The Free World (25 page)

A
fter the funeral, instead of returning with the others to Ladispoli to begin the week of mourning and eat the kosher dinner furnished by the rabbi, Alec boarded the train to Rome. His family’s grief, and the expectation to grieve with them, was too oppressive. That house, with its rigors, felt like the one place where he wouldn’t be able to mourn.

Riding the train, Alec tried to think about his father and about himself as his son. If he were honest with himself, he would admit that it had been many years since he and his father had shown any affection toward each other. To no small extent, as soon as he had been able, he had structured his life so that it intersected only glancingly with his father’s. Now, guilt and sentiment bade him to repudiate this fact and to imagine that things could have been different between them. Could he have made more of an effort? Had he been guilty of making a conveniently low assessment of his filial debt? How great was his portion of the blame? But he knew that these questions were irrelevant and had nothing to do with what he actually wanted, which seemed like a very small and humble thing. And what was it? Merely to sit in the same room with his father once more. Exchanging not a word. Only to gaze at him, at his face and at
his hands, to perceive him again in the realm of the living, and to inhabit that feeling for as long as he could.

The sun was beginning to set as Alec walked from Trastevere Station back to the apartment. In his mind he felt a sense of mission, as though he were about to make of himself an offering, to abase himself before a righteous judgment. The last time he had felt this way had also involved Polina. Then, too, he had taken a long walk through an industrial suburb. He had carried forms that needed to be signed by Maxim, Polina’s ex-husband. Alec had never seen the man before, but Maxim had asked for him specifically.
Send your pimp,
he’d told Polina.

Alec met him in the communal apartment where he and Polina had lived together. Alec had gone, uncertain of what awaited him. Did Maxim have any intention of signing the document or was it just a ruse? What indignities might he have in store? But the exchange had been nothing like he’d anticipated. The man he’d met had been like a bad actor playing a role for which he was sorely ill cast. He seemed to be clumsily following someone else’s script. His role demanded that he project indignation and anger but his true emotions seemed closer to confusion and hurt. It looked like he still did not understand why all this misery had befallen him. Alec suspected that a woman’s hand guided him. The word “prostitute” recurred too often in the script for it to have been written by a man. Alec pictured some squint-eyed crow perched on Maxim’s shoulder, playing on his bewilderment, dripping poison in his ear.

—Nobody gets a prostitute for free, Maxim had stammered.

So Alec had signed his apartment over to Maxim, and Maxim had signed the form, absolving Polina of her “material obligations” to him.

At the time he had come away from Maxim’s feeling as if he were coated in grime. But now the recollection evoked a different feeling. He felt ashamed of everything to which he had subjected Polina.

Alec reached the building on Via Salumi and stood before it under the weight of his grief and shame. In his pocket he had a key, but it didn’t occur to him to use it. He had lived in the apartment with
Polina for nearly five months, but after two nights away, he felt utterly banished.

Lyova answered the buzzer.

Though he did not want to desecrate his grief, Alec nonetheless said,
I just buried my father. I’d like to come up.

The lock released and Alec entered the lobby, which was cool and quiet. He mounted the steps, counting the flights, regretting that only three separated the lobby from the apartment. He still didn’t know what he might say to Polina, and three flights didn’t offer enough time to compose his thoughts. He imagined a climb of thirty flights, arduous and purifying, like one of the pilgrims crawling on his knees along Via Conciliazione.

From the landing he saw that the door to the apartment was open. As he neared, he found Lyova waiting for him in the vestibule, where he himself had stood and waited for Masha.

—My condolences, Lyova said, and put out his hand.

Alec accepted the hand and allowed Lyova to usher him into the apartment. Polina sat at the dining room table and regarded him silently. Alec looked at her, and then, instinctively, past her, around the apartment, alert to any changes that might have cropped up in his absence. The curtain separating Lyova’s half of the apartment was partially drawn, and the kempt bed visible. The door to their bedroom was open, but there, too, Alec detected nothing incriminating.

—I’m sorry about your father, Polina said. What happened?

—He died walking to Rome to straighten me out.

Alec looked meaningfully at Lyova, laying claim to what negligible rights remained to him.

—I’ll go, Lyova said, then took his coat and tactfully withdrew.

Alec and Polina were left together in the apartment, as if under a vast ponderous cloud. Alec thought to speak, though without any confidence in what he might say, but Polina preempted him.

—Alec, there is nothing to say.

As she spoke the words, Alec noticed that on the tabletop, framed between her hands, was a Soviet airmail envelope.

—It’s from Nadja?

—Yes.

—What does she say?

Polina smiled grimly and slid the envelope across the table. —Read it for yourself.

Alec eased himself into a chair at the table and examined the front of the envelope. He saw Nadja’s familiar script, addressed, for the first time, to Polina and to him using their real names. He removed the pages and unfolded them.

The letter began:

Alec turned the pages facedown on the table. He raised his eyes to meet Polina’s and perceived the change in her—as if a tenacious light had finally been extinguished. —I’m sorry, Alec said. —What are you apologizing for? —I have enough to apologize for. —It doesn’t matter to me, Alec. —I understand that, Alec said. But it matters to me. Polina looked at him blankly. —I’m serious, Alec said. —Alec, it’s too late. —I don’t agree. It doesn’t have to be. Polina rolled her eyes with exasperation.

—Alec, I knew who you were when I chose to go with you. Nobody
forced me. If I’ve made a mess of my life, and am now left alone, it’s my own fault.

—You don’t have to be alone.

—Alec, please don’t be dense.

—I’m not being dense. I have lost your trust—I recognize that. You don’t want to go to Canada with me—I understand. You regret leaving your family—so return to them. The same borders you crossed to get here, you can cross in reverse. It needn’t be hard. For all we know, it might even be easier in reverse. If that’s what you want, you should do it. And if it’s what you do, I will go back with you.

—Alec, now you’re being more than dense.

Alec prepared to object. He didn’t see it that way at all. Instead, he had begun to feel illuminated by the idea of returning. It had dawned on him purely spontaneously, but it possessed a seductive logic. If he was looking to commit an act of sacrifice, there was no better altar. If he wanted to prove his devotion to Polina, here was the perfect symmetry. She had forsaken her family for him, now he would do the same for her. He envisioned their return, and his mortification. He saw himself making public statements and disavowals—maybe even on television and radio. He saw himself prostrating himself before one official body after another. He saw himself entering into moral compromises. Becoming a tool of the KGB. Joining the Party. Giving formal speeches against internationalism and in support of the Revolution. Fervently espousing beliefs he did not hold.

T
he following morning, they bade farewell to Lyova for the third and final time. They descended with him to the street to await the taxi that would take him to the airport. Their farewell was muted, colored by everything that had just passed. When the taxi arrived, Lyova embraced each of them in turn—first Alec, then Polina. With a vagabond smile, Lyova uttered the old Red Army creed:
No one and nobody is forgotten!
He then ducked his head inside the taxi and was gone.

The night Lyova left, Alec slept on an eiderdown on the floor in Lyova’s half of the apartment. Once Lyova was gone, he assumed his bed.

Before the week of mourning was over, they received word about their papers. Without Samuil, there were no longer any constraints to their application. After such a long period of waiting, they were once again obliged to rush. They packed up their things quickly. The majority of what they’d brought to Rome they had sold, and they’d purchased very little in exchange. Polina did most of the packing, maintaining a barrier of activity between them.

Days before their departure, Alec and Polina traveled to Ladispoli
to allow Polina to finally pay her respects and to help with the preparations. The house, when they arrived, was in a state of upheaval. Objects and clothes were piled up in the corners. In the kitchen, Alec saw his mother displaying one of his father’s shirts for Josef Roidman, who stood before her and examined the garment. On the table before her, neatly folded, were other of his father’s clothes—his shirts, his trousers, his blazer. Also on the table were a pair of tailor’s shears and a knitting kit with needles, thimbles, and multicolored spools of thread. When his mother saw them enter, she beckoned them into the kitchen. Seeing Polina, her face flushed and she wiped her eyes with the backs of her wrists, overcome again as if for the first time.

—He is gone, Polinachka, Emma said.

Polina went to embrace her, and everyone observed a solemn moment, until Emma collected herself and remembered what she’d been doing.

—I don’t want them to go to strangers or to waste, Emma said. Josef was his friend. Your father would have been happy for him to have them. Unless, of course, you want anything.

—It’s probably better that Josef take them, Alec said.

—I consider it an honor, Roidman replied.

—They just require some alterations, Emma said.

Polina offered to help, and joined her at the table.

—There are more of your father’s things in the other room, Emma said. It breaks my heart to touch them. But if you feel you can do it, you should do it. And look to see if there is anything you want for yourself.

As he started away for the living room, Alec heard Roidman say, God willing, I will come to Canada soon and visit you wearing this shirt.

In the living room were several cardboard boxes of his father’s things. Alec sat down to sort through them. From the bedroom, he could hear Yury and Zhenya chirping some song in what may have been English. Rosa opened the door and the boys’ voices spilled out louder. Seeing Alec amid Samuil’s effects, she came over.

—Karl took your father’s wedding ring and left you his watch, Rosa said. He’s the firstborn son, so I hope you don’t have any objections.

—No objections, Alec said.

Alec saw Rosa glance at the kitchen, where Josef Roidman was wearing his father’s blazer, with Polina folding and pinning one of the sleeves.

—So she took you back after all.

—She says she will leave me once we get to Canada.

Rosa kept her eyes on Polina as she went about her task.

—She would be right to, Rosa said. But I suspect she won’t. That’s the way we women are.

She looked away and returned to the bedroom, leaving Alec alone with the boxes. They consisted almost exclusively of papers, notebooks, and documents. There were very few personal items. He saw his father’s razor, an unopened bottle of cologne, two pairs of pewter cuff links, and the inexpensive watch, of Soviet manufacture, that Rosa had bequeathed to him. He found that he was able to handle these objects without feeling too much distress. His father’s papers and notebooks he felt far less equipped to handle. To look at his handwriting felt exceedingly personal and painful. He glanced quickly through the documents and packed them away for some future day.

Among the papers, at the bottom of a box, he came upon the stack of letters that his uncle had sent from the front. They were yellowed, brittle with age, and carried the scent of loss and the past. For that reason they seemed hallowed, but also because Alec knew that these were his father’s dearest possessions. Alec leafed through them carefully, unfolded them, and regretted that he would never understand what they said. The only thing he could decipher were the dates, which his uncle had written in Roman numerals at the top of each letter. His father had filed them chronologically, beginning with the first correspondence from the summer of 1941. Alec counted more than sixty letters in total, ending in late December of 1942. This final letter was composed in Russian and in another hand.