Page 5 of The Fire Beneath the Frost

I wanted to ask why he’d come.I wanted to ask what came next.But the words didn’t rise.I just walked beside him, our footsteps echoing in unison as the frost bit deeper into my hands and face, and the city I no longer belonged to swallowed us whole.

Outside the station, the city pressed in—flat and gray, sky and pavement indistinguishable under the low, bloated clouds.The air smelled like coal smoke and wet stone.Somewhere in the distance, a dog barked, then another.Street vendors sold newspapers and boiled sausages from rusted carts, their voices hoarse from cold and exhaustion.

And then I saw it.

A car.Not just any car.A Lada Samara.Sky-blue, though the color looked dull beneath the layer of grime and road salt.Its compact frame and dented bumper made it look almost shy among the drab bulk of Soviet architecture, like a child trying to dress up for a funeral.

“You got a car?”I said, not bothering to hide the disbelief in my voice.

My father grunted, the universal sign of affirmation in his personal dialect.He pulled a key from his coat pocket, inserted it into the driver’s side, and with a firm twist of his wrist and shoulder, popped the doors open.

“Get in,” he said.

I climbed in beside him.Places on the dashboard were cracked, a rubber band held the glove box shut, and a strip of electrical tape covered a long, branching fracture on the passenger window.

“Seriously,” I said, fastening the seatbelt, “how’d you get this?”

He started the engine, which wheezed like an old man clearing his throat.“I’m Chief Logistics Coordinator for the regional transportation division now.”He said it flat, like he wasn’t sure the title meant anything.“Party decided I could have a car.”

A pause settled in, heavy and strange.

It wasn’t the car, really.Or the job title.It was that I couldn’t remember the last time we had talked.Not like this.Not like two people trying.

I looked at him sideways, at the deep lines etched into his face, at the scar above his right eyebrow he’d never told me the story of.

For just a moment, a flash of something passed through me.A wish, maybe.That things between us had been different.That he’d ever told me anything about himself, or asked about me, or been more than a silent, looming presence who smelled of machine oil and sweat.

But this was how it had always been.Distant.Functional.Like we were two men running the same machine, but never at the same time.

“Where’s Mama?”I asked, adjusting the heater vent, so it stopped blowing warm dust into my eyes.“I thought she’d be picking me up.”

“She wanted to cook you a special dinner.”

We pulled away from the train station and into traffic, which was already snarling with the end-of-shift crush.Buses and trucks belched smoke into the air, and every crosswalk was clogged with bundled figures moving like sluggish insects.A dull clanging echoed down the avenue—a trolley bell, I thought—and somewhere nearby, someone was playing a tinny cassette of Alla Pugacheva.

We passed a sprawling brick building surrounded by chain-link fencing, where a sea of workers in thick coats spilled from the doors like water breaching a dam.

“There,” my father said, jerking his chin at it.“You start Monday.It’s a blanket factory.”

“A blanket factory?”I echoed, eyebrows raised.

He didn’t look at me.“Could be worse.Could’ve been sewage maintenance.Or collecting animal carcasses from the train tracks.Or washing out chemical drums in Vyborg.You want one of those jobs?”

I sat back and let out a small breath.“No.No, this is fine.Blankets sound… soft.”

Traffic had come to a crawl, vehicles bumper to bumper like dominoes waiting to fall.The windshield wipers squeaked against the glass, spreading streaks of brown slush in uneven arcs.My father tapped the wheel with his fingers.Not impatiently, just… absentmindedly.And then he turned his head toward me, and for the first time in what felt like years, I swore he looked happy.

Well.Happy for Papa, that is.

He caught me looking and raised one eyebrow.“What?”

I hesitated.“Something’s changed.You’re… different.”

“I’m fifty-seven,” he said after a moment.“Been with the Party since I was seventeen.Never asked for much.Never made trouble.Now it’s paying off.They gave us a new apartment.”

I blinked.“New apartment?”

“Two bedrooms,” he said.“So you won’t be sleeping on the couch anymore.”

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