The Free World

by David Bezmozgis

  As they left the room, Alec glanced at the little Jew mumbling his stream of gibberish.

  —What’s he doing?

  —He stays with the body all night. So it’s never alone.

  —Is that necessary?

  —Does it bother you?

  —I don’t know.

  —It’s a Jewish custom. You want him to go away?

  —It doesn’t matter.

  —It’s his job. He’s paid for it.

  —Then leave him, Alec said.

  Alec caught a nine o’clock train out of Rome. He arrived in Ladispoli after ten and walked the dark, empty streets to his family’s house. He saw the world with the clarity conferred by the knowledge of death. He saw everything as it truly was. Every mundane thing existed in terms of death. Everything was tinged by this tragic impermanence.

  The lights were on when Alec came to the house. He knocked on the door and heard exclamations and frantic scrambling. He felt the imminence of what was to come. The door would soon open and he would have to look into his mother’s eyes and speak the words so that they entered irrevocably into the world. He felt his intransitive physical bulk on the doorstep. Somehow the fate of his life had designated him for this.

  The door was thrown open and he saw his mother—her anxious, haggard expression. Pressed up behind her were Rosa and the boys, followed by Karl, who took Alec’s meaning from across the room. For an instant, his mother was confused, distracted by Alec’s mutilated face.

  —My God, what did you do to your eye?

  —An accident. It’s nothing.

  Then his mother seemed to remember what was uppermost in her mind. She asked nervously, as if fending off the knowledge, Alec, you’re alone? Where is Papa?

  Alec managed only to slowly say Mama before she interrupted him, her eyes gaping with terror, and pleaded, What happened, Alec? Where is your father?

  On the train and walking the dark streets of Ladispoli he had silently practiced the words. Now he opened his mouth and they tumbled out: Papa is gone.

  His mother wailed, Oi, Syomachka! as if something had cracked inside her. Rosa drew her close and the two of them wept into each other’s neck. The boys, bewildered, also started to cry. Karl said, Come, let’s go inside, and they all trailed into the house, Alec shutting the door behind them.

  They settled in the living room, where Samuil had spent so much of his time writing his secret memoirs.

  —It’s my fault, his mother bemoaned, looking up from her anguish. I should have never let him go by himself.

  —It isn’t your fault, Emma Borisovna, Rosa responded. She looked bitterly at Alec and added, It was because of your slut that your father went off to Rome. If not for that, he would still be alive!

  —Don’t say that! his mother snapped. Don’t say that to him! He’s not to blame. Syoma went to help him. He was a father concerned for his son.

  That night Alec slept on the floor of the living room. Karl stayed in the bedroom with the boys, and Rosa slept in his mother’s bed so that she would not have to be by herself. Before she joined his mother, Alec heard Rosa soothing the boys with a lullaby. The lullaby she sang was familiar, though not because he recalled anyone ever singing it to him.

  The half moon shines above our roof

  Evening stands at our yard

  For little birds and for little children

  The time has come now to sleep

  In the morning you’ll wake

  and the bright sun will rise above you again

  Sleep little sparrow

  Sleep little son

  Sleep my dear little chime.

  Alec lay on the floor and listened to her sing. He could not have said precisely why he was so moved. The words and the melody pierced his heart and he lay on the floor and quietly wept.

  In the morning they scurried to make arrangements for the funeral. Karl went to coordinate with the rabbi and Rosa deposited the boys at a friend’s apartment. Alec was left alone with his mother. He watched her comb fastidiously through the house collecting the stray items his father had left behind: his reading glasses, his slippers, a newspaper he had been reading. When she finished, she looked at Alec dolefully and he waited for her to say something more about what had sent his father to Rome.

  —Will you call Polina? Emma asked.

  —I don’t think I can, Alec said.

  She studied him for a moment, with a wisdom for which he seldom credited her, and didn’t insist further. Instead she sent him to Club Kadima to find Josef Roidman. He was his father’s friend, and she believed that he would want to attend the funeral.

  Alec found Roidman at Club Kadima, sitting alone with a newspaper. He apologized for disturbing him and asked if he remembered who he was.

  —What’s to remember? Roidman said merrily. But for the eye, you’re the spitting image of your father.

  Alec told him that his father had died.

  —It can’t be, Roidman said.

  —The funeral is today. I am here to see if you wish to come.

  —Vey, vey, the old man said and shook his head despondently.

  Roidman gathered himself up and hobbled for the exit.

  —I am not properly dressed to pay my respects. Is there time enough for me to go home?

  Alec accompanied the old man to his apartment, where he put on a cap and the same blazer with the medals Alec had seen him wearing the day of the pope’s coronation.

  Karl secured transport to ferry them all to the cemetery. Despite it having been repainted, Alec nevertheless recognized it as Lyova’s old Volkswagen van. Piled inside were all the members of his family—minus the boys—along with Josef Roidman, the rabbi, and six other Jewish men: three of the rabbi’s bearded adjutants, as well as two idle Russian pensioners and one teenage boy, whom the rabbi had recruited with the promise of a break from their routine and a complimentary meal.

  The rabbi directed them to the cemetery and Karl turned off Via Tiburina at Piazzale delle Crociate, where an iron gate stood ajar. They followed a paved road into the grounds. The road, lined with cypress trees, stretched deep into the cemetery and curved away at a high mausoleum wall. Not far from the entrance, at the edge of the road, was a black hearse with a uniformed driver. The rabbi directed Karl to park the van in front of the hearse. The rabbi exchanged a few words with the hearse’s driver and then gestured for everyone to follow him to the graveside. Even without the rabbi’s instruction, everyone had already noticed the mound of freshly turned earth with a simple pine coffin beside it. At the sight of the coffin, Alec heard his mother and Rosa begin to whimper and to call his father’s name. He and Karl lagged some distance behind, at the tail of the procession. Alec looked at his brother to see how he was taking all of this. Karl’s face was grim and brooding.

  —You’re a fool, you know that? Karl said.

  Alec didn’t think he had anything to say in his own defense.

  —You can’t tell when you’re climbing into a nest of vipers?

  —I thought it would all come out differently.

  —Fool, Karl said with disgust.

  He halted and peered up at the sky, as if he could no longer bring himself to look at Alec.

  —They’ll go to Germany. They can be smuggled in. I’m sure they’ll prosper. There’s plenty of opportunity. Let them be the Germans’ problem.

  His brother went ahead to join the others and Alec followed.

  At the graveside, added to their number were two young Italian groundskeepers who indicated how the coffin needed to be lifted and positioned onto the straps. Karl and Alec both stepped forward to take up the coffin, but the rabbi stopped them.

  —Immediate kin do not lift the body.

  Alec and Karl then watched the rabbi and his assistants perform the task. The neighboring plots, Alec saw, were already occupied by other Russian émigrés who had failed to complete their journies. The white stones were thin and bore no decoration, save for an etched Star of David, the name of the decease
d, and the dates each came into and departed the world.

  In an aching, reedy voice, the rabbi sang some verses from a prayer book. At certain predetermined moments his assistants responded, Omayn. They were the only ones. Nobody else knew what he was doing.

  When the rabbi finished his portion, he flipped through the book and extracted a laminated card that he’d filed away between the pages. He presented the card to Karl.

  —It is the kaddish. For you and your brother to read together.

  Alec stood at Karl’s side to read. The card was typed with Hebrew words transliterated into Russian.

  —What does it mean? Alec asked.

  —It sanctifies God’s name, for your father’s sake.

  —Our father wasn’t a believer. If it’s for his sake, he’d want nothing about God at his grave.

  —Alec, the rabbi is showing us how to do it according to the rules, his mother admonished.

  On the rabbi’s cue, he and Karl read the unfamiliar words, mispronouncing some. But after they’d read everything on the card, Alec still felt troubled by misgivings. He asked the rabbi what more there was to the ceremony.

  —Only to fill the grave. Though if there’s anything you wish to add, there’s no law against it.

  —I feel we should do something he would have wanted.

  —And what is that? the rabbi asked.

  —What is done at the burial of a Communist?

  —What is done? You want us to sing the “Internationale”? Rosa asked.

  —Not a bad idea. At least everyone knows it.

  —You’d ask the rabbi to sing the “Internationale”?

  —Why not? I’m sure he also knows the words. The rabbi was probably a Pioneer and maybe even a Young Communist. Am I wrong, rabbi?

  —We all make mistakes in our youth.

  —But do you have any objections against singing this song in our father’s memory?

  The rabbi smiled faintly and shrugged his shoulders.

  Alec expected that Karl would disparage the idea and so put an end to it, but his brother didn’t say a word.

  The first to sing was Josef Roidman. He raised his voice martially and proudly. Alec turned to see the little man standing at attention, his eyes wet, gripping his crutch, his chest with its medals thrust forward.

  Arise you branded and accursed,

  The whole world’s starving and enslaved!

  Roidman began and the others gradually joined in. The old men and the teenage boy who had come along for the car ride and the free meal. His mother, her arms linked with Rosa’s. Karl with his heavy bass. And singing softly, the rabbi and the other bearded men.

  13

  After the funeral, instead of returning with the others to Ladispoli to begin the week of mourning and eat the kosher dinner furnished by the rabbi, Alec boarded the train to Rome. His family’s grief, and the expectation to grieve with them, was too oppressive. That house, with its rigors, felt like the one place where he wouldn’t be able to mourn.

  Riding the train, Alec tried to think about his father and about himself as his son. If he were honest with himself, he would admit that it had been many years since he and his father had shown any affection toward each other. To no small extent, as soon as he had been able, he had structured his life so that it intersected only glancingly with his father’s. Now, guilt and sentiment bade him to repudiate this fact and to imagine that things could have been different between them. Could he have made more of an effort? Had he been guilty of making a conveniently low assessment of his filial debt? How great was his portion of the blame? But he knew that these questions were irrelevant and had nothing to do with what he actually wanted, which seemed like a very small and humble thing. And what was it? Merely to sit in the same room with his father once more. Exchanging not a word. Only to gaze at him, at his face and at his hands, to perceive him again in the realm of the living, and to inhabit that feeling for as long as he could.

  The sun was beginning to set as Alec walked from Trastevere Station back to the apartment. In his mind he felt a sense of mission, as though he were about to make of himself an offering, to abase himself before a righteous judgment. The last time he had felt this way had also involved Polina. Then, too, he had taken a long walk through an industrial suburb. He had carried forms that needed to be signed by Maxim, Polina’s ex-husband. Alec had never seen the man before, but Maxim had asked for him specifically. Send your pimp, he’d told Polina.

  Alec met him in the communal apartment where he and Polina had lived together. Alec had gone, uncertain of what awaited him. Did Maxim have any intention of signing the document or was it just a ruse? What indignities might he have in store? But the exchange had been nothing like he’d anticipated. The man he’d met had been like a bad actor playing a role for which he was sorely ill cast. He seemed to be clumsily following someone else’s script. His role demanded that he project indignation and anger but his true emotions seemed closer to confusion and hurt. It looked like he still did not understand why all this misery had befallen him. Alec suspected that a woman’s hand guided him. The word “prostitute” recurred too often in the script for it to have been written by a man. Alec pictured some squint-eyed crow perched on Maxim’s shoulder, playing on his bewilderment, dripping poison in his ear.

  —Nobody gets a prostitute for free, Maxim had stammered.

  So Alec had signed his apartment over to Maxim, and Maxim had signed the form, absolving Polina of her “material obligations” to him.

  At the time he had come away from Maxim’s feeling as if he were coated in grime. But now the recollection evoked a different feeling. He felt ashamed of everything to which he had subjected Polina.

  Alec reached the building on Via Salumi and stood before it under the weight of his grief and shame. In his pocket he had a key, but it didn’t occur to him to use it. He had lived in the apartment with Polina for nearly five months, but after two nights away, he felt utterly banished.

  Lyova answered the buzzer.

  Though he did not want to desecrate his grief, Alec nonetheless said, I just buried my father. I’d like to come up.

  The lock released and Alec entered the lobby, which was cool and quiet. He mounted the steps, counting the flights, regretting that only three separated the lobby from the apartment. He still didn’t know what he might say to Polina, and three flights didn’t offer enough time to compose his thoughts. He imagined a climb of thirty flights, arduous and purifying, like one of the pilgrims crawling on his knees along Via Conciliazione.

  From the landing he saw that the door to the apartment was open. As he neared, he found Lyova waiting for him in the vestibule, where he himself had stood and waited for Masha.

  —My condolences, Lyova said, and put out his hand.

  Alec accepted the hand and allowed Lyova to usher him into the apartment. Polina sat at the dining room table and regarded him silently. Alec looked at her, and then, instinctively, past her, around the apartment, alert to any changes that might have cropped up in his absence. The curtain separating Lyova’s half of the apartment was partially drawn, and the kempt bed visible. The door to their bedroom was open, but there, too, Alec detected nothing incriminating.

  —I’m sorry about your father, Polina said. What happened?

  —He died walking to Rome to straighten me out.

  Alec looked meaningfully at Lyova, laying claim to what negligible rights remained to him.

  —I’ll go, Lyova said, then took his coat and tactfully withdrew.

  Alec and Polina were left together in the apartment, as if under a vast ponderous cloud. Alec thought to speak, though without any confidence in what he might say, but Polina preempted him.

  —Alec, there is nothing to say.

  As she spoke the words, Alec noticed that on the tabletop, framed between her hands, was a Soviet airmail envelope.

  —It’s from Nadja?

  —Yes.

  —What does she say?

  Polina smiled grim
ly and slid the envelope across the table. —Read it for yourself.

  Alec eased himself into a chair at the table and examined the front of the envelope. He saw Nadja’s familiar script, addressed, for the first time, to Polina and to him using their real names. He removed the pages and unfolded them.

  The letter began:

  My dearest Sister,

  It is so hard for me to write this because I imagine that it will cause you disappointment and pain. Even as I write the words, my tears are falling. I have made the most difficult decision I have ever had to make and I am still not sure that I have decided correctly. But after thinking about everything a thousand times over, I have decided not to marry Arik and not to go with him to Israel. I have decided to stay here, in Riga, with Mama and Papa. Does this sound crazy to you? It still sounds crazy to me. But every time I thought of leaving them it broke my heart …

  Alec turned the pages facedown on the table. He raised his eyes to meet Polina’s and perceived the change in her—as if a tenacious light had finally been extinguished. —I’m sorry, Alec said. —What are you apologizing for? —I have enough to apologize for. —It doesn’t matter to me, Alec. —I understand that, Alec said. But it matters to me. Polina looked at him blankly. —I’m serious, Alec said. —Alec, it’s too late. —I don’t agree. It doesn’t have to be. Polina rolled her eyes with exasperation.

  —Alec, I knew who you were when I chose to go with you. Nobody forced me. If I’ve made a mess of my life, and am now left alone, it’s my own fault.

  —You don’t have to be alone.

  —Alec, please don’t be dense.

  —I’m not being dense. I have lost your trust—I recognize that. You don’t want to go to Canada with me—I understand. You regret leaving your family—so return to them. The same borders you crossed to get here, you can cross in reverse. It needn’t be hard. For all we know, it might even be easier in reverse. If that’s what you want, you should do it. And if it’s what you do, I will go back with you.

  —Alec, now you’re being more than dense.

  Alec prepared to object. He didn’t see it that way at all. Instead, he had begun to feel illuminated by the idea of returning. It had dawned on him purely spontaneously, but it possessed a seductive logic. If he was looking to commit an act of sacrifice, there was no better altar. If he wanted to prove his devotion to Polina, here was the perfect symmetry. She had forsaken her family for him, now he would do the same for her. He envisioned their return, and his mortification. He saw himself making public statements and disavowals—maybe even on television and radio. He saw himself prostrating himself before one official body after another. He saw himself entering into moral compromises. Becoming a tool of the KGB. Joining the Party. Giving formal speeches against internationalism and in support of the Revolution. Fervently espousing beliefs he did not hold.