She nodded to herself with satisfaction, and her thoughts turned to Arkady and Mariya Yakovlevna, for they would surely be placed at the very top of that list. The elderly couple—they were in their early eighties— who lived downstairs had been like a gift from the angels in this most unlikely, godless of places. They were retired teachers and, like the Levins, had been relegated to this project, only years earlier. They had been lucky not to be sent to one of the gulags. Their offense: conspiring against the state. In their case, writing religious tracts in Yiddish that were not "Communist-directed." Yet even amid the cultural wasteland that surrounded them here, they had tried to create a little garden of civilization.
Cautiously at first, then gradually becoming more expansive as they let down their guard, they had opened up their lives to Sonia, Dmitri, and Misha. It was a tiny, one-room world, but it was a jewel-like microcosm of a cultured world, much like that world that Sonia and Dmitri had once known. It was their little spinet studio piano that was now in the Levins' room, and that piano had made teaching Misha possible for the last two years.
Ah, yes, Sonia thought. That's more like it. I feel better now. Much better. Just seeing Misha at practice and thinking of Arkady and Mariya Yakovlevna had that effect.
It was Arkady and Mariya Yakovlevna who cared for Misha when neither Sonia nor Dmitri could be home. They were loathe to place him in one of the state-controlled day-care centers, and he became the child Arkady and Mariya had never been able to have, although he was more like their grandchild. They smothered him with affection, giving him welcome respite from the grueling hours at the piano that Sonia and Dmitri outlined for him. For it was their firm belief that Misha should be allowed to be a child as well as a prodigy.
Storytelling, card games, reading, and chess were part of their regimen. Injected into many of their discussions with the youngster were stories about the Jewish people and the Jewish faith. Arkady and Mariya Yakovlevna knew that Sonia and Dmitri were agnostic and had little appreciation for their cultural heritage or faith. They had descended from artists and considered themselves artists, first and foremost, with little or no interest in politics or religion.
Arkady and Mariya hoped that Misha would retain some of the stories they told him and that they could instill in him an awareness of his heritage and a degree of pride in it.
Sonia and Dmitri, for their part, knew what Arkady and Mariya Yakovlevna were up to, but they held the couple in such great respect and affection that they let them contribute whatever they might to Misha's education. Besides, Misha loved the old couple dearly, and they were doing no harm, the Levins felt.
In the meantime, she and Dmitri had worked out a program that would prepare him for a career in music. They took turns working with him, and he had blossomed during the last two years. The future, indeed, held the possibility of great promise. They had turned the losses of their home and their incomes into an opportunity. Their teaching and performing duties had been cut back significantly two years ago—and of course their pay with it—but as a result, one or the other could be at home to work with Misha nearly all of the time.
Increasingly, however, she fretted about his future. She and Dmitri had already taught him nearly everything they possibly could, and there was only one recourse open to them—at least here in Moscow. At the age of six, he should enter the famous Moscow Gnessin School of Music for Gifted Children. It would normally be a simple matter. Misha, after all, was extraordinarily gifted. She and Dmitri, of course, knew some of the faculty well, but intervening considerations had complicated the issue: the matter of their having applied for exit visas.
They had been told by the administrators that "perhaps" in the coming fall, Misha "might possibly" be admitted to a place in the school. As he had turned six on January the ninth, he hadn't been old enough the previous autumn, though exceptions were always being made. Despite the "perhaps" and "mights" of the administrators, Sonia felt heartened by the possibility. The Gnessin was a rigorous school, a great school, which turned out the best musicians in all of the USSR. If the Levins must be in Moscow, she surmised, then they could do no better. If indeed the school finally accepted him.
Sonia looked over at her son now, head bent in concentration. If only we could provide the best for him! she thought for the thousandth time. If only we knew what to expect in the coming months from the authorities.
They did know certain things. Through her various contacts in the music world, she had discovered that, if Misha were indeed admitted, under no circumstances would he be allowed to study under Anna Pavlovna Kantor. This, for Sonia and Dmitri, was a crushing blow. Kantor was without exception the greatest teacher in all of Russia, and orders—they had been told in the greatest confidence—had already been given that she would not be permitted to teach their son.
If only we would be permitted to emigrate! If only they would give us our exit visas! In the last two years many Jews had been permitted to leave. There had, in fact, been a veritable exodus of the Jewish intelligentsia to the West and to Israel. Why, she asked herself, are we being held back here? Why are we being made to suffer?
At that moment the thud of fists pounding heavily reverberated from the door. Sonia was jerked out of her reverie, and Misha missed a key on the piano, then abruptly stopped playing. He turned and looked questioningly at his mother.
When she nodded wearily, he hopped off the piano stool and cautiously approached the door. Sonia put down her knitting, which had lain unworked on her lap all this time, and reluctantly got to her feet and followed him.
Through the locked door she could hear old Arkady shouting ...and it sounded as if he was raging incomprehensibly against heaven.
Misha undid the lock and opened the door. "Arkady!" he whispered.
The old man was slumped against the door frame, gasping for breath, his snow white hair in Einsteinian disarray.
"Arkady?" Sonia asked tremulously, barely able to subdue her panic as she reached the door.
She put an arm around him and helped him into the apartment. In her strong arms, he was tiny and felt practically weightless, like a wounded bird, and he was nearly limp with fatigue or fright or . . .
Sonia didn't yet know.
"What is it? Arkady! What has happened?" she asked.
Misha closed the door behind them and threw the bolt.
"I... I... oh ... oh ... oh," the old man muttered, weeping now as if he were a child, tears running down his creased cheeks in rivulets.
"Tell me, Arkady," Sonia persisted. "What is it?"
"Mariya ...Mariya Yakovlevna," he cried.
"What is it?" she repeated. Sonia shook the old man by the shoulders. "What, Arkady? Tell me. What has happened to Mariya Yakovlevna?"
With a great effort the old man tried to compose himself. He took a perfectly pressed white linen handkerchief from a pocket in his trousers and wiped his face, then blew his nose. When he was done, he carefully refolded the handkerchief and replaced it in his trouser pocket.
Sonia took his shaky hands in hers while he caught his breath and began to speak.
"Mariya Yakovlevna was coming home from the shops." He looked up into Soma's eyes. "You know .. . you know how I ... I can't bear to see her go alone, but my hips were so bad today, my arthritis, I could hardly walk."
"Yes, yes," Sonia said. "Go on, Arkady. Go on." She felt her heart beating wildly in her chest as a mounting sense of horror gripped her.
"A gang of boys ...hooligans ...attacked her. Somewhere ...somewhere near the project," Arkady gasped. "They ...they stole her groceries and what . .. what little money she had." Suddenly his voice broke, and he began weeping like a child again. He couldn't continue.
Sonia held him in her arms, stroking his back with her hands. "Please, Arkady, You must finish. We must know, so we can do something."
After a few moments the old man recovered himself enough to resume his story. "They kicked her ...and ...beat her ...and ...and left her there to die," he cried.
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"What is she, Arkady?" Sonia asked, her eyes huge with terror. "Where?"
"The hospital... the one over . . ." He was pointing to the east with one of his hands.
"The one near the ring road?" Sonia asked.
He nodded his head. "Yes, that one."
Sonia let go of the old man and grabbed her coat off its wall hook. "Misha," she said, "you stay here with Arkady. Make him some tea. Okay?"
"Sure, Mama," Misha said.
"No, no," Arkady said. "I must go, too." His voice was a pathetic plea.
"No, Arkady," she said. "You stay here and wait for Dmitri. He's out shopping and should be back any minute. The next hour or so at the most. When he gets back, he'll bring you to the hospital."
"But—" The old man had an imploring look on his wrinkled, distraught face.
"No," Sonia said with certainty. "You must stay here with Misha and rest. Have some tea. I will see to Mariya Yakovlevna." She quickly patted Arkady on the cheek, then leaned down and kissed Misha.
"You will take good care of Arkady for me?" she asked.
"Yes, Mama," Misha said. "Don't worry. I'll make him tea." He hoped that his mother didn't see the worry and fear that he felt, but if she did, she didn't acknowledge it.
Sonia shrugged into her coat and unlocked the door. "Lock it behind me," she said. Then she was gone, almost running to their friend.
Sonia rushed breathlessly into the vast white and yellow expanse of the hospital's lobby. Pausing to catch her breath, she looked about her. The lobby was soiled and ill-kept, its once white walls now gray, its yellow tiles beige with grime.
Oh, God, no, she thought. One of the pigsties.
In Moscow the hospitals and clinics could be pristine, like the Kremlin Clinic, but they could also be shabby and ill-equipped. Here, if the lobby was any indication, she could see that Mariya Yakovlevna would be lucky to get decent treatment. The trouble with many of the hospitals, even though they had adequate facilities and reputable physicians, was that patients would develop complications from infections because of the filth. The lack of adequate sterilization in many facilities was notorious.
She approached the information desk, where she nervously awaited her turn in the short line. When it finally came, she asked for Mariya Yakovlevna.
The attendant at the desk, twirling a strand of her dirty, garishly dyed hair around a finger, consulted a large registry. She seemed to take forever.
"Seven," she finally told Sonia. "The elevator's down that corridor." She pointed with a chubby hand, a finger with chipped orange nail polish extended.
"Thank you," Sonia said. She turned and strode purposefully down the corridor to the elevator bank and pushed the up button, grateful that here, at least, they appeared to work. She tapped her foot impatiently on the tile floor, willing the elevator to come. Within moments it arrived, and she entered the crowded car. After stops on every floor, Sonia finally got out on the seventh floor.
She spotted the nearest nurses station, just down the hallway, and made a beeline for it. "Mariya Yakovlevna," she said without preamble.
The nurse sitting behind the desk didn't look up or acknowledge her. Finally, Sonia repeated her request, a little louder this time. "Mariya Yakovlevna? It's an emergency."
The nurse continued to fill in blanks on the sheet of paper set down in front of her. After a few more moments she lifted her head and glared at Sonia.
"What do you want?" she asked in an angry tone of voice.
"Mariya Yakovlevna," Sonia repeated. "What is her room number, please?"
Why are so many of them so angry? she wondered. And so rude? But she thought she knew the answer to that question. In many of the hospitals and clinics, you had to bribe the nurses and especially the saniturki, the nurses' aides, with gifts or money in order to get decent treatment for your loved ones.
The nurse looked down at her registry for a moment, then back up at Sonia. "Room seven-twenty-two," she said, sighing with exasperation. "But I think the doctors are in there now."
Without thanking her, Sonia hurried down the corridor, hoping she was headed in the right direction. She didn't want to wait and take the chance that the nurse would tell her she couldn't visit Mariya now.
As it was, she almost stumbled into room 722, trying to avoid a gurney, farther down the corridor. When she saw the numbers, she approached the door, which was ajar, with trepidation.
Pushing the door open wide, she leaned in. She could see that there were several patients in the small room, probably sue, far too many for such a small space. She didn't see Mariya Yakovlevna, but over in the corner a group of four or five doctors and nurses surrounded one of the beds, hiding its patient from view.
Mariya Yakovlevna, she thought. It must be.
She started toward the group, but they were already turning in her direction, apparently preparing to leave the room. Behind them, she saw one of the saniturki pull a sheet up over a body, which lay prone on the bed. The sheet was gray with age and use.
Sonia cringed, then gasped. It can't be! she thought. No, no, no! Oh, dear God, it can't be!
She grasped one of the doctors by a sleeve. A woman, as nearly all of them were. "Mariya Yakovlevna?" she whispered.
The doctor didn't speak, but her thick, black-framed glasses nodded in the direction of the bed that they had just left. The doctor moved on past, toward the door.
Sonia stood there immobile, the doctors and nurses filing quietly out of the room around her. She felt rooted to the floor. There's been a mistake, she told herself. Yes, a mistake. It happens all the time in these big Moscow hospitals.
She squared her shoulders and walked over to the bed. The saniturki, bent over at the bedside, was lackadaisically throwing bloody bandages into a garbage can. She looked up at Sonia, an utterly blank expression on her face.
Sonia gingerly picked up a corner of the gray sheet and pulled it back, peering at the face that lay beneath it.
She had to stifle the urge to scream.
It was Mariya Yakovlevna, but it wasn't. Her little face with its parchmentlike skin was swollen purple and red with cuts and bruises, her lips split and bloody, her eyes shut from swelling before death. Her beautiful white hair was encrusted with blood and grime.
Sonia let the sheet drop.
For a moment she thought that she was going to be sick. She felt bile rise in her throat, and its nauseous taste almost overwhelmed her. Cold beads of sweat broke out on her face and her neck.
Oh, my God, she thought. I'm going to faint. I'm going to faint right here on this filthy floor.
But she didn't faint. She steadied herself on the bed's foot rail, taking deep breaths of air, trying to get her thoughts in order. Then, reaching into her coat pocket, she took out her little Moroccan leather change purse. She opened it and extracted a few rubles. Turning to the saniturki, she extended the rubles to her, and the woman took them, pocketing them quickly. "Please," Sonia said. "A clean sheet for Mariya Yakovlevna."
She turned and left the room without looking back, thinking: It can never get worse than this, she thought. Can it?
She wasn't so sure anymore.
Rain, light but steady, plastered her hair to her head. In her rush to the hospital, she'd forgotten to take her umbrella, but it didn't really matter. Nothing much did anymore.
Sonia thought: If only this rain could wash away the ugliness that caused this senseless death....
She walked slowly, almost in a trance. A mixture of bitter rage and anguish churned crazily inside her. In all of her forty-five years, she didn't think she'd ever been as angry, or as full of sorrow.
Sonia knew that the sight of Mariya's body lying there, so still, so bruised, so heartbreaking, was burned into her mind forever.
On she walked through the rainy streets, the tears that periodically came to her eyes mixing with the spring rain that spattered her cheeks.
How do I tell Arkady? she wondered over and over. How on earth will he live through this?
She caught sight of their building rising up ahead, more cheerless and unwelcoming than ever. It seemed to have acquired a potent kind of malignancy in her absence.
I am a messenger of death.
I must be brave, she told herself. I must be brave for Arkady. For Dmitri and Misha. No matter what anguish I feel, no matter my own rage. I must be their rock.
Reaching the building, she pressed the security code into the lobby door's lock. She climbed the stairs, and when she reached their floor, she stopped to catch her breath. At the apartment door she stopped again, filling her lungs with more deep breaths, this time to prepare herself to tell Arkady about Mariya. She took her keys from her coat pocket and inserted the appropriate one, but the door pushed open before she could turn the key.
What—?
Two men—strangers—stood just inside the doorway, blocking her way into the apartment. Before she could ask them to move, Dmitri called to her from over their shoulders.
"Sonia! Sonia!" he cried. "Hurry! Come in. Come in!"
What is it? she wondered. Then she realized that these men must have come to give Arkady the news. But so soon?
Becoming aware of her behind them, the two men moved aside to permit her entry. Her cursory glance at them told her all she needed to know. She immediately recognized them for the minor state bureaucrats that they were. Cut from the identical mold as those who had come to force them out of their home. The same badly made, drab, gray suits, the same leather trench coats, the same battered leather briefcases. The same vodka-bloated faces.
Why are they here? she asked herself again. Their sort wouldn't be coming to see Arkady. Then she noticed them shuffling official-looking documents, paying no attention to her.
Sonia wanted to spit with disgust. At a time like this, to have these idiots visited upon us! she thought. I need peace and quiet to deliver my message, to take care of Arkady and Dmitri and Misha.
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