As she lay semiconscious in her hospital bed, Anya’s thoughts took refuge in the past.
It was lifetimes ago, and a million miles away.
To young Anya Litvinova, Moscow was the destination of a dream. All through her childhood, her mother and father had made it sound like some kind of earthly paradise. As she rode the bus and subway from Sheremetyevo Airport to the city, she was too exhausted to notice the gray blandness of postwar apartment blocks lining the road.
By a stroke of good fortune—or in the opinion of some, bad luck—she had managed to secure a place in the overcrowded dormitory at the university clinic.
She soon found out why the bed was available. It was the upper half of a bunk in a cubicle occupied by a bad-tempered future eye surgeon.
Olga Petrovna Dashkevich was so magnificently unpleasant that she had frightened off no fewer than six previous roommates in her very first year of residency. Anya had been warned, but she was still not prepared for her new companion’s opening salvo.
“What happened to your nose, Litvinova?”
Anya put her hand to her face, thinking she had inadvertently scratched it.
But Olga quickly elucidated, “I mean, it almost looks normal. I thought all Semites had oversized beaks.”
Anya tried to take even this with equanimity, and responded with a smile. “Olga Petrovna, can you explain why a Jew-hater like you chose Professor Schwartz to be your supervisor for Ophthalmic Surgery?”
“Sweetheart,” Olga retorted with a knowing grin, “I’ve never said you people weren’t clever.”
If Anya had learned nothing else in this obstacle course that had been her life, it was that for her, salvation came only from perseverance. Good humor could be a weapon strong enough to erode even wills of steel. The gift of seeing the best in everyone was ingrained in her nature, and she resolved, paradoxically, to help Olga with a problem that was obviously born of her own personal unhappiness.
The girl was not attractive. Nor, compared to the other med students, was she particularly bright. Until Anya came along, she’d had no friends of either sex. And, to top it all, she smoked like an aggressive chimney.
“Have you ever seen the lungs of a cadaver who died of cancer?” Anya coughed through the fumes.
“Don’t lecture me, Anya. I know it’s medically unwise to smoke,” she conceded. “But I intend to continue until I’m fully qualified.”
“Thanks,” Anya remarked sarcastically.
“What does it matter to you? You’ll move out next term anyway.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“Everybody does.”
“You needn’t worry,” Anya countered cheerfully. “However hard you try, I’m going to learn to like you.”
A month into the term, Olga came down with a terrible flu and was forced to remain in bed. Not only did Anya bring her soup from the refectory, but even volunteered to take notes at a lecture she would be missing.
“I don’t understand you, Litvinova,” Olga commented bluntly. “I’m beginning to think you actually want to be my friend.”
“I do.”
“But why?”
“Frankly,” Anya laughed, “I already have enough enemies.”
Although the Soviet Revolution successfully abolished Christmas, even the most tyrannical regimes could not suppress the spirit of the holiday.
Its universally attractive traditions were merely channeled into the celebration of Novy God—New Year’s Eve—a “secular” occasion for decking the halls with boughs of fir, trimming the tree, and exchanging gifts.
Naturally, good Socialists did not believe in Santa Claus. But curiously enough, on the night before New Year’s they awaited the arrival of Grandfather Frost, who comes laden with presents for the children.
This year, for the first time in her life, Olga was bringing a friend home for the holiday celebration.
As their subway train passed through a succession of gleaming marble stations, Olga casually remarked, “I think you’ll enjoy meeting my uncle Dmitri. He works in genetics. In fact, he’s an academician.”
Anya was amazed. “You mean you’re related to a member of the Soviet Academy of Science and never mentioned it?”
“How else do you think I got into the surgery program?” Olga answered with a touch of self-mockery. “I’m not as clever as you—I needed protektsiya. As a matter of fact, Dmitri is such a genius that he was elected when he was only thirty.”
In proudly disclosing the existence of her illustrious uncle, Olga neglected to mention that he was, if not classically handsome, certainly vibrant and virile—and a bachelor.
As Anya respectfully shook his hand she could barely muster the polite words, “It’s an honor to meet you, Professor Avilov.”
“Please, please,” the tall, wide-shouldered man insisted. “You must call me Dmitri Petrovich. Also, I don’t think it’s such an honor.” He paused for a moment and then added with a grin, “But I do hope you’ll consider it a pleasure.”
The entire house was permeated with the smell of walnuts and tangerines as they sat down to dinner. There was Olga, her younger sister, her parents, her maternal grandmother, Anya, and Dmitri.
The meal was sumptuous and, by Russian standards, something of a fairy tale. There were no fewer than twelve cold appetizers, including the rarest of treats, fresh tomatoes and cucumbers, all highly salted and spiced. Vodka was torrential.
As they were eating the main dish, Olga’s mother announced to the gathering, “For this marvelous salmon, we have Dmitri Petrovich to thank.”
The grateful diners raised a toast to their benefactor, “Na zdorovie.”
As if to the spotlight born, the professor held forth on the relative beauties of various cities of the world—with particular attention to Paris, where he had just delivered a paper, and Stockholm, which he visited each summer at the invitation of the Swedish Academy of Medicine.
Had she been more cosmopolitan, Anya might well have found him arrogant. But as an exile returned in body, though not yet in spirit, she was totally captivated.
Later that evening, after they had welcomed the new year with goblets of champagne, Anya was helping Olga and her mother clear the table when she suddenly found her way blocked by the large frame of academician Avilov.
He gazed down at her, an unmistakable glint of mischief in his eyes, and whispered, “And you, my little dove, why have you said nothing of yourself?”
Anya felt awkward, and sputtered, “What could I possibly say that would interest a personage like you?”
“I am not a personage,” he responded. “I’m just a person who finds you enchantingly attractive. Furthermore,” he continued, “You’re not a Muscovite.…”
“Is it so obvious?” she inquired.
“Yes—you didn’t even ask me what car I drive. Which is yet another reason I find you irresistible.” He smiled broadly.
Irresistible? During her childhood and teenage years Anya had been variously praised by her parents and the other inmates at Second River as “cute,” “sweet,” and “charming.” But the notion that she might be an attractive woman had never entered her mind.
“May I have the honor of driving you home, Anya Alexandrovna?”
“Oh,” she replied, instantly relieved. “Olga and I would enjoy that very much.”
“I’m sure she would,” her friend’s uncle replied. “But she’s staying overnight with her parents. And besides, there are only two seats in my car.”
“In that case, I must respectfully decline,” Anya responded bravely.
Avilov looked puzzled—and impressed.
And thus Anya shivered in the cold December night waiting for a taxi that would transport her back to the safety of the hospital dormitory.
The next time, Avilov caught her at her own game, inviting both Anya and Olga—her “chaperone” as he joked in his otherwise formal letter—to hear him lecture at the academy on the genetic aspects of Huntington’s disease.
Anya could not refuse, for the simplest of reasons: she wanted to go.
Dmitri was a brilliant speaker, with a rare gift of being able to make himself intelligible even to nonexperts in his field—although Anya was, after all, a qualified medical doctor.
After the lecture there was a small reception in the elegant high-ceilinged room adjoining the amphitheater.
Both Anya and Olga stood awkwardly on the side-lines watching noted scientists fawning about the guest of honor. It was clear, even from their distant vantage point, that Avilov was enjoying the energetic flattery.
“I feel silly,” Olga confessed. “I mean, nobody wants to talk to us. Why don’t we get the hell out of here and have something to eat? Maybe we could meet some guys.”
“Uh, not yet,” Anya demurred. “Guys” were the furthest thing from her mind. “I mean—I mean, it’s sort of interesting to watch.”
“Then I’m getting another vodka,” Olga countered, and went off to fetch it.
Anya was inexperienced but not naive. She knew that in accepting Dmitri Petrovich’s invitation, she would not this time go home alone. And yet she wondered how he would disencumber himself from his niece’s presence. But Anya had underestimated her admirer’s resourcefulness.
At precisely nine-thirty Ivan, an attractive, crew-cut, scholarly young man introduced himself as academician Avilov’s chief research assistant. He recited what was obviously a prepared speech to the effect that, although he knew that Anya would have to return to the hospital and study, he hoped that Olga would come along with a few of the younger staff to listen to jazz in a terrific place on Novy Arbat.
Olga was too delighted to realize it was a ploy. Either that, thought Anya, or she was a consummate actress.
For a moment Anya feared she had been genuinely abandoned. She was about to fetch her coat when Avilov glided up to her and whispered, “We will meet in Seventh Heaven.”
“What?” For a moment she was totally baffled.
“That’s the restaurant on top of the television tower. I’ve booked a table for ten o’clock.”
She spent nearly an hour walking around Red Square to avoid the embarrassment of arriving early and having to sit self-consciously alone in a sophisticated place where she would feel inadequately dressed.
Rising skyward nearly two thousand feet, the Ostankino Television Tower was perhaps the ultimate expression of the Soviet obsession with phallic monuments. Seventh Heaven rotated slowly, giving the distinguished diners the opportunity to see the entire city between cocktails and dessert.
Since its service was similar to that of all Russian eating establishments—slow, slovenly, and surly—most guests usually traveled the 360-degree circuit at least twice.
Anya had never in her life seen anything like it—the guests were elegantly garbed, and there was a glint of what looked like real silver on the tables.
Avilov was already seated and rose to greet her, smiling.
“You didn’t have to walk around in circles, you know. I was here on the dot of ten.”
Anya hoped she was not blushing. Had he seen her meandering? Or could he simply read her mind? Nor could she hide her uneasiness when he ordered their meal.
“What is the matter, little one—do you not like cutlets à la Kiev?”
“No,” she stumbled, “it’s just that—”
Avilov nodded. “I understand, Annoushka. It cannot have been frequently on the bill of fare at a place like Second River.”
“You know about my family?” She felt more nervous than ever.
He nodded and replied gently, “I was still in primary school at the time, but I remember that last spasm of Stalin’s paranoia. No one spoke up in those physicians’ defense, and our principal lectured us about being wary of certain kinds of doctors who poisoned their patients.”
“Did you believe it?” she asked.
“To be quite honest, I wished I was already a doctor so I could poison the principal.”
Anya laughed.
“What I can’t understand,” he continued, his voice now softly serious, “is why your father never got recalled. I have at least half a dozen friends in the academy who are graduates of the Gulag system.”
“I guess he didn’t have any friends in the academy,” she replied, touched by what seemed like genuine compassion in his voice.
“He has now,” Avilov replied, putting his large hand on hers. “Don’t worry, I have got plenty of vitamin P—protektsiya.” He looked into her eyes and understood that she was too moved to speak.
Finally, her lips parted and let forth a single syllable. “Why?”
“Why what?”
“You don’t strike me as someone who makes quarrels with the system. Why should you want to help them?”
“You’re right,” he conceded. “I’m the most selfish person I know. But if I do something for them, perhaps I can make you like me.”
“I already like you,” she whispered.
“Enough to marry me?”
For a moment Anya was too incredulous to believe what she had heard. Only then did her face become a mask of total shock.
“Why?” she repeated.
“You are so full of questions,” Dmitri reprimanded. “Even Lenin didn’t try to abolish love at first sight.”
She shook her head in dismay. “I just don’t understand it. You could have any girl you wanted—”
“But, Anya, you’re not ‘any girl.’ You’re someone very special. You have a gift of happiness that’s almost magical.”
She mustered the courage to defend herself against her own emotional impulses. “How many times have you said that to a woman, Dmitri Petrovich?”
“Never,” he insisted. “Never in my life.”
At twenty minutes to one he opened the car door for her. As she brushed by him to sit down, she had the fleeting impression that he was about to embrace her. But he did not.
When he started the motor and put Charles Aznavour on his cassette player, Anya was certain they would be driving to his apartment.
There too she was wrong.
And when Dmitri dropped her at the hospital and did not even attempt a perfunctory good-night kiss, she was convinced she had made a gauche fool of herself.
Only when the roses arrived the next morning—and with them a formal note requesting her to marry him—did she know she had been wrong about everything.
Except the fact that he really loved her.
October 21, 1982, was the happiest day of Anya’s life. Now she was not only a diplomate in obstetrics, but at the Matrimonial Department of City Hall she became the bride of academician Professor Dmitri Avilov. Her new husband had arranged a sumptuous reception at what would be their apartment on a high floor of one of the giant blocks bordering the Moskva River.
Anya felt like a princess in a fairy tale. For among the many well-wishers were the two dearest people in her life.
Her mother and father.
But that was lifetimes ago and a million miles away.