“You are avoiding my question. Answer concretely. Did you take no issue with the materials you were handling?”
“Like I said, I am always in agreement with the government’s policy.”
She didn’t avoid Subotin’s gaze. It wasn’t 1937 anymore, or 1940. It was 1948. If he was going to play this game, then she’d show him she knew the rules.
He smiled slyly.
“So you had no feelings about the blatantly nationalistic material you were translating?”
“We were doing our jobs.”
“And were you also doing your jobs when you attended the Zionist rally to support the Israeli ambassador, Golda Meyerson?”
“I did not attend this rally.”
Subotin glanced down at his papers, quickly but not imperceptibly. “There are witnesses….”
“Your witnesses misperceived. You can check. I was in my room that day.”
Subotin’s face flushed red, betraying his irritation.
“There are witnesses who saw Leon Brink and others….”
If he was guessing about her, could he have been guessing about Leon too? She didn’t want to take the risk. “I did not attend this rally. I had no interest in it. My husband went out of curiosity. He had heard about the lady from Palestine and wanted to see for himself what kind of person she was.”
“And a thousand other people also went out of curiosity, yes? And they also called her name and toadied to her staff out of simple curiosity. And shouted Zionist slogans out of curiosity!”
“But what slogans?”
“?‘Next year in Jerusalem!’?”
She wanted to laugh. “That’s no slogan. Jews have been saying it since they were expelled from Babylon. It’s just something that gets said on their holy days. It means nothing.”
“Outbursts of crude and zealous nationalism being made in the thirty-second year of the Revolution are not nothing. I am forced to think you are less than forthcoming if you insist such a nationalistic frenzy was not whipped up by a band of Zionist scoundrels.”
How to tell him that no whipping up needed to have been done? That Jews would have gone on their own to take a look at Meyerson, with no prompting?
“I am insisting on nothing of the sort,” she said. “How would I know? I wasn’t on the Jewish Committee.”
“But you spent three years in Kuibyshev among these people, and around those who worked closely with them. Discussions and conversations transpired that you heard—things whose meaning you may not fully appreciate now.”
She was almost tempted to smile. In spite of Subotin’s recriminating tone, Florence understood these words as a retreat. He wasn’t accusing her anymore. If it weren’t for his total power over her, she’d even say he was wheedling, trying to enlist her help. Perhaps, he was suggesting, she was too na?ve to really understand what went on inside the scoundrels’ den. Nevertheless, she could help them.
“It was five years ago,” Florence said. “More. If anything got said then, too much time has passed for me to recall it now.”
“I’m sure, with a little time, you’ll remember,” said Subotin.
—
WITH ESSIE SHE WAS now on the most abbreviated speaking terms. In the common areas, they ignored each other with an almost polite formality, like guests at a resort. Florence despaired of keeping up this posture with her old friend. It was simply a routine her body had fallen into, independent of any hurt feelings. Nevertheless, she felt, under the circumstances, that Essie ought to be the one to make amends. And so it continued.
One Sunday afternoon, Florence came into the room and found Yulik whimpering and sobbing in the niche under her sewing machine. Through his mucus-filled sobs, it took her some time to ascertain the cause of his suffering. That morning, while Florence had gone to buy food, Essie had taken Yasha to the new miniature railroad at the children’s park. Yulik had tried to come along, but Yasha had told him arrogantly that he was too small. The two had come back from the park laughing loudly and talking of what great fun they’d had riding in the miniature wagons all morning.
“Aunt Essie doesn’t like me anymore.”
“No, it isn’t that, bunny. I’ll take you.”
“No! It’s too late!”
“We’ll go next week.”
“No, I wanted to go with them.”
—
FLORENCE GAVE A STOUT rap on Essie’s door. She could endure Essie’s silent treatment without getting unsettled, but moving this combat into civilian territory—taking it out on Yulik—that was something else entirely.
“What were you thinking?” she said when Essie opened the door. Essie stood in her kimono robe with its flowers and birds of paradise. Florence walked past her into the room. “I found Yulik crying his eyes out. He said that you and Yasha didn’t take him to some railroad.”
Essie inhaled sharply through her nostrils and smoothed her hair. “Yasha asked me to go a long time ago. He wanted us to go—just the two of us. I couldn’t take them both, you know. I’m not a hired nanny.”
“But you had to come back talking and laughing so the whole apartment could hear. You could have made a little less of a show about it.”
“We all live in one apartment, Florence, whether we like it or not. What do you expect me to do? Stop talking to people? Stop laughing? Should I walk on my tippy toes? Sometimes people feel left out and that’s just a fact.”
“He’s a child!”
“Oh God, Florence. I didn’t know if you wanted me to take him.”
“You could have asked me.”
“Forgive me, but every time I try to so much as say hello, you hurry away. You’re busy or you shrug and turn your back on me. I’ve been trying and trying, but I know where I’m not wanted.”
Essie’s eyes were shining with bitter tears. Florence’s jaw hurt from holding back her own.
“Essie, I haven’t meant to be aloof. I thought you were still mad over…Oh, this is too silly. I don’t know why anybody needs to apologize, or for what.”
“I wasn’t holding out hope,” said Essie. “But I’m sorry it upset Yulik. That wasn’t my intention.” She tightened the belt of her robe, as if suddenly embarrassed to be caught in such a disheveled state.
“Let’s just forget it. Listen, I’ve been trying to get ahold of some magazines for us, but the new section editor they brought in, she’s…a real wolverine.”
“They all are nowadays. Do you want to sit?”
“Maybe I will. It’s unnerving. The first thing she did when she walked into our translators’ room was read aloud all the names—‘Vainberg, Feinberg’—in this disgusted voice, and said, ‘What is this, a synagogue?’?”
Essie sat down on her bed, nodding. “I know, I know. I borrowed the typist’s colored pencil this week and broke the tip. I went to ask her for a razor to sharpen it, and she grabs it back and says, ‘I’ll do it myself; you people break everything you touch!’?”
“I don’t know what’s happening.”
“After all these years, I thought I was finally…”
“One of them,” said Florence.
Essie nodded, her eyes dry now. “But we never will be, will we?”