Russian Winter

by Daphne Kalotay

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The mail that afternoon contained a letter from Shepley. He always chose big blank greeting cards with reproductions of oil paintings on the cover. This one was something nineteenth-century French, a dark-haired, long-dressed woman with a parasol. Inside, Shepley’s print was small and neat:

  My dear Nina,

  This woman looks like you, don’t you think? Robert thinks so too. Listen dear, I have to push back my Boston trip, should be able to come in May. April has somehow become ridiculous, and then that final week I need to be here: it turns out I’m to receive an AWARD. Nothing glamorous, a “local hero” thing—but it would be rude to skip it. Wish I could see you before then. I hope you’ll put this card on the table beneath the Bonnard print. The colors will match perfectly, if I’m remembering right.

  With love,

  Shepley

  Nina tried to stop frowning, even as she rolled her wheelchair over to the wall where the Bonnard was. It was nothing she ever took time to look at, but she placed the card atop the table as Shepley had instructed. An award, a local hero thing…So that’s how it is. This is how it will be. Well, I’m no fun to visit, really. Who can blame him? An award.

  “You sure you’re all right?”

  Cynthia, sitting in the salon, had looked up from her magazine to wrinkle her forehead at Nina.

  “I am all right.” Merely speaking caused a claw to scrape through her.

  Cynthia frowned, unconvinced, then returned to her magazine. She liked cheap ones overrun with celebrities. In her slight, haughty accent she said, “This stuff puts my diamond ring to shame. You never told me you had so much loot.”

  That was how Nina came to understand that it was the auction catalog Cynthia was looking at. It had been printed up and was now officially on sale to the public; Beller had sent one along in the mail for Nina. Only now did she note that it had made its way onto Cynthia’s lap.

  “Loot. Well, I no longer wear any of it.” That icy claw scraped again. The doctor always told Nina he had seen worse, that one woman had spent twenty years so stiff, she could not bend even to sit in a wheelchair, and had to lie about all day strapped to a board. “It seems my fashion now is slippers.”

  Cynthia laughed, perhaps at how spindly Nina’s legs looked. “Well, I can picture some of these on you pretty well. These ones match your eyes.”

  Nina did not look over. “You may take that home with you.”

  “Really?”

  “You may take it.”

  “You think that’s going to get me to leave? No go, sugar. I’m still waiting for your dinner to cook.”

  At least the auction would be over soon. Just three weeks. Maybe then the memories would leave her. Nina sighed, more loudly than she had intended. Could one die of pain? Nina had never spent much time wondering how she might die, though she found herself chronicling, these past years, the ways that her various friends and acquaintances had begun meeting—more frequently now—their demise. Sophie, a dancer in Paris, had died of leukemia. Beatrice had Alzheimer’s, though she wasn’t even old. Edmund had been perfectly sprightly until ninety-two and then broken his hip; after that it had happened quite fast. And poor Veronica had gone crazy (there was no other way of putting it) and lived off of public assistance in Leeds.

  Nina told herself that at least her mind was all right. Well, she thought so, now that she had put aside the tablets, told Cynthia it was her own choice and that she could handle the pain. She had been a dancer, after all.

  But it was funny what had happened without the pills, how in a way everything else, too, had become sharper, her mind searching for distraction, anything to detract from the pain. Yesterday she had found herself talking for a long time, with great effort, telling Cynthia about the war years, about performing for the wounded in one of the military hospitals, the horrible smell of the burn unit, a smell that still sometimes haunted her.

  Nina wheeled herself over to the window, looked out at the spindly trees. Not long until they would begin to grow buds, though one would never guess it now, their crooked branches like a network of veins in the sky. The days had begun to grow longer, Nina had noticed. Normally she liked the gradual lengthening of the days—but now it just made her more aware of waiting. If only Shepley were here, if only he were coming to relieve her. An award…

  “You want me to start another CD?”

  Bach had been playing. How long ago had the music stopped?

  “Yes, please, Cynthia, thank you.”

  It was but a minute before Glière came through the speakers, the opening bars of the The Bronze Horseman. Another wave of ice rose through Nina’s limbs. But she closed her eyes, and sat, and listened, and for long moments in her mind, danced.

  APRIL 1951. AIR still gray and cold, only the flowering gold of mimosas brought in from the Caucasus and sold by street vendors to brighten things up. Snow and rain become sleet. Roads are filthy, nearly impassable, full of potholes and enormous puddles. Pedestrians splattered with mud.

  When Viktor arrives home earlier than usual, just as Nina is about to leave for work, she takes one look at his face and asks, “Are you sick?”

  Slowly he says, “They fired Gersh from the conservatory.”

  Nina closes her eyes. The beginning of the end. Since every citizen must work, unemployment is a criminal offense. “I don’t understand,” she says, searching Viktor’s face for an explanation. “Who’s in charge of these decisions?”

  Viktor is still standing there in his coat. “I’m going over there. He’s going to need us. Perhaps you can tell Vera.”

  “I don’t know if she’s dancing with me tonight. I’ll try to find her.”

  “I’ll see if she’s at your mother’s. Come to Gersh’s when you finish up.”

  Making her way across the wet asphalt of the square to the Bolshoi, Nina feels none of the usual excitement of such nights, though tonight she is to dance, again, for Stalin. This time it is a visitor from Laos he is entertaining; like all foreigners, the envoy wants to see Swan Lake. Melodramatic, show-offy Swan Lake. What did such things matter, frivolous fantasies, when all around horrible, inexplicable events were taking place? So long ago, the days when Nina found nothing more lovely than the swan-girls stretching forward to bow over their legs as they surround Odette…Now it just feels like a sham.

  The theater is in a tizzy as always, the same stern-faced guards, the same nervous bustle, but this time Nina hardly feels enthusiastic. She hurries through the long corridors in search of Vera, past carpenters hammering last-minute repairs, cobblers stitching slippers in the shoe workshop, wig makers curling and combing out wigs. A cluster of mechanics, weighted down by their tool belts, is sharing a smoke in a side hallway. Nina doesn’t find Vera anywhere.

  For much of the first two acts of the performance, Nina manages to forget, for entire scenes, about today’s new misfortune. But during intermission, as she sits with Petr at their table in the back hallway, the real world comes flooding back: Viktor’s face when he stepped into the apartment this evening, the slump of his shoulders. Awful thoughts rain down, as Nina keeps her eyes on the door to Box A. She is willing the door to open.

  If Comrade Stalin himself walked out and found her here, she could speak to him, tell him what has happened. You know, of course, the composer Aron Simonovich Gershtein…And yet, wouldn’t he already know? How could he not? But then how could he let such a thing happen?

  Suddenly Petr’s eyes open wider. Nina follows his gaze, to the door of Box A. The door has opened. Nina’s heart seizes, and Petr sits up straighter—and she knows this is not merely wishful thinking or a mirage. Flanked by two bodyguards, out steps Stalin.

  Something formidable about him, thick chest and neck, pride in his stance. The slow stateliness of his walk, his left hand tucked in somehow. Overwhelmed, Nina feels herself about to look away—but he is looking right at her, has seen her seeing him, is approaching their table slowly. Dark, piercing eyes, and that glistening sho
ck of gray-black hair, combed up and back. A firmness about him. He really is a man of steel, just as his name says.

  Now he has stopped in front of their table, looking down at them. The guards hang slightly back.

  “Butterfly,” he says slowly, “a most impressive performance. You make us proud of our great nation.”

  His accent is more noticeable up close, almost intimate in its familiarity. His very tone exudes wisdom, and Nina, standing up to curtsy, bows her head and hears herself mumble something—but it is not what she wants to say, what she wishes she could say. If only she can find the strength to ask him.

  Her ears are throbbing. Already he has turned to Petr, is saying, with that same simple boldness, “And you, Petr Filipovich.”

  Petr stands quickly, bows his head and shoulders in submission, his entire body trembling. With Petr standing like that, Nina sees, with surprise, that Stalin is not as tall as she thought. Up close, his skin is pockmarked.

  “Comrade Stalin is most pleased,” he continues. “A very interesting portrayal. Yes. If only there could be more…convergence.” He smiles, and Nina sees his yellow, broken teeth.

  Petr stutters something, but Nina’s ears are ringing. She cannot quite hear his response, as Stalin wishes them well—and then he is walking away, guards on either side, and it is almost as if he were never even here, except that Nina’s face is still hot.

  Her one chance to say something, her one chance to ask. And she has failed. Failed herself, failed Gersh.

  Petr has gone pale. Wrinkling his brow, he looks at Nina. “‘More convergence…’” He repeats the phrase, questioningly, once more, and then again. After a few minutes, during which neither of them makes a sound, Petr says, “You know, I think he’s exactly right.”

  WHEN SHE ARRIVES at Gersh’s apartment, after midnight, both Gersh and Zoya are in surprisingly good spirits. “It so happens I just bought him the complete works of Lenin,” Zoya says. “Now he’ll have time to read it!” But surely she must be frightened. After all, she is his wife; none of this can reflect well on her.

  Viktor is drinking vodka, and Nina joins them at the table, Gersh asking about the performance. “Oh, it went fine, I suppose.” She does not mention Stalin’s presence, or their conversation, if one can call it that. She is too ashamed, certain she could have done something. The others speak lightly, of this and that, yet it feels like a vigil, like they are waiting for something. Nina wishes she could lie down and sleep.

  A knock on the door. Gersh and Viktor do not look surprised, though at this hour it can mean only one thing. Zoya, her eyes fearful, goes to the door. “Yes?”

  It is the building manager, and with him two men in dark suits. One of them wears a holstered gun around his waist.

  “I’ve been asked,” the building manager says in a somewhat timid voice, “to bring here representatives of Unit 4 of the Moscow Criminal Investigation Department.” The men pluck identification cards from their jacket pockets and flash them at Zoya. Then the taller, armed one takes out another card, which he explains is a search warrant.

  Zoya begins to cry. “Go about your business,” she manages to say, then returns to the table and drops into her chair.

  Quietly Gersh says, “I suppose I should pack some things.”

  “Oh, I’m sure there’s no need for that!” Zoya says, as the two men tell the superintendent that he is free to leave. They begin their search.

  Nina whispers to Viktor, “Should we go?”

  Under his breath, “Not until Gersh tells us to.”

  He must have expected this. He must have known. That is why Viktor wanted to stay here so late. Because these things do not occur during the day. Like the old joke: “Thieves, prostitutes, and the NKVD work mostly at night.”

  The men are going through the drawers and cabinets, shuffling through papers, receipts, notebooks, letters. Taking their time, a nasty meticulousness about it all. They have left the door open, and in the dark hallway the few neighbors still awake pass by with wary curiosity, peering in passively, a distant look—as if they have not shared kitchen, bath, and toilet basin with this man.

  “I can’t imagine what they’re looking for,” Zoya says, her voice bewildered, frightened, yet somehow disingenuous. “I don’t know what they think they’ll find. I just can’t even imagine…” Nina takes her hand. It is cold and damp. As Zoya repeats, “I just can’t imagine why they would come here,” Gersh leans over, very casually, and whispers something to Viktor. He slips something into his hand. Nina sees Viktor give a nearly imperceptible nod.

  Soon an hour has passed. One of the men is sorting through sheet music from the drawer of the piano bench. The other is flipping through a series of bound scores. The janitor, a yellowish, sick-looking man, has come by and leans against the doorframe, watching with curious indifference as the men pluck books and notebooks off of shelves, and manuscripts from the piano. “There go my notes on Beethoven,” Gersh says lightly when the shorter man shoves a wad of papers into his briefcase. A horrible pain has started at the base of Nina’s head. Outside the window the sky is still dark.

  The janitor wanders away but comes slinking back every quarter hour or so, while Zoya bustles about, as if there is something she ought to be doing, her forehead scored with frown lines. She seems to want to be helpful but clearly does not know how, keeps stepping aside as the two men rummage through the cabinets and bookshelves. This is by far the quietest Nina has ever seen her, and Nina finds herself thinking, guiltily, absurdly, So this is what it takes to shut her up.

  The throbbing pain has reached the crown of Nina’s head, a horrible splitting sensation. The men are still going through the bookshelf and bureau, one item at a time, more manuscripts, now, these ones rolled into tubes like diplomas. The janitor, back again, is trying to catch their eye. When he does, he says, in a voice that tries too hard, “We owe our safety to you. I can’t tell you how grateful I am to know that—”

  “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.