Two days later Florence set out to find the man who’d led her to Moscow. Along the crumbling edge of the Yauza’s asphalt embankment her streetcar swayed from side to side. She was headed to the outskirts of the city, up past coal sheds and warehouses and the stone fortifications of monasteries requisitioned for workers’ dorms.
Florence had imagined the Hammer and Sickle metallurgical plant to be an enormous brick factory like the ones in New York. But as she approached she saw it was in fact a small city of its own. Florence stepped out of the streetcar and was almost knocked down by the chaotic flow of people. She had worn, over her narrow skirt, her mother’s old fur coat. In the swarm of padded cotton jackets she felt like Anna Karenina’s foppish heir. One glimpse through the open gates confirmed that each shop within the factory grounds had its own security guard. Whatever mistake she’d made in coming here, Florence knew it would be a greater mistake to announce herself to these ursine-hatted sentries. Bodies stampeded past while Florence stood in a stupor of indecision. She could feel the last bit of warmth from the trolley leaving her limbs. The crowd was thinning and the gates would soon close. She didn’t know what to do, and so it was like reaching out for a piece of floating driftwood when her hand of its own accord took hold of a passing elbow. The elbow belonged to a woman—gaunt, with a face the color of a dying lightbulb that ignited with a menacing brightness at Florence’s touch.
“Pardon me,” Florence said, stepping back. “I’m looking for someone—an engineer at this factory.”
“The bell is about to ring. I can’t find you no engineer.”
“What does she want, Inna?” said a second girl, with a healthier complexion, in a bandanna.
“I’m looking for an engineer named Sokolov.”
The girl peered about curiously. “Engineers are all in that far building.”
“We can take you through the personnel office,” suggested the skinny girl, as though she’d been trying to be helpful all along.
“No—I don’t want to make trouble,” said Florence.
“Everyone has to be declared,” said the first woman.
“I—maybe I’m in the wrong place.”
“Do you know who it is you’re looking for or not?”
“Yes, he’s”—she heard her own words clearly—“my cousin.”
“Cousin, eh?”
Against their crude but effortless Russian her foreign accent was as baroque as her coat. “I’m his cousin,” she resumed. “From Armenia. I got off at the train station this morning. He was supposed to meet me. Maybe he forgot.” She was surprised at how easily this lie came to her. “Maybe I got off on the wrong side—everything is so big and confusing in this city.” She sighed in a naked ploy for sympathy. “Maybe one of you could just tell him I’m here. The name is Sergey Sokolov.”
“All right, wait over there,” said the girl in the bandanna, making a sign to her friend to head in alone and cover for her.
“Tell him it’s Flora,” Florence called after her. “He’ll know!”
SHE WAITED IN THE COLD while the striped shadows of the factory gates faded under a cover of clouds. The sun had been deceptively bright that morning, and without it the winter day was baring its teeth. Florence, berating herself for no reason at all, barely noticed when a tall figure approached the gates.
He was thinner than she’d been expecting, and his face wasn’t visible under the cap he’d pulled low on his head. But the unmistakable stoop of those tremendous shoulders could only belong to Sergey. He squinted between the bars as the guard opened the gates for him. The rich summer tan that had been Florence’s strongest memory of him was no more. His eyes, too, had dimmed and paled; they looked down at her as though at a specter, a stranger he couldn’t place.
“Don’t you recognize me?” Florence said, holding her hands together.
He permitted a tiny smile to cross his lips. “Cousin Flora?” But it was when the corners of his brows lifted, satyrlike, that Florence truly recognized him. “So,” Sergey said, “you found me.”
IN HER ROOM THAT EVENING they undressed quickly, removing each other’s winter clothes like stiff gauze bandages. “Why are you laughing?” he said. But she couldn’t stop. The absurdity of finding themselves together made her delirious.
On the walk over from the tram station where she’d met him, Florence had entertained him with tales of the bewildered American girl she’d been when she’d disembarked at Magnitogorsk, a Red Riding Hood out of her depths in the woods of socialism. Sticking a hand on her hip, she mimed her peasant roommates and remade of them trusty, rough-and-tumble guides in the forest, her confidantes. In the street-lit darkness, Sergey’s laughing eyes settled on different points of her face, and soon he was tossing in a few choice details of his own about his “pioneer life” in Magnitogorsk, so that finally a common thread began to weave itself between their past and present. But as soon as they were in her room, he’d shut the door and pulled her roughly to himself. On the tiny metal bed they made cramped, rapid love, shoving everything else to the side. The sensation of his hair in her fingers, the quick hydraulic jolt of him inside her, was a paralyzing shock, like diving into a cold pool, and yet, within moments, strangely familiar. When they recovered, stunned and spent, they were as famished as two people getting over an illness.
Fortunately she was prepared: before going out to meet him at the trolley station, Florence had thrown a tablecloth over her desk. She’d laid out a spread of brined mushrooms, pickled tomatoes, sturgeon, cold cuts, caviars, wine, and brandy. Now, wrapped in her big tartan bedcover, she watched him spear one of the small pickled tomatoes—a tiny red globe—and raise it to eye level, as though studying it. He swallowed it whole, grimacing at its sourness, then flushed it down with a shot of brandy. Florence sat rediscovering the curve of Sergey’s back with her fingertips as he bent low over the desk to make an elaborate sandwich of butter, caviar, and cucumbers.
“Red caviar and black; how did you manage that?”
She smiled. An entire month’s allotment of Insnab coupons had gone to the purchase of these singular delicacies in the well-lit aisles of the exclusive foreigners’ store, where her Caspian sturgeon, Georgian wine, and off-season tomatoes were efficiently wrapped by a smiling girl whose obliging nature bore no resemblance to the white-coated guardians of Moscow’s common store counters.
“This is ossetra quality,” he said approvingly.
“How can you tell?”
“Come here, I’ll show you.” He spooned more black roe and spread it thinly across the buttered bread. “You see, the eggs are plump, not sticking to each other in the juice. The last time I had this was—oh, let me think”—he stared up at the ceiling—“1928. No! Twenty-seven! New Year’s Eve.”
She slapped his shoulder. “Sergey, always joking.”
“Not at all!”
“I’ve seen caviar in the grocery stores.”
“Grocery stores? Oh yes! I remember those too. We used to have places by that name before they were converted.”
“Converted?”
“Yes, to museums.”
“What museums?”
“Museums dedicated to the memory of taste! You don’t think I’m serious? Last week, I walked into one of these…museums. They had cheese in the window—just like this cheese. I went in and asked for half a kilo, and the store clerk—pardon me, the tour guide—told me it wasn’t for sale, only for show.”
He took a whiff of bread and tossed back a drink. “How long will you be in Moscow?”
“A year. Who knows? Maybe longer.”
A crease appeared between his brows. Lest he think she’d come to hang on his neck, Florence added quickly: “I have my own four walls. I have a job. Beyond this, I have no plans. Though I’m taking classes.”
But he seemed uninterested in that. “And your visa?”
“That’s a simple matter. An overnight train to Helsinki, and the embassy there extends it another six months or a year.”
“So you really mean to stay?” he said.
“Is that so strange? I feel like I’m a part of everything here. What was I doing at home that was so tremendous?” There seemed to be no way for her to talk about what she was doing in Moscow without coming across as discontented and defensive. “Here I get letters on my desk from some of the most important people in the world,” she continued. “Economic advisers, prime ministers. Did you know that I’ve helped raise funds for the building of the new House of Culture? I’m helping build socialism.”
In the vacuum of Sergey’s amused silence, her earnestness sounded hollow and boastful. Sergey was trying to do a good impression of looking impressed, but his friendly effort was starting to irritate her. It was time to change the subject. “I’m not going to ask if you missed me,” she said, more irritably than she’d aimed for.
Sergey tipped back another brandy. “Disastrously,” he said, in a tone both avid and ironic. “It has not been an easy year.”
Before she could stop herself, she said, “And did you drown your sorrow with many girls, or just one?”
He wiped the corner of his mouth thoughtfully with the back of his hand. “I’m not a monk, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“What does it matter, really? Even if you’re married…”
“I’m not married.”
“But you have someone.”
His silence suggested an affirmative answer.
“I didn’t expect you to clear your evenings for me,” Florence resumed. “You’re here now, and that’s good. Come when you want.”
He examined the shot glass in his hand, turning it between his thumb and forefinger. He set it down, refilled her cup with wine, and offered it to her.
“No more. This wine is making my head spin.” She brushed a moist strand of hair off her face. She felt cold suddenly. Anyhow, she was glad she’d said what she’d said. Glad it was out in the open. Let him be the one to think about it now.
Sergey shook his head sympathetically. “For a headache, only one cure.” Delicately he tipped a porcelain pot to pour tea into Florence’s cup, before raising his brow in disappointment at the contents. “What is this piss? Are we rationing?”
“I always make it like this.”
“Florentsia, my dear, in Russia you must know two things: how to drink vodka and how to brew tea. Where is it?”
Florence found the black lacquered box in which she kept her loose tea leaves. Sergey took a generous pinch to demonstrate. “Tea has to be thick, like blood, and dark, like the soul.” He closed the box, and turned it over in his hand. “This is where you keep tea?”
“Yes, why not?”
As the tea steeped, he turned over the object in his hand, as amused by its prosaic use as he might be by a child wearing a stethoscope. Florence had bought the oval box at an outdoor market, picking it from among similarly gorgeous items. In tiny brushstrokes on its black lacquer veneer, a young man clutched the tail feathers of a flame-colored bird. “It’s the Firebird, right?” she said.
“Zhar-ptitsa,” Sergey corrected. “Not Firebird. It means Heatbird. You know the story?”
She poured herself the darkened tea and reclined in her chair, ready to listen. Sergey scraped his chair closer to Florence and, with a breath warmed up with spirits, began to tell her the legend of the Heatbird.
“In a faraway kingdom,” he began, “there lived a brave prince named Ivan. He’d been chosen by the king to guard the tree of golden apples that stood in the center of his father’s orchard. Ivan’s lazy brothers had already failed at the task by falling asleep. So, when Ivan’s turn came, he tied bells to the branches so he’d be woken up when an intruder approached. In the middle of the night the bells sounded. Ivan opened his eyes and thought the sun must be shining. A great flame-colored bird with a hawk’s talons was picking the apples. Ivan, leaping to grab at its tail, caught hold of a single feather before the bird flew away. Captivated by this glorious animal and hypnotized by his still-warm souvenir, Ivan vowed to follow after the Zhar-ptitsa.
“With his single feather lighting the way like a torch, he entered the forest, and after much wandering he arrived at a clearing where a princess was bathing with her maidens. Forgetting temporarily about the bird, he began to frolic with these alluring creatures. But soon darkness crept over the forest, and the princess told the smitten prince that she and her companions were obliged to return to the castle of an evil magician-king who turned trespassers to stone. ‘Don’t follow us,’ warned the princess, ‘for it will bring you nothing but pain.’ Ivan, heeding no warnings, sneaked in after the maidens just as the gates of the castle were closing.”
Here Sergey paused to refresh himself with another drink. Florence waited for him to resume the story, but he seemed content to let things conclude there.
“So who was Ivan following—the princess or the Heatbird?” asked Florence.
“Maybe one. Maybe the other.”
“But then what happened?”
“What happened,” Sergey said dryly, “is, Ivan was captured by the magician.” He folded the rest of his sandwich into his mouth and chewed it.
“There’s got to be more.”
“Oh, there is much more. Do you want the version with the gray wolf or the talking bear?”
“Does Ivan rescue the princess? Does he get the Firebird?”
Sergey nodded, chewing. “Yes, yes, much later. After many misfortunes.”
“Does he return home?”
“Many years later. In beggar’s clothes. Nobody recognizes him.”
She stopped stirring her tea and wiped some caviar off the corner of his lip.
“Go home, Flora,” he said.
She stared at him. “What?”
“Believe me when I say socialism doesn’t need your help.”
She gave a weak laugh. “It was you who wrote to say I should come and see everything that’s being built in the Soviet Union.”
“Is that where you think you are? You go out and buy food in your restricted stores, and you think you’re living in…”
“Wait a second, I don’t need any of this.” She waved her arm over the table with its demolished cornucopia. “And I don’t see you declining a second helping. If you didn’t want me to come, you shouldn’t have advertised so enthusiastically….”
He looked at her as at an idiot. “That was for whoever was going to steam open my letter. I expected you to know the difference.”
“Well, I’m sorry you think I’m so awfully naïve. The stupid American woman who’s come here to saddle you….” She couldn’t look at him. She could feel the shame rising up, prickling her under her skin.
“Flora.”
She could no longer form a sentence without first suppressing the tremor in her jaw. “What’s keeping you here?” she said. “You’re free to leave.”
Slowly, without protest, Sergey stood up. She stared out the window, at the mute drama of falling snow, while he put on his clothes. She wrapped the tartan tighter around her shoulders.
“I can’t leave,” he said suddenly. “Flora, look at me.” And when she did she knew he wasn’t talking about her room. “Can’t you understand what I’ve been telling you?”
But now it was her turn to give nothing away.
Picking up his hat, he let his fingers slide with something like tenderness across the smooth leather handle of her trunk. But when he spoke, his voice had the sound of an order: “Take your treasure chest to the station tomorrow, get on a train to Helsinki, and get the first boat out.”
She watched, dumbfounded, as Sergey tucked his shirt into his pants. And then, in a voice eerily like those of her instructors at the political-education class, she said, “The only train I’m getting on is the locomotive accelerating into the future. And if you want to jump off that train, watch out you don’t break your legs!”
As soon as this declaration was out of her mouth, she wanted to take it back. But part of her was glad she’d said words that finally had some effect on him. Sergey looked—no longer repulsed, but panicked. She’d accused him of being disloyal. The sober disbelief in his eyes gave her an exhilarating, brief feeling of power. It settled the score between them. And yet a tiny part of her was already aware that this power had a cost: that it was the last, impassible barrier between them.
“Happy travels, Flora.”
They were the last words he’d ever speak to her.