Melina's Pigs and Pavlov's Dogs
Yelena rose and turned on her heel in the same breath, brushing off Melina's hand from her shoulder. "Don't touch me," she barely managed to say around a throat squeezed tight. She stormed away from the dinner table, and flung open the door enough so that it slammed itself shut on the way back.
She didn't know what was worse: Alexei having the nerve to declare themselves a family, or Melina denouncing it as a ruse.
Yelena didn't want to be within sight and earshot of anyone in that house. She didn't want to be around another human being, for that matter. Her shoes kicked up dust from the brisk stride she put on. Soon she found herself in the backyard and at the sty, where Melina kept her pigs. They peered up at Yelena from behind the wire fence, noses twitching in time with their grunts. At their wet, dark gazes, she felt her heart melt a little.
She was in no mood for company, but the company of animals suited her just fine. She had always liked animals, being around them and learning about them. Shelves of stuffed toys, enough to make a zoo out of her bedroom, and long nights of watching Nature on PBS made up her childhood. Animals didn't play tricks on you, lie to you, or stab you in the back and twist the knife, to make sure it really hurt. They wouldn't do that even if they knew how. For that, animals were better than people sometimes, Yelena thought.
One of the pigs poked its nose through the gap in the fence, its eyes alight with curiosity. That invited her to squat down and reach out with a hand. "Hello there," she said softly.
The pig thrust its nose into her fingers, sniffing at her palm. Yelena cracked a smile. "Hey, that tickles!" She stroked its snout and glanced over at the other pigs either resting or shuffling nearby. There were nine total, the largest among them having the telltale black-and-white coat Yelena recognized. She whistled at it, beckoning with a curl of fingers wet from damp pig nose.
"Alexei, come here, boy."
Maybe that wasn't right. Maybe she needed that fancy tablet Melina carried around. But she wanted a dog so badly that she had read up a crapton on them—more than what was necessary, probably—so she called to the pig like she would to a dog. To her delight, Alexei met her eyes, perked his floppy ears, and shuffled over.
Yelena ran her palm under his thick, hairy jowl. "Good boy, you are so smart." She looked over him with the same scrutiny a vet would have over a sick pet. He didn't seem to behave any differently than the other pigs, at least by her amateur judgment. He wasn't wheezing or gasping for air. He seemed fine, and pigs couldn't talk, but she just had to ask: "Are you really all right? Mama Melina did a very mean thing to you, didn't she?"
"She sure did."
Yelena started at the sound of Natasha's voice just behind her. "What do you want?" She kept her back to Natasha and glared at the dirt inside the sty. "I came out here to get away from all of you."
She can just hear Natasha raising an eyebrow. "I came out here to check on Alexei. On all the pigs, really."
"You and me both," Yelena muttered. They had just seen how one pig was forced to stop breathing on command. Safe to assume that the rest were trained the same way.
Natasha knelt down beside Yelena and reached out to gently pat the pig on the head. Alexei squinted his eyes, basking in the extra attention. "He looks pretty chipper for something that was seconds away from croaking."
"Tell me about it," Yelena said dryly.
The shared horror and disbelief of what they had just witnessed during lunch comfortably settled between them like an invisible bridge. Pigs were among the most intelligent, empathetic animals in the world. They were even smarter than dogs. At least, that was what Yelena remembered from the farm animals special on Nature. But Natasha didn't have to know that to speak up when enough was enough, to stop the poor pig from suffering any longer. Neither of them were foaming-at-the-mouth animal rights activists, but the sight of a pig being asphyxiated, just to prove a scientific point, didn't sit well in their stomachs.
Natasha continued to stroke the pig's head. "I wonder how many times she's done that to them before."
"I don't want to know," Yelena replied. She straightened up and peered down at the other pigs. "So this was what Melina's been doing all these years...her newest pet project..." She pointed at the rust-colored pig, which slept under the shade at the opposite corner of the sty. "Look at the hair on that one. Looks kind of like yours, huh?"
"What are you saying?" Natasha rolled her eyes. "You think that one's named after me or what?"
"Actually, that's Mendeleev."
Yelena and Natasha whirled around to Melina clumping toward them in mud-caked boots. They tensed under her stare.
"What do you want?" This time Natasha was the one to spring the question.
Melina raised a free hand in defense. "I'm coming out to feed the pigs." Her other hand was gloved and lugging a hefty bucket. With both hands she tipped the top towards them. "Just some wheat and barley. Grew and harvested the grains myself." She raised a dark eyebrow. "You look like I'm going to feed them human heads or something."
Yelena wasn't amused at her morbid attempt at a joke. Neither was Natasha.
Nevertheless, the younger women parted to let Melina through. The pigs cluttered by the fence even before she whistled at them.
"Here, my darlings, your lunch," she called.
She didn't enter the sty, but stayed outside it to pour the feed one by one into nine funnel-like devices fixed to the rails. Food didn't automatically pour all the way down. A latch at the bottom kept it back. Further down were pads covered in several colorful buttons. That didn't seem to stop any of the pigs. With their split hooves, they pressed on the button that released the latch. They didn't hold down the button indefinitely, mindlessly, but actually pressed down just enough for a reasonable amount of feed to fill their troughs. Yelena and Natasha leaned over the rail, fighting but failing to restrain the impressed look on their faces.
"Not only can they feed themselves, I have trained them to know just how much food is enough for one sitting." Undisguised pride tinged Melina's voice as she watched her pigs eat their fill. "If I wanted, though, my control of their basal ganglia can supersede their hypothalamus. I can override the hormonal pathways that regulate satiety and appetite. I can force them to eat until they burst, or I can make them starve until they are skin and bones. But poor health makes for test subjects that don't last long, and I'd like to run my tests for as long as possible."
Yelena and Natasha didn't know what to say to that, partly because they didn't get the entirety of the science spiel, and partly because that detached, calculated, almost cold side of Melina peeked through the cracks once more to send a shiver up the spine.
She wasn't one to simply spoonfeed her charges. They had to think hard and work hard for the food. Along the way, she could collect valuable, pertinent data on those brain cells that kept firing away for her sake as much as the pigs'. Melina, ever the scientist.
In the brief three years they had posed as a family, she had always pushed the girls to do well in school, especially in science. She expected nothing less than As. Maybe one or two Bs was permissible. But As in science was a must. Yelena and Natasha used to admire their mother's intellect. She seemed to always have an answer for any question they had. Now, with the memory of a choking pig branded in their minds, it chilled them to the bone.
Melina looked away from the pigs and between her former daughters, finally seeming to notice how somber and subdued they had become. Warmth seeped back into her voice. "I didn't get a chance to introduce you to the other pigs, didn't I? Well, you already know Alexei. The red one's Mendeleev, as I said, and that's Botkin, Pirogov, Zhukovsky, Lavilov, Metchnikoff, Popov, and Zworykin."
Yelena's head spun like that tea cup ride in Disney World. "I don't know any of those names."
Melina clucked her tongue with disappointment. "Ay, Yelena, you should. You used to eat up all those science shows on PBS."
"Animals are more interesting than people."
That made Melina laugh. "You used to say that when you were little. Some things just don't change."
Yelena didn't smile back. She stared down at her hands. Hands covered in the blood of countless targets and victims. She couldn't see the redness of it, but it stuck. It stuck to her so much that all the hand-washing in the world couldn't shake off the terrible feel of it. The animal-loving girl she used to be under the sham she had called a family, and the stone-cold killer she had become in the place she was destined for...what was the real her and what wasn't? What really changed and what stayed the same? She didn't know anymore.
An uncomfortable, tense silence settled among them, like a rubber band stretched out too tight. Natasha was the first to break it. "You didn't have to do that, you know. Choke the pig."
"I didn't think that would upset you so much," Melina replied. "Alexei had—"
"Eleven more seconds to go without oxygen, we know. But still."
"Did you know that anesthesia makes you stop breathing, too? Those drugs put you in what's basically a paralyzing reversible coma, and that's why you're hooked up to a machine that breathes for you. No one's really told that, but that's what happens. You might as well be mad at the anesthesiologists for the same reason. Besides, I wouldn't bring in Alexei to make him die right in the middle of lunch. I'm not that heartless."
"Well, you were responsible for the trafficking and chemical subjugation of hundreds of innocent girls around the world, so."
Natasha's rebuttal made Melina say nothing. Yelena wouldn't meet her eyes, but she heard the older woman suck in a breath like she'd been stung. Alexei was the first to finish his food. He trotted over to beseech them for more scratches and pats on the head. Yelena knelt down and reached a hand through the wires to indulge him. She couldn't help laughing a little. "You're a messy eater, Alexei. You got some food stuck on your chin." She picked at the tidbits of wheat and barley off his round face.
She straightened up and kept her gaze on Alexei, though she addressed Melina next. "You made the pig stop breathing, you put us through the Red Room...just because we all turned out fine now doesn't make it right."
When Melina finally spoke up, her voice was just as quiet. "You two have done what I couldn't. You kept your hearts. For that, I'm very proud of you both. And I'm sorry."
Yelena looked up. The sincere pride and contrition in Melina's reply matched what was written on her face.
"I don't expect you to forgive me. Maybe you never will. Whatever you decide is fine by me, and I really mean that. It's your choice. Neither of you got much of those at all, and that's my fault. You can hate me for the rest of your life, and I could say that I deserve it."
Natasha rested her hand over Melina's, and much of the simmering anger from before had left her now. "Help us take down the Red Room. That's the choice you get to make."
Melina pulled her hand away and fixed her gaze to her boots. "I'm in too deep. I've been cycled through the Red Room four times, before you two were even born. Those walls were all I've ever known." Her gaze wandered next to Metchnikoff and Pirogov, the smallest pigs. They chased each other around the sty, their large ears flopping. "I'm lower than these pigs, really. At least they've learned how to come and go about my place as they please. I'm a mouse stuck in a cage, and all I knew was to spin on a little wheel. So when I got to leave that little wheel, and I had the chance to raise you two...even if it was pretend, even if it was only for three years, I..." She trailed off and passed the back of her hand over her eyes. "I wanted it to be real. I wished it could last. I didn't want to go back to the cage, but I wasn't strong enough, and you girls suffered for it..."
The squeak of hinges and latches cut her short, and the gate to the sty swung open. Alexei stepped through to rub his face against Melina's leg. The corner of her lips pulled up and she knelt down to scratch behind his ear. "See what I mean? They can open and close doors just as we humans can. These pigs, they're so smart."
It wasn't just the doors, Yelena thought. Alexei must have sensed that Melina was upset, so he stepped out to comfort her in his own way.
"I have to hand it to you," Natasha said to Melina, "those pigs look happy and healthy. You've been taking good care of them."
"You took good care of us too," Yelena said softly. "I meant it when I said that you were my mother—the closest thing to one, anyway. It's not too late, Melina. I know it's not easy to do the right thing, but you're strong. Strong and smart. Maybe you can't fight your way through with brute force, not like Crimson Dipshit back there, but you can figure something out. I know you have it in you to do some good in this world for a change."
"Thank you, Yelena." Melina looked up at the overcast sky, almost to say "God give me strength," then looked back down with a slight shake of her head. She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I...I'll try."
Natasha grinned. "That's good enough for us. Thank you."
"Don't thank me just yet." Then Melina reached out to pinch Yelena's arm. "And watch your language. I don't know where you picked that up, but it wasn't under my watch."
Yelena pursed her lips to keep from smiling. "Sorry, Mama."
Melina gently ushered Alexei back into the sty. A playful light flickered in her dark eyes. "Now if you will excuse me, there's another Alexei I must attend to."
After years of hard labor on the farm, Melina barely felt the weight of her boots. But after talking to Yelena and Natasha, those boots felt heavier than ever, so she felt more like trudging than walking. Maybe Natasha had some inkling of it, but Melina doubted that the girls knew just how hard it was to get out those two words.
"I'll try." That was like being told to stop breathing on command. It went against her instincts, her nature, the psychological conditioning seared into every fiber of her being. No, she hadn't forced Alexei into apnea just for the hell of it. She did it to prove just how dangerous Dreykov was for having command on free will, and for pulling the strings of this whole sick operation. She did it to send out a warning, to tell the girls that there was no way they could win.
Instead, that seemed to make them even more sure of wanting to see the Red Room burn. Their determination took her aback, and their show of heart soundly put her to shame. However they managed to keep their hearts, it wasn't on her watch.
She stowed away the bucket in the shed, and leaned her back against the wooden frame of it. She felt a tension headache creeping in. She untied her braids, let down her hair, and rubbed a palm over her face. Twenty years of mistakes, guilt, and regrets came crashing down on her all at once. She felt like curling up in this shed to cry. Instead, she squared her shoulders, schooled her features into cool composure, and went back in the house.
She walked in to find that Alexei had cleared half the food off the table since she left. Most people would have been impressed, but Melina had seen him pack away easily twice or three times as much. Half the food was left only because he could barely fit in that Red Guardian suit already.
"The girls have been away for a while, and so were you...I didn't know when you were coming back, so..."
She smiled at how he sounded like a kid being caught with his hand in the cookie jar. "No, it's all right. What good is food sitting out?" She retook her spot next to him, trying not to smile at how much he sulked in his chair. His arms folded tightly over his chest made his belly poke out even more. "Why the long face, Alyosha?"
Being addressed by his affectionate nickname didn't faze him. "I can't get over how you named a pig after me," he grumbled.
"It's a compliment," she assured him. "Scientists don't hand out names like free flyers. We give them like badges of honor."
He didn't look convinced. "But a pig, Melina? Are you kidding me? Couldn't you have named one of your guns after me or something?"
"The pigs are my life's work, my pride and joy. Pavlov, that psychologist, he had his dogs, yeah? Well, I have my pigs." She leaned toward him and pulled out her tablet, to which he looked over and groaned.
"Really, Melina, you want to show me a whole photo album of them?"
"Of course," she said, as if having a third of her tablet's memory dedicated to pictures and videos of her pigs was the most natural thing in the world. Alexei slumped in his chair, trapped by his tight suit and full belly, so nothing could stop him from the onslaught of pig pictures.
"Mendeleev, developed the periodic table of elements. Pirogov, founder of field surgery, one of the first surgeons to use ether as an anesthetic. Pavlov, developed the theory of classical conditioning and, as everyone knows, tested this on dogs. Metchnikoff, founder of gerontology and immunology. Botkin, introduced triage, pathology, and postmortem diagnostics into Russian medical practice. Zhukovsky, kickstarted aeronautics in Russia and the study of modern hydrodynamics. Zworykin, a pioneer in television, inventor of the cathode ray tube. Vavilov, distinguished botanist and geneticist who identified the centers of origin in cultivated plants. And last but not least: Popov, a pioneer in the application of electromagnetic waves and radio reception."
Alexei rolled his eyes. "All very important men, all distinguished contributors to Soviet science. Then there's me, the deadbeat, washed up superhero of a bygone era."
Melina frowned at him. "You're missing the point here. I've named all my pigs after men I admire, but there's only one I've named after the man I'm most fond of."
Surely he couldn't have missed that of all the names for the pigs, his was the only given name among the other surnames. First name basis, the implied intimacy and closeness of such a thing, meant a great deal in their culture. Yet Alexei stared at her with stunned disbelief.
"Melina, you really mean that?" he said softly.
She looked down at her lap. "I...I've missed you a lot since we parted ways. Naming one of my pigs after you helped get me through the loneliness of living all the way out here."
Alexei reached out to rest his hand on her cheek. "I came back, I'm here now. You're not alone, not anymore."
She smiled. "Yes, I have the girls to thank for that." Her smile faded and she leaned a little against his touch. "We've done them so much wrong, so much harm. Suppose we help them find the Red Room and bring it down...can that ever make up for what we've done?"
"I don't know, Melina. But for their sake, and yours, we can try."
She almost envied him for how easily he could say that. "Can we get back to what we once had in Ohio? Am I wrong to wish for that?" Her voice shook. "I didn't want to go."
Sometimes, on top of feeling like a mouse, she felt like one of Pavlov's dogs—subject to classical conditioning, with no choice but to respond to the stimulus drilled into her. The bell rings, the dog learns to associate that with food, so it salivates. Dreykov binds her to every facet of his being—his voice, the sight of him, even his pheromones—so that when he gives an order, she ties that to utmost obedience and is bent to his every whim.
Dreykov had set her loose to play the stray dog, but not for long. When the time came for him to blow the whistle, she had no choice but to run back to his side, like the good dog she was trained to be. She hated that about herself. She wanted to break free.
Alexei rose from his chair with considerable effort and a loud grunt to envelop her in a big bear hug. "I used to think those three years were so boring. Now I know better. Those were the best three years of my life, better than all those years as the Red Guardian put together. I want that back, too."
Melina dug her fingers into the thick fabric of his suit and buried her face into his broad chest, to hide how close she was to the verge of tears.
"You were a better parent for them than I ever was," he went on. "I've been a shit father."
"Well, it's not too late," she managed to say. She pulled back to meet his eyes, and she wrinkled her nose. "I think I know where Yelena got her language from."
Alexei put on a face of mock hurt. "Hey, that's not fair. I've been in prison the whole time. She must've gotten it from somewhere else."
That made Melina chuckle. "Social media, probably. Kids these days, always on their phones."
Alexei brushed his fingers under her chin, and a devilish light flitted across his eyes. "Speaking of prison, I meant it when I said I have a lot of energy."
"Enough to last the whole night?"
"Is that a challenge?"
Her voice dipped to an alluring whisper. "I'm just very eager to find out."
They continued their flirting banter from the dining room to her bedroom. Melina was perfectly serious about her and Alexei playing their roles to perfection, right down to what all healthily married couples enjoyed most. Twenty years apart fell away within a matter of seconds as Melina led him by the hand down the little hallway.
In the middle of sneaking kisses along her cheek and neck, Alexei pulled back and stopped for a moment. "The girls—"
"Are big girls," Melina said with a wave of her hand. "They can take care of themselves. They can wait outside with the pigs."
That was an invitation for him to hold nothing back. He swept Melina off her feet with gusto, carrying her bridal style across the threshold. Her laughter quickly mingled with his. The only times she ever swore was in bed. Alexei looked determined to get twenty years worth of it out of her.
Red-orange fingers of a Russian sunset began to stretch through the sky, breaking up the curtain of overcast clouds. Natasha and Yelena had been spending time with each other and the pigs, whose charm they found too much to resist.
Yelena straightened up from kneeling down to pet the pigs. "I didn't eat a lot. I'm getting hungry again. I wonder what Melina's doing for dinner."
Natasha started to head back with her. Though they matched in stride, she was the older, more seasoned agent, and her hearing was sharper. As soon as she heard the telltale noises of what went on inside the house, the bedroom to be exact, she spun on her heel.
"Nope, I'll be waiting out here."
Yelena frowned. "What are you—" Then she stopped in her tracks and actually clapped hands to her ears, but it was too late. The damage was done. She heard it, too. "Eugh, disgusting!" She spun around to throw Natasha an indignant glare. "A little warning would've been nice!"
Natasha couldn't fight back a snicker. "Hey, it's on you for not paying attention."
Yelena joined her on the way back to the pig sty in record speed. Natasha fluidly ducked a jab aimed at her, but couldn't dodge the next one. They laughed as they tussled with each other.
Yelena leaned on the rail, breathless from laughter and fair hair slightly disheveled. "I'm not hungry anymore. I would rather starve than go back inside."
"Same," Natasha said. She threw a glance back at the house, and went on in a low voice, "How many times do you think they've done that right under our noses, when we were kids?"
Yelena looked horrified. "I don't want to know." She shook her head. "What's it with you and asking the worst kind of questions?"
Natasha noticed how she tried to fight back a smile. It seemed like Yelena wanted to hang on to these moments as much as she did. When things would go down and get serious, once they take on Dreykov and the Red Room, who knew what would happen next, if she would ever get to see her first family again?
These moments were like fireflies—beautiful but fleeting, brilliant pinpoints of light one moment but gone the next.
I have a background in anesthesia and am a science nerd myself, so naturally I like Melina a lot (you can tell, right?). Part of what I do for a living is what Melina did to pig Alexei, make patients stop breathing on their own for surgery, but I do that with erm, special gases and drugs, not mind control.