Berta hesitated because she had thought she had heard her name, but it was so badly mangled that it was nearly unrecognizable. “__,” she said, dropping the French. “__, ___ ___ Alshonsky.” Her heart was pounding in her chest. There was a sickly sweet metallic taste in her mouth. Black shapes drifted down through her field of vision.
“Now what is she speaking?”
“Russian, I think. But, Iris, listen.” And then to Berta she repeated: “Alshonsky.”
“Oui,” said Samuil hopefully. Then under his breath he added: “Open your eyes, Mameh. They’re watching you.”
“Iris… it’s that woman and her son.”
“No.”
“It is.”
“But she had a daughter too.”
“I’m telling you. It’s her.”
Iris turned back to Berta. “Alshonsky, right?” Samuil nodded vigorously. “Oh my goodness, we found her.” And then to Berta: “Mrs. Alshonsky, we’ve been looking all over Europe for you.”
Berta held on to the counter and tried to stop the room from spinning. Samuil caught her arm just as she was about to slip to the floor. “Look healthy, Mameh,” he whispered fiercely. “You have to look healthy.”
“Oh God, she’s ill. She’s going to faint.” Francis rushed around the counter and took her other arm.
“She is fine,” Samuil said in French. “She is healthy.”
“I’ll call a doctor,” Iris said, reaching for the phone.
Francis was already helping her to the bench. “No. She’s burning up. Call an ambulance.”
Across the hall a crowd of hopeful émigrés lined up at the windows, waiting to get their papers stamped. Their faces turned to watch the boy help his mother to the bench. They stared openly, not bothering to hide their interest. It didn’t seem to matter. The woman was obviously beyond caring. Her face was sickly white, glistening with sweat, her eyes bright with fever, and she was shivering, even though she was wearing a coat.
“Mrs. Alshonsky,” Francis said in her flat American accent. She crouched down in front of Berta and took her hand. “Hang on there, Mrs. Alshonsky. We’re calling an ambulance.”
“It’s no good, Mameh. They know you’re sick. They’re not letting us in,” Samuil said plaintively.
With a great effort of will Berta opened her eyes and for a brief moment she saw the concern on the girl’s face. She knew Samuil was right. It was hopeless. She didn’t know what to tell him. She didn’t know where he should go for help or how he was going to get there. There was no money left. The girl kept talking and, although Berta didn’t understand a word, she knew this young woman meant well. She could hear the sympathy in her foreign words.
“You’re going to be all right, Mrs. Alshonsky. We’re taking care of everything. We’ve been waiting for you. Your husband has been looking all over Europe for you.”
She seemed like such a nice girl and she wasn’t that young. Surely, she could take care of a child like Samuil. He was so smart and almost full grown. How hard would that be? Maybe she wanted a boy to take care of. Maybe she would be willing to be Samuil’s mother. In time she would love him. How could she not? She would see how special he is and eventually he would grow fond of her too.
“Do you understand, Mrs. Alshonsky? He’s been looking for you. He left word at all the embassies around Russia. You are an American citizen. You’re safe now.”
Berta leaned back as the blackness swirled behind her closed eyes. She could hear nothing now but the slowing beat of her heart. Samuil was in good hands, she could see that. This woman would take care of him. It would be all right. He was safe. She could sleep now. She didn’t have to fight anymore.
“What’s wrong with her?” the young woman said in clumsy French.
“She’s fine. She’s healthy,” Samuil answered desperately.
The last thing Berta heard was the woman replying, “No, she’s not fine. She’s not fine at all.”
And then she was riding in an open sleigh with Sura by her side. They were sailing down Petrovka Street, bundled up in furs and leather blankets, coming home from a party at the Kokorevs’. She could smell the signal bonfires at the intersections and hear the sleigh bells and the whoosh of the runners on the hard-packed track. There was a candle burning in one of the upper-story windows of a large house. It melted the frost on the glass in a perfect semicircle.
Are you happy, Mameh?
Very happy.
Sura looked up into the sky and closed her eyes. She let the snow fall on her face, icy and wet, thudding down on her cheeks and lips with down-feather softness. Berta put an arm around her daughter and breathed in the smell of her hair and felt her silky cheek, wet and cold against her own.
Epilogue
May 1921
THE FLIVVER was parked in front of the Hoenig Brothers hardware store and undertaker, a brick building adorned with new awnings and wrought-iron chairs that sat out in front. Painted on the side of the building was a huge sign proclaiming in big block letters THE FARMER UNION BETS ON YOU! Up the road, a work crew labored to lay down a new wood-block road. Hershel had talked the other business owners into pitching in for it. It will be good for business, he had told them. New roads for a new day.
Once they were settled in, Hershel pulled out the carburetor choke, pressed the starter button, and when she caught he released the brake. They drove out past the business section, which was still composed of mostly empty lots, but here and there were clapboard and brick buildings fronted with signs that said simply FURNITURE; LUMBER; SINGER SEWING MACHINE.
At the edge of town they passed bungalows with wide covered porches known by the names of the families who lived there: the Bronfstead house, the Kilbourn house, the Kempers’. Set back from the road was a large clapboard house hidden by a screen of bare branches. It needed paint and the widow’s walk was boarded up. This was the Leinenkugal house, husband and son killed in the war.
They drove on past the cemetery with its starched rows of white crosses. Here the farm boys of Barron County were laid to rest after the Great War. The war to end all wars. A few American flags had survived the snows of Armistice Day and were still stuck in the ground next to vases of dead flowers.
Since Hershel discovered that the power of the engine and the feel of the road could take him out of himself, he pressed down hard on the accelerator and kept his foot there, turning onto Highway 48 because it had just been graded and strewn with hay to keep down the dust. Soon they were doing nearly thirty on the straightaways, passing lines of mailboxes with Norwegian and Swedish names on them like Korvold, Vicklund, and Sjodahl. Occasionally, he glanced over at his son and was gratified to see how much he was enjoying the ride. He seemed to take everything in while he trailed a hand out the window, holding it stiff against the oncoming wind. For years Hershel dreamed of afternoons like this. Only he had thought there would be two children in the car.
To rid himself of this thought he stepped on the gas and they sped around a curve going too fast. He had to focus to bring the car back to equilibrium and that brought him out of his reverie, back to the road, to the day, to the rolling pasturelands and the puckered surface of a passing lake.
Eventually 48 got bad and Hershel had to slow down, but he was still content to ride along and listen to the drone of a well-tuned engine. They had the windows down and the split window shield open despite the gathering clouds. Soon there was a chill in the air that hadn’t been there before and the smell of fresh earth and rain. Fat drops began to fall on the windshield, mixing with the dust and insect splatter. Hershel pulled over to close the windows and thought about turning around, but just then the sky opened up again and brilliant rays of sunshine shot through the layers of clouds. They seemed to illuminate a part of the landscape not too far off. He took it as a sign that the rain was moving on. That they could keep going.