The woman paused with indecision. “Wait here.” She disappeared into the room, leaving the door ajar. There were voices and movement; the door opened again revealing the physician. He was a large man though somewhat gangly, she thought; fair and in need of a haircut. He studied her as if uncertain she was the same person, now upright and dressed, as the woman he’d evaluated briefly in the infirmary the day before.
“There is a problem?”
He asked in an honest manner, unsullied by mistrust. He, like the factory physician, was a noticeable transplant from a different world. She hesitated, uncertain if she should deceive him or risk his confidence.
His nurse stood behind him, her arms crossed; she’d recovered her composure and maintained a wary if not protective manner.
“I must speak to you alone,” said Margarita. She tried to sound ambiguous: it wasn’t clear if she was concerned for herself or for him. He nodded, and opened the door further.
Margarita waited for the nurse to leave then followed him into the office and shut the door. “I’ll catch hell for this,” he said under his breath. He sat on his desk, irrespective of the scattered papers. “Yes?” He spoke not unkindly but as though she’d better make this worth the interruption.
She held out the envelope and he took it from her. “I believe there is an error.” She’d not thought through what else she might say. She watched him scan the pages, her panic growing.
“I don’t think I should be sent back to the labor teams,” she said. “I’m not yet well enough. I’m not ready.”
“Really?” he said, still seeming to read. “What are you ready for, then?” He looked at her. “What can you do?”
His expression was flat, unperturbed; it wasn’t possible to tell what he was thinking.
She’d heard of female prisoners making particular arrangements with their prison commanders or physicians or other personnel of note. Certain protections could be had for a price. The room was warm. He didn’t appear to be bothered or embarrassed. “I can do other things,” she said. Her voice seemed to come from far away. She repeated her words, trying to sound stronger, perhaps more enthusiastic for such a situation.
For a moment she thought he would accept her offer. Then he smiled.
“You’re one of the healthiest women here,” he said. He handed the papers back. “Look, I’m not political. I realize you may be wrongly imprisoned, but that isn’t my concern. I’m sorry.”
He didn’t want her. And he didn’t care about her. For the first time, this felt deeply personal. She felt sorry for herself in a way she’d not felt since her arrest. Tears came. He made no move to console her; nor did he hurry her. He repeated the words, I’m sorry, at regular intervals. It was all he would offer. She had no handkerchief; she rubbed her face, smearing her cheeks.
He’d been well schooled in the manner of delivering bad news, she thought ungraciously. In the next moment though, she took this back. Why should he take responsibility for a world not of his making? Why should he pretend more regret than he felt?
She returned to the barracks and gave the pages to the guard inside. She went to her bed board and lay down. She was more a prisoner now than she had ever been. She would become one of those who steals clothes. She wondered if Raisa’s box still held hers; she could go through them before the others returned. A dead woman’s sweater would keep her warm. She would wear it and watch others freeze. A guard came and ordered her into the dining hall for the noon meal.
The hall was nearly empty; one other woman was there: the new prisoner. Margarita sat at her usual place, across from where Anyuta would sit. The woman was somewhere behind her. Margarita listened to the sounds of her eating. A glass was picked up then set down. Then picked up again. Margarita stared at her plate. She remembered the rat poison. She drew her fork through her food; such was a reasonable hazard. Something crashed behind her and she looked around. The woman was staring in her direction, her face both apologetic and frightened. The floor around her bench glittered with pieces of glass. Margarita went to her.
As she crossed the room, Margarita recognized her as the passing acquaintance she’d known in Moscow. An older woman, fifty or so, she’d been a bookkeeper at the first paper where Margarita had worked. Perhaps they’d spoken to each other. Perhaps not. She was changed now; a prisoner version of the former Muscovite. Fleetingly, Margarita wondered about her own appearance; a prisoner version of the old Margarita, of someone’s daughter, someone’s lover. She knelt and began to pick up the glass.
“Don’t,” the woman exclaimed. She sat and watched.
Each piece had its own particular shape: a fragment of the base, a curved wall, a wedge of rim. A slender point penetrated her palm, painless at first, then there was the button of red and the needlelike burn. As she watched, a second shard entered her finger near its base.
“You’re bleeding,” said the woman.
“I didn’t mean to,” said Margarita, then wondered what she’d meant. She took a napkin from the table and wrapped it around her palm. Briefly pale as her skin, the cloth bled as well, spreading dark along its fibers. With a second napkin, Margarita gathered the pieces into a pile. It occurred to her that the woman had dropped the glass on purpose. As if in some cosmic equilibrium, harm to one meted out protection to another.
“You should go to the infirmary,” said the woman.
Margarita shook her head. She closed her hand and opened it again. The red crept across the cloth like a secret language revealed.
“I’m so afraid,” said the woman softly. Of the glass. The blood. The pain. Of all things.
Margarita finished cleaning the mess for her. Somehow this meant that she was less afraid.
Klavdia had had the misfortune of falling in love with revolutionaries. This she confided to Margarita and counseled her against. In 1905, at the age of twenty, she met and eloped with her first revolutionary husband and her middle-class Muscovite family disowned her. A year later when the Tsar responded with a provisional constitution and their forbidden love had cooled, they separated and divorced. In 1917, she had married her second, a Trotskyite, who was subsequently arrested. Life had been hard for her, she told them. She preferred to speak in generalities. She would press Margarita for information about her liaisons then shake her head. She linked her own sad fortunes to men, and by extension, the sad fortunes of all women. Anyuta observed that she asked a lot of questions.
That evening when the others returned from the work site, Raisa’s bed board had been cleared and her belongings removed. A guard volunteered that she’d been taken to the infirmary. Speculation circulated about a possible contagion. Later, during dinner, another guard reported that she’d died in the afternoon and conversations were reduced to whispers. Klavdia sat next to Margarita. At the news, she set down her fork and stared at her food with new dismay. This seemed an aspect to her sentence she’d not anticipated. She leaned in toward Margarita and whispered.
“Did you know her?”
Anyuta watched from across the table. “What does that matter?” she said.
Klavdia sat back.
“Did you ever find your sweaters?” asked Anyuta sweetly. Others along the bench looked over.
Klavdia shook her head.
“That’s too bad,” said Anyuta. “It gets cold when they run out of fuel.” She banged her teeth together in an exaggerated chatter.
Someone suggested they hold a short service for the dead woman. Others agreed. Anyuta went on eating.
Margarita watched her and her misery grew. Oh Raisa! Poor Raisa.
“How has it been at the work site?” Margarita asked her.
“Why? Did you miss us?” Anyuta laughed harshly then stabbed at something on her plate.
The next morning the bus stopped across the street from the Party Headquarters and idled. Margarita was beside Anyuta as always. Klavdia was across the
aisle. This morning Anyuta had been as chatty as ever. A story about a dog and a rabbit. Her hand and empty sleeve moved in unison as she animated some provincial barnyard stand-down. The guard spoke briefly with the driver, then turned to face the prisoners. Margarita put her hand on the sleeve. She felt the stump beneath the cloth. Anyuta stopped talking.
The guard announced that an accountant was needed. A replacement for Raisa, though this was not explicit. He made eye contact with no one. Was there one among them with adequate experience? Nearly everyone raised their hands. He started down the aisle. Anyuta grabbed his coat and he stopped.
“Pick me, Comrade,” she said gaily. “You need a ‘counter?’ I can make it to a hundred on most days.”
His empty face filled with humor. “You?” he began. “We all know your talents.” He glanced at Margarita as though suddenly embarrassed and remembered his mission.
“You,” he said to her. “You have sufficient training?”
Margarita sensed calculation in her every move. She could not appear too eager, too intelligent, too conniving, too fearful. Too memorable. She watched him measure her. Perhaps he recalled the fainting episode a few days earlier. Perhaps not entirely, but somehow, choosing her would make sense to him. Perhaps because she was close to the front of the bus; because she could save him a few steps, a few more encounters; those simple truths were in her favor.
She shrugged a little. “Yes, Comrade. I have some experience.” She tried to keep all expression from her face.
From the other side of the aisle, Klavdia spoke. “It should be me,” she said, her voice rising as she saw opportunity slip from her. “It was my job, my work, before—I should be the one.” The guard ignored her. She was too new.
He stood back to let Margarita pass from the seat. Audible protests echoed from the back of the bus.
Margarita felt a light push against the small of her back. It was the stump. She turned and saw Anyuta’s shining face. Margarita touched the sleeve again, then followed the guard.
As she descended the stairs she caught Klavdia’s expression: fear and disappointment, and a modest measure of resentment. Margarita would later speak to Anyuta. She’d ask her to look after the older woman at the work sites, help her navigate the prison world. Anyuta wouldn’t want to. Why her, she’d say. Because she’s new, Margarita would tell her. Because she needs your help. Finally, Just do it for me. Anyuta would make a face in the older woman’s direction. She smells funny, she’d say. Margarita would laugh at this. No different from the rest of us.
Margarita followed the guard across the slushy roadway. There was a broad square of yard covered evenly with snow in front of a flat-faced building. The sign indicated that within were produced the materials for shoes for the betterment of Soviet women.
She took this as a message from the universe to her specifically.
CHAPTER 32
Pyotrovich arrived in Irkutsk several weeks after Bulgakov. He seemed annoyed that Bulgakov had learned nothing of Ilya’s plans. When Bulgakov demanded to see Margarita, Pyotrovich suggested he make the request through typical channels.
“That will take too long,” said Bulgakov.
“In the provinces, people find they are happy with time,” said Pyotrovich.
Bulgakov did as he suggested; his letters went unanswered as did Pyotrovich’s promises to investigate the matter.
Pyotrovich had made the arrangements for Bulgakov’s apartment. It was the larger part of the ground floor of a house; in the rear there was a small garden with a metal bench and a koi pond, though at the present it lay snowy and undisturbed. His neighbors were notable for their friendliness and lack of curiosity about him. One evening he was invited to supper by the couple who lived upstairs; he’d knocked, inquiring about the location of the library in town, and had commented favorably on the aroma of the stew the wife had prepared. Conversation was warm, though limited to the weather and local current events. She had the hint of a foreign accent. Bulgakov told them he was a writer; there was a fleeting expression of concern on the man’s face but it quickly disappeared, and the subsequent conversation was about the latest upgrades that had been approved and initiated on the town’s supply of drinking water. After he’d departed, he heard their voices for hours through the ceiling of his bedroom. From the next morning onward, though, it was so quiet he might have been the only occupant of the building.
He had brought the novel manuscript with him; it’d been neglected for months and at first it seemed to resist his revisiting of its scenes. He approached it with great discipline; the isolation allowed for this. He wrote from midmorning each day until the waning light of afternoon at which time he would prepare tea and a light meal. The rest of the evening he would read. Saturday mornings and Wednesday afternoons he would visit the library as well as replenish his supplies. Occasionally he would knock on the door of the couple above to inquire if they needed anything but there was never a response and he was given to imagining that they’d been spirited away in the night by demons or the secret police, though the truth was more likely that they’d decided to finish the winter in warmer climes. Whatever the reason, his present aloneness transformed itself into loneliness and he found that he would watch the meanderings of falling snow from his window, attributing its varying uplifts and descents with vague notions of hope and despair.
One Saturday morning after nearly a month, he heard the faint tapping of footsteps above him. It was past the time he would have typically left on his errands. Could it be mice? The sounds, though soft, were discrete and he rose from his chair to go to the door. Was it an intruder? The sounds immediately stopped and he waited. Had he imagined it? He went upstairs and tapped on the door.
The hallway was dim and chilled and he pulled his jacket across his chest. There was no answer. He tapped again, then turned to leave. The door opened slightly. He saw only part of the woman’s face before it started to close again.
“Wait,” he said. He put up his hand to keep the door from closing. “I thought you’d gone. Both of you.”
She opened the door more fully. Her hair was covered in a large kerchief. A momentary expression of guilt crossed her face, then she recovered. “My husband says writers need quiet. We were hoping not to disturb you.”
“May I come in?” said Bulgakov. He looked past her hopefully.
The door did not move. “Saturday mornings I clean,” she said. She held a cloth in her hand.
“No doubt this is why I thought you were traveling,” said Bulgakov. “I’m typically out, otherwise I would have heard you.”
She smiled slightly at his conclusion.
“Oh—I have something for you,” he said. “I’ll be right back—don’t go.” He laughed aloud at the absurdity of his speech; did he think she would vanish the moment he turned his back? He returned with a small stack of letters. She was waiting as promised.
“These were delivered to me in error,” he said.
She took the mail. “It was at one time our apartment,” she said. It was her enunciation of “our” that caught him. The door had opened wider; the light from the interior showed the careworn lines of her face; she was quite a bit older than he’d thought.
“You’re not Russian, are you?”
She hesitated. “I’m Scottish,” she said.
“You have only the faintest accent.” He wanted to ask how she’d come to live in Irkutsk. One might wonder that of any of them.
“This place is a long way from Moscow, I have to say,” he said. “I guess even further from Scotland.”
Her expression shifted a little. Perhaps, like him, she’d come here for love. Perhaps she’d been traveling through the region and had stopped, expecting to move on, yet still had not. The place itself seemed a midway of sorts; a point of pause in one’s journey, one’s life; not somewhere one would intend to stay. It struck him that despite the years which had pa
ssed, she was still quite homesick.
A curl of hair had escaped her cloth; what he’d thought was chestnut-colored from their evening together was nearly grey.
“I’m here because of my fiancée,” he said. “I told you of her—she’s innocent, of course. I’m hoping that I may see her.”
The woman nodded politely.
“Perhaps there is a story as to why you are here as well,” he said.
Behind her, a figure, her husband, passed between rooms. She gave no reaction to this. She gazed pointedly at Bulgakov as though challenging him in some way. As if to say that not all stories end well; some end poorly in fact. Was this something he wished to know, and he felt a strange chill, as though he’d just witnessed the passing of a ghost.
“My husband is planning to varnish the stairs,” she said. She nodded to the space behind him. “If you don’t mind; it can take some time to dry. We wouldn’t want shoe prints in the treatment.” He heard the lilt in her speaking of these words.
“I suppose next time I can simply slide your mail under your door,” he said. “Now that I know you are home.”
“That would be kind,” she said.
“Once the floors have dried.”
She had already closed the door.
The next morning Bulgakov noticed a dark sedan in front of the house. Moments later there was a knock at his door. The driver indicated that Bulgakov was to pack a small bag and accompany him. Pyotrovich was in the backseat. As he got in next to him, Bulgakov recognized the leather valise upright on his lap.
Bulgakov was to visit Margarita. “Here?” he asked. The driver was negotiating the smaller side streets. Had they brought her to Irkutsk? Was she with Ilya?
No; Pyotrovich indicated he was to travel to the camp. He wiped his nose with a handkerchief repeatedly. It was swollen and chapped. Each time he returned the cloth to his pocket as though determined to maintain some tangible hope for wellness.
Mikhail and Margarita Page 25