After Anatevka

by Alexandra Silber

  “Hello, Hodel,” he said in his distinctive, quiet voice. “The guards say that your Russian has become quite impressive.”

  Hodel saw language as a puzzle—her instincts always led her to the next piece as it locked into place.

  “I have always had a talent for it, sir.”

  “And you do not merely speak, but read and write. Is that so?”

  Hodel nodded. “I do not think my husband would have it any other way.”

  The Gentleman stepped closer and handed her the pamphlet. “Would you care to demonstrate?”

  Hodel worked while moths, beetles, snow, and wind all beat against the November-colored windows. The hours were loath to pass as she transcribed, but she was so comfortable here in comparison to the physical labor, she didn’t dare complain. Besides, The Gentleman always provided her with a fire and (though modest in appearance) a cushioned chair. Yet, even as she finished and put away each paper, The Gentleman always had something else for her to get done, just one more task in need of completion.

  She shared the office work with Irina, of course, The Gentleman’s daughter. Irina sat beside The Gentleman’s desk at a squat little table of her own, her posture upright as she wrote endlessly upon page after page of import and export, entry and discharge documents, in handwriting as precise as religion. A scrap of black hair swept across Irina’s forehead, resting like a leaf. Her brows framed almond eyes so piercing a blue, they betrayed in every way the blood connection to her father.

  Oh, judicious blood, thought Hodel, to select so striking a quality . . .

  One night, Hodel was summoned to The Gentleman’s office after hours. She made her way across the grazing land, past the village fences, toward the barracks, and down to the central office. It was a grim place—nothing more than a wooden cabin of heavy post and pillar built with plenty of triangulation to take the winter winds—where The Gentleman worked late into the night. The structure was raised, with nearly four feet of crawl space below it (to allow for ground settling), and the building stood nestled into the bosom of the forest.

  The night was as dark as tar, and quiet. Hodel thought she could hear her heart beating beneath her shawl as she rounded the corner to the cabin when all at once she stopped dead.

  She heard the heavy fall of unfamiliar feet behind her on the path. She glanced over her shoulder and caught the sight of an imposing man coming toward the office hut. Before she could speak sense to herself, she bolted and hid beside the entrance to the office, hugging the trees at the side of the building.

  She could not see his face, for the night was moonless and the figure’s head and face were fully covered by an ushanka. He did not seem to be a prisoner; there was too imperious an assurance in his stride as he marched toward the office, wrapped up against the cold. As he came closer, Hodel crouched farther into the shadows, moving into the crawl space below the building. She didn’t dare to breathe as he walked up the steps, knocked upon the door, and turned the handle to make his way inside without even waiting for a response. She listened from her perch at the side of the building, irked that she could not see in the window!

  “Nerchinsk is magnificent,” she heard a man say from the shadows of the room. His voice was incredibly distinct—lavish, reeking of the highest breeding. “Eastern Siberia is going to save Russia from extinction. It is becoming one of the best mineral production contributors in the world—as you ought to know if you examined my reports.”

  “I have,” replied The Gentleman.

  Hodel thought she had encountered everyone in The Gentleman’s circle, so she stood there puzzled, listening even harder. She heard clinking glasses followed by the customary ceremonies of shared vodka.

  The unfamiliar voice continued. “How is your work coming along on our target?”

  “Slowly,” The Gentleman said, his words tight. “Though I can’t imagine I’ve gathered any information you yourself have not yet observed.”

  “You know how I think on excuses, sir.”

  “I am attempting a side approach.”

  “Yes,” the Voice said, “I have noticed.”

  Oh, what Hodel would have given for a glimpse at their faces, their eyes! She adjusted herself in the spirit of her inquiry and, in doing so, made a terrible rustling in the space beneath the cabin. She cursed herself and held her breath.

  “What was that?” the Voice exclaimed, sounding alert.

  “Nothing,” The Gentleman assured him. “There are creatures that lurk in the crawl space below the cabin. Likely just a rat.”

  “I see,” said the Voice, though he did not sound convinced.

  Hodel released her breath, chest thundering.

  “Perhaps I am an antiquated man,” said the Voice, now walking about the room, “but it certainly seems to be a world full of hostile ungratefuls nowadays. Or perhaps it is just the rancor of a frustrated God.”

  Brutal coarseness is so often concealed in good breeding. Hodel could actually feel The Gentleman start to wither beneath the glower of the Voice’s covered criticism.

  “I think without men like you, sir, Russia is to collapse,” the Voice continued. “Do you no longer love Russia?”

  “Of course not. On the contrary—I am endeavoring to save her,” The Gentleman said.

  “Ah!” the Voice exclaimed. “How arduous a task! Mother Russia, thou art indeed a beloved lady!” He chuckled heartily, and Hodel heard him settle his body down once more. “We cannot always keep a dog subservient, my friend. When he refuses to obey the whip, we must trick him into a muzzle. That is your employment. That is why you are here.”

  “I am trying, sir,” The Gentleman insisted, betraying the slightest hint of a faltering man, “but the system—”

  “There is a flaw in your system,” the Voice said, icier than before. “The point is simple. Our friend has become markedly more reserved, and reservation is a quality I’ve never trusted. He also bears a glow of self-satisfaction. Terrible thing, smugness.”

  “Agreed.”

  “And not a bit weaker, it appears.”

  “What do you propose, sir?”

  “Get it done,” the Voice said suddenly. “You fail at your own peril.”

  With that, the man strode to the door and let it slam behind him. Once outside, he gathered his coat closer around him, the high collar covering any trace of his identity. He stood there a moment, and Hodel watched as he withdrew a flask from his pocket, unscrewed it, and emptied the contents into the snow.

  “Tastes of a stain,” he muttered to himself before twisting the cap back on and lumbering off into the night.

  Hodel’s blood was pounding, body sweltering despite the bite of the air. She inched forward, still clinging to the wooden beams of the building, looking hard into the dark that had swallowed him.

  From within the room, Hodel was surprised to suddenly hear another voice.

  “Father?” Irina asked. “May I go?”

  “Of course, my doll, my kukolka moya.”

  Hodel heard The Gentleman move to the window just above her head and she froze, tense even in her womb. But at once he turned and called to his daughter before she could depart.

  “Irinushka?” The Gentleman said.

  Hodel heard no response.

  “Irina,” The Gentleman said softly. “From the Greek for peace. That is what you give me, my darling.”

  Hodel heard Irina take leave of the room and then, before Hodel could think to retreat farther beneath the building, Irina rounded the corner. Startled face to startled face, the two women froze, like animals caught in a trap.

  What was curious was that Irina looked guilty. Her breath heaved in billowing clouds of nervous air. But what had she to hide?

  A sharp hiss came from the cluster of trees behind the hut. Irina gasped and turned sharply, imploring, “Shhh!” She extended her hands as if to keep the hiss at bay.

  Then from the wood emerged—to Hodel’s great astonishment— Andrey Tenderov. His skin was glowing, his curl
ing hair practically cherubic in the feeble light.

  Irina turned wildly back to Hodel. “You won’t tell, will you?” Irina pleaded, her blue eyes shaking.

  “Please, Hodel,” Tenderov whispered from the wooded umbra. “I love her.”

  Hodel looked at them and felt a pang within her breast. She turned to Irina without smiling and extended her hand with the flourish of a bargain. Irina nodded silently, taking Hodel’s hand in gratitude. Then she dashed toward Tenderov, and the two clasped hands before dashing away, swathed by a night now as dark as blood. She watched them go. She would stay silent because she understood.

  Hodel gathered herself, climbed the steps of the cabin, and knocked twice (as she had been instructed since her first day in the office), then the door opened. There was The Gentleman.

  “Ah, Hodel, come in, come in.” He was noticeably off his center. “I am sorry you have made the extra journey tonight, for Irina has just finished the very pages I called upon you to complete. I hope you understand.”

  “Of course, sir,” she said. Her eyes searched the room for any hints of the mysterious man.

  “For your troubles, I would like to give you this,” he said, doddering to the back room where he kept his teas and sweet things. He returned a moment later with a small brown bag. “I know how well your husband enjoys tea.”

  Hodel was caught off guard. “Thank you, sir,” she said. “He does indeed—and tea is so hard to come by.”

  “I want you to be comfortable. We are family here, Hodel. Family.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The candles flickered as she made a little gracious curtsy to him, throwing shadows upon the walls. These walls had heard so much in just one night.

  “Good night, Hodel,” he said as he moved back toward his desk and took his seat. “I look forward to the pleasure of seeing you again in the morning. Perhaps I might have the pleasure of escorting you from the Volosnikovs’ again?”

  She nodded. “Good night, sir.”

  thirty-four

  GOOD EVENING,” DMITRI PETROV SAID FROM THE DOORWAY, the shadows from the clear night stark upon his cheeks.

  “Good evening, Dmitri,” Hodel replied.

  But he did not move.

  So she added, “Are you well?”

  “I am,” he said, then paused again, as if waiting for her to indicate how he should proceed in conversation. She raised her eyebrows and smiled, and he shook himself abruptly and asked, “And you?”

  “I am well,” she said more brightly, amused by his blunders in the face of femininity.

  “Good.”

  “Well, good.”

  There was another pause, this time even longer. At last, Hodel spoke. “Would you like to come in?”

  “I would,” said Dmitri Petrov, charging through the threshold with relief.

  Their awkward dance in the doorway was surprising, given that Dmitri Petrov was in her home every day, sometimes for hours at a time. Yet she knew so little of his life, so few facts of his upbringing, tastes, proclivities, and cares. She knew only what she could observe. What she could see, most clearly, was that Dmitri Petrov was a man of contradictions.

  He appeared to be a man who, at every opportunity, attempted to regard life as indifferently as possible. She often heard him extol the virtues of this philosophy. “Not having to engage with petty feelings unless one chooses to?” he would say. “How liberating!” This was his starting point—as if someone (or something) had taught him he must not to be bogged down by care. He viewed his indifference as a shield against an adversarial world.

  If only any of that were true. All his protestations indicated that perhaps Dmitri Petrov cared too much. He loathed, then cared, then loathed himself for caring. The very reserve he valued so highly burned a hole in him with ferocity. She watched him fidget as he waited for Perchik alone in her presence. Full of respect but lacking in all social graces, he paced the floors of their home, collar raised, injured hands (which ached to play the cello) in fists within his pockets, red-eyed from a seeming sadness.

  When Perchik entered from the back of the house, Hodel observed immediate relief in the drop of Dmitri’s shoulders, and straightaway the men began discussing in an urgent, impassioned shorthand only two possible subjects: the state of the country or Yevgeny.

  Dmitri had not yet removed his coat and seemed content to pace across the room. “At least a vulture waits until you are dead to eat you alive!” he declared.

  “Mitya, why don’t you take off your coat and sit down?” Hodel entreated. “I’ll make some tea.” She remembered The Gentleman’s fancy tea and removed it from her satchel as Dmitri finally sat down, coat still on.

  The fact was this: all the People’s plans had been deterred; the party leaders had scattered to various exiles.

  “Back in the cities, you know the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and all the splinter parties of the movement hate one another!” cried Dmitri Petrov.

  “Yes, but in light of the new Duma—”

  “I’m sorry—what is the Duma?” asked Hodel.

  “The State Duma, darling. In theory it is a legislative assembly in place to advise and enforce some change with the tsar,” Perchik replied.

  “Surely it has some effect?”

  “No, just the problem. It is conservative and largely useless under the autocracy. Nothing but agricultural talk that helps us not a bit thus far. But the new Duma is being convened in St. Petersburg, and various proletariat leaders are hoping to unite the party.”

  “But the whole country is still in upheaval and the newspapers are in a frenzy!” said Dmitri, unconvinced. “Ah, well,” he sighed. “One man’s publicity is another man’s propaganda.”

  Perchik laughed.

  “What are you laughing at?”

  “The way your glass truly is half-empty,” Perchik said, smiling.

  “I hate when you laugh me off as if I were some sort of stormy youth,” Dmitri Petrov huffed.

  “You are a stormy youth.”

  This caused Dmitri’s inner storm to rumble even louder. “I am no such thing!”

  Perchik laughed again. Dmitri still had not taken off his coat.

  “I cannot for the life of me understand—” Dmitri began.

  “How impatience can turn even geniuses into fools?” Perchik finished for him. Where on earth did these leaders go? he thought to himself. The scatter was all anyone could speak of these days.

  “But the People,” Dmitri insisted, practically choking from the strength of his pent-up passion, “and their rights—”

  “All people have the right to foolishness,” Perchik replied. “Some just abuse the privilege.”

  Perchik smiled, but his signature steadiness seemed less natural these days, more studied. Even when sitting, he was not still. A restlessness mirrored his ever-moving mind. Yet he was not thrown of his purpose, only off his serenity.

  All Hodel could determine from Perchik’s whisperings was that their leader had resumed his exile and was now touring Europe, practically nowhere to be found.

  “The Stormy Youth broods, but the remaining half a glass shall evaporate by the morning,” Perchik said.

  “Well, the Revolutionary Zealot thinks the glass is completely full, even when it isn’t!”

  There was the difference between these friends: if Perchik was truth wrapped in human feelings, then Dmitri was truth stuffed to bursting with them.

  “I fear man himself has become our greatest hazard,” Dmitri muttered.

  “And our only hope,” Perchik said with a chaste smile.

  Hodel could feel her heart shift in her chest; it ached for both of them.

  “Anyway,” Perchik said. “Arguing about glasses being half-empty or half-full misses the point.”

  “Which is what exactly?”

  “That the bartender cheated you.”

  Perchik laughed. When the time came, he would be ready, prepared to go to battle with the hammers of his words, nailed upon the walls of the
sky. He knew that these developments called for poise. For patience. He hoped only to make that clear to Dmitri as well.

  “‘The gift of patience is patience,’” he said. “That’s St. Augustine.”

  Hodel smiled, hoping to understand. Too often, she felt that she did not.

  Perchik had told her to be quiet, to “behave,” and above all, to trust no one. “Particularly those who appear innocent,” he had said, adamant that she know as little as possible. “It is infinitely safer this way.” He had been insistent. When she had said she wanted to be a part of it, he had held her face between his ragged hands and told her, “This work is not the most important thing in my life—you are.” And he had kissed her. Hard. Clutching her close to him as their mouths parted. They would, all of them, persevere.

  So Hodel contented herself to overhearing what she could of Perchik’s conversations with his compatriots. But this one with Dmitri had now come to an end.

  Dmitri stood, moved toward the window, and gazed out upon the camp, hands clasped behind his back.

  He could not look at them.

  “It is late,” he said, clutching at the pockets of his still-buttoned coat. “I should go.” He made his way to the door, and as he opened it, he noted workers at the border of the settlement. “Look,” he said. “It would appear they are erecting some kind of fence.”

  Within days, it became clear: the fence was indeed a reality. Hodel, Perchik, and Dmitri stood at a distance, staring. Grisha, Anatoly, and Andrey soon joined them in a near perfect line.

  “What is it?” asked Andrey Tenderov.

  “Clearly it is a fence,” said Dmitri Petrov.

  “I know,” said Andrey, wrapping his arms tight around himself in the cold. “But what is it? Why is it there?”

  “Well, to keep things in, of course,” Dmitri said.

  “And to keep things out,” Grigory Boleslav said.

  The wind stabbed with a new kind of utterly forbidding cold. It reduced the prisoners to a constant nervous irritability that broke out over every trifle. No one could think or work or sleep.