being apart, after they’d emigrated to Oxford. He said he almost preferred to not see them again, to keep the pretty young visions he had of them intact. Would he feel the same way about me? Would he look at me as he had his wife—someone he no longer shared a bed with? Would he compare me with my own daughter, someone he’d seen grow into a beautiful young woman while I aged beyond my years? “Ira’s become the very picture of her mother,” he’d written me in a postcard.
Buinaya, who had yet to receive amnesty, walked behind me as if going to wash her face, then turned and pushed me into the makeshift mirror. Shards of glass dropped to the floor and I stumbled back, a thin line of blood dripping from my forehead. She smiled at me and I smiled back, blood trickling into my mouth. She scowled and walked away. And that was the last I saw of her. But when I heard that those who had not received amnesty eventually rose up—and that during that uprising, the fields and the Godfather’s cottage and the whole camp had burned to the ground—I imagined Buinaya was the one who’d lit the match.
----
—
I boarded the train to Moscow a rehabilitated woman, Anatoli. The city had grown in bounds during the three years I’d been gone. Cranes hoisted steel beams. Factories had taken the place of fields. Between the old two-story buildings made from logs, blocks of apartments had sprung up with thousands of windows and thousands of laundry lines stretching across their thousands of balconies. Stalin’s baroque and gothic vysotki reached for the sky with their star-topped towers, changing the cityscape and announcing to the world that we, too, could build buildings that touched the clouds.
It was April and the city was on the brink of spring. I’d come home just in time for the purple lilacs and tulips and beds of red and white pansies to emerge from their winter slumber. I imagined walking along Moscow’s wide boulevards with Borya again. I closed my eyes to savor the picture, and when I opened them again, the train had arrived. I looked anxiously down the tracks. He said he’d be waiting for me.
CHAPTER 6
THE CLOUD DWELLER
Boris wakes. His first thought is of a train lighting a path through the countryside, bound for the White-Stoned Mother. Under a thin quilt, he flexes his feet and pictures Olga’s rounded cheek pressed against the train’s window. How he’d loved watching her sleep, even the way she snored, soft as a distant factory whistle.
In six hours, the train carrying his beloved will pull into the station. Olga’s mother and children will wait at the edge of the tracks, standing on tiptoes to be the first to see her step off the train. In five hours, Boris is to meet her family at their apartment on Potapov Street, so that they may all go to the station together.
Three years since he heard her voice. Three years since he touched her. The last time was on a bench in the public gardens outside the editorial offices of Goslitizdat. As they made plans for the evening, Olga had remarked on the presence of a man in a leather duster who seemed to be listening to their conversation. Boris had looked the man over and decided he was just a man sitting on a bench. “That’s all,” he told her.
“Are you sure?”
He squeezed her hand.
“Maybe you should stay with me instead of going home?” she asked.
“I must work, my love, but will see you tonight in Peredelkino. She’s in Moscow for two days,” he said, careful to never speak his wife’s name in Olga’s presence. “We can relax and have a late supper. And I’d like to get your thoughts on a new chapter.”
She agreed to the plan and kissed him on the cheek in the chaste way she did in public. He hated it when she kissed him like that, feeling more like an uncle, or, worse, her father.
Had he known their meeting on the park bench would be the last time he’d see Olga in three years, he would’ve turned his head and kissed her on her lips.
Buinaya, who had yet to receive amnesty, walked behind me as if going to wash her face, then turned and pushed me into the makeshift mirror. Shards of glass dropped to the floor and I stumbled back, a thin line of blood dripping from my forehead. She smiled at me and I smiled back, blood trickling into my mouth. She scowled and walked away. And that was the last I saw of her. But when I heard that those who had not received amnesty eventually rose up—and that during that uprising, the fields and the Godfather’s cottage and the whole camp had burned to the ground—I imagined Buinaya was the one who’d lit the match.
----
—
I boarded the train to Moscow a rehabilitated woman, Anatoli. The city had grown in bounds during the three years I’d been gone. Cranes hoisted steel beams. Factories had taken the place of fields. Between the old two-story buildings made from logs, blocks of apartments had sprung up with thousands of windows and thousands of laundry lines stretching across their thousands of balconies. Stalin’s baroque and gothic vysotki reached for the sky with their star-topped towers, changing the cityscape and announcing to the world that we, too, could build buildings that touched the clouds.
It was April and the city was on the brink of spring. I’d come home just in time for the purple lilacs and tulips and beds of red and white pansies to emerge from their winter slumber. I imagined walking along Moscow’s wide boulevards with Borya again. I closed my eyes to savor the picture, and when I opened them again, the train had arrived. I looked anxiously down the tracks. He said he’d be waiting for me.
CHAPTER 6
THE CLOUD DWELLER
Boris wakes. His first thought is of a train lighting a path through the countryside, bound for the White-Stoned Mother. Under a thin quilt, he flexes his feet and pictures Olga’s rounded cheek pressed against the train’s window. How he’d loved watching her sleep, even the way she snored, soft as a distant factory whistle.
In six hours, the train carrying his beloved will pull into the station. Olga’s mother and children will wait at the edge of the tracks, standing on tiptoes to be the first to see her step off the train. In five hours, Boris is to meet her family at their apartment on Potapov Street, so that they may all go to the station together.
Three years since he heard her voice. Three years since he touched her. The last time was on a bench in the public gardens outside the editorial offices of Goslitizdat. As they made plans for the evening, Olga had remarked on the presence of a man in a leather duster who seemed to be listening to their conversation. Boris had looked the man over and decided he was just a man sitting on a bench. “That’s all,” he told her.
“Are you sure?”
He squeezed her hand.
“Maybe you should stay with me instead of going home?” she asked.
“I must work, my love, but will see you tonight in Peredelkino. She’s in Moscow for two days,” he said, careful to never speak his wife’s name in Olga’s presence. “We can relax and have a late supper. And I’d like to get your thoughts on a new chapter.”
She agreed to the plan and kissed him on the cheek in the chaste way she did in public. He hated it when she kissed him like that, feeling more like an uncle, or, worse, her father.
Had he known their meeting on the park bench would be the last time he’d see Olga in three years, he would’ve turned his head and kissed her on her lips.
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