There was a slick path cut by cross-country skiers that followed the river for twenty kilometers and then circled back, across taiga to the south side of town. To his left, the Pechora was frozen solid, a blank strip of snow flanked by birches. Ilya slid along the path for a kilometer or so until he was sweating inside his coat and he’d found a spot that seemed both beautiful and desolate enough for such an occasion. He sat on the frozen ridges of the path and opened the envelope.
Maria Mikhailovna had scored in the ninety-second percentile. As he knew from the copy she’d given him, she’d done perfectly on the multiple choice. She’d lost all of her points on the written section. He’d read her essays and dictations and knew just the things that had tripped her up: the plural possessives and habitual aspect. Ilya’s personal information was clustered at the top of the page. His name, his birthdate, his school and address and identification number. That was it. Most of the page was empty. There was no “Congratulations!”, no personal note at all, and this reassured him. No one was looking too deeply into this test. The State had more important matters to attend to.
He walked home as the light was faltering. The boys were gone. When he showed his mother and Babushka the results, they both started to cry and then to laugh.
“I thought you were better at the written than the multiple choice,” his mother said, and then she said, “Listen to me, looking a gift horse in the mouth.” She kissed Ilya. “You’re my brilliant boy,” she said.
“Your papulya would be thrilled,” Babushka said. “He’d be yelling in the halls.”
“He’d be drinking,” Ilya’s mother said, but without the usual scorn, and she pulled down a bottle of vodka and insisted that they all—even Babushka, who only drank on religious occasions—have shots.
Then they borrowed the neighbor’s Lada and drove it to the place on the square that served pizza on red and white checked tablecloths and catered to the refinery apparatchik and the rare tourist. The one with the faded photo of Gabe Thompson eating pizza in the window. His mother ordered mushroom pizza for all of them, and Ilya did not even try to protest. He had never seen her so happy. Even when she called Vladimir’s cell—a cell that he hadn’t answered in weeks, that Ilya was sure he’d traded for drugs—the smile stayed on her face.
Just as the pizzas arrived, there was a knock at the window behind them, and they turned to see Maria Mikhailovna and Dmitri standing at the glass. She smiled and lifted a hand. Ilya stared, wanting so badly to thank her and to apologize. Then his mother was tugging at his sleeve.
“Get them to join us, Ilya,” she said. “Go, go! Our treat!”
By the time he was out the door, they were past the restaurant, giving Gabe Thompson and his bench a wide berth.
“Maria Mikhailovna!” he called. “Will you join us? Please?” He said it like he was saying sorry. He imagined that he was saying sorry, and she must have heard that in his voice, because her face took on this soft look that was the look his mother got when she thought of Vladimir, like all she wanted to do was forgive him.
“We’d love to,” she said. “Another time—Dmitri’s been working so hard with these cases. He needs rest.”
She meant Yulia and Olga. The police had not made progress on either case, and Ilya could see the wear of them on Dmitri’s face. There were rings that fully circled his eyes, like another set of glasses, and his skin was sagging in a way Ilya did not remember.
“Of course. Another time,” Ilya said. He and his mother and Babushka had never been to the pizza place before, but it seemed suddenly possible that they might go there again, that after America, eating out on the square might become a regular thing.
“Congratulations are in order,” Dmitri said, and there was this tiny snag to his voice as he said, “Congratulations,” and Ilya wondered whether Maria Mikhailovna had told him about the boards.
“Spasibo,” Ilya said, and then Dmitri ducked into the restaurant and beckoned to a waiter.
When he came back out, he kissed Maria Mikhailovna on the top of her head. “I ordered the ladies a bottle of wine. Surely they’ve earned it,” and again Ilya wondered if Dmitri meant something else by what he was saying, but Maria Mikhailovna smiled at him and said, “They have.”
Behind them, Gabe Thompson coughed—a terrible sound—and when they turned to look at him, he said, “Fuck off.”
Maria Mikhailovna looked at Dmitri, and Ilya did too, expecting the same anger he’d seen in him the night he’d chased Vladimir in the car, but Dmitri just said, “I’m off duty tonight, myshka,” in this tired voice. And then to Ilya, “Even the Americans have their problems. Remember that,” and he led Maria Mikhailovna away.
His mother and Babushka were thrilled with the wine, and with each glass his mother alternated between saying that she’d never, ever imagined this and that she’d known all along that Ilya would succeed—from the moment she’d first held him, his head huge, his eyes alert to the whole world—that through hard work he would create great opportunity. Babushka was adamant that Jesus was involved, and she swore over and over that Jesus would be thanked like he had never been thanked before.
Ilya winced when the waitress brought the bill. Just the pizza cost what his mother made in a week, and she’d gotten them all hot chocolate too. His mother saw his face and said, “Don’t worry, golubchik, there will be only three mouths to feed soon.”
Two, Ilya thought, and normally his mother and Babushka would have thought the same thing, all of them acknowledging Vladimir in a beat of silence, but they were too happy or too drunk to think of Vladimir that night.
“Unless Timofey Denisovich moves in,” his mother said.
“Please,” Babushka said, blushing. “That old fart.”
“More like old flirt,” his mother said.
By the time they left it was close to eleven, and the borrowed Lada wouldn’t start. It was sixteen below freezing, and the battery had gotten too cold. Ilya’s mother tried, and then Babushka tried, though she hadn’t driven in a decade. Their neighbor kept hot water bottles in the glovebox for just this situation, and they brought them into the restaurant and begged the waiter to fill them, and then they wrapped them around the battery the way Babushka wrapped them around her knees at night. When the water cooled, they filled them again. Once, twice, and the waiter began to charge for the hot water. On the third try, the ignition sparked, and his mother ground the gas pedal to the floor, and the car groaned to life. His mother and Babushka cheered and the sound of them filled the square, which was empty and bright. Even Gabe Thompson had found somewhere warmer to be.
CHAPTER TWENTY
On Friday morning, they parked Sadie’s car at the Walmart near Leffie High and piled into J.T.’s truck, which was not as inconspicuous as Ilya would have liked, with the matte black paint job, the enormous tires, and the flame decal that sprouted from the grille and licked at the windshield. As they sped north, sugarcane fields filled the windows, electric green in the sun, and they went over the details: Ilya would be the one to knock on Gabe’s door. He’d have the tape recorder running inside his duffel, and he’d have Sadie’s cell on him so that he could call J.T. or the police if worse came to worst.
They all went quiet at this last statement. The asphalt unspooled ahead of them, gray and smooth. Roads like this were rare in Russia, and its very perfectness seemed to convey a sort of expectancy, as though it had been waiting here, in the middle of nowhere, to carry him from past to future. It was a ridiculous thought, Ilya knew, sprung from a hope that he’d let grow too large, and as a way to reduce his hope, to turn it into something useful, he reminded himself of all the ways this might go wrong: Gabe’s parents might not let Ilya see him. Gabe might admit nothing, might show nothing. He might slam the door in Ilya’s face.