Chapter Two

"Order is power." — Henri Frederic Amiel

The Red Room, 1990

Together they formed two long lines, fourteen girls in each. They shared one large shower room and while one line went left, the other went right. Of the seven showers on each side, seven girls would go in while seven girls would brush their teeth. When the seven showered girls emerged, the other seven would take their place and the process would be reversed. They had no clothes and no towels. Those were waiting back in their rooms for them, folded after the previous night's laundering. Laundry happened twice a week but sometimes only once if the maids were instructed to leave it be. Dirty clothes were a punishment. And the girls tried to avoid punishments.

When they were finished, the girls would once again form their two long lines of fourteen girls each and were escorted back to their rooms. There were four girls to a room, often of various ages. They were not all far apart in age but sometimes a few years separated them. Natalia was one of the two youngest. She and Marta, one of her roommates, were only six.

Natalia dressed quickly, adjusting her uniform so that it was free of any wrinkles. They were given knee-length shorts, a short-sleeved collared blouse, and a red neckerchief that was to be tied exactly as taught. Girls here did not wear skirts as they were considered impractical. Their blouses were white and their shorts were beige. They were given plain white socks and black penny loafers. For physical training, the girls wore entirely different uniforms but during the rest of the day, they were expected to look neat and tidy. When Natalia finally slipped on her shoes, Marta was by her side, waiting for her to be ready.

Together, they left the room and fell into line with the other girls. They were on their way to breakfast, where they would have twenty minutes to eat and socialize. Socializing was kept to a minimum, only to be used to discuss their lessons or training. Behind her, Marta tugged on a damp lock of Natalia's hair.

"I heard from Yelena that there might be sausage tonight," Marta whispered.

Natalia stiffened. They weren't allowed to talk in line. She turned her head slightly, hushing Marta.

"Be quiet or they'll hear you."

Marta looked down at the floor, silencing herself. Natalia felt bad for talking to her friend like that. Marta was her friend, or at least, the closest thing to a friend that they could have here. One day, they would be enemies too. All the girls would. Only one girl would come out on top in the end, even if they all took their place as assassins for the KGB. In the end, only one would earn the true Black Widow title. Natalia knew that it would never be her. She was small and she was weak. But she was obedient so she would survive.

But Marta's words had caught her attention. Yelena was nine and the unofficial leader of the other girls. She was charismatic and persuasive, even at her young age. She knew how to frighten the other girls just as well as she could comfort them. Natalia didn't like her. She could be cruel and then sweet in a blink of the eye. Natalia would not fall for such trickery. But she wondered if Yelena was right. Sausage would be a treat. The Red Room rarely gave out rewards — surviving the week without a cut or bruise was a reward itself — but sometimes there were nights where dinner was something nice like sausage or fresh vegetables.

Or perhaps they simply did not want the girls to starve. Dead girls would be of no use to them. Natalia straightened as she passed one of their instructors, a harsh woman with a gaze of steel. She often watched Natalia specifically. It was unnerving. It was as if she knew exactly what Natalia was thinking. Natalia squared her shoulders and kept her expression guarded. Out of the corner of her eye, she thought she saw her instructor nod.

In the cafeteria, they lined up for their meals. This morning was some concoction that Natalia could barely identify. There was bread and milk and… it looked like kasha but Natalia couldn't be entirely certain. But it was food and she could hear her stomach growling. She glanced around in horror, hoping no one else heard it as well. She took her tray and found a seat at a nearby table, alone. Natalia was like that — she didn't want to get to know any of the other girls. One day, they would all be enemies, she always reminded herself. There was no reason to get close.

But Marta came and sat down with her anyways. Marta was a small, doe-eyed girl — even smaller than Natalia. She always wore her plain, brown hair in two long braids and her face was covered in soft freckles. She always had a kind expression on her face, one that Natalia pitied. Marta would not last long. But she was Natalia's only friend and so she never said anything about it.

Marta came to the Red Room a month after Natalia. Both the girls were too young to start training right away but that did not mean they did not have their lessons. Together, they took classes in English, mathematics, and ballet. The other girls did too, but they were already farther ahead. Marta and Natalia stuck together and when Marta struggled, Natalia helped her. At first, the instructors let them be. They were too young to understand the importance of surviving on their own but they would learn quickly. For the first year, the girls were inseparable. When Natalia cried at night, Marta would come to her bed and hug her. When Marta cried, Natalia did the same.

But when the punishments came, it stopped. Natalia no longer cried but Marta did. When Marta cried, Natalia pretended that she was asleep. By the time she turned four years old, she knew that affection was a weakness. There would be no one to hold her when she cried, only a slap to the face. One night, when Marta's sobs were too loud, Natalia got up and hit her too. She didn't see the night matron in the doorway, watching with silent approval. Natalia immediately felt the shame in what she had done but she didn't apologize. She simply crawled back into bed and went back to sleep. When morning came, neither girl spoke of what happened. In fact, it was never spoken of again. But from then on, Marta listened when Natalia spoke. Natalia was in charge and that was that.

Natalia ate her breakfast in silence while Marta rambled on about their ballet classes. The instructors insisted that the girls take ballet. It was to develop strength and discipline. Most of all, it taught subtlety and finesse. If they could dance like a prima ballerina, they could kill with the grace of an artist. Once, Natalia had thought that it was sickening. But she loved to dance. And now it was her favourite lesson of the day. An hour of dance in the morning and an hour of dance in the evening. No matter what else happened during the day, she could always look forward to dancing. If her feet hurt, she endured. If she fell, Natalia got back up. She was the best dancer of all twenty-eight girls.

After dancing, they always had their daily English lessons. Sometimes they watched English language films and cartoons. Natalia was fond of the Disney ones, especially Snow White. The first time she had seen it, the nightmare scene had frightened her. But now it no longer bothered her. Fear was a weakness that she could not give into, especially from a film. There were worse monsters in the world and some of them were the same girls that she saw everyday.

Today they were learning the American Pledge of Allegiance. All American children her age knew it and now so would she. Together, each girl recited it, over and over, until it was memorized. It was short and not difficult to remember, Natalia thought. One by one, each girl was asked to recite it by themselves, in flawless American English. When it was Natalia's turn, she swallowed nervously. Her Russian accent always escaped her when she spoke English. This time it wouldn't, she promised herself. She would sound like a true American girl.

The instructor came forward to stand in front of Natalia. It was the same woman from before, with the steel eyes and permanent frown, who loomed over Natalia. Natalia tried not to feel intimidated as she began.

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all," she recited precisely in English.

Natalia swallowed again. She knew it had not been perfect. One again, she could hear her Russian accent slipping through. She had started off well but the further along she got, the more her training slipped. She winced when her instructor glared down upon her.

"Is that what you call an American accent, Natalia?" Usually they only spoke English in this room but when their instructor got angry, she always spoke Russian. "Answer me! In English!"

"No, ma'am," Natalia responded quietly, although she stood tall and unwavering.

This time, her accent did not slip.

Their instructor paced in front of Natalia and she could feel all the other girls' eyes on her. If this were America, she was certain the other girls would have laughed at her. Often they saw photographs and films of American students in their colourful classrooms. They had no discipline or rules. When teachers saw a student misbehaving, they gave them warnings instead of punishments. Those children looked happy and free but Natalia knew they were only naïve and stupid. They would never survive here if they were in the Red Room.

"Come here, Natalia."

Natalia froze at those words. The instructor was at her desk in the front of the classroom and Natalia walked stiffly forward. She knew what was coming. If they were to be punished, it was done in front of all of the other girls. If they cried, they would be punished again for all to see. That was their warning in the Red Room. They did not get off with only a couple of words. They watched their peers' punishments and promised themselves that they would do well enough to avoid their own.

Natalia held out her hand, as if someone had pulled the strings of puppet and forced her to obey. She could already see the ruler on the desk and she steeled herself for what was to happen next. She would not cry, not like she used to. Natalia no longer cried, that was a rule. For as long as she lived, Natalia swore that she would never cry again.

The ruler came down quickly and if Natalia focused hard enough, she could almost ignore the pain as the skin across her knuckles cracked and bled. The skin around them would be dark and bruised for several days. She counted in her head each time the ruler came down. Odin, dva, tri, chetyre... pyat'… and then it was over and Natalia had not shed a tear or made even one sound. Her instructor pulled a hankerchief from the desk drawer and handed it to Natalia, who grasped it with shaky hands. Without a word, she returned to her desk, dabbing at her bleeding knuckles with the hankerchief until she was satisfied that they would not bleed anymore. She would clean and bandage them later. In the past, Marta helped her. Now Natalia did it by herself.

By supper, Natalia had wrapped her hands and the pain was only minimal. An infirmary nurse had come to check on her but did not offer any help. In the Red Room, the infirmary was only to be used in the case of an emergency or more brutal punishments. While the nurses were required to check on the girls, they did not have to offer any sort of aid for minor injuries.

"Young girls must learn to withstand pain," the headmistress of the Red Room had said to Natalia when she had first arrived there. "Without pain, you will be weak and coddled. We will not raise weak and coddled girls. If you cannot withstand pain, you will die."

Natalia had been too young to understand then. Now she did.

She took her supper to her usual table. Tonight it was a bland mixture of potatoes, bread, some sort of meat that looked more like boiled leather, and hot tea. Yelena had been wrong after all. She was almost certain that the other girls were whispering behind her back but Natalia would not join them. She had already caused enough trouble for the day. She would not face Yelena's wrath as well.

Marta joined her again, poking at her meat with a perplexed expression that made Natalia want to laugh but she didn't. Laughter was not a common sound in the Red Room anymore. When all the girls were much younger, they had still laughed. As they got older, the laughter faded. Marta eventually started to eat without complaint and Natalia followed suit. Dinner was a longer affair — forty minutes instead of twenty — but most of the girls were too tired to cause much of a commotion, just as those in charge of the Red Room liked it.

"Tanya got the batog today," Marta whispered quietly and Natalia looked up in fright.

Tatiana — or Tanya, as Marta called her — was the second oldest girl in the Red Room. And she was a troublemaker. She liked to pick fights with the other girls outside of their training. That was frowned upon. Depending on the severity, sometimes small fights went unnoticed but it must have been big if Tatiana had been caught and punished for it. The batog was the most feared punishment in the Red Room. They had only been told of the batog — it was an old Russian form of corporal punishment — but none of the girls had experienced it. At least they hadn't until today.

"What did she do?" Natalia whispered back.

Marta shook her head, glancing around, before responding quickly.

"She broke Irina's arm during hand-to-hand training."

Natalia frowned. It was not uncommon to suffer injuries during that kind of training. She tilted her head to the side and Marta continued.

"She didn't stop. She nearly strangled Irina before the instructors had to pull her off. She just snapped, according to Yelena."

Natalia's eyes widened. Each of the girls here was different. The only thing they had in common was that they were all orphans. But while some girls were placid and kind, like Marta, others had tempers. Natalia wasn't sure which kind of girl she was. She was quiet but she did her best to stand up for herself against the others. In the Red Room, girls grew up quickly. It didn't matter that she was only six, she was as viciously trained as the rest of them and just as intelligent, if not more so than the older girls like Yelena. But she never said that. It would only cause trouble that Natalia did not need. But she was certainly not like Tatiana.

She would never be like Tatiana, she decided.

That night, all was quiet in their room. Marta had fallen asleep within minutes and Irina was in the infirmary. Natalia and Katya were the only other occupants. Natalia listened to the sound of Katya's breathing in the bunk above her. She was not asleep either but Natalia said nothing. Talking at night was forbidden. Even when she and Marta had cried as children, their comforts had been silent. So she was surprised when Katya spoke up in a hushed tone.

"The Pledge of Allegiance," she whispered. "Say it slowly. Olga Ivanovna doesn't notice. It will help."

Olga Ivanovna was their English instructor, the same one who had bruised Natalia's knuckles. Natalia didn't respond but she took note of the advice. She disliked asking for help so she never did. But if it was offered, she wasn't going to turn it down. The next time she recited the Pledge of Allegiance, it would be perfect, she told herself.

Katya did not speak again. Natalia settled under her blanket, pulling it up to her chin with her one free hand. Even though they were handcuffed to the headboard each night for as long as Natalia could remember, she felt safe that way. When she was tucked underneath her blanket, she felt like the little girl she was supposed to be. She thought back to all the lessons they had been taught on American culture. Little American girls always had smiles on their faces. Often they held things like dolls or ice cream in their small hands. Natalia wondered what ice cream actually tasted like. One day, when she would finally go to America, she decided the first thing she would do would be to try real ice cream.

Finally closing her eyes, for the first time in a long time, Natalia thought about her parents. She couldn't remember what they looked like anymore. She could not remember her father's eyes or her mother's smile. At least, she assumed her mother must have smiled. Maybe she hadn't. Maybe she was the type of mother who hit Natalia when she was bad. It would not have been any different from what instructors like Olga Ivanovna did to her here, she supposed, but Natalia wondered what it would be like to be hit by a mother. Surely mothers were not supposed to do those kinds of things… but she would never know because her mother was dead.

They had no use for mothers in the Red Room. Here they trained hard and learned to live with their cuts and scrapes with no one to kiss them better. Mothers only coddled their children, Natalia had been told. And because of that, Natalia was glad her mother was dead. She decided that a mother would only make her weak.

And Natalia would not be weak.