Although initially Viktor rarely showed his face in the village and never at the school, he spent days on end in the attic, working on a treatise or apologia of some kind. Galina seemed pleased with his presence, and Alya had expressed delight at seeing him but really preferred Petr and Sasha. She found Viktor aloof, even when he played with her. Horses had never appealed to Viktor, so he could not appreciate her joy in riding around the corral on her pony, Scout. What he did enjoy was making Goran Youzhny’s acquaintance and being introduced to the fine art of photography. As for Sasha, Viktor treated him as a nonentity. Anyone earning his keep as a teacher or school director was, by his definition, feckless. People with real talent became writers and journalists and engineers. Nothing but failures who couldn’t do anything else became professors and teachers.
Underlying Viktor’s anti-intellectual attitude toward pedagogues was the simple fact of his failure to do graduate fieldwork in linguistic anthropology. Although he had attended college at the expense of the state, he expected the state’s largesse to extend to a year in Africa, despite his dull academic record. When the state balked, Viktor grew disconsolate and then resentful. Denouncing all scholarship as fatuous, he became a polemicist, living at first on the money his brother earned and then, so long as he raged against Lukashenko, on an OGPU subsidy. No one denied that Viktor had the intelligence and writing skills to compose a first-rate treatise or book. But what he wrote in the attic was a full and false account, sent to the Ryazan OGPU, of his and Razumov’s efforts to keep Petr from revealing the planned attempt on Lukashenko’s life.
Unbeknownst to Viktor, Razumov had been suspended without pay and put on the “Watch” list. His career as a secret policeman appeared to have ended in disgrace—until Viktor’s long and detailed history of events arrived. Using every literary device, including the favorite Soviet “although” opening, he had composed a narrative that exuded the very essence of truth. It acknowledged mistakes (small ones) and blamed himself for overreaching (a prerequisite of Soviet apologies). But he forcefully argued that the botched assassination was owing to the treachery of Petr Selivanov and to his “minders” (he and Razumov) not watching Petr closely enough. He apologized for his and Razumov’s failure, and insinuated that he would never inform Lukashenko’s people of the OGPU’s hidden hand in the matter. The implication, of course, was that in return for his silence, he could always count on OGPU support.
Why Viktor had gone to such lengths to exculpate Razumov was a different story. For all his own anger and self-serving conduct, he had long felt ashamed of his failure to protect his sister from his drunken father. Razumov’s fond regard for Relitsa, probably the only person Viktor had ever truly loved, was a debt he needed to repay. This letter would settle the account.
Sasha disliked Viktor from the moment he’d read Petr’s diary. He thought then that Petr’s suspicions were entirely justified. In Ryazan, he had found Viktor self-absorbed and consequently selfish. Now that they were living under the same roof, he disliked him even more, regarding him as underhanded and unscrupulous. Sasha and Galina had resumed intimacies after Petr’s departure, but with the arrival of Viktor, she became distant. Her previous passion returned only briefly when Viktor and Goran retired to the Balyk Inn, on the edge of town, to carouse. The inn was a converted barn that an enterprising farmer, Fyodor Kolchak, had fitted out as a tavern. The police periodically shuttered the place because private enterprise was illegal; but as soon as they left, usually with their fill of vodka, Kolchak reopened. Here, at a corner table, Viktor and Goran liked to huddle, ostensibly talking about photography, though Kolchak whispered that the talk often focused on politics.
Sasha gathered that Goran’s Leningrad family had ties to the Right Opposition, influential ties that reached to the inner sanctum of the Politburo. If Goran’s family had been fishing in those conspiratorial waters, they might find themselves snagged on their own hooks. But why would Viktor, always ready to change sides, find any appeal in a losing cause? And the Right Opposition was certainly a lost cause. Perhaps Viktor had in mind getting his hands on personal property and selling it for a profit before the government made all such activities illegal. Or perhaps the Right Opposition didn’t even come into his thinking, but rather he saw in Goran’s photography a way of advancing his own interests, whatever they might be; or perhaps he was merely trying to appropriate Goran’s lab. He did buy a number of artistic photographs from Comrade Youzhny, all bearing on some physical aspect of the school: a broken chimney, a cracked window, a roof missing a few slates, unpainted siding, water-stained books in the toolshed, a withered apple tree, a weather-beaten bicycle pump lying in the grass.
Shortly after Viktor’s arrival at the farmhouse, Sasha heard him steal into Galina’s room late one night and her say, “Not here! Are you mad? Alya’s sleeping in the alcove.” Then Sasha had the impression that Galina, who often entered the kitchen before bedtime to make a cup of hot milk, had returned not to her bedroom but to the attic. He dared not spy lest he invite her disdain for such conduct, which she called “Bolshevik behavior.” But with each passing week, his suspicions grew, particularly since he had overheard Viktor tell Galina that he didn’t trust Sasha, and that something about Comrade Parsky wasn’t right. The conversation included the following:
“I felt uneasy when he first came to Ryazan bearing condolences. The man is hiding something.”
“What might that be?” asked Galina.
“I don’t know, but no one is innocent.”
Then he had made his signature clicking sound, the same one that he had made on the beach below the Kremlin—by pulling the tip of his tongue down abruptly and forcefully from the roof of his mouth.
Sasha tried to imitate him. Click, cluck, clack. He sounded like a lame chicken. But he continued trying and eventually realized that to increase the effect he had to pucker his lips. Retracted lips muffled the sound. Before long he had become quite adept.
Overhearing that conversation had led Sasha to burn Petr’s diary and to ask Brodsky’s advice. But there was a difficulty: How could Sasha represent the situation without incriminating himself? He wished that Petr were present to give him some insight into Viktor. But given Petr’s absence, all Sasha could think of telling Brodsky was that he suspected Viktor of trying to seduce Galina, an embarrassing admission and a weak excuse for wishing him ill.
“Has she complained to you?” asked Brodsky.
“No, but then she wouldn’t because he’s an old friend.”
After smoking a cigarette and lightly running a hand along his bookcase, as if absorbing the wisdom of the ages through his fingertips, he stopped behind Sasha’s chair. “Denounce the bastard!”
“For what?”
“Make up something, like being involved in that Ryazan mess. You said he hated Lukashenko.”
✷
With Viktor at the farmhouse, Galina clearly felt compromised. She had no interest in marrying Sasha, but she found that their lovemaking had enriched her fondness and deepened her appreciation of his concern for her future and Alya’s. Not long after Viktor arrived, Galina confided in Sasha that Viktor had told her that he wanted to share her bed, and hinted at more, though what the “more” amounted to, he had failed to spell out, merely dropping hints, all of them pointing to Sasha.
With the fall term winding down, Viktor expressed an interest in quitting his isolation in the spring and becoming a teacher, without pay. He proposed a linguistics course. Sasha had his reservations, knowing Viktor’s views about teaching. More important, would such a position be a signal to Viktor that he could remain at the farmhouse? He could hardly live elsewhere when he was a wanted man. To remain off the books as an unpaid teacher would raise eyebrows and perhaps lead to an investigation. And how was Viktor supporting himself? All that Sasha or anyone else knew was that fortnightly, Viktor received a packet addressed to Ivan Goncharov, clearly someone’s idea of a jest, since Viktor was no novelist. Sasha knew that his best interests would be served by refusing Viktor a teaching position and sending him packing. If not for Galina’s objections, he would have done both. She begged Sasha, in light of the death of Viktor’s brother, to give Viktor a temporary appointment and permit him to remain at the farmhouse until he could find other lodging.
“He has no papers,” Sasha objected.
“Since he arrived, he has made friends with Goran, who introduced him to Bogdan. And Bogdan . . .”
Sasha interrupted. “Is a forger!”
“Then you know.”
“May I ask where your information came from?”
“The locals. And yours?” she asked.
“Avram.”
“You ought to get out more often,” she said conspiratorially. “The villagers have a lot to say about Bogdan Dolin.”
“Such as?”
She told him that Bogdan was known to have a healthy dislike of authority, and always acted alone. A silent man, and a sullen one, he had previously owned a printing press that churned out counterfeit passports and rubles. At the time of his arrest, one of the officers was heard to say that Bogdan’s rubles were nearly perfect. The only thing lacking was the right kind of paper, which Bogdan had no way of buying since it was the preserve of the Soviet treasury. A high wall of his making, that surrounded his bungalow, had led to speculation that, as before, he supported himself by forging documents for wealthy people and government officials in flight from the country.
“Soviets!” exclaimed Sasha. “The story grows more bizarre with each passing minute. It makes no sense.”
“That’s what I said, until Viktor reminded me that apparatchiks regularly fall out of favor. If you needed travel papers to disappear in the East, say, where would you go? The government wouldn’t oblige you. So you’d find someone like Bogdan. It makes perfect sense.”
“Now I know where Viktor will get his new papers and passport.”
“And Goran will provide the photograph.”
“What does he gain out of it?”
“Good question. Viktor hasn’t said, but I intend to find out.”
✷
With box camera and tripod in hand, Goran continued to beg Brodsky to sit for a photograph, but Avram refused his requests. The result was an ugly scene that took place in the town square, where Goran had set up his camera in the back of a covered wagon and covertly snapped pictures of Avram, who was watching with dozens of others as two men led a couple of male lambs, each a year old and without blemish, into the square to be slaughtered in anticipation of Easter. The men, accustomed to killing, were dressed in rubber aprons and galoshes. Father Zossima was present and could be heard, by those at his side, mumbling Easter prayers. Brodsky was thinking of another holiday, one that he alone among the villagers knew by its proper name, “Korban Pesach” (Passover). As a child he had read in the Old Testament from Numbers 9:1–2, “And the Lord spake unto Moses in the Wilderness of Sinai, in the first month of the second year after they were come out of the land of Egypt, saying, Let the children of Israel keep the passover at his appointed season.” The men and women of Balyk, formerly observant Greek Catholics and now forbidden to practice their faith, still maintained certain traditions, whether or not they even knew their sources. How many Christians, mused Avram, have any idea that Easter began as a Passover service? The locals certainly knew what it meant to be passed over, in every sense of those words, since the most prosperous villages were those free of Soviet control, and free of illiteracy and illness. At the back of Avram’s head echoed the words he’d been made, as a child, to memorize: “For the LORD will pass through to slay the Egyptians; and when he sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the LORD will pass over the door, and the plague shall not be upon you.”
The crowd circled the two men who pulled the lambs by ropes attached to their necks. One of the lambs stumbled and fell to its knees. The shorter of the two men grabbed the lamb by its neck hairs and forced it to its feet. The other man produced a sickle that caught the glint of the sun. A minute later, both lambs lay dead in a pool of blood, as an excited howl rose from the crowd and then faded. A farmer, standing only a few feet from the wagon, heard the click of a camera. Thinking that his own picture had been taken, and superstitiously believing that photographs stole a man’s soul, he cried out that a devil was lodged in the back of the wagon. With Goran’s exposure, Avram insisted he relinquish the photographic plates or destroy them on the spot. Goran refused. An argument ensued. When the older man reached for the camera, Goran fled the scene leaving behind his tripod and jacket. Avram swore to bring a charge against Goran but instead asked Sasha to expel the young man from his lab. Caught between the two warring parties, Sasha asked Goran to erase the plates—in his presence. Goran complied, complaining that the destruction of a valuable photographic record was a state crime. Sasha scoffed and reported back to Avram that the matter had been settled amicably. For the nonce, no more was said, though Avram continued to complain and Goran kept his lab.
By now, Viktor and Goran had become kindred spirits. Only a few steps from the farmhouse, the lab provided Viktor an opportunity to learn photography, an emerging field. To Sasha’s dismay, Goran bragged that he was teaching Viktor about hidden cameras and altered photographs. Perhaps worse, Goran had introduced Viktor to Bogdan and to the art of what . . . forgery? The three fellows, frequently seen together, seemed a strange trio, ranging in age from twenty-one to fifty-eight. Viktor had just turned thirty. When Sasha asked Viktor about his interest in photography, Viktor replied he could take pictures of the lip and mouth formations that created alveolar clicking sounds, and that such images would prove useful in the linguistics course Sasha had agreed to his teaching in the spring. Then Viktor placed his tongue on the roof of his mouth and made a loud click, as he habitually did on entering and leaving a room or punctuating a point. Was it his way of saying “I know click languages,” or did it have some personal meaning that only Viktor could fathom? Sasha found his enigmatic behavior vexing, but Galina often seemed blind to Viktor’s social maladroitness.
Shortly before the start of the spring semester, Viktor showed up in Sasha’s office to tell him that he had papers and a passport in the name of Ivan Goncharov, and that Sasha needn’t worry if the secret police came snooping around. “I’m now official,” said Viktor, “so you can safely introduce Ivan Goncharov to the other faculty members.” Given that Viktor had never appeared on campus, he was a stranger to the other teachers; and Goran, at Viktor’s request, had sworn to keep his friend’s real name unspoken. Although the teaching staff and students had often whispered about the “new” man staying at the farmhouse, no one had had the courage to ask. In fact, shortly after Viktor’s arrival, it was bruited about that the new man was Galina’s brother and that the director would also find him a place in the school. So when Sasha announced that Viktor would be teaching a course in linguistics, the other teachers, assuming that their own salaries would suffer from the addition of another person, made known their displeasure. But when Sasha explained that Comrade Goncharov was teaching for nothing, smiles replaced sneers.
Viktor set out immediately to ingratiate himself with the other teachers, a task that he accomplished handily with the help of Goran’s camera and tripod (eventually returned), and Goran’s painstaking instructions. Posing each of the teachers in his or her favorite setting, Viktor flattered the staff with his portraits, which in fact were handsomely done, owing to Goran’s lessons and artistic flare for developing and framing. The teachers nearly swooned. In no time, Ivan Goncharov was a favorite of his colleagues, who chuckled at his name but never dared to call him Oblomov, the title of the famous author’s novel and a name associated with laziness.
Students took to Viktor at once, fascinated by his subject and his skill at producing click sounds of every tone and variety. For all his natural reticence, he came alive in front of a class. The school soon buzzed that the hot new topic and teacher were linguistics and Ivan Goncharov. Galina was pleased that Viktor had a new view of teaching. Sasha was less enthusiastic, not because of any failing in Viktor’s classroom performance, but because he worried that the man would never decamp from the farmhouse. At the end of the first week of school, however, Viktor surprisingly announced, with a click of his tongue, that he was moving in with Bogdan Dolin. He retreated to the attic, packed his belongings, and exited with another alveolar click.
“No good will come of this move. Mark my words. You’ll see,” Sasha observed.
“I thought you wanted him gone,” Galina replied. “You ought to be delighted.”
“The next thing you know, we’ll hear that Goran has left his digs at Bella Zeffina’s house and joined Viktor at Bogdan’s.” Galina said nothing. “I tell you, they are an unholy trio.”
With a puckish smile, Galina said, “We’ll have privacy again.”
“Not entirely,” he corrected her. “There’s still the lab, and you can bet Goran and Viktor will be spending a lot of time there, up to no good.”
“You are entirely too suspicious. One would think that you had something to hide.”
“It’s the times.”
“Well,” she said, making for the door, “I can’t argue with that.”
✷
A prolonged period of rain plagued Balyk, causing cellars to flood, roofs to leak, and roads to become boggy. The horse-driven sleds that glided so easily on the winter ice were useless in the ankle-deep mud. Then, too, there was the fog that marinated the countryside. Thick clouds hung in every valley, and the sky overhead seemed low enough to touch. Unlike the rains of April and May, February precipitation was a cold harbinger of the uncomfortable months ahead. Clothes took days to dry, even when hung near a stove; electrical circuits, never dependable at best, short-circuited; and the generator at the Michael School sputtered and frequently plunged classrooms into darkness. Any motorist foolish enough to drive his vehicle in such wet weather was sure to experience an electrical failure. Only the local storyteller appreciated the foul conditions, which made her tales of mermaids, water sprites, and demons all the more present. Bella Zeffina invited the local children to come to the elementary school on Saturday afternoon to hear her tell the tale of the water snake. In the meantime, she said, “Be careful. Bad dreams are related to water.” Alya begged to attend. Galina shrugged and said, “Why not?” and Sasha told her to dress warmly and take her galoshes.
Bella Zeffina, considered by the locals as something of a sorceress, loved children, kept a clean house, cooked Polish dishes for her husband, Max Zeffin, who had come from Lvov, and had an inexhaustible supply of folktales that she shared with the children on special occasions. The current forty-day rainfall qualified as an unusual event. With her dimpled cheeks and elbows, round face, pale blue eyes, and flaxen-gray hair done up in a coiled hank, she rested her heavy body on a stool, rolled up her wool socks, pulled her knitted shawl tightly around her shoulders, lowered her eyelids, and began.
Once upon a time, an old woman like me had a daughter. (Bella, in fact, had lost a young daughter to smallpox.) Her name was Abigail. While she was swimming in the local pond, a snake, who introduced himself as Vikenti, which means “conquering,” came out of the water and rested on her clothes, which she had spread on a bush. When Abigail left the pond, she discovered the snake, who said, “If you want your clothes back, you’ll have to marry me.” Well, Abigail couldn’t walk home without any clothes on, so she agreed, thinking that it was nonsense that a girl and a snake could wed.
Arriving home, she told her mother what had happened. Her mother scoffed at the very idea of a human being and a reptile being joined in marriage. And there the matter stood, because both the mother and daughter forgot all about it. But several weeks later, the snake wriggled up to Abigail’s cottage. Finding the windows and doors locked, Vikenti stole into the house through the chimney, which left him covered with soot and resembling a demon. Abigail tried to run out of the house, but Vikenti caught her, carried her back to the pond, and dragged her into the water. On the bottom of the pond, he miraculously turned into a well-spoken young man, explaining that out of the water he became a snake but under the water he was a human. Abigail and Vikenti lived submerged for several years and had one daughter, Alina, which means “bright and beautiful.” One day, Abigail said that she wanted to visit her mother and show off her daughter. Vikenti agreed. Abigail asked him how she could return to the bottom of the pond after she returned from seeing her mother. Vikenti told her to call his name three times. Abigail spent a week with her mother and related how good her life was at the bottom of the pond. One day, her mother asked was there some secret to reentering the water? She said she need only call her husband’s name three times.
Then Abigail’s mother stole from the house, went to the edge of the pond, and called “Vikenti, Vikenti, Vikenti.” When he surfaced, he appeared as a snake. The mother, who had brought with her a sharpened axe, cut off the head of the snake, causing the water in the pond to grow dark with blood. On learning of her mother’s betrayal, Abigail took her daughter to the pond and wept and wailed, calling Vikenti’s name. But all she heard was the silent lapping of the water among the lily pads. Knowing some of Vikenti’s magic, a sorrowful Abigail turned her daughter into a wren and herself into a nightingale, and they both flew off on the wind, never to return.
For some reason, Galina felt uncomfortable listening to Alya retell the story. She had always feared snakes, but was that the reason for her discomfort? That night, she recounted to Sasha the story and her response to it. Perhaps he could provide some insight into her feelings. He pondered her words and after a long pause, remarked gnomically, “The earth and snake alike renew their skins, and that is when the world’s new age begins.”
Trouble arose before the rains ceased. A note appeared on the school bulletin board saying cryptically, “Sasha Parsky’s time is over.” The author of the note was a mystery. Had it come from a teacher, a student, a parent? No one knew. If it constituted some kind of cabal, Sasha thought he’d better learn more, if possible. He spoke individually to his teachers, but though all of them had seen the note and it had become a source of whisperings, the staff disclaimed any knowledge of the writer. Perhaps in fear of inviting the director’s suspicions, the teachers never met in groups, but rather entered into colloquy two by two. A week passed and nothing further untoward occurred. But in the second week, another note appeared: “Director Parsky OUT!” It was then that Sasha glimpsed the intent behind the two notes. They were not intended to scare him but to get him to relinquish the directorship of the school. Brodsky had experienced similar events, so he might be able to tell Sasha which teachers were acting behind his back to expel him.
As usual, Brodsky sat reading and smoking. On hearing Sasha’s story, he skeptically said:
“It doesn’t sound like one of the old-timers. They’d complain directly to the secret police. Have you heard from Filatov?”
“Nothing.”
“Then I would assume that someone is trying to organize an internal coup.” He paused just long enough to light a new cigarette from the old one. “What about this new fellow you’ve told me about?”
“Viktor Harkov is quite capable of rabble-rousing, but why would he want to plot against me?”
Brodsky, wearing a worn cardigan covered with food stains, shook his head in disbelief. “Simple. He wants your job.”
Sasha noticed that Avram’s sweater was missing a button. For some reason, he wondered where it had gone. His mind wandered. Only slowly did he bring his attention back to what Avram had said. Viktor would be the last person to want the directorship. It would mean being vetted by the secret police. In no time, his betrayal in Ryazan, and his connection to Lukashenko, would be known. Surely Viktor wasn’t foolish enough to think that a forged passport with the name Ivan Goncharov would pass scrutiny by the OGPU, renamed the NKVD. Perhaps Viktor had someone else in mind to become director, someone who would defer to Viktor and treat his support not grudgingly, but devoutly, unlike Sasha’s attitude. If so, who would that person be?
“Which of the teachers,” Sasha asked, “was particularly bitter over your original appointment and wanted to replace you?”
Brodsky laughed, bringing on a coughing fit. Spitting into the fire, he hoarsely replied, “All of them, but especially Olga Oborskaia. She felt that teaching physics entitled her to a higher academic position, since physics and math are harder to master than the other disciplines, except perhaps for chemistry. But I long felt that Vera Chernikova, for all her surface sweetness, would have been glad to join Olga in a palace coup. There has always been among the staff an undercurrent of rivalry: those trained in the physical sciences against everyone else.”
“You’re telling me that Olga or Vera or both would conspire to gain my position? If Viktor is stirring the pot, he presumably has most of the staff on his side. I seem to have lost this game.”
“Then strike first.”
“How?”
“I’ve told you before: Denounce him.”
✷
Although he abhorred snooping, Sasha used his passkey after hours to enter the classroom-offices of his teachers. In almost every instance, the filing cabinets and desks were securely locked. Where a drawer was accessible, nothing of importance was found. On the desk of Vera Chernikova he found a diagram of a mouth, designating the various parts of the oral cavity: lips, gingiva (gums), hard and soft palates, uvula, papillae of tongue, palatine tonsil, tongue, and the teeth. At the bottom of the page in small script were the letters “c.c.” He came away from his nocturnal endeavors disappointed.
Without telling Galina about his unsuccessful search, he asked her help to locate the person behind the notes. Her own distaste for surveillance of any kind rendered her reluctant to do anything more than keep an eye on the bulletin board. Sasha felt that given all his favors, at the least she could ingratiate herself with the staff and try to find out if a plot was afoot. Galina refused. Her open disdain for becoming what she called a “mole” reinforced Sasha’s fears that she and Viktor were lovers. He told himself he had cause for concern. On one occasion, he had found them in the farmhouse alone, after Viktor had taught his one class and Galina had returned home for lunch. When he walked in, they averted their eyes and stuttered through explanations that Sasha found unconvincing. His original impulse had been to enlist Alya’s help, but he could not bring himself to induct a child into the filthy business of spying. Now he wasn’t so sure. With Galina refusing to cooperate, his thoughts once again turned to Alya. He might just use her after all, but he would have to be subtle in his approach. She was much too clever to fall for some obvious ruse.
“We have to find out Viktor’s birthday so we can prepare a party for him. Wouldn’t that be nice, Alya?”
“Why not just ask him?”
“That would give the whole thing away.”
“Maybe Mamma knows.”
“She and Viktor are such good friends, I think if she asked he’d know in a minute.”
“But what if she already knows?”
“Well, that’s different.”
“But we must keep it all a secret.”
“I’d never tell. There are a lot of things I know that I never repeat. Mamma says I’d make a good soldier.”
“Really? I would never have guessed that you knew secrets.”
“A lot of them.”
“Well, maybe someday you’ll tell me one or two of them.”
She reflected for a moment and said, “Maybe.”
This conversation took place shortly after Galina rejected his plan as unsavory. Sasha and Alya were in the barn brushing Scout, she on one side, he on the other. Each had a strong-bristled brush that came with a handstrap. As they stroked the pony, he punctuated his comments about animal husbandry with his questions. She seemed intent on the job at hand and gave no indication that he was trying to use her. In fact, when she had said that she knew “things,” he had let the conversation trail off so that his wordlessness would sink in, providing an impulse to talk. As she brushed the animal’s mane, she ran her hand through the hair and let it fall lazily off to one side.
“I once saw Viktor do this with Mamma.”
“Do what?”
“Run his hand through her hair.”
“Well, he is, after all, a good friend.”
“I think he loves her.”
Sasha smiled at Alya but deliberately failed to respond. After a long pause, she added: “That’s why I stayed with the Baturins when she went to see him.”
“Oh?”
“She didn’t want me along. I know that.”
“Well, I get the impression they must have quarreled, because they’re not so friendly of late.”
Alya blurted, “Yes, they are!”
“When I see them at school,” Sasha lied, “they hardly speak.”
“I can sometimes hear them at night.”
“Talking?”
“One of the boards in the attic is loose.”
“Where? I must fix it.”
“Over our bedroom, near the closet. I sometimes crawl into the closet and listen. The time Benjie ate with us, he listened too.”
“Alya, you really shouldn’t . . . unless it’s important.”
She made no reply. They put away the brushes, swept up, and returned to the farmhouse. Alya said nothing more about it for the rest of the day; but on the following afternoon, after returning from her tutoring lesson, she coyly said to Sasha:
“My teacher taught us the meaning of the word ‘discreetness.’ She said discreetness is a kindness, and its opposite can hurt people. But she also said sometimes it’s right to report what we know.”
“Know what?”
“What you were talking about: important things.”
Galina’s untimely entrance put an end to the discussion, except for Alya telling her mother that she had learned several new words, and one of them was “discreetness.”
“It’s a good word to know, my dear Alya, and an even better one to put into practice,” Galina advised as she went to her room.
The child shook her head and ran off. Sasha sighed in relief, immensely glad she was not indiscreet.
A few minutes later, a loud click outside announced Viktor’s presence. He had made an appointment to see Galina and hoped that Sasha would excuse them while they talked.
“It’s about a memorial stone for my brother,” said Viktor.
Sasha started for the barn to find Alya. But he caught a glimpse of Goran and stopped at the photo lab. Goran had several wooden packing cases in which he was carefully loading his equipment.
“Are you moving?” asked a surprised Sasha.
“The rains have made the walls sweat and I see evidence of mold. So I plan to transfer the lab to Bogdan Dolin’s bungalow. He’s offered me a dry spot at the back of the house.”
“Do you plan to move in or will you continue to board with the Zeffins? She’s quite a storyteller,” said Sasha, hoping to dissuade Goran from leaving the Zeffins high and dry without a boarder.
“Oh, I have no intention of living elsewhere. It’s just the lab that I’m moving. But thank you for allowing me to use this space and disrupt the routine of your house. I have some good portraits of you and Galina and Alya. I’ll crop and frame them by May Day.”
“Can I give you a hand?”
“No thanks, I’ll be fine. I’ve even arranged for a car to transfer the cases.”
“A car?”
“My uncle.”
“Of course.”
They shook hands and Sasha continued into the barn. As expected, Alya was grooming her pony. Wordlessly, Sasha picked up a brush and joined her. After a temporary lull in the rain and a brief burst of sunshine, dark clouds moved in again. Several minutes had passed, and neither he nor Alya had spoken. He often felt that their silent times together were more affectionate than their spoken ones. Silence, he had concluded, speaks more fondly than words. Although it can serve ill, as when one person won’t speak to another owing to anger, it can also serve good, as when people are spellbound in the presence of some wondrous moment or thing; or when strong feelings render one mute. The examples were endless. Why, he asked himself, didn’t he write a treatise on the subject and root it in some historical event? Such a paper might advance his career. Too many teachers and academics with fruitful ideas never shared them in print. Why did so many in his profession find it hard to write? Their ideas, when spoken, often revealed first-rate minds, but their unwillingness to take up pen and paper argued . . . what? Lassitude? Indiscipline? A busy life? Fear of rejection? He had read enough scholarly papers in his young life to know that not all ideas or arguments were transcendent. Did self-doubts inhibit the profession?
“You’re not listening,” said Alya. “I just told you something.”
“Sorry, I was daydreaming.”
“Mamma tells me to pay attention and not go wool gathering.”
“She’s quite right. Now what were you saying?”
“The last time I hid in the closet I could hear Mamma snipping at Uncle Viktor. She told him to find another place to live.”
“Really?”
“Aren’t you glad?” She smiled devilishly. “I am.”
“I know what you mean.”
“She also was mad at him because of someone called C.C. Those were the letters she used, C.C.”
“And what did he say?”
“That he had been teasing.”
Sasha weighed the wisdom of asking what he wanted to know most. After a few false starts, he said, “Does the floor creak a lot? I mean the loose board. Does it sound as if I should fix the floor so the bed doesn’t fall through?”
Alya shrugged. She no longer had any interest in the subject.
Returning to the house, Sasha heard Viktor’s familiar click as he left. Asking Galina to join him for tea at the kitchen table, Sasha filled the kettle and waited for it to boil. Touching her hand, he slowly gave voice to his fears.
“I have a feeling—mind you, it’s only a feeling—that Viktor would like to see me replaced as director of the school.”
“Replaced by whom?”
The water boiled. As Galina mutely watched, Sasha filled their cups and spooned in generous portions of honey.
“By Olga or Vera.”
“You must be mad!”
“I can’t prove it, but I feel it.”
“Since when have you put so much reliance in feelings? You’re always advising your staff to think before acting.”
“I’m not acting on my feeling, I am simply sharing it with you to get your reaction.”
“Well, you have it. You’re letting your dislike of Viktor lead you astray.”
“You’re probably right,” he replied and slowly stirred his tea. Galina looked off into the distance and only occasionally let her eyes settle on Sasha.
“He’s a difficult man, I know, but he’s not a bad man. After the murders, we became very close.”
“Even closer than before?”
“What does that mean?”
“Galina,” he said, with as much sincerity as he could command, “I gather that before you’d been told that Petr had died, you and Viktor were lovers.”
She impaled him with her eyes, which began to tear. Without uttering a word, she left the table, entered her bedroom, and quietly closed the door. A minute later, Alya came bounding into the farmhouse. Sasha, with a bent finger, summoned her to his side and whispered that her mamma was ill and not to be disturbed. The child made no response. Sasha hugged her, slipped a few coins into her hand, and told her to buy some candy at the country store in Balyk. He even helped her into her raincoat and galoshes, and gave her his black umbrella. At the window, he watched as she opened it and splashed through some puddles. Her free spirit made him think that only a child’s resilience could save the world.
He waited several minutes before he knocked on Galina’s door. No response. He looked at his watch and told himself he would wait five minutes and then knock again. But Galina’s door slowly opened and she appeared red-faced and disheveled. Her tears were no longer in evidence, but her uncombed and wild hair bespoke her emotional state. She wordlessly made her way to the kitchen table, where she rejoined Sasha. He waited for her to speak first. When she did, it felt to Sasha as if an age had elapsed.
Galina said simply, “We were lovers once, yes, but now it is over.” She paused. “I told him about us, and said that I wanted to make a life with you.” With undisguised derision, she added, “Comrade Click or C.C., as he’s taken to calling himself, told me that he had found another.”
“Vera Chernikova.”
“Then you know.”
“I didn’t until you said C.C.”
“It’s all part of his cloak-and-dagger posturing,” she said in a tone of weary resignation. “That’s Viktor through and through.”
“And yet you don’t believe he wants to discredit me.”
“I do admit that he’s a capable slanderer. But once he’s achieved his end, which is usually to ruin some person or group, he moves on. Most likely, he would like to see Vera Chernikova take over.” Pause. “What he sees in that string bean is anybody’s guess.”
That night Sasha and Galina made love. But this time it was different from anything they’d ever experienced. The sexual heat was there, as well as the gentleness, but in addition there was a genuine affection. In the morning, Sasha had the strange sensation that he was married, and that everything between him and Galina was understood. They were no longer tense, and they behaved as if they had been relieved of some burden. An unfortunate side effect was that Sasha now felt fiercely protective of Galina and became aggressively jealous if some man even paid her an innocent compliment. His chemical reaction was similar to the day of the murders. He acted instinctively, a throwback to primitive hominids.
With Viktor out of the farmhouse and Goran’s photo lab now removed, Sasha, Galina, and Alya fell into a domestic rhythm that pleased them all. Even the weather seemed to shine on them. The rains abated, the sun shone, Alya rode Scout in the paddock and along a short trail that circled the farmhouse, and birdsong and blossoms were a harbinger of spring. Among the religious farmers, preparations began in earnest to celebrate Easter, which Father Zossima would celebrate in some hidden cellar. The Three Musketeers, as Sasha called Bogdan, Viktor, and Goran, seemed to spend most of their time in the walled bungalow. Did they present a danger? Avram, whom Sasha still visited and watched, was the person who could best advise him. When Sasha knocked and identified himself, Avram shouted that the door was unlocked. A cigarette dangled from his mouth, and a writing board rested on his lap. He was putting away writing materials, and papers peeked out of a black leather folder. Sasha quickly came to the point, and Avram prophesied that no good would come from the Three Musketeers.
“Men with grievances feed on filth,” he warned.
“Tell me about Vera Chernikova.”
A wry smile suffused Avram’s face. He clearly knew a great deal about the chemistry teacher. “So you think she and Viktor . . .”
“I do.”
“She has an engine.”
“How so?”
Brodsky explained that Vera had prospered under the Soviets. A good student from a poor family, she was given a college scholarship and showed great promise as a chemist. She came to teaching late, after working in a lab trying to increase plant growth. She knew that the genes regulating growth were found in the cell walls of plants, but she could never gain enough knowledge to manipulate them. She had hoped to win a state prize, like the Order of Lenin or the Red Banner of Labor, but the only prize she won was a teaching position at the Michael School.
“As you know,” Brodsky mused, “she’s an attractive woman, albeit a skinny one with an unduly small head perched on a thin stem of neck. Men are drawn to her. Glinski liked her. So did one or two others.”
“It appears that Viktor fancies her.”
“She’s no fool, and once she gets the bit in her mouth, she never lets go. I warn you, she’s relentless.”
“Relentless is one thing, ruthless another. Which is it?”
“Definitely the first and occasionally the second.”
“If she wanted the directorship . . .”
“I’d watch my back. I suspect she was one of the teachers who denounced me, and when she was passed over for the directorship, I know for a fact she was outraged. Before you arrived, she was sharpening her knife.”
That evening, after school hours, Sasha pulled Vera’s files. They confirmed Brodsky’s word. She came from a background of want. Her father had worked in the shipyards at Archangel until an industrial accident left him lame. Her mother took in sewing. Two brothers never returned from the Great War, and a sister died of diphtheria. On graduating from a technical college, Vera had been assigned to an agro-factory, dedicated to increasing food output through fertilizers and plant mutation. The cellular walls of plants proved her undoing. She could not crack the genetic code, though she tried every conceivable means to tease it out. Had she not made exaggerated claims, she might have remained at the factory lab, but when her work could not be duplicated, she was pointed toward the Michael School. In her estimation, teaching was a demotion, and she, like the last leaf of fall, hung on, using the school lab to continue her research, until she finally admitted defeat. To sweeten the bitter pill of secondary teaching, she apparently hoped to rise to the role of director.
“I know you say she’s relentless,” Sasha said at his next encounter with Avram, “but she’s not young anymore.”
“With an admirer as a goad, she’s twenty again.”
The two men were drinking apple-flavored vodka. “I know what you’re going to say next,” Sasha replied with a wave of his hand. “I should denounce her.”
“You can be sure that if she hasn’t already, she’ll denounce you by Easter or May Day. It’s a Russian tradition to enliven those holidays.”
Brodsky’s grim irony was not lost on Sasha.
“I’d prefer a colorful Easter egg or kulich or pashka.”
“For May Day,” Avram added, “the locals will put together a ragtag march waving red banners and photographs of Stalin. They’ll congregate in the town square and sing patriotic songs. It’s not Red Square, with the Boss and his cronies standing atop the Lenin Mausoleum, but it’s the best that Balyk can do.”
Fearing the worst, Sasha asked whether Vera might be working for the secret police.
Avram’s sardonic reply was unhelpful. “Why not? All of Russia reports to the police.”
“So you think it’s a possibility?
“How would I know? In this country nothing is what it seems. There are always other levels and layers of meaning. It would take a Nostradamus to negotiate the labyrinth. But that’s just the point. None of us have the powers of prophecy, except of course the Boss. So any law, any edict, any ukase, any line in the Soviet Constitution can mean a different thing depending on the need for a certain interpretation.”
“Then words and facts are meaningless.”
“Precisely meaningless: the great oxymoron.”