Rhoden & Steinberg, post-canon

[dreemyweird]

 

The dissection room is pleasantly cool and smells like methanol and liquid human fat. It’s a smell she finds comforting.

 

Arno stands behind one of the tables, his head half-submerged into someone’s chest cavity. She can just make out the vulnerable little hollow between the splenius capitis muscles at the back of his neck.

 

Upon hearing their steps he straightens up, a radiant boyish smile on his face. There’s a smear of peony red and glistening yellow on his cheekbone. A brown trickle runs through a crease on the left side of his mouth, as if he were crying tears of embalming fluid.

 

“There’s human flesh on your face,” she points out.

 

Arno fishes out a handkerchief embroidered with forget-me-nots from the pocket of his lab coat and dabs at the stain, unbothered. His smile grows even brighter. “Mu vabandused. I got a trifle too enthusiastic in scraping the fat off this gentleman’s aorta.”

 

He makes his way towards them, manoeuvring between the heap-like shapes of the bodies awaiting their turn on the dissection slab.

 

“Rhoden,” her brother calls. It’s not to attract Arno’s attention or to begin a thought - there’s little enough need for either.

 

Arno peels off his dripping blue gloves and they hug each other. Arno runs his flesh hand through Sasha’s curls, muttering something tender under his breath. Sasha wraps his arms around Arno’s ribcage, his embrace protectively tight. At thirty years of age, he has finally caught up on his nutrient intake and developed a healthy muscle mass; Esther thinks Arno’s old scars must be hurting at least a little.

 

But she knows what it feels like to be hugged by Sasha - what an overwhelming feeling of safety and calm this sure grip brings with it. She doesn’t think Arno minds the pain.

 

“Estherke, kullake,” Arno greets her over the crown of Sasha’s head, the little Estlish endearments like a spoonful of sugar on the root of her tongue. The tips of her ears tickle with pleasure. She holds one hand out to him and he touches her wrist with the index and middle fingers of his prosthetic.

 

Arno’s lab is in a basement. In winter, when he spends the whole day here, he barely gets any sunlight. It’s hardly possible for him to look any paler, but she notices it, sometimes, in the tired pink creases that begin to form in the corners of his eyes after the first snowfalls.

 

It’s a well-loved, comfortable place, nevertheless. There are stacks of notes and worn, dog-eared encyclopaedias laid out on a desk at the far end. Next to them is a half-finished tea glass, and an assortment of thin glossy coloured pencils. These, she knows, are for sketching. There is a whole world hidden in Arno’s papers - sprawling landscapes of heart tissue, riotous oceans of intestines, curved ivory peaks of tooth roots.

 

To her right, there’s a door leading to an adjacent skeletal storage room. She can make out a list of temperature and humidity values nailed to the wall next to it, filled with his fastidious flowing handwriting. The small silvery plaque on the door reads simply, Projekt KK 4.

 

“What’s in there, then?” Sasha asks, also spotting the door. Arno gently extricates himself from Sasha’s embrace, rummages through his pockets, and produces a small bronze key.

 

“That’s for the new government,” he says, a little absently. The look in his eyes grows strange. “Volinik Rüütli has me and the kids from the field investigation squad down the street looking into a few things for her. I am glad to be of service in my own small way.”

 

She’s seen these “kids” - they’re a bunch of young people in green broadcloth, each roughly the size and shape of a sturdy oak door. They’ve set up shop in what used to be a Venlish radio station on the corner of Tähe and Vikerkaare. The door of their HQ is marked with the laconic slogan of the war crime investigation department - Märgi, Meldi, Mäleta. Record, Report, Remember.

 

KK 4 - so there are at least three other rooms like this elsewhere, each guarded by someone just like Arno.

 

Evidently Sasha goes through the same mental calculation. She can see his features darken. His voice is tinged with concern as he says, “I hope you’re taking care of yourself.”

 

“If that is your recommendation, Dr Steinberg,” Arno shoots back humorously, raising his hands in a disarming gesture.

 

Esther is not good at reading him, but experience suggests that he’s attempting to hide behind a joke. Her hypothesis receives further confirmation when he walks over to the door and spends a needlessly long amount of time locking it and double-checking that it’s locked.

 

She doesn’t know how to express compassion or care. Sasha’s always been the one who comforted others, between the two of them.

 

“If you ever need help, I hope you remember we are both professionally qualified,” she says instead.

 

Arno stops and turns towards them, his expression softer. “So you are.”

 

He makes his way back to the dissection slab, covers the body up with a sheet of black tarpaulin, and turns off the lights. Then he returns to them and rests his hands on their shoulders.

 

“I’d have to speak to Rüütli,” says he. “But don’t worry about me too much, dear hearts. The city gives me plenty of other work.”

He ushers them out of the lab and locks it up, too. “And now,” he continues, “you will tell me of your own work, and introduce me to this new beau of Sasha’s, and have tea with me. And at the end of the evening Project KK 4 will be but a shadow in the back of my mind.”

 

They ascend two flights of crumbling concrete stairs and pass through the pale yellow vestibule of the main building of the Dorpat University. A crowd of students parts to let them through, all young faces and felt purple cornflowers sewn onto uniform caps.

 

“So how’s hospital life treating you, hm?” he asks her, as they step out into the gentle afternoon light.

 

“I enjoy it.” She’s silent for a few moments. “We had two women in labour yesterday. Both survived. The babies, too. Pille-Riin and Tõnu. They’re so funny when they’re just born. You can see the blood vessels through the skin of their little faces.”

 

This makes him happy, as she hoped it would. She knows he likes hearing stories of people in her unit beating the odds. Something about the possibility of hope and healing - for these kids, for his country. And to some extent, perhaps, for him.

 

Esther thinks about his question a little more. “It is good that I have to wear a mask everywhere. No one knows that I don’t smile.”

 

The disposable masks, mint-green and soft, hide her face from her colleagues’ judgement. And their patients don’t care; once they’re out of Dr Kuusk’s and her hands, they’re wheeled away to the south wing, into the caring embrace of the rehab team. There, they chat, smile, and socialise. To her, they always remain a heartbeat and a set of numbers on a chart. To them, she’s a half-remembered feverish vision of calm dark eyes and a quiet reassurance in a language they don’t speak.

 

Arno gives her a little look - she knows the kind. He wishes to say, you don’t have to hide who you are. But he knows firsthand that it’s not that simple. For him, it was losing his Estlish accent. For Esther, it’s the mask.

 

Finally, he settles on, “You don’t have to hide with us, päikene.”

 

She gives him a nod of gratitude. It wouldn’t occur to her to try - he and Sasha never made her feel like she had to. But it is good of him to offer this comfort.

 

Sasha slows down a little to allow them to catch up with him and gives her hair a teasing ruffle. “What are you two whispering about?”

 

“Your mom,” she says instantly, elbowing him amicably in the ribs.

 

“Ah, well, carry on, then.” His bright greenish eyes narrow in an expression of mirth.

 

They pass by the statue of the Kissing Students, whom some considerate local denizen gave a long crocheted scarf, red with white stripes. The ends of the scarf are swaying lazily in the breeze.

 

“So,” Arno says, clearing his throat a little. “Your Daniel - you think he’ll like me?”

 

Esther tugs on the scarf, hiding its fluffy tassels from the splash of the fountain water behind the male Student’s large bronze hand.

 

Out of the corner of her eye, she can see Sasha do a small double take. He gives Arno a puzzled look. “Why wouldn’t he?”

 

Why wouldn’t anyone? he means. 

 

Asking that was a strategic mistake - Arno’s never had trouble finding some quality or other in himself that, in his view, left something to be desired. But before he can open his mouth to deliver a scathing and ludicrously inaccurate assessment of his own character, Esther chimes in.

 

“Truly,” she says, cunningly, “how many people have disliked you, Arno?”

 

That leaves him scrambling for a few moments. Finally, he offers an embarrassed half-smile and grumbles, “I think my handler from Field Investigation might be beginning to.”

 

Sasha raises an eyebrow. “Malis? What’s got her in a tizzy?”

 

Malis is a tall unsmiling woman, her jet black hair always plaited into a braid so tight it looks to be made out of wrought iron. When presented with a flask of fresh rhubarb kompot by Esther, she’s been known to relent, however, and even let the Steinberg siblings camp out in the HQ while waiting for Arno to finish up. It gets cold in Dorpat in springtime, and few are immune to the appeal of such simple creature comforts as the warmth of a hot drink blooming in one’s belly.

 

Arno gives the back of his neck a rub. “Might have something to do with me requisitioning several hundred pounds of salt. She says if her squad ate nothing but pork and pea soup for a month, they’d still not use up half of what I wanted.” He spreads his hands in a disarming gesture. “I told her to get back to me when her pork soup needs an autopsy.”

 

Sasha lets out an amused tsk. “You know better than to get smart with Malis, Rhoden.”

 

Arno looks like he’s about to offer further invaluable insight on forensic soup analysis, but they’ve already reached Sasha and Dan’s house.

 

It’s a small wooden building just outside the Old Town, the window blinds painted olive green. Despite Sasha’s efforts at making the place shipshape, the old sun-heated wood looks a tad brittle. An overabundance of geraniums strains at the bulging sheet of poor-quality glass in the window.

 

The geranium smell hits Esther when she steps into the corridor. She wrinkles her nose and lets out a small catlike snort. It’s not a bad sensation, but a bit too strong for her liking.

 

“Sorry, Firochka,” Sasha says, kicking off his boots. “Danya’s gone all in on the flowers since starting his doctorate. Says it helps him relax.”

 

“I don’t mind,” she says.

 

She minds, a little. But Sasha’s eyes grow all mellow when he watches Dan muck about with his endless collection of flowerpots, and for that Esther can put up with some discomfort.

 

Arno shuffles on the doormat, looking increasingly self-conscious. Esther leans over to him.

 

“Don’t worry,” she murmurs under her breath. “He’s a sweetheart.”

***

 

Dan sits cross-legged on the sofa across from them, his soft sports trousers rolled up around his bare ankles. His cinnamon-brown hair, which is even curlier than hers, bears the traces of recent combing. He’s clearly been a little anxious about his upcoming meeting with Arno - Dan’s normal approach to his hairdo is to leave it to its own devices, Trissinian garden-style.

 

In some ways, she feels fondness towards Dan only because Sasha does. This is not a reflection on Dan’s character; it is merely that it takes her time to get used to people. She’s a creature of habit, and Dan’s relationship with Sasha was a splash on the surface of the quiet waters of their life in Dorpat.

 

Part of it is just stupid childish fear. Sasha might want to build a new family for himself now. Might want to live elsewhere. Might expect her to build herself a new family - after all, is that not what adult women do?

 

She thinks of those fairy light-studded Western movies where siblings come to visit each other for holidays after years apart.

 

But in other ways, she and Dan are alike. Like her, he’s anxious about meeting people. Like her, he keeps expecting hostility.

 

Most of his face is covered up by a port wine stain, the network of swollen vessels forming a blotchy mosaic the colour of the veins on beetroot leaves. Little strips of lighter connective tissues cross his left laugh line, like something dripped down through it and melted his skin.

 

He regards Arno more than a little tensely through his round glasses across the coffee table.

 

“So,” Arno says, and takes a careful sip of his tea. The little cup with engravings of tulips on the side is balanced in the palm of his flesh hand. “What is it you are writing your doctorate on, härra Lasmanis?”

 

Dan shrugs a little, pushing his glasses up his nose. “Nothing too special. Ricci flow on manifolds, its potential application to the Poincare conjecture.”

 

Arno smiles a fraction and gestures with his prosthetic. It trembles a little - he’s never quite managed to get rid of the occasional jitter in the aftermath of the events in Parlevo.

 

“I’m afraid this rather goes over my head,” he says. “Statistical analysis is important to us osteologists, but when it comes to higher geometry, we tend to rely on visual observation. Perhaps that is a shortcoming. It can be very difficult to describe bone texture or density accurately without having a way of quantifying it.”

 

He seems to be doing fairly well, Esther thinks. He’s not staring but not avoiding eye contact, either. It probably helps that hundreds of human bodies have passed through his hands. Few physiological peculiarities have escaped his scalpel and his rib-cutters. One more is not a shock.

 

Dan remains wary, but Arno’s surprising enthusiasm about mathematics does not go unappreciated. 

 

“Few scientists see any appeal in the application of higher mathematics to their discipline,” Dan snorts, and a tiny smile creeps onto his features, too.

 

“I have, of course, done my best to pass this appreciation on to Steinberg,” Arno replies, a trifle smugly.

 

There’s a clatter of dishes from the kitchen and Steinberg himself sticks his head into the room, smiling from ear to ear. “Are you gossiping about me?” he teases. “I’m almost done tidying up. I’ll join you in a moment.”

 

This seems to have an odd effect on Arno. He tenses up and nearly drops his cup.

 

“You should go check on Blintz,” he blurts out. “I think I saw him near the raspberry bushes earlier.”

 

Blintz is a tiny black kitten Dan and Sasha found a couple of weeks ago. He’s prowling the back garden, as he is wont to do at this time of day. Sasha is a little overprotective of him, worrying especially that Blintz will scratch his tender little flanks on the raspberry thorns.

 

Esther doesn’t believe Arno has seen him at all today. For one thing, Arno hasn’t actually gone into the back garden.

 

Sasha frowns slightly, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “I will go have a look,” he says, and walks out onto the terrace.

 

Arno sips his tea again and says, in a strange tone he probably thinks sounds nonchalant, “How do you like Dorpat, then, härra Lasmanis?”

 

Esther may be bad at reading people, but even she can see that Arno’s behaviour is doing nothing to ease Dan’s worries. His expression grows distant again, and a slight shadow outlines his left zygomatic as he clenches his jaw. Without answering, he hops off the sofa, walks over to his geraniums, and picks up the thick brown lab book he uses for refining his proofs.

 

“You can just come out and say it, you know,” he says, eyeing Arno with distaste. “There’s no need for pleasantries.”

 

Arno blinks at him owlishly. “What?”

 

“Dan, I think you’ve misunderstood,” Esther intervenes, flustered. “He’s not like that-”

 

But she knows Arno - awkward, lovely, silly, brilliant Arno - and Dan does not.

 

“No?” Dan crosses his arms, the lab book pressed against his chest like a plate of armour. “I’ve heard this before. Why did you get Sasha to leave? What is it you want to say to me in his absence?”

 

Behind Dan’s back are his prized Rimfires. They are just starting to blossom, clusters of half-opened flowers hanging low under their own weight. The geraniums and the lab book are the only things he owns that he leaves out in the open, like he’s afraid his presence in the house will be too noticeable.

 

This can’t be the first time he’s ran into problems with a - with a guardian. A parent. And although the whole thing is maddening, she can’t help but feel a stab of sympathy.

 

She’s not sure Arno entirely understands the situation, but he sets his teacup down on the table and raises both hands in a pacific gesture. His prosthetic is noticeably trembling. “Härra Lasmanis, I assure you I mean no harm.”

 

The sheer earnestness in his voice gets through to Dan. He relaxes his grip on the lab book and makes a step forward, toes curling uncomfortably against the bare hardwood floor.

 

“You are his father, aren’t you?” he asks.

 

Arno stopped saying no this question after Parlevo. Nowadays, he says, not precisely. And, I can see why you’d make that assumption. And sometimes, very softly, you could say so.

 

“Not biologically,” he says, this time. As if that’s ever mattered to him.

 

Esther doesn’t think of him as her father. The word means nothing to her. The man who wanted her to call him tate was a cruel drunkard. What would she want with a man like that? Arno is everything Osip never was. His name means kindness, means love, means chamomile tea in the morning and a cool touch on her feverish forehead. He’s their Arno, and that’s all there is to it.

 

“I’m sorry,” Dan says. “I shouldn’t have assumed. It’s just that - he holds you in such high regard. And not all parents are, shall we say, very understanding of their sons having relationships with men. And then there’s the matter of-”

 

Arno raises a hand again, wincing in sympathy. “I understand. There is no need to explain.”

 

Dan sighs. “What is it you wanted to talk to me about, Dr Rhoden?”

Outside in the back garden, Sasha has evidently caught up with Blintz. She can hear tiny excited meows and Sasha’s amused voice through the half-open window.

 

Arno, too, glances in that direction. A gust of wind raises one corner of a lacy white curtain and brings with it the smell of wet lilacs.

 

“I wanted to ask,” he says, quickly, as if plunging into cold water, “if you’re planning to stay here in the future. I understand your career and your interests might take you elsewhere, and I would not wish to keep you from pursuing them. But knowing if you and Steinberg mean to leave the city - it would - it would do me good.”

 

Oh, but she and Arno really are quite the pair, Esther thinks, and has to bow her head low to hide an exasperated fit of silent laughter. There she was, thinking and worrying that Sasha would leave her behind, and so, it turns out, was he.

 

Dan sits back down. “You’re suffering from empty nest feelings,” he says, and his voice sounds like he’s smiling.

 

“Am not,” Arno responds instantly. She glances at him sideways; he looks scandalised. “I’ve lived alone for most of my life. Why should I suddenly be discontent with that? No - I haven’t even formally adopted them - I only wanted to know-”

 

She starts laughing again, this time linking her arm through his and leaning her forehead against his shoulder. That silences him quicker than any objection.

 

“If it’s any comfort, I personally have no intention of leaving,” Dan tells him. “But you should really talk to him, you know.”

 

Esther can feel Arno run a careful hand over her back, half-tenderness and half-uncertainty.

 

“I can’t,” he says, and falters. “He thinks he owes me a debt. He would not hesitate to do whatever it is I want, including staying in Dorpat.”

 

“He nearly lost his life saving you, I know that much. Surely the debt is repaid.”

 

“A thousand times over.” There’s a bittersweet note to Arno’s voice. “But he doesn’t believe that.”

 

Steinberg finally makes it back into the house, his hair and cheeks wet with morning dew, an armful of kitten clutched to his chest. Blissfully oblivious to the tension in the room, he proceeds towards Arno and dumps Blintz into his lap.

 

“Here,” he says, proudly, as if presenting his old teacher with a particularly polished piece of academic work. “He wasn’t in the raspberry bushes at all! No, he knows not to go there. He’s a smart neshumele. Aren’t you, Blintz?”

Blintz looks up with his bulging light green button eyes and sways on his feet a little, his carrot-shaped tail twitching with the effort of keeping his balance. Arno, who has possibly never met a child whose plight he was not compelled by, folds like wet laundry. “Noh,” he says, giving the kitten a gentle scritch under the tiny chin, “miks sa nii väike oled?”

 

Steinberg leans over and also gives Blintz a scritch, the stub of his amputated finger curling against the kitten’s neck.

 

“How are you getting on, then?” he asks.

 

“We’re fine,” Dan and Arno respond in suspicious unison. Sasha eyes them quizzically but offers both a fond smile.

 

“See,” he tells Arno, “told you so.”

 

Then he plants a kiss on the tip of Dan’s button nose. After surveying the result of his efforts for a moment, he presses another one to Dan’s lips. Dan leans into it and slowly closes his eyes; Arno looks like he’s stoically trying not to close his. Poor man is easier to embarrass than a sheltered schoolgirl.

 

Once Dan and Sasha separate, a dreamy quality to Sasha’s expression, Esther clears her throat to get their attention.

 

“Dan and Arno were just having a fascinating discussion on the subject of mathematics in osteology,” she says. “We should give them some time to chat. Come braid my hair, Sashka.”

 

It’s a ritual from childhood, him untangling her glossy curls and patiently weaving them into dozens of tight braids. There was often no heating and no firewood in their house then, but the ribbons in her hair, at least, always burned a flaming red.

She was never much good at it herself. She’s not good at it even now, if she’s being honest; her fingers are somehow too clumsy to do a decent job of anything more complicated than a ponytail.

***
The sky above her is the colour of cornflowers. It is brilliant and yet peaceful; enormous but gentle, the clouds moving slowly across the endless expanse of blue. She’s mildly disoriented - something between the sensation of flying and the feeling of looking up from the bottom of a well.

Sasha’s fingers card through her hair, carefully tightening loop after loop of chunky glossy braids. Her scalp tingles pleasantly, and she finds herself struggling not to doze off.

“It is good to see Arno again,” Esther says. She can’t see his face but she knows he’s nodding in affirmation. “Are you jealous that I get to call him that?”

His hands falter, and he stops for a moment. “No.”

But he is - he is desperately jealous. The only time she’s ever known him to use this name was ten years ago, in Parlevo; and since then, only in his nightmares, as a terrified gasp on whitened lips. He used to wake up and wander the house, wild-eyed, picking up this or that task in an attempt to occupy himself and calm his nerves enough to go back to sleep. She never knew how to console him.

Most of the time, she doesn’t mind being emotionally awkward. But she did mind it then.

“You can use it, you know,” she says. “He would like it if you did.”

His hands falter again. “We don’t have the right kind of relationship, Fayerl. I don’t think he would approve of such familiarity.”

“Suit yourself,” she shrugs, and closes her eyes in satisfaction as Sasha finishes one of the braids with a final gentle pull. “Only you haven’t been his student in a decade and he’s not really as self-confident as you believe him to be.”

“I’d like to think I have proven my loyalty,” Sasha says, sounding almost insulted, and she shushes him with a raised hand. The clouds cast gentle blue shadows on the crook of her elbow.

“It’s not that, silly. It’s just that… things change.” Esther gives it a moment’s thought. How to phrase it so that it doesn’t sound too desperate? Too childish? Too awkward? “I’m an adult now, for instance. The expectations are… different. You learn not to take things for granted.”

It probably is going to sound awkward, anyway.

“How do you mean?” he asks, tying yet another tiny scarlet bow. He gives her a new set of ribbons almost every year - it’s a sort of ritual for Purim.

“I’m worried you’ll leave,” she admits, finally. There she goes. Trust her to express herself with the subtlety of a brick to the head.

“What?” Sasha sounds genuinely astonished. “Why?”

That’s how it generally happens in films doesn’t sound like the mature, grown-up sort of answer. So she settles for, “it’s because of Dan.”

“But Dan loves it here,” Sasha says, his tone still that of confusion.

“Yes, but,” she makes a vague swaying gesture with her right hand, “what if one day he doesn’t? I guess my point is - my point is - you’ve got more than just Arno and I to account for, now.”

“Ah.” There’s a pause as he clips two of her braids together in a sort of half-crown, and her stomach ties itself into a nervous knot. “Is that what you’ve been so cagey about the last couple of weeks?”

“I didn’t want to sound like a child,” she says, helplessly. “I can take care of myself alone. It’s just that-”

“Estherka,” he says, with such exasperated fondness that the corners of her eyes start to tickle. “Do I look like your stereotypical family man? It took me seven years to find a happy home for both of us, and even that was little more than sheer luck. Why would I wish to uproot that now? You and Dan don’t have to fight for space in my life. I can love more than one person at the same time. And if he or I want to go elsewhere at any point - Fayerl, I would talk to you about that. You can come with us. You can stay and write me letters. I’d come to visit. I’d invite you over. I would never, ever leave you out.”

She doesn’t smile, and she also doesn’t cry easily. So when she does want to cry, she’s stuck with this oddly contorted expression some people mistake for anger. But Sasha never needs an explanation for her feelings, and she can feel him run a gentle hand over the crown of her head.

“And Arno?” she asks, a little nasally. “You’d talk to him, too?”

“I wouldn’t want to assume that he-”

“Well, you should,” Esther interrupts, almost angrily. “You should assume. He’s our family too, isn’t he? You said you’ve proven your loyalty - but hasn’t Arno proven his?”

“A thousand times over,” he says, quietly, and lets go of the last of her braids.