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Anatoly stands awkwardly in the doorway of your flat in London. You aren't quite sure how you feel about having him here. Really, the defection had been so all consuming—the paperwork, the political statements, the logistics—that you had barely stopped to consider what would happen afterwards. You had been so focused on getting him out that you had not stopped to consider that there had to be somewhere for him to run to.
So he stands, hands fidgeting in his pockets even though you have told him you don't care, and looks at the life you have laid out before you. It has been quite some time since you have returned here. Chasing Freddie across the world had given you little time to spend at home, and the bare walls seem almost sterile. Still, it is nicer with company, you can admit that at least.
‘Well this is it. The West,’ you say with an awkward flourishing gesture that you immediately regret. It’s not like Anatoly has never left the Soviet Union, he’s travelled the world playing chess and you are sure that he has been in London many times before. Your flat however, is new to him.
‘It’s a nice flat,’ he tells you, as you show him around, taking his bags to your room. It is not until that moment that it really sets in that you are going to be living together, and from the glance you take at his face he is thinking much the same as you are. You barely know each other. An evening together at a mountain-top restaurant, the defection process, and now you are all he has here. If it had felt impulsive to you, you are sure he is feeling that even more strongly.
‘Well, I suppose it’s your flat as well now,’ you tell him with a shrug. You have never been terribly attached to this space, to give up half is not a sacrifice. ‘It’s a bit small, but it’s mine. Ours.’
You watch as he attempts an unconvincing smile. The flight back from Merano had not been terribly long, but you doubt that he has slept well in days, you know that you haven’t. You put the kettle on—more out of habit, it’s an easy response when you don’t know what to do with someone’s emotions—and sit down across from him at the kitchen table, your hand reaching out towards his. His fingers still their tapping as his hand squeezes yours, and his eyes slip shut. There will be time to think about what this all means later. For tonight, you will drink your tea and then retreat to the bedroom for some fitful sleep. You need these small mercies where you can get them.
The next morning, the big questions still feel too big. The realities of what you have done linger in the corners of your kitchen, waiting to be confronted, but for now you root through your freezer trying to find something to eat after months away. The resulting breakfast is not nice, a whole mess of things, but at least neither of you are hungry anymore. As you eat, the silence that fills the room is not yet comfortable, you suppose that will come in time. Instead it is a little awkward, as though both of you are not quite sure what to say to each other.
In the end it is you who speaks first, ‘We should buy you some clothes.’ You have been thinking since last night about the size of Anatoly’s bag. Right now he is dressed in just a shirt and his boxers at the kitchen table, and you suspect that he only has his suits for the game with him. ‘I need to go and buy some food anyway, but I can take you out to the department store to find some things.’
‘That would be good,’ Anatoly replies. He still seems nervous, as though he is unsure of his place within your flat, in your life. You hope that he can relax soon, or this is going to become a rather awkward living situation. Last night, once you had turned the lights off, you had slung an arm over his waist and felt him melt into you, taking your hand in his own and gently moving his thumb over it as he had drifted off to sleep. In the light of day however, it seems to be harder.
You do not shy away from him in your room as you get dressed, it is nothing he hasn’t seen before and yet he turns away regardless. You hand him one of your jumpers—pale blue, soft and oversized even on him—as you realise that dressing for Merano weather and dressing for London weather are significantly different things. He takes it with gratitude, and you take a moment to admire how happy he seems in your clothes, something to file away for later.
It takes a while to find clothing that Anatoly is happy with, he is picky about textures on his skin, but eventually he picks out a few things and you buy a new jumper under the pretence of it being for you, knowing full well that you plan to give it to him when you return home.
You walk hand in hand, clothes in one bag, food in another, trying your best to point out some of the sights of the city to Anatoly. You are starting to think that you would make a particularly bad tour guide.
‘It’s okay Florence, you don’t need to tell me all of this. Let’s talk about more interesting things,’ he tells you as you stumble over trying to remember when they built London Bridge, and you gratefully lapse into conversation about the various countries you have travelled to for the sake of chess. At times it feels like you are skirting around dangerous topics, but you cannot avoid the game completely. It is the centre of both of your lives, the unspoken third presence between you.
There is a park near your flat, and you stop to sit on a bench for a bit, not quite yet ready to confront the life that you are trying to build together in there. The trees are in bloom, but the wind is still bitingly cold and you let yourself lean into Anatoly’s side a little as a shiver runs through you.
‘I think I am going to like it here,’ he tells you, wrapping an arm around you, engulfing you in the warmth of your own jumper. ‘Thank you Florence.’
You are not quite sure what he is thanking you for, the defection? The place to stay? Your presence? But you lean up to kiss him, and the chill in the air seems to subside a little as a warmth rushes through you. You are going to build something together here; your flat will no longer sit empty and alone. The thought that it will be with Anatoly, as rushed as this has all been so far, reassures you. You have time now, you can slow down and take stock before racing onwards, but this, you know, is right.