by Colum McCann
* * *
He goes to the edge of the bed, pulls his shirt over his head, undoes the button at the top of his trousers, stands naked in the light. He says to the pilot: Close the curtains, keep the light on, make sure the door is locked.
* * *
Late at night in Ekaterina Square, in the antique dust of Leningrad, when the streetlamps were turned off to save power and the city was quiet, a scatter of us would come from different parts of the city to walk beneath the row of trees on the theater side of the park. Quietly. Furtively. If stopped by the militia we had our papers, the excuse of our jobs, insomnia, our wives, our children at home. Sometimes we were beckoned by those we didn’t recognize, but we knew better, we moved quickly away. Cars passed on Nevsky, catching us in their headlights, obliterating our shadows, and it seemed for a moment that our shadows had been taken for questioning. We imagined ourselves on the jump seat of a Black Maria, whisked away to the camps for being the goluboy, the blue boys, the perverts. The arrest, if it came, would be swift and brutal. At home we kept a small bag packed and hidden, just in case. The threat of it should have been enough: forests, mess cans, barracks, bunks, plank beds, five years, the crack of metal on frozen wood. But there were nights when the square was silent and we waited in the fog, stood against the fence, and smoked.
A tall thin boy picked at the springs of his watch with a penknife, carving time. The watch was on a chain, and he let it swing to his hips. Two brothers arrived each Thursday from the pedestrian underpass, fresh from the factory baths, their dark hair preceding their scuffed shoes. An old veteran stood under a tree. He was able to whistle many of the great Liszt rhapsodies. He was known to say aloud: Why earn your joy only when you are dead? He continued until morning, when the distant sound of the river steamers whistled him out. Sometimes the curtains of the rooms across the square opened and closed, figures appearing, disappearing. Black Volgas moved away from the curbside and went down the dark streets. Nervous laughter rang out. Cigarette papers were rolled and licked. Snuffboxes were unfurled. Nobody drank—drinking would loosen our tongues and give to the living the breath of the dead. Sweat stained the rims of our collars. We stamped our feet, blew warm air into our gloves, moved our bodies beyond ordinary wakefulness, and beyond that once again, until at times it felt as if we would never sleep.
The night went by, our desires hidden, as if sewn inside coat sleeves. It was not that we even took our coats off, it was the touch, the shiver of recognition when our sleeves met as we lit each other’s cigarettes. Hatred too. Hatred for such similarity.
The theater doors swung open late, allowing actors, dancers, stagehands out. Sometimes they walked all the way from the Kirov, twenty minutes. They leaned against the ironwork, wrapped in their scarves, gloves, leg warmers. A sandy-haired boy swung his foot into the air and propped it on a prong of the fence, stretched, his head to his knees, his breath steaming, his leather cap tipped backwards on his head. His body had an ease to it, his toes his feet his legs his chest his shoulders his neck his mouth his eyes. His lips were extraordinarily red, and his mouth was made more red again by the eyes. Even the leather hat seemed shaped to the way that he pulled it on and off. Most of the time he didn’t stay long in the square, he was privileged and there were other places for him to go—basements, cupolas, apartments—but once or twice he remained, kicking his foot to the top of the fence. We passed, inhaled the smell of him. He never said a word to us.
We waited for him to reappear in the square, but he became more recognizable, his face in the newspapers, on posters. The thought of him lay with us.
When the rumor of morning arrived, the streetlights flickered briefly and we would part. We unraveled into the streets, some looking for the boy with the pocket watch, or the factory brothers, or the dancer with the sandy hair, the print of his foot on the damp pavement, his overcoat parted by walking, his scarf flying out from the back of his neck. Sometimes, by the stone steps that descended to a canal’s black waters, the light of the moon was broken by a shadow’s stride and we turned to follow. Even then, so close to morning, there was always the thought that water might hide its flowing under ice.
3
LONDON • 1961
Every Friday the drunks roll past, loud and foul with whiskey, reeking of piss and dustbins, and, as he has done for years now, he reaches out the window, handing each of them a shilling, so almost every tramp around Covent Garden knows that the place for a little money is the factory on the far side of the Royal, where the middle-aged man, the bald one with the spectacles, at the second to last window, open, but only on a Friday, leans out and listens to the stories—my mother’s caught up with consumption, my uncle lost his wooden leg, my aunt Josephine got her knickers in a twist—and, no matter what the story, he says to the drunks, Here you go, mate, shilling after shilling, much of his wages, so that instead of taking the Tube back to his room in Highbury he walks all the way, to save the money, a good five miles, stooped, his flat hat on, nodding to ladies and paperboys and more drunks, some of whom recognize him and try to charm another shilling from him, which he cannot give because he has calculated exactly enough for lodging and food, he says, Sorry, mate, tips his hat and walks on, a shopping bag banging against his calf, all the way through Covent Garden and Holborn and Grays Inn, along Rosebury Avenue, up the Essex Road onto Newington Green, the sky darkening as he goes, and he turns left on Poet’s Road, walks to the redbrick lodging house, number 47, where the landlady, a widow from Dorchester, greets him airily at the front door, by the mock-ebony clock with the two pawing horses, and he bows slightly to her, saying, Evening, Mrs. Bennett, and makes his way up the stairs, passing the pictures of ducks on the wall, straightening them if another lodger has bumped against them, sixteen steps, into his room, where at last he removes his shoes, thinking he must polish them, and then he unloosens his tie, pours himself a Scotch from the silver flask hidden behind the bedstead, just a nip, sighing deeply as it hits his throat, opens the shopping bag, sets the shoes out on his work desk, just finishing touches—a shank to be trimmed, a wing block to be extended, a drawstring that requires threading through, a heel to be cut down—neat, precise, and when he is finished he wraps them each in plastic, making sure there are no creases in the wrapping, since he has a reputation to maintain, the ballerinas, the choreographers, the opera houses, they all seek him out, sending their specifications,
a foot so wide at the toes and so narrow at the heel he must stretch the shoe to accommodate it,
the fourth toe abnormally longer than the third, something he solves with the simple loosening of a stitch,
the shoe that needs a harder shank, a higher back, a softer sole,
he is well-known for his tricks, they talk about him, the dancers with their difficulties or those just simply fussy, writing him letters, sending him telegrams, sometimes even visiting him at the factory—meet your maker!—especially those from the Royal Ballet, so delicate and fine and appreciative, most of all Margot Fonteyn, his favorite, who once got an amazing three performances out of one pair of toe shoes, her requirements being terribly intricate, a very short vamp, a low wing block, extra paste at the tips, wide pleats for grip, and he is the only maker she ever deals with, she adores him, she thinks him the perfect gentleman, and in return she is the only ballerina whose picture hangs above his worktable—To Tom, with love, Margot—and it makes him shiver to think how she handles his shoes once she gets them, shattering the shank to make it more pliable, banging the shoe against doors to soften the box, bending the shoe over and over so it feels perfect on her feet, as if she has worn it forever, a thought which prompts a little smile as he puts the shoes away neatly on his bedroom shelf, steps into his pajamas, kneels down for two quick prayers, goes to bed, never dreaming of feet or shoes, and when he wakes he shuffles down the corridor to the shared bathroom, where he soaps and shaves, the whiskers grown gray in recent years, fills a kettle with tap water, returns to his room, puts the kettle on his stove
, waits for it to whistle, makes himself a cup of tea, having put the milk on the windowsill overnight to keep it cool, then takes the stack of shoes from the shelf and sets once again to work, and he works all morning long, although Saturdays aren’t considered overtime, he doesn’t care, he enjoys the repetitions and differing demands, the women’s toe shoes so much more intricate and difficult than the ballet boots for men, the French with more of an eye for flair than the English, the softer leather pads demanded by the Spanish, the Americans who call their shoes slippers, and how he detests that word, slipper, like something out of a fairy tale, he often thinks of the violence a shoe takes, the pounding, the destruction, not to mention the tiny incisions, the surgery, the gentleness, the tricks he learned from his late father, who worked the same job for forty years,
if you’re adjusting the vamp and it’s too stiff just use a little Brylcreem to soften it,
soap the satin clean of dust not only before but during and especially after the making of the shoe,
think of yourself as the foot,
and the only thing that disturbs the rhythm of his shoemaking is the soccer match each Saturday, he makes the trip half a mile down the road to watch Arsenal, and on alternating weeks he supports the reserves, a red-and-white scarf wrapped around his neck, standing in the terraces, for which he has built himself a special pair of shoes that give him another four inches, since he is a small man and he wants to watch the game over the other fans’ heads, Arsenal! Arsenal! the sway of the crowd as the ball is swept around the pitch, the spin, the dribble, the nutmeg, the volley, it is perhaps not entirely unlike ballet, everything in the feet is what matters, not that he would ever see a ballet, a notion inherited from his father
stay out of the theaters, son, don’t ever go watch,
no point in seeing your shoes ripped to pieces,
tune your shoes, that’s all,
and at halftime he finds his mind drifting back to the shoes in his room, how he can improve on them, if the shank was too tight, if the box could have been toughened, until he hears the crowd roaring and sees the teams trotting out onto the pitch, the referee’s shrill whistle, and the match begins again, the ball tipped on by Jackie Henderson, taken down the wing by George Eastham, and then swung across into the center for David Herd to head home, and the shoemaker jumps in the air on his false shoes and rips his hat from his head, revealing his baldness, and after the match he walks home with the singing crowd, swept along, sometimes he is pinned against a wall for a moment by the bigger men, though it is not far to the house, and he is embarrassed if he meets Mrs. Bennett at the door, she has not yet figured out how come he is taller on Saturdays, A cup of tea, Mr. Ashworth? No, ta, Mrs. Bennett, up to his room to look at his work, to trim the cardboard where there is a bump invisible to any normal eye, or to feather the shank down with a skiv, and then he lines the shoes up by his bedside table, so that on Sunday, after a sleep-in, they are the first thing he sees, pleasing him no end, even thinking of them while in church, walking heavy-footed back down the aisle after services, among the ladies in hats and veils, out into the sunlight, a deep breath and a sigh of relief, away from the church grounds, past the suburban gardens, taking the remainder of Sunday as a day of rest, a pint of bitter and a spot of lunch, reading the paper in the park, November 6, two days past his forty-fourth birthday—Hague Agreement to Be Altered, U.S. Charges Cuban Spy, Soviet Dancer to Arrive in London—a story he knows well, since the sketches of the feet came in last week, he is due to start work on the shoes first thing in the morning, a thought that occupies him as he prepares for bed, and ten hours later he emerges at Covent Garden in the sunlight, walks towards the shop, keen to get going, Mr. Reed the boss slapping him on the shoulder, Good morning, Tom oul’ son, and he leaves the toe shoes from the weekend in the front office, enters the shop, takes off his overcoat, puts on his large white apron, fires up the ovens, seventy degrees—hot enough to harden shoes but not melt the satin—and then he goes downstairs to the leather room, wanting to find a number of good sturdy hides before the other makers arrive, smells the leather, rubs his hands over the grain, then straight upstairs with the hides and a bucket of glue beneath his arm, to his work desk, the makers arriving, all cricket and wives and hangovers, nodding at him, he is the best of them, they have a deep respect for him, coming as he does from the line of Ashworths, the greatest makers of them all, craftsmen, the insignia on their shoes down over the years a simple
a
a little more intricate than those of any of the other makers, who all have their own flourishes—a squiggle, a circle, a triangle—placed on the sole, so the dancers know their makers, and some of the fans even go to the dustbins behind the theaters to rescue the ruined shoes, to see who made them, the Ashworths being coveted, but Tom isn’t troubled by the pressure, he gives himself to his work, spectacles on the bridge of his nose, studying the sketches of the Russian’s feet, the specifications in from Paris,
the size, the width, the length of the toes,
the angle of the nails, the ball of the foot, the way the ligaments come to the ankle,
the spread of the heel, the blisters, the bone spurs,
and just by the sketches alone he knows the life of this foot, raised in barefoot poverty and—from the unusual wideness of the bone structure—bare on concrete rather than grass, then squeezed into shoes that were too small, coming to dance later than usual given the smallness yet breadth of the foot, 7 EEE, then a great violence done by excessive training, many hard angles, but a remarkable strength, and stretching back from his worktable, Tom Ashworth smiles, shakes out his hands, and then is lost in the work, silent as if in a trance, making one pair of men’s boots in the first hour, three in the second, slow for him, the order is forty pairs, a full day’s work, maybe even two if he runs into difficulty, for the Russian desires his shoes made with a reverse channel construction, meaning two large hook needles must be used and—even though it’s a much easier proposition than making toe shoes for a ballerina—it requires time and intimacy, and he stops only when a shout goes up for lunch break, a moment he relishes, sandwiches and tea, the younger cobblers a bit cheeky, How’s the commie shoes then, eh? to which he nods and smiles—when the other makers saw the sketches they shouted, Defected my arse! Defective more likely! He’s a bleeding commie ain’t he? No he ain’t, he’s one of us. One of us? I seen him on telly and he looks a right bloody poofter!—and when lunch is finished he’s back with the sketches, afraid he has made a wrong move somewhere, the figures trilling through his head, keeping the inside-out shoes moist with wet cloths, his bald head shining, he stitches by hand, invoking the Ashworth spirit, then brings the shoes to the drying oven, which he checks again with the thermometer to make sure it is seventy degrees
after all, no matter who the shoes are for, or why, they always have to be perfect.
4
UFA, LENINGRAD • 1961–1964
August 12
The wooden shutters on the windows blew open last night and banged until the morning.
August 13
Up before dawn with the radio, listening, but fell back to sleep. When I woke Father had already eaten breakfast. He said, You must rest, daughter. And yet he is the one feeling sickly. The past weeks have worn him out. I beseeched him to return to bed. Still he insisted on accompanying Mother and me to the market. Father does not talk to anyone when he goes out, for fear of what will be said, even though it has not been officially announced. He walks with his head down as if they have put something heavy on his neck, his forehead brought low with the weight of it. At the Krassina market we found three bundles of spinach. No meat. Father took both canvas bags at first. We switched when we got near the fountain on October Prospect. The stone wall has cracked in the heat. He was bent over with exhaustion. When he gave me the second bag he said, You must forgive, Tamara. And yet there is nothing for me to forgive. What is to forgive? I had a brother, he is gone, that is all.
August 16
In his leaving he has forced me home. Moscow seems years away already. What am I to become? My anger boils over. I almost smashed Mother’s teacup but held myself back.
August 17
Father came home from the factory long-faced. We dare not ask. We cooked chicken broth to soothe him. He ate without a, word.
August 18
A white car in the street, traveling up and down, up and down. It is marked Driving School, but the driver makes no mistakes.
August 19
At the Big House with Mother again. They believe she is the only one who can change Rudik’s mind. They gave us tea, unusual for them, considering. It was lukewarm. I thought for a moment it might be poisoned. A half-dozen phones were set up on the desk. Four men and two women. Three wore headphones, two worked into dictation machines, the other supervised. Most of them did not look us in the eye, but the supervisor stared. He gave Mother a set of headphones and told me to sit in the corner. They finally got through to Rudik on the third try. He was sleepy since there is a time difference. He was in an apartment in Paris. (They said later that it was a place famous for its men with unnatural perverted instincts. They insist on using that phrase in front of Mother, to watch her face. She tries not to have her face betray her. It is important not to display emotion, she says.) There was a time delay on what Rudik said. Sometimes they bleeped it out. They got angry when there were exchanges in Tatar. Mother swore later that she heard the end of the word happy but of course what she really wanted to hear was return. We are to tell nobody about the betrayal, yet they go ahead and question the dancers in the Opera House, his friends, even Rudik’s old teachers, how do they expect word not to get out?