Chapter Text
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It’s time. Margo’s babysitters will be knocking on the door any minute now, here to usher her back to her hotel room, to her life under watchful eyes.
Sergei faces her in Aleida’s living room, his fingers hooked lightly through hers. It is strange, after all these years, to hold his hand, to look into his face and see his care for her worn so openly. She thinks the time and the circumstances should have dulled that affection–he moved on, she knows, or moved forward. He’s married, and she almost smiles to remember how much that once mattered.
She should say goodnight, let him recede into the shadows of Aleida’s house while she leaves. Instead she meets his eyes and asks the thing she wants to know most. “Have you been happy?” Margo says.
The smile that crosses Sergei’s face is gentle but wry. “It has not been a bad life,” he says. No, not so bad. A house, a wife, a job. Safety, the real kind, where accident and age come knocking but the KGB never does.
“And you?” Sergei asks, and Margo shrugs.
“Oh,” she says. “You know Moscow.” She means the cold, she means the politics where one day she is nothing and the next she is everything and tomorrow could bring the gulag or a raise. She means the unexpected joy of sunshine in January, she means her baker and her newspaperman and her tinny piano.
He chuckles, because he is the only person who understands. Isn’t that how it has always been? They are on the opposite sides of this peculiar divide–the place she ran to is the place he fled, but they both found themselves making the best of lives they did not understand and–she knows now–did not truly choose. “I do,” Sergei says.
Maybe the next choices they will make together. Brazil. It would be warmer, at least.
“What now?” Sergei asks, because she told him she would think about it, but did not say yes. She doesn’t know if she can, if she can throw away her life for a second time, even if it is to choose safety. Even if it is to choose him.
She wants to.
Margo smiles, and unhooks her hand from his. She places it on his worn face, so much older than when last she saw him. Time has spent its energy on both of them, but she takes joy in his graying hair. He lived. He lived well, or well enough. That was always the only thing she cared about.
She shifts her hand to his neck and brings herself closer, then leans in and kisses his cheek. His skin is soft under her lips, and she can feel him sigh. His hands brush her waist, just slightly, before Margo steps back.
“I’ll see you soon,” she says and turns toward the door.
***