Work Text:
March-May 1983
Florence thinks about it for months.
When she first returns from Bangkok, she is consumed by feelings of despair. She wallows in it, nursing her wounds. But it doesn’t take long for those feelings to be overtaken by a stark sense of guilt, and she can't stop thinking about it, turning the whole thing over in her mind on repeat.
She moves, boxing up the small number of things she and Anatoly had collected over their short amount of time together. She donates most of it, but keeps anything that's too painful to part with—his notebooks, his reading glasses, his favorite slippers. She moves to a city that's completely new. In Birmingham, she knows no one, and has no memories with him there. Throughout it all, she thinks about it.
She gets a new job, one where nobody knows who she is. It chafes, to reduce the last 8 years of her life into an entry titled Personal Assistant on her CV. But that is the price she pays for anonymity, and working keeps her from wallowing at home, even if the work itself is meaningless. She makes smalltalk with her coworkers. She slowly becomes reacquainted with regular people, who live outside the world of cutthroat competition and global politics. And the whole time, she thinks about it.
It just feels like such a waste. That’s what she keeps coming back to, in her deepest moments of self-pity. Eight years of hard work, and what does she have to show for it? Nothing but an empty flat. Nothing but the money she made, and that feels like a sore consolation prize.
But she keeps thinking about it.
It’s only her. She doesn’t have mouths to feed. She doesn’t have to struggle to keep up a household. She doesn’t have the threat of bastard politicians or secret police hanging over her head. She feels like she lost everything, but what’s the worst that happened to her, really? All she did was get her feelings hurt.
She thinks about it, and sometimes the guilt eats her alive. It isn’t her fault—she truly believes that, that she isn’t to blame for Anatoly leaving his family. He would have done it with or without her. But she certainly didn’t help matters, did she? She knew all along she was the other woman, and she tried so hard not to think about it, not until she had to, until she was being physically confronted with Anatoly’s wife. And Svetlana hadn’t been angry.
Florence would have been angry. She is angry, still, about so many things. But Svetlana was just… sad. Or maybe tired. Resigned. In a state of grief. And Florence can’t help but feel partially responsible.
It would have been easier, maybe, if Anatoly had hated her. It would have been easier if Florence could have gone into it hating Svetlana, if Anatoly had told her terrible stories about her and how hard she was to live with, but he never did. He never said a single bad thing about her. He just didn’t talk about her at all. She’d tried so hard not to think about it, during that year together, and now it’s all she can do. She was equal parts infatuated and desperate to escape a bad situation, but does that excuse anything? Does that absolve her? And really—what was she thinking? What was Anatoly thinking? Did he ever consider about how his actions would affect his children?
Florence agonizes over it, day after day. And yet, when she finds herself at home, sitting at her desk with a blank piece of paper in front of her and a pen in her hand, she finds herself frozen. She spent years studying the written word, and used to have such an easy time expressing herself in writing—one more casualty to chess, it seems.
What do you say, to the woman whose husband you borrowed for a year? Whose support system suddenly disappeared out from under her? Who met her husband’s mistress, and instead of hating her, instead of screaming and raging and throwing insults, commiserates with her instead? Florence doesn’t think she would have been that strong.
She makes several false starts. She tries, writing a few sentences, and then throws the paper away and starts again. None of it comes out right. None of it seems sincere enough, heartfelt enough. How does she convince Svetlana she means it? How does she express how sorry she is? That she hopes Svetlana is living a good life, as much as she fears what could have happened when the two of them got home? Florence hasn’t spoken to Anatoly since his return, and he’s never on the news. She can only assume he’s alive, that he’s back with his family now, but how do you come back from something like that? How do you even begin to repair something so badly damaged?
Florence doesn’t know. Maybe you don’t. Maybe they’re separated, maybe Anatoly is alone, maybe he still never sees his children. Or maybe they figured it out—and if they did, does Florence want to know about it? Is it selfish of her, to be writing this in the first place? Is she only doing it for her own peace of mind?
She might be a selfish person. She might have a right to be, after everything she’s been through. But she wants to think this will do something for Svetlana, too, to know that Florence is sorry. That she wishes her and her family well, whatever form that takes.
In the end, the letter isn’t too complicated or long. She’s honest with her apology. She hopes everyone is doing alright—she doesn’t even know the children’s names or how old they are, how awful is that?—and she signs off with love. She folds the sheet up, seals it in an envelope, and makes a phone call.
It isn’t always easy to reach Walter, but Florence knows the right places to try in order of likelihood that he’ll be around, and she doesn’t stop until she tracks him down. He knows better to ignore a call from her.
“It’s been a while,” he greets. “What can I do for you? Getting back in the game?”
“No,” she snaps. She hasn’t played since Bangkok. The thought of it is— “I have something I need from you, and you owe me big time after what you put me through.”
“And what would that be?” Walter asks cautiously. “I’m not making any promises, mind.”
“This should be easy,” Florence says. “I just have a letter I need to make sure gets delivered safely to Russia. Untampered with.”
“To Anatoly?” Walter asks. “You know, he’s—”
“To Svetlana,” Florence says, before he can finish his sentence. She doesn’t want to know. She doesn’t think her heart could take it, whatever it is.
Walter hums thoughtfully. “Well, I think I can do that. It won’t be quick, but I could send it along with someone who’ll be in the area,” he says.
“Will you really?” she demands. “You aren’t just lying to me again?”
Walter chuckles. He doesn’t take her seriously now, but she is fully prepared to make herself a problem for him until he does. “Don’t worry, Florence. Your letter will get to where it needs to go,” he says. “I can’t guarantee a reply, though.”
“That’s fine,” she says. She hadn’t even considered the possibility of a reply—so maybe it was selfishness after all, to want to send off an apology, become absolved of her guilt, and move on with her life.
But if she doesn’t send it, Svetlana will still be there, on the other side of the world, and she won’t know. Florence needs her to know.
“Where should I send it?” she asks.
“You’re still in England, right? Send it to my London office. I’ll be by next week, I’ll pick it up then,” he says. “It’s good to hear from you, Florence. I hope you’re doing well.”
“Fine,” she says shortly.
“Good. By the way, have you heard anything from Freddie?” he asks.
“No,” she says. “Lovely speaking with you, Walter. Goodbye.”
She sends the letter in a second envelope to Global Television. She doesn’t feel the relief she thought she might, when she puts it in her mailbox, or when she sees the postman take it away. But in the end, what she feels doesn’t matter—the deed is done, and she can’t change it or take it back. She just tries not to think about it.
It’s two months later when another letter is dropped in her mailbox, covered in foreign postage, her name printed on it in careful, unpracticed script. Florence’s hands shake as she opens it and pulls out the letter inside.
I don’t blame you for what happened, she says. Thank you for apologizing, she says. I forgive you, she says, and I’m doing fine. And Florence has to wait a few minutes to read the rest of it, because her eyes are blurred with tears.
How could it possibly be this easy for her? How can Svetlana say these things, in what Florence can only assume is genuine honesty? How can she not hold a grudge? Florence can’t even imagine being in her place, but—here in her hands is proof, of a kind. Svetlana says she doesn’t want Florence to worry about them. She wishes her well in return. It feels so immense.
The rest of the letter isn’t long, and is written in the same careful hand of one unused to writing in English. She asks after Florence’s well-being, asks if she’s had any luck in finding her father, which is a kindness almost too much to bear. She speaks of her family’s move to the outskirts of Moscow—“we,” she says, we. Who is we?—and she talks about the bloom of flowers in the fields, out in the country. It is beautiful, she says. I know you aren’t fond of this country, but if one day you ever visit, I hope you will find something to like about it. And the thought of ever visiting is overwhelming, but Florence appreciates the sentiment more than words can say.
But she’ll have to find the words, won’t she? Walter got one letter through safely, and one was returned. Svetlana asked questions—she can’t just not answer them. She doesn’t know how she can possibly follow up a letter like this, but she owes it to Svetlana to try.
Florence wonders, briefly, if Anatoly knows about the exchange. If he saw the letter Florence wrote, or the one that was returned. Inexplicably, the thought makes her stomach knot unpleasantly. Maybe it’s better if he doesn’t know.
She sits at her desk after work the next day, and spends her evening writing her response. She writes three pages, and signs off with an apology at making her read all of it, and drops it in the mail the next morning. This time, she feels something closer to hope. Svetlana’s reply had lifted such a huge weight from her shoulders, she can hardly believe the difference.
Maybe Florence hadn’t deserved forgiveness, but Svetlana saw fit to give it to her anyway. If she wants Florence to continue writing, Florence owes her as many letters as she’s willing to read.