Other than that, Jack had spent his free time planning his future. Since his arrival at the Avtozavod two months earlier, he’d managed to save two thousand dollars, of which he’d used two hundred to cover the three months’ rent on his new room that he’d paid in advance, as well as to purchase a couple of used overcoats and a rudimentary stove to help him through the harsh winter.
He felt satisfied. If he carried on like this, in a year he’d amass a fortune of twelve thousand dollars, or roughly 360,000 tax-free rubles if he exchanged them on the black market. With those prospects, all he had to do was choose a European country to move to and spend his mountain of money.
And until that day came, he’d make sure he ate well.
Though he was entitled to the better meal tickets, he’d found that the portions that they served in the Avtozavod canteens were diminishing not only in size but also in variety, until all that was available were pots of balanda, a vegetable soup that consisted mostly of salty water; pies containing a ground meat, the origin of which nobody dared guess; and omelets made from powdered eggs. Jack didn’t know which of these dishes it was that gave him diarrhea, so he decided to play it safe, avoid them all, and pay astronomical prices for the cooked sausages and chops that Miquel was able to supply at the end of each shift.
What bothered him most was having to hide in order to eat. He ate surreptitiously, praying that his neighbors wouldn’t smell the food when he heated it on the stove in his room. Fortunately, the stink from the partition walls seemed to cover up the aroma. He did it so that his companions wouldn’t be envious, because slowly, day by day, they were losing weight, while he remained strong.
It seemed inevitable that the famine would finally reach the Avtozavod, where thousands of souls waited patiently to be consumed.
Soon Jack would reach the end of his third month as a supervisor in Gorky, and everything continued more or less in the same way. Everything except the message that had been slid under his door that night. It was in Sue’s handwriting. The note announced that Walter would arrive the next day.
He took a deep breath. He wasn’t afraid of working under the scrutiny of thousands of watchful eyes, or acquiring food illegally, or trusting a black-market dealer to exchange his dollars for rubles. None of that scared him. But his heart skipped a beat when he thought about looking Walter in the eye as if nothing had happened.
When Walter arrived the next day, Jack found his friend looking very unwell. He didn’t know whether Sue had told him anything about the dalliance they’d had on the night of the party, but he did know that his friend’s face had become even more gaunt and pensive. Jack avoided any mention of Sue and focused on finding out about Walter’s employment while they drank tea together in the canteen. “Three months! We’ve barely heard from you. We tried to contact your friend but couldn’t locate him. You had us worried,” said Jack, unable to hold his friend’s gaze.
Walter downed the cup of tea in one gulp, as if it were the first he’d had all week. Jack asked him if he wanted to share the last piece of cake that was on the counter. His friend nodded. “I should’ve called you, but communications with Gorky are difficult, and I only speak a few words of Russian. I wrote to you both. I spent a couple of weeks in Moscow, going here, there, and everywhere with Dmitri.” He gobbled his piece of cake in one mouthful, so Jack could only just make out what he was saying. “He was trying to find work for me at the Comintern, as a liaison with the Communist Party USA, but all the positions were taken.”
“So why didn’t you come to Gorky?”
“Because I’m stubborn. You know me. Dmitri assured me it was just a matter of weeks before a vacancy came up. I had a pretty rough time, Jack,” he concluded.
“God, Walter, believe me when I say I’m sorry. If I’d known . . .”
“No. Don’t apologize. It was my own fault. I don’t know why I felt intimidated by what you did in Moscow, when you found better jobs for everyone than I did. My stupid pride . . . I was a fool to think you were trying to make my life miserable.”
Jack felt his stomach tighten when he remembered his night with Sue. He finished off his tea in an attempt to undo the knot. He waited for it to ease before continuing. “So, what’s your situation now? I’m sure I could still speak to Wilbur Hewitt and—”
“That won’t be necessary. In the end, Dmitri managed to get the People’s Commissariat of Heavy Industry to reconsider the offer that I’d turned down. It was difficult—the Soviets are very strict when it comes to labor matters—but in the end, we managed to make arrangements, and I’m going to work as an administrative liaison between the Soviets and the Americans. A pencil pusher’s job, but a job all the same.”
“Even so, if it’s for the regular salary, we could try to negotiate another role.”
“No. Really, Jack. Maybe later. Fifty rubles here and there isn’t gonna change my life, and I’ve already begged for too many favors to go asking to switch jobs now. I’m just grateful to you for taking care of Sue. I heard you’ve applied for a divorce, and paid for a room so she could be by herself. You’re a true friend.”
“Oh, well, it was nothing.” Jack was glad he’d found the courage to go to the Zapis Aktov Grazhdanskogo Sostoyaniya, the Russian registry office, to file for a divorce. “So, I guess now everything can get back to how it was.”
He hadn’t finished the sentence when Sue appeared from nowhere. Jack, surprised, felt as if she were staring at him like a stalking feline. Walter looked at both of them, in silence.
“I hope so, Jack. I hope so.”
With the arrival of spring, life at the factory took a turn for the worse. The Soviet high command had ordered that the Avtozavod be running at full capacity by the summer, which had led to an increase in workload that had not been matched by an increase in rations. The infirmaries were gradually becoming swamped with legions of increasingly emaciated workers who were given a restorative, along with a warning, before being sent back to their posts. Harry Daniels had been one of the latest operatives to need medical attention, but what ailed him couldn’t be treated with pills. What he needed, his wife said, was a good plate of stewed vegetables, and that was what she asked Jack for after knocking on his door.
When he heard her request, he didn’t know what to say.
“For the love of God, Jack,” she insisted. “My Harry barely has the strength to breathe. In the morning, he throws up God knows what, because all he has for dinner is the colored water they give him at the factory. He has a cup of tea for breakfast and refuses to eat more than his cookie so that I won’t go without. Please, I beg you. In Boston, I saw my brother starve to death, so I know what I’m talking about.”