The Russian Affair

FORTY-ONE



The officials of the Moscow City Soviet had sent their apologies, and only the Party secretary for Karacharovo had come to the ceremony. Complex two-one-five was finished; in the bright, sunny weather, the pale gray of the facade made a friendly, even elegant impression; on winter days, it would look different. Anna’s combine was lauded for having not only accomplished its own mission but also taken up the slack for other crews. The very next day, the families would show up with their household goods, and that evening, the first lights would appear in the windows. If there were still some splashes of the facade paint on the windowpanes, that was because the dismantling of the scaffolding had been scheduled before the arrival of the window washers. The condition of the front yards and inner courtyards, which were full of construction waste, had to do with the protest of the landscapers: They were there, they said, to plant trees and grass, not to get rid of crap left behind by others.

“New living space for eight thousand comrades,” cried the Party secretary. For the sake of projecting the proper image, the women were in their work togs, but on this day, none of them was going to come anywhere near a trowel. They were holding plastic cups; beer had been served, and sausage rounds lay ready on wooden platters. Anna was feeling melancholy; she would have liked to confide in her colleagues, to tell them that this morning had deeper significance for her than the dedication of two-one-five.

Her farewell to the combine had required only a formality, a five-line document, a stamp, a handshake from the official in charge—and with that, Anna was free of her employment. But her colleagues must not know about any of it; the reason for the change in Anna’s life had to remain a secret. She touched glasses with the secretary and her comrades, laughed about the unsatisfactory tap of the plastic cups, and accompanied the others to the second floor, where a tour of the model apartment was programmed to take place. Unimpressed, Anna trotted with the rest from room to room, mistrusting the superlatives the Party secretary strove to produce.

With the handing over of the keys to the first renter, the little celebration came to an end. As she had done for years, Anna got on the workers’ bus, kept quiet during the drive, and, when they reached Durova Street, said good-bye to her colleagues in the usual way. As the bus pulled off, she felt heavyhearted.

Everything had begun with Leonid’s call. The captain had telephoned at sunset; she didn’t know what time it was in Yakutia. He’d sounded warmhearted, resolute, and gentle. Tactfully and fondly, he’d informed her that after a brief hospital stay, he’d finally gotten around to doing the paperwork, and announced that he was going to remain in Siberia for another five years. Several responses lay on the tip of her tongue, but she made none of them and simply wished him well. They’d spoken softly and laughed about this and that; on the miracle of the thumb graft, Leonid had remained silent. At last, they’d come to speak of the factor that made their plans so fragile.

“What are you thinking about doing with Petya?” she’d asked.

“I wanted to hear your opinion first.”

“Do you want to see him?”

“Of course I do. But I thought—look, any objection you make is justified—you see, summer here is incredibly short. Basically, preparations for winter have already begun again.” Leonid was babbling a little because he didn’t have the heart to express his true desire.

“Do you want him to visit you?”

In the ensuing silence, she’d felt he was trying to keep his composure. “I’ll take care of everything. Everything,” he’d said. “We Siberian officers have special privileges.”

“You Siberian officers,” Anna had repeated sadly.

“Our service flights offer a lot of convenient transportation possibilities. Petyushka will be amazed!” They’d talked about the timing of the boy’s visit, and Anna had agreed to an early departure. After that, she’d let him in on her own plans.

He’d reacted with a question: “What about your job?”

“The combine can’t keep the position open for me. I’m just on the list.”

“What does that mean for our right of abode in Moscow?”

“Our right of abode?” For the first time, she’d realized that the categories “we” and “us” had changed their meaning. Shortly thereafter, they’d ended their conversation, alleging, mutually and unconvincingly, the high cost of long-distance telephoning.

Many things had to be made ready. Anna had stood in line for hours in various offices, because Petya needed his own passport. She also had to complete the real preparation, the mental one. Anna looked at her plan as a sort of experiment, which could be studied in depth and broken off at any time.

The great moment lay ahead of them. The six-year-old was going to be allowed to fly before his mother had ever seen the inside of an airplane. Petya was so excited that he’d thrown up at breakfast. He spent his days babbling practically nonstop and would not leave his grandfather in peace. The old man let his grandson feel his love in the form of patience. All the time, Viktor Ipalyevich was equally stirred up, but as long as Petya was home, he kept it to himself. In the morning, he dedicated himself to his work; later, he went for his walk, had a drink at the place on the corner, and met Petya at his school. After the boy had lunch, they would play chess. But it wasn’t the same as before; both of them felt that each game just meant that there was one fewer to go before the last one.

Anna hadn’t known that Sheremetyevo Airport contained a military section, where the army used a civilian runway. The aircraft Petya was supposed to fly in was an old Tupolev; a few days earlier, Petya and his grandfather had looked at some pictures of the plane.

Noon was approaching: time to leave. Viktor Ipalyevich heaved several sighs, unable to hide how stricken he was. Since the Nechayev family moved into his apartment, no day had passed when grandfather and grandson weren’t together. In spite of all his eager anticipation, Petya cried, embraced the old man, and wouldn’t break off until Viktor Ipalyevich finally placed the boy’s trembling hand in his mother’s, and Anna tugged Petya out of the apartment. The stairwell echoed with Petya’s cries of “Dyedushka!” Once on the street, he calmed down, and Anna explained to him that they’d see each other again in the fall. Meanwhile, on the fourth floor, the poet was weeping snot and water.

To get to Sheremetyevo, they had to transfer twice, but at last the bus stopped in front of the departure terminal. After a bit of wandering around, Anna was informed that she should have gone in by another entrance. A calm telephone call was made and Petya’s name and passport number conveyed to the person on the other end of the line. Anna was beginning to fear that her son might miss his flight when a young female officer came up to her and introduced herself as Petya’s traveling companion. Her uniform looked smart, and she wore her cap at a jaunty angle.

“I’m afraid I can’t take you through the security gate,” she said, pointing to the restricted military area. “Would you like to tell Mama good-bye here, Petyushka?”

The little boy was too confused and excited to start crying again. Wide-eyed, he hugged his mother, barely listened to her exhortations, felt that she was squeezing him harder than usual, and turned around several times to look at her before disappearing down the corridor, hand in hand with his companion. Long after he was well and truly out of sight, Anna continued staring in his direction, and then she burst into tears. She hurried up to the visitors’ terrace and persuaded herself that she had picked out, among all the planes preparing for takeoff, the one that would carry her youngster to Siberia.

She’d arranged everything so that she would spend the next three days alone with her father. This was a mistake. Had the mutual suffering caused by the pain of parting been limited to one day, it would have been easier for both of the afflicted parties. As it was, they put on a show of grotesque normalcy and thus subjected their emotions to undue stress. During the course of those few days, Viktor Ipalyevich Tsazukhin came to the realization that he would probably spend the last quarter of his life alone. Suddenly, his one-and-a-half-room flat looked incredibly big. How could an unspectacular existence require so much space?

“Now you’ll finally be able to sleep in your own bed again,” said Anna, encouraging him.

“The devil I will. I’m used to the sofa, I’ll stay on the sofa.”

“You can have guests. You can invite whomever you want.”

“Who’d want to pay a call on me, except maybe death?”

He meant it as a joke, but it was a heavy moment for both. They went to the table to eat the meal Anna had prepared, but neither of them liked it much.

“You’ve got it good, escaping the muggy metropolis in summer,” he said, teasing her.

“I have no idea what the weather’s like there.”

All the windows were open. The apartment smelled of benzine.

Anna left the following day. She’d taken the big suitcase down first, but then, considering the few things she really needed, she’d decided on the smaller one. As though to reassure herself that it wasn’t going to be forever, she hadn’t packed any winter clothes. Viktor Ipalyevich insisted on accompanying her to the train. When they reached the platform, sweat was running down from under his cap. Anna had the good luck of finding an open seat and heaved her suitcase up into the overhead rack. She couldn’t open the window, so she went back to the door of the car. “Take care of Mama’s grave,” she said, the only thing that occurred to her. “It gets overgrown so fast.”

Viktor Ipalyevich promised and then asked, “Has the entire world gone mad?”

She embraced him, climbed into the train, and didn’t watch him as he walked with drooping shoulders to the exit.

The car doors closed automatically, and the train left the Kiev Station exactly on schedule. It was terrible to be unable to ventilate the compartment. Unrestrained by their parents, three children performed gymnastics. The grown-ups were eating kohlrabi from a plastic container on the seat between them. “You have to put lemon on it to keep it fresh,” the woman said, offering Anna a piece.

An hour passed. She didn’t stare out into the landscape rushing past or take part in the conversation around her. The trip would be long, but she wasn’t going too far away. No one had urged Anna to do what she was doing; no one would have even thought of making such a request.

“It can’t have been just a question of patriotism,” Kamarovsky had said.

Anna had gone up to the apartment on the eighth floor one last time. She’d looked out over the river; even with the balcony doors open, the apartment had been stiflingly hot.

“Bulyagkov could have escaped. If he’d really wanted to on that morning, he could have got away with it. When you’re in a seaport city, you can always find a way out.”

Feeling peculiarly at ease, Anna had sat beside the Colonel on the sofa. His reflecting eyeglasses lost their effect if you got close to him.

“He handed over the briefcase without stipulating any conditions or getting anything in return. Why, Anna?”

“I don’t know, Comrade Colonel.”

“Then all I can do is to thank you.” He laid his hand on hers. “I know that I owe you a particular debt of gratitude.”

“Why? What have I done?”

“You saved a life. In every conceivable sense. You did it for love, and apparently …” A rare smile crossed the haggard face. “Apparently, love was also the driving force for Alexey Maximovich.” He cleared his throat. “As an officer, I’m satisfied. As a man, I’m impressed.”

Anna had asked what would happen to Alexey and learned that he’d been placed under house arrest since turning in his written resignation. She’d imagined him sitting in the Drezhnevskaya Street apartment, the place they had used like a dream of exile. The doubting wolf who’d turned out to be a patriot would no longer get his meals from the fancy food shop; he’d receive them from the hands of his guards. Maybe they’d taken away his belt and shoelaces and forbidden him to lock himself in the bathroom.

“Alexey Maximovich must be purged of his doubt and punished for his attempted treason,” Kamarovsky had said, stepping behind his desk. “It has been announced that the sentence to be meted out to the patriot Bulyagkov will take the form of banishment.” As though troubled by some irregularity, he picked up a sheet of paper.

“May I see it?”

That was not allowed, and neither was a telephone call. Kamarovsky had made no objections to a written communication.

“The best thing to do would be to leave the envelope unsealed,” he’d said as she was leaving. “I shall read your correspondence with great interest.”

For a day and a night, Anna could find no words, but on the following day, she’d written the letter all in one burst. She’d dropped it, unsealed, in the appropriate place. Twelve hours later, the reply was lying in one of the scarred mailboxes on the ground floor, where Avdotya was always busy.

With the closed envelope in her hand, Anna had run outside. She’d restrained herself from taking out Alexey’s letter until she reached the park. Then, leaning on the trunk of an elm tree, she’d begun to read.

Now, with the letter in her lap, Anna was sitting in the boisterous train compartment. Making sure her traveling companions couldn’t see, she carefully unfolded the pages for the umpteenth time. What tiny writing for someone who wrote with such a strong hand, she thought. His m’s were hard to distinguish from his i’s, and in general, as far as form was concerned, the Deputy Minister hadn’t made much of an effort. The Deputy Minister? Anna stared at the pages. She still thought of him in his official capacity, even though everything had changed for him. They hadn’t seen each other since their dawn meeting in Riga.

Anna yanked the door open and barged into the corridor. People were standing, sitting, and passing the time here, too. She made her way to the end of the car and stood alone on the little platform. What was she about to do? Moments from the past crossed her mind: When Viktor Ipalyevich, sitting down to work, took off his woolen jacket, and you knew that spring had come. Petya’s thrashing in his sleep, which infallibly meant that he’d tell her about a fantastic dream the next day. The joy she’d felt when the mortar on her trowel had the right consistency and went on smoothly. A life in Moscow would have lain ahead of her! She thought about the streets of the Arbat quarter in the snow, the feeling inspired by passing the illuminated Kremlin late at night.

Even as Anna was evoking pleasant memories of what she’d left behind, one thing was clear to her: She had to face the unromanticized truth. She looked more closely at the point her life had reached. Her marriage hadn’t blown up, it had simply come apart. The housing situation—the cohabitation with her father, the bed sharing with Petya—how much longer could that have lasted? Anna was anxious about how her son would react to the new woman at Leonid’s side, and she recognized the difficulties the boy would have as the child of a broken home, but all the same, the breakup had been inevitable. She smiled at herself when the thought crossed her mind that she was following her heart, just as Alexey had done when, with full awareness of all the consequences of his actions, he’d gone back to Russia.

Anna became conscious of the fields that went on forever in the gently rolling countryside. What crops were being cultivated there she couldn’t say. When she went back to her compartment and had to ask one of the children to get out of her seat, something remarkable occurred to her. Since she’d finished her job training and married the non-Muscovite Leonid, she’d had only one goal: to obtain the right of abode in Moscow for her family. She’d filled out innumerable forms, she’d had her name and Leonid’s added to lists, she’d been friendly with office supervisors; in long conversations with her husband, she’d considered whether she’d left anything undone; the goal had justified any means. And now, when the Nechayev family’s assignment to their new apartment was only a formality, Moscow was going to have to get along without them. Leonid had settled into his new Siberian nest; Anna was about to turn her back on Russia. Only Viktor Ipalyevich remained the die-hard big-city dweller he’d always been. From now on, he’d be able to distill Four-Star Tsazukhin in his kitchen undisturbed.

Anna felt so blithe and gay that she began a conversation with the people in her compartment. They came from a small town in southern Russia and spoke contemptuously of Ukrainians, although they admitted they’d been “down there” only once.

How strange, Anna thought. We’re supposed to live in equality, but the desire to be different remains obstinately strong.

The closer they got to the border, the emptier the train became, until at last Anna was alone in the compartment. She dozed off and started awake to see a uniformed man holding out his hand to her. She performed a hectic search for her papers and experienced a few bad moments while the border policeman paged through the document and finally handed it back. The landscape was in no way different from that on the Russian side, and yet Anna caught herself thinking that now she was in a foreign country. Half an hour later, the train reached the station that was the goal of her journey, a small town near Kharkov. She carried her suitcase along the only platform, crossed the waiting room, and emerged into the open.

She’d traveled practically a whole day to wind up now, at twilight, in such surroundings! Gray-brown buildings with missing plaster, a collapsing barbed-wire fence, a street full of potholes, the rusting skeleton of a cannibalized tractor at the side of the road. Across the street, a storefront whose sign was missing so many letters that the word bakery could barely be deciphered. Anna’s heart sank; in the middle of the street, she turned round in a circle. Silence reigned, but somewhere far off, a generator was running. The air smelled like fire.

Alexey had written about a house in the country, a house formerly used by the district surveyor, namely his disgraced father. As she read those lines in the letter, she’d imagined the living room with its tiled, turquoise-blue woodstove, the old-style wide floorboards, and the kitchen built out of silver fir. The water in the pipes froze regularly, he’d written, and you had to put scuttles filled with smoldering coals against the walls so the pipes would thaw and water could flow again. The toilets were outside; you had to go downstairs to the first floor and then out to the privy; on winter nights, you could find yourself walking through snow in your nightshirt. So as not to exaggerate the romantic appeal of the place, he’d said, he had to report that there was electricity and that telephone service was due to arrive at some point. Full of expectation, Anna had read that the roof ridge had borne the snows of two hundred winters without yielding and was still dead straight. Alexey had also written about the small piece of land he wanted to farm; he was thinking about cultivating maize and beets, along with salad herbs. When she pictured the convicted former ministerial official bending over his beets, Anna had smiled, and yet everything was coming together into one image.

Now, however, Anna was surrounded by ugliness, provincialism, and decay, and all her old doubts fell back into place. How was she going to tell Petya about the new man in her life, a man only fifteen years younger than the boy’s grandfather? What was she supposed to live on? Would she try to find a house-painting job in Kharkov, say, and hire herself out for Ukrainian—i.e., starvation—wages?

In the radiant certainty of having made the wrong decision, under the sudden impulse to undo a terrible mistake, Anna turned around and started to run back to the train station … until a spot of color brought her to a halt. It wasn’t an unusual color for a car, but somehow that particular greenish-gray vehicle seemed familiar. In some confusion, Anna put down her suitcase, raised her other hand, and took a step toward the Zhiguli, whose driver was just getting out. She could see a second man in the passenger’s seat, a heavy, gray-haired fellow who in spite of the heat was wearing a woolen jacket. Anna avoided a puddle, pushed her hair behind her ears, and walked faster. Whether she wanted it to or not, her heart was laughing.





A NOTE ABOUT THE AUTHOR



MICHAEL WALLNER is the author of the international sensation April in Paris. He lives in Germany, where he is an actor and screenwriter, and divides his time between Berlin and the Black Forest.