“Was Antonina Naumovna there?”
“Yes, Mama was there, of course, and my grandmother, whom I never once laid eyes on, and all the other familiar faces—Mikha, with some little kids, and Sanya was there, too, and Galya, with that creep of hers.”
“You mean the dead and the living were there together?”
“Well, yes, of course. And some little dog kept getting underfoot, and seemed to be smiling. And there was a sweet young girl named Marina. I’ve forgotten the name of the dog … Hera! Yes, the dog’s name was Hera! And there were many, many other people … And suddenly, just imagine, in the distance, right by the entrance, I see Ilya, and he waves to me from the very front of the line and calls out: ‘Olga! Olga! Come here! I’ve saved you a place!’
“And then I start to push my way toward him, and everyone gets upset because I’m going out of turn, and Mama asks me why I’m budging in line ahead of everyone else. Then a big old man with a beard appeared, he had a wonderful face, and I understood that this was my own grandfather, Naum. He waved his hand over the crowd to disperse them, and I ran up to the marquee. But it wasn’t a green marquee at all, it was a pavilion, all shining and golden. I look—and there’s Ilya, smiling, and waiting for me. He looks fine, very healthy and still young. He pulls me into the line next to him, placing his hand on my shoulder. And then Oksana appears, and she keeps trying to wriggle her way up to him, but he seems not to see her. And there was not really a door at all, but a thick piece of cloth, like a curtain, and then this curtain folds back, and there’s music coming from inside—I can’t describe it, and there’s a particular scent, something you can’t even imagine, and everything is shining.”
“A palace,” Tamara said breathlessly.
“Oh, Brinchik! What the hell kind of palace could it be?”
“Olga, don’t say hell!” Tamara said, horrified.
“Oh, all right, calm down. Have it your way—a palace, then. Words can’t describe it, in any case. So we went inside together.”
“And what did you see there, inside?” Tamara could hardly get the words out.
“Nothing. That’s when I woke up. A good dream, don’t you think?”
Olga died on the fortieth day after Ilya’s death.
LOVE IN RETIREMENT
Once a month, Afanasy Mikhailovich rose at five in the morning instead of the usual seven, shaved with special care, and changed his underclothes. He ate his bread with tea, pulled a woolen overcoat over the old army uniform jacket, and donned a hat with earflaps. In civilian attire he felt like someone wearing a crown at a masquerade. And, it was true, no one recognized him; even the guard who stood sentry at the entrance to the dacha settlement failed to greet him.
After yesterday’s snowfall, everything was as clean and fresh as it was after a spring cleaning. Afanasy Mikhailovich walked to the bus stop. The schedule was illegible, encrusted with a thick layer of snow, so he couldn’t tell when the next bus would come. He waited under the overhang at the stop. Two women were waiting for the bus, too—one a nurse, who didn’t recognize him, and the other a stranger. She also seemed to be a local, though. He turned away and began looking in the other direction.
He was on his way to a secret rendezvous with his sweetheart, Sophia, to grumble about things and mull over them, pouring out his heart—or whatever a general had in its stead, for there was certainly something—and listen to what she had to say about why he was suffering so.
She had a gift for getting to the heart of his troubles, and putting it into words. From that first day in 1936, when he was working in the department of construction at the People’s Commissariat of Defense and she showed up to work as his secretary, she had known how to find just the right words for all those things he couldn’t express himself.
She had never been wrong. Not once. She said just what needed to be said. Nothing more, nothing less. What was better left unsaid stayed that way. That’s how it was right up to 1949, with a break during the war. After the war, when Afanasy Mikhailovich was appointed head of the Military Construction School, he sought out his former secretary, and she rushed to his side again. They were like Aaron and Moses. He would mutter some incoherent, garbled words, and his subordinates would rush off to find Sophia for an explanation.
She was tactful, and had had a good upbringing. She received her upbringing in the girls’ gymnasium, which she attended until she was fifteen, at which time the gymnasium was shut down because of the Revolution. Her tact was a natural gift. Nature had also endowed her with copious beauty. She had thick brows and large eyes. Her regal head tilted back slightly from the weight of her luxuriant braid, twisted into a simple knot until 1949. After that she cut it off. Although Sophia was small in stature, her ample bosom inside her sizable blue and green dresses, her plump hands with their long red fingernails, and her broadly curving gestures gave the impression of a large woman. Oh, what largesse she had—not only in the salient points of her figure, but in her whole character. Her nickname was the Cow. And she really did resemble one—Europa the cow. But the general didn’t know this. He only knew she was a goddess. And he worshipped her. He was never plagued by the trifling thought that he might be betraying his wife. His wife was one thing; Sophia was another. Completely other. And if she hadn’t turned up in Afanasy Mikhailovich’s life, he would never have known that love was sweet, or what a woman was, and what profound solace she could bring to the troubled life of a builder.
In all those years she worked for him, right up till 1949, there was only one time, just at the end, that she put him in an awkward position. She knelt before him and buried her head in his gabardine jodhpurs, leaving a trace of red lipstick in an immodest spot. But what could he have done? No, don’t talk to me about your brother, he had said.
Why go to such lengths for your brother? he remembered thinking. You’re the one who needs saving. But she wasn’t.
The general was called before the administration and ordered to fire his secretary.
Although tongue-tied and inarticulate, he was still indispensable, a valuable asset. But his interlocutor—a young captain, blond, with stubbly remains of hempen locks, close-set eyes like a pale, washed-out figure eight, blue shoulder straps—didn’t care that he had fought at the front, that he was a distinguished general; they could at least have sent a colonel to question him.
“You’re trying to protect your mistress!” he said. “You know that I know that you know…”
“Well, do what you know, then,” Afanasy Mikhailovich said, retreating after the second hour of interrogation. “You have your area of competence, I have mine—bridges, roads, and access routes.”
The pale wisp smiled a cold smile, and nodded. But agreeing to fire her wasn’t enough for him. The haggling continued, step by step. It was like bargaining in business, but the captain kept turning the screws tighter and tighter. He knew everything—about what went on in the office, and about their secret rendezvous. He would drop oblique hints, avoid saying anything outright, and then—bam!—and didn’t you visit her on Dayev Lane? And didn’t you ever meet Sophia’s sister, Anna Markovna? A professor, isn’t she? And Iosif Markovich, her brother, an actor in the Moscow State Jewish Theater? You’re not acquainted with him?
Is Sophia the only one they’re after? he asked himself suddenly. He was drenched in sweat.
Are we quits, then? They were—and all it took was one signature. The next day a new secretary was sent to him, and Sophia was gone. For just over four years. At the beginning of 1954 she returned from the labor camp at Karaganda. Another year passed before they met again. And what a place to run into each other! It was at the market at Nakhabino, early one morning in June. Afanasy was buying radishes and carrots. It was Sunday, and guests were expected. Antonina Naumovna was bustling about, she had forgotten to send the housekeeper to the market. Afanasy Mikhailovich volunteered—glad to get out of the house to avoid the kitchen confusion. He went by himself in his private Pobeda, without the chauffeur.