“So cheerful,” Nina said, aware that she sounded disapproving. “Please, take off your coat.”
“Thank you for taking the time to meet with me again. Oh, and I see you received the catalog, good. I brought another one with me, just in case.”
“No need.”
“I’ll take it!” Cynthia called from the kitchen.
Drew looked surprised to hear someone else in the apartment.
“That is my nurse,” Nina meant to say, but it came out, “That is my Cynthia.” If only the pain would leave her be, not interfere with her mind. Before Nina could correct herself, Cynthia had hurried out to say hello.
“Very nice to meet you,” Drew was saying in that professional way of hers, and Cynthia said, “I won’t shake your hand, I’ve been handling garlic.”
“We are here for business,” Nina said, as coldly as possible, but it did not seem to faze either of these two. Drew appeared glad to be rid of the extra catalog, and Cynthia returned to the kitchen and set back to her chopping—though Nina could hear the knife slow down every so often, whenever Cynthia decided to listen in.
Drew had taken out the documents she had mentioned earlier, ones she hoped she might use in the supplemental brochure. Photographs and some letters. “An interested member of the public lent them to us,” she said, somewhat evasively, and then looked carefully for Nina’s reaction.
Interested member of the public. What did that mean? Solodin again, or was there someone else, now, too? Nina leaned forward until the knot of her neck seized. Two photographs, black and white, not at all faded, though they had been slightly crushed at the corners. Drew had laid them out on the coffee table, with nervous glances at Nina. “I of course wouldn’t use either of them without your permission. I thought you might recognize them, or recall when they were taken.”
Just seeing the four of them there on the sofa, so happy, laughing…Whose room was that? Not hers, and not Gersh’s. They must have been at a friend’s place some evening, some kind of party. After days of vivid memories, Nina was relieved not to recall this one. “It cannot have been later than spring 1951. This man here, the best friend of my husband, was arrested that spring. I never saw him again.”
“I’m very sorry,” Drew said, sounding sincere. Her expression was surprisingly sad. She was not a bad person, really. Just young. Nina felt suddenly mean, for having been cold to her earlier.
She thought of Gersh, the scenes that had overtaken her so miserably these past days. If only she could expel them—would that, could that, expel the pain? A deep sigh only made her shoulders ache. “I did not understand. The anti-Jewish campaign I knew, but first I believed that Gersh—this man here—must have done something. I was ignorant, you see, I was a dancer, I did not care about any other thing. I closed my eyes. I did not want to wonder why people were taken through doors and never seen again.” It felt good to say it, even to someone like this girl, who surely could not understand.
Vera’s gaze in the photograph looked dark and haunted. “This girl here, she too had a hard life. Her parents were arrested, and she moved to Leningrad. In the Great Patriotic War her city was ruined, so many people she knew died. And then the man she loved most in the world, this man, was taken away.”
Nina shut her eyes briefly. “She was my most close friend.” Dancing around the dusty courtyard, going up onto their toes…“But we each hurt the other.”
A perverse hope came over her: that Drew would ask, How? What did you do? and that Nina might unburden herself. Maybe that would stop the recollections, more of them each day, encroaching. But all Drew said was, “She’s so beautiful.”
Of course. Typical. Nina pulled the picture away, covered it with the other photograph. Squinting, she took in that other world, which easily made itself understood. “This one. This is August 1951. I recall making this. At the dacha. My friend took it. It was not her camera. It belonged to…him.” She pointed just beyond the photograph, to the space on the coffee table where the remainder of the picture would have been. She remembered very clearly who had been there. But who had cut him out of it? Whose photograph was this?
“Who is she?” Drew asked, tentatively, pointing at Polina.
“I suppose she too was my friend.” Nina felt her eyes well, though really she and Polina had never been close. She turned her head, as much as she could, away.
“I also have these letters,” Drew said, nervously. “I thought you might…recognize them.”
The tears blurred Nina’s vision, as Drew unfolded the sheets of paper and placed them before her. And though the handwriting might have been vaguely familiar, it was nothing Nina recognized. She was horrified to feel one of the tears roll down her cheek. Stiffly, she raised her hand to brush it away.
“I do not know these letters. Please take them away. You may use the photos. I give you permission.” But the pain was too much. She simply could not look any longer.
THIS YEAR THERE are just three of them in the Pobeda. It has rained for days, and the wet clay road is slippery, the wavy fields of rye glistening. The spruces seem taller, thicker, greener. But the dacha looks the same as always, white lilies lining the stone terrace and, just beyond, magpies with long flashy tail feathers pecking at the ground. Something must have gone to seed.
Now the rain has started again. Vera cooks a barley soup while Viktor goes out to fill a bucket with wet raspberries, to eat before they grow moldy. Nina burns wood in the stove, so that the air around them becomes deliciously smoky, and feeds crackling pine-cones to the samovar.
That night she lies in bed awake, pale light seeping in between the slats of the shutters. An awful summer this is. Gersh gone, and Viktor so glum and drinking too much, and Vera sad and thinner than ever. And then there is Nina’s guilt, at having made a promise to Viktor that she does not want to keep. Everything rotten, everything wrong. She is finally falling asleep when a nightingale starts up, somewhere close to the window. Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-trillll…Loud, its pitch clear and strong, precise as a metronome. The song reminds Nina of Gersh, his clear, perfect whistling.
A ghost. That’s what it feels like, though Nina doesn’t believe in ghosts. Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-trillll…So adamant. Nina finds herself silently speaking to Gersh. What are you trying to tell me? Please tell me. Please explain what happened. What exactly did you do?
Rising early the next morning, she decides to try to make a punch with the leftover raspberries, before they turn. The rain has stopped and the sun is strong, the air uncomfortably humid. After bathing in the river, Nina quickly feels hot again. Sunshine and shadows sift through the trees.
Viktor rises much later, comes into the kitchen rubbing his eyes. Glad not to be alone, Nina wishes him good morning.
“Is it? I barely slept what with the racket of that bird. Oh, hello, Verusha.” Vera has trailed in sleepily behind him, though it is past ten o’clock. Flecks of hazel in her dark brown eyes. Viktor takes the water pitcher and heads outside to the well.
“Did you hear it, too?” Vera asks.
Nina almost laughs. “How could I not?”
“I couldn’t help thinking…”
“I know. Me too.”
“It’s as if he’s right here. Which makes me worry. Because if it’s his soul—”
“He’s not dead. They’re not killing him there.”
Vera looks skeptical. “How do you know?”
Nina has to stop herself from repeating what Zoya has told them, always so brightly, after her visits: An excellent program, actually, very progressive and all that. Gersh is permitted a weekly letter home and has even been allowed a call on the telephone, his reward for being a “star worker.”
“Yoo-hoo…!”
Out on the terrace, Polina, wearing dark sunglasses, stands with Serge, waving at the window. “I told her we’d be here,” Vera says under her breath. “I didn’t think they’d visit.”
Viktor, back from his wash down by the pump, is already greeting them, and Nin
a and Vera step out to join them. Already Nina feels tense. Ever since she has known whom Serge works for, not to mention that whole business last year about writing reports, she has felt on her guard around Polina.
“We’re on our way back home,” Polina says, “but thought we’d stop by. What a lovely spot.” She and Serge have been at a nearby government sanatorium, she explains, as Viktor urges them to make themselves comfortable. Though he doesn’t appear bothered by their visit, Nina supposes Viktor is a better actor than even she truly knows. Serge kisses Nina’s hand exuberantly, then takes Vera’s gently, as if in wonderment at being allowed to touch it. His lips graze her skin so lightly, it seems he hardly dares allow himself the pleasure. Yet his voice is almost cool as he says, “So good to see you.” He has brought yellow lilies “for the house,” but presents them to Vera. Polina gives a proud look, as if to say, See what a gentleman he is? Hard to find, a true gentleman, these days. Well, it’s true…. She looks quite glamorous in her sunglasses. Yet even in this summer heat she wears a thick layer of makeup—quite a contrast to Vera’s naturally clear skin. Perhaps she still has to cover the last of those odd gray patches. There must still be something upsetting her….
“You wouldn’t believe all the different kinds of lilies there,” she is saying, of the sanatorium. “And hazelnut trees all around. Oh, it was so lovely!”
When Nina goes inside to fetch the punch, Vera follows her in. “We need one more chair.”
“What do those two want with us?”
“I suppose they just wanted to say hello. I’m sorry. Maybe I shouldn’t have told them.” Through the window, Nina sees how relaxed they look sitting there with Viktor, fronds of light filtering over them. Vera joins them, bringing the extra wicker chair with her.
“You’ve had a good holiday, then?” Viktor is asking when Nina returns with the punch and a tray of glasses. Serge leans back and with a slow, calm hand lights a briar pipe just like Stalin’s.
“Oh, it’s so comfortable there,” Polina says ecstatically, “you wouldn’t believe it. On one hundred desyatinas, full of aspen groves.”
Serge says, “She’s been practicing her dancing daily, I can report.”
“I have to, especially with the yummy meals there every day. You could stand to do some gymnastics, yourself, you know.” She playfully taps Serge’s midriff. “You’re getting a belly.”
“I play croquet. That’ll have to do.”
With a happy sigh Polina says, “I’m no good at it, I’m afraid.” As Nina pours the raspberry punch, Polina takes off her sunglasses, to polish with the edge of her skirt. “Serge bought them for me.”
“I’ve been admiring them.” Nina wonders where they could be from, if Serge has been abroad, or if he bought them at one of those special shops, the kind reserved only for high-up government folks. That must be where he found the camera hanging from his neck—a big shiny one poking out of an open leather pouch.
Now that everyone has some punch, Serge says, “A toast.” Something aggressive about the way he raises his glass, that quick, gruff confidence…“Glory to great Stalin.”
They repeat his words, and drink the punch, and then Viktor comments on the impressive camera.
“A Leica,” Serge says. “I’d love to take a picture of all of you.”
“We’re all so well-dressed,” Nina jokes, gesturing at her thin cotton housedress and Viktor’s striped pajama bottoms. Vera too is in a housedress.
“Here, you four get together, pull your chair up, please, Viktor. You, too, Polina, just a bit closer.”
Viktor has his arm around Nina, and Vera and Polina on his other side. The camera clicks, and Polina suggests that Serge might like to be in the picture. “Here, you sit here,” Vera tells him, “I’ll take it.”
Serge takes a seat next to Polina, encircling her with his arm, and gazes ahead at Vera. A click, and the pose is over. He lets his arm fall away.
“Oh, there’s the river,” Polina says. “I can see it from here.”
“Care for a last dip before you’re off?” Nina hears how it sounds, as if she wants them gone. Well, it’s true. She cannot relax with Serge here, Serge and his camera.
“I’d love a swim—it’s so hot! Serge, will you come?”
He seems to be waiting to see what the others say. “You go ahead.”
“I’ll join you,” Viktor says gallantly, and Nina feels a surge of love for him. But she does not join them, not wanting to leave Vera alone with Serge. Already, now that Polina is out of earshot, he is telling Vera, “Your hair looks luscious today, I must say.”
Vera laughs. “It’s because it got wet yesterday in the rain, and then Viktor braided it.”
“Viktor! I thought that was a woman’s job.”
“Yes, well, if you’d seen the braid,” Nina tells him, “you’d have your hunch confirmed.” She has to laugh. Though the braid was messy, Viktor wove it tenderly, something almost fatherly in his attentions. Nina finds it sweet, the way he seems to be making a real effort to be there for Vera. He made a point of telling Nina, after Gersh’s arrest, that it was up to them, now, to show Vera that she is loved, even without Gersh here.
“I slept with it braided,” Vera says, “and when I took it out, this is what happened.” Waves like the rye fields yesterday.
Nina begins to clear the glasses and empty punch jug off of the table, going in to the kitchen as many times as she can justify, in order to avoid Serge. At last she hears Viktor’s and Polina’s voices coming up the hill, Polina jabbering happily about all the special things available for guests at the sanatorium where she and Serge stayed. Quickly Serge takes Vera by the arm and says that though Polina needs to be in Moscow, perhaps he might return and visit again. He lets go of her arm before she can reply, and jumps up to greet Polina. “It’s time we were off.” Not until they have pulled away in Serge’s dusty car does Nina breathe a sigh of relief.
That night the nightingale returns, quite late. Ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-ta-trillll…Steady and clear as taps on a piano keyboard. Haunting as it sounds, Nina is grateful for the song, for its insistence, its persistence, as it sings throughout the night.
THE NEXT DAY, Nina and Vera sit together in the banya. It is a small wooden room just behind the dacha, not far from the river, so that they can easily go back and forth. Dark walls and in the corner a big stove with river stones piled up around the pipe. Steam rises in billows each time Nina ladles water onto the hot stones. Lying down on the wooden step, she feels the hot air envelope her, the heat extreme, nearly painful, filled with the scent of birch leaves. On the step across from her, Vera lies on her back, propped up by her elbows.
“Why do you put up with him?” Nina feels the heat touch her mouth when she speaks.
“Who?”
“Serge. He’s positively lecherous with you.”
Vera is briefly silent. “Maybe he can help us. Gersh, I mean. Serge knows people. Maybe he has some sort of pull.”
Nina considers this. “But why would he want to do anything to help Gersh?”
“Because I’ll ask him to. He likes me.”
His shyly lewd tone, his eager eyes…
“There might even be a way to have the charges erased.” Then Vera’s voice becomes nearly tearful. “I can’t stop worrying about him. Gersh, I mean. What do you think they’re doing to him there?”
Poisoning his mind, probably—but Nina bites her tongue. “He’s strong, Verochka.”
Vera gives an odd, achy-sounding laugh. “So many men have offered themselves to me. Cried over me. Made all kinds of promises. Yet I love this strange one with a funny name and a crossed eye, and who wouldn’t even marry me.”
Nina tries to make light of it. “Think of it this way: it spared you a mother-in-law.”
A long, sad sigh from Vera. “I know you don’t get on with yours. But she’s been kind to me.”
“Well, you’ve seen how she manipulates Viktor,” Nina says. “And how she talks to me. I’m déclas
sé, you know. She has to keep reminding me I married ‘good stock.’ It’s the only way she can convince herself her grandchildren won’t be tainted.”
Vera seems to be considering this. “Will you give them to her?”
“Grandchildren?” Nina sighs loudly. “Ugh, Vera. I’m pregnant again.”
Vera says nothing.
“I guess today is the first day I’m admitting it.”
“Again,” Vera says, slowly, and then, “Don’t you douche?”
“Every time, with vinegar, it doesn’t work! And that sponge thing from Budapest is useless.” Nina lies still for a minute, suddenly hotter from her outburst. Well, it is the price paid, she supposed, for the tyrannical power of the attraction she still feels for Viktor—the electricity that still arcs between them. “It doesn’t matter. I’ll make an appointment as soon as we get home.”
Vera says, “Do you want children, ever?”
Children. As always, the word itself warms her, brings with it the aura of childhood: such pureness, the one innocent time in life. To grasp again that purity, to love, again, in that uncomplicated way, laughing in the courtyard, Vera’s hand in hers at the Bolshoi audition…
“Children, yes. But pregnancy, childbirth?” Nina wishes it were less complicated. “You know what Alla told me, about when she was in labor? There she was, screaming in pain, and what did the doctor say? ‘Relax.’”
Vera laughs.
“Alla told her it was impossible to relax when she was having a hole drilled through her spine. So you know what she told her to do? ‘Recite Pushkin to yourself.’”
Vera says, “I remember one of the dancers in Leningrad telling me her labor went on for so long, the doctor threw himself on top of her, to try to push the baby out.”
“Ugh!”
“She didn’t even want a baby. But she didn’t realize she was pregnant until six months.”
“Luckily I at least don’t have that problem,” Nina tells her. “One girl I knew, before you came here, didn’t know at all until one day she had a miscarriage. Turned out she was already at five months.”
Russian Winter Page 33
