Russian Winter

by Daphne Kalotay

  “I like it that way. With the research, it’s like an ongoing history course. I learn something new every day.”

  Grigori felt something close to envy, wondering if he could say the same for himself.

  “Actually, some of the things that have made the strongest impression on me haven’t even had anything to do with the auction itself.”

  “Really?”

  Drew paused, seemed to be remembering. “One time we were auctioning porcelain, all kinds of beautiful things, tea sets and vases and figurines. A good portion of what we had that time had come from one person, a woman whose mother had collected little porcelain tchotchkes. Some of them were quite sweet, actually, little animals, swans, rabbits, things like that. I was with the assessor when they went through the mother’s collection, and each piece had a bit of masking tape on the bottom with a name on it. There were three names, I still remember them, Anne and Lise and Clara. The ink was very trembly, you could tell that whoever wrote it—the woman who had died, the mother, I suppose—had had a tremor in her hand. I never found out who Anne and Lise and Clara were, but I imagined they were granddaughters or nieces. They weren’t the name of the woman who had brought the figurines in, and all I could think about for weeks and weeks was that the girls those pieces were intended for never got them. That the woman’s will wasn’t followed through.”

  Grigori wondered aloud, “Do you think the writing might have been from before that? That maybe the woman who had died was Anne or Lise or Clara? Maybe they had eventually all been passed along to her.”

  “No, the tape was new, I could tell. You know how it gets dry and yellowed after a while.” She seemed to be remembering. “What moved me most was just seeing the names on the masking tape, in her handwriting—the aunt’s or grandmother’s or whoever she was. I kept picturing this old sick woman knowing she was going to die, going through her things, deciding which of them she wanted to give to Anne or Lise or Clara. She had written each name out so purposefully.”

  Embarrassingly, Grigori felt tears coming to his eyes. He was recalling Christine, on a horrible autumn day two months before she died, going through everything with him, writing lists of things she wanted to give to Amelie, and college memorabilia she wanted to donate to her sorority, and then, most horrible of all, taking the time to describe for him the sort of funeral she would like to have.

  “I didn’t mean to tell such a depressing anecdote.” Drew lowered her gaze. “Sorry about that.”

  “Oh, no, please, I’m the one who should apologize. I’m keeping you from your work.” She was leaning lightly on her forearms, with one leg reaching forward so that her foot was just past Grigori’s ankle. Feeling all at once that he had stayed too long, Grigori stood and pushed in his chair.

  “Again,” Drew Brooks said abruptly, following his cue and standing, “if you think of anything I might include in the supplemental—”

  “I can check to see if I have anything.” He heard how brusque his voice sounded.

  “Thank you, I appreciate it,” Drew said quickly. She shook his hand and, before letting go, added, “Sometimes it’s surprising what people find.”

  “NOW, WHO EXACTLY are you?”

  She asked him in Russian, aware that she was smiling—just a tiny smile at the corners of her mouth—at how shy the young man looked, standing there in the front vestibule. A boy, in a way, still in possession of a youthful lankiness. Thickly curling hair from the humid day. In a low voice he began to speak, ducking his head slightly as if in effort to not be so much taller than Nina.

  “My name is Grigori Solodin.” Diffident, he hung back behind the glass door that Nina held only partially open; clearly he did not expect her to recognize the name. “I believe you and I…” His hesitation, his deep eagerness. He believed, he managed to state, that he and Nina might be related.

  Puzzled was what she felt. No clear idea, not even a guess, of what he could mean. Yet already she had begun to tremble, that sudden weakness that arrives with terror. So really she must have known, she told herself afterward. Perhaps Grigori Solodin, too, sensed this. There came a rush of words, so painfully eager. “I was born in 1952, in Municipal Hospital Number 3, Moscow.” He named a date in May, waiting only a brief moment to see if it held any significance for Nina. But Nina could not react other than to be stunned by the fact of this young man before her, bending down now to take from his backpack a large envelope, unclasping it. “Here, I can show you the certificate. It lists a home address.” He blurted the address even as he was pulling the document out.

  That was when Nina understood, clearly, who this young man must be. Her entire body trembled now as she said simply, firmly, “You are mistaken.”

  His blinking eyes, his desperation as he reached again into that big envelope. “You see, I have other evidence of our connection, if you’ll—”

  “I’m not the person you want.” With that she pulled the door shut, her heart racing, and turned to hurry up the stairs.

  It was a week later that she received the letter—a “cursory explanation,” the young man called it—requesting that he be allowed to show her more precisely what he meant. What was the worst that might happen, he asked innocently, if Nina simply took the time to examine what he had to show her? But of course she could not look. She had escaped all that once already, could not willingly place herself back there again. Holding a match to the pages—two of them, handwritten, one atop the other—Nina watched the retreating edges take the flame. The letter dropped into the kitchen sink, where it became a curling brown flower, shrinking and spouting fire, and then a single great burst of flame, until nothing was left but fragile gray skin crumbling in the basin.

  As for Solodin’s most recent letter, Nina still had not answered it. Even now there really was nothing to say, just Go away, please, leave me be. That palpable wanting, his need to know—the very opposite of Nina. Perhaps she might explain it to him that way, very generally, nothing personal: Like many of my compatriots, after Stalin’s death…Or, My whole generation, with the wool pulled over our eyes… Or, Being disabused of so many misconceptions…It is simply overwhelming.

  Already Nina had had the blindfold torn off, that bright painful light. Why hunt for anything more? The truth of this man, no longer young. Nina knew enough of his convoluted story; there was no reason to hear him out. Already she was plagued by memories, more of them each day, images so vivid, it was as though she were back there again, instead of here in her wheelchair by the drafty window, wearing her woolen dress and cotton tights and soft fuzzy slippers from L. L. Bean. She sighed. Even a year or so ago she wouldn’t have worn such slippers in the presence of another human being. They were a mauve color, of artificial fleece. Tama had given them to her, a few Christmases ago. At the time Nina had been appalled, at what they stood for and at how Tama must see her: an old woman with no need, on most days, for any more serviceable sort of footwear.

  As if on cue, a cold throb overtook her joints. She closed her eyes and waited for its grip to release. Such betrayal, after so much of her life spent strengthening herself, constant exercise to ward off injury. A life so centered around routine that Nina still felt at ten o’clock each morning the nag of knowing she should be at her position at the barre. All those years of stretching and strengthening and limbering up. In the end none of it had helped.

  The end. Though she might use such language, she really did not see this as the end. No, it did not feel like the end at all. Not with this thorn, Grigori Solodin, still in her side. Though hopefully the auction would take care of that. And then something good: Shepley was coming to visit. Not for two months yet—not until April—but April really wasn’t so far away (although the icy air coming through the open slit of the window made it seem otherwise). He had called the other night, said, “What’s this I hear about a major auction of a certain famous ballerina’s jewels?”

  “How do you know this?” She was surprised; surely there couldn’t be much interest beyond
New England.

  In fact there had been an article in the L.A. Times; Shepley clipped it and mailed it to her, a single column, not very long, but it was news nonetheless. “I’m proud of you, Nina,” he had told her on the telephone. “It’s extremely generous of you.”

  “Well, you know I never wear them. They live in a vault.”

  “Yes, but I also know how you are when it comes to these things. You’re possessive—like me.” Shepley laughed, the soft, self-effacing sound Nina loved. “We’re the same, you and me, because we can’t help ourselves. We can’t help falling in love with beautiful things.”

  AUGUST 1950. PRECIOUS days of tomatoes, of big green cabbages. Air close and steamy, like a breath. The four of them drive past the outskirts of the city, along yellow dirt roads, in the brand-new car Viktor has purchased. It was even posted in Pravda: “V. Elsin, poet and Esteemed State Artist of the RSFSR, and P. Lisitsian, soloist of the Bolshoi Theatre, each bought Pobeda automobiles.” The car bumps along in a cloud of dust, past locals tending their gardens and kolkhoz peasants threshing barley. Beyond are pine-covered hills, and copses of birch and alder. Tall grasses line the road, and already the air smells oniony, of weeds and reedy flowers. And then they are in the forest, pine groves all around. At a partial clearing, bordered by a high fence and rusty gate, is the dacha.

  “Straight out of a folktale,” Nina says, looking up at the steep roof edged in gingerbreading, and the small windows framed with wooden shutters, curtained with bits of white cloth. It is the second summer that she and Viktor have owned this little cottage, with its old furniture and worn wooden floorboards. Most other dachas in this village are owned by the Literary Fund, doled out to writers on a merit basis—which is how Viktor first came to stay in this one, off of one of the most secluded roads. But he wanted to be able to visit whenever he chose, and to invite whomever he pleased, and so last year he managed to purchase it. Other writers have even settled here full-time.

  They unload bags and provisions: canisters of paraffin, sacks of potatoes and carrots, fat heads of lettuce, thick-necked bottles of Zhigulevskoe beer, round jugs of Napareuli wine. With her valise under one arm, a watermelon under the other, Nina inhales the scent of pine and nudges open the squeaky gate; it stretches a spiderweb into a nearly invisible net. “Thank you,” Viktor says, marching right through the web, past the small, half-shaded stone terrace, with his cache of canned fruit and vegetables from Eastern Europe. Gersh follows, balancing the various sacks and boxes, but Vera pauses next to Nina to look at the house, taking a deep breath of the woodsy air. “There’s the river,” Nina says, pointing just beyond the patch of woods.

  The air swells with the hum of insects. “It reminds me of summers when I was a boarder at the ballet school,” Vera says. The country sunlight reveals the reddish highlights in her hair. “They used to take us to the Black Sea. The ones who couldn’t go home, I mean.” Orphans is the unspoken word—or children from Alma-Ata and Chelyabinsk and other places too far to travel home to. “We stayed in wooden barracks, and slept on stacked bunk beds, and I never wanted the top bunk, because there were always spiders on the ceiling.”

  Nina says, “There are probably spiders here too.”

  “Oh, they don’t scare me anymore.”

  The dacha is spare, its walls appropriately flimsy, its toilet outdoors. Whitewashed walls. An iron washtub. A stack of firewood next to a brick stove with a tall chimney pipe. Hazel-switch fishing rods in the corner. Cane-seat chairs, kerosene lamps, a cupronickel samovar. Metal-framed beds with hard, straw-stuffed mattresses. Soot from so many burned candlewicks. The banya is out the back, so that they can go from there right into the river.

  Nina loves the gentle slap of bare feet on the wooden floor—not a sprung-wood one, but it will do for indoor practice. Sunshine seeping through the scrappy white curtains as early as three in the morning, and sifting through the trees all afternoon. The bright yap-ping of sparrows and magpies. Shared meals under the pines, water fetched from the spring, the ground moist, the air delicious, the river green and cool.

  The evening glare spreads orange coins across the water. There are swims in the river, and volleyball matches. Though plenty of group activities are offered over at the Writers Recreation Center, Nina and the others remain here, quietly together. Viktor has vowed to write a poem a day, and Gersh works from sketches of a new piece, whistling melodiously. Vera hums along, often simply sitting beside him, or reading, her long bare legs tucked up under her skirt, lighting the lantern at nightfall. Nina wonders if Vera is as glad to be free of Nina’s mother as Nina is to be away from Viktor’s, whom poor Darya continues to care for, while Nina’s mother makes her own rounds and visits with friends at Bear Lake.

  And so this is a month of perfection, of leisurely freedom, of lazy afternoons spent on the terrace in long, wandering debates that spin off into the air without conclusion. Wildflowers sweeten the air, and butterflies tumble by—nothing like the exquisite pin Viktor gave Nina for their anniversary, but no less magnificent, with their nearly translucent, brightly spotted wings. Gersh and Viktor spend hours on the terrace in the wicker chairs, looking quite satisfied in their striped pajamas as they argue lightly back and forth. Gersh teases Viktor for being an “Esteemed State Artist.” It’s one of those honorary titles that didn’t previously exist, and that span the whole range of cultural pursuits, not just the finer arts. “Cheap incentives,” Gersh calls them, and names a singer they know who is always traveling all over the Republic to this and that region, collecting as many titles as he can. But the fact is, “Esteemed State Artist” is the reason Viktor is allowed to travel abroad and can afford a dacha like this one. If he or Nina ever becomes a “People’s Artist”—the highest title possible—there will be even more perks.

  “You know very well that I have nothing against popular entertainment,” Viktor says, clearly hoping to incite. He enjoys these debates with Gersh, the kind most people won’t engage in. “What’s the point of creating anything, no matter how beautiful, if it doesn’t manage to speak to the people? If it never reaches the people?”

  “You sound like Zoya!” Gersh says, as Viktor surely expects him to. He can mention her today, because Vera has gone off on one of her long walks, gathering mushrooms. By the gate, her hand resting on the iron fence, Nina moves through her daily barre exercises. She hasn’t skipped a day of training. Even a week of missed practice could mean bruised toes and aching limbs when her muscles are forced to work again.

  “This utilitarian view of art makes my insides squirm,” Gersh says. “You know that, of course.”

  “Why do you put up with her, anyway?” Nina calls.

  “Who?”

  “Zoya!”

  “She makes me look good, don’t you think?” Gersh says in his teasing voice. In a lisping imitation, he adds, “Upright citizen. Party spirit and all that. Perfectly commendable, actually.”

  Nina doesn’t laugh; even in his mocking, Gersh seems uncomfortable. Perhaps Zoya really does feel to him like some kind of badge of approval. There has been more anti-Semitic commentary: editorials in the press, even another swipe at Gersh himself by one particularly belligerent critic whom Viktor has nicknamed “the Rottweiler.” More than once Nina has glimpsed the slogan “Down with the Cosmopolites!” Maybe Gersh really does see Zoya as a protector of sorts.

  “I’m not joking,” Viktor says. “I mean what I said. About reaching the people. There’s a reason front-row seats cost only three rubles at your theater, Nina. Life is hard, people are tired. You bring them beauty. You make them proud. You remind us of all we’re capable of—that we ourselves are a work in progress, creating a great new society. Why do you think our Iosef Vissarionovich himself prefers the biggest, most colorful productions? He knows it’s the monumental stuff—the most colorful scenery, the brightest costumes—that has the strongest impact.”

  “Exactly,” Gersh says, “this is exactly the problem! There’s no room for complexity, for sensit
ivity, for anything the slightest bit challenging. Instead we’re supposed to pander to the audience. When, really, how are they ever going to learn to appreciate anything truly profound? Everything always has to be exaggerated. And you know why: because people need to be cued. They need to be told what they’re supposed to think—”

  “They’re tired,” Viktor says. “They work hard, they—”

  Gersh cuts him off. “They need to have it made absolutely clear to them how they’re supposed to react.”

  “I’m not sure it’s that,” Viktor says calmly, though Nina can tell he is wondering. “I think it has to do with…making things straightforward—simple, available to everyone.”

  “I’d hardly call the glamour of Bolshoi productions ‘simple,’” Gersh puts in. “All that pomp and glitter. As if it has anything to do with everyday life. You’re awfully quiet over there, Nina, by the way.”

  “I’m considering what you’re saying,” she calls back. She has begun her foot exercises, grabbing with her toes the heavy braided rag rug she has placed on the ground in front of her, pulling it toward her and then, with the toes of her other foot, grabbing it again to try to drag it back out to where it was. “I mean, isn’t that the way theater ought to be—magnificent?” It’s true that Bolshoi productions are outsize, majestic, nothing restrained about them. Swirls of color, brash acrobatics. For a few hours, the audience exchanges real life for the plush velvet seats of a glittering auditorium, its five tiers of red and gold balconies, and glowing candelabras, and gilt ceiling and ornately draped Tsar’s Box, and giant chandelier suspended regally, dripping with crystal. For those few hours there is beautiful music, and dancing that will restore anyone’s faith in the world.