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Open up the grey earth and let him come back to me.
It was a line Gleb had heard years and years before, at the knee of his grandmother who had died when he was a child. She was an old woman, who would sing to him, songs from her homeland, she said, in order to not forget them.
“They dragged me from Vilna all the way to Siberia,” she used to say, “But they can’t take my voice, my boy. They could never have that.”
Gleb had forgotten her songs, but when he waited in the courtyard, feeling the blindfold wrapped around his eyes, all he could think of was that the songs were all sung from the perspective of the mothers, begging their sons not to go to war. Sometimes it was worse: they begged their sons to come home, from the grave, as though they had a choice in the matter.
His mother was long gone, and Gleb’s thought before the shots rang out was that he was glad of it. There would be no songs for her to sing. His heartbeat thumped loudly in his ears and Gleb thought it was painfully loud until there was nothing but silence.
When he opened his eyes, there was birdsong.
The grey skies he closed his eyes on in Russia had darkened to the clear dark grey of an approaching storm, but when Gleb looked around, he couldn’t see anything that reminded him of Russia. Cars flew by him on the road, but Gleb couldn’t feel the breeze. He squinted, stepping into the street to hail a cab.
“Excuse me!” he called, and the car didn’t stop–it passed straight through him with nary a sigh.
Oh.
The grey earth had opened up and let him go, but he was still dead. Gleb took a breath he didn’t need. Well, then that’s that, he thought, Nothing for it. The only way to figure out how to stop being a ghost was to… stick around in Paris. He had to be here for a reason… right?
Gleb sighed and stared up at the apartment in front of him as he stepped out of the street, staying out of the way of passerby. It seemed somehow familiar, even though his recollections of Paris never included this place. The streets of Paris emptied out as the skies continued to darken, and Gleb wandered through the quiet streets as the rain began to drizzle down.
It was only after it was dark that he managed to find his way through the winding streets back to the apartment and the bench facing the Seine. Gleb sighed, leaning against the railing as he peered into the darkened storefronts. His reflection, hazy and tired and slightly bloody, stared back at him in between the droplets of rain.
Upstairs, a light went on. In the bathroom, a blond woman appeared, throwing open the window despite the storm. Her song was familiar, and Gleb sighed, letting the words of Russian wash over him.
Russian.
Gleb’s head snapped up, and with a queer moment of realization, he felt as though his pulse ought to be racing. The silence in his ear was discomfiting, but he listened, his eyes glued on the figure of Anya Romanova, brushing out her long, blond curls. In the electric light of her window, they shone burnished gold. His fingers tightened on the wet iron railing between himself and the Seine.
He was dead, but he felt as though he couldn’t breathe anyways.
She was radiant, wrapped in a white robe and smiling sweetly as she attended to her toilette. Gleb felt as though he could be alive, for all that she brought back. A month after giving up the title of Imperial Princess, she looked happy and settled in life. It was all he could have wanted for her–except that ideally, she would have been his, and they would have been together, and they would have never left Leningrad.
“Anya,” he sang softly, a familiar call that she had never answered when he was alive.
She paused in her singing, looking out the window. Her face went white as she beheld him, but after a second, she broke into a radiant smile and leaned out into the storm.
“Gleb?”
“Anya,” he called back, disbelievingly, watching the lace of her robe float in the breeze. She smiled, resting against the window, and made to speak before a voice interrupted them.
“Anya? Who’s that?” Dmitry called from inside the apartment.
Lightning crashed, and Anya, from inside, closed her eyes as she saw that the space where Gleb had stood was now empty. The rain dampened her hair as she dropped her head down.
“I thought I saw someone I knew,” she called back quietly, “It was nothing.”
It happened more after that, as late spring blossomed into summer. May turned to June, and with June came the thunderstorms. Gleb wandered Paris, following Anya but more often than not simply wandering in search of a purpose. He tried to make it out of Paris, home to Leningrad, but found after he boarded a train that once he left the city limits, he was back in front of the apartment facing the Seine.
No Leningrad for him, Gleb thought, for it seemed his purpose after death now lay in the city of lights. Some days were better than most: he could remember wandering through the city, occasionally following Anya, occasionally not. Some days he felt as though he woke, and had missed a week of time. But he liked to think he was getting used to it.
Yet a month after the initial thunderstorm in which Anya first saw him, it happened again. In the mist that night, Anya threw open the window, and gasped at the sight of a Bolshevik officer leaning against the river wall, trying to pet a grey tabby cat that was perched on the wall.
“Ah, look at you,” he murmured in Russian, watching as the tabby cat arched up against his hand, “You’re not afraid of me, are you? Cats are supposed to know of the dead.”
“Gleb?” Anya called from the window, half in horror and half in hope, “Gleb, is that you?”
The Bolshevik looked up, brushed his dark hair off his face, and beamed.
“Anya!” He called, pale and transparent and transparently happy, “You can see me!”
“Gleb,” Anya breathed, “Oh my God, Gleb, what are you doing here?”
“I’m dead, Anya!” Gleb called, leaning back against the wall, “Can’t you tell?”
The window slammed shut.
“Perhaps that was a little too blunt,” Gleb said to the cat. The street was silent for a long moment before the door was thrown open, and Anya Romanova appeared in the door, in her robe, backlit by the hallway light.
“Gleb,” she breathed, “Oh, Gleb, you are.”
Gleb took several steps forwards, meeting Anya in the middle of the quiet street. She looked horrified, taking him in. Her hand rested briefly on the dark, bloody patch of his uniform before it sank through him. He shivered. She took a step back, staring at her hand.
“You’re so cold,” she whispered, “Gleb… how did this happen? How are you here?”
“I don’t know,” Gleb whispered back, “I can’t believe you can see me. No one can. Well, except small children, and—“
The tabby cat twined itself around his ankles, seemingly unaware that he wasn’t corporeal.
“And cats,” he finished, “They stood me against the post in Leningrad when I came home. I tried to tell them that I killed you, and… and did away with your body, but…”
He shook his head.
“It was an excuse,” he said quietly, “It was an excuse to get rid of me. I should have known, but I went back anyways.”
“It’s my fault,” Anya whispered, “Gleb—“
“No, it isn’t,” Gleb breathed, reaching out to grab her shoulder. His hand went through her, and Anya shuddered once more, wrapping her robe more tightly around herself.
“You’re so cold,” she muttered, “I…”
“It isn’t your fault, Anya,” Gleb tried again, “It’s simply… the way of things. One of us had to die so the other could live. That’s our tie.”
Anya looked up, shaking her head.
“Then why are you here?” She asked.
Gleb closed his eyes.
“I—“
“Anya! What are you doing in the street?” Dmitry called from the window. Gleb’s eyes snapped open, wide and dark just as they were in life, just before he faded from her sight.
“Damnit, Dima!” Anya yelled back, “I was in the middle of something!”
The cat at her feet meowed plaintively. She sighed, reaching down to pick up the cat. Once it snuggled into her shoulder, it began to purr.
“You’ll catch your death out there in the mist,” Dmitry called back, looking concerned.
“It’s not my death that I worry about,” Anya muttered, cradling the cat as she walked back inside. The cat rested its head on Anya’s shoulder, looking behind her, but when she turned around, no one was there.
The next time it rained, Anya was prepared. She told Dmitry she was going to bed early, and put on the Victrola Nana had gifted her with, and played Rachmaninoff softly enough to muffle any conversations. She waited by the window of her bedroom for hours, playing with the cat—christened Natashenka, for no particular reason other than a recent reading of War and Peace—and watching for the moment a tall, pale figure turned the corner.
“Gleb!” Anya called, throwing the window open, her voice muffled in the driving rain, “Gleb, come upstairs!”
He jolted, startled, but nodded after a moment. Anya watched as he made his way to the door, grimacing before melting through it. She sat in her room, teasing Natashenka with string, and looked up as Gleb slowly drifted through the door.
“Anya?” He asked quietly, “I… I’m sorry I didn’t knock. There’s not much I can touch.”
Natashenka meowed, running across the floor to butt her head against Gleb’s legs. He smiled, immediately crouching down to rub her head. Anya watched in disbelief as Gleb seemed to ruffle her fur, and her head seemed to be stopped by the incorporeal form of his legs.
“You took her in,” Gleb said, looking up from where he was crouched to Anya, sitting on the floor next to the victrola, “I was worried about her.”
“I’ve been calling her Natashenka,” Anya replied, “She’s a sweet little thing. Gleb… if you’re dead, how is it you can touch her? And how is it that she can touch you?”
“I don’t know,” Gleb replied, pursing his lips. The medals still on his uniform seemed to glint in the light.
“I have a few theories,” he continued, “The ancient Egyptians thought cats could sense the dead, in a way. Maybe… Natashenka is like that. She’s the only cat that’s wanted to come near me. Most of them hiss.”
Anya shook her head.
“I can’t believe you’re here,” she said, “Gleb, what brought you here? What keeps you here?”
“You,” Gleb replied simply.
The victrola warbled on, the All-Night Vigil continuing to play.
“Me?” Anya breathed, “What do you mean?”
“I woke up in Paris, if you can call it waking up,” Gleb said, chuckling dryly, “You’re my unfinished business, I think.”
“If you’re here—because of me,” Anya began haltingly, “Then why didn’t my parents come back for me too? Or my sisters? Or—Alexei?”
“Because they were finished,” Gleb said simply, “Why come back if you think all your siblings or your children died? They didn’t know you yet lived. I did.”
Anya ruminated on that for a moment, watching Gleb scratch Natashenka’s chin.
“But… I did live. Shouldn’t they have known that?” She tried, unsatisfied with his answer.
“As a child, I thought that the Ipatiev House was haunted,” Gleb shrugged, listening to Natashenka purr, “Maybe they’re bound there just as I’m bound to Paris.”
The thought of her parents and siblings bound to the cellar where they died was like an arrow to the heart in terms of sheer, shocking horror. Anya choked softly, feeling her eyes well with tears.
“How could you say that?” She breathed, “Gleb!”
Gleb looked up, instantly guilty as he saw her tears.
“Anya, I’m sorry,” he said immediately, moving across the carpet (but ever careful not to crush Natashenka). “I shouldn’t have said that. It was a stupid thing we believed as children. We said it to scare the younger children of Yekaterinburg. I think they’ve moved on, Anya, truly.”
Natashenka crawled into Anya’s lap, meowing softly. Anya sighed, shaking her head as her tears dissipated.
“I shouldn’t have been upset—“
“It was justified, I shouldn’t have said it—“
“Gleb,” Anya cut him off, giving him a piercing look. She reached over to touch his hand. As usual, it went straight through, but this time she kept it there despite the feeling of being submerged in Arctic ice water.
“Anya,” Gleb replied, pulling his hand away with a shake of his head, “Don’t do that. You’ll make yourself cold.”
“Gleb, I don’t care. It can’t be pleasant, being stuck here because of me,” she said sternly, “I want to help you. Any way I can. To move on, I mean.”
Gleb laughed quietly, picking Natashenka up. The cat settled easily in his lap, but with Gleb’s slight translucency letting the carpet shine through his body, Natashenka looked eerily like she was floating. She flopped onto her back, resting her head on his knee and exposing her belly. Gleb’s breath caught, but only for an instant, and he immediately moved to pet her.
It took him a moment to reply to Anya, distracted as he was by Natashenka.
“I get the impression it’ll be a harder task than we both think,” he said grimly, but he looked up and smiled at Anya. For an instant, she was back in his office in Leningrad, and he was smiling at her the exact same way, about to offer her tea with all the lemon she could possibly desire.
Anya had little choice than to smile back when he looked at her that way, and so she did.
Summer came in bursts of sun and showers, and in those showers, Gleb would appear like clockwork. Anya developed a fascination with wandering the streets with him in the rain, much to Dmitry’s bafflement and confusion. They wandered through Père Lachaise and Cimitière de Montmartre, and as fall swept through the city, they took walks at twilight with Natashenka on a leash.
“I genuinely have no idea why you are putting poor Natashenka through this,” Dmitry said as he watched Anya slipping a harness over Natashenka’s head, “Aren’t you supposed to put dogs on leashes? Not cats?”
“Natashenka likes it,” Anya said primly, trying not to react to Gleb standing in the doorway cackling.
“Would he say anything if Natashenka went floating through the air?” Gleb quipped, and Anya cast him a disapproving look, trying to convey with her eyes only that such topics were not appropriate while Dmitry was still in the flat.
“Well, enjoy your walk,” Dmitry sighed, baffled, “I’ll be in Montmartre for dinner.”
“I’ll see you later, then,” Anya shrugged, and headed out. Gleb’s soft, dark humor and deep baritone were increasingly preferred to Dmitry’s tenor and abrasive bickering. Nana tolerated him, and Vlad and Lily of course loved him, but Anya was uncertain that sharing a flat with Dmitry was the right choice—especially when Gleb was so pleasant instead.
If only he wasn’t dead.
Over the course of their long walks, Gleb and Anya had discovered that cemeteries provided ample opportunity for Anya to talk without being seen as insane. The weather grew drier, but the city grew dark earlier, and Gleb would appear even on evenings where there was no rain or mist. The summer had brought no answers to Anya as to why Gleb was in Paris, but Gleb—
Gleb knew.
Still, nothing could have prepared him for waking in the Cimitière de Montmartre, with twenty francs and a blanket spread over him as he lay on the grave of Charles Henri Sanson, on the night of October 31st, 1928.
Gleb gingerly touched the blanket. It was soft, tartan plaid, smelled a bit like wet sheep, but most importantly—he could feel it.
He picked up the twenty francs. They were cool and in his hand.
Gleb considered this. Being able to touch something other than Natashenka was new and novel, but signaled an end: it was All Hallow’s Eve, after all, and the veil was thin. The dead could come back.
Or the dead could leave.
Gleb took a deep breath, slung the blanket over his arm, and took a long hard look at the francs. There was no time to waste.
Gleb Vaganov was about to figure out the Paris Métro.
A rock pinged Anya’s window as Notre Dame chimed. Natashenka had been anxious all day, meowing and scratching at the door as though she was desperate to be let out. She wouldn’t let Anya sleep either, pacing the room like a restless spirit.
“What’s with you?” Anya muttered as Natashenka’s meows reached a fever pitch. She walked over to the window, opening it. Gleb Vaganov stood in the middle of her quiet street, looking much the same as he did the first night she had seen him.
This time, the difference was that he held a rock in one hand, a blanket over his arm, and a croissant in the other hand.
“Anya!” He called, “Anya! I need you!”
Natashenka meowed plaintively, finally seeming to settle for the first time all day.
“How are you— is that a croissant?” Anya yelled, “Gleb!”
“I don’t know how this happened either, but for tonight, I’m… I’m real again,” Gleb called back. “Come out?”
“I’ll be right there,” Anya said shakily, laughing in spite of herself as Gleb added, “And bring Natashenka!”
Dmitry had gone to bed earlier in the evening, but Anya was taking no chances as she silently slipped on a warm day dress and her coat. She hooked Natashenka into her harness as she pulled on her boots.
“I took the last train,” Gleb said breathlessly, meeting her at the door. “I don’t know how it happened, but it’s—“
“It’s All Hallows,” Anya breathed, “Tomorrow is All-Soul’s, and—“
“And I think I’ll be gone by then,” Gleb interrupted her.
His words stole her voice for a long moment, but she was treated to Gleb leaning down and picking up Natashenka. He hugged the cat tightly, kissing her soft, grey-striped head.
“Lyubov, lyubov,” he whispered to her, rocking her slightly, “You’ll do well without me. But I’ll miss you. Don’t miss me.”
Natashenka purred, nuzzling her head into his collar.
“This is it?” Anya choked out, “You… after all this time, you’ve figured out how to leave?”
Gleb turned his dark gaze on her. He didn’t look happy, despite everything.
“I’ve known for a while now what exactly my unfinished business is,” he said, his voice low and serious, “But I wasn’t ready to face it. Not until tonight. Now I can.”
He reached out a hand from where he was cradling Natashenka. Gleb curled his fingers under her chin, and Anya let out a broken laugh at the familiar, tender gesture.
“Then will you leave me tonight?” She said, her voice a whisper as she tried to keep the tears out of it, “I’m not ready.”
“I’m not going to leave you just yet,” Gleb replied, equally soft, “Don’t fret. Come along, let’s walk like we always do.”
It took a long time to meander through the familiar streets of Paris. For once, the ladies of the evening let them be, and the men smoking cigarettes and cigars at the cafés didn’t seem to see them. Anya let Gleb lead, letting him hold Natashenka’s leash in one hand. In the other, he held hers.
For once, his hand was warm. As they waited for cars to pass on the boulevards, she would lean into his side.
As they passed the Cimitière de Montmartre, Gleb pressed a kiss to her hair just as he had kissed Natashenka’s head.
“Oh, Anya,” he murmured, “Don’t fret. It’ll all be well.”
Against everything, she believed him. Anya swallowed hard, watching Natashenka rub herself against Gleb’s leg.
Even Natashenka is saying goodbye, she thought.
“How do you know?” She asked, looking up at him.
“I don’t,” Gleb shrugged, staring up at the steps to the Basilique du Sacré-Cœur, “But I know you, and I know that you won’t stand for your life to be anything less than wonderful.”
Anya closed her eyes for a moment, then leaned her head against Gleb’s shoulder. When she opened her eyes, he was smiling.
“I don’t know if I believe you,” she replied.
“Trust me,” Gleb said, and led her up the empty steps to the basilica. Their walk was long and quiet, Gleb stopping only once to pick up Natashenka to carry her up the steps.
“Her paws are so small,” he remarked, “There are so many steps. I’m not going to make her walk up all of them.”
“But you’re making me do it,” Anya quipped, and Gleb laughed. For a brief instant, everything seemed normal—two friends on yet another walk through Paris at night. At the top of the stairs, Sacré-Cœur stood silently, but all of Paris seemed to be spread out beneath their feet. Natashenka was silent in Gleb’s arms, and when Anya looked, she could tell her cat—their cat—had fallen asleep.
“Dawn is coming,” Gleb said, after a long moment of quiet.
“I know,” Anya replied, “Gleb—“
“I love you,” Gleb said, staring out at the lights of Paris, “Anya. I fell in love with you in Leningrad. There was no way I could have killed you. I thought I could, but I was a fool.”
Anya stared at Gleb, who was clutching Natashenka like a lifeline. He sat down on the top stair, sighing as Natashenka shifted and curled back up against his warmth.
“Gleb—“ Anya tried again, but he shook his head.
“Let me finish,” he implored, “Anya, I stayed because I never told you. I came back because of it. This was my unfinished business, that you never knew.”
“Gleb, why didn’t you tell me?” Anya pleaded, sitting down next to him. He spread the blanket over her shoulders, looking at her with regret.
“Would my love have made you stay in Leningrad?”
Anya opened her mouth and closed it.
“No,” she finally admit, “I had to come here. I had to know my past.”
“I think a part of me knew that too,” he confessed, “But I could never admit it in life.”
They stared at each other in silence, before Gleb reached out to cradle Anya’s cheek in his hand. The sky was slowly changing from black to blue, and his smile was faint and heartbreaking.
“Gleb, I’m so confused,” Anya breathed, “I… I don’t know how I feel.”
Was what she felt for him love? What she had come to feel for him on their walks through the city? Was it simple affection for a friend? She had never considered it, knowing that it would never go anywhere: there was no starting an affair with the dead. Gleb’s uniform, even now, looked bloody, and though he was warm she could feel no pulse in his wrist.
“You have the rest of your life to figure it out,” Gleb whispered, and leaned in. Anya met him halfway in a kiss, reaching up to smooth back his hair the way she had wanted to for months but never could. His mouth was warm, and despite everything, he tasted of black tea and lemons.
Perhaps his last meal.
Anya pulled back, but only enough to rest their foreheads together.
“What will I do without you?” She asked, “You’re my friend. My best friend. Who will help me walk Natashenka? What will she do without you?”
“She’ll love you all the more,” Gleb promised, tucking a blonde curl behind Anya’s ear, “Anya, I’ll be at peace. I love you, and you know it. That’s… I always wanted you to love me back, but sometimes, that isn’t how life works.”
“It might be how death works,” Anya laughed tearfully.
“That’s truly unfortunate, then,” Gleb joked, and as the sun rose, he stole another kiss. Anya let him, smiling against his mouth in spite of herself.
“I want you to know that… that I don’t understand all of my feelings,” Anya said, gathering her courage, “But if you’d lived, I would have… I like to think I’d have let us try something.”
“That’s all I could ask for,” Gleb said quietly, “But Anya?”
“Yes?”
“I’m glad enough to have been your friend,” Gleb admitted, his dark eyes serious but alight with warmth. Anya stifled a sob, hating herself for her tears but unable to stem them.
“No, no, don’t cry,” Gleb breathed, “Please. Anya, I want you to be happy. That’s all.”
Natashenka meowed. Across Paris, the sky was lightening to a softer, paler blue.
“I have to go,” he whispered, “But Anya?”
“Gleb?”
“Long life, comrade,” Gleb grinned, his smile radiant, with no hint of sadness or transparency. “Now, take Natashenka. I don’t know what will happen, but I don’t want her falling out of my lap.”
Natashenka allowed herself to be lifted, but let out a sleepy meow of protest. She stared at Gleb with liquid blue eyes, and gave him a slow blink.
“Close your eyes, Anya,” Gleb instructed softly, watching as Anya did. He leaned in and pressed a long kiss to her forehead, feeling her exhale.
“Be seeing you, comrade,” he whispered, then amended it. “Be seeing you, love.”
“Goodbye, Gleb,” Anya whispered in return.
When she opened her eyes, it was only herself and Natashenka on the steps of Sacré-Cœur.
Anya took a deep breath, watching as the sky turned rosy over the Paris skyline. She allowed her vision to blur with tears for a few long minutes. In her lap, Natashenka purred.
Be seeing you, love.
“…Alright,” Anya said to the open air and the city of Paris, “Alright.”
There was no need to rush. She had the rest of her life to figure everything out.
“Come on, Natashenka,” she said to the silver tabby, “It’s time to go home.”