are buried together somewhere in a grave like this one. Perhaps in a deep warren of mud they found each other. Perhaps it is they who breathe and tell the grass to grow in such sharp hues to remind us that we are the temporal ones. We are the ghosts fading.
'How does one locate any one individual within this mass group?' the mother shouted at Tanya.
'One doesn't.' Tanya shouted back, slipping the notebook into her plastic bag.
'In the States,' the grandmother shouted, grave severity amplifying every word, 'each serviceman gets his own cross. A white one.'
'Well, not always—not at every cemetery,' now the girl piped up.
'You mean, they can get other colours if they want?' Tanya asked.
The grandmother opened her mouth as if to reply. She then seemed to think better of it and clamped her mouth shut.
Outside the memorial entrance they had to compete with a bridal entourage for a ride. They had no chance whatsoever, as the groom was well stocked with spirits and even some hard currency. Just when Tanya had all but given up a microvan careened toward them and the driver, a middle-aged man with a munificent smile of all gold teeth, urged them in, even going so far as to help with their luggage.
Once settled into the seat next to Tanya, the girl touched Tanya's elbow. 'Weren't there prison camps in this area?'
'McKayla has visited several concentration camps as part of her graduate thesis studies,' her mother explained. 'She is a student of atrocity, suffering, and other chaos.'
'She can't get enough of it,' the grandmother observed dryly.
Tanya felt the girl stiffen. 'Suffering—if beautifully done—is an art form.'
'If suffering is what you want to see, then Russia is full of it,' Tanya said carefully.
'But what about the camps? There were camps,' the girl persisted.
In the rear-view mirror Tanya saw the driver's eyes boring a hole in her forehead.
'There are still stories of such places,' Tanya whispered. 'Of course people don't like to talk, don't like to remember. Historical memory is not necessarily a blessing.'
'But it is your birthright,' the girl said, squaring her shoulders.
The driver ground the gears and the car rounded the corner to her street. Tanya's thoughts were a whirl. Acid rose to the back of her mouth. This girl sitting beside her—what a confusion, what a piece of chaos, what a strange contradiction she was. The babies, or rather, the foam replicas of the babies, whose lives had simply been foreshortened but were now remembered and loved by everyone who saw them, repulsed her utterly. But she couldn't wait to get out to Perm-36 where she would no doubt touch the fences where prisoners were routinely lined up and shot. This girl would fold her so-tall body into an isolation cell to see what such torture felt like for a mere twenty seconds and she'd look at the glass display case of bones and hair, shoes and glasses—the things that outlasted the men and women who'd died so horribly in a place that was nothing short of hell on earth. She would do this, and if not here in Perm, then somewhere else, Tanya was certain of it, because she felt entitled by distant heritage to some portion of collective suffering, as if suffering were something one could lay claim to and collect. As if this kind of suffering were something one should wish to remember.
The microvan suddenly lurched for the kerb. The driver hopped out as if his shoes were on fire. He opened the hood of the car and inspected the engine. There wasn't a thing in the world wrong with it, Tanya knew. He was simply feigning a breakdown so that he could affect a miraculous repair at the sight of a few extra roubles.
'What's wrong?' the grandmother asked.
'A small paper shortage,' Tanya said, climbing out. She fished in her purse and retrieved all the items she'd co-opted in the event of such an emergency: one of Zoya's bottles of nail-varnish remover, a vial of Russian Forest perfume, one of Daniilov's beloved wrenches. But the driver shook his fist and cursed bitterly at her anyway. They'd run out of petrol, really and truly, and nothing short of fuel falling from the sky would console him now. From a box beneath the dash, he withdrew three bottles of vodka and a garden hose, currency he'd co-opted in the event of such an emergency, and stood in the street, waving the bottles at passing cars.
'What now?' the mother asked.
'We walk,' Tanya said.
'But our bags,' the girl said.
Tanya hefted a bag onto her shoulder. 'They'll have to walk, too.'
***
Outside the news building the pigeons lifted from the trees. The skins of the lime trees had thawed and the sun shone horizontally just as it should this time of year. Whatever disaster was brewing inside the Red Star offices, it had not stalled the cautious approach of a new season. Olga trudged through the muddy square behind Arkady, who slowed every now and then to offer her his arm. When they reached the metal bench, Olga brushed aside some trash and sank down gratefully. Though sitting on metal benches, according to Vera, put the ovaries in jeopardy, Olga was long past the age of caring about such things. And sitting, she'd learned from her years at the Red Star, made a shaky situation more stable, dropping nearly any disaster to a more manageable altitude.
Arkady lowered himself carefully beside Olga. 'Thank God!' he sighed. 'I hated that job.'
Olga started. 'I thought you liked that job!'
'I hated every minute of it. The only reason I have stayed on this long is because of you. Because, Olga Semyonovna, I have always liked you.'
Olga stared mutely at Arkady.
'In fact,' Arkady continued, 'from the first day I saw you, I loved you. All these years I have pried myself out of bed and trudged to work only because I knew you would be there. That we would talk, however briefly. That we would drink a little tea, however lukewarm, together.'
'I had no idea, no idea whatsoever,' Olga muttered, her numb gaze trained on Arkady's shoes.
'You possess a rare and noble soul and though I cannot offer you much, you have my heart, if you want it, and of course, my unfailing admiration.'
'Why?'
Arkady blinked rapidly. 'Because of the nature of our work and the quintessential nature of who we, Jews, are—lovers of words and seekers of wisdom. We have suffered alongside each other and, therefore, we understand each other.'
As he was speaking something liquid shifted behind Olga's ribs, something anciently familiar, light and heavy at the same time. Olga jolted upright on the bench for sheer shock of it. Could she really be feeling the first giddy rushes of the possibility of love? And for such a man as Arkady? And Olga could not help allowing herself to smile. 'It's quite a lot to consider. All at once, that is,' Olga managed at last.
Arkady rose to his feet and laid his gloved hand over hers. 'That is all I ask. Consider it. Incidentally, this is for you.' Arkady withdrew an envelope from his coat pocket, then pulled his coat collar around his neck and walked across the square.
Olga watched him go. Then she looked at the envelope, considering just what might be inside. At last she opened it. Inside was an official-looking letter and attached to the letter an official-looking card. The idiot card.
At the edge of the square Arkady had stopped to look at her sitting there on the bench, the letter opened on her lap, the card in her hand. They observed each other from across the square. Olga tipped her head, considering Arkady. That word consider tied her eyebrows in a knot. Built from the Latin root siderus, the word rested on two meanings. Just like the old parables in which two images lie next to each other and forced meaning from the ground between them, this word demanded that she reconcile two seemingly unlike meanings from the common core: 'to observe the stars'. But the other meaning: 'desire'. The very thought of the word was enough to make the ovaries jump—and her on a cold metal bench!