Russian Winter (38 page)

“I remember before I left Hungary,” Zoltan said, “understanding so completely that literature could save me as much as it could get me killed. Of course it’s not like that here. But isn’t it funny, that in some ways the price one pays for freedom of speech is…a kind of indifference.”

Grigori nearly told him his latest news: that it looked as though he might already have found the perfect translator for Zoltan’s poems, a Hungarian American who had expressed interest in Zoltan’s work years ago, at a conference Grigori had attended. He was proud of remembering her, a professor in Syracuse. But he kept quiet, since he had yet to secure a publisher, and that could take some time.

“Of course,” Zoltan was saying, “you can’t be wary in poetry. In any art. Just like with love. It’s all or nothing.” He chewed on his broccoli. “That’s why love too is dangerous. We stand up for love. We take risks. Well, you of all people know about that—your own Soviet Russia, an entire nation rearranged to discourage love for anything other than one’s country.”

Because love caused people to think for themselves, to look out for themselves and their loved ones. Nodding, Grigori said, “Love makes people strong, we do all kinds of crazy things for love.” In his mind he saw Drew stepping up to him in his office, reaching her arms
around him as he pulled her to his chest…and the Department of Foreign Languages right on the other side of the door.

“Exactly,” Zoltan said, triumphantly. “That’s what makes it more important than anything else.” He chewed a bit and added, “Except literature, of course.”

Thinking aloud, Grigori said, “Sometimes I think that’s what keeps me in academe. It’s one of the few places in this country where you don’t have to always fight to convince other people that literature and art matter.” With a sigh he added, “Zoltan, what am I going to do without you here next year?”

“Exactly what you always do,” Zoltan said. “Sneak cigarettes in your office and hold too few department meetings.”

Grigori laughed. But he was serious when he said, “The truth is, I feel less and less connected, somehow, to the university these days. Less engaged.” He wondered if it had to do with Drew, with the way he felt in her presence, and how meaningless so much else of his life now seemed. Drew’s arms around him…Still, he ought to be wary. It might be too much, he might scare her away. Or weigh her down. Why burden her with my secrets? Really I don’t see how she could love me, she hardly knows me. I barely know her. She’s still young. And me, fifty years old!

All day his thoughts had followed this path; he thought with faint guilt of Evelyn, and of the expectations of Christine’s friends, and of everyone in the department, that it would simply be too strange, how could it ever work, so improbable, and people would talk. But then he would ask himself, what did he care about people
talking
, people with nothing better to do than
talk
about other people….

And yet when he thought of what it would take to get to know someone again the way he knew Christine—such a steep road to climb, to get that close to someone again. It really was all or nothing, Zoltan was right. But to get from here to
all
, to knowing and loving
someone completely…It seemed impossible, how did people do that, share everything of themselves, all over again?

And yet, now Grigori wanted to, wanted at least to try.

T
HE SEASON IS
busy as usual, Nina dancing at her peak. Dance itself is her kindest partner, now that her friendships have fallen away and her marriage tensed. She has avoided Vera all winter, eyes quickly averted the few times she has passed her in the hall or backstage. And then for a long while Vera was out on medical leave, her Achilles again, this time for surgery, with a requisite six weeks of recovery. But her Achilles must not have healed well; Vera still isn’t back.

Meanwhile Nina has been on a number of brief tours, to Riga and Kiev and Minsk. Now it is May, the air sweet, leaves a bright yellowy green. Viktor has gone out to the dacha. He says it is because he needs to get out of the city, but Nina knows it is their life together, their cramped quarters, that he needs escape from. He has even timed his return so that he won’t be back until after Nina has left—tomorrow, on another mini-Bolshoi tour, just the “stars.” It is what they call a “quickie” tour, three theaters in three days.

And so, when the wife from the apartment next door raps on the door and says there is someone on the telephone for Viktor—someone from the hospital—Nina at first thinks that something has happened to him. It takes her a moment to understand the question, to tell the voice on the clunky black telephone, “I’m sorry, he isn’t here. He won’t be back until next week.”

“I’m calling because his name is listed as the emergency contact on Vera Borodina’s file. She isn’t doing well. If he could come in—”

“I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“Vera Borodina is here, and we are…fearful for her recovery. If Mr. Elsin is able to come in—”

“I’ll come.” Nina’s heart is racing. “Just please tell me where to go.”

At the hospital she is sent up to a room full of many occupied beds. Vera’s is in the front corner of the room, tucked behind a tall screen. Vera is pale, her eyes closed. In a daze, Nina wonders how long she has been seriously ill. “What’s wrong with her?” Nina asks the orderly who has brought her here.

The orderly shushes her, and pulls her more fully behind the screen, to hide her. They are not to have visitors here; Nina has paid to be allowed up. Before she can repeat her question, the orderly has hurried off.

With her skin so pale, Vera looks nearly angelic, her hair shiny and only slightly matted. Nina takes her hand and is relieved to feel a pulse.

“Verochka, I’m here.”

A twitch of her face.

“You can hear me? Vera, what happened?”

No reaction. Still holding her hand, Nina tells herself that the strength in her own body will carry over into Vera’s. If she doesn’t let go, she can make her healthy again.

But now the doctor, a short, stern-looking woman, has come to check on her.

“But what’s wrong with her?” Nina asks.

“Hemorrhaging. It seems to have stopped for now. But we can’t be sure. Some people are predisposed to it.” She makes a quick pen mark on the piece of paper on her clipboard.

“Predisposed?” Nina looks at Vera, whose hair curls slightly from sweat. “I don’t understand.”

But the doctor has already gone on to another bed, the one right across from Vera’s—no screen to separate it—flipping to another page on her clipboard. Nina would like to sit somewhere, but when she steps out to look for a chair, there are none, just bed after bed, and a stocky, wide-hipped nurse bustling forth. She has with her an
infant—a crying infant, as if there is not enough noise and discomfort in this room already.

“He’s a hungry one,” the nurse says, handing the little thing to the woman in the bed across from Vera’s. Nina watches her help bring the child to the mother’s breast. “No, no,” the nurse is saying. “You’re doing it wrong, he can’t latch on at that angle.” The new mother readjusts the infant. “I can’t do it.”

The nurse gives a huff. “Oh, so you’re going to let him starve?”

Nina looks up at the nurse, and at the overwhelmed mother, and only then does it all make sense. She peeks around the cloth barrier, looks quickly at the bed next to Vera’s, and the next, and the next. “Oh, look, he’s staying on now,” the new mother is saying, relief and joy in her voice. “Look, there’s the milk!”

The big-hipped nurse says, “There, you see? He knows just what to do.”

“Excuse me,” Nina asks anxiously, as the young mother suckles her infant. The nurse turns toward her briskly. “My friend here. Did she have a baby?”

“Of course she had a baby. This is the maternity ward, isn’t it?”

“But…I don’t understand. Where’s the child?”

“In the nursery.” And then, almost mischievously, “You can see him if you like.”

Him. A boy. In a stunned voice, Nina says, “Yes, please.”

When the nurse returns, she holds a tiny baby wrapped snugly in white cloth. Nina peers warily at the infant, expecting a walnut-faced creature like the one across from her. But as the nurse, with something like reluctance, hands over the small bundle, Nina sees that this baby is beautiful. Instead of closed puffed slits of skin where eyes should be, this baby’s eyes are open, searching, a bewildered blue. This tiny being is clearly a person, fully human, his nose and chin surprisingly defined. “Why, he’s perfect.”

“Yes, he’s a handsome one. I did his hair.” Though the child has
only the finest—nearly invisible—whisper of hair, the nurse has given him a crisp, minuscule part.

Yes, he is a real being, a living person. Nina searches his face to find Vera somewhere in it. Vera and…who? Whose child is this?

Nina asks the nurse.

“Just a big line where the father’s name is supposed to be.” Clearly the nurse does not approve.

Vera in the
banya
, saying, “So many men have wanted to marry me….” And how she was willing to put up with that awful Serge. As if he would ever help Gersh. Serge, who dropped Polina
like a hot potato
…But no, surely Vera wouldn’t do…that. The apartment all to herself as soon as Mother moved out…The truth is, it’s been so long since Vera and Nina have spoken, the father could be anyone, really. Nina shakes her head.

“That’s right,” says the nurse. “So much for this little guy, no father’s name on his certificate.” A new law has reclassified illegitimacy, making such children second-class citizens.

Nina watches the child, bewildered. Turning to the nurse, she asks, “What’s your name?”

“Maria. Three more, and I’ll have seen my one-thousandth baby here.”

“Mmm.” Nina nods, but she cannot keep her eyes away from the child, how sweet and helpless he is. The swaddling cloth comes up over his chin. She tugs the cloth down a bit, revealing the top of the baby’s tiny muslin shirt. Yes, his mouth is Vera’s, exactly—but minuscule and moist and perfect, the same way his nose is perfect, the same way his eyes are perfect. Nina touches the baby’s cheek. “Why, he even has a tiny dimple!”

The nurse, Maria, says, “Just like a movie star.”

He squirms then, and lets out a cry. “I’ll need to take him back, now.”

Still squirming, the child cries out again, catlike, painful. Maria takes him from Nina and bustles out of the room.

Her eyes closed, her breath light, Vera looks even more pale now, as if the nurse has scared the color right out of her cheeks. “Verochka,” Nina says, stroking her forehead, “why didn’t you tell me?” Vera’s eyelids flutter as if to open, then close again. Nina takes her hands in hers. “You didn’t have to do this, you know. Did you want to?”

Maybe she didn’t notice until it was too late. Or maybe she wanted this child. But how could she, if it is of that horrible Serge…No, surely she would only keep the child if the father was someone she loved. Nina brings her mouth closer to Vera’s ear. “I would have helped you, if I’d known.”

Now Vera’s lips move. Words too faint to make out. Nina asks her to repeat it, and waits, but Vera says nothing more.

Now the nurse has returned. Frowning, she puts her hand on Vera’s forehead. “She’s burning up.” Briskly she turns to Nina and says, “I’m sorry, you’ll have to come back later.” She lifts the side of the blanket to glimpse Vera’s body, then turns toward the doorway and calls out another name.

“But…Is she going to be all right?” Nina is pushed aside, as a doctor and another nurse rush in.

No one answers her as they hurry to Vera’s rolling bed and whisk her with them out the door.

A
t first Maria thought she was the only one who had noticed the patient’s cream-colored pocketbook. Leather, a buttery color and soft, you could tell just by the way it folded in gentle pleats up at the clasp—two small flat gold knobs that hooked together like tiny hands. Maria had been eying it ever since the woman first started hemorrhaging, when it was already clear her chances of survival were slim. But then there was an awful moment when Maria noticed Lydia, the orderly, eying that same purse. It was just waiting there for someone to take it.

The moment runs through Maria’s head again as she makes her swift way from the maternity ward out of the building, onto the broad, dusty boulevard. With Lydia, you knew it was simply money she was after. Maria, though, wanted the purse. Beautiful, the leather so fine, who knew where one could find such a thing, let alone afford it. If only she had thought to move it, hide it…Instead, she had noticed Lydia, who turned to see Maria watching her and glanced nervously back at the purse. That was when Maria decided to approach her, and the two of them made their bargain.

In the privacy of one of the medical closets, they quickly emptied the bag, at first just a few papers and keepsakes the poor woman had been carrying around with her. Much of the stuff wouldn’t fetch any
money at all. Photographs, a stained handkerchief, a pink lipstick down almost to the tube. But at the bottom were a fancy hairbrush, a gold makeup compact with mirror, and a matching perfume flask. The wallet was a new one, of matching creamy leather. Gifts, these things must have been, from someone with money and means. Or maybe the woman herself had bought them. Apparently she was a ballerina, one Lydia said she recognized, although Maria had never heard of her. Not a bad amount of money in the wallet, either. Lydia kept rifling through the little slits, in case there might be something more, while Maria did the same with the inside of the purse.

That was how she found the necklace.

A big smooth stone. Sliding it out from the slim inner pocket, Maria stopped herself. She could not quite see what the stone was but did not want to risk having Lydia see. The glimmer around it looked like real gold; it could really be worth something. She might make more selling this than any one of those other things. And so she decided: this she would not split with Lydia.

She was about to slip the thing quickly back into the side pocket, but Lydia said, “Let me see?” and grabbed the purse from her. Quickly Maria shoved the necklace into her own purse, a shiny, poorly constructed thing of black vinyl.

When Lydia had gone through all the contents of the leather one, she began to gather everything up, promising to split whatever she made, fifty-fifty. A glimmer of doubt, that Lydia would keep her word. Instead, Maria suggested that Lydia take the wallet, the money, and all other valuables (the comb and compact and perfume case), and that she—Maria—would keep what she had originally wanted more than anything: the purse.

“Here, just swap hers with mine, for the record. Put anything you don’t want in here, and I’ll put my things in that one”—she gestured toward the beautiful cream-colored bag. Then she switched the contents of her own vinyl bag with the leather one, careful not
to let Lydia see the necklace. The problem was, Maria hadn’t quite seen it either, as she dumped her things into the leather pocketbook. She turned the vinyl bag upside down, right above the leather purse, and gave it a good shake. Then Lydia transferred the woman’s non-valuables to the cheap vinyl purse, and the two of them were finished with their transaction.

Maria runs through those moments again now as she continues on her way, walking briskly in the warm spring air, her head covered in a paisley kerchief, a pocketbook over each shoulder, arms crossed below her midriff, coat concealing the most precious bundle of all. Already she has stopped once, in an alley, to go through the leather bag, and then the vinyl one—but she still cannot find that necklace. Well, it doesn’t matter. She has a much more important task at hand, and hugs her precious bundle tightly to her chest. Near the Krasnye Vorota metro stop she turns onto Kotelnicheskaya and her pace quickens, brisk squeak of her shoes with each step. The sound reminds her of baby birds, hungry and chirping incessantly, abandoned in their nests. She lets out a great sigh, as she has many a time, in the face of such tragedy. No matter how many times it happens, she has never grown used to it—the perfunctory dreariness, the flat factuality, the extreme nonnegotiability of death.

Soon she has come to one of the nicer high-rise apartment houses, where a woman named Katya lives with her husband, Feodor. According to the friend who first introduced them, telling her their plight, Katya is a chemist, and her husband is a geologist. It is for them that Maria has paid Boris in the hospital records office to make sure to take care of any documentation.

Katya’s face, when she ushers Maria into the apartment, is a mix of smile and worry lines. She is well into her forties but wears her hair in a thick braid tucked up into a wide barrette at the base of her head. She kisses Maria, peers into the bundle, and begins to cry. Maria cannot tell if these are tears of joy or sympathy. The child is still sleeping.

“You’re sure there are no relatives?” Katya asks.

“There was just the one friend,” Maria tells her. “After identifying the body, she ran off.”

Katya says, “I imagine she must have been in shock.”

Maria shakes her head. “A snobby one, she was. Turns out she’s famous, another ballerina, according to one of the nurses.
I
didn’t recognize her. I told her she could keep her friend’s things….” She hears the evasion in her voice, adds, “She didn’t want anything.”

The maternity dress and stretched-out stockings Maria has left in a bin in the hospital. And as for this poor child, well, everyone knows an orphanage is a rough place, especially for a bastard child like this one. There is no doubt in Maria’s mind that she is giving him a better future, a mother and father, legitimacy and love.

Katya’s face has relaxed, finally able to accept her luck. “May I hold him?” she asks.

“He’s yours.” Maria passes her the delicate bundle, his tiny chest rising ever so slightly with each tiny breath. “Oh,” Katya says, and begins to cry again.

Maria places the vinyl purse on the wooden table beside them. “Her belongings are here. The only things she had with her.”

Katya doesn’t ask any more questions. Not in the face of such a gift, this answered prayer. She looks down and kisses the baby on his forehead, while Maria waits, not wanting to ruin the moment by asking for her tip. Then Maria hears Feodor’s footsteps behind them, and Katya turns to show him that a miracle has finally occurred.

A
NNA
Y
AKOV WAS
out of the office until the following week. Though Drew’s heart sank to find the automated reply in her in-box, she had managed to locate a telephone number—only to discover that it too went straight to Anna Yakov’s mailbox. So it was not until Monday that Drew received the fax.
I believe this is it
, Anna Yakov
had written in hasty script.
Sorry for the delay
. The following page, scored with lined columns and profuse with penmanship, appeared to be a photocopy of a page from the logbook. Though written in thick ink, the handwriting was slightly faded from the transmission. The fax itself was clear enough to read—if only Drew had been able to read Russian. For a moment she just stared at it, hard, searchingly, as though simple patience and effort might somehow make the words intelligible to her.

“Hey, Lieutenant, good news.”

Drew looked up to see Lenore standing at her door.

“I’ve already had three messages complimenting us on the supplemental,” Lenore told her. Drew was gripping the fax so tight, she realized she was wrinkling the flimsy page. “All old ladies, of course.” Lenore laughed, while Drew placed the fax on her desk as if it were nothing at all.

Ordinarily she would not have waited an extra second to report her news. Now, though, she felt strangely as if the page, whatever information it contained, had nothing to do with anyone here, as if it were not about the auction at all. No, it was nothing Drew cared to share with Lenore. What she said instead, in a casual, musing way, was, “You know, I think it’s probably time you stopped calling me that.”

Lenore raised her eyebrows. “Calling you…Lieutenant—is that what you mean?”

Drew nodded, smiling lightly at how good it felt to speak her thoughts, her feelings. She had never seen Lenore look flustered before.

“Well, of course. Certainly. I never realized…I’m sorry, Drew. If you had told me it was a problem…”

Smooth and easy, Drew said, “Now it won’t be.”

Lenore stood up straighter. “Good point.” She gave a professional smile, said she’d see her at the ten-thirty meeting, and left.

Feeling a great lightness in her chest, Drew turned back to the fax that sat waiting on her desk. Eager and wary, she picked up the telephone to call Grigori Solodin.

O
N HER HOSPITAL
form, for next of kin, Vera had written “Viktor Elsin.”

This fact won’t give Nina’s mind a rest, even after Nina has signed the necessary forms and left the hospital. Well, now that Mother is dead…Not my name, but my husband’s…
Just a big line where the father’s name is supposed to be
. I know we had a falling-out, but still…Next of kin.

She goes directly to her old apartment—Mother’s apartment, Vera’s apartment—to see if there might be some indication there, some clue as to exactly what happened.

The room looks different, sparse without Mother’s things. Same old bed, and the wooden chest where Nina’s own clothes, folded carefully, used to be. In it now are blankets, mittens, winter scarves, the woolly smell of winter. Here is Vera’s big travel trunk. Nina opens it warily but shuts it at the first glimpse, unable to face the sight of Vera’s clothes.

The first place she decides to search is underneath the cot. Indeed there is a box there, with a little latch that hooks over the edge. Nina slides it out, brushes off a layer of dust, and unhooks the clasp. The box is full of folded papers, which Nina quickly shuffles through, searching for letters. Or love notes.

But these are professional communications, ballet contracts, receipts for earnings. Below are other formal documents, and a series of mailings that appear to concern Vera’s parents. Nina returns all of them to the box and places it back underneath the bed.

She stands up, wipes the dust from her knees. On Vera’s bedside table is a bottle of perfume and a large Palekh box. The table has a
small drawer, and though it might simply be decorative, when Nina pulls on the little knob, the drawer surprises her by sliding open. Shallow, containing some nail clippers and a flat little metal container. Nina removes the metal lid to find inside tiny pieces of torn yellowed paper. Trying to make out the typed words, she realizes that she knows what these bits of paper are—what they once were. There is an awful ripping feeling in her chest. She puts the lid back on the tin and shuts the drawer, feeling guilty all over again.

But she goes ahead and opens the Palekh box. Inside is a shallow tray, nothing in it. Not quite expecting anything, Nina lifts the tray. Underneath, to her surprise, she finds a gathering of amber beads.

She lifts them out, a bracelet and a pair of earrings.
The
bracelet,
the
earrings—the ones framed in gold, the ones Madame displayed on the table that day. Only the necklace is not here; Nina’s heart winces as she realizes that Vera must have been wearing it.

Vera, wearing it. Vera’s bracelet and earrings.

Nina’s heart plunges. No—no. No, of course not. How could it be? It can’t be.

Well, of course it can. Of course. What was she thinking, leaving the two of them there together at the dacha?

She drops the bracelet. No, maybe it’s not true, maybe she is wrong. Because how could they? How dare they? Her entire body is trembling.

It wasn’t enough to turn Madame against me, wasn’t enough to turn Viktor against me….

No wonder she didn’t speak to me, didn’t dare look me in the eye.

And Viktor, is that where he’s been: not the writers’ retreat but the hospital, with his Vera…. But no, that can’t be, they would not have called for him at home, Nina would have seen him at the hospital…. No, they must have been keeping it a secret, not letting on to anyone:
Just a big line where the father’s name is supposed to be
. A secret—their secret. All the time that Nina has been working so
hard, and been so trusting. She feels, now, her heart cracking. Yes, that is what is happening, that is just how it feels, her heart cracked in two, like a nut.

The next thought that comes to her, swiftly and absurdly, is
My life is over
. Because how can she go back? How can she continue to live?

She will strangle him, throttle him, stab him a thousand times. She understands, now, how a person could do such a thing. Her fury has turned her skin hot, her face burning.

The two people left in her world, the two people she loved most…Together, behind her back. Yes, this is how it feels to be betrayed: her chest ripped apart, her heart torn out. The pain is physical—immense, gaping. Now she hears a wailing sound. It is her own voice; she has begun sobbing.

For a long time she sobs, until her voice has become hoarse and her eyes hurt from crying. Yet even when she takes a deep breath and sits very still, quiet and exhausted, her thoughts continue to race.

She will have to leave Viktor. Move out—but where is there for her to go, other than this apartment right here? This room full of Vera’s belongings. This place where Vera and Viktor must have been meeting, the two of them together, here where Nina and Mother once lived together so innocently.

I have to leave this place, leave this life.

You can’t leave, no one can, you know that.

I hate them, hate them with every ounce of my being, I’m full of hate.

I have to leave, thank God we leave tomorrow.