Chapter 29
NIKA
It’s strange how places tend to look alike.
Central avenues with shops clustered around big blooming trees.
Restaurants, post offices, walking paths.
Further out are houses, tight and dense close to the main streets, spreading out and sprawling a bit as the population gets sparser.
Forests, undeveloped land, big warehouses, farms, and more homes, all cut through with roads and streets.
The signs change, the languages are different, the styles, the architecture, but towns are the same all over.
It’s late afternoon. Kehl is a moderate town on the Rhine and looks a lot like the villages near Paris, though everything’s in German.
The streets are narrow and old, and the houses are spread out further away from the city center.
We took the train and the whole trip was barely over two hours, which blows my mind.
Two hours to reach another country. Two hours to find my mother. All this time, she was two hours away.
The house is fairly plain. Two stories, white stucco exterior, a heavily sloped reddish-brown roof. The grass is cut, the bushes are trimmed, and there’s a bike leaning against the fence. I keep my eyes on it, trying to picture the person riding it, but the image won’t come into focus.
“Are you sure this is right?” I glance over at Gabe. He’s standing to my left, squinting down the quiet street.
“I’m positive. That’s her house.”
“Is she home?”
He only shrugs. “I don’t know.”
“There’s no car. Maybe she’s not home. Maybe we could—“ A thousand excuses snap through my head, but they’re all silenced as a small black sedan rolls down the street and pulls into the cramped driveway.
I watch in stunned silence as a woman gets out.
She’s older. In her fifties. But still beautiful.
Long, thick hair, the same color as mine.
A small nose, sharp chin, full lips. I have her cheekbones, her height, her figure.
She’s trim and in good shape. I’m transfixed as she opens the trunk of the car and starts taking out groceries.
She carries in two bags at once, leaving a few more behind, unlocking the side door with a bit of a struggle before disappearing inside.
“We should go,” I whisper, starting to move away before she comes back out, but Gabe’s hand presses against the small of my back, keeping me in place.
“Talk to her.”
“I can’t.”
"Walk over there and talk to her. You’ll be okay. I promise. I’ll be right here.”
“Gabe—“
“Listen to me. You’re strong. You can do this. Cross the street, say hello, and introduce yourself. You’re going to be okay. I swear it.”
I look up at the sky, at the soft clouds drifting over blue, and I want to get the fuck out of here. I want to run until my legs fail. But she comes out again, hurrying back to the open trunk for the last of the groceries, and I know this is my chance. If I have to knock, I won’t do it.
She’s right there. My mother’s right there.
I take a step forward. Gabe nudges me gently. I take another, and another, and then I’m walking straight across the street toward her.
She doesn’t notice at first. She fumbles with the trunk, closing it clumsily with her bags balanced against her arm, and as she adjusts and starts moving to the house she spots me standing at the edge of the grass, watching.
She offers me that vaguely friendly press of the lips, ready to turn away and head inside—
“Excuse me. Um, are you Helena Egorova?”
She freezes. Her smile instantly evaporates, replaced by pure panic. She takes a step back, looking around, gripping the bags tightly. “I don’t know who you’re talking about. I don’t know any Helena.”
“Helena Egorova. My name is Veronika Kiselyov. I think—I mean, I don’t even know how to say this—“
Her eyes go wide. For a second, her gaze locks on mine, her face paling as she takes another step backwards. I can’t tell if she’s as scared as I am or just surprised, but I bet this is as terrifying for her as it is for me.
One of her bags drops and spills groceries all over the ground.
She snaps something in German, and of course she speaks German, she lives here. I hurry over to help her clean up, which she awkwardly accepts, and once everything is back in the bag she looks at me warily.
“How did you find me?” she asks. Her English has a slight Russian accent.
“It’s a long story. I wanted to meet you, that’s all. I promise I’m not here for anything else.”
I think she wants to send me away. And standing here in front of her home with that bike and the nicely trimmed lawn, I don’t blame her at all. I’m a ghost from her past, probably a terrible memory, and I appeared out of nowhere.
Reluctantly though, she turns to the house. “Come inside. We can talk. Do you like tea?”
I peek over my shoulder. Gabe’s still watching. “I love tea.”
Her home is cute. There’s an entryway with boots and shoes piled in neat rows. Coats hang from hooks. It smells like lavender and honey. She walks into a small kitchen and starts unloading the groceries, and my gaze drifts to the living room, my stomach twisting and heart sinking into the floor.
There are toys stacked in a corner. There are photographs on the walls.
A man, handsome, blond, smiling and leaning against a younger version of her.
A young boy, blond like his dad, with my mother’s same eyes, my same eyes.
Another girl, little and pretty, like me.
And another of all four of them together, more recent I think, the boy around twelve and the girl a couple years behind.
That bike is probably the little boy’s bike.
My half brother.
Oh god, she has a family.
“Sit down. Are you hungry? How far did you come? God, I haven’t spoken English like this in a while. The first few years here were terrible, but it forced me to pick up the language. Hendrick says my accent is still bad, but—“ She pauses and catches my eye. “Hendrick is my husband.”
“You got married.”
She nods like that’s perfectly normal. “Fifteen years ago. Lionel was born a few years after that. Then Lily came next.”
“Lionel and Lily are your kids.”
She stops making the tea and faces me, clutching the kettle tightly. “Veronika, you should know—“
“It’s okay. It’s really fine. I mean, you don’t owe me anything.” I look down at the table, fighting back tears. I don’t even know why I’m so upset.
What did I expect? Did I want her to sit still? Hide in some hovel and mourn me for the rest of her life?
Of course she’s got a husband. She’s got kids, she’s got a family. I bet she’s got a job, and friends, and hopes and dreams. Did I think everything would stop, because she left me?
She walks over and sits down in the chair across from me. She sits straight and looks at me, a sad smile in her eyes, as she folds her hands on the tabletop. “Go ahead. Ask me questions.”
I laugh and wipe my eyes. “What do you mean?”
“You came all this way. Ask and I’ll tell you everything you want to know.”
“Seriously? You don’t owe me any of that.”
“Veronika.” Her voice is sharp. Her jaw tightens. “I owe you a lot more. Please, ask.”
I look at my hands. Then I look at her and I see so much of myself. “I guess there’s only one thing I really want to know.”
The kettle starts screaming. She leaps up, hurries over, and takes it off the heat. I watch her pour two mugs and return with steeping bags and a little dish for when they’re ready. She sits, dunks the bag, and smiles to herself.
“Hendrick says shaking the tea like this is silly, but I’ve always done it. I don’t know, I like the way it mixes.”
“I do it too.”
“Genetics really are amazing.” She looks at me again, her smile fading. “You’re so pretty. I always wondered.”
“Helena—“
“I go by Klara here. But that doesn’t matter. You want to know why I left, don’t you?”
I nod. “It was my father, wasn’t it?”
She looks toward the windows, her face going blank with memory.
“I met him in a nightclub. Please don’t judge me for that, I was young and stupid, and he was handsome and had a lot of money.
He was also relentless, and eventually I started dating him, casually at first, until the gifts became more expensive, the attention more intense.
He moved me into an apartment he controlled, set me up with a bank account he controlled, let me drive a car he controlled and let me visit places he approved.
I didn’t even realize it was happening until it was too late. ”
She sips her tea thoughtfully. I study my mother’s profile.
She glances at me, looking pained. “He was good to me until he wasn’t, but by then it was too late.
I was pregnant with you. There was a lot of pressure to get an abortion, but I outright refused, and I think that’s what did it.
Our relationship was finished and he had moved on to some new girl I never met or heard about, but it became clear what was going to happen to me.
I was out of favor, but I also knew too much about him and his business.
I’d been around for conversations. I met certain partners. I was a liability.