Amerika (15 page)

“We are now equally enslaved,” she heard Devin say. Those words echoed inside her, touching her core. “Americans have allowed themselves to be immobilized by their own fears. Immobilized by their own selfish concerns. Immobilized by a lack of understanding of the freedom secured by our forefathers, into which most of us were bom—and now have lost. I have come to ask you for your support in an effort to regain our freedom. The battle will be long and hard. But freedom is not free. And ultimately we must choose what we believe in: the high demands and risks of freedom, or the security of the slave and the tranquillity of the grave.”

Andrei moved to the VCR and turned it off. He watched Kimberly, who had been deeply moved. “Look at yourself. He’s touched you.”

A tear roiled down her cheek. “I don’t know. He’s--”

“American?”

“I don’t know. While he was talking I started to think about ‘being an American.’ I never thought of myself as patriotic or anything, I just always thought of myself as me. Of course,
I
was an American, but it was just there. There wasn’t anything I had to
do
about it.” “Would you follow him?”

Kimberly looked at Andrei quizzically.

“As a leader,” he continued. “Would you follow him as a leader?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I’m not sure. He knows things I don’t. He understands things I’d like somebody to understand. Like you, but you’re Russian.”

“What about Peter Bradford, the man we met in Omaha? Would you follow him?”

She was quiet a moment, trying to recreate the evening. “He was a nice man. He makes me feel safe. Devin Milford doesn’t make me feel safe. He talks about choices and sacrifices. I don’t think I’m willing to make either one. Andrei, I don’t want to play this game anymore.”

“It isn’t a game. This man spent five years in prison because we were afraid of how he’d make people feel. I wish I could understand what it is about him.”

“Why? What difference does it make? You’re in control.”

He laughed and walked over to where she sat. He touched her cheek gently, tracing the path the tear had fallen down minutes before. “You Americans. You’re such a mystery to everyone except yourselves.” He became serious. “If I could somehow understand this man, I think I would understand America.”

Kimberly looked at him playfully. “If you could understand me”—she laughed—“you’d understand—” “America?”

“Me,” she said smugly.

They kissed, playfully at first, then deeply. He led her into the bedroom, stopping only to turn on the living-room lamp. Shafts of light spilled into his bedroom, caressing Kimberly’s beauty. It accented her porcelain skin, and her eyes shone.

She pulled back the bedspread and pulled Andrei to her. Embracing and kissing, they fell onto the bed. He began to undress her, unbuttoning her dress, sliding it off of her milk-white shoulders. He kissed her neck,
then pulled off her satin teddy, exposing her beautiful breasts. She slipped out of her panties as Andrei took off his clothing and lay down beside her, running his
hand
up the smooth skin of her thigh. He began to kiss her breasts but she gently pulled his mouth to hers. She
wanted
him inside her. Now.

They began to make love. Kimberly’s hands moved up and down Andrei’s back, slowly at first, in rhythm to their lovemaking. She felt herself take flight, riding a wave of ecstasy. She was aware of his rapidly approaching orgasm and dug her nails into his back, grinding herself into him, taking him further, deeper. At that same instant, she started to climax. She put her arms around his neck, holding on to him firmly, urging him softly.

“Yes, Andrei. Yes, yes.”

They were two people meshed, body and soul.

Andrei lay atop Kimberly for a moment, his sweat mingling with her own sweet scent. All of his life, he
had
played games with women in bed, using sex as a battleground to act out unresolved conflicts or achieve control. But there was something else with Kimberly. When he made love to her, his heart opened a bit, and
an
aching need washed over him.

After a moment he fell onto his back, his breath becoming more even, synchronized with Kimberly’s.
She
propped herself on her elbow, tracing his nose and
then
his lips.

“Welcome to America.” She smiled, kissing him

again.

Devin pitched a tent beside a stream about a mile from the farmhouse. Since boyhood this had been a special, private place for solitude and introspection.

But now the solitude was shattered by shouts from over the hill, reminding him that the exile camp was only a few hundred yards away. More than anything, Devin wanted some time alone, to settle back on this land that had been his home, to try and recapture some of the serenity he feit was at last his due. But the noise from camp drew him like a siren song; a sense of solidarity with these outcasts simmered in his blood and would not be denied.

At midmorning, he topped the hill and looked down on the camp, slowly accepting its abrasive reality. Finally, he drew near. He passed damp clothing, hanging on a line, a cluster of children playing on a heap of old tires, and an old woman in a black shawl, carrying a load of sticks. No one paid attention to him; with his lean and hungry look, dark pants, and black corduroy coat, he might have been an Exile himself. Devin heard music, a stringed instrument, and followed the haunting sadness of the melody to a small trailer.

He stopped outside and listened. The woman who had passed him carrying an armload of sticks approached him. She dropped the sticks beside the door, staring at him suspiciously.

“You a music lover?”

“No,” he answered, feeling at once like an intruder. “I’m sorry.”

From inside the trailer, the music stopped. A white-haired, serene-looking gentleman appeared at the door and spoke. “Gert. You back?”

“Of course I’m back, Dieter, that’s why you can hear my voice.”

The couple stared at Devin as he started to move away. A worried look passed between them.

“Sorry to have disturbed you,” Devin apologized.

“Wait a minute.” Dieter scrutinized Devin closely. “Come in here a moment.”

After a brief hesitation, Devin followed Gert and Dieter into their trailer. Its cramped interior was jammed with the sort of gewgaws that once abounded is middle-class American living rooms but which had now become exotica: Dresden figurines of vacant-eyed shepherds and lissome ballerinas caught forever in the middle of a pirouette; Hummel statuettes of perfect children who would never know hunger, fear, or bafflement. Gerta started to make tea at once, as the two men sat down on a leather sofa whose tom cushions leaked horsehair stuffing,

“I was going to vote for you, in spite of the way you messed up. It’s amazing, really. The history of communism is filled with good men and their good intentions—men who couldn’t survive the straggles for power.”

Devin raised his eyebrows. “The history of communism?”

“Yes. America is now part of the history of communism,” the old man said, and smiled. “Interesting way to think of it, wouldn’t you say?”

Gerta brought over a tray full of tea cups. “We would’ve been better off in the GDR.”

Dieter smiled up at his wife. “One of life’s little jokes. We escaped from East Germany to come to the promised land; now the promised land has become worse than what we left.”

Gerta reached across piles of papers, figurines and mementos, distributing the cups. “At least we lived with it—-learned how to manipulate it.”

Her husband sipped his tea. He put the cup down. “But we didn’t stay. Maybe we are destined to be outsiders, like you, Mr. Milford.” He winked, conspir-
atorially. “I used to follow your ideas. I even read your speeches. Interesting premise, but forgive me for saying so, a little overstated, perhaps simplistic.” He shrugged. “But that’s the difference between the American experience and the experience of Europeans.”

Devin shifted his weight on the love seat. He sipped the weak tea. “You’re a musician?”

Dieter s
m
iled at the obviousness to that question. “I was first chair with the New York Philharmonic. We were exposed by a friend—”

“Who wanted to be first chair,” Gerta added.

“So, we were betrayed—not unlike you, Mr. Milford. A fact of life; even in America.”

Devin’s eyes clouded. “Betrayed? Just by the people, I guess.”

“No one specific?” Dieter asked. “Perhaps someone closer to home?”

“What? 'Hie KGB?”

“Yes, most likely, but usually there is someone you trust—-”

The path this conversation was about to take was proving too much for Devin. He found himself growing agitated, feeling confined. He stood up quickly. “I must go. Excuse me.”

Dieter rose apologetically. “Forgive me. I had no intention to be rude—”

“It’s—it’s all this is—” He looked to Gerta. “Thank you for the tea; I’m sorry.” And he left.

The two looked after him, then at each other.

“You had expected something else?” she asked. Dieter stared at her a moment, then turned away abruptly. He felt very irritated with himself, the conversation, perhaps with life in general.

Dowd
by the creek, two boys were playing catch with an old tennis ball. Devin knelt and watched them, until the ball bounced his way and he tossed it back, glad to become part of the game. One of the boys was shy and awkward, but the other tossed the ball with natural grace.

Devin was swept away by thoughts of Ms own sons, with whom he had not shared such simple pleasures for so many years.

He did not at first notice the slender woman in boots and a parka, holding the hand of a little girl.

Amanda had come to the camp several times now. Peter neither approved nor forbade her visits. So she came, and did what she could, trying to accept how very little she could truly change.

She walked with Dierdre, the child she had discovered in her yard a few mornings before. She had brought the girl some of Jackie’s old clothes and had gotten to know her mother, Carla Tankinoff. They were Exiles, Carla explained, because she had protested when Dierdre’s father, a physicist, was arrested for political activism.

In the cruelest blow, they were sent to this camp in Nebraska, hundreds of miles from him. Amanda was touched by Carla’s courage. “We’ll survive,” she had said. “We have to, because our family will be reunited.”

As Amanda approached, Devin was attracted, not immediately by her familiarity, but by the contrast between her clothing and that of the Exiles. Even “dressed down,” her clothes looked newer and nicer. As they passed, the recognition Mt him like a thunderbolt. She became aware of his stare, and returned it. She smiled, matter-of-factly, somewhat politely, and walked on.

Devin was paralyzed. One part of Mm would like to have run from this encounter, another part could not. “Amanda . .

She stood still in her tracks. The voice ran through her body to the pit of her stomach. She turned slowly and gazed mutely at the damaged image before her. Little Dierdre felt herself caught in Amanda’s tightened grip and wriggled to escape. Amanda realized this, and let go, the child skipping away toward her tent.

At that moment, Devin wished he had not spoken. He felt naked and inadequate. When he could bear the silence no longer, he said, “It’s Devin—Milford.” “Yes, I know. Devin. Of course I know.” She walked to him slowly, kissing him on the cheek, then pulled back, aware of how inappropriately she had acted. “God, what a fool I am. I almost said how are you?” He gazed at her and smiled. She had aged; there were lines in her face he had not known before, yet she was still the same A
m
anda: the same kindness and honesty she had possessed as a child and which would still be a part of her at eighty.

“I recognized your hair,” he said. “The way you tilt your head I’d know you anywhere.”

Amanda started to laugh off the remark in a polite counter to flattery, but his words were so direct and honest that tears welled in her eyes and an unexpected sob escaped her throat. She stood in front of Mm, shaking her head. “Oh no—” She rushed into his arms, holding Mm tightly, as though some long-ago locked-up feeling had suddenly broken free.

“Can we talk?” he said, gently stroking her hair. “Yes. Please.”

“I have a little place,” he said. “Right over the hill.” She laughed, and wiped away her tears, and they

walked back to his campsite. He had a fire, within a circle of stones, with a grill atop it. He made coffee and they sat on a log, drinking and talking intimately. She didn’t ask about him at first. She told him about Peter and her children and old high-school Mends. They had talked an hour before he told her that he had received no word from Marion and his sons for five years.

“You never heard from them at all?” she asked in amazement.

“Only the divorce papers. They . . . the prison authorities . . . didn’t allow any communication, in or

out.”

She saw that he still wore his wedding ring. She was shocked to realize that he didn’t know that Marion and Ms sons were in CMcago, She had no idea whether she should tell him. TMs cautious, hesitant, passive man was not the Devin she had known all her life. Her instinct was to wait.