Russian Winter (31 page)

Not to mention that the woman following them turned out to be one of their assigned escorts, an East German named Bergit, who reported them to the Komsomol representative for having gone outside the designated bounds. All three of them were scolded harshly, in front of the rest of the troupe, for leaving their prescribed territory, and then the company manager gave another lecture, reminding them that there was nothing they could have needed to buy that was not available in the democratic sector, and that they might have been kidnapped by evil capitalists. And so Nina, Polina, and Vera were made to stand in front of the group and explain that they had been wickedly misdirected and were relieved to have been able to return safely within Soviet bounds, and that never again would they so much as risk finding themselves in the nondemocratic world.

The lie of it, the pettiness—after all that they saw just two subway stops away. Surely some of the others knew the truth. And yet, like Polina said, you would have to be crazy to leave, why even risk it?
They find you and break your legs
.

Now Zoya is telling Gersh he might write a letter of apology; that might do the trick. “I’ll of course help you and all that. I’m not a bad writer myself.” Glancing back at the memorandum, she says, “I wonder if Stalin himself saw this.”

She sounds almost awestruck. After all, she is a vocal devotee of the great leader. On the wall where previously there was only a very small oval mirror, she has hung a framed section of a
Pravda
article from last year:

“I’m sorry,” Nina says, awkwardly, “but I have an engagement, I have to go now. Viktor, I’ll find you back at home.”

She leaves the room with an exhale of relief. But her heart drops again when she thinks of the news she has to pass along to Vera.

F
IRST THING
M
ONDAY
morning, Grigori went to find Drew.

She looked up smiling, came out from behind her desk to shake Grigori’s hand in that confident, professional way of hers. “Nice to see you.”

“Likewise. I see you took some sun over your vacation.”

“Oh, good, I thought whatever tan I’d managed had already faded.” That easy smile. “The catalogs have just gone out. You should be getting yours in the mail, today or tomorrow.”

So it was happening, events were now in motion, the auction would truly take place. Perhaps when he received the catalog Grigori would fully believe it.

Drew was shuffling through her big leather bag. “Thank you for lending me your book.”

“Thank you for reading it. It’s rare that my translations have much of an audience.”

“I’m impressed. The poems feel perfectly natural in English. If I didn’t know they were originally in another language…”

Feeling somehow humbled, Grigori heard himself say, “I suppose they’ve been a good bit of my life’s work. So far.”

Drew nodded as if she already knew this. “I love them. Not just the poems on their own. Also knowing about Viktor Elsin. I’ve been thinking about some of them, just imagining. I was wondering about the later ones. His style changed so drastically.”

Grigori nodded. “I’ve written papers about that. It’s the sort of thing we academics seize on, for lack of more meaningful occupations.”

Again, her laughing smile. “And…what conclusions have you come to?”

“Oh, you don’t want to get me started.”

“Yes, I do.” She was looking him straight in the eye.

“Well, I think his stylistic changes had to do with changes in his personal and professional life. That new subject matter dictated a change in approach. Not that the poems say any of this explicitly. But you know he was arrested shortly after those last poems were written. There’s been speculation that he might somehow have been involved in some sort of subversive activities.”

Musingly, Drew said, “I suppose Nina Revskaya would know.”

“Yes, well…perhaps. She hasn’t ever said so.”

Drew flipped to the back of the book. “This last poem especially. It’s so haunting.”

“Riverside,” the least typical of all, no metrical scheme, no attempt at all to rhyme. It was Viktor Elsin’s final poem.

“He must have written it quickly,” Drew said. “Or maybe it just feels rushed.”

Grigori nodded. Particularly that third stanza, the way it so rapidly diminished, as if running out of words, out of time. Saying so,
he pointed at it and felt the pleasant sensation of his arm brushing Drew’s.

“And that second section,” she said. “It’s almost a haiku.” She looked up at him. “A big overpowering net.”

“Or maybe the spider allusion,” Grigori said, “represents some all-powerful, menacing evil.”

Drew said, “The dew, right after the weeping pines, makes me see teardrops. And then those tears again in the final section.” She paused, thinking. “Do you think the censors maybe found it subversive, somehow?”

“I haven’t been able to find any documentation of that precise charge. But if one looks for subversion one can find it here. This line here, for instance. Be prepared, that was the Young Pioneers slogan. The Communist youth group all children were supposed to join.”

“Like the Boy Scouts. It’s the same slogan.”

“Exactly. So to say, ‘One can never be prepared’—”

“Might be in reference to—”

“Or not. But he tucked it in there.” Grigori felt himself nodding again, so glad to have an ally. Was that it, was that the feeling he sought but found so elusive? Even with Zoltan, who understood his work as well as his background, Grigori did not necessarily feel a
closeness
; never had he told Zoltan anything terribly personal, nor had he wanted to. And with Evelyn he felt friendship but not the closeness of a companion. What a failure he had been at the party on Saturday, unable to rally; dropping Evelyn at her building afterwards, he had given just a quick, guarded kiss.

“The penultimate poem, too,” Drew said now. “‘Night Swimming.’” She turned the page back. “It seems to be mourning some loss of…innocence, maybe, or faith in…goodness.”

“Yes. In the world as a good and honest place.” Now was the moment. Grigori willed himself to be brave, to dare to show her
what he had once shown awful, condescending Big Ears. He cleared his throat. “I have some letters.”

Drew looked up, eyes wide, pools of brown flecked with green.

Grigori’s heart punched at his ribs. “If at some point you find time to read them,” he added, turning to remove the folded letters and the typed translations from his briefcase, his heart still punching, “now that you’ve read these poems, you might find some similarities of phrasing.”

He gave her the original letters first. She touched them as if they might crumble in her fingers. “Who wrote them?”

“They’re signed, ‘Yours always,’ and this one, ‘Yours and yours only.’ But I have reason to believe that the author is Viktor Elsin.”

“Really?” Her eyes opened even wider. She flipped back to the top of the first letter. “And do you know whom they’re addressed to?”

Big Ears shaking his head, that horrible condescending face. That Grigori had dared to do this much, already, dared to suggest…Not to mention how Drew might react to his possessing Nina Revskaya’s mail. “It simply says ‘my dear.’”

“Have you shown them to Nina Revskaya?”

A deep breath. “I tried to. She didn’t want to see them.” Grigori found himself using those same phrases as always,
It could be painful for her to look back…no interest in the past…

But it felt wrong, this time, wrong not to be telling Drew the truth. “A long time ago,” Grigori allowed himself to admit, “I tried to show them to her. She wanted nothing to do with them. Or me. It took me another year to get up the nerve to write her. I wrote her a letter, trying to explain.” It was too much, he could not say much more. “She didn’t answer.”

Drew looked perplexed. “But why wouldn’t she?” And then, “Oh, I see.”

“See what?”

“They’re love letters, is that it? To someone else—”

“Oh, no, no, that’s not it, I don’t think so. Well, yes, one is a love letter, in fact, but, well, that’s why the necklace, the amber…” But it was easier to simply show her, let her see for herself. “I brought you these translations of them.”

Drew was looking back at the originals, flipping them over, squinting at the handwriting. Grigori could see her frustration at not understanding, at not having learned from that Russian class. “If they’re her husband’s letters…” She looked up, took the translations from him. “You’re saying that some of what’s in the letters matches up with these poems?”

“One of the letters, a section of it. I think.” His courage faltered. “Don’t worry, I don’t mean to force my own obsession on you. I just thought it might be of interest to you, if and when you have time. Not now, of course. I—I see how you busy you are.”

She put the translations down beside her on her desk. “I’ll have time tonight. You’ve made me very curious. Maybe between the two of us—” She stopped, seemed to be thinking. “Maybe together we can figure it out.”

Grigori wanted to tell her that she was very kind to take an interest, and that she had brightened his day. Instead he did something, it seemed just to happen, to occur, his hand lifting slightly, reaching for her hand. He touched her long fingers, enfolded them in his palm. She was looking at him calmly, and now with his other hand he reached up, toward her hair, touched the skin of her temple. Lightly he traced the side of her face.

A long flat beep—the telephone. Drew pulled away.

Grigori said, “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

“I don’t need to answer it.” But she hurried to her desk and grabbed the receiver, said “Drew Brooks,” in a rushed way. “Oh, hi, yes, sure, just one moment, I’m just finishing up here.” She looked shaken.

I’ve done something awful, Grigori thought to himself. I must explain, I must apologize. But he did not understand, himself. As soon as Drew replaced the receiver, he said, “Please excuse me—”

“That was Lenore, I’m supposed to be at a meeting. I completely forgot. I’m sorry to…run off.” She swallowed visibly, her eyes shifting away as she added, “I’ll have to—get back to you.”

“Oh, yes, well, but—really, there’s—no need.” Grigori turned to retrieve his coat, which he pulled on desperately. “Please accept my apologies.” He hurried out the door.

T
he mail that afternoon contained a letter from Shepley. He always chose big blank greeting cards with reproductions of oil paintings on the cover. This one was something nineteenth-century French, a dark-haired, long-dressed woman with a parasol. Inside, Shepley’s print was small and neat:

Nina tried to stop frowning, even as she rolled her wheelchair over to the wall where the Bonnard was. It was nothing she ever took
time to look at, but she placed the card atop the table as Shepley had instructed. An
award
, a local hero thing…So that’s how it is. This is how it will be. Well, I’m no fun to visit, really. Who can blame him? An
award
.

“You sure you’re all right?”

Cynthia, sitting in the salon, had looked up from her magazine to wrinkle her forehead at Nina.

“I am all right.” Merely speaking caused a claw to scrape through her.

Cynthia frowned, unconvinced, then returned to her magazine. She liked cheap ones overrun with celebrities. In her slight, haughty accent she said, “This stuff puts my diamond ring to shame. You never told me you had so much loot.”

That was how Nina came to understand that it was the auction catalog Cynthia was looking at. It had been printed up and was now officially on sale to the public; Beller had sent one along in the mail for Nina. Only now did she note that it had made its way onto Cynthia’s lap.

“Loot. Well, I no longer wear any of it.” That icy claw scraped again. The doctor always told Nina he had seen worse, that one woman had spent twenty years so stiff, she could not bend even to sit in a wheelchair, and had to lie about all day strapped to a board. “It seems my fashion now is slippers.”

Cynthia laughed, perhaps at how spindly Nina’s legs looked. “Well, I can picture some of these on you pretty well. These ones match your eyes.”

Nina did not look over. “You may take that home with you.”

“Really?”

“You may take it.”

“You think that’s going to get me to leave? No go, sugar. I’m still waiting for your dinner to cook.”

At least the auction would be over soon. Just three weeks. Maybe
then the memories would leave her. Nina sighed, more loudly than she had intended. Could one die of pain? Nina had never spent much time wondering how she might die, though she found herself chronicling, these past years, the ways that her various friends and acquaintances had begun meeting—more frequently now—their demise. Sophie, a dancer in Paris, had died of leukemia. Beatrice had Alzheimer’s, though she wasn’t even old. Edmund had been perfectly sprightly until ninety-two and then broken his hip; after that it had happened quite fast. And poor Veronica had gone crazy (there was no other way of putting it) and lived off of public assistance in Leeds.

Nina told herself that at least her mind was all right. Well, she thought so, now that she had put aside the tablets, told Cynthia it was her own choice and that she could handle the pain. She had been a dancer, after all.

But it was funny what had happened without the pills, how in a way everything else, too, had become sharper, her mind searching for distraction, anything to detract from the pain. Yesterday she had found herself talking for a long time, with great effort, telling Cynthia about the war years, about performing for the wounded in one of the military hospitals, the horrible smell of the burn unit, a smell that still sometimes haunted her.

Nina wheeled herself over to the window, looked out at the spindly trees. Not long until they would begin to grow buds, though one would never guess it now, their crooked branches like a network of veins in the sky. The days had begun to grow longer, Nina had noticed. Normally she liked the gradual lengthening of the days—but now it just made her more aware of waiting. If only Shepley were here, if only he were coming to relieve her. An
award…

“You want me to start another CD?”

Bach had been playing. How long ago had the music stopped?

“Yes, please, Cynthia, thank you.”

It was but a minute before Glière came through the speakers, the
opening bars of the
The Bronze Horseman
. Another wave of ice rose through Nina’s limbs. But she closed her eyes, and sat, and listened, and for long moments in her mind, danced.

A
PRIL
1951. A
IR
still gray and cold, only the flowering gold of mimosas brought in from the Caucasus and sold by street vendors to brighten things up. Snow and rain become sleet. Roads are filthy, nearly impassable, full of potholes and enormous puddles. Pedestrians splattered with mud.

When Viktor arrives home earlier than usual, just as Nina is about to leave for work, she takes one look at his face and asks, “Are you sick?”

Slowly he says, “They fired Gersh from the conservatory.”

Nina closes her eyes. The beginning of the end. Since every citizen must work, unemployment is a criminal offense. “I don’t understand,” she says, searching Viktor’s face for an explanation. “Who’s in charge of these decisions?”

Viktor is still standing there in his coat. “I’m going over there. He’s going to need us. Perhaps you can tell Vera.”

“I don’t know if she’s dancing with me tonight. I’ll try to find her.”

“I’ll see if she’s at your mother’s. Come to Gersh’s when you finish up.”

Making her way across the wet asphalt of the square to the Bolshoi, Nina feels none of the usual excitement of such nights, though tonight she is to dance, again, for Stalin. This time it is a visitor from Laos he is entertaining; like all foreigners, the envoy wants to see
Swan Lake
. Melodramatic, show-offy
Swan Lake
. What did such things matter, frivolous fantasies, when all around horrible, inexplicable events were taking place? So long ago, the days when Nina found nothing more lovely than the swan-girls stretching forward to bow over their legs as they surround Odette…Now it just feels like a sham.

The theater is in a tizzy as always, the same stern-faced guards, the same nervous bustle, but this time Nina hardly feels enthusiastic. She hurries through the long corridors in search of Vera, past carpenters hammering last-minute repairs, cobblers stitching slippers in the shoe workshop, wig makers curling and combing out wigs. A cluster of mechanics, weighted down by their tool belts, is sharing a smoke in a side hallway. Nina doesn’t find Vera anywhere.

For much of the first two acts of the performance, Nina manages to forget, for entire scenes, about today’s new misfortune. But during intermission, as she sits with Petr at their table in the back hallway, the real world comes flooding back: Viktor’s face when he stepped into the apartment this evening, the slump of his shoulders. Awful thoughts rain down, as Nina keeps her eyes on the door to Box A. She is willing the door to open.

If Comrade Stalin himself walked out and found her here, she could speak to him, tell him what has happened.
You know, of course, the composer Aron Simonovich Gershtein
…And yet, wouldn’t he already know? How could he not? But then how could he let such a thing happen?

Suddenly Petr’s eyes open wider. Nina follows his gaze, to the door of Box A. The door has opened. Nina’s heart seizes, and Petr sits up straighter—and she knows this is not merely wishful thinking or a mirage. Flanked by two bodyguards, out steps Stalin.

Something formidable about him, thick chest and neck, pride in his stance. The slow stateliness of his walk, his left hand tucked in somehow. Overwhelmed, Nina feels herself about to look away—but he is looking right at her, has seen her seeing him, is approaching their table slowly. Dark, piercing eyes, and that glistening shock of gray-black hair, combed up and back. A firmness about him. He really is a man of steel, just as his name says.

Now he has stopped in front of their table, looking down at them. The guards hang slightly back.

“Butterfly,” he says slowly, “a most impressive performance. You make us proud of our great nation.”

His accent is more noticeable up close, almost intimate in its familiarity. His very tone exudes wisdom, and Nina, standing up to curtsy, bows her head and hears herself mumble something—but it is not what she wants to say, what she wishes she could say. If only she can find the strength to ask him.

Her ears are throbbing. Already he has turned to Petr, is saying, with that same simple boldness, “And you, Petr Filipovich.”

Petr stands quickly, bows his head and shoulders in submission, his entire body trembling. With Petr standing like that, Nina sees, with surprise, that Stalin is not as tall as she thought. Up close, his skin is pockmarked.

“Comrade Stalin is most pleased,” he continues. “A very interesting portrayal. Yes. If only there could be more…convergence.” He smiles, and Nina sees his yellow, broken teeth.

Petr stutters something, but Nina’s ears are ringing. She cannot quite hear his response, as Stalin wishes them well—and then he is walking away, guards on either side, and it is almost as if he were never even here, except that Nina’s face is still hot.

Her one chance to say something, her one chance to ask. And she has failed. Failed herself, failed Gersh.

Petr has gone pale. Wrinkling his brow, he looks at Nina. “‘More convergence…’” He repeats the phrase, questioningly, once more, and then again. After a few minutes, during which neither of them makes a sound, Petr says, “You know, I think he’s exactly right.”

W
HEN SHE ARRIVES
at Gersh’s apartment, after midnight, both Gersh and Zoya are in surprisingly good spirits. “It so happens I just bought him the complete works of Lenin,” Zoya says. “Now he’ll
have time to read it!” But surely she must be frightened. After all, she is his wife; none of this can reflect well on her.

Viktor is drinking vodka, and Nina joins them at the table, Gersh asking about the performance. “Oh, it went fine, I suppose.” She does not mention Stalin’s presence, or their conversation, if one can call it that. She is too ashamed, certain she could have done something. The others speak lightly, of this and that, yet it feels like a vigil, like they are waiting for something. Nina wishes she could lie down and sleep.

A knock on the door. Gersh and Viktor do not look surprised, though at this hour it can mean only one thing. Zoya, her eyes fearful, goes to the door. “Yes?”

It is the building manager, and with him two men in dark suits. One of them wears a holstered gun around his waist.

“I’ve been asked,” the building manager says in a somewhat timid voice, “to bring here representatives of Unit 4 of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department.” The men pluck identification cards from their jacket pockets and flash them at Zoya. Then the taller, armed one takes out another card, which he explains is a search warrant.

Zoya begins to cry. “Go about your business,” she manages to say, then returns to the table and drops into her chair.

Quietly Gersh says, “I suppose I should pack some things.”

“Oh, I’m sure there’s no need for that!” Zoya says, as the two men tell the superintendent that he is free to leave. They begin their search.

Nina whispers to Viktor, “Should we go?”

Under his breath, “Not until Gersh tells us to.”

He must have expected this. He must have known. That is why Viktor wanted to stay here so late. Because these things do not occur during the day. Like the old joke: “Thieves, prostitutes, and the NKVD work mostly at night.”

The men are going through the drawers and cabinets, shuffling through papers, receipts, notebooks, letters. Taking their time, a nasty meticulousness about it all. They have left the door open, and in the dark hallway the few neighbors still awake pass by with wary curiosity, peering in passively, a distant look—as if they have not shared kitchen, bath, and toilet basin with this man.

“I can’t imagine what they’re looking for,” Zoya says, her voice bewildered, frightened, yet somehow disingenuous. “I don’t know what they think they’ll find. I just can’t even imagine…” Nina takes her hand. It is cold and damp. As Zoya repeats, “I just can’t imagine why they would come here,” Gersh leans over, very casually, and whispers something to Viktor. He slips something into his hand. Nina sees Viktor give a nearly imperceptible nod.

Soon an hour has passed. One of the men is sorting through sheet music from the drawer of the piano bench. The other is flipping through a series of bound scores. The janitor, a yellowish, sick-looking man, has come by and leans against the doorframe, watching with curious indifference as the men pluck books and notebooks off of shelves, and manuscripts from the piano. “There go my notes on Beethoven,” Gersh says lightly when the shorter man shoves a wad of papers into his briefcase. A horrible pain has started at the base of Nina’s head. Outside the window the sky is still dark.

The janitor wanders away but comes slinking back every quarter hour or so, while Zoya bustles about, as if there is something she ought to be doing, her forehead scored with frown lines. She seems to want to be helpful but clearly does not know how, keeps stepping aside as the two men rummage through the cabinets and bookshelves. This is by far the quietest Nina has ever seen her, and Nina finds herself thinking, guiltily, absurdly, So
this
is what it takes to shut her up.

The throbbing pain has reached the crown of Nina’s head, a horrible splitting sensation. The men are still going through the
bookshelf and bureau, one item at a time, more manuscripts, now, these ones rolled into tubes like diplomas. The janitor, back again, is trying to catch their eye. When he does, he says, in a voice that tries too hard, “We owe our safety to you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to know that—”