Russian Winter

by Daphne Kalotay

  “Here, just swap hers with mine, for the record. Put anything you don’t want in here, and I’ll put my things in that one”—she gestured toward the beautiful cream-colored bag. Then she switched the contents of her own vinyl bag with the leather one, careful not to let Lydia see the necklace. The problem was, Maria hadn’t quite seen it either, as she dumped her things into the leather pocketbook. She turned the vinyl bag upside down, right above the leather purse, and gave it a good shake. Then Lydia transferred the woman’s non-valuables to the cheap vinyl purse, and the two of them were finished with their transaction.

  Maria runs through those moments again now as she continues on her way, walking briskly in the warm spring air, her head covered in a paisley kerchief, a pocketbook over each shoulder, arms crossed below her midriff, coat concealing the most precious bundle of all. Already she has stopped once, in an alley, to go through the leather bag, and then the vinyl one—but she still cannot find that necklace. Well, it doesn’t matter. She has a much more important task at hand, and hugs her precious bundle tightly to her chest. Near the Krasnye Vorota metro stop she turns onto Kotelnicheskaya and her pace quickens, brisk squeak of her shoes with each step. The sound reminds her of baby birds, hungry and chirping incessantly, abandoned in their nests. She lets out a great sigh, as she has many a time, in the face of such tragedy. No matter how many times it happens, she has never grown used to it—the perfunctory dreariness, the flat factuality, the extreme nonnegotiability of death.

  Soon she has come to one of the nicer high-rise apartment houses, where a woman named Katya lives with her husband, Feodor. According to the friend who first introduced them, telling her their plight, Katya is a chemist, and her husband is a geologist. It is for them that Maria has paid Boris in the hospital records office to make sure to take care of any documentation.

  Katya’s face, when she ushers Maria into the apartment, is a mix of smile and worry lines. She is well into her forties but wears her hair in a thick braid tucked up into a wide barrette at the base of her head. She kisses Maria, peers into the bundle, and begins to cry. Maria cannot tell if these are tears of joy or sympathy. The child is still sleeping.

  “You’re sure there are no relatives?” Katya asks.

  “There was just the one friend,” Maria tells her. “After identifying the body, she ran off.”

  Katya says, “I imagine she must have been in shock.”

  Maria shakes her head. “A snobby one, she was. Turns out she’s famous, another ballerina, according to one of the nurses. I didn’t recognize her. I told her she could keep her friend’s things….” She hears the evasion in her voice, adds, “She didn’t want anything.”

  The maternity dress and stretched-out stockings Maria has left in a bin in the hospital. And as for this poor child, well, everyone knows an orphanage is a rough place, especially for a bastard child like this one. There is no doubt in Maria’s mind that she is giving him a better future, a mother and father, legitimacy and love.

  Katya’s face has relaxed, finally able to accept her luck. “May I hold him?” she asks.

  “He’s yours.” Maria passes her the delicate bundle, his tiny chest rising ever so slightly with each tiny breath. “Oh,” Katya says, and begins to cry again.

  Maria places the vinyl purse on the wooden table beside them. “Her belongings are here. The only things she had with her.”

  Katya doesn’t ask any more questions. Not in the face of such a gift, this answered prayer. She looks down and kisses the baby on his forehead, while Maria waits, not wanting to ruin the moment by asking for her tip. Then Maria hears Feodor’s footsteps behind them, and Katya turns to show him that a miracle has finally occurred.

  ANNA YAKOV WAS out of the office until the following week. Though Drew’s heart sank to find the automated reply in her in-box, she had managed to locate a telephone number—only to discover that it too went straight to Anna Yakov’s mailbox. So it was not until Monday that Drew received the fax. I believe this is it, Anna Yakov had written in hasty script. Sorry for the delay. The following page, scored with lined columns and profuse with penmanship, appeared to be a photocopy of a page from the logbook. Though written in thick ink, the handwriting was slightly faded from the transmission. The fax itself was clear enough to read—if only Drew had been able to read Russian. For a moment she just stared at it, hard, searchingly, as though simple patience and effort might somehow make the words intelligible to her.

  “Hey, Lieutenant, good news.”

  Drew looked up to see Lenore standing at her door.

  “I’ve already had three messages complimenting us on the supplemental,” Lenore told her. Drew was gripping the fax so tight, she realized she was wrinkling the flimsy page. “All old ladies, of course.” Lenore laughed, while Drew placed the fax on her desk as if it were nothing at all.

  Ordinarily she would not have waited an extra second to report her news. Now, though, she felt strangely as if the page, whatever information it contained, had nothing to do with anyone here, as if it were not about the auction at all. No, it was nothing Drew cared to share with Lenore. What she said instead, in a casual, musing way, was, “You know, I think it’s probably time you stopped calling me that.”

  Lenore raised her eyebrows. “Calling you…Lieutenant—is that what you mean?”

  Drew nodded, smiling lightly at how good it felt to speak her thoughts, her feelings. She had never seen Lenore look flustered before.

  “Well, of course. Certainly. I never realized…I’m sorry, Drew. If you had told me it was a problem…”

  Smooth and easy, Drew said, “Now it won’t be.”

  Lenore stood up straighter. “Good point.” She gave a professional smile, said she’d see her at the ten-thirty meeting, and left.

  Feeling a great lightness in her chest, Drew turned back to the fax that sat waiting on her desk. Eager and wary, she picked up the telephone to call Grigori Solodin.

  ON HER HOSPITAL form, for next of kin, Vera had written “Viktor Elsin.”

  This fact won’t give Nina’s mind a rest, even after Nina has signed the necessary forms and left the hospital. Well, now that Mother is dead…Not my name, but my husband’s…Just a big line where the father’s name is supposed to be. I know we had a falling-out, but still…Next of kin.

  She goes directly to her old apartment—Mother’s apartment, Vera’s apartment—to see if there might be some indication there, some clue as to exactly what happened.

  The room looks different, sparse without Mother’s things. Same old bed, and the wooden chest where Nina’s own clothes, folded carefully, used to be. In it now are blankets, mittens, winter scarves, the woolly smell of winter. Here is Vera’s big travel trunk. Nina opens it warily but shuts it at the first glimpse, unable to face the sight of Vera’s clothes.

  The first place she decides to search is underneath the cot. Indeed there is a box there, with a little latch that hooks over the edge. Nina slides it out, brushes off a layer of dust, and unhooks the clasp. The box is full of folded papers, which Nina quickly shuffles through, searching for letters. Or love notes.

  But these are professional communications, ballet contracts, receipts for earnings. Below are other formal documents, and a series of mailings that appear to concern Vera’s parents. Nina returns all of them to the box and places it back underneath the bed.

  She stands up, wipes the dust from her knees. On Vera’s bedside table is a bottle of perfume and a large Palekh box. The table has a small drawer, and though it might simply be decorative, when Nina pulls on the little knob, the drawer surprises her by sliding open. Shallow, containing some nail clippers and a flat little metal container. Nina removes the metal lid to find inside tiny pieces of torn yellowed paper. Trying to make out the typed words, she realizes that she knows what these bits of paper are—what they once were. There is an awful ripping feeling in her chest. She puts the lid back on the tin and shuts the drawer, feeling guilty all over again.

  But sh
e goes ahead and opens the Palekh box. Inside is a shallow tray, nothing in it. Not quite expecting anything, Nina lifts the tray. Underneath, to her surprise, she finds a gathering of amber beads.

  She lifts them out, a bracelet and a pair of earrings. The bracelet, the earrings—the ones framed in gold, the ones Madame displayed on the table that day. Only the necklace is not here; Nina’s heart winces as she realizes that Vera must have been wearing it.

  Vera, wearing it. Vera’s bracelet and earrings.

  Nina’s heart plunges. No—no. No, of course not. How could it be? It can’t be.

  Well, of course it can. Of course. What was she thinking, leaving the two of them there together at the dacha?

  She drops the bracelet. No, maybe it’s not true, maybe she is wrong. Because how could they? How dare they? Her entire body is trembling.

  It wasn’t enough to turn Madame against me, wasn’t enough to turn Viktor against me….

  No wonder she didn’t speak to me, didn’t dare look me in the eye.

  And Viktor, is that where he’s been: not the writers’ retreat but the hospital, with his Vera…. But no, that can’t be, they would not have called for him at home, Nina would have seen him at the hospital…. No, they must have been keeping it a secret, not letting on to anyone: Just a big line where the father’s name is supposed to be. A secret—their secret. All the time that Nina has been working so hard, and been so trusting. She feels, now, her heart cracking. Yes, that is what is happening, that is just how it feels, her heart cracked in two, like a nut.

  The next thought that comes to her, swiftly and absurdly, is My life is over. Because how can she go back? How can she continue to live?

  She will strangle him, throttle him, stab him a thousand times. She understands, now, how a person could do such a thing. Her fury has turned her skin hot, her face burning.

  The two people left in her world, the two people she loved most…Together, behind her back. Yes, this is how it feels to be betrayed: her chest ripped apart, her heart torn out. The pain is physical—immense, gaping. Now she hears a wailing sound. It is her own voice; she has begun sobbing.

  For a long time she sobs, until her voice has become hoarse and her eyes hurt from crying. Yet even when she takes a deep breath and sits very still, quiet and exhausted, her thoughts continue to race.

  She will have to leave Viktor. Move out—but where is there for her to go, other than this apartment right here? This room full of Vera’s belongings. This place where Vera and Viktor must have been meeting, the two of them together, here where Nina and Mother once lived together so innocently.

  I have to leave this place, leave this life.

  You can’t leave, no one can, you know that.

  I hate them, hate them with every ounce of my being, I’m full of hate.

  I have to leave, thank God we leave tomorrow.

  I can’t look at them ever again.

  I’ll leave and never come back.

  They find you and break your legs.

  I’m leaving this place, for good.

  Impossible. How does one do that? How does one escape?

  They break your legs. And then what will you do, no money, and you can’t even dance…

  Nina looks down at the bracelet and earrings and decides. She takes them, drops them into her purse.

  Rushing out of the building, she feels as if she is in a movie or a dream, not her real life. She walks the streets in a daze, past the bored-looking troops stationed at the intersection, passively blowing their whistles long and loud, past the vendors of ice cream and vodka and round watermelons, past the old woman with the scale where people pay to weigh themselves—and it seems an abomination that the world can continue on like this, so easily, when these awful other things have occurred.

  As if to prove her point, walking toward her is Serge. Of all the people in the world…Nina hasn’t seen him since Polina’s funeral, where he stood far back, perfectly still, head slightly bowed yet somehow still proud, a long face but not a tear in his eye. He wears his usual stern expression now, though he looks somehow less prideful, less sure of himself.

  His greeting is unsmiling. “Nina Timofeyevna, good afternoon.”

  The possessive way he kissed Vera’s hand…

  “I don’t suppose you know she’s dead.”

  “Who’s dead?”

  When she tells him, his jaw slackens and his face goes pale. For a moment she thinks he might faint. “No, it can’t be. How could it be?”

  Nina hears herself telling him “birth” and “hemorrhage,” and Serge says, “I…I didn’t even know she was expecting.” He is doing something Nina has never seen anyone do, tugging the skin at the tops of his cheeks, just beneath his eyes, as if to see more clearly. Little upside-down triangles of skin, and his mouth hanging open. He lets go, shakes his head, as if that might help him understand. “It’s been so long since I saw her. We’d grown close, she and I. But she told me she couldn’t see me anymore.” Pained sadness in his face.

  “Well,” Nina says, her voice tight, “it seems she took up with someone else.”

  Serge squints at her. “Oh.” A small, sharp nod of understanding. “I should have known, when I saw them together over the summer. You weren’t there. You—”

  “My mother was ill. I had to go to her.” As if it were her fault, as if Vera could ever have loved Serge. Only now, witnessing Serge’s quick nod of comprehension, and his eyes narrowed, calculating, does it occur to Nina that Vera must have said that on purpose—about Mother being ill—in order to get Nina out of the picture. So that she could be alone with Viktor.

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” he says, his jaw flexing angrily, “but I just thought—I suppose I just didn’t want to believe it. The bastard. I’m sorry, Nina. And now she’s dead.”

  “She’s dead,” Nina repeats, to convince herself, but all she sounds is furious.

  “Bastard,” Serge says. “His fault.” A tight, angry look, shaking his head at himself. “I should have known. He was so affectionate with her there at the dacha, it was obvious, and still I didn’t—Because the way he acted, he just didn’t seem to be…hiding anything.”

  And that’s not all he’s hiding. Spiteful thought. For a split second, Nina thinks she might say it aloud. Because all she feels is spite. Madame, behind the flimsy plywood door…Even though she stops herself, Nina supposes it is already too late, that she has said it, already, in so many words. That she is saying it right now, with her fury.

  Serge’s eyebrows rise just the slightest bit, as if reading her thoughts, and Nina feels immediately ill. Already it seems wrong, an accident. As soon as Serge has hurried away, she turns into an alley and retches, still shaking as she wipes her mouth on her sleeve.

  WHEN SHE SAID, “It’s good to see you,” he had to smile. Grigori wanted to touch her, to at least shake her hand, but she seemed somehow nervous—or perhaps simply excited, at what she had to show him. She made sure there was a good foot of space between her body and his as she took the faxed page from her desk and held it out to him. “Does this look like the right thing to you?”

  “Let’s see. The columns say ‘date,’ ‘items,’ ‘price,’ and ‘buyer.’”

  “Sounds right.”

  He began with the top entry. “Date, June 7, 1882.” Looking up, he explained, “That would be the prerevolutionary Russian Orthodox calendar. Twelve days behind ours…” He cleared his throat, suddenly nervous, and continued. “Bracelet, five beads, each with insect specimen and 56 zolotnik triple-twist gold frame.”

  “That’s it,” Drew cut in. “That’s got to be it.”

  As he read the price aloud, he realized his heart was pounding. “Next it says, ‘Amber drop earrings, two beads, each with insect specimen, and 56 zolotnik triple-twist gold frame.’”

  “That’s right too.” A flush had come into Drew’s cheeks.

  “‘Amber inlaid brooch, 56 zolotnik triple twist gold frame…’ Hmmm. ‘56 zolotnik triple-tw
ist hairpin with small amber cabochon.’”

  Drew leaned closer to him. “Is there a necklace there, too?”

  Grigori ran his finger down the column, searching. “Ah, here. ‘Amber pendant, large bead with spider specimen, in 56 zolotnik triple-twist frame.’” He took a deep breath, his eyes continuing down to the bottom of the final column. Aloud, and with surprise, he read, “Buyer: Avrim Shlomovich Gershtein of Marosejka Street, Moscow.” He took a step back, as if there were more there, to be read more carefully. “Huh.”

  Drew was looking at him. “Avrim Shlomov…?”

  “Gershtein. It’s the last name of Viktor Elsin’s close friend. The composer in the photograph I showed you.” His mind was racing now. “These people could be his ancestors.” Again he heard himself say, “Huh.”

  Drew quickly went back to her desk and was rummaging through some folders, while Grigori asked himself what this page might mean. Viktor Elsin’s friend…

  “Here,” Drew said, “is this him?” She held out the photograph Grigori had lent her; in the supplemental brochure that had been mailed to him, Gershtein and his wife had been cropped out of the picture, so that the brochure showed just Nina Revskaya and Viktor Elsin. Pointing at the original in her hand, Drew said, “This is him, right?”

  “Yes.”

  “So, the amber must have been something he owned, that had been passed down to him from his parents or relatives. These pieces were his. Or became his at some point.”

  Grigori nodded, but it was an automatic movement rather than one of comprehension. “Yes, he must have given them—or sold them—to Viktor Elsin. Probably when he was arrested.” He thought for a moment. “Gershtein must have given them to Elsin for safekeeping before he went off to prison, and then Elsin gave them to Nina Revskaya, and she took two of the pieces with her when she left Russia.”

  Drew gave a small nod. “But why would she take only two of them?” She paused. “Maybe Elsin gave two of the pieces to his wife and the pendant to someone else.”

  “But who else?”