I flinch.
“It’s fine,” he says, some sort of smile working along his face. “None of the essentials got clipped.”
“My brother was killed at Stalingrad. Were you –?”
“Stalingrad? I was too young.”
Of course he was; we’re the same age.
“I enlisted when I was eighteen; it was ’44.”
“Where were you, then? Where were you stationed?”
“We were moving back into Poland.” He leans in close to me, whispers. “Liberating Warsaw.”
I hear the disgust in his voice. “What . . . ?”
“Warsaw.” His mouth against my ear. “We stood by the river, did nothing. Let the Germans grind them up.”
I reach up, whisper back, “I, I heard . . .”
“A pack of lies.”
I look around. No one’s paying attention to us, a thin young man in civilian clothes, a slight, attentive young woman.
He presses his lips together. “I must be crazy talking to you like this. Annette?”
“What?”
“Annette, come to my place; come for dinner.” He takes my hand. “Let’s go.”
“Right now? I wanted to get a chicken . . .”
“Aren’t you sick of this? How much of your life have you spent standing in line? Come on. I’ll find us something in the cupboard.”
For a block we say nothing. He’s let go of my hand. Maybe he’s regretting his chicken. Or his words.
“Freezing out here,” I say at last.
“Comrade, as a daughter of the working class, you must be stalwart!” He takes my hand again, squeezes it. “It’s not far. Remember we used to walk to the library to study together? Did you have a crush on me?”
“It was brotherly love, Anatoly. Respect for a comrade. Besides, you were a bad influence.”
“Me? I was a mamma’s boy!”
“The girls used to say you sold stuff on the black market.”
He laughs. “Somewhat of an embellishment of the facts. I was a teenager. I retailed a few cigarettes from wholesalers. Hey, remember Comrade Lozovsky, that sanctimonious physics teacher? The one who only had one arm – he kept the empty sleeve tucked into the pocket of his suit jacket?”
I start to laugh. “And I was so immersed in my studies, and adolescence, that I never even noticed the missing arm?”
He laughs again. “That adolescent hormonal fog. No wonder they keep the boys and girls separate these days. Hey, can we just stop for a minute?” He leans against me, catches his breath. We’re passing a vast construction site surrounded by high board fences. Anatoly’s face sharpens. He leans towards me, whispers again in my ear. “The fence means they’re using forced labour. See the guard towers at each corner, the armed sentries?”
We walk a half block in silence again, then stop in front of a narrow stone building. “This is us,” Anatoly says. “Fifth floor.”
In the entrance he presses a switch and a dim yellow light floods the vestibule. His eyes are the way I remember them, those light green eyes. “Annette, do you ever feel . . . It’s just, sometimes it’s hard to feel that I’m the same person I was back then, that Odessa schoolboy.” His voice resonates in the bare vestibule. “It, it scares me, how things change. How easy it is for people to change.” He leans towards me, touching my shoulder. How did he know me?
I am not who I was. Are we still young, Anatoly and me? There’s something in his face, in the way that he holds himself, that argues against it. Are we who we were, who we should be? For a moment we’re quiet in the quiet building.
“Do you want to go? You can go. You don’t have to come in.”
“No, no. I can visit for a bit.”
“Then come on up,” he says. “I bet you’re starving.”
The elevator’s not working. By the time we get to the top of the stairs, Anatoly’s out of breath. He fits the key into the lock, calls out, “Misha? You here?” Picks up a scrap of paper from the table. “Lucky boy: my roommate’s at his uncle’s for dinner. The aunt’s a fabulous cook. And the people you’re staying with, Annette?”
“Cousins. Not real cousins, not blood relations, but our families were close. I’ve lived with them since I got here. They’re good people.”
“I have to scrounge in the cupboard. I’ll be right back.”
I undo my coat, run my fingers along the books on Anatoly’s shelves. A wall of shelves. The window in the room is large, and because the building’s on a rise, I can see grey black bits of the river, its broad, careful, elegant curves. Except for the books, the furnishings are sparse: a davenport they must use as a bed at night, a cot tucked underneath it, an armchair.
“We take turns: one week Misha gets the davenport and I get the cot, and the next week we switch.” Anatoly has come back into the room, half a loaf of dark rye in his hand, some cheese, a bottle of vodka. He holds them up. “Provisions. Take off your coat; have a seat.”
“It’s chilly in here. I’ll keep it on for now.” I sit down in the armchair. It’s leather – must be of pre-war, probably pre-Revolutionary, vintage, the red of its leather darkening to crimson with wear in places, fading to pink where the sun has taken the colour.
“Bread’s fresh.” Anatoly hands me a sandwich. “I haven’t even asked what your work is.”
“I’m taking architecture at the Mossovet Workshops here.”
“You must be a good student.”
“I don’t know. Too good, maybe. Do what the teacher says. Deferential. And the head of the school, Chernikhov – he has this rigid, elaborate system of pedagogy. I sometimes wonder what I’m learning; whether I’m learning or just acquiescing.”
“Do I detect anti-social tendencies in that statement?”
I smile, not sure whether it’s all right to laugh.
Anatoly smiles stiffly, walks over to the window. “Your cousins, what do they do?”
“Pavel teaches agronomy at the university; Raisa’s a doctor. She used to work in a clinic but after the war she was promoted to health officer at the Machine Tool Factory. She’s doing a study on health hazards there. She’s probably up for a commendation for it. And their son Vladimir just got into medical school.”
“Genuine Soviet citizens all,” Anatoly says.
I hear the acid in his voice, the sneer at my family, at what they’ve been able to make of their lives. He’s still facing the window. I study his back, the tense shoulders. What am I doing here with him?
“The reason that we’re so happy about Vladimir getting into medical school is because there’s a quota for Jews. Maybe you didn’t know.” I button my coat again, reach for my gloves.
He turns from the window. “You going?”
“Yes.”
He stands there. I’m on the landing when I hear him call me. “Annette, please? I’m sorry. Please come back. You don’t want me drinking all this vodka myself, do you?” I turn around. “I’m sorry, Annette. I don’t know what gets into me sometimes; I just get sour. Please don’t go.” He takes my gloves from me, smoothes them. “Just stay for a bit.”
Go. Stay. Go. I follow him back into the apartment. He hands me a glass. “Sit, please. I really am sorry. Tell me about your family. Your cousin got in, then, despite the quota? Must be a smart kid.”
“He is; he’s brilliant.”
“Please sit down. You’re not drinking. Do you want a glass of tea? It’ll warm you up. I can put on the samovar. Please, finish your sandwich.” He’s still playing with the gloves.
I put my hand out for them.
“What’s going on,” Anatoly says, his voice angry again, “it’s disgusting. But your family, they’re managing?”
“Anatoly? Can I have my gloves?”
He smiles, puts them in the pocket of his jacket. “I’m holding them hostage. Take your coat off. I’ll put the samovar on.”
I put my hands in my pockets. Go. Stay. Go. I can hear Anatoly clattering china. I should go. He comes back with two glasses of tea, s
ugar, sits on the davenport, pats the cushion beside him. I sit down.
“So your family’s doing all right?”
“Pretty much. May I please have my gloves back?” He takes them from his pocket, hands them to me. I see a scar across his palm, something dark lodged against one knuckle. He puts a hand to my cheek, just touches it with cold fingertips.
“How can you stand it?” he asks.
Those puppets prancing. “It’s not a surprise, Anatoly. It’s always been there, the anti-Semitism. It’s always there. It was there in Canada. We’re used to it.”
“But here there are explicit laws against it, Annette. Isn’t that why your family came here? And the law hasn’t changed.”
Such innocence; such outrage. “Look – Pavel, my uncle, he says we have to try to see it in perspective. Culture doesn’t change as quickly as economics. In time, maybe the next generation, maybe the one after that, the tendency towards prejudice will diminish. Some day it may even be eradicated. But till then, it’ll flare up and then fade. Pavel thinks Comrade Stalin must be unaware, somehow, or it wouldn’t be happening.”
Anatoly shrugs, makes a face. “But in the meantime, it must be tough for you.”
“I think it’s harder on Pavel and Raisa than it is on me. They were here at the beginning. They’ve spent their whole lives working for this, this future.”
“But for you?”
“I’m here and not here, Russian and not Russian. But I’m not a cynic either.”
“Not like me,” he says.
“Are you a cynic?”
“Maybe. What I am is tired. The war made me tired.” His face has gone grey again. “And it makes me impatient. And mean, sometimes.” He looks at me. “Maybe being tired like this makes it hard for me to stay in this future we’re supposed to be living for. I have trouble even staying in the now, standing in line for my possible chicken. The war keeps coming at me. I want to be in this room with you, be here. Not in some dugout, waiting for a grenade to take me apart. I have to work at not remembering.” He shifts on the davenport, and I can feel the shape of the air between us shift. “Sometimes takes my whole day just to expend all this willpower in not remembering.” He’s back on his feet, pacing the small room. “So you like it, living in Moscow with these cousins?”
“I feel lucky I have them. Lucky I still have a family, even if I’ve had to more or less make it up. Mostly I’m pretty happy here.”
“Are you?” The words come out hard.
“Yes.” I touch the armrest. “I am. Getting into the Mossovet – it feels like I’ve got my bearings now.”
“What’s it like – being happy?” That anger again, saturating the room.
“Don’t.” Suddenly I’m just as angry. I don’t need this man and his wounds, the bile in his voice. “You’ve no right to tell me I shouldn’t be as happy as I can manage.” What does he know about me? I walk to the window, away from him. Stare out, the river so calm, iced over. Stand and stare and feel, for some reason, the anger drain away.
He comes up, puts his arms around me, leans his head against mine. It’s heavy. He leans against me and I can’t bear it; I’m going to fall.
I’d seen those copies of Greek statues, the young men’s bodies slender but strong, the line of hip bone clear above the thighs. His body was like that, muscle rounded over the shoulders and that notch above the breastbone, tender, female. The skin there was soft, untouched, except that you wanted to touch it, rest a forefinger where it fit. I would run my fingers along the lines of bone, lightly touching the dark places, black nodes on the forearm, calf, where the shrapnel was still buried.
Misha, the roommate, soon realized that Anatoly and I were lovers without our having to say anything. And from then on, solid, cheerful Misha went to dinner at his uncle’s a bit more often, leaving Anatoly a casual, detailed note about exactly when he could be expected back. And he’d clear his throat, rattle the doorknob, take a long time fitting his key in the lock before he did come in.
Which was good, because we lost time in bed, let it loose in the bedclothes, in the touch of skin, mouth, tongue. Mostly we were silent, or not silent but without words, because words felt wrong, inappropriate, as though we were suddenly clothed in some outmoded attire. Words would bring us back into particular being. And I wanted to be, for once, in a place without words. A place where I got to rest from being human, sentient, myself – no flattening things out with words. I don’t know whether in these moments I was animal or divine, but they gave me back myself.
I didn’t know either what all this was for Anatoly, though I could feel how much he needed me. Though he was careful of me, gentle, when we were in bed his face would darken, the light went from his eyes. And I could feel him starving, his mouth against my neck or on my breast, his chest against mine. He buried himself in me, wanted to vanish; needed to feel whatever it was he was feeling, reconstitute himself. He didn’t talk much about the war. I couldn’t imagine that place in him, where it took him. But it didn’t matter. I wanted him. Wanted this: to let my grief go.
And so for weeks after that first lovemaking, we let ourselves get lost in one another, stayed in bed as much as we could. We made love, and we talked. With Anatoly, I could talk about Odessa, my lost family, Ben, Poppa, my mother. He’d met them all, however glancingly. I even told him snippets about Winnipeg, my long-ago life there, about Joseph. Though he told me my infatuation with architecture was “lacking in theoretical rigour,” he let me go on about it. He even let me drag him out of bed to stand in front of my favourite buildings, freezing, while I rhapsodized about my beloved façades. And I loved our talk.
But then, about a month after we met, Anatoly vanished for three days. He’d already dropped hints about little side deals he had, small-time black market adventures. I didn’t like it, didn’t like any of it. He teased me about being a prig, then said nothing more to me about it. I’d gotten used to his erratic schedule, gotten used to him showing up hours late or not at all when we were supposed to be meeting friends for a movie. But this three-day absence was different. When he finally turned up at the apartment it was three o’clock in the morning, and he was haggard, drunk. He wouldn’t say where he’d been or what he’d been doing. I told him to leave and not come back, told him I couldn’t be with someone so irresponsible. The next day he was back, sober, his arms full of flowers. Wrapped in brown paper was an expensive architectural book I had been coveting for months in a bookstore window. I didn’t know what to do. Go. Stay. Go. I couldn’t give up on him. Not then. But I told myself I’d taken a step back, that I didn’t love him, not yet. Told myself I wanted him, but didn’t need him.
I’ve been pacing the apartment for two hours. We were supposed to be going to the opera. Some pal of Anatoly’s was going to get him a pair of tickets to Prince Igor. I hear voices in the corridor, Polankov laughing, Anatoly. When I open the door Polankov gives me a guilty grin. “So next week, then, my friend?” Anatoly says.
“Next week, maybe the week after. Evening, Comrade,” Polankov says, and heads down the stairs.
“Hey,” Anatoly says, kissing me hard on the mouth.
I push him away.
“What’s wrong? I’ve just got a little business arrangement going with your caretaker. Nice fellow, Polankov.”
Black market. He’s making more of his little deals on the black market. “No he’s not a nice fellow.”
“Clever fellow, then. Look, I brought you a present. Two presents.”
“I don’t want your presents.”
“Not these?” He waves the tickets at me. “Two tickets, row 15. For once we don’t have to sit in the gods.”
“It’s too late. It’s nine thirty. Curtain was at eight o’clock.”
“Damn me. I got waylaid. Well, before you reject number one present, let me sweeten the deal with number two present.” He pulls a bottle out of his jacket. It’s vermouth-vodka, a bright green mixture of wormwood and vodka. The one time I tried it, it tasted lik
e ink mixed with furniture polish. “No dice? You won’t drink with me? You’re mad.”
“What did you expect?”
“Tell you what,” he says. “Forget about the opera. We’ll go dancing. What do you say?” He takes two glasses from the sideboard, fills both. “Have a drink – great stuff.”
I shake my head.
“You’re right: it’s not a lady’s drink, vodka-vermouth.” He finishes his glass, raises the second in a toast. “To my dear departed Annette. I mean, departing. We’re off, aren’t we? We can still see the second act. Or, if the lady prefers, we can go dancing.”
“Do you dance better when you’re drunk?”
“I’m drinking; I’m not drunk. It’ll take at least three more shots before I even begin to be drunk. And yes, I am a better dancer when I’m drunk. It de-inhibits one’s inhibitions.” He takes another long swallow.
“Why don’t you take your bottle home with you? It’s all the company you need.”
“Better company than what I’ve got here. You’re a cold fish, Annette – anybody ever tell you that?”
“Go home and get drunk. Take your bottle.”
I’m reading in the front room when I hear something at the door: the doorknob’s twisting back and forth. “Who is it? Who’s there?”
“Me. Anatoly.”
“Go away. It’s after midnight.”
“Please, Annette. I need to see you.”
“Go away.”
He starts pounding on the door.
“Be quiet! Everyone’s asleep.”
“Just let me in . . . I have to talk with you.”
“All right, but be quiet.”
His voice drops to a whisper. “I’ll be very quiet. Silent as the grave.”
“Good.”
He’s leaning in the doorway, grinning. “You should have come dancing. We would have had fun.”
“I’ll get you a coffee.”
“I brought my own beverage.” This time it’s a bottle of vodka, half drunk. “I met some friends. You should have come.”
The Knife Sharpener's Bell Page 20
