She reached for Zhenya, and he gave her a quick kiss on the cheek before pulling away. He turned to look at each of them in the room, one at a time, then followed the OGPU officer out the door, past Luba’s cot and her neatly folded clothes, past the dried white flowers Luba kept in a vase stacked on top of a volume of Lenin’s speeches. Zhenya picked up his coat from the hook by the door, then followed the first officer out.
The second officer closed the door behind him, and they were gone.
Olga Ivanova began to weep quietly, so Milly sat down next to her again and pressed the woman’s wet cheek against her shoulder. Olga’s sobs cut into Milly’s chest, and soon she was crying too.
This was all her damn fault.
2
BEFORE
FEBRUARY 1931
SITTING IN HER cramped ocean-liner cabin, Milly grimaced at her headache. Her first night into her new life in Russia and already she was hungover. She lifted the long-stemmed pink rose to her face and sniffed. Even with the waves of gin on her breath and the salt water musk rising from the cabin carpet, she could smell the rich scent. Too rich, her coiled stomach told her, and she placed the rose carefully back in its box. It was swell of her friends to have surprised her onboard last night before the ship set off from New York, but now she was paying the price. She pressed her fingers to her lips, then went to open the cabin door. Maybe that would get some fresh air in here.
“Steward!” she called when she spotted the man down the hall. While he approached, she stepped back into the cabin to run her fingers through her sleep-tossed hair. Some good that would do.
“Mrs. Mitchell?” he asked. She’d booked her passage to Germany, en route to Moscow, under her legal name, though she still smarted at the reminder of her failed marriage to Mike. No matter that they’d divorced five years ago: passports were passports.
“Could you clear out this mess?” She pointed at the empty bottles and boxes of crumpled green paper with daisies and carnations spilling from them. “I’d be grateful. Oh, but those roses, those’ll be for my table. Can you do that?” She should throw the whole mess out, but she couldn’t bear to part with the ones from Fred, her married lover. No, former lover, and she should toss those flowers straight into the can.
But she wouldn’t.
She dug for two quarters in her change purse, then dropped them in the steward’s hand with what she hoped was an appreciative smile.
“My pleasure, Mrs. Mitchell.”
“You’re a champ. Now, give me a minute to put myself together.”
He stepped out of the cabin, and as soon as she latched the door, Milly turned to collect the blue telegram slips she’d left scattered across the table. One by one she wedged them into the frame around the mirror: Esther, LooJo, Grace. When she got to Fred’s, she paused. Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do best wishes Fred. The tears welled up again. She still loved the bastard, but she was glad to be rid of him. He’d made it clear he had chosen his wife over her, and that was that. Or, Anna Louise Strong had offered her a job in Moscow, the fascinating new socialist world of Moscow, and that was that. Milly pressed her knuckles into her damp eyes and tried to believe she was chasing the intellectual thrill of seeing a new way of organizing society, not fleeing the age-old story of a broken heart. Ever since Hawaii, all she seemed good at was running away from her problems. Especially when those problems were men.
Quickly Milly stuffed Fred’s note into one of her notebooks, then pulled on her stockings, snapped the garters over them, and fluffed her skirt into place. She looked like a rotten onion, splotchy and out of sorts, but she had to go above deck. This morning she had missed the receding New York skyline. The least she could do now was to get her poor, sour stomach some damned air.
She gave the waiting steward another enthusiastic thanks and then ascended on wobbly legs to the deck, where the cold sea wind buffeted her ears and sent her scurrying back inside. So much for that. Next time she’d remember her coat, she scolded herself. Typical Milly Bennett. She stood by the window and tried to make out the horizon in the distance, but the dividing line between the ocean and sky blurred. She frowned, and the ship’s engine hummed as if burrowing into the waters beneath her feet.
At dinner that night her beautiful long-stemmed roses were arranged in a vase in front of her place setting, their soft blooms pouting like flirtatious girls.
“You’ve already got an admirer, I see,” said the man seated across from her at the small table. He spoke with a crystalline British accent and held his cigar between large fingers.
Milly laughed.
“They’re from my old boss out in San Francisco.” It wasn’t true, but she wasn’t about to tell a stranger they were from her married lover. Ex-lover. “Sweetest old man you ever saw.”
“I didn’t see you at lunch.” He put out the cigar, then looked at her, holding her gaze. “Though I can tell you, you didn’t miss much.”
She stared back at him. He had high cheekbones and a carefully combed shock of blond hair, and he was enough to give her a tremor of pleasure instead of sea sickness. “I was still sleeping off the farewell party. So, you’re to be my meal companion?”
“My good fortune.” He smiled. She knew he was flattering her; no one looked at her face and called himself lucky, but she wanted to be flattered. “Much better than my fortune with lunch, when these Germans”—he gestured at the ship—“subjected us to boiled meat and sticky bread. Cheapskates.”
Milly flinched at the insult but, wanting to be polite, nodded and lifted a spoonful of green pea soup to her lips.
“You know, I don’t think I can handle this mess either,” she said. “I’m usually a good sailor, but …”
“Shall I get them to serve you something else?” Without waiting for her response, he turned to flag a waiter, and the yellow light from the wall sconces glistened on the slick of his hair.
“No, no,” she said. “Thanks though.” She’d never sent a meal back, not once in her life. She picked up a crust of bread and nibbled at it. Bread should help settle her stomach.
He clucked his tongue, then raised his hand again to signal the waiter.
“This won’t do,” he said when the red-faced waiter arrived. “Bring a bowl of consommé for the lady please.”
“Sir, I’m afraid we don’t—”
“With how much we’re paying for tickets, there is no don’t. Some consommé for the lady, if you please.”
“I’m fine,” Milly protested. She was starting this journey to help workers, not beleaguer them. The waiter looked back and forth between them, his chapped hands tugging at his sleeves.
“She’s being polite,” her dining companion said, then added in marbled German, “A better soup.” The waiter’s eyebrows pinched as he looked at them, then he gave a short exhale and walked away.
Milly set her spoon down and regarded her dinner companion, who was smiling broadly at her. She didn’t want a better soup.
“That poor man’s going to get in trouble,” she said. As usual, her complaints came too late.
“Trouble?” Her companion tapped a finger against his lips. “Seems unlikely. He’ll get a tip from me for doing his job properly.”
She looked at the tablecloth.
“You promise?” She didn’t want to fight with this handsome man, even though a small voice at the back of her mind said she should.
He waved a hand. “Of course.”
“I guess I ought to appreciate your effort.” She sighed, defeated. Later, she would check on the waiter, make sure he was all right.
She pushed the bowl of green sludge away, and it gathered up a fold of white tablecloth as she did so. The Brit reached across the table to straighten it out. Once he did, he grasped her fingers lightly between his.
“The name’s Caldwell,” he said. “I don’t believe we’ve introduced ourselves.”
“Milly Bennett.” She smiled, and her hungover stomach felt a little better. He was a cad, sure, but a good-l
ooking one. She squeezed his fingers then withdrew her hand.
The next day, he rearranged his deck chair assignment to sit next to her and brought her a heavy rug to withstand the bracing sea air blowing past.
“For the lady,” he said with a mock bow. “Though I’m sure she looks better with far less,” he whispered.
Milly laughed, and was tempted to tell him he was most certainly right—her full breasts and curved hips were a far better feature than her face—but she didn’t have the courage. In the twenties she had learned how much fun it was to let a man rattle her bones, but that was San Francisco and Prohibition, when the rank grape smell of fermentation wafted up Telegraph Hill while a sharp-witted man nuzzled her neck.
“Did you tip the waiter?” she asked instead.
“The waiter? I’m sure.” He settled into his chair and pulled out a book.
Milly frowned. She would have to leave a tip in the dining room herself, though heaven knew she couldn’t afford it. She brushed her windblown hair behind her ear and peered at the title. The Well of Loneliness.
“You won’t like that one,” she warned him. The girl in that novel loved other girls and had no need for men; Caldwell wouldn’t know what to make of such a character.
“Maybe I shouldn’t read it, then.” He laid the book open on his lap. “Why is a young woman like yourself going to Germany? Or are you getting off in England?”
“To Moscow. To work on a newspaper,” she said. “A woman I sorta know runs it, and she said she needed an experienced hand. And who could resist finding out what new world they’ve got up and running there? We’re washed up here.” She gestured behind her, as if New York, its stock market crash, and its lines of desperate beggars were over her shoulder.
“If you say so,” he said casually, and returned his gaze to his novel.
WHEN THE SHIP docked in Southampton, Milly stood on the deck and waved at Caldwell as he disembarked. She never had learned his first name, and in the end, that seemed fitting. It wasn’t the old world that she wanted to discover.
3
NOW
FEBRUARY 28, 1934
AFTER THE OGPU officers took Zhenya away, Olga cried quietly for a few minutes while the rest of them puttered around the cramped room, looking for books to straighten or shirts to refold. But everything was in order. Milly alternated between holding Olga’s hand and rereading the mundane arrest receipt. Then, by silent agreement, they tried to sleep. It was too late for Victor to go home, so Luba gave him her cot and shared Zhenya’s small bed with Milly.
When Milly woke, probably a couple of hours later, a light glitter of snow fell from the bright sky, and a truck rumbled past. Next to her, Luba slumbered, her eyelids tight and twitching, and beyond her, Olga’s breath gave a growl each time she exhaled. Milly pinched her eyes shut and tried to fall asleep again, but all she could think of was Zhenya’s lean body, curled up somewhere and shivering.
She rolled over, turning her back to Luba’s warmth, and hugged herself, staying under the blankets as long as she could, until the pressure of her bladder forced her out. She searched for Zhenya’s slippers but gave up, and she tiptoed across the painfully cold floor and down the hallway to the shared floor bathroom.
There, one of the neighbors shuffled out the bathroom door as Milly approached. He looked at her, closed the door, and stood blocking the entrance. Milly crossed her arms. He raised an unruly brown eyebrow, and she knew he had heard at least something of what had happened last night. Nonetheless, he had obviously slept better than she had. His left cheek bore the red marks of the pillow. The wooden floorboards were cold and rough beneath her bare skin, but Milly remained, arms crossed. If he wanted to know something he could ask. Not that she would tell him about Zhenya anyway.
“Excuse me,” she said in Russian, though her exhausted voice came out as a croak.
He smirked.
“I could pee on your floor if you want,” Milly added.
He huffed and stepped out of the way.
Back in the apartment’s tiny kitchen, she wet a rag in the pot of water they kept for cleaning and washed her narrow feet. She sighed and wrung out the rag in the empty sink basin.
She pulled on an extra pair of socks and one of Zhenya’s sweaters, then buttoned herself into the pretty reindeer coat she’d bought last fall. Worth every ruble that coat was, now that bitter winter once again had its teeth in the city. She wrapped her scarf around her neck and head and trundled, as quietly as she could, out of the room.
Outside, a few snowflakes still sprinkled the morning sky, and her glasses fogged up. Without breaking stride on the slippery sidewalk, she pulled the glasses off, wiped them down, and replaced them on her nose before she could trip. She had enough times in the past, god knows. Now, with her glasses cleared, she could see the fine ornamentation on the buildings on Zhenya’s street, and she strained to see past the iron gate closing an arched passageway between two buildings. Here, Moscow felt like Europe, and she let herself be charmed by the decorative touches some architect had added in hopes of welcoming people into his building. She imagined how she would describe each archway and windowsill if she were to write a story. Better that than thinking about Zhenya.
When she reached her miniscule room in the New Moscow Hotel, about fifteen long minutes later, Milly examined her notebooks. Nothing, it seemed, had been touched, and there was no sign of a search here. Still, she pulled a few particularly critical pages from her notes and burned them in the trash can, next to an open window to dissipate the smoke. She hurried to rush her still-cold fingers through undressing, ditching the dinner dress and stockings, even Zhenya’s sweater, and pulling on sensible trousers and wool stockings beneath them. Today, she would start to right what had gone wrong. She picked up her enameled hairbrush and yanked it through the knots in her unruly black hair. She scowled at her displeasing reflection in the mirror, then slashed on some red lipstick anyway. So what if lipstick was bourgeois; her poor mug needed all the help it could get.
But that day all she could do was get a number from the old woman at the front of the OGPU precinct building, a card that gave Milly a place to stand in line the next day. Number seventy-one for the package line. She called Olga to tell her on the shared telephone, and the older woman thanked her in a tiny voice. Then Milly rushed to the Moscow Daily News newsroom in the former ballroom of a requisitioned mansion to edit the two stories she was responsible for that night. She did her work without saying a word to anyone, not even Seema, who tapped a questioning finger on Milly’s desk when she passed. When her editing was finished, Milly had no time to walk all the way to Olga’s, so she ran to the store and bought what she could for Zhenya’s package. There was a ten-kilo limit—she had overheard one of the Russian translators say so a few weeks ago—but she didn’t know what he would need. She spent the waning hours of the night arranging and rearranging the items in her box until she stumbled to bed.
For the second night in a row Milly got only a few hours of sleep, and she awoke groaning in the still-dark morning. She pulled on her same wool stockings and trousers, attire that made her almost immediately identifiable as an American, since the Russian women wore skirts no matter how cold it was. She grabbed the package she had put together for Zhenya and went outside to stand in line.
By now, dozens more anxious women, and a few men, milled around in the street. Milly heard people mentioning line numbers as high as two hundred. She clutched the brown paper package to her chest and shivered. No one spoke to her, which was fine. She needed to think. She ran over in her mind the stories she had overseen or written in the past few months, or at least what she could remember. The interview with the Lunts, the yarn on the tractor factory, the countless translated pieces about five-year plans and collectivization. It had been months, even years, since she had written anything that had so much as made the newspaper’s leadership frown. Sure, they had been upset over the typewriter incident, but that wasn’t reason to call the secret polic
e. It didn’t make sense that the OGPU had targeted Zhenya because of her, but it made even less sense that he had any political clashes while rehearsing for the opera or taking singing lessons.
At ten o’clock the office door unlocked, and the crowd merged then distended in the shape of a line. People murmured as they compared numbers, but said little more. Their strained faces did more talking. An old woman in front of Milly balanced three packages, and each time she shuffled forward the top box wobbled. Milly thought of asking the woman, who had a shadow of a mustache on her crinkled upper lip, what she had packed. With three packages to send, the woman must know what prisoners needed. Milly gripped the wrapping on hers until the box began to dent inward. She hoped the food would make it to Zhenya, and she wondered, with a sick feeling at the pit of her stomach, what he had been eating for the past day.
By the time Milly made it into the cramped building and to the glass window where they accepted the packages, it was early afternoon and her stomach was growling. A stern man with a bulbous nose and brown hair streaked with gray waved for her to approach the window’s ledge. He remained seated, with a card catalog box in front of him.
“Let’s see,” he said, reaching for the parcel.
She pushed it through the opening. He moved to untie the string, but then looked at the name on the exterior and frowned.
“No location?” He raised an eyebrow at her.
“I don’t know where he is,” she said, articulating the Russian words.
The man huffed. He set the package aside and began flipping through the cards. He reached the middle of the box, stopped, and reversed course.
“Sorry,” he said. “No Evgeni Konstantinov here.”
Milly’s hands felt detached from her wrists, as if they were about to dissolve.
“What in the hell,” she said in English, then switched to Russian. “He’s got to be here. He hasn’t vanished.”
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