Sapphire Skies (33 page)

A policeman who was directing traffic turned and stared at me. There was no reason to arrest me, my papers were in order, but I was afraid of such men now. I bent my head and tried to keep pace with the crowd, attempting to look like I belonged. But returning to Moscow after all these years was like arriving on a foreign planet. I was used to the silence and routine of the camp.

The new trams rattled along too fast for me and I decided to make my way to the Arbat on foot. There were no watchtowers in the streets or guards with guns and yet I felt afraid. Despite the heat, I hurried along as if I were being pursued by a pack of bloodthirsty hounds. The lack of posters bearing Stalin’s face was noticeable. Posters boasting of the Soviet Union’s achievements had taken their place. They showed farmers harvesting bumper crops; muscular athletes; smiling factory workers; housewives feeding their children delicious-looking food. One poster intrigued me: the picture was of a handsome square-jawed man gazing into space and cradling a rocket with two dogs inside.
The way is open for man
the caption read. What did it mean?

I passed a café that played strange music that grated on me. Old men and women still wore the same drab clothes, but the young girls looked pretty with their bouffant hairstyles and headbands. I was admiring one girl’s pointed shoes when a young mother passed by pushing a pram. I sat down in a doorway, overcome by the realisation of all that I had missed out on — marrying Valentin, starting a family, wearing nice clothes, and having fun. Instead, I had spent my best years in prison camps.

I reached the courtyard of Mama’s apartment building and looked up to her window to see the white lace curtains flapping in the slight breeze. I braced myself for the tears that would pour down our cheeks when she realised that I had come home. My legs trembled as I climbed the stairs. When I reached the door, I hesitated before ringing the bell, aware that I was about to re-enter the life I had left behind.

I pushed the button. The sound of footsteps came from inside and the door swung open. The first objects I saw were Mama’s chair and the bureau under the window. But the woman who stood in the doorway with rollers in her hair wasn’t Mama. She looked me up and down. Her presence in my mother’s apartment was so unexpected that I didn’t know what to say. I had never seen her before.

‘Sofia Grigorievna,’ I said, struggling to breathe. ‘I’m looking for Sofia Grigorievna Azarova.’

The woman’s eyes narrowed. ‘This is my apartment now!’ she said. ‘The government gave it to me. It’s legally mine!’

She slammed the door in my face. I stood there in shock, my heart thumping in my chest. Where was Mama? Had she been arrested despite my false confession?

My head became light and I sat down on the first step of the staircase, panting for breath. Doctor Polyakova had told me that my heart had been damaged when the brigadier jumped on my chest. I would have to be forever careful of it.

A door on the floor below opened and an elderly woman came out and peered up the stairs at me. I stood up, afraid that she was about to scream at me too. Instead she gestured for me to come down to her apartment.

‘You’re looking for Sofia?’ she whispered. ‘You are …?’

‘A friend,’ I said.

She seemed to be expecting a different answer but she welcomed me inside her apartment anyway. ‘It’s very hot today. Let me give you some juice,’ she said, helping me to a chair. ‘My name is Arina. I became friends with Sofia when I moved here three years ago.’

‘Where is she?’ I asked.

Arina hesitated, her eyes full of sympathy. She stared at my face again as if she were trying to see something there. ‘Sofia is dead. She passed away six months ago.’

For a few seconds I couldn’t move. My vision darkened as if I had fallen down a deep hole. I tried to stand but didn’t have the strength. Instead, I dropped my head into my hands.

Arina touched my shoulder. ‘I’m sorry to be the one to tell you,’ she said. ‘You’ve come from the camps, haven’t you?’

I nodded. She went to her kitchen and poured me a glass of orange juice. Orange juice! I hadn’t seen the stuff for years. She placed it next to me on a side table and sat down in a chair opposite.

‘My son was sent to the camps in 1937,’ she said. ‘He died there. Vorkuta. Where were you?’

I couldn’t answer her; I’d gone numb from head to foot. Mama was dead! I wanted to cry, to release the grief that welled inside me, but I couldn’t. It sat in my stomach like a rock.

‘Sofia’s daughter was a famous pilot in the war,’ Arina continued, studying me carefully, ‘but she disappeared in enemy territory. Sofia’s husband was executed during the purges and her son died in an accident. All she had left in the world was her little dog. She doted on that dog, but when Dasha passed away Sofia no longer had any reason to go on living. Her health went from bad to worse after that.’

I drank the juice but I couldn’t taste anything.

‘Do you have somewhere to stay?’ Arina asked me.

The camp commandant had given me the address of a communal apartment, but I’d planned to stay with Mama. I shook my head.

‘Well, stay here,’ she said. ‘Until you get on your feet.’

Our eyes met. ‘I signed a document agreeing never to talk about my experiences,’ I said. ‘I could be re-arrested if I do … along with anyone I’ve confided in.’

Arina nodded. ‘I understand.’

The truth stood unspoken between us. Arina had guessed that I was Sofia’s daughter. She also realised that it was a secret that must be kept at all costs.

That night, after a warm bath, I lay on Arina’s couch and stared at the ceiling. Moscow was a strange city to me now. With Mama gone it had lost its charm. Yet I knew I must keep my promise to Valentin and find him. He was all I had left now.

After a week with Arina, my strength began to return, although I was still startled by unfamiliar noises: footsteps in the hall outside; the radio; the hum of Arina’s stove exhaust when she cooked. I spent many hours staring at my face in the mirror, trying to find in my reflection the adventurous young woman I had once been. Age and the camps had changed me sufficiently so that I didn’t fear being easily recognised, even though my youthful picture had appeared in the popular newspapers. When Valentin and I were in the regiment, we’d said that if we became separated and weren’t able to contact each other through Mama’s address, we would go each Sunday afternoon to Sokolniki Park and search for each other there. But I couldn’t face Valentin looking so haggard and worn. I had to improve my appearance first.

‘What will you do for work?’ Arina asked me one day. ‘It’s difficult for you people to find anything. Even those who see through the propaganda are afraid that if they employ ex-prisoners and things change again, they might be arrested themselves.’

I thought about it for a few moments. ‘I used to work in a factory. We built airplanes.’

‘Let me speak to my son-in-law,’ Arina said. ‘He works at the oil refinery. He might be able to help you.’

Arina’s son-in-law found me a job as a laboratory assistant at his refinery, and I moved into a communal apartment. My room had cracks in the walls that had been patched with newspaper and it reeked of mildew and stale cooking oil. I didn’t care; it was still better than the camp. With the salary I earned I bought food and clothes.

Every Sunday afternoon I caught the metro to Sokolniki Park. I never allowed for the possibility that Valentin might have been killed in the war. The park was over six hundred hectares in size and included woodlands, dancing pavilions, lakes, cafés and a swimming pool. In our ardour, we hadn’t thought to designate an exact meeting point.

The previous year the park had hosted an American exhibition and some of the posters remained. I studied the American fashion models and dyed my hair butterscotch-blonde again. I wore black eyeliner and pale pink lipstick and arranged my hair into a half-upswept ponytail with curls spiralling around my ears. The style and colour were flattering and drew attention away from the grooves around my mouth and my jawline, which had thickened with age. Cosmetics became war paint for me again; a sign that Kolyma hadn’t destroyed me.

‘Ah, here comes Moscow Oil Refinery’s beauty,’ the foreman said one day when I arrived for work. His words reminded me of when Roman used to say the same thing at the aircraft factory before the war. Of course, I wasn’t a beauty any more. There were younger girls at the refinery who were prettier and fresher looking than me, but the compliment put a spring in my step.

One summer afternoon, I was walking around Sokolniki Park when the new shoes I wore began to pinch. I sat down on a bench and glanced at the issue of
Pravda
someone had left there. I hadn’t read a newspaper or listened to the radio since returning to Moscow. It was best to remain ignorant of politics. But the cover picture caught my eye. It was of two little dogs in jackets with collars around their necks.
Belka and Strelka return safely!
the caption read. I scanned the article and was amazed to discover that the Soviet government had sent dogs into space, along with a rabbit, mice, rats, flies and some plants and fungi.

‘They don’t tell you about all the dogs that have died, do they? Poor Dezik and Lisa, Bars and Lisichka, or little Laika, who they knew wouldn’t survive but they sent anyway.’

I looked up to see a man in a well-cut suit speaking to me. His Russian was good but his accent was strange. Perhaps he was American. He was walking two boxer dogs whose coats had been brushed to a high shine.

How did the man know about the dogs that had died? The Soviet Union wasn’t one for publicising its failures. I’d had no idea that the government was exploring space, and was as appalled as the man that innocent animals were being exploited like that. But I couldn’t afford to speak to a foreigner. I remembered the ballerina at Kolyma who was arrested for accepting flowers from an American admirer. I knew what the consequences would be if an NKVD agent saw me conversing with him, especially if we were heard to say anything critical of the government.

‘Excuse me,’ I said and hurried away.

Even when summer came to an end, I continued to make my Sunday-afternoon trips to Sokolniki Park. The magnificent masses of gold and red foliage that adorned the grand maple and elm trees were beautiful. I walked the paths around the lakes, fallen leaves rustling at my feet. I will never give up hope, I told myself. Then, one afternoon when I was walking along an avenue of saffron-leafed birch trees, I saw Valentin sitting on a bench and gazing into the distance. He was older but no less handsome.

Part of me wanted to run to him straight away and fall at his feet: ‘Darling, I’ve been waiting for you for so long!’ But I stood still for a moment to take him in. He was wearing the parade uniform of an air-force general and medals crowded his chest. Yes, of course Valentin would have made something of himself. We hadn’t seen each other for seventeen years and he had lived a life I knew nothing about. But I had found him, and he was waiting for me, here in Sokolniki Park, just as we’d promised each other.

Tears of joy ran down my face and I started towards him. He rose, still looking into the distance, and lifted his arm to wave to someone. I stopped and turned to see a dark-haired woman in a tailored dress and a boy in his teens walking towards him. When they met, Valentin embraced the woman and they kissed each other on the lips. Pins and needles pricked my flesh. No! It was impossible!

Valentin and the woman linked arms. All three were well dressed; it looked as if they were about to attend an official event together. The boy peered up at the sky and I saw how closely he resembled the woman. My throat tightened and my head ached as the truth hit me: the woman was Valentin’s wife and the youth was their son. I was an invisible ghost staring at the life that should have been mine. I had lived on my youthful memories of Valentin, but he had moved on. He hadn’t been waiting for me at all.

I watched the happy threesome walk off while I trembled like a dying bird. Valentin was lost to me forever.

I lay on my mattress and sobbed. What was left for me now? Nothing! The dream of being reunited with Valentin had sustained me, but all I saw before me now was emptiness. Everyone and everything I loved had been taken from me. I didn’t even have my own name any more.

I caught sight of the copy of
Anna Karenina
that Nikita had given me. Poor tragic Nikita. Was he still alive? I thought of Anna when she realised that Vronsky no longer loved her and only misery lay before her. She had thrown herself under a train. I sat up and understood what I needed to do. It was the only choice left to me. It was what should have happened all those years ago when I shot Svetlana.

It was drizzling as I headed towards the metro station. Moscow was only pretty in the sunshine and the snow; the overcast sky robbed it of all its allure. As I made my way along the street I felt as if I were pushing through a thick fog. I pictured how the final moments of my life would play out: I would descend the escalator, step onto the underground platform and then … into oblivion.

I was about to enter the station when I heard strange cries. I stopped to listen. Was it a child?

The noise stopped. I rubbed my temples and stepped onto the staircase when the sound came again. I looked around for its source. Curled up in the doorway of a disused shop was a female dog with puppies. I moved closer. The mother was dead, with blood around her nostrils and mouth. Perhaps she had eaten something poisonous, or some cruel person had beaten her to death. Three of the puppies were dead too, but when I lifted the mother’s body I saw where the cries were coming from. Two black-and-white puppies looked at me with sorrowful eyes. They reminded me of Ponchik, the stray dog my father had rescued from the metro when I was a child.

I lifted one of the puppies, a girl. She was so cold! I picked up her sister and her paws were cold too. If I left the dogs here they would be dead by the evening. I leaned against the wall, thinking about what I had planned to do. But these two creatures needed my help; I was no good to them dead. I remembered the space dogs the foreign man had told me about. The Soviet government had used them and betrayed them, just as it had me. I couldn’t help those dogs, but I could save these ones.