Russian Winter (32 page)

“Get out of here!” Nina yells. The janitor just raises his eyebrows. Then he turns away slowly, seeming pleased to have gotten a few words in.

At last the men have finished. There is no sign of fatigue on their faces, though the room is ransacked. They fill their briefcases with Gersh’s notebooks and papers, and take a bottle of liquor, too. The shorter man asks for Gersh’s passport, which he then slips into his own breast pocket. In a light, not unfriendly voice, the one with the gun turns to Gersh and says, “If you’ll just come along with me to headquarters for a minute.”

Gersh gives the smallest nod, unblinking, as Zoya jumps up. “If he really must go, then may I come along?”

“Oh, there’s no need for that.” The man with the gun says it in an easy, almost friendly, way, as if she has offered him a favor.

“Well, then, here, let me get something together for him, oh dear…” Zoya has gone over to the larder, takes out some sugar and ties it into a linen serviette. “Here, take this sausage.” She thrusts a hard salami into Gersh’s palm as if it were a block of gold. Her face has gone white. She must really not have thought this possible.

“Good-bye,” Gersh says flatly, nearly sardonically, as they lead him out the door.

“I’ll see you very soon, then!” Zoya is dabbing petitely at her eyes. Viktor nods at Gersh. Nina has no words, just watches him step out into the hallway.

Only when the men have left does Zoya fully begin to fret. “They found his diary, did you see? Oh, I just hope he hasn’t written anything unwise! Oh dear, oh dear. You know Gersh. He doesn’t mince words!”

“He kept a diary?” Nina asks, wondering if it has anything about Vera in it.

“Oh, not like you and I would keep. More of an artist’s notebook, actually, thoughts on art and music and all that—oh, I just hope he hasn’t written down anything imprudent. You know how silly he can be!”

Nina stares at her. Because what could Gersh have written that would be bad enough for him to be taken away? For all she knows, Zoya herself—crazy patriotic Zoya with her recordings of Stalin’s speeches—could be the one who told those men about the journal. And yet she really does seem upset. Well, of course she is: How incredibly hard it must be to love two opposing things, to want so badly to believe in them both, simultaneously. Nina’s headache grows suddenly stronger, with the thought that there could be something about Gersh that they don’t know.

“Well, I know it will all be all right,” Zoya says pertly. She seems really to believe it, though a few tears wet her cheek as she bats her curled eyelashes. “They mean well, I’m sure they do. They were perfectly polite—although they did leave a mess and all that! Oh, I just hope he’s comfortable enough for now.”

“Do you want to lie down, Zoya?” Viktor asks, his voice so slow and sad, Nina can’t tell if he is sympathetic to Zoya or simply tired. “I can watch over things here, if you like. Or leave if you’d prefer some privacy.”

“I don’t know how I could sleep,” she says, and bends down to start picking up some of the papers and books strewn on the floor. “Oh dear, do you think they’ll come back?”

“Most probably.” Viktor sighs. “They’ll want to make sure they didn’t miss anything.”

“But what more could there be? I suppose we should check. Look through everything. Oh, dear, who knows…”

“I can help you,” Viktor tells her.

“Thank you, Viktor, yes. Oh, I just hope he’s all right on his own there!”

“I should go,” Nina says, looking at Viktor so that he will understand what she means:
I must tell Vera
.

Out the door into the surprise of an early spring morning, air suddenly sweet after yesterday’s rain. Pale sun brimming faintly like a dully glowing bulb. The thin scratchy sound of thatch brooms against the sidewalk—it must be close to seven, the old women have started their sweeping. Nina’s headache grips her scalp and forehead like a too-tight cap.
If you’ll just come along with me to headquarters for a minute.
The throbbing makes her squint as the sun stretches its pale light across the sky. The snow has fully melted, tiny streams in the cracks of the sidewalks, black rushing gullies at the side of the road. In front of the Metropole, a taxicab’s bright green lights beckon. But Nina needs to feel the air on her face, her feet on the ground. She walks past storefronts with cardboard displays in their windows, past the corner kiosks setting up their candy and drinks and sandwiches, past the long block of
doma kommuny.
Bad news, bad news…All at once everything is rotten, even this world she had thought was
better
. The new sidewalks are sagging, the new paint already flaking, like nail lacquer from the Cosmetic Trust. When she turns onto the boulevard near her old home, the big, stocky worker girl hosing the sidewalk lets the water pour right over Nina’s feet.

Just like that horrible janitor. Everyone is so awful.

Her wet shoes make slopping sounds as she arrives at her old alley. Dirty water spills out from the rusted drainpipes, and the smell is wet and dank. She has to step on planks that have been laid crosswise, to avoid the muck everywhere. Above, industrious early risers are already up and about, airing out their rooms, washing windows. She passes a woman scrubbing out the muddy entryway,
filling the alley with the smell of carbolic. The cleaning, the rushing drainpipes, the pale white morning glories crawling up the balconies in spindly strings…It was spring too when Vera’s parents were taken away. The memory returns, suddenly and with great clarity. Yes, of course. These mass arrests, always in spring or autumn, are seasonal, as vegetables and holidays are in other countries.

Now she is inside, making her way up the dark stairwell to her old apartment. She wonders if Vera was able to sleep at all last night, and if Mother is already up. Taking a deep breath, Nina prepares to tell them the news.

A
LL DAY
D
REW
had simply to think of him and she could feel it again. She wanted to tell someone, call Kate, or Jen, tell them how his touch felt, how, almost lovingly, he had touched the side of her face—

Of course it was ridiculous. They had a business relationship, and he was an older man, probably twenty years older! There was a heaviness in his touch, not just of weight but of magnitude. It was not simply the way he had touched her; it was something about his eyes, laughing but in a slightly sad way. His eyes, she decided, said something about having lived, something about humor and sadness being inexorably intertwined, no matter the depth of sadness, the depth of experience.

“Eyes full of life.” It was a phrase Grandma Riitta had always used when recalling Drew’s grandfather, Trofim. This phrase Drew now appropriated for Grigori Solodin. But he had looked so shaken when she pulled away. Well, how could he not be?

If only there were someone she could talk with. But Jen would just ask all kinds of dangerous questions, like How can you even be absolutely, one hundred percent sure he’s not married?…And Kate would be horrified at how much older he was. Not to mention that he was a client, Drew had a professional relationship with him,
would continue to have one until three weeks from today. She must reel herself in, take a deep breath. And yet let him understand: that it was all right, what he had done. She trusted him, as much as she was afraid.

For a while she simply thought to herself, wondering, not doing a scrap of work. To think that she had felt something, finally, and with the most improbable man. Just like Grandma Riitta and Trofim…. She nearly laughed to herself, and looked down at her garnet ring. Grandma Ritta would have understood. Thinking this—of Grandma Ritta’s love story—Drew had an idea.

It took her a few moments more to decide. Then she picked up the telephone and dialed Grigori Solodin’s number.

As soon as she spoke, he said, “I’m so sorry, I hope that—”

“There’s no need to be sorry.” She hoped her voice made that clear. “I just want to be…professional.”

“Of course, yes, please don’t—”

“I’m calling about something else. Unrelated, actually.” Personal business, she heard herself saying, aware that even in this telephone call, on the Beller line, she was crossing a boundary. “There’s a diary I’ve always wanted to read. Just a small one, not many pages at all, but it’s in Russian. It belonged to my grandfather. My mother’s father. My mother has it now, since my grandmother passed away. But she doesn’t speak Russian, either. I’ve always wondered what it says.” That her mother never seemed to have had much curiosity about the diary was one of the many things that continued to baffle Drew, though she had long sensed a faint fear surrounding it, at what it might contain: the man himself, her mother’s father in his own words, undiluted by Riitta’s loving recollections.

“I’d be more than happy to take a look at it.” Quickly he added, “If that’s what you’re asking.”

“I’d be very grateful.”

Grigori sounded relieved, even surprised, as he said, “Of course
if the handwriting is difficult, I might not be much help. But I’d be glad to give it a go.”

Drew said she would have her mother send it to her. “I’ve always imagined I’d eventually show it to my children.” Saying this, she realized she must not quite have given up hope that she might indeed start a family. “Or at least pass it down to them. The way my grandmother told me stories about him.”

“Were you very close with her? Your grandmother.”

“Yes. She’s my kindred spirit, in a way. I still think of her every day.” After a moment she heard herself say, “I wish I could talk to her about…things.”

Grigori’s voice was very quiet. “Drew. I—” He took a deep breath, seemed to be thinking, and Drew felt a sudden terror, of what he might say. “What I showed you today. The letters. They were family documents, too. Like your grandfather’s diary. I ought to tell you that.”

“From your family?” Drew’s thoughts sped, wondering what the connection might be.

After a moment Grigori said, “You see, my interest in Viktor Elsin, my research on his work, comes through a family connection. I first became interested in him for that reason. I have other documents. Some photographs. I would love to show them…”

Though his voice faded, Drew understood that he was asking her something, that what he had told her was difficult, and that it was her turn to help him. She heard herself saying, “I’d like to see them. That is, if you want to…”

He quietly told her yes.

D
AYS LATER, ON
a chilly spring afternoon, Nina joins Zoya in the long line at the information office on Petrovka Street. They are trying to find out if Gersh is still being held there; he never did make
it back from headquarters. So far, Zoya has been able to find out only that he has been arrested for “anti-Soviet activities.” At least, that is what Viktor has passed along to Nina. She hopes to find out something more today. Though the information office won’t open until ten thirty, Zoya has been here since five in the morning, so as to be closer to the head of the line. Sure enough, by the time Nina joins her there at one o’clock, there are hundreds of people along the sidewalk. Nina counts, since there is plenty of time.

Thick knots of gray fill the sky. Without sunlight, the day feels even colder. Nina has brought Zoya some berry soda and biscuits, which Zoya ingests eagerly. “It’s really so nice of you to wait with me,” she keeps saying. “Although I’m not much company, of course. Before you got here, I kept falling asleep standing up! I hate to get up so early, you know, but yesterday I didn’t get here until seven and had to wait eight hours, and then just as my turn was about to come up, the woman in the window announced it was closing time!” All Nina can think is that what she suspected must be true, after all: Zoya must really love Gersh. “All I wanted to know was had they sent him away somewhere.”

The smell of the air is oddly familiar. Nina tries to think what it reminds her of. Every once in a while the people behind them push up against them, eager for the line to move ahead. The first time it happens, Nina’s immediate thought is that she has been recognized, that some fan in the line is about to cause a scene—but she has tied a big kerchief over her head and in fact is barely recognizable.

“Anyway, I’ve been able to use my time all right,” Zoya says. “I’ve been writing a letter, to see if that won’t take care of things.” She takes a sheet of paper and a pen out of her purse. “Maybe you can help me.”

“I’m afraid I’m not much of a—”

“Dear Comrade Stalin—or is that too impersonal, do you think?” Zoya makes a mark on the page with the pen, begins again in a plain,
proud voice: “Dear Iosif Vissarionovich—sounds better, don’t you think? More direct. Dear Iosif Vissarionovich—oh, and copy to the arts commissioner, too, don’t you think?” She makes another note to herself. “Dear Iosif Vissarionovich, I am writing you regarding an urgent matter pertaining to my husband, the respected musician and composer Aron Simonovich Gershtein. First let me tell you that I am an active and responsible citizen who has been a member of the VKP since 1947. I was born and raised in Moscow and did my studies in the Party History department at the Institute of Red Professors. Following graduation, I went into government work, first with the Scholars’ Aid Commission, then with the Higher Education Committee of the Moscow City Education Department. I now work for the department’s lecture bureau….”

Nina listens as Zoya reads on, lists in detail Gersh’s educational and professional background, each fact noted as an example of his patriotic spirit. Every once in a while she stops to fiddle with phrasing. Her voice is earnest and hopeful, so that Nina recalls the letters she and her schoolmates used to write to Chairman Kalinin when they were children.
Hello Uncle Misha!
and lots of encouraging information about what they were up to in school, before making some simple request.
Give my regards to Uncle Stalin and the others
…Such earnest faith. Now, though, it seems childish.

“Despite his many years of dedicated service to this country, through his work as a professor and as a composer, my husband has been arrested under Article 58. And yet I assure you, as you would surely see yourself, that nothing my husband has ever done or said, nothing he has taken part in or even read, has even the merest link to any sort of counter-revolutionary agitation.”