Though I was nervous for the girl at first, noting some uncertainty, some chaos in her movements, she begins to hit her stride after the cold winter, when she clutches at her stomach and moans for food, worrying over my sister’s condition with more love and understanding than I was ever able to give my own blood. I do not even know how long I have been holding Yuri’s hand. Did I reach out to him for comfort, or did he anticipate that I needed some and reach over to me instead, the poor boy?
You know the rest—a touch of starvation, a crescendo of cold nights, long days at the factory for my father, the poor kitty boiled in a stew by my stern mother, another overlong monologue by my gorgeous sister, who seems to never want to get offstage, my father dies, and then Grandmother and I are at the market, where we happen to hear that the war is over, it’s time to go home, which is not exactly how it happened, but then, there she is, holding my hand, preparing to fall to her death. “My train,” Grandmother Natasha says, looking off into a dim, unknowable future. “My train. That’s my train. My train is coming for me at last.” And then I close my eyes, because I do not want to relive my own grandmother’s death, but after a moment I open them, because I sense that nothing’s happening.
My grandmother is staring up at the ceiling, at an imagined sky, where the lights behind her turn pink and purple to imply that the sun is setting. “Will you look at that?” she says, to all of us. Then the stage goes black as we hear the rumbling of a train, followed by a crash and a scream. My grandmother is dead. The curtain falls. The play is over. I can feel my heart beating in my throat.
She gets a standing ovation from the few dozen people who have turned up, and Yuri and I rise to join them. The business was a bit messier than her other shows, less polished than her long-ago Karenina knock-off, but who could blame her, having done this all on her own, as a new mother at that? Her performance was a bit rough around the edges—yes, she stuttered a few times, forgot her lines a time or two—but it had more soul than all of the work I had ever seen her do put together, though I may be biased, of course. I clap as loud as the youth in the audience, and my face flushes with pride. Natasha returns to the stage, glowing as the audience stands. I hope the girl feels the good work she has done, I truly do. I hope she is not discouraged by the half-empty seats.
So far, she is still smiling, glowing from her success. And then Stas emerges from backstage, where he has been helping out, and is clapping for her, wildly. And once more, I am hit with another surprise. When the two of them look at each other, I feel as if I have been slammed over the head with a pot of Stroganoff. How did I not see it all along? Her gleaming eyes and enhanced makeup, his wild, desperately not-homosexual visage—how did I not see that these two were as entangled as me and Ivan Dolgorukov, a bureaucrat who visited me on the sea from time to time, always leaving me with another shiny bauble to remember him by, even if it would be indiscreet to wear it?
First, the fact of her putting on a play based on my story—and now this. Too much for this old woman to bear.
My cheeks burn with shame. Of course I have missed this, along with so many other things that were right in front of my nose. The fact that Licky was being fattened up for the slaughter for all those months. Bogdan’s nighttime affairs. And perhaps that I had once been the true object of his affections, though he told me so plainly. And what else? That my sister had needed me, and I had failed her. But what can I do about any of that now?
I glance at Yuri, who continues to clap with an unreadable look. Is he excited for Natasha? Disappointed about the crowd? Or is his soul crushed by a much larger disappointment?
Natasha grabs the microphone and I panic, thinking what, are they going to announce their mad love? But of course not, she thanks the audience and her husband for their support, introduces Stas and so on, though what happens next is almost as awful.
“This may be a surprise,” she says. “But we have a special request. I wouldn’t have been able to tell this powerful story if it wasn’t for my grandmother, who graciously told us everything that happened to her before and during the Great War. Without my grandmother’s strength, well, I wouldn’t be standing here today. I wouldn’t be alive, let alone an actress. I wouldn’t be who I am. So please join me in welcoming her to the stage and give her a round of applause.”
Utter humiliation! Natasha says my name, and then Yuri helps me trudge up to the too-bright stage. I stand up there squinting at the audience, and everyone cheers and claps so loudly that I think it will knock me over, but I remain where I am until the crowd begins to rustle out of their seats, approaching the stage with flowers. Natasha gives me a hug and then studies my face.
“I hope—” she begins.
“It was fine, darling. I am not angry with you, you naughty girl. It was shocking, but a nice surprise, a nice surprise,” I tell her.
“Really? I was worried. I was going to tell you, but then I thought it would be fun to have you see it without knowing what to expect.”
“No need to worry about me, dear. I thank you for the tribute—truly. And the show itself—it was quite good. Your best work by far.”
“Thank you, Baba, thank you! That means so much.” I try to read her face—for what? To see if she is disappointed by the turnout? To see if she is madly in love with Stas? To confirm that I have failed to care for her after all?
“You were dynamite,” Yuri tells her as he hands her his flowers and gives her a kiss on the cheek. But I am uneasy now around these three, and I watch Stas watching him and feel even more convinced that there is something going on between him and Natasha. Yuri looks at him warily, or perhaps I am inventing drama where none exists, but I can say that this would also explain why things had been so tense around the household. I had assumed Natasha was just exhausted from mothering and play-mothering, but there seems to be more at stake.
“Thanks, babe,” she says to him, but she keeps her eyes locked on me. “You really didn’t hate it?”
“Of course not, darling. You did well for yourself. I am proud. And you too, my boy,” I tell Stas, though it hurts even more than normal to look at the creature, who has been surprisingly kind to me since my arrival. “I heard you helped out.”
“Only a bit,” he says with a bow.
“I hope I did your story justice, Baba. I wasn’t sure what you’d think,” Natasha says.
“As much as you could have,” I say. “You cut some of it out, didn’t you?”
“I hope you didn’t mind,” Natasha says, looking at Stas carefully. But he will not look at her: he only looks from me to Yuri.
“Not at all,” I say. “I thank you for it.”
But the admirers have lined up, ready with flowers and lavish praise for my girl, and I want to give her time to enjoy this moment.
Yuri and I return to the sidelines, sitting down again to watch the fans flattering Natasha, and only when I see her nervously tapping one of her heels do I understand that of course the girl is devastated, that she saw the half-empty seats in the audience, that she is waiting to be alone to give out an inhuman cry, to wonder what exactly she had worked for, and what unintended consequences it might have had. The poor darling! I may still be emotional over her play, and furious about her affair, but my heart still bleeds for her. Her face is glazed over in an expression I remember all too well from the summer after her mother died, when she and her father joined me in Sevastopol—how the girl joked around to lift her father’s spirits, though I was not oblivious to the makeup stains on her pillow every morning.