May, 1942
Tashkent
Rachel didn’t see or hear from Zip Uk again for over a year. As he had promised, her papers were delivered to Igor’s apartment. All through the winter of 1941 and spring of 1942, she worked without interference on paintings derived from her drawings of the Pskov train station, the Moscow panic, and their desert journey. Her separate studio space had its own entrance at the rear of the building so she came and went as she pleased.
She lacked only a secure place to store her finished work. Mitya told her to find a recognizable spot in the fields and bury them.
“Then what?” she replied. “If a crisis comes I won’t have a chance to dig them up. And even if I do, they’ll be too bulky to smuggle out of the country. I need to find someone I can trust to guard them and eventually get them out to me.”
“You may as well ask your fairy godmother because you won’t find anyone here on earth.”
Mitya was wrong. She knew one person to whom she could entrust her paintings, someone the N.K.V.D. would never link to her: Alisher. The problem was contacting him. She couldn’t go looking for him in the melon field. There was one way, but it would work only by chance: she could adjust her daily routine to include a long walk in the late morning. Every so often she could include the Uzbek quarter in her route.
She had kept the blue bandana he had given her; it was hidden beneath clothing she had since received from Igor. Could she wear it without arousing the suspicions of Zip Uk? Though he had left her alone, she knew that he would have people watching her, if only on occasion. He would be sensitive enough to visual cues to guess what she was doing. She decided against the bandana and chose instead a straw hat that purposely made her more conspicuous.
She carefully chose routes that were the sort of meandering walks an artist might take to unwind after hours of frenetic activity. Eventually, her wandering took her to the Uzbek quarter, where she circled about through the narrow streets with concentrated purposelessness, as though she were not even aware of where she was going or how she had come to be there.
Her sojourns in the old quarter, some lasting upwards of two hours, had the desired effect. She felt the stares of veiled women as they hurried by, pretending to keep their heads down. The skull-capped Uzbek men glared openly at her, but otherwise did nothing to acknowledge her presence; yet she knew they would talk about her and the talk would reach Alisher.
* * *
“Go without me!” Lily’s voice rose to a shout.
“It’s just a concert.” Rachel braced herself, for it was clear that Lily’s tirade wasn’t over.
“Just a concert? What about the apartment, the dinners at restaurants packed with party bosses and the shopping at party big-shot central? He’s seducing you into a way of life and you’re unconscious!”
“It’s not like I’m sleeping with him,” Rachel said, stung.
“Not from lack of effort, no doubt!”
“I told you Lily, he’s not interested.”
“He wants something from you.”
Rachel got up from the couch and walked to the window. The August heat was already blasting the city and she could see waves of heat radiating from the surface of the red brick buildings.
The desert sun was too hot, but the desert itself was the natural barrier that kept the violence of the war far away from their lives. They were safe for another day. Thanks to Igor, yet Lily despised him. Even though he had treated Lily like a family member. He had even “spoken to someone” and obtained access for her to the superb athletic facilities at the university. By running on the outdoor track and swimming in the indoor Olympic-sized pool Lily had regained her strength. A trainer for the swimming team had even offered to help her, showing her strength building exercises and introducing her to weight training.
This was all Igor’s doing, but she still acted as though he were infected with Bubonic plague.
“He’s so obviously a dilettante,” Lily added. “He has no substance and no talent, except for exploiting the system.”
“It’s that talent you and I have benefited from,” Rachel said, finding herself goaded into the argument despite herself. They’d been over this territory many times before and she found it boring and degrading. “Right now, we have no one else.”
“And just why do you think that is?” Lily demanded. “Your friend is probably having my letters intercepted.”
“To what end?”
“To keep you at his mercy.”
“That’s ridiculous.” It was true that Lily’s letters to her father had gone unanswered, along with her letters to the Swedish consulate in Moscow, but there was probably no one left there beyond a skeleton staff and international mail was hardly a priority when the nation was on the verge of being overrun by the enemy.
“I don’t think so,” Lily rejoined. “Igor needs you. He’s hoping some of your talent will rub off on him . . . although if what you claim is true, there’s not much rubbing to speak of between you two.”
Rachel felt her anger grow. Either Lily refused to believe she and Igor had no sexual relations or she used that as another weapon.
“So what?” Rachel turned and walked back to the couch. “Even if you’re right, why not let him help us?”
“Why? Because I for one don’t trust him. You should dump him and let Mitya be your protector.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Why not?”
“Because Mitya is in love with me. I can’t take advantage of him that way. Besides, he wants me to cross the border immediately—without you or Stephen.”
“Go ahead,” Lily said spitefully. “I’ll wait for your brother and the two of us will do just fine without you.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you, Lily. And for now, Igor is our best hope of getting through this without winding up in the Gulag.”
“What about Avilov? He’s got more clout than Igor.”
“The more I ask of Avilov, the more he’ll demand from me. Igor doesn’t want anything from me except my friendship.”
“We’ll see about that.” Lily avoided Rachel’s eyes. “But if it will make you feel better, I’ll come along.”
* * *
All through Tchaikovsky’s 6th Symphony, while Lily slept beside her, Rachel wondered if Lily was right about Igor. Not that she had confided in him. He knew nothing about Michael or Stephen, at least Rachel had never spoken of them to him. And they did need Igor. For now they were safe, but the German army had swept south, taking Sevastopol on the Black Sea in June and then moving through the summer towards the Caspian Sea from the south and towards Stalingrad from the north. That the Nazis might reach Astrakhan and then cross the Caspian Sea and march to Tashkent, a catastrophe once thought beyond the realm of possibility, now appeared highly probable. If that happened, Avilov wouldn’t be able to help them and Igor might be their only hope of escape, assuming there was any place left unoccupied by the Germans.
At the intermission Rachel awakened Lily with a light poke of her elbow. They went to the ladies room. When they returned to the lobby, they found Igor in conversation with Zip Uk, resplendent in a tuxedo with tails. But his clothes only made him appear more menacing to Rachel, who forced herself to greet him like an old acquaintance.
Igor then turned to Lily. “Lily Kroger, I’d like to introduce you to one of my good friends, Zip Uk.”
“I’m delighted to meet you.”
She didn’t hold out her hand; neither did he. “Igor told me about your illness. Congratulations on such a fine recovery.”
“Thank you.” Rachel had seen countless men undress Lily with their eyes, but Zip Uk’s raked her with a calculated brutality that made her cringe.
The lobby lights flashed. Zip Uk turned to Rachel, and as if it were an afterthought, said, “Igor tells me you are painting like a dervish. Anything I might find of interest?”
“Not really.” Rachel said. “A lot of sketches, really.”
They had all been moving with the flow back into the auditorium.
“May I call you?” Zip Uk asked, edging close to Lily.
“I’m sorry, didn’t Igor tell you—I’m engaged.”
Zip Uk’s head snapped back. Recovering, he smiled. “Surely Stephen wouldn’t object to your having tea with a friend while he’s away defending our country.”
Rachel couldn’t stop herself from staring at Zip Uk.
“I suppose not,” Lily answered glibly.
“Very good. Enjoy the rest of the concert.”
“You, too.”
As they returned to their seats, Rachel avoided looking at Lily. As though in a trance, she plastered a smile on her face even as Zip Uk’s jibe spread nausea from her stomach to her throat.
As they sat down, she felt like she might throw up. “I’m sorry,” she said, “I don’t feel well.” She got up and walked rapidly back to the doors leading into the lobby. She went through the lobby out into the night. But she found no relief as it was still very hot, the summer heat still rising up from the pavement and the buildings.
Perched on the railing leading down the steps to the street, she hung her head and took deep breaths.
“There you are.”
Rachel looked up and saw Lily.
“Can you walk?”
Rachel nodded. Lily took her arm and they walked to a bench and sat down. Rachel bent over, her face resting on her hands, struggling to keep from throwing up. At Lily’s urging she took short breaths, then after a time, sat up.
“I guess this means the N.K.V.D. is looking for Stephen,” Rachel said.
“Figures,” Lily said. “They must know he abandoned the team. They may have contacted Zip Uk to see if he met up with us.”
“What about Michael, then?”
“If they had anything to connect you to the Zionists, they’d have interrogated you by now.”
“So you think we’re safe?”
“Of course not. But I think they’ll leave you alone. Until Stephen or Michael shows up here. Zip Uk will be watching for them.”
“What do you want to do, Lily?”
“Run. As far away from him as we can get.”
“I can’t run. They’ll find out who I am no matter where I go.”
“Not if you give up art.”
“They’d still find me. Anyway, I won’t do it.”
“Why not? The war will end sooner or later.”
“An artist can’t simply stop being an artist, Lily. Not for an hour, not for a day, not ever.”
“Even if it means risking your life?”
“Yes. Especially then. The world confronts you with a million reasons every morning why you should give up, why it’s pointless to start another canvas or begin working another piece of clay. Once you give in to one of them, you’re finished. I won’t stop working. No matter what Zip Uk does.”
“I hear your father’s voice, and remember where his stubbornness got him.”
“I’m not him.”
“Avilov seems to think you are.”
“He can think whatever he wants. Unlike my father, Lily, I can do both.”
“I hope you’re right.” Lily gave her a skeptical look. “I’m leaving, whatever you decide.”
“When? Where will you go?”
“I’m afraid to tell you—for your own sake.”
“You mean I’ll wake up one morning and you’ll be gone?”
“Yes. Believe me, it will be safer that way for both of us.”
“What about Stephen? And Michael? We were all going to leave together.”
“So we were.”
“Lily! You don’t mean that! You can’t. Are you going to give up our dreams without a fight?”
“I can’t fight Zip Uk.”
“You can stall him. Don’t you see? We need more time. If we run now they’ll find us. We’ll stand out among these people.”
“I don’t want to ever be in the same room with that man again.”
“Then avoid him. At least until we get some idea how long the war will continue.”
Lily looked up at the night sky. “I don’t understand why you’re not as frightened of him as I am.”
“I am! All the more reason why we’ve got to stick together. Stephen will come back here for us. I’m sure of it.” Rachel moved closer and rested her cheek on Lily’s shoulder. “You wouldn’t go home now, would you?”
Lily turned to Rachel. “No. I can promise I won’t go home without you and Stephen. I can’t stay here. You saw the way Zip Uk looked at me.”
Rachel nodded.
“The man could break in here tonight and rape me and neither you nor your pen pal would be able to stop him. Do you disagree?”
“No,” Rachel admitted.
“That’s why I have to go.” Lily put her arm around Rachel. “I promise I’ll tell you before I leave. But you’ve got to promise you won’t come looking for me. I’ll find you when it’s safe.”
“I promise, Lily.”
But even as she spoke, she felt as though she had severed the last thread connecting her to her past. The day would soon come when Lily, like Stephen and Michael, would vanish and she would be left only with the fading memory of their hope-filled illusions.