Russian Winter

by Daphne Kalotay

  Before that, it had come out that I was a poet, and I waited for her to mention her husband. But she did not. When I asked if she read poetry anymore, she said no, she had lost her taste for it. That was how she said it, lost her taste. I asked how that could happen, and she said she agreed with Plato, or at least Plato as summarized for her: that there was something dishonest about it and that he was right to want to banish the poets. I was of course horrified. Zoltan looked up at Grigori again to say, “I’ve never forgiven Plato for that.”

  He went back to reading: What she meant, she told me, was that the only reality was life, real life, and that these beautified versions were lies and she no longer had patience for it. I dared to say that I supposed her husband would disagree. She said, No, it was he who had told her Plato’s view, and that she thought he was well aware that his poems were not truth. The reality he wanted to believe wasn’t anything that existed, she said, and so he had to create it on the page. She said, “He wanted to believe it, but I don’t think he did.” Then Roger came twirling at us with a Christmas ball hanging from one nostril—Oh, that’s it. That’s where it ends.”

  Grigori nodded slowly, wondering if what Revskaya had said was true. “Thank you for letting me hear it. It definitely puts another spin on his poetry.”

  “I’ll make a photocopy for you, shall I? Funny, isn’t it, how one forgets these things. It’s the auction that’s made me think about her, all the buzz in the papers.” Zoltan was already picking up his plastic bags, turning to leave Grigori’s office. “Good day to you, Grigori, I’ll leave the photocopy in your box. Funny how you can see things different ways, depending on what you’re looking for.”

  Zoltan shuffled out, and Grigori reached over to close the door after him—but Carla was already leaning in to say, “You know this is a nonsmoking building.”

  A NEW YEAR begins, dirty icicles hanging from eaves, sun waiting until ten to rise. Windows shut tight for the season, wedged with wadded cotton that soon turns black with grime. Mother makes her rounds, to work, to the shops, to the hospital and the prison, to this friend and that relative, while Nina hurries back and forth, in the mornings to company class and the mandatory Marxist lectures, in the afternoons to rehearsal, and in evenings to perform. Not to mention compulsory “community service,” long bumpy bus rides to distant villages to perform for peasant laborers, or for factory workers in big industrial plants. For extra money, there are private concerts at clubs, and performances at institutes and academies, scurrying from concert hall to concert hall. When she has worked her muscles too hard, her entire body feels as if it is trembling inside. Knots in her legs, hips, feet. Stockings bloody at the toes. Some days everything comes together beautifully, her body obeys and even surprises her with its achievements. Other days it disappoints her. She is forever cleaning her toe shoes and ironing her costumes, stitching elastics and ribbons onto her slippers. Listening to notes after rehearsal, shedding occasional tears. The frustration of unattainable perfection…She kisses her mother’s cheeks and steps out into the twilight, past children playing hockey in the alley, their bright voices like chimes in the cut-glass air. In the street overstuffed trams roll slowly by, passengers clinging to the sides, as Nina heads to her world of tights and tutus, of makeup rubbed on and then off, of the Bolshoi curtains drawn apart and then together again, their gold tassels swinging. All the while, she is waiting to hear from Viktor.

  Two weeks have passed since their dinner together. Wondering if she said something wrong, or he has met someone else—or has something horrible happened to him?

  Then, one evening, she sees him.

  Or thinks she sees him. She has just finished a matinee, not at the Bolshoi but at a much smaller concert hall, a private recital to supplement her salary. It is Sunday, a crisp, clear afternoon, cold but not painfully so, the sun barely starting to set. Nina joins the crowded sidewalk, everyone ambling along, enjoying their day off. And there, ahead of her, by a corner kiosk, is the blond woman—Lilya, stunning, in a gray fur coat, her hat dark and small as if to display her fair hair. And now Nina sees a tall, dapper man at the little wooden booth, buying cigarettes, obscured somewhat by his hat and scarf and the dense clump of people—but, yes, it is Viktor, tall and lean and healthy. Nina’s heart sinks.

  She will approach him, she will, she must, she is already working up the courage. But the busy sidewalk, the slow-moving crowd, blocks her, as the blond woman and the tall man merge with it and continue on their way.

  Nina closes her eyes, tells herself she will forget this. She will forget him, she is young, she doesn’t need that man. Instead of heading home she decides to walk on, as if she might walk far enough, past this fever, past her thoughts. Silently she confides in a friend she does not have, explains how it was with Viktor just two weeks ago, a closeness that was more than physical, that she thought was real. To trust someone that way, without doubts or misgivings…Impossible, perhaps. In a side street, children are squealing and shouting, trying to skate on the rough ice and packed snow. A wave of recollection curls over Nina: the dusty courtyard, with Vera, playing together for hours, laughing so hard they could not stop. And then the wave has passed and she is simply walking, alone.

  She walks and walks, by the embankment along the Moscow River. Joyous voices of choral singers waft from loudspeakers. She watches the changing colors of the river, ice turning pale pink as the sun slides away. Then all at once she is cold, so cold, feet nearly frozen, face numb from the brisk air.

  The next day, she finds a scrap of paper on the dressing room floor: a note, slipped under the door. Very sorry for the long absence. My dear mother was ill again, I couldn’t get away. Please accept my apology. And please let me take you out tonight. Yours, Viktor.

  Mother, indeed. But when, after the performance, Nina finds Viktor slouching casually against the wall across from her dressing room, all she says—as frostily as possible—is, “I’d given up on you.”

  “Forgive me. I was housebound with my old mother—but please don’t blame her!”

  “Not at all. I blame you.”

  Viktor just grins. “And if I told you it won’t happen again?”

  “I won’t believe you.” Her voice is surprisingly calm. “I saw you with that woman. Lilya.”

  Viktor looks surprised rather than concerned. “You saw me yesterday? Where, in the restaurant? Why didn’t you say hello?”

  “I didn’t want to interrupt a private moment.”

  “But we were with—you don’t mean you think…I told you, she’s an old friend.” He laughs, as if none of it matters. “Butterfly, if it helps things, she’s off to Ukraine, she’s been offered good work there at a theater. But even if she lived right here, Nina, don’t you understand…” He gives a small shake of his head, and then his face changes; for the first time in the short stretch that Nina has known him, he truly seems at a loss for words. “Something happened with you,” he says, looking almost perplexed. “Something’s happened.”

  “What happened?” She hears the alarm in her voice.

  He shakes his head. “I just want to be with you.”

  To Nina’s astonishment, this truly seems to be the case. From that night on, Viktor takes her out to dinner, to cafés thick with cigarette smoke, to a crowded nightclub buzzing with music, and his easy manner makes Nina feel at ease. The invisible barrier that ordinarily separates her from any new acquaintance does not exist. A new appetite has overtaken her, one more than physical: the hunger to know this person to the core, to discover his many layers, his incongruities. For the first time in her life Nina feels not just curiosity but the need to discover the heart of another person.

  Viktor has become eager, a courteous and reliable suitor, and only the suddenness of his transformation makes Nina uncomfortable. Yet it really does seem there is no one else. In snatched moments of rare privacy—the dressing room when Polina isn’t present, or a briefly vacant hallway, or the cold blackness of cobblestone alleys late at nig
ht—Viktor kisses Nina lingeringly, surreptitiously, murmuring in her ear. Sometimes he touches her, the way he did in the car, and it amazes her that she has lived her life until now without the pleasure of such surprises. She arrives home very late, to her mother’s lightly whistling snores, and slides happily under the covers of her narrow iron cot.

  Some nights Mother wakes up, slight worry in her voice as she calls, “How late you are.”

  From her cot across from her, Nina says, “Sorry, I tried not to wake you.”

  “A mother hen never sleeps until her chicks have made it safely home.”

  “Ha! You should hear yourself snoring.”

  Mother laughs lightly, her voice high like a girl’s. “You’re happy, I can tell.” Then her voice shifts. “I just want you to be safe. To be sure you’re with people you can trust.”

  “Please don’t worry.”

  Mother sighs. “You’re still my little girl, you know.” And then, though Nina hasn’t yet mentioned a word about Viktor, “Is he handsome?”

  “Very.”

  “Very!” A pause. “If he does anything, you know where to kick him.”

  “Mother!” But she can’t help laughing.

  The long dark waves of winter, the extreme cold and melancholy sky, snow blackening, hardening, melting, freezing again…It all seems beautiful to her now, because of Viktor. She meets his friends and acquaintances: a married couple that does literary translation; a cocky young novelist from Siberia; a pale, nervous playwright who always manages to spill something. The slightly older bunch includes bald Academician Rudnev and Architect Kaminsky and the woman who runs the State Archive of Serfdom and the Feudal Epoch. But Nina still hasn’t been to Viktor’s apartment, and still hasn’t met his mother.

  One friend in particular, the composer Aron Simonovich Gershtein (friends call him Gersh), is Viktor’s closest friend. He teaches at the Moscow Conservatory and lives in the same building where Viktor and his mother have their quarters, a large one owned by the Bolshoi, right near Theatre Square. It is reserved for composers, performers, and artists, and is in much better shape than the moldy wooden structure where Nina and her mother live. Like all big apartment houses, this one has militiamen at every side, and inside smells of frying oil.

  On each of the three stories is a long dark corridor with many doors all along. Whenever Nina and Viktor come to visit, all the doors open a crack, and from behind each one an uneasy pair of eyes peeks out. No matter the hour, there is someone smoking in the hall, someone on the telephone, someone yelling about something, and someone cooking potatoes on the stove. Gersh’s room is halfway down the hallway, much of it taken up by a grand piano.

  Gersh himself is a broad-shouldered man in his early thirties, with thick but receding brown hair. Gray-green eyes bright behind small round glasses, one eye angled just the slightest bit toward the bridge of his nose, as if a punch to his head has shifted it there. Yet he is not unattractive, perhaps because of the glint in his eye. “Come in, come in,” he says the first time Viktor brings Nina to meet him. “How lovely to see you in person, Butterfly,” lifting her hand to his lips. “You as well, Viktor, as always. You’re just in time to try the new tea Zoya’s concocted.”

  “Zoya?” Viktor mouths silently at him, and Gersh gives an apologetic little shrug. But Viktor’s eyes give Nina a warning look. She glances uneasily over at the petite dark-haired woman busying herself at the other side of the room.

  Zoya, looking up, says, “Viktor Alekseyevich!” Hair short and curly, dark ringlets framing her face. “It’s been much too long, actually. And how nice”—turning to Nina—“to meet you. I’ve seen you dance. Amazing, I always say. Won’t you take off your coat? I love the ballet. In a way I’ve always fancied myself a dancer.” She speaks very quickly, with a slight lisp, and Nina feels the effort of trying to keep up. “Your timing is perfect, actually. I hope you’ll have some of this tea. It’s the first time I’ve made it.” She learned it, she explains, from a Chinese doctor, who gave her the buds himself. “He said if you drink it every other day, it can add ten years to your life.”

  “Goodness,” Viktor says, “what will we do with the extra time?” and Gersh says, “The question is, what happens if you drink it every day?”

  “The buds only open once every twenty-four hours,” Zoya continues. “Or something like that. I forget the name, actually, but it’s very good for you and all that. He explained why.”

  “Why?” Nina attempts to take it all in—this woman’s quick chatter, and the unfamiliar apartment, and Gersh with his one slightly wandering eye. She can smell how strong the tea is, an unfamiliar bitter scent.

  “I can’t remember, actually. But it has to do with rinsing out your intestines and all that.” Zoya’s ringlets bob earnestly. Her eyelashes too are curled, and she bats them in a way Nina has only ever seen onstage.

  “You don’t have to drink it, you know,” Gersh tells them. “Zoya won’t be offended. Right, noodle?”

  Nina can’t help watching Gersh’s one just-slightly-crossed eye; behind his glasses, it makes him look either bookish or tough, she can’t quite decide which. “Of course we’ll try it,” she says, not daring not to. “I need all the help I can get to stay healthy through the winter season.”

  “He’s never been sick at all, the doctor told me.” Zoya pours the dark tea into chipped ceramic cups, her hands small as a girl’s. The samovar is the new cheap kind made of tin.

  “Please, have a seat,” Gersh tells them, and sits on one side of the divan (from which some stuffing is escaping), across from the bed with a down comforter covered in red silk. The rest of the furniture consists of three mahogany chairs, an armoire with a washbasin next to it, a big radio on a large, low cabinet, shelves stuffed with sheet music (lots of pages flapping out), and this small table, round, with beautifully carved legs. On the table are some eggs and a small dish of black pepper: treasured goods. Nina also notes that Gersh has his own telephone—atop the low, heavy cabinet—and a small portable stove. Such obvious privilege, Viktor and his ilk, favored, coddled as Fabergé eggs, so precious that they had to be shipped out to Tashkent.

  “This cup’s a bit chipped on the edge there,” Zoya is saying, as Nina and Viktor seat themselves in the mahogany chairs, “so be careful of your lip. Oh, and this one, see, I told you it had a crack in it! Don’t burn your mouth, now. Oh dear, I almost spilled. I hope it tastes all right.” Zoya continues to fret about the china and about the tea as Gersh proposes the toast: “To long life and filled cups.”

  Not the most realistic proposal. Nina keeps the thought to herself as they raise their cups of tea. A sharp aftertaste hits when she swallows.

  “You know, Zoya,” Viktor says, “I may have to forgo those extra ten years.”

  Gersh hasn’t any sugar, but Zoya suggests some milk might sweeten it. “Oh, dear, who knew, but it’s Chinese and all that.” She pours the milk from a dirty green bottle, and Nina watches the precious whiteness swim in her tea. “I bet this will help your dancing.”

  Her interest seems genuine; she works for the lecture bureau of the Moscow City Education Department, organizing cultural events for the public. “It’s a wonderful program, actually, I’m so honored to be a part of it. We have such talent in this great nation.” Nina recognizes Zoya’s type—always showing her Party spirit and wearing something on her lapel. Now she is telling them about a variety show she recently arranged for a rest home of the Scholars’ Aid Commission. “It was a huge success.” A flat, matter-of-fact voice and little shake of her ringlets, as if success is only natural for her. “There was an accordionist, a magician, an absolutely fantastic singer, and such a funny juggler. And a talk by a senior lecturer from the teacher-training institute. Oh, and the cutest little trained dog—”

  “I wonder how the poor lecturer felt,” Gersh says from the divan, “squeezed between a juggler and a dog.”

  “You laugh,” Zoya says, looking coyly hurt, “fine, I know you like to put
on airs and pretend to be above all that—” But her face cannot hide that she finds Gersh charming.

  “I’m not pretending at all. I truly believe that my work—despite anything the Central Committee might say”—his tone changes as he glances at Viktor—“is of a higher realm than that of a trained dog. Perhaps not the magician…”

  Viktor’s eyes twinkle; he clearly takes pleasure in Gersh’s impudence. Zoya says, “Those magicians and jugglers are artists, too. Their art is entertainment, rather than…well, I don’t exactly know what you think of as your art’s goal, actually.”

  “Beauty, my sweet dumpling. Beauty and nothing less. Don’t you agree?” Gersh turns to Viktor and Nina for support, but Viktor looks less at ease now that he’s been drawn in, and Nina, surprised at Gersh’s bold statement, doesn’t know what to say. Officially, art has a much greater purpose: to educate the population and serve the Revolution. Without social context, mere beauty is insufficient—at least, according to the lectures Nina has to sit through at the House of Art Workers.

  “You can put your work up on a pedestal,” Zoya is saying, giving a little “humph” that could only be described, Nina supposes, as adorable, “but I can tell you, there are jugglers whose company I’d much prefer to certain poets. Not you, of course.” Zoya gestures petitely at Viktor.