The Free World

by David Bezmozgis

  5

  With the music still streaming from Club Kadima, Samuil pushed open the gate and walked in the direction of home. He felt no inclination to account for himself or his whereabouts. When Emma came looking for him, the security guard would tell her all she needed to know. Or not.

  Samuil minded his steps on the sidewalk that led from Via Mexico to Via Napoli. In places, tree roots had buckled the concrete, making the footing treacherous. Few people were out in the streets, though the night was pleasant. Now that it was September, many vacationers had returned to Rome. During the afternoons, when he took his walks along the beach, he saw how the crowds had thinned. Soon enough, when the weather cooled some more, the Russians would have the beach to themselves.

  It will be us and our stray dogs, Samuil thought grimly.

  The dogs, mostly large breeds, the mastiffs and wolfhounds favored by Russians, roamed in hungry, scraggly packs around Ladispoli, often congregating along the shore. They had been abandoned by owners who’d flown off to Canada or America—who, after going to considerable lengths to process and transport the animals from the Soviet Union to Italy, had finally been dissuaded from taking them any farther. During the day, the dogs sprawled listlessly in the shade of the palm trees, and in the evenings they skulked about in search of food. As with people in similar straits, the largest ones fared the worst. Great, once proud beasts dragged themselves about with downcast eyes, begging for scraps. To feed them was only to prolong their misery. Samuil had seen Italians shooing the animals away using the Russian words for “no” and “scram.”

  Where Via Napoli crossed Via Italia, Samuil turned left and took the main road toward the beach. There was still life in the cafés along Via Italia, but it, too, had diminished with the waning of the summer season. Samuil noticed a proliferation of signs on the doors and windows of cafés advertising, in Russian, ice cream, pastries, and beer. A number of these signs were the product of Rosa’s handiwork, done with paints and brushes at their kitchen table. Karl— who no longer lifted a finger unless there was a potential for profit—landed Rosa the job. Similarly, he’d gotten her a position making up signs to promote upcoming events at Club Kadima.

  When Samuil had looked askance, Karl had said, If we’re going to be here a long time, we will need the money.

  His son’s implication was that Samuil—singlehandedly responsible for the length of their Italian purgatory—was not entitled to issue critiques.

  He and Emma had made two trips to the Canadian embassy to plead their case. At the first appointment, they had been cursorily dismissed on account of his medical results. But so long as they made a good impression, anything was possible. This was the homily Emma and Rosa repeated in their attempts to gain Samuil’s cooperation the second time around.

  He told them that he would go to the appointment and express to the Canadians that he would not become a strain on their health and welfare system. He would vow that if he became ill, he would jump from a window and spare everyone the trouble and the expense.

  —Since this is what concerns them, Samuil said.

  —Back home, when you wanted to accomplish something, Samuil Leyzerovich, you knew very well how to conduct yourself, Rosa said. Why not here?

  —Please, don’t speak to me of back home, Samuil cautioned.

  —Syoma, you said you would try, Emma remonstrated.

  —I said I would, and I will.

  —To try means to try, Rosa said.

  And he had. He’d allowed himself to be demeaned, even. Emma had done more of her secret plotting. He’d lived thirty-two years as her husband and wasn’t so credulous as to be taken in by her tricks. The morning they were to depart for the consulate, Roidman had arrived and offered to lend Samuil his medals. He and Emma both vigorously denied that she had put him up to it. However, seeing as how his friend made the suggestion, Emma encouraged that Samuil accept it.

  —Where is the deceit? Emma asked. You earned the same decorations.

  He knew his decorations down to the serial numbers and the nicks in their enamel. How could he explain to Emma the disgrace of using the medals of a Red Army soldier to curry the favor of some petty capitalist official?

  In the living room, Samuil watched Roidman fumble to remove the medals from his blazer. Emma hovered above him, itching to intervene. Unsteady progress obliged Roidman to sit. A sheen rose on his bald head. In time, he managed to unscrew the medals from their backings. Then, with more ease, he unpinned the ribbons. Emma didn’t lose a second before she started to apply the decorations to Samuil’s blazer, which she’d laid out on the coffee table. Samuil pretended to ignore her as she arranged and rearranged the medals.

  —How did you used to have yours? she asked.

  He didn’t bother to answer.

  With Roidman waving farewell at their doorstep, they left for the Ladispoli train station. Once inside the train, Samuil took the window seat and glared out at the passing countryside. Emma sat on the aisle and, in an attempt to quell her own anxiety, scrutinized and remarked upon the other occupants of their train car.

  What an interesting woman. How old do you think, Syoma? My coeval? Back home a woman this age would never think to wear such a provocative dress. Even if she could get one.

  Look at what a well-behaved little girl. There is an example of the difference between boys and girls. Could you imagine Zhenya sitting like that even for a minute?

  If there is one thing I have noticed between here and back home, it’s that I haven’t seen any drunks. In Riga, I can’t remember a time when I rode a train for so long and not a single drunk came into the car. Have you observed this, Syoma? Although from what I’ve heard, the Italians have a serious epidemic of pickpockets and purse snatchers. This is why women are advised to wear their purses with the strap crosswise, like so.

  At Termini they filed out into the gargantuan space. Trains, in their rectilinear ranks, towered above them. They had been to this station once before, but that had been with Karl, and it hadn’t made the same daunting impression. At the other major train stations, in Bratislava and Vienna, they had been part of the swirling émigré vortex. Now, for the first time, they were facing the vastness by themselves. Samuil felt Emma clutching his arm and pressing up against him, hobbling his thoughts and his stride.

  —What is it with you? he asked.

  Emma looked at him with sorrow.

  —I’m afraid. I’m afraid to get lost.

  With Emma pulling at his arm, Samuil pressed ahead. He set a harsh face not only against the people in his path, but also against the physical bulk of the imposing machines. He felt as though even the machines wished him ill. The feeling was new. A Soviet train, forged in a Soviet factory and meant to travel the length and breadth of the Soviet land, had never seemed to him malevolent.

  Samuil steered them toward the huge board that displayed arrivals and departures, where destinations and times came and went with the synchronized clacking of hundreds of black plastic tiles. People with fixed objectives sped one way and another. Samuil saw stores, cafés, newspaper stands, and bookshops. By the entrance to one of these, a Gypsy woman squatted on the ground in her long skirt. Beside her, a boy no older than ten played a small accordion. Farther ahead, there were steps and an escalator leading to an upper level. Beyond this, the concourse continued, and he could see the possibility of a turn to the left and to the right. Samuil couldn’t recall which way they had gone the last time they’d been at the station. He felt sorely conspicuous because of the medals. People glanced at him as if at some oddity.

  For these indignities, Samuil blamed his wife and his son. Emma had insisted on the medals, and Alec, predictably inattentive, had specified a bus number, but not where the bus might be found. In a station like Termini, the size of a small town, such an omission was unforgivable.

  Once they found the depot, boarding the bus brought no relief, only the fear of missing their stop. Emma supplicated the bus driver—a young, impassive dullard—b
abbling and holding the sheet of paper with their directions. She then sat apprehensively at the window, trying to read street names and recognize landmarks, not trusting the driver to call their stop. Though when the time came, the driver barked a word and one of their fellow passengers pointed conscientiously to the door.

  The second meeting was worse than the first. They had been assigned to a total incompetent: a young man who did not wear a jacket or tie, but a yellow sweater over his shirt collar. On his table he’d had an open can of soda, from which he drank periodically and unapologetically during their interview. He also smiled, for no evident reason, from hello to goodbye. And when he spoke, it was only to utter some nonsense. Though Emma had admitted to no knowledge of English, the caseworker insisted that she nevertheless try to read several pages from an illustrated children’s book about a polar bear. When she stumbled, which was at every word, he corrected her. To his invitation that Samuil also make an attempt, Samuil declined through the interpreter.

  —If it’s to demonstrate my ability, there’s nothing to demonstrate.

  —If it’s to demonstrate your willingness to learn … Emma whispered.

  —To learn or to be ridiculed? Samuil said.

  On the subject of his fitness, Samuil delivered his standard response. He was fit enough for any work.

  He believed that he had turned in a blameless effort, in spite of everything.

  He’d even suffered in silence while Emma launched into the epic of his wartime service. The caseworker had nodded approvingly at Samuil’s medals and contributed that his own father had seen action in the Canadian military. Here again, Samuil felt that he had responded prudently, and that his behavior had been beyond reproach. He had held his tongue. Instead of inquiring why it had taken the Western powers three years to open up a second front, he had said something complimentary about the Canadian army.

  Nevertheless, he could tell that Emma hadn’t been satisfied with how he’d comported himself. She would not admit to it, but her displeasure was immanent.

  Returning home, Samuil and Emma occupied two of the last available seats, one behind the other. As they rode, they didn’t have to look at each other or speak. But when the bus came to its inexplicable halt Emma tapped him on the shoulder. The doors had opened and the bus driver had climbed out and lit a cigarette. Passengers grumbled and cursed. Some left and started walking. Samuil heard a word repeated that sounded much like the Russian word for bus driver: “schoffer.” A woman cradling an infant called out to the driver. Samuil saw him shrug his shoulders, not unsympathetically. The woman slid back into her seat, dug an orange out of her purse, and began to peel it. A man standing beside Samuil checked his watch and then turned the page of his newspaper.

  They remained on the immobile bus for upward of two hours. The driver went away down the street, evidently abandoning his vehicle and his passengers entirely. When he returned, he climbed back into his seat as if nothing had happened, turned the ignition, and resumed the route.

  At eight in the evening, many hours late, they descended from their train at Ladispoli Station. Before Samuil could take five steps, he saw his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren. Rosa was already in motion, issuing exclamations, rushing toward them, pulling the boys along by their hands. At the sight of Rosa and the boys, Emma nearly fell into a swoon of martyrdom and fatigue. It was a reunion for the ages, Samuil thought. Yet another one.

  At home, Karl was waiting, the reverse image of his wife. As much as Samuil deplored Rosa’s hysterics, he found that he also deplored his son’s indifference.

  —They waited over two hours on a stationary bus, Rosa exclaimed.

  —But what did I tell you? Karl said.

  —So what? Anything could have happened, Rosa said.

  —But what happened? Karl asked.

  —Never mind, Rosa said. Look at your mother, she’s half dead.

  All that trouble for nothing, Samuil thought. They had dressed him up and dragged him to Rome for this. A farcical interview at the consulate and then a wildcat transit strike: sitting on a bus, going nowhere.

  6

  The second time Alec went to Ladispoli to meet Masha, he’d encountered his father walking the paved path along the edge of the beach. Alec was with Masha, going in the opposite direction. Before they drew close enough to speak, Alec had recognized his father’s shape, even in the low light of dusk. His father peered directly and stolidly ahead. Alec thought for an instant to duck into a shuttered beachside café, and hide behind the stacked chairs and umbrellas, but he knew this was idiotic. Though when they approached each other, Alec saw in his father’s eyes a grudging, regretful look—as if he was disappointed that Alec hadn’t had the good sense to duck into the shuttered café, behind the umbrellas and chairs, and spare them both the inconvenience of this meeting.

  With no recourse, they stopped and acknowledged each other. Alec saw his father give Masha the briefest glance, no more than a shift of the eyes, after which he didn’t look at her again.

  —You’re still here? Samuil asked.

  —I’m still here, Alec said.

  Hours earlier, when he’d arrived in Ladispoli, he had seen his father, mother, and the rest of his family in the rental cottage. For the duration of Alec’s visit, his father had remained in the living room, poring over a manuscript.

  With a stricken expression his mother had said: He writes; he reads; he goes for walks.

  Alec had seen the writing and the reading; now he’d seen the whole troika.

  —When is the last train to Rome? Samuil asked.

  —Ten fifteen, Alec said.

  —See you don’t miss it, Samuil said evenly, nodded his head, and resumed his walk.

  Alec had deliberately chosen to walk with Masha along a part of the beach that he believed would be the least trafficked by Russians, among whom, first and foremost, he counted his family. They hadn’t seen anyone until they met his father. That he was there, so far from where he should have been, seemed like an act of spite. At the same time, Alec couldn’t help but feel sorry for him, in the austerity of his solitude. He turned and watched his father grow indistinct in the distance and the darkness. His father was becoming a recluse, rejecting everyone and everything, denying himself every pleasure except the pleasure of denial, whereas for Alec, the pleasure of denial—that high, weatherbeaten pleasure—was the one pleasure he didn’t want.

  The pleasure he did want was Masha. A pleasure much closer to the ground. In pursuit of this he’d gone to the apartment she shared with her mother and her hoodlum brother. He spent more than an hour eating dinner with them. Masha had told him to be on time, so that they could all eat together before her brother left for work. When Alec arrived, Riva Davidovna acted as if he were a favored and long-standing suitor. Even Dmitri, whose attitude couldn’t be mistaken for anything other than hostility, wasn’t hostile in the same way. Previously, his hostility had seemed a type of suspicion, now it seemed more seasoned—as if he’d known Alec for many years and had long held a negative opinion of him.

  A place was set for him next to Masha. Riva Davidovna served, ladling out vegetable soup, inquiring if he wanted one or two spoonfuls of sour cream. She asked after his parents and after Karl and Rosa. A casual web of acquaintance connected them. Riva had seen Rosa at Club Kadima painting and posting her signs; she’d seen his mother at Piazza Marescotti tending to the boys; and evidently Karl had a stake in the auto body shop where Dmitri had found work. The impression created was of a respectable, industrious family, with Alec as the bachelor son. Facts inconsistent with this impression Riva willfully ignored—for instance, where exactly Alec went when he went home.

  After the meal, Riva allowed him to take Masha for the unchaperoned walk. Just walking with her, he felt an almost ungovernable desire. He hadn’t experienced anything like it in years. Not since he’d been a teenager and spent entire evenings with an erection straining against the fly of his pants. That was when he’d gone to dances to seek o
ut girls who would chat breezily or look blankly over his shoulder while they returned his pressure with their hips and thighs. Alec had almost forgotten how exciting that had been, testing the limitations. A few years later, nobody took the limitations seriously anymore and everything changed. He certainly hadn’t missed the limitations. But now that he’d encountered them again, he believed that they added to Masha’s appeal. She was eighteen years old, of less than average height, with dark hair and eyes, and a figure that seemed to strain the laws of physics, like a glass filled past the brim. Had she been a deranged nymphomaniac, Alec imagined he’d be similarly hooked, but he preferred her this way: coy rather than wanton.

  When he was alone with her, he felt the need to always be touching her. On their unchaperoned walk, Masha rested her head against his arm and he held her around the waist. Whenever his hand slipped down, she let it linger before she guided it back to its original place. And when he stopped to kiss her, she behaved like the dance partners from his teenage past and let him press his groin against her abdomen. The pleasure of it traveled the length of his body and resolved like a high note in his jaw.

  Things didn’t go too much further: she trapped his hand between her thighs; he stroked her breasts; she traced a line with her fingertips.

  She was toying with him; her excuse, that she was a virgin and inexperienced.

  —I see it’s hard for you to believe, Masha said. Other women you’ve known are different, right? All you have to do is ask.

  —Not always.

  —No?

  —Sometimes there’s no need to ask.

  To Alec, it didn’t matter what they said to each other or even if they meant it. The thrill was in saying the words and having someone say them back. The conversation was always the same anyway. You repeated at twenty-six what you’d said at sixteen. And, if you were lucky, you got to repeat it again at fifty-six and ninety-six. To see yourself through admiring eyes, to tell a woman what you wanted—what could be better? How could you tire of that? Emigration had already spoiled too many pleasures and hadn’t granted many new ones in return.