Cris Jolliff

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“David, you know that I care about you, right?” Juliette and I were riding a small ferry flight to Christchurch, and she had seemed pensive all morning. I was curious about it, but had tossed it off as nerves for traveling home.

“Sure, Jules,” I turned to face her in the tiny single engine plane. We were practically nose-to-nose, with the Maori pilot only a few inches in front of us. “What gives?”

“Well…this is difficult, but it must be done,” she half-murmured to herself. My hands were like ice, despite the warm subtropical weather. “David, I probably won’t see you again.” She said that with disturbing finality.

“Well of course you will, I’ll come after—” I began, a pleading tone already coming from me.

“No, David. You see…I…I have someone. A boyfriend. He’s…well I don’t know if he’s even still alive, but I have to find out. And I don’t have room in my life for both of you. You’re very sweet David, but my relationship with Jaques is pretty…well, strong. We’ve been together for several years.” I was stunned. I had no hints, not even a vague suspicion of such duplicity. I slumped back into my seat, suddenly feeling as weary as Zagovich had seemed when I last saw him.

The rest of the flight, we rode side by side in complete silence. Not for the last time, I wondered if she harbored some secret resentment with me over the death of Pavel. I had to quash that thought process though. None of us had foreseen such a horrible outcome. We all had such great hope at that moment that none of us had dared to think the worst of anything.

We landed and went our separate ways, she to Canada to seek out her probably-late boyfriend, and I to seek out my home, and to see if anyone I had known or loved had survived. So decimated had the population been, that I was forced to take a flight four days later. They only flew to mainland Europe once per week, and only the largest planes were being used, so they waited until they could fill one, or nearly so. I was in a particularly black mood that day, still irritated at Juliette for having lied to me all that time about being available, and irritated at myself for not having seen it. She was chasing a ghost now, most likely.

When I finally sat down on the plane, I felt something digging into my right hip, and reached for it. As I was pulling it out, an older woman drew up next to me in a collapsible wheelchair. The stewardess helped her out of the “spaz chariot,” as my peers might call it, and into the seat next to mine. She must have been about 70, and had the sweetest Eastern European accent. Probably Bulgarian, or Prussian, I thought, and I looked down at the battered flask that had appeared, as though conjured via prestidigitation, in my hand. Looking at the thoroughly disreputable container, I remembered how lucky I actually was just to be there, girlfriend or no.

“RKA,” a ragged but otherwise cheerful voice exclaimed from my shoulder. I turned to face the wizened face of the old Easterner. “That is old Soviet Space Program, eh boy? Where do you come by such an antique? You do not look Russian.” Her last bit surprised me momentarily. I glanced down to see my face faintly reflected off the dented and scratched canister, with the cryptic RKA – MIR and the ominous but defunct hammer-and-sickle emblem of the old USSR. Sure enough, my slightly narrow and under-bitten chin, and slightly outsized nose and ears just screamed English. I sighed.

“I’m not, but my friend was.” I turned in surprise and looked at the old woman. Her eyes were shining brightly, and almost watery. I wondered if it was because of the canned air that you get blown at you on every craft that flies, or if it was something else.

“I am Kisa Yuptirova,” said the old woman, “and you?” No, the glitter was definitely hers, and not a byproduct of air to the face. I reached up and turned my own air vent away from me. It was threatening to make my own eyes run.

“David Brown, ex-astronaut.” I replied, idiotically. I had practiced saying that as though it would be an accusation that it was the fault of the person to whom I was speaking at the time. I regretted saying it instantly, even though Kisa seemed to take it in stride.

She said, “This must have been very good friend to give you such a fine thing. They are rare today, beyond guessing. My grandfather was Yuri Koptev, he was—”

“—in charge of—” I tried to interrupt.

“Russian Space Agency.” We finished in unison, perhaps Kisa felt as silly as I, for we both looked down for just a moment before continuing.

“My friend Pavel died up there,” I said, more to the flask than to her, with a cursory wiggle of my finger in the direction of space, “this was the only thing I could find to remember him by.”

She looked at me sadly and said, simply, “What is in it, besides cold memories?”

“Vodka, brewed in zero gee,” I replied quietly, as though not to break the spell that she had cast over us with the phrase, cold memories. My skin prickled, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood of their own accord.

She fairly punched me on the shoulder and practically shouted in my ear.

“Then we must DRINK to his name, yes?” Now she was grinning from ear to ear, like the Cheshire cat himself. I found myself smiling in spite of myself. I slowly unscrewed the cap of the old flask and raised it just a bit—I didn’t want the stewardess to return and take it from me at this critical juncture.

“To an old friend, lost along the way.” I tipped it back. Vodka had never tasted sweeter, nor the warmth that it brought me at that moment had ever seemed so amiable, so desired. Without further comment, I passed the flask to my new friend.

“To Rosaviakosmos, and its fine sailors,” she rejoined. Taking a tentative swallow, she turned to me and—grin still creeping around the edges of her mouth—Kisa shyly added, “This isn’t very good, is it?”

For the first time in what seemed like weeks, I laughed aloud. It felt good, it was an honest laugh that I didn’t expect myself to have. I shook my head no even as I reached for the old Russian’s flask.

“No. It isn’t,” I said, still grinning, “but right now, it’s the best thing I’ve ever tasted.”

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