Book Tour

The FSB used Catherine’s Novosibirsk talks as a way to monitor reactions and refine their message.  They had a winner.  Now was the time to go big.  Catherine would go on a book tour.  She would use Novosibirsk as her starting point and work her way north and south.  She would sell all of Siberia on the new curriculum, then move west.  Moscow and St Petersburg would be much easier to convince if Catherine arrived at the “head” of millions of converts.

They sent her north first.  Tomsk.  She was known there.  She would avoid the eight universities – too many skeptical professors and unmarried women.  But a city of half a million had plenty of business and social organizations.  She would make the rounds.

And she did.  In ten days, she spoke before eighteen groups and sat with four book clubs.  The local library put up a huge display of her books and invited her to sit for tea and autographs.  The main cathedral in town asked her to deliver the weekly homily.  Book stores sold out of her book.  The FSB roughed up a truck driver who did not get a fresh shipment to town in time for autographs.

Catherine was always accompanied by a driver and a guard.  Both were friendly.  Both were armed.  Her last evening in Tomsk they drove her to the museum.  The director came out and joined Catherine in the back seat of the car.

“You have been very successful, Catherine.  You are a gifted speaker.  You have become very popular.  You understand the risks in that, I assume.”

“I might wind up back in your basement.”

“You are asking to change the words in your book.  To leave out the marvelous young love of your daughter.  The book will not be changed.  You will present the book as written.  In this book and all future books, you will present your books as written.  You will smile, you will show enthusiasm.  You will do the work of the FSB.”

“And if they ask to see my daughter?”

“The world is full of little girls.  One can be provided.”

There was a long silence in the back of the car.  Catherine studied the man in the growing darkness.  She thought she saw a resemblance to the inquisitor in the basement.  Had this man been the model?  Or were all bureaucratic killers born with dead eyes?

“I want my own apartment.”

“Tired of Ilya?  Or bored by Victor?”  The man smiled for just an instant, but his eyes never changed.  “We like you where you are.  We like you in orange, and we like you on your back in one bedroom or the other.  It helps remind you of your place in the world.  You will spend your life in Siberia.  Do exactly as you are told, and it will be a long life.”

He left the car.  The driver took her to the airport and back to Ilya.

Ilya waited with a present - a waltz gown in orange satin.  Waltzes across her sitting room now filled their evenings.  Long ruffles to her ankles, the skirt floated as Catherine turned.  A very low, very tight bodice made her breasts bulge against the material as she breathed.  Raised up on four-inch heels Ilya leered down at Catherine as she swept her across the room.

“You are the girl of my dreams, Catherine.”

“Just don’t drool on me.”

Another turn, another sweep of skirts.

“You are to learn more about seduction, Catherine.  We have much to teach you.  Right now, narrow your shoulders and thrust your hips.  Yes, like that.  Make me feel you.  Men don’t want to arm wrestle you; they want to fuck you.”

Ilya grabbed Catherine’s ass and yanked it toward her, slamming their hips together.

“I know what you want.”

“You want it too, Catherine.  I can feel your body heat.  That is good.  Very good.”

Catherine could feel it too.  She kissed Ilya and kept dancing.  Ilya held her close.  Was this her life now?  Days giving talks, afternoons cooking and cleaning, evenings holding each other tight as they danced.  Wife to a woman?

“Ilya, am I yours permanently?  The wife you said you wanted?”

Ilya stopped dancing and just held Catherine.  The music kept playing.  Ilya kissed Catherine and held it.  More to be said.  Catherine waited.  A proposal?  Catherine pressed her hips against Ilya and slid up onto her toes.  She felt some desire for Ilya.  If Ilya was inviting her into some sort of marriage, she was willing.  She would accept. 

Then she noticed tears in Ilya’s eyes.

“You are the girl of my dreams.  But only for two more days.  You will take your book talk south to several cathedrals that interest us.  You will seduce the priests.  They will be easy.  A good start to your training.  And an important link to the church.”

“And then?”

“Moscow and St. Petersburg, of course.  Your school plan is being approved in district after district.  You will get it approved in Moscow.  A few nights with the right men.  All levels of the FSB are in complete agreement.  Girls leave school and marry at sixteen.  They form families.  Our national character is established – families.  Large families.  You will make that happen.”

Catherine wiped tears from Ilya’s eyes and knew the answer to her next question.

“Then I return to you?”

“I would love that, my beauty.  But you have been assigned a new husband.  Widows must remarry.  We will establish that.  You will meet him in Moscow.  A whirlwind romance.  You will adopt two Ukrainian toddlers – they are so cute – and then you will move to a small town east of here.”

“East?”

“East.  A timber town.  Your husband will work in the mill.  You will be home with your toddlers.  You will post a blog, and maybe a podcast about your adventures in the east and the activities of your family.  The perfect mother.  Every year or two there will be a book.”

“In the east.”

“Far to the east.  Thousands of kilometers from Moscow; hundreds of kilometers from a train or airport.  A small town where everyone knows you and sees what you do – and who you talk to.”

“A prison.”

“A comfortable prison.  You will look warm and well fed in your podcasts.  Your children will be happy.  Your husband will keep you satisfied.  We will modify all geocodes and local signage so no one will know which village in the east is yours.  No one will come for you, and you will never leave.  You will raise your children, the ideal Russian wife and mother.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Don’t be stupid, Catherine.”

“Ilya, please.”  Catherine took Ilya’s face in her hands.  “You are FSB.  You are my friend.  Change the orders.  I do Moscow, then I return here.  Siberia.  This Siberia.  Yuri cleaned up this city.  Let me live here.  Your wife.  I will serve you.  I will write books.  I might even teach in one of the schools.  That would work, wouldn’t it?”

Ilya held her.  Her thumb swept away tears she saw on Catherine’s face. 

“They fear you, Catherine.  They want you gone.  East.  Where they put all the people they fear.”

“You are my friend.”

“Yes, I am your friend.  I was not to tell you.  But I wanted you to know this is our last time together.”

Ilya steered Catherine toward the bedroom and pushed her down on their bed.  She held Catherine’s head as she kissed her.

“You are my gift to Mother Russia, Catherine.  I will cry for your loss.  But the decision has been made.  You will be a model to our women.  The perfect Russian wife and mother.  Strong, loving, dutiful.  Russia will treasure your memory.  I will cry.  My wife.  My loss.”

And she did cry as she held Catherine, the two women wrapped up in each other’s arms.