"Irina, get your nose out of that book and come eat!"
"I'm almost finished." Irina turns the page.
"Irina!"
Irina recognizes that note in her mother's voice, and she knows better than to push her luck. Slipping a scrap of paper between the pages to mark her place, Irina gets off the bed and heads for the kitchen. She stops in the doorway, surprised to see Elena there. ever since Elena graduated from the Academy, she's been scarce at home.
"Elenka's home," Katya announces unnecessarily.
"Hello, Lena." Irina smiles and steps forward to kiss her sister.
"Rishka." Elena wraps her arms around Irina. "You're taller."
Irina shrugs and breaks the embrace to sit on the chair next to Elena. She's always been closer to Katya than Elena, and since Elena joined the Academy there's been something different about her. Irina doesn't know what it is, but she knows that their relationship has changed as well.
This new Elena scares her a little, but Irina will never tell anyone that. She knows she's not supposed to be scared of her own sister.
"How's school?" Elena asks.
Irina shrugs again. "Fine."
"I've been hearing good things about you." Elena smiles and winks. "You're going to make a good Party member one day."
"Lena, she's only ten. She doesn't need to worry about that for a while yet." Mama places a bowl of soup in front of Irina. "Besides, Irina wants to be a writer one day, isn't that right?"
Irina stirs her soup, waiting for it to cool. "Maybe."
"I'm going to be an actress," Katya says. "Irina can write my plays."
Elena shakes her head. "It's hard to believe we're related."
"Maybe you were swapped at birth," Katya says. "I've heard that happens."
"Maybe you're the one who was swapped." Elena's smile is saccharine sweet, and obviously fake.
"You do whatever makes you happy," Mama says as she sits down. "Just because Papa, Elena and I joined the KGB doesn't mean that I expect you two to join as well."
"Of course," Elena adds. "By all means, be a starving writer and a poor actress. Mama and I will take care of you."
"Elena." There's a warning in Mama's voice, but Elena ignores it.
"You should be serving your country," she says.
"Enough, Elena. Katya is fourteen, Irina is ten; they're children. Leave them be."
Elena falls silent, but her expression is mutinous. Irina glances at Katya who, surprisingly, is silent.
"This is good soup, Mama," Irina says after a while, desperate to break the tension.
Mama smiles, but the atmosphere at the table is still cool, and Irina is relieved when the meal is finished and she can escape to the bedroom and her book.
She already knows that she doesn't want this for the rest of her life, this cramped flat and never enough food. Her books have shown her another life, a better life, and Irina knows there's more than this.
There's a world of possibilities awaiting her.