“I said no. I told you to buy the use of the camera. You said no. Well, now you can’t take the picture.”
“Papa,” I said, “they wanted five dollars per picture. How did I know how many pictures I wanted to take?”
“No,” he corrected me. “They said, five dollars for use of camera. You didn’t pay. Now you can’t use it.”
It seemed so absurd, standing in the middle of the immoderate Gregorian Hall, arguing.
“Fine,” I said. “Wait here. I will go and buy the right to take one picture.”
He relented, and I took the picture. And then two more. He was all right after that.
“Look at the doors,” he said. “How do you like the doors? I told you about the doors. What do you think about them?”
“The doors are spectacular, Papa,” I said. “But this whole place is something. Everything is gold and marble.”
In the Napoleonic Hall we found a portrait of Shepelev, one of the Russian lieutenants who served in the war of 1812 against Napoleon. We concluded it must have been the eponymous Shepelev for whom our village was named.
We filed past Peter the Great’s throne and stopped at a solid silver casket made for Alexander Nevsky, engraved with intricate sculptures of his battles.
“Wouldn’t you like to be buried in a coffin like that?” my father whispered. “I would.”
“I prefer not to have to be buried at all,” I whispered back. “But Papa,” I added, slowly, thoughtfully, “if Nevsky’s coffin is here, um, where is Nevsky?”
He just shook his head.
“I’m just saying.”
“Stop it,” he said. “That’s what I’m saying.”
In the Dutch Art section, a whole room was given over to one painting called Danaë. Finally! A Rembrandt.
Back in 1986 some rotten bastard spilled acid all over Danaë. The museum spent six painstaking years restoring it. Now it was behind glare-free glass.
Danaë was King Acrisius’s daughter. Because the Delphic Oracle prophesied that Danaë’s future son was going to kill Acrisius, the king, having no sense of humor, had his daughter locked up in a tower of brass, which is how Rembrandt painted her, locked up, lying naked on a bed, waiting for Zeus. Sure enough, Zeus, being a god, was not going to be kept away by a flimsy tower of brass, so he broke in, and found Danaë naked. Nine months later, Danaë bore Zeus a son. She named him Perseus. Acrisius, afraid for his own life, set mother and son adrift at sea in a chest.
Zeus rescued them. Perseus, upon growing up, did indeed kill his grandfather, accidentally, during a friendly game of catch.
The moral of the story? As the Hindus say, do what you like, because the result will be exactly the same.
The Hermitage taught me that Russian art consisted mainly of icons, but also included some dishes. My father said, by way of commentary, “Your mother bought better dishes at Karlovy Vary” (a resort in the Czech Republic). There were Russian paintings by unknown artists, Russian swords, and some precious stones.
The Malachite room impressed me. I concluded that as a stone, the sparkling vivid green malachite is magnificent, one of the best. Could I get a kitchen counter made of it? That’s right, because that’s how I wanted to live, in a house made of stone and gold, with rusted pipes and trash outside my gilded windows.
It was nearly five and the Hermitage was closing. Tired, my father sat and rested while I went to get some souvenirs. I bought a book for my daughter and four large pastel prints of Leningrad for the breakfast nook of my Texas house. As I was paying for some Danaë postcards, I wondered why the women were always naked in the old days. No wonder they were having babies all over the place.
I wanted to buy an ornate Easter egg with Nicholas II on it, but it was ninety-five dollars. I didn’t buy it.
We were on the way out of the Hermitage when Papa announced he was going to the bathroom.
“They have bathrooms here?” Really, only a quarter of a joke.
“Yes,” my father said, deadpan. “I know that for a fact, because I used to drink vodka with my buddies in the bathrooms.”
“Was that after you cooked the shish-ke-bob in the Field of Mars?”
He looked at me as if he had no idea what the hell I was talking about.
THE SUMMER GARDEN
We spilled out onto the granite Palace Embankment and strolled along the river, sun on the water. Through the clouds, the gilded spire of Peter and Paul’s Cathedral across from us was bathed in light. The Romanovs’ sacred remains can rest there now, in peace, the old Communists having repented. Water, stucco buildings, cars whizzing by, Winter Palace, Peter and Paul’s, Palace Bridge, the University where my father studied when he was a young man. It was all in front of us and we were flooded with Leningrad. We didn’t speak.
As we walked along the embankment, I wondered why more of these buildings had not been restored. There was one building on the Neva that was being renovated as we walked past. The façade overlooking the river had already been re-stuccoed and repainted pink and yellow. All the window frames had been replaced. The doors were new. The Baroque window molding was restored to its ornate white beauty. The front of the building looked like it belonged in Kensington Gardens. But the side of the building — well, that was another story. That belonged squarely in Russia.
My father must have read my mind, because he said, “You know, when you and Kevin and the children come back, maybe in five years, when you come back to Leningrad, the whole city will look like this. It will be a different city. They will renovate it for the tricentennial celebration in 2003.”
He paused. “But it’s beautiful nonetheless, isn’t it? Look at the Neva, look at Leningrad around it.”
“Yes, Papa,” I replied quietly.
He left me and went to talk to two fishermen standing with their lines in the river.
We were at the wrought-iron gates of Letniy Sad, or the Summer Garden. I bought a vanilla ice cream (they didn’t have crème brûlée) and some water and sat down on a bench to rest, while my father remained with the fishermen.
Letniy Sad, alongside the Fontanka Canal, was a breathtaking Sad, so green and alive with straight paths and majestic canopy elms, and sculptures of the Greek and Roman gods. Ice cream in one hand, I bought a photo postcard from a woman named Catherine.
“Where are you taking this photograph?” she asked me. “Back to Moscow?” No, I said; to Texas. She couldn’t believe it. I was happy my Russian was good enough to be mistaken for a Muscovite.
One sculpture in particular impressed me. It was of Saturn devouring his own child. I had always liked that one. I used to have a postcard of Saturn, his half-chewed offspring in his mouth, hanging on my wall at college, a pointed reminder of the French and Russian revolutions. It hung next to a photo of my baby sister jumping off the diving board in the backyard pool of our American home.
My father came to the bench where I was sitting and took a drink of my water. We saw a woman in a wedding dress at the gated entrance to the gardens.
“Papa, look, another bride. They’re everywhere.”
“Yes,” my father said. “The divorced ones are all in bars.” He got up. “It’s custom. Don’t you know? Every Russian bride and groom must go to a national monument on their wedding day. It’s tradition.”
“Where did you and Mama go?”
“To the beer bar.”
We walked along Fontanka Canal to City Court or Gorsud, where my father was tried and convicted in three days back in 1969.
“For what, Papa?” It must have been the first time I had asked him that question directly. “What were the charges against you?” My mother once told me he was arrested for writing letters. My father confirmed he was arrested for writing a letter to the newspaper Pravda, advocating rule of law. Another time he told me, “For good cause, Paullina, for good cause.” Another time he told me, “I was lucky I didn’t go away for longer, and wasn’t found out sooner.”
Today he said proudly, “For anti-Sov
iet agitation and propaganda with the aim of undermining Soviet power and workers’ rights.” Then he laughed.
I photographed him outside the wrong building at first. He momentarily forgot where it was. “Paullina, I didn’t go into Gorsud by the front door, if you know what I mean. They brought me in handcuffs the back way. How do I know what the building looks like from the front?”
We cut across to the red Mikhailovsky Palace, built on the locus of Fontanka and Moika canals. I was so busy walking with my father, thinking about Gorsud tummy Romanovs hunger Leningrad Ladoga Lomonosov Shepelevo Schlisselburg, that I strolled past Mikhailovsky Palace without a glance at its impregnable red stucco walls, behind which, in 1801, Paul I was assassinated by his own men, so that his son could ascend to the throne.
“Take a picture of that palace,” my father said. “It’s worth it.” I trudged back, took a picture.
A rusted tram rattled past, a sign on its side cheerfully proclaiming, “Leningrad Trams! 90 Years Old!”
These ninety-year-old trams schlepped through Leningrad on rails not embedded in concrete but suspended above ground: the low-quality concrete around the rails had disintegrated, leaving clefts in the road. You had to be careful when crossing because your foot — hell, your whole body — could easily get stuck in the gaping hole. You’d disappear and not be found again until more of the concrete broke off.
It was amazing — the whole city nearly untouched in eighty years. Like a holy relic. What had the Soviet government been doing for nearly a century? Vacationing in the Crimea?
I say untouched, but the Soviets did build. They built the KGB building next to my father’s prison. They built the housing blocks Anatoly and his family lived in, prime residences in the workers’ paradise. They built hotels: obscene industrial concrete boxes. The hotels were the shape — and size, it seemed — of the state of Kansas. Hotel Leningrad and Hotel Moskva were perfect examples of the Stalinist–Khruschevian aesthetic: Doric Ugly. Perhaps if they’d built one less hotel, they could have fixed all the potholes in the city with the concrete they saved.
We were walking so slowly now, we had nearly stopped by the time we entered Alexander’s Park at the back of Spas Na Kvovi. Inside the park, we collided with a large gathering, discussing the Romanovs. I couldn’t tell if the vocal priest was for or against. There were many Russian words strung loosely together. I felt like I was listening with my legs. My father didn’t want to listen. He had had quite enough. Either that or he was hungry. It was after 7:30 in the evening and we had only eaten that little half-sandwich at Café Nord. He was tired of the whole thing.
We walked with agonizing slowness back to my hotel, where he had a shower and I went out to explore our dining possibilities.
LAST DINNER IN LENINGRAD
When I returned to the room, my father was standing in the hallway, dressed, washed, and smoking.
“You know,” he said to me, “a shower is the key to civilization.”
Nodding, I said, “It’s not the shower, Papa. It’s running water.”
“Well, what is a shower then?”
“A perfect example of running water.”
Though we liked the menu at the European Restaurant, we settled on the Caviar Bar after we realized that the elegant European had the same menu as the Caviar Bar but was thirty percent more expensive.
In the Caviar Bar we had Russian zakuski, borscht with no meat or potatoes, beef Stroganoff (with potatoes but no noodles). Papa had kamchatka — lobster with sauce. It was delicious. He said it was the most delicious lobster he’d ever eaten.
Thinking of Leningrad and how much I longed for it to be restored, I said, “Someday, the city will have money. Things will improve. Roads will be renovated. Buildings repainted.”
My father shook his head. “It won’t matter. No matter how much money there is, it won’t matter. Look at Stalingrad. Never was a city more destroyed by war than Stalingrad. There was a heavy-machinery factory there, demolished. It was rebuilt after the war from scratch. So what did the Soviets do? They rebuilt it exactly the same. The same obsolete technology, the same dated architecture. That’s just how they operate. It’s a fallacy to think things will be different. They won’t be any different.”
As we were finishing up, I said, returning to the subject of Maui, “Papa, you know, it’s the beginning of the rest of your life. It’s an exciting time for you. You’ll go to Maui, you’ll get your health back, settle in, see how you like it. But Papa, if you don’t like it, that’s okay, too. You can always sell your condo and move back to the continent and find yourself another place to live.”
He shook his head vigorously. “I am never leaving Maui.”
“Don’t say never. What if you don’t like it?”
“What’s not to like? Why won’t I like it?” He squinted at me with suspicion.
“No reason. What if you get lonely?”
“I won’t. I’ll have Mama. I’m not leaving.”
My stomach pretended to be all right so long as I wasn’t eating, but as soon as we had dinner, I felt awful again. We had had a long day and all I wanted to do was get back to my room, instantly.
But my father asked if I wanted to walk with him to the monument to Catherine the Great, just down Nevsky near the Bolshoi Theater. I could not say no to my dad, even though I was nearly falling down.
As we strolled around the statue, several times I thought I was actually going to faint.
“What do you think?” he asked.
“It’s wonderful,” I said. “Can we go back?”
“Tired, Paullina?”
“Tired, Papa.”
Crossing Nevsky, I lagged behind. I had no legs left. I saw his hand reach back, just as it did when I was little. I extended my own hand and took his. I think he’d forgotten himself, how old he was, how old I was, where we were. As soon as I took his hand, he let go.
“Don’t forget,” he said, “tomorrow, we’re going to pick you up early because we’re going to the Karelian Isthmus. We have a big day.”
“Oh, I see, not like the days we’ve been having.”
“Don’t be fresh. Just be ready.”
Back in my room, I felt better.
Running water was great as long as it didn’t enter my mouth.
I took off my makeup.
Soon it was two in the morning again.
MY COPPER PENNY
Kevin called. In the movie Somewhere in Time, Christopher Reeve travels through time from 1979 back to 1912 to be with his beloved. When he accidentally pulls out a penny from 1979, he is instantly transported back to the future, parted forever from the love of his life. So it was with me a little bit. I had been awash in Leningrad and then Kevin called and instantly reminded me I had another life far away.
“Are you thinking of what movie you want to watch when you come back?” Kevin asked.
I was so distant, a life away from where he was, in beautiful sunny Texas, swimming with the kids, having pizza, watching TV. Thinking about movies. “I’m sorry, not at all.” How far my other life was from me. There was no Texas for me here, no yellow stucco house, no heat. There was a yellow stucco church. Cobblestones. Endless daylight. A river. My father.
“I’ll get back in the swing of things soon, I’m sure,” I said without feeling. When I hung up the phone, I thought, will I? I didn’t know if I would get back in the swing of things. What if I didn’t?
Outside, the streetlights had been turned on. No more white nights.
I lay in bed and regretted not buying the Nicholas II Easter egg for ninety-five dollars. I would never find one like it again.
A fly buzzed around. Where would it be three days from now? Flies die in three days. In two days the fly would still be alive, but I would no longer be in Russia.
Would I still be alive?
How big was the wall around our breakfast nook? Would the wall in Texas hold my four watercolors of Leningrad?
Sleep, please, merciful sleep.
White nights, July 1998.
At Radik’s dacha. From left: Alla, Alla’s husband Viktor, Radik holding court, my dad, Ellie, a miserable-looking Anatoly, Luba and Anatoly’s brother Viktor.
DAY SIX
Saturday
FIVE RUSSIANS IN A CLOWN CAR
In the morning it was raining and cold. Of course I had overslept.
When the phone rang, I had just jumped out of the shower.
“We’re downstairs,” my father said.
“Um, not quite ready yet.”
“But Paullina,” he said, in his unhappy-with-me voice. “I thought I told you to be ready.”
“I know you told me,” I said. “But I overslept.”
“Ellie wants to see your room,” he said brusquely. “I’ll send her up.”
“Papa, wait, what do you mean, Ellie? I’m completely naked.”
“Well, put something on,” he said and hung up.
Two minutes later there was a knock on the door. Ellie looked at me with my wet hair and no makeup and said I looked like the little Paullina from the home movie of our trip to the Caucasus Mountains.
She clucked appreciatively as she walked around the room. “Alla would’ve liked to see this.”
“Have you had breakfast?” I asked her.
“Yes. You?”
“No, I just got up.”
“You must be hungry, poor thing.”
“I’m all right.” No time even to eat blini and caviar anymore. No time to write, to call home, to sleep; no time, no time. My last day in Leningrad. No time for anything.
As I put on my makeup, I asked Ellie if my father seemed tired last night.
“I don’t know about that,” she said.
“When he left me, he was ready to fall down.”
“I don’t know about that. We stayed up until three in the morning, talking.”
I did a double take. “You’re joking. Anatoly, too?”
“No, Anatoly was at our dacha. He came back this morning. Did you see the Romanov funeral yesterday?”
“Well, we were there,” I replied cryptically, scrunching mousse into my hair.
Six Days in Leningrad Page 25