mother being watched.
The politician who remembers a factory worker’s sick wife.
The man wearing a child’s paper bracelet with a tuxedo.
The man who can make Lev Belov apologize without raising his voice.
Maybe that’s the mistake. Maybe none of them are performances.
Maybe he’s not lying when he is kind or when he is frightening. Maybe they are all him.
And he knows exactly which man the room needs to see.