“This marvelous Soviet device that has been keeping me alive was developed to enable cosmonauts to someday go to the stars in a state of hibernation,” Father had said instead. “So there’s really no reason why it can’t enable me to go as far as Spaceville, or the Moon. So what I see for the future is not a Moses forever barred from his Promised Land, but myself, up there on a Grand Tour Navette, on my way to the Moon. As just a tourist, maybe, but getting there just the same. And if there are those who say that’s an impossible dream, well, that’s what they were saying about the Grand Tour Navette twenty years ago, wasn’t it? We live in the golden age of space travel. Formerly impossible things are happening every day.”
“And you told me that your father couldn’t cope with politics?” Ivan had said softly. “If it was a question of a popular vote, he’d be on his way now. What a man! You are sure he’s an American? He has the heart of a true Russian!”
On Franja’s next trip back to Paris, Father had been bubbling with enthusiasm, totally absorbed in his hopeless fantasy, going on and on about the letters he was receiving from all over Europe, about how, after all, Spaceville was full of retirees in far worse shape than he was, about how it was his right to ride the Grand Tour Navette.
And Mother, for her part, had kept up her smiling front and just let him go on, encouraging him even. Only when she was alone with Franja did she let her heartache show through.
For of course the whole thing was out of the question. Even if there was some way to persuade the European Space Agency to give him his Grand Tour Navette ride, the strain of a Concordski boost to orbit, if it didn’t kill him, would accelerate the accumulated brain and lung and blood-vessel damage he was already suffering. He wouldn’t even be allowed aboard a short-hop airplane; the cabin pressure changes would be too much for the hibernautika to properly handle, and no commercial carrier’s insurance would cover him.
“But why do you encourage him then, Mother?” Franja had asked.
And Mother had shrugged and sighed. “It keeps his spirits up. It’s like his own little science-fiction story. I think he really knows it’s impossible himself, but . . . What am I supposed to tell him, anyway? The truth? That he’s dying? That it’s breaking my heart twice over to hear him go on like this . . . ?”
And she had broken into tears then, and collapsed into Franja’s arms, sobbing. But by breakfast the next morning, she was all smiles and enthusiasm again when Father displayed the latest packet of letters. And so the visit had gone.
But that was then, and this was now.
By now, so it seemed, Father had been busy putting pressure, moral and otherwise, on his friends and colleagues at ESA. All during dinner, he had gone on and on about what he had already accomplished.
Patrice Corneau, at least to hear Father tell it, had agreed to let him ride the second Grand Tour Navette on its shakedown cruise as an “honorary observer,” provided that he was authorized to do so by a resolution of the Common European Parliament. Emile Lourade had agreed to endorse such a resolution, provided it was introduced by the government of a member state. Boris Velnikov had promised to take the matter up with his nebulous contacts in Moscow.
Mother had kept up her smiling façade throughout all this, but Franja could see how plastic it was, and now Mother for the most part kept her silence. She seemed drawn, and wan, and vibrating with unreleased tension, and toward the end, over dessert, she even slipped to the point where a certain anger had shown through.
“Of course I doubt if Velnikov is as connected as he likes to pretend,” Father had said. “He’s got some real influence, but it would certainly help if there was some pressure from the Red Star Tower—”
“I’ve told you a hundred times, Jerry, Red Star has no influence on—”
“—but it has plenty of influence with the contractors, and the contractors—”
“Have nothing to do with government policy!”
“But Tass does, and the Paris bureau would love a story like this, wouldn’t they, what with—”
“The tail does not wag the dog!”
“But Red Star is one big dog, and you’re the Director of the Paris office! You’re an important bureaucrat here, Sonya, there have got to be other important bureaucrats who want favors from you, you can trade them back and forth till you get a Foreign Ministry stamp on a request from Velnikov, and then—”
“It just doesn’t work that way, Jerry!”
“You can at least try!”
“I told you, I am trying! But I simply can’t promise you the results you want! It’s no easy matter for the Director of Red Star’s Paris office to commandeer the services of the central governmental apparatus!”
“I’m not asking you to do anything like that!”
And Mother had taken a deep breath, and calmed herself, and spoken in a much more soothing tone of voice. “Yes you are, Jerry,” she said softly. “And I really am trying. Just please, please, don’t expect me to work miracles overnight.”
“Impossible things are happening every day,” Father had said more quietly, and Mother had nodded, and smiled, and the moment had seemed to finally glide past.
But after Father had gone to bed, Mother had taken Franja into the living room, and poured them both Cognacs, and let her anguish and her ire come out.
“I don’t know what to do, Franja, they’re all encouraging him shamelessly—Velnikov, Corneau, Lourade—they’re all just telling him whatever they think he wants to hear.”
“But don’t they know, Mother, about . . . I mean . . . ?”
“Of course they do!” Mother snapped angrily. “They’re all just stringing him along and passing the responsibility for saying no to someone else! Corneau tells him, of course, all I need is a resolution of the Common European Parliament. Lourade tells him, sure, I’ll back the resolution as soon as a member state introduces it. Velnikov says, sure, I’m on your side, but my connections in Moscow. . . It’s the oldest bureaucratic game in the book. No one wants to say no, no one can say yes, so they just toss the responsibility back and forth until it gets caught by someone who has no one to pass it along to.”
Mother sighed, took a long sip of Cognac. “And the way the cowards have set it up, at least in Jerry’s eyes,” she said, “that’s me.”
Franja took a sip of Cognac herself. As Mother had asked, she had tried to be a real daughter to her father. There had been no further recriminations about the past. She had been cordial, she had been friendly, she had been sympathetic. At first, it had been something of an act, playing the role of dutiful daughter to a father who had betrayed her. But Father had been cordial too, gentle, wistful, and what had begun as a favor to her mother had perhaps slowly transmuted into the real thing.
For this was a different man from the father who had disowned her, and perhaps it had been Ivan who had shown her the truth of that. “What a man!” Ivan had declared. “He has the heart of a true Russian!”
And so he did, Franja admitted to herself now. Like a true Russian, her father was a dreamer, a romantic, a brave spirit who defied the fates, who was ready to dare anything to fulfill what he saw as his destiny, even in the face of death. How could she deny her love to such a man?
And for the first time in many a year, she found herself thinking of her old lost love, Nikolai Smirnov, out there somewhere now beyond Mars. Nikolai would understand what she felt even better than Ivan.
Nikolai would understand why now, at long, long last, she felt so proud to be the daughter of Jerry Reed.
“Perhaps . . . perhaps you should do what Father asks?” Franja said. “You could, couldn’t you?”
“Do what?” Mother said. “Help him kill himself?”
And Franja saw her mother for the first time through different eyes. Saw a woman quite different from herself, a woman who would never understand what she and her father shared. “To write his own happy ending,” she said.
“Franja!” Mother cried. “What are you saying?”
“Nothing, Mother,” Franja said, staring down into her glass.
Perhaps you have lived in the West far too long, she thought.
Perhaps you have forgotten what it means to have a Russian heart.
KRONKOL BY A LANDSLIDE
Final election returns from the Ukraine show that Vadim Kronkol has captured 69 percent of the Presidential vote. The Ukrainian Liberation Front has won 221 seats in the 302-seat Ukrainian Parliament.
President Harry B. Carson, on behalf of the American people, has congratulated Mr. Kronkol on his smashing victory, referring to the Ukrainian leader as “a fellow freedom fighter” and the “George Washington of his country.”
The American Vice President, Nathan Wolfowitz, an avowed political enemy of President Carson who was put on the Republican ticket by desperate party leaders in what both men freely admit was a pragmatic deal to break the long convention deadlock, was quick as usual to distance himself from the head of his own government.
“That grinding noise you hear is the Father of Our Country gnashing his wooden choppers in the grave,” the Vice President declared. “What scares me is the thought that he’s going to have a lot more new company if Harry Carson keeps shooting his mouth off without thinking, like the flannel-mouthed demagogue he is.”
—The Times (London)
It was all so frustrating, so near, and yet so far. He had convinced Patrice Corneau to see things his way, he had convinced Emile Lourade, he had even convinced his old enemy Velnikov; why couldn’t he convince his own wife?
Sonya, for all her talk, was really doing nothing. She was treating him like an invalid, like a piece of fragile glasswork to be kept in cotton batting, something to be carefully preserved against all possibility of risk.
Not that Jerry couldn’t understand why. The doctors had led her to believe that if he was careful, if he took good care of himself, if he took no risks, he could survive indefinitely like this, or at least long enough for a brain transplant or an electronic implant to become possible.
He had to admit that, from her point of view, she was doing the right thing.
And the only way he could see to change it would be to tell her the truth.
But he couldn’t do that, he just couldn’t. He might be willing to give up everything to walk on water, including what little was left of his life, but when it came down to it, he realized that the one thing he couldn’t do was take away Sonya’s hope. He just didn’t have the ruthlessness or the cruelty to go that far.
And that left Franja.
Franja shared the dream. She had been up there herself. At least Franja would understand what he felt. Perhaps she could convince Sonya without having to tell her . . . without having to tell her . . .
He badly needed an ally. Perhaps just as badly, he needed someone to confide in. But that would mean telling Franja the full truth.
Could he do that?
Was there anything else he could do?
Jerry sighed. He got up off the couch, went to the breakfront, poured himself a big Cognac, downed it all in one long fiery gulp. There was nothing else for it. Sonya was at work, Franja was in the kitchen making lunch, if he was going to do it at all, he might as well get it over with.
He reeled up his cable snugly, grabbed the handle of the hibernautika, and walked into the kitchen, wheeling the damned thing along with him.
Franja stood by the wooden countertop, buttering slices of bread for sandwiches, the tomatoes, ham, cheese, and red onions already sliced and ready.
“It’ll be ready in a few minutes, Father,” she said without looking up. “Want to open some white wine?”
Numbly, Jerry opened the refrigerator, pulled out a half-full bottle of Bordeaux, pulled the cork with his fingers, fished two wineglasses out of the dishwasher, filled them, gulped down a glass, refilled it, and held out the other glass to Franja.
“Just put it in the dining room and I’ll be right in,” she said without looking at him.
“Drink it now, Franja,” Jerry said, shoving the glass at her.
“Father?” Franja said, looking up, finally, and eyeing him peculiarly.
“There’s . . . there’s something I’ve got to tell you, Franja . . .” Jerry stammered. “And . . . and it’s not going to be easy. . . for either of us.”
He handed Franja the glass. She shrugged, took a small sip. Jerry stared at her. She stared back. Neither of them spoke for a long moment.
“Well, Father,” Franja finally said. “For God’s sake, tell me!”
Jerry sighed. He took another gulp of wine, screwed up his courage, and did.
“I . . . I’ve got a good reason to ride the next Grand Tour Navette, Franja,” he began shakily. “I . . . I’ve got a good reason to get myself up there as soon as I can. . . . Your mother . . . she doesn’t . . . The fact is that I’m dying, Franja, I’ve got maybe a year or two, that’s all, and it’s not going to be pleasant. . . .”
“Why . . . why are you telling me this, Father?” Franja said in a strange cool voice.
“Because I don’t want to go through it, Franja! I want to trade a year or two of slow agony for a few bright shining hours! I want to die happy, is that so hard to understand? Wouldn’t you, Franja? Wouldn’t you?”
Franja stared at her father, not knowing what to say, not knowing what to do, but knowing how cold and hard she must seem to him now, standing there dry-eyed in the face of this awful revelation. She tried to bring tears to her eyes by an act of will, but failed utterly. For she had known all this too long, she had cried herself out with Mother when she had told her.
And Father had known all along after all! Of course he would, she realized in retrospect. She should have known that Jerry Reed would plunge into the data banks as soon as he was able. And Mother should have known too. He was that kind of man, he always had been.
And just as Mother was the kind of woman who would shield him from the truth, so was he the kind of man who would shield her.
And that, finally, was indeed enough to bring honest tears to her eyes. “I do believe I would,” she said softly. “But why tell me?”
“Because I need your help, Franja,” Father said. “I have no one else to turn to. I certainly can’t tell your mother. I’m telling you because you’ve got to help me find some way to convince her to do what we both know is right without telling her the whole truth and breaking her heart.”
Franja looked at her father through new eyes. There he stood, with an electrode fastened to the back of his head, wired to a device that was keeping him alive and slowly killing him at the same time, facing the end of his life with a bravery she doubted she could ever have summoned up.
Here he was, still, in some sense, the same overgrown little boy that he had always been, ready to pursue his vision to the very end with the same open heart, yet unwilling, even now, to break Mother’s to do it.
Perhaps this man has misjudged me in the past, she thought. Perhaps he has done me injustice, even cruelties. But he gave me his dream, did he not? And now, in his moment of need, who does he turn to?
How much more have I misjudged him?
And now, here she was, with the hardest decision of her life facing her. Should she do what she knew her mother would want her to do and hold her tongue? Or speak the truth and put an end at last to this beautiful but foolish dance of loving deceit?
She sighed. She reached out and took her father’s hand.
Oh yes, he had a Russian heart!
And so did she.
“Mother already knows,” she said.
Father stared at her without reacting for a long, long moment. Then he put his glass down on the countertop and took her in his arms.
“Asshole that I am, I love you very much,” he whispered into her ear. “What a fool I’ve been, what a blind stupid fool.”
Franja burst into tears. “Moi aussi,” she said, burying her face in her father’s neck. “Moi aussi.”
No one greeted Sonya at the door when she returned home
from work, and when she went into the living room, Jerry and Franja were sitting on the couch together, side by side, their thighs almost touching, closer than she had ever seen them sitting since Franja had left home, and with strangely identical solemn expressions on their faces.
The sight of the two of them sitting together like that, like a loving father and daughter at last, should have warmed her heart, but the hardness in their eyes, the determined set of their jaws, filled her instead with a foreshadowing frisson of dread, and she somehow knew before Franja opened her mouth.
“Father knows,” Franja said. “He knows everything.”
“You told him!” Sonya cried angrily. “Franja, how could you!”
“I told her,” Jerry said quietly.
“You . . . you told her?” Sonya stammered. “You . . . you knew all along?”
“Of course I knew,” Jerry said. “You really think I’m such a fool? You really thought I wouldn’t research the literature?”
“Why didn’t you tell me, then? Why did you let me . . . ?”
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he said softly, not at all in an accusatory tone.
“Because . . . because . . .” Sonya’s eyes filled with tears. And she could see that Jerry was on the brink of crying too.
“Exactly, Sonya,” he said. “You couldn’t tell me, and I couldn’t tell you. What a pair of fools!”
“Loving fools, Jerry, loving fools . . . ,” Sonya whispered.
“You’d better sit down, Mother,” Franja said, and she squirmed her way along the couch away from Jerry, leaving room for her to sit in between.
Sonya sat down on the couch between her husband and her daughter, feeling the warmth of their bodies beside her, the comfort of them, feeling more truly at home in her apartment—in their apartment—than she had in years and years. Now, only now . . .
“Now what?” she sighed.
“Now we face reality like a family of adults,” Franja said with quite undaughterly firmness.
Russian Spring Page 59
