Russian Winter (34 page)

“And instead,” Drew said, nodding slowly, “she decided to get rid of hers. I see now.” And then, “I’m sorry.”

She seemed to mean it. Grigori was touched. But there was a knock on his door: Evelyn leaned in. “Hey there. Some of us are going out for drinks—”

Drew looked up, her face registering who this woman was, as
Evelyn said, “Oh, sorry, you’re with a student. Give me a knock when you finish up.”

Drew’s face fell. Evelyn had already turned away, not recognizing Drew, leaving the door half open behind her. His heart thudding, Grigori could hear Carla in the hallway saying, “Oh, Evelyn, if you could sign these thesis forms…”

Grigori tried not to frown. But suddenly everything felt wrong. Drew had stood and buttoned her coat. “May I take these, then?” she asked of the photographs, her voice flat and businesslike.

“Yes.” Grigori was having trouble looking her in the eye.

“I mean, may I show them to Nina Revskaya?”

Grigori heard himself say, “You may.”

“And the letters?”

He nodded as she put the photographs into her bag.

“Don’t worry,” she added, her voice still flat, “I wouldn’t force anything on her. I would just see if she might be willing to look at them. Maybe talk about them.”

“Just don’t expect much,” Grigori told her, his heart still heavy somehow. “She clearly has her reasons for not wanting to see them. I don’t suppose it makes any difference who brings the subject up.” Drew was standing close to him. Nervously, he added, “Who knows, perhaps all of it’s meaningless.”

“I doubt that.” She was looking straight at him, the way she had when he had held her hand, touched her cheek.

He thanked her and, determined not to behave imprudently, held his hand out firmly to shake hers.

Drew shook it briskly, hesitating for the slightest moment before saying good-bye. Already she was heading for the door. Grigori could hear Carla, just outside, asking Evelyn where she had her hair done.

Then Drew turned, her eyes dark. In mere steps her body was against Grigori’s. Grigori pulled her close and, as she leaned into him, refrained from whispering something long and embarrassing.

In the hallway, Evelyn’s voice said something that caused Carla to laugh.

Then Drew stepped back, gave a small nod, and went quickly out the door.

D
AYS OF WAITING,
time so thick, you could touch it. Now that Gersh has been transferred to the prison camp, Viktor and Nina make sure to stop by the other wing of their building as often as before; perhaps Zoya, still living in Gersh’s apartment, has more news.

He has been placed in a psychiatric rehabilitation camp, not far from Moscow—which Zoya attributes to her epistolary efforts on his behalf. “I think quite highly of the place, actually,” she tells them after her first visit there. “Very progressive and all that. Impressive, how it’s run.”

“But why is he in a psychiatric camp?” Nina asks. “I still don’t understand.”

“Oh, the director explained it. It turns out they found some things in his diaries, you know, about the French Impressionists and Picasso and all that. But it’s all right, it’s just a mistake, poor Gersh, he’s been confused, that’s all. It will just take some instruction, re-learning, you know. It’s really not a bad place at all.”

Viktor’s face is expressionless, while Nina tries to make sense of what Zoya has said. Why should it be a crime, to have such thoughts? How could that be serious enough to send Gersh to a psychiatric prison?

“Oh, and I have other news.” Zoya gives a coy smile, waiting for them to ask. “His sentence has been reduced. To just five years.”

“Already,” Viktor says. “That’s wonderful.”

Wonderful
. Nina can’t bring herself to agree.
Only
five years—of watery kasha each morning, bread and water at noon, a scant ladle of soup at night. That’s what they fed Nina’s uncle, according to Mother. But of course this is one of the tricks, Nina sees now;
a sentence is reduced, so that the prisoner and his family become grateful rather than incensed, thankful rather than outraged. The same thing happened with her uncle. But even a reduced sentence was not short enough. He died before they could send him home.

“It’s a very good place, actually, the rehabilitation camp. The director has a degree in psychiatry and all that. There’s a whole system worked out, to help the patients. Poor Gersh! I should have noticed the signs. His views were quite mad, actually, I just didn’t know. But it’s all right, they’re going to help him.”

Surely she doesn’t believe this, Nina thinks to herself. Surely she is just pretending. Yes, that must be it; it is an act, a performance, this too is a dance. A dance they all have to do, carefully saying the right things.

Or does Zoya really not understand what Nina sees, more clearly every day now, a thought so awful and yet she is every minute that much more sure of it: that this is all some big horrible, nasty joke.

A
T HOME AFTER
rehearsal one afternoon a few weeks later, Nina finds Madame at the table as usual. But instead of counting the silverware, she has in front of her an open cardboard box. Inside, Nina sees, there is jewelry: amber, framed in gold. Big thick beads, like candies on golden foil.

There are three pieces: necklace, drop earrings, and a bracelet. Nina wants to touch them, feel their weight in her hands.

Seeing that the array has caught her eye, Madame gives a pleased smile. “They needed polishing.”

“Are they yours?” Madame has always complained about her jewelry being stolen after the Revolution, says that all she owns are her earrings and pearls and the tortoiseshell hair comb lined with diamonds. “Where did they come from?”

“Viktor brought them.”

“Viktor?” Nina leans closer, because she sees, now, that the beads are more than just amber and gold. Inside the earrings are tiny flecks that, as she brings them to her eyes, look like midges.

“You may use my lorgnette.” Madame hands the little spectacles to Nina.

Magnified, the insects’ wings are clearly visible. Holding the lenses over the bracelet, Nina finds more midges, and a tiny fly, and then a tiny moth, its body visibly furred, its wings nearly translucent.

“Viktor brought them?” Nina wonders when, since he has been away much of the week, resting and writing at Peredelkino. Hopefully the change of scene will cheer him. He has been so glum since Gersh’s arrest, drinking more than usual. Nina hasn’t said anything to him about the drinking. But she worries.

“He wanted to keep them in my room, to hide them—Oh—” Madame makes an exaggeratedly startled face, as if she has just remembered something. “I believe it was supposed to be a secret.”

She is visibly glad to have ruined the surprise. It seems she cannot help herself, every now and then, from poking at Nina in some way, seeing what she might get away with. Just last week, apropos of nothing, she turned her head away and said, as if to herself, yet purposely loud enough for Nina to hear, “I preferred Lilya.”

Though Nina feels a familiar surge of anger, she reminds herself, as always, that there is nothing she can do about it. What does it matter, really, that Madame has shown her the amber? The surprise doesn’t matter so much; what touches Nina is the simple thought that Viktor has seen these jewels and thought of her. Their anniversary is in just a few days, as Madame knows. The amber must have been incredibly expensive. Perhaps Viktor feels he has to outdo himself each time.

“Oh, well,” Madame says theatrically. “Now you’ve seen them, what can I do? We’ll just have to not tell Viktor.”

Nina bites her lip and doesn’t reply. Holding the lorgnette over
the necklace, she inspects the bead. It is larger than the others. Inside, caught in action as if just moments ago, is a clearly visible spider, and below, like a tiny balloon, its egg sac. The way it is puffed out, just beneath the spider’s body, it looks like a single big white egg. A tiny creature in the midst of creating new life—stopped forever by the very resin that preserves it. Nina looks at it for a long while, aware that she is witnessing the final moments, the dying act, of another being. Then she hands the lorgnette back to Madame and thanks her politely, making sure not to seem at all bothered by her having spoiled the surprise.

T
HEIR THIRD ANNIVERSARY
is a staid affair. “To love” is their toast, raised tots of good vodka brought back from abroad—Viktor bought it, Russian vodka, but for export only, better than any for sale here. Viktor swallows his glassful in one gulp, says, “Love is all we have. I understand that now.”

The first thought Nina has, though, is that for her there is also the dance. Dance and love. They may be all she has, but they are also all she needs.

Viktor nuzzles her neck. “Let’s start a family, Nina, hmm? What do you say?”

A family. Children, a child. “I’ve tried. I’m just…having trouble.” Now is simply not the right time. It would put a stop to her career right when she is at her peak.

Looking very serious, Viktor says, “I suppose it’s common for dancers sometimes. To have trouble.”

“Yes, but don’t worry. We have time.” She feels a wave of guilt, that she is unwilling, now when he so needs her, to give him this one thing he wants. With every passing month she sees more clearly how certain feelings and actions become decisions, rather than the other way around. Because really she would love to start a family, if only it
did not mean that other sacrifice. How nice it would be, in a fantasy world, to have both.

Now Viktor is reaching under the table, and produces a small cardboard box. “Your present.”

It isn’t the box Madame had out the other day. This one is square and much smaller. Nina unwraps it to find yet another box, of beautiful shiny green malachite.

“Viktor, it’s lovely.”

“Open it.”

Ah, so this is a double gift. Nina lifts the lid, which is some other stone—dark shiny black, inlaid with malachite—and looks down. There, inside, is a pair of little round sparkling green earrings.

She has no trouble looking surprised.

“When I saw them, I saw your eyes.”

Emeralds. “They’re gorgeous.” She can imagine how much these must have cost. She is moved by Viktor’s thoughtfulness, and by the great beauty of these dazzling green stones.

Even so, she can’t help but think of the amber set, and wonder what Viktor might be saving it for.

C
ynthia went right back to the catalog the next evening, saying she needed to wait for the pork to thaw. Nina sat patiently through all sorts of questions, how heavy was this tiara, is this photograph the actual color of that stone, who gave you this opal ring…. For brief moments it felt almost good to recall times other than those early memories, to describe her travels, her move from Paris to London, the photo shoot where she wore the ruby necklace, the pearl bracelet the Earl of Sheffield gave her when she went with him to Wimbledon.

When the buzzer sounded, Cynthia gave a start. “You expecting someone?”

“The girl from the auction house. She has a man’s name.”

Cynthia went to the intercom to allow her in. She had already retreated to the kitchen to chop vegetables when Drew Brooks stepped inside, her cheeks rosy. “Hello there.”

“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.

T
HIS 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 Nina 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.