The brave man commenced speaking about his bravery. And Natasha wondered if she’d misunderstood. Dima claimed he was talking about his years of activism in Odessa. But the existence he was describing, of loneliness, of isolation, of never knowing whom he could trust and not being able to expose his real self with anyone, that had to be about his time in the Gulag. He talked about the boredom and drudgery of day-to-day resistance, how much of it was futile. What good, Dima asked, did the longhand copying of forbidden books do anyone in the end? Or furtive meetings where wannabes talked much and did little? No—Dima raised his voice in rehearsed passion—action was the only thing that mattered. Bold action, drastic action, committed action. It’s not enough, he exhorted the crowd, to cluck in sympathy and shake your head about how awful things are. Change can come only through action. And the only action that brings about change is the kind that brings with it great personal risk—and great group reward.
The audience erupted into applause. Julia had to elbow Natasha to prompt her into raising her palms and bringing them together, out of sync with the rest.
Dima went on talking. He talked about the horrors of prison, interrogations that went on for weeks, questioners changing in shifts, while Dima passed out from lack of sleep and was revived with hoses spraying ice water. He talked about his hunger strikes and his forced feedings, tubes jammed down his throat while he lay strapped onto a metal table. He talked of sharing cells with rats and body lice, of the untreated infections that erupted over his body. And he talked about the woman who’d allowed him to survive it all.
Natasha’s heart plummeted into her stomach. Surely, now . . .
But no, of course, it was Miriam. Miriam who stood by him; Miriam who never gave up on him; Miriam who, Dima was thrilled to announce, was pregnant with Dima’s first child.
They were both excited. They had waited so long to become parents.
The crowd applauded again. Some shouted, “Mazel tov.”
Natasha clutched Julia’s wrist, uncertain whether it was to stop her from clapping or to reassure herself that the girl was real.
“Anyone can have a baby,” Natasha told Julia, in response to her questioning look. “It’s not an achievement worth applauding.”
There was a meet-and-greet after the formal talk. Fans queued up to shake Dima’s hand, ask him questions, slap him heartily on the shoulder. Natasha lined up, waiting her turn.
“Hello, Dima,” she would say.
“Natashenka!” he would gasp.
“I live in America now,” she would say.
“I didn’t know,” he would say.
Natasha would smile forgivingly at Miriam. She would keep her secret and not tell Dima that his wife knew. Natasha understood Miriam’s desperation to hold on to him, to let Dima think she would be giving him his first child.
“This is my daughter, Julia,” she would say, nudging the girl forward. “She’s fifteen years old.”
They would need to go somewhere private to talk after that.
The line stretched on. You’d think they were selling opening-day movie tickets—the only thing, Natasha and her family had been shocked to realize, for which Americans were prepared to stand in line. That’s what Natasha got for hiding in the back. She should have grabbed a seat, front and center. Everything would have gone differently if Dima had spotted her right away.
And then he did. Like the song promised, Dima looked across a crowded room, and he saw her. But did he fly to her side? Did her make her his own?
No.
Because that happened only in Rodgers and Hammerstein musicals.
Though, to be fair, like the tune promised, Dima did gaze across a crowded room. And what he saw there was . . . a stranger.
There was no recognition. No recognition of Natasha, no recognition of Julia. How could he not recognize Julia? She was the spitting image of him! How could Dima not recognize his own child? More important, how could he not recognize the physical manifestation of everything he and Natasha had shared? It was that last part that shattered her the most. There they were, Dima and Natasha, alive in one body. And it meant absolutely nothing to Dima.
Had Natasha truly aged so much? Or had she ultimately meant so little to him? They’d spent nearly every day together for months. Natasha still recalled the faces of colleagues she’d worked with then, even of some of her students. They would run into each other on the Brighton boardwalk, and there was always a flash of recognition, no matter how much time had passed.
Yet Dima had overlooked Natasha without a blink.
“Am I looking old?” Natasha demanded of a startled Boris the moment he walked in the door after work. She’d passed the afternoon studying herself in the mirror, pulling on her skin to see if that made the wrinkles smooth, plucking gray hairs, and smacking the bottom of her chin with the back of her palm, commanding the wattle to stay in place. Yet, no matter from which angle Natasha scrutinized herself, she still recognized the brave young woman who’d made the resistance possible. They wouldn’t have been able to do it without her. Dima had said so himself, hadn’t he? The day she procured their tickets. He’d said it in front of everyone.
“You’re looking beautiful,” Boris answered, not even waiting to remove his shoes before rushing to appease her. The most shocking part was that he appeared to mean it. Boris honestly didn’t see the wrinkles, the gray hair, the teetering chin.
Natasha said, “You knew I’d been in your room because you could smell me. You knew I was pregnant just by looking at me.”
He cocked his head, wondering why the dive into ancient history. They hadn’t discussed or even alluded to these incidents since they happened.
“You’d know me anywhere,” Natasha said.
“Where are you, my light, Natasha?” Still standing in their apartment entryway—among the shoes on their shelf, the umbrellas in their stand, and the jackets hanging on their hooks—Boris launched into Pushkin’s poem. “No one’s seen you—I lament.” He went through the whole thing, line by line, ending with, “And at home, depressed and dazed / I’ll recall Natasha’s grace.”
“Papa!” Julia came bursting through the door to her bedroom, and, for a moment, Natasha feared she’d be unmasked.
But their daughter wanted only to report some triumph from math class, a complicated problem she’d been the sole student to untangle.
“Sha!” Natasha raised her hand, holding the child at bay. “Let Papa catch his breath. He works so hard for us, he doesn’t need to be jumped on the moment he walks through the door!”
Julia ground to a halt. Not due to being reprimanded—she was used to Natasha reprimanding her—but over the reprimand’s context and content. Boris froze in his tracks, as well. Both peered at Natasha in confusion.
“Sit down,” Natasha ordered Boris. “It’s sweltering. You must be dying from waiting on the subway platform. I will get you some ice cream.” Before he could remind her, she added, “Warmed up a little in the microwave, so it doesn’t hurt your teeth. Julia, run and get the fan from our bedroom; set it up so Papa can have some air.”
As the girl scurried off, and Boris moved hesitantly toward his La-Z-Boy, peering curiously at Natasha over his shoulder, she went on, addressing their daughter, “Do you ever think about the sacrifices Papa made for us? He had a good job in the USSR. He was an important man. He gave it up to come to a place where he didn’t speak the language, where he didn’t know if he’d be able to find such important work again, where he might have been forced to sweep the streets, like some dvornik. He did it for us, so we could have a better life.”
“I know that, Mama.” If Julia had been a different child, the words might have come out defiantly. But Julia was merely meekly agreeable.
“Your mama made sacrifices, too.” Boris sat down, startled when Natasha reached over to yank the handle that would put his legs up. “She is a marvelous mathematician, much stronger than me. She could have had a successful career in America, but she chose to dedicate her time to you, instead of to the money she could have made.”
“We did not need the money,” Natasha said. “Papa took care of us. He promised he would, and he did. I never had to worry, not like some others. I knew Papa would keep his promises. He wouldn’t forget.” Natasha stroked the top of Boris’s head, smoothing down the strands of damp hair that grew thinner every year. “Thank you, my Boris.”
He tentatively raised his arm, squeezed her wrist between his thumb and forefinger, brought it nervously to his mouth and pecked the back of Natasha’s hand, then quickly released it, reluctant to press his luck.
Natasha bent over and, much to the shock of all three of them, kissed her husband fully and deeply on the lips. Then she went to pop his ice cream into the microwave.
Boris sat glued to his chair, stunned. Julia first turned away, embarrassed, then turned back to check if the unprecedented public display of affection was over. She waited to see if any more odd things would happen. When they didn’t, when Natasha handed Boris his tepid ice cream, smoothed down his hair yet again, and bustled off, Julia figured it would be okay to start telling Papa about the math problem. It would help both pretend everything was normal.
Natasha watched them from the side. How could two people who looked so little alike . . . also look so much alike? It wasn’t their physical characteristics. It was their gestures. The way they cocked their heads in consternation, the way they furrowed their brows in disapproval. What did Americans call it? Two peas in a pod? That’s what Boris and Julia were.
And, oh, how Natasha had resented her daughter for it.
All these years, Natasha told herself she was angry over how much Julia took after Boris instead of Dima. But in reality, what she really hated was seeing so much of herself in the girl.
Dima was a hero, a risk taker. Which meant Julia’s cowardice had to have come from her mother. The one who’d stood and watched while her comrades were beaten, bloodied, and dragged off. The one who’d faked illness rather than show up at the designated airfield. The one who’d been afraid, for over fifteen years, to admit that the real hero in their home was Boris. Boris had been the one who’d risked everything for her. He’d been the one who’d risked loving her.
Even the heroic Dima hadn’t been able to do that.