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After the match, Freddie watches the crowd surround Anatoly. Florence isn't with them, but Freddie couldn't stand to approach her right now, anyway. He can see Molokov, white with shock, but what the hell's Freddie going to say to him at this point? They might have a couple things in common, but they're not good things, and now who knows what'll happen?
At least Anatoly won. At least that went right.
The crowd thins out and Florence makes her way through to Anatoly. She's hugging him, gripping his hand. Freddie can barely stand the amount of longing contained inside him. It sounds faggy (Freddie is not a faggot) to say that, but it's still true that if they walk away, he's empty.
Walter has said he'll stick around after, but everybody knows that's bullshit. Walter's in it for the payday and the promotion. And yeah, he put in just enough effort to learn all Freddie's buttons, but he's not sticking around to press 'em.
When Freddie looks at Florence and Anatoly, he wants to break into pieces. He wants them both so fucking much.
He wants Florence to slap him across the face and then hold him
He wants Anatoly to touch him in ways that absolutely make him a faggot
(he wants them like he wants his parents not to have abandoned him)
And maybe, now that Anatoly has won, that could be possible.
Instead, Walter finds him less than an hour later and tells him that Anatoly is going to the Soviet Union to suffer and rot. Florence is going to England to probably sleep with younger men and drink a lot. Freddie is supposed to go back to New York and, what, keep being a reporter? What a joke. He isn't even going to be able to get his shit together enough to feed himself.
He wonders what would happen if he ran to Florence and begged on his knees for her to take him back. But now she's had a taste of a man who will actually do what a boyfriend is supposed to, he doubts he'd get far with that.
Walter puts him on a flight to New York. He doesn't remember much after that.
*
A month later, he's in a hospital somewhere. Probably a hospital for headcases. Wouldn't be the first time, but let's keep that a secret. No Walter, although maybe Walter helped him check in? Some friend. Freddie can't remember shit, which is probably the meds and not his damn fault.
He loses track of time. He plays games in his head, beating his faceless opponent every time.
But then he's in a car, and he's in a bed, possibly his own bed. It smells like his apartment (like dust, mostly). He can't focus on anyone. He doesn't think he tipped the cab driver.
"Freddie," Florence says, and it's the tone she has right before she stops taking care of him and starts being annoyed.
"Trumper." Molokov is here, so that's obviously not real. He still looks pale as hell, though.
Freddie wakes up with Florence in bed with him, pressed against his side, arms around him. He tells her this is all he was asking for, but he tells her in Russian, and she doesn't understand.
He wakes up again and Anatoly is sitting at the little table by the foot of the bed, playing a game against himself. It's so much like a fantasy Freddie has had that he laughs. Anatoly looks up, startled.
"Are you guys still split up, or what?" Freddie asks.
Anatoly frowns and goes to get Florence, who also frowns.
"Freddie, how are you feeling?" she asks.
"I don't fucking understand," Freddie says. He looks at Anatoly. "They kick you out of Russia?"
"I didn't go," Anatoly says, looking away, at Florence. "I changed my mind."
Freddie feels the longing again, and he thinks it might kill him. Florence is holding Anatoly's hand. The room is spinning.
*
Anatoly's hands are rough, but not rough enough. They'll have to adjust, adjust everything (is this even real? He's lost touch with reality before). But there's time, isn't there?
Anatoly had a red wool jacket he keeps wearing. He's a red and it's red, so that's funny, right?
Molokov keeps getting letters and packages from Walter. Florence keeps crying. Freddie can't figure out why they're all in his apartment, and he still thinks a lot of this is probably a fucking hallucination.
Every night, though, Anatoly sits by his bed and plays a game, and that is so real.
*
"Would you join me?" Anatoly asks in English one night. He gestures at the board.
Freddie answers in Russian, tells him to fuck off. Then he plays anyway.
*
Slowly, everything else starts to feel real. Freddie wishes it wouldn't, because that means admitting he had a goddamn mental breakdown. Florence takes away the drugs one by one, but there's something she tries to keep him on.
He bites her once. She slaps him in the face and after that, Anatoly gives it to him.
Eventually, he can take it himself.
Three months after they bust him out, he's sitting at his own kitchen table in possession of his own mind and most of his memories. He gets it now. He gets that Molokov is sleeping on Freddie's couch, because he's not a citizen. He gets that Walter's working on that. He gets that Florence and Anatoly both love him a shit-ton, in different ways.
"So what's gonna happen to me now?" he asks Florence over dinner. "I'm still a has-been."
"That's not really my concern," she says, but she's here, isn't she?
"Are you living with Anatoly?" he asks.
She looks away, down at her crossword. "I spend a lot of nights here, you know that."
"Flo, come on."
Florence sighs sharply and looks at him. "He's got an apartment upstairs. We're working on getting him papers. But he's down here just as much as I am."
That's sort of an answer. Knowing her, she has her own place, too, probably on the other side of the city.
*
Anatoly goes to bed with Freddie almost every night. They don't always fuck (Freddie couldn't stand that), but he's always there.
"Is this what you came back for?" Freddie spits at him one night, drunk. "This sad shit?"
Anatoly looks him in the eye and says, "Play chess with me."
They do.
Freddie feels more and more like himself, which is a mixed blessing. One night, Florence follows him and Anatoly into the bedroom and takes her top off.
"Well?" she says.
Freddie wants to cry. He feels like he's coming home now, not months ago. Anatoly touches both of them and they don't touch each other except Florence's hands on his back at one point, and it's the best he's ever had.
*
The next day, Anatoly is upstairs. Florence is out meeting up with Walter, taking care of something. Everyone's a spy. Or maybe they're fucking, who knows.
"So how's Anatoly's wife?" Freddie asks Molokov, just to bug him. He puts more and more sugar into his coffee.
"Better without him," Molokov says bitterly.
He notices, for the first time, the two missing fingers on Molokov's left hand. They're eating breakfast together, and Molokov is wearing a t-shirt Freddie thinks used to be his.
"Well, shit," he says. Molokov is just watching him and not saying anything.
"You can be a fag here," Freddie informs him. "Only they've got this disease for us now, so watch out." Us. Is that what he's saying now? "The government cooked it up."
"At least Russian government is more efficient," Molokov mutters.
*
After another month, and Freddie is living alone.
Molokov suddenly has a great deal of money and his own apartment, but he's still over all the fucking time. He mostly talks to Freddie, sometimes Florence.
"You sell your soul?" Freddie asks. He's just gotten back from meeting with Walter about maybe, possibly getting his old job back.
Molokov snorts.
"Nah, I know what you sold."
"Look, Trumper, none of us have gotten out of this whole. Anatoly lost his country. Florence, her father. You, your mind. I have lost my integrity."
As if he ever had any of that. But Freddie knows what he means. He means not selling Russian information for a penthouse and the ability to be a fag.
"What'd Walter lose?" he asks.
"He can find that out later," Molokov says carelessly, but it makes Freddie smile.
*
Freddie is living alone, but Anatoly is still upstairs. Florence still has her mysterious apartment she won't give out the address to, but she's over at Anatoly's all the time, and they're both over at Freddie's more often than not.
Is it worth losing all the shit he lost? Well, he doesn't feel empty and full of longing anymore. Anatoly isn't giving up playing chess professionally, so maybe Freddie won't, either. Who knows, right?
One night he's in bed with Anatoly (clothed--Anatoly is reading some Russian newspaper), and Florence lets herself in. She was over using Freddie's typewriter. "Well," she says. "Having fun, boys?"
Anatoly frowns up at her, like he always does. So serious. "Yes."
"Can I ask you guys something?" Freddie says.
Florence comes and sits on the edge of the bed. "Well, go on."
"Why'd you bust me out of there? Hell, why'd you come back to America at all? I would have left me to rot. Which of you was it?"
They look at each other, and Freddie feels dizzyingly isolated for a second. Then Florence says, "Finish your game. I'm going to make some tea."