As the years passed, Tamara valued Olga’s independence of spirit and her courage more and more. Olga never lied, and she said what she thought. What she thought was almost always right, and it was what she had been taught at home. Tamara, because of her origins, her family history, and her not entirely Soviet upbringing, couldn’t share Olga’s convictions, or her enthusiasm and emotion. But Tamara would never have dared contradict her by even a single word, for fear of losing her friend, and because she didn’t want anyone—Olga above all—to be moved by her tragic alienness.
The friendship among the three of them continued all through their years at school. It was strong, but very lopsided: Olga talked, and her girlfriends listened and kept silent; one in rapture but without understanding, the other restrained and skeptical.
Tamara allowed herself to voice her thoughts—independently and compellingly—only in discussions about theater and literature, and about the trivial but fascinating goings-on at schooclass="underline" the history teacher’s new shoes, or the insidious behavior of Zinka Shchipakhina, a traitor and a cheat. Galya and Tamara tolerated each other for Olga’s sake.
In the fifth grade, Galya entered a class where her own true talent emerged: She was an athlete. She trained as a gymnast, and after the sixth grade she joined a team, first in the second-class division, and soon in the first. In the eighth grade she began training to receive the title of Master of Athletics. She had fulfilled all the requirements by the time she was fifteen, but she had to wait six months to receive the title officially, as it was only awarded to sixteen-year-olds. She became a school celebrity, though her grades were too poor for her to enjoy real renown. She was still a mediocre student, always looking over Olga’s shoulder.
Upon graduating from school, the unexpected happened: all three girlfriends got into college. Olga was accepted at the university (which in itself was completely predictable). Tamara, with her silver honors medal, was accepted at the Institute of Medicine. This was an exceptional achievement in the prevailing circumstances of the time. Galya, who had joined the Moscow youth team in artistic gymnastics, but still had a strained relationship with grammar, had been accepted at the Institute of Physical Education and Sports.
To celebrate this triple victory, a party was organized for their classmates at Olga’s home. Antonina Naumovna ordered all kinds of delicacies from the buffet of the House of Writers—pies, tarts, and canapés (only they would have known what these were!)—and nobly retreated to the dacha. Olga’s faithful knight Rifat, who had graduated two years before, volunteered to supply real pilaf. At exactly eight in the evening, he delivered it to the apartment in an enormous cauldron, hired from a restaurant at the Exposition of National Economic Achievements. His father was an Azerbaijani government official, with connections from the very highest to the very lowest levels.
The party was a complete success. Two boys and one girl got completely smashed. Vika Travina and Boris Ivanov finally went all the way, an achievement that had eluded them for a year and a half, despite wholehearted attempts. Another couple quarreled and broke up, which both of them regretted for the rest of their lives. And Raya Kozina broke out in hives for the first time—a malady that would beset her until her death.
Many, many things of great significance took place that night, but only one person, the hostess herself, failed to notice them. That night, she realized for the first time that she had been lucky from birth—whether endowed by nature, by the stars in the heavens, or by her genes. Until this day she had never been aware of her enviable lot. Now she was absolutely certain that there were many achievements in store for her, many victories, even triumphs. And the three handsomest boys—Rifat, the Persian prince, his mustache bracketing his mouth; his friend Vova, a student at the Moscow Aviation Institute, broad-shouldered and tallish, with a blond wave of hair above his eyes, like the popular poet Sergei Esenin in the early photographs where he is wearing a peasant blouse, but no jacket and tie; and Vitya Bodyagin, who had been stationed on a submarine for four years, newly discharged, with a striped sailor’s jersey under his dress shirt, in funny trousers with children’s clasps at the sides, and who would soon be starting at the faculty of philology with Olga—all of them looked at Olga with the hungry eyes of men, and with various shades of meaning: demanding, beseeching, searching, bold. With love, with propositions, with promises.
That would be something else! To think that I could just up and marry any one of them. Anyone I want! Olga was intoxicated with success and made a bet with herself that she would marry the one who would ask her for the next dance. She danced better than anyone else—both rock and roll and tango. And her waist was the slenderest, and her hair was the longest—though she had cut off the long braid she had grown tired of. But her hair, which still reached nearly to her waist, was reddish, with sparkling highlights. She looked at herself from the side and very much liked what she saw. Everyone liked her, the boys, and the girls, and the neighbors, and even the mothers on the parents’ committee.
They put on “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and the Comets—Rifat had brought the record. And everyone went wild. They soared to the music as if they were being carried off by the wind. The driving sounds and rhythms seeped into them. It wasn’t about gentle touching, but about collisions, outbursts, and yet more collisions, and the broad-shouldered Vova seemed to be throwing her from arm to arm. But had he asked her to dance? Four months later she would marry him.
They danced and drank, smoked on the balcony and in the kitchen. Then everyone got tired. Some people left late at night, others stayed till morning. Vika and Boris fell asleep in the parents’ bedroom, stunned by the earth-shattering event—their coitus, in other words. A long and happy marriage lay ahead of them, though they didn’t know this, not yet. On the rug in the living room there was a pile of people, about five of them, who hadn’t been as lucky. It reeked slightly of vomit.
Finally, everyone cleared out except the reliable Tamara and Galya. The girlfriends helped clean up all the traces of youthful reveling. They made coffee. They drank it like grown-ups out of the best tiny cups, but they still felt like they were just playing house, especially Galya. Toward evening, the two girlfriends left to go home, planning to get together again the following week. But the next time they saw each other was at the beginning of the following year. After graduation, life began spinning by at a breathless pace.
Tamara’s house on Sobachya Square was slated to reach the end of its life span, and the residents were removed. Tamara’s family was resettled in the distant outskirts of the city, in Workers’ Village, past Kuntsevo. The Molodezhnaya metro station was at that time still just a point on the blueprints of city planners.
Tamara energetically shuttled back and forth between her new home, her new job, and the medical institute. The year that they moved, Tamara’s beloved grandmother Maria Semenovna died. She had been a lifelong friend of the pianist Elena Gnesina; she had spent her whole life around this renowned family, working as a secretary in their musical sanctuary, the Gnesin Institute of Music. But the old lady from the Arbat was carried off by the catastrophe of resettlement.
The civil memorial service was held at the Gnesin Institute. Tamara, who had known this remarkable family since childhood, now saw what remained of them—there, in a wheelchair, sat the great Elena Fabianovna, founder of the only empire, a musical one, that had withstood the rise of Soviet power, and what’s more—something absolutely unthinkable at the time—survived it.