Mikha’s family took up a great deal of Sanya’s time, and cut into his musical activities. He suffered over this, and had difficulty concentrating. Preoccupied with household worries and chores, he was forced to find a time and place in which to seclude himself with his beloved music, fleeing his family obligations.
He taught at the Conservatory. He didn’t have a heavy teaching load—it never exceeded twelve hours a week.
Thanks to Alyona, he had stopped being a foreigner in his own country. In any case, now he knew the address of the infant feeding center, and all the surrounding pharmacies and polyclinics. He began his mornings with a run to the infant feeding center, and the evening closed with a scheduled visit to Alyona. He knew he had to force her to swallow at least a spoonful of some sort of nourishment. Without Sanya she never sat down at the table at all. She spent the greater part of the day in bed, with her daughter. When the baby, Maya, got a bit older, Alyona, who was afraid of the people and noise out on the streets, began going out into the more secluded courtyard to walk with her, but only if Sanya accompanied them.
Late in the evenings, Sanya took out a musical score from a pile lying on the floor next to his bed. He lay down and leafed through it. Beauty and wonder. Mozart’s Concerto no. 23 for piano and orchestra. Evgeniya Danilovna had once told him a story about this concerto.
Stalin heard a performance by Yudina on the radio and demanded the record. There was no recording of the concerto on the face of the earth. That very night, they roused Yudina, the conductor, and a dozen members of the orchestra, and took them to the House of Sound Recording, duly recorded it, and by morning the only copy of the record was ready. Stalin generously rewarded Yudina. It is said that he sent her an envelope containing 20,000 rubles. She answered the leader with a letter: she had sent the money to a church, and she would pray for him that God would spare him despite his evil deeds. Stalin forgave her. He said she was a Holy Fool …
Sanya studied the Mozart concerto, and happiness broke over him like a wave, from his head to his feet. Stalin wasn’t the only one to have been overwhelmed on the spot by this piece. Sanya smiled, and closed the text. He turned out the light. Mozart himself was conversing with him. What more could he dream of? What better interlocutor, friend, confessor could he find? And he realized that he could endure Alyona after all.
* * *
Sadly, Sanya’s relations with his grandmother were unraveling. She never asked any direct questions, and Sanya didn’t consider it necessary to enter into explanations. Anna Alexandrovna was convinced that Alyona had lured her boy into an indecent romance with her, and was disappointed in her beloved grandson. At the same time, she saw the burden of care and responsiblity her spoiled Sanya had taken upon himself, and she admired his heroism. She suffered in the knowledge that Sanya was sinking ever deeper into the affairs of Mikha’s family, and was bitterly jealous of the unhappy Alyona, for whom she had so little sympathy. And, however irrational and ridiculous, she was jealous on Mikha’s behalf, considering him to be a deceived husband …
By virtue of the sins she ascribed to Sanya, Anna Alexandrovna felt a share in his guilt, and she didn’t write Mikha a single letter in three years, but sent him food packets and greetings through Ilya. She knew exactly what one needed to send to the prison camps, and she even baked special cookies in which she secreted fat and bouillon cubes, and then wrapped them in paper from the official Privet baked-goods brand. They didn’t allow anything homemade into the camps, but these fake Privet cookies contained an unheard-of number of calories. From time to time, she also sent money for Alyona.
She remembered very well how she had tenderly tried to dissuade Mikha from this marriage. And also: she was the only one who feared Mikha’s return. She anticipated scandal, revelations, unmasking, indecency. No, even more than that, she feared a catastrophe. What did she know, and what was presentiment?
Mikha forbade himself to count the days until his release; but he couldn’t help it. The fewer that remained, the stronger was his anxiety that they wouldn’t let him go. His friends were also counting the days.
It was, of course, very silly of them to assume that Mikha would be released in precisely three years, at exactly midnight on the day he was scheduled to go free. They already knew that he had been brought under convoy to Moscow, and that he was in Lefortovo Prison. They assumed, not without reason, that this was connected with the arrest of Sergei Borisovich, who, as they also knew, was in Lefortovo as well.
Three of them arrived at Lefortovo toward midnight—Ilya, Sanya, and Victor Yulievich. Ilya had an old jacket and new jeans in his rucksack. Ilya also brought a new pair of shoes for Mikha—true, they were one size too big, but they were fine ones.
There were three places from which Mikha might have been released: through the central entrance, the investigative offices, or the service entrance. The friends kept watch at these doors throughout the night and morning, until noon the next day. Then they went to inquire. A militarized-looking woman at a small window told them that Melamid had already left.
They rushed to call Mikha at home. Alyona came to the phone, and said in a quiet, remote voice:
“He’s home. Come.”
It turned out that they had released him at eight in the morning through the investigative offices, and his waiting friends had simply missed him. They got a taxi, and twenty minutes later they all tumbled into Mikha’s front entrance. The elevator was out of order. Sanya and Ilya flew up to the sixth floor via the stairs, and an aging Victor Yulievich, panting from exertion, followed, two floors behind. They waited until he caught up with them, then rang the doorbell. Mikha himself opened the door. Rather, it was a gaunt, colorless ghost of Mikha … Ilya lost no time remarking on this, trying to avoid any outburst of feeling the situation might otherwise have inspired.
“Well, you’re nothing more than a shadow!”
And Mikha laughed, suddenly himself again.
“I’m no shadow! I’m the skeleton of a shadow!”
Victor Yulievich raised his hand in a gesture familiar to them since childhood, and said:
“This to me
In dreadful secrecy impart they did;
And I with them the third night kept the watch;
Where, as they had delivered, both in time,
Form of the thing, each word made true and good,
The apparition comes…”
And everything seemed to fall back into place. They slapped one another on the back, pestered Mikha, and barged into the living room in a tumult. In spite of the former ideals of severity and asceticism, it was crammed with knickknacks and junk—a chair, a child’s bed, and even a curtain that partitioned the child’s sleeping corner from the rest of the room. The place was fast reverting to the appearance it had had during Aunt Genya’s time.
Maya, who had just been put down for her nap, woke up and began to howl. Alyona darted into the sleeping nook to comfort her, then brought the little girl out to see the guests. Maya stretched out her arms toward Sanya, the only one of the guests familiar to her. Sanya took her in his arms, and jiggled her gently up and down. She threw her arms around his neck, hugging him.
“What did you bring me?” she asked in a voice raspy from sleep.
Then he murmured something in her ear, and she smiled.
“Where?”
Sanya took a bright glass marble out of his pocket, and rolled it around on the palm of his hand. The girl snatched it like a little monkey.
Mikha watched the two of them jealously. The girl didn’t recognize her shy father. He was seeing her for the first time in her life, and he couldn’t yet grasp that this small creature, a living being with curly hair, big eyes, and busy little fingers, had come from him, from his great love for Alyona. It was still not completely comprehensible to him how these two things, the most important things in his life, were connected.