Now there was resignation in Gil’s voice. He took out a packet of cigarettes, slid it open, put two in his mouth, lit them both, and handed one to Rita. He wanted the aroma always to remind them of the afternoon they had just spent together.
Rita drew deeply, and the smoke emerged in streams from her nostrils. Gil was standing close enough to see the dust motes in the light of the streetlamp.
“I’m doing this to us because I can’t do anything else. I won’t dress it up as sacrifice, decency, obligation, doing what’s right in anybody’s book. I could live with the burden of his misery. But not his death. I’d be walking around the rest of my life trying to rid myself of the guilt. There is nothing I’d be able to enjoy . . .” She looked at him and reached for his lapel, smiling a little. “There’s nothing I’d be able to take pleasure in with that thought forever oppressing me.” She decided she had to make it concrete for Gil. “The image of Urs swinging somewhere from a noose, putting a gun barrel in his mouth, throwing himself in front of an express, taking an overdose of Seconal. I couldn’t bear it. And that’s flat.” Her hand dropped from his coat.
The next morning Rita took Urs home. His clothes had been cleaned and pressed. He had a new collar and cuffs. His tie was straight and pinned with a pearl stick just above the waistcoat. No one would ever be the wiser. They rode the train talking inconsequentially, as if nothing had happened. Urs was calm; Rita was relieved. Really she was. At least she could live with herself.
Five months later, in the late summer of 1939, she realized she was finally pregnant. The child would arrive early in 1940. She was calm when she told him and watched him mentally count the month back to June and then smile. The child would be his.
PART II
DURING
CHAPTER SEVEN
I t was a series of repeated blows to the head, so swift and so hard you couldn’t recover before the next one. First the Molotov-Ribbentrop nonaggression pact. Soviet Communists making common cause with Nazis? Then, almost immediately, the Germans put an end to Poland. They did it so quickly the newsreels didn’t have time to cover the campaign. Where, everyone wondered, were the French and the Brits? Two weeks later the Soviet Army moved into Poland from the east. The Germans even withdrew from parts they had already overrun, leaving almost half the country for the Russians.
Rita gave birth three months after Soviets marched in. They had decided to call the boy Stefan. She was unable to present her child to his maternal grandparents, however. There was now a border between them. It was the frontier between the western part of the Ukrainian SSR and German-occupied Poland. The mails remained efficient, however, and Rita was able to send pictures.
Leaving the hospital with a baby in her arms, Rita walked into an entirely new experience. Urs handed her a new identity card. She was no longer a Pole. She was a Ukrainian now, a Soviet citizen, the wife of the director of a government polyclinic, open to all. His privilege to practice medicine had turned into a right, no, a duty to socialism’s future. The social order had been completely reversed. It was at least initially a rough meritocracy. The Russians demanded that things work. That took the ability to count, to read, to work a lathe or a telephone switchboard. If you could do those things, you were needed, and you were rewarded. The Soviet Union, she knew, was powerful but backward. Life would get harder, but not in every way worse, and in a few ways perhaps better.
Urs’s unqualified enthusiasm for the new dispensation sometimes grated. Only once did they argue about it. “They want me to join the party.” He said it proudly one day in February as he returned from the clinic.
“You aren’t going to?” It came out as something between a question and a protest.
“Why not?” He drew himself up. “I’m director of a
Rita drew deeply, and the smoke emerged in streams from her nostrils. Gil was standing close enough to see the dust motes in the light of the streetlamp.
“I’m doing this to us because I can’t do anything else. I won’t dress it up as sacrifice, decency, obligation, doing what’s right in anybody’s book. I could live with the burden of his misery. But not his death. I’d be walking around the rest of my life trying to rid myself of the guilt. There is nothing I’d be able to enjoy . . .” She looked at him and reached for his lapel, smiling a little. “There’s nothing I’d be able to take pleasure in with that thought forever oppressing me.” She decided she had to make it concrete for Gil. “The image of Urs swinging somewhere from a noose, putting a gun barrel in his mouth, throwing himself in front of an express, taking an overdose of Seconal. I couldn’t bear it. And that’s flat.” Her hand dropped from his coat.
The next morning Rita took Urs home. His clothes had been cleaned and pressed. He had a new collar and cuffs. His tie was straight and pinned with a pearl stick just above the waistcoat. No one would ever be the wiser. They rode the train talking inconsequentially, as if nothing had happened. Urs was calm; Rita was relieved. Really she was. At least she could live with herself.
Five months later, in the late summer of 1939, she realized she was finally pregnant. The child would arrive early in 1940. She was calm when she told him and watched him mentally count the month back to June and then smile. The child would be his.
PART II
DURING
CHAPTER SEVEN
I t was a series of repeated blows to the head, so swift and so hard you couldn’t recover before the next one. First the Molotov-Ribbentrop nonaggression pact. Soviet Communists making common cause with Nazis? Then, almost immediately, the Germans put an end to Poland. They did it so quickly the newsreels didn’t have time to cover the campaign. Where, everyone wondered, were the French and the Brits? Two weeks later the Soviet Army moved into Poland from the east. The Germans even withdrew from parts they had already overrun, leaving almost half the country for the Russians.
Rita gave birth three months after Soviets marched in. They had decided to call the boy Stefan. She was unable to present her child to his maternal grandparents, however. There was now a border between them. It was the frontier between the western part of the Ukrainian SSR and German-occupied Poland. The mails remained efficient, however, and Rita was able to send pictures.
Leaving the hospital with a baby in her arms, Rita walked into an entirely new experience. Urs handed her a new identity card. She was no longer a Pole. She was a Ukrainian now, a Soviet citizen, the wife of the director of a government polyclinic, open to all. His privilege to practice medicine had turned into a right, no, a duty to socialism’s future. The social order had been completely reversed. It was at least initially a rough meritocracy. The Russians demanded that things work. That took the ability to count, to read, to work a lathe or a telephone switchboard. If you could do those things, you were needed, and you were rewarded. The Soviet Union, she knew, was powerful but backward. Life would get harder, but not in every way worse, and in a few ways perhaps better.
Urs’s unqualified enthusiasm for the new dispensation sometimes grated. Only once did they argue about it. “They want me to join the party.” He said it proudly one day in February as he returned from the clinic.
“You aren’t going to?” It came out as something between a question and a protest.
“Why not?” He drew himself up. “I’m director of a
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